A Different Sort of Buzz

Reality Stars Are Dropping Like Flies! (TMZ.com).

In Surgery, Checking the Light Upstairs

My surgery lasted nine hours, and for most of it I had to be awake, so that the doctors could test the connection, like asking somebody to go upstairs and see if the light in the bedroom comes back on while you fiddle with the circuit-breaker box in the basement.(Michael Kinsley in The New Yorker).

Frogs, Hymns & the Smell of Mud

There are others, but tree frog croon is deep. Like the hymns we sang every morning at school. Or muffled voices rising from the kitchen. The wind through the crack in a pane. When I hear the peepers it's time to smell mud, to dig, to quit your tent. (A Walk Around the Lake blog).

The Spitzer Pile-Up

The Eliot Spitzer case is one of those public train wrecks in which the clichés pile up like freight cars in a chain-reaction collision. “Follow the money … ” (It was an I.R.S. investigation of Governor Spitzer’s suspicious cash transfers that led to the prostitution ring.) “The cover-up is always worse than the crime … ” (It was the governor’s effort to hide the source, destination, and purpose of the money he was moving around that may be a more serious offense than violation of an antique white-slavery law.) “Pride goeth before a fall … ” (A man who dared to think he might one day be president is a national laughingstock instead). But the most apt cliché of all is the most karmic: “What goes around comes around.” (Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair).

The Wiki Metropolis: Leaves, Ancient Ruins & Some Hairy Caterpillars

It's like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks. (Nicholson Baker in The New York Review of Books on Wikipedia, the subject a new book, "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual."

And ...
It was like a giant community leaf-raking project in which everyone was called a groundskeeper.

And ...
The fragments from original sources persist like those stony bits of classical buildings incorporated in a medieval wall.

And ...
For researchers it's a place to look stuff up, [Brion] Vibber said, but for editors "it's almost more like an online game, in that it's a community where you hang out a bit, and do something that's a little bit of fun: you whack some trolls, you build some material, etcetera."

And ...
On December 7, 2007, somebody altered the long article on bedbugs so that it read like a horror movie....

And ...
If an article bristles with some quotes from external sources these may, like the bushy hairs on a caterpillar, make it harder to kill.

And ...
When I managed to help save something I was quietly thrilled—I walked tall, like Henry Fonda in "Twelve Angry Men."

Foreign Policy With a French Flavor

The foreign policy of France, like its cuisine, should be unmistakably, ineffably . . . French. (James Traub in The NYT Magazine.

Beijing in Training: Getting Nowhere Fast

Beijing is like an athlete trying to get into shape by walking on a treadmill yet eating double cheeseburgers at the same time. (Jim Yardley in The NYT).

The 'Sorry' State of Politics

Indeed like salami, regret could be sliced thick or thin. (Daniel Henninger in The WSJ on the apology outbreak on the campaign trail).

And ...

With the arrival of the Web, the merest off-script remark can race like wildfire from media shrub-top to media shrub-top, threatening to burn down one's campaign by morning.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting ...

Kung fu master Shi Dechao can swing his 22-pound "monk's spade," an ancient Chinese shovel, like a majorette twirling a baton. (The WSJ).

Extra Dessert, Inflight Films & Old Lady Flatulence

Spend eight thousand dollars on a ticket and, if you want an extra thirteen cents’ worth of ice cream, all you have to do is ask. It’s like buying a golf cart and having a few tees thrown in, but it still works. (David Sedaris in The New Yorker).

And ...

I pulled my private screen from its hiding place in my armrest, and had just slipped on my headphones when the flight attendant came by. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat, Mr. . . . ?” She looked down at her clipboard and made a sound like she was gargling with stones.

And ...

For children, though, nothing beats a flatulent old lady. What made it all the crazier was that she wasn’t embarrassed by it — no more than our collie, Dutchess, was. Here it sounded like she was testing out a chainsaw, yet her face remained inexpressive and unchanging.

