Update: Just a quick note: do enjoy the video, if its your kind of thing. I know I led with my own Sully frustration, but I really did see this post as just a random five minutes of fun for all of us. So don’t think that you have to hate on our man with the beard. You can, of course, and have at it. But it ain’t a prior necessary act if all you want to do is hum along with the tune. No es muss sein in these parts, buckaroos.
———————————————
<div align=”center”><iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/kbJcQYVtZMo” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
Also too, some courage, or rather that resilience that comes with taking a moment of pleasure in the midst of the battles we all daily fight.
Now, I have a friend and co-worker, a soprano, who loathes the Ode to Joy — to her it’s a job, and a rough one: twenty minutes of screaming over a blare of strings, brass and percussion. But damn if Beethoven-by-street doesn’t make me smile in ways that no amount of Sully-whinging can touch.
You may consider this an open thread. Flag favorite flash-mob videos in the comments, if you wish.
*To be fair to Sullivan, he does not shy away from excoriating the GOP, nor its ticket. My complaint is with the lack of intensity — by which I mean that kind of relentless repetitive posting that Sullivan has deployed to document Obama’s polling slide. As I write this, the Dish has on its front page three posts that bemoan that slide. It has one on the complete nonsense at the heart of Romney’s positions — a piece discussing the jobs “plan” that isn’t. There are a bunch more that are essentially process pieces — horse race, poll internal analyses and so on.
But Sullivan is not beating the drum for what he says he believes: that Romney/Ryan form a clear and present danger to the republic [and the world — ed.]. He does pound the skins on what he sees as almost a betrayal by Obama, a crappy 9o minutes out of a four year term. I do not contest that Obama’s last debate performance last time out was rough and has had really worrying consequences.
But there is no doubt in my mind that without even demanding that we all leap into the hack gap, to flat out pretend that what happened didn’t, still, simply, repeatedly hammering on what Romney actually says and what it means is not just useful.
It’s a patriotic duty.
At which Sullivan is now failing.
Freude!
And don’t you forget it.
Villago Delenda Est
I got nothin’.
Carry on.
matt
Yeah, but Andrew Sullivan is first and foremost a lazy twat.
Cassidy
And the “Best Title For A Post” award goes to….
Yutsano
I. No. Longer. Care. One. Whit. About. Andrew. Sullivan.
Can we please move the fuck on now?
Pooh
That. Is. Awesome.
Mandalay
Sullivan is PAID for what he writes, and his current poutrage rant is generating clicks for him.
Whining about Sullivan is no different to complaining about McCain being invited onto the Sunday morning shows.
Eric U.
the fact that anyone anywhere can find out what Andrew Sullivan is thinking is testament to how screwed up our system is.
Villago Delenda Est
@matt:
OK, Matt said it for me.
Sullivan is a loathsome insect. Someone step on him, please.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay:
That’s in the “too hard!” box for Andy, I fear.
Cervantes
General Franco is still dead.
Thanks, Tom.
Ash Can
Courtesy of alert commenter Gus at LGF: Put Dinesh D’Souza in the “family values for thee but not for me” category.
cintibud
This seems to fit here: Honey Boo Boo endorses Obama
Comrade Jake
Sully really is unbearable. “Everything” hinges on tonight. Give me a fucking break.
Spatula
Can you explain how it is the job of a journalist to campaign for a specific politician?
For a host of reasons, Sullivan is a disgusting slug, but that’s beside the point here.
Obama and his campaign suck at getting their message out; always have. When all you have to do is point out lies and tell the truth to make your case, and you can’t accomplish that even when standing at a podium just feet away from your opponent on live television, something is way screwed and weird and fishy.
But oh well…Ode To Joy it is.
cintibud
Not seeing my link in my last message, maybe this will work:
http://tinyurl.com/8b99q5h
If not, it’s on the NBCnews.com page. Maybe somebody can tell me if links need to be approved or something.
Violet
Sullivan takes everything personally. Everything. Obama hasn’t just failed a debate–he failed Andrew Sullivan personally. That’s why he’s so upset.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I like the quick shot of somebody in a Duff t-shirt.
