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

Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

the breakfast table
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from: Katha Pollitt

Oh No! Exercise!

Posted Thursday, May 7, 1998, at 4:38 PM ET

Andrew,

This is exactly why I never go to the gym. I might see someone I know. And worse--they might see me. It's all very well once you can squat 360 pounds, whatever that is (sounds suitably strenuous, though). But what about those embarrassing first months, when you can only squat 3?

But back to our sheep. Andrew--we were not discussing what we would like to see in a movie, where a car chase might indeed be exciting (although actually, even there I find they pall). We were discussing the NEWS. Information. About real life. Where things that are "boring" can be worth knowing about. As it happens I've seen some pretty good movies about labor and related struggles--Wajda's Man of Iron and Man of Marble; Ken Loach's movies; Barbara Kopple's documentaries about Harlan County miners and the P-9 wildcat strike. Plenty of others. If the labor covers did poorly at TNR that just tells you who that magazine's typical readership is. I used to skip those John Judis stories too--droning centrist conventional wisdom. Tom Geoghegan, though, he's something else. Which Side Are You On? is a great book--and surely even you would not find it boring? I wish he would write for The Nation sometime.

Speaking of movies, and the ex-Soviet Union, I saw a very interesting and funny Ukrainian movie last weekend, A Friend of the Deceased. (I am aware that that last sentence lays me open to many barbs--a funny Ukrainian movie? well, it was). It's about a sad-sack intellectual in the new Kiev--prostitutes, con artists, hit men, shady importers, etc. Of course there were only about ten people in the theatre. I guess the word was out that it didn't have any car chases.

Cheers,
Katha

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Katha Pollitt

Oh No! Exercise!

Posted Thursday, May 7, 1998, at 4:38 PM ET
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Katha Pollitt is a columnist at The Nation. Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at the New Republic.
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