SNP’s word of the day: Fixer
Word: Fixer
Meaning: One who fixes—in the sense of arranging—illegal or semi-illegal things. Not a criminal, but a means to crime.
Usage: “Well, he misspoke.” “About what? That you’re the firms fixer? Or that you’re any good at it?" — Michael Clayton (2007)
You should know it because: Yesterday (yesterday was Sunday, right?) the New York Times’ Sunday Styles (ah, there’s my answer!) ran a profile of Scotty Bowen, the “Hollywood fixer” who made gay sex happen in the hills of yore. His full-time job was hooking the likes of Rock Hudson and Katharine Hepburn up with same-sexy (and thus, illegal) lovers. Hepburn, apparently, got with 150 women. That’s a movie (starring Tilda Swinton) I’d want to see. Speaking of movies (starring Tilda Swinton), Michael Clayton is a great little “fixer” film in which the shady Clooney character “fixes” the outcome of trials, rather than trysts. On the Scorcese show Boardwalk Empire, Steve Buscemi plays a golden-age-of-gangs kind of fixer, and he won a SAG for it last night. In the Marvel Comics universe, “The Fixer” refers to Roscoe Sweeney, a crooked fight promoter. And long before that, Lou “The Fixer” Blonger made Old West history. I don’t know if we have a lot of fixers in Canada: their louche ethics and libertarian swagger seem a basically American thing.