In the car and at work, my CD listening is more or less random, on purpose - so I periodically end up exploring neglected areas of my collection. I wouldn't exactly call it "neglected," but it's true that I hadn't listened to Agents of Fortune for quite a while. Aside from noting that I'd forgotten what a solid album it is (my friends Roger and John in particular may note its differences from Blue Oyster Cult's earlier material - which I'm thinking I really should explore), let me state outright that "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is just flat-out brilliant, one of the best songs ever recorded.
First, lots of bands can come up with a cool guitar riff - but try writing one that, musically, works perfectly to establish not only the musical but lyrical atmosphere of the song. The track's about temptation, obsession, and inevitability - and the riff circles around its middle chord (G major), in particularly the note G, constantly being pulled away from its nominal home key (A minor). That temptation requires subtlety, not obviousness...and nearly everything about the track, from its low-key vocals to the organ washes that periodically billow up from the mix, is handled unobtrusively but with confidence. Each section of the track builds to a certain point, increasing tension by switching to sharply strummed eighth-note block chords, for example, only to pull back to near silence.
And then there's the guitar solo. A bit controversial particularly among the more punk-inclined of Blue Oyster Cult's fans, what with punk orthodoxy rejecting extraneous instrumental flash - but I think that notion misses the point. Without it, the song's obsessiveness would seem too easy, too complete, too simple. Or: how can we miss you if you aren't tempted to go away? First, there's that "Twilight Zone"-like guitar figure that constitutes the backdrop to the solo. Its three-note syncopation crosses against the beat of the song, rhythmically analogous to the way the main riff pushes out of its key downward to that G. When it first enters, after a second or so of silence, it almost sounds like another song entirely. It begins some harmonic distance away from the rest of the song, arpeggiating an F minor chord, and when it in fact moves closer to the main key of the song, by way of a subtly-voiced G7 (arpeggiating only F, G, and B), it at first isn't noticeable. But that proves to be important, since the solo, tearing in on the precarious ninth degree of the scale (a quick lick from G to F and back again), after meandering in vaguely eastern mode, ends up with a long fedback tone on...of course, G, which provides the harmonic link back to the main riff, and is suspended over the entirety of the next verse, dissipating finally into an atonal cry. After that, the riff is gone; instead, the last verse locks into the song's obsessive, circular chord sequence (Am/G/F/G), while the guitars hammer that repeated "G" louder and louder. Essentially, the entire song is a dance around, and ultimately toward and into, that single note, a note that rings out over the fade like the afterimage of a nightmare, still felt upon waking.
In fact, it's a perfect song to write about on Halloween...since Halloween is the day when we're allowed to confront, however overlaid with goofiness and commerciality, the flipside of our fear of death: its haunting attraction.
10.31.2004
10.30.2004
ashlid revlox and bushling bolgus
I think it would be immensely amusing if it turns out to have been Ashlee Simpson coaching Bush at the first debate, wouldn't you?
Although it would truly frightening if Ashlee tried to sing and Bush's voice saying "you forgot Poland!" forty-eight times came out instead.
Although it would truly frightening if Ashlee tried to sing and Bush's voice saying "you forgot Poland!" forty-eight times came out instead.
10.27.2004
10.25.2004
various...
* The November 2004 "Harper's Index" claims that the "number of dead bodies pictures in the New York Times during the first week in September" was 16.5.
So is that a copyediting error (that it should be some sort of average) or a morbid joke? Because, of course, half a dead body is still a dead body.
* Surrealist Iowan pranksters...
* We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind a couple nights ago on DVD, and one of the bonus features is an "ad" for Lacuna. Near the end of the "ad," Tom Wilkinson (who plays the doctor, Howard) dramatically removes his glasses to make his final point...and I remember that this gesture was oddly common a few years back. I never understood it: "to make this point more forcefully, I'm going to make my vision blurry"? I wonder where that gesture started, and why it caught on.
So is that a copyediting error (that it should be some sort of average) or a morbid joke? Because, of course, half a dead body is still a dead body.
* Surrealist Iowan pranksters...
* We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind a couple nights ago on DVD, and one of the bonus features is an "ad" for Lacuna. Near the end of the "ad," Tom Wilkinson (who plays the doctor, Howard) dramatically removes his glasses to make his final point...and I remember that this gesture was oddly common a few years back. I never understood it: "to make this point more forcefully, I'm going to make my vision blurry"? I wonder where that gesture started, and why it caught on.
