August 3, 2006
Coffeehouse.
I'm opening the coffeehouse again today. Settle in right here for a long, lively chat about whatever, including my two Instapundit posts of the morning: the one about the James Carville/Mary Matalin reality show that you might not want at your high school and the one about the Joe-Lieberman-in-blackface blog post that Joe's now using against the candidate the blogger was trying to help. And speaking of TV, what's even going on on TV these days? I haven't watched TV in over a week. But I've been listening to the radio for -- what? -- 10 hours a day. Strangely, I hang out at XM Public Radio much of the time, where yesterday it was driven into my head that Hezbollah is achieving a profound victory that Israel cannot fathom. How can I stand it? I wonder. I'm hungry and that's the food.
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Speaking of blackface, here's a book recommendation: John Strausbaugh's Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture.
The link takes you to a googlenews page with links to reviews. It's a fascinating and entertaining book, one of my recent favorites.
Nice post at Instapundit on Hamster, er, whatever, and her sorry-if-you-are-easily-offended crap for her Lieberman=Ted Danson thingy. She needed to be called on the nonapology
I like Carville/Matalin as a team, though I hate the concept of their show. Their relationship dynamic would be worth studying itself. Both brilliant people, in competing arena, able to work and live together. I'd wtahc that show.
You missed the below the fold article below Carvile/Matalin over at the post on Art Buchwald and his amazing journey. Him, I love...
I like the coffeehouse metaphor for setting the tone of a comments section. Might not there be other rooms at the virtual chez Althouse? A bar? A 'formal setting'? Using a place as a metaphor is interesting because we know what acceptable behavior is in a place, without it necessarily being a moral judgment.
I like coffeehouse, because it's got house, you know: Alt-coffee-house.
Interesting that in her apology, she "apologizes to Ned" as if they are great buddies.....Activists bloggers seem to get swelled heads and Hamsher is a prime example.
Plus, her work indicates she is over the top angry for some reason. Bloggers like her reflect very poorly on their chosen candidates.
Btw, I like that "blog wranglers" Ann- I think you have coined a new phrase. And it's a memorable token of your westward journey.
The Hamster non-apology was expected and typical. Why is it that blackface and ethnic comments get a pass when used by progressives, but are beyond the pale from the right? (Don't misunderstand, I'm against them, but I don't know why they are accepted when voiced by one side). Is it that same sort of thinking we saw in the Seattle Public schools which had the opinion that most anything that the majority did was racist, but that the historically oppressed peoples could never be racist?
Back to L versus L and Hamster. I think the Lieberman flyer is fair game. Lieberman has a strong civil rights record going back 40+ years. Any quotes Lamont gave the NYT recently seem like fair game for a Lieberman press release.
Blogger Wrangler combined with those bad Lamont/Kos ads conjures up a vision of those great EDS "cat herding" commercials.
Imagine having the Herder job on the Hamster for a day and coming back to the camp fire all scratched and bruised.
I sure thought there would be much more of a row over old Joe and the blackface - I guess not. Lamont now kind of reminds me of the screaming Howard Dean. In a way, he reminds me too of Mike Dukakis in his election bid and how he wanted to look the part of a Commander in Chief by riding in a tank, when in truth he looked like a hunkered down rat trapped in a tank.
I was at my ill family member's apartment yesterday evening helping him sort some stuff and he was watching the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, so I got basically the same treatment, about 25 minutes of "immediate cease fire" and "disproportionate" and "Hezbollah is a legitimate resistance movement" and "mighty Israel is losing". To top it all off, there was a rambling Richard Rodriguez essay at the end of the broadcast excoriating the middle class for seeking wealth and not understanding that the root cause of all lower-class crime is social frustration.
Meanwhile it's about 1000 degrees here in New York.
I'm sorry, Palladian, I'm afraid we in CA exported our heat wave to you. We had quite enough of it! Stay cool.
"Legitimate resistance"? Incredible. Now that additional Israelis have been killed, will this satisfy Leher and those who call for "proportion"?
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/mideast_conflict
Putting aside the PR issue which was decided a long time ago, Hezbollah will not win and Israel will not lose until Israel ceases to exist. So in that regard, I don't think the characterization of Hezbollah "achieving a profound victory" is anything more than a consequence of listening to Public Radio.
This Week in Prime Time TV:
Reality Shows (122 hours): tedious
Dramas (30 hours) - every drama is now "produced" by Jerry Bruckheimer (also goes by the names "Wolf" and "Bochco"): boring
Comedys (4 hours, but with double episodes, 18) - every comedy now produced by Jim Belushi: PLEEEEASE!
Next Week on Prime Time TV:
zzzzzzzzzzz - snore - zzzzzzzzzz
Stick with radio - I hear it might have staying power and has TV executives scared . . . .
Blackface pictures and jokes about Jews are OK if done for the correct reason, and by the right people. See, it's not racist or anti-Semitic, it's ironic. In the same way, blacks can't be racists, and women can't be sexist.
