Michael Bérubé - American Airspace

If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave

Damn that twisted genius Billmon and his infernal Whiskey Bar! (And a demonic hat tip to Rox for calling it to my attention.) His brilliant analysis of the Contemporary Cultural Revolution is not only scholarly and erudite, but illustrated. This humble blog gasps in awe.

And it also begs for your patience. I was going to do the Beinart Effect thing today, and return to Horowitz’s Monday-morning Bérubé extravaganza tomorrow, but I wasted the entire day yesterday doing real work (that is, rewriting the intro to the book-- yes, that book) and I’ve got all kinds of scutwork and assorted catchup today. So for now, the Renard News Channel simply directs you to the incomparable Billmon. And (for those of you who might be amused by such a thing) to my very first cover-art caricature, which surely gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “101st Fighting Keyboarders.” (Should I lose the hat? I think it clashes with the rest of the ensemble. And yeah, there’s a profile there too. Something about blogging.)

In the meantime, here’s our latest reader contest: Finish The Couplet! But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave. . . .

Posted by on 03/17 at 02:08 PM

Ah, one of my minions. The hard copy will be arriving on my desk any day now.

Posted by Roxanne on 03/17 at 03:49 PM
Yes, lose the hat.

As for the couplet:
You ain’t going to make it with no one, no way

OK, I know it’s terrible. I’m a biologist, so save me.

Posted by on 03/17 at 03:54 PM
the woman you hook up with will have to shave.

Posted by on 03/17 at 03:57 PM
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave. . . .
You’ll never get laid not even at a rave.

Posted by on 03/17 at 04:03 PM
Don’t expect to score “E” at a Tokyo Rave.

Posted by Roxanne on 03/17 at 04:06 PM
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Dave,
You can go piss on guys like Berube’s grave.

Sorry. I love you man,but I’m just trying strenuously to be funny.

Posted by on 03/17 at 04:09 PM
No problem, tweez. I can take a little pissing, but please do wait ‘til I’m dead.

More seriously, people, don’t they teach prosody anymore? These suggestions are great so far, but they ain’t scanning right. The line is built around three consecutive dactyls:

(but) IF you go CARrying PICtures of /
(you) AIN’T gonna MAKE it with ANyone

and then three consecutive stressed syllables at the end.

Don’t make me write the rest of the week’s posts in dactyllic hexameter. This will be your only warning.

Posted by Michael on 03/17 at 04:14 PM
If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave
There isn’t a shred left of intellect we can save.

Posted by corndog on 03/17 at 04:22 PM
Didn’t they warn you about the internets, Michael? We’re the great unwashed and uneducated, your standard huddled masses. You expect us to know about scanning? I’m still trying to avoid splitting my infinitives.

Posted by on 03/17 at 04:27 PM
I dunno, Rob-- at the moment, the subtle and accomplished corndog is taking the dactyl prize. The bar has been raised!

Next week’s posts will be in anapestic trimeter. That should be fun.

Posted by on 03/17 at 04:30 PM
I know. You need to have words with that scamp corndog. He’s not keeping to the new national laws of mediocrity.

Next week’s going to look like this, then?
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house...

All right, so I cheated. But I learned something, too!

Posted by on 03/17 at 04:38 PM
...you’ll never be happy until we’re back in the caves

Posted by on 03/17 at 04:47 PM
With many apologies to Lennon (and, I suppose, Lenin):

Neo-Bolshies want a revolution
Well you know
They all want to change the world
Don’t want them teachin’ evolution
Well you know
They all want to change the world
But when they talk about instruction
Don’t you know you can count me out

The new faculty’s gonna be . . . all right
All right, all right

They say they got a real solution
Well you know
They’re all un-American
I’ll ask you for a contribution
Well you know
To initiate a leftist ban
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
That’s stage two, brother, you’ll have to wait

Soon your profs are gonna be ….all right
All right, all right, all right…

I say we’ll change the Constitution
Well you know
Don’t wanna mess with your child’s head
No further mental pollution
Well you know
Celebrate free enterprise instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave
InstaPundit will say that you’re really brave.

And your kids will all end up, on the right
On the right, on the right…etc.

Posted by on 03/17 at 04:59 PM
"Then go fuck yourself with an autoclave."

Hey, it actually rhymes! What do I win?

Posted by norbizness on 03/17 at 04:59 PM
Good one, norbiz. I had thought of the autoclave rhyme, but hadn’t figured out how to work it into a line.

Posted by on 03/17 at 05:01 PM
you ain’t gonna be more than a Robot Slave

Posted by GForce on 03/17 at 05:05 PM
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave. . . .

youll never break free of the shadows in platos cave.