10.22.2004
10.20.2004
Everybody's Got Something to Write Except for Me and My Inability to Say Anything Interesting About Monkeys
Yes, it's true: everyone else is writing about monkeys.
And all I can think to do is repeat the question Henry Rollins (of all people) raised in the latest issue of Magnet magazine: why aren't George W. Bush's daughters in the military? For that matter, there's something morally suspect about any military-age person who supports Bush and his war, yet is content to sit at home letting someone else get their legs blown off.
(Okay, it appears that I accidentally mentioned two rather simian-like males in that paragraph...can I join the monkey club now?)
And all I can think to do is repeat the question Henry Rollins (of all people) raised in the latest issue of Magnet magazine: why aren't George W. Bush's daughters in the military? For that matter, there's something morally suspect about any military-age person who supports Bush and his war, yet is content to sit at home letting someone else get their legs blown off.
(Okay, it appears that I accidentally mentioned two rather simian-like males in that paragraph...can I join the monkey club now?)
10.16.2004
two short(ish) political comments
1) The strategy of the President's camp in recent weeks is a throwback to the eighties: hammer the opponent as a "liberal" and make sure that term is read as a dirty word. Of course, if Kerry's such a liberal that, as Bush pointed out a couple of times recently, he was ranked the Senate's most liberal member (not quite), that doesn't exactly square with the administration's previous strategy of labelling him an unrepentant flip-flopper. One more item in Bush's own, rather voluminous list of flip-flops.
2) I completely fail to understand the mini-tempest over Kerry's referring to Mary Cheney in the third debate. Mary Cheney, as one of her father's campaign managers, is a public figure, and she's been an out lesbian for years. Gwen Ifill, moderator of the vice presidential debate, noted that in the previous vice-presidential debate four years ago, Cheney used his "family's experience as a context for [his] remarks" on gay rights. In his reply, John Edwards noted that he was sure Cheney loved his daughter - to which Cheney responded, "let me simply thank the senator for the kind words he said about my family and our daughter. I appreciate that very much." That, by the way, was the entirety of his rebuttal to Edwards' remark that "we ought to be talking about issues like health care and jobs and what's happening in Iraq, not using an issue to divide this country in a way that's solely for political purposes." As I watched the debate, my impression was that as an old-line conservative (rather than a cultural-issues conservative), Cheney was dubious about his boss's enthusiasm for an anti-gay Constitutional amendment.
Fast-forward to the last presidential debate. In contrast to the reaction to Edwards' mentioning Mary Cheney (none at all), Kerry's comments drew a firestorm of protest, including angry remarks from the Cheneys. Why the difference? I think because the Cheneys viewed Kerry's comments as politically motivated (as if anything a politician says this close to an election - including the Cheneys' reactions - aren't at least partially motivated by politics). But I also think that reaction I saw from Cheney during the debate - a discomfort at being asked to carry water for Bush's courting of the religious right - made him uncomfortable, and Kerry's remarks dragged him back into it, and so he reacted angrily. (As an aside, The Onion once again gets it all too right.)
Kerry's comments were politically risky, to be sure: I thought that when I heard them. But, they also seemed the readiest way to put a personal face on an abstract issue: Kerry went on to point out that despite being opposed to gay marriage per se, he favored partnership rights and that gay partners should not be prohibited from hospital visitations, etc. Personalizing the issue was meant to drive home what such laws might mean: that, for example, if Mary Cheney's partner were hospitalized, Mary would have no specific rights to visit her. A more distant public gay figure, or an abstract discussion of ideas, would have been less powerful in attempting to persuade undecided voters of the justness of his position.
Oh - and it's quite a bit late for this administration to be complaining about anyone politicizing issues. You'd need a very sharp knife just to cut the irony.
