Help me feed my family
Q: What is the earliest example of pornographic dialog in a television show?
A: “Ward, don’t you think you were a little rough on the Beaver last night?”
That one tickles me every time.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s, in a superficially traditional Leave it to Beaver-oid nuclear family. Our neighborhood brimmed with other Beaveroid households. Our dads worked traditional jobs, and our moms were housewives who fixed Coca Cola ham on Sundays and proto-Hamburger Helper dishes on weekdays. Tuna casserole wasn’t the punch line of a bad joke; it was dinner. (more…)
Dream teams and novel combinations
Commuting theme music: Cowboy Junkies, 200 More Miles
Driving to work, I was (yet again) impressed by the richness of Margo Timmins’s vocals, and I thought: wouldn’t it be great to hear her produced by David Lynch’s favorite musical wonk, Angelo Badalamenti? Badalamenti did wonders for the ethereal Julee Cruise. Badalamenti + Timmins = sultry meltdown.
That thought automatically led to my other musical fantasy, 10,000 Maniacs’ Natalie Merchant produced by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor. I love Natalie’s voice, but 10,000 Maniacs’ lyrics and music make me want to take a nap. Like Margo Timmins, I just know Natalie Merchant can belt out an edgy alternative rock song.
Blogging about music is, I suspect, a no win situation, since most of my audience won’t be familiar with these artists. I would have to stick to the well known names, which, with rare exception, are people I don’t give a damn about. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if Elton John did covers of The Cure’s greatest hits?” That sort of thing. (Stomach-turning, actually, but it was the first example that came to mind.) That’s why I’ve decided to focus on cinematic pop culture for my remaining fantasy items. Feel free to post your dream combos in the comments. (more…)
Why I love Harper’s: Full text of new Iraq story
I’ve long been a fan of Harper’s Magazine, the last bastion of unapologetic liberalism. For their November 7 issue, they’ve posted full text of Sam Smith’s story, Revision Thing, A history of the Iraq war told in lies. This story is faithful to its name:
It was absolutely clear that the number-one threat facing America was from Saddam Hussein. We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda had high-level contacts that went back a decade. We learned that Iraq had trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and deadly gases. The regime had long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist organizations. . . . You couldn’t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talked about the war on terror.
The story is a chilling reminder of our government’s mendacity. The sheer weight of all of these lies lumped together in one place would sway even those furthest right on the political balance beam. Ah, if only they were reading. That’s one of Harper’s problems: preaching to the converted.
Smith concludes:
There’s no doubt in my mind when it’s all said and done, the facts will show the world the truth. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind.
D.
Nada
Here’s what I have so far for Smart Bitches Day:
Compared to film, literature is not jam-packed with hookers. Wikipedia has an incomplete list; they’ve left out Stephen Crane’s Maggie, and William T. Vollmann’s Butterfly Stories, too. There are probably other omissions, but the fact remains: damn, that’s one short list.
I had wanted to say something insightful about the prostitute as a literary archetype, partly because today is Smart Bitches Day*, partly because my NaNoWriMo protag is an alien who falls for a synthetic human hooker.
But now I’m looking at the clock. It’s 9:22 and I haven’t written word one towards NaNoWriMo. Sure, I’m far enough ahead I could take a day off, but I’m worried I’ll lose momentum. If I don’t start writing RIGHT NOW, I’m going to plotz. You should picture a very literary way of plotzing.
As it is, I fear I will write a 1,666 word dream sequence for today’s NaNoWriMo quota. To use another Yiddishism, I ain’t got bupkes.
9:27 . . .
D.
*Note added at 11:34. That came out all wrong. See, I wanted to look at the prostitute-john relationship as it presents in literature. That makes it SBD-worthy. I think it’s a fascinating relationship (in literary terms — I’m willing to bet the ‘relationship’ in real life is depressing, or boring, or both) because the power play is so very different from your standard romance.
Second note: 1600 words tonight. Not bad . . . and no dream sequence, either.
D.
Drat! Another meme.
This one’s from Amanda. It seemed a bit boring, so I decided to make it more challenging.
1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
And you thought Metallica was a head-banger band.
3. Post the fifth sentence.
A bloke named Hendriks braved Bengal tigers, heavily armed Indian outlaws, and worst of all, the Indian Customs Export Bureau to take seven tarantulas back to Europe.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
Done.
