The only reason I’m even writing about Jones at all is because the Guardian, rightly assailed by public outcry, has decided to not only switch comments off, but to erase the public record. There is no trace at all of the disastrous reception. So let’s spell out a few home truths.

I’ve experienced more joy talking with tedious taxmen and colorless bean counters than enduring those peculiar critics who can’t get beyond their cultural entrapment and who can’t marvel at the great human world before them. The world that, you know, most of us live in.

And I object to Jones’s wankage because the person who complains of having too much cultural information to process often doesn’t understand that this seemingly saturated existence isn’t nearly as bad as having to endure a wretched job in which the worker may be fired tomorrow, the worker must maintain a plastic smile, and the worker contends with the abuse of insensitive men with money. We’ve moved past a time in which one critical mind even matters. Or has not Jones noticed this little thing called the Internet, in which people stumble onto blog posts and articles and frequently fail to look at the byline?

So the question of what’s on Jonathan Jones’s mind is largely moot. I could get more profound insight about Michael Haneke from the fresh grad down the street now forced, by financial necessity, to toil as a barista. Haneke has plenty of admirers. He needs little help from Jonathan Jones. He needs real help from people who are willing to make sense of his films and offer original viewpoints, and I can’t see how a hack merely stating that Haneke’s films “are perfect and they are profound” or going on about how The White Ribbon is “the best of such films I have ever seen” is anything less than giving the okay to a form of writing nearly indistinguishable from a press release.

No, Mr. Jones, the curse of our time, in the arts, is having to endure your gushing folderol and then experience you express why you are entitled to have someone pay you to bang out such meaningless modifiers. Tickle our fancy like Jonathan Rosenbaum or Anthony Lane or Roger Ebert, and then you may have a case. But in the Internet age, everyone can be a critic. And the ones who write for free and who still feel cinematic passion are often much better than you.

The critics were truly amazing – not because of what they said or wrote about movies – but because they represented a sad and peculiar type of human specimen who remained almost completely out of touch on almost every important issue. You could call up these critics and ask them to rattle off Takuya Kimura’s last eight roles, but you couldn’t get them to say anything intelligent about the subprime crisis or the rising unemployment rate or Goldman Sachs. You couldn’t possibly get them to remark upon the warm smell of a Louisiana cypress or the first time they had truly loved a woman. But they could tell you of such moments that occurred within the woeful world of cinema. That tree’s slight sway in that one Tarkovsky shot. Was it intentional? It was at the 33:42 mark on the DVD, and it looked better in Blu-Ray than the torrent. And what had Kent Jones said about it at that panel that twenty-three civilized people had attended?

The critics would fight long and hard over whether Vertovian or Eisensteinian montage had made more of a cultural impact, but they would never stand up for the colleague who lost his job because he was considered too old and too wise. The critics would never look out for the young whipper-snapper who was lucky to have a job. The critics’s asses were relentlessly fixed to their chairs and it would be difficult to extract them. And, if one must delve down a sad opportunistic path, it might make a good reality TV show to see if these men could perform honest labor and demonstrate the extent of their bravado.

But there was a movie to write about. No notes required. The fastidious days of erudition were over. This would be a 300 word review. Oh Christ, longer than 90 minutes? Subtitles? Hope I don’t fall asleep. But there’s that junket tomorrow. Too bad I don’t have the balls to ask a real question.

The lights went down. The darkness might have cloaked the critics if the professional exercise had not been so transparent.

“It is there where my shallow invective flowed best,” wrote sprezzatura of the New Republic website. He offered to send me $100 if I would interview him. I declined on moral principle. Then sprezzatura demanded an interview with me gratis by email because “Kachka had proved to be a wuss with his softball questions.” And I agreed, only because I had no wish to receive an email from sprezzatura ever again. I have been unable to confirm whether this “sprezzatura” is the same “sprezzatura” unleashed on Siegel’s blog. Indeed, I do not how many “sprezzaturas” there are. But I suppose it’s pedantic mysteries like this that have many of us wasting long hours on the Internet.

Why don’t you just get a blog?

Because that would be too easy! And if I had devoted a blog just to clarifying my identity, I would have been thought a kook!

Actually, most bloggers are cranks. I speak with some expertise on the subject. But I don’t see how you’re making a case here, Lee.

Do not address me with that name! Those days are far behind me! We must forget that regrettable episode!

So you are Lee Siegel.

If you’ll pardon a metaphorical leap, Lee Siegel is a tuna melt poorly prepared with half-melted cheese. John Battelle never responded to any of my thoughtful queries. Therefore, he is an imbecile who cannot recognize my genius. David Brooks rested his argument on the flimsiest of premises. I do not need to inform you what these premises are. Just trust me. They’re flimsy. And when Cox wanted to draw attention to herself, she used the word “cunt” to make a point. Plus, she made more money than I did. And she’s a woman two decades younger than I am. It’s not fair!

Lots of invective there, sprezza baby. But can you cite any specific examples? Some might argue that you are using “cunt” to make….well, not exactly a point, but to stand out with an irrational Dale Peck-style explanation.

It doesn’t matter! Malcolm Gladwell’s hair was adopted for television as American Idol. I have tried to stop them from supplying him with shampoo, but they keep arresting me!

Lee, step away from the Internet and get some fresh air. We’ve had some unseasonably warm weather in January. Go for a walk.

I love the Internet, I’m on it all the time. I couldn’t have written my book so quickly without it. Thanks to the Internet, I didn’t have to think. I could just cut and paste some boilerplate, bang out a book and make a quick book and show those New Republic bastards exactly who mattered. I don’t think it’s making more people connected than they were before, not at all.

It didn’t have to be this way, Lee.

I react very badly when mediocrity is associated with my name.

Well then, write well!

That is hard when you are “sprezzatura” and you have been banned from your own magazine’s message board. Will you give me a hug?

Only if you stop using the moniker “sprezzatura.”