Why are women's Hallowe'en costumes demeaning?

You go to a Hallowe'en store and you see varieties of prostitute get-ups. There's prostitute police officer, prostitute nurse, prostitute Wonder Woman (okay, so it's not much different from what Wonder Woman actually wears, but she's a cartoon), prostitute cat, et cetera, et cetera. In the window at the one near where I live, there's a actually a display of two pimp costumes and a prostitute costume. Not too subtle, that.

I pass over that it's totally lame to go out and buy a ready-made costume. Use your ingenuity!

But also, this whole lady of the evening aesthetic is sad. It was amusingly satirized in Mean Girls, but I have realized that it would be a lot more funny if it were a little less true.

The problem is I'm not sure it's meant as a joke.

Why are garages the hot new architectural feature?

You know those houses, where the driveway is about three feet long and leads to a monstrous two-car garage attached to the house, which you can discern in the distance in all its unobtrusive glory.

I don't really like these houses. I suppose this is because I prefer a modicum of pleasing symmetry, or at least of good old American pile. With shingles, maybe, or a window. I don't like great hulking boxes made of plastic where there might be something attractive.

Shouldn't the door be the focal point of a house frontage? Or at least something that isn't two giant, boring garage doors?

Really, what these houses say is "yes, my house might be hideous, but I do have two cars." This is an aesthetic crime.

Why does the American League persist in its lunacy?

I hate the designated hitter.

I could argue against it, but that's been done. I could point out that in cricket, even Monty Panesar has to bat, but that's meaningless to everyone who reads this and actually possibly not all that germane.

I just really, really hate the designated hitter.

Because it sucks.

Why does it make you cool to admit that C.S. Lewis is way smarter than you are?

Because, for serious, all these weenies whining that "I liked Narnia before I figured out it was Christian allegory" really get on my nerves. For an example, go here (yes, it's in the alt-text, you troglodyte).

First, because Narnia's actually pretty lame. I had to read some of it for school when I was about eight and severely uncritical of literature, especially fantasy, and I didn't like it then. That little snot-nosed kid who was tempted by the Snow/White/Ice Queen with Turkish delight was pathetic. Turkish delight is gross.

Anyway, so if you're fond of Narnia in the first place, you have questionable taste.

But I'm willing to let that go if you can stick to your guns. I like novels by Rafael Sabatini. They're all the same and they're all utterly ludicrous, but I hold up my head in company and defend my right to like them. If you tell me that they're some strange sort of redemptive allegory, I will go "huh," and then go watch Errol Flynn's film version of Captain Blood.

But these people throw poor C.S. under the bus the minute they are told he is a believer and, shock of shocks, this shows in the books. Weak!

Also. On the whole Christian allegory thing. Duh.

I mean, it is C.S. Lewis. He's a notable Christian intellectual. He wrote books on it. And a whole lot of things are Christian allegory. Heck, if you listened to my high school English teacher, absolutely every book ever written was about Jesus. Now, I don't think he's right, but, honestly, that people write Christian allegory is not surprising. It's a topping story, for one thing. For another, a lot of people think it's very important. So why shouldn't they write those books?

Yet this attitude of "I have been betrayed by C.S. Lewis because I liked his books as a child but now oh gosh they have some sort of message what a jerk" gets you points among the (and I use this word advisedly) intelligentsia.

At least he's not Dan Brown, writing an allegory of crap.

Some new features!

1. Anyone can comment now. I had thought you all hated me, but apparently I had the "only registered users" box checked. (I don't promise to respond to comments, but I do read them all.)

2. You can now e-mail blog posts! You don't have to, of course, but now the feature is available.

Have fun, kids!

Why are the sixties back?

Now, I'm not sure they had to happen even once, but I'm definitely certain they don't need to happen again.

So explain the trousers. And the shoes. I see young men wearing trousers that would be unfortunate even if they were twenty pounds lighter, and shoes where the toes are elongated to about Cleveland.

