Warhol Was Boring; Give Mimi Kramer Armond's Job; More on the Liberal Media; Gore's Dopey & Daschle's Loonie; Code Pink!
Gluey Factory
I was glad to see John Strausbaugh, in his discussion of the Edie Sedgwick DVD Ciao! Manhattan in your Gift Guide (11/27), note that the movie "makes the whole New York Warholcentric art/hipster scene look (except for those wonderful tits, on Edie and Viva, et al.) like an unutterably dull, stupid, self-indulgent, pedestrian, idiotic bore and a drag."
I always felt that with the exception of a couple of comic performances by Holly Woodlawn, and those tits mentioned by Strausbaugh, there was never a single iota of talent evidenced by the cinematic efforts of Warhol and his gang. The films are literally more boring than watching paint dry (something I've been doing a lot of as I remodel my digs, so this is not just an idle comment). The unwillingness of the critical consensus to condemn the Warhol scene for the extreme tedium it was may be attributed to some fear of being called uncool, but heck, Warhol left Pittsburgh to accomplish this? There are actually more interesting things in Pittsburgh. Like...umm...watching Pittsburgh Paint dry.
Steve Dixon, Emmaus, PA
Rocky Rolled
As a former Bronx resident I especially appreciate C.J. Sullivan's "Bronx Stroll" column. Amazingly, I was talking, just this past week, with a friend who's a lifelong city resident and boxing aficionado, about this Bronx street/boxing legend who attempted a comeback in his 40s after getting out of prison and then lost a fight and was convicted of arson. We couldn't remember his name, but his fate was no problem. Thanks to C.J. Sullivan for this story, "Searching for Bobby Halpern," of city lore (11/27).
P.S. Can't help but feel for Chuck Wepner, who took a measly payout when he could have had a piece of Rocky!
Ted Jonathan, Manhattan
Put Kramer on the Jackass Beat
Even though I don't give a shit about theater (I go once every year or two, mainly to remind myself why I dislike it), Mimi Kramer is such a sharp and clever critic that I'm happy to read whatever she writes, even if it's about a two-woman play I'll almost certainly never see ("Theater," 11/27). I've enjoyed her work for years, in places like The New Yorker, so it's good to find her surfacing in New York Press, albeit only occasionally.
Now here's my plan: Instead of wasting her talents on something as negligible as theater, you let her take a shot at reviewing movies. (The nice thing is that you give your critics plenty of space, which I suspect she needs.) Ideally, she might replace the truly unreadable Armond White, whose maladroit prose?"As if mining for bubblegum, he brings out the sap of Solaris' spiritual meditation"?sounds like something you'd expect from the "artsy" kid on a high school newspaper. I'm aware that some of your tin-eared readers actually claim to follow his columns, but it strikes me that he's got more opinions than intelligence, and more intelligence than writing ability. Dump him, give the space to Kramer (if she says no, twist her arm), and let her balance Matt Zoller Seitz, who writes wonderfully but sometimes suffers fools a bit too gladly.
Simon Koeppel, Manhattan
He's Right
MUGGER: The problem with the liberal media is that it refuses to accept the obvious. Rather than look at themselves as the problem, they lampoon the Rush Limbaughs, the Bob Grants, the Michael Savages and the Bill O'Reillys for having dared to inform the general public about politics and policies. The liberal establishment has taken the American people for granted for decades by having controlled the communications monopoly. What has done the liberal press in is competition. Free vehicles like Drudge, National Review Online, New York Press, WABC-AM, C-SPAN and the mildly costly cable in which Fox is shown have given the American people what they have been craving for?free flow of information without liberal slants.
See, it's not so much that they despise conservatism, the liberals despise the free-thinking spirit of Americans. Liberals cannot compete with freedom, which is why they have always loved regulation and control. Let the Daschles whine and rant about the conservative press and how strong it is. The conservative media is small in number compared to the liberals, who spend so much money on a product that only loses value when one looks at the ratings.
As a college-educated, New York-born-and-bred Hispanic Republican from the Bronx, I am proud to be an independent-thinking American. God bless America and the Internet.
Lee Anthony Nieves, Bronx
You Callin' Him a Paulette?
