"My dad saw Houdini once—did I ever tell you this? He said it was much like you’d expect."

"They tied him up this way and that way, ropes, cables, locked him in a jail cell, then before you knew it came the sound of bolts dropping to the ground and locks flying off, and the great Houdini emerged. He just came walking out three paces behind the sheriff—and it was nothing! Anticlimax! Where was this? Manistique, Michigan, the county jail. Poor Houdini, she said. You should write a poor Houdini sonnet, Vern said. I hate it when people tell me what I should write, she said. I bet, Vern said. But still."

Wrote Anne Carson, the new winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, in "Poor Houdini," published in 2024 in The New Yorker.

Manistique, Michigan is a real place. It sounds made up, though, don't you think? Like a portmanteau of "man" and "mystique." There's no [famous] book called "The Masculine Mystique."

"One of the things I am most proud of is introducing people to Bob through the building. Anytime I brought anyone there, they gasped..."

"... and had an immediate inhalation of what New York once was like, and who Bob Rauschenberg was. I thought the building felt like Bob in its elegance and eccentricities. He brought a lot of junk in."

Said Kathy Halbreich, former executive director of the Rauschenberg Foundation, quoted in "Should Robert Rauschenberg’s Art Studio Be Saved? The potential sale of the groundbreaking painter’s home in New York by his foundation, on the heels of the sale of his Florida studio, has alarmed many in the art community" (NYT).

A description of the endangered real estate: "Unlike more famous artists’ haunts, like Claude Monet’s water-lily garden at Giverny, the Rauschenberg manse, for which he paid $65,000, is grittily urban, a 9,200-square-foot townhouse set on a wide, truck-rumbling block just north of SoHo. For years gold letters were visible above the red door — Mission of the Immaculate Virgin — hinting at the building’s former life as a home for orphaned boys. Rauschenberg set up his studio on the ground floor, in a high-ceilinged room that was once the chapel."

Here's a short clip from a documentary, with Rauschenberg, in his deconsecrated chapel, speaking about his art (and, oddly, reminding me of George W. Bush):

"What we had in common was touch. I was never interested in their pessimism or editorializing. You have to have time to feel sorry for yourself if you're going to be a good Abstract Expressionist, and I think I always considered that a waste. What I did that looks like Abstract Expressionism is that with their grief and art passion and action painting... they let their brush strokes show."

"What do you love most about your human?"

@manwire68 #CapCut #dogsoftiktok #mypet #mansbestfriend🐶 ♬ original sound - Unfluencers AI

Julianne Moore wants you to see her interact charmingly with all the cool objects she has in her apartment.

Including a copy of "The Joy of Sex," which she keeps on the table by the bed because she's making a movie out of it. I guess it's like that time Woody Allen made a movie out of "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex/But Were Afraid to Ask." Oh, no, actually, per IMDB, it's the story of the the author, his wife, and his wife's best friend. Somehow they lived in a way that inspired the big best seller.

My favorite part of the Architectural Digest video? When she pulled the sleeve of her sweater over her hand and used it to polish the nickel light switch in the bathroom. The wealth + humility mix was ideal. 

The Nobel Peace Prize as a "grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice."

I'm reading "Live Updates: Human Rights Lawyer Navi Pillay Is Awarded Nobel Peace Prize/Ms. Pillay has served as a judge in her native South Africa and on international courts investigating war crimes. She led a U.N. panel that determined that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a finding the Israeli government rejected" (NYT):

Last year, a United Nations commission led by Ms. Pillay determined that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a finding that the Israeli government rejected. The decision to honor her added to the growing global blowback against Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Israeli foreign ministry denounced the Nobel committee’s decision, calling it "the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice." Though the committee did not mention Gaza in its official statement honoring Ms. Pillay, its chairman, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, told reporters that her work on the U.N. commission was "an important part of the reasoning why she received the prize."

"Start in the middle."

@newyorker The newly minted Nobel Prize winner Anne Carson shared a book recommendation and some timeless writing advice at the 2024 National Book Awards. #annecarson #poetry #booktok #classics ♬ original sound - The New Yorker

"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it — that it's public — because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for these types of things."

Said Pete Hegseth, promising a public execution.

Holy shit…

SecWar Hegseth just confirmed the Fort Hood terrorist execution will be made public for The People to see.

Not just that, but he infers we are in times similar to WW2, and that this mindset of executing traitors is here to stay.

The noticing will continue. I am…

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) October 8, 2026

So we are called to contemplate something that we have long believed to have been abandoned. There is some excitement — I see it in Hegseth's body language — over the return of the spectacle of imposing the death penalty.

There are serious writings to be read. I will begin with the letter Charles Dickens published in the London Times on November 13, 1849:

"Man, that Fanta tastes fantastic."

Don't think it gets better than #Brewers rookie Cooper Pratt celebrating with soda.

