BEg2 chapter 4 moving on from Shawn to Aggro Hour

[Michael Bailey]

But first - we sing! -

https://youtu.be/N5m5EtP6cMo
(Slight plot connection here, since Maxine is not currently a CFE but still
plays the part, not completely dissimilar from not really being an
Inspector General and possibly accomplishing more that way.)

er, ah, well, anyhoo, no song & dance before moving on  - just a quick
rejoinder to Mark’s comment that

Maxine is the anchored moral center of the novel, flawed as her own
"morals' intentionally are
She can catch fraud everywhere. Therefore Shawn is an airhead, which she
kindly did not want to actually say.
That matters for the interpretation of what he sees and says.
Therefore......


Or, is it possible that Maxine’s New York sensibility, already affronted by
Horst’s Midwestern commodities frame of mind, and by a California
contingent whose value system clashes with her reflexes, is actively
seeking alternatives to snap-judgement rejection/ridicule even while that
response offers itself to her out of habit?

Which she shows by not uttering these sentiments - a token gesture, or
non-gesture, true - and by not quitting emotherapy, a decision involving
money, a little more puissant.




Still thinking of the TV as the Tube, as in 2001 she’s still probably got a
CRT in her living room, she provides healthy snacks for Otis and Fiona to
enjoy as they watch The Aggro Hour.

Watching Fiona, she’s extremely moved by her cuteness. Otis is on his good
behavior too.

Ages of kids? My guesses:

Ready to be gainsaid. I haven’t much textual evidence as yet.


Fiona 11 ?
Fiona is in that valley between powerhouse kid and unpredictable
adolescent, having found, long may it wave, an equilibrium that nearly has
Maxine wiping her nose here, as she considers on what short notice such
calm can be disrupted.


 Otis 12?
  “You’re sure,” Otis in full being-a-gent mode, “this won’t be too violent
for you.”

Ziggy 11 or 12?
a kid who can’t help having some preadolescent longing. If his coeval
friend is going to Krav Maga with a sitter he can’t be very old, can he?


  “Fiona, whose parents actually should consider heartbreaker insurance,
bats eyelashes possibly enhanced by a raid on her mom’s makeup supplies.
“You can tell me not to look.”
           Maxine, recognizing that girlhood technique of pretending
anybody can tell you anything, slides a bowl of health-food Cheetos in
front of them, along with two cans of sugar-free soda, and waving Enjoy,
quits the room.”

Avoidance of sugar may help instances where “such calm can be disrupted.”

Heartbreaker insurance - quickie near-rhyme with “homeowner insurance.”