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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Cynthia Gorney and Stephen Harrigan

the breakfast table
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from: Stephen Harrigan

Sympathy for the Pontificators

Posted Monday, July 19, 1999, at 5:13 PM ET

Dear Cynthia,

Well, I'm casting no stones either, since you and I seem to have been drafted into the pundit corps ourselves this week. And I have to say that when I first heard the news--via, uncharacteristically for me, an Internet headline--I rushed to the nearest television and turned it on, craving the overblown marathon coverage that I usually pretend to decry. And I stayed on the couch pretty much all afternoon, feeling more sympathy than exasperation for all those presidential advisors, aviation authorities, gossip columnists, and aging Kennedy hands whose pontifications, in this impossible instance, seemed almost like a public service. Here in Austin, the local paper covered the story fairly judiciously--nothing like the overkill you describe in the Examiner --but on the other hand, the people I spoke to on the phone or ran into on the street were talking of little else.

You started out on the topic of casseroles and switched to pies. Yes, I did as you instructed and turned to the picture of the apple pie with the hole in it on the cover of the business section of the New York Times. But here's my challenge to you, Cynthia: Don't just look at a photograph, go see the movie. I did, and I admit it: I'm still cringing. What's fascinating to me is that American Pie--with its gags about sperm in the beer, atomic bowel movements, and pastryphilia--seems to be the ultimate date movie. What ever happened to queasy self-consciousness? But don't get me started on the grossification of American culture, or I might morph into my secret self: a reactionary gasbag who's still having trouble with the decommissioning of the word "butt."

Steve

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Stephen Harrigan

Sympathy for the Pontificators

Posted Monday, July 19, 1999, at 5:13 PM ET
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Cynthia Gorney, a reporter for the Washington Post from 1975 to 1991, will join the faculty at U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism this fall. She is the author of Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars (click here to buy the book). Stephen Harrigan is an occasional columnist for Slate, as well as a screenwriter and novelist. His recent books include Water and Light: A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef (click here to buy the book).
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