"They didn't have sparkling cider, so I got some Fanta... tastes special after that one, frick!"@lanceallan | @CBS58 pic.twitter.com/Nnw8UWTkq0

— Cameron Ezeir (@camezeir) October 8, 2026

That non-drinking is not because he's underage. He's young but not that young. 22. 

Pratt says he couldn't find "sparkling cider" — that's the classic Mormon substitute for champagne. 

"Times Square has always been the site of spectacle, but with FALL RISK, that spectacle is reoriented around the human body and its limits, resilience, and exposure."

Said Anna Starling, director of Times Square Arts, quoted in "Artist to be suspended 150 feet above Times Square in one-night performance" (PIX11).

I see: "The performance draws a connection to Harry Houdini, who suspended himself from a crane in Times Square nearly a century ago. But instead of focusing on escape, Kinlaw’s performance centers on endurance."

How far we've come! What other feats of the past will be recreated with the central element omitted?

Sunrise.

"The mayor, who is known for his broad, effervescent smile, seemed especially stung by the opposition to him expressed by the pro-Palestinian crowd in Union Square,

"... given his consistent support of their cause. During the vigil, he stared stone-faced, and at times looked crestfallen, as the activists chanted in support of Hamas, called for the deaths of Israeli soldiers and denounced him as a 'traitor,' many citing his meetings with President Trump or his efforts to build ties with Jewish leaders.... 'Zohran, you coward!' someone yelled from the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds. Others yelled, 'Zohran is a sellout!'"

I'm reading "For Mamdani, Oct. 7 Anniversary Sets Off Anger and Bitterness Hours after some Jewish leaders denounced Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s remarks about the attacks on Israel, activists interrupted a vigil to call him a traitor to the Palestinian cause" (NYT).

My son Chris happens to be in NYC this week, and he went to Union Square and got this photograph:

"The fraternity party at Cornell University where a woman alleges she was sexually assaulted in 2024 was officially registered under university rules that were supposed to promote safer partying."

"The rules required fraternities to designate 'trained event monitors' who would stay sober and wear distinctive clothing so that police officers, paramedics or other partygoers could quickly identify them in an emergency. One of the monitors listed by the Chi Phi fraternity in paperwork to register the 2024 party was Jonathan Newell, a man who would later be accused of sexually assaulting the woman known as Jane Doe — and the one who sent a Snapchat message inviting others into the room with her...."

From "Man Accused in Cornell Sex Assault Was Designated as a Party Monitor/The fraternity filed paperwork identifying Jonathan Newell as a 'trained event monitor' at a party where a woman said she was assaulted. He was accused of taking part" (NYT).

Alexithymia.

I'm reading "My Fiancé Won’t Touch Me. Should I Still Marry Him? Our Ask the Therapist columnist, Lori Gottlieb, advises a 65-year-old reader who loves her partner but is physically and emotionally unsatisfied" (NYT).

From the letter writer:

Our therapist and I suspect undiagnosed alexithymia (or difficulty in experiencing and describing emotions), while he defensively attributes it to mere “emotional reserve.” After a year of failed couples counseling, we are living in a completely platonic relationship.

For $25 million, you can by the 8,000-square-foot, 7-bedroom, 9-bathroom Tribeca loft with its huge Keith Haring mural...

... painted by Haring in 1979 when he was a student at the School of Visual Arts and the building was student gallery space.

Click through to the photographs of the fabulous place, at "Keith Haring Created a Mural in a TriBeCa Loft. Now, It’s for Sale. The renovated apartment featuring a once hidden early work by the New York artist is on the market for $25 million" (NYT).

The space was a restaurant for many years after the SVA moved out in the 1980s, and the mural was walled in by sheet rock. It was "uncovered it in 2007 and found to be in good shape, considering it was painted in the less than durable mix of shoe polish and alcohol."

The artwork is at one with the building:

"With striking dexterity and range, he explores how advocates reawakened Bach’s compositions and Vermeer’s paintings after one and two centuries of slumber..."

"... how technological advances rekindled theories of continental drift and black holes; how accidents resuscitated hand-washing and genetics; and how war renewed interest in the submarine and 'The Great Gatsby.'"

From "What if the Best Ideas Are Already Here, Waiting to Be Rediscovered? 'Sleeping Beauties,' by the musician David Byrne, explores artistic and scientific innovations that were overlooked before being embraced" (NYT).

The article is by Adam Grant, who is organizational psychologist at the Wharton School. Instead of embedding a David Byrne video, I'll show you this Adam Grant TED talk:

Upticks.

The word "upticks" appears in the previous post — "the CDC data showed big upticks" — and I had that Mad Magazine idea of depicting it literally. Being a tad lazy, I told Grok, "draw 3 ticks who are happy and dancing — cartoon style."

I was appalled to see:

That's so not my vision. I corrected with severe specificity: "black and white line drawing only. not aimed at children. not cute. more anatomical accuracy."

You can see what I mean, can't you? Grok gave me this:

See? This is why we can't trust A.I. It's trying to follow instructions. Isn't it?

By the way, ticks are arachnids. They have 8 legs — and no arms — and no antennae... and no bones!