I sincerely wish I could give you a rule that would allow you to make perfect pie crusts every time. But perfect pie crusts are largely a matter of taste and seem to be an art form. I’ve made hundreds of pies over the years and I’d say maybe 10% had really perfect crusts.
And then there’s the white crust versus brown crust issue. Somewhere in this country, probably running east-to-west through the middle of the state of Illinois there’s a line. South of that line pie crusts should be at least a little browned. North of that line the slightest hint of brown renders the pie inedible. Act accordingly. [continue reading…]
I sometimes wonder if I am the only heterosexual male who is crazy about the blog Go Fug Yourself as in fug•ly (adj.) frightfully ugly; of or pertaining to something beyond the boundaries of normal unattractiveness. The blog appears to be dedicated exclusively to making catty comments about celebrity fashions but it does so with considerable verbal dexterity. Where else can you get a statement like this:
But the worst part — it’s more visible on a close-up — is the little swatch of flesh-toned fabric poking out on her left shoulder. Yes, Trishelle wore a high, v-necked camisole under this low, straight-cut camisole-style dress. She looks like Miss Hannigan.
The lesson here: Miss Hannigan, while the real hero of Annie, dresses less for public consumption and more for bathtub gin consumption. So unless Trishelle is on her way to locking herself in the lav with a glass, a ladel, and a giant paddle for stirring, then she’s wearing the wrong thing.
On October 6, 1927 The Jazz Singer opened and everything in movies changed. The Jazz Singer wasn’t the first sound movie. That was Don Juan in 1926. And only about 25% of The Jazz Singer had sound. But sound was an intrinsic, essential part of the story in The Jazz Singer. And that changed the movies.
The Jazz Singer is a story of conflicts: conflicts between fathers and sons, conflicts between the old ways of the old country and the new ways of the new country, and a man’s internal struggle between his religious duty and his dream. And the story has some eerie echoes, echoes of Al Jolson’s—Asa Yoelson’s—life and echoes of the new media of the sound film which was to replace the well-developed universal art of the silent movie.
And the mixture of silent movie and talkie really works in The Jazz Singer. The portrayals of Cantor Rabinowitz and Yudelson the Kibitzer could have been lampoons in an all-sound picture of just a few years later. But in the conventions of the silent film they are touching and balletic.
I saw The Jazz Singer for the umpteenth time yesterday. And once again I was moved to tears. It’s not just a curiosity. It’s a great story. And Jolson was the greatest entertainer in the world.
In addition to watching the vice-presidential debate on TV last night I followed the live-blogging on the following blogs: TTLB, Vodkapundit, Ann Althouse, Captain’s Quarters’s, The Spoons Experience, Talkleft, and the Llamabutchers (individual posts—scroll up). I multi-task well. N. Z. Bear was having server problems and dropped out early. Vodkapundit was pretty clearly bored by the debate. Ann Althouse was having server problems and was on Tivo delay. She did the only fashion blogging on the debate. Actually, I didn’t think Gwen Ifills’s jacket was that cute. But what do I know? Captain’s Quarters is very gung-ho Bush and saw the debate quite a bit differently than I did. Spoons really detests Bush and saw a completely different debate than I did. Talkleft’s coverage was pretty perfunctory. The Llamabutchers had consistently interesting, entertaining coverage. I didn’t agree with quite a bit of what they had to say but I was never bored.
For those who missed the vice-presidential debate here’s a handy summary:
Edwards:
Bush lied.
Halliburton.
Stump speech.
Cheney:
They’re inconsistent.
Senator Gone.
I have nothing more to say.
My take: Cheney by a nose.
Cheney did what he had to do: he did not look like an ogre, he stanched the bleeding from the last debate, he restated campaign themes effectively, and he kept Kerry’s “global test” gaffe in the air. Edwards is a personable lightweight. He did not give a compelling explanation of the “global test” bit. He hammered Cheney on Halliburton (which I don’t think is that much of a winning issue unless you’re a strongly partisan Democrat) and got back to his stump speech as quickly and often as he could.
