"We thought, 'Let’s get the barricades done, let’s do the practical things rather than sit there like sheep and wait to meet our fate.'"

Nick Hayward, a 37-year-old Brit, describes the "can-do attitude" of the "extremely lucky," "very good bunch of people" who holed up in a restaurant inside the Taj:

"Three or four of us were Brits. There were some Irish as well. Most were Indian.

"We’d never met each other but I have to say, it was a true British stiff upper-lip situation. Together, the Brits helped to keep up morale. ...

"We all decided that even though we had alcohol within reach we wouldn’t touch it because it seemed like a bad idea to get drunk.

"But come 5am, we were fairly confident the police were going to get us out, so I marched over to the bar and found a bottle of vintage Cristal champagne and opened it and began pouring it into glasses.

"Then the head waiter came rushing across to me and said, 'No, no, you can’t do that!' and I said, 'Well we’re going to' and he said, 'No sir, those are the wrong type of glasses. I shall find you champagne flutes.'

"And he did. The service was immaculate."

Like a scene in an old-fashioned movie.

Via Blackberry, Hayward got news and encouragement, including, from his boss, some lines from the poem "The Private Of The Buffs," which is about a young British soldier dying rather than kowtowing to the Chinese. What lines? Perhaps:

Yes, honor calls!—with strength like steel
He put the vision by.
Let dusky Indians whine and kneel;
An English lad must die.
And thus, with eyes that would not shrink,
With knee to man unbent,
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink,
To his red grave he went.

"The vision" is the vision of home.

So the financial crisis has some "lefty-artsy" university types stockpiling food?

Instapundit thinks we may be seeing the merger of economic panic and the mainstreaming of survivalism.

I think the lefty-artsy university types should be buying bottles of champagne and celebrating, because the crisis -- if it really is at the panic-y, food-stockpiling level -- will drastically cut back consumption, fighting huge, intractable problems that they dreamed of solving through regulation: global warming, mass obesity, crass materialism, suburban sprawl...

What does it take to make these people happy? They're addicted to gloom! Even vast economic collapse won't satisfy them.

So, yes, I've flown out of New York.

And I'm here in Madison. No race-and-feminism conferencing yet for me. I'm too late for the afternoon session. But I will make it to this evening's keynote speech from Columbia lawprof Patricia Williams. It's called "Moaning in America," and I'm expecting multilayered wordplay and... what? Anti-Reaganism? Suffering? Sex?

Meanwhile, I'm resting up — sipping cappuccino in my favorite Madison café.

It's not as if the trip was grueling, though we did spend an extra half hour on the ground. The air traffic was backed up this morning after President Bush flew in through La Guardia to give this talk at the Economic Club. (He said we're going through a "tough time" but we should "bounce back.") The only reason I knew is that my car service driver pointed out the helicopters flying overhead in formation.

The driver seemed pretty interested in politics. He had the news radio on and when the story on Eliot Spitzer elicited a barely audible scoff from me, he struck up a conversation about it. He assured me that all men, given the chance, would do what Spitzer did, and that Spitzer's enemies went after him and brought him down.

"I'm from Egypt," he said and proceeded to tell me about an Egyptian politician who was destroyed by a trumped up charge of rape against his son which tricked the man into trying to bribe the authorities, and so he was caught and destroyed. That is to say: there is human nature, and that is simply a given; the real problem is those people who set out to destroy a political opponent.

But don't you think that once someone is in power, it is his responsibility to refrain from doing those things that will allow his enemies to take him down?

No, all men will do this. This is the way men are.

Even Barack Obama?

I was going to say even Mitt Romney?, but I thought Barack Obama would make a better question, and in fact, he didn't want to say Barack Obama would do the same thing. He went back to stressing that it is the enemies who seek to destroy a man who deserve our scorn.



The plane was tiny and there was hardly anyone on it, but it was a smooth nonstop flight, and I passed the time this way:

1. I did a packet of Brooklyn-themed crosswords that Eric Berlin sent me after I blogged about the movie "Wordplay." (You can get them here for $1.99.) In the movie, they make a big deal about how the annual tournament must — as a matter of long tradition — take place at the Marriott in Stamford, Connecticut, but in fact, this year's tournament was in the Marriott that's 2 blocks away from where I was at Brooklyn Law School. Too bad I missed it! But it was really nice of Eric to notice and to send me the the Brooklyn-themed puzzles he'd constructed for the event.

