First Impressions
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Who to Trust?
I just can’t tell which side to believe: the calm and reasonable military hero with the Ph.D delivering long awaited testimony to Congress or the shrill lesbians with pink foam rubber tiaras on their heads shouting obscenities from the back the room?
If I were a Democrat – and I once was – I’d be more than a little embarrassed by my Code Pink comrades today.
I just can’t tell which side to believe: the calm and reasonable military hero with the Ph.D delivering long awaited testimony to Congress or the shrill lesbians with pink foam rubber tiaras on their heads shouting obscenities from the back the room?
If I were a Democrat – and I once was – I’d be more than a little embarrassed by my Code Pink comrades today.
Cry If You Want To
In case you can't bear to hear anymore hopeful news about progress in the Iraqi theatre of the Long War, here is a lovely clip of Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry on the Cilla Black show from 1974.
The subject matter of this song is in no way a suggestion that the Democrats in Congress are chagrined at the testimony of General Petraeus.
In case you can't bear to hear anymore hopeful news about progress in the Iraqi theatre of the Long War, here is a lovely clip of Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry on the Cilla Black show from 1974.
The subject matter of this song is in no way a suggestion that the Democrats in Congress are chagrined at the testimony of General Petraeus.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
One Giant Leap for Steve Holden
Have you ever noticed how the Baby Boomers distort the history of the 1960s so that it conforms to their sylvan utopia stereotype? For example, we heard a lot this year about the anniversary of the totally inconsequential “Summer of Love” and very little about the Newark riots that happened at the same time yet whose consequences are palpably evident to this day.
This morning’s New York Times has a particularly laughable example of wishful recollection in a review of the new Apollo 11 documentary, “In the Shadow of the Moon.” Times reviewer, Stephen Holden, sets the context by describing 1969 as an innocent time compared to our current state of events.
The “good vibes?” He must be thinking of My Lai, the campus rioting, the Manson murders, and Ted Kennedy’s midnight drive on Chappaquiddick which – in convincing proof that God looks out for drunks and fools – happened just hours before the biggest news story in history.
Good vibes? Sure, if you had just joined the Weathermen.
“The tone of international discourse has toughened”? That’s a laugh. With so much saber rattling going on back then I don’t think anyone could actually hear the international discourse. Discourse doesn’t get much tougher than Mutual Assured Destruction with the latest Soviet technology guaranteeing that no thermonuclear missiles get fired by mistake.
“The United States is increasingly viewed as an arrogant, dangerous superpower.” Again, I would draw your attention to a world literally divided between two nuclear armed camps. One based on a barbaric 19th century ideology that murdered hundreds of millions of people in an attempt to eliminate poverty and the other on ancient Greco-Judeo-Christian concepts of self-determination and individual liberty. An existential struggle featuring for the first time the actual means to extinguish human existence.
I know many Boomers are still torn up about which side to support in that struggle but here’s a hint: it's over and the political Left was vanquished.
As for the concept of a “cooperative multinational ‘we’ working together for world peace with American leading the way,” I suppose he means something like an idealized United Nations. In reality, it’s more like a coalition of the willing with the United States as the leader by default because of its superior resources and because waiting for the “global village” to act is an exercise in creative inertia.
Since the world is demonstrably not more strife-torn than it was in 1969, this baffling observation is moot. Still, what does he mean?
I think the technology that produced Apollo 11 will be the one thing historians will remember about the 1960s. Everything else was froth. Aerospace technology lead to miniaturization and semiconductors and binary computing and digital communications and the internet and MySpace and lonelygirl15. Some cloud!
Is this Holden guy typing his reviews on an IBM Selectric with a bottle of Wite-Out close by?
Let’s see, Holden was born in 1941 making him 28 at the time of the moon landing. So he’s too old for Woodstock and too young for Korea. He falls into the awkward Paul Anka, Dick Cheney generation and probably has regrets about being the dork at the groovy kids’ party, sipping martinis at the happening, wearing a turtleneck and blazer at the orgy, comb-over and handlebar moustache looking for action that never would have lived up to his heightened expectations had he ever be lucky enough to have found the fountain of free love.
For the rest of us, Apollo 11 was out of sight. It was the only thing anyone was thinking of for months before and after July 20th. From the perspective, the 1960s was all about miraculous technology in the service of American hegemony and nothing at all about the “good vibes” Holden thinks he can recall.
Any you know what? Things are a lot better now.
The movie looks great, btw.
Have you ever noticed how the Baby Boomers distort the history of the 1960s so that it conforms to their sylvan utopia stereotype? For example, we heard a lot this year about the anniversary of the totally inconsequential “Summer of Love” and very little about the Newark riots that happened at the same time yet whose consequences are palpably evident to this day.
