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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / This is the end beautiful friend

This is the end beautiful friend

by DougJ|  January 18, 201110:08 pm| 128 Comments

This post is in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue

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It’s quite possible that David Brooks’ new book marks the end of our civilization, such as it is. That creepy New Yorker piece was just the beginning. You might want to sit down before reading this excerpt from the slavering starred Kirkus Review:

The fictional couple’s initial meeting spurs the author to personify the dynamics of attraction via their gender-specific “primitive passions” (“Rob was looking at cleavage, Julia was looking for signs of trustworthiness”), primal scents and cues that would anticipate a lifelong romance. Rob and Julia troubleshoot cohabitation blunders, carnal urges and the birth of son Harold, who, together with his wife-to-be Erica (introduced chapters later), ultimately becomes the focus of the author’s behavioral paradigm. Harold’s mental development proceeds from kindergarten to high school via cliques, phases and a taboo student-teacher crush.

Look me in the eye and tell me that you feel happy to be a human being right now.

I’m reeling from the primal scent thing, so I can’t write anymore. Here’s some good Bobo take-downs by Mtraven, Chris Lehmann (via reader JK), and Tom Scocca.

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Reader Interactions

128Comments

  1. 1.

    gogol's wife

    January 18, 2011 at 10:11 pm

    Maybe this instead of “Atlas Shrugged” for the book club.

  2. 2.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 18, 2011 at 10:13 pm

    Voltaire, he’s not. Hell, he’s not even Stephen King. Perhaps he’s Jonah Goldberg?

  3. 3.

    DougJ DougJson

    January 18, 2011 at 10:15 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    Don’t even kid about that. I would rather read the entire Ayn Rand oeuvre than a single page about primal smells and young overacheivers checking out each other’s cleavage.

  4. 4.

    General Stuck

    January 18, 2011 at 10:16 pm

    I’m reeling from the primal scent thing,

    Oh, that’s just Applebee’s aftershave

    Maybe this instead of “Atlas Shrugged” for the book club.

    I think Dougj may have scored some good dope

  5. 5.

    Alex S.

    January 18, 2011 at 10:17 pm

    Oh my god, here’s a sociopath trying to understand sociology and writing a book about it.

  6. 6.

    srv

    January 18, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick. This Brooks piece makes Loughner look like a poet laureate.

  7. 7.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    January 18, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    You should have to read the entire book as punishment for your Atlas Shrugged suggestion.

    Look me in the eye and tell me that you feel happy to be a human being right now.

    I’m happy I’m not the human being who wrote that shite. In a few months, maybe a year max, the author will re-read it and hit himself in the face with a ball peen hammer.

  8. 8.

    David Fud

    January 18, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    One paragraph is all I needed. Thanks, but no thanks. I have a stack of books to finish and things to do, and a way-too-soft porn novel isn’t going to get any of that done.

    Maybe he missed his calling as a letter-writer to porno mags?

  9. 9.

    danimal

    January 18, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    This book is clearly a masterpiece of the genre.

  10. 10.

    Hunter Gathers

    January 18, 2011 at 10:18 pm

    I see that Bobo was able to get that published after getting rejected by Penthouse Forum.

  11. 11.

    Villago Delenda Est

    January 18, 2011 at 10:19 pm

    Um, sorry, but it’s impossible to be an “overachiever” if you were born on third.

    I give you the classic example…George W. Bush.

    Other examples: William Kristol, Luke Russert, and the aforementioned Jonah Goldberg.

  12. 12.

    Jager

    January 18, 2011 at 10:21 pm

    If you want to know what primal scents smell like, go sniff the homeless. The rest of us, hopefully, have scrubbed them off.

  13. 13.

    srv

    January 18, 2011 at 10:22 pm

    Everyone, think of this as an opportunity.

    BJ needs to have a best Amazon review contest for this book. I think all the FP’ers should write one, and select the top five from commenters. This should go viral across the blogosphere.

  14. 14.

    TBogg

    January 18, 2011 at 10:22 pm

    The sex with me missionary, brief, and in the dark.

  15. 15.

    burnspbesq

    January 18, 2011 at 10:23 pm

    He took a face from the ancient gallery and then he walked on down the hall.

    Well chosen song.

  16. 16.

