"It seems we don’t finish grieving, but merely finish for now; we process it in layers. One day (not today) I’m going to write a short story about a vending machine that serves up Just the Right Amount of Grief. You know, the perfect amount that you can handle in a moment to move yourself along, but not so much that you’ll be caught in an undertow."
That's item #13 on "MONICA LEWINSKY: 25 'RANDOMS' ON THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BILL CLINTON CALAMITY/My name became public 25 years ago this week. What have I observed and learned in the quarter century since? Oh, plenty" (Vanity Fair).
Okay, let me try to write 25 "Randoms" on the text printed above:
1. I'm into randomness, so I can do a list of items, I mean randoms.2. I hadn't noticed "random" as a noun, though I've often seen the noun "rando" — only in reference to a person. But the OED shows "random" as a noun meaning "rando." It originated in "U.S. Computing" — and is defined as "A person who happens to be in a particular place at a particular time, a person who is there by chance; spec.(depreciative) a person who is not a member of a particular group; an outsider." That goes back to 1971.
3. What about "random" as a noun meaning random things, such as opinions or ideas? I'm seeing the meaning "A haphazard or aimless course. Also: that which is random; random state or condition, randomness." A quote from 1813: "As if the ant and bee..had..proceeded in chaotic randoms upon points actually unascertained in nature." And in 1969, Paul McCartney said "There's a lot of random in our songs."
4. I take the Lewinsky use of the "randoms" to mean "random thoughts." It's a declaration of freedom to put things in list form not because it's a list of anything in particular or even in any kind of order — e.g., order of importance — but just mostly to avoid needing to construct paragraphs and write transitions.
5. Yeah, so this is #5. And 5 times 5 is 25, the number of years since something we're now calling "The Bill Clinton Calamity." A "calamity" is, according to the OED, "A grievous disaster, an event or circumstance causing loss or misery; a distressing misfortune."
6. 25 years is a long time. Put 4 of them together and you're 100, and that's if you're lucky. I'm 3 years away from being down to my last 1 (of the 4).
7. Having randomly referenced death, I want to talk about the notion that "Grief reigns in the kingdom of loss." The most random thing I've got to say about that is that if you're going to capitalize "Right Amount of Grief," then you really ought to capitalize "The Kingdom of Loss."
8. We can see, I think, that Monica Lewinsky loved — and probably still loves — Bill Clinton. Why else is there grief? She says "I refer to not only the loss of a loved one but also the loss of a hope, a dream, or love itself." Love! She loved him. She still feels exalted by love. The current form the love takes is: Grief!
9. She is still grieving. Love never dies, and "we don’t finish grieving."
10. We process grief. In layers. Like an onion. Processed. Like cheese. Perhaps individual wrapped Kraft Singles. In a vending machine.
11. Portion control: "Just the Right Amount of Grief."
12. A person's got to eat/grieve, but if you eat too much/grieve too much, you might get "caught in an
undertow." Kind of a mixed metaphor, but I believe I've seen ads that depict a food product — chocolate? — coming at you like a wave. Taste the wave!
13. Are you threatening to write a short story — one day (not today)? About what?
14. Can you imagine a short story about a vending machine? Have you ever encountered the idea of a vending machine that dispenses something that has no tangible form?
15. I remember "The Vending Machine That Spits Out Short Stories" — a NYT article about a vending machine that dispensed stories, but obviously these were not short stories about the vending machine — not, as one might say jocosely, autobiographical stories.
16. "The first dispenser in the United States was at [Francis Ford] Coppola’s San Francisco cafe in 2016. At the time, the director said the stories had the allure of classic manuscripts. 'I’d like to see the city of San Francisco put them everywhere so that while waiting for a bus, or marriage license, or lunch, you could get an artistic lift, free of charge,' he said."
17. What if the city of San Francisco put "Just the Right Amount of Grief" vending machines everywhere?
18. Wouldn't that be great? You know, sometimes it takes lateral thinking to solve complicated problems.
19. You're "waiting for a bus" and you can get "get a lift," but it's not the lift you want: A bus ride. Or somebody comes along in a car and says "Hop in, I'll give you a lift."
