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Alfred Gingold and Helen Rogan

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from: Alfred Gingold

Where Are All the Condit Jokes?

Posted Monday, Aug. 27, 2001, at 12:38 PM ET

Dearest H.,

Disappointed that Condit's not on the front page today, at least of the Times. Its report on the flight attendant's lawsuit is buried in the teens, sharing space with a puffball about our brush-clearin' prez and his Endless Summer. It's enough to make you turn to the tabloids, and the New York Post doesn't disappoint. Dependably rabid Steve Dunleavy calls GC a rodent, and the coverage of the impending "flygirl" legalities suggest there may be salacious revelations from that direction. Bring it on. Soap operas depend on frequent updates, and I want all I can get.

Especially pictures. Like a slow-motion train wreck, he is simply fascinating to look at. Condit's advisers have a lot to answer for, but not as much as his stylists do. In lieu of presenting a brave face to the public, Condit substitutes a frozen one. Check out the People cover: the deer-caught-in-the-headlights eyes, the tight-lipped mini-smile suggesting acid reflux or the imminent collapse of all those facial tucks. Mrs. Condit looks happy to be there, too. And his do! As a representative of the Big Hair State, he's entitled to a dramatic coif, but Washington hasn't seen a bouffant that effortful since Martha Mitchell was holding the phone. He's totally misunderstood the intention of the post-JFK Sweep, favored by the like of fellow philanderer Gary Hart and Kerry of Massachusetts. It's supposed to suggest vision, vigor, spontaneity, and still having hair. It's the cut of a man too busy to mess around, so he just pushes his hair to the side, where it all stays nice and fluffy. Gary Condit's hairdo has the casual effortlessness of a B-52 (the haircut, not the plane) and looks as fluffy as a match-head.

But where are the Condit jokes? I haven't heard any yet. I assume this is because the mystery of Chandra Levy gives a potentially tragic cast to the whole affair. Still, O.J. jokes swept the land in spite of two very dead victims. I have no doubt the jokes are on their way soon. In the meantime, at least we have a respectable reason to read People. J.Lo's getting married!

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Alfred Gingold

Where Are All the Condit Jokes?

Posted Monday, Aug. 27, 2001, at 12:38 PM ET
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Alfred Gingold has written eight books (including three with Helen Rogan) and for numerous magazines and Web sites. Helen Rogan, his wife, is the executive editor of My Generation, the AARP's magazine for baby boomers, and has written books and magazine articles.
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[Notes from the Fray Editor: Reparations and museums were the hot topics here. There was news from Tony Adragna that there is an African-American museum in DC. Elusive Fray poster Amyntas started a splendid discussion on reparations and taxcuts here, featuring posts titled "A nonsensical argument" and "Typical disingenuous twaddle." A high moral tone, and criticism of young women, were the common themes in two posts: a most unusual view on the Chandra Levy affair, here, and one on Tea Leoni here.]


The ambiguity of the reparations debate is what I like most about that entire issue. Whether reparations ever get paid or not (I suspect that they won't), to the extent that national attention gets focused on this issue, we'll be talking about basic moral issues.

Any serious discussion of this issue will involve questions of duty and obligation, culpability, history, values, rights and wrongs. In short, it will be (finally!) a public debate worthy of a democratic nation. Whatever conclusions we reach, either individually or as a nation, it seems likely that we will be better for having thought about these matters in depth

--Thrasymachus

(To reply, click here.)


 The CD-ROM thing is scary. How's Bloomberg going to top it? Will he try to make his hologram appear in all our living rooms?

--Claude Scales

(To reply, click here.)

 (8/28)

Didn't it ever bother anybody else that the Weathermen took their name from a line in "Subterranean Homesick Blues" that implied that a weatherman is superfluous under the circumstances? Is this part and parcel of the Marxist-v.-Leninist- historical-determinist conundrum? (i.e., that if historical/economic forces are pushing toward an inevitable result, why do they need me to help them along? As it is sometimes put, if Marx didn't exist, it would be unnecessary to invent him.) That felt good--somebody call me a jackal, it really brings me back...

--Ex-Fed

(To reply, click here.)


 I happened to walk by the site of the Village explosion the morning of the event. The exposed apartments, with their wall clocks and tables precariously clinging to the ordinary around the gaping proof of anti-civic rage; the apartments seemed like a stage set for some kind of apocalyptic Beckett drama. The scene was mute, webbed with the yellow crime scene tapes of the municipal police. A mix of fear and curiosity animated the passers-by. I stood and stared, hearing the news in bits and pieces. Suddenly I noticed a sign, hand lettered, pinned to the police sawhorse. I looked closer and saw a few others, same hand, same posting method. In repeated, and therefore intentional orthography, the phrase "nothning is free" was scrawled in black marker on typing paper.

The phrase burned itself into my subconscious. I have never seen it since, nor heard it mentioned in the context of the Weathermen or other underground groups.

Nothning is free. Even if it has escaped justice. Especially if it has escaped justice.

--Zeitguy

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 (8/31)





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