Friday! Peggy! She has predictions, for you, your dogs, your hair, and especially for your abandoned skyscrapers. Peggy Noonan does not simply sit in her Upper East Side apartment gulping whisky sours while breathlessly watching RedTube clips, her small nervous hands clutching her crucifix, and other things. No! She looks outside, sometimes. She long suspected something was a bit different out there — once, not so many months ago, she ventured out on foot. Things had changed. The bustle was gone, the Mexican was no longer handing out advertisements and then running, in terror, as Peggy Noonan yelled Reagan-esque platitudes and tried to … catch this Mexican. It is hard to catch household slaves. It is a game for the young, really. Peggy remembers when she was young. It was the Seventies.
Now! What was life like, for the witty and ambitious Jersey Girl who found herself in Manhattan during its glory days of Studio 54 and oh my god so much cocaine and the rouge just slathered on the cheeks and the Farrah flippy hair and the velvet ropes and Elaine’s, oh it will never be so sweet again, New York City, bite the Big Apple, don’t mind the maggots.
Right. The maggots. They were there, too — both metaphorical and actually real, squirming all over the massive piles of uncollected garbage. And what had possessed these gaunt youngsters of lesser means, making such an insane racket at what was, presumably, a venue for quaint hill music, country and bluegrass? What kind of awful insult to human beauty was happening, with this chopped hair and ripped dungarees and strange, skinny ties?
And the race riots, the serial killers, Ed Koch, and the worst of all: the blackout. The day those towers of commerce went dark. Never again, Peggy. Never again.
In New York some signs of that future are obvious: fewer cars, less traffic, less of the old busy hum of the economic beehive. New York will, literally, get dimmer. Its magical bright-light nighttime skyline will glitter less as fewer companies inhabit the skyscrapers and put on the lights that make the city glow.
A prediction: By 2010 the mayor, in a variation on broken-window theory, will quietly enact a bright-light theory, demanding that developers leave the lights on whether there are tenants in the buildings or not, lest the world stand on a rise in New Jersey and get the impression no one’s here and nobody cares.
Yes! We shan’t let the triple demon of global warming and broken energy infrastructure and economic collapse keep the lights off in Manhattan! Fuck the barbaric darkness, fuck it dead.
Now, the amphetamines surge in her heart, the ideas swirl erotically in her fogged brain, her eyes are trying to get out but somehow, by the grace of God, they remain tethered to the sockets. There is, and she feels this most certainly now, a connection — a nearly visible gossamer thread, direct from the Most Holy and straight down to the ethernet jack in the back of her neck. Prophecy! This is what is to come, oh hear ye, mighty Babylon on the Hudson!
More predictions. The cities and suburbs of America are about to get rougher-looking. This will not be all bad. There will be a certain authenticity chic. Storefronts, pristine buildings—all will spend less on upkeep, and gleam less.
Yes! Those gaunt youngsters of the late ’70s, they were … they were right. Dear God, there is something beautiful, indeed there is something chic about this run-down America of lost hopes and aborted dreams. The future!
Teeth clenched, fingers skittering across the keyboard like metallic spiders, the words from on high now visible, swimming wildly before her engorged pupils, a whirlwind of truth — yes, she feels the actual wind sting her face — this recession, just now barely as severe as the one she sleepwalked through in the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s own not-so-great Depression, will permanently change not only Manhattan, but the entire nation! Behold:
People will be allowed to grow old again. There will be a certain liberation in this. There will be fewer facelifts and browlifts, less Botox, less dyed hair among both men and women. They will look more like people used to look, before perfection came in. Middle-aged bodies will be thicker and softer, with more maternal and paternal give. There will be fewer gyms and fewer trainers, but more walking. Gym machines produced the pumped and cut look. They won’t be so affordable now.
Yes! Thicker, yet thinner! The “pumped and cut look,” which does not exist outside of a certain New York homosexual male demographic, will soon fall aside, replaced by fat people. Imagine! And those home fitness machines people buy and never use, they won’t be so affordable now, not with thousands of them for sale on Craigslist, right now, for about a hundred bucks on average.