20. No, it's "an artistic lift."
21. But it's free of charge.
22. And somehow it's from Francis Ford Coppola.
23. Why doesn't he drive up in his car when you need a lift?
24. What kind of car does Francis Ford Coppola drive?
25. An Oscar.
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40 comments:
That just sucks.
Oh good grief.
poor baby.
Maybe keep your mouth shut and your skirt down.
"In 2023, we are (sadly) closer to the reality of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale than we were when the book was published in 1985."
One assumes Ms. Lewinsky speaks of reduced access to abortion in some parts of the USA. I believe that - to the political Left - abortion is more important than God, religion of any kind, and any human right. If forced to choose between abortion and free speech, leftists would choose abortion. Leftists would prefer a totalitarian society that permits abortion over a free society that restricts it. If given an offer of eternal world peace if they would give up abortion, leftists would say "Bring on the war!" I am not pro- or anti-abortion, I just don't much care about it. But to say it is the single most important thing on Earth to many millions of people is not an overstatement.
Chance is the only way anything can happen. Otherwise everything's just a continuation. Lucretius's clinamen, a swerve of atoms that's the cause of anything happening.
Grammatically that's a constant of language even today.
Chance marks an event, separates it from what went before.
My bet, Lewinsky has spent $10's of thousands on shrinks.
She needs to sue to get her money back.
Surprised to see this young(er) person continue to bare her soul. She getting some bad advice. Better to take the Greta Garbo route ... "I want to be alone".
She's, to some extent, a shrewd cookie. In all her ruminations and fulminations, she doesn't extend any hostile thoughts in Bill Clinton's direction. She was put upon by Linda Tripp but not in any way by Bill Clinton. That's why Vanity Fair seeks out her random thoughts and not those of Paula Jones or any of Clinton's assorted rape victims. Monica has stayed within the fold and she is worthy of redemption.....Random thought about Mary Jo Kopechne: I wonder why none of her friends and relatives criticized Ted Kennedy for his behavior. She did not go into the ground unmourned, but she went unavenged. You'd think that at least one of her friends or relatives would have damned Kennedy for his behavior that night.
"You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life."
Loss derives from holding onto. One might ask, 'Why are you holding onto that thing - that person?' Holding onto less - or perhaps better: holding onto the right things and letting go of other things, can prevent a lot of unnecessary grief.
Loss also derives from a faulty assessment of what is beneficial to us and what is detrimental. As Solzhenitsyn wrote: "I once more realized that the ways of the Lord are imponderable. That we ourselves never know what we want. And how many times in life I passionately sought what I did not need and been despondent over failures which were successes."
The right amount of grief over failures where were successes is zero.
"poor baby.
Maybe keep your mouth shut and your skirt down."
Or, maybe keep your fly closed and your wick dry. It takes two to tango, but my version of morality still puts the heavier burden of responsibility on the more mature - more attached - of the two dancers. Calling Bill more mature makes me throw up a little in my mouth, but I would say the same thing if he was a General, a business executive, or POTUS. Rank and age define the problem, not the specific job.
Not a terribly long time ago, I worked at the Pentagon. Hollywood, Amsterdam, or Sodom & Gomorrah don't hold a candle to the hijinx men and women get up to in that city, regardless of how conservative the institution you work for is. Wearing a ring is practically painting a target on your crotch in that town.
Bill should've known, and done better, too is all I'm saying. And when I say "done better", I also mean better than the ladder-climbing pantsuited Tracy Flick he shacked up with.
Interactive vending machines. I still enjoy the Steve Martin movie on LA, when the signs over the freeway started communicating with him personally. I was at a briefing on Ontario's then-new toll highway, which uses transponders to recognize paid subscribers, and I asked: so the technology in that Steve Martin LA movie now exists? The signs could mention that you forgot your lunch, or you need to cheer up about your recent breakup? Yes, I guess they could.
