Governor Phil Bryant wants the world to know that "Mississippi has changed."

And it was "unfortunate" that some people at a Mississippi church didn't want 2 black people to get married there.

"I'm sure there are very good people of Crystal Springs and in that Baptist church that don't feel that way and are supporting that effort," Bryant said of the Wilsons' desire to marry in the church.

"Look, when people want to get married, we ought to let them get married," Bryant said. "We have enough people that won't go and get married. I want to make every opportunity I can for any couple that wants to, to go get married."

But when asked if that should include couples where both partners are of the same sex, he added: "I wouldn't say gay couples, no," Bryant said. "I'd say a man and a woman. Let me make sure, let's get that right. When I say couples, I automatically assume it's a man and a woman."

Will Romney win in Alabama and Mississippi?

And if he does, is it all over?

UPDATE: Email from CNN: "Rick Santorum will win the Alabama Republican primary, CNN projects. Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are in a close battle for second."

UPDATE 2: Santorum wins Mississippi.

"Voters turned a skeptical eye toward conservative-backed measures across the country Tuesday..."

"... rejecting an anti-labor law in Ohio, an anti-abortion measure in Mississippi and a crackdown on voting rights in Maine."

The NYT's Katharine Q. Seelye begins her coverage of yesterday's elections.

Taken together, Tuesday’s results could breathe new life into President Obama’s hopes for his re-election a year from now. But the day was not a wholesale victory for Democrats. Even as voters in Ohio delivered a blow to Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, and rejected his attempt to weaken collective bargaining for public employees, they approved a symbolic measure to exempt Ohio residents from the individual mandate required in Mr. Obama’s health care law.

But Obama has never advocated collective bargaining rights for federal workers. His name is all over the health care law. So it's hard to see much good news here. 

And while voters in Mississippi, one of the most conservative states, turned away a measure that would have outlawed all abortions and many forms of contraception and had drawn conservative support from members of both parties, they tightened their voting laws to require some from of government-approved identification....

Actually, it would have been great news for Democrats if Mississippi voters had gone for the extreme anti-abortion law. Democrats would have used that result to scare, motivate, and manipulate voters. It's their very favorite wedge issue. There's much less potential for leveraging the voter ID issue. Seelye reminds us that Democrats portray voter-ID laws as "a thinly disguised attempt to intimidate voters of color," but I suspect that most voters find that sort of race-mongering unpleasant.

(I had to make a "2011 elections" tag for this post, which is another way of saying I having been paying much attention to the off-year elections. Sorry. These are very interesting issues, and I've been following the Wisconsin iterations of the collective bargaining and voter ID issues.)

Driving in Colorado and crossing the Mississippi from Iowa into Wisconsin.

"Finally, Mississippi and Alabama get a room!"

Ha.

And: "Panhandle Alert." The epidemic spreads.

There's nothing Wisconsin-related in those New Yorker cartoons about state maps. I remember seeing a hand-drawn cartoon in that State Street liquor store window that used to be full of funny signs. It had a map of Wisconsin and writing that said something like: "The Upper Pennisula! WTF? Did we lose a war or something?" That was many years ago. It still makes me laugh. I mean look at the map:



That is ours, baby. It's like that mitten is reaching up there an yanking off our manhood. And speaking of manhood, I think, if we had that peninsula that is rightfully ours, the politics of Wisconsin might shift from Mommy Party to Daddy Party.

Mississippi!

Crank up your excitement once again. Today, we're so very interested in Mississippi.

"World is lucky to have Bob Dylan and his voice."

I'm a little pleased with myself for knowing why it's funny to phrase it that way. That is, I see a reference to a Dylan song in that headline to a column about a Mojo Magazine list of the 100 Greatest Bob Dylan Tracks. ("How good do you have to be to have a list of your 100 greatest songs?")

Mojo’s critics picked the following Dylan songs for their top 10: 1. “Like A Rolling Stone,” 2. “Positively 4th Street,” 3. “Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands,” 4. “Desolation Row,” 5. “Blind Willie McTell,” 6. “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” 7. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” 8. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 9. “Mississippi,” 10. “Just Like A Woman.”