2) I completely fail to understand the mini-tempest over Kerry's referring to Mary Cheney in the third debate. Mary Cheney, as one of her father's campaign managers, is a public figure, and she's been an out lesbian for years. Gwen Ifill, moderator of the vice presidential debate, noted that in the previous vice-presidential debate four years ago, Cheney used his "family's experience as a context for [his] remarks" on gay rights. In his reply, John Edwards noted that he was sure Cheney loved his daughter - to which Cheney responded, "let me simply thank the senator for the kind words he said about my family and our daughter. I appreciate that very much." That, by the way, was the entirety of his rebuttal to Edwards' remark that "we ought to be talking about issues like health care and jobs and what's happening in Iraq, not using an issue to divide this country in a way that's solely for political purposes." As I watched the debate, my impression was that as an old-line conservative (rather than a cultural-issues conservative), Cheney was dubious about his boss's enthusiasm for an anti-gay Constitutional amendment.
Fast-forward to the last presidential debate. In contrast to the reaction to Edwards' mentioning Mary Cheney (none at all), Kerry's comments drew a firestorm of protest, including angry remarks from the Cheneys. Why the difference? I think because the Cheneys viewed Kerry's comments as politically motivated (as if anything a politician says this close to an election - including the Cheneys' reactions - aren't at least partially motivated by politics). But I also think that reaction I saw from Cheney during the debate - a discomfort at being asked to carry water for Bush's courting of the religious right - made him uncomfortable, and Kerry's remarks dragged him back into it, and so he reacted angrily. (As an aside, The Onion once again gets it all too right.)
Kerry's comments were politically risky, to be sure: I thought that when I heard them. But, they also seemed the readiest way to put a personal face on an abstract issue: Kerry went on to point out that despite being opposed to gay marriage per se, he favored partnership rights and that gay partners should not be prohibited from hospital visitations, etc. Personalizing the issue was meant to drive home what such laws might mean: that, for example, if Mary Cheney's partner were hospitalized, Mary would have no specific rights to visit her. A more distant public gay figure, or an abstract discussion of ideas, would have been less powerful in attempting to persuade undecided voters of the justness of his position.
Oh - and it's quite a bit late for this administration to be complaining about anyone politicizing issues. You'd need a very sharp knife just to cut the irony.
10.12.2004
fear is a man's best friend?
One reason Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent Farnaz Fassihi's e-mail about Iraq has had so much impact is her status as a reporter for a mainstream, conservative paper. Among the more revealing moments in her piece is this: she observes that Iraqis tell her they would "take security over freedom any day" - even if that meant the return of Saddam Hussein to power.
And yet that principle - that forced to choose, people will prefer security even at the cost of freedom - is well-known to the Bush team. From various provisions of the Patriot Act onward, to raising the terror alert status every time Bush dips in the polls, to Cheney's continuing invocation of terrorist attacks, to the insinuations that the election of Kerry would encourage such attacks, creating feelings of insecurity and fear at the cost of freedom has been a central pillar of Rove's election strategy.
And yet that principle - that forced to choose, people will prefer security even at the cost of freedom - is well-known to the Bush team. From various provisions of the Patriot Act onward, to raising the terror alert status every time Bush dips in the polls, to Cheney's continuing invocation of terrorist attacks, to the insinuations that the election of Kerry would encourage such attacks, creating feelings of insecurity and fear at the cost of freedom has been a central pillar of Rove's election strategy.
10.09.2004
Interpedantics
A week or so ago, in passing I mentioned the inevitable comparisons of Interpol to Joy Division. I also noted that such comparisons, as applied to Interpol's new album, Antics, were pretty much wrong. What's interesting - and at times even frustrating to me - is not only why such comparisons persist (different people have different ears, after all) but why the comparisons are so monolithic, with always the same band being mentioned. One might almost suspect some critics of living in an echo chamber, or if there were a power-hungry ideology of musical taste, functioning like the Fox News apparat and transmitting talking points for its minions.
It's also curious, the vehemence with which some critics damn a band for, in their ears (or imaginations), sounding like another band. I mean, so what if they did? It's not as Joy Division is around to make any more records, and it's not as if sounding like Joy Division were the key to financial success. A reasonably good example of the sort of attitude I'm talking about is Tom Laskin's review of Antics in Madison's The Isthmus. The overkill of Laskin's graverobbing metaphor is odd - I mean, did his good friend Ian Curtis chat with him the night before he hanged himself and say, "Tom, the one thing I'd hate more than anything else if a band from New York City with stupid haircuts sounded vaguely like us twenty years from now"?
