About my proposed Titus recording.

So I said I wanted to record — and sell — a CD of me reading some of my favorite Titus comments. I hadn't decided if I'd actually do this, so your reaction to the proposal matters to me.

Chuck b. said:

Oh my..!

I would of course include selected tracks in the music program that I play during the cocktail hour before all my dinner parties.

Like everyone else in the world is going to do once this gets in circulation!

Everyone one the coasts, I mean.

Your level of celebrity is about to tick up a notch.

So far, so good. Chuck is with me!

Palladian said:

This is a terrible idea. I can't think of anything more repellent than having to listen to Titus's comments.

But this is the way the wind is blowing around here. Apparently someone's endless commentary about their excrement and their fictive sexual encounters and their ugly dogs is what passes for interesting conversation these days.

Will you include the parts where he insults other commenters? How about when he sexually harasses female commenters, asking about their tits? What about his unfunny faux-conservative rants? Will these all be a part of the collection?

Bleh. Better to make a best-of cd of your late podcast or sell prints of your photographs or squirrel mugs or simply as for donations like Andrew Sullivan used to do?

Uh oh. I don't have Palladian! Why doesn't he appreciate Titus's absurd writings? You won't be listening to Titus. You'll be listening to me. Whatever is repellent about Titus's voice will be transformed. It won't be an attempt to impersonate him, but purely me. I think I can help you see what is so funny about it. As for prints of my photographs, anyone can download the original files and print out whatever they want under the Creative Commons license I have displayed at Flickr. As for donations, my post worked as a request for donations and I got a few. (Thanks!) I'm not desperate for money. That's not my purpose here. I really am in it for the laughs. I was reading some Titus comments aloud — the thing about the sock — and I laughed into hysteria. I'd have a lot of fun making the recording, and I only want to share the fun.... with those who find it fun.

Skeptical said:

I know why Althouse likes Titus's shtick.

Even the lame crap that Titus serves up over and over becomes performance art through his sticking to it over the long haul. When one thinks of the narrative strand that is Titus's 'I squeezed out a loaf this morning, and it had two heads,' etc., picturing it extended in time, itself like an endless loaf shat out of Titus, it has an aesthetic appeal that none of the individual loaf comments even hints at individually. So when Althouse laughs at Titus's loaf remarks, she is laughing at it not on its own, but only as a loaf-moment, if you will, in the unending loaf.

Ha ha.

John Stodder said:

I think the guy's hilarious.... [T]here is something so decorous about the way Titus expresses pride in his creations, I can't help but laugh. There's a generosity about his whole approach here. Obviously, he's one of the commenters who disagrees with the majority, but his stings are gentle and sometimes clever....

But, professor, wouldn't it just be easier for you to write a damn book? You're a pioneer blogger, a pioneer bLAWger, and a pioneer woman blogger. I'm also convinced that you've got one of the few big blogs with political content that isn't essentially dishonest.... Why don't to write a book about this blog, why you do it, what it has added to your life and career, what it's taught you?....

This is something I thought of doing and, in fact, worked on — 100 pages worth — in 2005. I abandoned the project because I didn't like the way it felt to be on the outside observing the thing I was actively doing, as if it had already occurred. To blog is to be constantly in the middle of things. I want to be the blogger, not the memoirist observing me, the blogger. That's not bloggy. This blog may seem to be about me, but it's not. You may be able to see something of me in it, and I know it feels personal. But the fact is, I don't blog about myself. I blog about whatever interests me at any given moment, and I'm not self-absorbed. I want to look out, not in.

Onparkstreet said...

I have to admit, I scroll past the Titus comments because I find them a little bit gross.

And, the funny thing is, I'm trained as a pathologist.

Ha ha ha. That is funny.

Palladian again:

Titus is not just a harmless minstrel in a faggot costume debasing himself for the pleasure of the straights. If you have read enough of his comments (and there are certainly a lot of them), you'll have noticed that there's a deep nasty streak underneath all the "namaste" crap. The titus project is to disrupt any attempt at reasonable conversation and drive away the intelligent commenters and readers. It hasn't totally worked fortunately, but I have to say that my interest in reading the comments on a post drastically diminishes when I see his alias...

"Always wondered why Titus was tolerated."

