Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

Alaskan Folly.

Four people are on the Alaskan ballot for Senator. Two are named Dan Sullivan. One is the Republican incumbent, and the other is virtually unknown. According to a New York Times article, the “other” Dan Sullivan was recruited by supporters of Democratic nominee Mary Peltola (but not by Peltola herself) to confuse voters. Republicans are voicing outrage. I am surprised by the outcry. Did anyone think that the “other” Dan Sullivan was on the ballot for any reason other than to be some sort of spoiler?

The Alaskan tactic is just another version of what both parties have done many times. One party, for example, has sometimes given aid and support to an extreme candidate in the other party’s primary, thinking that the extreme candidate will be easier to beat in the general election. Sometimes a party has aided a third party thinking that the third-party candidate will siphon votes from the major-party opponent. Reports, for example, said that Republicans helped the Green Party’s Jill Stein to get on the ballot in some states.

However, the story of two Dan Sullivans reminds me of a similar shenanigan in a different context. A Broadway play produced by David Merrick, Subways Are for Sleeping, got uniformly poor reviews from the New York critics. Merrick sought out people with the same names as the critics, such as Howard Taubman and Walter Kerr. He invited them to a performance and elicited blurbs from them such as “One of the few great musical comedies of the last twenty years,” and “A fabulous musical. I loved it.” Merrick placed the quotes along with pictures of the namesakes (Who knew what the actual critics looked like?) in a newspaper ad saying seven out of seven loved Subways. The flop play ran for almost another six months.

Yodeling

I watched a few minutes of a TV travel show about the Alps. It showed street performers in a touristy town. There was yodeling. That evening while getting ready for bed, an NPR segment featured yodeling. I had now heard yodeling twice in a day! I used to hear it more because a lot of country singers once yodeled. I thought I remembered that even my favorite of the singing cowboys, Roy Rogers, occasionally yodeled. The next day I went to YouTube and was pleased to find that some of my memories were still correct and that Roy Rogers did indeed yodel. (It does not seem right just to call him Rogers, but it would be ok to just say “Roy.”) As often happens with YouTube, that led me to other clips, and I heard more yodelers. I realized that during each of these yodeling encounters, I smiled while listening to the minute or two of the distinctive vocalizations. A whole hour of yodeling might be bad for one’s mental health, but a few minutes can make you feel lighthearted. Perhaps in these troubled times we all ought to take a break each day to listen to some yodeling. I, therefore, considered it good news when I was told that a new Broadway show about the life of Dolly Parton will have yodeling.

A Tribute?

Sir Patrick Stewart, the marvelous actor, just died. I will always remember him as Macbeth in a production of the Shakespeare play that took my breath away. I guess that many more will know him as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Whenever I watched that show, I marveled that even far into the future, humans had not learned how to grow hair. Perhaps as a tribute to Stewart, I should finally shave my head.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

I watched a few minutes of a TV travel show about the Alps. It showed street performers in a touristy town. There was yodeling. That evening while getting ready for bed, an NPR segment featured yodeling. I had heard yodeling twice in a day when I had not heard that art form for a long time. I used to hear it more because a lot of country singers once yodeled, and I thought that even my favorite of the singing cowboys, Roy Rogers, occasionally yodeled. The next day I went to YouTube and was pleased to find that some of my memories were still correct and that Roy Rogers did indeed yodel. (It does not seem right just to call him Rogers, but it would be ok to just say Roy.) That, as is my wont with YouTube, led me to other clips, and I heard more yodelers. I realized that during each of these yodeling encounters, I smiled while listening to the minute or two of the distinctive vocalizations. A whole hour of yodeling might be bad for mental health, but a few minutes can make you feel more lighthearted. Perhaps in these troubled times we all ought to take a break each day to listen to some yodeling.

I dreamt I was in a land where there was too much coffee. It was a fantasy.

Jonathan Alter reports in His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life (2020) that after Jimmy Carter said that he would tell no lies as president, a reporter asked his mother Lillian Carter whether the Carters ever lied. Miss Lillian said that the family had told white lies. When asked for an example of a white lie, she said, “Remember how when you walked in here, I told you how sweet and pretty you were?”

Old joke: She said that she wanted to confess the sin of vanity because she always thought about how beautiful she was when she looked in the mirror. The priest replied, “My child that is not a sin. That is a mistake.”

“How hollow and insincere it sounds when someone says, ‘I am determined to be perfectly straightforward with you.’ The thing needs no prologue; it will declare itself.” Marcus Aurelius.

I was at first surprised that the Wisconsin Congressman on Fox News was not wearing a U.S. flag pin. Instead, on his lapel was a Green Bay Packers symbol. You might not think that he has his priorities right, but for a Wisconsin politician he does.

A reminder to everybody: This year I continue to be awards-eligible.

New York City pedestrians violate the traffic laws less than they did a generation ago. I was used to walkers coming to an intersection with the light against them and looking for a break in traffic in order to scamper across before they got the green. Now if people can’t cross when they get to the corner, they look not at the traffic but down and read, scroll, or text on their smartphones. They don’t look for an opening in the cars and trucks and often don’t even notice that the light has changed.