Mojo’s readers picked these 10: 1. “Like a Rolling Stone,” 2. “Desolation Row,” 3. “Visions of Johanna,” 4. “Mr. Tambourine Man,” 5. “Tangled Up In Blue,” 6. “Positively 4th Street,” 7. “Idiot Wind,” 8. “Blind Willie McTell,” 9. “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” 10. “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”

It looks like the critics and readers agreed on five.

Now let’s look at Uncut Magazine’s list that came out in 2002: 1. “Like A Rolling Stone,” 2. “Tangled Up In Blue,” 3. “Visions Of Johanna,” 4. “A Hard Rains Gonna Fall,” 5. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 6. “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” 7. “Desolation Row,” 8. “I Want You,” 9. “Idiot Wind,” 10. “Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands.”

What do you think? Do you agree or not? What are your favorite Dylan songs?

Don’t ask me. Two of my favorites “If Not For You” (64) and “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” (100) didn’t even make the top 50 on the Mojo readers’ list.

I am really not very good at picking top 10 lists when it comes to music. It always seems to be a struggle for me.

I guess that I am just too much of a music fan to make up my mind. It also depends on what day it is.

I'm always looking for "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat."



Maybe I just like the fashion theme. What are the great songs about fashion? And I mean songs with lyrics that focus on a particular item (or items) of clothing. So don't all of you just shout out this one:



A good answer for this assignment would be "Raspberry Beret." But you don't have to restrict yourself to hats.

And don't slight the other questions raised here:

1. What Dylan song does the headline refer to?

2. "What are your favorite Dylan songs?"

3. "How good do you have to be to have a list of your 100 greatest songs?" -- i.e., which other artists are worthy of a list of 100 greatest songs?

4. How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand? And what does it sound like when doves cry?

5. What was the question I had here under point #5 that I had to take out because I just don't want that much trouble?

6. And lest you've forgotten: What are the great songs about articles of clothing?

Now, go get dressed!

Michael Ochs and Phil Ochs.

Here's an article about The Michael Ochs Archives of rock and roll photographs, with not enough photos at the link. (There's a nice one of Sonny and Cher with Bob Dylan, but you can't see the picture that's in the paper NYT of Gladys Knight as a child singing on "The Amateur Hour.")

Michael Ochs is the brother of Phil Ochs:

A contemporary of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Phil Ochs was one of the primary topical songwriters and folksingers of the 60's, protesting the escalating Vietnam conflict ("I Ain't Marching Anymore") and the struggle for civil rights in the South ("Here's to the State of Mississippi"). As his causes lost relevance in the 70's, his chronic depression became unbearable. He hanged himself in 1976.

A longtime friend, the publicist Bobbi Cowan, thinks Michael Ochs collects his photographs, primarily of 1950's and 60's musicians, as a way of "preserving time so that people don't forget what that time was about, what Phil was about." Michelle Phillips is more direct: "I think it's part of keeping his brother alive."

As his causes lost relevance in the 70's, his chronic depression became unbearable. That's a lot of causality to package up in one sentence. Does a songwriter gravitate toward protest songs because he is depressed or is he depressed because of the things that move him to protest? If he gains an audience protesting a political situation that then changes, will he become more depressed or less depressed? A human being is too complicated to subject to general questions like that.

Back in the 1960s, I used to listen to Phil Ochs. I especially remember this one:

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride
Serve your country in her suicide
Find the flags so you can wave goodbye
But just before the end even treason might be worth a try
This country is too young to die

I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over

One-legged veterans will greet the dawn
And they're whistling marches as they mow the lawn
And the gargoyles only sit and grieve
The gypsy fortune teller told me that we'd been deceived
You only are what you believe

I believe the war is over
It's over, it's over

Serve your country in her suicide.

This was from one of his later albums, which, I think I remember correctly, turned away from hardcore protest music. Notice how those lyrics give predominance to his inner life. You can go on with your involvement in the war, but I'm saying that beliefs are everything, and I'm going to believe in what I want to be true, that the war is over. This was a theme in the late 60s and early 70s, when artists got weary of political engagement and began to indulge in a naive form of politics that was really more about personal psychology. I hear that theme in John Lennon's "War is over/If you want it/War is over/Now."

