Watching even a few seconds of the television coverage of the RNC has a horrible effect on me; like that woman who had seizures at the sound of Mary Hart's voice; I experience a Tourette's-like response whenever I click over to CNN, usually just in time to catch whichever of Rove's lieutenant's is currently on tap (tonight it was Karen Hughes) to swing at the meatballs Wolf Blitzer and crew endlessly offer up. For the sake of domestic harmony, I have been resisting the temptation to watch-n-shriek.
Interestingly, what causes me bile to boil most frequently is not the stuff of the speeches, but the lie-filled chatter offered up by Hughes and other "high-level advisors" when they are tapped to serve as one half of a network's balancing act. And it's strange that this is now S.O.P. The practice of relying on these sanctioned interpreters of the party lines (quite literally) in the cases of convention coverage is now something you can count on -- and when you think about it, it's one of the more mystifying choices made by the networks.
Considering that what emanates from the stage (true in Boston as now in New York) is now so relentlessly choreographed, it is depressingly baffling to watch the news organizations actively participating in the scripting of the pageant. Why are these individuals and organizations -- who have, one presumes, some desire to be journalists -- so ready to become mere conduits for the embodied press releases of the two parties? Is it because of the cynical calculation that only the partisans are watching, and therefore they will be most pleased by a representative of their team always at hand for the yakfest? Or is it simply that it's the path of least resistance -- why pay reporters and political commentators to find out what's really going on (and or analyze it -- an oft derided practice that I confess to finding interesting) when one can achieve all the "balance" required by trotting out a couple of well-known partisans (who appear, of course, for free) to repeat the contentions we've already heard?
The television media have, throughout this campaign, lived up to stereotype by proving over and over again how little institutional curiosity they have, how little taste for reporting, and how resolute a focus on entertainment they possess. The lexical media (the word "print" would seem to exclude the Web) have been a good bit more willing to challenge the candidates on substance, and to talk about something other than the horserace. But on television, there's simply no sign that the proper questions to ask might not be "How will this play with the voters in swing states?" but "Is there any truth to that statement?" or "Doesn that contradict his earlier statement?" or -- especially or -- "That statement doesn't really mean anything at all, does it, Wolf?"
At any rate, I'll stop complaining for a moment to offer praise for the best read in the lexical media -- William Saletan of Slate. He's a self-described liberal Republican (scroll down to his earliest entry), a hawk whose been sharply critical of Kerry but more critical of Bush, the candidate he supported in 2000. Moreover, it's not his views I respect but the fact that his "Ballot Box" column and blog-ish dispatches from the conventions have taken the task of argument and interrogation of the candidates seriously.
Of course, after reading this Louis Menand piece about various theories of why people vote the way they vote, you may decide that it doesn't matter much anyway.
Leisure travel to West-of-the-Cascades Oregon is, generally speaking, not recommended to those who demand sunshine as an integral part of their vacation experience. It is a regrettable fact, however, that as my rheumatickal old age has set in, I have proven all too susceptible to the fantasy of postcard skies blessing my excursions -- particularly those to destinations famed for their natural beauty.
But natural beauty is a function, as we all know, of Nature, and Nature is a cruelly lovely goddess, who enjoys disabusing the foolish of their petty delusions. We vacationed in overcrowded August because it is typically the likeliest month for dry warm weather in Oregon. But although this has been a memorably sunny and warm summer in the Northwest, the day we landed in Portland was the last brilliant day we saw; a jaunt to Seattle brought the clouds in force. A few days later, we hopped back south and over the coast range, with the rain lashing down between avenues of glowering spruce trees. Early the next morning, after a break in the storm allowed me a run to the Cannon Beach Bakery, the cheerful youngster at the counter allowed that it was too bad we weren't there in July, when the weather had been "blazing."
Dampness, however, has its own beauties. When you go for a midday walk you don't need sunscreen.
Plus, there are moments like this: one steps out the back door of one's room. The fog-banked headland can be glimpsed past the mouth of Ecola Creek, and there, at the water's edge, are several familiar figures making a positively cinematic trek.
Now, of course, I'm back where the sun hammers down on a G.O.P.-plagued New York, and I'm dreaming of sea-borne cloudbanks, mournful bird-calls and the Zen-like presence of Haystack Rock.
(By the way, thanks to Boxjam for a terrific quiz question on Friday, and a big shout-out to all the spambots that flooded the comments while we were away. It's great to be popular!)
