As one of Jeff’s legion of worshipful chipmunks, I thought I’d throw caution to the wind and respond to tinkerbellicose James Wolcott’s withered critique of the PJM dustup. Does he dare to eat a peach?
It is a strange but not unusual assertion of leftist American self-fashioning when a writer manages to style himself into a gouty English peer with a predilection for bum-boys. Wolly does, in his creepy manifestation of ultra-soft porn star Woody Musk*, identify Jeff’s gift for impudence, without which no OUTLAW is complete; I give him props for that. Jeff mentioned during his recent BTV interview that Wolly’s attentions give him a frisson of nausea, so I probably shouldn’t be posting this, but since I stand in relation to Jeff much as TBogg does to Wolly–i.e., a sort of Salacious Crumb to, in Jeff’s case, a much more ripped version of Jabba the Hutt–it simply can’t be helped.
Roger is not much a John Ford, fedora aside. I believe that this antick object might be a sort of dance card. And I’m reminded somehow of the great Pamplet Wars of Shakespeare’s time, which flourished until Elizabeth’s teeth fell out and she became bluenosier than she had been. In this analogy, Jeff is something like the corsair Thomas Nashe taking on the ponderous galleon of Wolly’s wit, in the person of Gabriel Harvey.
Everybody, polonaise!
*Lester Bangs is fine.
If all the towering figures of our time are standing around pretending to be someone else, the drunk lying in the gutter needs only get to his knees to tower over them.
They had some truly epic flame wars in those days.
Hobbes once published a pamphlet subtitled Marks of the absurd
Geometry, rural Language, Scottish Church-politics,
and Barbarisms, of John Wallis
Mr. Hobbes has been always far from provoking any
man, though, when he is provoked, you find his pen as
sharp as yours. All you have said is error and railing ;
that is, stinking wind such as a jade lets fly when he is
too hard girt upon a full belly.
On the downside, John Milton spent twenty years of his life writing political pamphlets that hardly anyone reads today. So, there’s that.
Oh, and as I’ve said before, I’m pretty sure that Wolly guy moonlights as a clerk in one of the local comics shops.
Vanity Fair is a thoroughly establishment magazine in the age of Baracky’s dirty socialist faux-populism, and an increasingly out of step one, no? Mr. Wolcott is emblematic of their toothlessness, and he seems to sort of revel in it. But what would be cool would be if Vanity Fair got a celebrity to pose on their cover sorta but not really nekkid. That might get them back in the game I think.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually read that magazine, but the impression I have is that it’s People with a vocabulary about one grade level higher. Is that the case?
Better pictures and more smelly strips.
“In a gonzo fantasia written by Protein Wisdom’s Jeff Goldstein, I was gooily portrayed as a mincing, porcine sis [some scrolling is required] who was 86’d by hotel security after crashing the festivities in warblogger drag.” James Wolcott
Must have been a hell of a party!
Hella prose, Daniel. With our new overlords unable to so much as populate a Cabinet, it seems OUTLAWS! congregate to peer at the foolishness, in this case Wolly grappling with himself over the term OUTLAWS! in all red-faced earnestness. If self-parody were an ocelot soft Wolly would easier stay such.
So not to quibble, then, but consider a substantially more ripped version of Jabba the Hutt. Purr.
I only ever see a copy of Vanity Fair at the magazine rack in my barbershop. However it always feels less gay picking up a magazine with a half naked up oiled man on the cover than Vanity Fair. Not that there is anything wrong with that. IMHO
Yes, fine writing, Dan, especially “tinkebellicose”. I’m going to swipe that one, if you don’t mind.
Or “tinkerbellicose”. Or something. Jeez.
Sure. Swipe away, SBP. It’s the sort of thing we chipmunks know.
If Wolcott is at Vanity Fair, does that make him Lord Hate-good?
Vanity Fair should have a competition with Salon over who can shove the most stupidity into one article.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/02/04/obama/
Techie, I was thinking Fudgewick, but as you will.
I think Wolly’s piece is funny, Mr. Pink, in an I-wants-to-make-your-flesh-creep way.
Simple reminder: Children are out future.
That . . . that is simple.
I have been wayyyy OT this morning but here is another one to file under “Barack Obama doesn’t care about white people”.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090205/ap_on_re_us/salmonella_outbreak_fema
Now, that’s not the sort of thing one impudently attributes to a halfrican, Mr. Pink.
So if you’re a worshipful chipmunk, are you Simon or Theodore?