RIP, Phil Ochs.

"American Idol" is really "Southern Idol"... but why?

Some analysis from WaPo writer Neely Tucker. It's not that southerners watch the show more and vote more and vote for their own, Tucker argues.

"Idol" kids grew up in the postmodern era, long after the throes of the civil rights movement, long after interstates and Wal-Marts had made small towns in north Alabama look a whole lot like small towns in Michigan. The old days are gone. Listen to two iconic Southern recordings: Hank Williams's (Alabama) "Your Cheating Heart" and Robert Johnson's (Mississippi) "32-20 Blues." The first is twangy beyond description and the second is almost incomprehensible.

People don't talk like that anymore. But a softer Southern accent persists, as does the cultural memory of things long gone. There is still an emphasis on church and family, both entities that, in the course of Southern life, heavily influence music, particularly among the working class.

"There's still an awful lot of old-school singers who got their starts in church, and many mainstream country musicians still do a gospel album," said John Reed Shelton, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of North Carolina and one of the region's most respected observers. "Everybody tends to go to church, and Southern evangelical Protestantism, both black and white, emphasizes and rewards musical performance."

Plus, as Wilson, the Mississippi scholar, points out, the only way a lot of kids stuck in one-horse towns know that they can find life-changing fame and fortune is on the stage.

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional."

Ousted FEMA director Michael D. Brown testifies before a House panel today and lays the blame on the governor and the mayor:

Brown told the committee, FEMA's approach worked in Mississippi and Alabama, whose governors are both Republicans.

Of the disastrous flooding that stranded thousands for days in New Orleans, he said, "The only variable was the state government officials involved."

The way FEMA works with state officials in disasters is "well established and works well," Brown said in emphatic tones in his opening statement, pointing his finger and shaking a clenched hand at lawmakers. "Unfortunately, this is the approach that FEMA had great difficulty in getting established in Louisiana."

... "I very strongly, personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together. . . . I just couldn't pull that off."

An old song comes to mind.

I'm watching the news reports, talking about Hurricane Rita aiming straight at Lake Charles, Lousiana. Maybe like me, you've got this song running through your head:

When I get off of this mountain, you know where I want to go?
Straight down the Mississippi river, to the Gulf of Mexico
To Lake Charles, Louisiana, little Bessie, girl that I once knew
She told me just to come on by, if there's anything she could do.

RFQ and The Red Shirts.

The Vermont Guardian reports:

[N]ew grassroots organizations have coalesced around the recovery effort. One, commonly known as The Red Shirts, came together as a band of 10 people who set out to clean the streets and administer first aid. This group continues to hit the streets wearing their trademark red and impressing many with their self-imposed 12-hour shifts. To date, their most impressive achievements were the cleaning the wrecked Jackson Square, and removing a fallen brick wall.

Another group, Restore the French Quarter (RFQ), came together shortly after the levies broke. RFQ, which includes 40 volunteers, has cleared their share of downed trees and rubbish. One of their fist acts was to make the Esplanade, a major street marking the border of the neighborhood, passable by vehicle.

The group has also built a public stockpile of necessary items that includes food, water, tools and clothing. The goods and the organization are housed in a makeshift headquarters on the corner of the Esplanade and Decatur — a 9,000 square foot three-story building owned by Harry Anderson of Night Court. It is equipped with generators, a fully stocked bar and a large gas grill. RFQ has gone the extra step of stenciling white “RFQ Volunteer” T-shirts and even printing ID badges for their members.

Standing in the courtyard of the headquarters, RFQ member “Steve,” who works in construction, declared that the group’s first action, shortly after the disaster struck, was to help distribute guns and ammunition to area residents to use for self-defense. Since then, they have turned their attention to fixing roads and keeping people fed.

Earlier this week, RFQ was in the process of gathering resources to repair area roofs damaged by Katrina’s winds, when a rumor stopped them in their tracks. On Thursday, word got around that either the local or federal government was about to begin enforcing the mandatory evacuation. Earlier in the day, a number of Louisiana State Troopers entered Johnny White’s and initially demanded that patrons leave with them. After some heated words, the troopers called their superiors for confirmation. As things went, the troopers left with no one in tow. Even so, the story and fear of looming forced removal spread like wildfire across the French Quarter.

