Yesterday's sentencing of Michael Skakel, the Kennedy relative convicted this summer of a decades-old murder, has pumped a few cc's of epinephrine into that moribund story, sending its grisly, reanimated figure lurching across the top of all our local news broadcasts. By the time you read this, it will doubtless have left some bloody footprints on the tabloid covers as well.

Its reappearance is as discomforting to my delicate sensibilities as the latest OJ sighting, Robert Blake rumor, or Enron/WorldCom perp walk. In my old age I am, I fear, losing all interest in celebrity justice.

Every few months, it seems, we have a new Trial of the Century--a term Google finds attributed to the Simpson, Hauptmann, Sacco and Vanzetti, Henry Thaw, Alger Hiss, Scopes, Leopold and Loeb, and thousands of other high-profile cases. The standards for TOTC seem have degenerated over time. The Scopes Trial was at least a forum, crude but illuminating (as Mencken found it), on real issues of lasting interest to citizens. One might say the same of Sacco and Vanzetti, or of Hiss.

Certainly the Dreyfus trials of the late 1890s were both sensational and epochal. They caused seven consecutive French Ministers of War to resign, stirred violent street demonstrations, drew an impassioned jeremiad from Emile Zola (resulting in his own trial), and imprinted for decades, if not forever, the French military and judicial systems.

Compare this to our current celebrity murderers-or-not. Their fascination in almost entirely attributable to their fame. (in the case of Skakel, fame only by relation, once removed). In the most severe case, that of OJ, the flare of racial enmity that was briefly, though widely, observable upon the judgement was its only truly interesting feature. Since then the case has lumbered on as fodder for newsreaders and late-night comics, hungry for the approbation of those who still keenly feel the sting of justice denied.

Recently it was reported that a man who had spent 18 years rotting in prison for rape and murder was now exonerated by DNA evidence. This poor fellow, a mental patient at the time of his apprehension, had been railroaded into a confession, it is now all but proved, by overzealous (or, more likely, overambitious) law enforcement agents. He was finally exonerated by the efforts of something called the Innocence Project, which has to date freed 110 (that is not a misprint) similarly, unjustly incarcerated people over the past few years.

Why is this so little known, while the Skakel case flies to the top of the news cycle with each small development? I think it is because We the People yearn, as always, for justice--but only, these days, of the retributive kind. We are aware that something is wrong, but it does not occur to us that such wrongs might sometimes be redressed by exoneration; we are more in the mood for punishment. Thus we consume countless Law & Order spinoffs, and cheer lustily when a movie star, a corporate poobah, or a Kennedy is put to paid.

And as the forces of law and order (or Law & Order) are our only hope for state-sanctioned vengeance, we tend not to notice much when they are themselves the agents of injustice. Therefore 110 wrongly imprisoned citizens are not nearly so interesting to us as one rich boy brought low. Also, therefore, the role of our chief judiciary in the late theft of the American Presidency was and remains of little interest, while a quest for the blood of the latest unindicted co-conspirator in the War Against Terror consumes us.

Ours is truly the age of the Savage Messiah, who brings not peace but the sword. As the economy plummets and ancient anxieties exacerbate, one would think we'd find it important to stitch up our rent social fabric. Instead, we sew hangman's hoods. How did it come to this? No details, unfortunately, at 11.

Roy
August 29, 2002
10:00 a.m.
Thoughts on the 2002 Miss Teen USA Pageant, seen on CBS

The sets are bright and modish, with a live DJ and big colorful blocks. The opening number features contestants (and ringers) on motorcycles, rollerblades, skateboards, and scooters. I guess that takes care of the talent competition.

I don't recognize the hosts. Guy with a goatee (but chubby--big-brother/goofy-friend factor), chick with a lot of makeup (maternal factor).

Talk time. Miss Teen Ohio says some of her friends stopped talking to her after she was crowned. The other girls nod sagely. Despite the upbeat nature of the chatter (or because of it, actually), one has to wonder: What private horrors and heartbreaks go on behind those giant smiles? (God, their teeth are huge--is there a cosmetic dentistry procedure that does this? Or has calcium been injected into their gums from infancy?)

"My parents are always like, you know, where are you going, who are you going to be with... I'm so glad I have parents who have guidelines." No shit. You're a beauty queen. You've been rigorously chaperoned since you were six, and will be till you're doing the Miss Lower-Middle-Aged America Pageant. There's a reason you never read about former Miss Anythings winding up as lonely, embittered failures (unlike former Oscar or Pulitzer Prize winners): they're very good with rules and supervision. (See this press release to track six good examples.) The wonder is that more of them don't wind up as politicians.

Lots of commercials for mom and kid stuff--Country Crock, candy bars, toothpaste, cookies, detergent, Burlington Coat Factory, The Anti-Drug. I was half expecting ads for beer, cars, and Gold Bond Medicated Powder. I can't be the only middle-aged man watching this.

What's up with the ball gown competition? It's taking up a huge amount of time. I suppose this is the Barbie Factor at play--playing princess is still part of the appeal. A touching throwback.

The swimsuits are all of a uniform cut, either pink or green. Each of the girls does this: descends a short staircase in high heels ("All of the shoes are provided by Nina Footwear"), whips off her sunglasses and hands them to a supernumerary male on a scooter, crosses the stage, strikes a pose, and climbs onto the back of another scooter to be driven away by another supernumerary male. Peppy 60s music plays throughout. The more demure candidates score highest; Miss Teen New York, who coquettishly bites the arm of her sunglasses and jiggles a bit up top, gets a low grade. Maybe she should have had "Remember 9/11" tatooed on her thigh. (Oops, I forgot--no tats or piercings.)

In lieu of T&A, Q&A: "What's the first thing you're going to do when you get home?" "Eat. Eat everything in sight. I'm so hungry." (At last! The mask slips!)

"What's the worst thing about boys?" "Crusty teeth." "What do you need from a man?" "What do I need from a man? Nothing! I have my friends and my family, what do I need a man for?" (Big round of applause.)

My favorite among the finalists is Miss Kentucky. Her final question is, "If you could be a guy for one day, what would you do?" She replies, "Wear baggy clothes, 'cause girls have to wear all nice stuff and guys get to wear baggy clothes. I'd wear baggy clothes and play the drums..."

This is as much of this as I can watch. Stylistically everything has been newly Britneyfied, but the pageant is, in its ageless protocols, not essentially different the one that crowned the first Miss Teen USA in 1983 (Ruth Zakarian, a New Yorker and one of the few winners with a normal first name). This should be a comfort in an unstable world, but it reminds me that all youth culture is forged in an iron press, and that whatever might be genuinely fresh in it ends, sooner than later, as run-off. Or perhaps I mean youth in general.

Besides, if Miss Kentucky doesn't win it'll break my heart.

Roy
August 28, 2002
2:00 p.m.
To Promote the General Welfare

I have spent the past 24 hours at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, as part of my yearly participation in a study of a rare genetic condition called von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome, from which I happen to suffer.

NIH occupies a magnificent campus of rolling greens, marred only by ongoing construction of new facilities. I spend most of my time here in well-tended, cheery clinics and state-of-the-art testing centers. The doctors, nurses, medical assistants and technicians, et alia, who attend me are all of the very highest quality, and friendly with it. I receive regular examinations of a thoroughness and professionalism unseen outside of old Marcus Welby, M.D. episodes. A few years back they had to cut a tumor out of me; it was not a routine procedure, and the surgeons had to do some fancy cutting. Their efforts were extraordinarily successful (Drs. Walter Rayford and Mac Walther, thank you eternally), and the Shah of Iran could not have received better post-operative care.

This of course flies in the face of the current received opinion of federal services of any kind. According to this view, promulgated by the Right and echoed on late-night talk-show hosts and other propaganda dispensaries, the feds are all fascistic bureaucrats who beat down the very people they purport to help because...well, 'cause they's evil, dadgummit. Welfare, Medicare, etc. are just poison candy that paralyzes the will of the people to fend for themselves.

I am here to tell you in the most emphatic terms that this is total bullshit. Most people who collect federal economic assistance sorely need it (try living on "welfare queen" stipends), and most people who accept the medical attention that comes with participation in NIH studies would be unable to receive even adequate treatment of their conditions via their local health authorities or (if they're lucky enough to have them) HMOs. The US government largely functions as it ought to: as a last resort when the private sector cannot, or will not, fulfill a citizen's basic, vital needs.