2. I watched the new episode of "Survivor," the one where — spoiler alert — Jonathan's leg wound swells up and threatens his life and they need to tear him away from the game and the people he loves, and then Chet whines about a boo-boo on his foot that he thinks is getting infected and he insists that the others vote him out — which they do. The Jonathan-Chet contrast is a brilliant case study in masculinity. There was also some hilarious fake-idol-finding by Jason and impressive pole-carrying by James. And then, in the end, I totally fell for the editing that made me think dear, sweet, flexible, swimmy Ozzy was in danger. Surely, if they were blindsiding him, he'd have felt the vibe and played his real immunity idol, but it was nerve-racking there for a second.

3. I read the Peter Bagge comic in the new issue of Reason magazine — the one where he's traveling around New Hampshire, covering the primaries, almost adulating Ron Paul and then facing up to the reality of that racist newsletter. I don't think the comic is linkable yet on line, so pick up the paper copy of the magazine. I've been getting my courtesy copy in the mail ever since this encounter. If only the blogging life had more things like that in it. Not too many more, but a few.

4. With a little more time, I turned the magazine page and read this article about — guess what? — prostitutes!— completely unrelated to the Eliot Spitzer downfall. It's a review of "Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul," by Karen Abbott. The review begins with a description of a high class whorehouse, circa 1907:

The Everleigh Club was an ornate mansion. Thirty themed boudoirs (“the Japanese Parlor,” “the Moorish Room,” “the Egyptian Room”) included absurd touches of decadence, such as hidden buttons to ring for champagne and a fountain that fired a jet of perfume. The city’s finest chefs prepared the women’s dinners. They read poetry by the fire with guests, who included the writers Theodore Dreiser and Ring Lardner. Sometimes Minna and Ada let swarms of butterflies fly loose throughout the house.

Then, I got to thinking about that question I'd just posed on the blog before getting onto the plane. I reconsidered, picturing it with themed boudoirs, champagne buttons, perfume fountains, top chefs, famous writer clients, and butterflies.

5. I gazed out at the clouds and the brown-and-white Wisconsin land below and daydreamed.

Shame on NBC News.

At 7:26 this morning, Central Time, I received a "breaking news" email from CNN, saying "Ex-Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has died, according to media reports." After quickly putting up a post, I thought the best way to see the unfolding news would be television. To my surprise, the 3 network news shows were not covering the story. All were either running commercials or doing the usual morning show material about your family's health or some American crime scene. I shifted to CNN and Fox News. Fox had Greta Van Susteren reminiscing about the time she spoke to Benazir Bhutto, so only CNN was seriously covering the story.

After a while, I went back to see if the network shows had caught up, and only ABC had. Most shocking was the "Today Show," which I set to record on my TiVo and filmed — crudely, sorry — to show you how appalling it was:



As you can see, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry are horsing around on the street, Matt introduces the news reader, and she proceeds to tell us that Benazir Bhutto has been wounded.

The next story is about a murder investigation in Washington, followed by the tiger escape in San Francisco, a pit bull mauling, and then — replete with photos of shoppers riding escalators — the way some people go to the store after Christmas.

It goes on. There's Willard Scott with the weather. There's a festive weather map of America dotted with snowflakes and Mr. Sun wearing sunglasses. Local weather. I stop the video at this point, but the embarrassment continues.

They go to commercial and return with a long story about colds and herbal tea. A long commercial break follows, and then we see Matt Lauer, sitting in front of a silver-wrapped package and silver balls, warmly sympathizing with us about the travails of celebrating New Year's. He's got a lovely lady in a low-cut top next to him on the sofa and, on the coffee table, there's a line-up of champagne flutes filled with champagne and other champagne-like drinks. Now, it's a pre-recorded segment on "all things bubbly." Back to Matt: Can he tell the difference between $5 sparkling wine from a can and $100-a-bottle Dom Perignon? That's got to be a more important question than whether Benazir Bhutto has died and what might happen in Pakistan. It is now 8:26 Central Time — an hour after the CNN email. Matt takes the taste test and guesses. The lady (Jenna Wolfe) giggles and says "Now, I don't remember which one I gave him." So they can't even get the idiotic champagne tasting right! Matt acts like it's just really funny.

Commercials. Local weather again. Commercial. Video of a cheerleader getting knocked down by football players. It's just one of many video clips that "caught our attention this year," we're told by a pretty woman sitting on the sofa, flanked by two pretty women and — over to the left — Willard Scott. Now, it's back to the story of the girl who survived the plane crash. The women murmur and coo mindlessly — "ooh," "mmm," "heartbreaking." And — you know what? — there is a coach who has helped his team overcome adversity. They chatter about what to do for New Year's. Why not cook something with your kids? They have some recipes for you. Willard says he likes to be with the family on New Year's Eve — "make cookies, drink cocoa." More weather from Willard. More local weather. Commercials. Plane crash survivor. Commercials. That coach who helped the team. Commercials. Those recipes. Commercials. Local news (about the weather). Commercials.