“Is that stupid or what?” asked Steve. “There are hundreds, even thousands, of people right here that would be active volunteers. We know this city like the back of our hands. We are not driving around like Mississippi cops that don’t know this place. We know what we’re doing, where everything is, and how to get resources. We can get this place back up and running. They [the government] need to leave the French Quarter alone, and let us do this.”

And I'm also finding this, on a South African website:

Back in the French quarter RFQ leader Stephen James was printing up T-shirts bearing the ad-hoc group's logo.

"We should just let people help themselves and not have government do it all for them," said James to cheers of approval...

Where Gandhi advocated passive resistance, the French Quarter holdouts pledged to employ clean-up power.

James said he hoped a gang of 100 holdouts would be on the streets on Saturday morning with brooms and garbage bags.

"I don't think we are going to have any problem from the New Orleans police department," he said. "If we are helpful, maybe they will leave us alone."

Many of those at the meeting had seemed depressed and fearful in recent days, but seemed to find new strength and determination, perhaps from safety in numbers.

I wrote about my love for the holdouts yesterday. I was reading reports that portrayed holed-up individualists, and my response to them was sentimental. Today, I'm reading about people forming groups, articulating principles, and improving the community — the roots of civil society. Shouldn't the government work with these people?

"Why in the world is New Orleans below sea level to begin with?"

I was interested in this statement by Mike Tidwell, author of "Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast," who appeared on "Meet the Press" today:

Why in the world is New Orleans below sea level to begin with? I think the media has sort of accepted it uncritically that this city is below sea level which is why we have this problem. Miami is not below sea level. New York's not below sea level. It's below sea level because of the levees. The levees stop the river from flooding and the river's what built the whole coast of Louisiana through 7,000 years of alluvial soil deposits. And if you stop that flooding, the other second natural phenomena in any delta region in the world is subsidence. That alluvial soil is fine, it compacts, it shrinks. That's why New Orleans is below sea level. That's why the whole coast of Louisiana is--the whole land platform is sinking. An area of land the size of Manhattan turns to water in south Louisiana every year even without hurricanes.

You can't just fix the levees in New Orleans. We now have to have a massive coastal restoration project where we get the water out of the Mississippi River in a controlled fashion toward the Barrier islands, restore the wetlands. If you don't commit to this plan which is this $14 billion, costs of the Big Dig in Boston, or two weeks of spending Iraq, you shouldn't fix a single window in New Orleans. You shouldn't pick up a single piece of debris because to do one without the other is to set the table for another nightmare.

I expect to hear a huge debate about these environmental realities. There will be people who just want to rebuild and people putting immense preconditions on rebuilding. Restore the wetlands? "Get the water out of the Mississippi River"? The mind boggles.

"Not acceptable."

I'm glad to see President Bush is beginning to take a tougher stance about the problems with Katrina relief:

"A lot of people are working hard to help those who've been affected, and I want to thank the people for their efforts," Bush said before leaving the White House for a tour of the devastated areas in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. "The results are not acceptable."

Expressions of hope in the strength of the human spirit only go so far. At some point, they just sound out-of-touch and lame. I want to see better leadership from Bush and think perhaps he's gotten that message. Do more!

Not "Walking on Sunshine."

I guess we'll never think of Katrina and the Waves the same way again. Say a prayer for New Orleans:

"This is a once in a lifetime event," the mayor said. "The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this magnitude hit it directly."

The mayor said Katrina's storm surge would likely top the levees that protect the city from the surrounding water of Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and marshes. The bowl-shaped city must pump water out even during normal times, and the hurricane threatened electricity that runs the pumps.

Notes on Wisconsin.

Things are getting awfully tight in my little 10 electoral votes state, so maybe you readers not in Wisconsin are thinking about us and would like a few notes on Wisconsin. Here goes.



1. They've built some squat posts as a barrier to terrorists outside the sports area named after our senator who is not running for reelection.



