go you good thing

my love for julia is growing every day. she's been chucked out of parliament for pointing out what we all know - that tony abbott is a "snivelling grub".

"I move that that snivelling grub over there be not further heard," she said, interrupting Mr Abbott's speech on laws changing private health insurance. Ms Gillard, the opposition health spokeswomen, withdrew the comment - "If I have offended grubs I withdraw unconditionally"...

the clincher is that abbott used the exact same term last week to describe a labor member, without being expelled from the chamber. i think this can only work in la rouge's favour.

this reminds me, in the best possible way, of when keating was in parliament. i think a future post will have to be devoted to the wisdom of paul...

saddle up

after reading richard watts's post about his crazed adventures [http://richard_watts.blogspot.com/2006/05/rock-me-dr-zaius.html#links], i've decided that friday night should be no small affair. it's my birthday and i wanna go BIG. so i reckon that everyone who can make it should nominate their favourite city bar and we should write them all down on little bits of paper and pull them out of a hat. i vote we frock up, start at hell's kitchen around 8, and make our way to the carlton club around dawn.

naturally, i will extend this invitation to my friends in non-internerd world but any of my new blog friends are welcome to join in the drink and drug-fuelled debauchery. my friends are very nice, though i should warn there will be bad language and even badder dancing. if you like, send me an email so we can exchange mobile numbers and arrange a rendezvous on the night.

oooh, i think we should have secret codes, and red hankerchiefs and carnations, and cloaks and daggers! i've never met any bloggers before...i'm excited.

but for now, if you'd like to come, nominate your favourite den of iniquity [in the city] and i'll write it on a little bit of paper. i'm betting the lady will choose troika, and doc will be favouring madame brussels. i think for all our sakes, we should declare a veto on pony...

the horror. the horror.

is there anything more revolting than looking for a new house? besides actually moving into that house, if you can fucking well find it. i've now been trawling real estate for five months, with no success. yes, you may say, it's lucky that the place i'm living in hasn't compelled me to leave [i've been paying month-to-month since the lease expired]. that's true - i'm glad for that. my current home is in the greatest of all spots imaginable and could actually be a good house if the landlord wasn't so resistant to fixing anything. so, things just fall around our ears, rats occasionally get in [we plug a hole and wait for the next one], the drains don't empty properly, and we have a heater that's been broken for nearly two years. needless to say, it's cold. and that's irksome. but not as irksome as my flatmate. those of you who have met him will need no explanation. for everyone else, let's just say he's a constant reminder not to smoke too much pot. also, don't write novels and introduce them into every conversation. and don't be in a bad cover band. don't eat two minute noodles for every meal. and finally, don't move in with someone before you have a good, hard think about it.

but even worse than sharing a house with a tortured artiste, is dealing with the real estate agents you need to get you out of said house. it's been noted before, but they really are a vile breed. the kind i get mostly, are the very young man with too much hair product and too short pants in a cheap suit combo. he usually sports a smug smirk, which turns into a sneer when he sees that your major source of income per week is about twice the amount of the rent. looking for houses really tests my faith in humanity, and it heightens my irrational hostility towards couples. i've lost count of how many inspections i've been to where i'm the only person there not clutching the hand of a significant other. and given the incredible shrinking rental market, this often means 10-15 couples. and me. with one [small] income, and nothing to announce my normativity in the form of growing vegie patches and babies. maybe i need a t-shirt...

so, if anyone knows of a place becoming vacant soon, i'd love to hear about it. i'm looking for a place on my own, north of the river, and i have a little dog. not to make real estate agents of you all but things are getting desperate.

wild wild west

i had a phone date with darling mads last night. she called me from perth, equipped with a bottle of pinot, and we spent our saturday night talking, howling, tearing up, sniggering, and reminiscing about the best and worst of times. the news is that i will be heading west for christmas, and she has already planned the most incredible road trip - perth to broome and back in a week. oh yeah, she's promised beaches, deserts, reefs, log cabins, hot miners, wine, caviar, and all this as well as her delightful company. now, i can't stop thinking about it, and i can't wait. so many friends heading overseas - this is my big adventure for now. so far, cervantes, kalbarri, broome, and kalgoorlie are pencilled in, so if you have any ideas about what to add, please share.

