Michael Carlebach's Snap Decisions
Hello. Today we are going to examine the work of a magnificently funny photographer who died last week at 78. Michael Carlebach was a friend of mine. He specialized in the type of photographs no one else takes, possibly because no one else — even some of the great photographers of the age — had his eye for irony and his taste for mischief. He was a master of juxtaposition. We’ll get to that in a minute. But first, as always, The Gene Pool Gene Poll.
There is only one subject that makes sense for voting: The Kiss. I plow ahead knowing it might be wading into a sticky thicket.
On August 20, when Spain defeated England to win the Women’s World Cup, a joyous celebration took place, as players paraded before a line of officials to receive their medals, and congratulations. The head of the Spanish football federation, Luis Rubiales, was hugging players and kissing cheeks, as they came by. But when Rubiales got to midfielder Jenni Hermoso, he did something … different.
First, they embraced, rocking back and forth for a moment. Rubiales whispered something in Hermoso’s ear. Then he put both his hands on the back of Hermoso’s head. It is not clear whether he drew her head to his, or immobilized it and moved in. What is clear is that he planted a momentary closed-mouth kiss on Hermoso’s lips. He says it was consensual, without specifying precisely how consent was granted. She says it was not consensual, in any way, and that she felt violated, disrespected, and a victim of typical sportsworld misogyny.
Rubiales initially conceded The Kiss was an error in judgment — what he described, basically, as a blurt of enthusiasm during the exuberance of the moment — though he has since reacted more bitterly as criticism and protests mounted; he has said he is the victim of “false feminism” — essentially, #MeToo gone bananas — for what he says amounted to a non-sexual “peck.”
FIFA suspended him for 90 days. This outraged many, who saw it as a slap on the wrist. Calls for him to resign or be fired began, and intensified. The team says it won’t play until he is gone. Coaches walked off. The Spanish Soccer Federation initially supported him, but, just yesterday, under pressure of public opinion, it reversed itself and called for his resignation. Spain began a criminal investigation into whether he had committed a sexual assault. In protest, Rubiales’s mother locked herself in a church and went on a hunger strike.
Rubiales is still defiantly holding on, saying he won’t resign, but that may end today. It may even have ended by the time you read this.
So. Here is the question. Please take the appropriate poll, based on your gender.
And now, for everyone:
Send me a question or comment or rant.
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The Man With the Portfolio
One day, when Tom Shroder and I were editors of Tropic magazine at The Miami Herald, a genial, soft-spoken man named Michael Carlebach walked into our office with a portfolio of his photographs. They represented only a part of his oeuvre: He’d chronicled poverty, politics, detention camps for immigrants. He was an expert in the history of photography. But this portfolio was from a wicked, wonderful corner of his work. Each photo was a captured moment — not one of them was posed, not one of them involved a well-known person. And every single one earned a giggle or a guffaw. We published them, of course. He got many pages in the magazine.
Michael didn’t believe in taking photos of famous people in famous places doing famous things. If he went to “cover” a football game, he didn’t even watch the game. He’d turn around to watch the sidelines, the fans, the mascots, the cheerleaders. Driving, he’d notice Something Interesting on the Side of the Road that tens of thousands of cars were whizzing right by. He prowled cemeteries, which he found always good for a laugh. And he’d sometimes wait hours for the right moment, say, at a public swimming pool.
Michael once described his philosophy and process better than I can:
“The clamor of the unknown for their promised fifteen minutes of fame, and the already famous for an extra fifteen or thirty or sixty minutes, assures photographers of a steady supply of eager and possibly even comely subjects. A long time ago, I decided to steer clear of those supercharged personae whose bluster and self-promotion guarantees plenty of attention but delivers little of substance, just noise and more noise. I look for meaning at the edges of things, avoiding the incendiary characters who bully their way into our lives whether we like it or not. The ability of so many photographers to describe in infinite detail the great events and people that occupy the media, sometimes makes it difficult to see and appreciate what is subtle, funny or poignant right in front of us. That’s my job.”
At the top of this Gene Pool, and below, is some of Michael’s work. You can find more photos and more about Michael — much more — at michaelcarlebach.com.
There are no captions. I think his work obviates captions. The images speak for themselves.
Okay. So. Here are two videos that if you haven’t seen, you must. The first might make you pee your pants, the second might make you cry. So assemble the appropriate absorbent products.
Finally, an odd update. A few days ago, a reader wrote in to suggest a candidate for The Gene Pool’s sporadic FUD feature, which involves great recipes that can be told in four sentences or fewer. He or she suggested flank steak marinated in pineapple juice and soy sauce. I said it sounded good and promised to try it that very night. I did. It was excellent. It was so good that (after a Google search) I decided to try a variant of my own, which proved even better. It mostly involves a different cut of steak. So, for the first time, a FUD II:
Soak a skirt steak for 3 hours in a marinade that is half soy sauce and half pineapple juice, with some grated ginger added, making sure both sides are covered.