This was actually a pretty boring debate. I didn’t see any point in the debate as in the discussion of North Korea in the presidential debate at which there was actual dialogue about the issues. Cheney had the best of the first, foreign policy part of the debate. Edwards had the best of the second part which focused on domestic issues. Was anybody tuned in to the second part?
Gwen Ifills did a very decent job on the questioning and with several questions was cleverly trying to nudge the candidates off of their talking points. For example, in one question she instructed Mr. Edwards to give his answer without mentioning his running mate. He was unable to do so. He was sticking to his programming.
In my view the sole interesting thing about the debate was a possible hint of the emerging strategy of the Bush campaign. I had been puzzled in the presidential debate by Mr. Bush’s repetition of the “hard work” point. It was mentioned too often to be accidental but he didn’t really tie it into anything. Cheney did. His analysis of Mssrs. Kerry and Edwards’s unremarkable Senate careers suggests that the Bush campaign is making the case that Kerry/Edwards is all show and no go, not willing or able to do the hard work of governing. It will be interesting to see if they can make this stick. Frankly, I’m skeptical.
Interestingly, on radio, it seemed clear that Dick Cheney was walking all over John Edwards. Cheney sounded decisive; Edwards sounded breathless, nervous, rushed; Edwards fumbled over his words. I felt that Cheney was misstating the facts, but I don’t think the facts really matter to the average viewer wondering who “won” the debate. Most people who feel they know the facts have already chosen a side. Any listeners who felt they didn’t know the facts, I believed, would prefer Cheney, just because he sounded more confident. Cheney rattled off numbers and percentages and Edwards was left to respond with, “Well, that’s not true and we have a plan.”
But on television, that impression was reversed. Cheney looked crabby and seemed to mutter. Edwards had more confident gestures and a more conversational style. When Edwards stumbled over his words, or when he “broke the rule” about mentioning Kerry, his nonverbal behavior made it clear that he wasn’t rattled. Instead, he seemed less scripted, and more involved in talking . . . and listening (rather than simply rushing out with his preprepared attacks).
IBeth’s observations that Joe reports may account for some of the differences in the reaction to the debate. It’s a pretty well-documented phenomenon that a lot of people react no differently to debates with the sound off and the sound on. But people do react differently to sound-only (radio).
So differences in reaction to the debate may not be merely a barometer of one’s political position. It may also be a measurement of how one reacts to the paralinguistic (facial expression, body language, posture, etc.) features of the debate.
When I went back to check Iraqi Blog Count (I had left a comment there and wanted to see if it had received a response), I was distressed to see this comment there:
Hi
I am an American who stumbled onto your blog:)
Here are some really good books that I reccomend for you to read.
(Maybe you have read some of them, apologies if you
have)
The Oil Junta and other essays by
Gore Vidal
Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance
Noam Chomsky
Lies, and the Lying Liars Who tell them
by AL Franken
Bushwacked
by Molly Ivins
Dude, Where’s My Country?
by Michael Moore
House of Saud, House of Bush
by Craig Unger
If I were going to recommend books to someone from another country whose only exposure to the United States was what she read in the newspaper or what she saw on TV, I don’t think I’d recommend any of those books. None of them are great literature and they paint a picture of America that I just don’t recognize. Ann Coulter’s books paint a picture of America that I don’t recognize either and I wouldn’t recommend her work to someone unfamiliar with this country as well.
So what would your choices be? Any books that really paint a recognizeable picture of this country? They can be humble choices or grand.
Jeff Jarvis has posted the lastest in his Issues2004 series. This time out his topic is communications. Jeff’s position in a nutshell: government should get the hell out of the way.
While I have a great deal of sympathy with this point of view, I believe that when you examine the historic record it’s clear that the role of government in communications is more complex than that. The federal government has played several distinct roles in communications in the last century or so including regulation (as in Jeff’s favorite whipping boy, the FCC), providing subsidies for the development of new media (particularly the Internet), and enforcing its intellectual property laws. Since Jeff has dealt with the regulation aspect of the role of the federal government so frequently in his blog, I want to concentrate on the role of the federal government in subsidizing research and intellectual property. [continue reading…]
This week’s Carnival of the Liberated is up at Dean’s World. A choice selection of the week’s posts from Iraqi bloggers edited by your obedient servant.
On October 6, 1927 