after the marathon phone date, i stayed up marking essays and watching rage, as is my wont.* m.i.a., the saucy minx, was the guest programmer so the quality was good but she was strangely charisma-less. it was fun staying up all night watching video clips though. i can't describe how much i loved watching rage when i was growing up. i moved back to australia when i was ten, and found that saturday mornings were worth waiting a whole week for [and television didn't need subtitles here]. i used to keep tabs on my favourite songs, and check to see if they had changed position, whilst holding my hitachi cassette player up to the tv speaker to record my mixtapes. i still remember the day that kokomo came in at number 2, after months in the top spot. i was in shock [there might have been tears?] and waited to see what evil song had stolen the mantle from the best song in the whole world. i'll have you know, it was up against 'especially for you' for that title. come to think of it, i still bandy the "best _____ in the whole world" tag around quite alot. but i bet you're dying to know - it was 'teardrops' by womack and womack. i still detest that song and, perversely, i still love kokomo. of course, it might have had something to do with this...






i wanted to BE elisabeth shue, and i wanted to marry tom cruise, bearing in mind this is before we all knew he was BATSHIT CRAZY. i maintain that he was very hot. the outsiders? top gun? all the right moves? come. on.


*whilst i have been typing this, i have seen clips by ziggy marley, pink, westlife [!], delta goodrem, kanye west, nelly, ne*yo, eskimo joe, youth group [such a good clip], james blunt, gnarls barkley, shannon noll and nickelback. yes, it's best to stop around 5am, apparently.

um...

is anyone else worried about genetically modified food? i made a sandwich today and was confronted with this:





is it the lobster dna that makes it perfectly symmetrical?

i salute you

this was recently posted by my new canadian friends. i wanted to share it with you, so you can all stop worrying about america being run by a puppet. canada is in more trouble than that...

http://3drunkguys.blogspot.com/2006/05/steveharp-squarepants.html


hee.

the ivory tower weighs in

May 24, 2006 -- 9/11 videotapes released by the Pentagon in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Judicial Watch raise more questions than they answer, in the opinion of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a non-partisan society of experts devoted to sorting truth from fiction about those events. According to James H. Fetzer, the society's founder, "Defenders of the official account have been touting them as refuting 'conspiracy theories' about the Pentagon attack, but they show no signs of any Boeing 757 and only raise more concern about the government's relentless efforts to deny the truth to the American people."

"Skepticism about the official account is actually reinforced by the newly released videos," Fetzer said. "If a Boeing 757 had come across the lawn at low altitude but high speed, it would have brought about extensive damage to the lawn." And both of the videos suggest that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was skimming just above the ground.The "smoking gun" at the Pentagon, he observed, is the clear, smooth and unblemished lawn. "It would have been especially unlikely that an inexperienced pilot like Hanjour could have flown a large airplane so close to the ground and not collided with it," Fetzer remarked. "That is a feat even experienced pilots would have found very difficult to accomplish."

"No one watching these clips over and over, focusing on each frame, can find unambiguous support for a large aircraft, much less a Boeing 757," he added. "How much less likely that bypassers in the vicinity, who only had a brief chance to notice this happening, could have figured out what they saw. Nothing here remotely resembles a Boeing 757." Even the Pentagon itself is covered with cameras. The most serious question raised by the release of these videos may be why other videos, which would provide clearer and far more revealing information, have not been released. "The most plausible explanation for withholding this evidence from the American public," Griffin observed, "is that the American government has a great deal to hide."


indeed.

meanwhile, back in sun hill...

scene: hysterical old guy waving a shovel around in the general direction of reg hollis, who seems, as ever, pretty unfazed. pc dan casper and inspector gina gold looking on, when casper implies that the old man is bonkers…



gina [frustrated, with a slight eye-roll]: ugh, you should never jump to conclusions!

casper [obnoxiously, accentuating the foils in his hair]: he’s threatening an officer with a spade, that makes him a nutjob in my book.

gina [menacingly, through gritted teeth]: the income tax that “nutjob” has contributed all his working life, has paid for your education, pc casper, NOT money well spent if you ask me [stalks away].

casper: [sticks bottom lip out further than usual and looks at his shoes].



it’s moments like this that remind me of why i love the bill so much. it's the hilarious one-liners, preposterous crimes, and the totally predictable plots. who am i kidding? it's all about the smiffy...

uh huh

guilty pleasure

pete asked me to link this site for him, so i thought i'd post it. i feel sure it won't be everyone's cup of tea but i love popping in there every couple of days. if i squint while i'm looking at it, i can imagine that i'm strolling the streets of the big apple, and spotting these characters myself.