Finally, it's the top of the hour, 9:00 Central Time, and we see a picture of Benazir Bhutto, with the dates 1953-2007. Matt Lauer and Ann Curry are on the sofa, and Matt says he's back now with more. "In just a moment, we're going to have the latest on the suicide bombing today in Pakistan that killed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. We're going to have a report on that in just a couple of minutes." And also more on that tiger attack. And that plane crash survivor. It's "nothing short of miraculous."

What an embarrassment!

"Christopher Hitchens famously put picnics on his list of life's most overrated things, alongside lobster, champagne and a certain sex act."

So begins an article titled "Abandon tired picnic dishes." Do you: 1. Keep reading to discover exciting new picnic dishes? 2. Google to discover exactly which sex act Hitchens thought was overrated?

I Googled... and gave some thought to the possibility of all four things coming into play on a particular occasion. Why not invite your paramour out on the perfect anti-Hitchens date?

"Survivor" finale!

Talk in the comments. ADDED #1, spoiler: Ah, didn't you know as soon as you saw the challenge that Yau-Man would win? But it was impressive of Boo and Dreamz to keep up, and bizarrely embarrassing for Earl and Cassandra to get left back where they were. Now, what's to stop Yau-Man from winning? Can you imagine Dreamz double-crossing him on the deal about the truck from last week? I can't. I'm picturing Dreamz getting voted out at this point, just as a deal to try to stop Yau-Man. ADDED #2: Oh, no! They voted out Boo. Doesn't this mean Yau-Man will win? ADDED #3: The final immunity challenge requires you to just hang on while lying on a plank that is moved to a more and more difficult angle. How long will Cassandra even bother to hold on? She doesn't even try to win. That is a strategy. Dreamz really should try to win, even though he'll have to give his immunity to Yau-Man. It makes him more sympathetic. ADDED: #4: Earl has the best strategy, getting over to the side and out of the water flow. But it gets harder and harder. Cassandra goes. Earl goes. Yau-Man goes! So it's Dreamz! Perfect! Does he renege? No, he can't. ADDED #5: Oh, no! Dreamz! [Dreamz reneges on his deal with Yau-Man and keeps the immunity.] ADDED #6: Ohhh! Yau-Man. [Yau-Man is voted out.] Poor Dreamz! What a bad decision. Yau-Man says, "Enjoy the truck." The deal was not enforceable, so Dreamz, apparently, will keep it. But I don't see how he can possibly win the vote, having reneged in front of the jury and doomed the most brilliant player. It's quite obvious now that Earl will win. Who would vote for Dreamz? (Which is why, even out of pure self-interest, he should have given the immunity necklace to Yau.) And who would vote for Cassandra? What has she ever done? But Earl was a good player. It's all downhill from here. I think we know Earl will win, right? ADDED #7: "It's a game and everybody else played it and slithered through this game," says Dreamz, who's blustering, trying to convince himself that what he did was okay. Hmmm, mmm-mmmm, Cassandra looks happy. I think maybe she knows she's the only one no one has anything against. At breakfast, food has been delivered, and Dreamz is drinking syrup out of a champagne glass. He's so happy, he says: "I feel like I'm standing next to... Oprah." ADDED #8: The questioning by the jury was intense. Most amazing was Eduardo Boo, who repeatedly challenged Dreamz for his failure to be a good Christian. I can't think of any time I've ever seen a reality show contestant talk not just about his own religion, but actively challenge another contestant to live up to his religion. Extraordinary. [MORE: There must have been a lot of discussion of religion, especially between Boo and Dreamz, that was edited out of the show all season. Now, it seems very weird to have Boo go all religious, but I assume it was a natural part of the interaction, a theme that the editors rejected as a story line. In the end when Boo was entitled to his turn as a juror, we saw there was dimension to this enigma, but because it suddenly burst out at the very end, it made him seem nutty. Religion: too nutty to show consistently, and because it's not shown consistently, it's really nutty.] ADDED #9: Back in NY, announcing the vote. Oh! All three of them got so chubby! And Earl wins! Unanimously, as far as we can see. Oh, poor tragic Dreamz! Jeff tells us that all 9 votes went to Earl, and that this was the first time ever on the show that the $1 million was won by unanimous vote.

"It is [blank] that makes us human."