Posted by on 03/17 at 05:05 PM
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave
Derridean dactylic parergon (oh behave)!!

Posted by David Ross McIrvine on 03/17 at 05:18 PM
I know it’s really Ward Churchill that you craaaaaave....

Posted by A. G. on 03/17 at 05:26 PM
#17 & #19, nose to nose, miles ahead of the pack.

My weak entry: But if you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Dave/The flag you wrapped up in be pretty hard to wave…

Posted by on 03/17 at 05:32 PM
You AIN’T never GONnna be MORE than a clown’s knave

Posted by Idelber on 03/17 at 05:36 PM
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave,
Berubé will laugh at you as you rant and rave.

(This probably stresses the wrong syllable in your name. I plead ignorance; it worked for Bush, even if it didn’t work for Ebbers.)

Posted by on 03/17 at 05:55 PM
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave,
You should at least tell us what job you really crave.

Posted by on 03/17 at 05:59 PM
You’ll have to blow sunshine rays up his ass: “You’re my fave!”

It scans! Oops, gotta run, Mom’s after me with the bar of soap!

Posted by on 03/17 at 06:05 PM
TECHNICAL QUESTION: Does Ghraib rhyme with Dave?

Posted by Roxanne on 03/17 at 06:06 PM
This corner-cutting blog is just fine with slant rhymes, Rox. Go to.

Posted by Michael on 03/17 at 06:11 PM
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave,

Long will your idiocy gloriously wave.

Posted by Linkmeister on 03/17 at 06:12 PM
Oh, and many thanks to Ben Alpers for exceeding the parameters of the contest so spectacularly. I think that tune has potential, I really do. Just one thing-- is it OK if I insist that we play the single version rather than the slower, softer album version? The latter doesn’t give the drummer anything to do, and besides, someone really should open the song with an ear-piercing scream.

Posted by Michael on 03/17 at 06:14 PM
Congrats on the neat profile. I’d love to read more of your reflections on the threat the cosmopolitan liberalism of small towns like State College and U/C offer to conservative mythology.

Posted by on 03/17 at 06:20 PM
You can use them to wipe, anyway.

Posted by on 03/17 at 06:25 PM
you ain’t concerned with diversity anyhow

Posted by on 03/17 at 06:31 PM
Posting poetry in blog comments is just silly. I was hoping for some discussion of how Yoko Ono split Horowitz away from Ramparts, leading to the dissolution of that fine band of brothers. Oh, well.

Posted by Chris Clarke on 03/17 at 06:33 PM
Wait! Oh ye masses of Bible reading, God-Fearing, 700 Club-watching conservatives that be a-reading this Neo-Brezhnevist propaganda, take heart! We can subvert the sly and despicable ideology behind the liberal play on the Beatles’ words and use it our own benefit! Long live Chairman Dave! I mean, uh . . . Democratically Elected Terrorist-Hatin’ Some Sorta President-Thing Dave!

observe,

“And if you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Dave,
the lib-ruhls will eat your firstborn, so you have to be brave!

And you know they’re gonna come
in the night!
And you know they’re gonna come
in the night!
And you know they’re gonna come
in the night!

You say you dig the Institution (of Higher Learning), well you know,
They all want to destroy the world.
You tell me that that’s convolution, well you know . . .
No it isn’t!
So if you’re looking for conservatives to bait (with your treasonous lies!)
All I can tell you is, ‘Muqtada, you have to wait!’

Cuz you know the libruhls come
In the night!
And you know they’re gonna come
In the night!
And yes, they definitely will come
In the night!”

See, now, my friends? I even worked in the name of a well-known Islamic terrorist, and I associated him with American liberals. They’ll never know what hit them! Muqtada, indeed! I am brilliant!

Posted by on 03/17 at 06:42 PM
but if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave,

O’Reilly’s falafel will make you his sweet, sex slave!

(MM-MMMM!)

and don’t you know ya’ gonna’ see, the light! (all night!)

political wisdom is only found on...The Right!

*

-L. (i feel SO dirty...)

Posted by on 03/17 at 06:54 PM
Boy, talk about being late to the Party: I admit to visiting Billmon before Berube today to break a long blogfast, and had meant to alert y’all to this. That very same Lennon reference popped into my head immediately upon reading Billmon-- snooze ‘n’ lose at warp speed in this company! Hysterical stuff; nice to be back.

I’ll compose my own brilliant doggerel and post it in a couple of weeks, after the thread is long dead. Speaking of, is the embalmed Lenin still on display in the Kremlin?

I

Posted by on 03/17 at 07:38 PM
"Berube is a bit of a crank, a writer who’s so devoted to his temperate, nuanced understanding of the world that he manages to turn temperance and nuance into a kind of mania.”

