Political humor of the maitre d' kind.

Gawker prints this "Gawker Stalker" item sent in by a reader:

Freemans, tuesday night the 16th of nov. the bush twins , along with 2 massive secret service men, tried to have dinner. they were told by the maitre'd that they were full and would be for the next 4 years. upon hearing, the entire restaurant cheered and did a round of shots... it was amazing!!! [Ed: We're hearing that this is actually true.]

Too ugly, of course, but it was a rather clever thing for the maitre d' to come up with to say.

It doesn't seem right to root for Ohio State...

Over my undergraduate school Michigan. But thanks, Buckeyes. And go, Badgers.

UPDATE: AAAAGGGHHHH! That was grim!

Life is a sport.

At the moment, one of the listings on the sports page of Google News is:

Oldest man dies at 113
CBC Montreal - 3 hours ago
SYRACUSE, NY - The world's oldest man, according to Guinness World Records, has died less than two weeks before he would have turned 114.

And this is on the sports page because ... ?

UPDATE: Several readers have emailed to say that the article has a line about the man being a Red Sox fan. One of the articles on Google's list under this heading does call the man a "noted Red Sox fan." I'm sorry, I don't like that answer. I think the answer is that we are all participating in a competition, refereed by Guinness, to try to outlive each other.

Out-of-touch Hollywood.

On last night's episode of "Joan of Arcadia," Joan's boyfriend said to her: "So what if you don't make Ivy League? Is it really that big of a deal? If George Bush is any indication..."

The actor says "George Bush" with a mild but scoffing inflection that invokes the Bush-is-dumb opinion it's assumed we share. But this a big, popular network show, and Bush just won a decisive re-election. Who do they think watches the show? Or maybe they are just trying to keep the Kerry voters from hating the boyfriend character for having such an evil last name: Rove.

Doodle of the day.

This one wasn't drawn today, but it looks like the ones drawn yesterday and the day before. And it is photographed on today's paper:

Oliver Stone conquers the New York Times.

The NYT is helping Oliver Stone lay the foundation for the excuse he's planning to use when his movie "Alexander" bombs. (I pointed out Stone's plan here.) Here's the NYT:

As the culture wars rage anew between social conservatives and their liberal counterparts, Hollywood is preparing to break fresh ground by releasing a high-budget epic film in which the lead character - a classic, and classical, action hero - is passionately in love with a man.

In Oliver Stone's three-hour [$155 million] drama, "Alexander," Colin Farrell, as the fourth-century Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great, has a number of tender love scenes with his best friend, Hephaistion, played by a long-haired Jared Leto.

We're being warned not to give in to our impulse to laugh as these two dopey actors -- in big close-ups and, we're told, heavy eye make-up -- declare their love in "tender" scenes. Don't laugh or you're homophobic! Yes, but what if the scene is laughably BAD, as tender love scenes in Hollywood ancient history movies usually are? No, you have to sit there and behave solemnly, appreciating the lesson in diversity and history that Oliver Stone is now going to teach you or you're a homophobe, you bad person! Now, just a minute, Oliver Stone is going to teach me history? Haven't we been there before?

[T]he director, who critics say took liberties with historical fact in films like "J.F.K." and "Nixon," said that his choice with "Alexander" was to hew to the record.

"I don't want to corrupt history," Mr. Stone said in an interview. "I don't want to say, 'How do I make this work for a modern audience?' Alexander to me is a perfect blend of male-female, masculine-feminine, yin-yang. He could communicate with both sides of his nature. When you get to modern-day focus groups, to who'll get offended in Hawaii or Maine, you can't get out of it."

Oh, yeah, that sounds really historically accurate. The Greeks with their yin-yang philosophy and their self-help books about "communicat[ing] with both sides of [your] nature." What's feminine about Alexander? I mean, even assuming he had sex with men, what's feminine about that? I love the way Stone is lecturing us, as if we are too backward to tolerate homosexuality, when he's relying on the stereotype that men who have sex with men are feminine. Are gay men supposed to be so damned pleased a big expensive movie is including them that they have to appreciate the way Oliver Stone defines them? And in the end, it will all be about Oliver Stone, won't it?

