Congratulations, today, to two members of the NN.C extended family — and that is what we are, isn’t it? — who are getting their due, or at least a portion of it.
Lance Mannion, who apparently never gets tired, got a link from James Wolcott. “It was to the ‘Law & Order’ post, right?” I asked; no one has a more encyclopedic knowledge of L&O trivia AND subtext than Lance. No, it wasn’t, it was to this post, but do yourself some good and just add Lance’s page to your bookmarks and check him every day or so. He rarely disappoints.
Even more impressive was young Zachary, who made it into The New Yorker, yes I said The New Freakin’ Yorker this week, and not just in some lame-o Talk of the Town piece, either. We remember Zach when he was just the only other Fort Wayne blogger to come to a blog meetup at Chili’s several summers ago, and here he is, living in a $10,000 a month NYC apartment (yes, with several roommates, but still). We here at NN.C couldn’t be more proud to be on his blogroll. And we hope we can get on the guest list of one of his future parties.
brian stouder said on January 20, 2005 at 8:53 pm
Sorry – couldn’t make it past the first third of Lance’s walcott-approved Bush-hating rant.
I used to agree with the Clinton defenders that the Clinton-haters needed to take a breath, get a life, and get over it…and now I feel the same way about the Bush-haters.
But if frippery like that constitutes “intelligent” comment – I guess I really am just a stoopid Fort Wayner, ’cause whatever cleverness contained there is lost on me.
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Danny said on January 21, 2005 at 9:57 am
Yeah, Dave, the post was just about a 100 on the 1 to 10 scale of bitterness. I mean, “Georgie” and “little tinpot dictator?” Come on. And that whole line of crappola about “handpicked audiences of loyal admirers?” I ask you, what other recent president or presidential press secretary did not do this exact thing. Bill Clinton certainly did. And Joe Lockhart was well known to have quite a heavy and threatening hand with press people who did not toe the line.
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alex said on January 21, 2005 at 11:08 am
The piece had me chortling. This truly is the smoke-and-mirrors presidency of all time, and “Clinton did the same or worse” is the new conservative retort any time their man gets caught, figuratively, with his pants down.
Clinton never got as shrill and defensive as Shrub does when he’s not in control of the questions he’s being asked. He never overcompensated for a lack of intellect with a cocky attitude. All presidents are heavy handed in the way they try to control and manipulate public perception, but that’s beside the point. Shrub has greater deficiencies to camouflage.
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Danny said on January 21, 2005 at 11:22 am
Alex, though I do not think that your post was directed at me, for the record, I do not agree with what was done by the Right to Clinton. Also, I do agree that Bush has his problems, I’m not trying to whitewash that. I’m just pointing out that in order for one to be taken seriously, one must get past acerbic, bitter rantings that turning a blind eye to the realities of modern politics. For anyone on the left to call Bush a “dictator” or to say, “Lookie here, he only speaks in front of people that like him…oh for shame!” is just a bunch of crap.
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alex said on January 21, 2005 at 12:48 pm
Danny, Lance quite pointedly said that the left’s rhetorical excesseses are absurd. Tongue planted firmly in cheek he went on to say why Bush isn’t like Hitler at all. Lance has a gift for satire, and even if I didn’t agree with his sentiments, I couldn’t deny him that.
One of my all-time favorite authors was the British novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was a wack job of the highest order, and extremely antidemocratic and elitist in world view, but it didn’t stop me from appreciating his work. It wasn’t what he was saying but how he said it, and few authors have ever made me laugh so hard I could lose bladder control. That’s my litmus test for talent.
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mark said on January 21, 2005 at 2:58 pm
I don’t think Wolcott was even pointing to Lance’s work. He appears to be pointing to the Joe Dowd column that Mannion cut and pasted into his blog entry without even the courtesy of credit by name (Lance referred to him only as “a columnist in our paper.” And yes, I know he linked to the column and that Dowd’s name shows up in the ital footer at the bottom of Mannion’s posting.)
Seems to me that the linky-love from Wolcott is rightfully Dowd’s, not Mannion’s. The former’s elegant column made the point a whole lot better than the latter’s rough screed…
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alex said on January 21, 2005 at 3:09 pm
And I almost forgot Mike Royko, a curmudgeon to beat all. He was strongly anti-gay�something I wouldn’t forgive in a stinking non-talent like Linda Chavez or Betsy Hart�but his piece on “nooners” was an all-time classic.
This was years ago when the Chicago City Council was debating the gay rights ordinance that it ultimately passed. The premise of the “nooners” piece was a thinly veiled stab at the whole affair: What if people who fuck their secretaries during lunch hour wanted special legal protections based on their sexual peccadilloes? Why do nooners have to be in our faces about it? Why can’t they just keep their nasty habit to themselves?
I would have shaken the man’s hand. It was among his best work ever. A good writer isn’t just someone who can make you suspend disbelief. The best of them can make you suspend belief as well. They write for enjoyment and to be enjoyed.
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Lance Mannion said on January 21, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Mark,
It wasn’t a screed. It was a rant. But thanks for reading.
Also, I’ll pass along your compliments to Joe Dowd, who, by the way, spent all day yesterday fielding screaming phone calls from right winger lunatics who didn’t find his column at all elegant.
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mark said on January 21, 2005 at 3:23 pm
Lance:
Point taken on screed v. rant.
Thanks for passing on my props to Joe Dowd. It was elegant, nut calls nothwithstanding.
Finally, for what it’s worth your rant did make me laugh…
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Lance Mannion said on January 21, 2005 at 4:55 pm
I’ll do anything for a laugh, Mark. And you’re right I should have featured Joe’s name more prominently. It’s at the top of my page and I’ll fix it in the post.
We’re all missing the important thing here, though. It’s Zachary who’s had the real achievement. Congrats to him and his partners in crime!
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alex said on January 21, 2005 at 5:22 pm
I’d like to see what Zachary’s done but the dial-up connection I’m temporarily borrowing can’t handle anything with as much literary weight as the New Yorker, apparently. All attempts at linkage thus far have crashed me.
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