This morning’s New York Times has a particularly laughable example of wishful recollection in a review of the new Apollo 11 documentary, “In the Shadow of the Moon.” Times reviewer, Stephen Holden, sets the context by describing 1969 as an innocent time compared to our current state of events.
The good vibes are gone. The tone of international political discourse has toughened, and the United States is increasingly viewed as an arrogant, dangerous superpower. The concept of a cooperative multinational “we,” working together for world peace, with America leading the way, is almost as quaint as the cozy concept of “the global village.”
The “good vibes?” He must be thinking of My Lai, the campus rioting, the Manson murders, and Ted Kennedy’s midnight drive on Chappaquiddick which – in convincing proof that God looks out for drunks and fools – happened just hours before the biggest news story in history.
Good vibes? Sure, if you had just joined the Weathermen.
“The tone of international discourse has toughened”? That’s a laugh. With so much saber rattling going on back then I don’t think anyone could actually hear the international discourse. Discourse doesn’t get much tougher than Mutual Assured Destruction with the latest Soviet technology guaranteeing that no thermonuclear missiles get fired by mistake.
“The United States is increasingly viewed as an arrogant, dangerous superpower.” Again, I would draw your attention to a world literally divided between two nuclear armed camps. One based on a barbaric 19th century ideology that murdered hundreds of millions of people in an attempt to eliminate poverty and the other on ancient Greco-Judeo-Christian concepts of self-determination and individual liberty. An existential struggle featuring for the first time the actual means to extinguish human existence.
I know many Boomers are still torn up about which side to support in that struggle but here’s a hint: it's over and the political Left was vanquished.
As for the concept of a “cooperative multinational ‘we’ working together for world peace with American leading the way,” I suppose he means something like an idealized United Nations. In reality, it’s more like a coalition of the willing with the United States as the leader by default because of its superior resources and because waiting for the “global village” to act is an exercise in creative inertia.
If today’s world is even more strife-torn than the world of 1969, when theVietnam War was raging, one reason may be that the same technology that produced Apollo 11 has since come under a cloud.
Since the world is demonstrably not more strife-torn than it was in 1969, this baffling observation is moot. Still, what does he mean?
I think the technology that produced Apollo 11 will be the one thing historians will remember about the 1960s. Everything else was froth. Aerospace technology lead to miniaturization and semiconductors and binary computing and digital communications and the internet and MySpace and lonelygirl15. Some cloud!
Is this Holden guy typing his reviews on an IBM Selectric with a bottle of Wite-Out close by?
Let’s see, Holden was born in 1941 making him 28 at the time of the moon landing. So he’s too old for Woodstock and too young for Korea. He falls into the awkward Paul Anka, Dick Cheney generation and probably has regrets about being the dork at the groovy kids’ party, sipping martinis at the happening, wearing a turtleneck and blazer at the orgy, comb-over and handlebar moustache looking for action that never would have lived up to his heightened expectations had he ever be lucky enough to have found the fountain of free love.
For the rest of us, Apollo 11 was out of sight. It was the only thing anyone was thinking of for months before and after July 20th. From the perspective, the 1960s was all about miraculous technology in the service of American hegemony and nothing at all about the “good vibes” Holden thinks he can recall.
Any you know what? Things are a lot better now.
The movie looks great, btw.
Sitting Here in Limbo
Know how hard it is to go to a restaurant with a kid under ten? Imagine campaigning for president with your kids in tow.
Sure it would be miserable for you but imagine the living hell it would be for the kiddies. No friends. No attention from Mom or Dad. Nothing but grownups talking to each other on and on all day long.
If you still can’t picture it, check out this New York Times video about the lovely and talented John Edwards. He’s campaigning for President and I guess he wants to show what a great father he is by taking his kids out of school and dragging them through endless photo ops in Middle America on a rented bus.
Frankly, I’d do the same thing if I had to run for President. But I don’t have to, and neither does Edwards. I’m sure the campaign thinks that his pursuit of the presidency even though his wife has cancer and his kids are bored out of their minds is proof of Edwards’s’s’s focus and perseverance.
But I think it just makes him remarkably selfish. All the more remarkable since he lost his eldest son in an accident and must surely regret the lost opportunities to share love and life. Why then subject your other children to the whims of your career?
His kids are certainly getting a unique education though. When this is over they should be able to write a dissertation on child exploitation.
Know how hard it is to go to a restaurant with a kid under ten? Imagine campaigning for president with your kids in tow.
Sure it would be miserable for you but imagine the living hell it would be for the kiddies. No friends. No attention from Mom or Dad. Nothing but grownups talking to each other on and on all day long.
