They Were Threatening Castration

In the prior Polanski post, I only noted the bitter irony that monsters who make things may well be remembered for something quite other than their monstrosity, but since The Children were involved, and The Sex, I assumed it might spark a bit of kerfuffling in the thread. Quel kerfuffle! Threadwinner La_rana really deserves the credit for the following, as he first noted, and best noted, the preposterousness of crying, Justice! I mean, here you have a gang of mostly progressive types seizing a moral issue with thoughtless tenacity. Throw the book at him! But anyone searching for justice in our judicial system is going to find themselves forever searching, and what these people are really looking for is a sort of vindication, some programmatic process through which each precious, individual conviction that he is the scum of the earth can be validated by some external authority. Throw the man in jail if you must, but do not pretend that it is righting some wrong. Our prisons abound with people who probably deserve to be there: they are not all leukemia victims who got busted for pot or innocents on death row, except perhaps in Texas—this doesn’t make them bastions of justice, nor even poor imitations thereof. You cannot selectively call it just when you agree with it--or, you can, but it makes you an idiot. Hauling Polanski back to the States and throwing him in jail for a thirty-year-old crime is in the end a poor attempt at vengeance on the part of those who wish to make a hazy point about rape, which, they rush to remind us, is bad. The victim, by the way, believes he should be forgiven, and wishes that all you fucks would shut the fuck up, though in politer terms. But whatever, fuck her! Justice delayed is justice denied! Exterminate the brutes. Throw away the key! If we can save just one more teenager from quaalude-spiked sexual abuse in Jack Nicholson's swimming pool, then by god, we must!

Consider: one does not disarm, dismantle, disassemble, or even inconvenience the goddamned patriarchy by availing oneself of its systems of coercion.

The Parable of the Table

Once there was a table.

It was neither a very big table nor a very small table, but a middle table, with a table top and four strong legs and an extension that was in the basement honey, I swear, because remember we used it the last time your parents were in town at Thanksgiving? Oh, it was a fine table, and upon that table were all the options.

"Oh my!" exclaimed the Princess. "There are so many options on the table!"

"Yes," said the Tea Kettle. "All of the options are on the table."

"Let's count the options!" cried the Hippogatorypus. Oh, the Hippogatorypus!

"Yes," said the Princess, "It will be splendid!"

"But first we should have a masquerade ball," said the Parakeet.

"Oh, yes!" said the China Cabinet.

And so they had a ball, and all of the people in the land were invited, and each of them wore their finest costume. The Bird dressed up as a sailboat and the Rat dressed up as a cobbler and the Cobbler dressed up as George Noory, the host of Coast to Coast AM.

"Oh my goodness," said the Princess, "I love the Wild Card Line!"

But the Chauffeur's daughter was too poor and so Audrey Hepburn played her with a classic mix of ingenue's naivete and knows-what-she-wants pizazz.

They danced the night away.

When she awoke in the morning, the Princess cried, "We forgot to count the options on the table!"

And the frog said, "I'm sure they're all there."

And it was still hot.

120 Blog Posts of Sodom

On Polanski, I commend to you Father Smiff, that ratiocinating reverend.

I don't have much to add to the matter except to say that those who claim that great art does not redeem cruel, evil, perverse, and otherwise undeniable men of their more heinous acts may comfort themselves which such bosh and piffle, as The Mencken might term it, here in the lonely present, but they have not paid attention to their history.

Stuff We Like - Figaro

I hope to be back this afternoon with some kinda political whathaveyou, but in the meantime, Things We Really Like: FIGARO. Look. Mozart was not the greatest composer, although he was a great genius. The popular Mozartian mythos (and made more popular by Peter Schaffer, lets not forget, who besmirched poor Salieri as thoroughly as that bitter queen Terrence McNally later besmirched Callas) casts him as a protean creative mind the likes of which the world had never before seen nor has seen ever since, but frankly, Mozart wrote many more ordinary orchestral works than great symphonies and many more lousy divertimenti than great chamber pieces. That said, he was the finest composer for the human voice, and his Figaro is the greatest staged work ever written, the most perfect opera, against which all others should be measured and none measures up--so much the better and more incredible that Le Nozze di Figaro is a comedy. Here, in the opera's second act, in which various confusions are taken for a ride and put back in the garage, is one of its loveliest quartets, "Signori, di fuori," ("My Lords and Ladies" - Figaro is trying to get a wedding started, etc.), which also contains what may be the most beautiful note in all music. Listen as the character of the piece changes around the 2:15 mark. Then, at around 2:38, as Figaro, La Contessa, and Susanna sing to the Count, you hear a soft bass figure in crescendo, and then at 2:46 a great swelling note deep in the bass. It then repeats itself at 3:02. Everyone else wishes they wrote that passage, but damn, bitches, you didn't.

