An American military commander wanted the British to attack an Iranian military unit that had crept into Iraq, the Telegraph reports. The incident began last July when Revolutionary Guards pushed about a kilometre into Iraq to the north and east of Basra in an apparent attempt to reoccupy territory which they claimed belonged to Iran. Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez then ordered the British to prepare to send in several thousand troops to attack the Revolutionary Guard positions. The Revolutionary Guard Corps has 125,000 soldiers, making it 25 per cent larger than the entire British Army, and is equipped with 500 tanks, 600 armoured personnel carriers and 360 artillery weapons. Jack Straw made a phone call and an international crisis was averted. Isn't it amazing what diplomacy can do?...
10:30 p.m., interior of smallish Manhattan living room. H.J. sits in an overstuffed, claw-shredded but comfortable chair, reading from The Secret Lives of Presidents, a dishy expose of Presidential tics and peccadillos. Jen sits on the couch, reading (and intermittently giggling at) Thank You, Jeeves. The phone rings. Jen hops up to answer it. Jen: Hello? (An older man's voice, shouting over intense yet indeterminate background noise.) Voice: Jennifer! Jen: Dad? (Loud music, but not much else, is audible.)...
If you haven't already seen the ridiculous "Coalition of the Wild-Eyed" video on GWB's web site, check it out here. William Saletan and Jacob Weisberg discuss it here on Slate. A quote from Weisberg: But the vileness of "Kerry's Coalition of the Wild-eyed" must not be allowed to obscure its essential hilarity. What moron came up with this idea? What are they smoking in Karl Rove's office? C'mon, Will. This ad is the campaign equivalent of The Producers—an idea so egregiously tasteless and stupid that it might just succeed as camp. Footage of Hitler shouting in German is juxtaposed with footage of Al Gore, Howard Dean, and Dick Gephardt getting worked up while criticizing Bush, Michael Moore getting booed for criticizing the Iraq War at the Academy Awards, and John Kerry using the phrase "kick your ass" (which is bleeped out, possibly in an effort to imply he said something worse). I know I should be disgusted by the attempted association of Democrats and Nazis, but it's too funny to get upset about. Cue the goose-stepping mädchen of the Brookings Institution! What exactly does the Bush-Cheney campaign think that these Democrats have in common with Hitler? Basically, it's that they're...
No time to give this the post it deserves, but today's Young Manhattanite interview is with one of my heroes, Hal Hartley, to whom I give partial credit for my love of both film and of Martin Donovan. I'm looking forward to seeing Hal's new film, Girl from Monday, when it is released early next year. Perhaps (I always say "perhaps") it's time for another Hartley marathon......
Nevermind that swishing sound coming from underneath Judge Thompson's bench -- he's just using his penis pump during the trial. Ms. Foster saw Judge Thompson masturbate on a number of occasions and during the course of her employment, saw his penis fifteen to twenty times. On one occasion, Ms. Foster saw Judge Thompson holding his penis up and shaving underneath it with a disposable razor while on the bench. She saw him put lotion on his penis on more than one occasion while on the bench....
...and since I've been holding down the fort while H.J. is launching a new product at his day job (someday we'll all be able to see streaming trial footage on our cell phones, should we -- you know -- actually want to), you'll get little from us today. In the meantime, check out Beck Lyric or Spam Text, TMFTML's bizarre but inspired Clinton/Faulkner pairing, Fred Kaplan's Slate article on bringing back the draft (or not), or perhaps help me out with some entries for Bawdy Limerick Mad Libs (How's that for a full spectrum of options?)...
PBS is airing (in NY on Thirteen) its American Masters episode "Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues" tonight at 8. For any fans of Hank's, the episode web site has some great information: an essay, career timeline, additional footage, and interview with filmmaker Morgan Neville. If you haven't seen it already (it's a DG oldie but goodie), check out Aaron Augenblick's mesmerizing, strangely moving animated robot singing Hank's "Ramblin' Man." (Photo from Hank Williams: Snapshots from the Lost Highway, available here on Amazon). What's your favorite Hank Williams song? (Mine is -- well, today, at least -- "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.")...