I just ran across an old page in a notebook with that heading. This scribbling is at least a few years old but not more than 10 years old. It is followed by 16 words, candidates for filling in the blank, written with some unknown level of seriousness. Here are my 16 words in the order I wrote them:

1. shame
2. remembering
3. planning
4. dread
5. joking
6. writing
7. politics
8. fashion
9. arrogance
10. history
11. theory
12. inhumanity
13. timekeeping
14. culture
15. believing
16. originality

Critique these items or the inquiry itself. Or just add to the list. Or make a record album, with those 16 song titles. And give me credit. And half your royalties.

IN THE COMMENTS: Bill responds to my request for a 16-cut album by finding an Otis Redding recording for each item:

1. shame (I'm Sick Y'all)
2. remembering (Champagne and Wine)
3. planning (New Year's Resolution)
4. dread (Don't Leave Me This Way)
5. joking (Happy Song)
6. writing (I Love You More Than Words Can Say)
7. politics (Change Is Gonna Come)
8. fashion (Satisfaction--Otis pronounces it 'satisfashion;' so really it's about his inability to buy nice clothes)
9. arrogance (Tramp)
10. history (You Don't Miss Your water)
11. theory (Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song))
12. inhumanity (Cigarettes and Coffee)
13. timekeeping (I've Got Dreams To Remember)
14. culture (Respect)
15. believing (Look At The Girl)
16. originality (Love Man)

So here's the new game: Pick some artist you like and come up with 16 appropriate cuts.

Eric Alterman thinks there should be a "blogging council" to condemn bloggers who go wrong.

Alterman is talking with Mark Schmitt on the new Bloggingheads. They've just discussed the problem the Edwards campaign had with the bloggers it hired. (Eric says, and I agree, "You can't credibly blog for a campaign.... You can have a campaign blog as long as it's not a real blog.") And they're fretting about the way bloggers can damage a campaign by floating a rumor. Then Eric comes out with:

"I think it would be valuable if we had... uh... I mean, there's some sense where blogs correct themselves if you read enough of them, but I still I think it would be good if we had some sort of, you know, blogging -- you know -- council, where we could condemn people. Sort of... responsible body. You could still blog if you want. Nobody's going to stop you. But we're going to... everybody's gonna know that you're not to be trusted... unless you can sort of apologize or answer for yourself."

Alterman's affect is so flat that you can't detect if perhaps he's joking. In any case, I'm sure he doesn't think it is too likely to happen. But I was put off by the mindset he revealed. He'd like a blacklist. Anyway, if there were such a list, it wouldn't be the case that "everybody's gonna know" anything. We'd just be forced to blog about the damned council and what's wrong with it. It could never be neutral. Why do I feel so sure I'd be condemned by a council appointed by Alterman? Also in this Bloggingheads segment, Alterman complains that bloggers mix too much about their personal lives into their political opinions, as if they think the personal information bolsters the argument: "Tom Paine didn't say 'Common Sense' is a good idea because I'm such a hip guy." But of course, Tom Paine would have blogged, and he probably would have come across as a cool guy, and we would perceive that as bolstering his argument. Eric is especially perturbed by Andrew Sullivan's personal revelations, notably his description of curling up with his boyfriend in bed on Valentine's Day. I can't find that post on Sullivan's blog, and I looked through the archive of that week, which didn't seem too personal at all. In fact, it has an extraordinary variety of posts on many subjects that are not Sullivan's personal life. In the course of expressing his hostility toward personal blogging, Alterman lets us know that he went to a "dirty movie." Then it turns out it was the surrealist classic "Exterminating Angel," directed by Luis Bunuel and screened at Lincoln Center. This reminds me of the time my friend ridiculed the hell out of me for saying I was just doing some light reading, and then had to confess that the book was "The Clouds" by Aristophanes. [CORRECTION: Joseph Angier points out in the comments that the movie playing at Lincoln Center was "'Exterminating Angels' - which is some kind of new French arthouse quasi-porno film that screened as part of a Film Society of Lincoln Center festival last week." And I do hear Eric say the "s" in the recording. My point still stands though, because we're talking about a very classy, arty film.] ADDED: A commenter points me to Andrew Sullivan's Valentine's Day column. It reads in full:

We watched "Basic Instinct" last night with a bottle of champagne and freshly-made brownies. I'd never seen it before. It was washed down by a HD Sunrise Earth special on Machu Picchu. Life is good when you're in love and have a widescreen television.

