Recently I spent a few days up in Provincetown, Massachusetts at the very point of Cape Cod and connected with some people and ideas that moved my soul and mind forward a few notches.
First, I spent some quality time with Andrew Sullivan and his partner and soon-to-be husband Aaron Tone, an artist and music mix genius who tilts more my way on foreign policy than Andrew’s. They are getting married on August 27th, which happens also to be my birthday as well as that of Mother Teresa, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Pee-Wee Herman, and Confucius.
Birthdays are not weddings — but the line-up and the date explain all that you might need to know about all of us co-mingling on that date.
Second, I discovered that Tennessee Williams spent four summers in Provincetown and wrote some of his greatest works there. More on this another time as i find Williams a fascinating character and think that there is something to writers like Andrew Sullivan and Williams living on wharves at the end of Cape Cod where the Pilgrims first landed. I think I might start making Provincetown one of my writing shelters in coming years — but I think I can’t yet afford wharf living.
Third, the Pilgrims landed there first. I had no idea. Provincetown is better off without them actually. Tennessee Williams and his pals loved to prance around nude at the beach, and I think Plymouth Rock really needed to be situated elsewhere. Again, I’ll get back to that subject another day.
All of this is foreplay in reporting that I will be guest blogging from this Saturday through the following week — along with Hilary Bok, James Kirchick, and Gregory Djerejian — on Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish.
I’ll be posting here too — just different stuff than over there.
Before I close for the evening (or morning — given my Sydney-brewed jet lag), I’m wondering if anyone knows who was behind a somewhat effective pro-war TV commercial that aired tonight during the Late Show with David Letterman. The ad portrayed a mom of a dead soldier saying “let’s not surrender now that we’re beginning to win or there will be another 9/11.”
I have my thoughts on who might be behind this — but I’m sure someone out there knows the real scoop.
Fill us in, please. We’d really, really like to know.
— Steve Clemons
Update: Here is a note by MoveOn.org’s Tom Matzzie at AmericaBlog on the set of pro-Iraq War ads that have been running. He links former White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer and Freedom’s Watch to the ad series. Here is the particular ad that ran on the Late Show with David Letterman.
— Steve Clemons
42 comments on “Andrew Sullivan to Marry; Clemons to Guest Blog”