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.

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

David Sedaris wants to go to the Post Office.

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ADDED: This reminds me of my favorite passage in my favorite movie, "My Dinner with Andre," quoted numerous times on the blog, such as here, in 2013, in "What do you think the difference is between a tourist and a traveler?":

"But however long Kennedy lasts in government, his Make America Healthy Again coalition already lies in shambles, its catalog of achievements short."

"What happened? At present, there is no confirmed head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or of the Food and Drug Administration. There is no surgeon general and no head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease... no confirmed boss at the F.D.A.’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.... MAHA has been steamrolled on food and pollution by business-aligned Trump appointees elsewhere in the government, forced to concede longtime crusades against glyphosate, mercury and other airborne toxins.... The administration just signed off on more forever chemicals in pesticides and drinking water. A much-hyped report trying to link autism with the use of Tylenol in pregnancy was quickly disproved by larger studies, and a memo linking 10 childhood deaths to Covid vaccination was contradicted by the agency’s own review of the evidence...."

From "Has the MAHA Movement Given Up? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his allies promised public-health libertarianism. The idea couldn’t survive once they took power" (NYT)(gift link, because there's lots more at the link).

"The process of note-writing helps me formulate my medical decision-making and then check whether it really holds up...."

"When that cognitive labor is offloaded to a machine, I’ve come to see, my job shifts. Even when I try to speak my reasoning aloud for the A.I. scribe, I am still doing something different from writing the note myself. I am no longer using the note, sentence by sentence, to think through the case in my own words, to decide what to emphasize, what to soften — or, as I’m writing, to identify when my reasoning strains. And unlike when I dictate a note, I can’t watch my own phrasing appear on the screen in real time. With the A.I.-generated note, I am instead auditing afterward. I am playing a version of 'Where’s Waldo?' — What’s missing? Has this note gone astray, and if so, where? — and it’s a search made all the more difficult because the A.I.’s draft arrives fluent, confident. It sounds so right."

Writes Helen Ouyang, in "How A.I. Might Change the Way Doctors Think/For generations, writing up a summary of a patient exam was a vital step for physicians trying to make an accurate diagnosis. What happens when A.I. does it for them?" (NYT).

"That cognitive shift does not happen the moment the A.I. scribe delivers a note. It begins in the exam room. Because I know A.I. is recording, I stop listening in the same way. Before A.I. scribes arrived, I would outline a story in my head as a patient talked, fitting the pieces together so I would know what to ask next. In the scribe’s presence, that work is deferred. Let the machine do it! The mind drifts."

Happy Birthday, America.

From There I Ruined It: