…in quite the same precise way as supposedly “wholesome entertainment” that’s actually creepy/offensive/horrific. I’m thinking right now of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, “Starving Artist Sale” mass-produced oil paintings, the old Today’s Chuckle front-page newspaper joke, Leave It to Beaver, The All-New Leave It to Beaver, and retro diners decked out in Fifties Fetishism.

Thus, I suspect I’ll love that new kiddie movie, The Polar Express.

First, it has Tom Hanks (my vote for the most overrated ham actor since Richard Burton) in not one but five roles, including Santa Claus and a ten-year-old boy.

On top of that, Hanks and the rest of the cast have been digitally transformed into hyper-realistic versions of the paintings in Chris Van Allsburg’s original book—figures that were haunting in an intentional, moody way.

The result, according to several reviewers and online essayists, is a “creepy” spectacle filled with “zombie-like,” “dead-eyed mannequins.”

And it’s in 3D at Imax theaters!

Sounds like entertainment to me.

I’ve been on a political-news fast since this morning. I’m refusing to get bitter, depressed, or frustrated.

I’ve been cleansing and renewing my mind with Looney Tunes and Doctor Who DVDs, with Comcast digital cable’s opera music channel, with the coffee-table book Playboy: The Photographs, and with the last two stories in my main man D.F. Wallace’s anthology Oblivion. And I’ve been trying to jump-start my one-month novel, to little success thus far.

Tomorrow, I’m likely to spend the day locked up with my yet-to-be-written novel. I might read only the sports and living sections of the newspaper. I’ll go out later that evening, but will instruct my schmoozing companions to stick to discussing personal and/or upbeat topics.

I’m sure that within a few days, I’ll have something to say about the national tragedies. Until then, let me remind you of a certain famous fictional political organizer, “Boss” Jim W. Gettys.

As played by future Perry Mason costar Ray Collins in Orson Welles’s film classic Citizen Kane, this “W.” is an admitted “no gentleman,” a crook and grafter. He’s the target of the egotistical-yet-populistic publisher Charles Foster Kane’s short-lived political career. (In the first draft of the screenplay, it’s clearer that Kane isn’t running for office directly against Gettys, but against Democratic and Republican candidates who are both in Gettys’s pocket.)

It ends badly. Gettys finds and exploits a scandal in Kane’s personal life. On election night, Kane’s right-hand man instructs the press-room staff at Kane’s New York Inquirer to use a pre-set front page headline, “Charles Foster Kane Defeated—FRAUD AT POLLS!.”

Kane wastes the rest of his life as a grumpy old conservative hermit, with no sense of humor and horrid artistic tastes.

Dear God, please don’t let me end up like that.

…the Kerry-smear “documentary” Stolen Honor. PAX TV has been running it in infomercial slots. A subtitle every minute or two refers to the film as a “documentary;” it’s closer to plain-ol’ commentary. The ex-military officers narrating the thing all have the patented angry scowls popularly associated with aging war hawks. I didn’t catch who was credited with sponsoring the telecast.

Both Presidential candidates are scheduled to appear Saturday on America’s greatest television series, Sabado Gigante!

…who was on MTV the same time Adam Curry was, now on Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd: “Yasser Arafat is dying. He’ll be missed. Just like he was missed by the Israelis twenty times.”

…the international financier who kick-started several anti-Bush “527” groups, is now speaking on C-SPAN. He’s mentioned Bush’s steadfast belief that he can create his own reality, and his projection of a comforting sense of total certainty. Soros’s interpretation dovetails nicely with my own previous comparison of Bush’s zeitgeist with New Age motivational lingo.

Soros closes: “His campaign is shamefully exploiting the fears generated by 9/11… If we re-elect President Bush, the war on terror will never end. The terrorists are invisible, so they will never disappear. It is our civil liberties, however, which might disappear instead.…”

…the title of its election-night live special: Prelude to a Recount.

…The World According to Bush, which aired last week on CBC, is now viewable online.

…isn’t getting a lot of Presidential commercials anymore, here’s the Philly Daily News’s look at the latest deceptive, fear-mongering Bush ad.

…the PBS doc The Choice 2004 in its entirety online.