Your DG editors are big fans of Seth, born Gregory Gallant*, the Canadian indie comics artist (or "graphic novelist," in the parlance of our times). In fact, we like him so much that we bought an original drawing a few years ago at a signing at Million Year Picnic in Cambridge, Mass. Interviews with Seth are fairly rare, so we were thrilled to see this one in Bookslut, in which he discusses, among other things, his notorious nostalgia: The modern world is very ugly… and the pop culture is so mind-numbingly dumb that you have to make a conscious effort to shut it out. That’s why I’m considered a “nostalgia guy.” I just like things from the past better. I don’t want to live in 1932, but I sure wish some of the elements of that time had survived into this time. Though obviously, their fascination with “progress” is the worm in the apple that created this shitty culture we inhabit. It’s a complicated question. And believe me, no one is more confused about his feelings about the past and the present than I am. I find, as each year passes, my understanding, and feelings about the 20th century are...
Since I work in the health care industry, sometimes I come across really great health care articles (that, incidentally, may be interesting only to me). This morning I found this 2000 (but very good) discussion about health care between Adam Gopnick and Malcolm Gladwell in the Washington Monthly. It does a great job of breaking down some of the main differences in mindset about health care among different countries, especially the U.S., Canada, and France (and yes, Adam, we are aware that you lived in France... like R. Crumb! and Woody Allen! And Johnny Depp...)...
Librarians across the country are less-than-excited about the free CD windfall that's come from the record industry settling its price-inflation lawsuit. Part of the music industry's compensation involves giving music to libraries. Eva Silverstone, communications director for the Spokane Public Library, said the library in eastern Washington received many copies of “Three Mo’ Tenors” among its 1,325 CDs, along with “tons of copies of Christina Aguilera’s Christmas album.” All told, she said, 15 titles represented 36 percent of the shipment. “We’ll be able to add approximately 283 titles to our collection,” she said. “We’re obligated to either trade the others with other libraries or give them to our friends of the library group for sale, with any proceeds going to support the music program,” she said. “It’s a positive thing, but it’s also a little bit disappointing.” The public library in Worcester, Mass., with a main library and two branches, received 150 copies of “Nastradamus,” a 1999 album by the rapper Nas, and 148 copies of “Entertainment Weekly’s Greatest Hits of 1971.” “It’s an OK album with some decent songs on it, it’s just that we don’t need 148 of them,” Penny Johnson, head librarian of the Worcester library, said...
The New Yorker's Louis Menand takes to task Lynne Truss's grammar manifesto Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation for the (apparently copious) punctuation errors in her book. After cataloguing the book's lapses in commas and parentheses, Menand laments the publisher's decision not to amend the American version of the book to account for differences between American and British usage (this really does make no sense). A money quote: The supreme peculiarity of this peculiar publishing phenomenon is that the British are less rigid about punctuation and related matters, such as footnote and bibliographic form, than Americans are. An Englishwoman lecturing Americans on semicolons is a little like an American lecturing the French on sauces. The article then uses Truss's book to launch a discussion of the "voice" in the written word: The uncertainty about what it means for writing to have a voice arises from the metaphor itself. Writers often claim that they never write something that they would not say. It is hard to know how this could be literally true. Speech is somatic, a bodily function, and it is accompanied by physical inflections—tone of voice, winks, smiles, raised eyebrows, hand gestures—that are not reproducible...
On his recent trip to Great Britain, George Bush had a meeting with Queen Elizabeth. He asked her, "How does one manage to run a country so smoothly?" "That`s easy," she replied, "You surround yourself with intelligent ministers and advisors." "But how can I tell whether they are intelligent or not?" he inquired. "You ask them a riddle," she replied, and with that she pressed a button and said,"Would you please send Tony Blair in." When Blair arrived, the Queen said, "I have a riddle for you to answer for me. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child ?" Blair replied, "That`s easy. The child was me." "Very good," said the Queen, "You may go now." So President Bush went back to Washington and called in his chief of staff, Karl Rove. He said to him, "I have a riddle for you, and the answer is very important. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child ?" Rove replied, "Yes, it is clearly very important that we determine the answer, as no child...
What's the difference between whiskey and bourbon, you might ask. Cecil has the answer: For a whiskey to qualify as bourbon, the law--by international agreement--stipulates that it must be made in the USA. It must be made from at least 51% and no more than 79% Indian corn, and aged for at least two years. (Most bourbon is aged for four years or more.) The barrels for aging can be made of any kind of new oak, charred on the inside. Nowadays all distillers use American White Oak, because it is porous enough to help the bourbon age well, but not so porous that it will allow barrels to leak. It must be distilled at no more than 160 proof (80% alcohol by volume). Nothing can be added at bottling to enhance flavor or sweetness or alter color. The other grains used to make bourbon, though not stipulated by law, are malted barley and either rye or wheat. Some Kentucky bourbon makers claim that the same limestone spring water that makes thoroughbred horses' bones strong gives bourbon whiskey its distinctive flavor. Kind of like that "it's the water" thing with Olympia beer....
