"Born in 1943 to a New York family of tactile pragmatists (her father helped invent the X-Acto knife), Glück, a preternaturally self-competitive child..."

"... was constantly trying to whittle away at her own perceived shortcomings. When she was a teenager, she developed anorexia — that pulverizing, paradoxical battle with both helplessness and self-control — and dropped to 75 pounds at 16. The disorder prevented her from completing a college degree. Many of the poems Glück wrote in her early 20s flog her own obsessions with, and failures in, control and exactitude. Her narrators are habitués of a kind of limitless wanting; her language, a study in ruthless austerity. (A piano-wire-taut line tucked in her 1968 debut, 'Firstborn': 'Today my meatman turns his trained knife/On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.') In her late 20s, Glück grew frustrated with writing and was prepared to renounce it entirely...."

From the NYT's annual roundup of short essays about people who died in the past year — "The Lives They Led" — I've chosen a bit of Amy X. Wang's essay on the Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Glück.

I loved the X-Acto/exactitude theme — the whittling away, the meatman and his trained knife, and the potential to end up with nothing.

ADDED: I wondered if — in 20 years of blogging — I had ever before used the word "exactitude." It's a great word, and I thought, perhaps I'd never used it. But I see I've used it twice, both times in 2018.

As long as the NYT is attacking Ronan Farrow as "too good to be true," Matt Lauer would like to say...

"Why Ronan Farrow Is Indeed Too Good to Be True" (Mediaite). Excerpt:

On October 9, 2019, I was falsely accused of rape. The allegation came from Brooke Nevils, the same woman whose complaint resulted in my termination at NBC. It was made public as part of the promotional rollout for a new book by Ronan Farrow. This accusation was one of the worst and most consequential things to ever happen in my life, it was devastating for my family, and outrageously it was used to sell books. At no time did Brooke Nevils ever use the words “assault” or “rape” in regards to any accusation against me while filing her complaint with NBC in November of 2017.....

I am not suggesting that everything Ronan has written in his book is untrue or based on misinformation, but it is clear that over the course of nearly two years he became a magnet and a willing ear for anyone with negative stories about the network and people who worked for it. Consequently, he cultivated many sources who were also disgruntled or who had been fired by NBC, and therefore had an incentive to come up with explanations for why their careers there didn’t work out....

Much more at the link.

UPDATE: Farrow responds: "All I’ll say on this is that Matt Lauer is just wrong. Catch and Kill was thoroughly reported and fact-checked, including with Matt Lauer himself."

He's right. They are hacks. And it was blackface.

Now fact check the results rather than writing a tweet that makes it appear to be a false accusation you hacks.

I guess you’ll run cover for anyone in media i.e. Matt Lauer??? https://t.co/0Vxi0o6lCu

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 9, 2019

"Matt Lauer emerges dancing and lip-syncing on daughter’s TikTok videos."

NY Post reports, with this montage:



Here's Romy Lauer's TikTok page. I'm not recommending following her — or anyone else on TikTok. I love TikTok, but only in the context of scrolling through whatever comes up for me in the endless stream labeled "For You." It's not a place to look at celebrities. It's just mellowly random and low key. Relaxing and mesmerizing. No politics.

Just how vogue is "just how"?

It slammed me in the face today. I was glancing at "So, Just How Violent Is Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built?" (New York Magazine) and clicked to my next tab and the first headline I saw was "Just How Fragile is Trump’s North Korea Diplomacy?" (The New Yorker).

Now, that I've noticed, I predict I will see it everywhere. I'm making a tag for it.

Why does it matter to me? Because it's a silly promise of exactitude that I know will not be met. And because it speaks of our aimless yearning for specific knowledge. I feel a little wistful about it.

Let's search Google News for some recent "just how" headlines... "Just how hot is 'hot as balls'?" Oh, well, my question is: Just how hot is 'just how'?

"Royal wedding quiz: Just how well do you know the royal family?," "Just How Much Business Can Batteries Take From Gas Peakers?," "Just How Common Is Salmonella Poisoning?," "Instagram will soon show you just how addicted you are to the app," "Just How Clean Are Pillows and Blankets On Airplanes?," "Why doesn't anyone ever tell you just how much your kids' teeth will cost you," "Just how did Matt Lauer's famous desk button work?," "Just How Catholic Is the Met's New Fashion Exhibit?," "'As it is in heaven': And just how is that?," "Just how bad is America, really?," "Just How Unethical Is Trump's Legal Team?", "This close-up of Kim shows just how much make-up you need for the Met Gala."