If you still can’t picture it, check out this New York Times video about the lovely and talented John Edwards. He’s campaigning for President and I guess he wants to show what a great father he is by taking his kids out of school and dragging them through endless photo ops in Middle America on a rented bus.
Frankly, I’d do the same thing if I had to run for President. But I don’t have to, and neither does Edwards. I’m sure the campaign thinks that his pursuit of the presidency even though his wife has cancer and his kids are bored out of their minds is proof of Edwards’s’s’s focus and perseverance.
But I think it just makes him remarkably selfish. All the more remarkable since he lost his eldest son in an accident and must surely regret the lost opportunities to share love and life. Why then subject your other children to the whims of your career?
His kids are certainly getting a unique education though. When this is over they should be able to write a dissertation on child exploitation.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Mad Men
My old friend Mark nails the reason why Mad Men is one of the best things on TV these days. It’s not just the attention to details of 1960 design but also the amusing reminders of how effortlessly these “conformists” flirted with real danger.
The constant smoking, drinking, and driving . . . and often all three . . . while pregnant . . . either shows how foolish people were back then or how frightened we all are right now.
I remember vividly each year spending three days in the middle of the back seat of a smoke-filled Oldsmobile 98 driving to Florida (never stopping at South of the Border) and listening to The Living Strings. That was the Sixties. No tie-dyed hippiie shit for us.
If I can survive that, my kids can damn well put up with The Pixies for a half hour, dammit!
My old friend Mark nails the reason why Mad Men is one of the best things on TV these days. It’s not just the attention to details of 1960 design but also the amusing reminders of how effortlessly these “conformists” flirted with real danger.
The constant smoking, drinking, and driving . . . and often all three . . . while pregnant . . . either shows how foolish people were back then or how frightened we all are right now.
I remember vividly each year spending three days in the middle of the back seat of a smoke-filled Oldsmobile 98 driving to Florida (never stopping at South of the Border) and listening to The Living Strings. That was the Sixties. No tie-dyed hippiie shit for us.
If I can survive that, my kids can damn well put up with The Pixies for a half hour, dammit!
Friday, August 31, 2007
That’s One Small Step for Allah
I’m sort of fascinated by contemporaryArab culture. On the one hand you have state-of-the-art electronic broadcasting equipment and competent direction from the control room . . . yet the content of the broadcast is bizarre medieval superstition.
How can it be that complex technology can so effortlessly coexist with such irrational rubbish? “The radiation from Mecca is infinite.” Jeez, I’m embarrassed for these guys.
One clue, Arabs are ignorant. I don't mean that in a bad way. They can't help but be ignorant. They have very few opportunities to be informed.
According to the UNDP Arab Human Development Report of 2003, the total number of books translated into Arabic during the past 1,000 years is less than those translated in Spain in one year.
I’m all for greater understanding between cultures, but the Arab world has a long way to go before it has even a hazy understanding of western culture and values . . . or even science.
The day some American billionaire writes a check to establish an institute for the study of Judeo/Christian culture in Saudi Arabia will be the day we begin to make some progress toward mutual understanding.
The first big lesson will be the reaction of our Saudi friends.
And yet, there is still hope that rational people can rise up and prevail against ignorance.
To believe otherwise is simple bigotry.
I’m sort of fascinated by contemporaryArab culture. On the one hand you have state-of-the-art electronic broadcasting equipment and competent direction from the control room . . . yet the content of the broadcast is bizarre medieval superstition.
How can it be that complex technology can so effortlessly coexist with such irrational rubbish? “The radiation from Mecca is infinite.” Jeez, I’m embarrassed for these guys.
One clue, Arabs are ignorant. I don't mean that in a bad way. They can't help but be ignorant. They have very few opportunities to be informed.
According to the UNDP Arab Human Development Report of 2003, the total number of books translated into Arabic during the past 1,000 years is less than those translated in Spain in one year.
I’m all for greater understanding between cultures, but the Arab world has a long way to go before it has even a hazy understanding of western culture and values . . . or even science.
The day some American billionaire writes a check to establish an institute for the study of Judeo/Christian culture in Saudi Arabia will be the day we begin to make some progress toward mutual understanding.
The first big lesson will be the reaction of our Saudi friends.
And yet, there is still hope that rational people can rise up and prevail against ignorance.
To believe otherwise is simple bigotry.
More Money For the Big Sleazy?
While we’re all remembering Katrina for a moment let’s think briefly about New Orleans’ real tragedy. It’s a dysfunctional city. It was before the hurricane and it still is.
Remember the famous video of the looting in New Orleans? Remember also, this was before the levees breached and the city flooded. Here we see New Orleans’ finest taking part in the fun.
