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The Boston Globe-Xeroxer
So the hardworking staff of Campaign Outsider opened up the Boston Globe Thursday morning, and what did we find?
This big bold headline on the Op-Ed page:
Name that decade
Really? It’s gotten so bad that the local broadsheet is blatantly ripping off Campaign Outsider’s longstanding Name That Decade maybe-contest, without even the decency to change a word or two?
Not to mention, only two of the six snippets on the op-ed page actually did name that decade.
Snippet #1: Joanna Weiss dubbed it “The ‘reality’ decade:”
THAT’S “REALITY’’ in air quotes, of course, since the reality TV that dominated the cultural landscape bore little resemblance to actual life. But in the summer of 2000, when a group of Americans ate bugs while surrounded by cameras on a remote Pacific island, the nation was introduced to a new world of entertainment possibilities. And when a cunning, sometimes-naked Rhode Islander named Richard Hatch won $1 million and worldwide fame, a new career path was born: reality star. A few “American Idol’’ stars launched A-list careers. More reality contestants became demi-celebrities, with diminishing returns. Make waves on “Project Runway’’ and, a few years later, you could at least be hosting a blog on a Lifetime website.
Snippet #2: Matthew Bernstein settled on “the You Decade:”
THE 1970S were the Me Decade. The first 10 years of the 21st century are due for a pronoun of their own – one born of the computer age and its power to set free the individual. These last 10 years will be dubbed, inevitably, the You Decade. After all, no matter where you went, there you were – on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitter, or in silhouette in the early iPod ad, gyrating with abandon, earbuds tuned to – who else? – U2.
You too.
To recap: The Boston Globe is now ripping off a humble country blogger to sell a few papers.
Think about that, Globies, the next time you start flexing those Pulitzers.
Ear, Ear
Oddly, two contrary theories about the cause of Impressionist (performance) artist Vincent van Gogh’s legendary ear-ectomy are in the news this week.
Let’s start with Adam Gopnik’s piece in this week’s New Yorker. The lede:
It is, in its strange way, at once the Nativity fable and the Passion story of modern art. On Christmas Eve, 1888, in the small Provençal town of Arles, the police found a young Dutch émigré painter in his bed, bleeding from the head, self-bandaged and semi-conscious, in a run-down residence called, for its peeling exterior, the Yellow House. A few hours before, the Dutchman had given his severed ear – or just its lower lobe; stories differed – to a whore named Rachel in a maison de tolérance, a semi-legal bordello, as a kind of early Christmas gift. (She had passed out upon unwrapping it.) The painter, Vincent Van Gogh, was known throughout the town as a crazy drunk who hung around the whorehouse too much for his own good, and who shared the squalid Yellow House with another so-called artist, even scarier than he was, though not usually as drunk and not so obviously crazy. That other artist, Paul Gauguin – after being interviewed by the police, and insisting that his friend must have sliced off his own ear in a fit – then sent a telegram to the Dutchman’s brother, urging him to come at once. Then Gauguin left for Paris, as fast as trains could carry him, never to return.
But, Gopnik notes, that traditional version has been challenged by “two reputable German academics, Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans . . . [who ] argue that it was Gauguin who sliced off van Gogh’s ear, with a sword that he carried with him for self-defense, and that the two artists – out of shame on van Gogh’s part, guilt on Gauguin’s – decided to keep the truth to themselves.”
Interesting . . . but then there’s Martin Bailey’s piece in The Art Newspaper. The lede:
An envelope depicted in a Van Gogh painting provides a clue that could help to explain why the artist slashed his ear. The envelope, in Still Life: Drawing Board with Onions, 1889, is addressed to Vincent from his brother Theo. Until now, no one has considered whether the artist was illustrating a specific letter.
The letter in the painting probably arrived in Arles on 23 December 1888, the fateful day when Vincent mutilated his ear in the late evening. It almost certainly contained news that Theo had fallen in love with Johanna (Jo) Bonger, and Vincent was fearful that he might lose his brother’s emotional and financial support.
Back to the traditional version of van Gogh’s ear-splitting statement, as rendered by Bailey:
The established view is that Vincent did not learn of Theo’s engagement until after he mutilated his ear, but our research suggests that news of the love affair reached him on 23 December.
So, to recap:
Paul Gauguin cut off van Gogh’s ear, presumably in defense of his life.
Or . . .
