{"id":580,"date":"2005-06-01T10:26:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-01T14:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=580"},"modified":"2005-12-09T08:28:59","modified_gmt":"2005-12-09T13:28:59","slug":"sibling-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/sibling-rivalry","title":{"rendered":"Sibling Rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"

My brother and I get along pretty well. We live somewhat different lives, but that’s never been a source of conflict between us. We tend to read many of the same books, like the same sports, and survived the same set of parents.<\/p>\n

Our politics have grown apart in the last few years, but our disagreements are pretty civil, and we each understand how the other came to think what he thinks.<\/p>\n

In contract, I offer you Christopher and Peter Hitchens, who evidently haven’t spoken in nearly 4 years because of a joke about the Red Army. The Guardian newspaper brought them together<\/a> for an appearance, and the results are pretty entertaining:<\/p>\n

CH: [. . .] And I thought [the joke] was quite funny, and must have told it many times, and must have told it in the hearing of Peter, because a week after September 11, when I’m up to here with fuckwits in the United States who are saying Chomskyian things, what I don’t need, is to get [in] the Spectator my brother recalling, ‘I don’t see why Christopher has become so pro-American; I can remember when he said he wouldn’t be happy until he saw the Red Army watering its horses in the Thames.’ And I thought, well what I thought was ‘Fuck you’. I don’t need this, I don’t need it from [my] brother.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: Peter, did you falsely characterise your brother as a Stalinist?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The best part is, in the middle of a conversation about belief in the divine, some idiot in the crowd complains about Christopher’s cigarette:<\/p>\n

Female audience member Excuse me. I’m not usually awkward at all but I’m sitting here and we’re asked not to smoke. And I don’t like being in a room where smoking is going on.<\/p>\n

CH (smoking heavily): Well you don’t have to stay darling, do you? I’m working here and I’m your guest, OK? And this is what I’m like; nobody has to like it.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: Would you just stub that one out?<\/p>\n

CH: No. I cleared it with the festival a long time ago. They let me do it.<\/p>\n

FAM: We should all be allowed to smoke then.<\/p>\n

CH: Fair enough. I wouldn’t object. It might get pretty nasty though. I have a privileged position here, I’m not just one of the audience, so it would be horrible if everyone was like me. This is my last of five gigs, I’ve worked very hard for the festival. I’m going from here to Heathrow airport. If anyone doesn’t like it they can kiss my ass.<\/p>\n

Interviewer: Would anyone like to take up that challenge?<\/p>\n

(Laughter. Woman walks out)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“I’m not usually awkward at all”? I love the British.<\/p>\n

Anyway, read the whole thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My brother and I get along pretty well. We live somewhat different lives, but that’s never been a source of conflict between us. We tend to read many of the same books, like the same sports, and survived the same set of parents. Our politics have grown apart in the last few years, but our … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Sibling Rivalry”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-9m","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4438,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-9709","url_meta":{"origin":580,"position":0},"title":"What It Is: 9\/7\/09","author":"Gil","date":"September 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: I left off on Moby Dick for a little while. I picked up Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia, which I'd meant to write about during the summer. That was derailed by Rufus' ordeal, so I'm hoping to get back to it this fall. I also read R. Sikoryak's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Gilbert Gottfried\"","block_context":{"text":"Gilbert Gottfried","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/gilbert-gottfried"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0199535728","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4735,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-18-2009","url_meta":{"origin":580,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 18, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"December 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a tough couple of weeks for me, trying to get the year-end ish of my magazine together, but it's almost all wrapped up now! Congratulate me! And enjoy this week's dose of Unrequired Reading. Just click \"more\"! What's John Madden up to nowadays? * * * Matt Zoller-Seitz\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "baseball"","block_context":{"text":"baseball","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/baseball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":189,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/art-spiegelman-would-kill-me-if-i-made-a-mauschwitz-joke-here-right","url_meta":{"origin":580,"position":2},"title":"Art Spiegelman would kill me if I made a Mauschwitz joke here, right?","author":"Gil","date":"March 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1551,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/bad-drug-joke","url_meta":{"origin":580,"position":3},"title":"Bad Drug Joke","author":"Gil","date":"June 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The following was deleted from one of my pharma company profiles: \"Dapoxetine was rejected by the FDA in 2005, but if its EU filing gets approval this year, another FDA submission could be coming soon.\" The best part is that the company is Johnson & Johnson.","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":617,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/katrina-and-the-obvious-joke","url_meta":{"origin":580,"position":4},"title":"Katrina and the Obvious Joke","author":"Gil","date":"August 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The official VM fiancee and I have been watching the weather reports all day long, since her family lives in the New Orleans area (they evacuated on Satuday) and we'll be having our wedding down there next spring.Our two lighthearted moments occurred when a) she said, \"We're not paying the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":764,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/764","url_meta":{"origin":580,"position":5},"title":"Mean-spirited joke","author":"Gil","date":"December 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry there's no new posts, dear reader. I've been pretty busy with the year-end giganto-issue of the magazine, and haven't had time for much of anything else. Except for our office Christmas party. This year, I joined the writing squad for our annual \"Carnac\"-inspired joke-fest, where our boss comes out\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}