Sunday, June 01, 2008

Not Even God Is This Conceited...


I’ve never been much of a fan of the man’s writing (certainly not as big a fan as he is of his writing), but he can be wickedly and unashamedly hilarious, like a similar asshole partner in crime, James Wolcott. My inner cynic (okay, my inner AND outer cynics) needs/need to hang out with the likes of Vidal and Wolcott in small doses. I come away feeling smug, smart, and sullied, all at the same time. These were gleaned from a recent Gore montage in Esquire:

Patriotism is as sickening today as it has ever been. I was watching the news before you came and there was a lot of coverage of Kosovo and the problems there. They showed footage of people burning an American flag. And the newscaster got all broken up and teary-eyed. He says, “I guess [sob] I just feel something here, folks, when I see the American flag being burned.” And I said, You fucking asshole. Whatever happened to the news?

When she was running for the Senate, Hillary’s psephologists discovered that the one group that really hated her was white, middle-aged men of property. She got the whole thing immediately—I heard she said, “I remind them of their first wife.”

“You got to meet everyone—Jackie Kennedy, William Burroughs.” People always put that sentence the wrong way around. I mean, why not put it the true way, that these people got to meet me, and wanted to? Otherwise, it sounds like I spent my life hustling around trying to meet people: “Oh, look, there’s the governor.

Regards the last quote, when he sez “People always put that sentence the wrong way around,” I thought he meant that they should list Burroughs before Jackie O (a sentiment I rather liked), but then that wouldn’t be Gore, now would it?

Don’t worry about those psephologists, they’re not contagious. Psephology is “simply” the “scientific” “study” of elections, and I’m sure Gore is one of six people on the planet who still knows that. Microsoft Word certainly doesn’t know, with its squiggly red line whispering “this word does not compute,” as I write this. Right click and MS Word offers the helpful alternative suggestion—straight facedly, I might add—of “psychologists.” From the Greek psephos: pebble, ballot, vote. Likely the reason why elections seem like folks throwing stones at each other; the Greeks started it all with voting with pebbles.

This post is proof positive that bloggers need church. I am home this morning, recuping a bit, and look at what strange bedfellows have crawled in, wanting to meet me.

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6 Comments:

Blogger Mjinga said...

I was worried that psephology might the study of some horrific disease, and you have not soothed my mind at all. :/

10:37 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Mjinga: Far from it, I'm sure.

7:49 AM  
Blogger Miss Alister said...

This is a neat piece. Your wit and style as ever make it so. From irreverence to Hillaryous assessments to wrong-way sentences to pebbles and MSW’s curmudgeonly ways, it was everything I like—casual, informative, humorous… Heck, it’s like something I would’ve written ;-)
But I think you’re wrong. I think psephologitis is contagious! I feel politically funny now…

8:16 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Well, Miss Alister, it probably IS something you wrote.

For your outbreak of psephology, I recommend Andrew Weil's miracle brew, and get way under those covers. Looks like there's about to be another outbreak tomorrow at Hillary HQ.

9:07 PM  
Blogger San said...

Yeah, Mjinga's on to something. Psephology does sound deadly and contagious. Bring on the antipsephology.

For the record, I read the Jackie O/Burroughs thing as you did too. And I'm wondering if that newscaster was wearing his patriotic lapel pin. After all, that's what distinguishes true patriots.

I didn't know that about pebble ballots. You educate me, brother. Amen. And why weren't you in church?

3:07 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Ms San: I think our reads of the JackieO/Burroughs thing are much funnier than Gore's (predictable) take.

I had actually known about the pebble thing (lint collector brain), but had no idea that psephos meant pebble.

As for Sunday's churchlessness, I was taking it easy, while on a 48 hour apple juice fast: the day before, I had gone on a 5 mile walk and then hightailed it to Austin: plumb wore myself out with heat and the misery of watching T and W eating awesome Austin food, while I nursed my organic apple spew. Sunday I decided to hang out with Gore instead. I forgot that when Gandhi fasted he used to lay around in bed. At least Ben Kingsley did.

Speaking of Mjinga, if you haven't made it over to her place, well, she is one amazing writermind. Her latest post is a mind-blowing gas.

6:35 PM  

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