Finally, it is not the law that is stated because of the demands of a hidden transcendence;
it is almost the opposite: it is the statement, the enunciation, that constructs the law
in the name of an immanent power of the one who announces it – the law is confused
with that which the guardian utters, and the writings precede the law, rather than being
the necessary and derived expression of it.

1. Symposiastic Law and The Law

A little of the way along in his adventures after leaving home for the first time, Bunyip Bluegum discovers that life on the road does not entirely agree with the demands of the stomach:

 

I had no idea that one’s stomach was so important. I have everything I require, except food; but without food everything is rather less than nothing (Lindsay 18)

In a book that is above all things one long symposium, this complaint of Bunyip’s introduces us to the logic of the symposium before we have even met the magic puddin’ himself. The logic of the symposium places the stomach squarely at the centre of the universe. All else is subordinate to its needs; it is the stomach and its auxiliary apparatus of food, cooking, agriculture and trade among others that animates the world. In short, as is the case with Messer Gaster, "the first Master of Arts in the World" and Rabelais’ symposiast par excellence, the stomach makes the world go around:

The whole world is busy serving him; the whole world labours to do so. But as a reward, he does the world a service; he invents all the arts, all the devices, all the crafts, all the machines and contrivances for it. (Rabelais 571)

The world that exists as a function of the stomach’s imperative has its own laws which are distinct from that of everyday society: symposiastic law versus universal law. The characters in The Magic Pudding inhabit and explore the limits and excesses of symposiastic law, which is a powerful, fantastic principle that is easily able to overcome juridical law when the two come into conflict, as is symbolized by the trial of the Puddin’ Owners near the end of the book. Symposiastic law is a term that is equally descriptive of the genre to which The Magic Pudding belongs; but before we can explore the idea of symposiastic law any further we need to understand the generic context of the symposium.

In his book Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin’s study of Rabelais is carried out under the aegis of "grotesque realism": that is, as a study of the "specific style of imagery inherent to the culture of folk humor in all its forms and manifestations" (Bakhtin Rabelais 30) The banquet or symposium is one set of images central to grotesque realism and it conforms to its own rules of limits and excess, particularly as they are apparent in the paired activities of ingestion and exclusion, partaking and possessing. The rule of excess in symposiastic law is unambiguously festive. That is, the limits which help to define the symposium, such as the distinction between food and eaters, are exceeded. Bakhtin writes that in the act of eating

the confines between the body and the world are overstepped by the body; it triumphs over the world, over its enemy, celebrates its victory, grows at the world’s expense. This element of victory and triumph is inherent in all banquet images. No meal can be sad. Sadness and food are incompatible (while death and food are perfectly compatible) (Bakhtin Rabelais 282-3)

The rule of limits in symposiastic law is imposed by the necessity to share and partake as well as incorporate: the eaters are incorporated into the symposium as much as the food is incorporated into the eaters’ stomachs. In this manner, Bunyip Bluegum is incorporated into "the Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners" (Lindsay 44). The actual object of the society, Albert the magic puddin’ is a symbol of pure symposiastic excess. If he is not controlled he will abscond; he becomes irritated if he is not eaten enough and prefers to be in the custody of the Puddin’ thieves: "If you ask my opinion," said the Puddin’ cynically, "them puddin’ thieves are too clever for you; and, what’s more, they’re better eaters than you." (Lindsay 88)

Symposiastic law is also characterised by violence and by arbitrariness. In accordance with the incompatibility of food and sadness but the perfect compatibility of death and food, "snout-bending" is the order of the day whenever there is a confrontation between the ‘rightful’ owners of Albert and the puddin’ thieves. In fact, the puddin’ was originally won by Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff after they had rolled the cook of the Saucy Sausage, "A feller called Curry and Rice", off the iceberg on which they had been shipwrecked. The ownership of the Puddin’ is defended by a set of arbitrary rules which are invariably violent, although these arbitrary rules are part of a larger set that comprise the carnivalistic, symposiastic law: rules such as "boisterous humour at the breakfast table must be greeted with roars of laughter " (after Sam has jumped on Bill’s head and pushed his face into the pudding) (Lindsay 50) or the need for the Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners to entice the puddin’ thieves out of their dwelling because "not bein’ burglars, we can’t bust the door in." (Lindsay 76)