Really, though, the notion that Antics is a carbon copy of a Joy Division record seems almost useless to readers, and leads me to ask, what's a review for? When I wrote reviews, I did so to let people know what a record was like to me, so they'd have some idea whether they might like it or not. And here's the big problem with the strategy taken by reviewers like Laskin: what use is this to a reader? It would be a reasonable assumption that if someone likes Joy Division, they might like music that's reminiscent of Joy Division; that is, they like some of the things Joy Division's music does, so they might like other bands that employ similar musical strategies. This assumption underlies critical comparisons, of course, which work best when they're specific. That is, saying a band "sounds like Joy Division" is much less useful than saying a band's guitar player "plays single- and double-note guitar lines similar to Bernard Sumner's work in Joy Division." But how useful is a review that says that new band The Double-Dribbling Wilburys sounds like David Bowie...to such an extent that it irritates the critic, a fan of David Bowie? If you hate Bowie, I suppose you might conclude you'd most likely dislike the other Wilburys - but what if you like Bowie? (And which Bowie?) The problem is that Laskin (and too many other critics) isn't specific enough: he claims, essentially, that Interpol steals Joy Division's sound in every respect. Problem is, the record just doesn't sound all that much like Joy Division.
When Laskin refers to "Interpol's habit of pushing spare bass lines to the front of the mix," he acts as if Joy Division invented the idea. And anyway: (1) the bass isn't that prominent on Antics; (2) Peter Hook's bass-playing wasn't "spare" at all: quite often, in fact, his parts would couple a countermelody in a higher register while playing a bass note on an open string (such as on the main riff for "She's Lost Control"). That style and sound of bass-playing, highly influential in the eighties, is nowhere to be found on Antics. Sure, Interpol sometimes drops out other parts to let the bass play on alone...which it also does with guitars, and with drums; and which is hardly unique to them or Joy Division.
Laskin also claims Antics "apes" Joy Division's production techniques. One of the most annoying aspects of critical groupthink comparisons is their vagueness. Which production techniques are those? On which Joy Division record? The "spare" (to borrow his word), dry sound of much of Closer, or the far more humid, keyboard-drenched sound of late singles like "Love Will Tear Us Apart" or "Atmospheres"? At any rate, to my ears Antics sounds much brighter than either Unknown Pleasures or most of Closer, while avoiding that too-shiny eighties keyboard sound that sometimes colored Joy Division's keyboard parts.
Or take a look at the colorful adjectives Laskin coughs up to describe Joypol (in his ears, you see, they're the same band): horripilating (a great word referring to that feeling you get when your body hair bristles), depressive, spare, funereal, disturbing... Pretty grim. That last one (disturbing) occurs as Laskin describes Curtis's singing as "disturbing minor-key intoning." But about half the tracks on Antics begin in major keys, and many of them stay there pretty strongly. (Actually, one thing that makes Interpol distinctive is their chord voicing, which exploits major/minor ambiguity by placing the bass on notes other than the root of the chord. End of music lesson.) How does the album begin? With a big, plummy organ (not a keyboard associated with Joy Division) on a big ol' C major chord, which then rises through a classic, fifties-inspired chord sequence.
In fact, the damned thing almost sounds like the band, having finished casting its eye across the Atlantic at eighties-era British bands (for what it's worth, I hear far more Kitchens of Distinction, or Echo & the Bunnymen, than Joy Division), looked in the other direction, across another, smaller body of water, and spent some time on the Jersey backstreets with Bruce Springsteen. (I'm thinking they might have been directed there by the most Springsteenian Brit band of the early eighties, on its most Bruce-influenced album: Dire Straits, on Making Movies. Hell, Springsteen's keyboard player, Roy Bittan, is all over that record.) Interpol's aura of melancholy romanticism and gritty street drama is closer on this album to Springsteen than to Joy Division's more grim, depressive, and inertia-ridden mood. Want more evidence? "C'mere" also makes use of a modified fifties-style chord sequence (something the Springsteen of Born to Run and Darkness at the Edge of Town was fond of), and the mix of keyboards (usually organ) and guitar throughout Antics is similar to the sound of those albums. Yes, I know - that's an utterly crazed theory. Tell you what, though: put on Antics for someone who hasn't heard it yet, and say it's a bonus track on a newly released version of Making Movies (Springsteen wouldn't work, because Springsteen fans are utter fanatics and know every note on every mouldering piece of tape in the vault). Until Banks begins singing, I think you'll succeed.
