Palpatinian tranche.

I've been reading and listening to people talk for over a half century, so it's really weird to have to look up 2 words in 2 hours.

First, MadisonMan, he of the bird's-eye view of the Michelle Obama rally-ette, said:

I agree that McCain's post-hit grin is a little too Palpatinian.

Okay, now you know I haven't been following the "Star Wars" saga. I'm not ashamed of that. In fact, I'm one of those people who blame "Star Wars" for ruining film.

And then I had to go and read the Gawker item with the revolting title: "Why We Are Better For Knowing Elizabeth Wurtzel Screwed David Foster Wallace."

That Elizabeth Wurtzel had some thing with David Foster Wallace in the nineties is the type of news flash I'd like to have failed detecting this week. Namely because to blog about Elizabeth Wurtzel is to tempt oneself to unwind the various tranches of disquietude summoned when someone like me conducts a Wurtzel Google Image Search. There's the first tranche of familiarity; I've conducted this search before; the second: I remember quickly that I will invariably, though tempted by the grainy topless shots from Bitch, will like Radar before me quickly settle on the hottest color photo available, the one she used for the cover of her 2001 addiction memoir More, Now, Again, even though Wurtzel has graciously offered us photographic evidence that she has, in the intervening (ohgod) seven and a half years, aged. For this is not a new asset, this story; the underlying episode dates back to the nineties, when Wurtzel was still dressing up her faculties and skills with too much blue eyeliner and too many mood-altering substances in lieu of the appropriate degree of risk management and/or clothes.

I admit it. I don't study finance. That's why I unfortunately cannot help you with the burning question of the day, whether the big bailout is the desperately needed cure or a horrible, evil boondoggle. I'm sorry. Really.

So let's examine that tranche for a second: here we have Wurtzel, drawn to David and his big, serious, ambitious, meaty, unfrivolous gold standard of a book; David, drawn to Wurtzel by her fucking leotard and perhaps her nebulous promise to impart upon his serious asset some sort of value-unlocking sense of "buzz"; the confusing, fuzzy subprime relationship they signed onto; all fuzzy fundamentals and wild histrionics and bombastic promises dependent on "trajectories" neither knows how — neither is socialized to know how — to prepare for a soft landing; yeah, you've done that sort of fucking.

Is Gawker trying to write like David Foster Wallace? David's dead, baby.



David's dead, but there were some good movies after "Star Wars."