Hang on to your desktops, readers, for not only have we another dauntlessly irrelevant puzzle to inflame the Trivia Lobe, but today's neuron-reducer has been provided by future Buddha Swagger guitarist Scott Williams, ensconced in a Washington D.C. office just two floors down from the fabled Corridors of Power. Scott's question has already begun its devilish tormenting of yours truly's lumpy skull. The man himself lays it out in all of its multi-categorical glory:
'The Taser, or stun gun, was invented by John Cover, who named it in honor of a fictional predecessor, which first* appeared in a 1911 book subtitled "Daring Adventures in Elephant Land." Here's an excerpt: "For the next few days and nights there was great feasting in that African village, and the praises of the white men, and power of [key phrase which provided the name for the Taser], were sung loud and long."
What is that key phrase?
*Though if you were to Google, which of course would be cheating, you would find scholarly argument that the device and indeed much of the plot of the book were ripped off from an earlier work by a much more prominent author.'
First complete, correct answer to Scott's question posted to comments will receive "A pennies of the world starter collection, featuring Canada, Mexico, and the Czech and Slovak Republics." Remember, one guess per post (though you may post as often as you like), and, as always, stay away from those search engines and local libraries while playing! Good luck.
...the Wombat Party Response to the State of the Union Address. Party leadership agreed over a hasty supper of tuna salad sandwiches that it was way too long, used the word "feckless" way too frequently, and (above all) would not be telling the electorate anything they don't already know.
However, I have been authorized to note that of the binge-feast of politico-journalistic junk food my eyes consumed the morning after, no tidbit left as rancid an aftertaste as the sugar-coated Boston-Half-Baked Beans served up by Christopher Buckley. It makes sense, when you think about it, that one intellectually underwhelming son of a patrician icon should admire another (though Bush pere is perhaps less inherently iconic than W.F. Buckley's lockjawed viper act, occupying the Oval Office gets you at least some sort of icon status in this country).
Buckley Jr.'s glee at another one of Bush's pointless smirks about an official killing rings out like a dirty joke stage-whispered at a funeral: in a replay of his "ultimate punishment" bon mot, Bush played it Ice Ice Baby with regard to knocking off some Al Quaeda suspects with a missile: "Let's just say they will no longer pose a problem for the U.S. or its allies." I suppose I'll have to accept the notion that when Bush wants to talk tough he sounds like he's quoting a TV-movie version of one of Tom Clancy's imitators. But can't the rest of us have the good sense to look away with embarrasment, rather than citing and praising such inanity as a mark of steely wit? And if not, should we be hired by otherwise sensible editors? Michael Kinsley, I'm looking in your direction.
NOTE: When I posted this last night I referred rather slapdashedly to W.F. Buckley as a "WASP icon." Idiot that I am, I had forgotten the fact that he's a rather outspoken Catholic.
New loops for old: a Post-State-of-the-Union-Stress-Reliever is found in Love Will Freak Us Apart. (Via Capital Influx)
The ear-worms have been bad of late. Maybe it's this intense, possibly Supervillan-induced freeze that has NYC in its evil and debilitating grip. The verbal centers of the brain have short-circuited, possibly from being asked to continuously produce slight variations on "Oh my god I'm cold." In their retreat from functioning they left a huge void in the central processing unit that's been eagerly filled by multiplying song-threads, playing and replaying on their various memory loops in this frozen echo chamber of a cabeza.
A viewing of Scotland, PA, with it's scene of the youngest Duncan child, Donalbain-renamed-Donald, hanging around the piano with the rest of his drama-club buddies, sent me scurrying out in the frost to acquire this. Fine and dandy, but repeated listenings of "We Beseech Thee" haven't done a thing for my other afflictions, to wit, at least three competing Chicago tunes, two perfectly acceptable brassy white pop-soul ("Feelin' Stronger Every Day" and "Make Me Smile"), one the hideous progeny of all that sucketh ("You're the Inspiration") -- all of which grow intolerable on internally sampled repetition; brief teasing spells of a line or two of synth from Game Theory's "Waltz the Halls Always"; and then there's the chorus from Heads East's "Save My Life/White Line Woman."
I'd ask if this kind of thing were normal, but I'm afraid that I already know the answer.
For this, for the cold, and for long, shallow, maddening think-pieces on George Bush (he must be smart, capable and principled-- because he's enjoying political success!) I blame my recent laxity in producing hi-quality content for the site. Those subscribers who purchased the Premium Wombat Membership should contact customer service for the appropriate credit.
Five more weeks to go before we hit #52. Now, on to today's brain-deflator...