And hair dye, that fantastic trophy of the wealthiest Americans, will all but vanish. Only those with, say, seven dollars and a Rite-Aid or CVS nearby will have access to such luxuries. Open thy mouth and let the Lord use your tongue, Peggy! Shout it from the, uh, balcony of your apartment.
Hollywood will take the cue. During the depression, stars such as Clark Gable were supposed to look like normal men. Physical perfection would have distanced them from their audience. Now leading men are made of megamuscles, exaggerated versions of their audience. That will change.
Exactly! Or, “exactly,” if all you watch is gay porno.
Back then, in the Depression, all Americans looked like dashing heroes and banged the likes of Vivian Leigh and Claudette Colbert and Carol Lombard. It was the way things were, back then, in those simpler, ugly-person times. Why, one can imagine this happening again, just as in Peggy’s prophecies — one can almost picture a plain Oklahoma man such as, say, Brad Pitt, just cold fucking Angelina Jolie all the time. In movies. It could happen! It could happen one night.
The new home fashion will be spare. This will be the return of an old WASP style: the good, frayed carpet; dogs that look like dogs and not a hairdo in a teacup, as miniature dogs back from the canine boutique do now.
Already, one sees this happening. Outside so many former middle-class homes, one sees stacks of belongings outside, sometimes even tossed into a waiting dumpster. We have long wondered, since last year, why people are doing this. Now we know: People are throwing out the “nice things” so they can replace them with a new, spare home fashion — to be more like the good people, the good white people. This is made a bit difficult by, say, the bankruptcy and closure of all those furniture stores. That the people have gone away, too, is a barrier. But not insurmountable, because no barrier is insurmountable in America.
Yeah and fuck all those little yippie dogs, right?
Goodbye Bland Affluence [Declarations/Wall Street Journal]
{ 104 comments }
Peggay Noonan’s face has always reminded me of what a vagina is supposed to look like.
Sounds like Grey Gardens is missing a resident.
Oh for the days of toilet plungers, cops, and immigrants.
Ken, this is brilliant, but where’s Jimbo? Are you guys BOTH crazy hot for Pegs?
Why does Noonan’s column make me think of the History channel show that’s currently running about how the world will be when everyone on the planet suddenly dies of anthrax, or from a simultaneous reading of one of Peggy Noonan’s columns followed by a David Brooks column and a William Kristol column just to drive the final nail in the coffin.
And cannibals will roam Broadway, seeking nourishment from the soft flesh of tourists from the Midwest still clinging to the notion that New York is not a post-apocalyptic wasteland lorded over by Dame Noonan and her phalanx of castrato consorts.
Taxi drivers, inexplicably, will speak English once again.
Peggy Noonan does not simply sit in her Upper East Side apartment gulping whisky sours while breathlessly watching RedTube clips
I know Peggy, she hunts around for Alexis Texas clips just like the rest of us. I mean, just like all my friends. That’s what they do. They do that stuff.
Shall Pegs part her hair behind? Does she dare to eat a peach?
She shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
She hears the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to her.
Secret smoking is coming back bitches!! Listen when Noonan speaks.
And the walls of Jericho came down, crushing Peggy.
“and get the impression no one’s here and nobody cares”
I got that impression about you long ago, Pegs.
[re=293248]Tommmcatt[/re]: She grows old, she grows old
The copyrights to “Read my lips” have long ago been sold
This reads like the Cronenberg movie he never had the guts to make.
More predictions. The cities and suburbs of America are about to get rougher-looking. This will not be all bad. There will be a certain authenticity chic.
Ha ha — I will enjoy the aftermath of this prediction if it leads to Peggy Noonan and George Will getting into a brunch throwdown over whether dungarees are making a comeback.
Golly!
“For a good while the young will continue to flock in, for cheaper rents.”