The mechanics of the plot revolve around the central issue of ownership of the puddin’ as defined by symposiastic law (defended by arbitrary laws, snout bendin’ and, above all, possession) versus ownership of the puddin’ as it may be defined by juridical or ‘universal’ law – firstly, in the negative sense of simple theft and, secondly, in a more formal contestation through the courts. In both these instances what we can call universal law is neatly subverted by the carnivalesque logic of symposiastic law. On the second occasion Albert is retrieved from the clutches of the puddin’ thieves, Bunyip Bluegum strikes up the National Anthem, forcing all present – the Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners and the puddin’ thieves – to remove their hats, thus revealing Albert, who had been concealed under Watkin Wombat’s hat. In this instance a ritual belonging to the realm of universal law is appropriated by symposiastic law and the equanimity of the symposiasts is restored.

The third occasion of the puddin’ being recovered is a far more involved engagement between the boisterous symposiasts, the puddin’ thieves and the Law, as signified by the mayor of Tooraloo, its Constable (who bears a remarkable resemblance to Paul Keating [*]), the Usher and the Judge. The last two are completely indifferent to the case at hand and seem actually to have been already infected by a certain predisposition toward deipnosophistication: they are playing cards and drinking port and when the puddin’ arrives they appropriate it, sharing seven slices each. The unconcern of the judge in hearing the case, it becomes clear, is the result of a rule, a rule which derives not from juridical law but from symposiastic law:

In the name of the Law I must request
Less noise while we’re having a well-earned rest.
For the Judge and the Usher never must shirk
A well-earned rest in the middle of work.
It’s the duty of both they well are aware
To preserve their precious lives with care;
It’s their duty, when feeling overwrought,
To preserve their lives with Puddin’ and Port. (Lindsay 149)

It appears that the influence of symposiastic law precedes its practitioners. Interestingly, it seems that certain that Lindsay was having a swipe at Judge Windeyer’s handling of the Mt. Rennie case of 1886-87 which, although it occurred a generation before the writing of The Magic Pudding, was one of the causes célèbres of Archibald’s Bulletin; Windeyer himself was, for Archibald, the "living embodiment of the System" (Lawson 170) Windeyer’s laches (delay in performing a legal duty), appeared to have been of a selfish nature, and was easily satirised: "the only two days on which the presiding Judge adjourned the proceedings at a reasonable hour, his Honor calmly went, on the one evening to a dinner at Government House, and on the other, to a junketting at the Royal Hotel." (The Bulletin August 13, 1887, 4). The absence of the Judge from the trial sprompts Bunyip Bluegum to suggest that they "try the case without the Judge" (Lindsay 151), which in turn suggests the bitter satire of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle: "it would be easier for a judge’s robe and a judge’s hat to pass judgement than for a man with no robe and no hat." (Brecht 180) The Law is effectively exposed as one variation on the great game of symposiastic law and, as such, calls into question the validity of transcendent universal law when confronted with the immanent power of strategic rule-making. This is not simply a thematic satire either: symposiastic law is descriptive of the genre to which The Magic Pudding belongs, on the one hand and, on the other, serves as a useful point of departure for a reading of those parts of the work which refer to the Australia Lindsay inhabited outside the "little bundle of piffle" (Hetherington 122), the term with which he later disparagingly referred to the work. But before we can proceed to the latter, consideration must first be given to the symposiastic genre and its affiliations.

2. The Literary Symposium as Anti-Genre

Symposiastic literature encompasses the academic symposium, of which the modern academic conference is a descendant, and the symposium as a "carnivalised" genre. According to Bakhtin, a "carnivalised" genre is directly influenced by the festive excess of carnival itself and as such displays a

The mock symposium, which is a parody of the academic symposium, was an early conduit of menippean satire (Blanchard 15). Later symposiastic literature became virtually indistinguishable from menippean satire – in fact it could be argued that symposiastic literature is a form of menippean satire in which banquets, food and "table talk" predominate. Menippean satire is that genre popularized by Bakhtin, Frye and Kirk, among others, which is characterised by extreme disjunction of form, excess and a principle of ‘puncture’ with regard to ideologies and systems of thought.