Or the girls in their mod little shifts and knee boots. With their Edie Sedgwick bobs. And the vague look on their faces that suggests the use of psychedelic drugs.

(I pass over the whiny, over-synthesized, lyrics-challenged Beatles wannabes out there. That is another rant for another time.)

Newsflash, people! "Mod" can only happen once! Andy Warhol made poor life choices! And you look like an idiot, Mr. Poncypants!

Why do academic publishers suck?

So, there's this polytonic Greek font. It's called Athenian. It's amazing.

One of its really fabulous features is that you can copy and paste anything you need from a wonderful thing called the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, which has the entire Greek corpus available on the internet. Which means that you don't have to type all your Greek letter by letter like the old days.

Or so you would think. So why did I have to spend my entire morning copying from an Oxford Classical Text of Aristotle's Politics and squinting at a computer screen?

Because the people who are going to publish this article do not have Athenian. They publish classical scholarship. It's a free download. It makes things easier for everyone. So I had to use this monstrously inferior typeface.

And this is after they requested that all the Greek be transliterated in the first place. Thank you for wasting hours of my life, jerks.

Why do people struggle at staircases?

If a staircase is wide enough for two, you pick one side and stick with it. This allows for one side to move faster than the other, if necessary. This is formalized in large cities on escalators: stand right, walk left.

It should not, however, be difficult to figure out that walking in the middle of a stairwell and talking on your cell phone is less than optimal. Effectively, you block the entire stairwell, as no one can get past on either side, and so everyone is constrained by your pace, which, if you're talking on your phone, is probably not very fast.

This is especially bad when, for instance, several hundred people have just got off a train and are rather inclined to get where they need to go. Get off your phone, pick a side, and walk like you have legs.

Why can't the Killers pronounce the word "February?"

Seriously, does this not drive anyone else nuts?

"Somebody Told Me" is a spectacularly whiny song in the first place, but what really grates on me is when the contagiously catchy chorus comes on:

Somebody told me
that you had a boyfriend
who looked like a girlfriend
that I had in Feb-yew-ary
of last year

(Sorry if the line breaks are wrong; I plead no rhyme or meter to help me.)

"February" has two Rs in it. Two. Not one. Is it really too much to ask that people who "sing" professionally be able to enunciate properly?

Oh, and I wouldn't mind if they were forcing it for a rhyme, because I can (kind of) respect that. But no, they have to leave that word exposed and incorrect for no discernible reason. "Febooary" I can take. But they go to the effort to say "Feb-yew-ary." What happened to the R? Why this wanton cruelty to the common consonant?

Why doesn't Tony Kornheiser just admit that he's bald?

Because, man, does that comb-over look ridiculous. It looks, at least in HD, as though someone had badly attempted to stipple hair onto his shining bald pate for a low-budget stage show. And I did make-up once for theatre, so I know whereof I speak. Especially in the low-budget department.

From the side, he looks absurd and cheap. From the front, he looks bald. Why can't he realize that he's not fooling anyone and is in fact making himself look worse?

I pass over Ron Jaworski's obvious contempt and hatred for the man, and that Mike Tirico is going to have to break up a fight in the Monday night booth before the season is over. Kornheiser's inanities I can take in stride.

But the hair, never.

Why the obsession with spunky heroines?

They invariably have no manners at all. It seems that literature has relegated woman to fainting violet or harpy. There is never a middle ground.

Being intelligent or even "speaking one's mind" (and who made that a virtue I have no idea) does not require one to be cross, contrary, and shrill. But authors and film-makers seem to have no conception of an intelligent but mannered woman (with the sometime exception of Jane Austen in the case of Elizabeth Bennet or Anne Elliot, but not, alas, of the thrice-accursed Emma).

Witness, say, Margaret Hale of North and South, who is always at pains to disagree with Mr. Thornton for no reason whatsoever, so that in a film adaptation she is more unlikeable than the admittedly evil Richard Armitage.