David Edelstein is not my favorite movie reviewer, in large part because, when I've heard him on NPR, he sounds like he's trying (badly) to sound like Quentin Tarentino. But even annoying people can sometimes be insightful, and this little blurb seems to sum up my entire worldview: The explosion of interest among grown men in dodgeball—i.e., throwing balls very, very hard at people while trying not to get hit by balls being thrown very, very hard at them—confirms what many of us have known for some time: that American males would love to have a little toggle switch that would make them, in an instant, 12 years old. (Given their druthers, they'd probably switch it back only to get laid and buy beer.)...
This is what happens when I'm behind on my blog reading and writing -- I miss a Gothamist Interview with my favorite burlesque star, Julie Atlas Muz. The interview is a little anticlimactic, but check out her web site for serious hotness at julieatlasmuz.com. As her web site says: On any given night in New York City, you can see Julie Atlas Muz swimming in an aquarium as a mermaid, peeling off the outlandish costumes she dons, or covered in fake blood in the basement of a gay bar--in essence, expressing her bawdy, irreverent and unexpected sense of humor. Humor being as essential aspect of her work, Muz never strays too far from the burlesque--forever dedicated to keeping dance in the realm of the absurd. Related: Next weekend is the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Here's hoping for a clear day after last year's washout....
Because we like to keep you updated on artist and storyteller Danny Gregory... The Morning News has posted his three portraits of homeless men. Is it me, or is Mr. Gregory just getting better and better? p.s. We just got Everyday Matters, and it's definitely worth every cent....
Every liberal's favorite conservative gets divided in two: David Brooks the Journalist, and David Brooks the Hack. Similarly, Brooks the Hack indulges in predictable--and frequently dishonest--caricatures of Democrats. He once wrote that "upscale areas everywhere" voted for Al Gore, even though a cursory check of census data reveals that seven of the 10 richest counties in America voted for George W. Bush in 2000. When it began to look like John Kerry would carry the Democratic banner in 2004, Brooks argued that the Democrats "won't nominate a guy unless his family had an upper-deck berth on the Mayflower"--this of a party whose last five nominees included a Georgia peanut farmer, a guy raised by a working-class single mom in Arkansas, and another born to Greek immigrants. Yet Brooks the Hack seems to revel in cheap shots, such as implying that the term "neocon" was anti-Semitic-- "con is short for 'conservative' and neo is short for 'Jewish'," he recently wrote in the Times....
Lights...camera...action! : Godard's A Woman is a Woman
Angela (Anna Karina) has decided she wants to have a baby. Lover Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy) will have none of it. Their current situation is fine as is. He doesn't seem to care when Angela decides to seek outside help from Emile's pal Alfred Lubitsch (Jean-Paul Belmondo). "Is this a comedy or a tragedy?" This being a Jean-Luc Godard film it's, well....Godard....
Filmmaker Michael Moore has made another bad decision. Filmmaker Michael Moore said Friday he wasn't sure he did the right thing by saving footage of U.S. American soldiers' cruelty toward Iraqis for his controversial documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11,'' instead of releasing the evidence earlier when it might have helped halt such abuse. "I had it months before the story broke on '60 Minutes,' and I really struggled with what to do with it,'' Moore said in a telephone interview with The Chronicle. "I wanted to come out with it sooner, but I thought I'd be accused of just putting this out for publicity for my movie. That prevented me from making maybe the right decision.'' I love the way he avoids taking responsibility for his decision. "My critics' harping made me make the wrong decision!" Michael Moore is a man who has problems with telling the truth as it should be told. He's got the sensibility of a filmmaker and not a journalist. For Moore, what matters is building the dramatic arc of a movie over two hours and giving scenes emotional punch. He's a partisan ringmaster in hightops....
At least the monkeys are better off than the humans.
