What's that device

The death of Lloyd Bentsen is an occasion to think about some principles of rhetoric involved in the most celebrated moment of his life, that famous exchange with fellow vice-presidential candidate Dan Quayle in the 1988 debate:

Quayle: I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.

Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.

Bentsen was calling Quayle out on some logical fallacies, specifically the fallacy of honor by association (A was good, A did X, I did X, therefore I am good); and also argumentum ad populum, or appeal to emotion.

Bensten threw in some conduplicatio, or repetition; some accumulatio, or heaping up; even some anamnesis, or fond recollection. He also used a tricolon crescens: a series of three items, each more emphatic than the last (cf. "I came, I saw, I conquered").

Not bad for an ad lib. With it he destroyed Quayle and triumphed in the debate. He also lost the election.

Just goes to show.

Love is in the air

Congrats to Jesse and Noah, at whose wedding reception I was honored to sing yesterday afternoon. It was perhaps my favorite wedding gig ever -- the setting: a relaxed backyard barbecue -- and my favorite moment came when it was time for Jesse to toss the bouquet. Just before she did, she flashed me a devilish grin and showed me that inside the lovely arrangement of wildflowers she had tucked a freshly roasted weiner.

There was the traditional lunging of women for the bouquet, then an intensely comic moment as the victor realized just what she had caught. She did a double take and, without missing a beat, stuffed the weiner into her mouth.

Good word

"There are also some misjudgments that were not made."

-- Condoleezza Rice

Crazy doings at my church

Read all about it in The Capital Times.

American idle

You've doubtless watched all the "Nashville Star" proceedings with your heart in your throat, but did you know that years ago, back in the fall of ought-two, yours truly auditioned for the first season of the basic-cable reality series? The tryouts took place at the Grand Avenue mall in downtown Milwaukee, and my tireless boyfriend documented every step. Here you see me shmoozing with the media (as always), standing in line for my turn and, after the audition, wondering what I could have done better. I mighta been a star!

Let's put on a show

Never one to let the latest tweener fad pass me by, I finally watched High School Musical, the Disney Channel movie that caused a stir when it was first broadcast last winter. In case you haven't heard, Disney has a genuine phenomenon on its hands with High School Musical, which shattered cable ratings records and charted multiple hit singles, and is soon to spawn a sequel, a stage production and perhaps a series. All this hoopla over a film in which well-scrubbed young people sing and dance like there's no tomorrow? How retro!

The premise of the film: a high school basketball star (Zac Efron) secretly wants to star in the winter musical, and a shy, brainy new girl (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) secretly wants to star in the winter musical. Intrigue follows intrigue, and by the end the athletes, the science geeks and the drama freaks are all singing and dancing together like there's no tomorrow. Disappointingly, members of the skater clique are conspicuously missing from the finale ("We're All in This Together"), even though they earlier have a big scene; perhaps they stepped out to blow a phatty.

I loved High School Musical, but by way of a disclaimer you should know that I love musicals, period. My only complaint is that whereas the better musicals have tunes you hum all the next day, the songs in High School Musical are eminently forgettable. That would seem a fatal flaw, and if we lived in times when contemporary Rodgerses and Hammersteins were still cranking out high-quality movie librettos, then High School Musical would not merit much attention.

But fans of musical comedy have to take what they can get, these days, and High School Musical has a lot going for it, including an attractive cast and a subversive plot (basketball stars secretly want to perform show tunes!). I am also keen on the young songwriter character who, before her ultimate triumph, is dismissed as a "sawed-off Sondheim." And maybe, just maybe, a real live sawed-off Sondheim somewhere is watching High School Musical and getting more encouraged with every number.

Isn't it romantic

Prom season is here at last, and for Southern belles that means just one thing: a frock styled on the Confederate flag and photographed for the local paper.