Puzzling, that. Is she renting out her closets to the young bohemians?
Mr. Wojtowicz is now running a 40-acre farm? What the fuck kind of pension did Barney Miller give him?
Dungarees ftw.
TO PEGGY NOONAN SEEN FROM BROOKLYN
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And shivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
I think Noonington has read too much Don DeLillo. I copy him too sometimes, but then I am not a World Famous Columnist.
Also: Rite-Aid? CVS?!? Come on Mr. Layne, only philistines patronize those tacky establishments. Real People, people of consequence, use only salon-quality hair dyes made from real pomegranate, and baby blood.
Now leading men are made of megamuscles, exaggerated versions of their audience.
Counterpoint: Shia leBeouf.
[re=293235]Custerwolf[/re]: Eewwwwwww!!! Glad mine doesn’t look like that!
you know, even though she’s a conservative, i almost don’t hate peggy noonan these days.
It’s the same old Peggy: a few impressions + lots of alcohol = column. Or perhaps: a little roughage + lots of intestinal gas = column. Whatever. She continues to perform anatomical miracles by writing out her ass.
As long as we get back CB’s and the piles of coke it’s all good.
For a woman who prides herself on acumen and precision I can’t believe Pegs hasn’t yet noticed that she in no way resembles the woman in that little black and white illustration.
[re=293269]Dave J.[/re]: Even his name sounds like a billowy cotton ball.
I am bored at work with nothing to do and decided to read this feature for the first time.
That was amazing.
[slow clap]
[re=293270]sitonmyface[/re]: Well – okay, with an added megadose of lip plumper.
[re=293274]x111e7thst[/re]: No one, however, actually wishes for the return of Eight-track Tapes. MOO HA HA!
There will be a certain authenticity chic.
Where does she get this stuff? Does she use a thesaurus and a roulette wheel?
I’m confused. Is she predicting that coarse-haired fundamentalists are going to take over New York City and replace the radiators with woodstoves?
[re=293291]Min[/re]: An unfortunate mispelling of ‘identity check’.
[re=293235]Custerwolf[/re]: This was the greatest article I’ve read about America’s future. Peggy, just one small thing, don’t get mad at me, but I told EVERYONE the same thing a year ago! What took you so effffing long!!?????/
http://tinyurl.com/bglae5
Ken, Your welcome for the amphetamine refill
[re=293247]Dave J.[/re]: Dammit, now I have to Google “Alexis Texas”. Thanks, jackass.
It’s called shabby chic, Peggy, and it’s a term that has already been copyrighted.
[re=293279]Custerwolf[/re]: Until a few months ago — and based solely on the name — I thought Shia LeBoeuf was a female.
[re=293299]InsidiousTuna[/re]: Oh, lordy. That’s that last we’ll hear of you for 10 years.
[re=293272]Rary Guppert[/re]: There are lots of loathsome wingnut writers working today, but few can match Dame Pegs for sheer cluelessness and her uncanny ability to express breathless wonder about seeing Mexicans in her neighborhood.
Dame Noonan is apparently just channeling Billy Joel from thirty-years ago:
I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway-
I saw the Empire State laid low.
And life went on beyond the Palisades,
They all bought Cadillacs-
And left there long ago.
We held a concert out in Brooklyn-
To watch the Island bridges blow.
They turned our power down,
And drove us underground-
But we went right on with the show…
I’ve seen the lights go out on Broadway-
I saw the ruins at my feet,
You know we almost didn’t notice it-
We’d see it all the time on Forty-Second Street.
They burned the churches up in Harlem-
Like in that Spanish Civil War-
The flames were everywhere,
But no one really cared-
It always burned up there before…
I’ve seen the rats lie down on Broadway-
I watched the mighty skyline fall.
The boats were waiting at the Battery,
The union went on strike-
They never sailed at all.
They sent a carrier out from Norfolk-
And picked the Yankees up for free.
They said that Queens could stay,
They blew the Bronx away-
And sank Manhattan out at sea….