Unfortunately Althouse's commendable respect for free speech in her comments has allowed some bad-faith commenters to do a lot of damage to the community.

I don't understand the attraction Althouse has for titus's writing. I mean, the first few times he talked about his vapid life and his "rare clumbers" I thought it was amusing. But it quickly got old and quickly became apparent that his intentions were not good-faith performance art....

To me, titus is like a blackface minstrel amusing a crowd of upper-class white people. I'm not entirely comfortable with his clownish and repulsive depiction of a gay man. And I'm still not convinced he's not an entirely fictitious character.

So if I'm amused, then I'm not politically correct, gay-wise?

Jason (the commenter) said:

Always wondered why Titus was tolerated.

I always wondered why Palladian was tolerated. I bet they are the same person!

The plot thickens. But I know Palladian. He couldn't be playing such an elaborate prank on me.

Theo Boehm said:

When Titus writes about some place or thing I know about, it's inevitably misapprehended and cartoonish. It seems, as Palladian points out, as if he's toying with the suckers. His putative sexual escapades are along the same lines, again, per Palladian....

Part of what Titus is about, as has been said, is the making of everything he tells into clownish and unappealing grotesquerie. Althouse reading [some other commenter's porn] would certainly attract attention, but it wouldn't have the same underlying dark and hostile humor, if you want to call it that, of Titus' offerings. The point of porn is to attract; Titus' goal is to repel. I do think, however, there's something to learn in the process.

Althouse has in the past attracted to "comic" characters... who were classic long-range trolls, and whose goal was disruption exactly as Palladian describes. I think Althouse's commitment to free speech assumes that openness toward, and even, in the case of Titus, a co-opting of hostility that is the best way to handle it. She may have a point and a lesson to teach here. Or she may be incredibly naive about the motivations of disruptive people.

Among the many things I have learned in this blog these past years is to never underestimate Althouse, especially in her longstanding role as teacher.

That means a lot and emboldens me.

Penny said:

Two thumbs up for Althouse, two thumbs up for Titus and two thumbs up for Palladian and all the rest of you.

The beauty of Ann's blog is its diversity. She has created an exceptional oasis here, where those who have very different sensibilities can come for a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

I love politics and law. I love art and photography, and humor, and commenting on headlines. I could go on and on. The best thing that Ann has brought us ALL, is a place where we can virtually sit down and hash nearly ANYTHING out, and nearly always without making those not-like-us our enemies...or worse yet, buffoons.

Face it. Most of us head out on the internet every day for hours. Some might like to spend most of their time listening to those who say EXACTLY what they are thinking. Some take some time to check out msm links, or even the political "opposition". But where the heck do we choose to plop our asses down at the end of a hard day, or a boring day or a so-so kind of day? Right the heck here at Ann Althouse's place.

And why is that? I suggest it is because Ann is OPEN to all of us being EXACTLY the way we are. It is her "gift", and our good fortune, to have found her in this world that is becoming increasingly intolerant.

Please don't screw up what our hostess, Ann, is bringing to the internet.

This fine lady will become famous for opening up her "living room" to all of us. ALL of us.

Count me as one who will be searching out Titus, right after I give Ann a great big hug for keeping us all human.

Money follows value, my dear. And YOU, Ann Althouse, are more valuable than you know.

Aw. Cool. Thanks.

Ralph said...

"Sex and the City" proved there's a market for women talking about dicks. Perhaps Althouse wants to prove there's a market for women talking about shit.

And hog.

Palladian said:

Good Evening fellow republicans and lovers of the Bush Doctrine. Here's my attempt at a titus audiobook. I took all the comments he made in yesterday's "Mauve Cafe" post and performed them in the closest approximation of my impression of titus that I could throw together in 5 minutes. I did a bit of digital post-processing to "enhance" the performance and added an appropriate backing track.

Am I a bad person if that made me laugh until tears ran down my face (even though you tried to make me feel guilty about laughing by using that "gay" voice that only homophobes are supposed to laugh at)? By the way, Palladian left out the funniest part of the sock story, the part that nearly killed me.

Jason (the commenter) said:

Palladian,

Althouse MUST do this!

I never knew you had such a sexy voice. I always read your stuff (out loud to my friends) in a monotone.

