"Ms. Prabhakar... said the point of assigning 'Bettering Myself' was to challenge students in her introductory reading and writing course."

"As part of the assignment, students had to read first-person stories told by other unlikable narrators — like 'Cathedral' by Raymond Carver — to contrast narrative voice, perspective, vocabulary and style, according to the lawsuit. In colleges, such materials 'take students out of their comfort zone, expose them to new ideas and provide opportunities for growth and intellectual maturation,' the suit said...."

From "Florida Professor Fired for Assigning a Profane Story, Lawsuit Says/South Florida State College fired an English professor after she assigned a story about a teacher who talks about sex with her students. Now the professor is suing" (NYT gift link).

That article links to a review of the story collection, "In Ottessa Moshfegh’s Stories, Fringe Figures Make Feckless Attempts at Connection" (NYT gift link):

"In the 1800s, a secretary was part aide-de-camp, part executive-in-training — someone who handled the boss’s correspondence and bookkeeping, but also learned the business..."

"... and would eventually ascend to a senior job. With the rise of the modern corporation around the turn of the 20th century, however, the secretary became more like a noncommissioned officer — a worker with real responsibility but little upward mobility. It was at this point that the position became mostly female. Companies then broke up and degraded the job further over the decades, replacing the secretary with pools of typists, receptionists and data entry personnel, almost all of them women, too. The final step, amid pressure from the feminist movement in the 1970s, was to allow a small number of college-educated women to ascend from these clerical jobs to the ranks of middle management. But even this came with a loss of status, as managers would have to do more of their own grunt work. 'They’re now being promoted, but the clerical tasks are promoted with them,' said Jason Resnikoff, a labor historian. 'The middle manager would do more typing, correspondence, more of their own filing.' These days, almost no one has an assistant...."

From "In Trump’s Economy, Job Gains Go to Women. That’s Not an Entirely Good Thing. Despite the administration’s best attempts, the diminishing status of many American jobs is driving a spike in women’s employment" (NYT gift link).

"On a beach next to the border, hundreds of people who had crossed over gathered under the scorching sun."

"But Soufiane ez Znafry, 26, said that many were turning back because they were hungry. 'We have not eaten in two days,' he said, adding that all the supermarkets in the area had closed and that his stomach was 'growling.' He had rushed from Tangier on Thursday after friends told him they were heading to Spain. He said he barely scrapes by in Morocco working as a sous-chef. In the rush, carrying only a bag containing some clothes and a few possessions, he did not tell his parents that he was leaving. 'I did not want to worry them,' he said...."

From "Live Updates: Tens of Thousands Crossed Into Spanish Territory, Officials Say/As many as 60,000 people were estimated to have surged from Morocco into Ceuta, creating a crisis for Spain’s pro-immigration government. At least 34 people died, officials said" (NYT gift link).

"Science is truth."

Please share this with everyone. Let’s never listen to these liars ever again. I guess CNN doesn’t need Sanjay to be a useful idiot anymore pic.twitter.com/XawCqUEWUB

— Adam Carolla (@adamcarolla) July 30, 2026

The invocation of science ought to be a call to calm rationality, but there we see it used like a tagline for a horror movie: Be afraid, be very afraid.

ADDED: Did you know that the line "Be afraid, be very afraid" originally came from Mel Brooks?

"Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza."

"This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY. This agreement is a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the Board of Peace to help the Palestinian people. At the same time, Israel will have the security it deserves, with Gaza no longer used as a base for terror attacks."

Writes Trump on Truth Social.

"This is a major milestone in the implementation of the Trump 20-Point Plan. The agreement will be carried out in carefully structured phases. As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors. One year ago there was a violent raging war, humanitarian crisis and hostages kept in brutal captivity. We have made historic progress and there is still much work to do.... Under this agreement, Gaza will finally be in the hands of a new Palestinian government that serves its PEOPLE. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL ON THIS AMAZING DEVELOPMENT, THAT EVERYBODY SAID COULD NEVER BE ACHIEVED!"

