Did anyone here ever deny Lileks his basic humanity? Or indeed, any of our political opponents their basic humanity? I think it's precisely because they're human people just like us that they're so worrisome.
Does anyone else get an Apocolypse Now feeling from Lab's continual trawlings up the Red River?
Jesus H., he really is such a bad writer. You should be ashamed. Also, you're gay.
Lab's continual trawlings up the Red River
He's after something in that heart of darkness.
Ogged is right. That is the most overwritten pile of slushy shite I have read since the last time someone told me that Lileks had written something really good. He is a total knob-end. The posts where he demands the immediate genocide of all Muslims are the best ones on that blog.
Yeah, but who's Kurtz? Is it Insty? Is Labs just sitting at the feast and enjoying the show for now? And is he really going to complete the mission?
FWIW--I don't think it's Insty.
It's only a matter of time before Labs hacks Glenn Reynolds to death with a machete in an acid-fueled orgy of blood and pagan idolotry.
He is a total knob-end. The posts where he demands the immediate genocide of all Muslims are the best ones on that blog.
I think his Star Trek posts aren't all that bad. Except for the ones about how Star Trek demands the immediate genocide of all Muslims.
Could Kurtz be Charles Johnson? Or Mistah Kurtz?
This totally sounds like a voice-over narrative in a cheesy detective film.
Except that Kurtz is the embodiment of our society's fondest wishes gone sour and native. I don't think Insty was ever Dem enough to qualify. No, it has to be one of the formerly liberal neocons. Maybe Chait or Beinart?
Or, wait...he's going after Leiberman!
OK, fine, just pretend Ho/lbo had written it.
Lilecks is afraid of semicolons and not certain of his tense. Also: "As wine ages better than beer, so did the women look better than the men".
Lawrence Kaplan? Doesn't seem like a big enough cheese, really. Chait and Beinart at least don't seem to favor exterminating the brutes, and hard to see Lileks as a gateway to them.
Why isn't this blog dedicated to following the trials and tribulationsof Floyd Landis, huh?
He is a total knob-end. The posts where he demands the immediate genocide of all Muslims are the best ones on that blog.
DD is convincing me.
Dear Ogged,
"You know how I know you're gay? Your dick tastes like shit."
Best,
FL
I was thinking of posting on that. I'm not clear on the science, but it looks weak -- no one knows what testosterone will do for you performance-wise, it's a complicated test with a lot of false positives, and normal ranges vary a great deal. (And if testosterone does do something for you, doesn't it seem that elite athletes would be disproportionately likely to have naturally weird results?)
But I don't know enough about it to have a strong opinion.
And if testosterone does do something for you, doesn't it seem that elite athletes would be disproportionately likely to have naturally weird results?
It's my understanding that the level at which you fail a 'testosterone test' is about 4 times higher than the average level. So I presume that allows for the possiblity that athletes, collectively, will have higher levels.
Anybody see Colbert's take on it last night?
16: Who the fuck cares? It's cycling. I'm sure there are fascinating issues to be explored as regards the additives used in the fuel for NASCAR, but you have to be the sort of person who considers traffic a sport to really get into it.
Anybody see Colbert's take on it last night?
You mean, of course he had elevated testosterone, he's an American?
OK, fine, just pretend Ho/lbo had written it.
okeydoke. Jo/hn, mate, try doing another draft of this or something, you're beginning to sound like that frightful cunt Lileks!
22. godfucking america-and-kitten hater.
Yeah, it's a little over-written, but does convey basic humanity.
Yeah, it's a little over-written, but does convey basic humanity.
So wait, what was the point? That this is a well-written piece, or a piece adequately conveying some emotions common to high-school reunions? I thought the latter.
Anywho, I think it's obvious that Landis is being framed by the French.
Also, my favorite text on high-school reunions remains Grosse Pointe Blank. Not least because of the Violent Femmes on the soundtrack, which SCMT probably hates, or at least thinks should have had more Smiths on.
If I truly believed that "basic humanity" couldn't do better than that pile of shit I would have given up on this species a long time ago.
22: Tim is the hero!
Aren't you honor-bound to stick up for NASCAR, being as you are close to one of the big branch offices?
I appear to be the anti-apostropher about sports: all forms of racing appeal to me, no stick-and-ball game does. Traffic!
29: I watch GPB at least once every two months. I think it may be my favorite Cusack movie; certainly, he hasn't done anything worthwhile since it. (Caveat: haven't seen Being John Malkovich.)
certainly, he hasn't done anything worthwhile since
I used to think Cusack had Hollywood cracked---he did some garbage to make money, and other stuff because it was good. Then he vanished.
Being John Malkovich is good, but I guess not great; I liked Adaptation. and Eternal Sunshine better.
33: Car racing is teh suck, though it at least has the advantage that somebody could die in a fiery explosion at any moment. Cycling? I guess it has more excitement than synchronized swimming, but only barely.
