Actually, he was eating a pancake. (Meade makes pancakes nearly every morning. When he gave me mine this morning, he said "Here's your circle of grain for the morning," because the evening circle of grain, Meade-made, is pizza.)
Ah! That was a year ago, when Meade was on a pizza kick. The pancake kick continues, but the pizza is long gone.
Also in the search results on "pancake": "Things I Can't Stand About the Presidential Campaign./(A new regular feature here.)" Hey! I should have done more of those, because there are so many things I can't stand. That was from the 2004 election. I should revive the not-so-regular "regular feature." What was bugging me 8 years ago that was pancake related?
Our wartime President, six months before the election, is riding around in a bus, going to small towns in Ohio. (Search term used to find the article I read in the paper NYT in the NYT on line: "pancake"--something I recount here because it's part of the problem. The President is flipping pancakes to justify his reelection?)
When police responded, they discovered [20-year-old Cailin] Nelson’s mouth “was compacted with pancakes almost to her teeth,” the lawsuit said. One officer said the “glob of pancake paste in her airway” was “‘like concrete.'”...
The lawsuit... called Nelson’s death “as foreseeable as it was horrific,” alleging the university is at fault for allowing the pancake-eating contest to happen.... Beyond the “inherent risks” of holding an eating contest with participants who are not professional speed eaters, the lawsuit also pointed out the “particular hazard of pancakes.”
Cooked pancakes, which largely consist of flour and liquid, turn into a “thick glob of paste” when they come into contact with saliva or other liquids, the lawsuit said.... “Once a person’s airway is obstructed by a glob of macerated pancake paste, rescue becomes exponentially more difficult,” the lawsuit said.
Nelson suffered severe brain damage and died "days later."
Should this be the end of amateur eating contests? Should it be the end of all contests where participants get carried away and go for the win without paying attention to what is happening within their own bodies?
Actually, he was eating a pancake. (Meade makes pancakes nearly every morning. When he gave me mine this morning, he said "Here's your circle of grain for the morning," because the evening circle of grain, Meade-made, is pizza.)
I'd just said: "There's a big civil disobedience event at the Capitol in 15 minutes."
Did Meade continue to eat his pancake or did Meade stop mid-'cake to answer the new media call?
This is more of a public debate... or a shakedown. I can't imagine how any conceivable legal claim could survive a statute of limitations defense. But it's a publicity problem for Quaker Oats. And if you're going to apply moral pressure, it's convenient that the company is named after a religion associated with high moral values. At this point, the company's response is that Aunt Jemima is a fictional character symbolizing "a sense of caring, warmth, hospitality and comfort." The plaintiffs are leaning on us to see Aunt Jemima as "one of the most exploited and abused women in American history."
I wonder what the descendants of Larry have in mind litigation-wise? You know what I'm talking about? Larry? This is Larry:
Reparations... micro-reparations. If micro-reparations are $2 billion, just think what the reparations would be for all of the most exploited and abused people in American history.
"... and then deteriorated into space junk. The allure of invention in the category is understandable, since preparing meals is a Sisyphean task and anything that promises to make it faster, or easier, or better, or healthier, or more fun, is irresistible—and often, for a while, anyway, profitable for the manufacturer. Some cooking 'tools' are so specific and inessential that they are hardly missed: cue the microwave s’mores maker, the pancake pen, the carrot sharpener, the hot-dog slicer, and the butter cutter. Many of these haven’t vanished completely; they have just transitioned from ubiquitous (or at least a fixture on Christmas-gift lists) to rarities, from being items you feel that you must have and will use to dust catchers that will end up front and center in your next Goodwill donation.
Other kitchen devices, such as the fondue pot, are so culturally and stylistically time-stamped that they become shorthand for an entire era and method of entertaining, long after anyone makes regular use of them...."
Homemade pancakes are like a thick batter. The batter will have milk and flour salt and sugar and probably vanilla. Extrapolate from that. Blueberries bleed and turn the batter a weird color. You can hold off and toss the berries onto the pancake after the batter is poured onto the pan. Very specific ratios must be followed. If the batter is too thick or too thin then adjustments are not allowed. In fact, all creativity is disallowed. There are no variations to pancakes. If you change one single thing, this kitten here get's it.
21 trillion eggs
17 B-52's of milk pasteurized to minus 27 degrees Celsius
1 light year vanilla extract
487 billion salts
18 pretzels
42 giraffes of green and yellow wines
bake for 400 trees and smash flat with a box of toothpicks.
Serves 81 for 18 minutes each. Serve with ratchets and propellers. Surplus can be frozen for 76 years.