It is bizarre, this notion that we need to know the precise workings of the mechanism whereby Matt Lauer closed his door, that a clicked-to article could contain the tantalizing details of what it's like in Heaven, that the dirtiness of all those pillows on all those planes could be expressed with fine-grained accuracy, that the aspect of your use of Instagram that's categorizable as addiction could be rigorously quantified.

Notice how often "just how" is paired with "you" and "your." The absurdity of promise of specific knowledge is magnified by the pretense of making it information about you: your children's teeth, your addiction to Instagram, your make-up at the Met Gala, your knowledge of the royal family.

"Many of the male journalists who stand accused of sexual harassment were on the forefront of covering the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump."

"Matt Lauer interviewed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump in an official 'commander-in-chief forum' for NBC. He notoriously peppered and interrupted Mrs. Clinton with cold, aggressive, condescending questions hyper-focused on her emails, only to pitch softballs at Mr. Trump and treat him with gentle collegiality a half-hour later. Mark Halperin and Charlie Rose set much of the televised political discourse on the race, interviewing other pundits, opining themselves and obsessing over the electoral play-by-play. Mr. Rose, after the election, took a tone similar to Mr. Lauer’s with Mrs. Clinton — talking down to her, interrupting her, portraying her as untrustworthy. Mr. Halperin was a harsh critic of Mrs. Clinton, painting her as ruthless and corrupt, while going surprisingly easy on Mr. Trump. The reporter Glenn Thrush, currently on leave from The New York Times because of sexual harassment allegations, covered Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign when he was at Newsday and continued to write about her over the next eight years for Politico. A pervasive theme of all of these men’s coverage of Mrs. Clinton was that she was dishonest and unlikable.... It’s hard to look at these men’s coverage of Mrs. Clinton and not see glimmers of that same simmering disrespect and impulse to keep women in a subordinate place...."

From "The Men Who Cost Clinton the Election," by Jill Filipovic in the NYT.

I think the expression is "shocked, shocked."

"Matt Lauer's ex-wife Nancy Alspaugh ‘shocked’ by sexual assault allegations."

You have to say the word twice.

In 2012, the whole "Today" show gang made light of sexual harassment and impugned the motives of women who complain about it.

Throwback to 2012 when Matt Lauer was the “real victim” of sexual harassment on the Today show 🤔 pic.twitter.com/mYdnhEV2wv

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) November 29, 2017

It's funny how not funny that is today, but I want to call attention to is the strange level of awareness/unawareness that seems to have prevailed at NBC. I suspect this little sketch grew out of the inside joke that Matt Lauer was a problem. There's something awfully creepy about the way the women on the couch play along and act delighted about the fun of it all.

And notice the lines given to Lauer, who is put in the female role in the encounter:

“I’m upset for a couple of reasons. One, that he denied it. I mean, why deny it? I mean, if you do it, own up to it. And secondly, since it happened, he hasn’t called, he hasn’t written. Nothing."

The interviewer prompts: "That may be the worst part of all." And Lauer says meaningfully (in a manner clearly intended to question the integrity of women who complain about sexual harassment): "The abandonment."

With Matt Lauer ousted from "Today" over an allegation of sexual harassment, it's a good time to remember the furious political bias charges Hillary Clinton made against him...

... in her book "What Happened." It was so bad, she said "Trump should have reported [Lauer's] performance as an in-kind contribution":

It was disappointing but predictable that [Matt Lauer] had so quickly steered the supposedly high-minded “Commander in Chief Forum” to the subject of emails, months after the director of the FBI had announced there was no case and closed the investigation. I understood that every political reporter wanted his or her pound of flesh... If Lauer intended to ask Trump tough questions, he had to make a show of grilling me, too.

Of course, that isn’t balanced at all—because balanced doesn’t mean strictly equal. It means reasonable.... If Trump ripped the shirt off someone at a rally and a button fell off my jacket on the same day, the headline “Trump and Clinton Experience Wardrobe Malfunctions, Campaigns in Turmoil” might feel equal to some, but it wouldn’t be balanced, and it definitely wouldn’t be fair....

I launched into my standard answer on the emails... Instead of moving on to any of a hundred urgent national security issues... Lauer stayed on emails....

"But David Letterman remains the man with the best timing on earth. I think they actually just did a tribute to him the other night!!"

Writes MayBee in the comments to the first post of the day, "Sexual harassment claim filed Monday night, and Wednesday morning, Matt Lauer is fired from his longtime job as co-anchor of the 'Today' show."

She's right about the tribute. Here's the announcement from the (aptly named!) Kennedy Center:

On Sunday, October 22, 2017, an outstanding lineup of entertainers gathered in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall to salute David Letterman, recipient of the 20th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. The Prize, which is named to honor one of the world's greatest humorists, was given at a gala performance featuring some of the biggest names in comedy, and taped for broadcast nationwide.

