Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: April 2006
Has Colbert eclipsed Stewart?
Stephen Colbert’s stock is soaring thanks to his comedic shishkebabery of George Bush at Saturday Night’s Washington Correspondent Dinner. No, really, his stock is soaring. Over at Colbert Nation, every last tee shirt and coffee cup are out of stock.
Oh — and tonight, Morley Safer profiled Colbert on 60 Minutes. Not bad for a weekend’s work.
Colbert didn’t pull any punches at the Washington Correspondent Dinner. You Tube has the video, and Kos has the full transcript. Read the whole thing, please, but for now let me give you a great appetizer:
“Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it’s 2/3 empty. There’s still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn’t drink it. The last third is usually backwash.”
Yum!
Colbert gets enormous mileage from a twisty form of humor that has a lot in common with reverse psychology. Say one thing, mean the opposite, like when your Mom told you to eat all the chocolate chip cookies before dinner “because I want you to ruin your appetite.” And you did, too, and it was good, wasn’t it? Here’s Stephen in action, giving the President his cookies:
I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound — with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.
How did Bush take it? Not well, according to Editor & Publisher:
As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling. The president shook his hand and tapped his elbow, and left immediately.
Those seated near Bush told E&P’s Joe Strupp, who was elsewhere in the room, that Bush had quickly turned from an amused guest to an obviously offended target as Colbert’s comments brought up his low approval ratings and problems in Iraq.
Back to the question of the hour. Has Colbert surpassed Jon Stewart? I think so. Routinely, Colbert torments his right wing guests by playing into their beliefs. He often gets them to agree to even more extreme positions than the ones they publicly espouse. In contrast, Jon Stewart seems to fawn over his powerful guests.
Remember Stewart’s interview with that former Iraqi general, the one who insists Saddam had WMDs and has written a book to prove it? Stewart gushed like the guy was his long lost grampa. And I’m getting tired of the way Stewart kisses John McCain’s ass.
If you look back at the transcript of Stewart’s famous appearance on Crossfire, it seems like he doesn’t think it’s his job to ask the tough questions. His job is to be funny; he wants the Carlsons and Begalas of the world to do their job and ask the tough questions.
Stephen Colbert knows it’s possible to reveal the painful truths (truthinesses?) and be funny. He proved it Saturday night, and he proves it regularly on his show. It’s not that Stewart fails altogether — the Daily Show nails its asshatted targets with fair regularity — but that he misses too many excellent opportunities to do more.
Perhaps Stewart should pay closer attention to Colbert.
D.
Review of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #22
ASIM #22 features some mighty fine stories. My review is up on Tangent Online. (If that link doesn’t work, try this one.) And here’s the link to ASIM if you’d like to subscribe.
D.
Potpourri
Remember the old Jeopardy, the one that Art Fleming hosted? Not that icky new Jeopardy, with Alex “Smug is My Middle Name” Trebek, who delivers answers like, “This world is sometimes called the Red Planet” with a perfectly straight face. (Ugh. And the way he corrects contestants when they get the question wrong! Sure, Alex, like you would have known the answer if it wasn’t staring you in the face.)
Potpourri was the catch-all category on the old Jeopardy, and that’s the word that came to mind when I decided to spread tonight’s bit of blog love. Without further ado, let’s play Jeopardy!
A: This “demented” writer is hosting another book giveaway.
Q: Who is Demented Michelle? (Yup, another giveaway. Toss your hat into the ring.)
A: This “malicious” author dishes on sequels and sequelitis.
Q: Who is Tamara Siler Jones? (Doing it again, April 27.)
A: For top notch snark on the Puritans at RWA, check out this genre jockey.
Q: Who is Paperback Writer? (Still snickering about point #3.)
A: These “clever shrews” recently landed their very own Wikipedia page.
Q: Who are the Smart Bitches? (A: This is your current emotion. Q: Am I envious?)
And for $1000 . . .
A: Hands down the biggest time-eater on the web.
Q: What is You Tube?
G’night.
D.
Tearing down the firewall
Is anything on the internet more ridiculous than the NY Times Op-Ed firewall? Thanks to Jurassic Pork and Tennessee Guerilla Woman for reprinting this morning’s Maureen Dowd column, Say Uncle, Rummy. Snip:
The former “Matinee Idol,” as W. liked to call him, is now a figure of absurdity, clinging to his job only because some retired generals turned him into a new front on the war on terror. On his rare, brief visit to Baghdad, he was afraid to go outside Fortress Green Zone, even though he yammers on conservative talk shows about how progress is being made, and how the press never reports good news out of Iraq.
If the news is so good, why wasn’t Rummy gallivanting at the local mall, walking around rather than hiding out in the U.S. base known as Camp Victory? (What are they going to call it, one reporter joked, Camp Defeat?)
Yesterday, I had to suffer through another 45 minutes of Fox News. I work out three times a week, and while I’m shvitzing on the elliptical trainer I’m a slave to whatever is on the box. To be exact, I was reading the third novel of Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy (Ptolemy’s Gate), but Fox was on and despite my consistent gym habits most of the other guys there are still BIGGER THAN ME.
Just like high school, dammit.
An incredibly perceptive analysis
“I want to believe,” said the Rabbi Marc Gellman,
“But you atheists make my life wan.
I’d rather snort cole slaw with that doper Rush Limbaugh
Than find God in the sands of Iran.”
Neil Young said, “You rube, stop watching YouTube,
You’d be better off shaving your Bush.”
“Out of MySpace,” cried Reb Gellman,”you heathenous hellion.
Better music I make with my tush!”