Sometimes we need to be reminded of this. I get a reminder every year in Bethesda. And as a token of my gratitude for it, I'm passing it on to you.

Roy
August 27, 2002
1:00 a.m.
And the Morals That They Worship Will Be Gone

In a promo for their history programming, PBS has used The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," over which a number of citizens sing, karaoke-style, while images from upcoming PBS programs flash by. This elaborate and lengthy montage features an interesting juxtaposition: When they sing, "and the parting on the left..." Stalin is shown. As they sing, "...is now parting on the right," we see a line of Nazi soldiers.

So if nobody else has done so yet, I am throwing this information into the blogosphere, giving hundreds of college professors, doctoral candidates, and copyeditors with time on their hands and a DSL connection the opportunity to fill a few minutes between colloquia and deadlines by telling the world that the Nazis were not really of the Right, that "Nazi" stood for National Socialism, that Hitler was a vegetarian, that liberals and Frenchmen are the real anti-Semites, and that PBS uses the fraction of a penny it gets from you, Joe Taxpayer, to slander conservatives.

As a bonus I mention that the clips of Maggie Thatcher, though uncontroversially placed, seemed very brief, but I must leave it to concerned bloggers to man their digital stopwatches and do the hardcore media analysis.

Roy
August 26, 2002
9:45 a.m.
With Malice Toward None

The place where I teach English has in its library a thin book containing the text of Lincoln's "Second Inaugural." I have assigned it to some of my teenaged students. It is mercifully brief, and a sterling example of the concentrated power of good English. And I thought it would be fine if my students could learn that the war speeches in which our current leaders engage are not the only, nor the best, responses to tragedy.

To begin with, there is Lincoln's report on the progress of the Civil War, quiet and utterly lacking in applause lines. "The progress of our arms," quoth the Railsplitter, "upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured." Imagine George W. Bush delivering such a line, perhaps in front of a backdrop covered several times with the message, NO PREDICTION VENTURED.

There is also Lincoln's extraordinary conflation of the fate of both parties to the conflict:

"If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous.'"

The magisterial modesty of this passage is to modern ears incredible. To suggest that the casualties on both sides of a war could be equally part of Divine justice is more than most of us can bear to contemplate, let alone utter aloud. Yet there it is.

The Civil War was famously one of "brother against brother" and Lincoln's goal was not to conquer the South but to reconcile the nation. It came before the era of America's great foreign wars, in which our enemies were not our brothers in any but a biblical (or, if you wish, anthropological) sense. Still, to the extent that we have been righteous, we have also been modest, and Lincoln's words have traveled with us: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right..." We are servants of righteousness, not its masters, and if our victories are not consecrated to something greater than our own power, they are contrary to Lincoln's spirit, and to that of our nation.

I daydreamed about the "Second Inaugural" as I rode my bicycle home in the dark last night, and at one point thought I saw the shade of Lincoln crossing a street in South Williamsburg. It turned out to be a very thin, heavily bearded Hasidic man in a dark suit and tall hat.

Martin
August 25, 2002
12:45 p.m.
Missing

With the discovery of some human remains in the case of the missing Oregon girls trumpeted in this morning's headlines at CNN.com and USA Today (while the callous, eggheaded New York Times and Washington Post barely acknowledge the development), we would like to ask the good folks in Oregon to keep a sharp lookout for some of our missing kids: Sheena Williams, age 16, Cynthia Pierre-Louis, age 17, Hester Hernandez, age 15, Shelley Phillip, age 15, Rebecca Santana, age 15, Anna Sanchez, age 16, Kendale Hollins, age 15, Nafisa Harris, age 15, Angles Roman, age 14--all missing from Brooklyn since 2001--Loriza Almodovar, age 16, Keisha Boyce, age 14, Cherish Burns, age 11, Charlene Marcelle, age 15, Shamel Sheppard, age 14, Shanoah Warren, age 15, Tomacina Vialva, age 16--all gone missing from Brooklyn this year. They are all black or Hispanic. Most of them are homely and a little overweight.

As we are deeply concerned for your children, we assume you fret as much over ours. But if despite your best efforts you are unable to locate them Out West, should their tortured remains instead be found in a shallow New Jersey grave, or floating face down in the East River, we trust CNN and USA Today will let you know that all hope is lost.

Roy
August 23, 2002
12:58 a.m.
Swing Heil!

In a recent OpinionJournal screed, one Mark Gauvreau Judge pans Bruce Springsteen. "Bruce still wears the same crappy clothes and assumes the same working-stiff stance," says Judge (presumably sporting a Tucker Carlson bow tie as he hammered this story into an old Smith-Corona), "a deeply silly sign of deference to the fetish of 'authenticity' that is the core of rock culture."

This hostility may seem odd to culture-watchers who have heard OpinionJournal's right-wing compatriots fulsomely praise Bruce for his recent nine-eleven tribute. For example, John Podhoretz of the New York Post has written, "Springsteen... has wasted productive years of his career penning weirdly dated dirges about dusty farms falling into receivership or working-class folk driven to a life of crime and despair by the capitalist system... [but] with a new album called 'The Rising,' Springsteen has truly fulfilled his lifelong desire to give voice to the feelings and difficulties of ordinary Americans." (As opposed to the unemployed who are, of course, not ordinary Americans at all.) Podhoretz has been seconded by Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online, among others.

New Yorkers may recall Judge from his brief tenure as a New York Press music columnist. In one 1997 column, Judge put his shoulder to the wheel of the swing-dancing boomlet. He began by recalling his own, early rock-culture-related malaise: "For the past ten years alcohol had been my crutch in social situations," he confessed. "The only time I had danced before was when I had been blind drunk at clubs in Washington or at the beach. In a way, I was emblematic of my generation. Narcissistic and immature, I had been raised in the comfort of suburbia, without community or generational links to break the boredom. What I had developed, like most of my peers, was a thick shield of irony and smugness that prevented expressions of genuine joy."

Judge found joy in swing-dancing--and moral superiority: "One trip to Glen Echo or the Washington clubs where hand dancing takes place can teach a lesson that was lost during the Sexual Revolution: that there can be gradations of contact between the sexes. The dictum of all-or-nothing fostered by thirty years of pornography is a lie; worse, it is one that paradoxically cheats us out of some of the finer sensual pleasures of relationships..."

Judge has also written against Clinton, Eminem, and other expected targets, at the Baltimore City Paper. In "Confessions of a Rock and Roll Fan" at the Prison Fellowship Ministries site, Judge claims that "The Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols perverted American popular music," and prays that less abrasive musicians such as the Backstreet Boys will reform the situation: "We can continue to hope that people will return to their senses--and their roots--and that the good pop will ultimately drive out the bad. But it will be a war."

Everyone who loves rock enough to write about it has an idea about what it should and shouldn't be, and I suppose Judge's ideas are no crazier than Lester Bangs'. But Bangs wrote long before "London Calling" turned up in a car commercial and Rush Limbaugh used the Pretenders as background music. Today rock has been reduced, like everything else, to a consumer choice: would you like spicy Eminem, mild Backstreet Boys, or original recipe Springsteen sauce with your Chicken Nuggets? Culture war isn't what it used to be, either, but some of us keep at it. Like Springsteen said of rock and roll at the top of his first concert after John Lennon's death, sometimes you do it because there's nothing else to do.

Roy
August 22, 2002
12:58 a.m.
Scumbags

Happened to have Letterman on as I trawled the Internet for child porn and recipes for my own Suicide Machine when Roger Clemens appeared, traded laffs with DL about Mike Piazza not being gay, and joked about his second high hard one, which he says is thrown so "they don't think the first one's a mistake."

What a pair of scumbags.

Clemens is the five-time Cy Young Award winner who likes to heave 90+ mph pitches at the skull of a certain National League catcher who claims he isn't gay. And he's from Texas. (So's Al Leiter, but Leiter acts like Austin, whereas Clemens acts like Lynchingplace Township.) And he threw a piece of a bat at Mike Piazza (who -- did I mention? -- says he's not gay). And he worked for George W. Bush. And he left the Red Sox for the Yankees, proving the ancient adage that rats not only desert sinking ships, but feel much more comfortable among a large number of other rats.

