Quotation of the Day – August 28, 2017

The fact is, we already know that sea level rise and frequent flooding are going to make lots of coastal cities uninhabitable over coming decades (though exactly how many, and when, remains maddeningly uncertain). Think, for a moment, about Miami slowly becoming unlivable. “Adaptation” will mean figuring out who has to leave, who has to pay for resettlement, and who bears the cost of the abandoned city’s infrastructure as it rots, crumbles, and pollutes.

That’s a lot of fateful decisions to be made about people’s lives, homes, land, families, and legacies. It is politically explosive stuff. Raise your hand if you think it will be done in an egalitarian or equitable way.

From David Roberts’ article, “Climate Change Did Not ‘Cause’ Harvey, But It’s a Huge Part of the Story” at Vox: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/28/16213268/harvey-climate-change?wpisrc=nl_todayworld&wpmm=1

 

Quotation of the Day – August 27, 2017

Learn to predict a fire with unerring precision.

Then burn the house down to fulfill the prediction.

from Czeslaw Milosz, “Child of Europe”  – written in 1946.

Recently a Broadway staging of “Julius Caesar” caused controversy because of the parallels it drew to the current political situation.  Directors looking to stir up the next scandal might want to revisit Max Frisch’s “The Fire Bugs” (1953).  Citizens apprehensive about a rash of fires invite security guys into their homes to protect them, and willfully ignore mounting evidence that these security guys are themselves arsonists.  At the time of its first production, it was taken as an allegory of Germans’ willful blindness about the Nazis.  Wouldn’t take much rejiggering to stage it today as a comment on what’s happening in Washington.

Comedians of my Youth

 

Underrated

Dick Gregory.  Consistently funnier than Cosby.  RIP

Lucille Ball.  Simply the best.  Living proof that whoever said women can’t be funny was wrong.

Dean Martin.  Underestimated as a singer too, and did a top-notch imitation of a drunk.  Though he played the straight man in partnership with Jerry Lewis, he was actually much funnier.

Ernie Kovacs.  All the more enjoyable for being a rare treat.

Red Skelton.  Though he could be sentimental and his sad clown was a cliché, he often reduced me to tears.

Peter Sellers.  Yes he made plenty of forgettable movies, but “Being There” is so sublime that he can be forgiven for the rest.  That movie showed what he was capable of.  Died too young.

 

Comedians Who Knew Their Limits, and One Who Didn’t

Jack Benny.  He only had one joke, but somehow unlike Dangerfield it never became tiresome.

Johnny Carson.  People underestimate his talent for self-deprecation.  At his best not in the monologue but in his ad-libbing.  Especially good with wild animals.

Robin Williams.  Wish he had stuck more to mimicry, at which his brilliance and versatility were unmatched.  Who else would think of doing John Wayne playing Hamlet?

 

Overrated

Jerry Lewis.  I never really found him funny after the age of 10; even before then, it was a case of assuming he must be good since everyone else was laughing.  For my money, the best work he ever did was in “The King of Comedy.”  Casting him in the role of Johnny Carson was a stroke of genius.  RIP

Rodney Dangerfield.  He only had one joke.

Bill Cosby.  His best routine was Noah.  For that he deserves accolades, but for the rest – not so much.

Lenny Bruce.  Notable for courageously lowering the standards of acceptable humor.

 

Contemporaries

Among the current crop, the cream are Colbert, Trevor Noah and John Oliver.  Paid good money to see Paula Poundstone when she came to Rochester, and would do so again.  Depending on your point of view, Seinfeld is either part of the smugly self-satisfied Manhattanite clan, or lampooning them.

Quotation of the Day – August 18, 2017

“Modern Germany’s emergence as a self-confident, non-aggressive, democratic power—not to speak of the humanitarian example it has set—is a pill too bitter for many of us Brits to swallow.” — John Le Carré, The Pigeon Tunnel

Quotation of the Day – August 16, 2017

“Those who teach language, those who cherish its accuracy and meaning and beauty, are the custodians of truth in a dangerous age.” – John le Carré, “Why We Should Learn German,” in today’s Guardian.

For those who are interested, I recommend a book by my old professor, Robert M. Browning: German Baroque Poetry.  Not many people  know that this was le Carré’s specialty in college.  (Update: When le Carré died in December 2020, the only obituary that mentioned this interest of his was written by David Ignatius in the Washington Post.)

For le Carré’s whole article, cut and paste this address:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jul/02/why-we-should-learn-german-john-le-carre?CMP=share_btn_fb

Quotation of the Day – August 14, 2017

“It is better to go skiing and think of God, than go to church and think of sport.” – Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer and statesman

Quotation of the Day – August 10, 2017

“The law is the dark shadow of justice.  Not justice itself.” – from “Criminal Law” written by Mark Kasdan.  A good line from a bad movie; it raises real issues only to deal with them in a cartoonish way.

Quotation of the Day – August 8, 2017

According to an op-ed in the NY Times: “As Kremlin thinking went [regarding Syria], it was not Moscow whose policies were failing; it was the United States and its sidekicks who were preparing another debacle like Libya — the murder of a secular ruler that would open the floodgates for all kinds of dangerous new forces.”  Hard to see how that analysis is so wrong-headed.

The author goes on to say (with reference to competition between the US and Russia) that Putin “seems to equate international competition with a Darwinian fight for survival.”  Perhaps it is worth noting that in Russian, Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” routinely gets mistranslated as “survival of the strongest.”  In any case, the author observes, “Russia is distinct in that it seems to fight for survival in situations that no one else sees as existential.”

See: “The View From the Kremlin: Survival Is Darwinian,” by Maxim Trudolyubov, August 6, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/opinion/contributors/putin-kremlin-trump-sanctions-survival.html?ref=opinion&wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_todayworld&_r=0

Thought of the Day – August 7, 2017

The vice president feels himself a sinner but tries to project himself as a saint.  If he had said the same things the president said on the “Access Hollywood” tape, he would never have survived.  The public is unforgiving of hypocrisy.  But Trump was forgiven, in part because his boasting on that tape was pretty consonant with his public persona.  For all his bragging, when it comes to truthfulness and honorability Trump consistently sets the expectations bar as low as he can.  It’s one of his “get out of jail free” cards.  

Quotation of the Day – August 2, 2017

“We stopped speaking the language of freedom and started speaking the language of power. … Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior was excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is,’ when it was actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified…. We pretended that the emperor wasn’t naked.  Even worse: We checked our critical faculties at the door and pretended that the emperor was making sense. ” – Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), describing “a GOP base gripped by grievance” (James Hohmann, in today’s Washington Post).