There don’t seem to be many new people around because alt-weeklies don’t run enough comics. It’s funny because back in the ’80s. when nobody was reading alt-weeklies, it was the comics that put them on the map, like Life in Helland Lynda Barry. I hate to see weeklies repeat the same mistakes that the daily papers have made: fewer and fewer comics, and running them smaller and smaller.
I can understand the business limitations, but you can’t go wrong with running more comics. There are good comics out there. Weeklies should be running more than two or three strips. They don’t take up much room, and what’s one less sex ad?
That’s exactly right. There should be room for new talent, without sending the established crop of cartoonists off on the ice floes. (Something I wish our friends in Detroit understood.)
We put up our Christmas tree yesterday. It doesn’t have much to do with my faith, or more specifically, my lack thereof — it’s been a few years since Sunday School, but I don’t recall that Jesus had much to say about the relative merits of Douglas Firs vs. Scotch Pines. But it’s still an important ritual, providing a sense of continuity to the scattered threads of my life.
And you know what? I don’t want the spectral presence of Bill O’Reilly hovering over that room. I don’t want that moment to be about politics. I don’t want the yearly bittersweet act of hanging the handcrafted ornaments I inherited when my mother died to feel like some sort of concession to the right-wing knuckleheads.
Atrios said it well a few days back — these people have managed to spoil Christmas. It’s the story of the Grinch, re-told, except this time, the Grinch has learned to be even sneakier — he’s sucking the joy out of Christmas by posing as its biggest defender, creating conflict and strife where none need exist.
The goal: to remind the nation’s leaders that the New Orleans diaspora is still out there, and that its members want the levees to be rebuilt so they can return home and reconstruct their lives without fear of another flood.
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., has thrown her support behind the rally and helped the women select the optimum date. Their permit for the rally was finalized Wednesday.
Sen. Landrieu has threatened to keep the Senate in session until it approves a $35.4 billion relief package that would fortify the city against a Category 5 storm, rather than Category 3 as proposed by the Bush administration.
The two local organizers also are reaching out to the entire congressional delegation from Louisiana, and e-mailing everyone they can think of to spread the word about rallying at Lafayette Park, across from the White House, at 11 a.m.
Update from organizers:
Rally has been rescheduled from noon to 2 pm. Sen. Landrieu tentatively scheduled to speak at 1 pm.
We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.
We said this wouldn’t happen. President Bush said it wouldn’t happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, “There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans.” But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.
* * *
The price tag for protection against a Category 5 hurricane, which would involve not just stronger and higher levees but also new drainage canals and environmental restoration, would very likely run to well over $32 billion. That is a lot of money. But that starting point represents just 1.2 percent of this year’s estimated $2.6 trillion in federal spending, which actually overstates the case, since the cost would be spread over many years. And it is barely one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the House of Representatives.
Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible case we fought to prevent?
Pajamas Media brings to mind an old joke. Man drives down the same street on his way to work every morning, and each time he does, an annoying little yappy dog comes tearing out of its yard. The dog chases down the street after his car, every morning like clockwork, all the while barking that annoying little yappy dog bark: yap yap yap yap yap yap yap. Finally one day, the man stops his car, gets out and says to the dog, “There. You caught it. Now what are you going to do with it?”
The joke ends there, but one can readily imagine the dim, confused look on the yappy dog’s face. And that seems to be where our friends at Jammies media find themselves these days. They caught the car, and they have no idea what to do next. And I have to say, it’s been a disappointment to me, personally — I expected to have great fun mocking the whole thing, but it’s not really even interesting enough to mock. It’s bad, but it’s not Ed Wood bad or Showgirls bad — it’s just boring bad.
The hubris of its founders is another matter entirely, of course.
There are some wingnuts who are working themselves into a lather over the idea of sticking it to the ACLU by — get this — sending them Christmas cards! Oh, that’ll really show those godless Commies, won’t it? Man! Can you just imagine the response of the ACLU staffer who opens up a stack of envelopes and finds them full of Christmas cards?
Actually, the response would probably go something like this: “Oh, look! Some Christmas cards! How nice!”
But it does give me an idea.
You know who does get worked up about this sort of thing?
I’ll give you a hint: his name rhymes with “Shrill O’Liely.”
And there’s every possibility that a few hundred “Happy Holiday” greeting cards would be the final push that sends him right over the edge. Because he’s clearly teetering on the brink right now anyway.
It’s nearly time for the annual ritual of cartoon contest entries. I have my favorites from the last year, but it occurs to me that I may be too close to the forest to see the trees. So, your input would be enormously helpful here: do any of my cartoons from calendar year 2005 particularly stand out for you? Let me know: tomtomorrow(at)ix(dot)netcom(d0t)com.
And late December
Can drag a man down
You feel it deep in your gut
Short days and afternoons spent puttering around
In a dark house with the windows painted shut
Remember New York
Staring outside
As reckless winter made its way
From Staten Island to the Upper West Side
Whiting out our streets along the way
And the snow is coming down
On our New England town
And it’s been falling all day long
What else is new
What can I do
But sing this valley winter song
I wrote for you
Clearly, a lot of frustrated lit majors end up cranking out copy at the New York Times. And just as clearly, the Times likes to flatter its readers with a certain sort of superficial literary allusion. Specifically, it appears to be an unwritten rule at the Times that no article about either (a) memory or (b) cookies–or even (c) the sense of smell–can be published without a mention, preferably in the lede paragraph, of Proust and/or his madeleines.
Proust had his madeleines. Douglas Boxer had his Mallomars.