I'M IN CHARGE HERE!
The regular wombat couldn't make it, so you answer to ME today. Pop quiz! You're playing today for the chance to get your lady (or gent) jacked up on cheap champagne and let the good times all roll out. One guess per post, but as many posts as you want. Ready? Here we go:
In 1794, Britain and France were at war for the umpteenth time. In the West Indies, a civilian British captain of a private ship was unlucky enough to be moored in a town known as Point-a-Pitre just as it was taken by the French. He was taken aboard a French ship, questioned, and identified himself as John Anderson, a trader. The French imprisoned him immediately on their ship, suspecting (correctly) he was someone other than who he said. This 53 year-old man assumed (correctly) that he was going to be executed, so he pried up several floorboards in his cabin, constructed a small raft, lowered himself out the window, and hand-paddled to a nearby rowboat. He muffled the oars therein with some of his own clothing, and silently made his way past several French ships, thence to safety on a British naval ship moored off another part of the island.
Who was this British captain?
As usual, no googling, no searching eBay for a copy of the game Broadside.
The staff are finally packed for our Northwest Odyssey, and the car for the airport comes ridiculously early, so this note and attendant tide-you-over question will be brief. Look for a special appearance by multiple Quiz-champeen BoxJam on Friday the 27th in the Guest Quizmaster seat, as he offers a question of infinitely higher quality than the tripe we usually peddle around here.
Until then (or until one of you damnably well-informed types browses over this way and dispatches with the tattered cloak of mystery I had hoped to flourish), you may nibble on the following semi-quiz question:
In the 1950s, American servicemen stationed in Asia brought back to the U.S. a word picked up from colleagues in another nations armed service, used by them to mean "squadron leader." Misleadingly, it rhymes with loanwords from another, unrelated language.
What's the word?
I'll try to check in from the Pacific Time Zone on Friday to see if anyone knows this one. In the meantime, no Googling and stay out of the sun. First correct answer posted to comments wins a Haystack Rock paperweight and a handful of saltwater taffy. As always, one guess per comment, please.
I work in Chelsea, which means that phone booth and bilboard advertisements asking “Who Will Be Mr. Gay.com?” or public service messages delivering all-caps messages about crystal meth and HIV are so common as to seem unremarkable. But there’s an aggressive new strain of profoundly straight ads for Glaceau vitamin water that do make me stop in my tracks.
Using a South-Park-esque combo of geometrically simple humanoid figures against flat, brightly colored backgrounds, they all attempt to peddle high-end vitamin water by appealing to the 14-year old wannabe Sig Ep in us all. A plumber looks slantwise at a pink-robed blonde chiefly delineated by three circles, one of which is her head. “Drink Power-C. Lay more pipe.”
Pursuing the back-of-the-auto-shop brand identity that’s so natural for VITAMIN WATER, the campaign continues with a hi-larious jests involving a blind man in a strip club missing out on the bethonged trollop on the pole. “Drink [whatever]. See more.” There’s also one which in impossibly retro fashion makes fun of a guy who has a passel of kids (see, he has lots of sex, see!) and one which I haven’t seen, but the article linked above mentions, involving a sorority pillow fight and the tagline “Spank more.”
Of course, while Glaceau seems to be going after the Stuff magazine mentality whole hog in those ads, there is a failure of nerve at some point. Go to its website and a little flash feature opens up which allows you to scroll over bottles of the water which pop up jauntily, accompanied by such firecrackers as the following:Q. Did anyone ever tell you that the liter bottle looks like a bowling pin? A. No, but once a woman in LA said it reminded her of her...never mind. Oooh! Naughty! Better left unsaid!
A failure to commit, meanwhile, is not a problem with the equally check-it-out-dude humor of the current ad campaign for Cablevision’s new music channel Fuse. Playing off of the Apple iPod campaign (silhouetted figures against, again, solid color backgrounds), the ads show what Brandweek riotously describes as “non-traditional and irreverent ways in which viewers can enjoy the enhanced experience of watching music television on Fuse” (I presume that was Ctrl-C’d straight from the press release.)
Apple’s unhappiness with the ads notwithstanding, I would just like to note that, along with the Glaceau campaign, they have succeeded in making my walk from subway to office really icky in a way that giant posters touting the transformative benefits of full-body electrolysis never have.
Still reeling from an exhausting night of folding laundry. But quizly fun stops for nothing. Here, without further cud-chewing on your editor's part is today's egg-beater:
In 1959, Ub Iwerks received an Academy Award for the design of an improved optical printer for special effects. Some years later, he received another Academy Award for his special technical work in another film. That movie was based on the fiction of an writer who hesitated for a decade before allowing the work to be adapted for film. It wound up nominated for thirteen total academy awards and won six. One of the principals won Best Actress in her first major film outing, and though she is best remembered for another leading role, she never won again.
What was the film? For extra credit, name the film which beat it out for Best Picture.
First correct answer to comments wins a big can of powdered baby formula of a brand that a certain somebody apparently thinks is yucky. No Googling or summoning up the shade of Gene Siskel. One guess per comment, please, but go ahead and post a whole bunch of comments. Comment away! It's a comment-party, already.
But then, who knows? Errol Morris interviews Kerry Republicans for a set of Move On.org ads. A mixed bag, but some look like they'll be hitting home.
Via Planned Obsolesence.
Jessa Crispin, understandably vexed by the controversy-flogging stories about Nicholson Baker's forthcoming novel, recently placed the burden on the NY Times to come through with a review which would simply tell her if the book -- which, because it involves characters discussing the possibility of killing the current President of the United states, has invited much commentary unrelated to its quality as a story -- is, in her words, "any good?" A pertinent question indeed.
It was interesting to see how Leon Wieseltier rose to the task. Indeed, more than most reviewers at the Times he chose to gesture at an evaluation of the title in question at a relatively early point in the review: the essay's first four words (out of around 2,200) are "This scummy little book..." Like his protege Dale Peck, Wieseltier isn't afraid to use a hatchet when it's called for.
Except of course, that what's apparently called for here is a chainsaw, the better to cut through the poisonwood forest called "liberal demagougery." Baker's book is an excuse to execrate Michael Moore and angry radicals in general. Indeed, Wieseltier's beef with Checkpoint is that it is "much too close to its subject" -- that is, it's so involved with political realities and political emotion that it is impossible to consider it as a novel. But of course, as it turns out, Wieseltier doesn't like any of Baker's "creepy hermeneutical toys" and all are swiftly dismissed in the same terms that invalidate this one.
I suppose he means that The Fermata is too close to the subject of sexual fantasy, or that The Mezzanine is too close to the subject of the workplace, or U and I is too close to the subject of being obsessed with another writer. But how he distinguishes permissible closeness from "No, that's too damn close, there, Nick! Damn it, you ruined another promising subject!" is a mystery to me.
But whether or not I understand what Wieseltier hates in Baker's signature approach in his his novels and essays, it strikes me as odd that, with such a sweeping distate for the author's work, he would be encouraged to write a review of this particularly interesting new book -- and that he would use the opportunity to pen an essay telling all the people who have been pissed off by the Bush administration that expressions of their rage, frustration, and fear for the future are, in fact, a "degradation" to be avoided by all responsible citizens.
Finally, one has to not with a raised eyebrow the barely veiled attack on the author's morality. One might argue that "scummy" was meant only to apply to the book in question. But when "creepy hermeneutical toys" came in, there was no question at all. And the use of such middle-school innuendo precisely places the level at which the entire article seemed to be pitched.
The American Nudist Research Library.
The Library is a clothing optional facility; however, to maintain the integrity of our aging documentation, it is air conditioned to a temperature in the lower 70’s F.
Via jessamyn.
Before we get going on today's Quiz -- Godspeed, Ms. Noonan. Off to battle with you, then! We wave our hats in the air! Swim upstream, brave little fish!
OK, now, where were we? Oh, yeah, this week's noodle-cooker....here we are...
In a September near the close of the 19th Century in Rome, New York, Francis Bellamy, editor of The Youth's Companion, offered up a composition for schoolchildren, which he hoped would become part of the nationwide commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage -- though what he wrote does not mention the Admiral by name at all.
What was the title of his composition?
First correct answer posted to comments wins a 50"x50" sheet of that substance they cover tennnis balls with. No Googling or using a dream machine to achieve a hypnagogic/lucid dreaming state and thus visualize the answer in a creepily psychedelic way. One guess per comment, but you may comment as often as you like.
On the Foolishness of Trusting E-Commerce with Household Essentials
midnight deliv'ry
a moon-drunk driver forgets
the goddamn diapers