Everyone is out to get you, Michael, even human affairs journalists. Watch your back, there’s a gang of four around every corner.

Posted by Dan Pride on 03/17 at 08:06 PM
Did someone say “gang of four”? Here, from googlism.com, is proof positive:

“berube is a rising star

berube is the paterno family professor in literature at pennsylvania state university

berube is heartfelt

berube is one of the 4”

Posted by David Ross McIrvine on 03/17 at 08:41 PM
You say you’ll save the Constitution, well, you know, we all wonder what’s in your head.

You tell us seize the institutions, well, you know, you’d better use your mind instead.

And if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave,
You ain’t going to have an audience for your rave.

Don’t you know we don’t wanna be far right, don’t you know we don’t wanna be far right.

Far right, far right, far right…

Posted by on 03/17 at 08:48 PM
Just to clear up a few nuances around here: Dan, it’s true-- I am a bit of a crank. I think this entire blog is ample evidence of that. But-- as I told Dan Oppenheimer of the Valley Advocate-- I have never blogged in my pajamas. Not once. Not even in 1985.

And David, someone e-mailed me my Googlism hits months ago; I was most intrigued by “berube is a rising star” and “berube is mean and unfair,” but, alas, the first refers to former UConn bball standout Carla Berube, and the second turns out to come from a sentence written by Cary Wolfe in an Electronic Book Review exchange: “Harold Fromm’s accusation that I use sexually exclusive language in my response to Michael Berube is mean and unfair.” Then, of course, there’s “berube is found dead in his lab,” which comes from an episode of the X-Files. But my favorite is “berube is on the verge of becoming the first nhl heavyweight to reach.” I’m sure it’s a reference to former Flyer-Capital-Islander-Flame Craig Berube playing his one-thousandth game a couple of years ago (a remarkable milestone for an enforcer), but I can dream, can’t I?

And Nick, that’s some very nice work. Kudos! And extra points for Muqtada. But explanatory parenthetical remarks are not permitted.

Posted by Michael on 03/17 at 09:10 PM
Ah, Michael, if you like Billmon’s piece of the Horwitz Cultural Revolution, you need to go back for his prognostications on Wolfowitz at the World Bank:
http://billmon.org/archives/001753.html

Posted by on 03/17 at 10:08 PM
Look, I still have nightmares about being asked to interpret Joyce Kilmer in junior high, ok? I..just..can’t..do..this!

Posted by on 03/17 at 10:44 PM
Ya hafta check back every day for the format change…

Posted by Doghouse Riley on 03/18 at 12:36 AM
But explanatory parenthetical remarks are not permitted.

There goes my whole schtick.

Posted by Chris Clarke on 03/18 at 12:38 AM
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave. . . .
Ann Coulter’s lovin’ you will crave....

I gotta hand it to the “autoclave” couplet, though. I think that tops mine.

Posted by Chuck on 03/18 at 12:55 AM
You say you see a real dire network
when it’s just some smoke and mirrors scam
You’ve bought into a phoney network
made by that knuckleheaded man

But when you talk about instruction
there’s nothing there for you to talk about.

Don’t you know there’s gonna be a fight?
That’s right, that’s right

You say it’s just a quirk of format
We think instead it’s what Dave planned
to treat folks like some fucking doormats
because he always thinks he can
So if you want fodder for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother we count on Dave

Don’t you know there’s gonna be a fight?
That’s right, that’s right

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well you know
You better free your mind instead
But if you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Dave
You just might end up kissing my ash-wood stave.

Don’t you know there’s gonna be a fight?
That’s right, that’s right.

That’s right, that’s right
That’s right
Alright
Alright, alright

Posted by on 03/18 at 04:52 AM
For those of you who care about Horowitz and his antics in Colorado, this is a little note on his doings

Posted by Carol on 03/18 at 10:55 AM
"Next week’s posts will be in anapestic trimeter. That should be fun. “

Ah, I love anapestic trimeter, as long as you use fresh garlic.

Posted by on 03/18 at 11:03 AM
Having read Dave Horowitz’s “explanation” of “affective leftist,” I can only conclude he is an “affective rightist.” Dave would have a hard time going down the line, issue by issue, with Republicans, but he is pulled, emotionally, onto Bush’s “side”. There’s that, and of course, his obsessive and projection of guilt for his staying with the Black Panthers long after nearly everyone else had decided they were dangerous, murderous thugs--even Leonard Bernstein--who Dave would place into the “affective leftist” hall of fame if Lenny was still among the living.

The phrase “affective left” remains fairly obscure, though, but I recall that Mao was a poet. Can’t wait for Dave’s poetry:

“I wandered lonely as a nuclear cloud...”