You didn't care for High Fidelity?
You didn't care for High Fidelity?
Spoiled by having read the book first.
38: Not really. I never admit that IRL; I feel somehow obliged to like it.
BTW I want to say Joan Cusack is fun to watch but normally poorly used, and one of the pleasures of GPB was seeing her with John in the same movie, playing roles appropriate to their talents.
Cycling is pretty exciting, if you bother to learn about the strategy, you brutes. And I could probably even get into NASCAR, if I could learn to tell white southern boys apart.
42 gets it exactly right, and of course it refers to the Cusak fans, not me.
43: "exciting," s/b "prissy, even"
I'm sure Dungeons&Dragons is exciting if you learn about the strategy. It still would make for a lame spectator sport.
The problem with NASCAR, as I've said before, is that other forms of auto racing are just so much better.
I want to say Joan Cusack is fun to watch but normally poorly used,
This is a widely-held opinion in Chicago's theater community, and I agree with it. We, however, are bombarded with her US Cellular presence.
45 is wrong. I watched a D&D game about 2 years ago. I understood the rules and strategy. It was boring.
BTW I want to say Joan Cusack is fun to watch but normally poorly used, and one of the pleasures of GPB was seeing her with John in the same movie, playing roles appropriate to their talents.
I love Joan Cusack. I once spent a half-hour trying to figure out exactly who her husband was, and whether, based on the evidence (resume, news articles, available pictures, etc.), he deserved to married to her.
Maybe it was an hour.
26: Pretty faint praise, isn't it?
The piece is pretty bad, but believe it or not, its marginal coherence is a marked improvement over most of Lileks' recent output.
It's a sad artifact of our culture that the public observation of a person or persons being gay is so over-used that it no longer has appropriate shaming power.
You're not allowed to pan soccer but defend cycling of all things.
I have World Cup withdrawal really, really bad. I have to go eat some ice cream or something.
So who's your cellphone carrier, Tim? Show your devotion.
48: You just agreed with me Michael.
whether ... he deserved to married to her
And?
It still would make for a lame spectator sport.
But what -- what if the players were naked clowns? The DM would be Tim Curry in full Frankenfurter regalia. I think we could make of it a spectacle worth following.
You're not allowed to pan soccer but defend cycling of all things.
Who makes these rules? If cyclists pretended to have flat tires and complained to the race officials that they should be awarded flat tire time bonuses, then maybe cycling would be as bad as soccer.
I think DirecTV has some lots of soccer games package you can get, SB.
(Also: bicycle racing might be more fun to watch if the contestants wore clown makeup. And big shoes.)
54: Bacon! Go choke on it!
Actually, although I'm a cyclist as much as my knee allows, I don't really watch cycling. I'm nterested in doping scandals, however.
It must be awesome to be british. Simply by using exotic terms like "knob-end," "shite,"" bugger," and "pram," you are automatically right about stuff. Also, Ameicans ever say "cunt." No wonder US imperialism can't get off the ground.
baa, you were doing so well with the "don't cheat on your wife" thing; you're not going to blow it by defending Lileks again, are you?
On the larger point, it's deeply unfair that Brits and black people have such an easy time being funny. Why is that?
On the larger point, it's deeply unfair that Brits and black people have such an easy time being funny. Why is that?
Because they don't have any power, obviously.
naked clowns
How naked can a clown be before he stops being identifiable as a clown?
63: Chris Rock had a similar explanation for boxing supremacy. IIRC, he's sure that somewhere out there is a Native American who's going to kick everyone's ass.
64 -- see the link I posted toward the bottom of the clown-fucking thread.
Hey BTW --- anybody here seen "The Leonard Cohen Files"? I am going to tonight.
55: Of course not. No one deserves to be married to Joan Cusack. It's simply a grace that has descended into your life, for which you thank God by whatever name you know Him every day of your unworthy life.
Er, ah, I mean "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man".
And by "toward the bottom" I mean at comment #569 -- not what you were thinking.
a Native American who's going to kick everyone's ass
Billy Jack.
SCMT, I saw a musical with your namesake in it last night.
High Fidelity is good, I can sort of see how the book would ruin it (though I read it later), but there are some important differences. I'm at best neutral towards Hugh Grant (I just checked and it turns out I've seen shockingly few of his movies, but I assume he sucks in most of them) but think About a Boy is a better movie than book.
CA: Scott Lemieux has.
a musical with your namesake in it
Spamalot?
61 is because they don't take themselves as fucking seriously as we do.
Joan Cusak is just fabulous, and Tim rises higher and higher in my estimation. Also, one of the great things about PK's favorite little kid show (Peep and the Big Wide World) is that Joan Cusak does the narration.
I didn't think the Lileks thing was that bad. It was a blog post, and not a terrible example of the form.
But GPB is a great movie, and both Cusacks are awesome in it. Minnie Driver annoys me, though.
