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

Christopher Caldwell and Jonathan Mahler

the breakfast table
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from: Jonathan Mahler

By Any Hyperbole Necessary

Posted Wednesday, March 1, 2000, at 7:56 PM ET

Dear Chris,

Since you seem to have given this matter at least a little bit of thought, maybe you can explain that song "Any Major Dude" to me. You know, the one that goes, "Any major dude with half a heart surely can tell you my friend/ When the demon is at your door/ In the morning he won't be there nooo more/ Any major dude can tell you."

Intentionally surrealistic? Methinks you might be giving them too much credit. REM--now that's a band with impressionistic, intentionally absurdist lyrics. I mean, how can you compete with a song about a "Moral Kiosk"? Steely Dan is more like a squealing puppy; they're trying desperately to say something, but they ... just ... can't ... seem ... to ... find ... the ... words.

"Wim Kok: Quiet Reformer." That's good. At the Forward, my old newspaper, we weren't allowed to use the word "still" in either headlines or leads--unless you were talking about a whiskey still. It's tough to argue with the logic; if nothing has changed, why the hell do we want to read about it? Maybe both "quiet" and "reformer" belong in the same category. Of course, the Forward uses words like "Solon" and "Meshummed" (Yiddish for apostate, if memory serves me--but try fitting it over a two-column story!) in their headlines, so ...

And on the subject of headlines, here's my favorite. It ran on Reuters quite a few years ago, in the wake of the collapse of the Mexican peso. Clinton, as I recall, had just flown south of the border to deal with the crisis and Reuters slapped this head on their dispatch: "Clinton Puts Finger in Mexican Dyke." Ouch.

Your remark about McCain and his "You represent the forces of evil" line reminds me of a scene from a very stupid movie (even if you decide to raise your quota to seven films this year, you should skip it, Chris) called The Sure Thing. Anyway, these two college kids are driving across the country and absolutely everything goes wrong (I don't remember what, exactly, but I'm pretty sure that their car broke down and all of their money was stolen). So they're standing outside in the pouring rain and the girl says to the guy, "Wait I have my dad's credit card." And the guy responds "Great!" Then suddenly she reconsiders: "But it's only for rainy days."

In other words, Chris, if I'm a Republican who actually wants to see the Clinton-Gore era finally come to an end (which I am not, contrary to the opinions of some of my more liberal friends), I'd be thinking right about now that it's time to pull out all of the stops to make sure that Junior doesn't get the nomination. No hyperbole is too, um, hyperbolic.

To quote another stupid movie, "Make it rain."

Fondly,
Jonathan

the breakfast table
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from: Jonathan Mahler

By Any Hyperbole Necessary

Posted Wednesday, March 1, 2000, at 7:56 PM ET
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Christopher Caldwell is senior writer at the Weekly Standard and a columnist for New York Press. Jonathan Mahler is a senior editor at Talk.
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Highlights from The Fray:

[The Breakfast Table participants covered a wide variety of serious and political subjects this week, and as usual Fraygrants knew which were the really important topics, and were keen to participate in the life of the mind:]

The reason the quoted verse of the Steely Dan lyrics makes no sense is that you have omitted the central line:


Any major dude with half a heart
Surely will tell you, my friend
Any minor world that breaks apart
Falls together again.
When the demon is at your door,
In the morning he won't be there no more.
Any major dude can tell you

Doesn't that make it crystal clear?

--Ralph Bartlett

(To reply, click here.)


I rather think that Jonathan missed Chris' main point. Baseball teams shouldn't be adopted for their success, or for their failures. There's something mightily strange about growing up in California and rooting for the Yankees. After all, there was hardly any shortage of New York teams on the West Coast - whence the need to appropriate the only one that remained where it belonged? I'm a Red Sox fan because I was born and raised fifteen minutes from Fenway Park, because one of my strongest childhood memories is the glory of '86 (and yes, the pain), and because hope springs eternal at the end of winter. I do, however, want to compliment Chris. He may not be a native New Yorker, but he seems as smugly superior as any Yankees fan whom I have ever met.

--Yoni

(To reply, click here.)


Maybe it's one of those "you had to have been there" sort of things, but I thought The Sure Thing was charming. It was funny without being crude or stupid. And the punchline you were strugling with? After a series of catastrophes, the protagonists find themselves locked out of shelter in a downpour. The girl suddenly recalls that she has a credit card, but "I'm only supposed to use it for emergencies!"

--Bill Altreuter

(To reply, click here.)


To Bill Altreuter:
Actually that was the set-up line. The punch line followed: "Maybe one will come up."

--B.Roman

(To reply, click here.)


You should start and post a list of phrases to be banned from the press henceforth. My three nominees (for now): 1) sloe-eyed; 2) tsunami; 3) "I knew (blank) and you're no (blank)."

--Matt Murray

(To reply, click here.)


Here are some more proposed Taboo Phrases: 1) Its the *******, stupid! 2) Risky tax schemes 3) Move forward 4) Media savvy 5) Sole remaining Superpower 6) Outside the mainstream 7) Go negative.

--John McGraw

(To reply, click here.)

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