Just clarifying.
The Althouse Coffeehouse.
..or is it the Parlor.
How about the back Porch ???
I don't see the chess, or the backgamon set.
At my place we've got caricature drawers, fortune tellers, a harmonica, or two.
The joint is jumpin'.
You have to set the mood.
Get down to brass tacks: Let's talk about Mel Gibson !!!
Peace, Maxine
I think Alt-coffee-House would be a great name for your blog. Particularly in the sense of the original London coffeehouses, where various patrons went to discuss the issues of the day. Who needs alcohol when good topics, good discussion and caffeine are available.
The "Hizbollah is winning" meme was set waaaaay before the actual fighting started. No matter what happens, it helps the terrorists, and any US or Israeli gains are accidental and don't really count because the situation isn't perfect. Shee.
Finally, part of the Left is that evidently all of it is politically tone deaf.
Ann -- for best post of the day at the coffeehouse, you might award a Golden Latte award! (with biscotti clusters!)
Regarding what's on television...anyone watching Stephen King's "Nightmares and Dreamscapes?" Interesting premises for each show, but I do not know why they're an hour long. I've watched 3-4 episodes, and have figured out the plot (generally fairly simple) at the 13-15 minute mark. You must then endure 45 more minutes of activity leading toward the conclusion you already know.
It really just makes me miss the Twilight Zone. Thought-provoking and succinct, all in 30 minutes.
I think the image of the Althouse comments section as a London coffee-house is an apt one. I wonder which commenter is throwing the coffee? Hmm...
If you're curious, the image is from a book called "Vulgus Britannicus: or The British Hudibras. In fifteen cantos. The five parts compleat in one volume" by Edward Ward, 1710.
ooMaxine wrote (somewhere else):
Bette's got to have a better line than that !
Icepik:
1. How many hours does your hairdo take?
2. How long do you sit under the dryer for?
3. Who does your comb-out?
Peace, Maxine
Sorry I didn't get to this yesterday, Maxine.
Anyway, I love the quote from Bette because it runs completely counter to what everyone thinks of when they think Bette Davis. The comment is just so light and strange and happy. That, and the bad Southern accent.
As for your questions:
1) Altogether, about 15 minutes, including shampooing, drying, and Brylcreem. (Sometimes beeswax if I know I need the certainty, in which case ad another 30 minutes.)
2) I don't sit under a dryer. I towel dry and air dry. I don't use machine dryers because they leave me with split ends.
3) I do all my own combing. That way I can be certain everything is juuuusssst right.
What style do I wear? I like to harken back to days gone by for my 'do. I use the hair style of one of the 1930s most famous singers, and a notorious ladies' man. Yes, this man is my hero.
Ron wrote: Ann -- for best post of the day at the coffeehouse, you might award a Golden Latte award! (with biscotti clusters!)
Nice. But the biscotti clusters should go to those who win the award multiple time.
Now that Mel Gibson has entered the 12 Step program for Cultural Forgiveness, what's left to discuss?
I mean really, hasn't there been a continuous "crisis" in the Middleast throughout the memory of the baby boomers? Maybe they need a new word for crisis, like "ultra-double-plus-bad-crisis. Or maybe, "It's sure gotten very MelGibsonny in Gaza today.
"Hi, I'm Mel, and I'm a drunk who spews anti-Semitic venom."
"Hi, Mel!"
I want Ann to post something on another Instapundit=sub post: Brannon Denning's post and links on the correlation between good teaching and productive scholarship. I linked and added some of my own comments at ArchaeoBlog because it has to do (I think) with blogging as well.
Do we know how well Ann does at teaching? I bet she's fab.
Did anyone watch "K Street," the HBO show that Carville and Matalin were in. It only ran for one season. Wierd, wasn't it. Yeah, I think so.
Oh fercrissakes. What's wrong with you people? Work with me here.
We're going to need some beat poetry, if we're gonna make this thing work:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by BDS, starving
hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the jackson hole streets at dawn looking for an angry
bison,
addleheaded hipsters burning thermite for the ancient heavenly connection to the
starry dynamo in the machinery of 9/11,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking hookahs in the
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of
cities contemplating figure skating,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels
staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through university halls with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkan-
sas and Chappaqua-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes
about the windows on the world,
who cowered in wi fi-less Holiday Inns in underwear, burning thirty eight dollars in
wastebaskets for breakfast and listening to the children run up and down the hall,
who got busted in their german cars returning through Boise with the stuff they found over the armoire to Madison,
who sat by fires in paint hotels or drank turpentine over at Palladian's house, or purgatoried their torsos night after night in 300 degree hot springs in long pants...
um, or something.
Sippican,
That's actually quite good. Makes me want to Howl. Good luck finding a lit mag to publish it!
". . . who got busted in their German cars - NAMED SILVIO - returning through Boise ...
