Presidentress Does D.C.

I just got back from a brief but extremely fun weekend with my best friend in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. You might remember Becky from our whirlwind Hamilton-and-more tour of New York City, and our good time at the Millard Fillmore Presidential Library.

Anyway, Becky lives in Baltimore and has been bugging me to visit for years. Finally the stars aligned, and I'm really glad they did.

My first full day there was spent in Washington, D.C. Did we see the usual tourist attractions? The White House? Lincoln Memorial? Washington Monument?

No, of course not. In part, that's because I've been to most of the usual places already (though it's been a couple decades), but mostly it's because my tastes run a little different.

My day in D.C. happened to be Groundhog Day, which is one of my (and Becky's) favorite holidays. (I wrote before about a presidential-type groundhog celebration.) I'd learned there would be a Groundhog Day event in Dupont Circle, so we made sure to get up well before the crack of dawn to get there in time.

When we arrived, we saw the taxidermied Potomac Phil looking a little angry, surrounded by a couple people in top hats with signs saying things like "Make Groundhog Day Great Again." A guy in a top hat approached us and asked if we were staying for the prediction. When we said we were, he asked if we wanted to borrow top hats to wear. The catch: We'd have to stand up on the steps by the groundhog. Yes, please!

As it turns out, we wound up standing right next to Potomac Phil during the prognostication, which was captured by a couple D.C. TV stations. (Video here. I'm the freak with the amazing purse and the groundhog puppet.)

Still on a high from our brush with fame, we headed over to the Federal Court of Claims to find the Seward Plaque. If you've read Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation, you might remember her talking about the plaque, and her story pretty funny. The plaque itself, though, isn't actually humorous at all. Rather, it marks a violent piece of U.S. history, which you can learn about in the Facebook Live video I made while there.

(About ten seconds into the video, a guy in a long black coat started approaching the plaque. I could only see him out of the corner of my eye, but he totally distracted me. Was he, too, a tourist intent on seeing the Seward Plaque? Was he federal law enforcement there to ask me WTF I was doing? I'm still not sure, but I didn't get arrested so I suppose it doesn't matter.)

We then went to Ford's Theater. We could take a tour of the theater right away, or we could wait a while and do the theater and the museum. I would have liked to see the museum, but we opted for the theater-only tour since we had a packed day.

We walked around the theater for a few minutes, and then a ranger gave a brief talk about the night of the assassination. I didn't really learn anything new from the talk, but the one thing I did learn from the tour is that Lincoln's box was to the right of the stage (as you're looking at it). For some reason, I had always envisioned it to the left, and this reality completely threw me off.

Next on our list was lunch at Wok and Roll, a Chinese restaurant now occupying the boarding house where the Lincoln assassins conspired. On the way, we picked up my old friend Jarrod, who works at the Capitol One Arena, which is practically across the street from the restaurant/evil boarding house.

I tried hard to imagine John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Powell, and George Atzerodt hanging around, plotting against the government, but it was hard to get the sushi bar out of my mind.

After lunch, we said goodbye to Jarrod and walked a few blocks to the site of James Garfield's assassination. He was killed at a train station at the corner of 6th and Constitution Ave. NW, where the National Gallery of Art now sits. I don't know exactly where in that general area it happened because there's no plaque marking the event.

A few days before I left on my trip, the James Garfield National Historic Site tweeted about their desire to see a plaque marking the spot, so I thought I'd help out by demonstrating the crucial need for one.

Is this where Garfield was assassinated?

We then walked a few more blocks to the National Museum of American History, which is probably as close as I can get to heaven on earth. So many things!

A quilt made of William Henry Harrisons

Lincoln's death-hat

Warren G. Harding's pajamas

Harding devil-charm-things?

Terrifying cartoon of Henry Clay
sewing Andrew Jackson's mouth shut

Carrot-Man

By the time we were done with the museum, we were extremely tired and our feet hurt. It was also bitterly cold outside. But we had more to do!

