Timothy Noah chatted with readers about The Sopranos on June 7. Read the transcript here.
Dear Jeff and Tim:
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StumbleUponThis is me taking the high road.
I'm posting this from South Carolina, where I flew after Nightly News on Tuesday. I'm on the board of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation—we raise funds to support the 110 living recipients of the medal—and tomorrow we open the national museum here in Charleston. That's Charleston, South Carolina. Help me out here. Were I to "engage" Mr. McEnroe's sprightly theme, I'm willing to bet ... that certain individuals in law enforcement ... having monitored my wireless Internet ... would enter my hotel room ... and charges would be pressed.
Back to that high road: Would that my mother were here to defend herself. She went to her reward years ago, and with her went the Lincoln Log recipe. During what has been a painful day of culinary reminiscence on my part, all I can recall were Oscar Mayer "frankfurters" (as my dad still calls them, I believe in deference to the Supreme Court justice) split suggestively down the middle (I never watched that part, because as with lobsters, I was never really sure they were dead) and then slathered—in our version—lengthwise in mayonnaise. I know. How do you think I feel? That was my life in north Jersey. They made for a handy, portable heart attack on a bun. Enough aggressively bad food in a fist-size package to give the eater/victim instant angina (and this was years before he got voted off American Idol) if not worse. I remember we had to get a certain kind of bun—the Pepperidge Farm "New England cut"—so that when splayed open it presented more like a double-thickness slab of Wonder Bread. On the dog would go copious amounts of mayo—and in some houses, cream cheese. Always Breakstone's. My mom later developed some tsoris over the quality of the Oscar Mayers, so we switched to Hebrew Nationals.
Message: We didn't eat well. We enjoyed aerosol cheese, and served it to guests with Triscuits. My mother once took a vacuum pouch of Carl Buddig thin-sliced turkeylike lunch meat; flattened the watery, gooey, scattershot sheets as a "steak"; and warmed the mass in a frying pan. It was served, this flattened collection of 15-or-so slices in pretend solid form, as "we're having turkey!" Yes, it was bad in the kitchen where I grew up ... and not exactly flush with cash ... or cooking skills. So does anyone blame me somehow for not remembering each pinch in the recipe for Lincoln Logs? I merely remember they never seemed time-sensitive. They were better than the sandwiches my mother sometimes packed for my school lunch: butter, sprinkled with sugar, on white bread. Oh ... and she always used to gently take the dull point of a pencil and draw a heart in my banana, just to optimize the chance that the guys on the football team would go all Coco on me during recess.
Memo to Peter Bogdanovich: Alan Greenspan called; he wants his eyeglass frames back.
Best,
Brian
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Remarks from the Fray Editor:
As a basic cable slum-dweller, the Fray Editor has been following the discussion of The Sopranos with admiration and envy. The passion, erudition, and insight of the show's fans—Slate's commentators and Fraysters alike—proves the case that this series is not to be missed. Below, Fray poster lucabrasi considers how the 6.5 season story arc has led the show inevitably to the present moment.
May this weekend's finale exceed your wildest expectations. My prediction? Paulie Walnuts in the Bing with a shoe buffer.—G.A.
Remarks from the Fray:
I must salute the excellent close of the mob wars arc that started way back in Season One.
Looking back from today, with Tony's Jersey crime family indeed looking like a "glorified crew" in the eyes of New York, one can see it, almost clearly:
Season One: Tony's issues were of ascension in that smallish Jersey family. Jackie Sr. was dying; Uncle Junior was the designated "front don," and yet bitter enough about Tony's power to use Livia's ambiguous directives to hit Tony. Didn't work. Junior was exiled and took on Federal heat; Tony had the others killed.
Season Two: Richie Aprile gets out of prison. A theme begins: guys out of prison resent Tony, who never served. But Richie, too, is "local Jersey trouble." His escalating conflict with Tony is going to be dealt with rather easily -- Tony wants Richie hit, but Janice delivers a dose of even MORE "local" justice.
Meanwhile, I think NYC underboss Johnny Sack turns up living in Jersey, but promising Tony "I don't want to wet my beak."
The main NYC Don is Carmine Sr, an old school guy. Tony can deal with Carmine Sr, but Sack starts getting that lean and hungry look...
Seasons Three and Four: Other issues are on the table (Jackie Jr., Tony and Carm's marriage), but Tony's adversaries are manageable: made guy Ralphie and the ever-more-ambitious and angry Sack. Ralphie is eliminated, quietly (if NYC ever finds out...). Sack wants Tony to hit Old Man Carmine; Tony pulls out at the last moment. Sack looks to be vengeful.
Season Five: The big trouble all starts here, with the release of the "Class of '84". It's like four Richie Apriles. Tony has a lotta plates to spin: an old-timer named Feech who wants it all, locally, Tony's cousin Tony B, the "Rockford Guy" (Joe Santos) who Tony B idolizes as a father, and a real hothead named Phil Leotardo.
Carmine Sr. croaks. Phil joins with Sack against Little Carmine, Tony B joins with the Rockford Guy and Rusty in backing Little Carmine's play. Tony elects to back off and see how Jersey can benefit from the ensuing bloodshed, of which there is a lot.
During all this, two little matters occur: Seeking owed cash, Tony subjects Phil Leotardo to a body-breaking car crash and beats up Phil at the accident site as a "throw-in." Tony B kills Phil's brother Billy Leotardo.
In retrospect, these last two actions were perhaps...unfortunate.
Sack and Phil kill more guys than Little Carmine's team. Little caves ("It's a stagmire.") Sack ascends to Donhood. Tony can deal with Sack (having killed Tony B as a burnt offering), and Sack will stave off the still vengeful Phil Leotardo.
But right at the end of Season Five, the Feds nab Sack. Go directly to jail.
Season 6A: Sack's in prison, but the putative boss, with Phil fronting him on the outside. Tony's shot for a few episodes. The "gay Vito issue" gives Phil new reason for putting the pressure on Tony's Jersey boys. With Sack losing power by the day, Phil contemplates his rages against Tony: getting beaten up by Tony, paying money to Tony, brother killed by the cousin of Tony, gay Vito protected by Tony. Phil has a heart attack to match Tony's gutshot. Things seem peaceful between these two wounded warriors. But this guy Butch turns up, taunting Tony.
Season 6B. Tony's luck with New York runs out, via a series of crap outs: Sack dies of cancer; Doc kills Gerry; Phil kills Doc.. Phil is "the big boss man," finally, and the worst possible New York Don Tony Soprano could face. Filled with jailhouse vengeance and itching to consolidate power, Phil pushes Tony too far (with the sexual insult of Coco towards Meadow, ultimately). Tony retaliates (curbing); Phil says "there's nothing left to talk about," and here we are.
Now, I' m not sure how much of that was plotted early on by Chase and Company, but looking back on it, you see how this final, fatal gang war was literally years in the making. Tony Soprano fended off Jersey threats (Junior, Richie), kept the peace with Carmine Sr, dangerously dueled with Sack (the longest of Tony's strategic encounters), sat out the gang war to replace Carmine Sr...and ended up on the wrong end of Phil's bloody ascension to the throne of the New York Family.
Where things are now is where they HAVE to be. Inevitability.
--lucabrasi
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