Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

No one could have predicted…

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Everybody saw this coming.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Bark louder, little dog.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Frank McCourt RIP

Reader Interactions

26Comments

  2. 2.

    DougJ

    He’s non-addictive and puts you to sleep in minutes. What more can you ask for?

    You’re right. If someone had told me I could be put to sleep by an interview with Steve Martin, I wouldn’t have believed it. But Charlie Rose made it happen.

  4. 4.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    You mean Charlie let him get a word in edgewise? I thought the only way to do that was to beat his fingers with a hammer and while he was off stage being administered first aid, the guest could actually say something.

  5. 5.

    Ronnie P

    I thought Angela’s Ashes was superb. I had read it long after it became a phenomenon, and was surprised how much I liked it. ‘Tis was pretty good as well.

  6. 6.

    Napoleon

    I didn’t have the slightest idea who McCourt was a few years ago when I woman I was going out with dragged me to a reading/appearance he did where he read parts of some of his books, talked extemporaneously and took questions. The guy was just fantastic and it would be impossible to overstate just how interesting he was. I walked out of there thinking “wow, imagine having this guy as one of your high school teachers.” It makes you wonder how many incredible talents are out there that are totally undiscovered (for those of you that don’t know McCourt didn’t make it in literary circles until he was 65 years old).

  7. 7.

    Jim

    I did like Angela’s Ashes, I got the audiobook, and the man has a great voice and narration style. I didn’t like it enough to buy T’is, but Teacherman (audiobook again) was better than AA, especially if you’ve ever taught.

    The fact that Charlie Rose has the reputation he seems to have among Villagers astounds me. Kinda like the highbrow non-racist version of Imus.

  9. 9.

    Interrobang

    A friend of mine called me last night at quarter to three in the morning to tell me he’d heard McCourt had died. The friend in question lives in the Pacific time zone (I’m EDT), had gone to Stuy while McCourt was teaching there, and his father (also a Stuy teacher) had been good friends with McCourt.

    Me, I barely know who McCourt is and, other than that my friend missed an opportunity to get to know his father by proxy, don’t give enough of a damn to have been excited about hearing it at 2:45 AM when I had to be to work at 8. My friend’s lucky I was relatively polite on the phone…

  10. 10.

    Patrick

    Wait, are you saying that you didn’t like Angela’s Ashes the book, or Angela’s Ashes the movie.

    Because not liking the book is totally unacceptable.

    Not liking the movie is totally understandable. It was dreadful.

  11. 11.

    TimO

    We were watching Angela’s Ashes one day and my father-in-law was with us. When the scene came on where the kids are following the coal truck to collect the scraps to heat their home, he told my children, “That was my childhood.”

    My daughter started to cry and everyone got silent until I told my kids to ask grandpa about it. It was eye opening for them.

  12. 12.

    Kilkee

    Today’s NYT has a section where some of McCourt’s former students are weighing in on their days with him. Quite a tribute; he clearly was a fantastic teacher well before his AA’s fame. Reminds me of Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons advising Richard Rich to become a teacher. Rich says, in essence, “And if I was a good teacher, who would know?” More responds: “You, your students, God. Not a bad public, that.”

  13. 13.

    feral1

    Charlie Rose really pisses me off. He gets such good guests and he is such a monumental tool. Rose is the perfect barometer of conventional wisdom.

  14. 14.

    DougJ

    Because not liking the book is totally unacceptable.

    I didn’t like it that much. Maybe it was all the build up.

  15. 15.

    The Other Mikey

    Saw Frank and his brother Malachy back in the 80s (?) when they were doing “A Couple of Blackguards”–stories about their childhood in Ireland and trying to make it in the States as young men. It was dark, tragic, uplifting, and hilarious–all at the same time. And I’m not sure who was having a better time–the McCourts or the audience.

  16. 16.

    Napoleon

    @Kilkee:

    I went and read some of them. Wow, just to have that many people who have meet you (and so many of them were students) feel compelled to say something.

    PS, also its interesting that apparently David Axelrod was one of his students, if what some say in that thread is to be belived

  17. 17.

    Leelee for Obama

    As I posted on Saturday:

    Flights of Angels, Frank! I loved this man, his writing, his voice, his stories. I’ll miss him as if I really knew him.

    BTW-6pm, Saturday on Book-TV is the McCourt BookNotes interview with Brian Lamb- I hate Lamb’s style in many ways, but he does a great interview.

  18. 18.

    DougJ

    I hate Lamb’s style in many ways, but he does a great interview.

    I like Brian Lamb. No ego, he doesn’t make it about him. That’s all you can ask.

  19. 19.

    Leelee for Obama

    @DougJ: I think it’s because he reminds me of my Father. Pedantic, or something. But, like I say, he does a great interview.

  20. 20.

    Redhand

    He even made Charlie Rose watchable, if you can imagine that.

    Ah, no. CR is one of the most cloying, self-important jackasses I’ve ever seen.

  21. 21.

    Blue Raven

    I liked Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis. McCourt was a solid writer. I confess that I think the FARKers missed a cue and should’ve greenlit a submission that used “‘Tisn’t,” though.

  23. 23.

    CharlesF

    Good to see I’m not the only one who can’t watch Charlie Rose. A light-weight faking gravitas with quirks and voice, who seems to panic when a guest begins to roll (more than two good sentences) and there’s danger the focus could shift off C.R., so we get constant ‘look at me, I’m a serious interviewer’ interruptions. Why would someone think it was a good idea to give him a show? But I understand very little about why we have the crap we do on our televisions.

  24. 24.

    The Golux

    I agree with those here who enjoyed Angela’s Ashes in audio format. I can’t imagine enjoying the book nearly as much without Frank McCourt’s voice. It’s more a performance than a reading. DougJ, get it out of the library for your next car trip; I think you’ll gain a new appreciation for it.

  25. 25.

    whenpigsfly

    @Vico:

    Ages ago I read an article which had compared the time Rose spoke during various interviews with the time he allowed guests to speak. Of course, HE dominated, or nearly so. More than once I’ve wished I’d bookmarked the story. Does anyone know of it?

  26. 26.

    Bruce

    Charlie Rose is just an unspeakable abomination. Who hired him? There can’t really be someone who finds him to be talented, can there?

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