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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: Christopher Caldwell

Comin'-Round-the-Mountain Quotes

Posted Thursday, March 2, 2000, at 3:28 PM ET

Dear Jonathan,

"Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated" should be tucked alongside "If you don't like the weather in [name locale at random], just wait a minute" in our file of words and phrases never to be used under any circumstances.

The most widespread cultural shortcoming of Washington politicians is the one we saw in Bradley last night: They have no idea what other people know. They reel off banalities as if no one they're talking to could possibly have heard them before. A colleague of mine calls these "comin'-round-the-mountain quotes." Bradley's was at least mercifully short. Jack Kemp used to be able to lard 10 minutes of drama-enhancing pauses between "You know, speaking of fear ..." and "... to fear but fear itself." You'd have time to get up and go to the bathroom between his wind-up "You know, speaking of witty repartée in London salons ..." and his conclusion "... madam, are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober."

Picked up the New York Post today, thinking, "Whoa, man, have they milked that John Rocker business!" But then I found, a few pages in, that stunning story about Laura Bush's having killed her high-school boyfriend in a car accident. How in this supposedly paparazzi-infested world did no one ever know that until now? And what on earth is John Rocker doing on Page One?

I take it you don't buy my point about Darryl Strawberry. I still think it might be easier to quit cocaine when you're thinking about baseball than when you're thinking about, you know, cocaine. Maybe we can find a compromise position: If all the designated hitters could be sent into rehab, and the rule abolished, I'd consent to it as a bit of egg-breaking for omelet-making. Just to unburden myself of a few more baseball grievances before time runs out on us: Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. Dick "Flash" Williams ought to get in eventually, too.

I think we can do better than REM for surreal lyrics. That other turn-of-the-'90s band, They Might Be Giants, had a song called "I Palindrome I"--a title you can't beat with a stick. On which subject, I'll close with my favorite light-bulb joke:

Q. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. The fish.

Or is that one so old Bill Bradley and Jack Kemp might tell it?

Till soon, I hope,
Chris

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Christopher Caldwell

Comin'-Round-the-Mountain Quotes

Posted Thursday, March 2, 2000, at 3:28 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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