David Letterman is a once-great talk show host who earns an obscene salary prodding pig-ignorant pitchers to make fun of catchers who are not gay.

Actually I had the show on because the previous guest was Al Pacino, who, despite the clueless questioning of his host, was class all the way.

Remember when New York's stars were Al Pacino, Patti Smith, Dick Cavett, and Tug McGraw? Didn't that kick the living shit out of the New York of John Stamos, Julian Casablancas, David Letterman, and Roger Clemens?

Martin
August 19, 2002
3:00 a.m.
Apology

I must apologize to our readers for the doldrums in which we have been bobbing for the past several weeks. Our lack of fresh content may be attributed to several things. For one, Roy and I recently spent time away from our desks in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. What tales we have to tell! I hope Roy will essay on our experience in the American Heartland--my birthplace and home until not too many years ago--and in that sad, beautiful, decayed industrial hulk that was once known as "Motown," but now chooses to call itself "Hockeytown," in honor of its victorious Red Wings NHL franchise. Secondly, I am recovering from an addiction to the insidious computer game, Civilization III. If The Sims is marijuanna, Civilization is crack cocaine. Once again finding myself at my computer, commanding my armies in a campaign against King Hammurabi of the Babylonians well after daybreak, in a disgusted fit, I erased every game from my hard drive (Civilization, SimCity 3000, Tropico, et al.), sealed the game disks in an envelope, and initialed the flap. My wife will periodically check the integrity of the seal to make sure I have not relapsed. Third, it has been frightfully hot, which may or may not be an excuse for my shiftlessness. Roy and I are now hashing over some ideas for putting new content on the site daily. Thank you for your patience, if you have any remaining.

James, son of Bertie
August 16, 2002
1:10 a.m.
Blogging from Blighty

Greetings! I believe my father may have left a card. My name is James -- no need to add honorifics, as this is a famously informal medium, what? -- and I've come round to do a bit of weblogging, as they say -- seems your regular staff has fallen off the job somewhat.

Perhaps I should adopt a nomme de blog. Something flash, what? Ah well, it'll come to me.

Let's see, upon what shall I blog? Ah. Been thinking about the use of "what?" as what I suppose is called a signifier among the Afro-Americans. There has even been a rap chap named What What, I'm told -- jolly clever of him to repeat it like that; would have gone over something frightful in Mayfair, shouldn't wonder. Anyway I hear this all the time among these fellows. "Spit on these cats nigga, spit on these cats what, what?" quoth Noreaga on some Mobb Deep joint. Snoop himself, backing up Dre, took it to maximum extension with "You know who's back up in this motherfucker! What what what what?"

Shouldn't wonder if these blokes got it from us. Never knew of a rap star at Eton, but note with interest that Puff Whatever he's calling himself took his MBA at Wharton, so anything's possible.

Mayhap I should style myself a rapper! I have some facility with words (Pater is jobbing me a spot on the Sun) and have been known to curse upon occasion. In addition, I am at present extremely high on cocaine and some experimental drugs my factota availed from a Birmingham rave, and I should have no problem equipping myself and a substantial entourage with bling.

DJ James! There, as they say, it is: my nomme de blog. Shouldn't be too much bother to work a pair of turntables. In my cups I have laid hands upon any number of electronic devices. Made quite a row in Surrey once with a pair of tasers pinched from my driver. I'll ring the concierge at once.

Damned nostril bleeding again. Must dash. How exhilirating it has all been!

Roy
July 31, 2002
2:10 p.m.
Re: Tailored Dress, Blue Rose

According to this site, Powell is making a hand signal from the Cuban social dance La Rueda, indicating that the dancers should execute an "Exhibela," in which "Guys count one side step left foot, count 5 - side step left turning the lady, Ladies feet - Count 1 stepping backwards facing the inside of the circle, count 5 - outside turn , turning clockwise finishing facing the middle of the circle."

If U.S. troops attempt an encirclement of Baghdad in the next 24 hours, consider this a scoop.

On the other hand, the Sec'y's gesture would be interpretted by Chicago Mercantile Exchange traders as indicating an expiration date in July.

Today is the last day of July. If there is a sudden disruption in the pork bellies market, consider this also a scoop.

Martin
July 31, 2002
1:30 p.m.
Tailored Dress, Blue Rose

If this AP photo on CNN.com is not a coded message, I congratulate the photo editor for his or her subversive humor.

Thought Leadership

Several weeks back the Alicubi editors responded to TV Guide's 50 Best Shows of All Time with our own Alt-TV Top 50.

Now we see that TV Guide has published an All-Time Worst Shows list -- which includes several of our own honorees, including "My Mother The Car," which the Guide places second-to-nadir, next to Jerry Springer.

This is a clear example of the failure of imagination in mainstream publishing today. "My Mother the Car" et alia have been thoughtlessly mocked for their outrageous non-conformance with modern standards (such as they are) of excellence. But consider: what present-day network would even think of running a new show about anything other than cops, lawyers, firemen, "real" people, or bestest friends living in mythically lavish New York apartments?

The so-called hacks of another era at least had guts and flair. Maybe the authors of "My Mother the Car" will not challenge Moliere's place in the comic pantheon, but their concept was sufficiently outrageous, and pressed so brutally on a cultural nerve-cluster, that the image of Jerry Van Dyke hag-ridden by his automotivated mother from beyond the grave still sends chills down the backs of those who remember it. Some seek to swipe away this successful incursion of the subsconscious with sneers. We at Alicubi celebrate the mad genius of it.

Our culture, despite the alleged outrageousness of its Ozzies, is spiritually weak, and thus flinches at the very presence of true originality. Consider also the outraged response to the great Steve Earle's John Walker song. I haven't heard it, but I have read its lyrics, which are typically gnomic and poetic. I believe it's Earle's artistic indirection, more than his Christian sympathy for Walker, that has enraged the pinheads. The idea of a war-related song that does not wave the flag or roar for blood wounds not their patriotism, which is weak, but the blinkers on their consciousnesses, which are so firmly hammered into their skulls that they take rude shocks very badly.

Fortunately or unfortunately my own John Walker song, published here some months back, is less well known, and has spurred nary a threat nor a boycott. Did Steve Earle die for my sins? Listen and decide.

Martin
July 20, 2002
7:30 p.m.
Search Terms

Some strange searches lead people to our site. Here are a few recent examples:

she wore leather to the dentist
Eskimo restaurant menu
nude women basketball players
the girls all wore clown noses
living dead doll penny for sale
I don't have a dick anymore

Roy
July 20, 2002
6:50 p.m.
Gaudi at Groud Zero

At today's WTC Town Hall at the Javits Center, CBS local news tells us, a prevailing sentiment was that "mediocrity will not be tolerated." This seems to me a rebuke to the designs on offer at present.

My friend Matt Sharff writes to tell me that people have found some 1908 drawings by Juan Matamala, Gaudi's regular architectural collaborator, for a proposed "American Hotel," to be built on or near what we now call Ground Zero. It's assumed that Gaudi worked on it. One site has beautiful pictures of this epic, extraordinary vision; another provides an argument that this design should be revived:

"Seashells are composed of aggregates of calcium carbonate, which is also used in making lime and portland cement. Gaudi planned to build the Grand Hotel of reinforced concrete in ringed sections. This process is as close as one can get to producing gigantic seashells. One of the fundamental structural principles of the seashell is to resist lateral thrusts of large creatures with large teeth. Or in the case of skyscrapers, the lateral forces of airplanes or guided missiles. Can we assume that Gaudi anticipated this far into the future?"

Martin
July 15, 2002
5:30 p.m.
This and That

From an email sent in by a reader:

"GOOGLE found you for me when I ran a search on 'spontaneous pneumothorax' today. It directed me to a story written by a young woman who had suffered this lung collapse. But although I clicked on 'About Alicubi' and read 'What's an Alicubi?', I still do not know about or what! ... I tried to figure out if there is a core subject of your website, and have not been successful!"

That's my wife's complaint about it, exactly. I told this nice reader, as I tell her, that it's a general interest magazine for those whose interests are out of the common.

