Roundup: End of Week Edition (On a Wednesday)

Leah and I are taking a road trip and will resume posting next week, starting with a Devon Sproule interview on Monday. Until then, we leave you with this roundup.

Basic Instructions - Scott Meyer instructs us how to talk to our spouses.



Largehearted Boy - Author David Rosen takes part in LHB's Book Notes series.

Nitemare Hippie Girl, Beck: A song that, at least for me, is reminiscent of walking into a girl’s apartment you just met, excited about the possibilities, not knowing exactly what will happen or what you’ll find. Specifically, it reminds me of a night I ended up in a strange woman’s apartment I’d describe as “bohemian disgusting.” Ten years of The New Yorker piled in the tub, pot seeds on the turntable… it was a Petri dish with a bed in it.

New York Magazine - Kurt Anderson gets political and isn't nice to Romney, Thompson, etc... And speaking of Thompson, a guy in a minivan passed me the other day with two bumper stickers on his back window: "Fred Thompson 2008" and "I Love My Kalashnikovs." I did a double-take and sighed.

Theirs is also the party of moral righteousness in which the Reverend Ted Haggard, Congressman Mark Foley, and Senators David Vitter and Larry Craig were all, only a year ago, leading lights. And consider the personal backgrounds of the top Republican presidential contenders, who seem more mack daddy than Father Knows Best. Rudy Giuliani contrived to annul his fourteen-year-long first marriage to his cousin, then publicly cheated on his second wife, and now, having married his mistress, has alienated both his children. Notoriously alley-catting Fred Thompson impregnated the mother of his children in high school and then married a babelicious, 24-years-younger second wife—and, lacking much (manly, paternal) taste for hard work, has by all accounts let the wives push him along in politics. It’s ironic, and a bit awkward, that the only GOP candidate who’s had just one wife, Mitt Romney, is the Mormon great-grandson of polygamists.

New York Magazine - Jonathan Franzen discusses Spring Awakening.

Do you expect critics to whip out the elitist label again after they read this foreword? Except for Harper’s, for whom I’m too populist. Having been through it once, I’m less afraid to go through it again. The fact is, I position myself in the middle. I am a theatergoer who has a brain, who knows the difference between good and bad, who wants to enjoy himself but also doesn’t want to have to put his brain to sleep.

A.J. Jacobs discusses polygamy.

I also spoke to a prominent Christian polygamist. I said multiple spouses is an interesting concept, but how could I convince my current wife, Julie, that she should let me take on a second wife? His suggestion: The preemptive strike. He told me to find a second wife, perform the ceremony, consummate the marriage -- THEN tell my first wife. That way it's a fait accompli. And my first marriage has a better chance of surviving than if I go all wimpy and ask for permission. Hmmm. Sounds about as wise as the time my dad gave my mom a smoke detector as an anniversary gift.

The New York Times - Ben Ratliff writes about Sonny Rollins.

Sonny Rollins didn’t just influence other saxophone players. He produced a half-century of close listeners. The long, idiosyncratic tenor saxophone solos that he started developing around 50 years ago — bulging sacks of brilliant thematic improvisation, as well as slangy humor and quotations — became a genuine American rhetoric, delirious and ecstatic; audiences reoriented their imagination, and their sense of patience, around them. But his greatest work from the 1950s and ’60s trained many of them to want what he was later unwilling to give.

/Film - Peter Sciretta saw a "screening" of the upcoming Jerry Seinfeld animated film, Bee Movie, and (after being skeptical at first) Sciretta is looking forward to its release.

Seinfeld blurted out that he would like to make a movie about Bees and call it The Bee Movie. It was just a joke, but Spielberg thought he was serious.

“It was just a title, he insisted that I make a movie, and now four years later, I have now done that!” said Seinfeld. “Whatever he tells you to do, you have to do it, because he is the King of the Jews!”

Seinfeld joked briefly about the current crisis in the Bee community, where bee colonies are collapsing.

“This is actually a publicity stunt by Dreamworks to sell the movie, and as soon as it’s released, we will replace all the Bees!”

Someone asked if the movie was completely animated, as some people were confused by the early teaser trailers which showed the voice stars in bee suits.

“Totally! So don’t freak out! You think you might see a real human? You Won’t! It’s only a cartoon!”

Someone else in the audience asked “Is the movie about something?”

“No, it is not!” Seinfeld quickly replied. “It’s more of the same nonsense and drivel that I have forced upon the American public. I’ve been doing very well with it!”

And that's the roundup.