Examples of symposiastic menippean satires include Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis (for which Lindsay executed a number of drawings in the series Satyricon), Cena Cypriani, the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus, Plato’s Symposium, the Noctes Ambrosianae and parts of Rabelais. The direct menippean forebears of The Magic Pudding are Alice in Wonderland, Rabelais and the prose satires of Thomas Love Peacock. Alice In Wonderland, in particular, is an influence in negative on The Magic Pudding: Lindsay is said to have complained to Bertram Stevens that "Carroll did the kids out of the pleasure of banqueting with Alice. It always made me wild. It still does" (Hetherington 121). The evidence for the influence of Rabelais, like that of Carroll, is circumstantial. According to Hetherington, "to Norman and the brotherhood, Rabelais was the fountainhead of wisdom, the supreme authority on life and how it should be lived." (Hetherington 23). The evidence for the influence of Peacock is textual. For Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff, the theft of their puddin’ is, among other things. "almost as bad as havin’ an uncle called Aldobrantifoscofornio" (Lindsay 62) This "uncle" is actually spelled "Aldiborontiphoscophornio" and is one of the lords of Queerummania, the country in which the action of Chrononhotonthologos, The Most Tragical Tragedy that ever was Tragedized by any Company of Tragedians (1734) takes place, a farce by Henry Carey which was revived for the London stage in 1820 and referred to by Peacock in Nightmare Abbey.

The intertextuality of The Magic Pudding is, however, the least significant of its generic ‘markers’. The textual heterogeneity of the work is of far more significance. Ancient menippean satires were characterised by alternating poetry and prose, while later examples of the genre exhibit a medley of other forms or ‘inserted genres" as Bakhtin calls them (Bakhtin Dostoevsky 116) or a radical formal heterogeneity. One consequence of this is to present more of a fractured world view than that presented by more homogeneous texts and, in so doing, the satire of ‘right belief" is put into play: one characteristic of menippean satire, although by no means is that its only function.

In The Magic Pudding the alternation between prose and poetry or song, usually in ballad form, is usually a comic resolution or reiteration of a contested conversational point and occasionally, as is the case with the songs, a digression (another menippean characteristic made famous in Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman). One song, "The Penguin’s Bride", tells the story of Sam Sawnoff’s marriage to the niece of the "Hearl of Buncle", although he confesses that the reality was a far more mundane affair: he was rewarded for rescuing the niece and her uncle with five shillings and an open invitation to "ring at the servant’s bell" of their estate at any time for a free feed. Sam says, "you’ve got to have songs to fill in the time with, and when a feller’s got a rotten word like Buncle to find rhymes for, there’s no saying how a song’ll end." Bunyip Bluegum then observes that "the exigencies of rhyme may stand excused from a too strict insistence on verisimilitude, so that the general gaiety is thereby promoted." (Lindsay 87). The point here is that the songs and poems of The Magic Pudding are often a kind of celebration of the fact that one can digress, or that one can recapitulate in a manner that has an elementary pleasure to it. Kristeva has commented on this aspect of menippean satire, or the "menippea" as she terms it, after Bakhtin:

In other words, representation is alternately staged and put forth as a correlative system of signs. To take Kristeva’s point a little further (in her terms), menippean discourse exemplifies the organisation of language around the twin poles of the semiotic and the symbolic – the symbolic as exemplified in diegesis, and the semiotic as the ‘bodily’ rhythms of meter and rhyme, for example, of The Magic Pudding’s characters’ interruptions into poetry and song.

Sam Sawnoff’s descent into a reverie of song in which he gets married conforms to the rules on the one hand – those of poetry and also, if there are such ‘rules’, of Kristeva’s semiotic – and on the other hand a breaking of the rules of diegetic verisimilitude. In this sense the formal heterogeneity of The Magic Pudding is analogous to symposiastic law: it is organised around the principles of excess and limits and their corollaries, textual and physical violence and arbitrary rule breaking/conformity. Symposiastic law infiltrates all levels of the text and marks it generically: the symposiastic or menippean genre could well be the paradigm for Derrida’s essay "The Law of Genre". Derrida asks the following questions of that which permits and constitutes genre:

Another way of putting this is: what if the trait or mark which allowed the formation of a law of genre was itself the condition of an impurity, and therefore a "counter-law"? In the case of symposiastic law and its menippean genre we would have to rephrase as follows: what if the taxonomy of the symposiastic genre is marked by excess and therefore exceeds the generic constraints suggested by this marking?

