UNDERDOG of PERFECTION

I’m posting hand-me-down blog content here. As is often the case, I have just become aware of something I feel is blog-worthy by reading it on Daring Fireball, simultaneously affirming its blog-worthiness and obviating the need for me to blog about it myself. But I know a few among my meager audience probably do not read Daring Fireball regularly, so I’m helping to spread the word nonetheless.

It is frustrating that often I learn about articles from the “current” issue of the New Yorker from Daring Fireball (or, in the case of the infamous Obama cover, from… everyone) on Monday or Tuesday, when (and it frustrates me to no end) I won’t actually receive my copy in the mail until Friday or Saturday. I’m not sure what crime I’ve committed against Condé Nast besides living in an insufficiently sophisticated region of the country, but they punish me weekly by delaying the arrival of the magazine until after the rest of the world has already moved on.

Anyway… this week’s “Shouts and Murmurs” column is by one of my favorite writers, David Sedaris, and he dishes up a great metaphor for the current election. I’ll rip my block quote directly from Gruber:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

Indeed. You can read the full article here.

I assume you’re already familiar with The Transformed Man. If not (or even if so), read on.

Tonight I did something I don’t do very often… certainly, not often enough. I put my entire iTunes library on shuffle: over 13,000 songs from which the computer will select the evening’s soundtrack. After a few real dogs (seriously, don’t bother listening to the 2002 Yes shit sandwich known as Magnification), it unearthed a track I haven’t listened to in ages, William Shatner’s dramatic reading (with even more dramatic musical accompaniment) of the “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy from Hamlet, juxtaposed with “It Was a Very Good Year.”

The reading of Hamlet is as overwrought as it gets — vintage Shatner. And yet, the truth must be told: Shakespeare’s words were never imbued with such clear and resonant meaning in my brain as they are with Captain Kirk’s over-the-top performance. I’m not well-versed in the theater, and as much as I’ve enjoyed the various Shakespeare productions I’ve seen over the years (mostly at the Guthrie back in high school and college), I find the language, while melodically poetic, often bewilderingly oblique in meaning. In other words, it sounds nice, but I just don’t get it. And this was just such a case. “To be or not to be…” etc. It never made much sense to me until I heard The Transformed Man, but suddenly I understood what it really meant. Thanks, Bill!

And now, thanks as well to the limitless wonders of YouTube, you can see a live performance of the piece from The Mike Douglas Show. How friggin’ awesome is that? Well, it could be a little more awesome — the sound is way off in this video clip, and it’s not because he’s lip-syncing. He’s not. And I think the performance on the album is much better. Still, it’s worth watching, if for no other reason than the groovy title cards and stage set, which I vaguely remember from the very earliest days of my youth.

And finally, in case you’re scratching your head over my enthusiasm here, you may want to consider my judgment in entertainment options by the fact that I also enjoy this. And for anyone who is not terrified by it within 10 seconds (in other words, you’re also a Magma fan), I have to ask: do you also think the “Da Zeuhl Wortz Mekanik” part that starts at 4:46 sounds like some of the incidental music that used to be in the Road Runner cartoons? I’ve always thought that.

Even I have limits though. This Magma-inspired Japanese band goes too far (but I do own one of their albums) and even Christian Vander himself can go too far, especially when he steps out from behind the kit.

P.S. What’s up with the collar?

Working from home definitely has its advantages. No commute, no oppressive cubicles, no annoying coworkers. But it does have its downsides, too. The worst, without a doubt, is the temptation to turn on the TV during the day. Not only is TV programming on weekdays unimaginably uninspired and uninteresting, but the commercials are truly painful. Most target the elderly (LifeAlert, Metamucil, etc.), but then you have the local commercials, which fall into two camps: law firms appealing to those who are at home due to injury or illness, and local businesses too cheap to spring for airtime at a decent hour. The latter category is without a doubt the worst of the bunch. And I just saw the single worst commercial ever in the history of this worst category. Luckily enough (for me, not for you, since now you’re going to have to see it too), I actually found it on YouTube. Enjoy…

Read for yourself that the Anchorage Daily News, which (apparently) has historically treated the governor favorably, is calling her out for claiming vindication in the scandal over the firing of her state trooper ex-brother-in-law. To wit:

She claims the report “vindicates” her. She said that the investigation found “no unlawful or unethical activity on my part.”

Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.

Page 8, Finding Number One of the report says: “I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.”

In plain English, she did something “unlawful.” She broke the state ethics law.

I have felt from the beginning that we could best learn about Sarah Palin by studying the statements of Alaskans who are far more familiar with her policies and actions than most of us in the “lower 48” are. And what I’ve gotten from that has been almost unanimously negative.

Not my words.