David Greven ("The Mail," 11/20) may believe the line, "[De Palma] makes you think with your eyes" is "superb" and "classic [Armond] White," but it's actually classic Pauline Kael. "He thinks with his eyes" is a bit of praise she used at least three times in her career.
Michael Moore, Los Angeles
Gaycon IV
Mike Signorile: Thank you for the information about the Mikulski-Chavez campaign in "Code Pink" ("The Gist," 11/27). I didn't know about it?just the Kirkpatrick tale?I only knew something smelled rotten. Obviously, a certain gay blogger has been studiously ignoring the story. But then, any gay writer who consents to write for The Washington Times must be well-practiced in the arts of selective facts (and "facts").
Glen England, Brooklyn
Potomac Swamp Gas
Michelangelo Signorile: Being a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, I appreciated your "Code Pink" article this week on Nancy Pelosi as a "San Francisco Democrat." Since you are on the East Coast, it was good to read an article that might wake those in Washington, DC, up to the fact that there are 50 states in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. It might be good for everyone in the Capitol to open their windows that face west and breathe in some fresh air. The air in Washington has gotten very stale.
Happy Thanksgiving. One of my reasons for being thankful is for your courageous voice and insight.
John J. Kennedy, Bellevue, WA
Wrong + Wrong = Right
MUGGER: I find your 11/27 column to be a little bit unfair. Discussing the "chicken-hawk" issue, the point is not that someone who did not serve can support the war, but that Rush Limbaugh is actually targeting another individual's (Daschle's) patriotism, which is unfair grandstanding of the worst order, especially considering Rush is overcompensating in jingoism perhaps because of embarrassment at his past lack of glory. I do not recall a true war hero like George Bush Sr. ever engaging in this type of thing. Also, many times, it seems that you answer criticism directed at Republicans by pointing out Democratic similarities (as in the point about family dynasties and nepotism). It is certainly fair to point out that neither side is blameless, but the fact that "everyone is doing it" does not invalidate the criticism and should not be addressed. I do enjoy the column as well as the entire paper.
Matt Mecs, Manhattan
Smoke Across the Water
Christopher Caldwell: Jesus, why didn't you just tell the peckerhead to fuck off and light up a cigar ("Hill of Beans," 11/20)? Instead, as all smokers do when pissed, you're off on a tirade where your habit becomes some kind of weird metaphorical tool for slagging a most likely insane mayor, Europe, Europe's ways of confusing foreigners trying to figure out who's in charge and God knows what else (even if they do all deserve it).
And hey, if you'd dropped 11 grand on a plane ticket, and got off for a breath of fresh air and some jerk farted toxic fumes upwind of you (because that's just the way he was raised), wouldn't you be upset? Why is it that smokers always frame the world through a cloud of the stuff?
I enjoyed John Strausbaugh's article "Dream Works" ("Publishing," 11/20) about Dr. Sharon Packer. However, he is wrong when he says: "Today, Freud's popularity has long since crested: we live in a post-Freudian age, not just in psychiatry, which has turned from Freudian talk therapy to an almost completely pharmacological approach to treatment, but in mass culture as well." Not so. In the past 50 years there has been a tremendous increase in trained psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Fifty years ago there were three psychoanalytic training institutes in New York, today there are at least 12, five of which are affiliated with the International Psychoanalytic Association. Fifty years ago there were a handful of psychologists, and less than that of social workers, practicing psychoanalysis; today the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association is more than 4000, the largest division, and the social workers have a comparable association of trained psychoanalysts.
The reason for this growth in the talk therapy is that it works. Most people do not want or need medication, and can profit from the talking therapies.
In 1999 the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association published a review of research studies ("The Scientific Status of Unconscious Processes: Is Freud Really Dead?") confirming the validity of Freud's most basic theories. Attacking psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy has become a parlor game in some circles, but the growth of the talking treatments is based on the experience of millions of people who have been helped by this approach. When even Tony Soprano goes for psychoanalytic-oriented psychotherapy, you know that Freud isn't entirely dead.
Edwin Fancher, Manhattan
Hey, Us Too!