Mr. Stone said he was concerned that there might be a backlash. "I'd be naïve not to be concerned, in America, anyway," he said. "I didn't know there would be a parallel situation going on."

The parallel situation Mr. Stone refers to is that in the wake of the presidential election and the passage of prohibitions on gay marriage in a number of states, homosexuality has resurfaced as a focus of debate and controversy among cultural critics.

Oh, Oliver Stone will cry: I'm being politically persecuted! Ooh, the backlash! How was I to have known, when I set out to provide this useful history lesson, that there would be a -- gasp! -- political situation? Oh, no! So if you're not right-wing, and you wanted Kerry to win, you better get out there right away and see my movie and applaud me. And don't you dare laugh, because laughing means you're a homophobe.

Kerry credits bin Laden.

How awful of John Kerry to give Osama bin Laden credit for determining the outcome of the election! I'm sure bin Laden appreciates your acknowledgement of his influence, which is exactly what he seemed to want.

This is from "Special Report With Brit Hume" tonight:

In Little Rock, at the dedication of the Clinton Library, Fox News has learned, John Kerry said what tipped the election scales was the last minute Osama bin Laden videotape. Well, the tape surfaced the Friday before the election. Kerry says he didn't have enough time over the weekend to reassure voters that he could protect them as well as the President. Kerry told several friends of Bill, "It was the Osama tape, it scared them," meaning voters.

I'm sure Kerry feels a lot of pressure to explain his loss, but he really ought to resist giving bin Laden this affirmation. The fact that Kerry would say that bin Laden holds this power over the minds of Americans, for me, reinforces the mistrust of Kerry that made me decide to vote for Bush. And Kerry's contempt for us -- we're just scared, and without a bin Laden tape, we'd have forgotten about bin Laden! -- is just one more hearty shove in the direction he sent me two months ago. Thanks for making me feel sure it was right to vote for Bush.

UPDATE: Sissy Willis agrees (and has a great final zinger).

ANOTHER UPDATE: Thinking about Kerry's bin Laden comment and remembering Kerry's snub of Allawi makes me think Kerry really lacks good instincts about conducting foreign affairs!

Just when I thought I was out...

I watched "The Apprentice" again! I had stopped watching it. Prof. Yin even blogged about how I'd stopped watching it! Well, it was kind of interesting last night. Maria was nutty. Per Entertainment Weekly:

As Maria slowly but surely lost her mind, I got legitimately giddy. Like, Al and I kept pausing the DVR so we could make weird pointing gestures with our hands just like her and so I could write down the completely psychotically bizarre things that were coming out of her mouth. A couple fan favorites: ''Give me bitchy or give me death. '' Oh, or how about, ''If sexy is wrong, I don't wanna be right!'' Or, wait, my favorite: ''It angers me to be called a control freak, because I'm just quite simply not.'' Blink-blink. Blink-blink. BLINK-blink. Bli-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni. Blink-blink....

The word "ass" was said about a thousand times -- call the FCC! -- as the contestants made up an ad campaign for Levi's jeans and Trump excoriated the losing team for not fully appreciating how jeans are all about "ass" -- a word he says in a uniquely unattractive way. The winning team's reward was, as it often is, torture. This time: spending time with Billy Joel, which motivated the EW recapper to write this song parody:

''What's the matter with the show I'm watchin'?
(Can't you tell that it's out of touch?)
Will the P.M. ever not get fired?
(Don't you think that you ask too much?)
Nowadays you can't be too sentimental.
The best characters are gone, and everyone is mental.
Blond chicks, Trump's tricks, who picked these big —
Anyway, it's still rock & roll to me-heeeeeeee....''

UPDATE: Tung Yin has a long recap of the show, and somehow it doesn't include the word "ass." I don't get it. If I had a one word recap of the show it would be: Ass. And I'd say it like Donald Trump: ey-ess.

400 greatest movie quotes.

It takes a while to read through all 400 quotes nominated as greatest movie quotes by the American Film Institute, which Throwing Things threw at me. If you decide to read over the downloadable PDF document available at the first link, note that the list is in alphabetical order, not order of greatness: "All-righty, then" from "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" is not the greatest quote in the history of film. I spent a moment contemplating how anyone could think such a thing. These are nominees, from which a final 100 will be chosen. Reading the standard the jurors are asked to apply helps makes some sense of some of the choices (e.g., "Damn!"):

CULTURAL IMPACT
Movie Quotes that viewers use in their own lives and situations; circulating through popular culture, they become part of the national lexicon.