    BombIranForChrist

    January 18, 2011 at 10:23 pm

    Oh boy, oh boy. I hope Brooks talks about his “throbbing member”. Maybe something like:

    “Bobo’s primal scent brought her closer to his throbbing member as he stroked her bosoms with a Lieberman ’06 riding crop.”

  17. 17.

    General Stuck

    January 18, 2011 at 10:24 pm

    @TBogg:

    Belly button to belly button, just like the manual says.

  18. 18.

    morzer

    January 18, 2011 at 10:24 pm

    @TBogg:

    You and Bobo? Well I never.

  19. 19.

    cmorenc

    January 18, 2011 at 10:26 pm

    Lots of supposedly smart folks have written incredibly bad works of fiction and didactic quasi-fiction, and civilization somehow survived the literary bomb. Whether David Brooks is a smart person who too often expresses sophomorically shallow ideas dressed up in superficially nice-looking intellectual clothing, or else a dumb person who learned to imitate the intellectual mannerisms of smart people without growing past sophomorically shallow ideas, isn’t really important. What’s important is how many other people he can convincingly seduce with his tripe; see e.g. Ayn Rand. Rand’s didactic fiction is much shallower and egregiously harmful to the future of civilization than anything that could possibly be in Brooks’ recent work.

  20. 20.

    DougJ DougJson

    January 18, 2011 at 10:26 pm

    @srv:

    Count me in. I can’t figure out how to comment on it yet. I may have to wait til it actually comes out.

  21. 21.

    Yutsano

    January 18, 2011 at 10:29 pm

    @TBogg:

    The sex with me missionary, brief, and in the dark.

    Let us never speak of this again.

  22. 22.

    Rommie

    January 18, 2011 at 10:30 pm

    I’m kinda happy myself, because this is proof that these people are NOT my betters.

  23. 23.

    jl

    January 18, 2011 at 10:30 pm

    Harold and Erica, huh?

    I think this sums up Brooks’ view, so why read anymore:
    “Rob was looking at cleavage, Julia was looking for signs of trustworthiness”

    Oh, yeah, I should be humble too. If some GOPer shouts nonsense on the teevee, I should be very humble and not do something about it. And we should always be poised on the edge of doubt, especially if a corporate flack says that some social decision to make lives better might cost him a few bucks. Who is humble me to say anything.

    Then, my friends, we will recover the Golden Age of American Greatness, where no one depended on the government, and people looked out for themsevles, gwarshdarnit.

    I dub this Brooks’ Promethean Prufrock thesis.

    I also read recently about research that the females of many species often feign submissiveness and interest in male trustworthiness, to cover their cheating with other males, in their search for ever better genes for their offspring. Which is a cool move if you have some male willing to help you take care of your kids, whoever the father happened to be.

    I wonder if that research found its way into the book? Let me know if it did, since then there might be at least one or two interesting scenes. Judging from the blurb, signs are not promising on that front.

    But then, the blurb said it was about Harold and Erica. But here is Rob looking at Julia’s boobs. Maybe Brooks threw in a foursome. Might be interesting reading if you skip the potted moral Brooks surely piled on at the end.

  24. 24.

    morzer

    January 18, 2011 at 10:34 pm

    @jl:

    Rob longed to be bipartisan, rather than merely bisexual. Julia was looking for signs of intelligence and principle, not to mention masculine ruttishness. She longed to be taken by a hard, dominant man, one who wore a purple tie to work and used words of more than five syllables. A man called David would be the quintessentiality of her American dream. She looked languidly over the crowd surrounding the Applebee’s salad bar, and her heart missed a beat, metaphorically speaking.

  25. 25.

    jl

    January 18, 2011 at 10:35 pm

    At least as far as Brooks’ take on the naughty men and lady bits, you still might find the Men Are from Mars and Wimmins from Venus in discount bins, so why shell out SIXTEEN BUCKS for this thing.

    BTW, I always thought that a book titled Women Are from Pluto and Men Are from Uranus would sell. Too bad I couldn’t think of anything to put in it, since the title says it all.

  26. 26.

    TBogg

    January 18, 2011 at 10:36 pm

    Honestly, it sounds like a Tom Wolfe parody.

  27. 27.

    jl

    January 18, 2011 at 10:37 pm

    @morzer: An Applebee’s salad bar sex scene? OK, I’m in. I’ll pre order.

  28. 28.

