August 18, 2019

Are we taking a break from Trump-hating?

Here are the "Editor's Picks" on the front page of the NYT website this morning. Click to enlarge (not that you need to enlarge Pamela Anderson's breasts, but you can make the small print clearly readable by clicking):



1. "How the ‘Baywatch’ Swimsuit Became a Summer Classic/Athletic. Flattering. Red. Who needs a string bikini?" Yes, ladies, it is okay and maybe even cool to wear a one-piece bathing suit. But don't expect support from Pamela Anderson: "Ms. Anderson said modesty was not an issue for her but confirmed that the suits were pretty fitted. 'Some people bring me bathing suits to sign autographs on and they are these big bathing suits and I say, "Listen, my bathing suit was tiny. It just stretched and pulled onto your body,"' she said." If you want support, get a structured brassiere.

2. "They Met on the Court. They Both Won in Love. Eric Wankerl and Paige Marquardt first connected in 2013 during a Special Olympics event in Minnesota." This article could be #1 on the all-time list of feel-good stories in the New York Times. If you're hoarding your free reads for the NYT and you have any heart at all or you just want to try to have one, click through to this wedding story. Tears are running down my face as I give you this advice. Excerpt from the article: "We were told he’s never going to be the doctor or lawyer or engineer that you might have hoped for, so prepare yourself.... His dad and I had to go through counseling, this sort of grieving stuff where they tell you, 'This is the child you were given.'... I thought, the more people who are seeing him in town, the more people who are going to know him and look out for him. And that turned out to be true." Beautiful wedding photos.

3. "The Week in Books/Téa Obreht’s new novel, Barack Obama’s summer reading list and more." Oh, my lord! It's time for Barack Obama's summer reading list again! Topping the list is the collected works of Toni Morrison, so that's some serious homework for you. Or is that what he's reading? The book on the list I think he's most likely to actually be reading is the one that I've read, "Men Without Women" — the Haruki Murakami one. There's also an Ernest Hemingway collection with the same title, and that's actually the audiobook I've been walking to this week. Excellent performance by Stacy Keach. Recommended!

67 comments:

Bob Boyd said...

On Barack Obama's secret summer reading list, The Art of the Deal.

David Begley said...

Obama didn’t read those books. He’s paid to release that list. Liar.

I want the Obamas to go away. Better yet, what did Barack know about his FBI and CIA spying on the Trump campaign?

tim in vermont said...

I just started "Men Without Women” prepared to dislike the stories, but I have to admit I was disarmed by the honesty of the initial story’s reflections on women drivers. I was expecting it to be more PC drivel for some reason. Of course I have read the Hemingway “Men Without Women” stories too, so I thought it was a tall order to take a title like that. Not quite like a hockey player demanding the number 99, but you know what I mean. Anyway, I kind of like it so far, but it’s kind of more like watching TV than reading.Since it’s in translation, you can’t see whatever depth was in the story buried in the language apparent to a Japanese reader. Maybe that’s a good thing. I should probably shut up until I have read more than half the first story though.

Ann Althouse said...

Oh, damn, I left out a key word! Fixed now: "But don't expect support from Pamela Anderson..."

Apologies to the early readers of this post. I got distracted writing the next post, about baseball (the other orb) and didn't do an immediate proofread of this one.

I'm Full of Soup said...

There is no evidence that proves Obama ever read any book unless watching ESPN counts as reading.

Bob Boyd said...

How come they're just giving us Obama's summer reading list now? It's almost Labor Day.
Was he dithering again?

Bob Boyd said...

You know what would stop people having sex in the loo? Instead of spraying water, have a recording of any Barack Obama speech start playing.

Ann Althouse said...

Hemingway is not mentioned in Murakami's "Men Without Women," but he is mentioned in Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore":

----------------------------

We eat a huge salad, and split an order of paella.

“I’d love to go to Spain someday,” Oshima says.

“Why Spain?”

“To fight in the Spanish Civil War.”

“But that ended a long time ago.”

“I know that. Lorca died, and Hemingway survived,” Oshima says. “But I still have the right to go to Spain and be a part of the Spanish Civil War.”

“Metaphorically.”

“Exactly,” he says, giving me a wry look. “A hemophiliac of undetermined sex who’s hardly ever set foot outside Shikoku isn’t about to actually go off to fight in Spain, I would think.”

We attack the mound of paella, washing it down with Perrier.

----------------------------

Bay Area Guy said...

The New York Times should do a monthlong, in-depth, investigative series on the intricacies of Pamela Anderson's 30-year old bikini outfits.

Heck, it'd be more newsworthy than the Leftwing twaddle they publish now.

"All the boobs that's fit to print"

sinz52 said...

The "Baywatch" swimsuit may have become so popular simply because "Baywatch" itself was so popular.

At its peak, "Baywatch" was the most popular TV series ever up to that time, with an estimated viewing audience of 1.1 billion people in over 140 countries.

rhhardin said...

Push-up isn't an attractive look if you already have cleavage. The point is to create cleavage when it's missing.

gilbar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rcocean said...

Bad Hemingway:

Lester did not know Death. He was a super flyweight. Death is a heavyweight. No man wins the fight, but some men go the distance. For Lester it was the distance across the room and up to the bar where Death waited for him, where he could have pounded the bar with his fist and ordered the first honest drink in his life, not those pina coladas he drank until he flopped around on the floor like a large speckled trout in a shallow pebbled stream, but a short straight shot of honest whisky, and a rye for Death. Death drinks rye.'

Michael K said...

You could also spend the rest of the summer reading up on the NY Times' effort to destroy American history with its "1619 Project" that teaches America was built on slavery. The whole NY Times Magazine launches the effort,

Rick.T. said...

For me, life’s too short and there’s too much to learn to read fiction except as an occasional diversion.

Bay Area Guy said...

If they did a remake of Baywatch today, it'd be a bearded, transgendered Xis-normative female from Guatemala, who roams the LA beaches trying to smash white supremacist surfer dudes.

rcocean said...

Keach is good on audiobooks, but I preferred Heston reading Hemingway. Of course, he only did a few books like "Old Man and the Sea".

rcocean said...

I'm currently reading a book on Hemingway "Earnesto" about his life in Cuba. Of course, a lot of it just the same ol' same ol' about Gellhorn and sportsfishing and U-boat hunting, but the stuff on his relationship with the Cuban Communist Party and Castro was interesting.

Ice Nine said...

One piece swimsuits have always been sexier than bikinis. At least for those of us who understand that sexiness in women is not measured by the amount of bare skin, a notion best suited for adolescent boys.

Also, don't enlarge Pam Anderson's "breasts." They are silly-looking beach balls sewn into her chest and they are singularly uninteresting to anyone who appreciates *breasts*.

William said...

The collected works of Toni Morrison. Another useful suggestion for the good life from Barack Obama. More veggies and Toni Morrison....I'm reading "Goodbye, Darkness" by William Manchester. He writes about his combat experience as a Marine in the Pacific during WWII. He says that bookish people such as himself thought combat would be like Hemingway described it and that the less bookish among his fellow troops thought it would be like an Errol Flynn movie. They were both wrong.

rcocean said...

The Spanish civil war was the first war where men would go into combat expecting it to be like a movie, and then come out saying it was "nothing like the movies". Bessie's "Men in Battle" is a good war book i just finished. Its another one that has me admiring their courage while being glad I never fought.

Unknown said...

Yet the NYT just published today its door-stopper of its Sunday Magazine, showing that America's founding began in 1619 with slavery, and then it went downhill from there... all part of its self-admitted strategy to go after Trump once the Russian collusion story evaporated (per Slate magazine)

rcocean said...

The Collected works of Toni Morrison is on my to-read list. Its right below "the collected works of Harriet Beecher Stowe" and Heinrich Heine's Poetry. I should get to it about 2050.

Rory said...

Competing with the "Linda" bathing suit, as seen in Crocodile Dundee.

tim in vermont said...

My favorite story from Hemingway in Cuba is when Castro won Hemingway’s fishing tournament the one time he entered, “with no cheating.” Castro loved Hemingway and said he learned about commanding a guerrilla army from “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and made his commanders read it. They all read it together in the forests, supposedly. It makes Castro sound like the revolutionary leader in “True Memoirs of an International Assassin.” If you like that movie, BTW, you and I have the same taste in movies.

David Begley said...

The Obamas are social media influencers who get paid to endorse products.

David Begley said...

Yeah. Who the hell is going to read ALL of Toni Morrison’s books? Some are better than others. What kind of recommendation is that?

What about the collected works of Tom Wolfe?

What a phony lying tribalist prick.

buwaya said...

Ditto Alvah Bessie "Men in Battle", though it is full of communist propaganda.
He would not have gotten on with Orwell.

Skeptical Voter said...

Actually my family's America started when one of my ancestors arrived in Virginia in 1610---beating those pesky Pilgrims by a good 10 years. So fact checking the NYT, I give them four Pinocchios for using the 1619 date.

As for Obama's "summer reading list", it matters to Dean Baquet. For me, not so much.

Sebastian said...

"Obama didn’t read those books."

