TBL Tweet of the Day for 12/4/2016

One of the things I don't like about Twitter is the way that the past quickly disappears in the constant flow of the new; I think that's one of the reasons it was impossible for voters to keep a handle on the accumulating weight of Donald Trump's baggage as we chased the outrage of the moment (which tended with Comey's loose lips and the media's penchant for balance to be Hillary Clinton's emails in the latter days of the campaign).

One of the advantages of blogs is that they are organized with less clutter and with an easy-to-follow timeline, so today I'm starting something new here on trueblueliberal.org. I'm picking one tweet from the previous day to highlight, honor, and embed in amber. The first honor goes to @ezlusztig. I know nothing about Elliot Lusztig outside of his tweets and his Twitter cover photo showing one of the world's great artistic moments, Phillipe Petit's 1974 walk above lower Manhattan.

Because you're a racist? https://t.co/3TFEZNtH1O

— Elliott Lusztig (@ezlusztig) December 5, 2016

This tweet is not in my style (which prefers using all 140 characters in complete grammatical sentences), but the brevity was perfect here in response to racist Anne Coulter's racist rhetorical question about the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters, "Why do these 'Native Americans' look exactly like the Trump protesters, Ferguson rioters, college hooligans, Occupy Wall St, etc?"

Unlike most of the new features that I have introduced on this blog from time to time, I am going to try to keep this up every day (except when I'm traveling or otherwise engaged in computer-free activities). If I follow you on Twitter, maybe you'll get to be the #TBLTweetOfTheDay soon.

My Bold Day-After-The-Oscars Prediction

Within ten years, when people look back at the celebrity worship and backslapping convention held at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre last night, they'll ask, "Did they really overlook Inherent Vice?"

As a diehard Thomas Pynchon fan I had been waiting for Paul Thomas Anderson's film adaptation for months before and after its release. However, the vagaries of feature film distribution haven't brought it to a theatre within a hundred miles of my home yet. But on Oscar weekend I was able to pay to watch Inherent Vice on demand and did so twice. I've never seen a film that benefited so much from rewatching (just as Pynchon's books are all better and richer on second and third readings), and my prediction is that it will quickly become a classic as more people are able to see and share it.

Check back with me on this prediction in 2025 so that one of us can say, "I told you so."

The 2015 True Blue Liberal Blue Ribbon Award : First Call for Nominations

Also available for 49 other states.

If Oscar Sunday tells us anything, it tells us that nothing -- absolutely nothing -- is more important in our compulsively competitive culture than winning awards. So, finally, after more than a decade of preparation, we are ready to finally use our blogging expertise to award one blog the very first True Blue Liberal Blue Ribbon Award in 2015. In addition to the honor of being chosen and a blue ribbon graphic to place prominently (or secretly, or not at all) on one's blog, the winner will also win a pair of mugs, one honoring their home (or favorite) state, and one featuring our entire liberal blue nation.

One of the actual physical prizes.

The process of choosing this year's winner will last until December, with a chance for readers to comment and vote on long and short lists of candidates, but this is the very first call for blog nominations. Add a comment with a URL here on this blog post at TrueBlueLiberal.org or tweet a suggested blog address (your own or someone else's) to @TrueBlueLiberal on Twitter.

There is no need for any information about a blogger's real name or address until a the grand-prize winner wants to claim her or his prizes. I'm going into this process without preconceptions and looking forward to being surprised by a number of bloggers who are presenting unique valuable thoughts in a variety of new ways. 

TrueBlueLiberal.org turns ten years old today.

Started with its first post on December 16, 2004, in the dark days between the second election of Bush and Cheney (their first without the assistance of an antiquated electoral college, hanging chads, and a reactionary Supreme Court) and their second inauguration, this blog enters its double digits today much as it began, not with a bang but a whimper.

One of these days I'll need to start taking this blog seriously. Maybe I'll start giving out True Blue Liberal Blue Ribbons to other neglected blogs in 2015. Americans love awards.

The Quote of the Day Is About Thomas Pynchon

There is a brilliant review by Michael Chabon of Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge in the new issue of The New York Review of Books. There's a lot in his commentary on this book I finished reading a week ago that makes me want to drop what I'm reading now and go back and start reading Pynchon again immediately (and when you do read Bleeding Edge, I highly recommend turning around immediately and reading the first paragraphs as soon as you've let the final page sink in).

But here's Michael Chabon's sentence that caused me to drop The Review and fire up Blogger:

Everything means something, or nothing means anything, and as in every Pynchon novel what can be found is not solution but the grace of moments spent suspended between those certainties.

Pynchon's books are the only ones that I religiously buy and start reading on the day they appear, but I've never seen the appeal of these novels summed up as well in a single sentence.

And the Chabon review will give you a slightly better idea of what you're in for than the official Penguin promotional video...


And with Bleeding Edge shortlisted for this year's National Book Award, I'd love to see it win just to see who (if anyone) would accept this year. Would that person be able to match Professor Irwin Corey's acceptance speech in 1973 in place of Richard Python?