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: Althouse

Let's watch "American Idol."

It's perfectly acceptable behavior, I assure you.

7:06: I love the pure optimism of delusion. A young woman sings horrendously and is told she sings horrendously, and she processes it into the notion that she picked the wrong song..

7:20: Big-hearted opera guy sings "Think!" and they restrain him before he gets to the "Freedom!"s. He's operatically emotional about his doom, and ? cue opera soundtrack ? we see a montage of other doomed contestants.

7:36: I knew when they inserted a commercial break that the "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" guy ? Von Smith ? was somehow going to be approved of, and he was. Strange. I can believe that they saw talent, but couldn't somebody have mentioned the taste issue?

7:46: Matt Breitzke ? the welder ? sings the great song "Ain't No Sunshine." He's good, and you can tell he's one of those guys that get through because he's masculine. They put his audition right after a strange man who... was not.

7:54: Jessica Furney touches me the most, and not just because she lives with her 93-year-old grandmother and has to yell at her to talk to her. Not just because she sings Janis Joplin ("Cry Baby") and I've been waiting all these years for a female rock singer to get somewhere on this show. She's nicely natural and real.

8:11: Daniel Gokey ? whose wife just died ? sings "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." He looks like Robert Downey Jr. and he's good. He makes it through, which is what we wanted, after he said that he wanted to be here so that people would find out about that woman who died.

8:15: Anoop Desai ? who's pursued the academic study of barbeque ? auditions in shorts. "It's all a bit geeky," says Simon, but the guy was good. And he's through to Hollywood. Sweet Paula say, "Forget the clothing thing, you're fine."

8:19: A montage of everyone singing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" ? which, right?, makes all lawprofs think of Marbury v. Madison ? reveals the essence of the show: the terrible curse/blessing of American confidence. Is it bad to be bad if you believe in yourself? Yes, but it doesn't matter much. Is it good to be good? Yes, of course, now please make me happy.

Full post as published by Althouse on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).