    Ija

    January 18, 2011 at 10:37 pm

    The author expands his group with Erica, an ambitious, ethnically diverse girl raised in a poor public housing project.

    What’s this? A token non-white character to expand Brooks’ fan base? Does he think people are that stupid?

  29. 29.

    freelancer

    January 18, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    This is gonna be like “The Room” of books.

  30. 30.

    jl

    January 18, 2011 at 10:39 pm

    @TBogg: A vicious Tome Wolfe parody, ghostwritten written viciously by Tome Wolfe?

    If so, we need a blog pool for first one to figure out which character in the book is Brooks.

  31. 31.

    jl

    January 18, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    @Ija: hmmm, ‘ethnically diverse’? Does that describe her, or her tastes? Maybe this book is more promising than I thought.

  32. 32.

    Punchy

    January 18, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    But what’s Sully think of this?

  33. 33.

    Sly

    January 18, 2011 at 10:41 pm

    Somewhere in the world there is a person who will wake up the next morning, stretch, pour themselves a cup of coffee, and think to themselves, “I wonder what David Brooks thinks about (insert issue here)…” before sitting down to read the paper in the hopes of finding out.

    I really want to meet that person, and perhaps put them in a zoo so that others can look upon him or her with wonder and astonishment.

  34. 34.

    DougJ DougJson

    January 18, 2011 at 10:41 pm

    @Punchy:

    You know, in this case, I actually am curious.

  35. 35.

    Maude

    January 18, 2011 at 10:43 pm

    @TBogg:
    Do you think it was the hand on his thigh that set Brooks on this path of bodice ripping?

  36. 36.

    morzer

    January 18, 2011 at 10:44 pm

    @jl:

    As Julia’s genetically diverse viridian and hazel eyes scanned the scene like a Canon Duplex scanner methodically transforming a page into data, she recognized him, standing, casual yet masculine in a black leather jacket and purple tie, calmly perusing the arugula, with a certain epistemologically humble look in his eyes. So might Edmund Burke have looked as he made his great orations on India, but this man was more potent, in a mysterious, indecipherable way. He had the air of a man for whom lettuce was ultimately non-negotiable, for whom the Oxford comma meant more than life itself, a man who would never double-space inappropriately…..

  37. 37.

    Mark S.

    January 18, 2011 at 10:44 pm

    What the hell is it? A novel?

    Taking cues from Rousseau

    Oh.

    The author expands his group with Erica, an ambitious, ethnically diverse girl raised in a poor public housing project.

    I’m sure white-bread, never worked a day in his life Bobo will handle this masterfully.

  38. 38.

    Turgid Jacobian

    January 18, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    Dear god I hope it didn’t take long to write, at least.

  39. 39.

    Ija

    January 18, 2011 at 10:46 pm

    And of course when a white guy writes a book, the “ethnically diverse” person must come from a public housing project. God forbid they come from middle class or rich background. Because we all know that all those rich or middle class “ethnically diverse” people don’t procreate.

  40. 40.

    gbear

    January 18, 2011 at 10:46 pm

    Look me in the eye and tell me ‘I’m satisfied’.

    I bet Brook’s feels satisfied, smug fuck that he is.

  41. 41.

    srv

    January 18, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    “I want you to know this.” He stood by the bed, dressed, looking down at her. His voice had pronounced it evenly, with great clarity and no inflection. She looked up at him obediently. He said: “What I feel for you is contempt. But it’s nothing compared to the contempt I feel for myself. I don’t love you. I’ve never loved anyone. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I wanted you as one wants a whore – for the same reason and purpose.”

    I’m thinking Bobo as Reardon and Palin as Dagny Taggert.

  42. 42.

    Nellcote

    January 18, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    Weird scenes inside the gold mine.

  43. 43.

    Violet

    January 18, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    @morzer:
    Win.
    @morzer:
    Even more win.

    Which one of these characters does David Brooks wish he were? Rob? Harold? Julia?

  44. 44.

    Violet

    January 18, 2011 at 10:49 pm

    @srv:

    I’m thinking Bobo as Reardon and Palin as Dagny Taggert.

    Only in Bobo’s mind. In reality that’s backwards.

  45. 45.

    jl

    January 18, 2011 at 10:49 pm

    @morzer:

    Just tell me which salad dressing they used. I will check back later.