Or Bridget Jones, whom we are supposed to like for her free thought and lack of mealy-mouthed ways when she insults, very audibly and in his hearing, Mark Darcy's friends. (Tories are people too, guys.)

Or Jane Eyre, who is completely hateful (I'm not going to back off on this; she's dreadful).

Or Jane Austen in the film Becoming Jane, who, because she is so very repressed by her extremely indulgent parson of a father and embarrassingly open French cousin, must be rude to James McAvoy because he does not think quite as much of her brains as she does. I would probably be rude to James McAvoy if he approached me because he looks like and is cast as a toad, but I wouldn't think it a virtue.

These women always say precisely the wrong thing, they insult everyone and hurt everyone's feelings, but we are supposed to love them because they show their intelligence through their SPUNK. Who am I to question this?

Why is "preppy" so often mis-used?

Specifically, why is it used as a catch-all for "things I hate that are thought or done by people who wear slightly more colorful clothing than I do?"

This is a good example of what I'm talking about. Last I checked, "preppy" did not mean what Jeph Jacques seems to think it means. "Preppy" means something more like Blaine from Pretty in Pink (although that's not quite right either) or Phineas from A Separate Peace or anyone from The Dead Poets' Society (which I haven't seen, but this is given on good authority). The Preppy Handbook has a madras cover. This is really the aesthetic.

But aside from not being able to tell an American Eagle polo from a Lacoste polo (and not being cognizant of the very important, albeit possibly tragic and definitely classist, difference), people seem to equate "preppy," or, more properly, the noun form "preppie," with "jerk," or maybe "jerk who looks in the mirror before he leaves his room."

I know a lot of preppy jerks. I also know a lot of not preppy jerks. I don't think the proportion is higher among preppies.

Yes, they care about their clothes and subscribe to a specific and mildly artificial aesthetic. But tell me, you female-trouser-clad weenies, do you not care about your clothes? Did you not pick precisely the right ironically vintage t-shirt at the Salvation Army? Do you not spend more on your hair than I do so that it looks carelessly tousled? Is that not more artificial?

I'm not saying preppies are the be-all and end-all of society. Lord, I hope not. But they're no worse than anyone else, and they are not what you think. Well, except the ones who wear different widths of seersucker at the same time. Those people are going to Hell.

Why do dance remixes exist?

Generally, when I want to hear a song, I want to hear, you know, the song. With the tune and rhythm and words to which I am accustomed.

But what about DJs in the 80s, I hear you cry. Fair point. I concede this. When you have a DJ and a turn-table, maybe that's what you're looking for. Also that involves some coordination and creativity on the DJ's part. And you can probably decide not to go to that club.

But recordings of remixes? Why? Why do I want a recording of something that sounds as though someone is cruelly assaulting my CD player?

And why is it already one of the worst songs ever? Obviously I object when they remix actually good songs. That's a crime against taste and humanity. But when they do it to songs that should never have been recorded in the first place, much less ever re-recorded, I really wonder.

Like "Discothèque," by U2. That song is terrible. And yet, if you own the entire U2 discography, there is a whole album of remixes. There are ten remixes on this album. Ten. Of a horrible, horrible song. Which was also a single. And on the album Pop. Here's a sample of the lyrics:

You can reach
But you can't grab it
You can hold it, control it
No, you can't bag it

You can push
But you can't direct it
Circulate, regulate, oh no
You cannot connect it

That's not bad enough? Here's some more.

You know you're chewing bubblegum
You know what that is
But you still want some
You just can't get enough
Of that lovey dovey stuff

Now, I know what you're going to say. Am I not thankful that there's a heavy house beat obscuring that? And I guess I am. But there are still twelve recordings of this song out there. And this would not be possible if not for remixes. There would have been a mutiny.

Why is there beef-flavored Jell-O?

