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More Autumn Poetry

Autumn Moonlight
 by Matsuo Basho

Autumn moonlight —
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut

Other views.

Fresh Voices

over at McSweeney's. I usually forget it's there. Think I'll tab it, MeFi is getting a bit predictable.

I felt like there were three ways out. First, die. Second, cry. Third, fuck for money.

Ode To Fall

Is this nihilism? I dunno, but it's liberating nonetheless. Eff that, and that stupid horse movie, too.

Secretariat Is Not Just A Racehorse Movie

It's a dream. Oh, all movies are dreams? Well, then.

This long-suffering female Job overcomes such tremendous obstacles as having been born white and Southern and possessed of impressive wealth and property, and who then lucks into owning a genetic freak who turned out to be faster and stronger than any racehorse ever foaled. And guess what? She triumphs anyway!

I wish more reviewers did this sort of thing. Reviewing as social criticism.
Roger Ebert doesn't like it one bit (linky included above).

I Am So Out Of It

First: Ce-Lo Green has an all female band.
Second: The BBC allows him to sing a song entitled Fuck You on television.
What would Sinatra say about this? What would my dad think? That we'd lost our way, although they would appreciate the babes for sure.
He's an okay singer, no Sam Cook, but who is?
Lesson: Crude Is Still In.
Question: How long, Lord, how long?

Batten Down The Hatches

I may not live through this. Not because I'm especially vulnerable, but because I'm especially old.

He predicts that between 2007 and 2027, gross domestic product per capita will grow at the slowest pace of any 20-year period in U.S. history going back to George Washington’s Presidency.

Ayn Rand

This guy actually likes Atlas Shrugged. It's a craft thing or something.

All of this is fine, if one recognizes that the idealized world Ayn Rand has created to facilitate her wishful theorizing has no more logical connection to our real one than a world in which an author has imagined humanity ruled by intelligent cups of yogurt.

I never read it. It was forbidden by my betrothed and I forgot to think about it after the divorce.
But now I don't have to.

TV Slut

I don't watch all the time, not even every day. Honest.
That said:
— I wonder if NBC fired the poor schmucks responsible for last night's SNL debacle of multiple commercials doubled up, then cut off as they tried to get a grip and cut back in to the show in the middle of sketches.
Bryan Cranston will forever be known as Skivvy Boy to me.
Hang in there to 4:50 or just fast forward.


— I feel sorry for anyone watching Mad Men who isn't also staying tuned for the equally excellent and entirely different Rubicon. I feel even sorrier for anyone not watching either. Best two hours of the week.
Okay, that scene where Roger holds down the telephone button and pretends to be talking to Lucky Strike was pretty hokey, not up to standard. But I forgive them. MM is just brilliant.
— Coming soon: Zombies!!! (e.g. The Walking Dead, a series!)

On second thought: Has Kanye West always been that bad? I'm sure I must have seen him before, but it was forgettable. Last night's SNL performances were embarrassing. YouTube it if you want to know, I'm not linking.

Nice Riff On Tony Curtis And America

My dad wanted to be Frank Sinatra, too. And Jackie Gleason.

I was casting about for a father figure. Oh, sure, I had a father, but my father wanted to be Frank Sinatra or Tony Curtis, in no particular order, and on some days thought he was.

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/tony-curtis-death-093010?src=rss#ixzz11LejKBdF

Hi, Mr. Beck

Eye Of Newt

Hi, Newt!

Can Democrats Keep Their House Majority?

NYT analysis suggests things are more fluid than R's had planned.

Republican strategists estimated that only half of the 39 seats they need to win control of the House were definitively in hand.

Yay.

Wait a minute, Nate Silver's crunching numbers.

The most likely number of Republican pickups is in the range of about 45 seats — although significantly larger or smaller gains remain possible. The model does not expect a clean sweep: Democrats are favorites in 4 seats currently held by Republicans. But Republicans are favorites in exactly 50 Democratic-held seats, according to the model, which would be enough to give them control of the House.

But as long as you're at the NYT site, you might as well read Gail Collins' take. She's more fun.

Colorado voters, in the fun-loving spirit that has filled so many Republican primaries this season, gave the gubernatorial nomination to a newcomer named Dan Maes, who had already been hit with one of the largest campaign finance violation fines in state history for claiming more than $40,000 in mileage reimbursements — which would suggest that he spent the last year driving the equivalent of more than a third of the way to the moon.