Ann Althouse in Good Form
First, Martha Stewart:
On Larry King, with Althouse's headings:
"Comment that made me think it would be good to go to prison:
"KING: Have you spoken to Sam Waksal, by the way, at all? ... How's he doing?
"STEWART: He seems to be OK. He said he's read 180 books and he's learned Italian.
"The belief in research:
"KING: Do you have thoughts as to how you might be treated [in prison]?
"STEWART: No, not yet. I think I have to do some research.
"KING: Which, knowing you, you will. You'll...
"STEWART: Well, you have to. I mean, it would be silly not to don't you think?
"Stewart's book idea:
"I think I'll write a book. Because, I think it could be helpful to other people, just about -- just about what lawyer to choose, how to behave, how to attend an interview. I mean there's things that, you know, there's no how-to book about this.
"KING: No, there ain't.
"STEWART: There isn't. Not that, you know, it's going to be a big bestseller. But for anybody who has to go through this process, there should be some guidelines. Because, guidelines would help.
"Taking comfort where you can get it:
"Donald Trump has been ... a very nice source of comfort for me."
I find this funnier than any of the now-standard jokes about how she's going to work in brocade or French linen or earth tones or de-boned duck in prison. The real Martha is touching, yet funny. She really does believe in planning in order to make daily parts of life work out as well as possible. A female Dale Carnegie. She may be constantly on the verge of rage that things are not, in fact, perfect, but surely there is a genuine aspiration here, that people respond to. Sue-Ann Niven?
Althouse also deals with Martha's brief reference to Nelson Mandela in a very judicious way.
Secondly: KenJen on Jeopardy:
You get a sense Althouse has been losing her patience for a while. At one point she simply commented that the interest is in waiting to see when Alex Trebek shows he is getting sick of Ken. More recently, however, she has taken flight:
"Maybe the problem is that Ken Jennings really isn't very interesting. And the show is less interesting than normal when Final Jeopardy presents no risk and no occasion for strategic betting. The only surprise is how much KenJen wins by. (An obvious missed opportunity in the Slate drinking game: there should have been a rule to drink when Ken bets just enough on Final Jeopardy to equal but not exceed the one-day record.)
"On Final Jeopardy with KenJen, the people out of contention just seem like mere shells of a man/woman. What about that guy yesterday--you know, the guy that looked like Al Gore--just writing "What is ....?" when the question required the name of a country in Africa? At least name some country in Africa! The only possible thing you could lose there is your last shred of dignity if you were somehow to fail to name a country in Africa! But you did fail to ... ah ... enough already. That man was boring. And the woman was scarcely alive!
"Conclusion: KenJen is making the show boring, but way more people are tuning in because of him than would watch on an ordinary day, where the contest would be more exciting. Viewers are dully observing the dollar total advance and sticking around because they want to be watching when some day KenJen falls. The percentage of viewers hoping to see him defeated probably increases each day."
Trebek may not have blown yet, but Althouse has! Funny stuff. This raises an old question with me:
What was wrong with game shows being fixed, if that made them more entertaining? Robert Redford directed a movie that went back over the great scandal of the late 1950s. Remarkably, Charles Van Doren, who was caught conspiring with the producers of a show so that he knew the answers, was disgraced, and hounded into a kind of oblivion. Redford apparently wanted to re-ignite this mob feeling of hatred and indignation for a cheater. We thought he won fair and square! But he didn't!
Joseph Epstein wrote a moving essay (requires subscription) about Van Doren's later years. Van Doren was practically rescued by Mortimer Adler, and given work on the Encyclopedia Brittanica and the "Great Books," which is where Epstein met him. How could Van Doren have been treated as such an outcast, a moral leper?
I think Epstein makes the point (or someone did, commenting on Redford's movie): the only way on a TV game show to keep correct answers coming fairly frequently, without cheating, is to dumb down the game.
The KenJen phenomenon opens up different possibilities. Have a legitimate winner who dominates so much, a lot of people are rooting for him to fall? Ah yes, this is so morally superior to cheating in order to give Charlie Van Doren the answers.
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