Slate's Bizbox
the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

David Edelstein and Nell Minow

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940
from: David Edelstein

Pigeon English

Posted Monday, Aug. 3, 1998, at 4:17 PM ET

Good afternoon, Nell.

I thought I was more or less happily married--until last night. My wife was reading our local Brooklyn paper, which reported that someone has been using sharp darts to kill scores of pigeons on our very block. As I lay in bed coughing, cursing the Times Sunday crossword puzzle, and fulminating about the Norman Podhoretz essay I downloaded from the Commentary site that blamed the rise in pedophilia on the publication of Lolita, she turned to me and asked: "It's not you, is it? Are you killing the pigeons?" I chuckled--but she was serious. "If it were me," I said, "would you stand by me?" She took a long time with that one. "Yes--I don't know." In truth, Nell, I don't even like to kill bugs for fear I'll meet up with them again in the afterlife, but Rachel had genuine doubts: She wondered if all my serial killer and gore-movie books were isolated phenomena, or the beginnings of a bloodlust that would soon be progressing from pigeons to people... Now I feel that I must catch the pigeon-killer personally in order to clear my name. There's a movie in this somewhere.

Speaking of homicidal rage, I think I touched something off when I mentioned Martha Stewart. Is it fair to conclude that you don't regard domestic labor as ennobling? If that's the case, you certainly won't enjoy Dr. Laura, who might approve of your Movie Mom persona but will wonder what you're doing at the office all day. Absolutism has its place, but it's still shocking to hear it expressed with such violence by a "therapist." Does one size really fit all? Can you really tell someone to walk away from or stay in a marriage on the basis of a few stammered details? If people crave Dr. Laura, it's because on some level--and perhaps in the absence of firm parenting--they want to be punished; and lo, there she stands, cat-o'-nine-tails in hand. I think her show must be the most powerful sadomasochistic orgy in the history of mass media.

I admit, a hunger for the judgmental might be one reason I like Maureen Dowd so much, as I detailed last week. That said, she disappointed me in her column yesterday, in which she attempted to view the current, "gross-out" political scandal in the context of "gross-out" movies. It's hard to argue with her about Jerry Springer, but have we really devolved so much culturally? She scores easy points by citing the Farrelly brothers, but I'll take There's Something About Mary over its Reagan-era counterpart, Porky's, any day. There's a vein of sexual anxiety that the Farrellys explore with real tenderness; if anything, There's Something About Mary suggests that the gross-out genre can come of age. And the idea that Clinton was elected by pandering to the baser elements of our culture seems wide-of-the-mark, too. He might have played sax for Arsenio, but unlike Reagan's B-movie homilies and Bush's John-Wayne-meets-Liberace machismo, Clinton actually entered the presidency with the intention of elevating discourse--and held endless seminars that had columnists like Dowd dubbing him a policy wonk. I still love Maureen, but she is a bit of a puritan. I suspect the last episode of Seinfeld fell flat because of her blistering attack on the series--which must have hit Larry David so hard that he incorporated her criticisms into his final script. A show that could, on occasion, spin urban neuroses into dazzlingly intricate farce was suddenly paralyzed by self-loathing.

Speaking of self-loathing, my mom and dad have stopped by my apartment to play with their new granddaughter, and my mom points out that by pumping antibiotics into me from an early age she not only compromised my immune system but put yellow wavy lines on my teeth. This Breakfast Table thing is getting profitable: I've shamed her into offering to pay to have them capped. And staying with the theme of self-loathing, I direct you to Anthony Tommasini's Times review of a major new Tristan and Isolde in Seattle. The Isolde is Jane Eaglen, who prompted much of the "obese opera singers" discussion in rec.music. opera. Tommasini likes her but does say this:

Inevitably with Ms. Eaglen comes the issue of her size. She is a large, thick-limbed woman. Obviously this limits her dramatic impact, but it also somewhat affects her singing... there is sometimes a lack of rhythmic incisiveness and energy in her singing that seem related to her physical sluggishness.

Tommasini knows he can't mention her girth without noting that her Tristan, the fabulous Ben Heppner, is a "hefty" fellow. "But," says Tommasini, "it does not seem to impede the vitality and trim of his singing." This is a weird area, obviously. I wonder if all the Web gossip has it made it impossible to ignore what used to be unmentionable.

You're right about Dr. Weill! Are you too a follower? (What's your antioxidant regimen?) Weill does say to take vacations from newspapers, radio, and TV, which I intend to do beginning this Friday. Meanwhile, I have to head off to see a new movie: Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes, which I'll tell you about tomorrow if I like it and Friday if I don't. (Studios don't mind a bit if you want to jump the gun when you like a film, but pan one four days before an opening and you won't get invited to many more screenings.)

I'm off to skewer some pigeons.

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940
from: David Edelstein

Pigeon English

Posted Monday, Aug. 3, 1998, at 4:17 PM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
David Edelstein is Slate's film critic. Nell Minow's reviews of movies and videos appear on her Movie Mom Web page. Her book The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies is forthcoming.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
The Great Debate
Marcus | Forget Biden. I'd like to see McCain face off against Palin.
Toles: Another McCain SurpriseStumped: Where's Palin's Baby?