The answer to this question ramifies well beyond the scope of this article, but in the specific context of symposiastic law and menippean satire there are at least two possible responses to the question posed above. One is an exploration of this law of impurity as excess, the other an exploration of genre and of representation as constituted by a law of repetition. First to the law of impurity. In the case of menippean satire (which may not differ significantly from that of other genres), its trait of excess conforms to a certain law of impurity which is nothing other than the supplement, or trace-structure. Derrida has used several different terms to explore the supplement, and one of these, pharmakon, is the notion with which Derrida explores writing and the myth of the origin of writing as espoused in Plato’s Phaedrus and treated by Derrida in "Plato’s Pharmacy." Briefly, pharmakon can mean remedy, drug, medicine or poison. (Derrida, Dissemination .97-98 )

Menippean satire can be seen to act within literature as a necessary corrective to false hierarchies, fallacious systematisations and abuses of learning. The way in which it does this, however, is through the principles of puncture and excess. Puncture and excess also tend to contaminate, blurring previously distinct boundaries and introducing the necessity of impurity into what might otherwise be an ordered and discrete realm. There is a sense therefore in which symposiastic law (and menippean satire) acts as a pharmakon within "that institution called literature" as a whole. In seeking to act as a corrective, menippean satire does not aim after purity; rather it seeks to implement, expose and uncover in itself and in its targets the "law of impurity" of which Derrida writes. In this sense, menippean satire establishes itself in a unique role with regard to exposing the supplementarity of literature and of language.

The other response to the question of symposiastic law and its relation to a law of genre can be to understand representation and the idea of genre conceived of in terms of repetition. There is a sense in which "mimesis is inherently and always already a repetition – meaning that mimesis is always the meeting-place of two opposing but connected ways of thinking, acting and making: similarity and difference" (Melberg 1). In a similar way, generic marking is always already an instance of repetition as well, invoking the similarity to, and difference from, those works which constitute a genre, to put it simply. The law of repetition which constitutes representation and the idea of genre is best expressed in Geoffrey Bennington’s summation of Derrida:

Symposiastic law, as evidenced by The Magic Pudding, is a good example of this. Rules are formulated ‘on the fly’ by both the Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners and the puddin’ thieves. They are complicit in the formulation of symposiastic law. This process of formulation occurs by way of a ‘jumping off’ from the solid ground of logical argument to the certainties of belief. Symposiastic law is comprised of the totality of these moments of ‘jumping off’ – each a repetition that exceeds the law of which it is ostensibly a part. It should not be supposed, however, that the ‘gap’ which is implied by this ‘jumping off’ is merely an absolutely irrational moment imposed upon rational behaviour. In many ways this ‘gap’ is the barrier between the range of experiences allowed and delimited for us by law, and the unlimited capacity for private experience – sensuous, aesthetic and intellectual – which is known by all of us. In the case of law, this ‘jumping off’ is effected by metaphor, which derives from the Greek metaphero: to transfer, to carry across. This suggests that literature is the means by which law comes into being and is imposed; equally significantly, it suggests that literature is the means by which the absolutely irrational moment of the law can be exposed.

In a less specific sense that gap I have pointed to between inner experience and the public, delimited range of experiences can be the object of a more extensive enquiry: into the means by which we act. Bakhtin pointed the way towards this in the 1920’s in Toward a Philosophy of the Act, his philosophical fragment which explores the "non-alibi" or ‘gap’ between subjective and objective knowledge. This "non-alibi" of being can be understood as the absence of presence, and it is that which "transforms an empty possibility into an actual answerable act or deed" (Bakhtin Toward 42). This rather condensed version of the philosophy of the act has two important corollaries:

1. It exposes within formal ethics the circularity of will conceived of in terms of conformity to the law: "the will itself makes pure conformity to law into its own law – it is a law immanent to the will... The will-as-deed produces the law to which it submits, ie, it dies as an individual will in its own product" (Bakhtin Toward 26)
2. The world of art has a close affinity with this exploration of the ‘gap’. On the one hand, to act is to be in life:

To affirm definitively the fact of my unique and irreplaceable participation in Being is to enter Being precisely where it does not coincide with itself: to enter the ongoing event of being (Bakhtin Toward 42)

On the other hand, "the world of art [in its] concreteness and its permeatedness with an emotional-volitional tone... [is] closer than any of the abstract cultural worlds (taken in isolation) to the unitary and unique world of the performed act." (Bakhtin Toward 61)

The world of art therefore offers up a uniquely concrete example of the coming-into-being of the act and its coincidence with the law of impurity and the "non-alibi" of being. In the case of The Magic Pudding the symposiastic law makes possible an understanding of the act as that which is grounded in the contamination of excess.

Which is, of course, the reason why The Magic Pudding makes perfect reading for children.

3. Proto-Bohemianism and ‘Australia’ in The Magic Pudding

Among menippean satire’s defining traits, its outlandish fictions, caricature and propensity for word-play, and the fact that the genre is nearly always written downward to its audience, make it an ideal vessel for children’s literature. (Kirk xiv ff) Frye has noted that "the Alice books are perfect Menippean satires, and so is The Water Babies, which has been strongly influenced by Rabelais." (Frye 310) Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is another menippean satire that has often been promulgated as a children’s book, although usually (but not always) with the bowdlerization of the "Voyage to Laputa" and some of the earlier scatological elements. The Alice books and The Water Babies are menippean satires intended for children; in the case of Gulliver’s Travels it is a menippean satire left over for children.

The designation of these menippean satires for child readers is obviously a trivialisation that derives from the facetious supplementarity that characterises these works. The appearance of playfulness in these works masks a deeper play: the pretence to play, which is another way of approaching the supplement. ‘Pretending to Play’ can be a dissimulation of play that is a mask for seriousness, or a feigning of pretence that is playful (there are several other possibilities). In short, ‘playing at play’ exposes play as its own supplement. It is this surfeit of play which constitutes the danger of excess in menippean satire for canonizing and hierarchising literary institutional practices. Another way of viewing this excess, which is common to symposiastic law, is to re-introduce one of Derrida’s terms for the trace-structure: the pharmakon.

Derrida’s extended engagement with the myth of the origin of writing in "Plato’s Pharmacy" leads to his treatment of writing as a pharmakon: that is, something that is both remedy and poison (which is another way of describing the logic of the supplement). Writing as pharmakon is one variation of the Derridean project – the ongoing critique of logocentrism. I want to explore the notion of the pharmakon, or supplementarity, within "that institution called literature" itself. Literature of excess – the menippea, symposia – seeks to utilize that excess in terms of puncture, as a corrective to abuses of learning and belief. This extends to issues of literary propriety such as generic boundaries, the illusion of verisimilitude and textual boundaries. Satiric excess exposes the supplementarity of its own writing and that of its function: it is a superfluous yet necessary corrective, but it is also a destructive agent, a grotesque flaw in the fabric of literature.

Another way of looking at the symposiastic law of The Magic Pudding is to see it as a pharmakon: something which is able to expose the corruption of judicial law and provide an image of an idyllic, if hedonistic earthly life on the one hand, and on the other a dangerously subversive principle that threatens to exceed the ability of the symposiasts to control and manipulate it. Of course, Albert the puddin’ is the embodiment of symposiastic law: "he’s that artful, lawyers couldn’t manage him," remarks Bill after Albert has almost made another getaway. It is no coincidence that as well as providing a superabundance of sustenance, Albert is also "poisoned" at the end, even if only in Bunyip Bluegum’s cunning imagination.

Control of Albert means control of symposiastic law. The Magic Pudding is a kind of bildungsroman that lets us watch the development of Bunyip Bluegum from a tidy bear who leaves home because he cannot bear the unruliness of his Uncle Wattleberry’s whiskers to a kind of proto-bohemian who has mastered the finer points of symposiastic law. He is no stranger to the world of the arts: he knows Egbert Rumpus Bumpus the poet and is "able to converse on a great variety of subjects, having read all the best Australian poets" (Lindsay 17). As he leaves home he appropriates his uncle’s walking stick and it is on the road as a kind of bohemian flâneur that his adventures really begin.

