To: Jonathan Ames
From: Amanda Marcotte
Subject: John Waters, Eco-Prigs, Pregger Fundamentalists, and Camille Paglia

Dear Jonathan,

I’ve been enjoying the more light-hearted tone of this exchange, so it saddened me to see that the first three of our assigned blogs had depressing content at the top of the page. Jewlicious’s top story was about two Palestinian kids who lost their mother when she killed herself and five others in a suicide bombing. The new content at The News Blog is all about Steve Gilliard’s continuing surgery issues. Gothamist has a terrible murder at the top. All of this is too fresh for a writer to really be irreverent about it.

Pro-Divorce: Trash auteur John WatersAnd I really cherish irreverence. Last night, one of my major heroes of irreverence, John Waters, was on “The Daily Show” promoting his new show on Court TV about spouses who murder each other. I rarely turn on the TV to do anything but play video games when left to my own devices, but I may have to watch this show. The favored description for Waters’ output is that it’s “life-affirming”, and I whole-heartedly agree. It’s hard to see initially why a show that revels in spousal murder could be considered life-affirming, but as Waters said on “The Daily Show” last night, he really considers the show to be “pro-divorce”, which demonstrates why having a healthy sense of irreverence is an important feature of a truly life-affirming worldview.

You mentioned in your last letter that your only real political issue is the environment. Environmentalists (like feminists) have this rather unfair reputation of being overly reverent, sanctimonious types, and in my experience that’s simply not true. One would almost suspect that some conservatives in a think tank somewhere created this stereotype of environmentalists in an effort to get people to dislike them and therefore dislike their cause. There’s some truth to the idea that there’s some environmentalists who are prigs, but that’s probably true of any political movement you join. Even the movement to legalize drugs has its share of prigs, which is hard to believe if you consider that they are organized around the idea that everyone should chill out and get stoned legally once in awhile.

Environmentalists often have an irreverent streak, once you get to know them. It’s hard to avoid irreverence when the theory underpinning your work is that humans are, as you put it, a uniquely destructive animal, especially since environmentalists are trying to save the planet in part to save the lives of this uniquely destructive species. You get a sense of humor about that contradiction or you lose your mind and start wearing hemp in a self-punishing way, as the modern equivalent of the hairshirt.

Permanently Pregnant: One happy Quiverfull familyThe Revealer has no new posts up at the time I’m filing this letter. It’s too bad, because the blog is all about religion, so that means that 95% of their stories are about people doing illogical, ridiculous things. The other day, Kathryn Joyce of The Revealer emailed me and reminded me about this piece she wrote for The Nation about religious people doing ridiculous things. In this case, it’s about a bunch of white Protestants who have got it in their heads that God gets off on watching white men keep their wives permanently pregnant. They call themselves the Quiverfull movement, and yes, they spell it that way and it’s grating.

Which isn’t to say that most religious people are especially ridiculous. In fact, the definition of “mainstream” religion in my book is that the people who follow it understand the importance of keeping the ridiculous nature of religion under control.

Maud Newton hasn’t updated either, but she’s on route to Austin, so her ability to rip herself from her blog for a day is understandable. In her sidebar, I did catch a link to this column, a satire by John Warner of Camille Paglia’s writing that’s almost too accurate to be funny. That’s almost—it’s actually pretty damn funny, especially since the premise is that Paglia is coming out of retirement for the 5,000^th time in order to comment on the cultural and political importance of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, after almost losing her will to live after Anna Nicole Smith died. If you’ve managed to avoid Paglia’s writing so far, this column won’t make a good deal of sense to you, but if you’ve ever suffered even a paragraph of it in the past, this column will offer a humorous solace.

Sincerely,

Amanda

P.S. I do hope you enjoy your stay in Austin. Bring bug spray and a bottle of allergy pills. We try to pretend that we aren’t living in an area that’s one step up from a bog, but with global warming making steady inroads, that lie is getting harder to tell ourselves.