LEGACY
Movie Quotes that viewers use to evoke the memory of a treasured film, thus ensuring and enlivening its historical legacy.

Well, so we're really trying to generate a list of greatest catchphrases. It's not so much great writing as a particular actor memorably getting off a "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" zinger at a key point in a big film. Once that's clear, it's fun to read the list.

"Sanctuary!" (from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame")

"Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast." (from "King Kong")

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" (from the "Wizard of Oz")

"Hey, lady!" (Jerry Lewis as Herbert H. Heebert in "The Ladies' Man")

Some work for me as beautiful lines:

"I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me." (from "In a Lonely Place")

"To God, there is no zero. I still exist." (from "The Incredible Shrinking Man")

And some are perfectly insufferable:

"It's amazing, Molly. The love inside, you take it with you." (from "Ghost")

Here's the most hilariously bad one:

"Oh, Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!" (from "The Ten Commandments")

And somebody please teach these clowns some basic Italian. It's not "Take the cannolis."

UPDATE: A reader writes:

"Cannolis" may not be grammatically correct in Italian, but indeed the Godfather mafiosi called them "cannolis" in the movie, and so do all my Italian in-laws.

I haven't gone back and checked the movie. I'm seeing both versions on line. The DVD doesn't have this line as a chapter title. Sarah Vowell called her cool book "Take the Cannoli."

Important note: I don't mean to insinuate that anyone who says "cannolis" is a clown, only that if the original movie has "cannoli" and AFI corrupted it into "cannolis," they're clowns. They present themselves as an "Institute," suggesting an academic take on film. Now they produce these top 100 lists, that are more pop culture and promotional, so their reputation is on the line. They need to get the quotes right. As to what the right quote is, the emailer makes me doubt my memory of the film.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader notes something I didn't know about that "In a Lonely Place" quote.

And as long as I'm back here updating again, let me ask, with respect to the email quoted in the previous update, if the mafiosi say "cannolis," why don't the mafiosi say "mafiosis"?

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: I've checked the DVD, and it is "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." It's a little hard to hear, and easy to imagine you hear an "s," but I listened to it four times and also put on the English subtitles, and it is definitely "cannoli." Which I'm sure is a relief to Sarah Vowell and to grammarians everywhere. And to people who think the AFI is not the high-tone outfit it might like to seem to be.

BONUS: Here's a good, amusing article about Americanized Italian-speaking.

Doodle of the day.

Drawn during a presentation about voting rights, at noon today, in the faculty library:

"Irritable Male Syndrome."

I think what we need is a term for the syndrome that involves coming up with a memorable but annoying name for a banal observation in order to sell books. Anyway, you'll be happy to know that if you're a male and you're suffering from this problem (basically, being a cranky bastard), there are some solutions available for you, according to this review:

[Jed] Diamond's many suggestions include buying his book, adding more zinc to the diet, decreasing licorice (he says it can reduce testosterone levels by 34 percent), practicing meditation and positive thinking, and avoiding circumcision.

Great, now he tells us.

"I now believe that this practice is one of the physical factors that contribute to IMS," Diamond writes with his typical surety based on no findings whatsoever. "Although there haven't been studies linking circumcision to IMS, there is enough evidence of the effects of early childhood trauma that I believe it's wise for parents to carefully consider the subject before making a decision."

Oh, what the hell? Just make stuff up. What's the difference? Why not encourage men to blame their penis (and their parents) for everything?

Local radio guy slurs Condoleezza Rice.

Here's the Wisconsin State Journal coverage of the story about Madison talk radio host "Sly" (John Sylvester). Note how gloriously polysyllabic Senator Feingold gets trying to distance himself from the guy:

"While it is not my intention to comment on every extremely inappropriate remark made in our society," Feingold said in a statement today, "given the proximity to the unfortunate comments made by another member of the media, I feel it is necessary to completely reject and repudiate these recent comments."