Palladian said:

Well... uh, thanks I think. But that's not really what my voice sounds like, the pitch and speed is digitally altered and I was laying on the stereotypical faggotry pretty thickly. But my voice is quite animated and modulated, not a monotone at all.

Darcy said:

Palladian, with that bit of genius, you do realize you probably just guaranteed Althouse doing this, right?

Palladian said:

My God! What have I done!?

Oh, by the way, I am The Arm, and I sound like this...."

[cough]

Jason (the commenter) said...

Palladian,

You're real voice sounds cute! You could have read what Titus wrote with your normal voice and it would have been just as funny.

Clearly, Althouse should do a compilation.

It would be amazing if Matmos could make it into a song, like Tract for Valerie Solanas.

This also shows the genius of Titus. He's growing on me.

Palladian said:

Just like tinea cruris...

Here's my LuckyOldSon/Michael voice.

Penny said:

Althouse is a leader, and shaping us all, simply with her presence.

The fucking beauty here is that she is not shaping us all in her own form.

To whoever up above asked where I came from? Same place as you. I hit a link that FINALLY makes some sense to me.

Philosophical "warrior" in need of some middle place...and YES...even better, a sometimes silly place to set my ass down when I have had enough of "all that".

Thank you, Ann, for allowing my butt to rest here.

So? Does this site make my ass look big?

TitusFreezeFrame said:

Palladian that was brillant.

Wow, the time and energy you have devoted to this is remarkable.

More please!

I laughed my ass off!

Palladian said:

Took 5 minutes each, darling.

TitusFreezeFrame said:

Regardless of how much time it took it was terrific.

I bet you even got a little chuckle doing it, didn't you?

That voice, which I know is embelished, is the voice of my comments.

I love how you pronounced burgurs the same way I spelled it. Amazing....

All and all there is a lot of love here.

And hate I guess-150 comments on me? One commenter was right I don't give a shit...obviously.

What I do think is amusing is if anyone tried to share this with someone outside of this blog.

So there is a commenter who comments about pinching loaves. I am thinking of putting it on a CD (Althouse). I am actually going to tape some of his comments in a very queeny voice (Palladian). Try explaining that to someone at your next company staff meeting.

Also, this place would be boring without me. Just another voice bitching about liberals. Ignore me, although it seems to be hard for some.

And I actually do talk to my friends like I talk on this blog. I think I have mentioned this before but I actually leave recordings on my friends voicemails of me pinching loaves with grunts and groans and everything. They in turn forward them to other friends. I have also called them when I am having sex and let them listen. The trick doesn't know but it is my little way of sharing my life with my friends.

Now I feel a virtual group hug coming on. Don't you?

The new Solicitor General -- Elena Kagan -- is female, so the question is: What will she wear?

The Solicitor General — up to now, invariably a male — has always worn a "morning coat" — that is to say, tails. So it's a puzzle. Lawprof Patricia J. Williams writes:

The persistence of this sartorial custom beyond its natural lifespan—and in the American justice system of all places—is not merely a quirk of history but testament to the deep and tenaciously clubbish culture that still afflicts the highest levels and most intransigently closed circles of power.

Tradition, it's an affliction.

Williams tells the story — "perhaps apocryphal" — of a female deputy solicitor who wore a "'dove-brown' or 'doe-beige' business suit" when she argued a case in the Supreme Court:

According to a friend who, to this day, fears being identified, Chief Justice Rehnquist "went berserk." He chastised her for inappropriate attire, and followed it up with a scathing letter to the Solicitor General himself, requesting that this not occur again. Brown textiles! The scandal!...

In response, the Solicitor General’s office thenceforth recommended that women wear what is popularly known as a "feminized" version of morning attire, and/or a plain black suit.

So, then, the answer is easy: Kagan will wear a nice black skirted suit. Yes, it might have tails, but in my view that would seem oddly costume-y in the absence of an established tradition. Dressing like a man is not a tradition. It's sort of kinky.



IN THE COMMENTS: Sean writes:

There hasn't been a female solicitor general before, but women from the solicitor general's office have argued before the Supreme Court, and they wore business suits.

