Sarah Palin - dumber than Marilyn Monroe?

[John F]

I can't resist posting this, not for what it says about Palin - we all know that - but for the observations about MM, which may surprise many as they did me.

October 19, 2010

Making Ignorance Chic
By MAUREEN DOWD

Casanova’s rule for seduction was to tell a beautiful woman she was intelligent and an intelligent woman she was beautiful.

The false choice between intellectualism and sexuality in women has persisted through the ages. There was no more poignant victim of it than Marilyn Monroe.

She was smart enough to become the most famous Dumb Blonde in history. Photographers loved to get her to pose in tight shorts, a silk robe or a swimsuit with a come-hither look and a weighty book — a history of Goya or James Joyce’s “Ulysses” or Heinrich Heine’s poems. A high-brow bunny picture, a variation on the sexy librarian trope. Men who were nervous about her erotic intensity could feel superior by making fun of her intellectually.

Marilyn was not completely in on the joke. Scarred by her schizophrenic mother and dislocated upbringing, she was happy to have the classics put in her hand. What’s more, she read some of them, from Proust to Dostoyevsky to Freud to Carl Sandburg’s six-volume biography of Lincoln (given to her by husband Arthur Miller), collecting a library of 400 books.

Miller once called Marilyn “a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.”

“Fragments,” a new book of her poems, letters and musings, some written in her childlike hand with misspellings in leather books and others on stationery from the Waldorf-Astoria and the Beverly Hills Hotel, is affecting. The world’s most coveted woman, a picture of luminescence, was lonely and dark. Thinking herself happily married, she was crushed to discover an open journal in which Miller had written that she disappointed him and embarrassed him in front of his intellectual peers.

“I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.”

Her friend Saul Bellow wrote in a letter that Marilyn “conducts herself like a philosopher.” He observed: “She was connected with a very powerful current but she couldn’t disconnect herself from it,” adding: “She had a kind of curious incandescence under the skin.”

The sad sex symbol is still a candle in the wind. There’s a hit novel in Britain narrated by the Maltese terrier Frank Sinatra gave her, which she named “Maf,” for Mafia, and three movies in the works about her. Naomi Watts is planning to star in a biopic based on the novel, “Blonde,” by Joyce Carol Oates; Michelle Williams is shooting “My Week With Marilyn,” and another movie is planned based on an account by Lionel Grandison, a former deputy Los Angeles coroner who claims he was forced to change the star’s death certificate to read suicide instead of murder.

At least, unlike Paris Hilton and her ilk, the Dumb Blonde of ’50s cinema had a firm grasp on one thing: It was cool to be smart. She aspired to read good books and be friends with intellectuals, even going so far as to marry one. But now another famous beauty with glowing skin and a powerful current, Sarah Palin, has made ignorance fashionable.

You struggle to name Supreme Court cases, newspapers you read and even founding fathers you admire? No problem. You endorse a candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate seat who is the nominee in West Virginia? Oh, well.

At least you’re not one of those “spineless” elites with an Ivy League education, like President Obama, who can’t feel anything. It’s news to Christine O’Donnell that the Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. It’s news to Joe Miller, whose guards handcuffed a journalist, and to Carl Paladino, who threatened The New York Post’s Fred Dicker, that the First Amendment exists, even in Tea Party Land. Michele Bachmann calls Smoot-Hawley Hoot-Smalley.

Sharron Angle sank to new lows of obliviousness when she told a classroom of Hispanic kids in Las Vegas: “Some of you look a little more Asian to me.”

As Palin tweeted in July about her own special language adding examples from W. and Obama: “ ‘Refudiate,’ ‘misunderestimate,’ ‘wee-wee’d up.’ English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!”

On Saturday, at a G.O.P. rally in Anaheim, Calif., Palin mockingly noted that you won’t find her invoking Mao or Saul Alinsky. She says she believes in American exceptionalism. But when it comes to the people running the country, exceptionalism is suspect; leaders should be — as Palin, O’Donnell and Angle keep saying — just like you.