The vending machine could say: if you keep going for the candy bar and chips, management will put in one of the hemp and wheatgrass machines. Isn't it pathetic even to be hanging around this machine? Gibbs in NCIS warns visitors: I think some of the food in that machine has been here since before I started. Maybe the machine could let you know that the stale food is half price. Cheapskate special.
A variation on Monica's idea: machine asks if anything significant has happened since the last time you were ID'd in front of the machine. You mention something good or bad. "How does that make you feel?" A cheaper version of AI, pretty set answers to almost anything. Then a Woody Allen finish: that will be $100, and don't forget, I will bill you for sessions you miss.
She's still hoping Hillary will leave Bill to her. Yuck.
What is the right amount of grief from sinning? That's an interesting question. The Book of Mormon states an axiom: "wickedness never was happiness." I don't read that as a causal relationship, I read that as a definitional exclusion. Or put differently, the definition of wickedness is the state of doing and having done unremedied, things that bring misery and sadness. Having an affair with a married man is wicked because either (a) you will never have him in the which case you are miserable, or (b) his existing family lose him, in the which case THEY are be miserable.
We had our some home reno done a few years ago, and one of the crew--and not the savviest--was a young man named Random. Turned out he was a second-gen employee of our contractor, and when you met the papa you realized why the name fit so well.
The choice of 25 randoms reminds me of Kentucky Fried Movie.
"Vending machine of grief" sounds like either a Vonnegut short story or a pretty fair euphemism for a slot machine.
25 years is a long time to hold a candle for someone who recognized your naive but sincere affections, used them, and then discarded you. She's the national laughingstock after being outed by a person she thought a friend; the one who still has people titter at her ancient indiscretion and humiliation. He is, in the elite circles he occupies, a revered elder statesman. It will be all that is mentioned in her obituary. Upon his death, the obsequious media will mention l'affair, if at all, deep in the story and without contemptuousness.
She is worthy of pity and Christian charity.
Althouse is the winner of this year’s Snide Award.
I recall the day the internet Drudge Report linked the WaPo online Starr Report, in downloadable pdf format. I read it at work that day, trying to stifle laughter again and again at the dry reporting within its pages of really stupid behaviors by people who should know better. The details of sneaky hanky panky therein would have been perfectly placed in a high school, rather than the White House. Bill Clinton should be ashamed of himself, as should Lewinsky.
AlGore would have been president 2 years before he lost to Bush, had he demanded Slick Willy step down for behavior so reckless and vile. AlGore would not have had to try to steal the election from Bush in the Florida recount. Hillary could have, should have, divorced Bill, and become president after being named SecState by AlGore. The Democratic Party committed presidential election suicide over defending that lascivious idiot horndog.
She could've been a VP. Take a knee, beg, good girl, should have been an intimate, private affair.
“Grief reigns in the kingdom of loss.”
No, loss reigns in the kingdom of loss. Loss may include grief or joy.
Hillary is no Jackie, but Monica has more than a little of Marilyn's melancholy in her soul.
Is it Bill Clinton she wants back or her good name or her youth or the possibility of a normal life? A hope, a dream, or love itself?
Also, is Lewinsky really this troubled and distressed in everyday life, or does the regret only come out when she has to think about or write about her past? Or is she really always depressed, and what does she do about it?
"What if the city of San Francisco put "Just the Right Amount of Grief" vending machines everywhere?"
Ha. Want to give some rightwinger grief: Go to SF.
Poor monica, she'll always have stained dress and the cigar.
Memories. Of the way we were.
There's a fine line between randoms and randumbs.
I think you went down a rabbit hole here.
Jimmy Faila had a zinger a couple of nights ago regarding the new policy of allowing cigar smoking at the Capital. To the effect of "Dems are outraged about cigars being inside of Congressional offices, but 25 years ago they were perfectly fine with cigars being inside of interns."
I have met two women who have spent time with Bill Clinton. They both say the he had a magnetic "Svengali" personality. They could not resist him. These were beautiful, intelligent, professional women. Lewinsky was in way over her head. I hope her life's been good since then.