http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

if it's up your alley, enjoy. the better stuff is further down. otherwise, enter these terms into a search engine:

"dima", "bilan", "russia", and "eurovision".*







*i really and truly promise to get over eurovision soon. it always takes a few days to regain perspective.

the truth is out there

big ups to mister white in sin city, who suggested i post this link for your enjoyment...

http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm#Main

le russie 12 points

what a fun weekend! friday night saw bonnie and i head off to the late showing of syriana. the nova seems to favour extraordinarily long runs for movies they like, and i think they've been showing the oscar films for around six months now. also, i love going to a film that starts around midnight, as i like to pretend i live in new york. no matter how many times jen has tried to disabuse me of my fantasy, i still maintain that in new york, you can do whatever you feel like doing, at any time of the day or night. of course, when you walk out of nova, the illusion is shattered by the tumbleweeds rolling down lygon street at two in the morning. the jury is still out on syriana. i enjoyed seeing a film that enagages with real issues but i was slightly underwhelmed by the end. too many useless plot threads, and a few scenes that i found gratuitously violent or hopelessly cliched. ever heard the one about the emir who gives his kingdom to the manipulative, evil younger son, at the expense of the good, clever, kindly older one? syriana explodes some stereotypes but it faithfully perpetuates others. however, george clooney was endearingly crumpled and matt damon is still an all-american dreamboat.

on saturday night, we had bonnie's farewell do in the ham. what a star-studded event! the best in show was definitely pete. there were a few mumblings about him wearing a brooch in the shape of a penis but i thought it was the perfect addition to his ensemble. another highlight was meeting his honey, the gorgeous ben, who i found to be absolutely charming [and unreasonably good-looking]. doc was in fine form, which is more than we can say for some people. hirsty broke some furniture and other guests failed to distinguish themselves. thankfully, the locksmith saved the day with his delicious mars-bar slice and redoubtable fire-building skills. and as usual, jack dazzled everyone within a ten mile radius with his killer smile. i drove lady and the tramp back into the big smoke, where we made an early morning house call to the lovely adam. considering the hour, and our raucous behaviour, he was very accommodating - showing us pictures of naked ladies wrestling was just one feature of his fine hospitality [offering us bananas was another]. i got home around two after what was, all in all, a delightful evening.

about four hours later, i drove to the airport to pick up the new marrieds, fresh off the plane from scotland. we drove straight to ray's [which has added mushroomy eggs to the menu - yum] and caught up on the last five weeks. i told them about kochie and eddie in beaconsfield, and they told me about their wedding. i was very amused to hear that the only mention of australia they noticed, during five weeks in the u.k., was in the "who said what crazy thing?" section of the guardian. the quote was "oh dear, oh dear, oh dear." and these were the words of a man whose son recently painted a portrait of our prime minister using only his penis [the artist's, that is, not john howard's]. the marrieds seem the same as before. i didn't register any big changes besides the wearing of wedding rings, which don't match and feature animals in the design. i love them both and am so happy to have them home. even if they did need greeting at stupid o'clock on a sunday morning.

tonight, we witnessed, nay, partook in the agony and the ecstasy of eurovision at the spanish club. all i can say, is that russia was robbed, and congratulations to suomi's own "lordi", you crazy motherfuckers. the rock-solid voting blocs remained impervious to the actual quality of the performances, britain continued to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and terry wogan was, as ever, the perfect host.* we made friends with lots of other eurovision tragics and i submit that the spanish club will be the perfect place to see finland host in 2007.

this weekend was the best one i've had in ages. thank you to all concerned.










*around this time every year, i regret not doing my phd on the geo-political causes/implications of eurovision voting blocs.

o canada

there are people in canada who dispute that australia even exists [see http://3drunkguys.blogspot.com/] though i rather suspect that looking for "austalia" on the globe wasn't helping things. this got me thinking about the land of the maple leaf, or as i like to call it: canadia [or on occasion, canadonia]. time and again, canadians have sneakily presented themselves to me as americans, thus staving off my anti-american impulses for another day. this confirms what we all suspect: on the whole canadians are better than americans [sorry jen]. but the canadians have a lot to answer for, too. they just followed our monumentally stupid lead and elected a right-wing arsehole, who is currently hosting our very own shrub and working on ways to appear even smarmier. canada seems to match every musical genius they produce with an equally breathtaking musical tragedy, and they also seem to have the kind of cold weather that routinely kills people. but the point i'm getting to is that when the usa fucks up, we yawn [and maybe cry a little] but when canada fucks up, we're disappointed and surprised because we took them for good, progressive, fellow-human-loving folk. why do we have such goodwill towards canadians? let's adopt john howard's tried and true test of the balance sheet and find out if they really deserve our admiration:


good things aboot canadia

neil young, k.d. lang, joni mitchell, the wainwrights, the mcgarrigles, the band, leonard cohen, cowboy junkies, ron sexsmith, hot hot heat, the stills
john ralston saul, margaret atwood, yann martel, john kenneth galbraith, alice munro, atom egoyan, david cronenberg, mike myers, douglas coupland, naomi klein, dan aykroyd, michael j. fox, leslie cheung
meatballs, the sweet hereafter, the barbarian invasions, the corporation, porky's, the take
kids of degrassi street, degrassi junior high, degrassi high, degrassi talks, degrassi: the next generation, degrassi high: school's oot
saucy governor-general
awesome peacekeepers
hot mounties




bad things aboot canadia

bryan adams, celine dion, avril lavigne, shania twain, sarah mclachlan, alanis morrisette, tom cochrane, anne murray, martina mcbride, j.d. fortune
prime minister harper
unhealthy love of kraft dinners, the bacon is actually bad, maple syrup can't go on everything
national sports are ice hockey and lacrosse? you're killin' me!
generally mean to the french [let them have quebec already]
77.1% of canadians identify as christians
the seemingly sensible michael ignatieff supported the invasion of iraq
conservatives seem to be rising up and ruining our utopian vision of a country we could always move to when we finally tire of the madness here [it will be much harder to learn swedish]
lame national anthem


the verdict: canadia's still got it. just.

cool hair

kirk r, don't ever say i don't listen to you. okay, you can say it when i'm actually ignoring you. but right now, just because you asked, are the top 5 best heads of hair among cultural theorists of the left:

5. raymond williams, whose hair was much cooler in his younger years. i couldn't find a picture of the spectacular mop of his youth, so you have to imagine more volume. seeing as i haven't provided proper evidence to justify his inclusion, you'll just have to trust me...




curiously, i found this picture of a chap who is also called raymond williams and has cool hair...



4. susan sontag, who sported a grey stripe in her black hair for a few years but later concentrated on achieving maximum volume, which i personally preferred. she looks great here - i think it helps to have annie leibowitz take all of your portraits...



3. e.p. thompson, who not only had great hair but maintained the commitment to sexy hair all his life. as with williams, it was impossible to find the best shots of his young-man bouffant, but this should give you an idea of his follicular staying power...



and three hundred years later, still looking the goods...



2. simone de beauvoir, whose hair has always impressed me for its intricacy of design and incredible conservatism...



but just in case you couldn't tell from that picture what a stunner she was...




and she was no slouch in the fabulous body department either. this is her in chicago in the late 1940s - yowzer...





1. had to be jacques derrida, whose hair i find more compelling and less confusing than his work. note, as with thompson, the dedication to the enormous hair well into dotage. and that, my friends, is how to smoulder...





this brings my attention to the lack of cool hair among australian cultural theorists; indeed a distinct lack of eccentricity and glamour is evident. although, honourable mentions must go to manning clark...



and dorothy hewett...



neither of whom are cultural theorists as such, but must be recognised for their theatricality and charm. of course, both of them were their own kind of genius and were courageous in their convinction but hey, that's not what we're assessing here. it's all about the cool hair, people...

something i saw and liked in daylesford

caritas

i didn't get to see the fight tonight, as my old supervisor was in melbourne for the night and he's one the best people to talk to over several glasses of wine. he ventured down from queensland to speak at a conference held by the nteu to discuss the new "research quality framework" legislation. it was a most disheartening experience for him, as he encountered a great deal of defeatism and despondence, but not much actual debate. grrr.

it was very strange to see him after so long but fantastic to talk over my research with an unambiguous supporter. we had a few tetchy moments throughout the evening, over various issues - one being that he had advised me not to work for the magazine whilst trying to complete my phd. there's a weird kind of tension between people who like and respect each other but have reached an impasse on something important. essentially, he thinks that i'm over committed, and that working for a left-wing magazine makes me vulnerable to criticisms of bias and hampers my employability. i agree with him on all of those things - but i adore overland, and have made the decision to do it anyway. sometimes we do irresponsible things because we love them and they make us happy. like smoking cigarettes. many many cigarettes. all the time.