As a lifelong Brooklynite I highly respect your paper's evenhanded reporting of the facts. I've grown quite disgusted with the Village Voice and its pandering to the left-minded hysterics. I feel your paper contains much more common-sense reporting with no race-game lunacy or smug nationalism, both of which to me are at the core of the grim vibe prevailing on the streets of the outer boroughs. It's a sense of mistrust and unfriendliness I have never felt before in this city. It seems like everyone hates anyone who doesn't appear to be of their origin, which is nothing new, but never to this degree. I'd like some of the writers of the Village Voice to come to Bay Ridge and see for themselves the gleefully vindictive attitude of many members of the Arab/Muslim community and ask themselves who's side are these people on?
Frank Tilelli, Bay Ridge
Oh, Fact You
In response to William S. Repsher ("Daily Billboard," 11/25), while I know that kids today are totally ignorant of history, it pains me to see that events that happened less than five years ago are now consigned to the annals of disregard. I refer, of course, to a "novelty song" that did indeed burn up the pop charts of New York's Top 40. I refer to a song that was recorded by an uber-German known as Lars, no less. I refer to the song known as the "Brooklyn Bounce." This musical amusement was bold in that it dared to poke fun at the most uppity of the boroughs. Brooklyn thinks of itself as the anchor to reality and "old style" New York, a counterpoint to Manhattan. It is an open secret that the true situation is actually the complete opposite, but nobody would dare to admit it in the politically correct culture that grips the city.
The lyrics of this song, containing such incendiary phrases as "get ready to bounce" and "the Brooklyn bounce," clearly demonstrate a levity and willingness to make a joke at the expense of Brooklyn. It is Brooklyn that is always getting ready to bounce, but never actually bouncing. It was a truer and more striking commentary on Brooklyn than any that has come along in recent years, even if the English was demotic at best. Sad, however, that it took a man named Lars and two tarted-up Teutonic hussies to speak the truth that the millions who live in King's County know but dare not say. In conclusion, New York Press is still in obvious need of fact-checkers. Another black mark against Strausbaugh.
Jabairu S. Tork, Boston
California Girls
Re Michelangelo Signorile's "Code Pink" ("The Gist," 11/27). And yet, since we are going to be hearing the term "San Francisco Democrat" a whole lot more, why is it that there is nothing but deafening silence from Pelosi and other Democrats who should be speaking up in a loud and very public way to define or redefine if needed the label with the proud and positive connotations that it should carry? No, it's the same old failure of blaming the truly nasty devious Republicans. It seems the whole Democratic team (and I use the word loosely) is stuck in fear and indecision while Republicans continue to drive and define them, the government and country. Danger lurks for them all caught like a deer in the headlights of a Republican-driven double semi barreling down the interstate at 100 mph with no CHP in sight.
Pelosi, if not very, very brave, will do good to just get out of the way and barely survive. Will Bambi be able to change her spots into a truck-wrecking, Republican-eating Godzilla Goodly in time? Why not, Sen. Feinstein seems to able to; voting for the perverted and corrupt Homeland Security bill one day only to return to San Francisco another to say it's time to get really tough with Republicans? Why should Republicans want to smear that type of darling San Francisco "Democrat"? Dianne is a one-woman Patriot Act for the Republicans. Tune into the same bad faux-channel, new bad time, election 2004. Whack! Bang! Pow!
James Evans, Palm Springs, CA
Relatively Right
MUGGER: My take on your "Although I wish Fox News would jettison its silly 'We report. You decide,' and 'fair and balanced' slogans?Fox is a conservative organ and ought to acknowledge that, just as The Wall Street Journal's editorial page does..." (11/27).
Okay fine, compared to CNN, MSNBC and all the network news outlets, Fox News is relatively conservative. Relatively. The real difference between the FNC and all the others is that FNC nearly always presents a reasonable opposing conservative view of a liberal view that is (on the other news outlets) being presented without any opposing conservative viewpoint. Sometimes CNN, MSNBC and broadcast news include a condescending conservative viewpoint that is usually implemented by inviting comment from an inarticulate, or ignorant or unintelligent conservative?or another liberal who's attempting to build a facade of fairness by expressing what they might wish was the conservative viewpoint. Do the other news outlets admit that they slant their news features to favorably present the liberal viewpoint alone? No. They don't. By comparison, the other news outlets are relatively "unfair and unbalanced." Therefore, FNC is relatively fair and balanced.
So, although you are both relatively right?I prefer the FNC version and, after all... I decide. Kidding aside, thanks for your relatively fair and balanced presentation.
Joe Rogerson, Pinehurst, TX
MUGGER: I enjoyed your 11/27 column more than any in recent memory. You cut to the chase better than any other journalist on the horizon, and are always a great read.
Over the last weeks or so, as I watch cable news or read national newspapers online, I wonder if I am either becoming delusional or if life has become Comedy Central. Specifically, I saw Daschle give his Rush Limbaugh "Checkers" performance, and have read the ever loonier Al Gore's attacks on President Bush. I find myself walking around in my yard and wondering if my television has become a portal into the rehearsals at Saturday Night Live. My mutterings are beginning to worry my squirrels.
I understand Al Gore will be hosting SNL in the near future. Do you think there is any basis to my concerns about my television? Regardless, who needs the Not Ready for Primetime Players when we've got this cast?
Tracy Meadows, Brenham, TX
Bleed the Rich
I'm a combat vet and moderate Republican, patriotic and generally supportive of my government. But I am amazed and outraged that we have just about abolished the "death tax." That tax, at least on multimillion-dollar estates, was the fairest tax we had. What a disgrace?especially when we are passing a growing national debt to our children!
R.T. Carpenter, Panama City, FL
He's Well Connected
MUGGER: I was pleased to see that Andrew Sullivan's namedropping gets on someone else's nerves (11/20). He is ripe for a sendup similar to the one that was in Beyond the Fringe. They spoofed an appeaser, Lady Astor, I believe, with her saying, "I tried to ring Herr Hitler but the line was engaged, so the war began."
Is there anyone Andrew Sullivan does not know? I wonder if they think of him as their good friend. I bet poor William Hague no longer does.
I write about politics for the Sunday magazine section of the Hartford Courant. You do a terrific job with your column.
Kevin Rennie, S. Windsor, CT
Wanna Bet?
MUGGER: your suggestion that the Mayor initiate legal gambling casinos in Times Square and on the west side piers is most prudent (10/30)! And, why not? In answer to those "moralists" who may opine that gambling will further endanger our culture: our various behaviors cannot go much lower, except in Hades, itself.
Furthermore, we have had NYS lottery sales for several decades. Why should casinos?where adults can at least participate in a fun activity?be any more morally debilitating? The possibility that such activity will fill New York City's coffers?without adding mandatory taxation to commuters, cigarette sales and mass transit?sounds increasingly appealing.
My own additional recommendation would be to privatize the city's buses and subways. I believe these systems could be run cost-effectively, without union control and the current bureaucracy. Perhaps, the fares could even be lowered.
Nancy Joyce Jancourtz, Brooklyn
Burning Issue
MUGGER: Oh who cares (11/27)? (Tho' I'm guessing deadlines are responsible for the dated Howard Kurtz mention?c'mon, we're past ridiculing Daschle and have moved on to ridiculing Kurtz for letting Rush off so easily?"mainstream" my ass.) What I really want to know is what's up with the 28-year-old Sox GM? The 28-year-old surrounded by former GMs? Cheers.
Harley Peyton, Santa Monica
What, Another Dopey Politician?
Not since Andrew Johnson has there been a dumber presidential candidate than the smug Al Gore (divinity school dropout, law school dropout). He plagiarizes Ozzy Osbourne as he spews his latest paranoia about the media. Remember "Crazy Train"? "One person conditioned to rule and control /The media sells it and you live the role." At least Ozzy has an excuse: he's an alcoholic. Maybe Tipper was right. Rock lyrics turn the dumb into zombies.
Don Surber, Poca, WV
Addicted to MUG
MUGGER: I get my "fix" every time I read one of your articles. Keep up the great work!
Jim Gary, Lisle, IL
Patriot Games
MUGGER: In your praise of the Mighty Bush in his NATO tour (11/27), you don't mention that one of the costs of now getting into NATO is that you must raise your defense spending to 2 percent of the country's GNP. Interesting that these new members are then able to buy nice new shiny weapons systems from companies like Lockheed, the Carlyle Group, etc. Nice arrangement for making our world more $ecure.
Is it just me or does it seem really convenient that this administration came up with such a deceptively well-written Patriot Act so quickly after 9/11? So well-written and passed in the fear and frenzy of the post-attack fever that now, if they suspect you of terrorism, then you are a terrorist; as a terrorist you have no rights, so off to jail you go for a long time with no counsel, rights, etc. Almost as if they were waiting for something to happen.