2. Other barriers will be erected to stave off the destruction that tends to come with our usual Halloween marauders. There is special concern about the vast windowed expanses of the new Overture Center. This weekend the big show there will be the opera "Turandot," with fabulous David Hockney sets. (Pause taken to buy a ticket over the phone). A play examining the morality of nuclear weapons is playing in one of the smaller theaters at the Overture Center for the next few weeks, and the article about it in the Capital Times--which calls itself "Wisconsin's Progressive Newspaper"--doesn't mention Bush, Kerry, or Iraq. It does note that the UW physics department is collaborating with the Rep company, and the emphasis seems to be on intellectual Madison and not political Madison.



3. The Kerry-Edwards campaign brought former Senator Max Cleland to Madison yesterday to talk to a group of veterans. He told them: "[Bush] is driving more and more veterans away from the health-care system in the VA ... John Kerry has an answer: mandatory funding for the VA health-care system, and if you have a need, you get it covered." According to the linked article, this offer of full health coverage applies to 26 million persons (the number of civilian veterans in the U.S.). What's the price tag on that?



4. Something a UW-Eau Claire student said after listening to John Edwards give a speech: "I agree with everything he said ... The difference (between Bush and Cheney and Kerry and Edwards) is like night and day … Kerry and Edwards are focused on the people at home, the middle class." Thanks for reminding me of one of the reasons I'm voting for Bush. And let me link to this Christopher Hitchens article again. Remember when lefties talked about "the middle class" with a sneer? Now, apparently, they deserve all the benefits. How did that happen?



5. Why burrito-seeking students may switch to the new Moe's Southwest Grill: "When I opened the front door to Moe’s my friends and I received a warming greeting shouted in unison from the entire line of burrito chefs: 'Welcome to Moe’s!' Have you ever been personally welcomed to Qdoba or Chipotle?" Now they'll never be able to stop welcoming customers.



6. We love our football.



7. A little boy was saved from a big fire. The journalist, who lacks an eye for language, writes that the boy is "in stable condition after a barn fire."



8. A St. Norbert College poll, according to the Capital Times, shows: "So-called wedge issues such as stem-cell research, immigration and gay marriage were cited as 'very important' by only one-third or less of Wisconsin respondents, while abortion was named as 'very important' by 36 percent of voters." Is 36 percent supposed to sound like way more than one-third?



9. John Kerry said "I will be back - to the center of town" when rain moved him from the State Capitol square to an out-of-the-way arena last month, "[b]ut he, like Republican President George W. Bush, will be going where his campaign believes the undecided voters are: Green Bay, the Fox Valley, Milwaukee and the Mississippi River communities between Prairie du Chien and La Crosse." Hey, Bush campaign: send Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear at the Capitol on your behalf. He could build a nice speech around mocking Kerry's "I'll be back" and you could get some cool news coverage. [UPDATE: He's already going to Ohio, so stop over here on the way back!]



10. We have five newborn lions at the zoo here in Madison.

Only the radio.

My New Beetle is now five years old and the original stereo no longer recognizes the CD player that is lodged in the trunk. "No magazine," it tells me. The tape player died a while back, so that leaves me with only the radio. I generally prefer to listen to the radio, because I like to hear people talking about one thing or another when I'm driving. I don't hate music, but I find I rarely want to listen to music. I enjoy a music-free atmosphere. You'd think someone who drives a New Beetle and uses only Macintosh computers would be the sort of person who would have an iPod, but I don't want an iPod, because I don't want to listen to music. I think there is too much music around already. The main reason for an iPod for me would be to play music to screen out other music. When they make an iPod that cancels out music, I'll buy it.



But sometimes the radio is not enough. On a long trip, it can be hard to find anything on the radio. I've driven through places in the West where you hit the scan button and it just goes all the way around the dial over and over. I've driven in other places where the scan button takes you all the way around and back to where you were before (and it was always Cher singing "Believe"--a few years ago). Sometimes, being limited to the radio can draw you into the landscape in a deep and mysterious way. I remember driving through rural Mississippi and hearing the middle of a long gospel song, a sung sermon. The singer was describing how some day she would arrive in Heaven, and she would not want to see her mother, because she wanted to see Jesus, and she would not want to see her father, because she wanted to see Jesus. It went on and on, with different persons the singer did not want to see in Heaven, until my driving took me out of the range of the broadcast.



