October 8, 2012

"A man like me, he gives me the icy mitt, and then he goes to the other extreme and slops all over some old dame..."

Wrote Sinclair Lewis at Kindle Locations 3099-3100 in "Elmer Gantry," which I downloaded yesterday, after David Axelrod, on "Face the Nation," said that poor Obama "was confronted with this kind of Gantry-esque performance" from Romney.

Skimming the book, I happened to see "the icy mitt," and thought it was funny — Sinclair Lewis's humorous reference to a perfunctory handshake (put in the mouth of his Gantry character).
Elmer disposed of Cecil Aylston: "To hell with him! There's a fellow we'll get rid of! A man like me, he gives me the icy mitt, and then he goes to the other extreme and slops all over some old dame that's probably saved already, that you, by golly, couldn't unsave with a carload of gin! That'll do you, my young friend!..." 
Yeah, I know: Doesn't sound the least bit like Romney. But, as I say, it amused me to run across The Icy Mitt. And that piqued my curiosity. Did "mitt" appear elsewhere in the book? This is the careless, intuitive way I have of looking for bloggable material. But Kindle, come on! I do a search for "mitt" in the Kindle app, and I get 74 matches, because Kindle won't look for "mitt" as a separate word, only as a set of 4 letters, so I get every "admitted," "permitted," "omitted, and "committee." It's sometimes interesting to discover the way a word is present within a word. It can give you ideas for jokes in the "putting the X in Y" form — putting the mitt in omitted — but it really undermines the value of having searchable text.
Elmer stopped pumping, glared, rubbed his mittened hands on his thighs, and spoke steadily:

"I've been waiting for this! I'm impulsive  — sure; I make bad mistakes — every red-blooded man does. But what about you? I don't know how far you've gone with your hellish doubts, but I've been listening to the hedging way you answer questions in Sunday School, and I know you're beginning to wabble. Pretty soon you'll be an out-and-out liberal. God! Plotting to weaken the Christian religion, to steal away from weak groping souls their only hope of salvation! The worst murderer that ever lived isn't a criminal like you!" 
Kindle Locations 2449-2460.

16 comments:

Matt Sablan said...

The solution, at least on most other programs I've used, is to do a search for: " mitt" that ensures you only get the words that start with mitt; you could also do " mitt ", but then you miss sentence enders. The space in front is usually enough though.

Robert J. said...

I think it's obvious why Axelrod thought Mitt=Gantry, and why this was a natural equation for him.

Mitt=Mormon, and Mormon=Crazy-Religion-Evangelists that walk around in white shirts and try to tell you about salvation.

Axelrod is a standard lefty atheist who puts all the bitter clingers in one box, along with Gantry. (And he figures lots of them are hypocrites too, since he know he is one.)

Anonymous said...

Does Mitt Romney have any fan from women in America?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS1N6bLriRc&

Only Paul has. But, he does not count, as Biden will dismember him this week.

Obama has so many, many women supporters. Every US women supports Obama. Every. Woman.

Since women make up half the population, how can Romney even win.

Romney is finished. 10/16 will be the d-day. Bring flowers.

hiswiserangel said...

Politico, you are an idiot, or in Obama's mind, a useful idiot. Last I checked, I had all x chromosomes, two bodacious ta-tas and functioning ovaries. In other words, I am a woman, an American woman, a Patriot. I wouldn't vote for Obama if Valerie Jarrett was holding a loaded gun to my kid's head.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

hiswiserangel: You are the outlier, a noise, that data people can just ignore. One in a million does not count. Okey-dokey?

Every minority. Every woman. They will vote for the great, the best POTUS Obama. Every. Woman. Every. Minority. If you do not, then you will be the outlier. Noise. We disregard bad-data in Chicago HQ as per the explicit guidance from Valerie J., David P., David A. and of course Jim Messina and Stephanie Cutter, our fearless leaders.

Anonymous said...

hiswiserangel: Here is the math, assuming you are not Romney and afraid of math.

- All African Americans vote for Obama.
- All US muslims vote for Obama.
- All Asians vote for Obama.
- All women vote for Obama.
- All alternative-lifestyles US citizen vote for Obama.
- All of Hollywood (except Eastwood) vote for Obama.
- Etc.

You do the math.

Romney CANNOT win. He knows. We know it.

The D-Day is 10/16. Bring Flowers.

Show respect for these who leave us for the greater beyond.

Steven said...

That's the only occurrence of "mitt", if a search of the text at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300851.txt is to be believed.

edutcher said...

I remember a phrase, "slip him the grip", but was there a similar one, "slip him the mitt"?

hiswiser, you have to remember AP is our comedy relief; our Gabby Hayes, Smiley Burnette, our Max Terhune.

chuck said...

Doesn't sound the least bit like Romney.

It doesn't sound the least bit like anybody. I'm beginning to think Lewis was overrated.

hiswiserangel said...

Thanks edutcher, I forgot every village has an idiot.

ricpic said...

Although slightly over half of married women with children vote Republican, single women, with or without children vote strongly Democrat. Like it or not dems the facts.

miss j said...

Put a space before and after the letters "mitt"

Duh.

chickelit said...

@hiswiserangel: Love your avatar!

Ruth Anne Adams said...

So Axelrod, R.F.B., was "A Face in the Nation." He's a sort of Loathesome Roadie for Obama, no?

Crunchy Frog said...

I am convinced that AP = Carol Herman 2.0