That’s right, Republicans. That big, fat, hairy, sweaty, smelly thing that’s in your living room right now, the one that weighs, you know, 25 tons, has bad breath, and makes a lot of noise? It’s not an elephant, or a rhino, or a hippo, or even a Paraceratherium.1 It’s a quid pro quo! Do you…
Author: Alan Vanneman
The ruin that is Trump: When F*ck You isn’t enough
Well, it isn’t. “F*ck You” hasn’t made the North Koreans play ball. Or the Iranians. Or the Chinese. Or even the Venezuelans. Telling the world what to do has proved a lot harder than Donald Trump imagined, and, frankly, the big guy is getting both frustrated and bored, and even a little worried. It’s “interesting”…
Robert J. Samuelson is even-handed. Which is not the same thing as being honest.
WashPost economics pundit and pseudo know it all Robert Samuelson, whom I often ridicule but sometimes praise, is up to his oldest and most tedious trick, “even-handedness”, commenting on what he calls the “schoolyard brawl” between President Trump and Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Samuelson sums up recent developments thusly: After the…
Dexter Gordon— “Round Midnight”
Gordon playing with the band that appeared with him in the film ’Round Midnight, featuring Bobby Hutcherson, vibes, Cedar Walton, piano, Pierre Michelot, bass, and Billy Higgins, drums. Posted by EPO JAZZFAN. Need more Monk? Of course you do, Go to Mostly Monk
The New York Times gets bitchy
Oy vey. Perhaps this blog should simply be titled “O the Times”, because it seems that that’s all I write about. Anyway, I was reading, with no little schadenfreude (which Word can spell—how “continental” is that!), “Giuliani Divorce: It’s Ugly, It’s Operatic. What Did You Expect?’, since Rudy is easily my least favorite former New…
How often can the New York Times keep stepping on its own penis?
Hard to say. The Times recently got itself a lot of bad publicity for its massive exercise in nation shaming, aka the 1619 Project, wherein the Times nobly accepts the burden—the Gray Lady’s Burden, one might call it—of explaining to us yahoos just how benighted we are on the subject of race. But that was…
David Brooks writes a good column. I did not see this coming!
Yeah, not only does shit happen, sometimes amazing shit happens. The amazing shit in question is this post by Big Dave, on whose unprotected dome have I poured unrelenting ridicule for lo these many years. Dave’s column, titled “The Meritocracy Is Ripping America Apart”, subtitled “How savage exclusion tears the social fabric”, is, mercifully, not…
Carmen McRae—“Round Midnight”
Clearly (I guess) an early/mid sixties broadcast, probably public television or a local LA or New York station. The sound is a little iffy and there’s no information available on her accompanists. A wonderful little present from the evil empire of Google. Posted by mrdantefontana666 Need more Monk? Of course you do, Go to Mostly…
Literature R Us has moved!
Tumblr lost porno, and now it’s losing Alan Vanneman! It’s true. I’ve moved my website, as you can tell if you’re reading this. I (naturally) didn’t know what I was getting into when I moved my now-ancient “blogspot” blog to Tumblr, which was rumored at the time to be cool. As it turns out, what…
Myth Busters! Afghanistan ain’t that rich!
Well, it ain’t. Propagating the myth is the sometimes sensible paleo-populist James K. Pinkerton, who, while parking his fedora at the American Conservative, serves up a sensible take on Afghanistan, a-wishin’ and a-hopin’ that his sometime main man Donald Trump would not listen to the military intellectual complex and get the hell out of central…