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MOTTO OF THE DAY:
You only have one life to live--and that's rounding up to the nearest whole number.
OUTRAGE OF THE DAY:
Speaking of lives to live:
25 American soldiers were killed yesterday in Iraq. That's 25 young lives wasted. Destroyed. By arrogance. Stupidity. Ideology. Incompetence. Dishonesty. Denial. And blind faith. If there were the vaguest precedent for or plausibility to the project of turning three historically warring ethnic factions into a viable and stable democratic state, one might be able to listen to the maddeningly circular "we must stay the course to honor those who have fallen" rhetoric of our leaders with something other than white hot rage. But there is not and so I can't.
ARTISTIC DYNASTY OF THE DAY:
Thomas Pynchon's niece, porn director Tristan Taormino, recently won an Adult Video Night award in the Gonzo category--"Gonzo" referring to hardcore films that do away with the flimsy pretext of a narrative (as quickly as its leading ladies get rid of the flimsy pretext of their clothing) and cut straight to the carnal chase. So within a single family, we have critically acclaimed masters of both the most complex and least complex of narrative forms.
And, no: I didn't watch the Adult Video Night awards! I read about them in the venerable (or is it venereal?) New York Post.
MEDIA MOMENTS OF THE DAY:
The Colbert-O'Reilly reciprocal visits to one another's shows.
If you were looking for the brilliant balls-of-steel subversiveness Colbert displayed at the Washington Correspondent's dinner, you might've been a bit disappointed. Indeed, the dynamic here was somewhat different. While it was largely a case of mockery masquerading as homage-- there seemed underneath it all to be an absence of real enmity. Indeed, one could detect a certain genuine affection for the "Papa Bear." Was this a case of Colbert crossing over from brave iconoclast to borderline collaborationist? Certainly, that's far too harsh a criticism--one based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the exchange. At the end of the day what those back-to-back visits constituted was nothing more than an entertaining branding exercise for the both of them. A chance to expand their audiences, boost their Q ratings and sell lots of books--as they gazed into the mocking mirror of their own deformity. A few highlights from the exchange:
O'Reilly: You owe your entire existence to me. Is it hard being you?
Colbert: It's hard being me being you.
O'Reilly: Don't you owe me tons of money?
Colbert: I would if I were imitating you. But I'm not imititating, I'm emulating. That;s an important distinction. Do you know what the difference between imitation and emulation is? If I were imitating you I'd owe you a bigt royalty check. But because I'm "emulating" you, I don't.
And later:
Colbert: Have you ever thought of going under cover as a secular liberal? (He then presents a photoshopped image of O'Reilly dressed up in leather chaps like some guy in Village People.).
And later:
Colbert: I want to bring your message of peace and love to a younger audience, people in their 50s and 60s, who don’t watch the show.
FURTHER COLBERT COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Colbert is a terrible interviewer in the traditional sense. It's way too much about him and his schtick than about his guest. (Stewart, on the other hand, actually shows some interest in his interlocutor's views and beliefs). That said, it is fascinating to try to figure out what his guests are making of him. They seem to have an ever-changing estimation of the extent to which they feel they are being mocked and the extent to which they feel they are being genuinely supported.
Sometimes it's great to see true ugliness encounter the parody of ugliness--and the way the latter can draw out the true hideousness of the former by the illusion of complicity. Sort of like Borat.
POLITICO-COMEDIC NEWS OF THE DAY:
No doubt as an overcompensation for having invited Colbert to the Washington Correspondent's Dinner last year, the White House Correspondent''s Association has decided to offer the honors this year to no less than Rich Little. As if one could possibly imagine less than Rich Little. In fairness, they tried to get someone a little more edgy and contemporary, but Henny Youngman wasn't available.
Something about Stephen Colbert giving way to Rich Little brings to mind Stephen Colbert losing out to Barry Manilow at the Emmys.
CULTURAL REFLECTION OF THE DAY:
I just heard a rap song--that was trying to be all charming and seductive...and the entire lyrical content, endlessly repeated was:
"I got me some stash
Pocket full of cash..
Just saw me a big ole ass..."
Then it was followed by a song that just kept repeated the subtle brilliant rhyme:
"Don't tease me, bitch
Strip Tease me, bitch."