By contrast with W, who read a lot. At least before he became a pretty good amateur painter.

You would think the media would describe the reading habits of our leaders accurately, but no. It's so sad!

Ken B said...

Books. I recommend the series The Accursed Kings by Druon. Intelligent historical fiction from France.

Ken B said...

David Begley
Honestly though, wouldn’t you take Obama over the current democrat contenders?

rcocean said...

"He would not have gotten on with Orwell."

Bessie would've shot Orwell as a "Counter-revolutionary".

Fernandinande said...

OK, I'll admit it: I read one of the books on a different fake Obama reading list presented a while back, probably "Plainsong" (read 'em all, so guessing), well worth reading. Haruf wrote mostly about Deplorables.

The Collected works of Toni Morrison is on my to-read list.

I really enjoyed her SciFi story about shoes that stared with great uncomprehending eyes! Well, at least that excerpt was pretty cool, I have gotten around to reading the rest of it. Yet.

madAsHell said...

'Some people bring me bathing suits to sign autographs on and they are these big bathing suits and I say, "Listen, my bathing suit was tiny. It just stretched and pulled onto your body,"' she said." If you want support, get a structured brassiere.

Wut??

Bay Area Guy said...

Maybe we could compromise and get Obama to read some books about Toni Morrison sporting a 1-piece Red bathing suit.

Yancey Ward said...

If you want to read a good love story, check out the story in this past week's People magazine about the couple who met on the way to Woodstock 50 years ago and fell in love there and have been married happily for 44 years now (they finally married in 1975). They had, of course, told their love story to family for years, but had taken no photos of their own from the event and had searched for years to find themselves captured in photos from other people at Woodstock. They finally found a single one of the two of them together in the rain when they were watching a recent documentary about Woodstock- it is a great photograph, too.

Yancey Ward said...

And Obama ain't reading any of the books on that list is the most likely answer. These sorts of lists, 99% of them, are pure fucking bullshit put out by people fake virtue signalling.

Yancey Ward said...

Competing with the "Linda" bathing suit, as seen in Crocodile Dundee:"

Linda: "That croc would have eaten me alive."
Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee: "Oh well, I wouldn't hold that against him.... thought crossed my mind once or twice."

MayBee said...

Do you think Obama's book list makers read your blog?

Robert Cook said...

"'Obama didn’t read those books.'

"By contrast with W, who read a lot."


How do you know W actually read a lot?

LYNNDH said...

He reads?

David Begley said...

I did, however, love Barack’s favorite music lists. Lots of talk about hoes, drugs, cops and the N word.

Tomcc said...

Lovely story about the young couple's courting and wedding. They sound like a very responsible pair.

Robert Cook said...

"Honestly though, wouldn’t you take Obama over the current democrat contenders?"

No.

MacMacConnell said...

Nothing is culturally important till Hollywood or New York discovers it, not even the standard "Tank" bathing suit. Jazz, the blues, folk or country music had no cultural importance till it found it's way to New York or Yankies found away to make money off it.

Churchy LaFemme: said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Churchy LaFemme: said...

Here's my July reading list. Not high-toned or virtue signaling, but at least actually read..

Robert Cook said...

"He reads?"

Trump? No.

Obama? Sure, I believe it. That doesn't mean shit, though. Obama is glib, superficial, and self-serving.

tim in vermont said...

"Obama? Sure, I believe it.”

He believes Obama reads books, but not W. I think Obama may have read a few a long time ago, but I never saw any indication that he read anything aside from lefty tactical manuals.

buwaya said...

Off all topics.

On the subject of Mexico. The perhaps underappreciated side of Mexico.

It's not generally known that the waltz was incredibly popular in Mexico, in the 19th-early 20th century. There are probably more Mexican waltzes (vals, in Spanish) than any other sort. Dancing was a popular obsession with all classes - there are several telling anecdotes in, for instance, John Reed's "Insurgent Mexico".

One very popular Mexican waltz that did make it into international circulation-

"Sobre las Olas" (Over the Waves), Juventino Rosas.
You will find it very familiar, and perhaps wonder whether it isn't Strauss.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QzCCQZFDkJk

Bay Area Guy said...

Gotta love the Cookster! He is confused about many things, but has a good heart.

Outta curiosity, who are you leaning towards in the 2020 election? Yeah, I know you're in NY, and your vote doesn't count, blah, blah, blah, but pretend that your one single vote matters. Who gets it? Humor me.

effinayright said...

Michael K said...
You could also spend the rest of the summer reading up on the NY Times' effort to destroy American history with its "1619 Project" that teaches America was built on slavery. The whole NY Times Magazine launches the effort,

***********

I often wonder how people can make that claim. The South was an agrarian society, and stayed that way for more than 75 years AFTER the slaves were freed. It was the slave-free North that industrialized and made America a rich and powerful nation.