A few hours later, the city began to fill with water and police were nowhere to be found. Nor were the buses that could have helped evacuate residents. Nor were any local authorities.
New Orleans is about the most dangerous city in the country when the weather is good. When there is flooding and chaos, it gets extra spicy down there.
The city has been “cleaning up” now for two years. According to the federal government (via Larry Kudlow’s article in The Sun) more than $127 billion has been spent on the city’s recovery. That would be nearly half a million dollars for every man, woman, and child in the city.
Hell, the GDP of the entire state of Louisiana is $152 billion.
Where is all that money going? Not sure but it’s certainly doesn’t seem to be helping New Orleans become a normal city again. According to City Journal's Nicolas Gelinas, crime is worse now in New Orleans even will half the population.
The usual suspects are pleading for even more money to spend on what was always a seedy, theme park for anti-social behavior.
Rather than restoring the city to it’s traditional steamy squalor, a better goal would be to remake the city as a safe place to live and a productive place to work. President Bush made a baby step in that direction by replacing the failing public school system with a series of competitive charter schools.
But he could have gone much further.
As Kudlow says, if the Administration had declared New Orleans a tax-free enterprise zone in the aftermath of Katrina, it would not only have recovered by now, it would also be a fundamentally different place. And a far better place for the people who live there.
While we’re all remembering Katrina for a moment let’s think briefly about New Orleans’ real tragedy. It’s a dysfunctional city. It was before the hurricane and it still is.
Remember the famous video of the looting in New Orleans? Remember also, this was before the levees breached and the city flooded. Here we see New Orleans’ finest taking part in the fun.
A few hours later, the city began to fill with water and police were nowhere to be found. Nor were the buses that could have helped evacuate residents. Nor were any local authorities.
New Orleans is about the most dangerous city in the country when the weather is good. When there is flooding and chaos, it gets extra spicy down there.
The city has been “cleaning up” now for two years. According to the federal government (via Larry Kudlow’s article in The Sun) more than $127 billion has been spent on the city’s recovery. That would be nearly half a million dollars for every man, woman, and child in the city.
Hell, the GDP of the entire state of Louisiana is $152 billion.
Where is all that money going? Not sure but it’s certainly doesn’t seem to be helping New Orleans become a normal city again. According to City Journal's Nicolas Gelinas, crime is worse now in New Orleans even will half the population.
In fact, since Katrina, New Orleans’s murder rate has been higher than that of
any first-world city. Depending on fluctuating estimates of the city’s returning
population, it’s perhaps 40 percent higher than before Katrina and twice as high
as the rate in other dangerous cities like Detroit, Newark, and Washington.
The usual suspects are pleading for even more money to spend on what was always a seedy, theme park for anti-social behavior.
Rather than restoring the city to it’s traditional steamy squalor, a better goal would be to remake the city as a safe place to live and a productive place to work. President Bush made a baby step in that direction by replacing the failing public school system with a series of competitive charter schools.
But he could have gone much further.
As Kudlow says, if the Administration had declared New Orleans a tax-free enterprise zone in the aftermath of Katrina, it would not only have recovered by now, it would also be a fundamentally different place. And a far better place for the people who live there.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Soumi-Mania!
People who complain about America being a racist society have a point. We’re far too race conscious in this country, in my opinion (which is the only one that counts on this website).
But you have to go to Europe to know what a really blanco-centric society feels like. And there’s no place more Caucasian (outside of the Caucasuses) than Finland.
I give to you, the whitest people on earth:
See, it could be a lot worse.
People who complain about America being a racist society have a point. We’re far too race conscious in this country, in my opinion (which is the only one that counts on this website).
But you have to go to Europe to know what a really blanco-centric society feels like. And there’s no place more Caucasian (outside of the Caucasuses) than Finland.
I give to you, the whitest people on earth:
See, it could be a lot worse.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Changing Opinions . . . Hmmm
A New York Times poll finds that more Americans support the war in Iraq today than they did two months ago. The Times was so alarmed by this development that they redid their poll just to make sure. The results were the same. About 10% more people think, in retrospect, that military action in Iraq was a good idea and about 10% fewer think it was a bad idea compared to two months ago.
Of course, the majority of people polled still think intervening in Iraq was a bad idea, but if that majority is shrinking, The New York Times can’t figure out why. It’s “counterintuitive” says the Times. It “could not be easily explained.” But explain it they tried on Sunday.
“Once is a while a poll finding doesn’t make sense.” In other words, how could The People be so stupid? I mean, surely they’ve read the uniformly dismal news in the Times. They’ve been told endlessly that Operation Iraqi Freedom is the catastrophically quagmirishly misleadingly Bushitlerburtonesque worst war ever! Are The People slipping off the wagon again and rejecting the truth we’ve spoonfed them?