You know those lights were bright on Broadway-
But that was so many years ago…
Before we all lived here in Florida-
Before the Mafia took over Mexico.
There are not many who remember-
They say a handful still survive…
To tell the world about…
The way the lights went out,
And keep the memory alive….
She thinks mayors of cities will react to a fiscal crisis by leaving on all the lights in the city round the clock, regardless of whether anyone needs them? Lulz.
What world does Peggy Noonan LIVE in? It sounds fantastic. Are there people in this world that read Peggy’s column and think “What an insightful, intelligent woman.”? Or is everyone else just rubbernecking this retard?
Oh, and this “Alma, Michigan ” of which she speaks is a godforsaken stretch of farmland where nobody should live. See, Michigan is like a Microcosm of the U.S., the farther you get from the coasts, the flatter and stupider it gets. Alma is right in the “palm.”
Also.
You have truly seen Peggington’s heart this time. Bravo.
Of course, the second half of Dame Noonan’s column is based upon Rush, which seems in keeping with the whole Ayn Rand/Teabagging motif of late:
Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown
Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer
Or the misfit so alone
Subdivisions —
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions —
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help to smooth
The unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe
The restless dreams of youth
Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night
Some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
I really hadn’t thought much about women having the “pumped and cut look” since the O.J. Simpson trial.
[re=293265]revbob[/re]: Dunga dungaree!
[re=293296]secret_book[/re]: Jesus, those stilettos have more point than a Peggy Noonan column.
“dogs that look like dogs and not a hairdo in a teacup,”
Bear-Bear the Rottweiler is currently on his way to New York to dry hump Ms Noonan into a retraction.
What? Does this woman live inside of a Goddamned John Cheever novel? She is the most funniest person ever in the whole world.
Another classic, Ken.
We shan’t let the triple demon of global warming and broken energy infrastructure and economic collapse keep the lights off in Manhattan!
This should be our city’s motto.
[re=293289]TGY[/re]: I actually miss A7 more than CBGB, but thats kind of an obscure reference.
8 track tapes not at all. also
… the pumped and cut look … won’t be so affordable now.
Wait, so Peggy is endorsing uncut? What are her feelings on foreskin restoration?
[re=293336]jagorev[/re]: Ugh. Just reading that makes me want to string a bunch of nonsense words together and fashion a noose out of them.
I don’t understand. We’re giving up Botox for Clark Gable? But he’s DEAD, Peggy! How much thinner can you get than a pile of dust and few bones?
I don’t even know which flimsy cultural stereotype she’s promoting here. WASPS and rough edges? Fat people and electricity? Her future is full of bright light and hobos. And WHERE ARE HER THOUGHTS ON THE BLUE JEAN MENACE?!?! HOW CAN WE DISCUSS OUR FUTURE WITHOUT DISCUSSING THE BLUE JEANS!!!11!!!
Ack. My brain just exploded.
God that post was amazing!
I am stunned that Peggy thinks America will become “thicker and softer”. She obviously has not ventured into the “Heartland” that she speaks so fondly of because last time I was there most residents already achieved peak “softness” and were fast descending into crippling fatitude. At least in NYC this will be kept in check by the fact that people still actually walk places.
This woman is clearly insane. Where does she get her ideas from? A Ouija board? But I have missed our Dame Noonington for lo these many weeks and my Friday afternoon is once more transfused with bliss. And whatever combination of pharmeceuticals and alcohol she is imbibing sure sounds good to me right now. And make it a double.
[re=293269]Dave J.[/re]: Counter-counterpoint: Vin Diesel. A true Leading Manâ„¢.
Clark Gable wouldn’t even deign to spit on your worn out WASP carpet, Peggy. And yes that’s a double entendre. I’m going to start breeding teacup poodles in protest.
