[lit-ideas] Re: Commentators
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 10:52:48 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
-----Original Message-----
>From: Judith Evans <judith.evans001@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: May 31, 2008 5:39 AM
>To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Here's a new spin on preventative medicine
>
>A commenter comments, a commentator goes on and on about football...
>
And Tom Jones has a time machine. Here's an excerpt from our newspaper's
commentatoraldo about the sixty eight year old's concert in Portland, ""With a
minimum of Vegas-style glitz and just enough banter--when Jones slipped into
his low tones, feline growl and description of himself as "'two hundred pounds
of heavenly joy'--he sent tingles down the backs of the faithful. He raised
pulses with a swaggering version of 'You Can Leave Your Hat On," purring, 'You
can take off your dress,' as the crowd at the foot of the stage threw red,
black and white underwear aloft.
"After one encore, Jones--black shirt glistening with sweat--took his leave.
Rows of women stood, applauding. For a moment, the realities of marriage,
divorce, deaths of parents, raising of children and everyday stress fell away.
In the dimness, just before the lights came on, their face looked as full of
youthful life as when they were girls, sitting in front of the TV, watching
their favorite star, dreaming of the future to come."
Why do I call it "commentatoraldo"? Because the writer is "seeing" in the
dimness (hers perhaps?) what she could only imagine. And because the sentence
is not what it purports to be--a sympathetic reading of the audience--but is
just guilty "balance" for the standard "who could take such people seriously"
kind of article that you might expect, Tom Jones and the women all being older
than the writer.
Yes, I'm a bit grumpy. No, I don't terribly admire Tom Jones. Yes, it's a
small subject, but how people write is well within our bailiwick. Oh, and full
disclosure--the writer of this piece once re-wrote an article I was
commissioned to write. I wrote that Reno, Nevada is not my kind of town. She
wrote a puff piece about Reno...and left my name at the top.
David Ritchie,
s'occuping of his own jardin in
Portland, Oregon
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