October 18, 2007

Why don't I vlog anymore?

I don't know. No reason. I just remembered I used to vlog by having readers give me the subject matter. I think I quit right after I moved to NYC because the suggestions all seemed to be: How do you like New York, could you picture yourself staying in New York, what do you miss about Madison, and so forth. So, maybe I'll try to vlog now and then. Like today. But serve up some subject matter that isn't about me. Believe it or not, I'm not interested in talking about myself. It's possible, though, that I'm just tired of talking. Not writing. Just talking.

48 comments:

Tank said...

There's an ad about Imus on your website. You're now in NY, Imus country. What do you think about him coming back?

Simon said...

Okay. Orin Kerr recently posted a link to the late Prof. David Currie reading the Constitution. (Prof. Currie's voice is pleasant but not quite as mellifluous as yours -- when was he ever sampled by an avant-garde music group?) Thinking on a smaller scale, perhaps you could read one section or clause that's particularly important to you and talk about what it means to you.

Simon said...

^ I should have posted a link. For those interested, you can find MP3s of Currie's project here. It's a wonderful resource for getting kids to learn this material, too.

Justin said...

I just bought my first house. At closing I had to sign more papers in one sitting than ever in my life. I couldn't help but think that it is lawyers who make all this paperwork necessary. Really, does anyone other than a lawyer care if I sign with my middle initial or not? And is it really necessary to sign a form saying that if I sign one form with my middle initial and another form without my middle initial I'm still the same person, legally speaking? Any thoughts?

Did Silvio join you in Brooklyn or did you leave him behind to suffer the Madison winter alone?

bill said...

There's an ad about Imus on your website.

True story: As althouse.blogspot opens in a reduced window I glance over and think "My God, Ann looks horrible in that new picture. Oh, wait. It's Don Imus. Never mind."

Ben (The Tiger in Exile) said...

That description of Hillary Clinton by Glenn Reynolds -- "Dick Cheney, only with hair."

Discuss.

Justin said...

bill said...

True Story: ...

Same here. It freaks me out.

rhhardin said...

I like Imus, but he's certain to be an old queen now. I don't know if I can stand the hours and hours of boredom that will be required to get a single good line out now.

It started to go seriously downhill when he married Yoko Ono back in 97.

He should never have apologized for his remarks, which were by the way completely justified. If you want to choose a tattooed team-from-the-`hood trash-talking dysfunctional Black lifestyle for your women's basketball team, you should be prepared to live with the consequences ; and Imus is entitled to mock them for the choice.

If you can't say that on the air, why even go on the air, and why listen?

And as Francessa, sports guy on WFAN said, he couldn't believe the number of phonies Imus had as friends.

No more will you hear some discussion or other about scrotums followed by ``And now to clear this up, here's Andrea Mitchell.'' Nobody deserves it more. Way to go, I-man!

I fear that's over.

Dare I point at my huge collection of Imus clips, more or less in time order from 1997, of stuff that struck me (sometimes mysteriously as I listen today) as amusing? Automatically saved for posterity with a couple of keystrokes. It's not like it took much effort.

The day's coverage of Yassir Arafat's funeral would be a nice example of why Imus was and is needed.

hdhouse said...

It may seem like work but if you caught Frontline it dealt with OLC at Justice and that former Univ. of Chicago guy who bucked the president and gonzalas. Would you also consider commenting on the president signing the 45 day authorization on his own authority when Ashcroft wouldn't sign.

There are a number of very confusing issues presented about presidential authority and congress and its hard to figure out.

On the other hand, by your "walks" it appears you enjoy the diversity of the neighborhoods and their passers by....then you enter a fairly rarified apartment building and "vertical" above it. does it seem "unreal"?

Trooper York said...

Why not vlog about speech, free and otherwise. It ties together a lot of your recent posts and stuff in the news. Imus's return, the bogus posters mocking Muslim awareness day, the Iranian president at Columbia, the "noose" incidents at Columbia and for Halloween (Speech/hate speech) and your discussion about your comments on this blog. Make it about us, not you. Just please don't bust on people who enjoy run on sentence structure.

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks for the Imus links!

Imus's voice is so much more slurred in the later clips. But that Arafat thing was funny. "Ants are more organized."

Simon said...

Harry - was that the PBS program about Cheney? Crap, I missed that! Anyone know if it's available online or being repeated? I wanted to see that. I watch so little television, it didn't even occur to me.