    Just think, we have to wait to March! How can we bear it? The suspense! We’ll have to make do with morzer’s version, which is probably better anyway.

  46. 46.

    freelancer

    January 18, 2011 at 10:49 pm

    @Mark S.:

    Neighborhoods can be ethnically diverse, schools, classes, populations. A girl, not so much. At least you wouldn’t choose to word it like that.

  47. 47.

    morzer

    January 18, 2011 at 10:50 pm

    @jl:

    To be diverse, they used ranch and honey mustard.

  48. 48.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    January 18, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    and young overacheivers checking out each other’s cleavage.

    But that would mean two over achieving lesbians.

    (I’m going to assume women aren’t turned on by moobs. No one disillusion me.)

  49. 49.

    Calouste

    January 18, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    It is possible to be an overachiever if you’re born on third, but it is rather rare. FDR and Churchill are maybe the most recent examples.

  50. 50.

    Violet

    January 18, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    @morzer:
    And to be elitist they used cold pressed extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar.

  51. 51.

    fucen tarmal

    January 18, 2011 at 10:53 pm

    i know we are supposed to be toning down the rhetoric and all, but;

    can we chop mitch albom up into parts and rape bobo with them?

    seriously, these guys both suck at writting about kids, theirs and other people’s,they suck at developing characters, as evidenced by their shared attraction to people who’s character traits are the easiest to define.

    don’t let the columnists write roman a clef, i beg you, there is a reason they became columnists in the first place.

  52. 52.

    me

    January 18, 2011 at 10:53 pm

    So, does this make Brooks the anti-Nietzsche?

  53. 53.

    Keith

    January 18, 2011 at 10:54 pm

    Until Bobo can top bear-fucking, he’s Scooter Libby’s bitch.

  54. 54.

    Bill White

    January 18, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    An uncommonly brilliant blend of sociology, intellect and allegory.

    This quote from Kirkus belongs in the Lexicon, IMHO.

  55. 55.

    fucen tarmal

    January 18, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    @TBogg:

    bonfire of inanities?

  56. 56.

    morzer

    January 18, 2011 at 10:56 pm

    @Violet:

    But only in private. It would never do to be so indecorous in public.

  57. 57.

    apathy

    January 18, 2011 at 10:56 pm

    Seems David Brook’s magnum Opus is topped by a random webcomic page.

    http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2128

  58. 58.

    Scott

    January 18, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    Will this be eligible for the Bulwer-Lytton contest?

    Also too: this crap gets published, and I can’t even get magazines to send my submissions back to me.

  59. 59.

    Ija

    January 18, 2011 at 10:57 pm

    @freelancer:

    I think the word he’s looking for is mixed race. But maybe Bobo just wants to mock liberals for valuing diversity, hence the awkwardly constructed “ethnically diverse girl”

    Or maybe it’s not Bobo’s fault and the phrase doesn’t actually appear in the book, but is the Kirkus Review reviewer’s phrase. Frankly, I’m not too keen on giving Bobo the benefit of a doubt. Guilty until proven innocent for him.

  60. 60.

    wasabi gasp

    January 18, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    New Rochelle, Rochelle

  61. 61.

    Nellcote

    January 18, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    @Ija: @Ija:

    A token non-white character to expand Brooks’ fan base?

    Who describes a PERSON as ethnicaly diverse? That’s just weird.

  62. 62.

    freelancer

    January 18, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    @Ija:

    It’s just so fucking clumsy.
    @fucen tarmal:

    Win.

  63. 63.

    Violet

    January 18, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    @morzer:
    It’s also what they toss in the salads they serve at late August garden parties. When someone asks about the dressing they say, with an offhand Meryl Streep-like wave, “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a little oil and balsamic that my neighbor brought me as a thank you for watching her house while they were in Tuscany.”

  64. 64.

    KG

    January 18, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    that drivel just can’t be worth reading any more of. at all. speaking of drivel, I’m about a quarter of the way through Decision Points, still no insight, but this line I find kind of funny given the topic lately, “the toxic atmosphere in American politics discourages good people from running for office.”

  65. 65.

    morzer

    January 18, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    @Violet:

    First pressing, of course, from a little boutique oilery owned by a dear friend, the Conte XXXX, although of course since those dreadful liberals took over he hasn’t used his full title in protest….