That reminds me of a fun trifle in Hermann's Handbook of Parlor Magic. The magician is instructed to tell those in company that he will show them something quite "out of the common." Then, having piqued their interest, he produces a stone or twig, which he assures them is, in fact, out of the common.

*sigh*

In other news:

"We are always concerned when we believe we may have killed innocent people and we think that happened and we regret that," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said during a visit to Bagram air base, headquarters for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. "We have no regrets about going in after bad guys and there were some there."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020715/ap_on_re_as/afghan_us_6

If the military can kill civilians with impunity while chasing "bad guys," then the police ought to be allowed to gun down any pedestrian in their path while chasing bad guys on the city streets. Oh, but imagine just how enraged the citizens would become. Why, they would hate the police, and the city government that allowed them to take such action. It's easy to see, I think, why the citizens of the world hold a grudge against America nowadays.

Martin
July 13, 2002
8:00 p.m.
Re: All-Star Wrap-Up

And now it looks like the Detroit Tigers will go out of business. First the morons in charge of Detroit's affairs--one fuckup after another, beginning with allowing the Big Three automakers to buy the public transportation system, then dismantle it and sell it to Mexico City, where it operates to this day--kicked the Tigers out of venerable old Tiger Stadium, moving them to Comerica Park (ugh). Now they'll let the team go out of the world backwards. Fine for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Who the fuck cares about them. But a 100-year-old ball club? So what if they never win. Neither do the Chicago Cubs, but like the Cubs they have been the lifeblood of the city for generations. I guess now Detroit (known locally as "Hockeytown," I shit you not) has the Wings, so to hell with the fuddy-duddy Tigers. Stop the world: I want off.

Roy
July 10, 2002
11:35 p.m.
All-Star Wrap-Up

That really did suck.

As Sports Geek points out, it's not unheard-of for a position player to take the mound when a team is out of pitchers. If the players were in a suitably jocose mood to goof on each other on the field -- cf Schilling announcing his pitch pattern to Jason Giambi -- Torre could have cycled Garcia to right field; he wouldn't be the first guy to play that position hurt.

This is not a howl for blood, as in "let the rich crybabies play till their lungs collapse." If a manager really has no options, the game provides a remedy: forfeit.

No one likes to do that, which is why utility infielders and catchers are sometimes called upon to try their luck on the rubber. As long as the ball's in your hands, there's a chance. That's the great thing about baseball.

But instead, Brenly (who spent much of the late-inning play joking with the announcers) and Torre mobbed up with Selig to send the fans home with $175 ticket stubs and a potentially lifelong grudge against MLB.

Their message to spectator-peons: hey, we had a good time. What's your problem?

Roy
July 10, 2002
12:35 p.m.
Another Horrible All-Star Game, period

American League pulls final pitcher? Bud Selig declares a tie? Boos at an ALL-STAR GAME? With a fucking strike impending?

Glad Ted Williams didn't live to see this. Oh, and all the while Fox's sportscasters are talking about all the new foreign markets picking up the All-Star Game.

Fuck Joe Torre and fuck Bud Selig.

Bullshit.

Roy
July 9, 2002
9:25 p.m.
Another Horrible All-Star Game Commercial

Mike Meyers: "That's not Britney Spears -- that's a man, baby!"

Guess the fake breasts threw him off.

Roy
July 9, 2002
9:10 p.m.
Another Horrible All-Star Game National Anthem

Anastasia screamed in vain.

Roy
June 27, 2002
1:30 p.m.
I Heart-On New York

A press release announces that the Museum of Sex "will open on Fifth Avenue on September 23, with its inaugural exhibition NYC Sex: How New York City Transformed Sex in America."

I see they're behind on their Museum Shop, though. Maybe I can sell them on this item.

Martin
June 23, 2002
2:30 p.m.
Wunderbar!

Clothes that make you look naked, auf Deutschland: http://www.inm.de/people/alba/couture/index.html

Roy
June 22, 2002
3:30 p.m.
Pennysaver

I'm selling my 1959 Melody Maker. Short-scale (3/4), single pickup. Banged up but beautiful. Plays great.

There's a little picture of it here. Email me if you're interested.

Martin
June 20, 2002
3:10 p.m.
Re: Self-Parody Watch

Cindy Crawford makes national news by being mentioned in passing.

A Russian cosmonaut aboard the Int'l Space Station quipped that he would rather spend a week with Crawford than with one of the 'NSYNC boys. Reuters jumped on this breaking story:

Supermodel Crawford ponders space station trip.

Pressed on whether she would go to space, Crawford responded, in paraphrase, "I guess so."

Attention freelance journalists: Want to get into big media outlets? Find a comment made by anyone about a famous person or hot-button issue, then spin a speculative "story" around it.

One approach: Talk to some NYC cops. If more than one say, "I'd like to waste bin Laden," your story is: "New York Best Ponder Posse to Hunt bin Laden." Then go ask some other cops about it, and report what they think about the idea. This is news.

Roy
June 19, 2002
11:55 p.m.
Self-Parody Watch

In this week's New York Press, a story about a guy playing pool at Max Fish.

Roy
June 16, 2002
3:01 a.m.
They Gotti Have It

The New York Post is strenuously anti-crime, pro-death-penalty, etc. Yet for the past week they've been assiduously on the late John Gotti's jock.

"A man who physically died but whose spirit knew no life span," simpered belligerent drunk Steve Dunleavy. "Get it straight, you people out there who overdose on bottled water and tofu. I would much rather swig a pint with the Gotti crew than those wusses at Enron."

"An elegant rebel who came from nothing and defied authority until his dying breath," gushed Andrea Peyser. "He was reputedly brutal and privately profane, but also kind to children and generous to friends... Didn't various Kennedys and Condits and Clintons do far greater damage to the commonweal, I wondered..."

The Post's editorial page took a negative approach, saying, "all too often [Gotti] and his like were romanticized by a media that took to heart the Mafia myths embedded in the 'Godfather' books and movies." This is rich, considering the fawning coverage the paper elsewhere gave the mob boss.

Keep this shit in mind the next time the Post gives Sharpton a hard time.

Roy
June 11, 2002
1:25 p.m.
What-theFuck?

Pull quote in a New York Post fluffball on married women with hyphenated names: "But a hyphenated name has no history; it's just the bastard child of the feminist movement."

What would William Rhys-Mogg (not to mention Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Edward George Bulwer-Lytton) have to say about this?

Martin
June 11, 2002
11:00 a.m.
Talking Popcorn

Speaking of technology, see talkingpopcorn.com.

"Say hello to the popcorn of the new millennium. And get ready for a big surprise. The popcorn kernels actually talk! The invention was inspired by a two year-old, popcorn-loving boy from Atlantic City, New Jersey, named Adam Snyder...

"Talking Popcorn is now being sold and enjoyed throughout the world. How the popcorn speaks is a secret. Follow the easy instructions, and soon you, too, will hear the popcorn saying things like, 'Happy Birthday' or 'Let's Have A Party'."

If it can say, "Let's have a party," then it should also be able to say, "You're killing us, fucker!" or "Someone dosed you about an hour ago."

Martin
June 10, 2002
3:50 p.m.
Re: The Noose Tightens

I would look into this blog technology--if I were a sissy. Nothing wrong with getting one's hands dirty with a little old-fashioned HTML and FTP. Try anchor tags for linking from one entry to another. Heavens, next you'll want multimedia, message boards, chat, polls, a stock ticker, a date and time bar, e-postcards, a store, and a newsletter. If any readers want these things, email me, and we'll work it out. Hrumpf.

Bertie and 'His Grace'
June 8, 2002
3:50 a.m.
The Deuce You Say

Downs, old boy, tell El Droso to ingest a chill-pill. 'His Grace' and I frequently make the rounds at Foggy Bottom with Rummy, and everywhere we go some young factotum is using a computer; to amuse ourselves, we often command such functionaries to call up El Droso's site. Their horrified expressions tickle Rummy no end. Granted, a few have offered to 'do a job' on your Spaniard, but none of us have been so deep in our cups as to take them up on it, so far as I recall.

