There is a moment in David Mamet's “Homicide” when the hero does not know he is being overheard. He is a police detective, using the telephone in the library of a wealthy Jewish doctor who has complained about shots being fired on a nearby rooftop. The detective does not take the charges very seriously; he resents being pulled off a glamorous drug bust because the doctor, who has clout, has asked for him.
Standing at the phone, the detective unleashes a tightly knit, brilliantly arranged, flawlessly executed stream of four-letter obscenities and anti- Semitic remarks. Only David Mamet could write, and perhaps only his favorite actor Joe Mantegna could deliver, this dialogue so bluntly and forcibly, and yet with such verbal slickness that it has the freedom of a jazz improvisation. It's so well done, it gets an audience response just on the basis of the delivery.
Then the cop turns around, and he sees that he is not alone in the room. The doctor's daughter has heard ever
Honor Anthony Bourdain with his books, including the new bestseller, World Travel: An Irreverent Guide
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