१ ऑक्टोबर, २०२२
"Of course, leaning into ugliness — or at least less obvious curation — is still an aesthetic choice, intended to signify an irreverence or a rejection of norms...."
"As Alicia Kennedy writes: '"Bad" photos are in, but the thing about them is that they’re not really bad or even insouciant: They’re just a different approach, less big bright lighting, a little grainy, still beautifully plated.'... This trend toward DIY-looking food also opens up the door to greater inclusivity... For disabled and neurodivergent people who have trouble with fine-tuned decoration or people with disabilities who live with inaccessible kitchens where it’s hard to cook, much less stage a meal, 'the shift to DIY helps with the pressure'.... [S]eeing other people... unafraid to make work that looks amateur, imperfect, and unprofessional has given me a sense that it’s okay to do the same.... The pressure of showing the 'right' thing on Instagram isn’t entirely alleviated, but I’ve found a space where it’s okay to have realistic ambitions...."
It's nice to see social media trending toward what is comfortable and doable rather than strainingly aspirational. This article is about food and photography, but I think it's a more general trend, reminiscent of the late 60s, early 70s, when naturalness and ease felt like the essence of beauty and meticulous striving looked awful.
I mean, just to poke around at Eater, here's "Best Dressed/What Are We Wearing to Restaurants Now, Paris? At Folderol, a combination natural wine bar and ice cream shop in Paris, neighborhood block party vibes feel distinctly Parisian."
A French woman — complimented for looking "quite put together" — says "The cap was brought from the U.S. by a friend of mine, which is why I like it so much. These are my new Nikes and they are the most comfortable sneakers on earth; I feel like I have a marshmallow on each foot."
Remember when Americans were told that we stand out as obvious Americans in France because we wear sneakers? There are many photos at that link and most of the Parisians are wearing sneakers. And none are wearing try-hard shoes. I'm seeing Doc Martens and Birkenstock clogs.
What is a blonde?
Here's something from 1963 in the NYT that I chanced into as I was looking for the review of the new Netflix film titled "Blonde":
Who knew there were women's groups back then taking aim at such minor intrusions on female freedom? It seems more like something that would come up today.
"Supermarket shoppers have been left baffled and annoyed by changes to store layouts that have made it harder to find their groceries."
"Chains have been hastily reorganising their aisles to meet the rules.... The regulations restrict the areas in which supermarkets may place products deemed to be high in fat, salt or sugar. Arguably the simplest rule is that no unhealthy food or drink can be displayed within two metres of a checkout or queueing area. But similar restrictions have been imposed on 'gondola displays' at the end of shopping aisles, island bin displays and other easy-to-reach spots. A formula based on floor size dictates unhealthy products’ proximity to the entrance, meaning there are different rules for each shop. The minimum distance is calculated by the square root of the area of the store multiplied by 0.03...."
The square root of the area of the store multiplied by 0.03?! They'd never try that in America — not just fat-shaming us by requiring math. Even just bringing up the concept of square roots is unthinkable in the land of the free.
"[T]he dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all societies, including the peoples of the Western countries themselves."
"This is a challenge for everyone. Such a complete denial of man, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, the suppression of freedom acquiring the features of a 'reverse religion' – outright Satanism. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ, denouncing the false prophets, says: By their fruits you shall know them. And these poisonous fruits are already obvious to people – not only in our country, in all countries, including many people in the West itself...."
Said Vladimir Putin, in his speech at the "annexation ceremony." I'm reading the full transcript, here.
"Russian forces withdrew from the strategic eastern city of Lyman on Saturday, just a day after President Vladimir V. Putin’s internationally derided declaration that..."
Does "mop-up.... nowhere to run" conflict with the idea that the Russians are withdrew and are not trapped in the city?
ADDED: Here's how it looks at WaPo: "Ukrainian forces say they have surrounded thousands of Russian troops in the eastern city of Lyman, pressing their counterattacks in a region that Moscow now claims as its own. Ukrainian forces moved on the transport hub overnight even as the Kremlin hosted an elaborate ceremony and pop concert celebrating its annexation of Ukrainian territory."
Will the U.S. help Cuba after Hurricane Ian? Cuba is asking.
“If Cuba asks for humanitarian aid and the U.S. gives it to them, that would be a real breakthrough,” says William LeoGrande, an expert on Cuba at American University in Washington.
On other occasions when Cuba has suffered from hurricanes, the U.S. has offered humanitarian aid, but Cuba has turned it down.
"In recent weeks, so many people have called Bill Crain’s Hudson Valley farm rescue to surrender their ducks and chickens — many purchased at the height of the pandemic lockdown..."