Grill on “high. “
Skirt steaks are thin, so two minutes a side might be enough; do not overcook.
After letting the steak sit for ten minutes or so, slice thinly across the grain, and serve.
Hey, if you have any FUD candidates, send them in to the questions button above.
Okay, we are ready to start the real-time Q and A segment. Many of the questions / observations are in response to my Weekend Gene Pool call for your “sosumis,” things most people love but you do not, so sue me. The results were voluminous and mostly excellent, though some people had trouble distinguishing sosumis from pet peeves. Sosumis, which I invented, are far more elegant. It’s not just something you dislike, but it must also be something most people do like. So several readers submitted things like “people who talk on their phones while shopping and continue doing it at checkout,” which annoys me, too, but annoys most people as well. Not a sosumi.
The sosumis are, by their nature, contentious and surprising, since — and I repeat — these are things most people love. For example, I got several nominations for avocado / guacamole. Who doesn’t love guac? Well, these folks. Sosuthem.
If you are reading this in real time, please remember to keep refreshing your screen throughout the hour, as I am responding to new observations.
Q: My big Sosumi: Cereal. The excitement of stale wheat products mixed with the sexiness of drinking milk with a spoon, delivered in the form of a soggy mush first thing in the morning! That the whole country sees fit to start its day with a bowlful mystifies and disgusts me. You wouldn't soak a bagel in water before eating it, and you wouldn’t pour milk over anything you weren't about to feed to a cat, but somehow cereal, this abomination of sodden starch and dairy, is a totally normal thing and I’m the weird one for taking a stand.
A: Well put. This made me laugh out loud. The best entry so far. I like Frosted Flakes in half-and-half, but sosumis are sosumis.
When I was a kid, my brother once was eating cereal and I asked what he had doused it with, and he answered — not intending humor, I think — “half half-and-half and half milk.” And we both burst out laughing.
TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now on an email: Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Michael Carlebach’s …“ ) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to roughly 1 p.m. ET today.
Q: What do YOU think about the soccer kiss?
A: I think prosecution is way over the top. So over the top it throws all the rest into suspicion. He definitely needs to be punished; it was an idiot thing he did, and I believe Ms. Hermoso that she felt violated. Unless something more comes out, I don’t think I agree he should lose his job. I am most interested in what women think. I’m a guy on the sidelines.
Q: Have you ever kissed a woman and then realized she was unhappy you did?
A: I have never lip- kissed a woman with whom I was not in a clearly defined, mutually romantic relationship. I’m not sure that fully answers your question, though! I was never informed any such in-relationship kiss was unwanted.
Q: As a lover of and advocate for the ancient flavor of tomatoes, circa 1970s and before, have you expressed an opinion on any specific preparation of them for meals? What do you think of the guidance for roasting cherry tomatoes found in this article in the Washington Post and Seattle Times. (Gordon of Rain City)
A: I am an absolute absolutist on this. I believe that if you have excellent tomatoes, you do not cook with them at all. There is one way to eat them: Sliced, sprinkled with salt. Possibly some olive oil and pepper, maybe fresh mozza. Maybe on toast. But not on a hamburger.
Cooking good tomatoes is like mixing Stoli with ginger ale: An abominable thing to do to a good vodka. Use Wolfschmidt’s.
Save the crappy tomatoes for cooking. I am also not a fan of cherry tomatoes. They don’t have the taste of the big ones.
Q: In “cry,” who was that last guy before Trump?
A: Wendell Willkie. Lost to FDR in 1940.
Q: Tofu - How anyone eats this is beyond me. Derek Jeter - An average defensive shortstop (If you don’t believe me, look it up), pretty good offensive player, but not among the greats. Tom Wolf - I can only guess that the people who panned the movie version of Bonfire of the Vanities never read the book, which is every bit as dreadful as the movie. I’m sure I have many more, but you’re going to get a lot of response to this, I’ll leave it here for now. I can’t promise I won’t send more in a subsequent submission.
A: I read Bonfire when it came out; it was brilliant, one of the best books I’ve ever read. Completely in tune with New York City, and the times in general. Rampaging financial greed, dishonesty of the media, political expediency, class warfare, arrogance of the elites. Written in sophisticated gonzo style. I agree on tofu; I like bland, but it’s a texture thing for me. Derek Jeter ranks sixth in lifetime hits, after Rose, Cobb, Aaron, Musial, Speaker. And ahead of, um, Honus Wagner and Carl Yastrzemski, having played fewer seasons than any of those seven other guys. So I would say he is LITERALLY and MATHEMATICALLY among the greats.