Here's what Alterman said:

Too many bloggers feel that their private lives are intrinsically interesting. And maybe they are. But in a very unhealthy way. In a very Us Magazine, not even a People way. In an Us Magazine way. And I think that interferes with the quality of ... the ability of one to make one's argument on the quality of one's argument.... And I think too much blogging is taken over with too much cuteness, too much personality, and not enough of the quality of the argument.... Getting off the topic of silliness, like Andy, Andy, curling up... I just noticed this because last week he wrote about Valentine's Day, how happy he was to be curling up in bed with his boyfriend to watch a DVD. I'm like: Why do I have to read this?

I didn't find the post because I used the search terms "bed," "boyfriend," and "curl," none of which appears in the post Alterman referred to. Would Alterman's council condemn me if I wrote that I detect a whiff of homophobia? IN THE COMMENTS: Snarky, but true, from Undertoad:

[I]t's no surprise that Alterman doesn't like bloggers to show their personality. Because he loses in that category.

AND:

Beware bloggers of ill motive and shoddy skill. You are being watched. And for the glory of all the blogosphere and the citizens therein, you shall be brought to the scouring light of truth by this Council.

Look out!

A man who saved us so much time.

H. Donald Wilson, the man who thought up Lexis-Nexis, back in 1969, has died:

A turning point for the acceptance of Lexis came in the early 1970s, when Mr. Wilson arranged for a skeptical audience at the Supreme Court to use the new system. The Lexis system found more cases than the court clerks found by using manual research methods.

Sounds like a scene from the movie "Desk Set"... except in the movie -- spoiler alert! -- the human beings beat the computer.

Bunny Watson: I don't smoke, I only drink champagne when I'm lucky enough to get it, my hair is naturally natural, I live alone... and so do you.

Richard Sumner: How do you know that?

Bunny Watson: Because you're wearing one brown sock and one black sock.

See? People are better. But thanks for the machine!

The "bipartisan love-in" Bill Clinton's "been engaged in over the last several years has resulted in jack-squat."

Says Arianna Huffington interposing deep thoughts for what might otherwise be "popping champagne corks" after Clinton's performance on "Fox New Sunday."

Huh?

Okay, I've got my bearings. You see, Clinton fans thought Clinton ruled. He stuck it to Fox News, you know. They're celebrating. And Arianna's the nerd at the party who wants everyone to sit down and have a serious conversation about what it all means. She begins with the assumption that Bill's been in a "bipartisan love-in," which I take to mean that he's been circumspect and presidential.

I'm glad the Chris Wallace interview is flying all over the internet, but I really hope that one person who will watch it over and over again is Bill Clinton. And that on the fifth or sixth viewing it might occur to him that the more cover he gives Bush and his cronies, the more they're able to increase and entrench their power.

Isn't it disturbing to picture Clinton watching himself on TV over and over again and becoming more and more convinced that he played it just right? Arianna assumes he lacks the intellectual complexity to see in it what people who aren't predisposed to love him find offputting, even shocking. He'd just replay and replay and chortle I rule.

Now that I've seen the reaction on the left, I'm convinced that Clinton went on the show planning to act the way he did. It wasn't Chris Wallace's specific question that set him off. He decided in advance to go on Fox News and unleash an attack on Fox News as soon as when he saw an opening. But he jumped too eagerly at what wasn't really an opening and he jumped weirdly. That he thought he was doing well suggests that he has surrounded himself with people who are pulling him out of the calm, rational center -- what Arianna mocks as a "bipartisan love-in."

But this country is full of people who aren't hotly partisan, who are put off by that strong stuff, and who need to see a demonstration of calm rationality. Now his over-the-top performance is being praised by those people who crowd around him -- that's the real love-in -- and he may succumb to their fawning inducements to hardcore partisanship.

And where is Hillary in all of this? Will she fall into the open arms of the hot partisans too? I'd like to think she's less susceptible to seduction. But it won't help in the long run if her husband inanely cozies up to the kind of people who watched him on Fox News and thought he was just great.

"The first so-called black hippie."

Arthur Lee died of leukemia, aged 61. His band was called Love, and if you remember one record, it's probably "My Little Red Book." (A song written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach.)

Black hippies... an interesting subject. We usually think of Jimi Hendrix. Here's an Amazon listmania list of black hippie music to remind you of some of the others.

Maybe you think of what Alice Walker wrote (back in 1967):

I think there are so few Negro hippies because middle-class Negroes, although well fed, are not careless. They are required by the treacherous world they live in to be clearly aware of whoever or whatever might be trying to do them in.

There were so many reason to decline to be a hippie, and some of these reasons must have been especially appealing to black people. But there were -- are? -- also some reasons to want to be a hippie, especially in the context of late 60s/early 70s music. Thank God for the music of the black hippies!

Kidsbeer.