In fact, my [Appellate Advocacy]professor told us that there was some discussion, when there first started being women in the solicitor general's office, of what was the female analogue of a morning coat. Several answers suggest themselves, based on the situations where morning coats are encountered: bridesmaids' dresses (men still wear morning coats if they are in a wedding party); women's church clothes of the 1950s, featuring knee length dresses and white gloves (men used to wear morning coats at upper class churches into the 1950s); or upper class female street clothes of the Edwardian era, perhaps featuring a bustle (this was the last time that men wore morning coats on a regular basis). None of these female attires seems quite suitable for a lawyer.

Theo Boehm says: "Forget Dietrich. If that era is any guide to style, the new Solicitor General should try the Louise Brooks look":

A few more thoughts about the Clinton ad with the letters "NIG" on the sleeping child's pajamas.

Writing about the letters "NIG" on the child's pajamas in the Hillary commercial yesterday provoked a lot of comments, and unfortunately, Blogger seems to have a glitch that makes it hard to get to any comments after the 216th one. It's not enough to click on "comments," you have to click on "comments," then "post a comment," then scroll down to the bottom of the page and find the tiny word "newer" and click on that. There are some very good comments beyond 216, so let me front page some of them here.

Alan adds a layer of interpretation:

I would go further. The child in question is shown just when the voice-over asks whom we would want in the White House when that crucial phone callcomes through. I think he's meant to represent Obama.

Who would we want in the WH? A sleeping (lazy) black (good nig) child (inexperienced)? Or Hillary Clinton?

The sleeping child is black, so I would agree that if the image was deliberately created, this was part of the idea.

Theo Boehm wrote:

"NiGERO"

That's what my lizard brain saw when I looked at that commercial full-sized on a 19" computer screen.

Seeing it on a better screen is important, since it is meant to show on television, and the YouTube version has much poorer resolution. Note that Theo is still watching the YouTube version, and what goes on TV will be clearer. He goes on:

I saved it from YouTube and watched it repeatedly. I tried to forget about the image and imagine I was looking at it with fresh eyes. I'm sorry, but it was pretty blatant to me. The letters from the word "good" above begin to look like "ero" in this context, at least to my brain, conditioned as it was in the days of blatant racism in this country.

First of all, the image is visible for nearly three seconds. It starts at second 10 and fades at the end of second 13. This is hardly some single frame flash measured in milliseconds. This image sinks in.

We are friends with a mixed-race couple who have a couple of kids, one of whom looks (or at least used to look) quite a bit like the child in the commercial. If I were truly paranoid, I'd say Hillary's campaign is at once infantalizing a possibly bi-racial kid by showing him depending on the National Parent Hillary for protection, and at the same time fear-mongering about blacks, as dissected ad nauseum upthread. Looks like a double-whammy to me: Here's little Obama asleep in his wittew beddy-bye needing a grown-up to protect him; but at the same time you gotta watch out for those pickaninnies.

I think Alan has just beat me to it with this interpretation.

In any event, I agree with Althouse. This is either incredibly foul or unbelievably stupid. I know a lot of people won't see it that way, including my wife, but my kids picked up on it instantly. I showed them the commercial after dinner and asked what they saw. My youngest piped up immediately, "That kid had the N-word on his pajamas." They then had a lot of fun making up variants, thankfully all non-racist. Not trying to congratulate ourselves too much, but my kids have NEVER heard the N-word in this house outside of watching "Roots," "Glory," and possibly a few other movies, but they know what it represents. FWIW, they have also NEVER said it themselves to my hearing.

In his most recent comment in a thread about shoe shopping, Sir Archy called the Presidential candidates, "Wretches." It thought that was a cute faux-18th century rhetorical flourish, but in reality going too far.

I'm now beginning to think he's on to something.

(I've added the link to the Sir Archy comment.)

Ralph asks 2 questions:

Can you imagine the response someone would get if they suggested this in a campaign strategy meeting?

Can you imagine the response if this were a McCain ad in October? I suspect few of the commenters above would dismiss it as coincidence.

On the second question, I think McCain would be pilloried.

Let me vary the first question. Assume the lettering has found its way into the footage either intentionally or quite by accident. (As some commenters are saying, it could be stock footage.) Then, campaign strategists are reviewing the ad and deciding whether to approve it or have it re-edited. Wouldn't they notice the lettering and freeze frame it to make sure it doesn't say anything that might be used to hurt the candidate? And once you do that and try to read it, aren't you going to see "NIG"? Now, try to imagine the scenario at this point.