at the end of the night, he asked me if melbourne had been the right decision for me and i found myself comfortable telling him of the troubles i've had. i told him of my intermittent depression, and that there were days i wished i'd taken a different path. after much discussion, he left me with a line for the ages: "sweetheart, it's not all about you". now, i'm sure that you [like me when he first said it] are thinking "hee, funny" or "how rude" but the killer is that he went on: "it's not about you and any deficiencies you might feel you have. you're fine, you're good, it's the world that's in a state of crisis, and how you feel is a reflection of that. and if you're depressed, it's only because deep down you understand how bad things are".

um, i had to try very hard not to cry when i walked away. what a gift. thanks doctor lee x.

memento mori

in response to comments that this blog has featured a disproportionate number of obituaries, here's another one:

207 BC: Chrysippus, Greek stoic philosopher, is believed to have died of laughter after watching his drunken donkey eating figs.

only this time it's funny.

attrition

it took a while to figure this one out - the blog has to be a natural part of your life, not a separate sphere, in order to work properly. i need to find a way to integrate it into my daily doings. so far i have blogged in order to vent, or record something that doesn't fit anywhere else. so when things get busy, or strained, or even fun and crazy, my internal monologue becomes "i feel too [insert emotion here] to write anything". it's also been a revelation in terms of my writing for the thesis and overland - i've developed a terrible habit of needing the exact right conditions to produce words. this is obviously a genuine handicap in someone who writes for a living. i have officially resolved to address this problem. colour me someone who has kicked their own arse, and hard. of course, i realise that nobody was hanging on my every word, i'm just thinking out loud about what this blog can do for me, and it's given me something important in this realisation.*

aaah.

since i was here last, i have:

• made it through the viva voce that guaranteed my continuing existence as a phd student [with an absolute minimum of physical pain, tantrums and tears]
• stayed in a spa cottage at hepburn springs and spent half a week's pay at a delightful book shop in daylesford [after eating a spectacular breakfast, and drinking many glasses of good wine with a dear friend- bliss]
• been refused a table for dinner at every pub in bacchus marsh due to all those people with mothers [we suffered the indignity of eating our parmas in the t.a.b.]
• attended the launch of the latest overland at readings carlton, where john harms delivered for us a thoughtful and genuine speech on the contents and the role that our magazine tries to play in a fairly closed public sphere [before he left early to see geelong beat st. kilda]
• seen jane clifton interview angela pippos, and alice garner talk to linda jaivin, about the new books from jaivin and pippos on refugees and football, respectively. the sleepers salon was called maidens in may, which bonnie and i found to be quite chauvinistic and slightly unreconstructed. we suggested an alternative title, "a bunch of cunts", to lou and zoe, who have taken our advice under consideration. the verdict: clifton - impressive, garner - painful, jaivin - excruciating, pippos - thoroughly charming and astonishingly sexy
• taught toni morrison's "song of solomon" to first years at vic uni, resulting in a surprising amount of enthusiasm and confirming my belief that the american history of slavery and the civil rights movement has been dramatised and memorialised so successfully that it engages australians more than their own national story of black struggle

which brings me to a question [so i can report back to alex, with whom i began this shortlist] - what events/struggles/movements have been documented the most thoroughly and effectively? what has been the subject of more treatments [or as many] as these three stories?**

1. jesus and his gang
2. the holocaust/shoah
3. black america

any ideas? is there anything without a religious element that has attracted as much attention?







*by treatments, i mean artistic and scholarly [inc. books, paintings, opera, plays, essays etc]
**if anyone was actually hanging on my every word - thank you *blushes*, and please come down now

that way or nothing at all

grant mclennan died in his sleep yesterday at the age of 48. he was at his home in brisbane. what a fucking depressing thing to find out on a sunday morning. the most recent go-betweens albums have been every bit as good as the early stuff, and i so wanted to see them play again. last time was at the gold coast big day out in 2001. while the main stages hosted the twin tragedies of rammstein and limp bizkit, we waltzed around the green tent to the sweet sounds of some of brisbane's best. the go-betweens feature heavily in the soundtrack of my adolescence and i grew to love them more, not less. they sang about brisbane, the best and the worst of it, but they also sang their way out of there, and i wanted to visit the places that gave them the appreciation they deserved. so here's to you, mister mclennan, you are missed already.