The solution is, clearly, to eat these animals. You don't need a rescue sanctuary. You need meat processors. Ducks and chickens are obviously edible. Eat them, and the problem is gone.
But what about the guinea pigs? What about them?! Look it up. They're especially good. They've even — like pigs/pork and cattle/beef — got their own name when they are converted into meat: cuy (or cavy).
Here's a Modern Farmer article, "Is America Ready for Farm-to-Table Guinea Pig? The ubiquitous kids' starter pet / lab animal could soon be raised at a farm near you":
"What do you do when neither spouse is happy with the working and income-generating grind?"
"My husband and I had an agreement that when each of our children were born, I would take my maternity leave and then he would take a leave of similar length when I returned to work. We are finding now, after the arrival of our second baby, that neither of us wants to go back. I earn more money, and thus I have to return to work, but I am equally unhappy with the weekly grind...."
From a letter to the WaPo advice columnist.
This shows that the perverse privilege inherent in systematically paying women less. It preserves the traditional structure of man out in the world, woman in the home.
What can you say to this woman except welcome to reality? Well, I'd say that it doesn't have to be the higher earner who goes to work. Who has the more satisfying job? Who has the job that makes a greater contribution to the world? Maybe at some point, you'll hit upon the factors that let the wife have her wish of avoiding the difficulties of work.
Also, consider that you might also not be happy with the childcare "grind." It's all grind when you have a bad attitude, isn't it?
३० सप्टेंबर, २०२२
Now, I'm thinking I have 2 kinds of readers: the ones who are saying why should I know or care about the Madison Public Market and...
... the ones who are saying yes, that's the thing that Althouse questioned that one time and Paul Soglin, the Mayor of Madison, instead of engaging respectfully, decided to attack her big time, so she was forced to resort to reason and mockery?
I'm reading "Madison Public Market all but scrapped, as officials make one last plea to alders for funding" (WKOW).
Here's the post I wrote on January 10, 2017:
Here you go: 9 TikToks, carefully curated. Some people love them.
1. When you think you've arrived at the beach.
2. Put the baby outside... in Denmark.
4 What are you going to be for Halloween?
6. Grandma doesn't want to replace her frappe with protein drink.
7. Medieval hairstyles for men.
8. What's the difference between a boy and a girl?
9. Does this photographer know what he's doing?
NYT headline: "Ginni Thomas Denies Discussing Election Subversion Efforts With Her Husband."
"Election Subversion Efforts" is quite a phrase. You could discuss a lot of things and still deny that any of it was "subversion." But I presume the actual interviewers did not restrict themselves to such an extreme topic.
During her interview, Ms. Thomas, who goes by Ginni, repeated her assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Thompson said, a belief she insisted upon in late 2020 as she pressured state legislators and the White House chief of staff to do more to try to invalidate the results....
I wouldn't call that "election subversion." If you believe the election was already subverted, then in pushing for more procedural paths, you're trying to un-subvert it. If you think the announced results are invalid, you're trying to get to the true results, not "invalidate the results." It's very hard to wade through these loaded terms. I wish the NYT would play it dead straight.
"I think that since it’s told in this first-person perspective, it works somehow for the film to be a traumatic experience."
Said Adrien Brody, who plays Arthur Miller in the new Netflix movie about Marilyn Monroe.
Quoted in "Adrien Brody says ‘Blonde’ is ‘fearless filmmaking,’ meant to be a ‘traumatic experience’" (NY Post).
I wonder how Arthur Miller is depicted.
"Chloë Grace Moretz opened up about suffering from body dysmorphic disorder after a 'horrific' 'Family Guy' meme of herself went viral, admitting she became a 'recluse.'"
I'm unfamiliar with whatever it is that makes Chloë Grace Moretz a celebrity, but she was photographed in a very silly outfit that got made into a meme put alongside this truly hilarious "Family Guy" lady:
Why not laugh at what's clearly funny? To react by becoming recluse and then openly shaming the humorists is to reinforce the dynamic that has given us The Era of That's Not Funny.
We're being intimidated into believing that ridiculous things should not be laughed at because people may have mental conditions like "body dysmorphic disorder" that may be worsened by a failure to coddle them with kindness.
If you're photographed in a bad outfit, try to wear a good outfit next time you're out and about delivering pizza of whatever it is you do that's made you famous. This wasn't a case of mocking the shape of her body. It was her own choice to wear terrible clothes. And by the way, I think the choice of clothes is hostile to women. That she did it to herself is actually sad.
Asked what he does for a living, the Apple exec said "I have rich cars, play golf and fondle big-breasted women but I take weekends and holidays off."