The first explanation the Times grabs for is that The People, in their devotion to Hillary Clinton, must have been confused by references earlier in the poll to Clinton’s original support of the war. “It was just a hunch,” says the Times breathlessly, “but it was all there was.” Frankly, only the Times could see this as a plausible explanation.
Not until the 12th paragraph, the third to last in the article, does the Times offer up another baffling finding: “there was also a drop in the number of people who said the war is going badly.”
Hmmm . . . perhaps, and I’m only speculating here, but just maybe The People don’t want to lose the war and are encouraged by the remarkable success the coalition forces have had in the past two months stabilizing Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala? Maybe they’ve read deeper and learned that the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) has recently been revealed to be a front organization set up by foreign Al Qaeda fascists to give the insurgency an Iraqi face? Perhaps they’ve also heard that coalition casualties are the lowest they’ve been in seven months?
My humble opinion is that no rational patriotic American wants to see the United States defeated in Iraq. Moreover, I’d say that most Americans would consider the mission in Iraq to be a noble one that’s consistent with American ideals.
That mission: to remove the despotic Hussein dynasty from power in accord with U.S. policy established during the Clinton Administration, to ensure that the weapons of mass destruction that the regime reported having to the United Nations in 1991 have been destroyed or otherwise accounted for in accord with a dozen U.N. resolutions, to establish a democratic foothold in the most politically backward and strategically important region of the world, and thereby undermine the region’s illiberal, intolerant, militarily expansionist regimes by providing a an alternative model to oppression . . . that mission is still worthy even after years of mismanagement.
Succeeding in that mission would be a good thing for Iraq, for the millions of people living in that region and for the United States. So, what’s the trouble with that? Well, it would also be good for George Bush.
And for some people who may or may not work at the Times, genocide is better outcome.
A New York Times poll finds that more Americans support the war in Iraq today than they did two months ago. The Times was so alarmed by this development that they redid their poll just to make sure. The results were the same. About 10% more people think, in retrospect, that military action in Iraq was a good idea and about 10% fewer think it was a bad idea compared to two months ago.
Of course, the majority of people polled still think intervening in Iraq was a bad idea, but if that majority is shrinking, The New York Times can’t figure out why. It’s “counterintuitive” says the Times. It “could not be easily explained.” But explain it they tried on Sunday.
“Once is a while a poll finding doesn’t make sense.” In other words, how could The People be so stupid? I mean, surely they’ve read the uniformly dismal news in the Times. They’ve been told endlessly that Operation Iraqi Freedom is the catastrophically quagmirishly misleadingly Bushitlerburtonesque worst war ever! Are The People slipping off the wagon again and rejecting the truth we’ve spoonfed them?
The first explanation the Times grabs for is that The People, in their devotion to Hillary Clinton, must have been confused by references earlier in the poll to Clinton’s original support of the war. “It was just a hunch,” says the Times breathlessly, “but it was all there was.” Frankly, only the Times could see this as a plausible explanation.
Not until the 12th paragraph, the third to last in the article, does the Times offer up another baffling finding: “there was also a drop in the number of people who said the war is going badly.”
Hmmm . . . perhaps, and I’m only speculating here, but just maybe The People don’t want to lose the war and are encouraged by the remarkable success the coalition forces have had in the past two months stabilizing Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala? Maybe they’ve read deeper and learned that the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) has recently been revealed to be a front organization set up by foreign Al Qaeda fascists to give the insurgency an Iraqi face? Perhaps they’ve also heard that coalition casualties are the lowest they’ve been in seven months?
UPDATE: This Gallup poll shows the most outspoken Iraq war hawks, McCain and Giuliani, are also the candidates most trusted by Americans polled to handle the Iraq war. That means, to my untrained eye, that most people don't mind the war as long as we're in it to win it.
My humble opinion is that no rational patriotic American wants to see the United States defeated in Iraq. Moreover, I’d say that most Americans would consider the mission in Iraq to be a noble one that’s consistent with American ideals.
That mission: to remove the despotic Hussein dynasty from power in accord with U.S. policy established during the Clinton Administration, to ensure that the weapons of mass destruction that the regime reported having to the United Nations in 1991 have been destroyed or otherwise accounted for in accord with a dozen U.N. resolutions, to establish a democratic foothold in the most politically backward and strategically important region of the world, and thereby undermine the region’s illiberal, intolerant, militarily expansionist regimes by providing a an alternative model to oppression . . . that mission is still worthy even after years of mismanagement.
