At the Wednesday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"When he lit a cigarette, a nurse in blue scrubs appeared over his shoulder, peering at Hockney with apparent concern."

"But by staying silent, the nurse respected the buttons that both he and Hockney wore, reading 'End Bossiness Soon.' The artist made those after the British government banned smoking in public spaces in 2007. These days, Hockney has 24-hour medical care, and ensuring that he will be well enough to go to Paris for the exhibition opening has been a priority for his team. He planned to travel by car, with his dachshund, Tess; his doctor would travel separately, he said. 'I am looking forward to it, because it is the largest exhibition I’ve ever had. Which it should be,' Hockney said with a wry smile. 'Shouldn’t it, really?'"

From "David Hockney Wants His Biggest Ever Show to Bring You Joy/The artist is 87 now and under constant medical care. But he was determined to make it to Paris for the exhibition of his life" (NYT)(free-access link).

"[Al] Gore said he believed the courts would prevent Trump from implementing some of his most extreme moves."

"I don’t think he’s going to be able to get away with that,' he said. 'I think we’re more resilient as a constitutional, representative democracy than a lot of people of fear.'"

From "Why Al Gore Is Shifting His Climate Activism Abroad/Given the Trump administration’s recent moves relating to climate, the former vice president is looking to the developing world for the next generation of climate activism" (NYT).

When Biden was President, "democracy" meant gracefully accepting the result of the election and working on winning the next election. But with Trump as President, "democracy" means stopping the duly elected President from doing what voters heard him promise he'd do.

I'm just asking for a stable definition of "democracy" to go along with the demand for our devotion to it. I agree with Gore that the courts have role to play. But it's a counter-majoritarian role. And we can argue about the scope of their role and whether they are doing too much or too little. We'll see how they do.

"The tape sat unremarkably on a shelf behind the counter, collecting dust for five, maybe 10 years — so much time that Rob Frith says he lost track."

"Frith, 69, could not seem to recall how it had found its way to Neptoon Records, his store in Vancouver, British Columbia, which in its 44 years has become a repository for tens of thousands of vinyl records and other musical relics.... "

So begins "Rare Beatles Audition Tape Surfaces in a Vancouver Record Shop/The recording appears to be from the band’s 1962 audition for Decca Records, which notably rejected the group" (NYT).

"As the men began posting about their discovery on social media, clues about the provenance of the recording began to emerge. Jack Herschorn, the former president and founder of Can-Base Records, a Vancouver label, said that a producer at Decca gave him the tape in the early 1970s and suggested that he could use it to make bootleg recordings. But he said he had qualms about doing so. 'I adored the Beatles,' Herschorn said. 'I wasn’t going to do anything that was not morally correct in my mind.' Herschorn, who now lives in Mexico, said that he put the tape into storage before leaving the record label, which later went bankrupt."

"While in [Justice] Kavanaugh’s neighborhood, Roske kept the gun, unloaded, in a locked box in the suitcase."

"When police searched the luggage, they also found 37 rounds of ammunition, according to earlier court filings, along with a tactical flashlight with a laser that could be mounted on the gun, a 'James Bond' lock pick set, a black face mask, a pair of 'hard-knuckled' tactical gloves, four black zip ties and hiking boots with padded soles affixed to their bottoms that police earlier said were for stealthy movement...."

From "Man accused in 2022 Kavanaugh assassination plot to plead guilty, lawyers say/Nicholas Roske, 29, was accused of flying from California and approaching Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home with a gun before turning himself in" (WaPo).

A quote from Roske: "I was under the delusion that I could make the world a better place by killing him."

"I told my lawyer, I said, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing that.’ He said, ‘Well, you know, you’ll be in contempt of court’ and this and that."

"I go, ‘OK. Well, how about this? I dare the judge to put me in jail for not wanting to visit [my] abusive father. I actually, I’m gonna double down on that. I double-dare him to arrest the most famous kid in the world."

Said Macaulay Culkin, quoted in "Macaulay Culkin makes scathing remarks about estranged ‘narcissistic’ dad Kit" (NY Post).

Things not found on eBay.

I see Pete Townshend recently said, "Four and a half weeks ago, I had my left knee replaced.... Maybe I should auction off the old one."

Quoted in "The Who singer Roger Daltrey going deaf and blind at 81: ‘The joys of getting old’" (NY Post)(I think Daltrey was just setting up a "Tommy" joke: He still has his voice or he'd "have a full Tommy.")

Do they let you take your old knee home with you after a replacement? I'm picturing Pete Townshend's knee in a glass case at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame labeled with some riff on "hope I die before I get old." It would be like those relics of saints you might see in an old cathedral. I'm not Catholic, but I've wondered about the inconsistency with the visualization of Judgment Day of bodies rising up out of graves — as depicted in the "Last Judgment" mural in the Sistine Chapel.

Isn't this why some people don't want to donate their organs — they think they might need them in the afterlife? Wouldn't it be a kick in the head if failing to check the organ-donor box on your driver's license turned out to be the shortcoming that barred you from heaven?

"That speech puts Cory Booker as one of the leaders for the Democratic Party for 2028."

Said "Frank Luntz: Booker marathon speech 'may have changed the course of political history'" (The Hill).

Everyone's talking like Trump now. Just get rid of the weasel word "may" and you have Trump-style rhetoric: Booker's speech changed the course of political history.

And then there was Elon Musk the other day, saying that the Wisconsin Supreme Court election would affect the entire destiny of humanity. No, he wasn't that Trumpian. He had weasel words. He said "I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will."

Speaking of speaking bluntly, here's Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley talking about that election:

How to dress to work in the garden... if you are a goddess.

