When you do, you find that the Atlantic has marked the upcoming retirement of anchorman Dan Rather by collecting some of Rather's over-the-top on-air metaphors, including this one from election night: "No question now that Kerry's rapidly reaching the point where he's got his back to the wall, his shirttails on fire, and the bill collectors at the door."
You see " Gable, Clark, as pillar of national creed, 138" and you turn to Page 138, where you find "Post Mortem," the magazine's obituary column by Mark Steyn, who may be the world's wittiest obit writer. The Gable reference comes in a delightful obit on bandleader Artie Shaw. It quotes Shaw -- who married Ava Gardner and several other actresses -- on the perils of life with a love goddess.
"These love goddesses are not what they seem, especially if you're married to one," Shaw said. "Somebody's got to get the coffee in the morning and an Ava Gardner is not going to do that. . . . Why? Because she's the love goddess, and that's all she has to be."
That's wise advice for would-be goddess-spouses, and you might have missed it if not for that index item.
But the index is more than just a clever tool for luring readers into stories. Healy also uses it like a stiletto, administering devastating put-downs, sometimes using fewer syllables than a haiku:
Leno, Jay, as no Johnny Carson, 16
Dion, Celine, as benchmark of Broadway decline, 210
Rice, Condoleezza, as weak link, 106
Sartre, Jean-Paul, as not much to look at, 139
Healy seems to take particular delight hitting some targets, regularly skewering Saddam Hussein, Donald Rumsfeld and Bill O'Reilly. Here's just one of several O'Reilly items:
O'Reilly, Bill, as Al Bundy soulmate, 168; surliness of, 168; as showman, 168; "barroom contempt" harbored by, 168; obsequious iconoclasm of, 168.
That pretty much says all that needs to be said about O'Reilly, doesn't it?
But Healy is not merely a skilled spitball shooter. He's also a brilliant author of miniature biographies. The March Atlantic contains a terrific article on Russian President Vladimir Putin by Paul Starobin. It's the best Putin profile I've ever read, and I highly recommend it. But it's nine pages long, and if you don't have the time, Healy's index item can serve as your Cliffs Notes:
Putin, Vladimir, as night owl, 82; as oenophile, 82; sobriety of, 82; as boxer, 84; as judo champ, 84; as snow leopard, 84; reptilian characteristics of, 86; gait of, 86; as Teddy Roosevelt, 86; as circumciser, 87; piety of, 82, 89-91; as bourgeois ski bunny, 92
The March index also contains equally great mini-bios of Shaw and novelist Graham Greene. Maybe somebody should collect these bios in a book. But only if Healy agrees to index it himself.
The Bottom Line
Attention, parents: Have you had it up to here with the offspring? Have your tykes reached the sullen stage? The snide stage? The door-slamming stage? Maybe it's time to get the Rod.
The Rod is a flexible nylon stick with a "cushioned vinyl grip" made by Slide's Manufacturing Co. Used to swat the butts of the underaged and unruly, it was advertised in Home School Digest. The folks at Harper's magazine, ever on the lookout for weird items, excerpted the ad in their March issue. Here's an excerpt from the excerpt:
"Benefits for the children: Promotes a loving atmosphere in the home, removes guilt and foolishness from their hearts, develops self-control, helps children to receive wisdom.
"Benefits for the parents: Lightweight yet durable, balanced and easy to use, ideal for car or home, allows for better parent/child relationship, results in a more peaceful home, an excellent gift idea."
Ideal for car or home? Remember, parents, when beating your child while driving, please hang up your cell phone.