Feingold is referring to the fact that back in October, a Milwaukee talk radio host slurred Mexicans. That doesn't seem all that proximate to me. I think most observers would conclude that Feingold felt it was necessary to speak because Sly had intensely supported Feingold in his recent successful re-election campaign.

At the library.

Most interesting paragraph in Todd Purdum's account (in the NYT) of President Bush's remarks at the opening of President Clinton's library:

There was no mention of the sex scandal that led to Clinton's impeachment. Bush recalled that shortly before leaving office, "President Clinton said, 'Christ admonished us that our lives will be judged by how they do unto the least of our neighbors.' Throughout his career, Bill Clinton has done his best to live up to that standard and Americans respect him for it."

He did "his best," and we won't be uncivil and point out that he wasn't always perfect. And note how elegantly Bush implicitly takes a swipe at those who criticize his religiosity: he quotes Clinton beautifully connecting public service to religion (and not just amorphous "ceremonial deism," but Christianity.)

I wrote about the umbrella decisions yesterday, but there's good new detail here:

The wives of the four presidents walked out to the stage, each with an umbrella. Their husbands followed with no umbrellas.

As the men took their places, the women hurried to try to cover them. Bush first took refuge under Chelsea Clinton's umbrella, posing for pictures with his arm around her, then settled on pairing with his wife. Barbara Bush eventually prevailed in convincing her apparently reluctant husband, the elder Bush, to come under her umbrella as well.

So the undersized umbrellas were the women's umbrellas. The manly thing to do is to stride out there with no umbrella at all. (Don't want to be the "man with the umbrella.") But it won't do to look sodden in all the photographs. The hairspray melted out of Clinton's hair, de-pouf-ifying it into a Julius Caesar style. So the women rescued the men. Then, there they were with the undersized women's collapsible umbrellas, emasculated en masse.

UPDATE: A reader sends this link to the Army Officer's Guide:

There is a long-standing taboo against a male officer in uniform carrying an umbrella. However, it is authorized and proper for women in the Army to do so when not in formation.

Three of the four Presidents who went umbrella-less in the rain are, of course, former military officers. They may have a strong sense that carrying an umbrella is inappropriate for a man. Ironically, this left them open to being pestered by the women to hold dinky women's umbrellas after they'd paid the price of manhood and gotten soaked. Interesting that Bush got help from Chelsea before he "settled on pairing with his wife." I'll bet Laura, unlike Barbara Bush, did not prevail upon her husband to take umbrella-shelter, and Chelsea offered the umbrella and the two of them had a nice little relationship. Time to quote this Hollies lyric:

Bus stop, wet day
She's there I say
Please share my umbrella
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella
All that summer we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
That umbrella we employed it
By August she was mine

The Mel Gibson movie-making model.

You may remember that Mel Gibson put up $20 million of his own money to make "The Passion of the Christ." But do you realize that Andrew Lloyd Webber put up $90 million of his own money to make "The Phantom of the Opera"? It's all about the deep belief and the strong personal vision. And having a huge load of cash.

Doodle of the day.

Drawn on page B11 of today's NYT, the page facing the crossword puzzle and the Alessandra Stanley review of the new Carrie Fisher talk show.



UPDATE: I caught the first episode of Carrie Fisher's talk show, the one where she interviews her father, Eddie Fisher. It was ragged, frighteningly raw, really, but very funny. He is an eely sweetheart of a man, and he sat there and let his daughter bounce zingers off him for an hour. She's bitter and good natured, and she let him have it about his life of heavy drug use and womanizing.

Abused by blogs.

Last night I had a blogger dinner with two bloggers who have in the past taken down posted statements after I've linked to them and a third blogger who has demanded that I clear it with her before I link to her blog anymore. Now, the one who demands the right of pre-link clearance has no compunction about blogging about my "hard-edged realism and cynicism" (i.e., I don't stoke romantic fantasies long and hard enough). One of the post-link tamperers is publicly blaming my hair for the fact that dinner was scheduled for seven rather than six thirty, and the other used his blog to invite the public to advise him whether he ought to attend the dinner or take an alternate invitation (i.e., please, ladies, fight over me). No links for any of you!