About a Boy is a better movie
It's a nice little movie, but please, can we have a ban on the climactic redemptive school-auditorium scene? I'm looking at you, Napoleon Dynamite.
78: That was the only good part of the movie.
78 -- Would you say that this scene was adequately sent up by that good movie from the fall that I'm suddenly blanking on the name of it, the one where the kid sings the Pink Floyd song which he pretends to have written at the school talent show?
That was the only good part of the movie.
Weiner, eat your ham.
"The Squid and the Whale".
I hate Joan Cusack's cell phone commercials, and by extension, I hate her. I once proposed that she and Catherine Zeta-Jones should have a fight to the death, and I was rooting for Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Yeah, I really hate Joan Cusack. You people are from another planet.
Joan Cusack seems really likable, but she's ugly. So I guess I'm with Adam on this one.
Adam is filled with the Lord's hate.
But whoever Joan Cusack is married to, Catherine Zeta-Jones is married to Michael Douglas. Isn't that some kind of guilt by association?
76: She's very conventional. See the first paragraph of 74. But 86 gets it exactly right. My son really liked the Antonio Banderas/Catherine Zeta-Jones Zorro, and I could watch it because Zeta-Jones wasn't so hard to look at, but the thought of Michael Douglas just wrecks it all. Maybe I need to reconsider the whole "where people's naughty bits have been shouldn't really matter" thing....
Joan Cusack seems really likable, but she's ugly.
She plays ugly people. It's called "acting." (ACTING!)
I'm trying to find people to hate for me, by the way. Want to sign up, apo? Tuesdays in August starting with the 15th are still open.
I submit that "Michael Douglas with a moustache" is the definitive refutation of the "with a moustache" theory.
"With a Michael Douglas" theory, on the other hand...
Let's try it.
The opposite of a hat is that very hat, worn by Michael Douglas.
88: But then, so does Steve Buscemi.
88: What if Sarah Jessica Parker was playing Joan Cusack? What then?
I believe that would herald the coming of the Apocalypse.
OTOH I am hoping that Daniel Radcliffe will wear clown makeup in his new role.
Sarah Jessica Parker stars in an HBO event: Quirky! The Joan Cusack Story....
69: I saw teh Leonard Cohen movie. No Leonard performing. At all. Archival or current. Why? Why? The interviews with him were moderately interesting, the tribute performances were moderately interesting (I now have to seek out music by Beth Orton and Antony) and Rufus Wainwright's sister is kind of a freak, and it's shocking to see how old the McGarrigles are. I hate documentaries where you have to watch home movies of the subject as a child on a tricycle. Worth seeing if you've already seen [insert movie title here].
People who hate on Joan Cusack are evil and wrong and I refuse to treat them fairly in an argument.
Clicked through. Damn, Labs, you gotta work on your taste in writing.
99 -- would Helen Hunt be involved?
I'm beginning to think I really missed out by sidestepping the infidelity threads.
Non-Chicagoans have probably not had Joan smirking at them from a hundred billboards for the last several years.
I don't think the writing is bad. It's a bit sacchrine, but so are reunions.
It's supposed to be evocative, but all it evokes is "I am very pleased with myself." Noted.
OTOH, I do enjoy Garrison Keillor, so maybe it's just different tastes in smarmy sentimentality.
107: As pretty much all his writing does. Step away from the winger blogs for a bit, Labs. They are affecting your judgment.
The tests for elevated platelet counts have a cutoff, and it's very high and nearly impossible to get there without doping. I presume it's similar for testosterone; if athletes have a higher occurrence of natural testosterone, the legal competitive limit will account for that.
The writing wasn't great, but it did evoke reunion feelings pretty well. Much better than the other one where the writing might have been better, but the tone implied that she was bored, nonjudgmental, and above it all. Lileks at least found some joy in the situation, even if it did have a street detective feel. It's Minnesota! With huge potatoes!
You know what's worse than Joan Cusack? That billboard for Frasier on the Kennedy Expressway overpass on Western Ave. Why should anyone ever have to look at an enlarged version of Kelsey Grammer?
(I specify the location, hoping against hope that that is the only extant Frasier billboard.)
I think he meant "the setting of Fargo, the movie."
I thought he mentioned Minnesota in the article. Oh well.
The Minneapolis Tribune refuses to print Lileks' political writing, you know.
I realize that this has become a Cusack thread, whoever they are, but anyway.
I retract 114. He does mention two places in Minnesota, but I think that's just where people from Fargo go.
The Far-Go-Gos were a punk girl group.
Ah, memories of a long-ago road trip. Two cassettes in the car, Surf Punks and Go-Gos. That's the kind of high school reminiscing I could almost get into.
Some enterprising neo-punk band should do a medley of "Somebody Told Me" by the Eurythmics, "You Can't Talk in Your Sleep (if you can't sleep)," and "Nausea" by X. Thank me in the credits.
Oh, he lives in Minneapolis. I'm just tweaking Cala for her geographic imprecision.