The NYT reports:

Kidsbeer, a Japanese soft drink bottled and formulated to look like beer, may soon be available throughout Europe, but watchdogs of underage drinking say they will fight any effort to ship it to the United States.

Isn't this like the sparkling cider we get for the kids when we're toasting with champagne? No, not really. Champagne toasts are special celebratory events that you want to include kids in. But beer-drinking is the ultimate in routine.

Should we be upset about kidsbeer?

The last company that marketed a look-alike beer ended up with a public relations hangover. In 1995, Royal Crown drew the ire of Lee P. Brown, then the White House drug policy adviser, for its Royal Crown Draft Premium Cola, which also was in a brown bottle and beer-colored. The company agreed to change the soda's packaging, most notably its label, on which "draft" had been by far the largest word.

Now, wait a minute! What about root beer? It's even called beer! Around here, we drink Sprecher root beer, which comes in a bottle nearly identical to Sprecher beer.

The Times article also mentions the candy cigarettes of old (and reminds us we can still buy them on the web). I certainly remember loving the candy cigarettes that were made of the same substance as white Necco wafers. It allowed kids to practice how to hold cigarettes, puff on them, and basically learn how to be an adult. I also remember bubble gum cigars — so you could learn how to be one of those charming guys who chomp on cigars. And there was a non-food play cigarette, a white cardboard cylinder that had a white power inside that would puff out looking like smoke if you blew into it right.

Despite all this intense smoking play, I never became a smoker. I'm sure there are many things I played with as a kid that did not lead to adult behavior. And I am positive no one ever gave me any law professor toys to get me started in this adult preoccupation of mine. Though I will say I had a toy typewriter. And we did play school all the time, though no purchased materials were involved. We actually wrote our own materials, designing workbooks and things!

Bonus nostalgia link to an old post: Playing Communion with white Necco wafers.

No post about "American Idol"?

Regular readers might have noted my failure to post about "American Idol" last night. Sorry, I was out. Here's a picture of me out last night, chez Nina, who cooked up an amazing six course meal. Really, six courses: you can read the menu at the link. Ever go to someone's house for dinner and the menu's written out? Ever go to someone's house for dinner and have six courses, all whipped up by one person? There was champagne. We sang the birthday song. I made it home after eleven -- on a school night! -- and yet, I still sat down and watched the TiVo'd "American Idol." So I am, in fact, in a position to blog about it, as I sit here this morning, up at dawn. Why am I up at dawn? My class is not until eleven. I am up because I am up, and I have no choice about it. So, then, how was "American Idol" last night? I don't know if my judgment was affected by watching it so late and after an evening of over-indulgence, but I thought it was awful! After all these weeks of paring it down to the final twelve, these are the twelve? Why these? They all seem woefully inadequate. No one sings in a way that I find the slightest bit appealing. Last night was 60s night, and 60s music is permanently imprinted on me as my favorite music. But they never do the 60s songs I like on "American Idol" (except that one time years ago, when Ryan Starr tried to sing "You Really Got Me"). Last night, one person did Burt Bacharach, "A House Is Not a Home" (which served only to remind me of how well Tamyra Gray sang that song back in Season One). Bo and Constantine did Blood, Sweat and Tears songs. (Must I really be forced to think once again about what the hell a spinning wheel has to do with a painted pony?) The others? Mikalah wailed a soulless version of "Son of a Preacher Man." Anthony -- who seems to be putting a tremedous effort into bulking up and working out -- sang "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," and at least he wasn't the worse. Carrie is boring me to death, but she won praise for "knowing who she is" -- AKA staying in her box. Nikko's back and he sang that Michael Jackson "Oh, baby, give me one more chance" song, but is this really the best time to emulate Michael Jackson? Nikko's nice enough, but he represents the absence of Mario, and I want my Mario back! Vonzell did one of those Dionne Warwick songs. Scott sang something. I forget what, but I do remember he wore a very baggy light brown suit. Anwar seemed pleasant enough, but I've forgotten his performance entirely. Lindsey was predictably horrendous. And I just don't think anyone gave a good performance. Not Nadia, not nobody.

Is anyone saying anything interesting about "The Gates"?

You can go to Central Park and see "The Gates," or you can look at the pictures of it that are everywhere, and we all know what it looks like by now. But my question is whether anyone is saying anything interesting about it. There are hundreds of MSM articles, presumably thousands of blog posts, and a million conversations, but are we getting anything beyond the basic facts (Christo and Jeanne-Claude spent $21 million of their own money and accepted no grants), the obvious starter question "Is it art," and the snap judgments (from "I love it" to "Get this out of my park")?

I went looking.