We hopped in an Uber and headed over toward the East City Bookshop, where we were attending a book signing later that evening. First, though, we had dinner at a place called Mr. Henry's, which had a nice turn-of-the-century feel, with lots of Gibson-Girl-esque pictures and dark wood. We also did some of the Presidential Mad Libs I'd bought at the history museum.

Then we walked over to the bookstore for the presentation and book signing by J.D. and Kate Dobson. (You can---nay, should---read my review of their book Hottest Heads of State here.) The presentation was hilarious, and J.D. and Kate are sweet, fun, amazing people. Plus, people in the audience got an "autographed" photo of a president if they asked a question during the Q&A portion, and Kate made sure I got Warren G.

"I am the true father of your children"

Finally, it was back to Baltimore to get some sleep. Stay tuned for Part 2: Presidentress Does Baltimore.

Book Review: Hottest Heads of State

Remember when you were a preteen/teenager, and you'd pore over magazines full of heartthrobs, absorbing everything you could about their favorite songs or snack foods and then tearing out the photos and taping them all over your walls and ceiling?

What if I told you there's a new fan magazine like that, only instead of a magazine, it's a book, and instead of focusing on Kirk Cameron or Jason Priestley, it features U.S. presidents? It's not just a dream anymore! If Tiger Beat and Barron's AP United States History, 3rd Edition fell deeply in love, their baby would be Hottest Heads of State Volume One: The American Presidents.

You might already be familiar with Hottest Heads of State, especially if you read this blog because I've written about it a few times, particularly the posts on The Presidents of the United States: In Order of Hotness and Presidents of the United States: When They Were Young and Hunky. Now the folks who run that blog have expanded their vast media empire by giving us this book, a guide to winning the heart of your favorite president(s) and finding out which one(s) might already be in love with you! If only this book had existed years ago, back when I had a childhood crush on George Washington/Ronald Reagan.

While I am constantly entertained by the things Hottest Heads of State churns out, I was concerned this book might not live up to the standards of their previous work, like The Presidents of the United States: In Order of Best Eyebrows. I didn't have an actual reason for that concern; I'm just sort of a pessimist at times. But I needn't have worried. This book is funny. It's really funny. Even the acknowledgments are hilarious.

The book goes through each president chronologically. Each one gets an introduction and a ranking of his looks, physique, and charisma, plus one other category that varies by president ("nickname," "spitting," "pants," "filial devotion"). There are explanations for why you'll love them or how good they are at keeping promises. There are also tips on how to win them over. (Franklin Pierce: "Be shy, sickly, and kind of a downer.")

Scattered throughout the book are fun features like "Presidential Trend Report: Best Beard," "Are You Bill Clinton?" and "Which President Has a Secret Crush on You?" (I got Rutherford B. Hayes! Score!) There are also "Match the Mistress to her POTUS" games. That would be overwhelming to do all at once, so these games appear three times throughout the book, each covering a different timeframe: One for 1789-1960, one for 1961-1963, and one for 1963-2018.

There are also features explaining things like the Gold Standard and the Iran-Contra Affair. You won't come away with an in-depth understanding of any of these issues (unless you already had one), but you'll probably know more than you did before. And don't worry: You will not get bored. ("Can you explain it in the form of a dumbed-down analogy?")

At one point early on in the book, I snorted out loud about something I'd read. I thought I'd been quiet, but I guess not, because suddenly my children were demanding to know what was so funny. So I read to them:

"Adams's pen name when writing a constant stream of strident op-eds to Boston newspapers was 'Humphrey Ploughjogger.' So try going into the bathroom, turning out the light, looking in the mirror, and saying 'Humphrey Ploughjogger' three times. Maybe John Adams will appear! Or maybe your spouse will say from the toilet, 'What the hell are you doing?'"

My kids immediately went running to the bathroom to try to summon John Adams. (Spoiler alert: It didn't work. That we know of.)

