Of brave souls who post snarky comments anonymously and then think that they have been daringly edgy. So, whoever it is who made the crack about "pearl clutching," why don't you come out from behind your mask, tell us who you are and what you do and what your history is, and then present us with your analysis, which I will put up as a guest post on this blog, opening it to comment and criticism. If you are willing to do that, then I will take you seriously and respond. Otherwise, get lost.
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It’s weird that that anonymous person drew a contrast between this blog and “standard leftie outlets,” when the substance of that post — the urgent need to excise the filibuster to forestall this country’s slide into a pseudo-White Nationalist authoritarian state — is something I hear echoed in Leftist media all the time. Or maybe that person has a different list of standard leftie outlets than I do. My guess is that he or she is just some sort of tankie who bristles as the very idea that neoliberal Democrats like Biden and Manchin might be counted on to do something moral and productive. Ignore and continue on.
You should begin to enforce a rule that you previously announced, that you would not accept any more anonymous comments.
It's not the right place to bring in this concept, but zero tolerance. If you announce a rule and don't enforce it, that creates a climate of lack of respect for the rules.
No, I didn't get that from Giuliani. My father always said that, probably as a result of his experience as a army lieutenant in World War 2.
To be clear, the Anonymous who referred to “pearl-clutching” is not the same Anonymous who referred to the recent book “How Democracies Die” on a previous post, or whom LFC acknowledged he agreed with (for once). I am the other Anonymous, which will be my pseudonym from here on in, to preserve continuity.
I don't know about the wisdom of offering an audience to anyone who posts anonymously. I mean if I was to write some snarky comments anonymously would I also get that invitation? Cause I have the ability to write snarky comments (hopefully never here) even if I always use my name. There is a seriously disturbing lack of courage involved with not identifying yourself with your opinions. Yeah, I've read the various excuses given for posting anonymous comments. The ONLY one I have any sympathy for was the guy with the overbearing spouse who hates washing windows. Well- at least that one made me laugh.
The remark about 'pearl clutching' was as penetrating and suasive as someone taunting you by saying "Hey, you're older than you used to be!"
Jerry, that was I. Now my wife is badgering me about mowing the lawn. I demurred, telling her that I am too busy offering deep, analytical exegesises online.
Get out there and mow the lawn dammit. Or hire someone to do it while you sneak off to watch a game at a bar. How well did your excuse of needing to offer deep, analytical exegesises go over? I have no idea what that might mean by the way- but the more important question is did your wife buy that excuse?
When Susie and I got married in 1987 we had a house built for us in the little town of Pelham just east of Amherst Massachusetts. I specified, when it came to the landscaping, that there was to be no grass that required mowing. One must be foresighted in these matters. Thank you all for the moral support. I shall put my pearls back in their box.
Prof. Wolff,
Good for you. Unfortunately, my wife and I purchased a home in a subdivision which already had a lawn; everybody had a lawn. Where we reside, the people worship their lawns, they water them every other day; hire pesticide companies to kill the crabgrass. Lawn worship and football are two secular religions here.
Which brings me to a short anecdote. In the early 2000s, a woman came to my office (it is no secret that I am an attorney) desperate – she and her husband, who were immigrants from India, had lost a case in state court which held that they had violated the bylaws of their subdivision. How? The bylaws required that all residents have manicured lawns. She, however, preferred desert style landscaping, with cacti and other succulents, with artistically arranged pebbles and rocks. The subdivision’s Board had sued them for violating the by-laws. She insisted that they had not violated the by-laws, because as required by the by-laws, they had submitted their home construction blueprints as required, that the blueprints indicated they were going to have desert style landscaping, and the Board had failed to reject the blueprints within the requisite time period. The problem was that the time period to challenge the court’s decision (21 days from the date it was issued) ended the next day. So I agreed to take her case, stayed up all night preparing a motion and brief for reconsideration and got it filed the next day. The long and short of this tale of woe is that the judge rejected the motion; issued an order requiring the couple to remove the desert landscaping; install turf instead, and awarded opposing counsel attorney fees. The judgment, with the expense of excavating the desert landscaping and installing turf, along with the attorney fees came to well over $200,000. The judge also issued an injunction requiring that the turf be installed by a date certain. I appealed the decision to the two higher appellate courts – demonstrating that the attorneys for the Board had misrepresented the wife’s deposition testimony, claiming she made statements she had not made about the date the blueprints had been submitted. Well, I lost both appeals; when the couple failed to install the turf by the date certain, the judge held them in contempt and had them both jailed – even though they had two teenage daughters who were left without anyone to supervise them. The husband and wife were Jains, which means that they eat only vegetables, no meat. The jail refused to provide them with meals that conformed with their religious dictates. So I had to file an action in federal court to force the jail to provide them with Jain compliant meals. The husband, who was an electrical engineer, had to declare bankruptcy. They lost everything – all because they did not want a grass lawn.
As they say, “Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall.”
Post-script:
Jerry, yes, my wife bought the excuse. She is very understanding, and believes that I am very honest.
