YOU'RE THE TOP: a cole porter YOU'RE THE TOP poll

i was expecting to open this and see 1 choice only:

[_] You're the nose on the great Durante

Poll Closing Date: Thursday, November 20, 2008 7:00 PM

ha. yeah but: "you're the pants on a roxy usher"! botticelli-keats-shelley-ovaltine. the moon over mae west's shoulder. national gallery-garbo's salary-cellophane.

You're cell phone.

You're the National Gallery, You're Garbo's salary, You're cellophane.

you're the top! you are sarah palin
you're the top! you're willie and waylon
you're a DRM-free beyonce bonus track
you're an ipod shuffle, an alba truffle, you're back in black

You're the nose on the great Durante.

http://nfo.net/usa/durante.jpg

I remember hearing a pretty cute parody version, "You're the Worst."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The reference to broccoli is kind of fascinating. I think George H.W. Bush's vocal distaste for broccoli solidified its reputation as an unpopular vegetable, but in 1934 it was still new and exotic!

nimble tread

broccoli is, quite rightly, one of the most popular vegetables

and it still is

xp I don't care how much broccoli is actually produced or anything, I'm just saying nobody in 2008 would write a song using broccoli as an example of "things that are awesome."

i don't believe that universal acceptance was a precondition for inclusion in the lyrics, and broccoli is probably much more popular now than it was then

You're a Boticcelli, You're Keats, You're Shelley, You're Ovaltine.

still goin' with roxy usher here.

You've got to be kidding, gabbneb.

No "You're King Kong's penis", no credibility.

no, i most certainly am not, jaymc

broccoli has only increased in popularity over the decades. get with the times and stop your ridiculous broccoli-hating fatwa.

:D

You're missing the point. The song mentions things that are either trendy or timeless paragons of their class. Broccoli is popular inasmuch as it is widely consumed, but it doesn't have a popular reputation nor is it considered the cream of the vegetable crop, as it perhaps was when it was still a novelty in the US.

Although broccoli entered the United States more than 200 years ago, it was not adopted into popular circles until the D'Arrigo brothers, Stephano and Andrea, immigrants from Messina, Italy, came to the United States along with their broccoli seeds. The D'Arrigo Brothers Company began with some trial plantings in San Jose, California in 1922. After harvesting their first crop, they shipped a few crates to Boston.

Meeting with success, they went on to establish their burgeoning broccoli business with the brand name Andy Boy, named after Stephano's two-year-old son, Andrew. They advertised by supporting a radio program and featured ads for broccoli on the station. By the 1930s the country was having a love affair with broccoli. People were convinced that broccoli was a newly developed plant.

For as much broccoli as is eaten in the 21st century, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks the U.S. today is currently "having a love affair" with it.

whatever you think is "the" point, you're missing my point. i am not challenging your insight that no one would use broccoli in a lyric in the same fashion today; rather, i am challenging your assertion that broccoli has a "reputation as an unpopular vegetable." broccoli, in fact, has been called the most popular contemporary vegetable (presumably if you define potatoes out of the equation). you can try to walk back from broccoli's popularity by referring simply to its "reputation," but that merely raises the argument into vague generality - reputation for what? for something George HW Bush disliked? for a good-for-you food that a vocal minority of guys or adolescents complained about 20 years ago? for being associated with a memorable soundbite that dim newsreaders like to repeat wherever possible to make a story interesting? it is broccoli's very popularity or ubiquity, in fact, that allows for such a complaint.

additionally, aside, i think you're failing to recognize that "having a love affair" is commercial prose that may be historically imprecise.

down the street from is a white castle knockoff (that's much better than white castle). it serves mini sliders, hot dogs, fries, baked potatoes, a variety of sodas and shakes, and steamed BROCCOLI. even if America was "having a love affair" with the new Italian vegetable in the 1930s, i think that sort of thing would have been unthinkable.

wait, i forgot to make the important point in there that you live in meatandpotatoeslolchicago

Gabbneb, you're being too literal. I'm interested exclusively in broccoli's cultural reputation, the qualities popularly associated with broccoli among most Americans. You're absolutely right that broccoli's ubiquity is what leads to their being a cultural reputation at all, but I would argue that broccoli's reputation is probably behind only brussels sprouts and lima beans in terms of vegetables people make jokes about hating. For instance:

Broccoli is frequently referred to in popular culture as a vegetable that parents try to force their unwilling children to eat.

In a Halloween episode of The Simpsons, Homer is killed by eating broccoli. When examining the body, Dr. Hibert said that broccoli was one the of deadliest plants, that warned people with its bad taste.

United States President George Bush (41st) was known to have an active disdain for broccoli, having actually said so in an offhand remark during his presidency. In response, a powerful broccoli agriculture lobby sent several tons of it to the White House.

Also, in the TV sitcom Seinfeld, Newman refers to broccoli as a "Vile weed!". In the animated series Family Guy's episode "I Never Met the Dead Man", Stewie Griffin invents a weather control device in an attempt to wipe out global production of the vegetable.

Also, of course "having a love affair" is historically imprecise -- it's rhetoric -- but again, I am interested far less in truth than in perception. Just because a Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly "Hot List" might overestimate the actual level of popularity of a certain person or fad they include doesn't mean that we can't make some pretty good broad cultural inferences about the fact of the inclusion and what it says about what was important that year.

"their being" = "there being"

i know what you're interested in, but i think you're failing to recognize that "broccoli's cultural reputation" is far better defined by the vast number of americans who regularly eat and enjoy it than by a handful of media/popular arts examples that don't fall far from my meme of "a good-for-you food that a vocal minority of guys or adolescents complained about 20 years ago." I don't think I need to point out the particular 'type' of Homer Simpson and Newman.

"broccoli's cultural reputation" is far better defined by the vast number of americans who regularly eat and enjoy it than by a handful of media/popular arts examples

Well, I guess it depends on how we define the term "cultural reputation."

Btw, I enjoy broccoli.

Wanna talk about fruitcake next?

too goyish

>>I'm just saying nobody in 2008 would write a song using broccoli as an example of "things that are awesome"

I give you Broccoli & Cheese by Devin the Dude (which, sadly, is'nt anywhere close to work friendly)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.