At the Sunrise Café...

... you just might get some sleep tonight.

"I was walking with my girlfriend when we saw him. Shirtless, in late-afternoon sunlight, J.F.K., Jr., was playing Frisbee, wearing nothing but black athletic shorts..."

"... tennis shoes, and droopy white socks. This was the Ivy League. Nobody worked out. (Nobody I knew, anyway.) And so I wasn’t prepared for the muscularity, the anachronistic virility, on display. John’s physique was so classically ideal he might’ve been throwing a discus instead of a Frisbee and been carved out of stone. You looked for the defect in him and you couldn’t find it. There had to be something wrong somewhere, but it would take a magnifying glass to detect. Most of his clan had inherited the freckled, rabbity Kennedy looks. John, lucky in everything, had received the enhancing admixture of dark, French Mediterranean, Bouvier blood. I mentioned it was 1979. Bisexuality was undergoing one of its periodic upticks. I’d fallen into some confusion on that score myself. But I had a girlfriend now. That wasn’t what was going on. The urge I felt wasn’t to possess. It wasn’t even to resemble. It was to draw near. To be allowed to draw near...."

Writes Jeffrey Eugenides, in "My Unrequited Love Story with J.F.K., Jr./I knew John F. Kennedy, Jr., not that well and not that long, but enough to have experienced the gravitational pull he exerted, like some great big moon"
 (The New Yorker).

"The euphoria of the first moon landing was directly connected to our ambivalence about the science that made it possible."

"Rocket technology, which lifted man to the moon, could also hurl hydrogen bombs across the planet. Like the promise of artificial intelligence and bioengineering, the promise of space was shadowed by the possibility of planetary annihilation.... The original space program had fierce and cogent critics in the United States, but the allure of the technology, the bravery and telegenic decency of the astronauts, and the symbolic power of winning the race to the moon eventually won out.... [O]n a nervous night, the world watched us again... wondering whether there might be nuclear bombs.... Trump backed down, but...[t]he distant, wide-eyed wonder of unprecedented achievement of the Space Age had been eclipsed by a deferred promise to return an entire people to the Stone Age...."

Writes Philip Kennicott, in "Trump’s dark rhetoric eclipses the new wonders of the Space Age" (WaPo).

I'm a little older than Kennicott, who was probably a young child at the time of the first moon landing. I was 18 and completely disaffected because of the Vietnam War. I didn't experience anything like "wide-eyed wonder." The boys my age were all in danger of being drafted and sent to fight in a war people were justifiably pessimistic about. Nixon was just as horrible to us as Trump is to the Trump-haters of today. I declined to respond with the awe the news shows told us to feel because I didn't want to see anything going well for Nixon. Less than a month after the moon landing, there was Woodstock. Who was a sucker for "telegenic decency" in the summer of 1969? Were we conned by "the symbolic power of winning the race to the moon"? Five years before the landing, we were laughing at Bob Dylan's sarcastic lines, "I ask you how things could get much worse/If the Russians happen to get up there first/Wowee! pretty scary!"

"The British government has blocked Ye from entry on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good...."

"Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it 'deeply concerning' that Ye was scheduled to perform 'despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism.' 'Antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted clearly and firmly wherever it appears... Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe and secure.'"

I'm reading "London music festival canceled after Britain bans headliner Kanye West/The move comes after days of mounting controversy over past antisemitic statements made by the rapper, now known as Ye" (WaPo).

West has apologized and stated "I love Jewish people," but he did sell swastika T-shirts and release a song called "Heil Hitler." 

Meanwhile, in Toronto...

🚨 Iranians are OUT IN THE STREETS CELEBRATING, cheering President Trump and the collapse of the brutal regime!

After decades of oppression, the people are dancing, waving flags, and thanking Trump for finally taking action.

Freedom is coming to Iran!pic.twitter.com/Cjn7GEwsr2

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) April 7, 2026

This reminds me of the way her husband, Gavin Newsom, told black people "I’m like you. I’m no better than you. You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy."

Holy shit. Gavin Newsom’s Wife Jennifer ran over and killed her own sister with a golf cart…then tells San Quentin Prisoners for Life, “Yours were probably accidents too…”

What TF is wrong with her? pic.twitter.com/rbOk6gcYMu

— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) April 7, 2026

Trump has determined that Iran "has gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change."

Trump, at Truth Social, about an hour ago:

The United States will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change! There will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear “Dust.” It is now, and has been, under very exacting Satellite Surveillance (Space Force!). Nothing has been touched from the date of attack. We are, and will be, talking Tariff and Sanctions relief with Iran. Many of the 15 points have already been been agreed to. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

So the regime change has already happened —  or the declaration that it has happened has been made — past tense. But there's a switch to the future tense, declaring something to be true in the future: great productiveness. I presume Trump's adversaries will call this wishful thinking... at best. But who knows? They'll embrace good results if they become obvious or if they perceive that the people are repelled by their pessimism.