‘Cause there was never anything even remotely worshipful about Alvin.
By quick calculation, that would make Jeff David Seville, so I’m not going to go there. Wolly wolly bing-bang.
Nor does anyone assume you’ve ever read such, sPies, since most of your impressions are derived from sniffing your seat cushion.
Despite the fact we could all take judicial notice of it, I followed the hyperlink on this commentary: “It is a strange but not unusual assertion of leftist American self-fashioning when a writer manages to style himself into a gouty English peer with a predilection for bum-boys.”
The hyper link took you to Jon Swift’s site but I did not find the Wolcott reference…
But this prediction was a gem:
“Joe the Plumber submits a bill for his time in the spotlight to the American people, who are shocked to discover how high it is. A report by the Congressional Accounting Office reveals that more than half of the charges are for time spent sitting around and waiting for parts.” Jon Swift 2009 Predictions
Salacious Crumb’s spot is already taken, thor. Try harder.
Isn’t Vanity Fair one of those magazines that run all those ads that horribly oppress and demean women?
How does Wolcott sleep at night?
Curled up with Salacious Crumb, I bet.
Salacious Crumb being one of his pet kitties. Mr. Wuzzles being the other.
Worshipful Chipmunks? Becareful what you wish for!
I found Wolcott’s piece to be amusing in it’s own sneering, and foppish way. He does come off as a snobby English academic poufster, with a caddish twist; like the characters of ten played by Terry Thomas-but nit that amusing. Indeed there was a whole underlying mean spirited tone. And for some reason, while I was reading it, in my head I heard the words as if they were being spoken by Charles Laughton…
And Vanity Fair? Puh-leeez… Just another pretentious liberal magazine designed to be read by those with their own self-percieved discriminating taste. They continually gushed over Bill Clinton, ans I expect them to do the same over Obama…
And Dan, I don’t mean to be such a philistine, but not being as, ahem, literary oriented nor educated as yourself, and many others here at PW, I am completely unfamiliar with the pamphlet wars of which you speak. Alas, in engineering school they were obsessed with mundane subjects such as science and mathematics; they thought it nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of the stress-strain curve, and to take endless measurements of the velocity gradient in the boundary layer…So, while I did electively take a few literature courses, well, let’s just say that they didn’t involve Shakespeare…
Care to enlighten a humble Vagabond?
That one is certainly up there. It would take thousands of words to refute/fisk it.
Living everyday in the alternate universe with all that history that was lied about and framed so well that it, must be, just has to be, everybody I know agrees 100% that it is, reality. Until of course it isn’t and it bites your ass. Hard.
James Wolcott still has a job writing?
Oh, Bob, click on the Thomas Nashe link for a look. BTW, I’ve been working on my class platforms, and may be able to launch tomorrow.
Have to go work. TTFN.
Meanwhile, back in Obamaland, Paul “Real Man” Volcker tells Larry Summers that Summer’s XX chromosomes make her brain inferior for dealing with the big numbers of the stimulus plan. Volcker orders Summers to lead, follow or go do his ironing!
Well, I don’t know if one would call it writing.
Sorry Dan,
I read the beginning of that link, but it seemed like simply a bio; I’ll check it out further…
I’m not at all concerned with what Walcott thinks of me, this site, or Jeff. Or, come to think of it, anything at all. Why is his opinion regardable, again?
In lieu of Dan’s absence I’m burping the words from the choicest lines of Taming The Shrew.
Any of you hicks up for a burp only Inuit throat singing showdown? Sans the real danger of your noxious breath, I will burp you to the ground.
I think you mean in light of, no? Hey! It’s Thursday. That’s the best day of the week to have a job interview. I googled that yesterday. Also it’s supposed to rain NG said.
Slart, for mockery purposes?
Pondering that one, LTC. Mockery usually serves a purpose, and mocking the unimportant doesn’t seem to fit very well.
Formerly Major now LTC John, Congratulations!
He had me up until he called Victor Davis Hanson an “aging neocon”.
And really, I don’t understand what Jeff has done in 3 years that so thoroughly pissed off Lefty bloggers (well except for the unhinged, who became fixated on Jeff).
Jeff’s existence pisses them off. He writes about Intentionalism, literary theory, post-modernism and all those other “isms” that they love so much. He should be on their side.