Now, the cello just needs to be amped with some foot pedals for distortion ala the band Rasputina.
Sly
Not exactly a flash mob, but “Brindisi at the Reading Terminal Market” is nice.
Comrade Jake
@Ash Can: The fact that this asshat’s movie has grossed $30M tells you everything that is wrong about this country.
Spatula
When the violins first come in: Goosebumps.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ash Can:
Well, how is it surprising that this vile sack of Jeebofascist shit is a hypocrite? I mean, that’s pretty much a requirement for these asswipes, isn’t it?
Ahasuerus
@Ash Can: Looks like Gingrich has an acolyte.
jayboat
@Ash Can:
D’souza can eat a bag of salty dicks.
taylormattd
Be careful, or Bernard will accuse of you being in denial.
Violet
@Ash Can: Oh, that’s hilarious.
Zyla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder
See also, Andrew Sullivan
The primary features of BPD are unstable interpersonal relationships, affective distress, marked impulsivity, and unstable self-image.
Individuals with BPD tend to experience frequent, strong and long-lasting states of aversive tension, often triggered by perceived rejection, being alone or perceived failure. They may show lability (changeability) between anger and anxiety or between depression and anxiety and temperamental sensitivity to emotive stimuli.
The negative emotional states specific to BPD fall into four categories: destructive or self-destructive feelings; extreme feelings in general; feelings of fragmentation or lack of identity; and feelings of victimization
Spatula
Love the little kids directing the music with such uninhibited JOY.
RossinDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
Dagnabbit! I want Beethoven! I can’t watch that because this Hermosillo hotel has just a trickle of bandwidth.
I miss my home, I miss my wife and I miss my Beethoven records.
Where’s the damn Kleenex….
MattM
I have to think that the timbre of Sully’s posts over the past two weeks has been based primarily on one fact: he knows the President reads him, and he’s trying to guilt him into some kind of super comeback performance.
Massively egocentric, but, hey, it’s Sully.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I’m a hobby musician geek who’s recorded this kind of stuff before.
No doubt they played great out there but the music you hear had to be recorded elsewhere for the audio track we’re hearing. The crowd noise is mixed in plus there’s some stereo panning going on at one spot.
Again, it sounds “too perfect”. I first became aware of this kind of thing when I saw a Todd Rundgren/Utopia Live DVD release. Too perfect. Then I talked with people who’ve worked with Todd and yup, they indicated he had rerecorded large chunks of the show in the studio. It’s quite common, heh heh, I do it myself.
Turning off the buzzkill, the shots of the various children “conducting” was the highlight. We all channel our inner Bugs Bunny Conducting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX1ljYx3g3k
MonkeyBoy
That is a great Beethoven “flash mob” video other than the fact that it is a professionally produced commercial.
lacp
I’m probably late to the party, but I only saw the story this morning. Had me shaking my head.
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/10/white_students_in_blackface_reenact_chris_brown-rihanna_fight_at_high_school_pep_rally.html
Tom Levenson
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I’m looking for microphone placements. Stereo panning and a location mix are both doable in the field. Whether or not that was done here, I have no clue. But given the quality of the camerawork (and the number of camera positions) if they had wanted to work with a multitrack field record that they would later mix down, they certainly could have.
Mandalay
@Violet:
I think Sullivan has simply discovered an easy way to massively increase his visibility, and I don’t understand why everyone here credits him with genuinely believing the drivel he writes.
And of course he is in a win-win situation; if Obama is re-elected than he can say “Thank God that Obama listened to me!”, and if he loses he can say “Told ya so!”. But either way he will piously paint himself as someone who has integrity running through his every vein.
So while I think the prevailing conclusion that Sullivan is a loathsome asswipe is correct, the reasoning is not. He is a loathsome asswipe simply because he is a corrupt and fraudulent Villager.
Emma
Les Miz in Polish.
Marshall
I will never read Andrew Sullivan again.
