...that was the lousiest Lileks I've ever read, and I do occasionally pop in to read him.
It also illustrated, quite well, why Lileks does not have a comments feature below his entries. Why bother accepting comments when you know what people are going to write and why you already disagree with them?
I actually like Lileks' musings about his personal life and his daughter; they're charming in a Bombeckian way, only a little better. And his writing about stupid food and interior design, and his architectural pictorials, are great stuff.
But the Brain Eater's been hitting him so hard that I haven't had the urge to read him in months. His political writing has never been good, actually; I mean, he's a Republican and I'm not, and that's part of it, but I'd appreciate it if he were offering reasoned arguments, and he really never has even when he's saying stuff I agree with. His writing is emotionally driven, about feelings and attitudes, and that's a bad if popular way to argue about political issues. At best it's like Maureen Dowd only on the other side of the fence. And lately he's gotten so emotionally invested in the politics that it just drives out everything else.
The stuff about his daughter made me run fleeing from him in the first place.
When lileks is making fun of brochures and old motels, I'll read him. Personal thoughts on politics and whether his daughter is the cyootest thing ever, goddamit, no thanks
I should also mention that there's actually one useful thing he's done in his political writing, and that is to ridicule some of the unexamined college-leftist pieties that I get the impression he had when he was a young sprog—particularly the seething contempt for the mass of Americans. For all the costs, there are deeply good things about the life of an American suburbanite family, and I like that he can express that.
But he's like C. S. Lewis writing about atheism and identifying it all with his own snotty adolescent anti-religiosity. Since Lileks was a cartoon liberal to begin with all he can dispute is cartoon liberalism. And the essay he wrote for this past Sept. 11, the one that turned me off reading him regularly, he showed signs of being possessed by a new seething contempt himself, the notion that millions of his countrymen are subconsciously on the other side in the War on Terror and want to see his daughter incinerated. Spend too much time dwelling on paranoid thoughts and they start to color everything you see and do.
the notion that millions of his countrymen are subconsciously on the other side in the War on Terror and want to see his daughter incinerated
*ding ding ding*
I may yet try to work up a full-size rant about it, but you've hit the nail on the head here in regards how Lileks got infected by the brain-eater. He had his first kid in his early 40s, and 9/11 happened shortly before her first birthday: suddenly all that free-floating angst that every parent has about (a) their child's safety, and (b) how all the stupid things they thought/said as a youth would obviously disqualify them as a parent if anybody knew about them...had a target.
Okay, that's dimestore Freudian analysis, but frankly, that's about what his political columns have rated, quality-wise.
Well, Dave Barry is in a band with Stephen King. And Rush is a dope fiend. Perhaps after a long night of rocking and partying, King found them both crashed out on his couch and couldn't resist the devious and fiendish notion of crossing the two of them in some bizarro genetic brain-jar experiment.
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syntheid
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 06:44 pm (UTC)It also illustrated, quite well, why Lileks does not have a comments feature below his entries. Why bother accepting comments when you know what people are going to write and why you already disagree with them?
Sheesh, what a crank.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-21 08:28 pm (UTC)But the Brain Eater's been hitting him so hard that I haven't had the urge to read him in months. His political writing has never been good, actually; I mean, he's a Republican and I'm not, and that's part of it, but I'd appreciate it if he were offering reasoned arguments, and he really never has even when he's saying stuff I agree with. His writing is emotionally driven, about feelings and attitudes, and that's a bad if popular way to argue about political issues. At best it's like Maureen Dowd only on the other side of the fence. And lately he's gotten so emotionally invested in the politics that it just drives out everything else.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 03:19 am (UTC)When lileks is making fun of brochures and old motels, I'll read him. Personal thoughts on politics and whether his daughter is the cyootest thing ever, goddamit, no thanks
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 10:01 am (UTC)But he's like C. S. Lewis writing about atheism and identifying it all with his own snotty adolescent anti-religiosity. Since Lileks was a cartoon liberal to begin with all he can dispute is cartoon liberalism. And the essay he wrote for this past Sept. 11, the one that turned me off reading him regularly, he showed signs of being possessed by a new seething contempt himself, the notion that millions of his countrymen are subconsciously on the other side in the War on Terror and want to see his daughter incinerated. Spend too much time dwelling on paranoid thoughts and they start to color everything you see and do.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 10:54 am (UTC)*ding ding ding*
I may yet try to work up a full-size rant about it, but you've hit the nail on the head here in regards how Lileks got infected by the brain-eater. He had his first kid in his early 40s, and 9/11 happened shortly before her first birthday: suddenly all that free-floating angst that every parent has about (a) their child's safety, and (b) how all the stupid things they thought/said as a youth would obviously disqualify them as a parent if anybody knew about them...had a target.
Okay, that's dimestore Freudian analysis, but frankly, that's about what his political columns have rated, quality-wise.
brain and brain! what is brain?
Date: 2003-11-22 09:29 am (UTC)Re: brain and brain! what is brain?
Date: 2003-11-22 02:19 pm (UTC)Stop looking at me like that.