[re=293306]FMA[/re]: well, i think pegster should at least get credit for inspiring the erudite readership at WSJ to hate her. check out the hilarious commentary on the article about how she’s not as smart as sarah palin and this little chestnut about how she was supposed to be writing about all the better-than-great teabagging going on in the great Republic of Texas (which shouldn’t have to be part of the USA if it doesn’t wanna):
“Peggy, Peggy, Peggy,
I’ve been a fan of yours for years but, as of late, your columns have grown pretty stale. It’s looking like you have swallowed the Obama pill all the way.
This past week, we witnessed one of the most important conservative uprisings in history and it is not even mentioned in your column? I was looking forward to your opinion of it but I read about how we all have to start doing with less? Pretty dissappointing from the columnist who got me started on reading conservative materials.
Sure, we have to tighten our belts nowadays but there is no reason we need to not think about striving for greatness and becomeing better than ouselves.
Come on Peggy, splash some water on your face and wake up. The conservative movement is alive and well as was displayed this past Wednesday.
Peter S
Cedar Park, Texas ”
hear me now, quote me later: i predict peggles is going to go full Jane Fonda in the not too distant future and start writing breathless paeans to Chairman Mao. and i’m all for it. any enemy of Peter S. Pinhead is a friend of mine.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST111111111111! a whole new standard for delusion. ya can’t make this stuff up. (i actually went to her article because i was convinced that you were making it up.) fuck …….i’m at sea and agog.
[re=293345]x111e7thst[/re]: I miss Club 57. R.I.P. Wendy Wild.
However, I do still own a sealed 8track blank tape which I plan to sell someday and I hope it will provide me with enough cash to move to Florida and buy a crumbling, moldy condo sans electricity.
Pegs? It can be yours. Call.I have many treasures of your half remembered youth.
She’s like fucking Nostradamus. In fact, the old biddy probably did fuck Nostradamus – zing!
and i love the part where Obama is giving out free Socialism Pills.
oh, and this one!
“The conclusion of the author of a return to a simpler time will never be allowed to happen. A simpler more stable time produces more traditional and conservative values, and this administration and power base would never want to see that! ”
or, shorter: obama will never allow the nation to go bankrupt because he has no values. these are WSJ readers … the smartest men in the room, if you will. captains of finance!
[re=293412]J[/re]: Yeah -if there’s one thing he couldn’t see coming it’d be her.
“In movies. It could happen! It could happen one night.”
I <3 Ken Layne
[re=293393]Rary Guppert[/re]: Peter S. is a cedar chopper, our Texas equivalent of a Delvierance-style rural.
Yeah, wtf is that Walker Percy ref at the end? Is she now just randomly mentioning the names of writers whose books she read in college? The mind boggles.
But what does “a friend” think?
Peggy Noonan is an unpolished diamond. Then, along comes Wonkette, and Wonkette polishes and polishes and polishes, and that diamond? That diamond shines. That diamond shines so bright. So bright.
Thank you for this, Ken Layne. It was almost as good as the sixth drink. For that, you are doing the lord’s work.
This column is what I always pictured would happen if a Hunter S Thompson column fucked a Peggy Noonan column and they had a little column baby.
[re=293247]Dave J.[/re]: You, sir….You have OPENED my EYES! 34-23-forty-fucking-two! Too much of a girl!
Jesus Christ. This drivel is worse than original Peggy Noonan drivel.
And there will be rumours of things going astray. And a man will have lost his hammer, which he had only a moment before…
Of course we all know the only acceptable dogs for ownership are those that can participate in fox hunting, or perhaps hare coursing, just as in the good old days of Queen Victoria, by Jove!
“the good, frayed carpet”
WTF does that even mean? Carpets will fray with age I suppose, but perhaps she’s advocating a new trend in artificially aged carpets to be installed in your home. It will be the ripped jeans, of the 21st century!
[re=293532]Neon Trotsky[/re]: “frayed carpet”? – that’s a carpet scared of getting shat on again by that goddamned saucer dog – or teacup poodle or whatever the fuck it is.