Other than that, keep calm and carry on.
sneezy
@Mandalay:
Agreed. I think he’s in the “getting attention and page views” biz and everything he writes is targeted precisely toward that end. Any correspondence between what he writes and what he might actually think or believe is incidental.
Samuel Knight
Sully ain’t our man. It’s about HIM and his hackdom.
General method.
1) Make up facts.
2) Non sequitoral leap,
3) Add ad hominem attack, smarty pants quip, and
voila! a column!
Please note similar to Christopher Hitchens, Alexander Cockburn,the Economist, etc.
Joy
@Violet: You’re right. I couldn’t quite place my finger on the level of hysteria he is already hyping and it’s because he feels personally betrayed!
Laura
@Ash Can: I had no idea D’Souza was a Christian, though of course I should have assumed it, since only Christian Indians are allowed in the Republican fold.
Joy
Oh, and too, Howard Fineman.
Citizen_X
@Ash Can: Holy cats, that takes some big brass ones.
“Hi everybody, here’s my fiancee.”
“Wait, aren’t you still married to someone else?”
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
IMO a lot of the problem stems from how the Left has absorbed the Right’s narrative (since Reagan) of President as All-Powerful-Daddy-God-King.
Folks like Matthews and Sullivan had apparently internalized this narrative, and expected Obama the A.P.D.G.K. to slay Romney the Mendacious with his Mighty Swordbeams of Truth and Justice. When they were presented instead with Obama the level-headed, Highly Competent Technocrat, the assault to their worldview led to… well, the result we saw.
Mitt, on the other hand, is perfectly happy to play the part of All-Powerful-Daddy-God-King. For him, it’s just a practice run for the afterlife (when he’ll get to rule an entire planet as a deified God, himself).
ExurbanMom
Go Bucks!
http://youtu.be/HDNOB6TnHSI
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Tom Levenson:
I went back and watched it with mic placement in mind. Nothing. I’ve watched Alan Parsons up close work with orchestras so have a pretty good idea of what’s involved and none of that was visible. Moreover, the actual sound didn’t sound “outside like”–I can’t splain it better.
And I see Monkey in #31 confirms it’s from a commercial which means they recorded what we’re hearing in a studio.
Jack Bauer
Please.
When will the “stop reading Andrew Sullivan” threads end? I’ve been reading them here for _years_.
Anyway, Obama’s first debate was abysmal. A first rate failure, a missed chance to put away the snake oil salesman. Sullivan’s instincts were right, as the polls have shown.
Obama didn’t make the economic argument that best serves the vast majority of us. I was furious about that. He had a couple of bright spots on Medicare. That was it. ALL the hand-wringing about this, the Sullivan bashing, the poll splitting doesn’t change a thing. It a much closer election that it should have ever been.
He better be on fire tonight.
MTiffany
If anyone needs a succinct metaphor for the American political process, I think we have a winner here…
wrb
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
And a whole lotta wimmins too.
Joey Maloney
U.S. appeals court reverses Osama bin Laden driver’s conviction
Katherine
@Emma: thanks,emma
Tom Levenson
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Not a commercial; just a bank-sponsored performance.
But otherwise, I think you’re right, and that you can see it from the first moments with the double bass.
Does it matter? Even a little?
Not to me: the performance took place and the video captures the critical element (to me): the interaction of a street audience with a sudden eruption of music in their midst. I don’t mind that they took the trouble to record the audio well. ;)
(I may be influenced by the fact that I am reading right now about Casals’ and Stokowski’s adventures in recording in Paul Elie’s really interesting new one, Reinventing Bach.)
SFAW
Why, Tom, whatever do you mean? I mean, just because – according to TPM’s PollTracker tracker – Obama’s lead has gone from +4 percent to minus 1 percent, Obama’s Electoral College estimate went from 322 to 247, and the Senate estimator went from 54 D to 51 D, there’s no reason the Dems can blow this. Oh, and just because the polls have not really plateaued, but still seem to be trending downward (well, some of them) for Obama, that’s all the more reason to think that Obama’s doing the eleventy-dimensional chess thing y’all keep talking about.