Anyway, a small sampling of other amusing bits:

In describing Millard Fillmore's physique: "One account described Fillmore as having the 'chest of a woodsman.' We're not sure whether this means a heavily muscled chest or a chest full of axes. Either way, it's something we'd like to see."

About Chester A. Arthur: "He's a gourmand. That means he likes fancy food, not that he is some kind of half-man, half-gourd. Although that would be pretty great, too, if you like decorative gourds."

The section titled "Remember the Maine" explains how the Maine blew up ("So in that respect, it's similar to the Death Star"), causing Congress to declare war, "which is something Congress used to do when the U.S. went to war with another country."

The "Did You Know" portion of the FDR section tells us that "The F stands for Franklin," which the authors observe would be an excellent title for an FDR biography.

The authors, hard at work

Best of all, they point out that the letters in "Gerald Ford" can be rearranged to spell "frog ladder," which I'd like to think they learned from my post about presidential anagrams. On second thought, maybe I should sue for intellectual property violations. I guess we'll call it even since they just gave me a name for my FDR biography.

As to the real information contained in the book, like I said, there's quite a bit of it. It probably won't help you score a 5, or even a 3, on the APUSH test, but what does that matter when this book can help you land a powerful, successful man like James Garfield? And let's be honest: You've been out of high school for too long to be worrying about AP tests anyway.

I consider myself a pretty serious presidential scholar (stop laughing), and even I was unfamiliar with some of the facts in the book. Among the things I googled:

ulysses s grant dead parrots
woodrow wilson hindu nun
fdr arrested germany
american eel

I also had to check to see if anyone had taken the Twitter handle @cryogenicsleepr.

I didn't really notice any factual errors, except maybe in the section "Special Investigation: Which Presidents are Also Sexy Vampires?" The book claims that, while sexy, Andrew Jackson is not a vampire. However, this post from another favorite blog of mine (Plodding Through the Presidents) makes a compelling argument for why he might be. Perhaps more research is needed.

In summary: This is a legit book. It winds up achieving the perfect balance of amusing and educational---my favorite kind of balance! It's funny, it's smart, it has photos of Schuyler Colfax, and it will be an invaluable resource if you ever need to call the Mayor of Buffalo. What more could you need? Oh, right! There's also a Dwight D. Eisenhower mask.

Hottest Heads of State Volume One: The American Presidents will be released on January 30. (That's next week!) You can pre-order your copy at Amazon now, or you can go stalk your local bookstore or whatever.

I received an advance copy of this book, but I was not compensated in any way for my review and all opinions are my own.

Sean Spicer Fan Fiction: Chapter 4

(If you missed Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3, make sure to read them first. Also, dislaimer: This is fiction.)

Among the Bushes

Things are About to Get Spicey

Chapter 4

Caroline stormed out of the restaurant and waved a $20 bill in front of the valet. "Get my car here in less than a minute and this is yours," she told him. The valet was able to retrieve her car before Sean Spicer had finished paying the bill, and Caroline sped off toward home. 

First she was mad. Controlling men pissed her off, and if someone could be that controlling over dessert, what else was he capable of? In a way, she was relieved to have seen the real Sean Spicer so quickly. 

But at home that night, she started to feel dejected. Yes, she had dodged a bullet, but she couldn't stop thinking about running her fingers through his tufty hair that made him look so much like Ryan Gosling, if Ryan Gosling were clean-shaven, less attractive, less fit, and ten years older. She imagined dancing with him in a style far too risqué for Dancing with the Stars. She imagined him dressing as an Easter Bunny to hide eggs for their future children. 

To take her mind off Sean Spicer, Caroline made herself a cup of tea and sat down to watch a movie, but no matter how hard she tried to pay attention, she kept finding herself looking out the window at the elephant topiary, which was illuminated by the moon and her pool lights. It took someone with very special talent, or very deranged obsession, to make something like that, and he had made it for her. “Oh, Sean,” she whispered to herself. 

