Are Men Necessary?

I don't know . . . . Yes! Yes, they are.

Are Dowd's comments about what to wear, aired on Tim Russert's show, comments appealing to the most superficial and insecure elements of the female consumer demographic--are those necessary? No, they are not.

Non sequitur: Are kids necessary? To me they are. Today I met two who want to learn about the '60s. That struck me as funny and somehow hopeful. I wouldn't mind taking a course on the '60s.

Gerald Howard wrote a book about it. Another book, photog Lisa Law's "Flashing on the Sixties," includes a nice pic of Harrison Ford. He was was an expert cabinet maker, and every time I see him posing as an actor, I can't forget this fact. Anybody who can shape wood and do beautiful things with it (this includes tree appreciation) makes an impression on me.

But I digress.

Back to necessities. Is Thurber necessary? Yes. Dowd? Fairly predictable but all right: necessary. But couldn't the Times do a round-robin with her slot? There really are so few women columnists. Some of them even write sentences that can't be flung like confetti round the room at a drinks party. Maureen really is Soundbite Nation being broadcast from Media City.

I once wrote her a fan mail note telling her how her columns make me think but now that some years have passed, I realize I gave her too much credit. Still, they're entertaining, if predictable. I think a funny month would be one in which Dowd tackles a Higher Mind series of columns riffing on Levinas, Baudrillard, Spivak, Rorty, Chomsky, and Derrida. She could ask her good friend Leon Wieseltier to help.

Is Rorty necessary? Oh. Hmm. Well. Well, he *is* a man . . .

"Scary," Appropriately

No doubt six or seven times a year, somebody uses the word in a way that plucks it from hyperventilated-speech land and returns it to the land of decorum. This from a piece running in tomorrow's New York Times, currently titled on its website as "Journalists Said to Figure in Strategy in Leak Case," by Eric Lichtblau.

The prospect of another legal battle over access to reporters' records "could be worse for the media" than the Miller showdown, said Lucy Dalglish, head of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "You now have a situation where you have a government investigation hung completely on testimony from journalists, with journalists turned into witnesses, and that is a scary notion."

From Dry Ground

Before anybody sends more money to the Red Cross (that's American Red Cross, not International) with hurricane victims in mind, maybe consider a couple of less well-known agencies in Lousiana.

For starters, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, braf.org.

Next, Lousiana Acorn, www.acorn.org.

These outfits already have stakes in the area. If any organization is going to act watchdoggishly to hold officials accountable as rebuilding proceeds, it's probably a place like BRAF or Acorn. Acorn, for instance, has deep roots in low moderate income communities, and hey: last we checked, those were the ones worst hit.

Never heard of 'em? Now you have.

Outdated Shorties From October 2004

Either 636 B.C. or 1979
A treasure at the Polyp Museum is either real or a fake, according to experts.

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Russian Diva Type Throws Russian Man in Front of Train
After years of silently protesting Anna Karenina’s legendary, if fictive, hurtle to her horrible death, Russian woman Leyna Lustravatavich grabbed Dmitri
Vaprynatolova by the seat of his pants and the scruff of his collar and pitched him headlong into an oncoming freight train.

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Procrastinator v. Blocked Writer
In a standoff worthy of the O.K.-Corral, Hank Seward and Doyle Halverson plunged into forward movement today by getting into a fistfight at the corner of Elm and Main.

“It was real progress,” said Esther Luanne, the town gossip. She noted that the fistfight had begun at precisely high noon and was still in progress at press time.

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Neighbors Stand by Man Handy With Uzi, Axe
While Anthony LaGranda was being arraigned for 27 counts of murder one down at the court house,” his neighbor Belle Kincaid was singing his praises as a light of the local community.

“He’s just is one of those people, who makes a difference, you know?” she said, twirling a lock of hair.

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Power Snob Lunches With Beauty Snob
Lulu Darling and Pete Chisholm met for lunch this week, ostensibly to eat.

Onlookers took napkin notes, tallying each time Ms. Darling didn’t eye Mr. Chisholm’s tie, face, fingernail beds, pores, ear fuzz, or teeth.

Passersby didn’t absorb each joule of energy received by Mr. Chisholm in the wake of Ms. Darling’s dramatically-cadenced anecdotes and general amateur dramatics.

To the diners’ credit, no glassware was harmed during the course of lunch.

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Mother of Child Mowed Down by Drunk Driver Assaults
Mother of Child Killed in World Trade Center Attacks

Union Square, N.Y.C—A scene erupted downtown today when Kathleen Santoro took a tear-filled swing and began beating Sabine Rosenthal with the blunt handle of a meat cleaver—cutting her own hand in the process.

“You got money! You got money!” Ms. Santoro screamed as people scattered to form a wide enough circle to watch. Mrs. Rosenthal’s 28-year-old daughter Jen, perished in the 2001 terrorist attack. She had received $10,018.38 from the Hope Committee.

Mrs. Santoro received no money from anybody or any organization after her son Frank was run over by a drunk driver who’d fallen asleep at the wheel. She did receive a condolence note from the driver on Smythson stationery.

How Mrs. Santoro discovered that Mrs. Rosenthal had received monies was anybody’s guess but it was certainly a sight to see a chase through the Greenmarket in broad daylight.

Rick Chin, an organic farmer from Caslon Falls, N.Y., offered Mrs. Rosenthal a cup of cold cider as she sped past. “The way they do at the Midnight Run on New Years' ,” he remarked to the flower seller in the next stall over.

Observing the dust-up from across the street was Margie Kellerman. Her twins were scattered like wild fire over Lockerbie, Scotland, thanks to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. Mrs. Kellerman was on her way to the Coffee Shop with Carole McDavies, in town from England. Mrs. McDavies’s husband Ed had been gunned down on his front doorstep by six members of the Irish Republican Army.

