Nobody Out-Caballe's Derb!: World's first greatest fan of the Catalan sopranoDaphne,

You have “so many gay male friends”? Really? As Lady Bracknell said: “We obviously move in completely different circles.” I only have one gay male acquaintance, and he’s been living in France for several years. He is the world’s second greatest fan of Montserrat Caballé, me being the first. I have no gay friends at all. I had a lesbian personal trainer once. (Hi, Jennifer.) She was terrific—mean and pitiless, which is what you want in a trainer. Ex-military of course. (And yes, she rode a motorbike and played golf.) Right now I can’t even claim any gay acquaintances. But it’s true I don’t get out much.

As to gay marriage, I think Steve Sailer had the last word on it, as least as far as males are concerned: “Homosexuals don’t want marriages, they want weddings.” And of course, gay marriage is mostly a lesbian thing anyway. Where it’s allowed, the female-male ratio is at least two to one. These gals really need each other. I mean, who ever heard of “male gay bed death”?

I totally agree with your remark that “not that many people have truly interesting minds.” I’d go further: even people that do have interesting minds aren’t interesting very much of the time. I’ve met my share, and come away with more disappointment than dazzlement. I suspect that blogging is like modern poetry—far, far more producers than consumers. But yet, to quote Sam Johnson right back at you: “A man must do something.” Or, to quote him again (ain’t nobody gonna out-Johnson Derb!):

A transition from an author’s book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke. —Rambler #14 (May 5, 1750)

Fair Swain: Lolita all grown upI had a vague impression that the 1997 Lolita movie had been abandoned, the topic by then being thought too outrageous. Not so: IMDB has it listed. I bet there was a fuss, though I can’t remember anything. Dominique Swain, the title character, was 17 when the movie was released—escaped?—so presumably 16 when cast. Sue Lyon was 16 when the 1962 movie was released. I predict that in the next version of Lolita to be filmed, the actress playing the nymphet will be at least 25, and there will be a bigger fuss than ever.

Hitler “eternally of interest”? Yes, and this is odd, because he was a pretty dull person. Reading Speer’s account of his table talk, you wonder how on earth everyone stayed awake through those long Berchtesgarten evenings. But of course they did! It’s a good thing there was no blogging back then. Imagine a Hitler blog! (Someone probably has.)

I bet he was a heroic farter—vegetarians always are. It’s not just the beans, it’s any vegetable matter in large quantities. The upside is, the farts don’t smell as bad as meat farts. Totally the worst farts are dog farts. Have you ever had a farty dog? Oy oy oy. My dog weighs all of 22 pounds, but he could stink up the Superdome. Old Chinese proverb (no kidding): Bie ren pi chou, zi ji pi xiang—“Other people’s farts stink, but your own are fragrant.” This is relevant to blogging somehow.

Wasn’t the thing about one testicle confirmed by the Russian autopsy, whose details were in the newspapers 30 or so years ago? One still wants to know about Goebbels, though.

James Wolcott. Wolcott doesn’t seem to have posted anything since yesterday. Perhaps he is hiding from us. In lieu of a comment, I offer you Dorothy Parker’s poem on Gissing (from memory):

Those who’ve read Gissing

Say I don’t know what I’m missing.

Till their arguments are subtler

I’ll stick with Samuel Butler.

Reason. I’m still at the stage, when confronted with political comment, of making a bee-line for the Rudy stuff. Here’s Reason on George Will on Rudy: “Of all the ’08 frontrunners, Rudy can marshal the most proof of his economic conservatism. At some point, though, he has to talk about the role of the executive and the national security state. Not just reenact 9/11—talk about the powers of the president and the federal government.”

Yes, that’s what I want to hear, too. I’m sure we shall.

Why don’t the Reason people like McCain, though? He wants to ship the entire populations of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc. up here, same as they do. You’d think they’d be kinder’n’gentler with a fellow open-borders enthusiast.

But at least Reason noticed us. Not to very much effect; the comment veered off into something about the Sex Pistols.

Feck! Drink! Arse! Buggering! Buggering! Buggering!: Father Jack, Not John DerbyshireOne commenting reader grumbles that: “We don’t have that multicultural guilt. We are actually classical liberals. I guess the word ‘liberal’ really has jumped the shark.” Er, yes, honey, round about 1965. Another one allows that: “JD’s stuff isn't that bad, provided he avoids the word ‘buggering’.”

Buggering! Buggering! Buggering! Buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering buggering!

Kesher Talk. The Kesher people noticed us too. We’re getting COVERAGE! It was back-handed, though: “John Derbyshire and Daphne Merkin … seem resentful and enervated by the whole thing.” Listen. mate: If you had two kids with combined ages 25, two cars with combined ages 24, no job, teeth falling out, a damp basement, a garage that needs painting, and taxes still to do in mid-March, you’d be resentful and enervated too. Whyn’t you try it? Huh? Huh?

On some actual substance: There’s a little gush about Zionism at the front of the blog. I’ll confess I didn’t quite follow the writer’s argument, not being interested in the topic at that level of detail. I only want to say, since a lot of American Zionists are blind on the point, how very peculiar it seems to us non-Zionists that so many people should be so passionately keen on a country yet not live there. I’m sure any smart Jew can give me a 10,000-word explanation—a smart Jew can give you a 10,000-word explanation of anything—but to the rest of us, I repeat, this seems really, r—e—a—l—l—y odd. I honestly don’t mean this in any negative way (“Go live in your stupid Arab-oppressing Israel if you like it so much, why dontcha?”) It just seems… odd.

Design Observer. Still no connection. These guys are really hiding from us.

Yglesias.Yglesias still hasn’t noticed us, which I’m glad about. He strikes me as one very smart Jew, who would probably chew me up and spit me out. I hate when that happens. He’s on Rudy’s case too:

Back in 1993, Rudy Giuliani plays the family card, deploying Donna Hanover's love and affection for him and his legendary skills as a father for political gain. [Then a video clip of Rudy doing family things 15 or so years ago.] Nowadays, of course, young Andrew Giuliani is a bit older and not on speaking terms with his father. The source of the fight seems to be that Rudy not only divorced Andrew's mother, but insisted on publicly humiliating her in that uniquely classy Giuliani way. Mitt Romney, famously, is the only practicing monogamist among the Three Stooges.

Is he son-of-a-bitch enough to win?: We like our righties mean and nastyThis got me wondering. If I look at my own reasons for favoring Rudy, part of it is my perception that Rudy is one mean, nasty son of a bitch. I like that in a President. After all, it’s highly unlikely that the meanness and nastiness will be directed at me personally. It will, one hopes, be directed at America’s enemies; and at our corrupt, dysfunctional, and costly federal bureaucracies; and (this was sure the case during his mayoralty) at the race-guilt shakedown lobbies; and at our moronic, venal, and cowardly congresscritters; and… Why on earth would anyone want a nice guy for president?

Really, seen in this light, the only question about Rudy is, does he have enough ornery meanness and nastiness to go round? Is he a big enough son of a bitch? Perhaps there’s some kind of hormone treatment we can give Rudy, to make him even more of a pitiless, sneering, devious, wife-dumping jerk. I sure hope so.

Do I still have Jennifer’s number? I could use a really harsh workout.

John