Also: sign #X that John Emerson is old: it's been the Star Tribune for 25 years. I barely remember getting the Star when I was a kid. My dad was pissed when they merged with the Tribune and stopped having delivery service in South Dakota.
In my defense, the thing that got me was the bit I excerpted and afterward, about realizing that that person is dead, which is a very weird emotional moment and I thought he did fairly well exploring it.
I find this to be a little bit moving, because I, having read my recent alumni magazine, know a lot about facing death in the face, while others, Ogged in particular, have no idea.
facing death in the face
"facing" s/b "raping"
Also, I seem to be missing some important shared point of reference, here. What exactly do you wrap in plastic and send down the river?
Many find Lileks' tone off-putting. I am not one who does, but I recognize apects of his writting -- he indulges in a taste for easy targets, for example -- that would make people dislike it.
What he really is not, however, is a bad prose stylist. He often works in loud colors, granted, and there's a danger of overdoing it inherent in that style. Attacking Lileks' style for this reason, however, is a bit like attacking the writing of Mark Steyn, or James Wolcott, or Lee Siegal; namely, to do so is just a mistake. Yes, they have distinctive styles that may not be to your taste, and yes, they take their politics with them to places you may have hoped not to find any. Nonetheless, they are all fine writers. If you can't appreciate them, it's your loss.
What exactly do you wrap in plastic and send down the river?
Poor Mittens. No?
Mark Steyn, or James Wolcott, or Lee Siegal
You've got to be kidding. Wolcott's on our side, and I'll admit that he overwrites. I honestly don't know what you could mean by offerring those three in support of Lileks. What, then, makes a bad stylist? Grammar?
Poor Mittens. No?
I dunno, I thought one cremated deceased pets. Why would you wrap them in plastic, for heaven's sake? That sounds like a recipe for a grisly find downstream.
Lileks is not a bad prose stylist. This is true. He often can be very clever with a turn of phrase and his gallery of regrettable fod and interior desecrations stuff is very funny (though now several years in the rearview mirror). My problem with Lileks is that he is just so boring these days. He has two modes: the smug, navel-gazing boomer stereotype personified, or waving his tiny, ineffectual fists at all the goddamn America-hating traitors and berating Iraqis for their lack of gratitude. The latter just comes off as spittle-flecked, chest-puffing nonsense. The former? I'm not sure how much time he spends in the Mall of America, Target, and the Apple Store, but from what I can tell it's awfully close to every waking hour and I just don't care about his shopping trips and what shits the local teenagers are.
"facing" should be "staring." How humiliating.
Is 26 old enough to start a "kids these days!" series on my blog?
baa, you child rapist, you made me read it again. The problem is that he so often reaches for a grandeur that's just not there, or that he can't evoke. Sample horrible sentences:
ancient alliances and feuds are quickly buried, and you find yourself having a grand hilarious talk
you find a raucous assemblage, including one bald shouting bull telling a story
When they were 12 they had the look of someone at the end of the bar working on the third double with patient pleasure. (this isn't such a bad sentence, but I maintain that no 12-year-old actually has this look.)
She hunched, as though she was trying to draw in her beauty and keep it from spilling out, making a mess.
Miss Thermonuclear Bosoms. The Stone Fox who exuded some sort of brain-melting pheromone that turned every guy into a gape-faced pudding-headed fool, who made entire fields of wilted corn stand up just by driving past - in a parka!
If you don't think that's bad writing, well, I guess raping children will do that to you. Or maybe this is all just a matter of taste, or something.
I think Lileks is a better writer, on the whole, than the three baa mentioned. But those three are pretty bad.
SCMT, you don't think Steyn and Siegal write well?
I actually liked the bit about the bull guy. Otherwise, it just seemed really Lake Wobegon without being nearly as interesting or funny as PHC. I'm with Cala - big potatoes, and we all get to pray first! Can I have a side of flags with my eye-watering remembrance of someone I didn't bother to get to know in high school?
She hunched, as though she was trying to draw in her beauty and keep it from spilling out, making a mess.
That's not a horrible sentence.
Surely Ogged's point is what to think of an article in which all of those sentences occur. The effect is cumulative.
Yeah, I agree there's lots of that's overwritten in Lileks. That's because he's always straining for effect (and, suspect, because he hammers out what seems like 8000 words a day). I'm not going to defend a grand hilarious talk or a racous assemblege.
You don't think so? It sounds completely lacking in empathy for the subject to me. No one is hunched because they're afraid of the impact of their beauty.
124: There's a difference between being a good or competent stylist and being a good writer. Lileks at his best is always grammatical and comprehensible, with an interesting turn of phrase here and there (shown off to best effect, as 129 notes, with his quotidian comedy stuff). But it is possible to possess these virtues and still be completely intolerable.
Every time I read the title of this post I think, "I trip the light fantastic."