The following are lyrics from a set of songs which have a particular event in common -- they all refer directly or indirectly to this event, and most have their recorded origin as songs sung by those involved in the event itself.
What was the event?
No Googling or bothering your Great-Uncle Mortimer, the man is trying to get some sleep. First correct answer posted to comments wins a vintage cassette tape copy of Yo! MTV Raps MONSTERS OF RAP, which features the mind-blowing "4 at a Time" by Freshco.
A familiar-looking name encountered today brought a famous story to mind, and then a memorable penultimate phrase. A little Googling fished up this result.
Things that seem to annoy other people that don't bother me so much:
Things that probably annoy me more than they do anyone else:
It's pretty rare for old posts to get new comments, but every once in a while it happens that someone makes a contribution to a something that's already settled comfortably into the content-dumpster which is the archives.
Last September I posted a brief discussion of one of the most diverting pieces of spam I'd ever recieved, a goofily genial advert for a purportedly legal substitute for, um, well...weed. I excerpted some choice passages, primarily those that managed to create a hallucinatory effect of their own by grafting loopy marketing-talk onto what I must assume is the latest in sensimilla slang.
The comment in question seemed to be addressed to a guy named "Greg" (and indeed, there might have been a Greg back in that original spam --I confess I don't remember). It was pretty ugly --ugly enough that I deleted it. Here's the expurgated version:
YOU {obscenity} SENDING THIS {obscenity} OUT AND PLUGGING MY EMAIL WITH THIS {misspelled obscenity} GO {obscene, homophobic and misogynist suggestion. Also misspelled} AND NEXT TOME YOU SEND THE {obscenity} I WILL RETURN 1000 OF THESE BACK TO YOU GREG YOU {misspelled obscenity}
Of course, it is signed merely "SPAM@AOL.COM"
Now, leaving aside the fact that this is clearly an individual who could probably use a relaxing "all-legal botanical" product like the one our spam-buddy Greg is promoting, one has to wonder how (even blinded by his towering rage) this guy mistook the Wombat File for the offending source? Even a non-native speaker? (Although, I must say, this guy seems to exhibit some all-American tendencies in his choice of verbiage.)
It's true that a Google of some of the text in the original spam does indeed pull up that page -- but surely my site doesn't look like the place where you order Aqueous Ragga Dagga(tm) or Stoney Mahoney(tm)? Does it? Somebody let me know if "wombat" has some kind of alternate-herbal-drug-lingo meaning, before the advent of Total Information Awarness means that I'm going over this odd little saga with a guy in a DEA vest.
-W.S. Gilbert on Getting Up a Pantomime
-New dystopic fictional goodies from George Saunders (in the same ish, Louis Menand deals with misconceptions about another famous dystopian writer).
-Plus: Deduct that S.U.V.!
I missed this revelatory explanation by David Brooks until Kathleen linked to it.
It's really helpful, but Dave, if you're reading, let me see if I get the nuances of your analysis. I'll take it bit by bit, just to make sure I follow. Sorry to be a little pokey about it, but I want to cover all the bases.
So: The Republicans repeatedly revise the tax code in favor of the extremely wealthy. The Democrats point this out, and American people who are not at all benefitted by this tell them to get bent, and elect either more Republicans, or (occasionally) Democrats who won't in any obvious ways challenge this; all in all, a striking gap pertains between economic self-interest and the voting habits of a great number of people.
Seems obvious enough, but now we dig into the causes for this odd behavior. Let's see if I've got it all down: first, people "vote their aspirations" -- everyone hopes that they'll be rich soon, and they don't want to pay high taxes when they do. This actually makes a lot of sense, and seems quite true; but it doesn't fully explain voters' propensities for allowing these payoffs to the really, really wealthy.
But, oh yeah, there are lots more reasons: like, Americans don't suffer from "income resentment" because, apparently, if you're an average Joe "you are not brought into incessant contact with things you can't afford." Apparently, outside of New York and L.A., everyone's experience is so nearly equal, finances-wise as makes no never-mind:
"You can afford most of the things at Wal-Mart or Kohl's and the occasional meal at the Macaroni Grill. Moreover, it would be socially unacceptable for you to pull up to church in a Jaguar or to hire a caterer for your dinner party anyway. So you are not plagued by a nagging feeling of doing without."
I guess that the above means that most people would find having more money a burden!