  66. 66.

    forked tongue

    January 18, 2011 at 11:10 pm

    It’s quite possible that David Brooks’ new book marks the end of our civilization, such as it is.

    Oh phooey, Brooks would like to think he’s important enough to signify the end of our civilization, but it takes more than an audience of a few thousand Upper East Siders to do that.

    The twilight of American civilization, at least, will be called by historians the Reaganozoic era.

  67. 67.

    Tom Levenson

    January 18, 2011 at 11:10 pm

    The New Yorker piece was the single worst piece of science writing I remember reading. (My friend, science writer Jennifer Ouellette, offered Gregg Easterbrook on physics, at which I proposed a cage match between Brooks and Easterbrook with the winner gaining a lifetime subscription to Homeopathy Digest.)

    I knew this book was coming, and I feel I ought to read it and write about, but I may just have to ask the good FSM to let this cup pass from me. I just don’t think I could take Brooks at book length.

  68. 68.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 18, 2011 at 11:16 pm

    @forked tongue: From the Age of Reason to the Age of Reagan….

  69. 69.

    andy

    January 18, 2011 at 11:16 pm

    I think I would rather tuck into Atlas Shrugged- that at least makes me want to break things. This shit Bobo pushed out just makes me want to die…

  70. 70.

    Mark S.

    January 18, 2011 at 11:17 pm

    @Tom Levenson:

    The single worst? I’m impressed, since you must read tons of shitty science writing.

  71. 71.

    freelancer

    January 18, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    @Tom Levenson:

    I don’t get why you’d accept Brooks musing on cliches and playing pop-psychologist to spew a bunch of drivel if you were The New Yorker. I couldn’t get through three ‘graphs. What, was Carrot Top not available?!

  72. 72.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    January 18, 2011 at 11:20 pm

    @Nellcote: Someone who doesn’t know or care what the hell those people call themselves.

  73. 73.

    JGabriel

    January 18, 2011 at 11:20 pm

    @DougJ DougJson:

    I would rather read the entire Ayn Rand oeuvre than a single page about primal smells and young overacheivers checking out each other’s cleavage.

    And you can tell them apart, how?

    (Studies description intently.)

    Oh. It’s the primal smells. Rand is more rapey than smelly. Got it.

    .

  74. 74.

    Violet

    January 18, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    @morzer:
    Back when the children were young, we spent a lovely fortnight at his estate. David, Jr. has such fun climbing the olive trees during the harvest. Of course this was before olive oil became so..well known.

  75. 75.

    Uloborus

    January 18, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    Thank you, David Brooks. You’ve lowered the bar for publishing another half-inch. I and other aspiring writers like me feel a profound sense of gratitude for your sacrifice.

  76. 76.

    Drouse

    January 18, 2011 at 11:21 pm

    Or we could all just chorus Oh No Bobo!

  77. 77.

    Mark S.

    January 18, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    @Mark S.:

    I probably should add that I didn’t read the New Yorker piece.

  78. 78.

    JGabriel

    January 18, 2011 at 11:23 pm

    @Tom Levenson:

    I knew this book was coming, and I feel I ought to read it and write about …

    Life is too short. Find a book you want to read instead.

    Unless someone pays you to read it.

    .

  79. 79.

    Uloborus

    January 18, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    @JGabriel:
    Oddly, I give Rand WAY more points here. Rape fantasy is at least common. This? I do not recognize this as human thinking. It’s like he took a college evolutionary behavior class and a bible studies class and that’s it, that’s his entire understanding of human sexuality.

  80. 80.

    JGabriel

    January 18, 2011 at 11:28 pm

    @Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:

    In a few months, maybe a year max, the author will re-read it and hit himself in the face with a ball peen hammer whine about all the remainders and how the marketing department didn’t push it hard enough.

    You make the mistake of assuming Brooks will develop self-awareness.

    .

  81. 81.

    JGabriel

    January 18, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    @Uloborus:

    I do not recognize this as human thinking. It’s like he took a college evolutionary behavior class and a bible studies class and that’s it, that’s his entire understanding of human sexuality.

    Tsk, tsk. Are you saying David Brooks never got laid? Whatever happened to civility?!

    .

  82. 82.