Yes, all right, fine, it's called consommé.

The question still stands.

I like Jell-O. Especially in flavors like strawberry, or lime. I also like beef, especially when it is madly undercooked.

Still, it would never occur to me to combine these two.

And you know why? Because it is gross. It looks disgusting (wooo! brown Jell-O! my favorite!). It smells disgusting (wooo! meat smelling jelly thing!). And it tastes disgusting. It does not taste like beef. It tastes like it might once have been beef, but was then subjected to inhuman cruelties.

Also, according to Wikipedia, it takes about a whole steer to make one bowl of consommé. Thanks, I'd rather have steak.

Why do people swig expensive champagne?

You can swig André to your heart's content. That stuff is three bucks a bottle. It is produced to be swigged (swug? swag?).

But good champagne is good not just because it costs more. (It costs more because it is from France. And is not made of fermented cat sick.) It is good because you want to let it linger on the palate, instead of choking it down as fast as possible, cut with orange juice to soften the acrid taste.

So you maybe should not drink half a bottle in five minutes. That does not qualify as savoring. Also, there are other people around. Maybe they want some? No one gets seconds until everyone has firsts! Cool it with the bottle!

(Yes, this is all because I wanted more than one glass for myself and have a soft spot for Moët & Chandon. Sue me.)

Why are people bad at the train?

It would seem to be logical, if you were taking the train with some friends, to sit near them so that you can talk to each other. That is to say, if there are three of you, perhaps you could take one of the seats with three spaces. If one is not available, perhaps a two-seater and the two-seater in the next row.

Possibly sitting in three separate two-seaters, so that you are obliged to shout to each other in order to have a conversation, is not the best idea. First, because nobody wants to hear your conversation. Second, because even if they can't hear you properly, you raise the ambient noise level much more than is reasonable. Third, you are occupying far more space than is necessary or polite.

This goes double if you are an adolescent who thinks that mohawks are still edgy and swearing a lot makes you cool.

Why is Triumph of the Will ever called "controversial?"

Once I was taking a class and they made us watch a large number of disturbing or simply depressing films. To give you an idea, All Quiet on the Western Front was the most cheerful.

We had to watch Triumph of the Will. Now, it's my considered opinion that if you've seen Hitler watch a Nazi parade, you've seen him watch them all. But Leni Riefenstahl apparently had other ideas, so she made a film which seems to last for about nine stultifying, terrifying hours.

So, in case you haven't caught on, this film is Nazi propaganda. It shows you blond youths being healthy, tidy parades of blonds in jodhpurs and jackboots, and Nazi Party Day festivities with swastika flag after swastika flag. To my knowledge, Ms. Riefenstahl died, of old age, unrepentant.

But her life or death is neither here nor there. I was in a record store once, and I saw the DVD. Clearly it's good that the film is available on DVD, for educative purposes. Curious, I checked out the reviews on the back.

One of them called it something like "Leni Riefenstahl's controversial work." (I can't swear to "work;" it may have been "film;" I hope it was not "masterpiece." I can swear to "controversial.")

I really don't think the film is controversial. Maybe its release on DVD was controversial. But the film itself is direct and undisguised. And repellent. I really hope there isn't controversy over that.

I suppose you could argue about the technique, and in that sense it could be controversial. But I'm pretty sure that's not what they mean.

I just wish that people would use English words to mean what they mean, and not what they don't.

(Hoo. Back to frivolous hatred on Monday.)

Why are there shops that are never open?

So there's this little second-hand book shop in my town. I've bought a few books there in my time. They usually have something interesting, or at least you spend about $3 on a book you might or might not like, which is better than spending more. Also, I prefer patronizing local businesses. It's just this thing I have.

The shop is right near the Post Office, and on my way to the library, so I go by it fairly often. I noticed, consistently for a few weeks, that it wasn't open. Okay, big deal, it was August, maybe they were on vacation. Clearly no one reads books in August.