No, I’m feeling pre-e-t-t-y confident right now, because four weeks ago, a bunch of commenters here told me I was worried over nothing, that the stupidity of the electorate would not be a factor, that Romney’s lies would catch up with him, that the MIA tax returns would hang Romney, that voters would realize how much Ryan’s “plan” would fuck them over and they’d run, screaming, from the Rethugs. Yeah, that’s working out just as everyone said it would.
Now, I desperately hope that I wake up on November 7th, and Obama has won, and the Dems have 51 Senators (not counting the Independents). But until then, I’d appreciate less bullshit optimism, until the numbers improve a shitload.
Yer goddamn right I’m cranky. Having the flu does not improve my mood, either.
Oh, and WHO THE FUCK STILL CARES ABOUT SULLIVAN, YOU FUCKING IMBECILES? Either offer him a job as an FPer, or STFU already. This is fucking stupider than Michael Gaz and his credenza, or George Rockwell’s running mails to Markos.
Oh, and thanks for the Beethoven, but what’s this shit about not singing auf Deutsch? And can we STOP calling staged performances with 30-plus video cameras doing crowd shots from 50 feet up and right next to the bystanders “flash” mobs? That’s like saying Rmoney’s zingers were “spontaneous.”
Ash Can
@Citizen_X: I like the bit about them sharing a hotel room, and him insisting that “nothing happened.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Joey Maloney:
Meanwhile, actual war criminals: the deserting coward, Darth Cheney, and Feldmarschal von Rumsfailed, are still at large.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Tom Levenson:
Oh don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t matter. I’m just obsessive about live sound and live recording methods.
kindness
Great ‘Flash mob’.
One thing though. Sully is still a citizen of the UK and as much as he has said he would become a US citizen when he can, he isn’t and it isn’t his ‘patriotic’ duty to be fair and honest. It’s his duty to his own integrity that he be honest and fair.
Tom Levenson
@kindness:
he isn’t and it isn’t his ‘patriot
Tom Levenson
@SFAW: Not optimistic, me. Terrified, rather.
But I see no point, and much harm, in curling up into a fetal ball and crying for one’s daddy, which is more or less what Sully seems to me to be doing.
As for flash mobs: I got no problem with (a) paying folks to do professional work and (b) calling something a flash mob that is an unexpected intrusion of one sphere (professional performance) into another (the open street).
Ben Johannson
Not a lot positive for Sullivan to write about with catastrophic unemployment and declining real GDP. But Tom Levenson says it’s getting better with 93 cents on each dollar of nominal growth going to the wealthiest.
Way to set those standards high.
SFAW
@Tom Levenson:
I agree re: not curling up, but I think your energy is wasted on trashing Sully. If this were only the 50th time one of the FPers had gone after him, it would still be old. But you guys are up to something like 250. Think “Glory Days.” It’s been old for a couple of years now, and, as with un-shitting the bed, writing about Sully EVEN MORE is not going to un-old it.
I also have no problem with paying pros to do a job, but that was a “flash” mob about as much as the Sox on game day at Fenway is a “pickup” game. (Although, considering their performance this year, that analogy might not hold up so well.) I just wonder how many rehearsals they had in the square. Probably at least a couple.
vayama
I had a music teacher who once said that if you can’t get any enjoyment out of performing “Freude, schöner Götterfunken,” maybe you should just pack it in. Sure, singing is sometimes a hell of a lot of work, but it’s a lot more work when the singer next to you is a Debbie Downer.
SFAW
@Tom Levenson:
By the way: although I used your comment as a jumping-off point for my rant, I wasn’t really aiming the rant at you. Sorry for not making the segue clearer.
SFAW
@vayama:
From your keyboard to FSM’s noodley earlike appendages.
Claessens1
I consider this is a piece of Teutonic warmongering. But still it is fun. Did you see the goose sitting on the woman’s lap c. 4 seconds?
