Loudon Wainwright III (M*A*S*H alumnus, father of Rufus and Martha) has a song called “Sunday Times” that I've included in more than a few mixed CDs over the years. Cost has gone up, but otherwise...

    Well I’m trying to read my Sunday Times
    It cost a nickel and twelve dimes
    Bought it late Saturday night I’m almost finished but not quite
    It weighed a ton it seemed to me that each one of them must take a tree to make
    And also I should think it takes about a gallon of ink

Loudon then goes through the various sections of the newspaper — bleak section one, fun A&E section, boring Business, plus the Magazine (“the crossword will keep you up late/ And there's camp if your kid's overweight”) — but the song's main point is that it's so thick with information how can anyone possibly read it all? I certainly can't, but here are a few good articles from today's Sunday Times.

David Mamet has a great piece on the sad wisdom of fighters in movies, including Stanislaus Zbyszko from the great noir, NIGHT AND THE CITY, Kola Kwariani from Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING and my man Takashi Shimura from SEVEN SAMURAI and IKURU. I had an analysis of SEVEN SAMURAI on my previous site but it was among the 50 or so reviews I dispensed with in making the transfer here — it wasn't worthy of the film — but Mamet has some great descriptions of a couple of keys scenes. It's a beautiful read.

Further in the Arts section, Geoffrey Himes writes about the many versions of Randy Newman's song, “Louisiana 1927,” and its popularity in post-Katrina New Orleans. At the breakfast table, Patricia mentioned how she always loved the line, “Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.” I immediately downloaded both Newman's and Aaron Neville's versions. Listening to them as I write this.

In the Week in Review, there's Elisabeth Vincentelli on the popularity in France of a fish-out-of-water, city-man-in-the-country comedy, BIENVENUE CHEZ LES CH'TIS (WELCOME TO THE STICKS), and what its popularity means for France and Pres. Sarkozy as France tries to find itself in a global economy (as we all do, as we all do). Then of course I went to my man Frank Rich and his take on how the prolonged Democratic primary really isn't bad for the Dems. The ending, in which John McCain uses prison help to set up tables and chairs for a private fundraiser in Selma, Ala., has a BRUBAKER quality to it. 

Finally, there's Elizabeth Edwards, wife of John, on the awful, need-for-narrative, where's-the-beef? campaign coverage of this year's presidential election by the mainstream media. One can say her point is obvious, that everybody knows the media's dropping the ball, but as someone who's been accused of stating the obvious before, I tend to believe that it's the obvious and effed-up things that need more talking about, not less. Besides, Mrs. Edwards had a front-row seat for much of all this and has sharp things to say. I particularly like her thoughts on Joseph Biden (whom I've always liked) and how he was dismissed almost from the get-go by a media who felt they knew where the narrative was heading. She writes:

[That] decision was probably made by the same people who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate. Articles purporting to be news spent thousands upon thousands of words contemplating whether he would enter the race, to the point that before he even entered, he was running second in the national polls for the Republican nomination. Second place! And he had not done or said anything that would allow anyone to conclude he was a serious candidate. A major weekly news magazine put Mr. Thompson on its cover, asking — honestly! — whether the absence of a serious campaign and commitment to raising money or getting his policies out was itself a strategy.

Bless her for that “honestly!” And one wonders: how is it that media momentum is built up in this fashion toward the inconsequential, the wrong-headed, the just plain stupid? Until we can answer that obvious question, we will always be a less-than-serious country in a very serious world.