In Marilyn’s America, there were aspirations. The studios tackled literary novels rather than one-liners like “He’s Just Not That Into You” and navel-gazing drivel like “Eat Pray Love.” Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” paired cartoon characters with famous composers. Even Bugs Bunny did Wagner.

But in Sarah’s America, we’ve refudiated all that.

[jbuck919]

One day on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, a (professionally) frustrated Laurence Olivier said to Marilyn, "Is there some reason you must always be so f---ing late?" To which she responded, "Oh, you have that word in England, too."

[piston]

Norma Jeane's personal diary has recently been found and has just been published.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/ ... ed/6yxx4yq

[Auntie Lynn]

I am no big Sarah fan, but - face it - she's the only interesting political figure out there.

And Marilyn was NOT dumb...

[Agnes Selby]

I am no big Sarah fan, but - face it - she's the only interesting political figure out there.

And Marilyn was NOT dumb...

I agree! Not that it matters for I am not an American and do not
vote in your elections. However, looking at it from a distance,
from the other side of the world so to speak, there have been some
"cool" things said by the Liberal side of your politics as well.
I suppose Conservative journalists (are there any?)
will publish those bloopers to aid the eternal American political struggle for
upmanship.

[Werner]

Well I don't know what you'd call that rightwing press platoon on Fox News but jounalists - not that I think they (including Sarah) do anything for the profession's prestige.

[Agnes Selby]

Well I don't know what you'd call that rightwing press platoon on Fox News but jounalists - not that I think they (including Sarah) do anything for the profession's prestige.

I was referring to the constant political arguement which seems to ocupy American lives.
As we, in Australia, live the bickering to Parliamentarians, I find it rather
frightening that peoples lives should be so preoccupied with either side of poltics,
inevitably leading to hatreds among the citizenry. To me it appears to be a gross waste of time.

[living_stradivarius]

Sarah's got nothing on Marilyn

[piston]

Gees, L.S., I seriously worrying about the fact that we're in agreement for the second time this month. I was a willing supporter of Palin if she had turned out to be an intelligent Republican. People here will remember that. Unfortunately, I have ot found that intelligent Sarah. This whole political marathon she's been involved in has gotten to her head and, frankly, she has become a dumb Alaskan as far as I'm concerned. A misuse of her potential success as a Republican woman. She's been dazed by her own political success and now it's all a big power trip.

Palin as a national leader would be a disaster. Off with her head!

[living_stradivarius]

Gees, L.S., I seriously worrying about the fact that we're in agreement for the second time this month.

I think our differences are largely due to miscommunication

[lennygoran]

>Sarah's got nothing on Marilyn<

Welll maybe your opinion will change if Palin walks over a NY subway grate!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLOEq-OY2II

Regards, Len

[Cyril Ignatius]

Consider the source: Maureen Dowd - one of the credentialed agents of our cultural dumbing down.
And that she goes as a matter of course to those particular women Leftists love to hate illustrates her intellectual poverty.

[living_stradivarius]

>Sarah's got nothing on Marilyn<

Welll maybe your opinion will change if Palin walks over a NY subway grate!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLOEq-OY2II

Regards, Len

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYxn2vlhtWo
Having seen her speak in front of turkey being beheaded, no thanks.

[living_stradivarius]

Consider the source: Maureen Dowd - one of the credentialed agents of our cultural dumbing down.
And that she goes as a matter of course to those particular women Leftists love to hate illustrates her intellectual poverty.

Meh

Lady Gaga >>>>>>>>>>> Palin

[John F]

Consider the source: Maureen Dowd - one of the credentialed agents of our cultural dumbing down.

Talk about blaming the messenger! Sarah Palin doesn't need Maureen Dowd to dumb her down, she's done an outstanding job of it all on her own. I say this without fear of refudiation.

[lennygoran]

>Having seen her speak in front of turkey being beheaded, no thanks<

Wow--you have a point there! Regards, Len

[Cyril Ignatius]

Consider the source: Maureen Dowd - one of the credentialed agents of our cultural dumbing down.
And that she goes as a matter of course to those particular women Leftists love to hate illustrates her intellectual poverty.

Meh

Lady Gaga >>>>>>>>>>> Palin

What does that mean in English?

[John F]

Speaking of MM (not SP):

November 9, 2010

Marilyn Monroe’s Stuffing Recipe
By MATT LEE and TED LEE



THE image of a bombshell cooking her way to nirvana may seem old-hat now, thanks to Nigella, Giada, Padma and the like. But back in the 1950s, a Hollywood starlet was not expected to squander her talents (or risk her manicure) chopping onions.

A new book, however, includes a recipe in Marilyn Monroe’s handwriting that suggests that she not only cooked, but cooked confidently and with flair.

“Fragments” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $30) collects assorted letters, poems and back-of-the-envelope scribblings that span the time from Monroe’s first marriage in 1943 to her death in 1962. Most of the material, however, dates from the late ’50s, when she was at the height of her fame, moved to New York, married Arthur Miller and connected with Lee Strasberg and his Actors Studio. Her poignant attempts to assert her intellectual side are what have made news about this collection, but the recipe on Page 180 was a bigger revelation to us.

Scrawled on stationery with a letterhead from a title insurance company, the recipe describes in some detail how to prepare a stuffing for chicken or turkey. The formula is extensive in the number of ingredients (11, not including the 5 herbs and spices, or salt and pepper), and in their diversity (3 kinds of nuts and 3 animal proteins). It is unorthodox for an American stuffing in its use of a bread loaf soaked in water, wrung dry and shredded, and in its lack of added fat, broth, raw egg or any other binder.

It also bears the unmistakable balance of fussiness and flexibility that is the hallmark of an experienced and confident cook. Giblets are to be “liver-heart,” and the beef is to be “browned (no oil),” yet certain other details are left flapping in the wind: the amount of spices is not specified, nor the amount of “parsarly.” O.K., the instruction of “1 handful” of grated Parmesan is clear enough, but what to make of the first line — “No garlic” — of the recipe?

For recipe-restoration geeks like us, this was a challenge we couldn’t resist, especially as we head into high season for stuffing. Our goal was to fill in the blanks and produce a stuffing recipe that anyone could complete successfully. Of all the souvenirs of Marilyn’s life available, this was the one we actually wanted.

From the start, we agreed to embrace the period in which the recipe was written, and resisted the temptation to substitute fresh rosemary and ginger for the dried variety. “Fragments” dates the recipe to 1955 or 1956, when Marilyn lived in an apartment at 2 Sutton Place. We conjured up images of her prowling the aisles at D’Agostino’s on First Avenue in a crepe dress and heels (this is the era of “The Seven Year Itch”), and followed along as she purchased a loaf of bread, the ground round and all those jars of dried herbs. Our only true departure — to blend sage, marjoram, ground ginger and nutmeg in place of the commercial poultry seasoning she used — was informed by what typically goes into such products.

Another judgment call was to interpret her “walnuts/ chestnuts/ pinenuts } 1 cup chop nuts” as calling for a third of a cup of each nut. Three small measures of each seemed fussy, but she had three husbands, after all, so why not three nuts? To arrive at the amount of parsley, we let it equal the volume of the onion and the celery, which measured in at two cups each.

The most unnerving thing about the recipe is its laboriousness. More than two hours passed as we soaked and shredded sourdough (to be fair, soggy sourdough nearly shreds itself), peeled hard-boiled eggs, simmered livers in water, browned the beef, cracked pepper, chopped and measured. When the ingredients were finally laid out, they filled 15 ramekins and bowls. Did Marilyn really have this much time on her hands?

When we gingerly tossed everything together in our largest bowl (the recipe yielded more than 20 cups), we were amazed to discover one of the most handsome stuffings we’ve encountered. The odd elements, like the profusion of raisins and the chopped egg, suddenly made sense, becoming pleasant color contrasts. Moreover, the mixture was delicious, a nice balance of vegetables, meats and bold seasonings, just faintly, tonically sweet from the raisins. Even the texture was superior, a fluffy, damp blend that packed well into a chicken cavity and emerged loosely gelled. Subsequent tests employed slight tweaks but the original genius (and the heroic volume) of her recipe remained fundamentally the same.