FAQ: AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan! What is it and why should you care? For the education and edification of the Who Is IOZ? reading community, we present a few Frequently Asked Questions about our friendly neighbor.

FAQ: What is Afghanistan?

Afghanistan is an expression of pure being, the it-in-and-of-itself-ness of the to-be-of-being. It is that which is by dint of its is-ness, an iteration without antecedent, the indwelling of exteriorality and externalization of indwelt inherency.

FAQ: Where is Afghanistan?

You go up where the old Isaly's usedta be, ya know? Then you take a left, but not really a left, more like . . . a soft left. But not just like bearing off to the left, cause if you do that you'll end up in Sheraden. Go under the Parkway, make a right at the third light, then drive down to where the window is busted, go left past where they usedta sell them sandwhiches, and follow the Purple Belt until you end up at Camp Horne Road. There's a Target there, but you don't want to go there. Take Camp Horne to the Perry Highway, go South until you see Riverview Park, look for the Edgar Schneider sign, hang a quick left, get onto 279 South, follow it through the Tubes, and once you hit West Liberty you'll go through Dormont and Mount Lebanon until just before you get to the Galleria. It's around there somewhere. You can't miss it.

FAQ: Why is Afghanistan?

To begin by asking the question, Why is Afghanistan, is to begin by asking the wrong question. Why must there be Afghanistan? If each moment forces Afghanistan to change, move, alter, grow, feel joy, suffer, then there is no Afghanistan, but many Afghanistans. And is that not the same as saying that there are no Afghanistans, that there is no Afghanistan, that the true nature of Afghanistan is nothingness, not emptiness, but no-thing-ness, formlessness without suffering.

FAQ: How is Afghanistan?

Afghanistan's okay, thanks for asking. How're yinz?

Foodie Friday - Break Fast edition

Aside from a whole roasting chicken, my favorite meats are the cheap cuts, the shanks and shoulders, and my favorite animal is lamb. That's not to say that I don't love a beautiful, bloody steak from time to time, a pink, delicate, rare rack of lamb, a slice of raw, salt-cured pig. I do. But cooking at its most mindful is done slowly, and the tough cuts, which are often the animal's most worked muscles, are slow to give in but ultimately give up the best rewards. Here is a recipe for lamb tagine most appropriate for this early fall. It's made with boneless lamb shoulder, a trussed, fatty, ugly cut that turns melting and tender under long, low heat. I really, strongly advise getting yourself a ceramic tagine--they're as little as $25 and are the most beautiful of cooking and serving dishes--but if you won't or can't, a dutch oven will do. The recipe calls for late tomatoes, the sugar-heavy harvest that comes when the nights have turned cold but not quite cold enough to frost.

Tagine of lamb with almonds and figs

1 3/4 lb. boneless lamb shoulder, slightly trimmed of fat, cut into 1" cubes
1 medium yellow onion, cut into 1" sections
5-6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed with the flat side of knife
3 medium heirloom tomatoes, cut into 1" sections
10 dried figs, quartered
1 cup whole raw almonds
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 tspn whole cumin
1/2 tspn whole mustard seed
1/2 tspn whole coriander
several whole allspice berries
1-2 cloves
medium coarse sea salt
extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 300.

While the oven is heating, gently toast the spices in a small sauté pan over medium heat, just until they become fragrant. Grind roughly with a mortar and pestle.

Combine the lamb, onion, garlic, figs, almonds, and parsley in the tagine. Mix together. Add the spice mixture and salt generously. Pour in several tablespoons of olive oil. Mix thoroughly with your hands. Cover. Place in the oven.

Cook for the first hour at 300, then reduce the heat to 275 and cook for an additional two hours. Remove, uncover, and serve immediately. I serve this dish over a long-grain white rice.

The Wine-Dark Whheeeeeeeee

CASSANDRA: They call me crazy, like a fortune-teller,
A poor starved beggar-woman - and I bore it!
And now the prophet undoing his prophetess
Has brought me to this final darkness.
Instead of my father's altar the executioner's block
Waits me the victim, red with my hot blood.
I will go in and have the courage to die.
Look, these gates are the gates of Death.
I greet them, and pray that I may meet a
Deft and mortal stroke so that I may close my
Eyes as my blood ebbs in an easy death.

-from Agamemnon

Environmental Cassandras must be careful with their predictions lest they commit what climate alarmists consider the unpardonable faux pas of denying that the world is coming to an end.

-George F. Will

I actually have some sympathy for Will on this issue, not so much because I deny human-catalyzed climate change (I do not), but because I percieve the potential catastrophe as being a fine, fitting, and poetic means of reducing our numbers, and therefore wish that everyone would shuddupaboudit so that Motherfucking Nature might have her just revenge. That said, would it kill our columnist to read before making popular reference? The thing about Cassandra's predictions, you see: they were right.