Way to go, Jim, Ken. Whatever. I came late to the party, but I shall treasure this post:
Now, the amphetamines surge in her heart, the ideas swirl erotically in her fogged brain, her eyes are trying to get out but somehow, by the grace of God, they remain tethered to the sockets. There is, and she feels this most certainly now, a connection — a nearly visible gossamer thread, direct from the Most Holy and straight down to the ethernet jack in the back of her neck.
for every last step of my descent into megalomania and amphetamines.
Speaking of amphetamines, we called them speed, back in the murky twilight of Western Civilization now known as “the 60′s”. (Damn damn damn, that fucking Noon style rubs off. Sorta like 1.79 CVS hair dye.) Peggy was there too, way back when — she can’t deny it. She just didn’t have any fun.
Is it wrong for me to wish for all her predictions to be true, if only to get rid of the stupid fucking dogs?
Jim wrote this.
[re=293291]Min[/re]: Ha! I LOL’d!
Peggy Noonan has scared me before with her ramblings. She is doing it again.
But…Brad Pitt is from Missouri. He went to Kickapoo High School. Team colors: brown and yellow.
[re=293289]TGY[/re]: [re=293289]TGY[/re]: > No one, however, actually wishes for the return of Eight-track Tapes.
Incredibly, some do. Truly, madly, utterly.
My question is, how did people read Dame Peggy before we had Wonkette to illuminate her for us common people?
[re=293612]boy_howdy[/re]: Without an 8-Track, how would one become a Doors fan?
Authenticity Chic! Now with less gleam!
“More people will drink more regularly” What’s good for Wonkette, is good for America.
Sweet sufferin Jeebus, arrant, clueless imbecility expressed as a sonnet, buffed to a highgloss sheen…wtf
[re=293393]Rary Guppert[/re]: So Cedar Park Peter eater says the teabaggin’ was “one of the most important conservative uprisings in history.” Uh, yeah. I’m assuming this assmunch made his way to downtown Austin where approximately 1250 people made asses of themselves. Even though one blog I read claimed 5000. I wish Austin would put a cordon around the city & not let anyone from the northern counties in. Fucktards like Peter remind me too readily that Austin is surrounded by butt hurt home-schooled playdough-brained republicans who can’t count. Where the fuck are our FEMA camps already??
Isn’t it amazing how people with drinking and drug problems consistently justify their addictions with the rational that the altered state it puts them in causes them to see things more clearly?
[re=293615]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: As Peggy well knows, the kerosene-powered record player was notoriously inefficient.
[re=293266]chascates[/re]: Is that a terza rima? It’s real pretty, no matter whatcha call it.
[re=293382]nora charles[/re]: Peggy’s not a WASP, tho. She’s Irish. From
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122600597583706149.html
“I flashed back to 1960 and how it felt, as a child, to see that the grown-ups had elected a Catholic president. I can’t say we stood taller—we were Irish, we already stood tall—but yes, there was a wave of feeling: “What a country,” “What a development!”
I remembered that quote almost off the top of my head, which is v. v. sad.
We all knew that the closure of the neighborhood Talbot’s and the Little French Dress shop would send her over the edge.
“Carole” Lombard, with an “e”, Doctor
[re=293665]MrsNateSilver[/re]: Most of the Irish and Irish descendants I know are short.
[re=293791]Boojum[/re]: I’m only short on good Irish whiskey.
These are my favorite articles on this site, apart, possibly, from Cartoon Violence and that old trout who doesn’t care for things.
I actually quite like this line:
“New York will, literally, get dimmer.”
Is that so wrong?
Grace Poole, you’re fired.
Jon Stewart just made fun of Lady Noonington on TDS.
“Just keep walking…”
[re=293316]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: As I skimmed the comments, I got a glorious vision of the future — PeNoon will speak in quatraines like Nostradamus!
Tiny yippy dogs of war will be shorn
And lie on frayed good carpets
The mother’s half-grey hair will stab a great king
Just keep walking, just keep walking
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