Hillary Channeling Eleanor

[Hillary Clinton] quoted Eleanor Roosevelt: "Women are like tea bags -- you never know how strong they are until they get in hot water." (Peggy Noonan in The WSJ).

Self-Improvement With Salmon, Mussels & Yoga

Off I went again to sleep, and came round to find myself alone, like a pink salmon on a slab, with "Greensleeves" playing softly on the stereo. (Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair on "the limits of self-improvement").

And ...
And a meal without wine is like a day without sunshine, as they say in France.

And ...
In the morning, none too early, I descended to the beach to begin my program of yoga stretching. It was not thought advisable that I do this by myself—muscles become like mussels at my stage of life, and if not stretched carefully will either lose their elasticity or else snap with a sudden "pop" that I have already once, and disconcertingly, heard as I made the mistake of running for the phone.

And ...
This was less like being a salmon on a slab, more like being a steamed Chilean sea bass in the hands of a capable sous-chef.

And ...
I suppose one could easily enough add seaweed and algae and mud (and, on one occasion, another tincture of green in the shape of an Avocado-Citrus Body Wrap, which at least gave me a new and better way of looking like an overripe pear) to one's list of regular addictions. It would be like going to confession in between an exhausting program of sins.

9/11 on Display

The terrifying and wrenching photographs from September 2001 on display at the New-York Historical Society are suspended from clips in neat rows like laundry hanging on a line. (The NYT).

Mattel's Inconvenient Truth

“It’s like a bank robber apologizing to his accomplice instead of to the person who was robbed,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said in an interview. “They’re playing politics in China rather than doing what matters.” (The NYT in an article about Mattel seemingly apologizing about accusation its toys manufactured in China were contaminated by lead paint).

Beat the Kettle, Slowly

Human speech, Flaubert said, is “like a cracked kettle on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to touch the stars to tears.” (Anne Midgette in The NYT).

Some Live, Some Die. Why?

Brother Juniper [in "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"] considered three possible explanations for the deaths: The victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time (a heretical interpretation he immediately rejected); God was punishing the wicked for their sins; or angels were being called early to heaven. Either humans are "like the flies that boys kill on a summer day" or they're like sparrows "who do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God." (Cynthia Crossen writing in The Wall Street Journal about why some people died and others lived in the Minneapolis bridge collapse).

Scenes From a Marriage (Yoiks)

“You ask me for intimacy,” Marie was telling her husband of 22 years, Clem — and, unavoidably, the therapist and four other couples in the room — “the same way you ask if I’d like croutons on my salad.” She spoke slowly, deliberately, each word chipping out of her mouth like an ax striking wood. “I don’t hear the difference.” (Laurie Abraham in The NYT's Sunday magazine).

Assessing Angelina

[Angelina Jolie] is not short, but she is very small, down to her bones, which are like twigs. And yet her flesh -- her golden, mortified flesh -- is extraordinary: Like the sheets on a barracks bed, there's no slack to it. (Tom Junod in Esquire).

And ...

She shines all over. Her eyes and her lips are, as advertised, extravagant creations, but then, in addition to all that extravagance, they also glisten like wet roads in a car commercial. (Junod).

Trying to Keep Pace With Spam Blight

... Most anti-spam techniques so far have been like pesticides that do nothing other than create a more resistant strain of bugs. (Michael Specter in The New Yorker).

And ...

There are now blacklists, gray lists, and white lists, which permit people to choose whom they want to receive mail from, rather than whose mail to delete. Stopping spam this way is a bit like trying to stop the rain by catching every drop before it hits the ground. (Specter).

2007: A Political Odyssey

Bless Ed Markey, the House telecom subcommittee chairman, but it didn't enter his head unaided to hold up an iPhone at a hearing last week and -- like the ape in the movie "2001" -- ponder why he shouldn't use it with any wireless network he wants rather than just AT&T's. (Holman W. Jenkins Jr. in the WSJ on the Google lobby).