The #1 Person in Tic Tac.

Trump: "You know who the number one person on Tic Tac is by far? Trump. Me. Taylor Swift was number 11." pic.twitter.com/BriJNk4QeL

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 6, 2026

"Every summer, my husband, my daughter, and I stay with my mother out East so my child can spend time outside the city in an area I remain attached to from my childhood."

"Without my mom’s generosity, we could not afford to be there. I realize that having access to all this when I haven’t made the right career choices, shorted the market at a moment of crisis, or robbed a bank to be able to afford my own Hamptons house is deeply fortunate. And yet, as I’m often reminded during a flare-up with my mother over how to properly cut a $13 Il Buco filone (apparently, I saw bread too 'wavily' and ruin the rest of the loaf for straight-slicers), Chekhov’s greatest dramas were multigenerational tragicomedies set in country homes."

Writes Lucy Boyle, in "'I’m Sorry You’re in This Beautiful House We Pay For!'/There’s a glut of middle-aged children living with their parents in the Hamptons for the summer" (New York Magazine).

I'm interested in this tale of petty woe not because I've ever stayed at any beach house owned by my parents — I have not — but because we — in the midst of our summer here in our year-round home — took the half-hour drive out to the American Players Theater last week and saw "Uncle Vanya."

The troubles in "Uncle Vanya" were nothing like what we're seeing with these "middle-aged children" in the Hamptons. They're irked by rules about using coasters, taking out the trash, and not stealing things. Boyle gets a psychotherapist to analyze the parents: "When the house is full of the grandkids and the grandkids’ and kids’ friends, they’re kind of in the background. One way they can become the foreground and say ‘I am here’ is to foreground their ownership and possession.'"

"The summer I turned 39, my husband and I moved from Brooklyn to a darling little village in upstate New York. Our parents were thrilled..."

"... their unspoken hope that leaving the big city might be a sign that we were settling down—that as my fertility began to sunset, we’d turn one of our house’s three bedrooms into a nursery. And we were having that conversation, too. We owned a home with ample space and an affordable mortgage. I worked for myself and had maximal flexibility. He had good health insurance and a great if demanding job. Did we want to have a baby? As late summer melted into a vibrant fall and then into the cold of upstate winter, I knew my answer: No...."

Writes Jill Filipovic in "We Need More Good Men/Conservatives often lay the blame for declining fertility at women’s feet. They’re wrong" (Slate).

"New York City bodega owners came to City Hall last week for a 'roundtable discussion' at the invitation of Julie Su, deputy mayor for economic justice..."

"... only to get barraged with 'intrusive' questions about their businesses, a source close to the situation said.... 'What items are sold the most at your stores?'... 'Where is your profit margin the greatest?' sources said. The bodega reps declined to answer.... 'They wanted us to share proprietary information with them but they don’t answer our questions and that’s why there is distrust,' said a bodega rep who did not want to be identified.... Mamdani’s plan to subsidize the grocery stores with taxpayer funds so they can offer rock-bottom prices on essential items threatens grocers who operate on 2% to 3% profit margins.... 'What is the main thing people come into your store for? What else do they buy while there?' 'It seems like a clumsy, one-sided fishing expedition,' a food policy expert who did not want to be identified told The Post.

From "Mamdani officials scramble to ease concerns about public supermarkets — but local business leaders aren’t buying it" (NY Post).

Su insisted that the city "wanted to understand is whether there are key products bodegas sell and rely on that we should not sell." And "That’s how serious we are about not undercutting them." The whole idea is about undercutting them. Now, the city seems to be trying to assure them that they won't undercut them too much. But the bodega owners don't trust the city. If there's a "2% to 3% profit margin" generally, but the city wants to know "Where is your profit margin the greatest?," it looks like the city wants its own operation to take advantage of the most profitable items. 

Sunrise.

At the Skylight Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

An overabundance of furniture.

On Wednesday, I saw the APT production of "The Chairs," which involved dragging an ever-increasing number of chairs into a surrealistic environment...

Then, on Friday, I went to the movies for the first time in over a year, to see "The Backrooms," and it too involved a piling up of furniture in a surrealistic environment....

It's a bit much. A bit meta. Seemingly separate surrealisms are converging. In one week, I'm seeing 2 things playing out so similarly, and I can't think of any other play/movie where the furniture was so important. I didn't set out to experience plentitudinous furniture.

Watching both the the play and the movie and thinking about them afterwards, I thought a lot about whether we were supposed to think of the place as a fantastical external environment that contained the characters or whether it was a depiction of the deteriorating state of a character's mind. 

"Fireworks release tiny particles that can irritate lungs and trigger asthma attacks, along with gases like carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide..."

"... and sulfur dioxide and metals including aluminum, manganese and cadmium, according to the American Lung Association. Even Freedom 250, the Trump-backed group that helped organize the event, acknowledged on its website that 'air quality will decline' and visibility 'may become compromised.' It advised children and older people to avoid extended time outdoors and advised residents to keep windows closed and to use air filters. 'It’s probably going to be incredibly hot and adding a firework show is just going to compound the air quality that’s already destined to be poor,' said Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonary physician.... He encouraged people with respiratory conditions like asthma to stay indoors and watch the spectacle on TV. 'Sometimes we need to just be mindful of safety versus grandiosity'.... Dogs tremble. They drool. They try to hide by cramming themselves into spaces that are too small. They have accidents indoors and tear up clothes or furniture...."

