{"id":1598,"date":"2007-07-24T06:52:22","date_gmt":"2007-07-24T11:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/an-unfailing-eye-and-ear-for-the-ersatz-and-the-kitsch\/"},"modified":"2007-07-24T06:52:22","modified_gmt":"2007-07-24T11:52:22","slug":"an-unfailing-eye-and-ear-for-the-ersatz-and-the-kitsch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/an-unfailing-eye-and-ear-for-the-ersatz-and-the-kitsch","title":{"rendered":"“An unfailing eye and ear for the ersatz and the kitsch”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the new City Journal<\/em>, Theodore Dalyrmple lays an unholy beatdown<\/a> on Tony Blair’s decade as PM. I can’t do justice to its thoroughness, so give it a read.<\/p>\n

It looks like there’s more fallout from having Terry Jones’ unfunny brother<\/a> take over as PM: longtime VM reader and official pal Faiz K.<\/a> is transferring from England to the U.S.! We’ll have to teach him all about REAL football, and why baseball isn’t as boring as it. . . oh, wait, it is.<\/p>\n

Congrats on the impending move, Faiz! We’ll make Amurrricans of you and your family in short order!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the new City Journal, Theodore Dalyrmple lays an unholy beatdown on Tony Blair’s decade as PM. I can’t do justice to its thoroughness, so give it a read. It looks like there’s more fallout from having Terry Jones’ unfunny brother take over as PM: longtime VM reader and official pal Faiz K. is transferring … <\/p>\n

Continue reading ““An unfailing eye and ear for the ersatz and the kitsch””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-explicit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-pM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1162,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/more-congrats","url_meta":{"origin":1598,"position":0},"title":"More congrats!","author":"Gil","date":"October 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"First, Official VM just-about-closest-friend-in-the-world Ian gets his chief petty officer pin, and now he goes off and pops the question to his One True Love! Much congratulations are in order! Go, Ian! In additional friends-of-VM news, my buddy Faiz reveals the true reason he couldn't meet up with me &\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":579,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/i-have-the-best-readers","url_meta":{"origin":1598,"position":1},"title":"I have the best readers","author":"Gil","date":"June 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Faiz K. just sent me the URL for an Ali G Translator.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1439,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/a-new-reader","url_meta":{"origin":1598,"position":2},"title":"A new reader!","author":"Gil","date":"April 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"VM reader, commenter, buddy and non-brooding Persian Faiz K. has become a dad! Let's give a big VM welcome to Isis Arianna K., who joined this world on Friday!","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/a-new-reader#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1534,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-a-not-mytube","url_meta":{"origin":1598,"position":3},"title":"It’s-a not MYtube!","author":"Gil","date":"June 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Two YouTube-related e-mails from overseas friends were in my in-box this morning: Faiz let me know that there's a promo video for his children's book, while Tina sent me videos of her friend's band, Anal Traffic. I post, you decide. Or something like that.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1147,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/letting-woman-drive-car-is-like-letting-monkey-fly-plane","url_meta":{"origin":1598,"position":4},"title":"Letting woman drive car is like letting monkey fly plane","author":"Gil","date":"October 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Kazakhstan government continues to do PR for the new Borat movie. The ambassador to the UK wants to know why Sascha Baron Cohen didn't pick Afghanistan to lampoon. I think the answer is that an Afghan is more likely to kill you for doing something like this than a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1444,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/bigger-than-tina","url_meta":{"origin":1598,"position":5},"title":"Bigger Than Tina","author":"Gil","date":"April 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"On the heels of yesterday's announcement about Faiz K.'s new baby, another dutiful VM reader has great news to share: my favorite Australian is getting hitched! No, not Jacko! He's washed up! No, not Michael Hutchence! He died under weird circumstances! No, not Paul Hogan! What happened to him, anyway?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Zealand"","block_context":{"text":"New Zealand","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-zealand"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}