CATTLE AND CANE

I recall a schoolboy coming home
Through fields of cane
To a house of tin and timber
And in the sky a rain of falling cinders.
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
I recall a boy in bigger pants
Like everyone
Just waiting for a chance
His father's watch
He left it in the showers
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
I recall a bigger brighter world
A world of books
And silent times in thought
And then the railroad
The railroad takes him home
Through fields of cattle
Through fields of cane
From time to time
The waste memory-wastes
The waste memory-wastes
Further, longer, higher, older.

something to celebrate in private life

the report is gone. we shall speak no more of it.*


things i will do tonight to celebrate the conclusion of said report:

• drink only cocktails
• meet my new [second] best friend
• see the lady again and discuss last night's triumphant viewing of 'thumbsucker' followed by 'who's the boss'
• visit at least three city bars i've never been to
• play uno
• catch a drag show at templebar and hope the queens are nicer than the ones at the market**
• finally catch up with the beautiful and intriguing diana at the rochester
• set fire to the dance floor with the doctor himself - the hebrew hammer
• sleep in my freshly made bed wearing new flannelette pyjamas

and can i tell you something else? my laptop recovered. completely. no data was lost. valuable writing days and the sane parts of my brain were the only casualties. it was truly an anzac day miracle...

whatever you're doing tonight - i hope it involves bad behaviour and raucous laughter.







*today.
**i have an unfortunate history of pissing off drag queens - testy bitches.

rain

i'm awake, trying to finish this report, but being distracted by the sweet sound of rain falling outside. it reminded me of a beautiful poem by the maori poet, hone tuwhare. here 'tis...




I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain

If i were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I
should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind

the something
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground

the steady
drum-roll sound
you make
when the wind drops

but if I
should not hear
smell or feel or see
you

you would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain



i saw hone tuwhare perform at the christchurch arts festival in 1999, where the host introduced him by saying that "to hear him speak was like taking a bath in warm milk". she was right - he was exquisite. this poem just tears at my heart for some reason, in the best way. i taught it last year in a first-year poetry course, and it was one of the few poems that the students really connected with. after weeks of slowly becoming convinced that i was unable to reach them, it was exhilarating to see them engaging with a poem they loved.

the rain has stopped now.

here i go again

ah, whitesnake. triple r played this song tonight and after banging my head along and miming the words, i realised that dan is right - i need to confess my dark past. my music tastes are not exclusively that of a gay man [streisand and minelli records notwithstanding]. no, i was once a mad bevan [translation: bogan] with a penchant for aggressively masculine music sung by people with leather pants and dirty hair. or no hair. i have sung khe sanh in a karaoke bar. i have rolled my sleeves over my shoulder and danced atop the bar at my then place of employment. i still know all the words to november rain.

so, without further ado, here are the top 5 songs that i love and a gay man wouldn't. taken from a compilation made especially for me by my old pub manager. he called it..."k.p.'s stairway to bevan"*

5. sweet child o' mine - guns 'n' roses
4. blue sky mining - midnight oil
3. born to run - the boss
2. back in black - ac/dc
1. working class man - jimmy barnes

for my partner in crime, dan white - miss you, x.




*my special set also included transvision vamp's 'baby, i don't care' and 'she's on it' by the beastie boys but having a total absence of dirty hair between them prevented their inclusion in the top 5. maybe i'm discriminating against them for being women and buddhist jews. who knows?

speaking of iconoclasts...

i discovered this morning that john kenneth galbraith has died. he was a bit of a hero of mine, maybe not in my top 5 but i've read and loved his work. recently, when asked his opinion of george w. bush, he replied "i never thought that i would yearn for ronald reagan". he has rescued me in arguments about whether economists need necessarily be right-wing [thanks also to john quiggin] and he's also on my list of the great things to come out of the united states [even though he was born in canada].* so here's to you, mister galbraith - dammit, this would have been the perfect moment to bust out with 'you're a gentleman and a scholar'. perhaps i should reserve it for more august occasions. oh well, john kenneth, you were a shining light...







http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/obituaries/30galbraith.html?hp&ex=1146456000&en=5a89320c6fecfb1c&ei=5094&partner=homepage





*this list is an important corrective to my tendency towards anti-americanism. it includes [among others] bill hicks, bob dylan, conan o'brien, jennifer blackman, noam chomsky and janeane garofalo.