I agree there's lots of that's overwritten in Lileks
Comity! Punk ass bitch motherfuckers!
But when he's good, he's often quite good...
Much like Michael Jordon. Him and Lileks, peas in a pod.
One of these peas tastes like ham.
Michael Jordon
This speaks for itself, doesn't it?
I dunno, I thought one cremated deceased pets.
Moses then. And that's my final offer.
No one is hunched because they're afraid of the impact of their beauty.
LB, of all the crazy things you say here, this is the craziest. Why do you think I stoop?
I will also defend the hunching sentence in isolation. The point is not that the girl is actually hunching to keep her beauty from spilling out, but that's what it looks like from the outside, and I can think of lots of people this would accurately describe.
Why do you think I stoop?
I thought it was because your 29-inch cock weighed 38 pounds. Glad we cleared that up.
What Tia said.
There's some fucking comity for you!
baa:
I took a single creative writing class in college. I was far and away the worst writer in the seminar. I honestly don't know how I got in. In four and half months and maybe fifty pages turned in, there were probably three sentences of which I was proud. There weren't many more of which I wasn't ashamed. It took me the entire semester to learn what I assume is the first rule in a great number of rules that good writers know: there is something more to writing than coming up with your ten best lines about a subject and then finding a way to string them together.
None of those three writers seem to have learned that.
No one is hunched because they're afraid of the impact of their beauty.
They may hunch because they fear the stares of the geek cohort. Shy, pretty geek girl is how I read it.
The big potato thing amused me because I went to Kansas steakhouse once and not only were there big steaks, but these mutant potatoes the length of my forearm.
150: Yeah, but it makes him sound like an ass. He's looking at her, and he's trying to write something sensitive about what's going on inside her head, and as far as he can get is "Man she's hottt."
Ogged, I realize your anatomy is kind of fucked up, but I thought even you would realize my leaden cock isn't attached to my shoulders. It's the massive deltoids causing the problem.
Why do you think I stoop?
Clowns are short?
My dad, who is a quite a good writer, said the first rule of writing is 'Murder your darlings.' The most ornately wrought sentences should not survive the final edit.
mutant potatoes the length of my forearm
This sounds impressive, until one remembers that Cala was a thalidomide baby.
LB, I think he's trying to convey that she was beautiful, and part of the point is that he didn't really know her at all.
It was even harder to eat the potatoes.
136: Actually, that's one of the worst of the bad sentences. Supposing the reader chooses to play along with the beauty-as-a-fluid conceit, it's not apparent how the hunching is supposed to keep it from spilling. It's not that one doesn't get "shy, pretty geek girl" from this, but rather that it seems a pretty clusmy way of conveying the idea.
(Come to think of it, "Her smile could melt coal" is pretty unfortunate, too. She had searingly brutal halitosis? Her teeth were so brightly polished that they emanated killing heat? I can sort of tell what he means, but it doesn't make the imagery any less clunky.)
You're right, it's wonderful writing. Almost as good as the opening of Love Story:
"What can you say about a 25 year-old-girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved mozart, bach, the beatles, and me?"
Clunky is right. Of course there are beautiful women who do things (hunch, even!) to keep from calling attention to themselves, but this business about drawing it in and not making a mess is just weird.
murder your darlings
That's totally overwritten.
I've heard the advice as, "go through what you just wrote and cross out your favorite sentences."
"Her smile could melt coal" is horrible because 1) it's almost meaningless and 2) what little meaning it has directly contradicts the hunching sentence. But like Tia, the hunching sentence describes *lots* of shy people I have known, who were quite pretty, but didn't really know it. They also wear too-big clothes that they can disappear in and tend to avoid eye contact in public.
Doctor Slack, it pains me to realize that you rape children, too.
I'm not defending it as good writing, just the idea that women do hunch because they're afraid of the impact of their beauty.
Twist the knife a little, LB, I'm not in enough agony.
I worry my lasting contribution to the blog will be the rape you in the face comment.
Apo, Tia describes a lot of people you know?
165: Oh, I think you've always suspected.
my lasting contribution to the blog
It would be interesting to go back and trace the origins of the millions of in-jokes here. I'm proud of the Mexican thing, but I'm hunching to keep my pride from spilling out and creating a slipping hazard.
But the sentence misdescribes what's going on in their heads. Sure, there are pretty people who crouch and duck to keep people from looking at them. They aren't thinking "I must contain the power of my beauty", they're thinking "I fear attention". He's looking at someone avoiding attack and thinking she's restraining her powers.
That's why it makes him sound like an ass -- he's looking at her, and trying to sound sensitive and perceptive, and he hasn't got an iota of real sympathy for her.
he's looking at her, and trying to sound sensitive and perceptive, and he hasn't got an iota of real sympathy for her.
OTOH, this is most men.
Apo, Tia describes a lot of people you know?
Hmm, I see what you mean. I would like to revise the opening of that sentence from "But like Tia" to "I like Tia's butt."