“My mother used to buy them on special occasions, and I used to sneak down to the kitchen and steal them,” said Mr. Boxer…
By itself, this would be unremarkable. But it’s become something of a game around our breakfast table to watch for these things — call it Spot the Pretentious Proust Reference. (And just to be fair, articles specifically about Proust or writers inspired by Proust are disqualified.)
As soon as he smelled the mystery smell, Greg Nickson, 45, a freelance cameraman, was transported, like Marcel Proust, to things past, things like the chocolate factory that flooded his childhood neighborhood in Chicago with sweet aromas.
MARCEL PROUST’S mind flooded with enough childhood memories to fill thousands of pages when he dipped his madeleine in tea. Richard Telofski, a commercial photographer, reached his epiphany in a similar, if more prosaic, manner. He found his inspiration at a supermarket, while staring at a display of ice…
The company stocks more than 1,000 essences, and for a price (starting at $125), Brosius will custom-blend your own memory-triggering madeleine. One aging client, who wanted to be reminded of Little League baseball, received a cologne containing essences of dandelion, dirt, grass and leather — for that special top note of baseball mitt. Proust would be proud.
Since I’ve started downloading songs, I’ve found I can browse the past. For Proust, sensation — the taste of a madeleine — prompted remembrance. I am the anti-Proust. I have the memory first, and then I look for the song, buy it and listen to it.
The sense of smell is a powerful thing, able to evoke memories through just a whiff of a familiar odor. After all, it was the smell, as well as the sight and taste, of that petite madeleine soaked in tea that unleashed ‘’Remembrance of Things Past.'’
Honeybees have a little Proust in them, apparently, according to new research from scientists at the Australian National University. They have discovered that just the whiff of a familiar scent from a feeding place can make the bees return to the spot, by bringing out memories of the route.
WHEN Marcel Proust bit into a little madeleine, it famously triggered a book’s worth of delicate memories. But when it comes to being jolted back in time, foodstuffs aren’t nearly as effective as music. Almost everyone knows hundreds of recordings that are time machines.
The scent hit my hypothalamus. Had Proust cracked a bottle of Wildroot instead of scarfing that madeleine, he would have remembered Ace ‘’bendable'’ combs, sitting in Mass next to a fidgeting brother and blowing up Revell PT-109 models in the swamp with firecrackers.
A simple hamburger barely a half-inch thick, slightly charred at the edges and rare inside, embellished with only ketchup and a neat slice of Bermuda onion on a four-inch bun, awakens in me memories as compelling as those aroused by Marcel Proust’s famous madeleine. My hamburger, however, evokes not…
Since it’s easy, fun, and the bulk of my mental energies are devoted to other tasks, I’m gonna waste another post bashing Bill O’Reilly for his absurd Christmas crusade. This time, the object of O’Reilly’s rage is the Daily Show, because O’Reilly is too fucking stupid to tell the difference between social commentary and satire. Brad Blog and Media Matters are all over this one, but I wanna start my two cents with a nitpick. Here’s what he said on his radio show :
O’REILLY: [Laughs] There you go. Jon Stewart, “Secular Central.” Oh, I’m sorry, Comedy Central — and I like Stewart, but we know what he’s doing over there.
And here’s what he said on Fox :
O’REILLY: Predictably, the opponents of public displays of Christmas continue to put forth counter-arguments on ‘Secular Central.’ I — I mean, Comedy Central.
A joke so funny you had to tell it twice, huh? Good work you bigoted, half-witted sexual predator — whoops, I meant, Bill.
While it’s funny occasionally, the faux-Freudian slip shtick gets old really, really fast. It’s bad enough that Bill and his staff of writers aren’t clever enough to write two different jokes, but the fact that he told the exact same “slip of the tongue” joke on the same day is simply pathetic. For that, Bill, I award you the Dennis Miller Memorial “I Don’t Want To Get Off On A Rant Here” award for fraudulent spontaneity. You can put it on the mantle next to your Peabody award.
What’s funnier than O’Reilly’s unfortunate attempts at humor, however, is that O’Reilly is targeting Jon Stewart. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Bill, but Jon Stewart is a Jew and Jews don’t celebrate Christmas. When you’ve sunk to the point that you’re attacking non-Christians for not celebrating Christian holidays, your witchhunt has completely jumped the shark. I say you hang this one up and prepare for your next crusade. Here’s a suggestion : Did you know that those anti-American bastards in Canada don’t even celebrate the Fourth of July?! If we can stretch that one between May and July sweeps weeks, then we’re good as gold.
The other day I was talking to my friend Josh about ways to destroy Christmas and he brought up an interesting point. The unending wave of inclusion and good-will that O’Reilly is attacking isn’t the fault of secular progressivism, but good ol’ fashioned capitalism. At some point, retailers noticed that the shameless orgy of consumption we experience between Thanksgiving and New Year’s was only sucking in Christians. Rich Uncle Pennybags figured out that a simple semantic change from “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays” (which, until recently, was considered a kind thing to say) would broaden the base of consumers to include the 20% or so of Americans that don’t celebrate the pagan celebration that was turned into Jesus’ birthday. It’s not an attempt to diminish Christianity or make the country more inclusive, it’s just an attempt to make more money.
Which reminds me of this speech by Ned Beatty from the movie Network :
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal — that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
I can imagine a similar exchange happening between the CEO of Wal-Mart and O’Reilly any day now. This isn’t about Christmas or Chanukah, Target or Macy’s, liberal or conservative. It’s about dollars and cents, Mr. O’Reilly. You’re dealing with market forces much bigger than you and your sad, little show. The invisible hand that controls this economy will not stand for a disruption in the bottom line, am I making myself clear?