Now, I could rhyme “erection” with “Singapore election,”
“Courtesan” with “Kaavya Viswanathan”,
and tout compris with the Crony Fairy,
Lord above, I can’t take it any more! You don’t want to know how long it took to write those measly 2 3/4 stanzas of lameass poetry.
I may be a Technorati whore, but I have limits.
D.
Thirteen books I’ll never finish
Wherein I get in touch with my inner Philistine.
1. Europe, A History by Norman Davies. Too many words. Besides, nothing much has happened in Europe for the past two millennia.
2. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Why should I read this? I watched the movie.
3. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. Ditto. You know what’s interesting about this book? Lawrence felt it necessary to address the homosexuality issue right on page one.
4. The Danzig Trilogy by Gunter Grass. Because life is depressing enough as it is.
5. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories. It seemed like such a good idea: read Doyle’s classic mysteries and develop my forearm muscles at the same time.
6. The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike and Katrina Kenison. I wondered if every story’s ending would make me go, “Huh?” After the fourth or fifth one, I gave up.
7. Tractate Berachos I and II. Every Jewish boy, no matter how agnostic, secretly desires to be a Talmudic scholar. To my credit, I made a dent in Volume 1.
8. King Rat and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I want to like Mieville. I really do. There must be some reason why he’s so popular. All the elements are there: good words, good sentences, good paragraphs. And yet, with each book, I gave up after less than 100 pages because I simply didn’t care.
9. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I don’t know what I was thinking. I read Albert Zuckerman’s Writing the Blockbuster Novel and took his advice on what to buy. (The Godfather is a fine novel. The Thorn Birds, Gone with the Wind, and The Man from St. Petersburg? Meh.)
10. Pierre by Herman Melville. I once asked my college English teacher, “What was the most depressing English-language book ever written?” She asked her colleagues, and they came up with Pierre. I couldn’t get past page one. Not that it’s depressing . . . it’s boring. And while I’m tempted to put Moby Dick on the list, too, I’m reluctant. There’s all that homoerotic stuff concerning Queequeg, the huge South Sea Islander who is never without his harpoon . . . GUFFAW! Damn, I have to finish Moby Dick some day.
11. John Updike’s Rabbit novels. A patient gave me the collection and told me, “You’ll love these,” which only underscores one of the basic truths of medicine: Your patients don’t really know you.
12. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow. I liked Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom so much that I bought this one in hard cover. But, but, but . . . the protag’s mom is a washing machine: “Alan’s mother rocked harder, and her exhaust hose dislodged itself.” And that’s just a tidbit.
I thought I liked strange, but this novel surpassed my tolerance for absurdity. I’m sorry. For me, a fantasy world should make sense. It should have rules. Doctorow’s world may have had rules, but I never made it that far.
Great cover art, though.
And last but not least . . .
13. The Lord of the Rings. How many times have I tried to finish this trilogy? A skazillion. Most recently, I made it about halfway, and then Tom Bombadil killed my reading pleasure.
That’s it for now, folks. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to run out of Thursday Thirteen ideas. I’m open to suggestion.
***
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
You know what to do. Do it.
Darla invites us into her magic garden
JMC dishes up a smorgasbord of memories
D.
Blockhead
Today, Paperback Writer has an interesting post (and comment thread) on the related topics of writer’s block and hypergraphia (Paperback Writer: Stalled and Driven). This reminded me of my all-time worst experience with writer’s block.
A few years ago, I wrote a short story (“All Change”) for a Writer’s BBS challenge. One of the other participants, a guy with some experience writing screenplays, gushed that I should be writing screenplays. If I wanted to turn “All Change” into a screenplay, he’d be happy to collaborate with me.
What the hell, thought I. If nothing else, I might learn a thing or two about writing screenplays. I agreed to the collaboration and before long we were emailing each other back and forth something furious.
Things went well at first. As long as we stuck to brainstorming, we got along fine, but when it came to the writing itself we snagged on every line. I wanted to scream at him at least two or three times a day, and I don’t doubt that he felt the same way about me. After several weeks of this hell, we parted sort-of amicably.
A week later, he wrote to tell me that our collaboration had fired up his creative juices and he was writing faster and better than he ever had before. My wife, disappointed that this partnership had fallen through (greed had pickled her brain), decided she would finish the screenplay. She did, too. It still exists in Rough Draft Space on our hard drive, and one of these days I suppose she or I will take another look at it.
So . . . my erstwhile partner is writing faster and better than ever, and my wife is chugging away on the screenplay, and I’m blocked. Even thinking about writing made me vaguely nauseated.
I broke the block the way I usually break my blocks: flash fiction. Can’t remember what I wrote, but I slammed through 1000 words of something, and after that I was all better. As for “All Change,” it became my first print publication (“The Gorjun is Free,” in Continuum). I still think it’s a way cool story, but don’t expect to see it in theaters any time soon.
D.
The last Indian cookbook you’ll ever need
I own other Indian cookbooks, but I don’t use them. Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Cooking is the one I keep coming back to, thanks to its scope and reliability. Some of my favorite recipes: dry-cooked spicy ground meat (a filling for samosas), cauliflower fritters, spicy potato filling (great for samosas or as an addition to any meat pie), and fragrant buttered greens.
Last night, however, I had a different problem: what should I do with my leg of lamb leftovers? One of the main reasons I avoid buying leg of lamb is my loathing of waste. We eat perhaps one-third of the roast, and if I’m not careful, the other two-thirds ends up in the trash. As you probably know, lamb does not keep well for very long.
Fortunately for me and my family, Julie Sahni gave me an idea what to do . . .
A trip through the retrospectoscope
Blame Tam for this meme 😉