LB is making sense!
Also, Labs, you cock wrangler, I don't know how you managed to type 160, with it's implicit Bushian standard of "but we can sorta see what he means!" without apologizing to us all.
171: I'm trying to think, and can't come up with a single running gag that's mine.
I'm trying to think, and can't come up with a single running gag that's mine
You'd be a lot funnier if you dropped the "feminism" malarky.
can't come up with a single running gag that's mine.
LB has no running gag reflex.
But I do kind of hate Lileks because I came across him first in an exterminate-the-brutes vein. Generally I like cracker-barrel hokiness; I'd probably cut him much more slack if I'd read him on neutral stuff first.
Beyond Apo, Cala, Labs, and ogged, I don't think any of us are responsible for any running gags.
Ogged, some folks say that your people don't like good writing. See, I just don't think that's true. I believe that everyone, even swarthy homos, should have the chance to learn to use the apostrophe correctly. But some defeatists keep fucking it up.
177: That's not funny.
It think he specifically meant the humorless feminism.
Beyond Apo, Cala, Labs, and ogged
That can't be right.
It think he specifically meant the humorless feminism.
A mind so fine...
Am I the only regular who almost never tries to be funny? IDP too, I guess.
Labs, you shaved-ass bear fucker, you're down to the very last arrows in your quiver when your previous two comments have been grammar and punctuation nitpicks. Just admit that the Lileks sucks, that being generous to right-wingers isn't going to magically reanimate the children buried in your crawlspace, and let's get on with the party.
Feeling feisty after the surgery, aren't we?
Am I the only regular who almost never tries to be funny?
I don't know; insisting that they do too have email in Sweden was pretty funny.
Feeling feisty
You know, I sit up, refresh, read, type a comment, then lie down, wait a few minutes, and repeat.
You know what this place needs? A mascot.
I thought we already had a mascot.
Dr McCracken and colleagues speculate that the giant penis may be an example of 'runaway' sexual selection, where female preference drives male anatomy to ever-greater extremes
How would they set out to demonstrate this? A lot of observation? controlled experimentation with artificial penises?
They don't seem to know much about this bird: they've never even observed mating, sounds like. I wonder whether this corkscrew works like the one in pigs?
Ogged, in my heart of hearts I know you're right. "Melt coal"? And this after the Steely Dan debacle. It's amazing that I haven't been expelled.
On the other hand, I'll keep linking to knob-ends if it drives you to use epithets like "shaved ass bear fucker."
How would they set out to demonstrate this?
My guess is that it involves showing that the long penis has no real practical role but is still required for reproductive success because of females' selection strategies (like peacock feathers and moose antlers).
172 gets it exactly right. But that's not the worst of it. If I squint just right and forget 172, I can see how "She hunched, as though she was trying to draw in her beauty and keep it from spilling out" could count as a decent sentence. But tacking on "making a mess" dumps the whole thing into Bulwer-Lytton territory with a big ugly kerplunk, like a big warty toad plopping into a nasty, scum-covered pond on a sultry afternoon when you just broke up with your one true love.
THat's the reason right there. But I went back and read it now, and don't feel so bad.
Bulwer Lytton was actually pretty successful, and even had a cultural impact. He wasn't thought of as a punchline until he'd been forgotten and the they invented the award.
I believe that everyone, even swarthy homos, should have the chance to learn to use the apostrophe correctly.
You forgot an 'r' somewhere in that sentence.
A wide range of possible mascots
It's probably because the females hide from the male in deep holes. That kind of sexual selection strategy.
I don't know anything about the man himself beyond "It was a dark and stormy night," but the road to success in the contest generally seems to involve metaphor or simile spinning out of control.
WAgner made an opera of one of his novels. He coined the phrases “The pen is mightier than the sword,” “the great unwashed” and “pursuit of the almighty dollar.”
The second link in 203 should probably be viewed from home, IYKWIM.
a big ugly kerplunk, like a big warty toad plopping into a nasty, scum-covered pond on a sultry afternoon when you just broke up with your one true love.
The L stands for Lileks, doesn't it?
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
That's pretty awesome, it makes me want to read him. Almost as awasome as the shape of that tapir's dong.
74: "We"? White American people. And yeah, I know not everyone here fits that profile, but I do, and so do most of the people here. So accept your invisibility, other people.
172 does get it exactly right.
182 is wrong. I claim responsibility for several running jokes, most of which involve making fun of me.
It was a dark and stormy night. The storm fell in torrents, for it is in teh interweb that our scene lies. Fevered fetid words conveying dramatic scenery of bear rape and scrawny naked foreigners waltzed upon the fiber optics and onto glowing screens around the world. Rape. Rape and more rape. Clowns, children, faces...no one was safe. The godfucking storm stormed on unchecked. Somewhere, a kitten smiled.
I claim responsibility for several running jokes
212: This is true. I'm not challenging you, apo. Just saying, credit where due.