But then she thought about the cheesecake and got angry again. And then hungry. She realized she should have gotten a slice to go. 

When her movie was over, she went upstairs to bed, alone and lonely. She tried to cheer up by reminding herself that within a month she'd likely be dating the head of a Silicon Valley start-up or an attorney for the pharmaceutical industry. That was more her style anyway. She tried to imagine showing up at a dinner party and introducing her date as, “My gardener, Sean Spicer.” Ridiculous!

She laughed, then she started to cry. 

Caroline had just fallen into a restless sleep when she awoke to something striking her window. She heard a rustling outside, then a few seconds later something hit her window again. 

She got up and tied a robe around herself. She looked out the window and saw the silhouette of Herbert Hoover.

She opened the window and yelled down, “Sean?”

“I'm sorry to wake you up, but I need to talk to you,” he called up.

“So you decided to throw rocks? Are you crazy? This is a $500 window!”

“You don't have any rocks down here,” he said. “I’ve been throwing my American Flag pin! I'm glad you finally heard it because it was really difficult to keep looking for it in the dark.”

Caroline rolled her eyes. 

“Look, Sean, you seem like a decent guy, and you're clearly the sexiest White House Press Secretary since Ari Fleischer, but I just don't think things would work out between us.”

“Please, Caroline! Come down and give me a chance to explain!”

Despite being angry, sad, hungry, and tired, Caroline decided to hear him out. She closed the window and carefully walked down her winding staircase, then out to the garden.

There in the moonlight, in the shadow of the elephant shrubbery, Sean Spicer took her hands.

“I am so, so sorry,” he began. “I know it seems like I was trying to tell you what to eat, but that was never my intention.”

“It sure seemed like it!” Caroline spat at him, while at the same time tingling from the excitement of his touch. 

“I'd never tell you not to eat a certain dessert…except for Dippin’ Dots.” he laughed a little but then muttered something that sounded like, “tiny balls of frozen communist tears.”

“Anyway,” he continued, “The truth is that I'm trying to work through a lot of issues surrounding my time at the White House. You have no idea what it was like there: the yelling, the whining, the verbal abuse, the tiny, tiny hands reaching out for my neck...” He looked off into the distance and shuddered. 

Caroline softened a bit but was still cautious. “What does this have to do with cheesecake?”

“There are a lot of things that trigger me these days,” he said. “The scent of hair gel makes me see visions of Eric Trump. The smell of cheap whiskey makes me feel like Steve Bannon is right there. But the greatest trigger of all is the color orange.”

“What?”

“Orange. Orange things, like sweet potatoes and pumpkin cheesecake. Do you see?”

“I guess?” Caroline said. “Is that why my marigolds are gone?”

“Yes, exactly!” Sean sounded relieved. “And also they're just really ugly flowers.”

“But they keep the rabbits away.”

“You don't want to keep this bunny away, do you?” Sean gave Caroline’s hands a squeeze. She tried to keep her composure.

“I appreciate what you're saying, but I can't go through life without orange things,” Caroline said. How could she live without her tangerine LaCroix? What would happen the next time the terror alert level was raised? What if she needed something from Home Depot?

“I don't expect you to,” he said. “I'm already in counseling for it and I've actually come really far. The other day I saw a woman wearing a pair of Ivanka’s shoes and I didn't put my fist through a wall! Please give me another chance.”

Caroline thought for a moment. On one hand, this guy was dealing with some pretty serious issues and it might be better to keep her distance. On the other hand, it felt like this relationship was meant to be, even if it might be a while before they could do romantic orange-tinged things like watching a sunset or cuddling in front of a fire.

“Okay, Sean,” she said. “I'll give you another chance, but you have to promise to keep going to therapy.”

“I will,” he said. “As long as Obamacare stays in place so my insurance continues to cover it.”

That was good enough for Caroline. 

Sean Spicer pulled her closer and took her into his arms. His embrace was just like she had imagined: warm and pillowy. Caroline relaxed into him and sighed. 

