Jon Methven is the author of This Is Your Captain Speaking, due out in 2012 by Simon & Schuster. He can be reached here, or follow him on Twitter @jonmethven.

Gay Talese on Tony Bennett dueting with Lady Gaga in the New Yorker is blowing people’s minds, but mostly from afar, as it’s subscriber-only. Spoiler: she spends the recording session drinking whiskey.

“We will see today if it is positive news for Nadal as the Open plays its fourth straight Monday men’s final, but the first one that could have been avoided out of consideration for the weekend’s ticketholders. By rearranging the final four days of play, ticket-holders for Friday, Saturday and Sunday had to completely rearrange their schedules on 9/11 weekend.”
 — How was your 9/11 weekend?

+1 RT @mattizcoop: Want to read accounts of America on December 7, 1951. Different, yes, but the lack of self doubt would still be telling.Sun Sep 11 11:30:11 via Twuffer

Brian Stelter
brianstelter

In response to this fascinatingly worded claim came a link to a brief Times editorial of December 7, 1951. We already know that there was no coverage of Pearl Harbor on the front pages in 1951, ten years later: Japan was already a staging center for the Korean War, and so the Washington Post editorialized that “the Japanese American alliance ought to be maintained in harmony.”

But that Times editorial!

When the American people woke up on Dec. 7, 1941, they were living in an age in which there still lingered some of the easy-going optimism of the nineteenth century. They still believed that without too much effort and too much pain things might be made to turn out all right. They knew about Hitler but many of them didn’t quite believe that he existed.

This is a particularly incredible view. (Although it sounds familiar now, too.)

Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933; six months later, all other political parties were outlawed. Dachau opened in 1933. Three months after that, Germany left the League of Nations. In 1935, Jews were made non-citizens and “inter-marriage” was outlawed; forced abortions began. Kristallnacht was in 1938. Polish Jews were forced into labor in 1939. Shortly thereafter, Germany was going broke because of its preparations for war, yet invaded Poland in 1939, and Norway, France, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and France in 1940. The Battle of the Atlantic had begun in 1939, with the U.S. officially joining in 1941, well before Pearl Harbor, and Hitler’s invasion of Russia began in summer of 1941.

But did “many” Americans not “quite believe” that Hitler existed when they “woke up” on December 7, 1941?

In November of 1938, the Times carried this: “Nazism was denounced in vigorous terms by spokesmen for organized labor tonight, who called for vigorous measures to meet the conditions existing in Germany.” Ah, the head of the American Federation of Labor!

Two months prior, nearly 20,000 people, “many of them obviously of Central European origin,” gathered in New York City, in Madison Square Garden no less, to call for help for Czechoslovakia, according to the Times.

And the Times printed part of Rabbi Joseph Konvitz’s Rosh Hashanah message of 5699 in 1938.

And what was this round-up of newspaper editorials from Idaho to Minneapolis to Maine, “aggregated” (!!!) in the Times, saying of Hitler and Jews in 1938?

The brutality of Berlin mobs in last week’s anti-Jewish demonstrations, reinforced by new and still harsher decrees from the Nazi government, constitute a chapter in modern history which a short time ago no one would have believed possible. Persistent exaltation of might, however, with the fostering of nationalistic bigotry and the throttling of free speech and press, have done their work.

So this 1951 Pearl Harbor editorial was a bit of nonsensical hand-wringing. It was patently not true; it was the sort of revisionist history that takes place when one can’t or won’t face the truth of one’s own very recent history.

And as for Matt Cooper’s claim — this is the Matt Cooper that was the politics editor for Time.com and the former Washington bureau chief of Newsweek — that Americans ten years later faced the facts of Pearl Harbor with a “telling” lack “self-doubt,” unlike our current approach to 9/11 — well, it’s 100% hallucination. (Not least because 1951 was the year in which anomie was reinvented with the publication of Catcher in the Rye.)

There was, in fact, “self-doubt” as the Korean War began. (W.E.B. DuBois, then 82, was arrested for circulating petitions against the war; the Stockholm Peace Petition received between 1 and 2.5 million signatures circa 1950.) There was self-doubt in those ten intervening years, even as the “internment” camps opened and then were closed, in 1944, by the Supreme Court. There was, despite the approving opinion polls and media triumphalism afterward, even doubt and hand-wringing about the fire-bombing of Japan and then the use of atomic bombs in 1945. And surely there was some self-doubt after 1953 as well, when more than 40,000 Americans didn’t come home.

Here you will find a picture of a squirrel with jazz hands.

We cordially invite you to turn off the Internet until Monday morning at 9 a.m. Or, fine, if you insist:

One year ago:
• Das Racist: “We’re Not Racist, We Love White People: Ford Trucks, Apple Pies, Bald Eagles”
• The Global Casino
• Who is the Greatest Diva of the Last 25 Years? We Offer Scientific Proof!

Two years ago:
• Longplayer: Q-Bert
• The Britney Spears Tailgate Parking Lot, Ticketmaster, Bruce Springsteen, the Death of the Live Music Video and You
• Terror Anniversary Prompts Outpouring of Eloquent Expression

Photo by Thierry Draus.

“The idea that a professional musician, after a pretty bloody rehearsal, would be most concerned with whether or not the composer recorded it on a cellphone is a misprioritization on every level.”

“Somebody from the music office said she wanted to talk to me. Oh, I thought, maybe they’re going to apologize for that not-great showing. Not so much. Apparently one of the musicians in the orchestra had made something akin to a formal complaint that I had recorded the rehearsal! Evidently, he thought that he had heard a noise coming from my iPhone that sounded as if I had been playing back what they had just played? Ooooooooooooooooooooh girrrrrrrrrrrllllllllll. It was at that time that I lost my mind.”
 — My secret boyfriend, composer Nico Muhly, explains the maddening situation of how composers can’t get recordings of rehearsals and performances.

by John Ore

I was indoctrinated into the cult of the Minnesota State Fair six years ago. At the time, it was sort of a goof with my then-girlfriend, now-wife: we were dating long distance between San Francisco and New York, so it was an excuse to meet halfway and in her hometown. Twelve hours, two orders of fried cheese curds, several Leinie’s and a live taping of “A Prairie Home Companion” later, I was hooked for good. I’ve only missed it twice since. (Once, for my wedding, and then last year, because my very-expectant wife was grounded.) Now, the Fair is as much of a Labor Day tradition to me as no longer wearing white shoes. Or switching from gin to brown liquor.

For many, The Great Minnesota Get Together — the second-largest state fair in the country — revolves around food. Fairgoers are greeted with the Miracle of Birth Center upon entering the fairgrounds, where they can witness the live birth of our future food in the form of calves, chicks and ducklings. Other structures are dedicated to prize-winning pumpkins or hogs. Interspersed throughout are concessions that have turned the raw product you just viewed into stunt food like foot-long corn dogs. (Even the Midway is food focused as it encourages you to barf up what you just ate.)

The key to surviving the fair — and yes, “surviving” is a goal — is portion control. Most Fair fare should be shared, with few notable exceptions (three on a corn dog is bad luck). It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so splitting an order of cheese curds between four people will ensure that you are still in fighting form hours later at the Leinie Lodge.

This year, I partook of the following Fair staples, in order:

• Corn dog
• Mini donut
• Fried cheese curds
• Smoked beef stick
• Summit Extra Pale Ale
• Walleye cakes
• Chicken-fried bacon
• Walleye fries
• Leinenkugel Original
• Mini cinnies
• Pork chop on a stick
• Leinenkugel Oktoberfest
• Cheddar stick
• Strawberry shake

I’m not gonna lie. Somewhere around the chicken-fried bacon, things went a little south. One bite would have been enough — a whole strip of the stuff was too much. My first year at the Fair, I was a machine (I guess enthusiasm goes a long way). Now as age, parenthood and inertia have caught up with me, the fair bouillabaisse requires stamina and vigilance. Too much of one thing, a bad combination here or there, and you start scanning the fairgrounds for the Pepto-Bismol-on-a-stick booth. Over the years, I’ve experienced a few clunkers: deep-fried Twinkies are terrible, fried candy bars are overrated, Scotch Egg On A Stick disappointing. While my brother-in-law favors chili dogs, I eschew items that I can get at the ball game. I love the offerings that are unique to the Fair or scream Upper Midwest: Walleye anything, pork chops, cheese curds, corn.

As you eat, throngs of Midwesterners swirl around you, their woodland camo, Minnesota Vikings gear and Chaska Hockey sweatshirts making a rainbow of fruit flavor. Looking around, you can forget that Minnesota was the state of Mondale and Wellstone, but scattered around the fairgrounds are signs that Minnesota remains a liberal populist state: taking a break between adventures in gluttony, I filled out a survey for earnest-looking Al Franken volunteers with comically oversized campaign buttons. Disappointingly, the survey did not include questions concerning whether or not I had visited the Oink Booth or who my preferred cheese-curd purveyor was. Later, I’d see a Michele Bachmann scarecrow in the Agriculture Building and browse Guy Noir t-shirts the Minnesota Public Radio booth.

But yeah, the food. Oof.

I always start the Fair off with a corn dog. It just seems… right.

This offer greets you as you navigate past the Miracle of Birth building near the entrance. Both “white” and “chocolate” are available. Is “white milk” a thing?

According to a reliable source (read: my father-in-law), the top 5 sellers at the Minnesota State Fair are: french fries, Sweet Martha’s Cookies, cheese curds, corn and ice cream. With sales of $2,209,697 in 2009, Sweet Martha’s Cookies outsells the other four. Combined.

One of my all-time favorites — and actually, one of the healthiest things at the Fair.

While no Sweet Martha’s Cookies, the two french-fries concessions rake in about $900,000 annually. Over half of that is profit.

Since 1965, this church-sponsored diner has served fairgoers with simple food that just could not compete with stunt food like deep-fried Oreos. With sales lagging and needing a new roof and fryer, this was the last year of the Epiphany.

A staple of the upper Midwest, do not ever attempt to eat a serving by yourself.

Sometimes lost in the spectacle of gastro-excess is the nice simplicity that lies behind the idea of a state fair: populist, agrarian, family-oriented.

Walleye cakes with a Summit Extra Pale Ale.

Fact: One bite of chicken-fried bacon is enough.

Warm mini cinnamon rolls served with cream cheese frosting. Worth the walk to the outer reaches of the fairgrounds to get them. Actually, justification for said walk.

The Grand Dame of state fair stunt food. Never eat these.

Pork-chop-on-a-stick at the Leinie Lodge.

The ideal spot to take a load off and enjoy six varieties of Leinenkugel beer while listening to some of the best Swedish Christian folk music around.

Celebrating the artistic use of our land’s great bounty, the Crop Art exhibit at the Minnesota State Fair always features some of the best political and populist sentiment ever to be rendered in grain.

The epitome of wholesomeness: the twelve finalists for Princess Kay of the Milky Way have their likenesses reproduced in a block of butter, known as a Butter Bust.

The contest’s twelve finalists must come from working dairy farms. Apparently, finalists get to keep their Butter Busts, and use them to cook with throughout the long winter.

Livestock have a central presence at the fair, serving as a helpful reminder of where our Butter Busts come from.

Replica of a Williamsburg apartment. Just kidding. While looking at these piglets, try not to be reminded of where bacon comes from.

Most of the livestock barns are set up to allow close contact with the animals, an acres-large petting zoo with Purell at each entrance and exit.

Serving Garrison-Keillor-on-a-stick.

Of course John Ore knows that Minnesota is the #1 producer of turkey in this country. Duh!

by Abe Sauer

On Tuesday, September 6th, Paul Ryan spoke at the Whitnall Park Rotary Club in Greenfield, Wisconsin. For what has become the only way for even his constituents to see the Congressman during his summer town halls, tickets were $15. And in what looked like a polar negative of the healthcare town halls of 2009, Ryan was disrupted over and over again by those (paying) attendees. Three were arrested.

One difference: for this private event, taxpayers of Wisconsin footed the bill, as the Rotary Club used Greenfield detectives to provide security for what was essentially a private fundraising event. It’s something the police department there said it has never done before.

Meanwhile, Ryan was able to find some humor in it all, mocking the protesters as they were forcibly removed from the room.

Ryan has insisted that the $15 per head events are not fundraisers, adding that those looking to speak with him should attend his office hours. Recently, seven of his constituents held a sit-in at Ryan’s Kenosha offices. They were removed by police.

Ryan’s spokesman, Kevin Seifert, said: “[Ryan] has no control over the cost of the event any more than he has control over the menu.” The $15, it was reasoned, was for the Rotary Club to cover costs, including lunch. One thing the private organization did not provide with that $15? The cost of security.

“There were easily a dozen uniformed officers in the hallway just outside the banquet room waiting and at least six in suits inside the room and spread out along the walls, “ said Kelly Gallaher, an activist and Ryan constituent from Racine, who paid $15 to attend and film the luncheon.

Those in suits were detectives from the Greenfield Police Department, confirmed Detective Sgt. Mike Brunner, who was at the event. Brunner told The Awl that six detectives, including himself, provided security for the private event. The Greenfield department has a total of seven detectives, meaning all but one served as security for the event. Brunner told us that while the department has provided detectives for Paul Ryan events in the past, all of those were public meetings. Brunner said he “can’t think of any other time we’ve done it.” The only private event the detectives have ever worked security for was something like a Harley-Davidson anniversary party, “where there are tens of thousands in attendance.”

Tuesday’s Rotary Cub event saw, at most, 150 guests.

Brunner confirmed that three had been arrested and charged with trespassing at a private event, which carries a fine around $30. Additionally, one was charged with resisting arrest.

