very simple

Charlatan by Pope Brock

Thoroughly enjoyable, I found the Epilogue to be the most disturbing section, with the surfeit of modern-day analogues to “Dr.” Brinkley’s methods.

The story of quacks wouldn’t be nearly as fascinating without the legions of ready and willing customers for their too-good-to-be-true methods. Here was a guy who suckered untold numbers of people into getting goat testicles implanted into them. And only after decades of practice did they turn on him.

But…fascinating read, and I’d highly recommend it.

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Addendum: I finally got to watch this week’s Mad Men, and with talk of Bert Cooper’s “procedure”, I couldn’t help but be glad that I read this book – he’s the right age, and it sounds like he ended up with one of these “rejuvenation” surgeries that amounted to little more than a botched vasectomy in the 1920s/30s.

Taken on Friday, which was widely considered to be one of the coldest days of the year. I don’t know what this guy did to piss off his manager, but while I waited a good 15 minutes for the bus, he was forced to walk back and forth in front of the Old Navy, shouting into a bullhorn about an awesome sale, while wearing this stupid hat, which wouldn’t even keep his head warm if he were wearing it correctly.

In addition to yesterday’s photo of the men’s winner, I took about a gazillion shots over the 4+ hours that I watch the marathon. After whittling them down, I’ve ended up with about 60. No individual captions, since that’s just too much work :), but if you look at them in order, at the beginning you’ll see the womens’ winners, then the men, and then the pack. silly outfits and flags start about a third of the way down. I edited out most of the blurry shots except for one, because that was Peter Sagal, host of my favorite NPR radio show, Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. I sent him the pic over twitter last night, and he was very appreciative, so I kept it in the mix, even though the photo itself is kind of terrible (he was way to close to me and my camera didn’t have time to focus before he was gone).

Anyway, here are the pics. click to get the full photo.

I know that Jon Stewart constantly repeats the refrain that he’s a fake newsperson, and that he shouldn’t be taken seriously, but I think that he’s the only one working in journalism today that’s willing to ask these questions. Going all the way back to Thomas Nast’s cartoons (or, quite frankly, the fool in King Lear), it’s often the “clown”, the comedian, the joker who is the only one who is willing to speak truth to power. It’s couched in humor, but one has to wonder why Stewart is the only one who is willing to dig deep on these issues, while the “real” journalists do nothing more than serve as mouthpieces for the industries/administrations that they cover. Oh, and I’d be surprised if the SEC didn’t begin to investigate Cramer for market manipulation based on those clips that were dug up where Cramer admits that he’s pumping stocks.

Full, uncensored interview clips of Part 1 (and please enjoy the schadenfreude of these clips being sponsored by Bank of America). Part 2 and Part 3 can be viewed at the Daily Show’s website (had problems with embedding).

Yesterday, I was wandering around down near Union Square, and I decided to pop in to Shoemania to see if I could get myself a new pair of crocs.  I bought a pair last year, and loved them, but pretty much wore them out.

Plus, since that purchase, the amount of colors and styles that have been made available has increased, and what I really wanted were the more "industrial" type that had an adjustable back strap.  Unfortunately, even though the shoes are essentially unisex chunks of rubber you strap to your feet, this particular style has been marketed towards men (while the pink strappy ones are over in the women’s section, go figure!).  It’s not that I have a problem shopping for or buying "men’s" shoes, it’s that, most of the time, the sizes available in this style have been way too big for my feet.

So, I get to shoemania, and discover that they’ve actually got racks of the things, some of them even approaching my size! (between 8-9).  So I hurriedly grab a pair and start trying them on, finding them both comfortable and generally the right size.  At which point, a complete stranger taps me on the shoulder (which gets my hackles up right away, because, call me crazy, I don’t like complete strangers touching me).  And when I turn around, she starts, very animatedly, lecturing me about how "those are men’s shoes" with a disgusted look on her face.

Huh?

So I, being my ever so polite (read: bitchy) self, after being touched, interrupted and lectured at by a complete stranger about how I’m essentially not conforming to her gender stereotypes, first ask if she works at the store.  Answer?  no.  At which point I kind of ripped into her about:

(a) the fact that she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, as the shoes are UNISEX, and print both men’s and women’s sizes on the bottom (regardless of the fact that they’re fugly clogs worn for casual comfort, and not to, say, a fancy ball)

(b) maybe she should keep her fucking unsolicited (and wrong) opinions to herself, and

(c) even if was buying "men’s" shoes (I guess, wingtips? other than high heels, there actually aren’t too many really "gender specific" shoes), why would it be any of her goddamn business?

She ran away at that point.

Yeah.  I think the fact that she felt so strongly about this that she actually had the gall to touch me, to interrupt my shoe buying reverie, to lecture me, was what set me off. 

Anyway, I mentioned this to the checkout counter person as I was paying, and she couldn’t stop laughing – shockingly, even if I wanted to buy "men’s" shoes, they would have no problem selling them to me!  imagine that!  because they’re in the business of selling shoes (and frankly, being on the border of Greenwich Village and Chelsea, I’m pretty sure my buying a pair of crocs and a new pair of chuck taylors (also unisex!) was the least unusual sale of the week).