From "Bombs Bursting in Air Means Hours of Smoke and Confused Dogs in D.C./Organizers want the July 4 fireworks in the nation’s capital to break the world record. But the fun will also come with air pollution and possibly headaches for pet owners and zoo keepers" (NYT).

"Visitors in red, white and blue darkened with sweat stood in lines for hours, sometimes screaming in frustration and other times collapsing from exhaustion."

"The Independence Day parade was canceled and the Great American State Fair delayed. Steel fences and closed roads made photos of iconic monuments hard to capture. Both white supremacists and liberal activists marched through the city, each demanding their country back...."

I'm reading "America’s 250th celebrations marked by severe weather, political division/Officials ordered thousands of people to evacuate the National Mall after a severe weather warning that delayed President Donald Trump’s speech." That's in The Washington Post (not the NYT, as I'd accidentally had written).

"Small protests popped up throughout the day. One group lugged a 700-foot banner that read 'We the People' down Pennsylvania Avenue, condemning the president. About 50 people with another group, 'Refuse Fascism,' marched toward the White House, demanding that Trump leave office.... [H]undreds of uniformed members of Patriot Front, a white-supremacist group, marched toward the U.S. Capitol. Their faces covered in white masks, the men beat drums and carried flags — some upside down, others Confederate — as they chanted, 'Reclaim America!' Many gripped combat shields as they passed the Capitol building...."

How did the extra-important 4th look from your vantage point? 

"There’s always trouble in the Church of England.... They’re always tying themselves in knots about something or other."

"But this is a big one, because they’ve decided that their whole operation is a festival of ableism and that their meek priests are not feeling very blessed at all. One, quoted in a new report called 'All Kinds of Minds,' says that the pressure of trying to appear 'typical' means that when he gets home after a hard day at work (me neither) he has to lie on the floor to literally ground himself.... [T]he report reckons that the pressure on vicars to be loud and interesting puts intolerable pressure on those who are 'neurodivergent.'..."

Writes Jeremy Clarkson, in "I know how to fill churches. Deconsecrate them/My idea to fill the pews would mean hiring out churches for parties — but a new report focuses instead on calming down neurodivergent vicars" (London Times).

Clarkson goes on to crack some jokes at the expense of the neurodivergent, but I didn't think the jokes were much good, so let's just read that article he linked to: "Church urged to embrace neurodivergent parishioners (and priests)/A report says the assumptions that preachers should be extroverts and worshippers must sit still were contributing to 'cultures of ableism.'"

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Sunrise, 5:10, with ducklings.

Video by me.

"Fans gathered as close as they could to the arena in the 37C heat, hoping for a glimpse of the invitees."

The London Times reports the news/"news": Taylor Swift got married, in "Taylor Swift gets married to Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden/The bride chose Christian Louboutin shoes and jewellery from Cartier and both wore Dior for the ceremony officiated by the comedy actor Adam Sandler."

I see that these days, "Any person eighteen years old and over can solemnize a Marriage Ceremony in New York State AFTER obtaining a One-Day Marriage Officiant License from the Office of the City Clerk."

So you too can have a comedian officiate at your wedding.

"How did the adults of my youth manage these gatherings so effortlessly? Part of the answer is Oh, Dad, too: Life was simpler."

"Lake houses were more affordable then, and less fancy. No dishwasher, no A.C., no TV. And no choices. Meals happened at fixed times. You ate what appeared. Cleanup by committee followed, and then the moms would declare, 'The kitchen is closed,' with despotic authority. If we got hungry later, there were snacks. Snacks that would make a nutritionist spiral: Ruffles and onion dip, port wine cheese food. Breakfast was sugary cereal. Lunch was mystery bologna. Dinner was barbecue, beans and slaw. Repeat until Labor Day."

Writes Dan Kadlec, in "The Lake House That Taught Me How to Dad" (NYT)(gift link, in case you need to learn to dad).

"Casper weighed a little over 104 pounds at the time, which means the boy — who was 4 feet 2 inches tall when he died — gained roughly 150 pounds in less than two years. His diet consisted largely of potato chips and French fries...."

From "Michigan Couple Are Charged With Murder After Death of Morbidly Obese Son/Seven-year-old Casper O’Brien weighed 255 pounds when he died last year. Prosecutors said he was bedridden and subsisted on little more than snack foods" (NYT).

"These are very, very special times. And this is a very special place. You live in a very special place. Congratulations everybody."

Those were the very very very special words of our President, Donald J. Trump, speaking at Mount Rushmore, on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the 4th of July.

"And we rededicate ourselves to being a nation as big, bold, noble, and as great as these American giants. And that's not easy to do, but we're going to do it. These men could only have been made in the USA. Their faces are engraved on these bluffs, not only because of what they did, but to remind us forever who we are. These heroes exemplify what is timeless, enduring, and eternal about the American character. And in the end, it has always been that character, our distinct and unique identity. It is a truly unique identity and it'll never change.... Liberty has prevailed here because of the culture and character of the people who declared it, defended it, and preserved it.... The identity of a nation is the destiny of a nation. And America has a destiny like no other because we are a people like no other. For whatever reason, that's just the way it is.