Dear old Liz had her Golden last week. Can't say as she was pleased with the arrangements. Caught her backstage, freezing out that Osborne fellow. "This lot gets cheekier every quarter," Her Highness told us. "Clapton tried to kiss me. At least Mr. Rotten stayed on his boat last time 'round. Crikey. Give 'em a VH1 special and they think they're blooming peers."

Lund and Guttesman appear to have vanished. Young James fancies himself a "blogger." Thing to do these days, one supposes. I'll have him drop something by.

Roy
June 8, 2002
3:40 a.m.
The Noose Tightens

O sweet Jesu. It's not just the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see my June 4 post--Martin, can't we get a real, linkable blog technology going here?). Edroso.com has also been visited recently by surfers availing the host servers of the United States Postal Service, the State Department (acheson-a2.state.gov), and freakin' Harvard.

I see myself in the courtroom, like Kenneth Mars in The Producers, in a full body cast and singing "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy."

Martin
June 7, 2002
1:40 p.m.
Hairy Eyeball

I happened upon a post at Hairyeyeball.net that had kind things to say about Alicubi, and our El Droso in particular. Thank you.

Roy
June 7, 2002
11:10 a.m.
Star Chamber

Stanley "All Hip-Hop Must Be Punished" Crouch in today's Daily News on the R. Kelly statutory rape case:

"At least for the time being, it sems that Kelly has the problem of proving that the man in the video isn't him. If he can't do that, he could get up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $100,000."

It's refreshing to hear even right-wing columnists admit that the quaint notion of guilty-until-proven-innocent is fading away.

Roy
June 7, 2002
10:40 a.m.
Re: Houses

Martin, you are right, especially when it comes to interiors. Modern, dry-walled urban hellholes only look good when they're kept up, whereas old-law tenement rooms look noble even (maybe especially) when disarrayed and beat to shit.

It's like the new domiciles are fragile fashion models that need constant facials, gym sessions, and Pilates treatments to look good, and the old haunts are like natural beauties that roll out of bed, push the hair out of their mouths, take a shot of vodka and a cigarette, and look fabulous.

I use the term "natural beauty" advisedly. Back in the old days, luxury was for the rich but beauty was for everyone. Look at some of the old tenement facades of the Lower East Side. Why do many of these have such attractive flourishes and trim? Not because they were built for the rich--quite the contrary. They looked nice because anything for which one paid rent (as opposed to quarters for flophouses) was supposed to be nice. "Nice" didn't mean "airy" or "well-lit" or even "sanitary," necessarily. But it just seems as if even slum-builders couldn't even imagine the bleak, faceless structures that came with the latter 20th Century.

Landlords, like everyone else with power, weren't better people then. But everyone, consciously or unconsciously, takes his cues the world he knows. I'm sure the old builders felt contempt for whole groups of people. But not for the world. So what they put into the world reflected, even in the most modest cases, the respect they felt for it.

No more. New things are generally, even the best cases, slick, easy to clean, and, in the dictionary sense, repellent. Experience bangs them up, but leaves no patina and gives no burnish. The old plaster walls soaked up grime and history. Living with them is like living with ghosts, the shades of what came before. Even the poor had such riches, once upon a time.

Roy
June 7, 2002
12:50 a.m.
Dee Dee

Dee Dee Ramone has died, apparently of an overdose. There's not much to say about that angle, but it has me thinking about what Dee Dee said in Please Kill Me about his junkie ex-girlfriend Connie:

"Connie might have brought me close to death a lot of times, but in a way, she kept me alive. No one else did. I had all that responsibility--I had to play every night--and nobody gave a damn if I had a place to live, or if I had any dope, or if I had anything to eat. Connie did. She was all I had."

It's a rough world under the best of circumstances, and it seems Dee Dee's circumstances weren't the best. I expect we got a lot more pleasure out of his music than he did.

The Ramones were such a Spartan, precision-tooled band that in the dozen times I saw them, I never noticed Dee Dee doing anything besides playing hard and frowning. I was shocked when I learned how much of the writing he did, and how articulate he could be. I'd assumed he was non-verbal, maybe even pre-verbal.

Remember the bridge in "53rd & 3rd"? "Now the cops are after me/But I'll prove that I'm no sissy." Dee Dee's voice there is a real adolescent howl. The affectation is obvious, but it doesn't mask the pain.

Joey's death kind of used up my Ramones nostalgia. Dee Dee doesn't need my tribute anyway--all he needed was the "all I had." And as little as that was, he made pretty damned much of it.

Martin
June 6, 2002
2:30 p.m.
Houses

Modern architecture can be nice to look at, but I couldn't live in a house built after World War II. This NY Times article illustrates the fatal flaw of jet-age architecture: It doesn't age gracefully. What's more, you can't mess it up. It has to be spotless and tidy all the time, or else it looks like shit. Every object in the house must be carefully chosen and placed. You can't have a fax machine set atop the box it came in which was then chewed up by the dog, skeins of knitting yarn strewn everywhere, bookcases crammed with dusty paperbacks, and so on. Those I've known who have opted to live in modern digs are highly anal people. It's an interesting thesis for some grad student out there: Is modern architecture rooted in anxiety (the World Wars, the Bomb, etc.)? Our grandparents--and some of our parents--grew up in farmhouses and rowhouses that were designed not by architects with ideas, but by the tradesmen who built them--often for themselves and their families. Until well into the 20th century, most rowhouses in New York City were built without a blueprint. That's a fact. Builders just kind of knew how it should go together. For more on this, I refer you to Charles Lockwood's Bricks and Brownstone.

One of the most comfortable places I've ever been in was a 14th century Buddhist monastery in Ladakh, a Himalayan kingdom (under India's rule) bordering Kashmir: Uneven stone floors, dozens of cramped rooms with tiny windows overlooking craggy cliffs, dark alcoves full of god-knows-what, rickety beams blackened by centuries of greasy smoke from oil lamps and incense, and no heat. Still, it was cozy because it was just so human.

Roy
June 4, 2002
12:05 a.m.
They're Onto Me

I see in my edroso.com referrer files that I have been visited, via a link from warbloggerwatch, by someone from ferc2.ferc.fed.us.

This is my first visit from the Feds. PsychicSpy informs me that the host in question is for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But I believe it is standard practice among the black bag boys to do their surveillance from addresses less threatening than their own.

I spoke to my security advisor about this. He recommends a few weeks in his friends' "Iowa compound" for "debriefing." I told him I'll keep my briefs on, thank you very much.

But if I start to behave strangely (or more strangely), you might do me the favor of checking my flesh for microchip implants.

Roy
June 4, 2002
4:20 a.m.
The Lighter Side of Death

I've thought about it and I can't come up with anything I've taken for granted more than The Lighter Side of... by Dave Berg, those stiff, sort-of funny comics that ran in Mad magazine for over 40 years.

Jesus, those were square strips--the stale jokes usually at the expense of heedless youth and pompous suburbanites, the clothing always hideous, the postures forced; those lines of force indicating anger always just a little too formulaic. There was nothing fluid about Berg, in his art or in his gags. Years ago The National Lampoon did a parody of Mad with a throwaway bit on The Lighter Side of...--kid walks up to a pipe-smoking oldster (that was always how Berg drew himself), asks, "Aren't you Dave Berg from Mad magazine?" "Why, yes," says Berg, grinning pompously. "Boy," says the kid, "are you an asshole!"

Oh, how I laughed. But now Berg is dead and I'm sorry that I missed many, many years of his strip (he did it right up till the end, never appreciably altering his style). Why? Because the mildly annoying nature of his work was like the mildly annoying nature of a marginal relative who came around sometimes--dressed in white highwaters and a loud sports shirt, and smoking a pipe--and told you crappy jokes. He was ridiculous, but you laughed a little despite yourself, and the eye-roll and "oh, no" with which you greeted him was not entirely unaffectionate. At least he showed up and tried to give you some pleasure. And now he's dead.

Berg was born in Brooklyn, studied at Cooper Union, and worked for Will Eisner and Stan Lee before going to Mad. Maybe the Comics Journal or somebody will do a little tribute, and a panel or two will appear in the mainstream entertainment publications, but no one will go on and on about him. He just wasn't that good. What we can say about him is that he was consistent, reliable, and a part, albeit small, of many, many lives, and that his talent was sufficient--as we find now to our surprise--to lodge itself in our memories and our affections.