Michael K said...

I often wonder how people can make that claim.

It is the march of Antonio Gramsci and his theory through our education institutions.

Orthodox Marxism had predicted that socialist revolution was inevitable in capitalist societies. By the early 20th century, no such revolution had occurred in the most advanced nations. Capitalism, it seemed, was more entrenched than ever. Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also through ideology. The bourgeoisie developed a hegemonic culture, which propagated its own values and norms so that they became the "common sense" values of all. People in the working-class (and other classes) identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.

Our Marxist education organizers are determined to remove "Common Sense" from school children.

effinayright said...

The bourgeoisie developed a hegemonic culture, which propagated its own values and norms so that they became the "common sense" values of all. People in the working-class (and other classes) identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.
********************

It's just a fascistic hop, skip and jump from "identifying with" the good of the bourgeosie, and being *made* to care what the progerati want you to believe.

narciso said...

Hemingway cooperated with the soviets in china and spain, he did so with naval intelligence in cuba, dan simmons wrote a novel about that period.

wildswan said...

Hemingway wrote a early novel, Torrents of Spring, which was a parody of Sherwood Anderson. Intermittently I read it, I can't say why. Excerpt:

"He opened the door of his house and went in. Something kept going through his head. He tried to get it out, but it was no good. What was it that poet chap his friend Harry Parker had met once in Detroit had written? Harry used to recite it: “Through pleasures and palaces though I may roam. When you something something something there’s no place like home.” He could not remember the words. Not all of them. He had written a simple tune to it and taught Lucy to sing it. That was when they first were married. Scripps might have been a composer, one of these chaps that write the stuff the Chicago Symphony Orchestra plays, if he had had a chance to go on. He would get Lucy to sing that song tonight. He would never drink again. Drinking robbed him of his ear for music. Times when he was drunk the sound of the whistles of the trains at night pulling up the Boyne Falls grade seemed more lovely than anything this chap Stravinsky had ever written. Drinking had done that. It was wrong. He would get away to Paris. Like this chap Albert Spalding that played the violin.

Scripps opened the door. He went in. “Lucy,” he called, “it is I, Scripps.” He would never drink again. No more nights out on the railroad. Perhaps Lucy needed a new fur coat. Perhaps, after all, she had wanted a palace instead of this place. You never knew how you were treating a woman. Perhaps, after all, this place was not keeping out the wind. Fantastic. He lit a match. “Lucy!” he called, and there was a note of dumb terror in his mouth. His friend Walt Simmons had heard just such a cry from a stallion that had once been run over by a passing autobus in the Place Vendôme in Paris. In Paris there were no geldings. All the horses were stallions. They did not breed mares. Not since the war. The war changed all that."

So I guess it is on my summer reading list. Hemingway.

BJM said...

Alas, when The NYT pumps their Boyfriend's reading list one knows that the dog days of summer are truly upon us.

narciso said...

Their orevious target was bannon, who they hate with a passion for his support of anti gramsci activism in europe, today the target is atephen n miller

tim in vermont said...

"Outta curiosity, who are you leaning towards in the 2020 election?”

He already said that he might actually vote for Bess Warren.

Ralph L said...

A hemophiliac of undetermined sex

Some of the forms at UNC Hospital have the choice: male, female, or unknown.

Hemophiliacs are all male, of course, so that phrase makes no sense.

Paco Wové said...

I've read "Torrents of Spring"; it's around the house somewhere. I remember it as mildly amusing, though I've never read the source material it was meant to be a parody of. "Barney's Beanery" stuck with me, though. The best by test!

Fernandinande said...

So fact checking the NYT, I give them four Pinocchios for using the 1619 date.

The NYT knows your ancestors were already on the continent before 1619, but, according to the NYT, they literally don't count because they weren't black:

"In August of 1619, a ship ...carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists."

"The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery."

The italics part is completely false, but, according to the NYT that doesn't matter because Amerindians enslaved by other Amerindians don't count because they weren't black.

"It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, " because black, not white or Amerindian.

Unknown said...

Why would I care what a private citizen of middling to below average intellect recommends me to read?

Big Mike said...

It's time for Barack Obama's summer reading list again!

And which comic books does he recommend this year?

traditionalguy said...

You made me cry, Althouse...and you a Law Professor.

Skippy Tisdale said...

It's really easy to read a NYT article without a subscription. Click the article to open and as soon as you see anything, click stop downloading. This works with lots of other sites as well.