"For a minute I thought this was going to be another Anne Carson post."

Wrote Smilin' Jack in the comments to the post that begins "His English mastiff was dying, so he hired her to read its mind. But when she met the man with the messy hair, he kept apologizing for his casual outfit."

And isn't this a lovely tribute to the literature Nobelist who's found her way into a few of my posts? 

There are some writers who rearrange your vision so that other things look as though they are influenced by her mind. That may be what Carson did to Jack and it may be what Carson did to me. Maybe I am picking out different things to blog or finding excerpts in some new way, framing the post differently, and maybe Jack is reading these things differently. 

Don't you want writers to shake up your world? Don't you want to live in the enchanted world where dogs to send you messages that psychics step up to translate? 

Carson says some things about dogs. Like this, from page 142 of the Kindle edition of "Wrong Norma" (commission earned):

The blue heron flies at dawn.

Video by Meade.

Post title inspired by vaguely familiar Hollywood spyspeak... or perhaps by that Jack Benny movie that only I remember.

"Like many of the earliest competitive eaters, Mr. Janus stumbled into the sport. He was working as a day trader in Manhattan..."

"... hating the stress of his job. One day he went looking for a way to relieve the pressure and found it in a St. Patrick’s Day eating contest — corned beef and cabbage.... 'He brought this unique level of thoughtfulness and earnestness to competitive eating,' Jason Fagone, the author of 'Horsemen of the Esophagus: Competitive Eating and the Big Fat American Dream' (2006), said in an interview. 'He took this thing that a lot of people just throw off as a joke, and he took it seriously.'... After he took up competitive eating, he began working nights at a pizza parlor, and eventually quit day trading to make pies full time. He never earned enough money in the sport to live off it exclusively — at the time, no one did — but he also insisted that money didn’t interest him. 'It’s never been about the cash; it’s always about the adventure.... One of these contests recharges me more than a week at the beach ever would.'"

From "Tim Janus, One of the World’s Greatest Competitive Eaters, Has Died/He brought rigor and strategy to the sport, rising to No. 2 in the world and eating 141 pieces of nigiri in six minutes in the process" (NYT).

He died at age 49 — and not of overeating. Of lung cancer.

(If that makes you think about the Pope, here's a BBC article about the Pope's lung cancer. He seems to be doing well after the removal of the lower lobe of his right lung. There are photos of him celebrating mass at the hospital, after the surgery.)

I'm giving this post my "sports" tag, but is this a sport? I want to say that it is. Grok agreed with me, here.

"His English mastiff was dying, so he hired her to read its mind. But when she met the man with the messy hair..."

"... he kept apologizing for his casual outfit. 'He told me, "Sorry for being dressed like this; I’m always in a suit on television,"' recalled [Celia] Melamed. 'I don’t have a television, so I had no idea what he was talking about.' The man was Javier Milei, at the time a TV pundit in Argentina known for railing against the government. The mastiff was Conan, soon to be Argentina’s most famous dog.... Ms. Melamed then became [Milei's] dedicated pet psychic. He kept hiring her for the next two years, she said, including to talk to Conan in the afterlife and to the five clones made with Conan’s DNA...."

From "The President’s Dog Psychic/In Argentina, many people try to read the mind of the president. Celia Melamed read the mind of his dogs" (NYT).

At the link to there's a photo of a book Milei wrote and autographed for Melamed. It says: "For Celia, TOTAL GENIUS OF THE UNIVERSE, the being of light who helped me find the way."

"Clad in a little white suit and cowboy boots, his hair a nimbus of blond curls that his mother had bleached and permed, he gestured and lunged, delivering his lines in a piping voice from a pint-size pulpit..."

"... and rolling his R’s as his mother had taught him: 'Hell is a place of extrrreme suffering.' 'I’m herrre to give the devil two black eyes.' 'I thank God for my good Chrrristian mother.' Marge sewed special pockets into his suits so that when he went through the congregation collecting offerings — $20 would get you a kiss from 'Little Marjoe' — there was ample room for the money.... He was good at his job, and he enjoyed being onstage, but he never believed in God. And he certainly didn’t believe in hell.By the time he was 14, the novelty of preaching had worn off, for him and his congregants. His voice was changing, and his father had abandoned the family and absconded with Marjoe’s earnings — some $3 million, he later estimated...."

I'm reading the obituary for Marjoe Gortner, "As a Child Evangelist, He Roused the Faithful. Later He Exposed the Con. An ordained minister at 4, Marjoe Gortner went on to star in a documentary that revealed the flimflammery of his former profession: 'You go into it like a business'" (NYT).

You can watch the whole documentary on Tubi, here.

"This is late stage capitalism, and this is your money — your future — being wasted on billionaires...."

The Tesla roadster is not okay https://t.co/10Z2AjVvxe

— Damien Slash (@damienslash) October 16, 2026

You might want to say: If it's my money, why are they billionaires? The answer would be: But that money they have is really your money. They need to give it back. This crazy flying-cars bullshit is taunting you. It's saying: Look at the nonsense we're throwing your money into, and we never asked if you wanted these toys we built for ourselves.

But don't be confused! The guy in the video, Damien Slash, is a comedian. He's doing satire. It's good enough satire and the world is weird enough that I think there are many people who believe everything he said.

And here's a little poll where I ask you to vote for the most intriguing machine of the week:

I don't know, and I don't like that language. I just want her to withdraw back into obscurity. Please.

I would like to just not have to talk about her. She's your spokesperson, and what she communicates is your incompetence in choosing her. Fix it.

I don't like the violent metaphor in this tweet, but I hope the observation here is correct.

I have a feeling Donald Trump called Sean Hannity and told him to assassinate her. And he did. This is the entire interview with the soon to be fired Katie Zacharia. It’s worth it. https://t.co/lBBkGcM7vO

— Evan (@daviddunn177) October 16, 2026

ADDED: The lawyer/attorney distinction is ludicrous. Painful. 

AND: Thanks!

"Unintimidated, undaunted, undeterred, they overwhelmed the Dodgers in every phase, outslugging their star-studded foes, countering every punch, perpetually pouring on pressure..."

"... and snatching the will of the defending champs, who couldn’t help but tip their caps afterward. 'No matter how much you win, these moments suck,' said Kiké Hernández. 'I've won a lot in my career, but I've also had a lot of these. They don't get easier. But they're playing unbelievable right now. Congrats to them. I hope that they end up winning it all. They're almost playing perfect baseball. That's a team that's incredibly hungry and incredibly talented. Their pitching was lights out. Their offense was almost suffocating.'"

Writes Rowan Kavner, in "The Dodgers' Three-Peat Dream Became An NLCS Nightmare. Now What?" (FOX Sports).

The view from the winning side: 

You are going to want to watch this Cooper Pratt interview. https://t.co/pgwSzLNupC

— Curt Hogg (@CyrtHogg) October 16, 2026

AND: A pithy graphic:

Sunrise on a rainy day.

"The French have a phrase for it: 'un engrenage,' a vicious spiral. That’s what France is in."

"Several crises have been long in the making; each now threatens to accelerate the others. The first is a crisis of liberal democracy. Polls suggest that the far right may take power in the presidential election next spring. The second is a crisis of fiscal mismanagement. France’s public debt has reached a record $4 trillion... The third is a crisis of youth disaffection. French students, protesting.... Mr. Macron deserves some of the blame for the mess. So does the opposition, from the far-left France Unbowed to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally...."

Writes Mujtaba Rahman, "the managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consulting firm," in "France Is No Longer in Control of Its Destiny" (NYT).

"Trump cancels Hegseth’s plan to live-stream Fort Hood shooter’s execution/The decision is a rebuke of the defense secretary, who has remained in the president’s good graces through numerous controversies."

The headline at WaPo.

Good!

Here's Trump's Truth Social Post:

Why we're rooting for Cleveland to win the American League Championship Series.

We like the idea of the Edmund Fitzgerald World Series. It's like a "subway series," but the geographic link is the Great Lakes:

An important update on the Edmund Fitzgerald World Series because we're not serious journalists 😂 @mikegolicjr | @golic | @JonCarroll03 | @Johnubacon https://t.co/kfUpM1rEOy

— The Golics (@thegolics) October 13, 2026

"The university decided to halt parties at fraternity houses, he said, because Cornell doesn’t 'have the full ability to be confident that what goes on in those houses is safe...."

"The pause, he added, was also a chance to 'take a step and carefully study' the issue of banning fraternities altogether, a step some have called for. Addressing a speaker who supported such a ban, Dr. Kotlikoff said he had just spoken with alumni who said that 'their sorority and fraternity experience was a very important part of their life at Cornell.' 'If at the end of the day, the fraternities cannot exist in a safe environment, and we can’t be convinced that they can be safe, then we should make that decision,' he said."

From "Cornell’s President Grilled by Faculty Senate Over Handling of Crisis/Ahead of a vote on a resolution of no confidence in Michael I. Kotlikoff, some faculty members said they were not swayed by steps he announced on Tuesday, including banning fraternity parties" (NYT).

"Mr. Vance, who just published a book about his conversion to Catholicism, has for weeks been road-testing unfounded, innuendo-based salvos against Mr. Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian."

"At the Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas last month, the vice president suggested that Mr. Talarico’s past statements supporting transgender children were evidence of inappropriate behavior. 'A guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children, I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser history,' Mr. Vance said. People in the crowd gasped and murmured. Some clapped. Mr. Vance has defended those comments. 'I think typically people who say stuff like that tend to have some pretty unusual search histories,' he said a day later. Mr. Talarico, who has said he has a longtime girlfriend, has largely ignored the vice president’s insinuations...."

From "Vance’s Talarico Attacks Show His Penchant for Personal Broadsides/At a rally in Texas, the vice president suggested the Democratic Senate nominee is gay, a comment criticized as homophobic" (NYT).

"You're telling me somebody wrote this — in 2026 — for SNL?"

“You can’t write those jokes — I have a master’s degree in creative writing” pic.twitter.com/vuU3B98sCn

— Douglass Mackey (@douglassmackey) October 15, 2026

Things to do on a rainy night in Wisconsin.

With rain in the forecast & the chance to clinch, the Brewers are hosting tonight’s watch party inside American Family Field. Tickets aren’t free anymore. They’re $15 and include a $10 food/bev credit, plus a $1 MLB service fee. Parking lots open at 4:30. Gates open at 5:30

— Sam Kraemer (@SamKraemerTV) October 15, 2026

Compare the fans in L.A.