Scenario #1: They feel a little guilty, but they know their candidate is desperate, and they think they might stimulate the anti-Obama vote and decide to run with it. If anyone tries to talk about it, we'll trash them. They're crazy!

Scenario #2: Great! Let it go out like this. It's bait. If the Obama campaign says we're going racial, we'll paint him as one of those nuts who sees racism in nothing. He's staring at a kid's pajamas? Shouldn't he be looking at the real problems in this world? Either it will have no effect, it will have a subliminal effect, or it will create opportunities for attack.

Scenario #3: ???

IN THE COMMENTS: I love this, from ace commenter Meade:

Scenario #2.1:

Great! Let it go out like this. It's bait. If the Obama campaign says we're going racial, we'll paint him as one of those nuts who sees racism in nothing. He's staring at a kid's pajamas? Shouldn't he be looking at the real problems in this world? Either it will have no effect, it will have a subliminal effect, or it will create opportunities for attack.

No effect? Can we really afford to take that chance?

Good point, "Tom." Say, that gives me an idea. You know a few things about those - what do they call them... blogs? - don't you? What if you were to plant a comment here or there? Whaddaya think? Doable?

LOL. I've thought that the commenter who prompted me to write the first post could be a campaign insider. His name, "Tom," doesn't connect to a profile page.

Do you think maybe the problem people are having with Mitt Romney is that he's too...

Massachusettsy?

Think about it: John Kerry, Michael Dukakis.... Is there a Massachusetts demeanor that just doesn't feel natural and normal to Americans in other regions? Something that seems cold or haughty or insubstantial? I mean no disrespect to Massachusettans — what the hell is the word for people from Massachusetts? — I'm quite serious. Massachusetts seems to produce a lot of candidates or near-candidates, and then when Americans take a closer look at them, they experience a strange revulsion.

IN THE COMMENTS: Theo Boehm writes:

I'm originally from California, but I've lived most of my adult life in Massachusetts. I can tell you categorically that the problem with Mitt Romney is NOT that he is "from" Massachusetts. I've been here about as long as he has, and, believe me, you're never "from" Massachusetts until your people have been here...oh...five or six generations. The kittens may have been born in the oven; that doesn't make them muffins.

Mitt Romney doesn't sound like he's from anywhere in Massachusetts; he doesn't have the body language or manner of someone from Eastern Massachusetts; and his religion and Western origins are seriously weird around here.

No, if you find Mitt Romney offputting, it's not because of Massachusetts. It's because he's an uninspiring, stiff bore. They grow those anywhere.

Michael Dukakis was an echt Massachusetts type: a well-tamed little nerdy Brookline doctor's son. Dukakis is, to Massachusetts connoisseurs, from Central Casting. Romney is from Not Around Here. The differences may be subtle to outsiders, but to Massachustts people, they're glaring.

John Kerry is a special case. He's not so much distinctly from Massachusetts, as he is a generic New England preppie. Those types range all over the Northeast landscape, but tend to have been fledged in places like Andover, Exeter, Yale, Dartmouth, and Harvard. They may wind up in New York or Massachusetts, but they usually have little local affinity. Bill Weld was another one of this type—a vastly more amusing and decent human being than Kerry, but very much of Kerry's class.

Of course the Kennedys are from Massachusetts, but they are a weird and nearly extinct breed: Irish who aped the accents and manners of the old Yankee codfish aristocracy. There are no old Yankee aristocrats to ape any more, and the Kennedy accent is dead as a doornail. You'll notice the younger Kennedy generation doesn't sound at all like Uncle Ted or the late, sainted JFK.

Massachusetts is halfway to England: You can tell where someone is from within a small area, what their socioeconomic status is, and what their ethnicity is as soon as they open their mouths. It's fading a bit, but it's still here. And, believe me, if you're from anywhere else in the country, you'll never figure it out.

I remember being at a dinner party soon after I got here, where someone pointed to another guest and said, "Lynn!" The other guest reacted in mock horror and said, "Oh no! WEST Lynn!" All the other guests were laughing their heads off. If you don't know what that was about, well, you're not from around here, are you?

No, neither Mitt nor I are From Here, and we never will be. You can blame Massachusetts for a lot, but please, don't blame it for Mitt Romney.