Re your question to Ann, I think that the questions of inherent Presidential authority are about the hardest questions in ConLaw. With that said, in the abstract, I'd have to guess that the answer to the question is probably that yes, the President can override the decision of the Attorney General, and can't be deprived of that authority by statute. "The Attorney General is the hand of the President in taking care that the laws of the United States in legal proceedings, and in the prosecution of offenses, be faithfully executed," United States v. Cox, 342 F.2d 167, 171 (5th Cir. 1965) (en banc) (cert. denied, 381 U.S. 935); under the unitary executive theory, "[e]xecutive branch actors are intermediaries for the executive power, and surrogates for the President in whom that power is vested by the Constitution," and if you buy into that, it seems to me that Presidential authority to override the AG follows pretty inexorably.

Unknown said...

I'm thinking winebox versus bottle, screwtop versus cork.

Trooper York said...

WINEBOX, dude I putting out a hit on you. Don't be bringing that here, just don't. If you go to the diner and order onion rings, don't turn your back on the guy with the member's only jacktet.

Maxine Weiss said...

What's going on with Joe Lieberman?

bill said...

Screwtops are often better than cork. Natural cork has a fairly high failure rate. The longer a wine ages in the bottle increases the cork advantage -- allows some oxidation.

There are some quite acceptable boxed wines available. As I live in a state that doesn't allow alcohol sales on Sundays, and I don't drink enough to justify keeping a bunch of bottles around, I usually keep a box of red and white in the refrigerator for cooking. Perfectly fine for drinking the occasional glass around the house. I usually buy Black Box, but there's also an Australian winery that's pretty good.

Trooper York said...

He's a little depressed because the Red Sox have lost their Jomentum.

ConnXion said...

Hi Ann,

I am from Sweden (and live in Sweden). Work as an attorney. Was a student at the law school during summer semester in Madison in 1977. Had the corporation law class. Revi Professor was a man that I believe previously had been dean of the faculty. Soooo, since I found your blog, I follow most of your Madison City related parts of the blog. Kind of fun. Especially enjoy your photographs.

Wouldn't mind havĂ­ng an evening at the Union Terrace. Do they still show movies at the wall outdoors?
/Stefan L

ConnXion said...

Sorry for the misspellings and errors in previous ...

Trooper York said...

Bill, I respect the fact that you don't drink enough wine to justify having a bunch of bottles around. But you can go to the wine store and get a simple vacuum pump system with rubber air tight corks which will keep you wine in pristine condition. Some people buy their baby formula at the gas station, that still doesn’t make it right. Please I beseech you, don't destroy the bounty of the wondrous grape with such cavalier disregard.

Too Cool for School said...

Clinton's latest policy proposal illustrates the complexity of the role of her gender.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/18/clinton_shows_femininity_to_court_key_constituency/
She has to prove she's a man before she can show she's a woman. Also: why do young feminists cling to some one as regressive as Edwards?

Maxine Weiss said...

What does Francis Ford Coppola know about Jack Nicholson? Those two never worked together.

Instead of worrying about everybody else, I think Coppola needs to put more Basil and Oregano in his sauces.

Hey Francis Ford: Parsley is not a substitute for fresh Basil in your costly sauces ! I want a refund!

bill said...

Trooper, Yeah, I've done that, too. I've also used wine making kits and bottled up 4-5 gallons in splits. I'm not against bottles -- there's a couple in the pantry now and if I have anyone over for dinner I'm not breaking out the box. It's mostly about convenience and cooking. Whether I've deglazed the cast iron skillet with a Shiraz after cooking ribeyes or cooked up a pot of risotto with a Chardonnay, you're not going to be able to tell what sort of vessel the wine was stored in.

All I can ask is that you try a Black Box brand and give it a chance. It's not like I'm pimping Franzia.

Trooper York said...

Man with Knife: You're a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses.
(Chinatown 1974)

Trooper York said...

I'm with you Bill, but what I usually do is try to serve the same wine with dinner that I used in cooking the food. Since I normally cook Italian, there is wine in almost everything I make, and I enjoy sipping while cooking. Thus, a big box doesn't seem attractive, but I will take your advice and try it. It's just that the box wines that I have been served at various people's homes has been putrid at best. But that might be a reflection on the people and not the method. To be continued.

reader_iam said...

Bill: I'm resisting making a smart-ass comment involving the phrase "foie gras milkshake" ... .

Must ... peel ... fingers ... from ... keyboard ...

There!

reader_iam said...

Althouse: Do you ever find yourself humming the Patty Duke Show theme song as you walk through Brooklyn Heights?

Oops, sorry. That's about you.

***

I thought you originally stopped vlogging because the camera thing-y on your laptop stopped working and it wasn't until you went back to Madison and visited the Apple Store there that you got it fixed.

And, hey! I've previously given you lots of ideas that weren't like the examples you gave in this post. (In fact, you used a couple, in a couple different vlogs.) I think you just got bored.