Van Gogh cut off van Gogh’s ear, presumably in defense of his lifestyle.
Discuss among yourselves.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Adam Gopnik, Martin Bailey, The Art Newspaper, Van Gogh's Ear
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Name That Decade: The Sequel: The Sequel
New addition to the Decadthalon!
New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman weighed in Tuesday with a piece headlined:
Telling Future? First, Let’s Try Naming Past
Haberman’s contribution to the festivities:
[L]et us briefly look back on the ’00s, a decade that in one respect ends exactly as it began: without a consensus on what we should call it. Plenty of names have been suggested over the years. The Oughts, the Naughts, the Naughties, the Zips, the Preteens, the Ohs and the Oh-Ohs are among the more familiar. You’ve probably heard them all. None has caught on.
Okay – time for the hardworking staff of Campaign Outsider to jump in the pool.
How about The Nils?
Can we get a witness?
Location, Location, Location
From our Krazy Konnections desk:
Tuesday Boston Globe Metro page B3 (jump) headline:
Group names accused Irish priests
Nut graf:
Yesterday, a Waltham-based group that has been chronicling the US clergy sexual abuse scandal released the names of 60 to 70 accused priests it says were born in Ireland or are of Irish descent who came to the United States and were reoffenders.
Tuesday Boston Globe Metro page B4 (ad) headline:
Ireland’s Wonderful West Awaits You
Body copy:
Once you’re in Ireland’s Wonderful West, who knows where your adventure will take you!
Maybe to a Catholic parish in America?
Just asking.
Name That Decade: The Sequel
Campaign Outsider’s wildly unpopular Name That Decade maybe-contest has drawn up to zero submissions. Regardless, the hardworking staff soldiers on.
Which means we continue to read newspapers, resulting in our encountering the best decade-naming effort by far, compliments of the Boston Globe’s irreplaceable Dan Wasserman.
His editorial cartoon has Father Time assigning “THE ZEROES” to the Wall St. Crash, “THE OH, NOs” to Wars and Terror, “THE UH, OHs” to Climate Change, and “THE OWE OWEs” to Debt for future generations.
Oh-kay.
Dan wins the Campaign Outsider maybe-contest hands down.
Name That Decade
With just four chin-stroking days left ’til New Year’s, everyone’s trying to come up with a suitable handle for the past ten years.
The Washington Post’s Howie Kurtz (via Media Nation) writes them off as the Awful Aughts, while New York Timesman Paul Krugman dubs them The Big Zero, because “It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.”
And then there’s this, from Politico’s Playbook:
THE PASSING DECADE, which still has no name — The Financial Times’ rubric: “the noughties.” The New Yorker’s Rebecca Mead explores this question in “What Do You Call It?”
Splendid readers, what do you call the past decade (whenever it ends)?
Send your entries to Campaign Outsider, and the hardworking staff will figure out whether to have a contest.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Awful Aughts, The Big Zero, the noughties, The Passing Decade
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All We Are Saying . . .
Full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times:
It’s signed, “Love and Peace from John & Yoko.”
The ad directs readers to the website http://www.IMAGINEPEACE.com, which contains this Holiday Message From Yoko Ono:
Dear Friends
The WAR IS OVER! campaign was once a tiny seed, which spread and covered the Earth. John and I believed it helped many people to stop their wars. Since then, every WAR IS OVER! campaign has impacted the world as powerfully as the first one.
Start yours tomorrow, and you will see that it spreads and covers the world very fast and, meanwhile, makes you a Small Pebble Person.
Small Pebble People are people who know that small pebbles, when they’re dropped in the ocean, will immediately affect the ocean of the whole wide world.
Don’t throw a big stone. It scares people and creates repercussions.
Just drop a small pebble.
We’ll keep doing it. Together.
That’s how the world gets changed…by Small Pebble People.
We change, and the world changes.Happy Holidays.
I love you!
yokoYoko Ono Lennon
Christmas 2009
Cut to: Pres. Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech about “just wars.”
Compare and contrast in clear idiomatic English.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Nobel Peace Prize, Pres. Obama, War Is Over, Yoko Ono
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Six Hicks Pix Click
Sunday’s New York Times Week in Review section featured The Year in Pictures 2009. And that featured six – count ’em, six (out of 50) – photos by Times staffer Tyler Hicks.
One guy. Over 10% of the year’s images.
Give that man a raise.
Campaign Outsider 