Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"We don’t need presidents who have weird obsessions."

Said Kamala Harris, back in October 2020, blogged at the time, here.

I know that at the time I thought I bet all the Presidents have had a weird obsession. I know because I said that in a podcast at the time. 

That post and podcast predated access to Grok, so I didn't have the chance to use this prompt: Accept the hypothesis that every U.S. President had a weird obsession and to list all the Presidents with their weird obsession. I did use it today, though. Some of my favorites:

"Given all the lovemaking, it’s remarkable any of them had time for painting or poetry. But each activity reinforced the next, sex flowing into art..."

"... art turning into sex, all of it transforming what was ostensibly a holiday by the sea among friends into a frenzy of erotic and creative expression — an outpouring that, as Europe girded for war, acquired a rebellious political charge. 'It’s as if the group were thumbing their noses at fascism,' Thomasson writes, their lives and work serving as a 'manifesto for an alternative world to the one that was coming into being.'"

From "Sex and Surrealism on the French Riviera/A group of artists gathered at a hotel on the Côte d’Azur in 1937. A new book by Anna Thomasson captures the art and escapades the holiday inspired" (NYT).

I'm skeptical... but envious.

Is the book readable? Sample text: "We get a powerful sense of physicality. Of bodies, of limbs and breasts and bottoms and penises, alone or entwined, still or in action. We feel the warm sun and salt water on bare skin and sand between toes, intimacy and proximity and responsiveness and desire." It's really hard to write about sex! Actually, that writing reminds me of a podcast I like: "Boring History for Sleep." It goes on and on about how everything looks and feels and smells and sounds. 

Why is "Paint It Black" the most-played Rolling Stones song on Spotify?

Look, it has over 1.7 billion streams. The next most played Stones song — "Satisfaction" — has only 940 million.

I think it's the non-Boomers, discovering it through movies and TV and video games and TikTok. Here's a link to see the 180,000+ TikTok videos that use the recording. It seems quite popular with aviation (for males) and the wearing of black clothing (for females). And then there are tattoos:

"In those two minutes, you ask yourself existential questions about what time even is, what a body even is, what a feeling even is."

"It’s just a sensation, right? But knowing that pain — and there is pain — is just a sensation does not help you right now because that took three seconds to figure out and you still have a wild wagon-train trip to California to go. Did you mention that there’s a man with a ukulele there? He appears to work for this cold-plunge outfit, and he is wearing that dumb hat and quietly strumming — is that? — Leonard Cohen’s 'Hallelujah'? You love that song and have never enjoyed it less. Your hatred for this man only buys seven or eight more seconds, and as you cast your mind about, looking for something else to get you through, a strange thing happens...."

Writes Taffy Brodesser-Akner, in "I Survived a Cold Plunge and All I Got Was Everything I Ever Wanted/I resisted the trend until I couldn’t any longer" (NYT).

By the way, do you need a fancy cold plunge machine or a session at a cold plunge commercial establishment? Can't you just fill up your bathtub with water from the cold tap and maybe toss in the ice that's accumulated in the bin inside the refrigerator? That was a good question for Grok.

"We take what we do very seriously. We’re not making little goody bags — we’re really thinking out what it is people need the most."

Said Jeffrey Newman, quoted in "Jayson Conner, 48, and Jeffrey Newman, 58, Die; Gave Thousands of Backpacks to Those in Need/The couple, who died within a few days of each other, provided needed supplies, like socks and wet wipes, to people living on New York City’s streets" (NYT).

Goodbye to Lindsey Graham.

"Lindsey Graham, longtime senator from South Carolina, dies at 71/Graham, a staunch Trump ally and key GOP foreign policy voice, was running for reelection this year. He died of a 'brief and sudden illness,' his office said" (WaPo)(gift link).

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"And I’ve also gotten into this habit of doing songs that are about personal relationships and then I throw a verse about politics in there."

"That’s a trick that I’ve learned from other songwriters, because nobody wants to hear a whole song about politics or social comment. A blues song like 'Rough and Twisted,' you talk about women and everything, but then you throw in stuff that’s obviously political: 'The only club was called conspiracy.' 'What they wanted was tyranny.' So you find yourself using these tricks."

Said Mick Jagger, in an interview at "Mick Jagger Knows He May Have Played His Last Rolling Stones Show" (NYT).

ADDED: I like this part about philosophy: 

"They’re always having so many arguments, these philosophers, and always disagreeing with their masters. I was reading this book on Kant. They’re quite rude to each other and then they have to make up later, and I can’t understand what they’re really talking about. Was Kant a Christian? Was he an atheist?"