SFAW
@Claessens1:
One hopes your were joking.
mcmullje
@SFAW: The only reason I care is because he has a huge readership and he is to some extent influential. I sent him this over the weekend:
I have a very strong opinion about how you, Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews, Jon Stewart, to name a few of the biggest, beat him (Obama) to death – maybe the death of the election. You said yourself that most people are too busy to be high information voters and they trust people like you to help them make sense of the political situation. If Obama loses this election because of one debate regardless of all the good he has done and all the good he could continue to do, then I hold you and the media responsible.
He has had NOTHING but derision from the very loud right in that they have Fox News as their platform. He has fought tooth and nail with an impossible Congress and before that with Blue Dogs. You know more than anyone how much he has accomplished, but one bad debate and he’s toast. I can’t even begin to imagine how he must feel every day because every single day of the week he has shit thrown at him and lies told about him and movies like 2016 shown about him and now his friends have turned on him – publically. Sad and maybe fatal for his campaign.
IowaOldLady
Not a flashmob but very cool and unusual production of classical music. I’m sticking in a link since I’m not sure we’re supposed to embed video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_CDLBTJD4M&feature=player_embedded
Mandalay
You could be accused of doing a similar thing simply by writing about him.
Why not practice what you preach? Why not write instead about good stuff that has happened under Obama’s watch: low mortgage rates, a booming stock market, troop withdrawls in Afghanistan and Iraq, improvements in health care and gay rights…
There is a whole world out there, and you want to post about the negativity of Sullivan?
Please, no more FP posts on Sullivan. Just stop doing it.
PurpleGirl
@Claessens1: I’ve watched this video a bunch of times and hadn’t seen the goose. Thanks for pointing it out.
wrb
@Mandalay:
If Obama loses I want to see daily FP posts blaming the fucker Sullivan while we mourn the country.
Kilkee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxEB48jY3F8
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@wrb:
Yes, and many new Eves as well. Gotta make the bodies so the souls will have a home. Not sure how Ann processes that little bit of theology.
I’ve been brushing up on Mormon dogma (so I’ll be prepared for the quizzes and loyalty oaths), and I had forgotten just how fucking weird Mormonism is.
When you look at Mitt Romney, you are looking at a man who is an elect of his church (fewer than 2% of Mormons get the credentials needed to attend their highest temple rituals), who honestly believes that he will be Deified into Godhood in the next life, and given a planet of his very own to rule as a God.
Yep. EXACTLY the psychology I want to have access to the launch codes.
I find myself wishing the left had its own psyops team. A few chain emails to the low-info Evangelicals could have gone a long way.
SFAW
@wrb:
Don’t forget Ralph Nader, because he has about as much to do with Obama losing as Sully. Actually, probably more than Sully, because without Nader, there would probably be no President Obama.
With Sully, he’s merely e pluribus unum.
Tom Levenson
@Mandalay:
Fair enough, though I confess that at this corner of the web I probably take for granted (too much) the idea that we all already know that.
Peccavi, magister. I will labor to improve.
cckids
@Violet: This. Holy God, yes.
And, Tom, “almost” a betrayal? He clearly & repeatedly portrayed Obama’s ok performance as a horrifying, calculated giveaway of biblical proportions. He brought up the “lazy” meme over & over. Now that Nate Silver & others are showing that the Romney “bounce” started before the debate, is he backing down at all? Of course not!! He is the eternal toddler, living in the NOW, always concerned with himself above all.
I’d love to smack him & tell him “pull your head out of your ass, it’s not a hat.”
/tip for quote to the Pitch Perfect movie.
catclub
@Tom Levenson: After all, faith is the antidote to fear, as the Christians are wont to tell us.
Yutsano
@Ben Johannson: Do you have a proposal to change this? Or are you just whining?
BTW catastrophic unemployment is what Spain has right now. We’re not even close to that.
Cris (without an H)
Good job by the orchestra for memorizing their parts. That was what ruined this video of the Copenhagen Philharmonic playing Ravel in the train station. Come on guys, if there’s one piece in the standard repertoire for which you don’t need sheet music in front of you, it’s Bolero.
wrb
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
I’ve been brushing up too. It is bizarre. And, yet it is probably an opportunity missed.