“I'm glad you came back to explain this to me,” she said.

“I'm glad you let me.” Sean kissed the top of her head. 

“Just think,” she said. “This all started because you were hiding in my bushes.”

“I wasn't hiding in your bushes,” he said. 

Caroline started to protest but Sean put his finger to her lips and held her tighter. 

“I wasn't hiding in your bushes,” he repeated. “I was hiding among them.”

Fin

Crocheted Alexander Hamilton Doll

How do some yarn skeins, crochet hooks, couple of eyes

And some gold beads, worked up in a frenzy of bold speed

(Ignore needs of my family), from pattern slightly altered

Turn into a cool plush doll Founding Father?

I present to you the gift I made my mom for Christmas this year: a crocheted Alexander Hamilton. (Technically a crocheted Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, but whatever. HamiLin?) 

I wish I could say I came up with this idea on my own, but I did not. I used a pattern from Allison Hoffman, although I did make some small changes to it, like making his coat blue instead of beige. I also made some technical yarn-type changes, but I'll spare you the crochet minutiae here. (If you'd like a detailed explanation, you can visit my project on Ravelry.)

The Retro Ornament Throw,
which also got done 

Anyway, I'd wanted to make this project all year, but I didn't start seriously thinking about it until October. At that point, however, I was working on another very involved crochet project (a retro ornament throw for my grandma) that I knew might not get done in time for Christmas, so I wasn't sure HamiLin would happen at all. As fate would have it, I ran out of yarn for the ornament throw and had to wait two weeks for the new yarn to arrive. In the meantime, I went ahead and started the doll, which only took a few days to make, working an hour or two here and there.

I saved the face for last because I was terrified of it. The face is what really makes or breaks one of these things, in my opinion, and I don't know anything about embroidery. (You might remember that last year I used Allison Hoffman's book AmiguruMe to style my own Warren G. Harding doll, but his face wound up looking a bit more like the Shah of Iran than Harding himself. At least I nailed the "world leader" look.) 

Thankfully I discovered that Hoffman had created a YouTube video showing some face embroidery, so armed with that new knowledge (and a curved needle, which I hadn't even known existed), I tackled HamiLin's face.

It took a few attempts, lots of sweating and swearing, and more time than any other part of the doll, but I think I finally got it right. (It's not easy to capture those intelligent eyes in a hunger-pang frame...)

I wound up finishing HamiLin about two weeks before Christmas, and the suspense of not being able to give it until Christmas Day was killing me, but I made it. 

Mom, with HamiLin and a bottle of Federalist wine

Needless to say, he amazed and astonished.

Book Review: "Christmas" by Eleanor Roosevelt

Since I'm too lazy to connect my phone to our wireless speaker, we typically get our Christmas music from a holiday music channel included with our cable lineup. Since it's a TV station and they need some kind of visual, there's a slideshow of Christmas cookies, mulled cider, ornaments, etc. They also flash "Did you know?" facts. (Did you know: Many Japanese people spend their Christmas Eve eating KFC!)

Anyway, we don't typically spend a lot of time actually sitting there watching photos of gingerbread and random factoids, but now and then we'll glance up and see them. That's how, a couple weeks ago, I learned that in 1940, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a Christmas book for kids. What??? Off to Amazon I went...

Older versions of the book (titled Christmas) range from $30-$165, which was far more than I was willing to pay. Luckily there's a bland reprint for $15.95. Still more than I wanted to spend, but I had a gift card, and we're talking about a Christmas story by Eleanor Roosevelt. I had already purchased my Eleanor Roosevelt ugly Christmas sweater-shirt, so I needed the book to complete my theme for the season. 

Thanks to Prime Shipping, my book arrived two days later. I told my family that after dinner, we were going to gather 'round for a Christmas story by Eleanor Roosevelt. My kids groaned, but my 13-year-old said, "Guys, we have to accept that we're all victims of Mom's obsession." True, true. Two of my kids and Mr. Presidentressor cooperated very nicely, and only one child complained through the whole thing.