Tony Blevins, Apple’s vice president of procurement, was answering a question asked by TikTok/Instagram personality Daniel Mac. Mac's thing is to ask drivers of expensive cars, "What do you do for a living?"
For his sin, Blevins has had to resign, The NY Post reports.
It's so off-brand for Apple:
You just don't picture Apple management looking and acting like that.
"Can you imagine Jared and his skinny ass camping? It’d be like something out of 'Deliverance.'"
Said Donald Trump, who proceeded to imitate the "Deliverance" the banjo music, quoted in "Donald Trump Belittled Jared Kushner In Front Of Aides With ‘Deliverance' Jibe: Book/It was one of a series of disparaging comments the then-president made about his son-in-law, according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman" (HuffPo).
The topic was a proposed RV camping trip for Jared and Ivanka, and we're told that Jared was in the room. I can't tell how "belittling" the remark was without understanding the larger context. Did Jared mock Trump too? What's their relationship? Did both men laugh about remarks about skinniness and fatness? Was Trump also self-deprecating, saying, perhaps, he'd never go camping — and he's afraid of rapists?
Who knows? The remark belongs somewhere on a continuum between just plain nasty and the funniest thing ever, or I guess that's more of a matrix than a continuum.
Anyway, Haberman was choosing how to present the nuggets she gathered, and I wouldn't trust her to recreate the real feelings of the human beings involved.
And this anecdote does present the old problem of not taking the rape seriously when the victim is male.
२९ सप्टेंबर, २०२२
The WaPo Fact Checker fact-checks Stacey Abrams's denial that she was ever an election denier.
[A] review of numerous interviews shows that Abrams subsequently used language denying the outcome of the election that she now appears to be trying to play down.
For instance, Abrams at various times has said the election was “stolen” and even, in a New York Times interview, that “I won.” She suggested that election laws were “rigged” and that it was “not a free or fair election.” She also claimed that voter suppression was to blame for her loss, even though she admitted she could not “empirically” prove that. While she did acknowledged Kemp was the governor, she refused to say he was the “legitimate” governor....
"Seemingly superficial generations like an 'avocado chair' showed that OpenAI had built a system that is able to apply the characteristics of an avocado..."
From "AI can now create any image in seconds, bringing wonder and danger" (WaPo).
DALL-E is now open to all, without a waiting list, so prepare your requests. I'd put my name on the waiting list, but now that I can waltz right in along with anybody and everybody, I can't think of anything I want AI to turn into an image for me. A few weeks ago, I was interested in a TikTokker who was using DALL-E to generate images. I clicked the "follow" button and caused him to come up in my scrolling, but in the last couple weeks, as soon as I see him I immediately swipe him up out of my view. I just don't care what the computer coughed up. It was pointless weirdness.
But if you get the right request, it might be vaguely intriguing:
"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life and realize there’s nothin’ left."
Coolio has died, at the age of 59.
From the NYT obituary:
He told The Independent in 1997 that as a child, he would play board games with his single mother, to whom he later dedicated his success. After a turbulent youth — the bookish, asthmatic child became a teenage gang member, juvenile offender and drug addict — Coolio worked as a volunteer firefighter.
In his 20s, he moved to San Jose to live with his father and fight fires with the California Department of Forestry.... There, he became more spiritual. He later credited Christianity for helping him overcome his addiction to crack....
“Gangsta’s Paradise” had a vast cultural imprint, even spawning a parody in Weird Al Yankovic’s “Amish Paradise” that replaced the streets with pastoral lyrics about churning butter and selling quilts.
"I’m from ribbons of pasta drying on the linoleum counter in my grandmother’s Italian kitchen, tomato sauce bubbling on the stove."
Said Jill Biden, displaying her own poetry, of the kind that she teaches to her students, from the transcript, "First Lady Jill Biden Honors the Class of 2022 National Student Poets Program at the White House."
Her poem follows the model of "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon, which she says she uses to begin each semester of her writing course.
२८ सप्टेंबर, २०२२
Sunrise.
This may look like a nondescript sunrise, but it was unique in the 1,000+ sunrises I have witnessed. Just a second or 2 or 3 before I took this shot, I saw the sunrise completely green. This must have been the "green flash" I've heard about!
***
Open thread in the comments.
"Do you think we’d raise a six-year-old child in a Versailles-like palazzo? We’ve already got a house."
Meloni, 45, will stay in her house in Mostacciano, a suburb of the capital, and will not move to the 16th century Palazzo Chigi in the heart of the city that prime ministers normally use as an office and residence.Giambruno is Meloni's partner.
