Friday, October 06, 2006
'Foley' is a Noun and a Verb
(jb)
[Sorry posting has been light. Life obtrudes!]
'Foley' is film/video tech jargon. It means replacing what's called 'nat sound' (natural sound) - later, in the studio - with pristine audio samples, to make everything sound more-real-than-real. Much of the 'normal' sound-stuff you hear in Hollywood (and Bollywood) movies - the kissing, eating and sucking sounds, the footsteps, etc. - is foley. This telescoped, impossible audio perspective is an essential ingredient of the Major Motion Picture Experience. There's a metaphor here somewhere....
Since this scandal is being covered so completely elsewhere, I won't comment, except to cite Andrew Sullivan:
Sullivan gets it. The key phrase came from the lovely Bay Edgar Buchanan, who referred to Rep. Foley as a 'known homosexual'. The issue which doesn't quite dare speak its name - the real issue - for the Right Evangelical chumps is that it seems Republicans in Washington knowingly deal with 'known homosexuals' all the time - even 'harbor' them. All that gay-hatred stuff is for the rubes. Now the rubes are mad. Really mad. After all, everyone knows that known homosexuals try to 'convert' youngsters to their 'lifestyle', etc. etc.
Unlike Mr Sullivan, though, I don't feel distressed that the GOP could lose congress for this stupid reason instead of all the worthy ones he lists. They will lose because of those, too.
[UPDATE: Uh oh...
[Sorry posting has been light. Life obtrudes!]
'Foley' is film/video tech jargon. It means replacing what's called 'nat sound' (natural sound) - later, in the studio - with pristine audio samples, to make everything sound more-real-than-real. Much of the 'normal' sound-stuff you hear in Hollywood (and Bollywood) movies - the kissing, eating and sucking sounds, the footsteps, etc. - is foley. This telescoped, impossible audio perspective is an essential ingredient of the Major Motion Picture Experience. There's a metaphor here somewhere....
Since this scandal is being covered so completely elsewhere, I won't comment, except to cite Andrew Sullivan:
If Hastert stays the GOP could lose 50 seats, according to an internal poll. And if he quits? Maybe they didn't ask that question. One aspect of this is worth further noting. The base of the GOP has been fed homophobia and gay-baiting for years now. It was partly how Rove won Ohio and the presidency. Gay-hating is integral to their machine. Now, the very homophobia these people stoked and used is suddenly turning back on them.
Part of me is distressed that the GOP could lose not because of spending recklessness, corruption, torture, big government, pork, and a hideously botched war ... but because of a sex scandal which doesn't even have (so far as we know) any actual sex. But part of me also sees the karmic payback here. They rode this tiger; now it's turning on them. And it's dinner time.
Sullivan gets it. The key phrase came from the lovely Bay Edgar Buchanan, who referred to Rep. Foley as a 'known homosexual'. The issue which doesn't quite dare speak its name - the real issue - for the Right Evangelical chumps is that it seems Republicans in Washington knowingly deal with 'known homosexuals' all the time - even 'harbor' them. All that gay-hatred stuff is for the rubes. Now the rubes are mad. Really mad. After all, everyone knows that known homosexuals try to 'convert' youngsters to their 'lifestyle', etc. etc.
Unlike Mr Sullivan, though, I don't feel distressed that the GOP could lose congress for this stupid reason instead of all the worthy ones he lists. They will lose because of those, too.
[UPDATE: Uh oh...
A nationwide poll of 1,500 registered voters released yesterday [but conducted before Holdyourpickle-gate] by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of white evangelicals are inclined to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterm elections, a 21-point drop in support among this critical part of the GOP base.]
