NY Times Magazine: Steven Gilliard Jr.

Gilly got a much-deserved write up in the NYT today.

The GNB has all the links and such here, as well as a lovely wreath of words from Jesse Wendel and some well-delivered corrections to the general tone of the piece (For example, somebody tell Matt Bai that he voided his poetic license when he decided to trowel on the "po' lonely guy" bathos when in real life those that knew him say Steve was not that way at all.)

Still, I can easily believe that someone like Gilly was a man alone in an entirely different sense: a man who could see things with a clarity that others did not see at all; who was every day terribly troubled by events (and their likely consequences) that others were not even aware existed.

And that particular Cassandric watch tower can be a very lonesome dwelling.

So to put it better than I ever could, I'm going to shamelessly steal respectfully borrow some words from another writer I admire greatly. One who was also simultaneously hugely talented and under appreciated. Who harrowed a living out of the air with just his pen, who possessed that singular gift for reaching into his writer's bindle and plucking out exactly the right word, and who died far too young and unrewarded.

Edgar Allan Poe -- "Alone"

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
...

It's a poem which reads dark and rather melancholy, and is therefor a pretty accurate reflection of my own, inner emotional state -- one of selfish anger that I will never read another new post from Gilly again.

But then from somewhere I hear Steve admonishing me -- "Yeah, whatever. Now fuck your self-pitying bullshit and get back to work." -- and I know that this

is so much more the right coda to the Big Guy's life and work.

Rest in Peace my friend.

You call the Capt’n, “Capt’n”

Roger Ailes and Brit Hume explain to new DLC meat how thing work on Fox teevee.

“Any man loses his spoon spends a night doing ‘Fox and Friends’.”

For a vastly more bedazzling, ensorcelling taxonomy of the Classes and Orders of this phenomenon, hie yourself over to The GNB, pull up a chair and listen to LowerManhattanite tell the ancient tale of cowardice, amnesia, liebermans, fords, pillbugs and Monty Python.

Here’s a little center-cut taste:

…
Okay...I love Crooks and Liars, but I swear, I almost wanted to bop John over the head with his trusty media flashlight until the batteries exploded out, for his exposing me—us—to the reason why the pitiful, toadying, little gnome that is Harold Ford, was away for so long.

He wasn't missing. He was “away”” of his own volition evidently—hiding under a fucking rock with the rest of the pillbugs, and worms and all manner of many-legged creatures/pests you never see until you trip over said rock, and “ewwwwwww!”, there they are, exposed—all slimy and twitchy, and crawling around until you can get that rock back on top of 'em—hard, thank you very much—so you don't have to see them again.

Alas, not only didn't we get the rock back down—HARD!—quickly enough to re-acquaint ol' Harold with his natural habitat, but apparently, the annoying little bug wants to hang out in the light for awhile, and is scuttling for all he's worth to stay there.
…

I swear, just when you think the Muvah Tongue has gone a little thin and cottonmouthy, you find that the likes of LM and Digby have been husbanding vast, sparkly caches of Sekrit Transitives and Magyk Glottals under their floorboards and are a’comin’ over the hill like the Adjective Cavalry on fresh horses.

For the rest, you go here now.