Meloni has praised Giambruno as being “one of the few men in the world capable of not suffering if they have a successful woman next to them”. They met when Meloni appeared as a guest on a programme Giambruno worked on. Just before she went on air, he whisked a banana she had been eating out of her hands to save her from embarrassment.
I had a moment of confusion, having forgotten that, in Italy, Andrea is a man's name.
"Hurricane Ian is on the cusp of Category 5 strength with maximum sustained winds of almost 155 mph..."
"... ahead of an expected Wednesday afternoon landfall. The National Hurricane Center warned that 'catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding' are imminent in the Florida Peninsula — the center said in its noon advisory that the ring of destructive winds, or eyewall, around Ian’s calm center is moving onshore at Sanibel and Captiva Islands in Southwest Florida. More than 300,000 customers are without power midday Wednesday as conditions continue to deteriorate.... 'This is going to be a nasty, nasty day,' Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a news conference early Wednesday. In neighborhoods from Tampa to Key West, locals were seeing water at their doorsteps — some making last minute efforts to evacuate...."
"The study compared two groups of patients ranging in ages from 14 to 24: one group of 36 patients received top surgery..."
"... and a control group of 34 patients received gender-affirming care, but did not get top surgery. Three months after surgery, the patients who had the procedure experienced significantly less chest dysphoria than they had prior to surgery, while patients in the control group experienced around the same levels of chest dysphoria as they had at the start of their care. Prior studies have also shown that chest dysphoria is a pervasive issue for trans and gender non-conforming youth.... American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Chase Strangio went viral on Twitter Monday after sharing his own experience with top surgery, which he received in his mid-20s. 'There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about how it was the best thing I have ever done for my survival,' the tweet read."
From " U.S. /Top surgery drastically improves quality of life for young transgender people, study finds" (CBS News).
Biden dances 30,000 feet above the hurricane.
The goofy Politico headline caught my eye: "Biden's delicate midterm dance."
I clicked, wondering what kind of absurd credit is he getting now, but I see it's pre-boosting him as the hurricane approaches:
The storm bearing down on Florida forced President Joe Biden to scrap plans to deliver a politically-charged speech in the state. But he campaigned anyway, from behind a podium* in the Rose Garden....
Trump, in a 2016 practice debate, purportedly drew a "blank stare" from "the group," when he said "Cocked or decocked?"
From a Daily Beast article, based on the forthcoming Maggie Haberman’s book "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America"
According to an excerpt obtained by The Daily Beast, a week before the second debate unfolded in St. Louis in 2016, Trump’s close adviser at the time, Reince Priebus, presented the aspiring political figure with a question on same-sex bathrooms.
In playing the role of a female transgender student, Priebus asked Trump whether this hypothetical student could still use the girl’s bathroom.
Without missing a beat, Trump said he had a question. “Cocked or decocked?” Trump asked.
२७ सप्टेंबर, २०२२
"If you find yourself mad as hell and you don’t want to take it anymore—for the sake of what you hold dear, stand down."
You should be suspicious of anyone calling for kinetic action. There is good reason to think that that person is an FBI agent. Big Tech and the FBI are watching, waiting, and enabling. They want a super-sized Ruby Ridge. Don’t give it to them.
An eyes-wide-open understanding of this asymmetrical distribution of power calls for a civil disobedience response—peaceful, nonviolent resistance. Let them show their illiberal nature. Don’t give them a diversion that distracts from the consequences of their horrible policies.
This is the path to short- and long-term Republican gains. For all that we have at stake, please commit to this path. We rise and fall together.
"At one point before she got married, however, she nearly became a nun."
"As time passed, I began subtly trying Woebot’s exercises out on my parents, a captive audience during lockdown."
From "My Therapist, the Robot," about Woebot, an A.I. chatbot therapist, by the anthropologist Barclay Bram.
"I thought the memo had gone out that the word 'luminous' had been banned from book reviews."
Several years ago, overwhelmed by the flood of material unleashed annually by the publishing industry, I decided to establish a screening program by purchasing only books that at least one reviewer had described as ''astonishing.''Previously, I had limited my purchases to merchandise deemed ''luminous'' or ''incandescent,'' but this meant I ended up with an awful lot of novels about bees, Provence or Vermeer. The problem with incandescent or luminous books is that they veer toward the introspective, the arcane or the wise, while I prefer books that go off like a Roman candle. When I buy a book, I don't want to come away wiser or happier or even better informed. I want to get blown right out of the water by the author's breathtaking pyrotechnics. I want to come away astonished.
He was making fun of the absurd overuse of the verb "astonish" in book promotions.
