"Instead of painting live models or photographs, Ms. González uses an A.I. system on that laptop to generate composite digital images."

"These amalgamations are drawn from a combination of baroque portraits, her own sketches and, in her most recent series, catwalk photographs from a fashion show that Hermès invited her to in Paris. Those digital collages, which she calls 'Frankensteins,' serve as the inspiration for her painted portraits. While the models are imaginary, she said, she sometimes sees a trace of her own face in the finished portraits. Not too long ago, she said, the idea of living off these portraits seemed impossible. 'But here we are,' she said. 'It’s like a dream I always had, but times 50.'"

From "How a Pop Star’s Portrait Launched the Career of an Unknown Spanish Artist/Nieves González, a 29-year-old painter, once worked in relative obscurity in Andalusia. Her picture of the British singer Lily Allen changed that" (NYT)(gift link, so you can see the paintings and other things).

"Today, at 85, [my wife] is lovelier than ever. Her lustrous white hair is so stunning..."

"... that people stop her on the street to remark on it. She has a beauty born of episodes of sorrow intermingled with joy. I have watched her transformation for decades. Her brown eyes are the picture of profound thought, an important idea given form. Her skin, still smooth. Only the lines on the neck betray her age, like delicate narrow paths cut into a desert. I have seen women who have feared these changes and had lots of work done to their faces, whose expressions are frozen in a strange perpetual surprise. I always wondered where their wrinkles went. To a firmament of parts, where old beauty might have reigned but is now a house of discards?"

Writes Roger Rosenblatt, in "My Wife Is 85. She Takes My Breath Away" (NYT)(gift link, so you can read the whole essay).

I'm blogging this as a companion to yesterday's post about Megan McArdle's bemoaning faces ruined by plastic surgery.

Is Rosenblatt's writing bad? Can you understand "a firmament of parts, where old beauty might have reigned but is now a house of discards"? I don't know, but I'm just hoping it's helpful to hear from an old man who sincerely believes his old wife is beautiful.

"He elucidates the famous double-page spread accompanying the text 'Goodnight nobody/Goodnight mush.'"

"Anyone who has ever held a child on a lap at bedtime while reading ['Goodnight, Moon'] aloud has encountered the Dadaist conundrum of a blank page to connote 'Goodnight nobody' — certainly one of the most potentially frightening concepts for a young rabbit, um, kid, who in falling asleep will be more alone than it is possible to be while awake. That 'Goodnight mush' is on the opposite page is a eucatastrophe: 'We exist! We are alive! We eat food! What a relief!' It’s 'Always look on the bright side of death' for the youngest minds."

From a NYT book review, "A New Manifesto for Children’s Literature/In his chatty, compulsively readable first book for adults, Mac Barnett champions his career choice and urges our culture to hold kids in higher esteem."

The reviewer is Gregory Maguire, who wrote "Wicked" (as well as many children's books).

The famous double-page spread:

ADDED: The word "eucatastrophe" was coined by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1944. He wrote, in a letter: "For it I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears.

He used his own word again in 1947 to say: "The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation."

"This was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press. And in a certain way it did..."

"I saw a room that was totally unified. It was in one way very beautiful — a very beautiful thing to see."

Said President Trump, in an impromptu press conference at the White House, 2 hours after the incident at the Correspondents' Dinner. 

I hope that shared experience brings people together. Perhaps there will be a reset and love will steer the stars: "In light of this evening's events, I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts to resolving our differences peacefully. We have to resolve our differences. You had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals, and progressives in that room — a big crowd, record-setting crowd. There was a tremendous amount of love and coming together." Come together, right now, over me.

Trump saw the opportunity to promote his ballroom: "We looked at all of the conditions that took place tonight. It's not a particularly secure building. I didn't want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we're planning at the White House. It's actually a larger room and it's much more secure. It's got drone-proof and bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom."

Trump framed the incident as an assassination attempt: "This is not the first time in the past couple of years that our republic has been attacked by a would-be assassin. In Butler, Pennsylvania, less than two years ago — you all know that story. And in Palm Beach, Florida, a few months after that, we came close again. We had some great work done by law enforcement."

Trump expressed pride in himself as the target of multiple assassination attempts. Asked "Why do you think this keeps happening to you?," he said "I've studied assassinations. The most impactful people, the people that do the most, are the ones they go after. Abraham Lincoln, the big names. I hate to say I'm honored by that, but we've done a lot. We've changed this country. There are a lot of people that are not happy about that."

"We see them every day and we just say hi and they’re very nice. They’re peaceful people, they don’t make any noise and when they see you they say hi."

Said a neighbor of Cole Tomas Allen, quoted in "Who is Cole Tomas Allen? White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect in custody/The suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting was identified as California man Cole Tomas Allen" (Independent).

What's with the awkward "they" pronouns? "They’re peaceful people," etc. Maybe that's just the way they talk in California.

Allen has an elite degree — Caltech. "While a student at Caltech, Allen was a member of the school’s Christian fellowship and the Nerf club. He was featured in a 2017 photo that was posted by the school on Facebook following his graduation. In that photo, he’s holding a picture of himself as a child with a stuffed rabbit.... On his LinkedIn page, Allen described himself as a 'mechanical engineer and computer scientist by degree, ​independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth.' He lists his 'Causes' on that profile as 'Science and Technology.'"

Political affiliation? "Allen donated $25 to the political action committee ActBlue in October 2024, a month before Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris.... According to FEC filings, it was his only political donation in the past ten years."

Caltech NERF Club describes itself at Facebook: "a group of people who raid random buildings on campus and shoot NERF guns at each other. Various other activities include: the modification of blasters for cool effects, mechanical improvements, and cosmetic bad-assery; shoot the Albert Yang game; long-term NERF games such as Red Vs Blue and Humans vs. Zombies."

ADDED: "In a brief interview with The New York Post, neighbor Jeff Smith said that he felt as though Allen was 'on the spectrum.'"