And a joke to cheer everyone up.
There is this elderly gentleman who buys the New York Times everyday and retires to the clubhouse of the retirement community to read it.
But he only scans the front page, and then throws the paper away. He does this every day. One of the fellow residents of the community asks him why he only looks at the front page, and then throws the paper away.
“I am checking for an obituary.” “But,” the fellow resident says, “the obituaries are always on page 35.”
The elderly gentleman responds, “When this s.o.b. dies, it will be on the front page.”
Not to nitpick, but I think the word, in the plural, is "exegeses" (though I haven't looked it up, so perhaps the other version is an acceptable alternative, but I tend to doubt it).
Another landscaping story--to continue with a theme: I knew a U. Chicago historian who, from laziness not principle, resolutely refused to keep his front yard up to the neighborhood standards in his corner of Hyde Park. The neighbors got together and sent a deputation to urge him to conform. The delegation consisted of one, Norman Thomas. (At least that was the story the historian told me.)
If that story is true, Norman just lost my vote.
I myself lived in a house with some hippies (I was one myself) in Portland, Oregon in the summer of 1971. I don't even remember the name of the street or even of the neighborhood. We never cut our lawn and we received some kind of notice from the city ordering us to cut it. I left soon after (not because of the lawn) and so I never learned the end of the story. However, since the house was rented and my fellow hippies were very mobile, if the city of Portland had become more insistent, I have no doubt they would have just split the scene.
Brand-spanking new speech from Mike Pence the other day in New Hampshire: "Trump and I may never see eye to eye about Jan. 6, but I am ever so proud of what we accomplished during our four years." What a fricking weasel. New Hampshire, as we all surely know, is the preparatory state for running a Presidential campaign .Pence still cutting the grass at Mara Lago.
s.w.
The hippies, I think, were mostly a benign phenomenon (I pretty much missed it, personally speaking, by several years), but for a somewhat over-the-top view of the darker side of hippiedom, see Quentin Tarantino's 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'. (Content warning: The ending is ridiculously violent. I saw it in a movie theater, pre-pandemic, and there were parts of the ending I literally couldn't watch. But perhaps I'm squeamish about such things.)
LFC,
I haven't seen the movie, but I know it's about Charles Manson and his cult.
Actually, the house in Portland had a cult of sorts, revolving around a friend of mine from the university. I did not buy into the cult, but he and I had been smoking weed and arguing philosophy since we were freshmen 5 years before that and so we continued with that.
J was one of the most genuinely courteous and generous people I've ever met, if not the most, so his was the charisma of goodness, if Manson's was the charisma of evil.
What is the original comment this post is in response to?
s.w.
Manson himself is a minor character in the movie and barely appears, iirc. And the ending violence, like a good deal of the plot, is not a historical reconstruction of anything but rather Tarantino's invention. Still, it is set against the backdrop of that time and place, and Sharon Tate figures fairly prominently in the movie.
Met Manson once, scariest dude ever.
The lawn lesson is live in unincorporated territory and never buy where there's a HOA. My neighbor mows his ~two acre front yard once or twice a year, bales it, and sells it.
aaall,
could you tell us about your experience with Manson?
Anonymous @4:49 pm
It's the comment in the previous thread by Anonymous at 3:40 p.m. on June 3.
When my wife was growing up in Seattle, her family rarely mowed the lawn. Neighbors retaliated by not allowing their kids to play with her. Well, that and she was rather dark-complected and her mother was Jewish.
I am generally ok with pushing my lawn mower back and forth across the typically greenish vegetation in the yard that might be considered a lawn if you have loose standards. Obviously, I have fairly loose standards regarding this. But since this pandemic I keep having people knocking on the door asking me if they could do any work to make a few bucks and I have been happy to let them push the lawn mower around the yard. And weed the areas around the bushes and trim the bushes and sweep the porch and the sidewalk and I am running out of jobs let alone money for this. So I am hoping the economy recovers to the point I don't have people knocking on the door asking me can they mow the lawn and that mowing it becomes my responsibility again.
At the age of 18, I put my foot down and made a vow to never mow grass again in my life after years of mowing my family's lawn and the surrounding neighbors for $5 to $10 a job. Enough for one lifetime! As a consequence, I now live in a rowhouse with a sidewalk for a front yard and a concrete slab for a backyard. No lawn -- Bliss!
To S. Wallerstein: I think we should actively pursue an effort to make sure that the phrase "split the scene" is reintroduced into everyday vernacular.
To others commenting on "Once A Time in Hollywood," it is one of the best movies I have seen in years.
-- Jim
Jim,
I would agree that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is one of Tarantino’s better movies, although I generally dislike his films due to their gratuitous violence. However, in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (the title is a riff on two of Leone’s movies, Once Upon A Time In The West and Once Upon A Time In America) the violence was so theatrical that it seemed to me less offensive. I particularly enjoyed the scene in which the Brad Pitt character beat the crap out of the Bruce Lee character. Bruce Lee was actually Sharon Tate’s martial arts coach for a movie she was appearing in.
