{"id":1832,"date":"2011-01-27T09:52:02","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T17:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2011\/01\/who_is_that_masked_man\/"},"modified":"2011-01-27T09:52:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T17:52:02","slug":"who_is_that_masked_man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2011\/01\/who_is_that_masked_man.html","title":{"rendered":"From the Musical Comedy Dept."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, gee. Bill Keller, executive editor of <em>The New York Times<\/em>, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/01\/30\/magazine\/30Wikileaks-t.html?_r=1&#038;hp=&#038;pagewanted=all\">terribly upset<\/a>. In his view, Julian Assange is <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Major-General%27s_Song#Lyrics\">the very <em>scruffy<\/em> model of a modern major-general<\/a>. File his complaint under Gilbert and Sullivan; see <em>The Pirates of Penzance<\/em>. Keller is a mirthless feller.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"480\" height=\"271\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zSGWoXDFM64\" frameborder=\"0\" allowFullScreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em>I am the very model of a modern Major-General,<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,<br \/>\nI know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical<br \/>\nFrom Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;<br \/>\nI&#8217;m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,<br \/>\nI understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,<br \/>\nAbout binomial theorem I&#8217;m teeming with a lot o&#8217; news,<br \/>\nWith many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<em>I&#8217;m very good at integral and differential calculus;<br \/>\nI know the scientific names of beings animalculous:<br \/>\nIn short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,<br \/>\nI am the very model of a modern Major-General.<br \/>\nI know our mythic history, King Arthur&#8217;s and Sir Caradoc&#8217;s;<br \/>\nI answer hard acrostics, I&#8217;ve a pretty taste for paradox,<br \/>\nI quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,<br \/>\nIn conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;<br \/>\nI can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,<br \/>\nI know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!<br \/>\nThen I can hum a fugue of which I&#8217;ve heard the music&#8217;s din afore,<br \/>\nAnd whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.<br \/>\nThen I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,<br \/>\nAnd tell you ev&#8217;ry detail of Caractacus&#8217;s uniform:<br \/>\nIn short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,<br \/>\nI am the very model of a modern Major-General.<br \/>\nIn fact, when I know what is meant by &#8220;mamelon&#8221; and &#8220;ravelin&#8221;,<br \/>\nWhen I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a Javelin,<br \/>\nWhen such affairs as sorties and surprises I&#8217;m more wary at,<br \/>\nAnd when I know precisely what is meant by &#8220;commissariat&#8221;,<br \/>\nWhen I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,<br \/>\nWhen I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery&#8211;<br \/>\nIn short, when I&#8217;ve a smattering of elemental strategy&#8211;<br \/>\nYou&#8217;ll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.<br \/>\nFor my military knowledge, though I&#8217;m plucky and adventury,<br \/>\nHas only been brought down to the beginning of the century;<br \/>\nBut still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,<br \/>\nI am the very model of a modern Major-General. <\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/01\/30\/magazine\/30Wikileaks-t.html?ref=magazine&#038;pagewanted=all\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt title=\"Print edition cover of The New York Times Magazine [Jan. 20, 2011]\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/assets_c\/2011\/01\/NYTSundayMagCover-thumb-200x243-18890.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"243\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left; margin: 0 20px 20px 0;\" \/><\/a><strong>Postscript:<\/strong> Jan. 29 &#8212; William Osborne&#8217;s comment below is dead on. Here are just two of the &#8220;choicest details&#8221; from the article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlanticwire.com\/opinions\/view\/opinion\/Spotlight-NYT-Chief-on-Wikileaks-Saga-6730\">highlighted<\/a> by <em>The Atlantic<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;He [Assange] was alert but disheveled, like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a dingy, light-colored sport coat and cargo pants, dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles. He smelled as if he hadn&#8217;t bathed in days.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The derelict with the backpack and the sagging socks now wore his hair dyed and styled, and he favored fashionably skinny suits and ties. He became a kind of cult figure for the European young and leftish and was evidently a magnet for women.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now notice the cover headline on the print edition of The NYT Magazine: <strong>The Boy Who Kicked the Hornet&#8217;s Nest<\/strong>, an obvious play on the title of the Steig Larsson <a href=\"http:\/\/www.powells.com\/biblio\/1-9780307269997-19\">novel<\/a>, but it certainly serves the purpose of degrading Assange. It could have been  written, <strong>The Man Who&#8230;<\/strong> but that would have been contrary to the tone of Keller&#8217;s story. A more accurate reflection of the tone would have been the <strong>The Dirtbag Who &#8230;<\/strong> or <strong>The Derelict Who &#8230;<\/strong> or <strong>The Smelly One Who &#8230;<\/strong> or <strong>The Paranoiac Who<\/strong> &#8230; It might as well have been any of those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, gee. Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, is terribly upset. In his view, Julian Assange is the very scruffy model of a modern major-general. File his complaint under Gilbert and Sullivan; see The Pirates of Penzance. Keller is a mirthless feller. I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I&#8217;ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-ty","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832","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=1832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}