Here, you can watch the whole effusive extravaganza. It was on PBS. I haven't watched it, so I don't know if there were any allusions or outright smirking about the outrageous sexual harassment story Letterman weathered in 2009, but it's all about timing in comedy, so it was very funny to see "Al Franken cut from PBS broadcast of David Letterman tribute."

Here's a Vanity Fair article from 2009, "Letterman and Me/One of the few women ever to write for Late Night with David Letterman, the author (a longtime V.F. contributor) remembers a hostile, sexually charged atmosphere. What’s to be done? Start by breaking late night’s all-male gag order," by Nell Scovell:

... Late Night was my dream job.... Without naming names or digging up decades-old dirt, let’s address the pertinent questions. Did Dave hit on me? No. Did he pay me enough extra attention that it was noted by another writer? Yes. Was I aware of rumors that Dave was having sexual relationships with female staffers? Yes. Was I aware that other high-level male employees were having sexual relationships with female staffers? Yes. Did these female staffers have access to information and wield power disproportionate to their job titles? Yes. Did that create a hostile work environment? Yes. Did I believe these female staffers were benefiting professionally from their personal relationships? Yes. Did that make me feel demeaned? Completely. Did I say anything at the time? Sadly, no.

Here’s what I did: I walked away from my dream job.... On my last day at Late Night, Dave summoned me to his office and pressed me on why I was quitting the show. I considered telling him the truth, but with Dave’s rumored mistress within earshot, I balked. Instead, I told him I missed L.A. Dave said, “You’re welcome back anytime.”

ADDED: Here's how I handled the story at the time, in 2009, "Is it really so terrible that David Letterman has a bachelor pad in the building where he tapes his show?"

Sexual harassment claim filed Monday night, and Wednesday morning, Matt Lauer is fired from his longtime job as co-anchor of the "Today" show.

There is zero tolerance in The Reckoning. Lauer is just summarily out on his ass, with his co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, announcing the news and morning the "dear, dear friend":



“How do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly?” Guthrie asks. Answer: You get in line with The Reckoning. Once the allegation is made, the diseased part of the corporate body must be lopped off like a gangrenous limb.

Here's the NYT article:

“On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,” Andrew Lack, the NBC News president, said in the memo. He said the allegation against Mr. Lauer “represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company’s standards. As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment. “While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”

Monday night to Wednesday morning — that's less than 2 days of investigation and opportunity for Lauer to defend himself. The interests of the entity, NBC, are put above any fairness to Lauer, because otherwise, what's the rush?

We're not even told what Lauer is accused of doing. NBC just wants us to know that it is clean. The problem is solved.

Meanwhile, President Trump isn't about containing the damage. He'd like to extend it:

Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017

ADDED: Maybe NBC was happy to get an opportunity to break its contract with Matt Lauer. He managed to get a 2-year deal — at 2018 — despite all the criticism he got for asking Hillary Clinton some tough questions NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum on September 8, 2016. Fortune reported on November 30th:

News of the deal follows a season of turmoil for the morning program, as well as for Lauer, who suffered heavy criticism after a disastrous interview with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump on NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum in September. (Lauer failed to push back on a series of false statements Trump made during that interview, which spurred a broader conversation about journalists’ responsibility to factcheck politicians.)

So the framing after the election was Lauer wasn't tough enough on Trump, but I remember people saying he was too tough on Hillary. And at the time, I blogged:

Trump won the coin flip and got to choose to go second. Matt Lauer offered a ground rule, that neither candidate should use his/her time to attack the other. Clinton broke the rule in the end, and Lauer called attention to that, both to Hillary and at the beginning of Trump's turn. She was a fool to open the door, and Trump walked right through it.

Lauer was harder on Trump, interrupting and getting harsh with him. But Trump didn't let that faze him, and compared to Hillary, who was ploddingly severe and robotic, he was very good.

And I'd also said (before watching the whole thing):

I think Lauer thinks he has what it takes to performatively demonstrate his confident, alpha-male TV show character. I've only watched clips from the forum, and I found it off-putting, because Lauer was so disrespectful — interrupting and bullying — and the difference in how he treated Trump and Hillary makes his lack of professional journalistic gravitas glare.

Why did he decided to act that way instead of adopting a neutral demeanor and working through serious, substantive questions that would expose Trump's limitations? Maybe:

1. Lauer doesn't have the wit and heft to play the role of serious journalist on TV.

2. Lauer genuinely believed he could win a round of that old TV game show "Quien Es Mas Macho?"

The confident, alpha-male TV show character is just not the style these days, and anyway, what good was it, if it couldn't take Trump down?