Succeeding in that mission would be a good thing for Iraq, for the millions of people living in that region and for the United States. So, what’s the trouble with that? Well, it would also be good for George Bush.
And for some people who may or may not work at the Times, genocide is better outcome.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Looking at Buildings
Yesterday evening was a lovely time to walk through Manhattan. The air was fresh and the breeze cool and the ratio of beautiful to grizzled New Yorkers was favorable. On an evening like that you notice splendor on almost every block.
One of my favorite street views on such evenings is 42nd St. looking east. There you see the iconic Chrysler tower in all its exuberant Jazz Age spikiness.
Below it is Grand Central, another icon but of the turn of the century Beaux Arts style . . . a confident time when people built city structures to last a millennium.
What is our contribution to this heritage? An almost perfect example stands directly between the two icons. It’s the demoralizingly dull “Grand” Hyatt.
There is nothing Grand about it. Everything about it expresses mediocrity, carelessness, monotony, and expedience. It is not meant to last any more than the scaffolding around a real building is meant to last. Unlike the other two buildings, you could damage this one with a well thrown rock. Its transitory-ness dishonors everyone associated with it including its malevolently named “architect,” Der Scutt.
And what’s the worst part of it? It was once a prominant and fairly beautiful building and its skeleton is still there under the filthy glass panels. This isn’t the Hyatt or the Renaissance or the Hyatt Grand Renaissance . . . This is the Commodore Hotel. The same hotel where Richard Nixon and Whittaker Chambers confronted Alger Hiss . . . the same hotel from which Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald were ejected.
It was designed by Warren and Wetmore who designed it as a complement to their masterpiece, the Grand Central Terminal itself.
Today it is a banal plate-glass placeholder for whatever significant building eventually replaces it. I can hardly wait.
Apologies for the negativity. I’m trying to live up to the high standards of 2 Blowhards and write something positive. How’s this: At least the Hyatt has the good sense to try to disappear between it's two more noble neighbors.
Yesterday evening was a lovely time to walk through Manhattan. The air was fresh and the breeze cool and the ratio of beautiful to grizzled New Yorkers was favorable. On an evening like that you notice splendor on almost every block.
One of my favorite street views on such evenings is 42nd St. looking east. There you see the iconic Chrysler tower in all its exuberant Jazz Age spikiness.
Below it is Grand Central, another icon but of the turn of the century Beaux Arts style . . . a confident time when people built city structures to last a millennium.
What is our contribution to this heritage? An almost perfect example stands directly between the two icons. It’s the demoralizingly dull “Grand” Hyatt.
There is nothing Grand about it. Everything about it expresses mediocrity, carelessness, monotony, and expedience. It is not meant to last any more than the scaffolding around a real building is meant to last. Unlike the other two buildings, you could damage this one with a well thrown rock. Its transitory-ness dishonors everyone associated with it including its malevolently named “architect,” Der Scutt.
And what’s the worst part of it? It was once a prominant and fairly beautiful building and its skeleton is still there under the filthy glass panels. This isn’t the Hyatt or the Renaissance or the Hyatt Grand Renaissance . . . This is the Commodore Hotel. The same hotel where Richard Nixon and Whittaker Chambers confronted Alger Hiss . . . the same hotel from which Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald were ejected.
It was designed by Warren and Wetmore who designed it as a complement to their masterpiece, the Grand Central Terminal itself.
Today it is a banal plate-glass placeholder for whatever significant building eventually replaces it. I can hardly wait.
Apologies for the negativity. I’m trying to live up to the high standards of 2 Blowhards and write something positive. How’s this: At least the Hyatt has the good sense to try to disappear between it's two more noble neighbors.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Oxford Union it Ain’t.
Is the combining of amateurish YouTube videos with presidential debates an advancement for our national dialogue or the equivalent of a Jimmy Carter cameo appearance on Joanie Loves Chachi?
I had a lot of faith in YouTube as a genuinely new development in communications technology and custom until this. Now I’m beginning to think of CB radio. Once what was underground becomes mainstream it loses all its mystery and the baffling intrinsic value it once had as an insider thing evaporates. CB, vblogging, it’s nothing new . . . just regular Joes talking to each other again.
The sad thing about the debates is that the YouTubers came off as far more human and authentic than the candidates themselves . . . with the exception of Mike Gravel who really belongs among the unhinged in unregulated cyberspace rather than among the coiffed and scripted in actual physical space. You want dignity and gravitas? Watch Letterman instead.
Thankfully, the hive wisdom of YouTube will always have the upper hand in any encounter with ersatz “leaders”
Is the combining of amateurish YouTube videos with presidential debates an advancement for our national dialogue or the equivalent of a Jimmy Carter cameo appearance on Joanie Loves Chachi?