    Wile E. Quixote

    January 18, 2011 at 11:32 pm

    Hey, fuck all you haters! This book is going to be great! And do you know what’s even better? Brooks has already signed a contract for a sequel, which will be co-written with Thomas Friedman. Hold onto your hats, because If you think that Ayn Rand knew her way around a sex scene you ain’t seen nothing yet!

  83. 83.

    Svensker

    January 18, 2011 at 11:33 pm

    @morzer:

    Yer making me laugh again.

  84. 84.

    freelancer

    January 18, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    Taibbi is sharpening his cutlery at this news.

  85. 85.

    pragmatism

    January 18, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    is this the book with “don’t tease the panther” or was that some other flim flammer? i get confused ’cause they have the same job.

  86. 86.

    JGabriel

    January 18, 2011 at 11:37 pm

    I just want to remind people that I have been pointing out for years that Brooks was the Times worst op-ed writer. Even during the period when Bill Kristol was there, because at least Kristol knows he writes for an audience of rabid conservatives with the emotional maturity, and vocabulary, of 10 year olds, and keeps his language simple, stupid, straightforward, and blatantly offensive. Brooks hides his offensiveness in bland, mediocre, mediocre, mediocre writing in the most tediously boring language possible.

    Frankly, I don’t know how anyone ever gets through more than two paragraphs of it.

    .

  87. 87.

    Drouse

    January 18, 2011 at 11:37 pm

    @Wile E. Quixote: What? They have a three way with a cab driver in Applebee’s?

  88. 88.

    Wile E. Quixote

    January 18, 2011 at 11:38 pm

    @fucen tarmal:

    can we chop mitch albom up into parts and rape bobo with them?

    What, you’re not looking forward to Tuesdays at Applebee’s with Morrie and the Five Bourgeois Bohemians You Meet in Heaven? Dude, it’s going to be awesome! Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light, is going to be illustrating it.

  89. 89.

    Nellcote

    January 18, 2011 at 11:39 pm

    @Wile E. Quixote:

    which will be co-written with Thomas Friedman.

    Will it have an “ethnically diverse” cab driver? yeah, that phrase is reeeeeally bugging me.

  90. 90.

    Wile E. Quixote

    January 18, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    @Drouse:

    @Wile E. Quixote: What? They have a three way with a cab driver in Applebee’s?

    It’s an ethnically diverse cab-driver from a public housing project in the Middle East, and it’s going to be tastefully illustrated by Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light.

  91. 91.

    handy

    January 18, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    @JGabriel:

    I think you just insulted a heap of Heartland Americans waiting at the salad bar line at Applebee’s.

  92. 92.

    Ija

    January 18, 2011 at 11:43 pm

    @JGabriel:

    Meh. I’d put Ross-permissive-sexual-culture-led-to-priests-raping-children-Douthat ahead of Bobo. At least Bobo is not puritanical and sanctimonious. He just fancies himself a sociologist.

  93. 93.

    Suffern ACE

    January 18, 2011 at 11:46 pm

    Maybe Erica is actually ethnically ambiguous. Or amorphous. She can then be whatever ethnicity is needed situationally. Today, she’s telling harold about how her grandmother spent months weaving a blanket in Arizona to sell to tourists on their way to the Grand Canyon. Tomorrow, her other grandmother lived in the barrio while her grandfather was known as the mayor in the hood. Her parents met in Hell’s Kitchen at a dance thrown by the police department to to address juvenile delinquency in the Puerto Rican and Italian communities.

  94. 94.

    Wile E. Quixote

    January 18, 2011 at 11:46 pm

    Oh, and speaking of Rand, John Scalzi wrote a fun piece on what he thinks of Atlas Shrugged a few months back.

  95. 95.

    Nellcote

    January 18, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    @pragmatism:

    is this the book with “don’t tease the panther” or was that some other flim flammer?

    1. Rule number one is: “Don’t tease the panther”

    Noah and Molly find themselves in bed together early in the book after a harrowing experience at a Founders’ Keepers rally. They agree to sleep in bed together because Molly is too scared to sleep at home, but Molly insists that nothing sexual will take place. Noah agrees, on the condition that she “not do anything sexy.” She presses her cold feet against his legs, and Noah responds:

    “Suit yourself, lady. I’m telling you right now, you made the rules, but you’re playing with fire here. I’ve got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don’t tease the panther.”

    from Beck’s “Overton Window” via Media Matters

  96. 96.

