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.
