“It’s a mirror universe where everything is pliant and groovy, and in that universe there’s someone that stands out, and it’s the boring-looking trenne with its sharp edges.”
 — Architect George L. Legendre, who along with his partner, Marco Guarnieri, has made an art book called Pasta by Design, which presents mathematical equations detailing the shapes of 92 different types of pasta, along with pictures and suggestions for accompanying sauces. That is a ridiculous and fun-sounding project. I wonder which pasta Legendre would say is the most pliant and groovy in the mirror noodle universe? Who is the Papa John Philips, the Jimi Hendrix of pastas? Maybe saccottini, which looks like a sort of vortex folding in upon itself, infinitely. (It’s name also harkens to the grooviest of eras — “Sock it to me!”) Man, stare at one of those saccottinis long enough, and the whole world is there for you to see.

Oh, by all means, let’s try and preserve all the VALUABLE HISTORY on the moon. It’s SO IMPORTANT that all the footprints and garbage we left up there on previous visits remain intact. Lord knows the moon can’t do anything for itself, because it’s so USELESS. Ugh, stupid moon! Don’t you know it’s not going to make a difference once we finally come to our senses and blow you into little tiny chunks of utter worthlessness?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFy3BP8TufI

This really is my favorite web video series. (Previously)

Andrew Sullivan points to this important query: Why are white men singing so much less in popular music these days? I don’t know! Also, while I have you here, let me just mention that I, while late to the party, have been listening to Julia Holter’s Tragedy pretty much nonstop over the last couple of weeks. It is an amazing record, although it is probably not for everyone. There are a ton of elements that could seem gimmicky or annoying in the wrong hands, but these hands seem to do everything right. Give it a listen.

Brace yourself. Caitlin Flanagan has an exceedingly perceptive and well-done essay in the Atlantic! Sure, there is a psychologically deep-seated and somewhat deranged whiff of/riff on gender essentialism (boys like Hunter Thompson and girls like Joan Didion!), but hey, that’s at least a little true. For one thing, she draws well the obvious connections that Didion and John Gregory Dunne were the most extreme caricatures of their generation of parents (in short: rather terrible), the parents who made their childrens’ generation into helicoptering nightmares.

Didion reports that the central demon of Quintana’s life was a fear of abandonment. “How,” she writes plaintively, “could she have ever imagined that we could abandon her?” A cursory reading of the Didion-Dunne canon provides a partial answer…. Both of Quintana’s parents worked constantly, left her alone with a variety of sitters — two teenage boys who happened to live next door, a woman who “saw death” in Joan Didion’s aura, whatever hotel sitter was on duty — and they left her alone in Los Angeles many, many times when they were working. The Christmas Quintana was 3, Didion planned to make crèches and pomegranate jelly with her, but then got a picture in New York and decided she’d rather do that, leaving her child home…. Dunne was a brilliant writer and a bully, a prince and an angry guy, a besotted father and a bad drunk who could throw Quintana’s essays out the car window on the way to school if he found out she hadn’t had one of her parents “proof” them. He was the kind of man who kicked down doors during marital quarrels and could have a bad fight with his wife and then blame it on his very young daughter; at one point he left the two of them and moved into a bachelor pad in Vegas for a year and a half. (“How could she have ever imagined that we could abandon her?”)

This is a great day for America — because the news organizations have spent a ton of money on “covering” Iowa and New Hampshire, and they’ll be sending fewer staff and resources to South Carolina, which starts tomorrow, after New Hampshire “votes” today, and which also gets under-covered because it’s a three-hour drive down the J. Strom Thurmond Freeway from outside Myrtle Beach to Columbia, as opposed to the one-hour drive from Nashua NH to Concord NH, and the bigger things get, well, all the reporters are kind of lazy and they miss a lot of events, and so you will be hearing less of the Republican primary prattle, which is all a lot of hot air and doesn’t matter one tiny little bit. (Perhaps you will remember when Herman Cain dominated the news cycle! Ha ha! Creeping sharia! It was literally a couple weeks ago!) After South Carolina comes Florida, with the primary on January 31, which will be a total LOLfest, but will also be a less hysterically covered “news” event. So vote on, New Hampshire freaks! Only 229 days until the Republican convention in Tampa!

