Category: Awards

Poseur Alert

"Claiming a macho film friendship is not-so-secretly gay has become its own kind of silly convention, a fake-subversive cliché. It is better — sounder both aesthetically and sociologically — to view the masculine pathos in films like [Keanu Reeves surfer movie] Point Break in light of the tradition of heroically minded philosophy that runs from Aristotle to Nietzsche. If Point Break is homoerotic, in other words, then so is Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Indeed, the thing that connects Johnny and Bodhi is precisely the thing that Hegel says distinguishes the Master from the Slave: The master prefers death to a life without honor and beauty, a life of mere survival," – Matt Feeney, Slate.

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Yglesias Award Nominee

"Myself, I think that liberals should be praying that the Right embraces the "stabbed in the back" theory of what went wrong in Iraq (and possibly Iran as well), because it will push conservatives toward political irrelevance… when Dinesh D’Souza tells conservative cruisegoers that "it’s customary to say we lost the Vietnam war, but who’s ‘we’? … The left won by demanding America’s humiliation," he isn’t broadening conservatism’s base – he’s shrinking it. Which is what a post-Bush conservatism that obsesses over how the liberal media undid the Iraq Occupation by failing to "report the good news" would do as well, " – Ross Douthat. Tell it to Reynolds.

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Yglesias Award Nominee

"The sad truth is that if the FBI really is following anyone on the American left, it is engaging in a huge waste of time and personnel. No matter what it claims for a self-image, in reality it’s the saddest collection of cowering, ineffectual ninnies ever assembled under one banner on God’s green earth. And its ugly little secret is that it really doesn’t mind being in the position it’’s in – politically irrelevant and permanently relegated to the sidelines, tucked into its cozy little cottage industry of polysyllabic, ivory tower criticism. When you get right down to it, the American left is basically just a noisy Upper West side cocktail party for the college-graduate class.

And we all know it. The question is, when will we finally admit it?" – Matt Taibbi, contributing editor to Rolling Stone.

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Poseur Alert

"It is creative intuition that permits both the artist and the viewer to leap over logic, whether scientific or artistic, and emotionally experience the problem laid out here of reconciling the "wet" domain of nature with the "dry" domain of electronics."

Actually, it’s a big blob that produces water when you stroke it. Looks a little like the South Park clitoris to me.

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Poseur Alert

A classic of downtown snootiness:

The Bowery Whole Foods tells us something remarkable about its shoppers: how ignorant they are of where they are and how alienated they are from food.  Perusing it, the thing that impresses you most is the pervasive labeling, the enormous amounts of information appended to everything.  Everywhere are little identificatory notes, signs overhead, brochures on what to do with their sausages (eat them?), glossy photos of the smiling man who supposedly dredged up your mussels or baited the hook upon which your (always already headless and filleted) wild salmon met its end.  This is food shopping for people who have come to trust only that which is mediated by text, addenda, explanations, certifications.  It is a website come to life, or a piece of life for those who prefer websites: each piece of signage functions as the hyperlink that clicks through to a capsule review.

I once served some sliced raw albacore tuna doused in soy to a friend.  I had bought the fish not far from Whole Foods from Alex, the fisherman who had caught it and brought it the next day to the Greenmarket.  I’m lucky to live in a city where this is a humdrum and everyday transaction.  My friend, a film producer, remarked, "This is great!  But how did it get sterile?"

"Sterile?" I asked.

"Yeah. How does it get safe to eat?"

Food? Sterile? This is the alienation on which Whole Foods depends.

I guess I’d rather be alienated than puking my guts out.

Yglesias Award Nominee

"What depresses me, and makes me despise so much war criticism even when I agree with it, is that so many of those positing it seem so happy about what’s gone wrong. They seem to relish the probability that Iraq will get worse and worse so that they can be righter and righter.

This isn’t new. I remember an anti-war activist who was staying in our hotel in Baghdad, who had not come to Karbala for that first ashura. A good person trying to do good things, she had stayed behind to prepare a media alert on the horrors of the occupation – which, especially at a time when the coverage out of Iraq was largely very upbeat, was a very worthy thing to be doing. Still, one thing really bothered me about her. When, upon everyone’s return from Karbala, the activist heard that the day had actually been free of violence, and full of jubilation, she looked as if she had tasted a bad olive, and spit out her response: "Oh, fuck."

How she must be gloating now. Reality has made sages of the most dire prophets. It’s perfect: Iraq really has gone to hell, and the demon neocons are the ones that sent it.

Like liberals – and thinking conservatives, and sentient beings – everywhere, I gravely doubt that the troop surge – so little so late – will do anything to save Iraq. But for the sake of the Iraqi people, I sure hope it does – even if that helps the Republicans," – Tish Durkin, Huffpost.

Me too, even if it helps Bush. We are approaching a dreadful decision, one that should leave no one unscarred: whether to risk the chaos that leaving Iraq would entail or to risk the nightmare of an open-ended occupation, spreading throughout the entire region, and fomenting blowback as we’ve never seen it before. Our job now is to make the right decision, and it will be an incredibly tough one. I don’t see how anyone can do anything but hope that Petraeus somehow manages to offer a third option by the fall. I doubt it, I’m afraid. But we can still hope.

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Hathos

A reader writes:

I clicked. You Bastard! I did it. I couldn’t help myself. Some nights I tune in to Olbermann just to see how long I can last. I almost never make it past the countdown segment.  "Which one of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow?" Hmm … none. Has he ever had a guest with a contrary view on that show?  Someone who supported the war, or still does? It’s pure echo chamber. It’s not just the content that turns me off, it’s the smarmy, yuk-yuk tone of the thing. You can talk about Iraq and Afghanistan in the same way you talk about Paris and Britney, but then you shouldn’t complain when people think you’re a bit of a clown.

Also, maybe you can confirm one of my suspicions. I watch Chris Matthews all the time. Whenever I see those two on the same set (election night, state of the union, etc.), Matthews has his arms crossed and this pained look on face like, "Why do I have to sit next to this guy?" Am I "projecting" Andrew? What’s the deal there?

As for Beck, I don’t watch him either. His network airs Nancy Grace. No point in encouraging them.

I have no inside information on Chris Matthews’ relationship, if any, with Keith Olbermann. The reader notes, however, an interesting and common phenomenon. Call it "hathos", as someone I can’t recall once coined. Hathos is the attraction to something you really can’t stand; it’s the compulsion of revulsion. I feel that way about Bill O’Reilly. Hannity is just evil. Grace is unwatchable past two minutes. O’Reilly, however, is compelling in some mysterious way. I need a fix every now and again – and not just of the turkey wobble neck. You find yourself watching him the way you sometimes smell your own farts: it’s disgusting, but you can’t help yourself.