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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

Elite Email Of The Day

By The Daily Dish
Aug 23 2008, 11:30 AM ET

A reader writes:

Thanks for making my pre-dawn with the gentle but deadly skewering of Jonah G over the Balzac bon mots idiocy.  I'm sure Jonah at heart is a delightful fellow but it's always-always amusing to see someone throwing stuff around when it's clear they've not done their homework and don't know what the f they're talking about. And he got to use proleterian too.  Clever lad -- Made my day.

I'd say we qualify around here as pointy-headed elites.  Down on our luck too which is, after all, the ultimate qualifier. Here are the sources of the bon mots we reach for and repeat tediously on a daily basis -- Stuff from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Eddie Izzard (as James Mason), The Simpsons (from the glory days), and most anything South Park.  Sometimes when we're feeling uber & languid we devolve and head for George Bernano.  He's got some great pithy simple stuff about the necessity and futility of dusting.

Speaking of elites, caught a few minutes of the fantabulous Marlene Dietrich serving post-concert coffee to a bemused Spencer Tracy in Judgment at Nuremberg. "It's ersatz but I make it strong." Marlene was so skilled at being able to convey a lifetime of experience in one simple sentence. So very very elitist.   And what a body for terrific clothes.

Okay with Biden -- He can speak English in a way folks get and that's a good old thing.



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