George W. Bush is blandly noncommittal, asked about Trump and the press.

You can read his words any way you want:

"We needed the media to hold people like me to account," Bush told TODAY'S Matt Lauer. "Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power.... It’s kind of hard to tell others to have an independent free press when we’re not willing to have one ourselves," he said.

Bush also addressed the controversy over Trump advisers and the role they may have played in the scandal involving Russian hackers who tried to intervene in the election.... “I think we all need answers,” he said, noting that he was not a lawyer so, “I’m not sure the right avenue to take.”...

And, on immigration: "I am for an immigration policy that is welcoming and upholds the law."

He seems so gentle and modest. If he has any actual opinions on these subjects, he's completely hiding them. And yet I'm sure many people think what he's saying accords with what they think. He's speaking the language of traditional American politics — the language Trump eschews. Me, I'm a proponent of clear speech. But Bush is being civil and diplomatic and continuing to follow his policy of not trying to cling to presidential power.

What a nice man. And yet they called him Bushitler.

By they way, he did the show not to dump on Trump but to publicize his book of paintings of military  veterans.

"The media elites are in a panic. They witnessed the meltdown of their candidate in broad daylight and can feel that shiver up their spine..."

"... except that this time, it is not the delight of victory they are feeling, but the dread of defeat," writes Kenneth R. Timmerman at The Hill.

They watched her spar unsuccessfully over this issue with Clinton Global Initiative member and NBC morning news anchor Matt Lauer during Wednesday night's national security forum, and blamed her poor performance on — Matt Lauer.

The Washington Post is now essentially an arm of the Democratic National Committee. It has done this with deep investigative dive into the penetralia of the Trump empire and no equivalent reporting about the Clinton emails, the Clinton Foundation's corrupt pay-to-play scheme or the nonstop lies from Clinton herself.

All very interesting. Read the whole thing. Timmerman is an out Trump supporter. I'm just going to get distracted by the word "penetralia."

It is a word. Not a coinage. My dictionary — the Oxford English Dictionary — says it's "The innermost parts or recesses of a building; spec. the sanctuary or inner sanctum of a temple. Also fig.: secret parts, mysteries, etc." From the diverse the historical examples:

1876   J. G. Holland Story of Sevenoaks (new ed.) xxiii. 323   They followed the boy into the penetralia of the great office.
1947   B. N. Cardozo Paradoxes Legal Sci. 99   We reach the penetralia of liberty when we throttle the mental life of a group so fundamental.
1994   H. Weinstein Better Man vii. 73   Even since Spock's mind-blowing journey through the vast penetralia of the machine-being V'ger a couple of years earlier.

I just want to say: 1. I hope the boy is okay. 2. I can't find a searchable copy of Cardozo's book, and despite the seeming love of lawyers for Cardozo, I can't find that quote in any case, so I can't tell you what group's penetralia he didn't want to throttle. 3. Nice to see "Star Trek" pop up in this context. And: What a great word! Penetralia. It's like genitalia, but, despite sounding sexier, you can use it in all sorts of contexts, from lofty legal bullshit to pop culture chatter.

I finally got a chance to watch the whole Commander-in-Chief forum.

Here's the full video:



Trump won the coin flip and got to choose to go second. Matt Lauer offered a ground rule, that neither candidate should use his/her time to attack the other. Clinton broke the rule in the end, and Lauer called attention to that, both to Hillary and at the beginning of Trump's turn. She was a fool to open the door, and Trump walked right through it.

Lauer was harder on Trump, interrupting and getting harsh with him. But Trump didn't let that faze him, and compared to Hillary, who was ploddingly severe and robotic, he was very good.

"Lauer’s attempt to press Trump was the completely ineffectual technique of asking repeatedly if he is ready to serve as commander-in-chief."

Writes Jonathan Chait in a column titled "Matt Lauer’s Pathetic Interview of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Is the Scariest Thing I’ve Seen in This Campaign."

Lauer probably believes the answer is no, but nothing about this question would drive home Trump’s extraordinary lack of knowledge. Instead it allowed him to performatively demonstrate his confident, alpha-male reality show character as a prospective chief executive.

I think Lauer thinks he has what it takes to performatively demonstrate his confident, alpha-male TV show character. I've only watched clips from the forum, and I found it off-putting, because Lauer was so disrespectful — interrupting and bullying — and the difference in how he treated Trump and Hillary makes his lack of professional journalistic gravitas glare.

