https://youtu.be/ScyQ96TIcyU Filmed and recorded live on September 11, 2013 at ShapeShifter Lab, Brooklyn, NY. Arranged by Stephen Gauci. Steve on sax, Kenny Wessel, guitar, Michael Bisio, bass, and Jeremy Carlstedt, drums. Posted by Stephen Gauci
Dick Cheney: I am so worse than Barack Obama! A whole lot worse!
It’s been a bit of a meme of mine for the past four years that Barack Obama is pretty much Dick Cheney without all the torture. Well, comparisons are odorous, and Big Dick clearly did not appreciate being linked with the president in this manner. A couple of days ago, the big guy reminded us…
Ross Douthat, in with a stand-up triple
I never seem to get tired of making fun of Ross Douthat, but on Ukraine the dude has really been pounding the ball, pointing out politely to his neocon confrères that it really doesn’t matter who runs Ukraine. Today he pretends to take neocon huffing and puffing about “grand strategy”* very seriously, letting Walter Russell…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here. “Now, this one is for the big boys.” “And with this little mother you can change channels on the moon.” “At Big Boy, we take your television as seriously as you do.” “You’ll never lose this fucker. Am I right, or am I right?” “Sure your wife will hate it. But that’s…
James Thurber, a reader’s guide
Introduction Some months ago, I thought I would write a longish piece on James Thurber—maybe five or ten thousand words at the most. Well, that was then. I’ve got about thirty-five thousand and counting, including footnotes. I’m going to start running this thing in thousand-word chunks, starting with this one. I’ve been learning about footnotes…
The Usual Suspects
Daniel Larison gives them each a good spanking over at the American Conservative—William “Bill the Shill” Kristol, Peggy “Peggy the Shrill” Noonan, and George “George the Pill” Will, all hawkin’ and squawkin’ about the failure of President Obama to 1) make all the world’s problems go away with a wave of his hand (in the…
New on Bright Lights After Dark
I have two new pieces up at Bright Lights After Dark, the blog for the Bright Lights Film Journal. The Journal, formerly an online quarterly, is now putting up all of its articles bloggy style. My first new piece is the not terribly heavy 1933 musical “Going Hollywood, which offers pretty definite proof that Marion…
The Horror
Yesterday I wrote about Harvard asshole Greg Mankiw. Today I’m writing about non-Harvard asshole Darren Forse, owner of a trucking company down in Texas, quoted in a recent post about Texas politics by Dave Weigel over at Slate. According to Dave, Darren had this to say about the current state of the nation: “You get…
N. Gregory Mankiw, aka Jivemaster Greg
Over at New York, Jonathan Chait points me over to the New York Times, where Harvard big-shot Gregory Mankiw is holding forth on the wonders of Robert Downy, Jr., noting that Bob’s latest performance as “Iron Man” was so abfab that the $50 mil Downy got up front for the film doesn’t upset people—“ when…
George Packer’s got the New York Blues
Over at the New Yorker, George Packer has a long, earnest take on Amazon, ebook thing, and what it’s doing to the publishing industry. George is earnest and thorough, and includes some intelligent quotes from some authors who say the New York publishing scene pretty much treats them like shit, but you can tell that…