"[I]f the garden variety American liberal as represented by New York Times readers is almost universally against this, who is pushing it and why do they have so much power?"
One says: "Because the Garden Variety American Liberal As Represented By New York Times Readers will fold like a cheap suitcase when publicly called a bigot or even told that they are kinda sorta maybe sounding like a conservative, even if holding private misgivings."
Another says: "Political dynamics in the US is that the GOP is a moderate party beholden to extremist voters and the Dems are an extremist party beholden to moderate voters. It's a very odd dynamic."
२६ सप्टेंबर, २०२२
Here are 10 TikToks to amuse you for a few precious moments. Some people love them.
2. What the hell is the internet?
3. One by one, he's eliminating the least popular state and merging it with a neighboring state.
4. One by one, they're replacing family photos with photos of Danny DeVito until Mom notices.
5. The man deserves a medal for all the years he's patiently listened to his wife tell stories like this.
6. Chef Reactions judges the French grandfather's making of lunch.
7. "Have you ever wondered what items in your place just give men 'ick'?"
8. "We're going to go look at wedding dresses."
9. My favorite music-and-the-child video of all time.
10. Finally, the dolls.
"The pre-TikTok era of social media was a genuine, full-spectrum privacy disaster. It was, however..."
From "TikTok Is the New King of Social Media. Now What?" (NY Magazine).
"Snowden is not a traitor. He did not betray the interests of his country. Nor did he transfer any information..."
"This brief provides a rare and important opportunity for federal Supreme Court justices to receive direct input from their peers who sit on state supreme courts."
"For a home lacking interior walls, at least structural ones, the dome feels surprisingly cozy; where the plaster-finished gypsum room dividers don’t extend all the way..."
"I think it’s so groovy now that people are finally gettin’ together...."
"On Monday, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, is set to collide with Dimorphos, a small asteroid..."
"Because breasts are highly visible, they can make transitioning difficult and cause intense distress for these teenagers, fueling the demand for top surgeries."
"[W]e are like monkeys at a tea party. All of us. What’s more, we are in denial. We finesse and accessorize our self-image..."
So writes Sebastian Smee, in "Diane Arbus was accused of exploiting ‘freaks.’ We misunderstood her art. Fifty years on, Arbus’s photographs look very different in this ingenious gallery exhibition" (WaPo).
"At least 13 people were killed, including nine children, when a gunman wearing a T-shirt with a red swastika, opened fire on Monday in a school..."
"For many Mormons in Utah... the concept of being a good steward is wrapped up in a pioneer nostalgia that favors an artificial, irrigated landscape..."
"Maybe this will end the 'Dennis the Menace' reign of terror. I've read it every day for fifty years and haven't laughed yet."
That made me laugh, from the comments section of "Is the print newspaper comics page in trouble?" (WaPo).
That comment prompts someone else to say: "Insert GenX rant about 'Family Circus' from the 1999 movie 'Go.'" Okay, I will insert it:Adams had recently satirized environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies and workplace diversity efforts, and had introduced a Black character named Dave who identifies as White....
"In conversation with fellow actress-director Maggie Gyllenhaal for Interview magazine, Olivia Wilde asked, 'You know the incels?'"
२५ सप्टेंबर, २०२२
Here are 9 TikToks, carefully curated for you. Some people love them.
1. Réttir — sorting out the sheep in Iceland.
2. The woonerf — a type of street.
3. The Finnish way to live through winter — on Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
"Kyoto’s famously polite residents began to express their displeasure with uncharacteristic bluntness."
"Unlike Germany, which was clearly on the wrong side of history and made facing and remembering its Nazi past a national project woven inextricably into the postwar fabric..."
"Bring Your Whole Self to Work" — "it means being able 'to fully show up' and 'allow ourselves to be truly seen' in the workplace."
“I failed, failed and absolutely failed to understand just how exhausted by and disgusted with the perpetual representation of Muslim men and women as terrorists or former terrorists or potential terrorists the Muslim people are."
Advised by a PR firm to apologize, the director Meg Smaker said "What was I apologizing for? For trusting my audience to make up their own mind?"
Smaker spent 16 months inside a Saudi rehabilitation facility interviewing former Guantánamo detainees.
The attacks came from what the NYT characterizes as "the left":
Arab and Muslim filmmakers and their white supporters accused Ms. Smaker of Islamophobia and American propaganda. Some suggested her race was disqualifying, a white woman who presumed to tell the story of Arab men.
The filmmaker Assia Boundaoui, said: "To see my language and the homelands of folks in my community used as backdrops for white savior tendencies is nauseating. The talk is all empathy, but the energy is Indiana Jones."