Again, WHAT IS THE THING WITH WOMEN NAMING THEIR CARS?
I'm naming mine "Mel"
I've applied some names to my car every now and then.
Modesty prevents me from repeating them here.
AJ...
Over at JOM, Tom Maguire has the goods on Lamont/Hamsher.
Short version - she's not an example of a blogger-supporter getting a swelled head. Despite Lamont's denial, she (and other nutroots blogs) are a key part of his campaign.
How about Sylvia Plath commenting on Mel Gibson's plight?
Daddy-o
You do not do, you do not do
A do do do, A dah dah dah
That's all I want to say to you, Man.
Daddy-o, I wanted to kill you.
But don't go ape, man--
you Hep Cat, like, Carazy, man,
One drink, then another, and another still
then arrested by a Jew.
What are you looking at, sugar-tits?
I own this town!
Are you a Jew?
The Next Morning:
Ach, ach, ach
The lights are bright, like the snows of the Tyrol
My head is pounded by
The Luftwaffe and Panzer;
That's a kick in the head.
Sure, every woman adores a Fascist,
but a souped-up Benz and free drinks works, too.
C'mon, paper-shaker, let's you and your classy chassis
hit my pad for some back seat bingo.
But now my Jew put-down means I gotta drop dead twice
Well, there's a stake in my fat black heart
And the Village Voice never liked me.
They are dancing and stamping on me.
They always knew it about me.
Mel, daddy-o, you bastard, I'm through.
'SAM, YOU MADE THE PANTS TOO LONG'
Trousers dragging, slowly dragging through the street
Yes! I'm walking, but I'm walking without feet!
I'm not finding fault at all
You're too big and I'm too small
But Sam, you promised me both ends would meet
___________________________________
You made the coat and vest fit the best
You made the lining nice and strong
But Sam, you made the pants too long
___________________________________
You made the peak lapel look so swell
So who am I to say you're wrong?
But Sam, you made the pants too long
___________________________________
They got a belt and they got suspenders
So what can they lose?
But what good are belts and suspenders
When the pants are hanging over the shoes
___________________________________
You feel a winter breeze up and down the knees
The belt is where the tie belongs
'Cause Sam, Sam, Sam you made the pants too long!
__________________________________
(i don't know who wrote this, but it was sung, and made famous by Barbara Streisand)
Re the blackface brouhaha -- once visual political humor was done not by Photoshop, but the human hand, in a tradition going back to Daumier. See links to Library of Congress and a personal reminiscence: Where is Herblock when we need him?.
Others have stepped in to fill the usual place reserved for the 'poets' within a coffee house scene.
I feel in this 'coffeehouse' the role I could best fill would be the guy in the corner ranting, with just a hint of paranoia, about some international incident, that somehow he finds himself enmeshed.
(you can find these fellows in coffeehouses around here, but maybe just cause we're special on the westside of LA)
I may have been one of the root causes of an international incident within the art world.
I didn't realize my blog had the reach that it did.
I'm sorry.
Saw Scoop, by the way. But after Prof. Althouse's post regarding the film, I was too busy thinking about vaginas to really pay attention to the movie. Watching Ms. Johansson imitate Mr. Allen's mannerisms is quite disturbing.
As to Hamsher-Lamont-Blackface-Gate, meh.
Crazy nutroots folks do crazy nutroots things and the media gives them a pass cause they're lefties.
Surprised? Anyone? Really?
Besides, nobody does blackface like, the blackface jesus (not an endorsement, just pointing out that some folks think they can use anything so long as it's 'ironic')
Also, saw the most annoying trailer ever for this film, before Scoop.
They're selling this 'documentary' as "from the studio that brought you Fahrenheit 9/11", of course it's also 'the studio that brought you The First 9 1/2 Weeks, or American Psycho II: All American Girl.
Final aside, Lisa Kudrow was on Leno last night, and when she saw herself on the monitor she disparaged her outfit as being 'too Valerie Cherish'. Plus as a big bonus (at least to me) there was some France/Socialized Medicine bashing as she describes not being able to get medical treatment for a perforated eardrum on a weekend.
(that's all, I've abused your scrolling finger enough)
I miss your Project Runway observations. I also miss Michael Kors' Project Runway appearances. Hey, wait a minute. You two aren't on the road together are you?
C'mon, we all know there's only one thing Mel Gibson can do to pay penance....
Convert to Judiasm! -And nothing less will suffice.
I'd like to see him become really Orthodox, maybe even turn Hassidic. He'd look sexy in one of those long coats and the curly-que sideburns, whatever they are called.
Peace, Maxine
Maxine,
Mel could do a movie called "Masada" or remake "Exodus". Mel as Elazar ben Ya'ir or Ari Ben Canaan.
William Wallace speaking Hebrew or Yiddish.
Great poetry!
I think Pogo may have brought at least a chuckle to Sylvia, wherever she is.
chriso, When did the Republicants do blackface last?
(BTW I'm an Independent.)
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