The interviewer, David Marchese, enthuses, "I think it’s cool that you’re reading Kant." And Mick responds coolly: "Well, it’s all vaguely fashionable."

"Hiking in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, the one and only time he dropped acid... Mr. Cunningham peered down at the town of Silverton and was overcome by the feeling..."

"... that 'cars were the boss and people were the servants of the cars.' In the 1970s, he had been known for wearing a mask around the Bay Area, breathing with an oxygen tank to protect his lungs from air polluted by cars. Other machines could also drive him to distraction. He and Ms. Phelan, who married in 1988, regularly slept in what was essentially a treehouse outside their home in Fairfax, Calif., near San Anselmo — for the fresh air and the nightly respite from the plugged-in world of cellphones, fax machines, televisions and computers...."

From "Charlie Cunningham, Mountain Bike Innovator, Dies at 77/In the late 1970s, he built what is considered the first off-road bicycle with a frame that was aluminum rather than steel, one of his many inventions" (NYT).

"Who’s ever written a great work about the immense effort required in order not to create? Could it be that in this passivity, I shall find my freedom?"

Says the character identified as "Dostoyevsky Wannabe" in the credits to the sublime 1991 film "Slacker," quoted in a Daily Texan article, "Linklater’s Austin, 35 Years Later."

I've watched that movie many times, but not in the last 10 years. I should watch again. I think it might feel like scrolling in TikTok, which could elevate scrolling in TikTok and maybe explain why, on any given day, I'd rather scroll in TikTok than watch a movie on television. I like the fragmentation!

At the Milkweed Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"Platner’s Rise and Fall Revives Old Questions About ‘Bernie Bros’ and Women."

A NYT piece by Patricia Mazzei and Kellen Browning.

I have to stop and remember what "Bernie Bros" were... other than name-calling coming from — if I remember correctly — the Hillary Clinton camp.

I see I have a tag "Bernie Bro," and the main post, quite helpfully, is "Where did it come from — this myth of 'Bernie bros'? It's from February 9, 2016. I wrote:

I'm seeing articles like "Bill Clinton Accuses Bernie Bros of Sexism." But what are "Bernie Bros"?

So this is precisely what I want to read before ingesting that new NYT piece.

"Mr. Rubio could be the next leader of Venezuela, Mr. Trump suggested. And while the president’s aides say he was joking... the fact is that Mr. Rubio does not need to move to Caracas."

"He already runs Venezuela from Washington.... While he has not visited Venezuela in person since the U.S. took over, the secretary of state is deeply involved in the country’s day-to-day operations, keeping in close contact with Delcy Rodríguez, who was Mr. Maduro’s vice president and now leads her country on an acting basis, with the imprimatur of the United States. The two exchange messages in Spanish on WhatsApp, trading gossip, birthday greetings and selfies. Despite the banter, the relationship between Mr. Rubio and Ms. Rodríguez is far from a partnership. It is a manifestation of Trump-era American power, in which the winner takes all regardless of sovereignty and international law.... In the early hours of Jan. 3, shortly after Mr. Maduro was captured, Mr. Rubio reached Ms. Rodríguez by phone. Speaking in Spanish, Mr. Rubio told her that she had a choice between working with the United States or witnessing a broader attack targeting Venezuela’s infrastructure, military bases and senior officials. After some negotiation, Ms. Rodríguez agreed...."

From "How Marco Rubio is Running Venezuela From Afar/The secretary of state effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources and its government. His grip on the country is a vivid manifestation of American power in the Trump era" (NYT).

"These MAGA mouthpieces complaining about Candace Owens are just getting a taste of their own medicine."

That's the top-rated comment at the Washington Post article, "Conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s death are still raging, infuriating friends/Right-wing influencers sparred over the case this week as a court hearing laid out detailed evidence in Kirk’s shooting" (gift link).

"Any sport where the man is wearing panties is not a sport."

Said Riley Gaines's father, when college recruiters were interested in Riley both for both swimming and for softball.

Quoted in "Riley Gaines: If JK Rowling agrees with me, I’m doing the right thing/America’s most famous opponent of transgender athletes in women’s sports is celebrating a Supreme Court win. She is ‘vindicated’ — and emboldened by her British husband" (London Times).

There's also this quote from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth."

That's from last October, when JK Rowling tweeted, "@Riley_Gaines doesn’t defend women’s rights for attention or money, any more than I do. We fight because it’s the only thing to do if you’re not a coward, a pick me or a living doormat."

The London Times is very interested in the British husband, Louis Barker, who, we're told, "is on his way to becoming a jeans-wearing, truck-driving, job-creating American man, with a beard and a mullet and a construction company. Gaines says she has recently caught him saying 'y’all' and 'ain’t.'"

Gaines says: