Abednego, civil disobedience of, 56
Abramoff, Jack, as potential DeLay floe-mate, 42–43
Althusser, Louis, charlatanry of, 131
Altman, Robert, overratedness of, 115
Anderson, Perry, as polymath, 131–134; anti-pub stance of, 132; on Confederate independence, 133
Anzag, Hassan, Moroccan barber, as Elizabeth Taylor acquaintance, 148
Bernhardt, Sarah, coffin bed of, 128
Biggers, Pilar, actress, as Mrs. Deion Sanders, 94
bin Laden, Osama, impending capture of, 37
Blair, Tony, as centrist tough guy, 30
Boxer, Barbara, as McCarthyite, 150
Buchanan, Pat, as big-tent Republican, 42
Bush, George W., as potential demolition man, 30; partisan dance partners of, 30
Buttermilk, horse, as room divider, 121
Byrd, Robert C., as McCarthyite, 150
Cagney, James, as “nobody’s clever ape,” 115
Canby, Vincent, non-fuddy-duddy nature of, 115
Chen Shui-bian, Taiwanese president, Olympic game plan of, 40
Cheney, Dick, undisclosed location of, 141
Christo, as Poe bedfellow, 128
Clinton, Hillary, as GOP coalition builder, 43
Cooke, Alistair, as film-crit anthologist, 114
Coolidge, Calvin, damage-control protocol of, 43
Croce, Arlene, critical chops of, 114; on Astaire and Rogers, 114
Dangermond, Jack, on consequences of geographical literacy, 144
DeLay, Tom, as potential Abramoff floe-mate, 42–43
Deng Xiaoping, as omen, 134
Didion, Joan, on John Wayne, 115
Ebert, Roger, enormous erudition of, 115
Edward VII, A-list funeral of, 92
Ferguson, Otis, forgotten film critic, surgical style of, 115
Firbank, Ronald, as handyman hunter, 128
Franklin, Aretha, as Rosa Parks eulogist, 92
Freud, Sigmund, on decorative interiority, 119
God, as “perfect husband,” 98
Gonzaga, Gian, love researcher, on science of cuddling, 70
Grönemeyer, Dietrich, anatomical teachings of, 132
Habermas, Jürgen, relative hawkishness of, 133
Hanke, John, Google Earth impresario, Kurdish customers of, 144
Harding, Warren G., damage-control protocol of, 43
Hardy, Thomas, as chronicler of death foretold, 129
Hawking, Stephen, German popularity of, 132
Hawks, Howard, codependency of, 115
Hawn, Goldie, repudiated aesthetic of, 124
Hayek, Friedrich August von, ideological intransigence of, 132; non-conservatism of, 132
Healy, Denis, former British chancellor, as political geographer, 150
Henson, Jim, homespun genius of, 60
Hitler, Adolf, decorating tastes of, 127
Hobsbawm, Eric, as radical-history doyen, 131; vanquishing of, 132
hooks, bell, as film critic, 114; unhappy medium achieved by, 114
Hudson, Kate, score-settling décor of, 124
Jackson, Andrew, as Ariel Sharon soul mate, 29
Jakes, T. D., nineteen-inch neck of, 93; as teetotaler, 94; Deion Sanders and, 94; as menu item, 100; on middle-class anxiety, 100; as figurative fig leaf, 101; start-up prep school of, 102; African travels of, 102–103; transportation ministry of, 103; endless supplicants of, 103
Joan of Arc, as debating point, 150
Johnson, Lyndon, unseating of, 150–151; vulgarity of, 150
Johnson, Samuel, on commercial innocence, 46; on women’s preaching, 150
Jordan, Michael, controversy aversion of, 102
Kael, Pauline, as pinball wizard, 116
Kahlo, Frida, as emblem of mediocrity, 117
Kawakubo, Rei, Capitol undertaking of, 128
Kennedy, Robert F., Hamlet routine of, 150
Kennedy, Ted, as McCarthyite, 150
Khatib, Khaldoon al-, Palestinian student, on West Bank Spiderman, 85
Koizumi, Junichiro, as demolition expert, 30; as postal privatizer, 30; as cheese connoisseur, 30