I had a lot of faith in YouTube as a genuinely new development in communications technology and custom until this. Now I’m beginning to think of CB radio. Once what was underground becomes mainstream it loses all its mystery and the baffling intrinsic value it once had as an insider thing evaporates. CB, vblogging, it’s nothing new . . . just regular Joes talking to each other again.
The sad thing about the debates is that the YouTubers came off as far more human and authentic than the candidates themselves . . . with the exception of Mike Gravel who really belongs among the unhinged in unregulated cyberspace rather than among the coiffed and scripted in actual physical space. You want dignity and gravitas? Watch Letterman instead.
Thankfully, the hive wisdom of YouTube will always have the upper hand in any encounter with ersatz “leaders”
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The Conscience of the Senate
It’s good to know that while the Earth may be heating up, the Global War on Islamic Extremism is spreading, and millions of illegal immigrants saturate and overflow our borders, the U.S. Senate is coolly and rationally deliberating on the most pressing of all issues now facing the Republic.
Fasten your seatbelts and listen to the 400-year-old Democratic Senator from West Virginia pour on the passion, pump up the volume, and speak truth to power about the deplorable injustices faced in the Canine-American community.
It’s good to know that while the Earth may be heating up, the Global War on Islamic Extremism is spreading, and millions of illegal immigrants saturate and overflow our borders, the U.S. Senate is coolly and rationally deliberating on the most pressing of all issues now facing the Republic.
Fasten your seatbelts and listen to the 400-year-old Democratic Senator from West Virginia pour on the passion, pump up the volume, and speak truth to power about the deplorable injustices faced in the Canine-American community.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Explosion in Midtown
Yesterday’s steam pipe explosion sounded like a colossal jet engine operating at maximum thrust and people near the epicenter reacted as you would expect.
Confusion . . .
Yesterday’s steam pipe explosion sounded like a colossal jet engine operating at maximum thrust and people near the epicenter reacted as you would expect.
Confusion . . .
Followed by mild panic . . .
But the day after all is calm. The streets are crowed with equipment but the pace of work is decidedly unionesque.
As for Con Edison . . . don’t worry. They’re On It!
As for Con Edison . . . don’t worry. They’re On It!
When No News Is Good News
Last week, UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer secured his spot in the media relations Hall of Fame by issuing perhaps the greatest holding statement ever written:
The beauty of this is that, except for extraordinary situations, any spokesman for any organization can issue the exact same statement and mitigate whatever bad news is also being announced.
Try it.
"Sales of our most important product offering were down this quarter by 48% in the United States. But we categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
"We have failed in our attempt to cut funding for American troops in the field and secure an ignoble defeat for our nation thereby disgracing ourselves and the U.S. Senate. But we catregorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
Plus, the statement can be positioned as a potent but thinly veiled threat simply by adding the word "yet" to the ending.
Brilliant.
(via things)
Last week, UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer secured his spot in the media relations Hall of Fame by issuing perhaps the greatest holding statement ever written:
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.”
The beauty of this is that, except for extraordinary situations, any spokesman for any organization can issue the exact same statement and mitigate whatever bad news is also being announced.
Try it.
"Sales of our most important product offering were down this quarter by 48% in the United States. But we categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
"We have failed in our attempt to cut funding for American troops in the field and secure an ignoble defeat for our nation thereby disgracing ourselves and the U.S. Senate. But we catregorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
Plus, the statement can be positioned as a potent but thinly veiled threat simply by adding the word "yet" to the ending.
Brilliant.
(via things)
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Humanity Prevails
But look even closer. There are people up there!
It’s the possibility that life-altering experiences are taking place at any given moment somewhere in the city that gives New York its singular sense of excitement and promise.
Here’s an example. I took this photograph of the view from a high floor on the Pan Am Building looking north past the Grand Central Tower. Great vista.
Here’s an example. I took this photograph of the view from a high floor on the Pan Am Building looking north past the Grand Central Tower. Great vista.
Look closer and you can see the parapets and gargoyles of the tower in detail . . . details entirely hidden from view when the tower was constructed but built nonetheless because back then architects had an understanding of humanity’s romantic character and our deep desire for delight. (Something Thom Mayne will never comprehend).
But look even closer. There are people up there!
While everyone else is droning through the workday and possibly thinking about what to eat for lunch, there are three men clinging to the precariously steep side of the copper roof 40 stories above the city. Imagine what that guy on the ladder is experiencing. Bright sunshine, a stiff breeze, muffled car horns in the distance . . . and his heartbeat.
