Goldberg and Orlean
Entry 13:
Slate turns 10 this week, and we're publishing The Best of Slate: A 10th Anniversary Anthology. In celebration of the book and the anniversary, we're publishing (or, rather, re-publishing) a selection of pieces from the anthology, including this article. This article was originally published Jan. 25, 1999. You can see a list of all the republished pieces, as well as everything else we are publishing in honor of the anniversary, here.
Good morning. I hope you've downed a sufficient quantity of useless fiber today. Are you still dieting? Have you ever heard of the diet that allows only Baco-Bits and grapefruit? Did you know that Baco-Bits are kosher, except that some rabbis say you shouldn't eat them because they violate the spirit of kashruth? Do you care? Are you reading the Dubner-Klinghoffer rumble, elsewhere in Slate? Maybe we should ask them to debate the Baco-Bits question, rather than the Revelation at Sinai.
Let me tidy-up some old business before we continue our brilliant dissection of the news.
1) I know that Big Baby Jesus is the nom de rap of Ol' Dirty Bastard. I am a seriously down individual. To borrow from Offspring, I'm pretty fly for a white guy, except I really am, not like the bozo Offspring sings about.
2) Kim Delaney is alive! So is Jimmy Smits! I saw them both on TV last night! They're still on the job, solvin' murders, kickin' butt, takin' names! Thank God! Or maybe that was a, whatchamacallit, repeat?
3) I got an answer on the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse conundrum from a certain Slate New York editor who shall go nameless--Chris's Steakhouse was bought by some woman named Ruth, who decided to keep Chris's name but add her own. The journalism analogue to this will be when Brill's Content folds and Tina Brown buys it, creating Brown's Brill's Content. I suggested this to Ms. Brown once, but I don't think she understood me. Few people do. (Of course, when Tina realizes that Brill's Content was a ridiculous idea for a mass-market magazine, she can sell it to Microsoft, creating Kinsley's Brown's Brill's Content On-Line. And then when that fails, Microsoft can sell it to Condé Nast, creating.... Oh forget it.
To the News: I'm selling short on King Hussein, alas. Did you notice the name of the town in Colombia hit by that earthquake? Armenia. You shouldn't live in an earthquake zone named after another earthquake zone (who would live in San Andreas, Japan, after all?). The black-Jewish coalition lives--Jordan, Lewinsky, and Blumenthal vs. 13 white Christian men. Shades of Mississippi? Nah, because Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman were saints, whereas Lewinsky, Jordan and Blumenthal are all creeps. But still....
One question before I go: When did Snoop Doggy Dogg change his name to Snoop Dogg? You're a hippity-hoppity kind of swingin' hepcat. You must know.
I have to go now and read more about social security privatization.
Talk to you soon.
ODB, Jr.
Jeffrey Goldberg is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and Slate. Susan Orlean is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of The Orchid Thief, which was published this month.