    TooManyJens

    January 19, 2011 at 12:08 am

    @Drouse: Hey, a fellow OH JOHN RINGO NO aficionado!

  97. 97.

    scav

    January 19, 2011 at 12:13 am

    He somehow manages to combine skimming Sociology for Dummies with the sexual elan of John Ruskin, express it in terminally bloodless and arch prose, rearrange said verbiage into what so far seems to be a narrative flatline and get it published.

  98. 98.

    Drouse

    January 19, 2011 at 12:14 am

    @TooManyJens: I was unaware of it until some(I needed brain bleach so I don’t know if it was)kind soul put up the link in last night’s Rand thread.

  99. 99.

    racrecir

    January 19, 2011 at 12:16 am

    Hey, how about Rand and Brooks, read in parallel, for the book club? And the discussion threads can contribute to a collaborative authorship of a scholarly paper. I’m thinking the title of the paper could be: “Transgressing Hermeneutics: Composure in a Galtian Wilderness of Pain”

  100. 100.

    Yutsano

    January 19, 2011 at 12:21 am

    Words fail. And no I don’t want it for my birthday.

  101. 101.

    freelancer

    January 19, 2011 at 12:21 am

    @scav:

    “My Passion, My Everyday Conquests” by Bill Lumbergh.

    Robert Evans, Bobo ain’t.

  102. 102.

    freelancer

    January 19, 2011 at 12:26 am

    Holy shit, anyone else watching the Aussie Open? What this Czech girl just did in her first set agains Venus Williams? That was inspired.

    ETA: Shit, Williams pulled something. Dammit.

  103. 103.

    Jager

    January 19, 2011 at 12:29 am

    @Nellcote:

    Beck should have written, “don’t tease the python”!

  104. 104.

    sukabi

    January 19, 2011 at 12:34 am

    good grief… is this what happens when sociopaths try and connect with regular people? Between this crap and the Ayn Rand crap, it’s become clear to me that we aren’t even in the same species with these folks… ugh.

  105. 105.

    BGinCHI

    January 19, 2011 at 12:36 am

    This is what happens when nobody either pokes him on FB or responds to his desperate pleas on Match.com.

  106. 106.

    Anne Laurie

    January 19, 2011 at 12:43 am

    @srv:

    I’m thinking Bobo Sarah Palin as Reardon and Palin BoBo as Dagny Taggert.

    No way David Brooks is a “top”, even in his fantasies. Probably especially in his fantasies.

  107. 107.

    Drouse

    January 19, 2011 at 12:44 am

    @sukabi: No, just severely inbred. If you ever cruised for women at a family reunion you might be… David Brooks.

  108. 108.

    Yutsano

    January 19, 2011 at 12:54 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    No way David Brooks is a “top”, even in his fantasies.

    Eew. Eew! EEWWW!! BRAIN BLEACH ON AISLE 7 STAT!!

  109. 109.

    Mark S.

    January 19, 2011 at 1:13 am

    @Yutsano:

    Don’t bogart that bleach! Pass it over!

  110. 110.

    morzer

    January 19, 2011 at 1:20 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    I suspect they involve tight black leather trousers, admiring co-eds and the intimate friendship of Richard Milhouse Nixon, possibly at the same time.

  111. 111.

    Ija

    January 19, 2011 at 1:25 am

    @morzer:

    But the main question is, will Bobo lose interest when the admiring coed who looks like Reese Witherspoon reveals that gasp! SHE IS ON THE PILL. Oh the atrocity.

  112. 112.

    Cliff

    January 19, 2011 at 2:47 am

    I don’t understand what that excerpt means and I refuse to acknowledge it.

  113. 113.

    bjacques

    January 19, 2011 at 4:36 am

    @wasabi gasp:

    Join ethically and polymorphously diverse Erica on her journey of sexual awakening from Aspen to TED to Davos. In the movie version, for that authentic 1970s soft-porn look, the Davos interiors are a cross between Blofeld’s clinic atop Piz Gloria and that hotel in whichever Pink Panther movie had Claudine Longet in it. And it has Claudine Longet in it.

    You and me are just Composure Class mammals. So let’s do it like they do on the TJ Applebees channel.

  114. 114.

    nitpicker

    January 19, 2011 at 7:05 am

    Just heard Tina Brown praising Bobo’s book and calling him the “consummate intellectual” on NPR this morning. These are dark days indeed.