I could almost convince myself that it is better to be limited to the radio while driving, even when it means driving out of the reach of all broadcasting. That is a stunning and eerie experience, to go with the desert landscape. But sometimes the radio is not enough. If you have a long drive, especially on the boring Interstate, you need something to occupy your mind. I have many spoken word CDs to load into the CD player, and, in any event, I share my car with my sons, and they like to hear music.



But how can you replace the stereo in a New Beetle? It's got a distinctive curve and an oval shape and lighting that matches the beautiful lighting of the entire dashboard. The aesthetic effect would be ruined! The only choice, other than to stay with only the radio, is to go back to the dealer and repair the original stereo, though it's five years old, or buy another one. We had wanted a new stereo with a nice slot to stick in one disc at a time, which we all prefer to loading six CDs into the device in the trunk, but there is no such stereo designed for the Beetle. (What about an iPod that you connect to the stereo? I can't use one of those devices that you insert into the tape player, because the tape player is broken. There's another device that plays through the radio, but I don't trust that to work well enough.) We are forced--by aesthetics--to stay with the trunk CD arrangement, or stick with just the radio. I remember when a radio in a car was an impressive extra, and an AM-FM radio something to brag about. Staying with only the radio is the perfectly cheap, do-nothing solution, which is always a plus. It is my car.



UPDATE: After this paean to radio, the God of Radio smiled upon me and made my CD player start working again. Now, if only I could think of a way to appease the God of Cell Phones and find the one I lost on Thursday.

More test results, withheld and revealed.

Well, Nina didn't like the state quiz because she didn't like the result. She won't say what state she came up as. This is kind of a test of how well we know Nina. What state would it bug her the most to be told that she is? Texas? Mississippi? Nebraska? Come on! I showed mine, and it had the word "bulky" in it! Anyway, she's recommending the "What book are you?" test, so I did that one. I hope it won't be too horrifying to know, I'm "Les Miserables"!

You're Les Miserables!


by Victor Hugo


One of the best known people in your community, you have become something of a phenomenon. People have sung about you, danced in your honor, created all manner of art in your name. And yet your story is one of failure and despair, with a few brief exceptions. A hopeless romantic, you'll never stop hoping that more good will come from your failings than is ever possible. Beware detectives and prison guards bearing vendettas.




Take the Book Quiz

at the Blue Pyramid.

UPDATE: Nina emails that it's not the state per se that makes her want to suppress the results of her test, but what is said about the state. I now know which state it is, but don't know how to get to page with the offending language. I tried redoing to test and guessing at what answers Nina might give, but I got Tennessee.

What plays did William Faulkner see? What did he read? I hadn't exactly been wondering, but this article by Javier Marías in Threepenny Review (linked by A&L Daily) has some answers:

Faulkner was a taciturn man who loved silence, and he had only been to the theater five times in his entire life: he had seen Hamlet three times, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Ben Hur, and that was all. He had not read Freud, either, at least so he said on one occasion: "I have never read him. Neither did Shakespeare. I doubt if Melville did either and I'm sure Moby Dick didn't." He read Don Quixote every year.

Ah! I love silence too. And I've been meaning to read Don Quixote ... there's that new translation ...

I liked this part of the article too, about how he lost his job as a post office clerk at the University of Mississippi:

Apparently one of the lecturers there, quite reasonably, complained: the only way he could get his mail was by rummaging around in the rubbish bin at the back door, where the unopened bags of post all too often ended up. Faulkner did not like having his reading interrupted, and the sale of stamps fell alarmingly; by way of explanation, Faulkner told his family that he was not prepared to keep getting up to wait on people at the window and having to be beholden to any son-of-a-bitch who had the two cents to buy a stamp.

Sounds like Newman on Seinfeld ("The Andrea Doria"). I'd watch a sitcom about this Faulkner character. And don't just tell me to watch Barton Fink--Joel Coel is on record saying the John Mahoney character isn't much like Faulkner.