And on Friday, for our readers in the north, CBC’s Newsworld cable channel (alas, not the main, viewable-on-Seattle-cable CBC channel) is rerunning the French doc The World According to Bush, depicting the prez and his family as “one of inconceivable family secrets, painstakingly concealed.”

…to see the most talked-about TV moment of the week, Jon Stewart’s thorough demolishing of the Crossfire twins.

…concerning the sexual harassment suit placed against Bill O’Reilly by a disgruntled female staffer. The charges, if true, are despicable; but, as we’ve all seen, such behavior is too sadly common among egotistical powermongers of assorted ideological persuasions.

However, I was intrigued by a remark by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann (what the hell is this guy with at least two thirds of a brain still doing on a channel that’s actively vying to become more dumbed-down than Fox?). Olbermann compared O’Reilly to one Boake Carter, a controversial ’30s radio commentator totally forgotten today (except for one quotation—”In the time of war the first casualty is truth”).

Boake Carter’s life story, as told by Olbermann and confirmed by a quick net search, has little in common with O’Reilly’s. But it’s still fascinating.

In the early years of network radio, Carter had risen from a local reporter in Philadelphia to a network “editorialist.” By 1932 he had a regular 15-minute opinion show, in which he lectured on the events of the day. As the ’30s depressingly wore on, Carter’s ideology apparently became more stridently anti-Semitic, anti-FDR, anti-liberal, etc. In 1938 his sponsor chose not to renew his contract.

It took a year for him to find another home, on Mutual (the WB of radio networks). On his new show he was pro-Roosevelt and pro-Jewish. He even announced his allegiance to a “Biblical Hebrewism” sect, the Society of the Bible in the Hands of its Creators. But that turned out to be a personality cult of the basest kind. Carter lost his professional reputation, wife, home, and fortune to the cult’s leader. By the time Carter died in 1944, he’d already become a has-been.

Bush’s affected Texas accent mysteriously disappeared. He scowled less. But he still stumbled his way out of answering the questions and into short pre-scripted speeches about whole other topics, speeches laced with code words appealing to the fundamentalists and the Limbaugh listeners. The figurehead of the neocon revolution was reduced to cheap jibes about Ted Kennedy, non-Fox news media, and big government.

Meanwhile, Kerry just got smoother and slicker. Not quite Clinton smooth, but closer. His answers weren’t always well-delivered (or ones with which I’d agree). But he did answer everything, lucidly.

Meanwhile, some ad-industry vets have compiled a short Quicktime video entitled The Ten Year Difference, comparing Bush’s performance in the first debate to his (far more effective) performance while running for Texas governor a decade before.

Long before he played Superman, I’d seen Reeve on the soap opera Love of Life. It was never one of the most popular soaps, but I liked it. It was only 25 minutes long (a newscast filled the rest of the half-hour), so it moved faster than most; but it was still produced live-on-tape, so it lacked the frenetic cutaway editing seen on most of today’s hour-long soaps. Jennifer Aniston’s daddy was a cast member, as were the guy who later played the Twin Peaks killer dad and the guy who played Bogart in Play It Again Sam.

Anyhoo, Reeve was energetic and somehow sympathetic in the role of a slick, two-timing swindler on the show. I could tell he had a big career ahead of him.

Bush’s suit bulge reappeared. But it looked less like the rumored earphone antenna wire and more like a Secret Service-mandated flak jacket, which he probably wears when he’s in public anyway. (Of course, there might still be a wire under that. Just might, I must say.)

And it was mighty disconcerting to see and hear Charles Gibson moderating the proceedings. I don’t want to be reminded on Friday night of Monday morning.

As for the candidates’ performances, Bush improved to the point that he could give off a few complete sentences, some of them even coherent. Yet he still fumbled and sputtered frustratingly, such as when he avoided answering a citizen who asked if he could admit to having ever made a mistake.

Kerry, meanwhile, remained unflappable. And he warmed up in the face of civilian questioners, or made a good act of warming up. He was the smooth, in-the-groove Road Runner to Bush’s awkward, desperate Coyote.

I told this last comparison to an acquaintance, who thought it insufficiently harsh. He felt Bush shouldn’t be interpreted as a cartoon character, even a humorously malevolent one, but as an out-and-out villain. I say, if you can’t have fun with your enemies, you’re letting them psych you out. Which is just ilke “letting the terrorists win.”