Q: Any kind of fried dough at a fair. I'll take the sausages.
A: So you prefer fried pig snouts and anuses to a fried grain product with powdered sugar! (I like ‘em both.)
Q: Very hot peppers that turn good food into a mess. Pain is not a flavor to me. I think some lie and others have just burned out their taste buds.
A: I agree with this. So many do not. I had a coworker years ago whose favorite restaurant was a dive bar that served the hottest chili on Earth. It was just a long counter, frequented almost exclusively by men. There were Kleenex on the bar. The men would sit there, eating their chili, weeping and snorting and coughing. My friend would come back to work after lunch puffy eyed, looking as though he’d just broken up with his wife.
Since this is a week for irony, I wanted to share some ironic breaking news. Ready? Here ya go.
Q: The video showing snippets from the concession speakers of other Presidential candidates over the past 80 years didn't make me want to cry. It made me want to punch out that fat, orange turd. Since I have some extra vitriol, let me call readers' attention to the obituary of Joe the Plumber . Joe shouldn't be buried. He should get a Plumber's Funeral: his body should be stuffed down a huge garbage disposal.
A: It made me want to cry for the country. This guy is STILL in contention. What is going on with us?
Q: You are aware, aren’t you, that on the older Macs “sosumi” was the name given an optional alert tone? They came up with that name in response to complaints from Apple Music that the opening chime (still used) when one boots up a Mac computer is remarkably close to the opening chord on “A Hard Day’s Night “. My sweet lord! Anyway Apple company’s coinage predates yours by at least a decade. But you knew that, right? Luther
A: I did not actually know that, but the usage is entirely different. It applies to a completely different phenomenon. But you knew that, right? This is like complaining that the first person to apply “douchebag’ to an individual didn’t invent the term because there already was this Massengill product…
Q: Mayonnaise. Devil’s cum. Enough said.
A: Thank you for not holding back. Did you ever see the great comic strip from the 1970s called “Arnold”? Arnold was a deeply cynical kid in middle school. He called mayonnaise “white death.”
This observation also reminds me of a Bill Hicks routine. He claimed he had been celibate for weeks and when he final orgasmed “it came out like a candlestick.” Sorry. I didn’t say it, Bill did.
Q: I’ve been thinking about the “overdone meat” issue - probably too much. I prefer steak medium rare, but that’s not germane. It strikes me that this “controversy” may hint at the heart of an important matter: the obliteration of the line between matters of fact and matters of opinion. The line is quite important: its destruction is arguably the enabling technology of the Big Lie. The are few things as obviously (and appropriately!) matters of opinion as food preferences. The wine snob will know much more about wine than I, but they can know nothing about what tastes best to me. I value what is lost when a steak is cooked “well done,” but I can’t properly have an opinion about how others may value those same properties.
A: I don’t really agree with this. Think of it this way. You meet a French chef who is an expert in desserts. You tell him you’ve tried all desserts and dislike most of them and nothing compares to a Twinkie in honey. Now, his thought is not going to be “this gentleman’s opinion is as valid as anyone else’s since food preferences are personal choices.” He is going to think, correctly, “this guy is the biggest schmo in the world, a Philistine, a … douchebag.” To me, food is like humor: There is, mostly, good and bad. Not everything is in the eye, or mouth, of the beholder.
Speaking of which, another sosumi of mine: Skinless franks. The whole POINT of a hotdog is the snap of the skin.
Q: My sosumi: Beach glass. It’s trash from the sea…why do I want this displayed in a jar? I find the whole collecting of beach glass baffling and gross.
A: I hadn’t heard of beach glass or sea glass before. I had to look it up. I haven’t seen any, but as a lover of antiques, the idea appeals to me. These things are resurfaced by water over as many as 100 years. So I don’t like your sosumi. Sosumi.
Q: Seinfeld - Smarmy New Yorkers talking about trendy experiences about which you do not care because they’re New York things. When George was relieved his late fiancée accidentally poisoned herself licking the glue of all the envelopes on their discount invitations because he did not want to participate in the wedding preparations set a new low for cringe comedy.
A: No, that milestone was set many years before when Alf, the obnoxious TV ET, was hiding in the attic with his American family to avoid nosy neighbors prowling around downstairs, and Alf remarks: “I feel like Anne Frank.”
