Needles & Threads
A weekly spin through the Fray.
Since Fraywatch columns tend to focus on singular articles and issues, some of the finer minutiae of the Fray goes unnoticed and unmentioned (even the unmentionable, which often deserves notoriety in these pages). Beginning today, Fraywatch introduces a new weekly feature, "Needles and Threads: A Spin Through the Fray," which will highlight some of the exurbs of the Fray, postings that may not address high-traffic articles, but warrant attention nonetheless for any number of reasons ranging from cogency to depravity. Music Box: Liz Phair's apostasy generated little of note, but Beethoven's Ninth inspired rob_said_that to elaborate on the symphony's third movement here: "In fact, if we want to understand the 9th, or Beethoven at all, that is the place to start and finish." For The_Bell here, "the thing that is most profoundly and deeply affecting for me about Beethoven's chorale finale is its subject - an ode to joy." Poems Fray: Shannpalmer initiates an active thread on the final stanza of J. Allyn Rosser's Strange State, Wrong Highway, Cold Night. Shann and MaryAnn here find it to be "a bit of a whine," but paulguest here, rob_said_that here, Persephone here, NoStar here, and White_Rabbit here all come out in favor of Rosser's parting words. SherylXian's superb reading finds a more layered moment, though MarkHaag finds a disconcerting, sensory "Proustian Fallacy," a claim that brings MaryAnn and Sheryl into a lively discussion. Finally, mik offers a noble defense of Neil Diamond, whom Rosser references in the poem. This invites a host of replies from the boomer set, natch. Irony v. Earnestness perseveres in the Fray. Ballot Box: Zathras senses that William Saletan is bored with the Buzzword series. As an antidote, Zathras has prescribed a "Breakfast Table format to serve as the foundation of its coverage of the 2004 Presidential campaign."…locdog embraces President's Bush's war cry, "Bring 'em on!" here, and invites a barrage of responses…Lord_Wakefield and T_Weldon_Berger (fka Betty_The_Crow) brandish the nunchucks and go at it over, what Wake refers to as, Hong Kong's reversion to "the Red Chinese way of doing things" in matters of social justice. TWB provides a quality rhetorical counterattack here. Sports Nut: Regarding sportswriter Gary Smith, xmasbaby reminisces on the days of "longer pieces that you used to find all throughout SI" and the likes of "Jim Murray and Dave Anderson." Jsph and other Fraysters prefer Mitch Albom…KA2:35 p.m.
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Brothers In Arms: The Boston Herald makes a rare appearance in Kausfiles Fray, courtesy of Senator John Kerry-backer zinya who posts a "curious piece" on Senator John McCain's sentimental, if not explicit, endorsement of Kerry in the Democratic primary. Though it hasn't gotten much play in the national press, Mr. Straight Talk's hosannas for his fellow vet may be telling…
from the standpoint that there aren't too many Republicans whose opinions about the Dem race would even interest Democrats to know, but it does also begin to make me wonder whether in fact Bush might have alienated so many Republican moderates in Congress that he might not have their overt endorsement for '04 or even have their open opposition.
Despite Heston-esque positions on gun control and his crusty anti-MLK Holiday vote, McCain has always held a certain fascination for disaffected Dems, Independents, and David Foster Wallace. Laocoon comes right out and says so much:
Better yet, why doesn't Kerry announce today that, if he gets the nomination, he will ask McCain to be his VEEP? Reach across party lines, make campaign finance a major issue, put an abrupt halt to the war campaign, show a bold idea. Kerry and the country could do lots worse.
AFL-CIO Chief John Sweeney was unavailable for comment.
City of Quartz: In Culturebox, Adam Kirsch laments that Los Angeles has been deprived of "literature unconcerned with the outside world, intent on explaining the city to itself—as Dickens did with London, or Balzac with Paris." Instead, it's been colonized as a soundstage by "visitors who spent only a few weeks or months in the city; or by imported slaves of Hollywood, who act out their rebellion against the city at large; or even by natives writing mainly for an audience somewhere else." MsZilla opines that almost every place is unknowable through portrayal: "…those of you living in New York and L.A. and laboring under the sheer weight of all of the imagination of our media, I'm not sure how you do it."
The best series of responses in Culturebox Fray come from simparker. Here, he takes on the aforementioned premise of unknowability:
this is the kind of theory that I can no longer tolerate, the kind that structuralists like Eco inflict on us. Of course this city is real. In fact, all of the soundstage facsimiles and on-location reproductions only tend to make it realer. What helps is to look at the PEOPLE who live in a city…Next time you visit a place that doesn't seem real, look at the citizens and think, 'This is someone's home.'