R.I.P., you asshole.

Roy
June 3, 2002
1:20 p.m.
People Pick Up On What I'm Puttin' Down

Penalties on the crime of being poor are increasing. New York Times today reports that "New research findings in two states [Connecticut and Iowa] show that the stricter work requirements of contemporary welfare policy significantly reduce the chances that a single mother will wed."

The Times follows one Connecticut single mom who "had successfully studied and worked, and supported her older daughter, Erica, now 6, partly through a welfare grant she collected under the old rules while earning a bookkeeping degree that tripled her wages, to $15 an hour." But then she got sick and had to quit the bookkeeping job. Now she has "a 21-month limit on her public assistance under the Jobs First program. She and her children are living with her parents as she tries to find a job, attend mandatory welfare-to-work classes, and continue volunteering with Erica's school and a Girl Scout troop."

"I'm not even interested in dating right now," the woman told the Times. Indeed. Where would she find the time? Not that her romantic choices would necessarily make dating appealing; women in her fix, says one expert, "may be more eager to to share the cost of housing with other adults, but they are less attractive on the marriage market." (Also from the Times: "Stacey Whitley, 30, of New Haven, another Jobs First subject and a mother of six, said the father of her youngest child is no longer a good marriage prospect since he lost his job digging ditches.")

"Welfare reform where people are worse off and under more stress," says another source. "How's that going to help you be more secure in your relationships?"

Neil Young once sang "Welfare mothers make better lovers." Better than workfare mothers, at least.

Roy
May 31, 2002
2:33 a.m.
But Wait, There's More

As previously mentioned, George W. Bush has been compared to many historical figures: Churchill, Lincoln, Hemingway, Frodo.. and now... Reinhold Niebuhr!

I shit you not. "President Bush carries on the liberal tradition of Reinhold Niebuhr," says OpinionJournal. Niebuhr, you see, felt that "Sometimes war is necessary." Just like GWB! (Except Niebuhr used a lot of big words.)

For further examples of Bush's theological expertise, see here ("Ronald Reagan went to Bob Jones, my dad went to Bob Jones...") and here ("The Texan governor signed a proclamation calling June 10, 2000, Jesus Day in the Lone Star State").

Roy
May 31, 2002
12:56 a.m.
Re: Satire

I thought I was the wiseguy in this outfit, Downs.

I warn you, though: your revelation may lead to charges against gun companies, on the grounds that they are responsible for all violence inflicted on Americans by their deadly products.

Martin
May 30, 2002
5:00 p.m.
Satire

Read the real CNN joke here: http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/30/missile.threat/index.html

FBI warns of gun-fired bullet threat

WASHINGTON (CiNN) -- Although it has had no specific warnings, the FBI is alerting law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for any signs of terrorist plans to use gun-fired bullets against U.S. targets, especially people.

The alert comes after investigators concluded al Qaeda operatives might have tried to shoot a U.S. soldier in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.

The FBI warning stressed the United States had no specific intelligence that al Qaeda is planning an attack using bullets fired from guns.

"The FBI possesses no information indicating that al Qaeda is planning to use bullets or any type of gunpowder-propelled projectile system against a person in the United States," the warning said.

"However, given al Qaeda's demonstrated objective to target U.S. citizens, its access to U.S. and Russian-made firearms, and recent apparent targeting of U.S.-led military forces in Saudi Arabia, law enforcement agencies in the United States should remain alert to potential use of guns against Americans."

On May 10th, CiNN first reported the discovery of a gun that could have been used to shoot a bullet. The gun was found by a Saudi security patrol inside a fence at the Prince Sultan Air Base, but at that time military officials told CiNN it was unclear if the hunting rifle had been fired in an attempt to shoot a U.S. soldier.

But a May 22, 2002 FBI "intelligence bulletin" -- obtained Thursday by CiNN -- says, "Subsequent investigation suggests that the discovery is likely related to al Qaeda targeting efforts against U.S.-led forces on the Arabian Peninsula."

The presence of a bullet in the chamber indicated there may have been an attempt to fire it, but the bullet was intact, indicating the gun did not fire.

The "thirty-aught-six" rifle was found a few dozen yards from where U.S. soldiers come and go at the remote desert base, within range of shoulder-fired rifles.

Martin
May 30, 2002
4:00 p.m.
Orlando

Me having no fun all by my lonesome at a Radisson hotel in Orlando, Florida.

"Cathy" having a good time in Cancun, Mexico.

Roy
May 25, 2002
4:56 p.m.
Recommended

Before I head out, I just want to commend Vice magazine on their latest Do's and, especially, Don'ts.

This monthly real-life fashion roundup is consistently the best thing in Vice (the rest of which ain't bad either), but the new one is up there with the time they covered that metal convention. (Especially liked the crack about "The Lion King.")

Roy
May 25, 2002
4:45 p.m.
As Long As They Spell the Name Right

Steve Gigl, a Minnesota warblogger, takes exception to my (and warbloggerwatch's) columns on fellow Ten-Thousand-Laker Jim Lileks. Despite being "tempted to write them off right away," Gigl goes on about us for over three thousand words -- long enough to require trifurcation (starting here).

Not wishing to subject you too much to internecine blogdoodle, I will limit myself to 200 words of partial defense, starting now.

Gigl makes an odd defense of Lileks' war fantasies, some of which I have mocked. "See, there is this amazing trick that some people can do," Gigl writes, "called 'putting yourself in other people's shoes.' It's what antiwar types often accuse warbloggers of not being able to do..."

In the fantasies in question, Lileks remained squarely within his own shoes, fighting crazed Islamofascists and feminists who had come to kill, kidnap, or brainwash members of his family. This isn't empathy, it's persecution mania.

"Am I to assume," says Gigl, "that Royboy doesn't ever, oh, consider the possibility that something horrible might happen near him? Hey, maybe he lives in a bunker somewhere..."

I live in New York City. I don't obsess over terror attacks because that would make daily life unbearable. I can see why it would be different for North Star Staters, though.

For the record, I don't think Lileks "loves it so much when people die," as Gigl states. Nor am I "so damned jealous" of his home entertainment center.

But hark! the sands have run down. Time to hit the streets of my beloved Terror Target and take some sun.

Roy
May 23, 2002
11:58 p.m.
Re: Magog

Magog without Gog is like the Bible without insane end-times commentary involving Jerusalem.

There are some warbloggers who seem to have it in for Canada (and think they're funny, but are not). You don't suppose they've made a connection?

Martin
May 23, 2002
1:05 p.m.
Magog

The TV program Andromeda is a Canadian show. In the show, there is a ruthless alien horde called the Magog. In southern Quebec, there is a Magog river, and a town called Magog. Coincidence? Who knows.

Ah, the joy of irrelevance.

Roy
May 22, 2002
9:31 p.m.
Re: Face Value

Gasp! Look whatta mess they made of my boy!

Even though it looks slightly better here (what's up with your kerning pairs?), I am forced to take your point. (I still suspect sabotage, but you know me.)

Gives a new meaning to the phrase, "looks good on paper."

Martin
May 22, 2002
2:15 p.m.
Re: Face Value

Which do you think looks better? Sometimes one must see with one's eyes, not with one's history books:

I put my hat upon my head and walked into the Strand, and there I met another man whose hat was in his hand. (HELVETICA)

I put my hat upon my head and walked into the Strand, and there I met another man whose hat was in his hand. (ARIAL)

I put my hat upon my head and walked into the Strand, and there I met another man whose hat was in his hand. (VERDANA)

Note: People using Windows machines may not be able to see Helvetica. Microsoft did not license the font, instead opting to bundle the cheaper Arial with their shitty software.

Roy
May 22, 2002
12:22 p.m.
Objectivism, Buchananism, Yoda Yoda Yoda

Is this review of Attack of the Clones by Walter Hudgins, "Washington director of The Objectivist Center," a parody?

Sample quote: "In Episode I Lucas was ambiguous. He showed us the evil Trade Federation blockading and invading a peaceful planet. But we weren't sure whether they were Pat Buchanan protectionists wanting to limit exchange or free traders who resented controls on their markets."

And maybe Jar-Jar Binks represents colonial oppression. Or so it might seem in the Age of Bullshit, at the zenith of which we seem to have arrived.

Roy
May 22, 2002
12:15 p.m.
Re: Face Value

Really? The dynamically-generated text I'm looking at now is in Verdana? I'm not really an "old type hound," as some pre-desktop typographers I've known called themselves.

But as you don't have to be a poet to accept the reputation of Shakespeare (though it helps), you don't have to be an OTH to admire Helvetica, or to accept the high regard in which it's held among type types.

I just think it's interesting that the gold-standard sans-serif face became second (or third) fiddle on the Web, not because anyone thought it wasn't the best, because someone wanted to squeeze a few extra bucks out of licensing it. The invisible hand gives consumers the best of everything -- except when someone gets greedy.

Martin
May 21, 2002
12:15 p.m.
Re: Face Value

What about Verdana? I have been made to understand, per Zara, that Verdana is the best web font. Alicubi is done in Verdana. It was designed specifically for the web by Mathew Carter, who worked on it for two years, albiet under Microsoft's employ.

Roy
May 20, 2002
11:59 p.m.
Face Value

Fascinating article from Mark Simonson Studio on the ascendancy of Arial as the Web's default sans-serif face -- despite its typographic inferiority to Helvetica. Unsurprisingly, Adobe and Microsoft are the main culprits. Thanks to Undernews for the link.

Roy
May 19, 2002
4:13 p.m.
Spoiler Alert!

Today's Salon features no less than 10 Premium (paid subscriber) items.

I'm saving money on one -- "Erotic photographer Tony Ward talks about psychodramas, Clinton's horniness and why he has sex with his models" -- by guessing answers to the last bit:

1.) Achieving the necessary erotic mis en scene requires physical tension and, ultimately, union between artist and muse.

2.) They're really hot.

Roy
May 19, 2002
4:10 p.m.
Another Letdown

I flipped on the TV the other day and witnessed night-vision footage of drug-addled squatters beating each other up. Sample dialogue: "I saw blood on her head. What was I supposed to think?" "Get the [bleep] off me!" "I love you! I love you! I love you! I [bleeping] love you!" Sample v/o commentary: "Asbestos flies as Jaydog and Jenny grapple... Jaydog gathers his belonging and heads back out to the streets."

You can imagine my disappointment when I learned that this was a news feature on people living in abandoned buildings, and not preview footage of the next Survivor.

Roy
May 13, 2002
10:50 p.m.
Defining TV Down

TV Guide's 50 Best Shows of All Time have been declared. Apparently Frasier is better regarded than Rocky & Bullwinkle. And the producers of the ABC special based on this have done their best to keep any black-and-white footage from being shown.

Seinfeld is the Guide's number one. On ABC they're showing Jerry Seinfeld's comments. He's insufferable -- dull, semi-coherent, fatuous -- an archetypical yuppie. In the kingdom of the bland, the sun-dried man is king.

But you know what? In every interview I've ever seen, Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball and Sid Caesar have also been extremely tedious commentators on their own successes. And none of them, Seinfeld included, ever did anything worth a damn outside their celebrated sitcoms. (I have a soft spot in my heart for Gigot, but only because, in the immortal words of Mr. Cranky, it "ruptures the very fabric of space and time" with its awfulness.)

The fruits of television comedy, it would appear, are slow to ripen and quick to rot. This medium is not maturing very quickly.

Maybe it's time for an alt-TV Top 50. I nominate The Great American Dream Machine, Kup's Show, and Sunrise Sermonette.

Roy
May 13, 2002
9:20 p.m.
Purty Pictures

The following images are from "Look and Learn," a textbook from Scott, Foresman & Company's Cirriculum Foundation Series, published in the year of my birth.

They are meant to instruct young minds in basic science ("The seasons are summer, autumn, winter, spring"), but also serve nicely to represent the twin poles of my mood disorder.

Bertie and 'His Grace'
May 12, 2002
1:01 a.m.
Proposing an Intervention

'His Grace' and myself have been availing the Internet, in search of an electronic Mum's Day card for the Queen, and dropped by the old weblog. Judging from his postings, your Puerto Rican correspondent seems to be suffering some sort of breakdown. Got his number from Rummy, who maintains vitals on undesirables, and rang him up; the poor bugger mistook us for telemarketing agents, though 'His Grace' identified himself quite clearly. "I don't care if you're C of E or ATT or MCI or who you are," the fellow screamed. "I don't need long distance service because I have no friends."

His speech, though slurred, betrayed no trace of dialect; are you quite sure of his background? My great-Aunt was taken in years ago by a bounder pretending to Portuguese nobility. He was later unmasked as a theatrical manager from Dorset. Awful scandal, but one had to admire the thoroughness of his effects. Perfect manners, and he used Man-Tan to achieve a suitably Iberian complexion.

Considered getting Rummy to sever his Internet connection, but feared that, deprived of access to pornography and political websites, the Señor would go completely off his chump and do some real damage. Suggest you sit him down and talk some sense. You seem to hold some sway over him--can't believe he'd run all over, covering book chats and whatnot, of his own volition. In my experience his sort is usually content to lay about with a goatskin of vinho tinto, dreaming of mañana.

Tell him 'His Grace' and I will set him up at the Sun if he straightens out.

P.S. Young James informs me that "Sesame Street" is actually a children's television show. Viewed an episode in hopes of spotting Miss Guttesman, but saw mostly grotesque puppets reciting the alphabet. Things have certainly changed since I was a lad, when we had the Beano and the Boy's Own Paper. Still managed to learn our ABCs, somehow.

Roy
May 12, 2002
12:48 p.m.
Happy Mothers' Day

I'm right here in Williamsburg and I'm looking for some parties. Anyone know where they are?

Eminem's doing a sketch on SNL, gotta go.

Roy
May 12, 2002
12:45 p.m.
Come, Sweet Death

In a store midtown today, I heard some samba-influenced pop tune and immediately thought, "Oh, cool -- it's that song from that car commercial."

I was going to tie this in with the L.A. Law 10-Year Reunion Special, but my Alzheimer's kicked in and broke my train of thought.

Roy
May 10, 2002
8:09 p.m.
Yawn

Stop the Presses: Goldberg comes out for censorship.

Roy
May 10, 2002
8:01 p.m.
Isn't It Semantic?

Having labored mightily to sever the sobriquet "right-wing" from the late Pim Fortuyn, and to replace the term "suicide bomber" with at least a few more negative ones, conservative lingo-cops are out to scour other inappropriate usages from the discourse.

Now Andrew Stuttaford objects when the BBC calls Fortuyn's murderer a "passionate" animal rights activist. "The use of that vaguely benign-sounding adjective," says Stuttaford, "is a pretty good example of the values of the EU's center-left establishment."

Suppose we called this assailant ("Volkert van der G") an "animal rights extremist," though. Wouldn't that suggest that he killed Fortuyn to defend furry woodland creatures? It's a bit like describing George Wallace assailant Arthur Bremer as an "inveterate diarist" -- technically correct, but misleading.

Or is it? Do we know why the guy did it yet? Maybe furry woodland creatures were just his version of Jodie Foster. Maybe the guy's just a nut with a provocative political delusion.

Maybe not. But it's a possibility apparently unconsidered by more than one pundit now doing a bad Mick Jagger parody:

I shouted out, who killed Pim For-tu-yn?
When, after all, it was CNN!

Roy
May 10, 2002
12:01 p.m.
Cranks at the Movies

For a heart-rending glimpse of the degraded state of cultural criticism, see this OpinionJournal article, in which the author instructs Hollywood on the right (X-Men) and wrong (Spider-Man) ways to portray evil (pronounced "EE-vil," one imagines) in blockbusters.

To give you some idea: he compares Magneto to Yassir Arafat.

As the Simpsons character most likely to write this sort of thing might say, "Worst Analogy Ever."

Elsewhere at that site, see Peggy Noonan's latest episode of "Everybody Loves W," and read Daniel "Who Lost Western Civilization?" Henninger on the defeat of beatniks by Starbucks, and other artifacts by which future generations (if there are any) will harshly judge us all.

Bertie and 'His Grace'
May 10, 2002
1:05 a.m.
El Droso a Rum Correspondent

My word -- or I should say, Our word, as 'His Grace' is seated adjacent, putting the finishing touches on a sermon. (This week's theme is, "When the salt hath lost its savor, who shall savor it again?" but we dined rather well this evening and 'His Grace' remains in a playful mood, so it's been my job to cross out his frequent, punning references to St. Peter and saltpetre.)

To return to the point: your Iberian correspondent has been monopolizing this weblog thingy for some days now. His political bits are inoffensive, but judging by their tone he appears to fancy himself controversial. Have you not put him wise, as you Yanks say? He should get a load of 'His Grace' in the Lords. His speeches have been stricken from the Hansard more frequently than the House of Hanover has been stricken with the pox.

Monday the Lords voted to approve the Jubilee Address, and what they printed was not a patch on what was spoken sub rosa. We'd got to the Bishops' Bar early, don't you know, so there were a lot of jokes, and ribald comments in high-pitched voices. At one point 'His Grace' rose and begged to move "that the Address be presented to Her Majesty by a sooty, to reflect the newly multicultural nature of the Realm."

This put the bloom to old Georgie Porgie's cheeks, but the old dear kept his composure through this and his own remarks, even when, as he spoke of "Fifty years of profound change and upheaval," 'His Grace' himself upheaved on a Peeress.

After such as this, your El Droso's petty, Grub Street fulminations all seem a bit twee. But it's his ghastly meanderings on the subject of television that particularly offend the eye. Comparing the Bard to some wretched programme, and unfavorably in the bargain! I know how Spaniards love their cheap entertainments, but these gibberings really have no place in a pillar of the Fourth Estate such as yours. Tell him to save it for Readers' Wives.

How is your Miss Guttesman? I hear she has relocated to a place called Sesame Street. It is good to find her out of that Eastcheap hell-hole, but the new address reeks rather of curry, if you take my meaning.

Land seems to have achieved a bit of celebrity. Soon there will be a reversion to drugs, shouldn't wonder. I hope you have a suitably discreet counsellor at the ready. If not, I can supply one. Did wonders for young James. He's back to spanking prostitutes, which is ever so much more manageable.

Roy
May 9, 2002
11:58 p.m.
R.I.P. Mark Green

On a radio in the drugstore today, someone sang, "Every day is a winding road..."

The death of Mark Green on ER tonight was beautifully done. The details of the dramatic situation were, as ever with this show, vivid and well-observed, but the best thing about it was the clear awareness and conveyance throughout of the fragility and preciousness of life.

I give an enormous amount of credit to Anthony Edwards. After nine seasons of accenting Green's intellectual and emotional fastidiousness, he played his finale largely on what had been the character's grace notes: his self-awareness and self-amusement, his attentiveness to the needs of others, and (this was mirrored in his exit lines, which I imagine Edwards took as a theme for his performance) his generosity of spirit as he abdicated his place in this, the only world we know.

Though it may seem small-minded to say so, art can't all be Shakespeare and owing God a death. A sole diet of such grand epiphanies would be intolerable, because life is only intermittently grand, and there is not room enough in it for round-the-clock expansive thinking. (Imagine a whole planet of Roger Kimballs. Who could stand to live there?) Small truths, like small miracles, homely and meek, are also to be savored, and a TV show delivered one tonight--which is a small miracle in itself.

Here, last week, I ragged on the Gilda Radner TV movie, which may have fulfilled the same function for other people. In the spirit of the late Dr. Green, I feel a little more generous at the moment. There is a time for CrankWatching, and a time to just watch.

Roy
May 9, 2002
1:15 p.m.
Hits and Misses

I noted with pleasure an uptick in traffic this week at my own site--till I checked the referrer logs and found that most of these were googlers hot on the trail of Rachael Klein, the toothsome sex columnist who recently abandoned her Daily Californian column. I had mentioned her very peripherally in one article, which goes to show how thorough sex fans' research techniques are.

Very few hits came from my mention at Warblogger Watch, but I still think you should go see it, and email Mr. Blair and ask why he hasn't been posting.

Alicubi, of course, brings 'em in droves.

Roy
May 3, 2002
4:15 p.m.
No sex, please, we're conservative

Alicublog readers offended by my link in the previous post are commended to today's edition of National Review Online, which seems to be their Anti-Sex Issue. Kay Hymowitz attacks Barbie, claiming that "The vampy fashion doll helped to bring about the sexualization of childhood, evidence of which is everywhere today." John Podhoretz attacks Woody Allen, peripherally for his new movie, but mainly because he is an "ephebophile"--a favorite NRO usage these days, meaning lovers of adolescents, though Soon-Yi Previn was 20 when Allen started having sex with her. Well, at least Woody married Soon-Yi; Maggie Gallagher lights into single-motherhood, and the NRO Editors hit the Supreme Court decision against the virtual child-porn ban and, by their notion of logical extension, any First Amendment defense of any porn whatsoever.

The most puzzling piece is by John Derbyshire, a homophobe so notorious that even Andrew Sullivan has denounced him (though Sullivan likes this piece). By way of explaining the problems of priestly celibacy, Derbyshire, while on balance "a fan of the sexual revolution" (!), says people who don't enjoy sex are today unfairly stigmatized. "Plenty of people, after all, are not much interested in sex," he asserts. "Among women, I suspect there is some high proportion--I am speaking of something in the range 20 to 40 percent, in their prime adult years--who would not mind living without sex altogether." No substantiation for these figures is offered. ("The corresponding proportion of men," allows Derbyshire, "is surely not so big.")

Looks like I was right about these guys.

Roy
May 3, 2002
12:45 p.m.
Fun Links

Those laughin' libertarians at Reason have their own, pretty funny version of NRO's blog, "The Corner." Instapundit has denounced it, so ya know it hits a nerve.

Pretty much inside baseball for most of you, so here's something everyone can appreciate: an amateur bondage site from the Slovak Republic ("Welcome in really amateur bondage page") featuring fully-dressed young women who seem bored and disgusted.

Not my thing, precisely, but I admire their style. I'll be very surprised if this outfit doesn't catch on internationally.

A happy birthday, BTW, to our Founder, Martin Fucking Downs. Hint to wealthy patrons: he likes old books and boxes filled with cash.

Roy
May 2, 2002
1:43 p.m.
Don't Worry, Be Hapless

Cheerful assurances in today's NY Post that cameras watching our every move won't harm our civil liberties as long as we're really careful.

I especially liked this bit:

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, student protestors were identified with surveillance cameras that purportedly had been installed to monitor traffic, but in reality were being used to secretly keep tabs on how many times Chinese met with foreigners.

To prevent such a thing from ever happening in America...

No need to read further, is there? But for the record, the solutions proposed by the authors (who are "working on a book on how technology is transforming government") mostly involve using technology to prevent abuses of technology. That, and a "vigilant culture that will revile anyone who misuses a video database..."

Sounds good--any idea where we can get one of those?

Roy
April 29, 2002
11:57 p.m.
Garrett's Club

Just saw some of that Gilda Radner TV movie. Hopeless weepy, but it gave me a Garrett Morris moment. They had an actor playing Garrett Morris, but he didn't seem to have any lines. Everyone else had lines, even the Lorraine Newman character. Typical. On the Emmys in 1979, Chevy Chase introduced him as "Garrett 'Negro' Morris." The guy couldn't get any respect.

Morris fascinates me. I remember him on SNL, where he frequently, painfully went up on his lines. One time the cast members were playing characters from liquor bottle labels -- Old Mr. Boston, etc. Morris was decked out in 19th-century dude clothes, probably meant to be Johnny Walker Black. "Hello!" he cried. "I am... whiskey!"

I saw him in person once, around 1979, arriving after hours at the horrible East Side restaurant where I worked; the bartender told me he had come to score coke. Years later, an analyst at Pfizer told me Morris had appeared as part of a floor show on a cruise she'd taken. She described Morris as "on drugs," belligerent and slurred of speech. At one point, she reported, he pulled a knife and had to be escorted from the stage.

Somebody shot him in 1994, and since then he's had a busy career, most recently on The Jamie Foxx Show. Here he is telling USA Today readers to quit smoking. Oh, and in the 50s he was one of the Harry Belafonte Folk Singers.

I can't wait to see his TV movie.