Posted by on 03/18 at 11:59 AM
It isn’t guilt that is making Horowitz such a right wing ideologue. He was a left wing ideologue for the same reasons he is now right wing ideologue: rigidity in thinking, inability to change to meet circumstances, and an ideology/world view that is intellectually “pure” (that you don’t deviate from)and has everything in black and white. Uber left wingers were extremely rigid in their thinking (and boring to boot). If you weren’t pure you weren’t allowed into the inner sanctum. Which is why so many former left wingers are now right wingers. There is no giult, simply the same mental psychotic fixation that demands incredible discipline to keep moving rather than falling apart. I think another term for it is borderline personality disorder.

Posted by Carol on 03/18 at 12:17 PM
--Oh, we can use slant rhymes? That really opens it up!

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Dave. . . .

You’ll surely be facile at calling a club a spade

Your ilk is the reason I’m digging an early grave

You’re probably thinking that Coulter’s a total babe

You think that G. Bush’s prosperity was self-made

Abysmally specious contentions are your pet crave

Your reins have been handed to one who’s a total knave

It’s safe to assume that you order your eggs well-laid

You hope that ‘08 makes Dick Cheney the early fave

(You can substitute any other noxious three-beat name for Cheney’s in that last one)

--Well, that traffic jam I hit this afternoon was good for one thing after all.

Posted by on 03/18 at 08:07 PM
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050404&s=jacoby

this essay certainly portrays Horowitz and his brethren as the dawning agents of neo-fascism that they are....

Posted by on 03/18 at 09:12 PM
That’s a great piece by Jacoby. I’ll get to it when I do my reply to Horowitz on Monday. . . .

Posted by on 03/18 at 09:48 PM
future freedom you will save
from self idolized chattering libs
drulling over -isms so bad they need bibs.

Posted by on 03/19 at 05:45 PM
Mike, Mike. Clearly you don’t know the song! It’s called “Revolution # 1” and it’s by the Beatles. And listen, while I’ve got you here-- I love you, so I say this as a fan: you really should play in the American League where you can DH.

Posted by Michael on 03/19 at 07:07 PM
"""In drawing up the Academic Bill of Rights I consulted three prominent leftwing academics – Stanely Fish, until recently dean of the University of Illinois’ Chicago campus, and perhaps the leading leftwing scholar in the nation; Todd Gitlin, former president of the Sixties student radical organization SDS and current anti-war activist, and also Professor of Sociology and Journalism at Columbia University; and Michael Berube, professor of English (and anti-war activist) at Penn State. Anything in the Academic Bill of Rights that so much as irritated these gentlemen, I removed."""

This can’t be right?!? What happened there? Michael?

Posted by on 03/20 at 09:26 PM
A suggestion for Nick’s post, based on an initial misreading. How about, “You say you dig the Inquisition, well, you know,
...”.

Posted by on 03/20 at 10:53 PM
(Yawn) It’s 12:30 AM Monday morning here on the West Coast… Sorry, but I was affected by deflected road rage in that earlier entry. Got carried away jotting down way too much over-generalized nonsense on a discarded potato-chip bag while inching down the freeway!

“You’d cackle as academe’s shackled and put to grave...”

Posted by on 03/21 at 04:41 AM
It isn’t right, postmodernist-- this humble blog batted that one down a couple of weeks ago, with the help of Graham Larkin, right here.

Posted by Michael on 03/21 at 09:39 AM
"A semiotically confused website called Whiskey Bar which is evidently the work of a historically challenged individual with the nom de net of “Billmon” has attempted a heavy-handed satire of the academic freedom for students movement, caricaturing it as an attempt to pull off a Maoist purge of leftwing academics and their doctrines from American university campuses.

Other equally at sea leftists, have linked the Billmon agit-prop and spread it across the net. Michael Berube recommends it as a “brilliant analysis” (even though it just a collection of paired quotes with a predictable graphic)...blah, blah, woof, woof.”

David Horowitz
Orwellian Leftists
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17413

I guess you can officially consider yourself a running dog, Michael. Horowitz also denounces Tom Tomorrow ("artistically talented but intellectually unhinged cartoonist.") If we can round up one more, I guess we’ll have our own Gang of Four.

Cheers,
Billmon

Posted by on 03/21 at 06:09 PM
..a Boschean ref’rence will fake ‘em out anyway

Posted by waldo on 03/22 at 08:18 PM
Out of the semiotic confusion that is my own private state of Horowitzian dementia:

But if you go carryin’ pictures of Chairman Dave
Ya can’t go to college--ain’t nothin’ there left to save

Meh. I think netizen Billmon used up all the good heavy-handed satire.

Posted by on 03/24 at 01:03 AM

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