I meant to mention, this only works for the little over half of you guys here who live on the planet were twenty trillion dollars in national debt is not a deciding factor in national elections. I heard you guys were here and thought, hey, maybe they'd like some pancakes bon appétit.
Trump became upset late last week when he learned from media reports that Manafort privately told Republican leaders that the billionaire reality TV star was “projecting an image” for voters and would begin toning down his rhetoric, according to the sources....
“I think it pisses him off that [Manafort] was getting free television by going on the shows and now Paul Manafort is out there resurrecting his career,” said one campaign operative. Citing Manafort’s advocacy within the campaign for an expensive advertising push in upcoming states, the operative said Trump is “saying I can get on every show I want for free and you're telling me not to do that and that I should pay for my advertising? That doesn't pass the smell test to me.”...
On Monday, as [Trump] again mocked the idea of behaving in a more “presidential” manner at two rallies in Pennsylvania, Trump called John Kasich a “slob” after calling attention to his penchant for eating too much on the campaign trail and blasted him and Cruz, whom he called “an ass,” for “colluding” to stop him — every broadside delivered in his trademark vernacular and an implicit rebuke to those handlers looking to rein him in.
“He has a news conference all the time when he's eating. I have never seen a human being eat in such a disgusting fashion,” Trump said, imitating the noshing. “This guy takes a pancake and he's shoving it in his mouth. It’s disgusting.” While Trump has managed to avoid the cameras during mealtime, Kasich has broken bread with them, as readers can see from these flavorful shots from the campaign trail.
Isn't Kasich trying to make up for that one time he got caught on camera eating pizza with a fork? He's trying to look "disgusting" — i.e., like a man of the people, chomping hard into hand-held stuff — isn't he?
Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote
He’s a-runnin’ for office on the ballot note
He’s out there preachin’ in front of the steeple
Tellin’ me he loves all kinds-a people
(He’s eatin’ bagels
He’s eatin’ pizza
He’s eatin’ chitlins
He’s eatin’ bullshit!)
"Try to imagine James Brown, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Elton John, and Prince without his electrical charge. Little Richard was an original, and he did not hesitate to remind his students of their debt. He once looked into a television camera and, with affection, told Prince, 'I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!'... Richard Penniman was born in 1932 into a large, poor Christian family, in Macon, Georgia. His father was a brick mason and a bootlegger. One of Richard’s legs was shorter than the other, making him a source of mockery among other children. 'They thought I was trying to twist and walk feminine... The kids would call me faggot, sissy, freak.'... Even as a child singer, Richard was known for his high range and incredible volume. But, in his father’s eyes, he was unbearably effeminate and not to be tolerated. When Richard was a teen-ager, he was thrown out of the house and went to live with Ann and Johnny Johnson, a white couple who ran a local venue, the Tick Tock Club.... Throughout his teens, he was in and out of outfits like Buster Brown’s Orchestra (where he got the name Little Richard) and the Tidy Jolly Steppers. He sang, sometimes wearing a red evening gown, under the name Princess Lavonne, in Sugarfoot Sam’s Minstrel Show."
It was a medicine show spiritualist pseudo-psychic passing through town named Doctor Nobilio who was the first to tell Richard he would be massively famous—he just needed to get the hell out of Macon. He quit high school and joined up with a series of amazingly-titled rinky-dink traveling shows, initially billed as Little Richard, and then as the great Princess Lavonne. He performed with Dr. Hudson’s Medicine Show, Sugarfoot Sam from Alabam, the Tidy Jolly Steppers, and the Broadway Follies. Princess Lavonne was an intense, hilarious Queen in Pancake 31 makeup. He worked on his schtick, but ultimately was an awkward drag performer. He had a natural gift to electrify and seduce, but with his mismatched legs, he couldn’t figure out how to walk or dance in heels so he would just stand still and wait for someone to open and close the curtain...
I'd also love to hear the story from the perspective of Ann and Johnny Johnson. Who were these white people who took in Little Richard when his father was so cruel to him? Or was his father cruel to him?
In the promo for the new webseries, Seinfeld's old partner Larry David affirms that connection: "It's comedy in cars with coffee. What does that mean? ... You have finally done a show about nothing!"
Here's the first episode of "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee." Nice attention to the car (a 1952 split-window Volkswagen). The episode title is "Larry Eats a Pancake."
I'm a big fan of the 2-guys-talking-in-a-restaurant genre. My favorite movie is "My Dinner With Andre."
Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote
He’s a-runnin’ for office on the ballot note
He’s out there preachin’ in front of the steeple
Tellin’ me he loves all kinds-a people
(He’s eatin’ bagels
He’s eatin’ pizza
He’s eatin’ chitlins
He’s eatin’ bullshit!)
But, note, Donald Trump isn't eating in that photograph. He's posing with food. And Donald Trump was one of the main people who mocked Kasich for eating: "He has a news conference all the time when he's eating. I have never seen a human being eat in such a disgusting fashion. This guy takes a pancake and he's shoving it in his mouth. It’s disgusting."
Now, back to today's quote: "Happy Cinco de Mayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!" That's got to be so wrong on so many levels. Or is it a trap?
This morning, I learned via Facebook that there was a civil disobedience event planned for the first floor of the Wisconsin Capitol, where some people holding signs were ticketed by police yesterday. Alerted that it was going to begin in 15 minutes, Meade, mid-pancake, shifted into action and got there in time to catch the action:
The video begins and ends with shots of school kids enjoying the Capitol in traditional style, standing and lying down in the center of the rotunda, gazing up into the magnificent dome. In between, we see Ben Masel — the iconic Madison activist — holding up a protest sign, which is supposedly now forbidden at the first floor level. He also reads the free-speech portion of the Wisconsin Constitution, which is right there, as one of the 4 first floor monuments. (You've seen Meade and me protecting the Veterans Monument.) But Ben and his small cadre of civil disobeyers don't manage to get themselves arrested, and we see them file out, past the monumental head of Robert La Follette.
By the way, I think if the protests are going to be confined to one area of the Capitol, it would be better to have them on the first floor, leaving the rotunda free for the kids to scamper about — without tripping on signs — and lie down where they can get the best view up into the dome. That's an aesthetic and child-loving opinion, not a legal opinion.
My son Christopher writes that he watched last night's debate on high definition TV, and:
Hillary Clinton's lipstick looked different in HD. It was kind of weird. Her lipstick looked overly glossy and stuck out, almost a little garish. You can tell it's sort of like stage makeup. When she first came on her lipstick actually popped out in a Rocky Horror-ish way. That was my first impression when she was in close-up. I mean, and it looked good on regular TV but looked way overdone on HD.
He likes Hillary Clinton, by the way.
It seems that there is a problem with doing a woman's makeup so that it works on both regular TV and HDTV.
Actually, I would have thought HDTV would be a bigger problem for the men, because you don't want to think of them as wearing any makeup at all. Remember when we noticed Al Gore's makeup?
In his first debate with George W. Bush, Gore appeared in orange makeup applied thickly to cover a sunburn. He looked awful. Commentators compared him to Lurch from The Addams Family, "Herman Munster doing a bad Ronald Reagan impression," and "a big, orange, waxy, wickless candle." One columnist wrote that "it looked like he melted down orange circus peanuts and then asked Tammy Faye for a 'light' dusting." San Francisco Examiner television critic Tim Goodman landed one of the most quoted blows: "If you'd stuck him in a push-up bra and a sequin dress and had him sing show tunes, he'd have carried San Francisco in a landslide."
The vice president became The Man Who Wears Too Much Makeup. The label has endured as a trope of late-night comedians - "If Al Gore took off half his makeup and gave it to Warren Christopher, they'd both look a lot better," said Jay Leno... - and as color for political journalists. This isn't just fun at the vice president's expense. Commentators treat Gore's pancake problem as if it has deeper significance. It makes him seem bumbling, unmanly, and, most of all, phony.
Poor Al Gore. So it was a sunburn that led to his losing the election? Is that why he's so angry about global warming?
Just kidding, anti-Althousians. Stand clear of the vortex.
The subject is here is: makeup, HDTV, and the possible disparate impact on the female candidate. And Al Gore. You can kick him around a little if you must. About makeup. Or... whatever.
He built an app that used a Facebook search function for public events to find ones near him. Then the app would randomly choose which event Max would attend.
At first, he was nervous: What if people wouldn't let him in? But, as a kind of unassuming white guy, he actually didn't have this problem. (And Max acknowledges this privilege.) Once Max explained how and why he had arrived at these events, hosts usually welcomed him, often with only a few questions asked. Most of the time, people were taken by the idea of Max expanding his bubble.
One night, he got to drink white Russians with some Russians. Another, he attended acroyoga (as in, acrobatics + yoga). A community center pancake breakfast. A networking event for young professionals. The algorithm chose; Max attended.
Most of these events were something that the nonrandomized Max would never have thought to try. The computer was breaking him out of a life driven by his own preferences.... Would the old Max have chosen to attend a socialists' rally in Berlin? Or a meetup for bloggers of central Iowa?...
How does it work with a nonunassuming white guy or a nonwhite unassuming guy or an unassuming white woman or a nonunassuming white woman or an unassuming black woman or a nonunassuming black woman or a nonunassuming black man? I'm glad there is such an app and an idea of randomizing your life. And I'm glad Max acknowledges his privilege. You might think that an unassuming white woman (like me) would have the most privilege when arriving somewhere randomly, but I find it very difficult to go into scenes where I'm not sure my presence is welcome and virtually always err on the side of not imposing. But perhaps if an app dictated where I would go, it would get me out of that box.
ALSO: When "Max explained how and why he had arrived at these events, hosts usually welcomed him," but he's one guy, with his own new and quirky idea. If the app were to catch on, there'd be multiple Maxes, all over the place. At some point, people would feel overrun. What if you tried to set up some public event for some specific purpose and then all you got were 10 Maxes? Maybe there's a stage 2 to this social experiment.
Haha, are you tired of dry, lifeless hamburgers, Sarge? Why not enjoy this burger? It’s made up of flesh that’s been shredded into innumerable tendrils by an enormous industrial meat grinder; yet somehow, impossibly, that flesh is still alive, still moving, those tendrils writhing and squirming. The abomination has no eyes, so it cannot see, yet somehow it still senses the presence of another living thing, and so it drags itself impossibly across the plate, leaving an oozing trail of blood behind. It moves ever so slowly, and Sarge is paralyzed in terror as it twitches towards him. It hungers, he knows; it hungers for revenge, and to feed. He feels the clammy touch as the leading edge of this pulsating meat-mass touches his hand. He wants to run, wants to scream. But he cannot.
Dr. Gosnell’s lawyer, Jack J. McMahon... dismissed prosecutors’ arguments that an arm movement by one of the fetuses, known as Baby C, indicated that it was alive. He said that the movement was “one spasm” but that the fetus was not breathing....
But Edward Cameron, an assistant district attorney, said that Baby C responded and “pulled back” when touched by medical staff. “That’s voluntary movement, and that’s all the law requires,” Mr. Cameron said. “That baby was alive.”... Mr. Cameron also highlighted the case of Baby D, which he said was 10 to 15 inches long and had a head “as big as a pancake.” It was moving when it was delivered into a toilet, Mr. Cameron said.
Garner says: "I like reading Klosterman. He’s a dorm-room philosopher and, on pop topics, the overthinker’s overthinker." Despite the headline for the review, Garner is less interested in the prediction of doom — which "takes up a relatively small portion of his book, mostly at the beginning and at the end" — and more interested in what else is in there: "The 'football is doomed' material is like a pancake that arrives alongside an order of Peking duck. The tastiest stuff is mostly tucked inside." Like that Walz material.
I've read a few Chuck Klosterman books. Click my Chuck Klosterman tag. I like the writing style. Here's an example from the NYT review: "[Football] will never completely disappear, in the same way you can still hear jazz on NPR and you can still smoke Lucky Strikes inside a casino."
The backlash comes from people who say they suffer from an obscure and perplexing condition called “trypophobia” — a fear of clusters of small holes like those found in shoe treads, honeycombs and lotus seed pods.... The phobia isn’t recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders... But self-described sufferers and some researchers claim the images can evoke a strong emotional response and induce itching, goose bumps, and even nausea and vomiting....
Ah, yes. Of course. I've written about trypophobia twice already on this blog. In 2013, I told you about the subreddit devoted to the peculiarity, r/trypophobia. And I see that they're expressing themselves about the new phone:
And here's my 2017 post, on the occasion of an "American Horror Story" poster that triggered trypophobes.
Back to WaPo and the new iPhone:
In 2016, Kendall Jenner raised the condition’s profile when she wrote a blog post saying the images give her “the worst anxiety.” “Things that could set me off are pancakes, honeycomb, or lotus heads (the worst!)," she wrote. “It sounds ridiculous but so many people actually have it!”
Pancakes! I know what she's referring to — the look of the batter when it's time to flip.
Flip the pancake. But for some people, apparently, flip their lid.
Back to WaPo:
Researcher Arnold Wilkins, a professor emeritus at the University of Essex, theorizes the mathematical principals hidden in the patterns require the brain to use more oxygen and energy, which can be distressing.... “We know the images are difficult to process computationally by the neurons of the brain, they use more brain energy.”