Trump also posted this a few minutes ago:

A Country supplying Military Weapons to Iran will be immediately tariffed, on any and all goods sold to the United States of America, 50%, effective immediately. There will be no exclusions or exemptions! President DJT

Trump would like to get back to managing everyone with the device of tariffs. 

"Berliner here. Don't fool yourselves. The Nightclub scene in Berlin is dead. And it was destroyed by people like you who turned it into a tourist attraction."

Says somebody in the comments section of the Washington Post article, "Pants are optional: What I learned navigating Berlin’s famous club scene/Here’s what happened when our travel reporter attempted to infiltrate some of the city’s iconic clubs as a tourist."

The WaPo travel reporter is an attractive mid-30s white woman. She writes: "When I got to the door, the bouncer said I could come in if I took my pants off." She'd prepared by wearing a black one-piece swimsuit as a base layer. She "soon realized I would have been in good company in my underwear alone — or even fully bottomless."

This gets my rarely used "underpants" tag.

I agree with the Berliner in the comments. It's sad when something local gets co-opted by tourists... even if the damned tourists will take off their pants as the price of entry and even if the pants-off price of entry only works if you are decently attractive and somewhat young.

"At its core, fentanyl is a supply-driven problem. Problem is, local efforts have relied on demand-reduction strategies..."

"... believing they alone will address the problem. For example, we offer treatment to people addicted to towering levels of fentanyl, only to be surprised when they refuse. Declining fentanyl supplies offers a chance for demand-reduction strategies to work, as they apparently did for that woman in Salt Lake City.... Public health officials who want to give their demand-reduction strategies a chance to work need to think of this as a supply-driven crisis...."

From "Overdose deaths are plummeting. Here’s what worked. Efforts to disrupt the supply of fentanyl are paying off. We cannot back down" (WaPo).

"There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made."

Trump at Truth Social:

A big day for World Peace! Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else! The United States of America will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process. We’ll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just “hangin’ around” in order to make sure that everything goes well. I feel confident that it will. Just like we are experiencing in the U.S., this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP

We’ll be just “hangin’ around”... ready to bomb you back to the Stone Age if you don't pick up on this lots-of-positive-action vibe. Don't you want big money?

The builder wants to build. On top of all of that demolition.

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can talk all night.

"... a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East...."

Trump at Truth Social, an hour ago:

Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

"He hears the ticking of the clocks/And walks along with a parrot that talks...."

That's this morning's sunrise. Video by Meade. Music by Bob and Jerry.

"These videos are an unintended result of a law passed by Congress in 2016, mandating that providers give patients full access to the entirety of their medical records..."

"... as quickly as possible. The law went into effect in 2021, and ever since, 'raw' test results have arrived on our screens the instant they’re processed at the lab. This may be a victory for patients’ rights. But it also has the potential to be extremely unsettling. Information that was once delivered via live conversation with a human being, one trained in medical interpretation, is now frequently encountered first as decontextualized data on the screen. This unmediated medical data is now arriving at random moments in our lives. It can come any time of day, when you’re surrounded by people or all alone. Suddenly, you’re faced with a private decision — open? ignore? wait? It is out of the strangeness of this moment that the genre of medical results videos was born. People don’t know what to do with the experience of getting their data, and so they turn their cameras on...."

From "Why Am I Watching People Get Their Medical Results? What was once discussed with a doctor is now frequently encountered first as decontextualized data on a screen" (NYT)(gift link, with links to examples of these videos).

"First photo from the far side of the Moon...."

EARTHSET.
April 6, 2026.

Humanity, from the other side. First photo from the far side of the Moon. Captured from Orion as Earth dips beyond the lunar horizon. Photo: NASA pic.twitter.com/ZEBTQA85TY

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 7, 2026

Of course, it's not actually the first photo from the far side of the moon. It's a photo from this new trip to the moon... to the vicinity of the moon. They always overhype space travel and ruin the potential for a real emotional response.

"Writing is an invasion of your own privacy and the privacy of others, but the writer is always deciding where and how far to invade."

I wrote in a July 2021 post called "Rewatching 5 movies I saw in the theater when they first came out and I was in my early 20s."

I'm reading that this morning because in last night's Sunrise Café, people got to talking about Kurosawa movies and I was motivated to search my own archive for Kurosawa. Kurosawa is only mentioned in passing in that 2021 post, on a list of movies I was excited to consume all at once when I was in college — "All the Bergman films, the silents, the noir, the Fellini, the Marx Brothers, the Kurosawa, the Cary Grant movies, Katharine Hepburn, the entire French New Wave — half a century of great stuff to catch up on."

But the last line of that old post — the line that is this post's title — resonated with a post from 3 days ago, where I quoted an author who wrote "I decide which parts of me you see; I curate the way you understand my pain with sharp precision." And: "This is my book, and you’re reading it. Presumably, you like me. At the very least, you’re stuck in my head, and I control the aperture."