Q: Pickleball. Admittedly, I haven't actually tried it, but numerous friends have regaled me with information about the best tactics: high vs. low serve, two-hand backhand, etc. Also, the equipment looks very un-athletic: the implement used for striking the ball looks like a pregnant ping-pong paddle, the ball looks like one for kids who are too wimpy for real baseballs, etc. As far as I know, there is no cool-looking pickleball attire. Finally, in the senior community where I live, if you see someone on crutches, or sporting a huge black and blue mark, sure enough, pickleball injury.
A: Any Pickleball fanatics want to comment?
Q: I can understand being interested in personal physical activity. I have scuba dived, and enjoyed it. I have skydived. I have engaged in riflery...I am a fairly good marksman, in fact. I play pool - poorly, it is true, but I play. I have been known to bowl without embarrassing myself. But what on Earth is the appeal in following the exploits of organized teams of professional athletes? I know people who can tell me, with accuracy, how many hits some obscure catcher for some random baseball team made in 1963. How many yards passing some football player accomplished in his lifetime. True, said player retired in 1980, but they know the statistics. I have been asked, repeatedly, who I was backing in the World Series. I wasn't even aware the World Series was on.
I have seen men and women of my acquaintance rigid with tension over the impending fate of their team in some Basketball game. THEIR team - you would think they owned the bloody thing. And I am not talking about gambling fever. If I had bet a hundred dollars on the outcome of a coin flip, I would be passionately interested in the results of that coin flip. But they have no money on the game. It is just --- well, you know --- their team is on the line. I have literally (and I am very precise in my use of that word) seen blood spilled over this issue. I am well aware that I will be excoriated over this issue, it goes with the territory. I have been in the distinct minority in this for my entire life. I will be called a curmudgeon and told I can't possibly be so lacking in whatever quality every sports fan seems to have aplenty.
A: Okay, I would ask you one question: Are you a fan of any actor or director or writer or comedian to the point of caring deeply about their careers and lives, reading / watching their next works? Anyone at all? Because unless your answer is no, across the board, you are kidding yourself. You are an avid fan too, just of something different.
This is Gene. Just an observation: In the past, I noticed an interesting phenomenon during polls, when the issue was about about punishment for the objectification / victimization of women. Men tend to want the more severe punishments. Women, not so much. It’s true here as well, so far, though not by huge margins. I think it says good things about both men and women.
Q: Use of the present continuous instead of simple present. I’m hoping you like this one. I’m thinking it’s really annoying.
I see what you did there. But surely you get that there is a valid use of the present continuous v. the simple present, with important distinctions. “I read Vonnegut” and “I am reading Vonnegut” are very different utterances.
Q: On the farting question, I’d say that for a couple to break wind in front of each other is an indication of closeness. That’s when you know you are truly a couple. I have a young female friend who has been in a relationship with the same guy for eight or nine years, though they’ve never married. I’ve always wanted to ask her if they’ve seen each other pee and if they pass gas in front of each other. I contend that if the answer to either of these questions is “Yes”, then they should be considered to be legally married.
A: I notice you are deliberately avoiding the inevitable next step about what they might do in front of each other. How far are you willing to go with this?
I know I seem prudish in this matter, and I am not ordinarily prudish about much. But to me this is about maintaining the aura of romance. And I don’t think romance is an illusion – but if it is, it’s an illusion worth protecting.
Q: Gene: If we're going to continue to indulge in "Weingarten's Examined Lives," I favor the contrarian sosumi (sosumi), which requires you to prefer something that others do not or, in fact, frown upon. Often called guilty pleasures --- like digging out (if you have an "innie") belly button lint and mindlessly rolling it twixt thumb and forefinger for hours at a time. Sort of a poor man's version of those Chinese meditation balls. So --- fess up. What's one of your guilty pleasures (keeping in mind you have a family audience here) ?
A: I am thinking of making this the next challenge. So wait till Saturday. Start thinking about them, people.
This is Gene. I am calling us down. Please consider subscribing. Also please consider sending in more observations of any type, sosumis or otherwise. I will get to them on Thursday:
Re fantasy-killing bodily functions: I remember an interview with Melania Trump in which she said she was sure her husband had never seen her using the bathroom.
Those photos are great!
There is one picture that I really regret not taking. My wife and I were on one of our drives to nowhere while vacationing in the Shenandoah Valley when we turned onto Rt 720 in Meems Bottom and decided to just follow it. Eventually, we came across the hulk of a car sitting in a field, weeds slowly consuming it. It must have spent its last drivable days competing in a demolition derby, as it was painted purple with the words “Fear This!” in large, white brushstrokes on the side. We agreed that we should return with the camera at some point (pre smartphone days) but never did.
“Fear this” did enter our private lexicon, used whenever we saw something that tried to be imposing, but was just the opposite. I still say it even though she’s no longer here to hear it. Or maybe she is. We’ll never know.