Plus, as if that isn't enough to explain why so many support candidates whose policies run rather clearly against their own financial interests, there's also the fact that many of us "admire the rich" and "resent social inequality more than income inequality." And it's important to understand that Americans "don't have Marxian categories in our heads." Translation: we care more about a CEO's down-home manner than his decision to close the factory outside of town, and view society (that's your interesting metaphor, Dave) more like the tables at a high school cafeteria than like the layers in a cake. Each group is "pretty sure that their community is the nicest, and filled with the best people, and they have a vague pity for all those poor souls who live in New York City or California and have a lot of money but no true neighbors and no free time."
Thus, Brooks concludes, the senselessness of an appeal to voters to reject policies that only benefit the wealthy. Class conflict, Brooks says, is too pessimistic for the American people. The Democratic party needs to be "optimistic" and can't run against the wealthy, (except for those who have already been convicted of crimes). While it may look at first glance like this "optimism" is a synonym for a "delusions about money and power which keeps people from protesting massive tax swindles," that can be cured by getting better in tune with the essentially sunny American character.
So, to sum up: the electorate understands clearly that Republican tax cuts will only benefit a very few, but loves and wants to emulate those few so much that they're happy to hand over the long green to them. They hope at some point to be rich, but don't really care too much -- since they know nothing about a wealthy lifestyle, never seeing it on TV or anything like that --and if they did have money but they'd feel awkward. They dislike snooty-tooty types from New York, but never ever get jealous of other people locally who've made a pile. And their distaste for class-based thinking has nothing to do with the demonization in this country of the ideas of economic justice, the term "socialism," or the desperate fear that by admitting to the reality of economic class they might lose social standing (because those two things have, luckily, never been linked in American culture!)
It's a relief to me to get this straightened out, finally. Here I was, thinking that it had something to do with the economically powerfully propagating and maintaining the myth that what benefits them benefits all. That it was connected in some small way to the fact that the foxes are reporting on the goings-on in the henhouse. Live and learn.
Being swept up in Potter Pre-Sale Madness this week at work, we begged sometime Guest Quiz-Lord Gavin to make a special appearance and provide today's Friday Quiz. Tremble in happy fear, readers, for he hath Brought the Noise. To wit, the very first word puzzle Wombat File Quiz. I'll let the man himself tell you all about it:
I am thinking of six different words, all in the dictionary, none obscure, most used in everyday speech. With each of them, if you lop a single letter off the front, the results will be a new word--one with twice as many syllables as the original word. (For example, if "ombat" was a real word, and if it had four syllables [which would be weird as hell, but we're just exampling here], then "wombat" would qualify as one of our select six.)
Your collective challenge is to name all six. Five of the words have the same final letter, and the sixth has a different one. Additionally, the sixth word is an adjective which, when truncated, becomes a noun. The golden laurel will go to the Wombat Contestant who names the sixth word, which ends with a letter different from the other five.
Players should eschew the use of Google or "Smart Drinks" during the quiz. First correct post of the whole set to comments wins an actual laurel, made of solid gold, which Gavin will ship via courier from his residence in a charming tax haven in the Lesser Antilles.
On Poynter.org the Book Babes take Daniel Mendelsohn of the New York Review of Books to task. What for? His "Backlash" article on Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones.
Their point is the oft-made one that whenever a book becomes a popular success, there is reflexive backlash which seems to come less from a standpoint of honest critical evaluation and more from a glee in taking to task mass tastes. They also air the notion that first novels, in particular, should not be subjected to the potentially career-damaging ire of demanding review; the idea, with which I have some sympathy, is that it is too easy to blight a young writer's career by condemning the faults of early work -- far better to focus on the strengths of good early novels, let the less accomplished books alone, and only really take on writers in a challenging way after they've established themselves.
I have some sympathy with both ideas. Certainly it's easy to sneer at a book or a film that catches the popular imagination -- such things often do so because they're "easy" and critics as a rule don't like books (particularly) that are easy. This can pretty obviously collapse into a prejudice for a certain kind of "high" literary style, and any writer who earns popularity without providing something of a intellectual challenge for the critic risks being dismissed as shallow. But there is great writing which is simple in style, and popular, and writing which is praiseworthy which does not meditate on lofty ideas, but simply tells a hell of a compelling story (which, I would say, is the strength of Lovely Bones, at least in the first half of the book).
The second notion is more fraught, but it's still valid; my friend Gary has suggested that, in an era where reading is an increasingly uncommon pastime, and the relentless consolidation of the publishing industry makes breaking in as a writer a brutal and unforgiving challenge, reviewers (particularly of early work) have something like an ethical duty to do more than dispense negative judgements. If a book lacks something, the critic should indicate a writer or book which excels in it. And by the same logic, the beginning novelist should be handled with care -- it's too easy for a potentially great career to be cut off because of the impatience of a seen-it-all reviewer with the first novel's likely weaknesses.
And so these Book Babes (a particularly bad name for a column, I think) are p'o'd at Mendelsohn for his lengthy dissection of a book that made one of 'em cry. But I think this is neither a case of predictable "backlash" nor a shameful drubbing of an untried young contender. In his lucid and considerate piece, Mendelsohn makes not just one very good point about the problems with Lovely Bones, but more like sixteen of them. He spots the way it turns aside from the very subject (pain, grief, loss) it purports to explore, and very responsibly works through the problems he has with the emotional response it demands from the reader without providing much in the way of thought, or, in the end, consistency or wholeness in character or action. He's lucid, convincing, and not at all pulling a Dale Peck or anything like that.
Now, I disagree with some of Mendelsohn's argument (his September 11 thesis strikes me as off), and think that the story works well enough for the first hundred pages or so (thought it falls apart completely at the end, and there's lots of overworked images and undercooked fantasy along the way). I get that it speaks to a lot of people, regardless of its infelicities, and I'd have been the last to suggest that Sebold shouldn't be encouraged -- the idea of the book alone is pretty compelling, and worthy of interest and praise. But this book has been "the publishing event of the year." Not only can it (and we) withstand a little scrutiny about its problems and the question of why people find it so affecting, but, indeed, it would be the height of critical dishonesty to avoid taking on a book just because a lot of people find it uplifting.
Margo Hammond writes, "Book critics gripe about the publishing houses neglecting good literature and then we punish them when they promote, god forbid, a new author." Fer cryin' out loud! If she thinks a negative judgement expressed by the New York Review of Books over six months after the book in question has sold 2.1 million+ copies is going to in any way effect how publishers see the success of that kind of first novel, she has not merely rocks in her head, but particularly stupid rocks.
1. Who gave the best blurb in 2002? The Puffies provide the answer.
2. It's about time. Over at the Mirror Project, my sole, very valuable contribution has been put into a gallery. Actually, it might have been there a while and I just noticed. And it really is the lamest picture in the bunch. Still.
Like I just said: Amy Grant's Mandible. OK? (via Everlasting Blort)
An interesting coincidence in analyses this week, in James Surowiecki's note on Starbucks recession-proof fortunes and the contrasting discussion by Daniel Gross of Restoration Hardware's woes.
Restoration Hardware, if you haven't been exposed, is a kind of an intensification of the Marketing of Nostalgia that one sees in more dilute forms in retailers from J. Crew to The Pottery Barn. The idea is high-end fake vintage, with an emphasis on recently trendy American midcentury styles. You can buy an "Ike-like" record player or a gas-powered handwarmer. It's a wonderful example of the ability of marketers to kitschify everything.
Gross's discussion of the failure of RH to become profitable comes down, in his view, to a lack of flexibility on their part --he notes, "Restoration Hardware trumpets its 'classic and authentic American point of view.' Positioning yourself that way is a Catch-22. By definition, that means you're not going to be rolling out new fabrics and styles every few months. And yet consumers are fickle. They get tired of sameness. Restoration Hardware might do better if it were less classic and less authentic. " He goes on to note that Starbucks, which serves a similar demographic, has the good sense to sell something its customers are literally addicted to.
Maybe that's true, but I'd bet that this isn't the crucial difference -- one's caffeine jones is after all served by cheap coffee as well as the branded brew. Here's where one of Surowiecki's points comes in: Starbucks' success in a period which hammered a lot of other 90's businesses is probably down to the fact that what they sell is both expensive and cheap. It's pricey for coffee, indeed, but even a $4 cup of joe is a manageable indulgence for many, and one which comes with a big psychological payoff.
After scaling down all the other luxuries -- passing up on the planned beach house, trading in the Lexus for a used Toyota, and exchanging the membership at Equinox for a yoga video and some handweights -- the downsized dotcommer likes his grande Americano all the more because it connects him to the former life of expanding economic horizons. It's the token luxe that will be the last to be cut out of a budget-conscious life, because it serves a nostalgia much more powerful than the one which Restoration Hardware serves: the misty-eyed memory of that Gilded Age of about four years ago.
Another Friday, another sub-factoid to distract you from all the things you have to get accomplished...
The answer to today's quiz is the name of an American television program which premeried on this date in 1971. Its original executive producer said this about the origin of its opening music:
"In 1962 my future wife and I went to one of the Club Med villages in Italy. We were in these little straw huts and every morning we were summoned to breakfast by [the music]. It was just magic ... so, it became the [theme music for the show]. The nice little twist on that is that about five years ago someone from the New York Times went to a Club Med in Mexico and commented on what a classy joint it was because they used the music of [the show] to summon people to meals..."
What is the name of the program?
The first correct answer posted to comments wins some attractive illustrations from my old 2002 Tintin calendar (with a fun automotive theme!) Remember don't touch that search engine. One guess per comment, please, but comment as often as you like.
Although this exchange is tailored to readers with a knowledge of Austin, TX's bookstores, there's a lot of this rambling but entertaining conversation that speaks to experiences which have been true through all of human history:
M: I was in BookPeople the other day and they sell t-shirts in there. They sell a shirt that says "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." Who would wear that? What kind of asshole walks around declaring, "Hey look at me! I think people are stupid!"
K: Ten of his friends have the same shirt.
M: And then the "Cats ... Books ... Life is good" shirt? I like books, and I like cats, but if I get like that, kill me.
It must be nice to have a lot of colorful details at hand whenyou're writing a profile of a figure in the news, like Evan Thomas over at Newsweek. What's great about this insightful look into the world of North Korea's "Dear Leader" is how the reporter's commitment our being totally informed about the really important stuff shows in nearly every paragraph. Like "Since Kim is an absolute ruler, he can put on any show and act in any role he wants. A well-rounded 5 feet 3, he cuts a slightly ridiculous figure dressed in a Mao suit, wearing high-heeled shoes and sporting a pouffy bouffant hairdo."
Lest we think Thomas is making a funny, he goes on to warn us: "It is all a grotesque charade. His fantasyland is a charnel house." Thomas's masterful turn away from the comedy of Kim Jong Il's appearance is lent urgency when he brings to our attention the perhaps under-appreciated reasons why this funny story is actually, folks, kinda scary: "Kim Jong Il’s North Korean horror movie would all be a remote tragedy to the out-side world, except that Kim’s props now include weapons of mass destruction—chemical and biological and, soon if not already, nuclear weapons. Kim is threatening to use them against his neighbors and the United States, or to sell them to terrorists who would love nothing better than to contaminate or incinerate Times Square or the White House."
It's that phrase "who would love nothing better" that lets us know we've gone beyond the hard-hitting facteroonies that characterize the rest of the piece and into a journalistic place that's really superior to the world of facts -- the more satisfying realm of received wisdom, rock-solid cliche, and simple, memorable narratives into which the complexities of fact can be conveniently stuffed and stored. One begins to suspect Thomas is working for the administration -- certainly he's got the requisite disinterest in actual complex international issues, and a knack for sniffing out the terrorists lurking behind those complexities.
Here's the thing: Surely we all know that Kim Jong Il is without question a tyrant, a murderer, a threat to world peace, a screwball and a plague on the people of North Korea. I don't need convincing of that, and I suspect Thomas's readers don't either. The fact that Thomas is spouting second-hand stories of Let-them-Eat-Cake decadence, or lampooning the dictator with all the subtlety of one of H. Stern's sidekicks is not all that objectionable. The fact that he's selling this comfortingly "revealing" pap as "news" -- to an audience that could stand to get a lot more information about why, for example, the world has pretty much allowed this guy to starve millions of his people to death for years -- is what burns.
You may now begin laughing at me for imagining I was going to find something less inane at the MSNBC/Newsweek site. But hell, Arts and Letters Daily linked to it!
I'm not nearly Alpha Geek enough to grasp the intended joke behind lines like "I hit L-Shift over the quote and then dollar/if you know the dir of the nerdcore rhyme you holler", but I still can't quite resist the digital charm of MC Frontalot.
Maybe you'd prefer a different species of nerdy? Something sorta Sweet?. It's courtesy of Otisfodder's 365 Day project (which of course we found over at The Blue & Biege)
The solution to today's Quiz has been verified carefully, so there is no need to worry that we'll have an unfortunate discrepancy as occurred with last week's festivities.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower did this particular Presidential thing twice during his time in office, both times in the year 1959. Only two previous twentieth-century U.S. Presidents had ever done it before. Eisenhower never did it again, and in fact neither has any U.S. President since (though it could still happen).
What was the thing President Eisenhower did?
The answer will come to you without Googling, if you'll just believe in yourself, dammit. One well-informed guess per comment please, though you may comment as often as you like. First correct answer posted to comments wins a packet of dried-up but genuine "Brooklyn" brand chewing gum.
This isn't really how I want everything to look. But I was getting damned sick of the MT default template.
Here are the contestants. Photos courtesy of Meet the Writers at Barnes & Noble.com
Please post any last-minute entries to comments.
Doing potentially dangerous things here. Please wear your hard hat.