Would the evangelicals really be down with a polytheistic religion that holds that our God is just a Mormon guy who got assigned this planet, who keeps a harem and who balled “virgin” Mary in the flesh? And that those who don’t know the secret handshakes are barred from the better regions of the after place?
Cris (without an H)
By the way, does anybody know what they’re singing? This does not sound like Schiller’s original lyrics to me. I’m not even sure it’s German.
wrb
@SFAW:
I disagree. I think Sully had a great deal to do with turning the narrative from a mildly disappointing Obama performance overshadowed by Romney’s outrageous lie- which is where I was sure it would go in a few days- to this hysterical lurid fantasy of Obama’s complete emasculation. And he’s still building it, even today.
His two freakout pieces sat at the top of Memeorandum. When things started to calm down after the first, he wrote a second, which took over again.
I believe much of the renewed enthusiasm on the right is due to Sully Mathews etc. They didn’t much like Mitt but once he showed that he could make Andy and Chris squeal, he could do no wrong. The sheer lascivious joy with which they passed around and celebrated his howling screeds is something the match of which I can’t remember.
Another Halocene Human
I’m another Halocene human, and I approve this video. Even if it appears to be some sort of promo for a bank. :)
SFAW
@catclub:
Ah, yes, I remember Sister Bertrille telling me “Fear is the mind killer.”
Another Halocene Human
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Yeah, you can see where the vocals don’t match up to the lip movements, kinda annoying.
Soylenth
@wrb:
Agreed. Nothing like supporters that publicly shiv you the moment you stumble.
Cris (without an H)
Here’s the official statement from the Bank of Sabadell, who organized this performance:
Mandalay
@Tom Levenson:
Whereas we have no idea of what Sullivan is saying, and therefore we need constant reminders?…
You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium’s
Liable to walk upon the scene
SFAW
@wrb:
I think you’re overrating Sully’s importance. A lot of this stuff is inside baseball.
If Obama had told Mitt, during the debate, in a semi-aggressive but not “uppity” way, that Mitt is a fucking liar, and that everything he was saying two weeks ago was bullshit, then the bed would probably have been un-shit.
But he waited until the next day to try his comeback lines. That always works SO well.
Sully WISHES he were as influential as Rushbo – I WISH I were as smart as Paul Krugman (to name one). Don’t mean it’s happening in this plane of existence.
NR
@mcmullje: You’re right. If Obama loses, he bears no responsibility whatsoever for his defeat. Remember kids, Obama can’t fail, he can only be failed.
Another Halocene Human
@Samuel Knight: Please note similar to Christopher Hitchens, Alexander Cockburn,the Economist, etc.
Hitch may have been a self-absorbed, abusive, name-dropping drunk, but at least he was witty.
Another Halocene Human
@Claessens1: I consider this is a piece of Teutonic warmongering.
It’s absolutely not, but, like, whatever.
ruemara
@NR: You should go fuck yourself.
Matt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLpPAz0tz98
Watch this clip to understand Sully
mcmullje
@NR: I don’t know who you are, but I did not intimate that Obama did well in the debate or that he hasn’t made mistakes, but he has sure as hell done more things right than wrong and a 90 minute debate shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Now if you disagree with his policies that’s a different story but if you are just being a jerk then go to hell.
Rex Everything
These classical flash mobs are annoying as fuck. They’re part of the same big middlebrow circle jerk as those tote bags with Poe or Thackeray’s portrait on them. And the musicians, you know they ALL hate playing that motherfucker just like Levenson’s soprano friend, but look at them wearing that lame-ass “solemn” and “joyous” expression like Robin Williams in full Dead Poets Society mode. They can sell a tote bag as well as anyone.
kdaug
Damnit Levenson.
I was right there with you until you said that word.
For some it’s “green balloons”.
I didn’t start this.
But I aim to end it.