Kenneth Baker, in The San Francisco Chronicle, attempts political analysis:

It may have no political intent, but "The Gates" does achieve something radical. It makes vivid an idea eclipsed by the ideological fog of official propaganda -- the idea of the commons.

Ordinarily, Central Park is too large and, to some, too unwelcoming to symbolize shared realities preserved at everyone's cost for everyone's benefit. "The Gates" -- for the next 16 days at least -- has brought this idea back to life by making the park intimate again.

Everyone present felt it. Conversation among strangers flowed easily as it seldom does in Manhattan or in any American city. Having felt it, how can they sustain it?

Put less foggily: "The Gates" awakens us to what the park already is.

Blake Gopnik has an elaborate piece in The Washington Post. His main point is that "The Gates" has no depth of meaning that has to do with the time and place. He compares it to Christo's 1976 project "Running Fence," which "seemed to talk about the fencing of the West; about the American Dream's obsession with open space; about competition between man and nature" and which "had the grandeur of a splendid folly" because it was set out where few people would see it. And he compares it to "Wrapped Reichstag," Christo's 1995 project that spoke of "muffling ... the past" and becoming a cocoon out of which "the newly unified nation" would emerge. The Gates, by contrast, was conceived in 1979 and meant something in the context of that earlier time:

There is an era in which the gates seem to belong, but that's three decades back. They remind me of a certain kind of celebratory public sculpture that you could see in the 1970s, and that represented a kind of last-gasp moment in grand modernist abstraction. Imagine huge sheets and beams of brightly enameled steel, set down in public plazas everywhere, and you'll get the feel I mean. Postwar optimism still hung on in this art, mingled with a bit of flower-power energy: It was the Mary Quant moment in public sculpture, and it didn't last....

It strikes me as passing strange than any artist would imagine that a piece that might have been a good idea at one moment would still matter just as much half a career later. When the "Gates" project was first proposed, New York was near bankruptcy, the middle class had fled and the filthy walkways of Central Park were where you went for a good mugging. The idea of using cheery orange fabric to lure strollers up to Harlem Meer had all the ludicrous energy of a bedsheet strung up across the West. Now, with Meer-view condos going for a few million bucks, the artists' gates just seem like the latest thing in bourgeois beautification. (Crate & Barrel must be due to launch a home-and-garden version any day.)

I'm going to assume Gopnik is rather young, because he seems to be blurring the 1970s in to a single moment in time. 1979 was so not the time of Mary Quant and flower power. The early 70s were thematically one with the late 60s. But 1979 is part of the era of the 80s: the time of yuppies, dressing for success, and the chrome-and-glass high-tech look in decorating.

At the end of his piece, Gopnik switches to the fashions of the 1950s: the fabric looks like "the deeply pleated, below-the-knee skirts the well-dressed woman wore in 1950s middle America." Now the gate posts look like legs, and he's got the feeling he's walking between the legs of these presumably strait-laced women and in a position to look up at their crotches. Well, that should be racy, but he imagines it to symbolize some reactionary turn in American politics:

Somehow, despite seemingly unending war and nuclear-armed tyrants and gaping social safety nets, we've decided that it's time to revive the look and feel of America at its most buttoned-down. And Christo and Jeanne-Claude have managed to channel our complacent retrospection.

Or maybe it does not have much to do with them at all. After all, it was New York's corporate mayor, and the gentry that he leads, who decided that the time at last had come to fill the park with elegant day wear.

It seems to me that "The Gates" are providing a chance to review whatever ideas you already have sloshing about in your head as you go for a long walk in the park. These gates mean ... these gates mean ... these gates mean George Bush is eeeevvvvviiiillllll!

Much more down to earth, Geraldine Baum, in The L.A. Times, has a nice collection of vignettes from different sorts of people:

[A]s Naomi Liselle led her three children, ages 6, 9 and 12, to their favorite playground, she tried to engage them in the art of it all. "Look up — look at the symmetry of the poles. Look over the hill and see the orange sticking out among the gray trees. Listen to the flapping of the panels. Doesn't it sound like the sails of our boat when we're in the Hamptons?" asked the young mother, who studied art history in college. The children looked at her dully as they used the legs of the gates as makeshift soccer goals. "Mom," said Marcus, the oldest, "what are you talking about?"...

"I don't know whether [Frederick Law] Olmstead would have liked this great work of art in his great work of art, but as a Jeffersonian he would have approved," said art critic and historian Irving Sandler, as he sipped champagne and gazed out at the park from a 10th-floor apartment on Fifth Avenue.... "Nobody would like it if it was still here in March"....