The police were there before the event started, at the request of the Rotary Club, and, anticipating arrests, the police brought wagons. Greenfield, along with other departments like West Allis, provided an additional 30 to 35 uniformed officers to control a group that the local CBS affiliate estimated at 100 protesters and 75 Ryan supporters (and which Gallaher estimated to be 80 protesters and 30 supporters). Brunner estimates the total department force to be about 58… including the chief.

While none of the six detectives providing security for the event did so on overtime, Brunner confirmed to The Awl that many of the uniformed officers were paid overtime. He guessed that approximately 25 got time-and-a-half.

In 2009, a memo from a FreedomWorks volunteer and co-founder of the group Right Principles named Bob MacGuffie encouraged those attending the summer recess town halls under the banner of the fledgling Tea Party to “rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation. Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early” and “rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.” Looks like the Ryan attendees finally got MacGuffie’s memo.

Of course, FreedomWorks, and other groups like Americans for Prosperity, denied any relationship with MacGuffie, his ilk and their methods. FreedomWorks insisted that it discouraged such confrontation.

But one year after that memo, MacGuffie was a marquee speaker at a Brewster, NY FreedomWorks event alongside its founder and chairman Dick Armey.

Tea Party organizers, it seems, expected the sort of boisterousness on display in Wisconsin this summer. Except it seems they thought it would be their team again. In May, FreedomWorks Vice President of Communications Adam Brandon told HuffPo, “I would expect the August town halls to be the ones that get pretty exciting, in the sense where you’re going to have more turnout, and that’s mainly because the folks on our side got used to the August town halls.”

Brandon did not return our calls for comment on the Ryan event (or the fiscal responsibility of using taxpayer organizations for private security).

Seeing shaky handicam footage of Ryan doggystyling the dais while being repeatedly shouted down by the audience is like bizarre-o-world footage from 2009. That crazy summer featured congressional town halls packed with very vocal protesters who let their reps have it with both barrels. I attended a number of these town halls for North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan. While his were largely civil, if tense, they did occasionally devolve into the behavior on show at Ryan’s recent private event. Freedomworks organizers were even helpful enough to send an August Action Kit to prepare me to confront Dorgan.

Interestingly enough, FreedomWorks has already preemptively called Ryan a chicken. A May email to members of Congress from FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe warned to not “bury your head in the sand.”

Ryan’s last free pubic appearance was in April. (By no means is Ryan’s absence abnormal though; the current political climate has made being a pantywaist the norm. A survey by No Labels found that only 44 percent of all Congress scheduled open meetings this recess.)

Kibbe continued, “Republicans must not shy away from this [Medicare] issue. Expect Democrats to attack, but not fighting back will only make it worse. BOLD action is needed.”

Unfortunately for Ryan’s future in his district, the only bold action he’s displayed lately is ridiculing those constituents who disagree with him.

Given the opportunity to take the high road and let security do its thing, or talk smack even as a wall of taxpayer-provided police beef stood between the Congressman and his opposition, Paul Ryan chose the latter, mocking his constituents as they were forced from the room. “What I think is… is unique and exciting about this is Rotarians got the $15 out of them,” quipped Ryan as one man was removed.

Kelly Gallaher was floored by Ryan’s behavior. Over the years she said she’s been to at least 25 to 30 of Ryan’s listening sessions in the region and she’s never seen him disrespect his opposition so outwardly. “He usually just tap-dances around questions or criticism,” she said, noting that Ryan joked to Rotary Club attendees that they should pray for one of the arrested.

Ryan may be increasingly blustery when he has such the bulk of the local police department at his disposal. When he was confronted at a Labor Day parade with his family, he was the far more contrite and zipped-lip Representative described by Gallaher.

Gallaher said Ryan is more emboldened and egotistical than she’s ever seen, even as she has watched his support in his district erode, especially with the elderly. It’s a development Democratic activists in Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district can hardly believe, after long facing the seemingly impossible task of unseating him. For the first time, Ryan, pretty much by his own doing, is maybe — but probably not, but just maybe — vulnerable.

Ryan got the last word in on the senior citizen who disrupted him as the man was pulled from the event by baggy-blazered detectives. “I hope he took his blood pressure medication today,” cracked Ryan.

It’s a simple joke that takes on a whole new dark tone given his proposed reforms. It’s also just one more bit of evidence of his obliviousness in Wisconsin as he becomes a national household name.

Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer at gmail dot com.

Eric Spiegelman: SHOCKER! Mel Gibson And Joe Eszterhas To Collaborate On Film Telling Jewish Hero Judah Maccabee Story For Warner Bros.

Choire Sicha: oh COME ON.

Eric Spiegelman: jksdhfklasdjhfas.

Choire Sicha: “He has long wanted to make this film about heroic Jews”

Eric Spiegelman: … to lure us into the theater so he can burn it.