Last Saturday night, over dinner and drinks, the President of the United States was overheard saying:
Michael Steele is in the house tonight. Or as he would say, ‘In the heezy.’
Wazzup!
For the last time, Michael, the Republican Party does not qualify for a bailout. Rush Limbaugh does not count as a ‘troubled asset.’
That’s right. At [...]
Obama meets the press
Critical Review: Roissy in DC
Between the mensch and the stench and the trench, Roissy’s the middle-
-man. Ladies, watch out. You’re not so tough. We can figure you out. That’s the message of Roissy. Since the sexual revolution of the ’60s, masculine identity has veered all over the psychological map as we’ve been constantly flummoxed by the eternal question, “What [...]
New York, at the moment (Mon, April 13, 2009)
Last Sunday, April 4, Spring came to New York City. Sixty-two degrees it was, and calm in the bright sun of a cloudless sky. The city had been waiting.
The winter seemed unusually brutal and long. As late as March we got mugged by the winds Chicago-style – sucker-punched from the northeast, a roundhouse kick to [...]
Of Sleuths and Starships: Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica
My newest column on 3QuarksDaily.com, “Of Sleuths and Starships,” focuses on the remarkable new artistic genre I’m calling VidLit, and two of its most thematically ambitious representatives: “Veronica Mars” and “Battlestar Galactica.”
In the essay, I observe the way in which “Veronica Mars” provides a superb socioeconomic portrait of America; but my main focus is on [...]
Entering Sector D
The Washington Post today has a piece by staff writer Henry Allen called “Entering Sector D.” Naturally, given my name, I was interested. This is the first paragraph and-a-half:
There’s something about the word “disembowel.” Or “depravity,” or “disfigurement” — about so many words that begin with the letter “d.” Divorce, destitution, doubt, drugs, dirt, dwindle. [...]
A New Consideration of Time (February 25, 2003)
I have come to understand age, and ageing, no more as a function of furrowed brows or crows’ eyes, liver spots or wheezed breath. No; age is marked by the time it takes a work of art — film, in particular — to become irrelevant, or meaningless. For example: we can no longer laugh — [...]
Your Coca-Cola sign, rattling (December 5, 2003)
We are beginning to witness the failure of democracy and the rise of plutocratic empire. De Tocqueville and Franklin predicted it; perhaps de Tocqueville was the more prescient when he admitted representative democracy’s keystone fault lay in both voters’ and representatives’ predilection for acting in one’s short-term self-interest. Democracy only succeeds when education allows the [...]
Cosmetic Surgery (April 4, 2003)
Cosmetic Surgery
Until last night I had no idea there was a “news” “magazine” on Fox called “The Pulse,” which somehow is anchored by the same damned Fox “reporter” who’s “reporting” the war, and is supposed to be somewhere out in Qatar or Kuwait. (I know that Fox reporter. He was once an anchor for NBC [...]
The green-eyed monster (February 24, 2003)
I have just about had it with armchair psychologico-pundits repeating that arrogant and insipid old saw about European anti-Americanism being nothing more than misdirected envy over the loss of their Continental empires. That’s simply not close to the case.
The only Britons who wail over the loss of Rule Britannia are the most plum-mouthed of Tories. [...]
Me vs. The Postmodern: A Staring Contest — 9/11 on “The Real World”
I paid a visit to the downstairs neighbors, who were watching TV.
And down, down, down, through that long dark rabbit-hole of giggles, through curlicue pigtails of conversation butt-ends that had lost their beginnings, somehow someone turned on “The Real World: Chicago.”
As I don’t have MTV (or any cable, for that matter) I’d not seen “The [...]
