The back-story behind a regular feature of mine, after-the-jump ….
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, or by our KosMail message board. Please indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.
Regular readers of my weekly compendium are aware that there is a celebrity look-alike feature … known as Separated at Birth. At meet-ups (Netroots Nation, Drinking Liberally or Cheers & Jeers) I am asked about this feature most often, with some asking how I choose these examples? Hence, a primer.
While they may not have created the term: the first time I became aware of this phenomenon was with the defunct Spy Magazine (1986-1998) co-created by Graydon Carter (the long-time editor of Vanity Fair magazine). This magazine was an overall irreverent look at politics and celebrities (the opposite of the Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous ethos that marked the 1980’s). Spy magazine, for instance, coined the phrase “Short-fingered vulgarian” about the future Mar-A-Lago man.
Spy showcased many public figure look-alikes and — as I never bought a copy of the magazine, just saw it at the library (or friends’ coffee tables) — it became my favorite. S-a-B became so popular, it spawned some paperback books. And so when I began blogging here at D/K in 2004, I added this to my offerings.
During the ‘aughts’, one of my first sources of political humor was one of the early lefty bloggers of note: Philadelphia-based Jim Capozzola, who published the Rittenhouse Review. He sometimes used a different title (Detached at Birth, etc.) but had some good ones that I stol …. err, borrowed (with a hat tip, to be sure).
I got quite a thrill when I sent him a pairing that I had (twenty years ago this month!) that he re-printed. This was a meeting of the then-Irish prime minister (Taoiseach) Bertie Ahern, and the prime minister for Jacques Chirac’s France (Jean-Pierre Raffarin). He added photos of the two men separately, who only look so much alike (Ahern was taller, and Raffarin a darker complexion). Yet in the one photo I sent him — with the two men next to each other at a podium under bright lights — they looked like brothers — which he gave a hat-tip to me for (alas, the images no longer appear on his defunct website).
That, by the way, is a defining feature of S-a-B … camera angles can make all the difference, along with lighting, depth, et al. When Jim died in 2007, there was a nice tribute diary on this website (with our own Adam B adding his thoughts). He was a mentor to many bloggers of the time and I’m told by someone who knew him well … that he had an understanding and empathy for people’s flaws (even those he didn’t like) and never sought to exploit them.
Over the years, I have avoided making S-a-B’s with cartoonish figures — though once-in-a-while, a villainous figure might merit that. I try to keep it light and fun, for which some previous sources of S-a-B’s that I liked ... strayed from that.
One example was the late Betsy Rothstein, who used to write political gossip on the website Fishbowl DC. She had some political S-a-B’s that were clever, until she went to a different site … and then eventually wound-up at Tucker’s Daily Caller… where over time her initial impishness morphed into nastiness and later crudity (as one labor activist noted) before her death in 2020. Her S-a-B’s were fewer (and far less clever, too, unsurprisingly).
There have been several generic “Celebrity Lookalike” sites I’ve used over the years (some examples here, and here, and here, for starters). I also have had reader suggestions sent to me by Kosmail (with the intrepid Audri as a prime source).
Mostly, though: it’s a matter of opening my morning newsfeeds (the NYT, The Economist, E! and others) and seeing a photo of Celebrity X.
Except … when it is Celebrity Y, dontcha know?
I always warn people … once you get into this racket, you’ll always be on guard for S-a-B. One time at a Cheers & Jeers gathering in Maine … there was a young attendee whom I told: that he looked like he could be the son of the late Democratic pundit one saw on PBS (Mark Shields). He was unaware of him but relieved to learn … that he was a Democrat.
Let’s close with Annie Lennox (of the Eurythmics) singing a classic Cole Porter song …. with Herbie Hancock on piano and Ron Carter on bass.
Now, on to Top Comments (and a Top Photo):
From my T/C colleague, brillig:
From Politeia's diary Democrats only self-own when they refuse to fight back comes this excellent coulda-been-a-diary comment by PQuincy2014.
From Captain Frogbert:
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by Irontortoise about the split in European far-right party leaders over Russia — gchaucer2 has some possible good news about a replacement for Starlink for Ukraine …. while jhecht has a good one-liner comparing dictators.
Also, in the front-page diary about Canada— whiskyjack clarifies when Canada will be going to the polls (after the Liberal Party chooses a leader to succeed Justin Trudeau this coming Sunday) and CanadianKitty suggests that the two candidates will work together, no matter how the vote goes.
And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
15) Not so little. by Mercy Ormont +10317) Good. Keep up the good work, Canada. by bear83 +10123) Shame, shame, shame on Mark Warner. by Austenite +8824) Dump & Ukraine … by Denise Oliver Velez +8426) Not to worry. trump will bribe reimb … by suzeli +7930) thank you for some practical advice by Alf513 +76