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

Daniel, Eric, and Jennifer Mendelsohn

the breakfast table
entries

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from: Daniel Mendelsohn

Cemetery, Schmemetery--Blow up the World!

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2001, at 12:06 PM ET

Hi Jen and ERM,

I'll have to be brief, as it is 7:30 a.m., and I have an 8:15 breakfast appointment in midtown (provincial!) and then--whee!!--off to the cemetery with our new-found cousins to visit our communal ancestor's grave, which is Somewhere in Darkest New Jersey. (We're all meeting Mom and Dad for lunch afterward in the city.) So, this will be fast and furious, fueled by Jet-A-grade coffee made in my new Braun™ coffeemaker ...

A few things: First, I apologize to Eric for that crack about his not being funny; Dad told me last night that all those links ERM made up in his first posting were real!!! I had no idea, I thought he'd made them up. Argh. So yes, he is funny. (Especially his earlier, "funny" stuff.)

I would be in a better mood if the front page of the Times weren't so grim. (This morning I decided to put a raincoat on, for modesty's sake, during my morning paper run, but somehow the effect was, if anything, more ... sinister. I can't think why.) The lead story announces Putin's response (inevitable: The guy has to look butch to his constituency, too) to Star Wars II, or whatever they're calling it now, which is of course that he will build more missiles if we build Star Wars II, blah, blah, blah. If anyone ever asks you what you give to a man who has it all, you now know the answer: a new arms race! This surely completes the descent into total déjà vu--as I read my laboriously gotten newspaper, I keep wondering: Is it 1989? 1976?--that has so thoroughly characterized Bush II. (I remember thinking, when the new Cabinet was being chosen, that surely Rumsfeld had died years ago.) From a psychological point of view, the whole thing is so very fascinating: the wild oscillations between a kind of wild, aggressive, toddler-ish assertiveness on the one hand ("We poop on Kyoto! We poop on wildlife!"), and a timid, placating mimicry on the other one ("See? My dad's friends like me, too!) suggest (as my shrink would put it) that the man hasn't "fully worked out" the daddy thing. I humbly add that I haven't, either, but then, I'm not the Leader of the Free World.

Hell, I couldn't even get into the Boy Scouts if I wanted to.

Anyway, it's all incredibly depressing, and so I was happy to find comic relief in the story of how the woman who was, apparently, the model for Memoirs of a Geisha is now suing Arthur Golden for a portion of the profits; she's decided that her privacy, to say nothing of the honor of her erstwhile day job, has been, um ... violated. It goes without saying that concerns for privacy didn't (apparently) prevent her from asking Golden, a few years back, to organize a promotional tour for her when the book first came out. All this makes one wonder if the United Geisha Local 401(k) plan is all it's cracked up to be ... and it makes me wonder, as the author of a memoir, whether both of you are going to be hauling me into court any time soon. Caveat litigator: The joke would be on you. Heh.

OK, I must dash into the subway and head downtown. (Provincial!) Should be back late in the afternoon with triumphant taphophilic smile on face and will report to you both then how the reunion/cemetery thing went.

Caffeinatedly yrs,
Daniel

the breakfast table
entries

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from: Daniel Mendelsohn

Cemetery, Schmemetery--Blow up the World!

Posted Tuesday, June 19, 2001, at 12:06 PM ET

DISCUSS

E-MAIL

Daniel Mendelsohn, book critic for New York magazine, is the author of The Elusive Embrace. Eric Mendelsohn is the writer/director of the film Judy Berlin. Jennifer Mendelsohn is the author of Slate's "Keeping Tabs" column. To read their previous "Breakfast Table," click here.

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Reader Comments From The Fray:

[Thursday notes from the Fray Editor: A true "Breakfast Table" thread got going here: starting with made-up words, moving on to dead languages, salaries, and cheerful insults, plus a chance to find out which BT regular is a public defender, and what he likes about the the job (the pens are nice, and he doesn't meant penitentiaries). Another cross thread started here (OK, Amber, you are a high-maintenance troublemaker too. It was nothing personal, but you don't confine yourself to the "Breakfast Table". ) Good discussion on death penalty starts with new star Ender here. In fact, there are good threads everywhere this week, none of them staying on topic for long, and all of them involving being rude to other posters: "the only reason you are elevated [to gold stars] is so the rest of us know who to make Ad hominem attacks against."]

Daniel,

Please restrain yourself. According to my calculations, at this rate you will have used up the world's supply of parentheses (left and right) by 2:21PM on Thursday

--Keith M. Ellis

(To reply, click here.)

[Tuesday notes from the Fray Editor: By sheer chance, the Fray index at one point reads:

The Mendelsohns are back!
Appropriate Police Action

We would like to stress that the second post was on a completely different subject: we don't want the Mendelsohns getting cross with us. And we're not going near the whole 'provincial hicks' area.

One highlight of the Mendelsohn's previous "Breakfast Table" was the occasional appearance of the Missing Mendelsohn Brothers, and we have an early sighting of one here. He was replying to Arthur Stock's evocatively named "Vote for your favorite Mendelsohn here" post. Neill Hamilton is the official troublemaker to the Breakfast Table Fray, and outdid himself, below.]

It's starting well: someone has called Texas elected officials retarded. Next, as a parent of teenagers I think that sibling arguments can be awful heated. I am open to suggestions as how to provoke one among the three siblings talking this week. Perhaps one of the topics they could address is which one of them was treated best by their parents. Or perhaps they could rehash embarrassing moments that one other sibling caused. Whatever, there is lots of potential here.

--Neill Hamilton

(To reply, click here.)

[Now read how Neill Hamilton, with the grumpiness we love him for, changed his mind...]

We [Joseph Britt, Arthur Stock and Will V] shamelessly shilled for the Mendelsohns when we occupied the [Fray posters'] Breakfast Table. It didn't take long for Slate to invite them back.

Wonder if they'll return the favor...

--WillV

(To reply, click here.)