But they’re not really clinging at all. They’re totally at ease. This is something they’ve done before, maybe hundreds of times before. It’s no big deal to crawl out of a porthole at the top of a century old tower and climb down a fragile ladder to re-point the brickwork on a chimney no one will ever see.
Knowing that these things exist hidden from view is what makes life truly exciting. And compared to the monotonous glass walls that surround the tower . . . which architectural style best captures this essential human craving?
But they’re not really clinging at all. They’re totally at ease. This is something they’ve done before, maybe hundreds of times before. It’s no big deal to crawl out of a porthole at the top of a century old tower and climb down a fragile ladder to re-point the brickwork on a chimney no one will ever see.
Knowing that these things exist hidden from view is what makes life truly exciting. And compared to the monotonous glass walls that surround the tower . . . which architectural style best captures this essential human craving?
Stifle Debate. Allah Wills It!
I never thought unilateral surrender would be the sort of policy position that attracts voters but I'm not a professional politician.
Still, in their zeal to score points against George Bush, the Democrats have reached deeply into the darker recesses of geopolitics to the point where a simple prank e-mail address can make you think some rather uncomfortable thoughts about which side the Democrats are advocating.
Will this e-mail message from Howard Dean, for example, look prescient or prurient in 10 years?
So what if it’s addressed to Muhammad Atta. Just because you’re a notorious terrorist who happens to have killed thousands of American men, women, and children, and was willing to die in order to inflict maximum damage to American prestige at home and abroad, that doesn’t mean you’re a Democratic supporter.
Still, they ought to update their mailing list.
I never thought unilateral surrender would be the sort of policy position that attracts voters but I'm not a professional politician.
Still, in their zeal to score points against George Bush, the Democrats have reached deeply into the darker recesses of geopolitics to the point where a simple prank e-mail address can make you think some rather uncomfortable thoughts about which side the Democrats are advocating.
Will this e-mail message from Howard Dean, for example, look prescient or prurient in 10 years?
So what if it’s addressed to Muhammad Atta. Just because you’re a notorious terrorist who happens to have killed thousands of American men, women, and children, and was willing to die in order to inflict maximum damage to American prestige at home and abroad, that doesn’t mean you’re a Democratic supporter.
Still, they ought to update their mailing list.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Le Freak
I’m sure I’m not the only one to recognize that Le Freak is the only disco song you’ll ever need to round out your music collection. It is the perfect example of the genre.
Does it have disembodied clapping? Yes.
Gratuitous references to Studio 54? Yup
What about absurdly simplistic orchestration and an exaggerated bass solo? Oh yes.
Utterly mindless and self absorbed lyrics extolling the benefits of a fictitious activity, one that exists in name only? Yeah man!
But there’s so much more. The name alone captures much of the despondent cheapness that characterized the mediocre age. It incorporates French which was considered at the time to be “classy” – a word, by the way, which cancels out its own meaning.
But it also includes a word devoid of meaning altogether. “Freak” takes the lazy way out, it means whatever you want it to mean. Everything is valid and absolutely nothing is authentic anymore. It says, “we give up.”
The simple title of the song expresses deeply the exhaustion and shame of the 1970s that drove popular culture to celebrate all that was base and ignoble. “Le Freak, c’est chic” says it all without actually saying anything.
Before the dismal Seventies is totally whitewashed by benign nostalgia I feel it is my duty to remind you of the profound half-assedness of what passed for creativity in a craptacular world of stagnation and moral decay.
I give you . . . Xanadu!
I’m sure I’m not the only one to recognize that Le Freak is the only disco song you’ll ever need to round out your music collection. It is the perfect example of the genre.
Does it have disembodied clapping? Yes.
Gratuitous references to Studio 54? Yup
What about absurdly simplistic orchestration and an exaggerated bass solo? Oh yes.
Utterly mindless and self absorbed lyrics extolling the benefits of a fictitious activity, one that exists in name only? Yeah man!
But there’s so much more. The name alone captures much of the despondent cheapness that characterized the mediocre age. It incorporates French which was considered at the time to be “classy” – a word, by the way, which cancels out its own meaning.
But it also includes a word devoid of meaning altogether. “Freak” takes the lazy way out, it means whatever you want it to mean. Everything is valid and absolutely nothing is authentic anymore. It says, “we give up.”
The simple title of the song expresses deeply the exhaustion and shame of the 1970s that drove popular culture to celebrate all that was base and ignoble. “Le Freak, c’est chic” says it all without actually saying anything.
Before the dismal Seventies is totally whitewashed by benign nostalgia I feel it is my duty to remind you of the profound half-assedness of what passed for creativity in a craptacular world of stagnation and moral decay.
I give you . . . Xanadu!
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