{"id":1530,"date":"2007-01-10T11:01:14","date_gmt":"2007-01-10T19:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2007\/01\/over_the_top\/"},"modified":"2007-01-10T11:01:14","modified_gmt":"2007-01-10T19:01:14","slug":"over_the_top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2007\/01\/over_the_top.html","title":{"rendered":"Over the Top"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Take a close look. Does he bear any resemblance to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/archives\/2007\/01\/time_for_him_to.html\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>President With His Head Up His Ass<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, a k a Prez Huha?<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ubu_Roi\" class=inline target=new\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt title=\"Ubu Roi [from a paperback jacket of the play, published in the 1960s]\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/ubu%2098.jpg\" width=98 align=left border=0 \/><\/a>It&#8217;s Alfred Jarry&#8217;s woodcut of <i>P&#232;re Ubu<\/i>, better known as <i>Ubu Roi<\/i>, and it comes to mind as a prelude to Huha&#8217;s speech tonight because a reader has just suggested <i>P&#232;re Bubu<\/i> (Papa Bubu) or <i>BuBu Roi<\/i> (King BuBu) as our new moniker for the whatsisface who occupies the White House.<br \/>\n&#8220;Maybe a bit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kirjasto.sci.fi\/ajarry.htm\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>literary<\/strong><\/font><\/a>,&#8221; he writes, &#8220;but fitting for an arts website. And this is the centennial year of Jarry&#8217;s death.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe staff likes the term, especially the kicky Wikipedia description: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ubu_Roi\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>&#8220;Ubu is a nobody. He is fat, stupid, greedy, cowardly, and evil.&#8221;<\/strong><\/font><\/a> But I&#8217;m not sure.<br \/>\nWhen I say Papa Bubu I get a different echo, more of an association with Papa Doc, who terrorized the Haitians under his misrule as an incarnation of the voodoo spirit <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Baron_Samedi\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>Baron Samedi<\/strong><\/font><\/a> in top hat and tails. (His secret police, the Tontons Macoute, did the dirty work.) But while Papa Doc&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.giles.34sp.com\/biographies\/papadoc.htm\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>infamous declaration<\/strong><\/font><\/a> &#8212; &#8220;God and the people are the source of my power. I have twice been given the power. I have taken it, and damn it, I will keep it.&#8221; &#8212; fits Prez Huha with eery precision, it&#8217;s all a bit over the top, methinks.<br \/>\nEven Papa Huha (sorry, Prez Huha) would not claim, as Papa Doc did, that he was a voodoo Jesus Christ and God himself, would he?  And if he did, I doubt that his evangelical base would buy it. Besides, has Huha ever appeared in public in top hat and tails? Not to my knowledge (although <a href=\"http:\/\/rosiewolf-cokes.buzznet.com\/user\/photos\/?id=1625348\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>he gave it a try<\/strong><\/font><\/a> in post-Katrina New Orleans).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Take a close look. Does he bear any resemblance to the It&#8217;s Alfred Jarry&#8217;s woodcut of P&#232;re Ubu, better known as Ubu Roi, and it comes to mind as a prelude to Huha&#8217;s speech tonight because a reader has just suggested P&#232;re Bubu (Papa Bubu) or BuBu Roi (King BuBu) as our new moniker for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","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":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-oG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}