Oh, Hillary!, Obama, Oscars, OCD, OJ and some other stuff that doesn't start with an O.

POLITICAL COMMENT OF THE DAY:

When I hear those Wall Street Republicans talk about the upcoming election, I often want to say to them what the Francis McDormand character said to the psycho-killer she's apprehended after finding him feeding his accomplice into the wood chipper in "Fargo": "Jeez. Don't you people realize there's more to life than a little bit of money?"

ELECTION NOTES: (After the Ohio and Texas Primaries)

Hillary. So cheesy in delivering her applause lines. Sometimes delightfully cheesy, sometimes annoyingly cheesy. But always, always cheesy. It's as if she subordinates the content of the line to its vaguely impressive rhetorical structure. It's like "Wow...it's so fun that words can do this!! And that I'm up here basking in my glory while I'm speaking them!"

I was also struck by how shamelessly and cyncically she has coopted all of the language that has resonated during the political season. In other words, all of Obama's themes and terms. Hope. Change. Yes We Will! Etc. Etc. Etc. And it is as if she has done so without any pangs of conscience or sense of inner fraudulence; as if THAT's what she's been saying all along!! It sort of mirrors the seamless way she switches positions (or at least changes her emphasis and perspective on the positions...that is, the story she tells about her track record and her positions) whenever political expediency demands it. Really sort of amazing. But I guess at the end of the day she IS a politician.

Amy Poehler has now eclipsed Oprah as the most politically influential woman in American.

I mean, who would have though that she (via SNL) would have more of an impact on the Democratic primaries than Bill Maher, Bill O'Reilly, Charlie Rose, John McLaughlin etc. etc. combined?

If Mike Hucakbee proved one thing during this election cycle it's this: You don’t need a lot of money to lose a national election.

LFAQs:

When I saw the guy stealing a full bottle of Tabasco sauce from Chipotle was I outraged because I was morally offended or because I was a shareholder?

I just read that after years of escalating popularity, golf is suddenly on the wane as an American pastime. My question: Are Americans quitting golf because they are tired of OJ accosting them on the course and asking as part of his tireless ongoing investigation: “Did you kill my wife??”

Listening to Obama, I couldn't help but thinking: Great orator. Great candidate., But don't these guys ever get tired of hearing their own speeches? Of telling their own stories? Of endlessly, if eloquently, repeating themselves?

BELATED OSCAR QUIBBLES OF THE DAY:

Daniel Day Lewis. Great but ultimately over-rated performance. Too grand. Too broad. Too clearly performed with an eye towards Oscar-ish immortality. Would have preferred a modicum of restraint. To have seen him not cross the line into self-caricature. Also felt that Javier Bardem's performance was over-rated. Although I have to confess that I only saw him in the trailers (Skipped the movie as I'd read the book and don't like to have my original imaginings contaminated by or replaced with a specific cinematic envisioning of the text. Sort of the same reason I don't like music videos). But I would never let anything as minor as a failure to see a performance keep me from judging it!

Here's my point: The role is too easy. The character as written (in the book) is a haunting abstraction made flesh. He does not conform to any notion of naturalistic representation. The lines as written are so extreme that virtually any performance of them--virtually any intepretation of them--virtually any incarnation of them--virtually any mere mouthing of them--would be haunting and unforgettable. You could have a dweeb simply reciting the lines with a lisp and it'd be chilling. You could have Wallace Shawn or Jim Carey do it. It doesn't matter. The very IDEA of this character is what haunts you...and the very concept that this idea (this infinitely amoral abstraction) can be made flesh. Or maybe it's just the haircut. Anyhow, rant over. Maybe someday I'll see the movie and disagree with my categorical a priori judgement. But I doubt it.

CONCEPT OF THE DAY:

Celebrity Death match OCD contests. One person's compulsive tic at a war to the death with another's. Repeated door lock checking versus compulsive desktop organization. Duelling dish washer loading systems. etc.

FACTOID AND RELATED OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

Just read that 1 in 99 American adults are now in prison. And the amazing thing is, neither Dick Cheney nor OJ Simpson is among them.

CHIASMUS OF THE DAY:

A man and woman. The man laughs during the day and cries in his dreams. The woman cries during the day and laughs in her dreams. A camera videotapes them sleeping side by side.

CONCEPT OF THE DAY:

Metro-Asexual. (But I guess that's a redundancy.) If Metro-Asexuals had a tag line it'd be "Come check out our shiny new armpits!!"

OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

For some, the gift store card advice is "Dare to be Remarkable." for others the more useful and relevant message would be "Dare to be Unremarkable." (A corrolary to Freud's maxim that the goal of Psycho-Analysis was "to turn extraordinary suffering into ordinary misery.")

ONIONESQUE (SHALLOT-LIKE) HEADLINE OF THE DAY:

Man wins fantasy league. Loses reality girlfriend.

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY:

a)

That to "subitize" means to instantly judge the number of items in a group.. As in three or four things apprehended as the gestalt or totality of "threeness" or "fourness". It comes from the Latin "Subitus" which means "sudden." And sudden has always been one of my favorite words. (As a corollary: "A sudden sky" has always been one of my favorite phrases.)

b)

That the numbers we use are Arabic numerals. This might be publiciczed to help counter anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment in our country. Although now that I think about it, doing so would probably simply strengthen anti-math sentiment.

c)

Anne Frank was a babe! I saw a photo of her in which she looks a little like Natalie Portman.

OBSERVATION:

Struck by the persistence and fixity of topography and by its strange mutability in dreams. I am thinking of certain early childhood landscapes and the way they provide ur-templates for the unconscious life.

DIGNIFIED AND DIGNIFYING MEDIA PHENOMENON OF THE DAY:

The eloquent silent tribute to the Iraqi war dead on The Jim Lehrer Nightly News Hour.

METS/PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

I've always taken it as axiomatic (an article of faith) that where Yankees fans were agressive-aggressive, Mets fans were passive aggressive. This also extended to the nature of the respective organizations. In any event, I got further confirmation of this hypothesis the other day. A guy I know has had a pair of Mets season tickets for a number of years. This year, he found out they were boosting the price substantially and were not giving him the location upgrade they'd promised him last year after he'd already pre-paid for the --oops--playoffs. He was quietly and sulkingly unhappy about it. His wife --a no nonsense producer type kept telling him to call and complain but he seemed more comfortable not calling and complaining. Finally, she got sick of his moping and made an incensed call in their behalf--vehemently complaining about the situation and demanding something be done about it. The organization, entirely unfamiliar with such direct and confrontational behavior, simply didn;t know what hit them and instantly succumbed. The result: A pair of field level season tickets right behind home ...for the same price they'd been paying for mezzanine or loge seats half way down the left field line. The key: She is only a Mets fan through marriage. By temperment and background, she's really a Yankees fan. The woman knows how to kick some ass. So attention, Mets fans. Get yourself a Yankee fan spouse!

RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:

His mojo was last seen on the side of a milk carton.

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