Officials in the mountainous northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh say they are struggling to control a severe form of monkey diarrhoea. Thousands of primates in the forested Himalayan slopes are affected. Officials say the disease has killed dozens and hundreds more remain ill with bleeding from their mouths, and rapid weight loss. Clearly our scientists need to be working on monkey Imodium....
O.J. Simpson has committed the ultimate crime. I'm not talking about the brutal murders of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman ten years ago tomorrow, which are crimes for which the Juice was exonerated by a California jury. I'm talking about diet. In newly discovered video, Simpson endorses carbohydrates. "All things considered, you can't go wrong eating foods high in complex carbohydrates." View this monster endorsing potatoes, pastas, and breads for "good health." Dr. Atkins is rolling over in his supersized grave. [Requires Windows Media Player]...
This ain't your grandpa's NPR. THINGS ARE ROUGH ALL OVER, if you like to listen to classical music on the radio--and even rougher if, like the members of AMPPR, you try to make a living putting it on the air. What listeners in Orlando have seen happen at Glerum's station is a slow-motion version of what has happened to public radio across the country. Music--not merely classical but also jazz, folk, blues, and bluegrass, once staples of public radio programming--is slowly being withdrawn from the public airwaves. According to data from the trade group M Street Group, the number of noncommercial stations identified as "classical" has been cut in half since 1993, while the number of noncommercial news-talk stations has tripled. Data from the Public Radio Tracking Study, commissioned by public radio stations, tell the same story. From 1995 to 2002, the number of locally generated classical music hours on public radio declined roughly 10 percent, even as the number of public radio stations greatly increased; meanwhile, over the same period, the number of news-talk hours rose by more than 150 percent. As the tracking study researchers wrote in their report, with unseemly enthusiasm: "Local classical music just sits there,...
Many groups in New York City are still waiting to hear about their protest permits for when the Republican Convention hits town. I think these protests mostly accomplish nothing. Protestors should take the time they spend creating puppets and shopping thrift stores for "Billionaires for Bush" costumes and instead spend it working a job to earn money to donate to Republican rivals. But in any case, of course they should be given the right to spend their time speaking out. Apparently, a couple Italian radio networks were denied their right to cover Italian protestors: Italy's largest electric company pulled the plug on two left-wing radio stations the morning of U.S President George W. Bush's visit to Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. The outage -- described as "strange maintenance work" by Enel, Italy's 60 percent state-owned utility -- forced Radio Città Aperta and Radio Onda Rossa off the air as they were preparing to broadcast extensive coverage of street protests against the president's visit. "The stations lost electricity for four hours, all the morning, during several 'actions' of the civil disobedience movement," Francesco Diasio told MediaChannel by email. Diasio, managing director of Amisnet, a community radio agency supporting several...
Continuing on the path to becoming the world's first all-Lincoln blog
Those fart smellers at Harpers have posted their magazine's summation of a great president's passing (and a great nation's mourning). At a time when 24-hour cable news channels are frothing at a much later, much lesser president, Harpers goes to the archives: The murder of President Lincoln aroused a feeling of regret deeper than was ever before known in our history. Men and papers who had opposed his policy and vilified him personally, now vied with his adherents and friends in lauding the rare wisdom and goodness which marked his conduct and character. It was decided that his body should be interred at his home in Springfield, Illinois. The long journey was one great funeral procession, lasting from the 21st of April, when the embalmed body left Washington, till the 4th of May, when it was entombed at Springfield. The ceremonies at New York, on the 25th, were by far the most imposing ever known in that city. It was estimated that 60,000 people marched in the procession. The streets through which it passed were shrouded in black. There was hardly a house in the city without an emblem of mourning....
Why don't we just hang it up and start a music blog, because that's all I've been blogging these days. Via The Morning News (now with 15% more Kevin Fanning!), this list of the 50 coolest song parts is great fun, some of the songs complete with clips. Heavy on punk and classic rock, the list captures some of the most memorable moments in some otherwise not-so-memorable songs. Favorites? UPDATE: Under Led Zep III, there is a link to this. "Valhalla, I am coming," indeed!...
Ronald Reagan is dead. But he's been gone from public life for a long time now. I believe strongly in the old advice that if you have nothing good to say about someone, it's better to say nothing at all. Right-Click-Save-Target-As James Kochalka's song "Hey, Ronald Reagan."...