I will grant that the Bruce comparison is a bit of a stretch. But I don't think it's an illusion, either. Interpol does something any good band should do: it takes in a huge variety of influences and distills them into its own sound and approach. (Here's one of the best reviews of their debut I've read, which also points out the underheralded structural distinctiveness of their songs.) Joy Division is in the mix, to be sure. But if I'd set out to listen to the record to find the extent to which Joy Division was an influence, the differences would strike me a lot more forcefully than any similarities.
Except on "Length of Love": Paul Banks' vocal entrance is the most Curtis-like thing he's ever done. Oh well: sometimes influences just come through.
It's also curious, the vehemence with which some critics damn a band for, in their ears (or imaginations), sounding like another band. I mean, so what if they did? It's not as Joy Division is around to make any more records, and it's not as if sounding like Joy Division were the key to financial success. A reasonably good example of the sort of attitude I'm talking about is Tom Laskin's review of Antics in Madison's The Isthmus. The overkill of Laskin's graverobbing metaphor is odd - I mean, did his good friend Ian Curtis chat with him the night before he hanged himself and say, "Tom, the one thing I'd hate more than anything else if a band from New York City with stupid haircuts sounded vaguely like us twenty years from now"?
Really, though, the notion that Antics is a carbon copy of a Joy Division record seems almost useless to readers, and leads me to ask, what's a review for? When I wrote reviews, I did so to let people know what a record was like to me, so they'd have some idea whether they might like it or not. And here's the big problem with the strategy taken by reviewers like Laskin: what use is this to a reader? It would be a reasonable assumption that if someone likes Joy Division, they might like music that's reminiscent of Joy Division; that is, they like some of the things Joy Division's music does, so they might like other bands that employ similar musical strategies. This assumption underlies critical comparisons, of course, which work best when they're specific. That is, saying a band "sounds like Joy Division" is much less useful than saying a band's guitar player "plays single- and double-note guitar lines similar to Bernard Sumner's work in Joy Division." But how useful is a review that says that new band The Double-Dribbling Wilburys sounds like David Bowie...to such an extent that it irritates the critic, a fan of David Bowie? If you hate Bowie, I suppose you might conclude you'd most likely dislike the other Wilburys - but what if you like Bowie? (And which Bowie?) The problem is that Laskin (and too many other critics) isn't specific enough: he claims, essentially, that Interpol steals Joy Division's sound in every respect. Problem is, the record just doesn't sound all that much like Joy Division.
When Laskin refers to "Interpol's habit of pushing spare bass lines to the front of the mix," he acts as if Joy Division invented the idea. And anyway: (1) the bass isn't that prominent on Antics; (2) Peter Hook's bass-playing wasn't "spare" at all: quite often, in fact, his parts would couple a countermelody in a higher register while playing a bass note on an open string (such as on the main riff for "She's Lost Control"). That style and sound of bass-playing, highly influential in the eighties, is nowhere to be found on Antics. Sure, Interpol sometimes drops out other parts to let the bass play on alone...which it also does with guitars, and with drums; and which is hardly unique to them or Joy Division.
Laskin also claims Antics "apes" Joy Division's production techniques. One of the most annoying aspects of critical groupthink comparisons is their vagueness. Which production techniques are those? On which Joy Division record? The "spare" (to borrow his word), dry sound of much of Closer, or the far more humid, keyboard-drenched sound of late singles like "Love Will Tear Us Apart" or "Atmospheres"? At any rate, to my ears Antics sounds much brighter than either Unknown Pleasures or most of Closer, while avoiding that too-shiny eighties keyboard sound that sometimes colored Joy Division's keyboard parts.
Or take a look at the colorful adjectives Laskin coughs up to describe Joypol (in his ears, you see, they're the same band): horripilating (a great word referring to that feeling you get when your body hair bristles), depressive, spare, funereal, disturbing... Pretty grim. That last one (disturbing) occurs as Laskin describes Curtis's singing as "disturbing minor-key intoning." But about half the tracks on Antics begin in major keys, and many of them stay there pretty strongly. (Actually, one thing that makes Interpol distinctive is their chord voicing, which exploits major/minor ambiguity by placing the bass on notes other than the root of the chord. End of music lesson.) How does the album begin? With a big, plummy organ (not a keyboard associated with Joy Division) on a big ol' C major chord, which then rises through a classic, fifties-inspired chord sequence.
