for 25 October 1999. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Good Grief I agree with the gist of your article, but Bettleheim was found to be a violent abuser of the children he "treated" in his infamous Chicago Institute. He had nonautistic children committed there so he could show he "cured" them. He is famous for a psychoanalytic version of fairy tales that your quote was probably in reference to, but it was later found that he plagiarized that book. Though not a psychologist, he had a following that believed autism was caused by the mother and that the children should be removed from the home immediately upon diagnosis. A prominent psychologist said at Bettleheim's death, "He will not be missed." Maybe you could do an article on him. Marge <mmking@eagle.ycp.edu> I have nothing to add to this critique of Bettelheim, and no reason to defend him — his theories (if they were in fact his) are useful mainly for the degree of power they seem to grant children. That is, he seemed to think children had the emotional resources to cope with violence and sadism, albeit "fairy tale" versions, and this rather optimistic view of the human psyche is one of the few defenses we have against the PG-13ing of the world. And I bet he would have loved South Park. Ann  Touk equals tuque. I live in the Yukon (Canada — hang a right at Alaska, and we're the triangley bit next to it), which has nothing to do with your wonderful piece on cults ... just wanted to apologize for all Canadians everywhere. Bye, Mike <mike@marshlake.net> Oh, Mike, Would that it were out place to forgive Canadians. As it is, we simply pity them. Being Canadian is its own kind of penitence. Ann Christ, Ann, you can spell pabulum. I am in awe. This sets you apart from 99.44 percent of the nattering classes (and even dictionary editors) who think it's pablum, e.g., Pab-Lum, a trademark for gruel owned by, I think, the Gerber baby-food monopoly. This makes you smarter than, say, Andrew Sullivan and Andrei Codrescu (both of whom should know Latin, if not American consumer products), and puts you in the erudite league of Alex Cockburn. Good for you. Mike Forester <forester@netcom.com> I'm sure the good folks at Gerber will appreciate the egregious product placement, Mike, but let's not confuse Pab-Lum with Pabstulum, the lighter beer and mood enhancer brought to you by Anheiser-Busch. And surely we're all familiar with the diet cola and analgesic, Pab. And how could anyone forget Pier One's Pabasan chair, guaranteed to cuddle you into infantile bliss. There's a whole family of pab products out there, each and every one of them geared toward drowning you slowly but gently, suffocating you in a nice warm bubble bath. Ann It's difficult to tell, of course, whether your spelling of our national hat was a sly, witty piece of subtlety or simple ignorance. My secret copyedit fetish is temporarily unleashed. But, this feeds into my automatic self-doubt generator. I must ask: Do I look like a chump if I write in to tell you it's a tuque, not a touk? As if playing netiquette police is somehow transformed from sheer geek in the chat room to informant to the stars by virtue of it being a Suckster who is corrected? I dunno. I'm Canadian and therefore short of wit (rapierlike or otherwise), a raft of polysyllabic invective, and the ability to get a joke. Please help me — is it ever cool to send this kind of email? Laurie B. Miller <lmiller@idrc.ca> Ah, the automatic self-doubt generator. What fuel does yours run on? Ice? Beer? Canadian bacon? And, you know, Laurie, you don't look like a chump for writing, you just look, well, Canadian. Ann Break the Mold Subject: Re: One-note nightmares You can provide support for your argument that one-shtick actors should stick to what they know (wow — thanks for bringing back the nightmare that was Joe Isuzu). You are, however, forgetting the terror of those who did stick to it: The Jim "Ya know what I mean" Varney, that sad old Lone Ranger (and Adam West), Martin Short. And Pee-wee DID wear his suit again at an MTV awards program, where he asked the crowd, "Heard any good jokes lately?" <jana@ umsl.edu> You've got a point. But then, think about it this way: Tiresome as Jim Varney's "Know what I mean" routine may have been, wouldn't it have been worse if he'd done King Lear instead? All right, actually Jim Varney doing Lear would be awesome. But you get the idea. Yr pal, BarTel I liked Bill Murray in Razor's Edge. Even read W. Somerset Maugham's book and saw the old black-and-white version to compare. Liked Murray's better than the other two. Thought he did an outstanding job. Unfortunately, I know I'm one of the few. David Winberg <dwinberg@barr.com> You're actually