That’s the boring part. Where’s the excitement? The challenge? I’m going to change rule #4:
4. Pretend your fifth sentence is a punch line. What’s the joke? (Kinda like Jeopardy, eh?)
How does the London Zoo punish people who disobey the “Please Don’t Feed the Bears” sign?
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.
I’ll leave this one open to the public. I’m feeling memed out.
More later . . . I hope.
D.
She’s baa-ack.
Don’t know for how long.
Bare Rump discovers vibrators. This one may not be work safe.
D.
Local ubermarket caves to International Jewish Conspiracy
The bitch, the absolute, incontrovertible, undeniably heinous bitch of the Atkins Diet is that I can’t eat any of my Yid comfort food. Although Atkins is dead and his company has filed for bankruptcy, I continue to follow a low carb diet because that (and exercise) is the only thing preventing my jelly roll from ruling the world or, barring that, forcing me back into my fat clothes.
Make no mistake about it: Jewish comfort food is not low carb. Here’s a short list of all the things I dearly miss. (more…)
Schwarzenegger Street, or, Meet the Muppets
From new pal YesButNoButYes, who found it at BoingBoing, check out Schwarzenegger Street.
California, what were you thinking? If you wanted an actor in the Governor’s seat, you should have picked Gary Coleman. Whatchoo talkin’ bout, Ahnold?
Just kidding — Coleman’s political beliefs fell to the far right of Arnold’s. An oil rig or three off every beach, a gun in every household, that sort of thing.
How about John Cusack for gov? An aside: I’m looking forward to seeing Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton in the screen adaptation of Scott Phillips’s gem of a novel, Ice Harvest.
D.
NaNoWriMania Day 5
On the North Coast, the storms begin in earnest after Halloween. I’ve been cooling my heels all afternoon waiting for this one to blow over. From a NaNoWriMo point of view, this is a good thing: I’m home writing rather than out shopping. 2,163 words today — go me!
Of course, we’re all snails compared to Paperback Writer (see Go Cheetahs). Sheila’s November word count sits at 34,052 — as of yesterday. AND she finds time to blog.
SO . . . I’m looking at the monitor, thinking, are these good words? As I understand, the point of the exercise is to tear down a few internal writing barriers, and give the muse a few hits of crack (oops! here on the North Coast, crank is the drug of choice) or perhaps an enema (is that the better metaphor, considering what I’m putting down on the page?)
Is it all crap? Sadly, while you can upload a text file of your novel to the NaNoWriMo site, all they give you is a word count. They need to install a crap-o-meter. Then again, if they did that, folks who pegged the meter might get discouraged and drop out of the contest.
It’s nearly impossible for me to figure out if my novel is kaka or not. I haven’t reread any of it, since That Way Lies Disaster. I’m delighted to report that I have a plot, characters who are not boring, conflict, complications, and an overall plan which includes an ending. I guess I should be happy that I have that much.
My problem is, I’m playing with hardboiled conventions, so I’m wondering whether each character or plot element is (A) trite, or (B) necessary to fit the genre. The dead bodies have to start piling up . . . don’t they?
D.
Technorati tag: NaNoWriMo
PS: So far, I have Maureen, Invisible Lizard, and Jona on my NaNoWriMo friends list. You folks who are WriMing, can you tell me your usernames so I can add you to my list?
My username is dshoffman, by the way ;o)
Blogging question
Blogspert Jakob Nielsen has written a list of the 10 most common blog design problems (thanks to Dave Munger for posting on this). I’m curious what you folks think about his Don’t #8: “Mixing Topics”:
If you publish on many different topics, you’re less likely to attract a loyal audience of high-value users. Busy people might visit a blog to read an entry about a topic that interests them. They’re unlikely to return, however, if their target topic appears only sporadically among a massive range of postings on other topics. The only people who read everything are those with too much time on their hands (a low-value demographic).
I’d rather not think of my loyal readers as a “low-value demographic” but I’m definitely guilty of this sin.
Question: should I relegate political posts (like the one below) to a separate blog, or do you think Nielsen’s Don’t #8 is hooey?
My suspicion: those of you who read me for the humor skip over the politics. I doubt the political posts hurt the blog overall. What do you think?
D.