Krepinevich, Andrew, military analyst, strategic Rorschach test of, 108
Lagasse, Emeril, low post-Katrina profile of, 136
Lieberman, Joe, as “lonesomest gal in town,” 151
Lincoln, Abraham, funeral cortege of, 128; bloodthirstiness of, 133; Marxist following of, 133
Liu Qi, Chinese Olympic official, aggressive torch route outlined by, 40
Ludwig II, interior pathologies of, 119
Luke, evangelist, loose women and, 98
Marx, Karl, literary craftsmanship of, 132; as Lincoln man, 133
McCain, John, as demolition specialist, 30
McCarthy, Eugene, as regicide, 150–151; as footnote, 150; as poet, 150; “hinterland” of, 150; as no George Bernard Shaw, 150; perpetual candidacy of, 151
McGovern, George, as rhetoric coach, 150
Milosevic, Slobodan, as radical temptation, 133
Monet, Claude, magnetic personality of, 117
Moussaoui, Zacarias, trial of, 15, 36; as nutcase, 36; as ringmaster, 36
Myles, Eileen, poet, cardboard-box sleeping quarters of, 127
Nebuchadnezzar, tyranny of, 56
Niss, Abraham Moul, Moroccan rabbi, as cause for celebration, 147
Nixon, Richard, unpardonability of, 42–43; obscenity of, 150
Oakeshott, Michael, ideological intransigence of, 132
Parks, Rosa, A-list funeral of, 92
Pawson, John, British architect, frigid minimalism of, 123
Peychaud, Antoine Amedie, apothecary, as bitters innovator, 138
Phillips, Kevin, on political itchiness, 42
Plaster Caster, Cynthia, distinctive interior-design scheme of, 127
Poe, Edgar Allan, as Christo bed- fellow, 128
Post, Emily, as narcissism connoisseur, 122
Powell, Anthony, as social historian, 132
Rand, Ayn, as matchmaker, 70
Rawls, John, relative hawkishness of, 133
Rhee, Syngman, counterinsurgency campaign of, 16
Rice, Condoleezza, as fence-mender, 86
Rockefeller, Nelson, as big-tent Republican, 42
Sandburg, Carl, film criticism of, 114
Sanders, Deion, spiritual renewal of, 94
Sawyer, Martin, New Orleans bartender, trade secrets of, 138
Seymour, William, as black Pentecostal pioneer, 96; segregated apprenticeship of, 96
Shackleton, Ernest, as Google Earth data point, 143
Shadrach, civil disobedience of, 56
Sharon, Ariel, as demolition expert, 29–30
Shaw, George Bernard, dilution of, 150
Spark, Muriel, as bed-sit bard, 127
Stassen, Harold, dependable futility of, 151
Stead, W. T., Titanic clairvoyance of, 128
Stewart, Martha, Polish roots of, 122
Strauss, Leo, ideological intransigence of, 132
Sullavan, Margaret, unmentionable divorce of, 119
Tarlow, Rose, interior-design guru, ascetic tastes of, 123; as decorative loner, 123–124
Taylor, Elizabeth, Moroccan sojourn of, 148
Thatcher, Margaret, insurgent ideas of, 131
Tolson, Melvin B., film critic, anti–Gone With the Wind jeremiad of, 114
Trigger, horse, as room divider, 121
Tymoshenko, Yulia, deposed Ukrainian PM, as opposition-opposition figure, 15
Warren, Neil Clark, eHarmony founder, as Redenbacher ringer, 58; as “Dr. Warm,” 60; on Mister Rogers, 60
Waters, John, nesting instincts of, 127
Wayne, John, as auteur, 115; as Didion subject, 115
West, Cornel, delayed salad order of, 101
White, E. B., revenge of, 50
Wilsey, Sean, memoirist, as Soviet propaganda pawn, 119; evil stepmother of, 119
Wodehouse, P. G., as interior decorator, 117
Wolfe, Elsie de, childhood décor trauma of, 120; sackcloth pinafores of, 121
Woods, Tiger, controversy aversion of, 102
Woolf, Virginia, non-locust-related loneliness of, 128
Yuan Weimin, Chinese sports minister, trash talk of, 38
Yushchenko, Viktor, Ukrainian president, short honeymoon of, 15