In fact, the damned thing almost sounds like the band, having finished casting its eye across the Atlantic at eighties-era British bands (for what it's worth, I hear far more Kitchens of Distinction, or Echo & the Bunnymen, than Joy Division), looked in the other direction, across another, smaller body of water, and spent some time on the Jersey backstreets with Bruce Springsteen. (I'm thinking they might have been directed there by the most Springsteenian Brit band of the early eighties, on its most Bruce-influenced album: Dire Straits, on Making Movies. Hell, Springsteen's keyboard player, Roy Bittan, is all over that record.) Interpol's aura of melancholy romanticism and gritty street drama is closer on this album to Springsteen than to Joy Division's more grim, depressive, and inertia-ridden mood. Want more evidence? "C'mere" also makes use of a modified fifties-style chord sequence (something the Springsteen of Born to Run and Darkness at the Edge of Town was fond of), and the mix of keyboards (usually organ) and guitar throughout Antics is similar to the sound of those albums. Yes, I know - that's an utterly crazed theory. Tell you what, though: put on Antics for someone who hasn't heard it yet, and say it's a bonus track on a newly released version of Making Movies (Springsteen wouldn't work, because Springsteen fans are utter fanatics and know every note on every mouldering piece of tape in the vault). Until Banks begins singing, I think you'll succeed.
I will grant that the Bruce comparison is a bit of a stretch. But I don't think it's an illusion, either. Interpol does something any good band should do: it takes in a huge variety of influences and distills them into its own sound and approach. (Here's one of the best reviews of their debut I've read, which also points out the underheralded structural distinctiveness of their songs.) Joy Division is in the mix, to be sure. But if I'd set out to listen to the record to find the extent to which Joy Division was an influence, the differences would strike me a lot more forcefully than any similarities.
Except on "Length of Love": Paul Banks' vocal entrance is the most Curtis-like thing he's ever done. Oh well: sometimes influences just come through.
10.07.2004
everyone's a critic...
Pretty much exactly like having to hear the band's music - except that you can wash it out. (Scroll down to "Reader's Choice"; note also that in future weeks the URL is likely to be the following: http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/nw041003.html)
10.06.2004
fact check?
While not on par with his numerous lies and misstatements of fact in the debate, Dick Cheney's gaffe in leading viewers to factcheck.com (instead of factcheck.org) is pretty amusing...especially since, at this moment, factcheck.com (George Soros' site) has a head saying "Why We Must Not Re-Elect President Bush" (that should be "elect," not "re-elect," of course) - while even the site Cheney meant, factcheck.org, prominently features a headline reading "Bush Mischaracterizes Kerry's Health Plan." [Update: In fact, as the Washington Monthly link above notes, even the site Cheney intended viewers to check says no such thing: it largely confirms Edwards' charges.]
10.05.2004
VP Debate Drinking Game
* If Cheney looks as if he's thinking "go fuck yourself," take a drink.
* If Cheney actually says "go fuck yourself," finish the bottle.
* If Cheney has a heart attack, finish all the liquor in the house.
Any other suggestions?
* If Cheney actually says "go fuck yourself," finish the bottle.
* If Cheney has a heart attack, finish all the liquor in the house.
Any other suggestions?
10.03.2004
10.02.2004
10.01.2004
W stands for...where?
Here's a key point about Bush's performance in the first debate, as noted by Josh Marshall:
"What occured to me ... was just how long it's been since President Bush had to face someone who disagrees with him or is criticizing. Every president gets tucked away into a cocoon to some degree. But President Bush does notoriously few press conferences or serious interviews. His townhall meetings are screened so that only supporters show up. And, of course, he hasn't debated anyone since almost exactly four years ago."
For a leader of a government which purports to be the leading avatar of democracy, such isolation is strikingly undemocratic.
"What occured to me ... was just how long it's been since President Bush had to face someone who disagrees with him or is criticizing. Every president gets tucked away into a cocoon to some degree. But President Bush does notoriously few press conferences or serious interviews. His townhall meetings are screened so that only supporters show up. And, of course, he hasn't debated anyone since almost exactly four years ago."
For a leader of a government which purports to be the leading avatar of democracy, such isolation is strikingly undemocratic.
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