Why did he decided to act that way instead of adopting a neutral demeanor and working through serious, substantive questions that would expose Trump's limitations? Maybe:

1. Lauer doesn't have the wit and heft to play the role of serious journalist on TV.

2. Lauer genuinely believed he could win a round of that old TV game show "Quien Es Mas Macho?"

"Here’s What You Missed in the Presidential Forum."

Hey, you're right.

I did miss it. Despite monitoring the news continually, I did not notice there was an event to be watched on NBC tonight. I guess it wasn't different from other TV interviews except that one candidate appeared right after the other. The moderator was Matt Lauer.

Based on the above-linked article (in the NYT), nothing new and notable was said.

Rachel Dolezal takes exception to "When did you start deceiving people?”

Today, on the "Today" show: "I do take exception to that, because it’s a little more complex than me identifying as black, or answering a question of, ‘Are you black or white?’”

[T]he closest Ms. Dolezal came to admitting any fault was in saying, “There are probably a couple interviews that I would do a little differently if circumstances in retrospect, I knew what I know now.”...

She defended calling a man who was not her father her father: “We connected on a very intimate level as family... Albert Wilkerson is my dad.”

And she defended calling her adopted, black brother her son, because she became his guardian, and he sees her as his “real mom,” and "for that to be something that is plausible, I certainly can’t be seen as white and be Izaiah’s mom.”

Mr. Lauer asked repeatedly whether she had cynically used racial identification as a way to gain advantage, either against Howard or in enhancing her credibility as a civil rights advocate. She declined to answer.

Ms. Dolezal said her identification with black people went back as far as when she was 5 years old. “I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and the black curly hair,” she said.

ADDED: The link goes to the NYT where 2 of the most highly rated comments come from readers who self-identify as black:

1. Sheeba, Brooklyn: "I don't have a problem with her identifying with my culture, even if that goes so far as altering your physical appearance. Women have been doing that cross culturally for eons. Yet if you are checking off the Black box or African American box on an application, I cannot condone that. I cannot become white when there is a full moon. Her credibility is simply compromised."

2. Will, New York City: "I don't know what's all the hullabaloo is about. As an African American, I'm flattered that this beautiful woman has chosen to identify herself as my race. People are becoming too sensitive nowadays - taking all the good fun out of living."

Paula Deen's apology... why didn't it work?

I had guessed — when we first talked about Paula Deen, here — that Paula Deen would be okay. In the comments:

Rumpletweezer said...
I just hope she turns out to be a Democrat.

Ann Althouse said...
Paula Deen is a Democrat, so she'll probably be okay.

But Paula Deen was fired from the Food Network, even after making this apology:



That had elements of a sincere apology. None of the typical "I apologize to anyone who was offended." Why didn't it work? 4 ideas:

1. She opted out of "Today" show Matt Lauer interview, supposedly because she was in so much pain, but she admits that she caused pain, so she should have gone through the pain to expiate the pain caused. And, really, avoiding Lauer wasn't about pain, it was about the fear of probing questions.

2. The video isn't good enough. She's very poorly lit. There's distracting stuff in the background: a creepy painting, a roll of paper towels, a large display of makeup, wires on the floor. The first quarter of the video presents excuses for not going on the "Today" show that sound untrue. She was "physically unable" to go on the show? She wrecks her own credibility at the outset. She moves on to "the pain that I have caused to myself" pause "and to others." She put herself first there. That's revealing.

3. The Food Network had its polls and its ratings. These are cold, grim economic calculations. Perhaps the time for Paula Deen has ended. I see she'd just come out with a new commercial product called "Finishing Butters," which sounds like the title of a "South Park" episode. The whole Paula Deen thing seems based on a joke. The joke is over.

4. Racism is the unforgivable sin in America. Once it's stuck to you, you can't pull it off. Everyone else must act quickly to keep any of you getting stuck to them.

What do you think? All of the above?

A NYT exposé of the "boys' club" at the "Today" show — replete with "Operation Bambi" and what it really means when they say there's a lack of "chemistry."

A great NYT Magazine article, by Brian Stelter (who has an entire book coming out: "Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV"). Stelter explains why the morning shows are so important to the networks, and why being #1 matters so much. I just want to excerpt some of the imputations of sexism:

"It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age..."

"... when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and rather than delete it — and do the decent thing — sells it. And I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants, which brings us back to 'Les Mis,' that's what my character is, she is someone who is forced to sell sex to benefit her child because she has nothing and there's no social safety net. Yeah so let’s get back to 'Les Mis.'"

So there we see how smart Anne Hathaway is. (And what a lout Lauer is.)