So earlier this week I go by it again, and I see that the 2/$1 cart is outside again. It seems that they are back from vacation.

Yesterday, the sign says "open," and the cart is outside. I go to the door. It says something like "Back soon. Please pay for 2/$1 under the door."

Now, it's totally cute that I live in a town where you can do that. However, I kind of wanted to see if they had a book (the local library is being recalcitrant with regard to this volume). Well, if they're out to lunch, they're out to lunch. I decide to run the rest of my errands and come back when I'm finished. Surely they'll be finished with their lunch.

I come back some two hours later. The note is still up. What the heck, people? How do they possibly turn any kind of profit?


PS Our most loyal reader (judging by comments) has complained that the indignant questions went away. I will use them in the future when they don't get ridiculously unwieldy. As in "Can you believe I just saw a woman drinking a teeny tiny bottle of Pellegrino with a straw?" will not make the cut, but "Why are there shops that are never open?" will.

Chuck Taylors Without Laces

I am in favor of Chucks. They cost about $30, they're absurdly comfortable, and they come in a pleasing range of colors. Plus, you can relive your childhood and get high tops. They wear out pretty quickly, but you can always repair them with duct tape and people will just think you're deep and don't care about your personal appearance (actually, this attitude really annoys me). But they are absurdly comfortable--like being barefoot but without the risk of tetanus.

But lately one sees in posh boutiques something like the Chuck. They differ in the laces, and in the price. Also they're not made of the same, good ol', traditional, (more or less) hard-wearing canvas.

They don't have laces. Why do they not have laces? They still have holes for the laces. Instead, they are sewn up the tongue. Decorative holes for laces. What will they think of next?

Well, apparently the multi-eyelet Chuck. Seriously. To go with your multiple ear piercings, I suppose. This one comes with elastic laces, I guess if you don't know how to tie shoes.

These tend to clock in at about $100. For Chucks.

So, not only are you telling the world, either way, that you can't tie your shoes. You're also telling them that you will pay $100 for the privilege of wearing shoes that will wear out in around a year, but that are strange and twisted shadows of the real thing. You pay three times the price of a Chuck for the unChuck.

Fancy Imported Mineral Water

So you know those tiny little bottles of Pellegrino? They hold about a quarter of an ounce. I suppose I probably ought to have a rant about Pellegrino's making them at all, because the packaging to product ratio is completely absurd, but right now I'm angry about something else.

I saw someone drinking from one of them. With a straw. A straw! I'm not kidding!

Not only was she drinking imported mineral water, which is pretentious (but I do it too). Not only was she drinking it in a ludicrously small amount, which is pointless and effete (not to mention it probably cost about $3, or, about a dollar per molecule). She was also admitting that she did not have the common adult dexterity to drink it normally.

In public and in front of her child.

Wouldn't you be embarrassed?

Hippies (Apple Edition)

So, I hate hippies. A lot. For a lot of reasons. I'll go through quite a few of them right here (watch this space), but I'm going to start with sanctimonious Apple users. (Hippies now have their own tag; that should make for easy browsing.)

By "Apple users" I don't mean "people who own iPods." I mean "people who buy a soy latte and then sit down and open their iBook and look around as if they are so much more independent and hip than you are." I can see it in their eyes. I wear polo shirts a lot, see, and they look at me and they can't tell that I own a MacBook. In their teeny-tiny brains I could not possibly own a MacBook.

These are people who use Macintosh because they think it makes some kind of statement. They are unwashed. I have somehow managed in my life both to have good hygiene and use Apple products. Steve Jobs owns my soul, yet I do not insist on clothing made of hemp. I have no piercings. I comb my hair (!). Sometimes...I wear topsiders.

All I'm saying is: don't be a snob about your computer for the wrong reasons. Yes, your iBook is sleek and sexy and functional. Concentrate on those. Take the damn marijuana sticker off it.