A.L. Kennedy, author of the novel Original Bliss and the recent collection of short stories, Indelible Acts, wrote a bizarre and funny little piece for the Guardian about sinus medication, the Iraq war, and Jesus [Thx, The Fold Drop]. My conditioning asserts itself, or my limbic area constricts, who knows: but suddenly there's Jesus, completely visualised. And he looks just the way I've been led to expect - Middle Eastern robes, sandals (a good sign, surely) and that delightfully Aryan combination of blue eyes, fair skin and flaxen hair. He even has his arms extended at that come-unto-me angle, except he seems, well, scary. Then he speaks. I won't spoil the rest, but it is quite funny....
What a coincidence. After recently pulling out an old Edith Frost album to use a song for a mix CD group I'm in, I found out today through a comment on Chicagoist that she has a blog and a new collection of demos, available only online. Frost's songs are haunting and spare and best enjoyed late at night. And I was thrilled to see a cover of Lefty Frizell's "Look What Thoughts Will Do" among the other songs on the collection. Right-click-Save-Target-As... to get the songs, or get more from Comfort Stand, which has loads of great music for free, free, free! Edith Frost -Temporary Loan and Edith Frost - Look What Thoughts Will Do, from Edith Frost - Demos....
I've not heard much of The Polyphonic Spree's music (I fear it may be a little grand for my tastes, although I like the second song), but this flash game on their site is really lovely. Go forth and play/listen....
If you haven't been keeping up with Brian McFadden's Big Fat Whale comic, today's strip is both timely and hilarious. While you're there, also check out Brian's newish blog ("Thar he blogs!")....
Since Harry has been too busy at work to blog, I thought I'd post some links to some excellent fairly-recent art articles. I'm no art scholar, so you'll get just the facts from me. The New Yorker on Agnes Martin. The Guardian Online (I get all my links from the Guardian these days, it seems) on my sister's favorite, Alice Neel and Edward Hopper, as well as a Robert Hughes piece on "defend[ing] art against the degrading power of the wealthy collectors" (bring on the "art fascist" epithets!)...
The Guardian Online has a semi-positive review of PJ Harvey's latest album, Uh Huh Her: PJ Harvey has a knack of writing love songs that make being loved by PJ Harvey seem only marginally preferable to a barium enema. Her sixth album, Uh Huh Her, contains Who the Fuck?, ostensibly inspired by a disastrous visit to the hairdressers. At a time when a single called Fuck It has recently been deposed from the Number One spot by a single called Fuck You Right Back, it seems fairly unlikely that the odd fuck could still shock anyone. But it's all in the delivery - in this case, a weird shrill whine: "Who the fuck? Who the fuck? Get your comb out of there!" she squeals. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck you!" At another point, she adds "I'm not like other girls". The listener can only concur: going on her reaction to an unfortunate shampoo and set, she's a certifiable lunatic. Correction: Our favorite certifiable lunatic. If you haven't had a chance, hear some of the songs (I'm partial to "Shame") or watch the videos from PJ's new album on her website or read a recent interview here. p.s. This interview is where...
Democrat Stephanie Herseth is going to the House of Representatives for South Dakota after narrowly defeating her Republican rival by 3,000 votes. The seat was vacated when Republican Rep. Bill Janlow resigned after being convicted of vehicular manslaughter. I was impressed by Herseth's performance in a debate aired on C-SPAN last week. I can also verify that she's a natural leader -- she attended the South Dakota Girls State with a co-worker friend and managed to be elected governor there. Girls State, for those who don't know (and I didn't), is a kind of Model U.N. organization with the goal of producing leaders who happen to be women. Novel idea, isn't it?...
I will admit I'm a bit of an obnoxious Anglophile. I have been known to, on a particularly bad day, stop in to A Salt and Battery on 2nd Ave. for a dinner of sausage and chips just to hear the cute accents of the counter help. I am also a big proponent of BBC America, it's one of the biggest reasons I spend stupid amounts of money each month for digital cable. You may think you know about Brit comedy because you've seen a few episodes of the award winning The Office, and if this is the case bully for you, or even if it's not that's okay, but I implore you to take a look at the sitcom Coupling. [Here's the part of the review where I occasionally lapse into British slang to express myself.] This brilliant programme is entering its fourth series, and though it was feckin' butchered by NBC last year as they tried to translate it into the newest Friends replacement, don't let this deter you. The dreaded Friends similarities are sorta striking — six friends obsessed with relationships and who are sexually interconnected sit around to chat over liquids. But for some reason the...
