October 11, 2020

"The ochre tones of insect politics."

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Posted by Ann Althouse at 12:05 PM
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4 comments:

rcocean said...

Your comment about making "small talk" at a party and being treated with contempt by those who wanted to talk of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky reminded me of Woody Allen's "Husbands and wives".

In it, the "Intellectual" friend of Allen's played by Sidney Pollack leaves his wife for an Aerobics' instructor and Pollak goes to a party with her and she embarrasses him by talking to the Hoity-toity guests about Yoga or something. After the Party, he berates and yell at her in the car, for "Embarrassing me in front of my friends".

I've never figured out whether Allen wants us to sympathize with this asshole or is showing up Pollack as a complete creep. Of course, Allen in the movie, is tempted to have an affair with one of his VERY young students and eventually goes back to Mia farrow, just like Pollack goes back to his intellectual wife.

10/11/20, 6:52 PM
Matthew Heintz said...

Althouse went to Art School, which explains "rats"!

10/11/20, 6:56 PM
Ann Althouse said...

"Your comment about making "small talk" at a party and being treated with contempt by those who wanted to talk of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky reminded me of Woody Allen's "Husbands and wives""

I should rewatch that.

I might have compressed talking about several different things, but the "contempt" story was about interrupting 2 people talking (not at a party) to tell them what I had just heard on the radio: Elvis had died. One of them said "Who cares?" with contempt and the other obviously had the same opinion.

10/12/20, 5:55 AM
Ann Althouse said...

"I've never figured out whether Allen wants us to sympathize with this asshole or is showing up Pollack as a complete creep."

I think Allen sympathized with the woman there. He's often talked about how he didn't have the intellectual background. He was always interested in sports and joke-writing.

Remember in Annie Hall, there's a scene where his wife berates him for sneaking away from a party full of intellectuals talking about high art to watch a basketball game on TV.

10/12/20, 10:38 AM

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