by Wendy MacLeod and Will Arbery

52. The King of the Kosher Grocers
51. Onion Heads
50. Aspirin and Elephants
49. Bashville in Love
48. Aren’t We All?
47. Schmulnik’s Waltz
46. James Skipworth and the Catfish Colonel
45. Jump, I’ll Catch You!
44. I Think You Think I Love You
43. Tod, the Boy, Tod
42. Maiden’s Progeny
41. Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral
40. Criminals in Love
39. Six Who Pass While the Lentils Boil
38. The Juice of Wild Strawberries
37. Ding Dong Dead
36. Deflowering Waldo
35. How His Bride Came to Abraham
34. Dying for Laughs
33. Daughters of the Lone Star State
32. Southern Baptist Sissies
31. Daddy’s Dyin’… Who’s Got the Will?
30. Doing Time at the Alamo
29. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
28. Golf: The Musical
27. Thataway Jack
26. Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting
25. Death Bed
24. The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker
23. A Little Quickie
22. Sin, Sex and the C.I.A.
21. Hot Bed Hotel
20. The Lone Star Love Potion
19. When the Cat’s Away
18. The Curse of Ravensdurn
17. Are You Sure?
16. Death in England? Another Inspector Mirabelle Adventure
15. Ciao, Baby!
14. Valentines and Killer Chili
13. The Lucky O’Learys
12. Don’t Hug Me
11. First Baptist of Ivy Gap
10. Shady Business
9. Post-Oedipus
8. Position Available
7. Back of the Throat
6. Two Wives and a Dead Guy
5. Snacks
4. A Mother, A Daughter, and A Gun
3. A Town Called Shame
2. The Sensuous Senator
1. Who’s in Bed with the Butler?

Wendy MacLeod is the James E. Michael Playwright-in Residence at Kenyon College. Her play The House Of Yes is a Miramax film. She has been published in the New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Rumpus, NPR’s “All Things Considered” and POETRY magazine. Her new play Find And Sign opens in January. She also must confess that she wrote a play called Apocalyptic Butterflies.

Will Arbery graduated from Kenyon College in May, and now he lives in Brooklyn where he’s trying to be a playwright and an adult.

In The Night Bookstore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8

Here’s what the books get up to while you’re at home, asleep. [Via]

“A goat which blows raspberries has become a hit with visitors at a farm in Nottingham…. Staff said that the other goats at the farm have started to develop the quirk too.”

by Ray LeMoine

I arrived back in New Hampshire a couple days after Christmas, attending a Mitt Romney event at Geno’s Chowder & Sandwich Shop on a wharf at the port’s mouth in Portsmouth. A few hundred people showed up too, the usual Republican mix of dyed-blonde women in furs, size-38-pants men, Brooks Brother-y bros, and girls in those knee-high brown storm-trooper boots that have recently invaded the suburbs.

Mitt’s DJ told me that he can’t play The Boss or Mellencamp, his faves for campaign rallies (he is a professional political DJ), because they’d sue. “Freedom ain’t free when it comes to ‘Born in the USA,’” the DJ said. “But Kid Rock, man, I just called him up and he said ‘Fuck, I don’t give a fuck.’”

A campaign staffer said this was Mitt’s largest crowd of the year, both in terms of attendance by media and voters. A veteran political reporter offered insight to his microphone and cameraman: “The rest of the field is fading.”

Soon after, Mitt arrived in a black SUV, and Kid Rock’s vox blasted “We were born freeeeeeee….” The usual baby-kissing ensued as Mitt made his way to a literal plywood-crafted stump. What was unusual was the difference in Mitt’s vibration from 2008. Gone was the pure awkwardness, like the time he described an ice sculpture at a fair in Nashua as “hot stuff!” Here instead was a confident, funny candidate who suddenly broke into patriotic hymns, quoting lines from the national anthem “America the Beautiful.” “I love these songs,” he said. This was part of a new campaigning gag, and it proved effective. He’s now using it in his stump speech.

Two days later, Mitt won Iowa. New Hampshire had become a race for second. In fact, when asked who would win second, Howard Fineman, of AOL/Huffington Post, said “That’s the only exciting question.”

Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator and surprise second-place finisher in Iowa, was riding a wave of “momentum,” as Donna Brazile actually put it. Apparently momentum in politics means “a moment.” I saw him at a rally held in a barn on Saturday afternoon — ten hours later, during the debate, he’d talked himself out of the race. Santorum clearly wanted to be considered as the conservative alternative to Mitt. In the crowd were about 400 people (a number he’d later inflate to 1,200 during the ABC debate) who came to hear him hate on China and hype American Exceptionalism. Same types as the Mitt crowd. Those same damn brown boots.

For all his talk of freedom, Santorum has a constrictive stance towards women’s rights; much of his talk centered on banning contraceptives and overturning Roe vs Wade as a main thrust of his platform, right up there with fixing Social Security. The coolest part of the Santorum event was watching Time photographer Christopher Morris shoot photos, circling the candidate, dressed in all black — boots, jeans, leather jacket and man purse. Unlike every other photog there, Morris had both a lighting assistant and a penchant for shooting the unusual — like cookie trays, in a portrait style — as opposed to spraying the room with snaps.

