Here in New York the UN General Assembly is in session, and even from the relative safety of my garret in Harlem, it’s impossible to avoid the Sturm und Drang as world leaders, their critics and sycophants perambulate around the city, block avenues for protests or motorcades, and pop up in the media. On Wednesday Shashi Tharoor, undersecretary-general of the UN on leave and India’s candidate for the top spot, was on WNYC commenting the speeches; his is such a mellifluous, Britishized diplomatic voice that I was lulled into paying no attention at all, so I can’t tell you what he had to say. You can listen here. All I know is that Kofi Annan’s voice is a hard act to follow, but if the criterion is cosmopolitan polish, Brother Shashi got it goin’ on.

There’s interesting stuff happening at the UN this month but you won’t hear about it: like every other conference, the UN meetings are ones where the real action — private discussions between enemies, mediation of civil wars, horse-trading of all sorts — takes place in the hallways and back rooms, not in the auditorium. So we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Hugo Chavez, the irrepressible president of Venezuela, for livening things up yesterday when he stepped to the podium and said this:

The devil is right at home. The devil — the devil, himself, is right in the house.

And the devil came here yesterday.

Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

Now, I have no interest in getting into a discussion of the relative merits or flaws of Messrs. Bush and Chavez; last night I went to a show where a singer called politicians “all lyin’ sacks of shit” and, armed with my graduate training in political science, I can’t say I disagree. But as literature, as television, as performance, as art, this is really fantastic material.In his new book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold — and indeed in most of his weekly columns for the past few years — Frank Rich analyzes the success of the Bush administration in getting its way through well orchestrated staging and performance. Chavez is no different and just as effective, though his is a brilliant, slightly demented one-man act compared to the US administration’s ensemble piece.

As you may also have heard, Chavez performed with his own props: early in the speech, he brandished a 2003 book by Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, advising that the people of the world, beginning with Americans, read it posthaste. And someone is listening: as various papers have reported, in the last 24 hours Chomsky’s book jumped into the top 10 at BN.com and Amazon, where as I write this it thrones in first place (followed by Rich).

This morning on the BBC, Tariq Ali, the Brit-Pakistani critic and a self-described friend of both Chavez and Chomsky, was asked to comment on the “Hugo’s Book Club” effect and had absolutely nothing of substance to say, other than he was sure Chomsky was pleased with the plug. Somewhat more usefully, the New York Times confirms that Chomsky, whom apparently Chavez said he regretted not meeting in his lifetime, is in fact very much alive and had these comments:

Mr. Chomsky said he was glad that Mr. Chavez liked his book, but he would not describe himself as flattered.

“We should look at ourselves through our own eyes and not other people’s eyes,” he said.

Mr. Chomsky said he had taken no offense at Mr. ChavezÂ’s remarks about his being dead.

Most American papers, and some Venezuelan ones as well, have weighed in to condemn Chavez’s speech. Meanwhile, in a supreme display of irrelevance, Jesse Jackson sat down with Chavez and asked the kids to play nice: “My appeal to him is to get beyond the anger.” But from the US government, nary a peep. Walrus-man John Bolton said Chavez’s comments “warranted no reply.” Perhaps that’s the wise course of action; perhaps it’s chicken. But all the world’s a stage, and the audience must not be disappointed.