We asked Anne Mendelson, a food historian who has written for The New York Times, if she could explain the quixotic aspects of the recipe. She was intrigued by the soaked bread, the lack of binder, the use of Parmesan and the aggressive spice blend. She pegged its provenance to San Francisco, citing both the Sutter Street address on the letterhead and the sourdough bread, not well known outside the Bay Area during Marilyn’s career. There were touches that seemed to Ms. Mendelson to have a “sort-of-Italianate look,” like the large amount of raisins, the grated Parmesan, the pine nuts and the spicing. “During Marilyn’s lifetime, oregano would have been unfamiliar to many non-Italian cooks, and rosemary would not have been a usual accent in a poultry stuffing,” Ms. Mendelson wrote in an e-mail.

There were clues to Marilyn’s kitchen fluency in the sale of her personal effects at Christie’s auction house in 1999, in the form of two well-worn cookbooks, with notations in the margins: the 1951 version of “The New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cook Book” (as trenchant an all-purpose book as the first half of the 20th century saw) and the 1953 edition of “Joy of Cooking” (which arguably held the same title for the second half of the century). No facsimile of this stuffing recipe can be found in either. (The Fannie Farmer realized $13,800, including commission; “Joy” went for $29,900, and Marilyn’s bright yellow, eight-piece set of enameled Le Creuset pots and pans brought $25,300.)

So we wondered: what might connect Marilyn Monroe, San Francisco and Italian cuisine? As any fan knows by heart, she married Joe DiMaggio at San Francisco City Hall on Jan. 14, 1954. The marriage lasted nine months, during which time she lived mostly with Mr. DiMaggio in a large house on Beach Street in the Marina district. His parents were first-generation immigrants from Ísola delle Fémmine, on the north coast of Sicily, where his relatives were fishermen.

Could Marilyn have picked up this recipe, or at least some cooking tips, from the DiMaggio clan? The pine nuts, the raisins and the Parmesan in the recipe suggest Sicily.

And then there’s this: Joltin’ Joe, eager to assimilate into the American mainstream, was known to have one steadfast request when it came to food: No garlic.

[John F]

November 9, 2010
Marilyn’s Stuffing

Adapted from “Fragments” by Marilyn Monroe (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $30)

Time: 2 hours

No garlic
A 10-ounce loaf sourdough bread
1/2 pound chicken or turkey livers or hearts
1/2 pound ground round or other beef
1 tablespoon cooking oil
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 cups chopped curly parsley
2 eggs, hard boiled, chopped
1 1/2 cups raisins
1 cup grated Parmesan
1 1/4 cups chopped walnuts, pine nuts or roasted chestnuts, or a combination
2 teaspoons dried crushed rosemary
2 teaspoons dried crushed oregano
2 teaspoons dried crushed thyme
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon salt-free, garlic-free poultry seasoning (or 1 teaspoon dried sage, 1 teaspoon marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg)
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 tablespoon pepper.


1. Split the bread loaf in half and soak it in a large bowl of cold water for 15 minutes. Wring out excess water over a colander and shred into pieces.

2. Boil the livers or hearts for 8 minutes in salted water, then chop until no piece is larger than a coffee bean.

3. In a skillet over medium-high heat, brown the ground beef in the oil, stirring occasionally and breaking up the meat, so no piece is larger than a pistachio.

4. In your largest mixing bowl, combine the sourdough, livers, ground beef, celery, onion, parsley, eggs, raisins, Parmesan and nuts, tossing gently with your hands to combine. Whisk the rosemary, oregano, thyme, bay leaves, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper together in a bowl, scatter over the stuffing and toss again with your hands. Taste and adjust for salt. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to use as a stuffing or to bake separately as dressing.

Yield: 20 cups, enough for one large turkey, 2 to 3 geese or 8 chickens.

[karlhenning]

I am no big Sarah fan, but - face it - she's the only interesting political figure out there.

No, not interesting. Never interesting. Not on her own account. The interesting thing (if a fatal highway accident is interesting) is the media buzz which continues to lend her a false importance.

Cheers,
~Karl

[Cyril Ignatius]

Great posting on the Marilyn Monroe recipe, John F. I printed it out and am studying it>