Heretics and apostates are always dealt with more harshly than unbelievers.
let me get this right:
1. Wolcott is a famous intellectual
2. Wolcott is a homo
I understand the second, but not the first….why? what has this guy done that people look at it and say, “Ok. I dig it, I’ll buy.”
or it sort of a Greil Marcus “Im the dean of rock critics” thing, whereby the writer just tells everyone he’s really good at something and no one calls him on it.
What’s the alternative to “aging”, I wonders?
One possibility that springs to mind, and I think this is pretty much the only one at this point, is “dead”.
So: color me aging, too. I’m too young to die.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Nice of Wolcott to remind us what PJM could have been.
*sniff*
Are you too old to rock ‘n roll?
Nah
Hey, snippy! What would you like to say about this?
UN retracts claim Israeli strike hit school
I mean, you had so much to say about it before. I’m sure there’s something you want to say about it now.
Wolcott has always reminded me (and I believe he goes to great lengths to encourage the comparison) of Oscar Wilde.
Only, you know, minus the wit.
Oh snap, Pablo,
You done deprived him of a prime dogms point…
Excellent pull…
Maybe this, Pablo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090204/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_doctor
You’ve been hanging a round Jeff to long evidently. Cause I didn’t understand a fucking word you said.
I am shocked (SHOCKED) to read that innocents are killed during battles. Lemme go sit for a bit an ponder that.
You’re the same person, Carin, who was shocked (SHOCKED) to find out that if all those uppity union members lost their jobs that your warehouser hubby might risk a decline is his business too! (TOO!)
Meaning the uppity union members what actually produce something. Those ones.
Dan must be so proud! He’s able to work an epithet for gay men (I guess Wolcott doesn’t warrant a full Greenwaldian slur yet) and then, later, in the comments is able to work in the phrase “halfrican.”
Intentionalism and semotics and all that other bunk covering up the usual brew of right wing beliefs, eh? Love to take that Shakespeare course and hear your opinion of Othello!
You’re not even making sense, thor. Color me shocked.
Is “I’m only saying” the same what used to be “I’m just saying”?
Props to Jeff for getting a his name in Vanity Fair. VF is a great mag and Wolcott giving Jeff notice always makes for a good day for a budding Outlaw.
Dan’s response is a well-crafted bit of fun as well.
what actually produce something
Says the man who spends his life making dog food commercials.
No self-awareness whatsoever, them righties.
But I colored you sensory deprived already.
snippy, I wasn’t asking for a link to an unrelated story about someone who failed to heed a warning to evacuate and paid a high price for it. If I wanted that, I’d have asked for it. I was asking what you think about the UN retracting it’s claim that Israel attacked their school. Try to pay attention and address the question, racist.
Says the cat groomer.
Let me just state for the record that my non-response to thor in no way is an indication that he is correct in whatever the fuck he says. It’s just a waste of time. If he wants to discuss music, I’ll respond.
Why bother?
Comment by thor on 2/5 @ 12:32 pm #
Medicine deprived. And it shows.
Madmen like thor screeching on a street corner is not healthy for children or other living things.
If Wolcott fancies himself Oscar Wilde, I recommend he start drinking more absinthe……
I think Oscar was more a champagne guy.
Funny how that little bit I did on him years ago still stings. I think the last time I wrote about him it was to compare him to Truman Capote later on in his career.
It’s tough for people like Wolcott. I mean, here I am, able to write and think — and I didn’t have to turn myself into a fop to sell a particular image to the salon and snifter set.
Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, James.
Somehow, the context makes the word “snifter” sound dirty.
Why do I suddenly have “Mister Richard Smoker” running through my head…?
Wolcott is also from Baltimore?
I can’t imagine going to a university where only two years will give you that air of superiority to pretty much everyone. Imagine how condescending he’d have been if he’d actually finished.
“Jeff Goldstein has a flair for impudence” — James Wolcott, Vanity Fair.
Nice addition to the blurbs.
seriously, what the hell is Wolcott famous for?
i guess i’ll walk back the gay thing. wikipedia says he’s married.
#71 Jeff G.:
I call it envy. Why should you, just a little guy who has made a site get any attention? Why shouldn’t that attention got to james Wolcott, editor of Vanity Fair and heir to the Algonquin Round Table!
I can imagine* his kitties cringe when he breaks into the port and starts waddling around his apartment ranting to the winds about the unfairness of all. Because first he’ll rage, and then he’ll get weepy and depressed, and then as the bottle of port grows emptiere he will get maudlin and turn top the kitties for comfort, and they just know that it will lead to ‘bad touching’.