Me, I still miss the podcasts--more, now that I think about it, than I would miss the comments section here should you dispense with it (which I don't believe for one minute you would ever do). However, I'd be the first to admit I have my little eccentricities.

---

OK, let me try and propose another vlog topic:

Have you determined your Starbucks density yet?

Oops, sorry--that's about you again!

Well, hell. I suppose you could talk about that middle school in Maine which is going to be making a full range of birth control available to its students, confidentially of course.

But how would that be fun?

bill said...

I'll match similar styles, but maybe not the same bottle. There's a valid point about only cooking with what you'd drink, but there's a quickly reached point where cooking with an expensive wine is a waste of money. If I'm cooking with friends what I serving at the table will be higher quality than what I'm cooking with.

NY Times It Boils Down To This: Cheap Wine Works Fine. It confirms what I was thinking so it must be true!

bill said...

reader_iam: bring it on.

. said...

yea, more podcasts!

Trooper York said...

Bill, expensive is a relative term. I certainly wouldn't use a $100 bottle of wine to cook, but a $20-$30 bottle certainly enhances my sauces, stews and braised meats or fish. My attitude is: If I'm eating it, then let's use some good wine, but if it's just you, baby break out the Thunderbird.

bill said...

but if it's just you, baby break out the Thunderbird.

Thanks, but I don't date dudes.

Trooper York said...

That was "You" in a metaphoric sense, not you specifically dude. I too enjoy the box, just not in wine. Not that there's anything wrong with that (obligatory disclaimer, soon to be shortened to NTTAWWT).

Trooper York said...

Hey, let's get back to the topic. Why don't you vlog about wine. Since your detractors seem to think you enjoy it too much.

bill said...

Yeah, I was just about to leave a comment that I probably read that the wrong way.

Lance Burri said...

I don't think you ever told us who you'd like to have play you in the movie.

bill said...

Bah, I screwed up the quote:

He was a brawny wise guy wearing a vinyl jacket and carrying a bag from Radio Shack. I should have said, real loud, "Sorry man, I don't date other guys."

David Sedaris, Santaland Diaries

Anonymous said...

When you were having dinner with InstaHack Glenn Reynolds, did he mention that "The problem is that our political and journalistic classes lack sufficient patriotism to promote self-discipline, or perhaps sufficient self-discipline to allow them to act patriotically"?

Because that's deep!

MadisonMan said...

I'd rather you blogged about not vlogging than vlogged about not blogging.

Anyway, you've just moved and are acquainting yourself with a new locale. That's stressful. Vlogging is probably stressful. So you cut back on stress. That's my theory.

It's very hard to ask a question and not couch it so you won't be talking about yourself when you answer it. But here goes: What are the differences that you've observed between people who live in New York, people who have extended visits, and tourists in New York?

Ann Althouse said...

"Why don't you vlog about wine. Since your detractors seem to think you enjoy it too much."

Enjoying something doesn't mean you have any words to contribute on the subject. Ever tried writing about sex? It's ridiculous. Writing about wine? Ugh! I hate that kind of thing. I can't imagine anything worth saying about wine. Drinking wine may lead you to say interesting things though. I'm thinking of The Symposium. But talking about the wine... ugh. It's like taking about how a car works when you're going for a drive. It's beside the point. It might be interesting if you have something to say about it, but I don't, and it's unnecessary.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Talk about SCHIP!

john said...

I tried writing about sex, but the Cheetos kept gumming up the keyboard.

Ann, you have skillfully avoided talking about the Duke LAX affair, which should hold a lot of interest for you, having both university faculity and legal aspects to it. Why not vlog about this?

Anonymous said...

What if we all downed a bottle (or box) of wine, then started posting? Let's shoot for Saturday night around 11:00 EDT. Since I don't care for wine, I'll go for the rum.

FWIW, vlogging seems like it ought to be personal. It isn't an everyday event, so it shouldn't be about mundane topics that we discuss all the time anyway, but more of an inside look at the person. Also, vlogging makes me think casual and spontaneous, not running down a laundry list of talking points.

Ann Althouse said...

"I thought you originally stopped vlogging because the camera thing-y on your laptop stopped working and it wasn't until you went back to Madison and visited the Apple Store there that you got it fixed."

Actually, the built-in camera has come unfixed and refixed and unfixed, but the fact is, I have an external plug-in camera that is always available, so it was never much of an excuse.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
reader_iam said...

Like I said, I think you [just] got bored [with it].

; )

Quite obviously (given the quite obvious option), it still works for me.

Onward ho.

Trooper York said...

Please don't call the professor a ho. That's how Imus got in all that trouble.