With the rest of the candidates taking Saturday off to prep for the debate, I headed to downtown Manchester. The brutalist Radisson tower is the primary’s hub. Across the street from the hotel is a park where Occupy had set up. There were a dozen tents, some signage, and a guy playing an extended solo on a full drum kit. His message? “Fuck drum circles.” Also there was John Ford, age 29, a “cult-hero” of Occupy Boston, according to the Boston Globe. “Wanna smoke a joint?” he asked. “Might make the debate interesting.” Occupy had maybe a 100 folks in town. They were doing some “actions,” Ford said, but nothing too disruptive or illegal.

Later, MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” was taping a debate party at a local microbrew pub.

Former NH Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter was co-hosting with some Obama hands. It was by far the most pleasant crowd I encountered during the weekend: A room full of liberal New Hampshire women equals lively conversation, and there was more whiskey flowing than wine. Sadly, a white-boy rap show was taking place at the same bar so Rihanna and Trey songs drowned out some of the debate.

Over at the St. Anselm’s College, where they’ve been holding the Saturday debate forever, the press hall was, just like 2008, in a gym repurposed with seating for 1,000 reporters. “They really should only have two people covering the debate, Karl Rove and Paul Krugman,” a friend said, laughing at how many people were probably typing the exact same thing. The debate itself turned out to be dull, excluding the performance of Rick Perry, who, it turns out, also hates China. Santorum came off as a moron. He was polling well but what seemed like a second-place finish now looked to be third or fourth.

By debate’s end, I had returned to the pub and found the crowd of lady-Dems there happy. “None of these guys can beat Obama,” was the refrain. What if Karl Rove holds a gun to Condi Rice’s head and puts her on the ticket? “Then we’ll add Hillary!”

That night, at 1 a.m., Diane Sawyer was holding court at JD’s Tavern and the Radisson Manchester bar was popping. Fifty ABC staffers partied in the generic dining area. Facing them, on the lower bar level, Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman and the “Hardball” crew repped. Insert Anchorman joke here (“Baxter!!!”). Jokes aside, the room had real energy. It was like the Boom Boom Room during Fashion Week except with more oxfords and people talking about actual things. And there was wine. These hacks and staffers love their wine. House glasses of red and white were going fast, a server told me, adding that Sawyer and Matthews had been the two poles of the bar all week.

You could tell that ABC News owns New Hampshire. That night’s debate was watched by 6 million, which is 3 million less than the Dem’s 2008 debate got, but substantial. NBC brought in a huge staff and installed a studio, CBS had a futuristic glass house on a lawn, but ABC had tradition and Diane Sawyer. Now working the room with far more skill than any candidate running for the Republican nomination, her hair was still silky smooth, her black suit still crisp.

Oh, first-in-the-nation-primary, what a glorious non-event you’ve been!

Bleary Sunday, after the NBC-Facebook debate, saw everyone back on the trail. Mitt hit the gorgeous Rochester opera house, and sang some hymns to a tepid crowd of 600 (Obama “played” this hall in 2008 and drew 3000 chanting fans). According to Mitt, small business aren’t hiring, and this is the main reason the economy’s stalled, all due to Obama’s policies. Oh, and Mitt wants to expand the Navy of all things, which makes him sound like Elihu Root in 1903.

Later, Ron Paul was up on Lake Winnipesaukee, right by Laconia, which hosts an annual motorcycle week. Paul also drew a crowd of about 600 people, though a younger one. The Paul-ites have taken “revolution” as a slogan but Paul’s really a reactionary. He wants to cut a trillion in government spending, but defense spending with the wars included is only $700 billion. Paul basically wants to shut down Washington in total, which is an interesting policy. One thing’s for sure, Paul is this year’s Huckabee (book deal and cable show surely forthcoming).

At a bar in Weirs Beach, a honky-tonk strip along the lake, I spoke to some nu-metal guys watching football. They convinced me to skip a Newt Gingrich event to do shots with them. The bar’s owner recently had invented a new form of food, a hot dog wrapped in pizza dough. Any talk of politics was forbidden, the metal dudes said. So we talked about Godsmack and what a loser Sully Erna was. Pretty sure it was the right call.

Returning to JD’s Tavern at the Radisson later last night, it was NBC’s turn to hold court. They’d done a debate that morning, with “Meet the Press” and Facebook. Chuck Todd was at the bar. Matthews, too, of course. “Morning Joe,” the MSNBC early show, had set up in the back of the room, in preparation for this morning’s taping.

But try as they might, NBC just couldn’t compete with ABC in terms of partying. Maybe it was because it was Sunday night, just one more day to go before tomorrow’s primary, and everyone was tired. Or maybe it was because even if Brian Williams came in and bought the whole room a round of top-shelf liquor, he still wouldn’t be as fun as Diane Sawyer. She was sipping pinot grigio, and listening to — not talking at — everyone who came up to her. Like a true journalist, not a talking head. If only the Republican candidates could act with the same civility.

Ray LeMoine was born north of Boston and lives in New York.

Photos by Ray LeMoine and Annie Rosen.