"Why didn't they bring snow too?" a jogger, who'd clearly been unable to finish her run because of the crowds, complained as she exited the park at 72nd Street. Out of nowhere a man walking his dog chimed in. "Yeah, look back at the great view," he snarled. "It looks they left their dirty laundry hanging!"

The best thing about having this in Central Park, as opposed to somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, is all the people who are there to provide their endless comments. Let the ooh-ing and the carping continue.

UPDATE: 1. Welcome Instapundit readers. 2. Best headline goes to The New York Post for: "The Big Apple Gets The Big Orange." 3. (Same link) One of the volunteer workers on the project is former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who said: "Isn't it spectacular? It's so full of life and energy, and all these people are having a great time." 4. And no, I'm not in NY. I'm just reading the newspapers here in Madison. I did go to Lodi yesterday, however. I did contemplate traveling to New York just to see it though. And my colleague Nina Camic is there and blogging, with photographs. 5. Did I really write this post at 4:25 a.m. Central Time? Yes, I did. It wasn't the sheer excitement of "The Gates" (or blogging) that had me up that early, though. It was just ... just nothing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Kimball reprints a Spectator piece from mid-January. He's quite negative:

Christo and his wife are geniuses at self-promotion. They have gulled municipalities around the world into letting them stage their pranks, and the result is celebrity and riches.

I must admit that's what I thought of Christo for decades, as I read about his projects in various news reports. But I completely changed my mind about him when I watched the Maysles Brothers documentaries ("5 Films About Christo and Jeanne-Claude" -- linked in the sidebar). I was won over and came to believe that Christo is an art saint.

AND STILL MORE: Vast, non-art-related claims are made for "The Gates." This is from the Christian Science Monitor:

City officials are touting the massive undertaking as a sign that New York has recovered from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They hope to impress not only the tens of thousands of tourists from the United States and abroad who are coming to see "The Gates," but also members of the Olympic site-selection committee who will visit during the installation.

Most significant -- most touching -- is the social, psychological aspect:

Everyone's talking about it," [one woman] said. "You know, because we need it, our souls need it -- the beauty which this brings."...

"As New Yorkers, I think we gravitate towards anything that lifts our spirits and makes us happy, especially in the middle of winter," [another woman] said.

MORE: Here's a strong new entry in the "Get this out of my park" category.

Blogger dinner chez Nina.

I'm blogging from Nina's, and in addition to me and Nina, there are three other Madison bloggers. The table is beautifully set, with a blue damask tablecloth, many wineglasses, including filled champagne glasses, big, deep white plates, a pottery vase with daffodils, and -- I hate to say it -- three computers.

"Don't be mean to [name deleted], she's psychologically fragile."

"Oh, but those are the most fun to be mean to."

...

The discussion turns to missent email, and there are many stories of people sending out email to a big group that they thought they were only sending to one person? How many email horror stories are there? We all know one.

We're celebrating a great event: Jeremy's department voted him tenure. Hence all the celebrating. We're using a ball point pen to sign the champagne cork, which, presumably, Jeremy will treasure forever.

...

Porcini butter or mustard-shallot-truffle? -- Nina gives us a choice of sauces for the tenderloin steaks she's cooking up.

Tonya is talking about the Preppy Murderer, a propos of my comment that Peter Cincotti (whose music I'm appreciating) looks a little psycho.

The statement is made: I'd rather live in a place that's too liberal than too conservative. That's not me, by the way.

...

Nina: "I want you all to appreciate that there are two tablespoons of Polish beer in these crepes."

Nina's a blur of activity:

[UPDATE: Sorry the photographs are no longer viewable. Apple, after taking my money for years with a Mac account, made the page with the photographs unavailable.]

UPDATE: There was a lot of simulblogging going on: here, here, here, here, here, and here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I did those links in the last update from bed, long after midnight, and I was far away from the power cord. The power was getting to 0% as I put the last link up, so I didn't get a chance to test them, and I'm not surprised, testing them this morning, that one link was posted twice and another omitted. I've fixed it now and am also reading more of the text at the links. Tonya specifies what Nina cooked -- "beef tenderloin, a corn and chanterelles mushroom dish, and a chocolate crepe with poached strawberries dessert." That leaves out the potatoes, which might have been the most delicious thing on the plate and the sauce, which was mustard-shallot-truffle. Tonya quotes me as saying, "Better than L'Etoile." L'Etoile is the best restaurant in town. That was truth, not flattery. And now Nina's finally had the time to do a post, and she says that having us over was "like being back in Poland, among friends."

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers! You may be interested to know that the very next day I wreck my car and Tonya ends up on crutches. We have a second, less festive dinner on Sunday night, recovering from our wounds.