Photos of honeycombs and strawberries — common sources of the creeps, or worse, for people with trypophobia — also share those mathematical qualities with more sinister sights like mold and skin lesions. Other research suggests the discomfort might come from an innate drive to avoid infectious diseases and contaminated food. Some have also hypothesized the fear could stem from an evolutionary response to dangerous animals like poisonous frogs and insects, which often display patterns similar to those seen trypophobic photos.
Camera lenses are a special problem, I think, because they're sort of eyes. When we look at eyes, we have the feeling that it's a living thing, and if it's not 2 eyes, the living thing feels alien — heartless or cruel:
What can you do if you want to wretch every time you see the new iPhone?
Is it "wretch" or "retch"? It's retch. Fortunately, wretched editing doesn't make me want to throw up. "Wretch" isn't even a verb. You wretch.
ADDED: If "wretch" isn't a verb, why does the word "wretched" exist? "Wretch," the verb, is obsolete. The OED has it as a transitive verb meaning "To render miserable" and as an intransitive, Scottish verb meaning "To be or to become... parsimonious." From 1633: "As the wretch wretcheth, the more he is enriched."
So WaPo's spelling is fine if these iPhones are making you parsimonious (in Scotland in the 17th century).
MORE: To be wretchedly precise, the OED does not say that the adjective "wretched" comes from the obsolete verb "to wretch." It says the etymology happened "Irregularly" by adding the "-ed" suffix to the adjective "wretch." "Wretch" was once an adjective that meant "poor, miserable, deeply afflicted" (that is, having the qualities of a wretch). Thus, in the 1400s, one might write: "Allas! I, woful creature,..I, wreche woman."
By the way, originally, the noun "wretch" referred to a banished person, an exile: "Goo naked vngry and bare foot.., as wrecch in werlde þou wende." As you wend your way through the world, you wretch, go naked, hungry, barefoot, and phoneless.
"The land where Mr. McMichael was raising livestock, including cattle and lambs, had been in the family for three generations, Ms. Green said. Plans for the future of the farm remain uncertain, she said. 'Farming was Bradley’s dream,' Ms. Green said. 'He died doing something he loved, and he cared very much for his livestock.'"
That's from the NYT "Caucus" blog, where the first commenter notes the URL: "pains-makeup-stylist-fetches-highest-salary-in-2-week-period." Pain.
Let me add that I do not have a problem with paying a lot for the makeup job. It's extremely important. Remember how great Hillary Clinton always looked during the primaries. That didn't just happen. And bad makeup can screw up even a male candidate's campaign. Let's not forget the rouge that cost Al Gore the presidency:
This election always has been about one thing, and it was thoughtfully touched on by Kriss Soterion, the former Miss New Hampshire and owner-operator of Kriss Cosmetics & the Studio of Holistic Beauty in Manchester, N.H. Kriss, you may recall, was invited to do the vice president's makeup for the first Gore; Bush game. Before the debate, the local papers were running endless profiles of the hometown gal on the eve of her big break. After the debate, she entered the witness protection program. The pancake she smeared on Gore's cheeks, on top of his overly worked-out, 23-inch neck, on top of his lumpy suit, combined to make him look like Herman Munster doing a bad Ronald Reagan impression.
Poor old Kriss would like to make up for her makeup, but she fears she'll never get another chance, and now seems to be going through some existential crisis, riddled with self-doubt and questioning her calling. She told the New Hampshire Sunday News that her catastrophic touchup of Al has caused her to "think deeply" about "the psychology of makeup." "It just makes me think about the whole thing, about wearing masks," she said. "It's kind of a fascinating subject, to analyze why we hide behind it in the first place."
This is not a subject the vice president wants to discuss at this stage in the election cycle, but Kriss has a point. For the second presidential faceoff, Al was appearing without his face on -- not just the foundation and rouge, but in a broader sense: The mouth wasn't merely in non-sighing mode, it was zipped up and hung slack; the eyes seemed dead. The only remnants of last week's Gore were the eyebrows (N.B., Kriss: nice pencil liner) imperiously arched with the amused contempt of an overthrown king sitting through his own show trial. On Wednesday night, the vice president had the look of a man who'd run out of masks. After the expansive array of dazzling new Gores of the last year, the vice president apparently opened his closet and found that his housekeeper had sent all his identities to the cleaners.
Ha ha. That's Mark Steyn, writing in 2001. You do not want to lose the election over makeup.
... I'm just trying to eat my pancake... and come up with some Monday morning posts. Talk about whatever you like. Tell me what I should link to over at Instapundit. Or here.
(Photo taken yesterday, at Longnecker Garden. You do know about the longnecker conspiracy don't you? There were lots of mothers there too!
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