I'll enter the contest: Art is in the moment.
***
Here is yesterday's post on the Bono column.
January 12, 2009
"Read Bono's column and, in 20 words or less, explain its theme."
Says Dan Drezner, who thinks the column is insufferable nonsense, and enters his own contest with: "Did you know that I knew Frank Sinatra?"
I'll enter the contest: Art is in the moment.
Here is yesterday's post on the Bono column.
I'll enter the contest: Art is in the moment.
Here is yesterday's post on the Bono column.
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43 comments:
Frank was important. I am trying to be as important as Frank. I write in jazz-cadenced sentences. It's crap.
"IT'S ALL ABOUT ME. EVEN FRANK."
Where is my hat? Bring me my hat!
-XC
(Inside joke about faux enviro stars.)
Theme: "Drunkenness"
What else do you expect from an Irish singer at New Year's?
Bono’s theme explained:
“I am awed by the fact that Frank Sinatra once cored a head of iceberg lettuce with his penis.”
20 words right.I hear the theme of auld lang syne sung to the old stable days of Pax Americana.
@Bissage -- ah, yes, the selfishness theme!
Love Sinatra's music
Love Bono's music.
Bono writes songs. He can't write long form worth shit.
Pro Bono ad nauseum est.
"I wish I'd slept with Ava Gardner."
Bono's piece is a nice blog entry. It fits in with blogs that rank around #237,000.
If anyone - anyone - else had written that and submitted it to the Times (or probably any other newspaper), they'd have tossed it, after the third paragraph.
Yes, Sinatra was one-of-a-kind. Most of us know that already.
Almost without exception an artist gifted in one arena falls short in any other. Or it is perhaps better to say that anyone who expects Bono to write an article any where close to as well as he writes and performs music, is not very realistic.
Anyway:
Frosted Lucky Charms, they're magically delicious
I though "come on, it can't be that bad." and it's not. But what it is, I haven't a clue. Was he writing a song and it became an essay... or was this some diary entry gone wrong? Perhaps a movie plot outline that didn't work?
Somebody probably told him to make it sound important. To him it probably does.
An admission here: I couldn't stand to read it all. I just couldn't.
"I wear rose-tinted glasses to make you look better, not to hide the wrinkles around my eyes."
No one reads this paper anyway, so I can write whatever I want. P.S. I fell off the wagon.
He obviously still hasn't found what he's looking for: the point.
Oh, OK, I take back what I wrote on the comment community thread: I'll nominate Palladian's just previous comments. Oh, hell. I'll nominate this thread.
LOL.
(And I like Sinatra's work and Bono's, though the former more than the latter, not that I'd typically compare them or choose between them, and why should I, anyway?
Bono's column was a hard-go, I confess. What mydismalswamp said, in addition to Palladian's quip.)
This why the blogosphere can be so enlightening: I started reading Bono's piece in the Times and immediately balked at the looming prose thicket and fled back to the NY Post sports coverage. I doubt I would ever have thought about the piece again had it not been cited on Althouse. Now I know what I missed, or didn't miss.
I hear next week Bono will be riffing on Laurence Olivier. I want a full report from someone out there, please.
Dog and UFO.
Compare to a thousand words.
-- "Art is in the movement"
Is that like "Elvis is in the building"?
"...a fresh canvas and never overworking the paint."
According to the EFS&MB in Zürich, with this article Bono now regains the title, weighing in at 101.5 courics.
Couldn't make it all the way through even for the pleasure of snarking on Bono.
Oh, please.
Sinatra could sing.
Period.
He was mostly an egotistical asshole.
Do any of the people who are regularly here ever actually READ books?
I swear, you sound like small children.
Bono hasn't done anything special since the early 90s anyways.
Do any of the people who are regularly here ever actually READ books?
This follows from the sentences preceding it how, exactly?
The folks at major newspapers moan about bloggers but then they have friggin' BONO writing a column. That's rich.
Oh, Bono. You're not the smartest man that I've ever met. And every word you ever said I won't forget. And so I guess that's why until the day I die, when you're bad and make me sad...you're still my guy. 'Cuz it's the little things oohh, that mean a lot. Not what you say, not what you got.
I knew a woman named Bono. She was nice.
Here's my summary:
"What Frank Sinatra taught me about art, innocence and experience."
In just 10 words.
Of course, I'm not a slave to Times Select (no way in Hell am I going to send money to those Nazis, I'd rather stab myself in the leg) so I can't read Bono's column, only the teaser sentence. So I kind of cheated.
Bissage gets my vote just for the mental imagery it evokes.
I can envision the rat pack all drunk as hell trying to core iceberg lettuce with their dongs but Frank is the only one who can pull it off.
Like I said, it comes down to ten simple words:
I got chunks of guys like you in my stool!
I don't have Times Select as I'm not giving them a dime for anything, but the Bono piece was available to me.
That's strange, no?
Even stranger, I sort of liked it. Yeah, it has a bit of "I knew Sinatra" in it, but it also had quite a bit of respect for Sinatra's talent, which I appreciate.
I don't know what all this whoop-dee-doo is about Sonny Bono.
Wut?
Wut? Another there's another Bono?
In Churchill's immortal phrase:
This pudding has no theme.
Althouse said . . . [A]h, yes, the selfishness theme!
Exactly. But this is not to say that Mr. Sinatra was the master of all masters in this regard.
The Chairman of the Board could have learned a thing or two from the Godfather of Soul.
Behold . . . the confessions of a Greedy Man!
LINK.
(Notice: In the event this video had remained available on YouTube, you would now be watching “I’m a Greedy Man” and be experiencing a heightened state of extreme grooving funk. Batteries not included. All rights reserved. This offer void where restricted or prohibited by law. Your results may vary. Consult your physician to see if extreme grooving funk is right for you. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.)
Lawgiver . . . EXACTLY!!!
In my version they're all drunk in a Vegas hotel room and Frank Sinatra is standing on a coffee table giving a demonstration how it's done.
Extra bonus hilarity for picturing Mr. Sinatra in a wife-beater and boxers, still wearing his hat, with black socks and garters.
Ha!
P.S. He should also be smoking absent-mindedly as he goes to town on the poor thing!
Bono: "I have an ear ring, and Frank doesn't."
Eight words.
Wasted words.
“Miles Davis never wasted a note, kid — or a word on a fool.”
NYT attempting to boost readership?
He might try his hand at writing financial advice.
U2 avoids taxes, raising ire in Ireland
U2: Prattling Bums
"I'm Irish and wish I were James Joyce or Sinatra or something, where's my wine glass"
"Hey Edge, beat this."
Four words.
It's not such a bad effort, even if garbled and trite. Music appreciation is very hard to write.
And Pavaroti's voice didn't improve with age.
Can the word "wank" repeated 1000 times count as just one word? If so that's my entry.
The ecstatic reverie of living have-lived in the moment will outlast the hang-ups and hangovers of our times.
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