I got that image from the front page as it looks right now. It's sandwiched between "Tesla Sales Are Slumping, Even in the Most E.V.-Friendly Place" and "After a Slow Start, High-Speed Rail Might Finally Arrive in America."

Those 3 things in a row... oh, New York Times... must you?

IN THE COMMENTS: Aggie said, "Well, at least they got a good picture in that place away from the cameras."

"The long con of the left is corruption of the judiciary.... It has been brewing in legal academia for 20 to 30 years."

Says Elon Musk.

The left-wing ideology says the right-wing ideology is an even longer con.

Everyone's ideology says the other side's ideology is a con.

Overheard on the street during the Wisconsin protests of 2011: "All the assholes are over on the other side."

"Tesla is the only company with all the ingredients for making intelligent humanoid robots at scale."

"My prediction is that Optimus will be the biggest product of all time by far. It will be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made."

ELON MUSK: "Tesla is the only company with all the ingredients for making intelligent humanoid robots at scale.

My prediction is that Optimus will be the biggest product of all time by far. It will be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made." pic.twitter.com/Aqa6SsnsQW

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) April 2, 2025

Musk moves quickly into successes and failures. Yes, we could pause to cry a tear over Brad Schimel — upon whom once rested "the entire destiny of humanity" — but look here: Musk has got the biggest product ever made.

And:

pic.twitter.com/ZoideOC1RU

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2025

All right now. Who would mope about Wisconsin?!

There’s no success like failure....

AND: Embracing the notion that there's no success like failure, Musk now tweets: "I expected to lose, but there is value to losing a piece for a positional gain."

"Why Do We Want to Believe That Jim Morrison Is Still Alive?"

Asks Naomi Fry (at The New Yorker). Subheadline: "The singer died in 1971. A new documentary series posits that he faked his death to escape the burden of fame, and is living in hiding."

That prompted me to ask Grok, "What was that movie in the 1980s about a rock star who faked his death so he could live life as an unknown? Maybe something like 'Eddie and the Cruisers.'"

The answer made me laugh: "You're likely thinking of Eddie and the Cruisers, a 1983 film that fits your description perfectly...."

Yes, Grok doesn't know what I'm thinking. I'm enjoying its circumspection. I'm likely thinking of "Eddie and the Cruisers" when I suggest that the movie I'm thinking of is maybe something like "Eddie and the Cruisers." So meticulous. That's what I want from my A.I.

Later in that artificially intelligent conversation, I wrote: "I'm seeing a New Yorker article, 'Why Do We Want to Believe That Jim Morrison Is Still Alive?' That strikes me as the better path for reflection. Not: Is he alive. But: Why do we want to believe that this particular dead person is alive? What if some other famous person really did withdraw from celebrity life and live on as — to coin a phrase — a complete unknown? They'd be looking on as people imagined Elvis or Jim still walking the earth and thinking: What about me? If I were writing a screenplay about this character, which dead celebrity could I choose to portray as the central character who had made himself too unknown and now struggles to return to the world as a somebody but realizes that no one will really care because it's not as though Elvis or Jim returned into the light."

Meanwhile, Jim was brought back to life in a movie, "The Doors" (1991). And now, we see that Val Kilmer — the actor who played him — died yesterday.

Sunrise — 6:32, 6:41.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

Turnout in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

I'm just watching what rolls in on my search on X for "wisconsin turnout." It's being said that high turnout favors Schimel (the Trump-endorsed candidate), and I'm seeing a lot of Schimel-oriented gloating about turnout on my plainly neutral search.

Sample tweets: "The first turnout numbers in Wisconsin indicate we could see an incredible 35% increase in turnout over the 2023 State Supreme Court race. That's +650K raw votes"/"Large voter turnout in our Wisconsin small community"/"I was number 123 at 10:00 a.m. this morning and are very rural small town in Central Wisconsin population 400. my sister voted at 8:00 a.m. at the same place and she was 25 so pretty good turnout for our little area."

"In 1984, the play gave memorable shape to a growing understanding that the underworld of sleazy small business was merely a microcosm of the bigger, more polite variety"

"It suggested the way social Darwinism lay at the root of our economic system, with its zero-sum games and dominance pyramids. There’s a reason Mitch and Murray, the owners of the agency and creators of the contest, are never seen, like golden-parachuters or two-bit Godots.... [David Mamet's] ideas have become conventional in the process of being overtaken and one-upped by reality. The whole world, many feel, is now a consortium of thugocracies, some even sanctioned by popular acclaim. In that context, two-bit players are too puny to worry about, and greed at the scale of a Cadillac unremarkable."

Writes Jesse Green, in "'Glengarry Glen Ross' Review: Caveat Emptor, Suckers!/Kieran Culkin, Bill Burr and Bob Odenkirk star in a bumpy revival of David Mamet’s play about salesmen with nothing worth selling" (NYT).

Kid Rock describes his dinner with Bill Maher and Donald Trump (and Dana White).

Kid Rock reveals how the White House dinner with President Trump, Bill Maher, and Dana White went last night. pic.twitter.com/jvY6tfFqC4

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) April 1, 2025

"It could not have been better. Everyone was so surprised, so pleasant.... We talked about things we had in common — ending wokeness, securing the border.... It blew my mind. I was very proud.""

Kid says he was "shocked" that Maher — for all his big contributions to Democratic candidates — had never been to the White House. And Trump was "so gracious — he took us up to the private residence, we saw the Gettysburg Address in the Lincoln Bedroom."

What did Kid Rock wear?

😂 pic.twitter.com/gBcA9SLl1a

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2025