They took window seats at the Coffee Shop in hopes of getting the best view possible.

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Boy Lights Cigarette and Face at Same Time
Sandoe, KY.--Stunt smoker Jimmy Tukulson, who has lit cigarettes in wind tunnels and tropical storms, achieved the ultimate lighting experience today. In his kitchen, he bent close to the gas jet, scorched up his hairy chin for almost 15 minutes, and then lighted his Camel from that proximate blaze.

“I call it the scorched-earth,” he told EMS workers as they rushed him to Baystead Hospital in hopes of treating the second-degree burn with a skin graft.

Before passing out, Tukulson told workers this was his best cigarette trick yet and how all the guys at school would be wigging out on Monday.

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Cheney to Eat Dinner

Grand Central Terminal, N.Y.--The loudspeaker announced the departure of the 6:16 for New London before the voice of Dick Cheney came on to announce that he was heading to the gym and then to dinner with Henry Kissinger.

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Isaac Mizrahi and Maira Kalman Kick Off
Nationwide Petition of Offended Designers

Overwhelming Response to Dover Area
School Board Decision

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Citing Iraq, Bush Modifies Morning Time on the Crapper

Washington, D.C.—Citing wartime concerns, President Bush has broken from his usual 7:30 to 8 a.m. schedule on the crapper to the point where his time on the toilet is “unpredictable,” according to a White House aide. “Iraq is really at the forefront of his mind,” the aide said.

A Secret Service agent who would speak only on condition of anonymity confirmed the aide’s report. “Sometimes he’s there for a whole hour, other times for only 10 minutes,” the agent said.

The aide remarked that the alteration to the President’s lifetime constitutional is proving inspirational to fellow Republicans. “At least five Senators I know of are following the President’s lead here,” the aide said.

He declined to comment on whether the President’s bathroom reading material has undergone any significant changes over the past year.

Old Headlines for Stories as Yet Unwritten

Miu Miu? No, Bow Wow!
Dogs Slobber All Over 10,000

Today the Lap Terrier,
Tomorrow the Saint Bernard

Women with dogs at Bergdorf—Macy’s next?

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Toss My Salad!
Gnat Butter Making
a Comeback

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Whosiwhatsit, Unprolific Writer and
Generally Wasted Procrastinator, Dies

Fake Age Unknown

Went Pretty Gently Into that Good
Night, All Things Being Equal, and
So Forth

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Hypochondriac Finds Freckle on Forearm


Could it Signal Autism? Sciatica?


Sidelwells, NY--This morning Jody
Santangelo, 24, located a small,
dun-colored freckle on her right
forearm.

Popcorn at Per Se

Anybody stopping by Per Se for a glass of wine with a distant view of the Sherry Netherland Hotel and a close-up of the Edward Durrell Stone building may be charmed by popcorn with truffle butter. Also by fresh-roasted peanuts from (I think they said) Virginia.

You see, this is one reason to love the city, especially at the end of a workday. Take something very common, very ordinary, and amp it into stratosphere. Just to try every once in a while. (Although, the roasted peanuts were terrific. Still, I would go bananas if I went to a ball park and the only choices were haute-roasted peanuts X, Y, and Z.)

Just sitting within feet of the Per Se dining room was nice. I wondered what everybody was eating, and how exactly they could afford this dining experience. Imagine having a meal there. The vision would have to include a way of exiting the restaurant that doesn't involve actually walking through the mall afterward. Maybe being lowered out a secret window in a piano case.

More English and Lots of MTA

Impacted: best used in the expression "impacted molar." Not as attractive when used in transitive sense, e.g., "How have the MTA 'We Live In A Scary, Scary World' announcements been impacting you and your ride?"

The MTA. Remember how encompassable its problems used to be? In the 1970s, you had to watch for leaning against fresh graffiti and had to endure forty-minute rides with frequent breakdowns and no air-conditioning. In the 1980s, you simply had to figure out how to squeeze into seats that were almost half the size of the old ones. (You also had to stand next to people who supported Reagan.) In the 1990s, there was just the old standby of decoding the public-address announcements and marveling how even the turn of the century hadn't yielded wheelchair access throughout the system. And every decade, there was the dread emergency cord non-emergency (spilled coffee, etc.)

Now we are told we're in the era of the suspicious package. It's just too bad the Bush team members don't come individually wrapped in brown paper.

Some days I flash back to the Giuliani days when MTA employees would stand on the platform at Fulton-Broadway and use a megaphone to inform grown people that they shouldn't lean too near the platform edge.

I knew those reminders would stop at some point. The problem with the See-Something-Say-Something approach is that it's unclear just how and when these thoroughly irritating announcements will end. Now they're also appearing in print, on the sides of phone booths. I dunno: Any time is terrorism time, isn't it? Historically speaking.

It would be nice to have the harried commute back, without the ominous announcements.

On a related note, I think it's too bad the former WTC site is called Ground Zero. Debatably, that phrase has almost singlehandedly recolonized our city as a military zone. (The arrival of McDonald's in the early 1970s was a different kind of recolonization.) Factor in the international Walk/Don't Walk signs and you've got a place that has become a new kind of old American city. Whether it's still New York any more is another matter. I suppose it's a new New York but you know: the old one had its good points. Real telephone booths, for one thing.

Find the Typo

From the New York Times website's front page, 11:05 by my computer clock.

Thousands to Pay Final Respects to Rose Parks in Detroit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  10:30 AM ET
Civil rights leaders, dignitaries and politicians were among the 4,000 expected to attend the funeral at Greater Grace Temple.