The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on April 29, 2017, 02:27:36 pm ---Maybe, although I don't think her character in the film was necessarily identified as lesbian.
--- End quote ---
I didn't mean her character in the film; I've never seen it. I meant her.
--- Quote ---I think he was just waving off Matthew McConaughey as a lightweight, which most people did back in them days.
--- End quote ---
That's certainly plausible.
I've never seen either Silence of the Lambs or Philadelphia. Years ago some guy at my gym was pointed out to me as the person on whom Hanks' character was based.
In any case, as usual I'm weeks behind in my magazines. If anybody skipped the Margaret Attwood profile (April 17), I would recommend going back and reading it. I enjoyed it.
Jeff Wrangler:
Today I read Kathryn Schulz's April 24 "Critic At Large" piece on the Arctic in literature. New to me that neither Peary nor Byrd actually reached the North Pole. Schulz says the actual first person to reach the North Pole was an insurance agent from Duluth in 1968.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on April 30, 2017, 01:56:17 pm ---I didn't mean her character in the film; I've never seen it. I meant her.
--- End quote ---
OK, but that would make it an even weirder comment. It would be like saying "Heath Ledger gets laid in the film by Jake Gyllenhaal, but that doesn't count" because Heath was straight.
Characters' sexual activities in film weren't expected to reflect their actors' real-life orientation, even in them days.
I think he must have been making a snarky comment about Matthew McConaughey's lightweightness. Look who counts now, Anthony Lane! :laugh:
Jeff Wrangler:
In the May 1 issue, everyone should read David Remnick on Trump's first one hundred days. Makes you want to break out the powder and shot and march on Washington.
The May 8 issue arrived in my mail today. I'm looking forward to what Evan Osnos has to say about how Trump could be removed from office.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on May 03, 2017, 08:35:10 pm ---In the May 1 issue, everyone should read David Remnick on Trump's first one hundred days. Makes you want to break out the powder and shot and march on Washington.
--- End quote ---
Uh-oh -- after the past few days, I already want to do that! Reading the article might put me over the edge, next thing you know I'll be getting background checked at the powder-and-shot store.
My son and I were talking on the phone yesterday, and for once we agreed on something -- that when he launches his murderous rampage, the first target should be Paul Ryan. But I reneged and said, no, I'm an opponent of capital punishment, I don't really want Paul Ryan killed, though I can't say that if he died I'd shed a tear. "Shed a tear?" my son replied. "If Paul Ryan died, all of social media would be overflowing with unbridled celebration."
Then this morning, I thought, what if something one of Paul Ryan's kids, a la Jimmy Kimmel's baby, were to have a health crisis of some kind? Would Ryan have a change of heart, the way Sheryl Sandberg did when she wrote a piece after her husband died admitting that when she wrote Lean In she didn't get it, didn't fully understand how hard it could be for single mothers (and imagine, some single mothers have no full-time live-in nannies!).
But then, getting back to Paul Ryan, I thought, nah, he won't give it any more thought than he does now because he'll be mentally and physically insulated from reality -- his family is fully and I'm sure generously insured, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.
Some people are calling for the AHCA to be named Trumpcare, to saddle Trump with the label. I disagree. Not that I absolve Trump of blame, but any Republican president would have led to the same outcome. I think Trump's involvement in structuring the plan was, as Slate put it, basically handing Paul Ryan a piece of paper with "Fix health care" scrawled on it. I think it should be called Ryancare, the way we call the McCarthy Hearings the McCarthy Hearings.
I'm hoping for an equivalent of Joseph N. Welch to step in and ask Ryan et. all, as they stood outside on the lawn after the vote and smiling and clapping to celebrate the suffering and deaths of millions of Americans, to step up and say, "Have you no sense of decency?"
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