To: Jonathan Ames
From: Amanda Marcotte
Subject: RSS Feeds, YouTube, Laura Bush v. Ann Coulter, and Bono

Dear Jonathan,

I’m in awe of your ability to type/write 2,000 words in an hour. And here I was thinking that I was prolific.

In answer to your various questions: No, I’m not Jewish. I hope and suspect that’s not a problem. My last name comes from the mysterious tribe of French-Canadians. I’m not really paranoid, but I have heard here and there that some people suspect that feminists are paranoid, and my need to please the crowds forced me to tip my hat to those folks. And yes, Bill Donohue and the Catholic League are one and the same thing. I suspect that Bill Donohue thinks that he is all Catholics, as well. If you want to read my entire tale of woe in tangling with this man, I wrote about it in Salon.

In answer to your other question, I fear explaining what an RSS reader is to you if your eyes are already taxed from internet backgammon. (I used to have an addiction to internet gin rummy, so my sympathies are with you.) It’s a very simple, but maddeningly addictive internet tool. All you do is create an account at someplace like Google and then you start adding feeds from various blogs and websites that update regularly, so you can read them all in one place and assure yourself that you’re not missing out on anything.

I have 167 blogs feeding into mine right now. I highly recommend not getting one, if you cherish your free time. For that reason, I also applaud your decision not to have a TV. Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have a TV, either, but that’s because I’m strapped to my RSS reader.

Sometimes a Bank Is Just a Penis: Williamsburg BankI will say that I’m detecting a slight tendency towards being a Luddite from you. Am I guessing right? Being a Luddite has the pleasant side effect of saving money, if nothing else.

Looking over your contest to determine the most phallic building in the world, I have to admit that I prefer your initial pick of the Williamsburg Bank Building over the eventual winner. Sure, the Ypsilanti water tower looks more like a penis than the Williamsburg Bank, but that doesn’t make it more phallic. The water tower has some of the organic-looking humility of a human penis, whereas the Williamsburg Bank strives towards the unrealistic grandeur that makes something truly phallic.

Ann Coulter may not seem like she’s a conservative ideal of womanhood at first blush, but after giving it some thought (and writing a blog post about it), I’m inclined to think she is an ideal, just a different one from Laura Bush. Laura Bush is the fantasy wife in the conservative world, but Coulter is the fantasy mistress. Laura Bush will make you feel like a patriarch, but Coulter’s faux wit and faux sexiness is supposed to make you feel like a man.

Looks like the guest bloggers at The News Blog are intently covering the Justice Department scandals today. That said, the blog post that caught my eye was this one about Viacom suing Google over YouTube, and what Viacom calls copyright infringement issues there.

Jonathan, I’m not sure if you’ve ever succumbed to the urge to watch videos on YouTube, but if you haven’t yet, I also recommend avoiding it. You can’t download entire movies to watch there, but for folks who go for the emotional highs and lows, you can watch just the clips of the most moving scenes and get your crying fix without spending more than the length of the scene to do so. It probably does violate all sorts of copyright laws, but it would be a shame to have this resource snatched away.

Sending Sexy Away: BonoI’m adding The Revealer to my RSS reader right now. This item about how Bono’s new slogan “Africa is sexy” sealed the deal for me. The more I see of Bono, the less I like of him, and now that I’ve seen a lot of him, I probably have an unfairly low opinion of him. Surely there are many worse people out there who I should hold in lower esteem than I hold him, but I can’t because I don’t see enough of them to dislike them with the same intensity I reserve for Bono. My apologies if you are at all a fan of U2.

Looks like Maud is coming back to Texas for SXSW, and is happy that I’ve granted her official home girl status so she doesn’t have to feel like one of the Brooklyn hipsters that leave us local types both with a feeling of awe and disdain. The latter especially reserved for those who expect their food orders to show up in the same hour they’re ordered in restaurants downtown. Drink your beer and pipe down; you sound like the tourist you are. Locals know to get there and order your food before you’re really hungry, especially since no one here takes reservations, either. Hope you’re taking note for your upcoming visits here, Jonathan.

And with this letter coming in under 900 words, I must hang my head in shame compared to my correspondent.

Sincerely,

Amanda