And why would we put a convicted felon (pardoned later for immunity) in charge of setting up the most intrusive internal spying agency in our history and then give it to the military? "Knowledge is power." Can we say, Bend over Americans who don't fall in line? Pardon my paranoia, but it seems like the land of the free and home of the brave isn't anymore. Is Bartcop right about the B.F.E.E.?
By the way, Rush Limbaugh is a mainstream conservative like Bill Clinton is a monogamous hubby.
Skippy Bell, San Antonio, TX
Ouch, That Must Smart
MUGGER: I listen to Rush Limbaugh almost every day and I have never heard him say anything that would incite anyone to violence (11/27). He often incites laughter at the expense of liberals and Democrats, but that is a far cry from advocating physical violence against them. Poor Daschle?now he's shot himself in the other foot. It is amazing that people who don't belong to the NRA can shoot themselves in the foot when they have said foot in their mouths.
Some time ago I saw an article in TNR that listed three factual errors Rush had made. None of them were of any consequence. By what they didn't list, they showed that the worst errors were trivial. Had there been big or serious errors, the author surely would have listed them.
Donald W. Bales, Kingsport, TN
Katha Polls
Katha Pollitt omitted an almost secret little nugget: Members of the UAW (auto workers) get Election Day off with pay! So why didn't they turn out at the polls in droves? Most of them went hunting.
Irene Charping, Melvindale, MI
Uncle!
The Republicans' and conservatives' fraction here/fraction there gain in the 2002 election and Alexander Cockburn's column segment "Distraught Democrats" brought something to mind ("Wild Justice," 11/20).
Receiving much attention not long ago was Harry Stein's book How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (And Found Inner Peace). The author pinpointed several indicators that you are "turning to the Right."
For example, it is "a tell-tale sign of Right-Wingedness" if you hear someone talk of moral tradition but you do not assume he is a religious fanatic, if you are relieved that your daughter plays with dolls and your son plays with guns, if it annoys you that Black History Month seems to run from February through July.
Why did he stop there? The list could go on. It is "a tell-tale sign of Right-Wingedness" if you call yourself a "traditionalist" like God gave you the word but your knowledge of "tradition" goes as far back as Shirley Temple and Disneyland, dude ranch music and Glenn Miller's roses that sigh in the June night.
It is "a tell-tale sign of Right-Wingedness" if you blame social ills, bad sex and youth crime on movies and tv, rock and rap singers, because you are offended by anything stronger than a Mickey Mouse Club tap-dance.
Why did grand opera with its bloody blades and violated petticoats not pile up seduction beds or murdered corpses in real life? You do not ponder such questions when your musical measuring stick is the harvest moon or the silvery moon or the cattle trail moon over Tin Pan Alley.
It is "a tell-tale sign of Right-Wingedness" if your loathing of graphic nudity is clear and uncomplicated because you think Tintoretto and Botticelli were hit men dumping victims in Jersey swamps. Where on a menu does one find Manet and Delacroix?
It is "a tell-tale sign" if you warmly begin to regard the late Elvis Presley as a "conservative" because your "golden past" is anything earlier than The Brady Bunch. You forget all the 1950s conservatives who sent floods of hate-mail calling Elvis a "poisoner of youth."
It is "a tell-tale sign" if you oppose ethnic diversity and ethnic heritage because you feel that Americans should be one people. Also because you have trouble pronouncing Paganini and Euripides and Paderewski, and anyway movies about vaudeville or the U.S. Cavalry are all the "cherished past" you can swallow.
It is "a tell-tale sign of Right-Wingedness" if your candidate loses the popular vote (Daddy Bush 1992, son 2000) or wins by an eyelash (U.S. Senate?Missouri and Minnesota 2002) or goes to court to protect himself from the popular vote (Florida 2000 successfully, New Jersey 2002 unsuccessfully) because the "Louisiana Hayride" votes plus the I Love Lucy ones do not pile up like they used to at the polls.
Blame a more sophisticated public. When you shut out both the rock concert crowd and the grand opera crowd, it is "a tell-tale sign of Right-Wingedness" that your numbers come up short.
Greg Dorio, Manhattan