First, I set the historical stage for them: In 1940, World War II was well underway in Europe, and America was wondering if/when we'd enter the fray. Tensions and concerns were high. Then I proceeded to read the story aloud.

The plot involves a girl named Marta, from an unidentified European nation. (Based on some phrases within the story, I'm assuming Belgium or the Netherlands.) She recalls the previous St. Nicholas Day, when her father was able to briefly come home from the military to enjoy the holiday with his family. Now, however, her father has died, and she and her mother are living in poverty (and under Nazi occupation, although Marta is too young to use those exact terms).

Marta's mother explains that St. Nicholas will not visit them this year, but Marta holds out hope. Sadly, her mom is right: St. Nicholas does not come. But this whole time, Marta has been taking solace in talking to Baby Jesus to help her cope with the loss of her father, and she's convinced that the Christ Child will visit them for Christmas. So when Christmas Eve comes, she lights a candle and steps outside with it to guide the Holy Baby's way.

Suddenly, Marta is aware of a man standing near her, and she senses some darkness in this figure. Again, the book doesn't say it, but he's clearly a Nazi, and he's also depicted as a sort of otherworldly evil force. Tomato, tomahto.

Anyway, this dark figure berates her for believing in Christmas and Jesus. He says her only loyalty should be to "he who dominates the rest of the world through fear and strength." Then he goes inside to admonish Marta's mom for teaching her daughter such foolishness. At this point, the mom is holding a baby, who the man thinks is just a regular baby but is actually (spoiler alert) Jesus!

The mom stands up for herself (figuratively---she doesn't actually stand because she's still holding Jesus), explaining that believing in Jesus provides them with something good and hopeful against the current backdrop of fear. The guy just stands there for a while, and eventually his heart softens a bit, kind of like the Grinch, but instead of providing Roast Beast he offers her a life of comfort, but she'd have to let go of her beliefs.

The mom declines and gives a long response, ending with "You will go out into the night again, the cold night, to die as all must die who are not born again through Him at Christmas time." Then the man does go back out into the night, and that's pretty much it. He hears the evil spirits roaring around him, and looks back at the warm glow from the house, then shrugs and decides he'd rather stick with his power.

So...it would be an understatement to call this a heavy-handed allegory. I get the appeal of pitting good against evil, and what better example than poor, oppressed nice people versus Nazis? And if one of those nice people can tell off a Nazi in the process? Even better. And I'm in favor of people standing up to the government in order to exercise freedom of religion (or freedom from religion, as the case may be). But I have to draw the line at conflating non-believers with Nazis, which is ultimately what this book does.

If it were just a matter of Marta and her mom triumphing by remaining firm in their convictions against the Nazis who want to quash them, that would be one thing. But Eleanor (Why, Eleanor, why???) has to throw in the line about non-believers---not just evil non-believers, but all of them---dying out in the snow. Happy holidays!

It's not just in that exchange where she draws that conclusion. In her foreword, Eleanor says, "The times are so serious that even children should be made to understand that there are vital differences in people's beliefs which lead to differences in behavior." Combined with the ending of the story, it's pretty clear that the message is: Christian = good, non-Christian = bad.

At this point, we should possibly confront the issue of the Jews. Now, it's not fair to expect someone in 1940 to know that by the end of the war, Nazis would have exterminated millions of people, primarily Jewish. But by 1940, Nazi persecution of and brutality toward Jews was well established and was known in America, especially to those involved in the federal government. According to this story, they, as non-believers in Christ, should also go die in the snow.

In a 1932 speech called "What Religion Means to Me," Eleanor said the following:

And yet most of us who are in the forties and fifties today can look back to a childhood where religion and religious instruction were part of our everyday life, but we have come so far away from those days that in writing this article I even feel that I must begin by defining what I mean by religion. To me religion has nothing to do with any specific creed or dogma. It means that belief and that faith in the heart of a man which makes him try to live his life according to the highest standard which he is able to visualize. To those of us who were brought up as Christians that standard is the life of Christ, and it matters very little whether our creed is Catholic or Protestant.

To those of us who happen to have been born and brought up under other skies or in other creeds, the object to be attained goes by some other name, but in all cases the thing which counts is the striving of the human soul to achieve spiritually the best that it is capable of and to care unselfishly not only for personal good but for the good of all those who toil with them upon the earth.

Now that's fair. (Some people will argue about the wording, but the message is clear: Good people strive for good, regardless of what specifics might motivate them.) Would it have been so difficult to incorporate that into this story?

Am I looking at this through a modern lens? Yes, I am. Is that fair? I don't know. On one hand, we have the advantage of almost 80 years of retrospection. On the other hand, this book was written by the First Lady of the United States. Even in the 1940s, not every American kid was Christian, and it seems kind of crummy for the president's wife to ostracize them because of it, even back then.

And, okay, I'm willing to concede that this is a Christmas story, and therefore maybe it should be expected that there would be a religious component, but again, can't that be portrayed in a way that doesn't also shun others, especially when you're the First Lady of the United States?

It might also be a trivial point, but the story is just kind of sloppy, too. One of the golden rules of children's books is that the protagonist needs to solve his/her own problem: Someone else can't just swoop in and make everything better. In this story, Baby Jesus suddenly appears out of nowhere. (One could argue that Marta summoned him, and therefore she's responsible, but...) Talk about a deus ex machina.

So, bottom line: I get what Eleanor was going for here, but I wound up really disappointed, as did my little atheist/agnostic children. Needless to say, this book won't become part of our holiday tradition.

Presidentress Christmas Carol 2017: Taft Edition!

After a one-year hiatus, my annual Presidential Christmas Carol has returned! This year features a (brief, but important) song about William Howard Taft set to the tune of Good King Wenceslas.

You can also view my previous songs about Warren G. Harding and Grover Cleveland:

If you're wondering why all their voices sound the same, it's because all presidents sounded alike until Franklin Roosevelt came along! Not many people know that.

From the Presidentress Family to yours, have a marvelous holiday season!

Book Review: My Search for Warren Harding

Avid readers will know that I have a wee bit of an obsession with Warren G. Harding. I mean, how can one not, right? (Right?)

Anyway.

Every now and then I see reference to a novel called My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket. I was intrigued enough to put it on my Amazon wishlist at some point, but never motivated enough to buy it. Then a few weeks ago, someone on Twitter asked for funny book recommendations. Someone responded that Assassination Vacation and My Search for Warren Harding were the funniest books they'd ever read.

Now, avid readers will also know that I have a wee bit of an obsession with Assassination Vacation, so having someone equate the two was the shove I needed....almost. I didn't buy it right away, but a few days later, I was stuck at the Atlanta airport for five hours and had run out of things to do, so I went ahead and purchased the Kindle version.

The novel is written from the point of view of Elliot, a graduate student in the 1980s who is trying to get his hands on love letters from Harding that are in the possession of his now-elderly mistress, living in Hollywood. He hatches a plan to rent the woman's pool house and uses various schemes to try to obtain the letters. The premise itself is fairly amusing, even if some of the plot points are rather unrealistic.

Most of the characters are fictitious, although there are some cameo appearances from real people, historical and contemporary ("contemporary" in this case meaning "early 1980s," when the book was written).

The former mistress, Rebekah Kinney, is largely a characterization of Nan Britton, Harding's actual young lover with whom we now know he had a child. In this novel, Kinney (like Britton) had been a young woman from Harding's hometown, they had had an affair and a child, and she had written a tell-all book (called The Price of Love, as opposed to the actual The President's Daughter).  But Rebekah Kinney led a more glamorous life than Nan Britton, hobnobbing with Hollywood celebrities and dabbling in acting herself. As this book opens, she now lives a largely solitary life in a rundown Hollywood mansion.

