Category Archives: Kultcha

PrawfsBlawg posts on Bow Ties, kindly lumping me among the “young men.” I'm now old enough to appreciate that.

The question which sparks the discussion is from an “anonymous female reader,”

I dare you to do a post on bow ties. I don't know much about male sartorial inclinations. But what's up with the young men and bow ties? Geoffrey Rapp, Michael Froomkin come to mind. I'm sure there's more. Is it for gravitas?

You should do a post about tie choice for all you fellows out there (for the ladies, Miranda Fleischer did one on hair down vs. ponytails and there have been many posts about wardrobe choices for classrooms on Prawfs). See if there's a two-tailed distribution for bow ties: the very young and the very old, or the shooting-for-gravitas and the shooting-for-gravestones.

In fact, the reasons for wearing bow ties are legion, and most have nothing to do with a quest for gravitas, quite the contrary:

• Harder to get soup on it;
• Socially sanctioned minor rebellion which exposes constriction of carotid artery custom as really silly;
• Fits more easily in a pocket;
• Stand out in a crowd — when meeting people for the first time can tell them, “look for the guy in the bow tie”;
• If it's good enough for Justice Stevens, it's good enough for me.

(Suspenders, now, that's another story…)

Did I mention that back in the early days of the internet, I was, I believe, the first person to post online directions on how to tie a bow tie?

Previous bow-tie posting: What a strange question.

Suppose Jane Austen were alive today, did speed, and wrote a Steampunk James Bondish story set in the Victorian era but with an amateur tea-drinking female as the lead character. The result might be something like a tame version of Gordon Dahlquist's “The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters”.

I'd call it the thinking man's beach novel, only it's much too good. Apparently it took ten years to write — but secured a $2 million advance, which is astronomical for a first novel.

Dahlquist sounds like an interesting guy in this interview at Powells Books. And he reads blogs!

Do you read blogs? What are some of your favorites?
Two favorites would be Firedoglake, a superb political blog run by Jane Hamsher and Christy Hardin Smith, and then GoFugYourself, run by the “tar-hearted” Jessica and Heather, which is superbly vicious.

Do not start this book late at night.

How is that I first heard of Harvey Danger yesterday? And not via Pandora, but via this peculiar bit of lip-synching hosted at we-want-to-be-your-friendly-video share/repository vimeo? (Actually, it doesn't compare all that badly to the band's video for Flagpole Sitta …)

Seems that Harvey Danger has been around for over a decade — it's not going to be my favorite band, but it's an appealing and energizing mix of rock, rockabiliy, punk, and lyrics with just enough references to be interesting. I bet they are a blast in concert.

I'm Sorry I Read It: James Grimmelmann reads Chambermaid — the supposed roman à clef by a former law clerk to Third Circuit Judge Dolores Sloviter — so you don't have to.

Joan Baez Unwelcome At Concert For Troops. The Army won't say why.

“I have always been an advocate for nonviolence,” she writes, “and I have stood as firmly against the Iraq war as I did the Vietnam War 40 years ago… . I realize now that I might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Maybe that's why I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In the end, four days before the concert, I was not 'approved' by the Army to take part. Strange irony.”

…

“One of my more cynical friends said, 'They let the rats in, why not you?' ” Baez said, laughing, referring to a recent exposé of living conditions at Walter Reed.