Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 01/08/08

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Taking Nothing for Granite

After all the premature obituaries for Hillary Clinton's campaign, it was nice to see her in a too-close-to-call race in New Hampshire. Especially after all of the nonsense about her "crying" yesterday. I thought it was one of the few really humanizing moments I've seen from her, but of course the punditry had to ascribe it either to weakness or to sheer fakery. I hate the media, even if I am one.

Our absentee ballots have arrived. (Californians, at least in this county, are being urged to vote by mail because of the secretary of state's ruling that electronic machines are unreliable.) My daughter has already filled hers out -- she voted for Clinton. I'm waffling again, after having decided that I would vote for Obama.

At least Hillary's strong showing may curb some of Andrew Sullivan's gloating.