"There's a fine line between randoms and randumbs."
In statistics there is the concept of a random variable. In algebra we say x = 5 or x = a +b^2. A random variable is like x = 5 +/- an error. So every x is not the same, they are slightly different every time you look. If you have a telescope, the measured vertical angle to a star at the same time every year is equal to a number +/- an error because you were somewhat clumsy.
Gauss decided that the error followed his "Normal" curve. But a random variable can be distributed in many ways. The path of bees, ants and drunkards are a special case where, where you are going depends only on where you are at the moment, not where you were before your last spot. This is a Markov process.
So Monica should not have randoms but rather, estimations from the random variable she is concerned with. The way to deal with randomness is to estimate the mean or median and the standard deviation of your random variable, that is what you bet on.
Interesting list of randoms.
What I learned from it is that 25 is way too many randoms. Five randoms seems about right. Indeed many good AA posts, many of the best, are a small number of random takes on something -- which confirms my point.
Five is a good number of randoms, IF they are truly random, though. You could do many more than 5 "randoms" if they aren't random. But then, they're not random, are they, so what, exactly are they? (The last handful of "randoms" aren't random at all ... they are a little conversation.)
Joe Bar said "I have met two women who have spent time with Bill Clinton. They both say the he had a magnetic "Svengali" personality. They could not resist him. These were beautiful, intelligent, professional women. Lewinsky was in way over her head. I hope her life's been good since then."
He doesn't have a magic personality. He's just a powerful guy. Women all react that way, they just had to put it in a way that cloaks the biological reaction they're having.
Monica Lewinsky knows how to take it on the chin.
He should have ditched HRC and married Monica. true romance!
Yeah,
Next thing you know people will try to convince me that a pudgy guy with a big nose and horned rimmed glasses could get a lot of action if he was a president’s foreign policy advisor…
“… Lewinsky was in way over her head. I hope her life's been good since then."
He doesn't have a magic personality. He's just a powerful guy. Women all react that way, they just had to put it in a way that cloaks the biological reaction they're having.“
It’s almost as if he could grab one by the pussy- &she’d let him.
I’m getting old- I’m starting to see from Monica’s eyes and not her libido.
Who might she have been- if she’d have “keep her legs closed and her skirt down”? What things might she have accomplished w/out the stain of Bill Clinton’s d/ck? She’d have been a Mom, perhaps? Been a woman other(women) would follow?
“Is it Bill Clinton she wants back or her good name or her youth or the possibility of a normal life? A hope, a dream, or love itself?”
I would hope she’s learned her lesson re:Bill. He’s not slick- he’s slime.
The possibilities of youth? I would bet you’re exactly right.
The Kingdom of Loss- is varied, vast &wide :0(
The Urban Slang Dictionary defines "a Lewinsky" as "a session of fellatio."
So, she has that going for her, which is nice.
“Is it Bill Clinton she wants back or her good name or her youth or the possibility of a normal life? A hope, a dream, or love itself?”
Peace and forgiveness comes when you stop searching for a better past.
All else aside, no doubt Bill remembers Monica as one of the most enjoyable parts of his presidency.
Compare a picture of Monica and Hillary at the time. Imagine the differences in personality and enthusiasm.
I like the effort our hostess made to create her own list of randoms, but I’m not sure they were all that random. It felt more like stream of consciousness. The same sort of randomality that the mind of Gracie Allen would produce. True randoms are the sort of thing that no transitions can fix.
I agree with the assessment that Monica is not grieving the loss of Bill. She’s mourning the loss of what would otherwise have been the course of a normal life with her at the wheel. None of us are completely at the wheel of our lives, but then infrequently does anyone find that the wheel has been ripped entirely from their hands…for the rest of their life. There is nothing she can do to sever her link to the stained blue dress, her knee pads, and THE THONG.
- Krumhorn
Ps. I’m not in any way saying that Ann is ditsy
I blame the parents.
But seriously, how sad for mom and dad. Went from being proud of a daughter who worked at white house, interacted with president of united states, to be butt of jokes and humiliated.
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