More specifically, the idea of me running is a joke.
Oh. You running, as oppposed to the idea of you. Feel free to ignore 215. I just woke up from a nap.
Weiner gets co-author credit for the clown-fucking. That should be good for a line on the CV.
Weiner gets co-author credit for the clown-fucking.
What's with the clown fetish lately?
208: I was sleeping while you clown-fuckers were doing whatever it was you were doing on the infidelity thread this morning, but didn't you have to apologize for being indiscreet once already today?
The creepy bit of the reunion piece was that I was merrily comparing it to the reunions I've had, right up to where I realized that his class year was the year I was born.
I used to enjoy reading Lileks, but even without the rabid right-wing foaming at the mouth, after I'd been reading for perhaps six months I felt like I'd seen his entire repitoire of subjects and writing tricks. That's it, he was done, move along to someone else more interesting.
Also, I have no use for his frozen wasteland of a homeland.
It is deeply disturbing that the advertisers on the page of animal genitalia linked to in 203 are sex sites and adult friend finder.
I am late, late, late to this thread.
Joan Cusak is indeed awesome. Her line from Working Girl, "But it's not even leather," is a classic.
She had a sit-com on ABC that wasn't bad, but ABC moved it around so much that it was never able to get a
loyal audience. This was back when ABC thought that the way to riches was to show Who Wants to be A Millionaire? every damn night. I actually liked that show in moderation when it was not a regular staple. Over-exposudre killed it.
Also killed because of ABC's excessive enthusiasm for Regis Phillburn: It's like, you, know. I saved several of the episodes, but now I don't know where they are.
Am I the only regular who almost never tries to be funny? IDP too, I guess.
I think I'm more likely to be funny when I'm not trying.
It's bigger than you and me, Apo.
No link to the canonical animal penis pic?
I've got yr coulrophilia right here.
There can never be too many penises at the Mineshaft.
pursuit of the almighty dollar
I think the palm for that one goes to Washington Irving.
Best moment in the Cohen movie (in which most of the performances were not exactly disappointing, but not real memorable either, with the two big exceptions of Nick Cave singing "Suzanne" and Julie Christensen (?) singing "Anthem", which were both fantastically great; and Rufus Wainwright's performance of "Chelsea Hotel 2" was really good and would have been great if he didn't have such a whiny voice) -- Lenny is talking about his record "Death of a Ladies' Man" and says (in paraphrase) "One of the movements liked that record a lot... I forget the names of these things... [thinks a minute]... ah, Punk! A lot of the Punksters appreciated that record and wrote to me about it."
There can never be too many penises at the Mineshaft.
This whole clown fucking thing keeps reminding me of this.
My rate of funny-making (and attempted funny-making) is pretty low, but probably not as low as some others.
Farber? I don't know if he counts as a regular. Emerson-originating jokes seem to be pretty uncommon, too.
233: I was hoping someone would make that edit.
I'll embrace my non-humorous-commentor status---
---with the claim that the importance of Bulwer-Lytton was that he was one of the first English novelists to incorporate the kinds of themes, ideas, and language that his contemporaries associated with poetry and theater. He's certainly not the first, first, but he's one of the first English novelists to use the masculine psychology of passionate fecklessness as the plot engine. Revising once again, he was the first successful English novelist to catch something of Byron in prose.
234: Emerson's humor is several layers drier than I usually get on a first or second read. Sometimes you have to read his comments like canyon walls.
For Clown porn, search "Klown porn". It seems to be mostly heterosexual but I haven't done an intensive study. Knotty Klown is a friend of a friend.
Somehow I just feel I'm going to give that suggestion a pass.
Emerson is hilarious, in the dry way JM describes. I can't think of Billy Joel, the famous accountant, without breaking into a laugh.
"Emerson-originating jokes seem to be pretty uncommon, too."
Was that a joke?
I don't think he's that dry or understated. But awesome.
Hey Ogged, can't you googleproof the names of the Swede and Grad student? I'm curious now.
Oh, apparently "Edward Bulwer-Lytton is credited with coining the related phrase "pursuit of the almighty dollar", which he used in the novel The Coming Race, published in 1871."
Uh huh.
240: I just tried it. Your instincts are sound.
There's no accounting for tastes.
246: Thanks for the confirmation on that one, I lost some sleep worrying about it.
Well, I'll admit to not being very humorful, so if I miss JE's humor it's my fault, not his.
One thing to bear in mind about Lileks's writing: The man churns it out every day. At least one, often several, essays, every day. That means there's not a whole lot of time for revisions and second drafts. In other words, his quality-to-quantity ratio is impressive.
His quality to quantity ratio is not impressive. It is all shit.
The Stone Fox who exuded some sort of brain-melting pheromone that turned every guy into a gape-faced pudding-headed fool, who made entire fields of wilted corn stand up just by driving past - in a parka!
