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…
Author: Alan Vanneman
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…
Politico, Nothing If Not Polite
Jose Delreal, writing in Politico about the “controversy” surrounding the decision of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ® to invite “controversial” entertainer Ted Nugent to campaign for him in the state’s gubernatorial primary this summer, notes that there is some “controversy” surrounding comments made by Nugent last month about President Obama that “some suggested at…
Mark Turner—“Crepuscule with Nellie”
Mark Turner (sax), David Virelles (piano), Ben Street (bass), and Paul Motian (drums) plays Monk’s salute to his long-suffering wife. Posted by li90ne