Beware of the Giggle-Wrecker
In this episode, we explore how the possession-economy saps away at joy, happiness, hope, and any sense of meaning in life.
Way back in the mid-1960s there was a very popular cartoon-strip series that ran for several years in the newspapers, called Modesty Blaise. It was created by Peter O’Donnell, with several illustrators such as the excellent Jim Holdaway. The fictional lead character Modesty and her sidekick Willie Garvin were successful now-sort-of-retired ex-criminals who travelled around the world helping people in one way or another, yet also did a bit of work on the side for the British security services. A kind of female James Bond, in a way.
I loved it - well, I was in my mid-teens at the time, after all., so perhaps no great surprise But I also loved that these were stories with a strong female lead who was inventive, resourceful, courageous, willing to face danger on behalf others. I’d definitely describe it as portraying a pro-feminist perspective, certainly by the standards of those times, and even by today’s standards too. A refreshing change from the tedious, tawdry, pointlessly hyper-macho Double-Oh-Seven and his ilk, anyway.
For me, there was one story stood out the most, and that also connects well with the overall theme here about the possession-economy and its failings and flaws. It’s a short-story anthology called ‘Pieces of Modesty’, and the story itself, as you’ll guess by now, is titled ‘The Giggle-Wrecker’.
In the story, Modesty and Willie’s friend in the British security-services calls them for help with a serious challenge. There’s a Chinese bioweapons-specialist who’s escaped via Russia, and is now in East Germany, needing rescue. He’s demanding that because he’s so important to the West, he must be brought out by the entire ‘sleeper-network’ of ordinary civilian agents in that country. If anything goes wrong, though, those agent are likely to be exposed, threatening their lives and destroying the West’s network. The British security-guy is afraid that that’s what may happen, and asks Modesty and Willie of they have any better ideas. The two of them agree to head over into East Germany, and, failed attempts to extract the increasingly uncooperative professor out of East Berlin by any normal means, they eventually send him over the Berlin Wall by bundling him into a circus-cannon, to be safely caught in a net on the other side. Much hilarity all round!
Except that that’s when they discover that their unwilling passenger wasn’t a professor at all, but actually just a Soviet spy trying to trick them into exposing the sleeper-network. Which destroys the whole joke - the ‘giggle-wrecker’, as the now despondent Willie Garvin puts it…
And giggle-wrecker is also a good way to describe the usual impact of the possession-economy. It promises so much, time after time - but all it actually delivers is an empty shell, a failed promise, destroying any fun, joy, pleasure that might otherwise have been there to be found.
So beware of the giggle-wrecker: help us break free of the deadening dead-weight of the possession-economy, and reach out instead to build a different, better world that has room for everyone to enjoy.
Modesty Blaise. now that brought back some memories. Thanks for the post.