Fuck a bunch of that - in a parka!
this piece of Lileks abuse was brought to you by the swearword "arse" and the homophobic epithet "knob jockey".
Most would agree that Michael Kinsley is, all things considered, a better writer than Lee Siegel. Yet while I cannot recall any passage of Kinsely’s off hand, Siegel’s quip about Sex in the City comes immediately to mind:
In New York, every date is an encounter with a victim of past romantic crimes. Some day the real story of Sex in the City will be told, and it will be called “Judgment at Nuremberg.
Now, on a brief googling, I see that I misremembered Siegel’s line (which is in fact better):
In urban America, you do not so much meet a romantic partner as inherit the product of someone else's romantic crimes. Someday someone will televise the real story of sex and the city and call it Judgment at Nuremberg.
The point being that Seigel has put an arresting turn of phrase in service of an accurate observation. Siegel’s writing, is, in general, characterized by straining for effects like this. He often misses his mark, but when on target is memorable in a way Kinsley is not. One need not like this style - and a whole book written this way might be tiresome - but one should recognize its strengths. The unexamined empire of Strunk and White must have an end.
while I cannot recall any passage of Kinsely’s off hand
"A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth."
It's too recent to count (as well-remembered), but when Kinsley came out of surgery for brain cancer he said something like: "Oh! I now see that lowering taxation to starve the beast makes so much sense." Or so his editor claimed.
"It all makes sense now! Tax cuts do raise revenues." That's from memory. Wasn't for brain cancer either, but Parkinsonism.
Actually, Well, of course, when you cut taxes, government revenues go up. Why couldn't I see that before?"
But I hope we will admit that Kinsely's anti-supply side quip,. and the "Kinsely Gaff" while funny, true, and funny because it's true aren't really elegant prose the way Siegel's comment on Sex in the City is. Right?
No, I really don't agree. I find that Siegel is reaching for effect, and that jars on my "ear". (I'm making no claim that Kinsley's quips are better, just that the Siegel quotation is not so great.)
Using elegant to mean "will misfire 99/100 times," I agree that Kinsley isn't taking stylistic risks.
I can agree with baa that current taste in prose penalizes 'trying too hard and failing' more severely than 'not trying very hard'. But I still don't think Lileks's effects come off very often at all.
I think we're using the wrong kind of otherizing language when we stigmatize Siegel for trying too hard. It's that he's trying too hard for the wrong goal. If you try very hard, you can write that kind of prose into which the author vanishes and only the ideas come through. That requires a great deal of effort. Siegel is not expending effort in that direction. He's spending time on napkin-origami instead of working in the kitchen.
that kind of prose into which the author vanishes and only the ideas come through.
But that's not the only kind of good prose. Showoffy prose can be good too, if it comes off, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong in trying to write showoffy prose. But it does leave you looking silly when the effects misfire.
I think LB's 260 is eminently reasonable. Lileks' hit rate has, in my opinion, dropped substantially over the past few years. I think his high points (like his "Sue Saddam" column) remain quite high, but that's a matter of taste.
Re: 261, yes that's one possible goal of good writing. But it is not the only possible goal, and believing that it is strikes me as the unexamined empire of Strunk and White. I think the exciting pyrotechnics school is a valid way to go.
Yes, of course. This is a matter of taste.
It is nice to know that Siegel doesn't reserve the Nazi metaphors for bloggers.
264: What are you doing, slol? You're rolling over on the English language the way liberals always roll over on America. Siegel is an encyclopedia of bad writing tics brought to life, show-off writing is good for blogs or as spice in an actual piece of writing, and, as I recall, Kinsley is best known as an editor, not as a writer.
baa is trying to defend the indefensible.
I'm not conceding anything about Siegel, or I didn't mean to; I'm conceding the point that you might legitimately prefer writing with overt effects. Some people like McSweeney's a lot more than I do. I can't deny the craftsmanship. I just don't enjoy the result much. It's a bit like ballet; I can tell it's hard work, but it doesn't do anything for me.
Which makes Siegel a flatfooted balletomane.
Speaking of ballet, did any of the New Yorkers catch the SF Ballet when they were in town? Anyone?
On the question of style, I tend towards slol's perspective. I enjoy the flashy style occasionally--from people who can carry it off without apparent effort, like Wodehouse when he's on form. Forty-two belabored fouetté pirouhettes, on the other hand, just aren't fun to watch, no matter how tecnnically difficult.
I have a friend who writes professional reviews, and when she was living with me, she bragged about how many times she'd revised a paragraph to set up a joke she was particularly proud of. The joke was self-centered and lame. I have a hard time reading her pieces now.
Sorry to knock ballet, JM. Like I said, just not for me.
Slol, one of the reasons I was curious to see the SF Ballet was that it had gotten rave reviews as "modern" and "experimental," and I've become so rabidly anti-ballet these recent years that I thought it might be time to check my frothing opinions against some actual dance. (But, alas, tickets were just kinda expensive.)