This is what passes for romantic poetry today. Somewhere Yeats and Wordsworth and T.S. Eliot are turning in their graves. Not to mention Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Rogers and Hammerstein and John Lennon.
I wonder if there's a couple somewhere who hears this song and gets all sentimental. "Oh, honey, they're playing our song!"
Oh play it again. I'm getting misty.
GEOPOLITICAL STORY OF THE DAY:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070122/ts_nm/thermal_energy_dc
"Developing Geothermal energy on a widescale basis wouldn't take a lot of money. It's not like this requires billions of dollars to accomplish," said Tester, who helped develop thermal energy technology in the 1970s.
Which is precisely why it doesn't stand a chance for now. Our president likes things that take hundreds of billions of dollars to accomplish. Or, as in the case of Victory in Iraq, that take hundreds of billions of dollars not to accomplish.
The idea of pursuing an alternative energy strategy that takes almost no money to accomplish and that would prevent us from fatal oil-driven hundred billion dollar follies is simply considered un-American.
Arggggg.
I wish I could type the sound of gnashing teeth.
CLINICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE DAY:
His mood could have been described as morbid lugubriousness punctuated by flights of mere malaise.
EUPHEMISM FOR STUPIDITY OF THE DAY:
Let's just say she goes to bed each night with her brain really well rested.
CLASSY SPECTACLE OF THE DAY:
Donald Trump, toupee toussled, eyes puffy and face puckered like an anus, claiming "I'm not surprised Rosie (O'Donnel) said that. She's a loser. She's a totally unattractive person--both inside and outside. She's just a total loser."
SHAME OF THE DAY:
That I sullied this blog with a mention of Donald Trump.
CELEBRITY OPINION OF THE DAY:
Model Gisele Bundchen Blames Families for Anorexia.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070120/ap_en_ot/people_bundchen
Gisele Bundchen has entered Brazil's growing debate over anorexia, saying families are to blame — not the fashion industry.
"I never suffered this problem because I had a very strong family base," the supermodel told the local Globo newspaper on Friday. "The parents are responsible, not fashion."
ONIONESQUE (SHALLOT-LIKE) ADDITION TO CELEBRITY OPINION OF THE DAY:
In addition to blaming the families for not showing the values and support necessary for young people to avoid this unfortunate condition, she blamed parents everywhere for not giving birth to tall, preternaturally thin beauties who can eat whatever the hell they want and still be gorgeous.
"If the parents really loved their kids, they would've given them better genes with better metabolisms," explained Bundchen.
BEGRUDGING ADMIRATION OF THE DAY:
In a way I respect people who have PCs and not Macs. They’re looking to buy a computer, not a lifestyle.
SINGLE SENTENCE SAD STORY OF THE DAY:
(Or symptoms of temporal dysfunction).
All those years when he was with her, he wanted so badly to have a dream in which he kissed her with all his heart but he was never able to have that dream about her until she was with someone else.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY:
Dreamscapes. Displaced parallel childhoods. A little to the north, west, east or south of my town. Or perhaps not directionally displaced. But a childhood taking place in a reconfigured topography. Transformed to the verges of familiarity. To the brink of the recognizeable.
COMMENTS FROM THE READERS: (Read and learn)
Hey, man, like my favorite marxist I could never be a member of a club that would have me as a member (and they better get their hands off my member while we're at it), so I can't comment on your blog, but surely, Shirley, you know that venison, beef, and pork are all French words imported by that 1066 crowd. As the new rulers, they got to eat the good stuff while the wide-Angle-Saxons just raised it for them. Imperialism of the table, n'est pas? Lamb must come along later, same with, turkey (Incorrectly assumed to have originated in Turkey)
Culinarily yours,
M.
Your friend Rachie has two comments on your most recent blog:
1. There's nothing random about stuffonmycat.com. A cat is not a phone; no one has ever had an urge to put office supplies on their phone; everyone has the urge every day to put office supplies on their cat. (Do you have to be a Cat Person to understand?)
2. You probably meant 'bull,' not 'steer,' since steer are male bovines who are castrated and raised specifically for their beef--an intermediary category, eh?
SINGLE SENTENCE RANDOM PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
Once he heard that life is for the living, he knew he was in trouble.
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Posted on 1/24/2007
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