After he becomes a member of the Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners, his ingenuity becomes vital to the continual ownership of the puddin’: an ingenuity no doubt due to his acquaintance with Australian poetry. He utilizes disguise, lies, manipulates the singing of the National Anthem in order to force the puddin’ thieves to reveal where the Albert has been hidden, and improvises in court, even suggesting that they "try the case without the judge" (Lindsay 151). He is complicit in his Uncle Wattleberry’s humiliation in the town of Bungledoo, where his uncle is mistaken by Bill Barnacle for Watkin Wombat, Esq., disguised as a "company promoter," complete with glued on whiskers. Bunyip’s snide advice to his uncle is that his "whiskers were responsible for this seeming outrage." As Uncle Wattleberry relieves his outraged feelings through a protracted tantrum of "bounding and plunging", the carnivalistic denigration of authority is made completely manifest (Lindsay 92-97). [*]

As a proto-bohemian figure, Bunyip Bluegum is a ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bear’ who succeeds in leaving home, surviving by his talents and wits, and is rewarded with an infinitely renewable source of wealth and pleasure. But for all of his bohemian qualities, the end of the story sees Bunyip Bluegum declare the simultaneous end of the road and the book:

The tree house that the Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners build is, however, no arbitrary construction. The final illustration of the book shows our intrepid band of symposiasts sitting on the balcony of their tree-house, Albert in a "little Puddin’ paddock, whence he can shout rude remarks to the people passing by" and Benjimen Brandysnap tending the vegetables below. A road winds off down the hill and in the distance is a city. This rural retreat is clearly Springwood, to where Norman and Rose Lindsay had retreated (via Leura and Faulconbridge) not long after their return from their overseas sojourn of 1909-10. The only time the narratorial "I" intrudes into the work is to emphasise the point that this abode is more than familiar to him. In fact, he has given the location away:

For all of Bunyip Bluegum’s education as a bohemian, this retreat represents a rejection of the life of the flâneur, much as Norman moved away from Sydney, (although a dread of tuberculosis may been a more significant factor) and only ever returned in order to be near his mistress Margaret Coen (Mendelssohn 83-90). It would appear then that a movement of renunciation is implicit in any attempt to gain control over symposiastic law.

The apotheosis of the Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners has another significant aspect. The iconography of their final home has them distant from, but elevated above the city a little way off the road. This is Cox’s road, the original path that opened up the Australian interior for the first time to the nascent European settlement in Sydney. Behind the reader’s gaze, therefore, lies the vast expanse of the Australian interior. The Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners are the symbolic custodians of ‘Australia’ in a double sense: as it was often conceived of in terms of a vast untapped potential, the road to which is controlled by them; and as it is symbolized iconographically with the infinite wealth of Albert being contained in a small puddin’ paddock.

As is to be expected, the ‘Australia’ evoked by The Magic Pudding is as ambivalent as the symposiastic law upon which the book rests. Despite the carnivalesque nature of the book, the ‘Australia’ of The Magic Pudding may not be so much like the "World Upside Down" of Antipodean Literature as John Docker would have it (Docker 48-56), but rather that supplementary nation which is a superfluous yet necessary completion of the ‘western world’. Despite the superabundant wealth that Albert symbolizes, the Noble Society of Puddin’ Owners are defined more by the ‘politics of pugilism’ with which it is necessary for them to defend their ownership of the puddin’/nation: "as we’re perfessional Puddin’-owners," said Bill, "we have to fight them [the puddin’ thieves] on principle." (Lindsay 30) For most of the time the puddin’ is like a kind of ‘grumpy sex’, a pleasure to be had amid cursing and surliness. The orgasmic puddin’, the bomb of the anarchist described in Bunyip’s "moral lesson" is contrasted with this and is, presumably, to be avoided (Lindsay 122-25). But despite the fact that the puddin’/nation which is favoured by the work is a kind of bounteous bad-temperedness, public allegiance to it can be a dangerous thing. When Bunyip Bluegum strikes up the National Anthem and forces everyone, including the puddin’ thieves, to remove their hats (thus revealing Albert perched on Watkin Wombat’s head), it is clear that such public nationalism can serve as a form of detection. This is the danger, perhaps, of a nation constituted by symposiastic law: that excess is always a contaminant, and that when boundaries are up for grabs, art can burst everything apart at the seams.