The existence of a trove of love letters is more reminiscent of Carrie Phillips, Harding's other well-known mistress. Her letters were the basis of the nonfiction book The Harding Affair, and were recently released by the Library of Congress. Nan Britton, on the other hand, held onto only a couple correspondences from Harding, none of which were intimate in nature, which is part of the reason she had a hard time establishing her story as truth.

Okay, so, grad student plots to obtain Warren G. Harding's love letters from a Nan Britton-Carrie Phillips mashup. So far, so good. The first couple chapters were amusing. Not laugh-out-loud funny, or even chuckle-worthy, but interesting enough.

Things start to take a turn when the main character meets Kinney's Mexican housekeeper. Queue the negative ethnic stereotypes. It was cringey, but I reminded myself this was written a long time ago ("a long time ago" meaning "in the early 1980s," which really isn't that long ago at all, but I tried to keep things in "historical" perspective.)

Then comes the chapter where the Elliot's friend brings a gay guy to dinner. Throughout the entire chapter (and the rest of the book), this man is referred to as "the faggot."

Remember when Donald Trump made fun of the disabled journalist and we all thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, and then it continued to? That's basically what this book was like.

The rest of the book basically turns into one giant fat joke about Rebekah Kinney's 20-something granddaughter, Jonica. An example: "Now the inevitable question: how fat was she? I would guess that she tipped the scales at around two hundred pounds. She was fat. She was what you mean by a fat person. She was so fat you wondered how she found pants in that size." Okay, so that paints a picture, and if that had been it, maybe it would have been bearable. But that wasn't it.

The comments like that go on throughout the book. Without exaggeration, probably a good 30% of the book is just a discussion of this character's weight. Also, some major plot points hinge on it. And I guess it's supposed to be funny, but it isn't. I don't just say that because it's insensitive or politically incorrect. I mean that even setting that aside, it just isn't funny.

Besides repeatedly explaining in great detail Jonica's appearance, Elliot also verbally, physically, and emotionally abuses her in an attempt to get his hands on the letters.

Oh, and keep in mind, interspersed with the fat jokes are plenty more comments about Mexicans, Blacks, Jews, and "Orientals," plus additional references to "the faggot."

At one point I decided I just couldn't take it anymore. The book was so despicable---it sounded like something that would have been written by an alt-right internet troll sitting in his mom's basement, if such people knew anything about Warren G. Harding---I just couldn't go on. But I'm also kind of anal about finishing books I start, and I felt a duty to review it here, which I couldn't do if I didn't read the whole thing. Plus I figured I had to be almost done. I checked: 42%. Ugh.

I forged on, though.

Our protagonist doesn't get any less deplorable...in fact, he only grows moreso. Another problem is that, with the possible exception of Jonica, all the characters are unlikable, and even Jonica is sympathetic only because everyone else is so awful to her, not because of any particular redeeming qualities of her own.

Then I got to the end of the book, which I will admit was spectacular. I don't want to spoil things too much in case, for some reason, you decide to read it, but it basically involves a heavy dose of schadenfreude. It felt so good. That's when I realized that we were, indeed, supposed to hate Elliot. (At least I sincerely hope that was the point.)

Now, there were some funny parts. The overall absurdity is pretty amusing. There are some good lines, like when Jonica (who doesn't know her grandfather was a president) says he was "somehow mixed up in oil." The footnotes contain recipes. The acknowledgements become funny once you've reached a certain part of the book and realize who some people are. And like I said, the ending is immensely satisfying in the sense that you might give an evil laugh.

Yet the marvelous ending really isn't enough to justify how painful the rest of the book is. Even if the novel's intent is to make fun of academia, or to serve as a commentary on L.A. culture, or to be an ironic statement about terrible people, or...whatever else, it's not worth wading through the unpleasant, depressing horror needed to get to the ultimate satisfaction. In this case, the end wasn't enough to justify the means.

I'll just stick with Assassination Vacation.