  115. 115.

    Turgid Jacobian

    January 19, 2011 at 7:06 am

    @Wile E. Quixote: Hot, Flat, and Crowded, indeed.

  116. 116.

    aimai

    January 19, 2011 at 7:09 am

    @Ija:

    I’m late to this brilliant comment thread but, really, a character is described as “ethnically diverse?” Ethnically diverse is itself a euphemism for ethnic situations that are too complex to be described exactly–more than two racial or ethnic heritages. When race itself is too hot button to be used and the writer wants to soften the issue by pretending he is talking about “ethnicity” instead of Race. There’s no way that any given individual can be described as “ethnically diverse.” The proper terms are either biracial,tri-racial, mutt, heinz 57 or just to pretend for five seconds that your characters aren’t completely defined by their racial component and their position in your novel.

    aimai

  117. 117.

    ChrisNYC

    January 19, 2011 at 7:10 am

    I don’t hate David Brooks. I affirmatively like that he insists on going on television when he is clearly and completely wracked with self-consciousness on camera. But I can’t read him or watch him anymore. He gives me the feeling that the reason he does what he does is because his heart would break if he ever had to confront the possibility that his somewhat adolescent version of America and our culture is not reality. All of it sounds like a needy, desperate plea. Turns me off.

  118. 118.

    bob h

    January 19, 2011 at 7:46 am

    Shouldn’t we hope that Brooks turns to novel writing full time, and gives up his NYT, NPR, PBS gigs?

  119. 119.

    Annelid Gustator

    January 19, 2011 at 8:04 am

    @Turgid Jacobian: You mean Bald(ing), Fat, and Crowded?

  120. 120.

    Tom

    January 19, 2011 at 8:50 am

    I don’t get all the Brooks hate. I really don’t. I read this piece and there’s some interesting stuff in it. Yes, he’s inventing characters, but so what? The hook of the piece is that he’s taking studies and actual data and applying them to a fictional couple. The people are made up, but points he makes about them are not (at least, not any more than any other study findings are).

  121. 121.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 19, 2011 at 9:53 am

    Oh dear. I saw the byline and wondered if it was the David Brooks. I read the whole thing (Yes! having to read chapters of differential equation textbooks does wonders for one’s ability to read anything!) and decided it wasn’t worth figuring out.

    @Tom gets it. I figured this out early on while reading and kept wondering why Brooks thought this would make for interesting reading. It’s a tour de force of sorts, the kind of thing I might try for one blog post. But the weakness is that Brooks doesn’t really tell us what’s in the studies, just takes them at face value, and another New Yorker article, a week or two back, told us that we can’t do that.

    And he keeps it up for a whole book. Imagine that.

  122. 122.

    vheidi

    January 19, 2011 at 10:08 am

    @nitpicker: this. My god.

  123. 123.

    scav

    January 19, 2011 at 10:54 am

    well, there is the slight problem that the text has all the thrills of a white water ride on the lower Mississippi.

  124. 124.

    someofparts

    January 19, 2011 at 11:36 am

    When you speak of maestros of bobo putdowns, don’t forget driftglass!

  125. 125.

    BenTheTipsyBear

    January 19, 2011 at 1:53 pm

    @someofparts – yeah, where’s the DG links?
    Re: this book, there’s http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/01/even-greater-gatsby.html

    And the most important point – David Fucking Brooks is not just banality incarnate, he’s the enabling mechanism for the Right, who can rely on DFB (and Cokie Roberts) to falsely equate the latest insanity from the leaders of right fringe to something the left did 40 years ago or in a blog-comment or in their imaginations.

    We need to challenge “but the other side does it to” whenever and wherever it happens.

  126. 126.

    asiangrrlMN

    January 19, 2011 at 3:05 pm

    Yeah, OK. This is supposed to make me enthusiastic about trying to get published? Yeah, not so much.

    @Tom: ‘Coz he sucks at it, all his characters are patently fake, his thinking is shaky, and his conclusions are shitty. Plus, what he writes says more about his inadequacies and issues than on anything he’s about which he’s purporting to theorize. And, he sucks.

  127. 127.

    Delia

    January 19, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    Looks like somebody’s bored with his NYT gig. In all honesty, who can blame him?

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