One of the movies by Tarantino which I particularly disliked is Pulp Fiction. I cringed as members of the audience laughed at the excessive violence in that movie. Back in the 1990s when it was nominated for Best Picture, I attended an Academy Award prediction event hosted by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Roger Ebert was particularly enamored of Pulp Fiction, as was most of the audience. During the Q & A session, I went up to the microphone and condemned the movie for its glorification of violence. I was roundly booed by the audience, as Ebert scowled at me. Siskel, to his credit, scolded the audience and told them to shut up, saying I was entitled to express my opinion and was raising an issue worth considering. Years later, I was disgusted when Tarantino won the Best Screenplay award for Django Unchained.
Damn, Jim beat me to the punch by referencing S. Wallerstein's use of the phrase, "split the scene". Great old 70"s vernacular.
My English is rusty. I haven't lived in the U.S. since 1977. I go for months without talking to anyone in English, although I correspond with several old friends and family members. The last time I talked in English was two months ago when my sister called me on birthday.
I try to avoid commenting, or even reading, the comments when they wander far from the professor's initiating post, but I really must agree with and thank Other Anonymous for his public condemnation of the glorification of violence in Pulp Fiction. I haven't watched a Tarantino film since, and I'm untroubled by the thought that I might have missed something. There are so many other scenes where one can split.
John,
Thank you.
I am not one to stay silent when I see or hear something which offends my sense of justice or good taste. I really was pleased that Siskel cam to my defense. It was one of my first exposures to mob mentality.
SW, nothing dramatic just disconcerting. Back in the day (1960s) I lived in the hills above the Sunset Strip near the Beverly Hills line and discovered the easiest and most efficient (not to mention cheapest) way to get to school in Westwood was to hitch a ride. One day I got a ride to dead man's curve and a bearded dude in a beater gave me a ride the rest of the way. He started asking questions and really tried to get in my head. Weird, scary eyes and general affect - still can picture him.
Manson encounters weren't that unusual in circumstances. After he was arrested, an acquaintance related that he had been at a party and Manson and his girls were there. A childhood friend's stepfather was a minor rackets figure in L.A. Noir days and he had a bar/brothel (long dormant) up near Death Valley and the Family apparently trashed it. Met some interesting/strange folks back then.
Re: Prof. Wolff's concerns on our present troubles. Jack Balkin (Yale Law) is usually IMO somewhat panglossian so this is as pessimistic as I've seen him.
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=512022013088065072019099071020077022002044041012003011006097099102065011087085098099117039054020044048107091075092009023083118061011091079018121105089122095084125030038094115086003092087064069119123100005031096064000089105099095118126028117090014114&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE
Sanford Levinson (UT) has long viewed matters more clearly:
https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2014/08/LEVINSONDYSFUNCTION.pdf
aaall,
Thanks.
The most memorable person I've ever run into is the Austrian anarchist thinker and one-time priest, Ivan Illich.
I was working in the text book section of Barnes and Noble in lower Manhattan and this guy comes in of unclear nationality. He is so genuinely courteous, in his words, tone of voice, body language, facial expression that I recall him, a gentle gentleman, especially since no one is very courteous or gentle asking for text books in Barnes and Noble in New York City. Several years later I read one of his books and I see from the picture on the back cover that it's the same guy.
Some Manson trivia.
He had aspirations of becoming a rock star. He was befriended by Dennis Wilson, drummer for the Beach Boys, and they even recorded one of Manson’s songs.
On the night of the murders, Steve McQueen was supposed to join his friend, Jay Sebring (a celebrity hairdresser), at the Polanski home. However, McQueen, of the wandering eye, picked up an attractive woman and settled for a one-night fling instead. It likely saved his life. Sebring and the other members of the party, including Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, were all brutally murdered.
personally I think 'pearl clutching' seems more likely to work as part of 'pearl clutching conservatives'. Especially a woman, or that is to emphasize that what comes to my mind here is firstly, being shocked by something once-salacious that should now be seen as commonplace, like sex. Thus, the phrase is ubiquitous on blog posts, in the lady blogosophere.
I dunno, maybe the response is that basically, a writer who discusses pearl-clutching is saying, “I’m too blasé and worldly to be shocked by this.” Thus, the “pearl-clutching that hippies’ parents did in the 1960s.” A kind of 'then the use exploded' thing. Swell, but surely, it's most often used by liberal and/or feminist and/or race-discussion sites etc. It means too conservative and such. It has been flung around by conservatives, too..? Even so I picture that its heyday was 13, 14 years ago. Perhaps it’s time to retire the expression. Maybe the mental image is amusing, the use of the phrase has degenerated.
On my reading of the use of the expression "pearl clutching," it has come to be used quite often by us liberals and conservatives to make fun of the faux outrage of conservatives and reactionaries at some perfectly bland thing we have said or done. I'll look out for some ripe examples, and get back to the site when I have collected some.
I meant "us liberals and progressives"-----
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