right. But sadly, The Razor's Edge was a movie I saw with a then-girlfriend and had to pretend to be enthusiastic about because the girlfriend was a very poised and artistic soul. Thus it's always been a personal benchmark of the kind of self-censorship men will endure in the name of romance and domestic peace. And do we ever get any credit for it? Fuck no. When they find out we really don't like the things they like, they just see it as proof of our duplicity. We really have been Stiffed! Yr pal, BarTel Nice job on the Tony in Paris thing. You do some pretty good work. Keep it up. I don't know how you learned to write in Ebonics, since it's not part of the school curriculum anymore. Later, Trusty <trust01@gateway.net> We learned it all on the street, Trusty. Yr pal, BarTel Normally, I don't give a rat's ass about trivial inaccuracies in the online drivel I use to distract myself from work, but I had to let you know about a couple of errata in your Pee- wee Herman intro. It somewhat undermines the reasoning behind the rest of the piece. Pee-wee did an appearance at the MTV video awards. All he did was emerge onstage to a standing ovation. Then he said, "Heard any good jokes lately?" eliciting another raucous reaction from the crowd. "Yeah, so funny I forgot to laugh," was his response, and he exited. Paul Reubens was one of the featured vampires in the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His performance was a standout in an otherwise mediocre production. You shouldn't short him this role. So, your claim about typecasting is weakened by Pee-wee's MTV gig, and he breathed way more than life into Buffy. Check your facts next time if you're gonna base a whole column around them. Seedy Edgewick <seedyedgewick@mac-addict.com> Are you going to sit there and pretend that crepuscular walk-on and hammed-up death scene in the Buffy movie amounted to a performance worthy of comparison with even Reubens' small roles in Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams or Cheech and Chong's Next Movie? That that one-off appearance on the MTV awards was anything more than a sad shade of the great Pee-wee Herman? Now I've heard everything. BarTel More ironic commentary Perhaps I just need a higher dose of anti-irony in my multivitamin, but Jedediah Purdy and his aw-shucks wide-eyed earnestness smack of nothing more than Shamela and her precious "vartue." If I were a satirist/ marketing genius, I would write a book like Purdy's, make the talk-show circuit, and wait for someone to call my bluff (à la the Lingua Franca fracas a few years back). It seems that the best way to hop on the sincerity bandwagon is to take For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today seriously. Elaine McGirr <emmcgirr@artsci.wustl.edu> What makes you so sure Jedediah Purdy himself isn't pulling a big practical joke? Sucksters Hi Sucksters! Just a note ... I have been reading your magazine for more than a year and have found that recently, the quality of the humor of Suck has dropped off. The subject matter for the last couple of days is severely lacking in humorous content. Is it that your creativity is waning or is it just that all of your normally funny people are on vacation this week? Or is this problem terminal? I hope not. Previously, I held your humor in the highest esteem. Now, I must say I will have to cease recommending Suck as a perennial source of well-timed wit to people I know. Further, the easy-to-read format that is "normally" used by your organization (the one page with cartoons and a link to the next page) has digressed to a long-line format without many cartoons in between. This has only been for the last couple of days, but I am concerned. Obviously, the persons to whom you've been delegating the task of writing Suck are not up to your normally high standards. I just hope that these people are merely "substitutes" for the real thing. Yours, Darlene Mcpeek <peacefultrees@hotmail.com> We "substituted" our usual coffee with Folgers Crystals. We're returning to our usual high quality espresso roast in order to ensure that every day we stick with the all-cartoon format "normally" used by our organization. On 1 November, we will also be renaming Suck "The Cartoon Place." We think that has a little more zing. Thanks for your valuable feedback, and please continue to recommend Suck to those you know. Tell anyone who'll listen — and those who won't, darn it! It's people like you, Darlene, who make our new bag-lady direct bullhorn marketing program work! What an effective, efficient way to get straight into the faces of the demented denizens of our target demographic. "Normally" yours, the Sucksters |
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