Congratulations. You broke his brain and drove him mad.
No really – I’m serious. Congratulations.
No congratulations for what happen to the kitties though. Because that is just wrong.**
* he seems like the guy who would do that.
** there is no way to make that right, no matter how much ‘Fancy Feast’ you buy.
Is Vanity Fair that magazine that aspires to be “The New Yorker” but just comes across as the poor relation, hat in hand, begging for a loan to fix the old beater car?
Bwahaha, Mikey!
These things are often not mutually exclusive.
I think James owes Jeff some residual checks for providing James with fodder for his ranting. Then again, the lives of such people as James often provide their own punishments. Maybe his ocicats pee on the furniture.
What I want to know is, why do all these especially annoying pretentious blowhard left-wing bloggers (Wolcott, Greenwald, Sullivan) have these faggy little caricatures of themselves on their sites?
Are their photographs too hideous to display?
I think it is that ‘Algonquin Round Table’ thing they got goin’.
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/caricatures/table.htm
These witless idiots wouldn’t last 45 seconds in the face of Dot Parker’s withering disapproval. Though I’ve no doubt they’d love to try.
Mr. Wolcott’s wife person is how he got that job if I remember right. I don’t remember how I know that.
#83 Squid:
You mean this Miss Parker?
“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.â€Â
If so – I agree.
[…] today I had some fun with Wolly, but on the whole he’s an amusing fellow, the sort with whom it’s possible to swap […]
This is OT, but Ann Althouse has this post and thread:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2009/02/one-reason-i-enjoy-blogging-so-much-is.html#comments
What is elegance? What is gracefullness? How desirable are those, and how are those recognized? Is either valuable today?
Since this site has a basis in language, intentionalism (and I think accurate description), then the words ‘elegant’ and ‘graceful’ are appropriate fodder for comments.
How the hell did you get out of the troll bin, assmaggot? Has it been a week already?
(makes note to increase the expiration time on that).
I’m willing to have a heteronormative beer with Wolcott, assclown. Not with you, fucktard.
What did I do to deserve your unrequited love, assclown? I pinch myself.
One is left with the impression that there is nothing James enjoys more than the odor of his own wind.
Maybe someone girt him too hard upon a full belly.
“Christ, how insecure can you get?”
Not much more than you…
Hey, I’m just doing my part to let you know the world thinks you are worthless psychos who can safely be ignored.
Hell son, I have known that for about forty years now. It used to be cool to be a nonconformist, I’ll bet you didn’t know that.
Let me guess: it’s telling us how this blog doesn’t matter, despite the fact that it spends the majority of its waking life on here, reflexively hitting refresh like a crack-addicted pouter pigeon.
If we can be safely ignored why is someone trumpeting that? You would think it would be all hush-hush, not “Don’t Bother Coming Here! All Here Can Be Safely Ignored!”
If we could write this in neon it wouldn’t be more obvious a draw. So thank you, Mr. Heinie Joke Person, for giving us the attentions we so need.
Really. Thank you. I am not being sarcastic at all. No, not me.
Bets that the traffic here took a big jump after Wolly posted that?
Maybe Jeff should start selling banner ads to the local coffee shop on a CPM basis.
It’s how ethics roll in the Age of Obamaquis.
#103 SBP:
The CPUSA has an online gift shop. You can by travel mugs. No, I am not kidding.
http://www.cpusa.org/trade/productlist/3/
One can only guess where the mugs were made, and under what conditions, but – to the barricades comrades! And we will be fully caffinated!
Well, if there are Amish web sites…
One can only guess where the mugs were made, and under what conditions…
The baseball caps were union made.
Soviet Union made?
‘Look for the Soviet Union Label,
On Everything You buy…”
#103
The CPUSA has an online gift shop. You can by travel mugs. No, I am not kidding.
Not good enough. I want fellow traveler mugs.
Ever seen the “Venture Bros.” episode where the Grand Galactic Inquisitor shows up?
“IGNORE ME!”
Super great read! Honest.
It is funny and weird how a post about an article in Vanity Fair takes so many different curves with regards to comments and conversation. WOW, I do not think I have ever seen so many deviations on a topic as I have here. As for VF, is one of those women magazines that I consider right a long the middle. It tends to have some good articles, not a lot of “sex” articles as Cosmo, and not all full of fashion like Vogue. Hey, believe me, I have a wife and three daughters… I have seen my share of these lying around the house to last me a lifetime. Not to mention countless other magazines…