Here's the NYT coverage of the story: "Trump Claims Deal Is Reached to Disarm Hamas in Gaza" (gift link).

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"People who like novelty tend to be better suited for nonmonogamy. People who have what they call a 'faster life history'..."

"— that’s a social science term — meaning they’ve probably moved around a lot, they’ve probably had a whole bunch of different kinds of jobs, they started dating younger and they’ve dated more people. They’re more likely to be interested in polyamory or nonmonogamy than the people who have never left their hometown, who like to have one job and really stick with it. Not that either of those are better than the other, but just what kind of wiring tends to mak [sic] you enjoy polyamory."

From "Is Polyamory Right for You?/Elisabeth Sheff spent 30 years studying polyamory. Here’s what she learned" (NYT gift link).

This is a long interview, so you might want to check it out. Or you might want to bemoan the NYT and its endless fascination with polyamory.

"[Wisconsin] survives and takes Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with it."

When the states are redrawn based on social media friendship:

"My dad was the stage manager at a venue where Tom Waits was performing. The show started with him driving a beautiful restored Chevrolet onto the stage..."

"... and it was kind of a set piece there during the performance, to such a degree that Mr. Waits completely forgot the keys were in his pocket when he left.... [M]y dad got the surreal privilege of spending an evening driving around to every bar in Chicago that he could think of looking for the guy so they could get the car off the stage. This is how my father taught me that that if you hop dive bars long enough into a Saturday night, you will eventually - maybe inevitabley - come upon Tom Waits. He will give you the keys to a '55 Chevy Bel Air, and he will also buy you a drink for your trouble."

Comments by Phobos the Space Potato at on a Metafilter thread titled "New spoken word track by Tom Waits."

Here's that track:

"After kissing my husband and dog good night and putting them to bed in a separate room, I put magnesium lotion on my feet, do my Duolingo lesson, pull up my meditation app and, of course, go to the bathroom one last time."

From "The Little Rituals That Prepare You for Sleep/Origami, cleaning countertops, talking to plants — here are some ways readers wind down for the evening" (NYT gift link).

"[Senator Bernie Moreno] requested those in the audience to stand up if they had paid a professional, legal, or personal price for dissenting from Covid orthodoxies ..."

"... during the pandemic. The senator then asked Fauci to turn around and look at them. Fauci refused. Then Moreno told the story of a family in Ohio who attended a high school football game in the middle of the lockdowns. 'They went to the stadium. They sat alone, far from anyone else. They didn’t feel they needed to wear masks because it was stupid and they were outside. Dr. Fauci, do you know what happened to . . . that family?' Fauci responded with the line he must have repeated more than a hundred times in the hearing. 'On the advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,' he said. 'They were dragged out of that stadium and arrested,' [Moreno] said. 'Those policies were put in place because you had moronic politicians that listened to the words of a megalomaniac who was more interested in having met a Kardashian than the suffering of the American people.' Fauci just sat there, stone faced, without emotion...."

Writes Eli Lake, in "Pleading the Fifth Won’t Spare Fauci from the Truth/He claims his Senate hearing was a witch hunt designed to entrap him. But his record convicts him on its own" (Free Press).

Full moon, this morning at 5:24, 5:28.

I like the look of a moon as a marshmallow on a stick in photo #1.

"I am QTBIPOC and an immigrant, he is cis-white-straight/ish citizen, a decade older than me and didn’t even know what queer or BIPOC meant before meeting me...."

"The question is: How do I know I am not only doing this 'under the influence' of love?..."

A nutty question to a WaPo advice columnist, in "I planned to always be a queer, single cat-mom aunt. Then I met him. How does she know she’s not changing her life plan 'under the influence of love'?"

If love is the wrong reason, what is the right reason?

"I can explain and validate everything that I've done."

Well this didn't age wellpic.twitter.com/prvxPsrHpF

— Julian Assange (@ImJulianAssange) July 29, 2026

The video is from November 22, 2022.

He only said "I can explain and validate everything that I've done." He didn't say he would. There's an explanation, of course, even if the explanation is I chose to lie because it was the best way to get the compliance we wanted. 

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Fauci invokes the 5th Amendment privilege at the Senate hearing today.

I'm listening to the hearing live:

Here's the Washington Post article: "Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in hearing before Rand Paul and Senate GOP/At a hearing on covid-19, the former infectious-disease official said he would avoid answering contentious questions" (gift link):

He declined to answer questions from [Senator Rand] Paul, who began the hearing by asking Fauci about the pandemic response and whether there was a folder in front of him on the table.

In a separate statement shared with The Post, Fauci’s lawyer alleged that Paul was fixated on Fauci after their clashes at the height of the pandemic — referring to a 2021 incident when the two men traded accusations of lying — and that the senator’s sole purpose for the hearing was to punish Fauci and see him in prison....

What about the pardon?

"The gig also made me remember what rockstar fandom, as a young girl, had been: a gateway drug to the opposite sex and sexual attraction in general."

"I remembered chasing Sting (as part of a mob of 14-year-old girls) as he rode with the other members of the Police in an open-top Jeep down Hammersmith Broadway in 1978. I remembered ogling his poster in my bedroom.... Aged 58, I felt as though I was somehow repeating a level on the multi-player game of life that I’d previously completed at 14: sexual and emotional infatuation with a rock star as a prelude and initiation to the real thing...."

From "A moment that changed me: I’d lost my libido – then I saw Richard Ashcroft on stage and it came bursting back/I was nearly 60 and hadn’t had sex in 10 years. And I was fine with that. But seeing the Verve’s former frontman reminded me how much fun it is to fancy someone" (The Guardian).

"What was it like walking right up to the dead, dissected bodies? For me, it was not disturbing."

"The bodies were amazing -- beautiful. You can look into a real human body and see the details of the organs --not bloody and pulsating -- but perfectly preserved. You know nothing about each individual -- who he was, how he died. But there he is, more fully exposed than a nude, for you to walk right up to and inspect. See those testicles, elegantly suspended on long ligaments?"

I wrote, in May 2005, in "Among the cadavers." I'd just seen the "Body Worlds 2" exhibit at the Great Lakes Science Center, which is right next to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

I'm looking back at that post this morning because I see "Gunther von Hagens, Creator of Polarizing ‘Body Worlds’ Exhibits, Dies at 81/A German scientist, he developed a process for turning corpses into posable figures. His shows drew millions of visitors, and many detractors" (NYT gift link).

Excerpt from the obituary: "Many religious leaders objected... especially in Germany.... '"Body Worlds" is possibly the logical conclusion of Nazi crimes,' Andreas Nachama, a rabbi and civic leader in Berlin, told The Independent in 2001, 'when millions of bodies were burnt by their murderers into cinders or transformed into soap, and their skin into lampshades.' [Von Hagens] also faced accusations of accepting bodies of executed prisoners from China, though there was no evidence he knew the source...."

"One afternoon he brings matzo ball soup from Max’s deli, my favorite. Another time, a mixtape."

"One afternoon I am eating a salad at my desk when he walks in and sits down across from me. I look up and meet his eyes—large, brown, steady—and something shifts. I see him differently. Or perhaps I allow myself to see what was there all along. He carries himself with an effortless assurance. There is gravity to him. On New Year’s Eve, as time clicks to 2000, we kiss for the first time on a friend’s back porch. We are pressed against the wall as midnight erupts across the city. Fireworks, car horns, the collective exhale of a century ending. It feels like a beginning. After that night, I play the mixtape on repeat...."

Writes Ruby Rippey, in "How I Blew Up—Then Rebuilt—My Life/When news of her affair with Gavin Newsom exploded into the public eye, it was only the outward mark of a long-rippling private implosion. In the wreckage of the scandal, Ruby Rippey faced her demons but lost her voice. Twenty years later, she is ready to share her story" (Vanity Fair).

And here's the NYT article about that: "Aide Who Had Affair With Newsom 20 Years Ago Details Her Experience/Ruby Rippey had stayed mostly quiet since her relationship with the San Francisco mayor rocked the city" (gift link). Excerpt: "She seems to blame herself for betraying her husband and says that her life spiraled as she drank heavily and used cocaine. She indicates that she was not coerced, but she also held Mr. Newsom responsible for holding power and proceeding with the affair anyway. 'Power does not need to coerce,' she writes. 'It only needs to exist. The responsibility to hold the line belongs to the one who holds it. That didn’t happen.'"

I like Rippey's info-packed, present-tense prose: "I always go to him — his penthouse in Russian Hill, a private back room at a North Beach bar, the W Hotel in Los Angeles." And the breathless wisdomizing: "We meet and we drink. There is sex, but it isn’t the point. The point is proximity — to power, to being chosen."

It got nice and cool overnight. I was almost cold in my summer clothes at sunrise.

But visually, it was rather dull. But that's all right. The 90° weather is over. We had 2 days of it in a row, and we're not up for that here in Wisconsin. We think it's too hot when it's 80. 

Write about whatever you like in the comments... except the Lindsey Graham funeral. Go one post down for that.

Trump at the funeral.

President Trump whips out Tic Tacs and hands them out at Lindsey Graham’s funeral: pic.twitter.com/yYhDG1mAoh

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 28, 2026

Trump takes issue with the Lindsey Graham eulogy he's reading: "Virtually everyone liked Lindsey. Well, not everybody. But it sounds good. I have to be honest. I have to veer from this for a second." pic.twitter.com/L5JwAXxWi0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 28, 2026

"A comedian and his friends are transforming a vacant retail space at the West 4th Street station with freebies, art and puppet shows to make commutes more enjoyable."

I'm reading "A Newsstand That Aims to Delight N.Y.C. Subway Riders" (NYT gift link).

Trading cards that highlight fun facts about retired subway conductors and operators. Key chains with a fake rat’s foot for “good train luck.” A bucket hat with a sliding veil that riders can borrow to cry in private.... The transit-themed newsstand will have no other purpose than to amuse and intrigue New Yorkers....

Nice photos. I like this kind of art installation. Comical. For the people.

"When I was meant to be with friends, I hid in the bathroom to absorb it, ingesting the spikes of serotonin and hits of dopamine, then instantly feeling regret and disgust."

Writes Ella Hodson, in "I’ve been addicted to social media for 17 years. Here’s how I quit/‘Chained to a screen’ since she was ten, Ella Hodson feared her phone was making her sick. So she took action and got her life back in just a few months" (London Times).

Meteotsunami.

"While the Appleton/Menasha tornado was occurring, Lake Winnebago appeared to drop by 1-2 ft at my location near Adella Beach/ Neenah, WI. At 12:29 - likely after the tornado had ended - I observed an unnaturally-long wave approaching from the northeast as the water rushed back into the bay. I moved my vehicle multiple times to stay clear of the rising water which spilled over the bank. I observed flying/falling debris such as shingles, small stick, and a projectile plastic kiddie pool as part of the broader event":

"There are times when I watch him, and I think to myself, this can't be real. Like, this can't be America. America. You've heard of us. We're great...."

ADDED: Collins is great in this interview. Watch to the end to fully appreciate.

"[His diary] paints a portrait of Dr. Fauci as obsessed with himself, reveling in his own importance and the celebrities he knows..."

"... from the actress Julia Roberts to the singers Joan Baez and Barbra Streisand.... The entries were also full of references to Hollywood stars, some of whom seemed star-struck over him.... Barbra Streisand called asking for vaccine advice. When Dr. Fauci told her he listened to her music on Alexa, the virtual assistant, she confessed she didn’t know what Alexa was. 'I accidentally butt called her later in the evening,' Dr. Fauci wrote, and when he played her music over Alexa, she 'absolutely loved it!' Joan Baez painted a portrait of him. Julia Roberts introduced him at an awards ceremony. 'She is so charming, natural, fun and amazingly beautiful,' Dr. Fauci wrote of Ms. Roberts. 'When my image came up on the screen,” he added, “she gasped and said that every time she sees me her throat gets dry and she gets nervous.'"

From "Fauci, in Private Diary, Reflected on Covid’s Origins and His Own Fame/Private entries, released by a Republican senator, have reignited a furious debate over whether Covid-19 leaked from a lab" (NYT gift link).

The "Republican senator" is Rand Paul, who's engaging in some taunting:

What Anthony Fauci looked like every night when he wrote about how great he is in his diary. pic.twitter.com/KbPvbtyi7g

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 27, 2026

And here's that Joan Baez artwork. Baez enfolds Fauci in her political schemata:

"So, yes, I do wear sunscreen every day despite working indoors."

"I commute at least 45 minutes to my office each way. I also face a nice large window behind my computer screen when I’m there. So even though I don’t actually step foot outside most of the day (tragically), my skin is getting UVA rays for much of my indoor time."

From "I’m a doctor. Here’s why I wear sunblock indoors. Plus, four tips for buying an effective sunscreen" (WaPo)(gift link).

I think the expression is "set foot" — not "step foot" — and I'm not going to take this doctor's advice. Frankly, I don't even use sunscreen outdoors. I walk at dawn and in places I know to be shady. Sunscreen is for people who go out in the sun and stay there a while, like I did when I was a child and even second-degree sunburns — the kind with blisters — were a normal part of a day at the beach. 

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

Pyrocumulonimbus — a thundercloud caused by fire.

I'm reading "Firefighters in France Encounter a 'Fire Cloud'/A pyrocumulonimbus — a thundercloud created by intense heat — is a phenomenon that can spark new blazes and is 'unprecedented in France,' officials said" (NYT gift link).

These large, fire-fueled thunderstorms, also known as pyroCbs, are created by intense heat from large blazes or volcanic eruptions. They produce lightning and burning embers that can spark more fires, and they generate high and unpredictable winds that fan the flames and spread the embers. But they rarely bring rain....

"The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible."

Writes Emily Wilson, quoted in "'I would be ashamed to have written any part of this’: Odyssey translator Emily Wilson attacks Nolan blockbuster/Wilson, whose work on Homer’s epic was praised by Nolan, said his film was grandiose and superficial with ‘nothing convincing to say'" (The Guardian).

People always say the movie lacks the depth and character development of the book, but complaining about food is funny.

As for the lack of sex... Maureen Dowd wrote about that in "Nolan’s Zero-Eros 'Odyssey'" (NYT gift link): "In keeping with Gen Z’s waning interest in sex, the poem’s famous sex scenes have been excised, sapping erotic power from the female characters.... Nolan did not want his Odysseus betraying Penelope and enjoying his sojourns with other women. The director completely cut out the young princess Nausicaa, whom Homer’s Odysseus has a flirtation with, and neuters the text’s sexual encounters with Circe and Calypso...."

ADDED: Here's the whole Wilson essay: "An Uncomplicated Man" (London Review of Books).

It was very hot — 80° at sunrise — and really humid. No rain though.

Meade's video.

"I was searching for an idea.... So I decided to follow people.... just to use people's energy as a motor.... I loved not having to decide. I loved that errance, that promenade through other people's decisions...."

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"A country pursuit. Many of us do it around here in Hereford."

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AND: "Do you like clocks?"

"If we remembered all the artists, we'd be up to our neck in rubbish."

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"Once you hear it, the ‘Gen Alpha melody’ is everywhere."

A WaPo headline aptly states. Here's a gift link to the article, and here's the viral video it's talking about:

I couldn't watch the whole thing because I was so grossed out, not that somebody put those 4 notes together first and deserves compensation for everyone else copying but by how inane and tedious all that music is. (I know, I'm old, it's not for me.)

"Critics say T.P.S. is a problem because it’s not really temporary. Look at the Salvadorans, they say."

"They first became eligible for T.P.S. in 1990 because of the violent civil war in their country. Another wave came after two devastating earthquakes in 2001. Decades on, there are about 190,000 of them here, living and working legally. (At least for now — their protected status is slated to end in September.)"

From "Protected No More" (NYT gift link).

"[A]nti-queer' crimes more than tripled in [Berlin] between 2016 and 2025. Violent anti-queer crimes rose by half."

"Both violent and nonviolent offenses peaked in 2023 and have fallen since the city began its strategy, but both types of crimes remain historically elevated.  Much of that effort has focused on countering growing hostility from Germany’s far right; in Berlin, far-right ideology was the most frequently cited specific motivation for homophobic attacks in the city in 2025. But on Sunday, after the authorities said the perpetrator had attempted to join the Islamist terrorist group ISIS, community leaders said they were increasingly worried about threats from a wider range of political and religious motivations...."

From "Even Before Attack, Berlin’s Gay Community Felt ‘More and More Unsafe’/The killing of a woman in what officials called an act of Islamist terrorism rattled a community that has seen a surge in threats, including from the far right" (NYT gift link).

"Some people at the memorial on Sunday said German leaders had contributed to a sense of insecurity. They singled out the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has climbed in national polls with a platform that defines a family as a man and a woman with children. Others criticized Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, who defended a decision not to fly a Pride flag over the federal parliament building last year by saying Parliament was 'not a circus tent.'..."

"He said he planned to watch the sunset and hike out in the dark, then find a place to camp...."

From "Report Details Fatal Glacier Park Grizzly Bear Attack/An interagency review concluded that Anthony Pollio, a 33-year-old solo hiker from Florida, was killed on May 3 after he surprised an adult male grizzly bear while descending the Mount Brown Lookout trail, likely in" (Flathead Beacon).

"Darkness and deadfall on the trail would have prevented the bear and Mr. Pollio from seeing each other until they were very close.... The attack was likely brief and intense and not prolonged. There was no consumption or caching of the victim by the bear.... Mr. Pollio appears to have been the victim of a defensive attack by a surprised grizzly bear."

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

***

That first photo is by Meade, the second by me.

"The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections...."

"At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.... "

From "Inside the Phone-Throwing Drama at the Troubled, Broke Democratic Party/The Democrats should be well positioned to make gains in this year’s midterms. But inside party headquarters, every week brings paranoia, worries about money and, on occasion, emotional eruptions" (NYT gift link).

Just 5 days ago, we were talking about how unusual it is, in a work environment, for someone to throw something. I blogged a story about Troy Jackson, now the Democrats' candidate for Senator from Maine, who, according to WaPo, "once angrily threw a water bottle in a meeting after he couldn’t persuade a lawmaker to vote his way." I asked: "Have you ever thrown anything as a way of expressing emotion? Even in a private, non-work environment? It's some kind of red flag, throwing things. Who does that?"

Various answers in the comments over there, and now we have a new answer: Ken Martin.

"Three stages keep the dancers moving and the listeners happy all day with a diverse mix of sounds including Latin soul by Orquesta SalSoul del Mad, roots rock veterans The Rousers, bluegrass..."

"... from Bigtooth, and of course fest favorites like VO5 and Steely Dane…and that’s only a small sample of the local bands; the fest also features tour stops by The Band Feel, Toronzo Cannon, Kelli Baker Band and others. Food and artisan vendors are also on offer, as well as kids' activities hosted by Canopy Center. Find the full schedule below and updates at atwoodfest.com...."

I'm quoting from the middle of the page at "CANCELED: AtwoodFest" (Isthmus).

At the top of the page: "Our community and our Marquette neighbors witnessed another horrific officer-involved shooting just blocks from our festival grounds, leaving us in deep pain and justified anger. In acknowledgment of what has happened far too often in our community and our country as a whole, this year's AtwoodFest, themed 'The Heartbeat of the Neighborhood,' is canceled...."

"You’ve been in the folk tradition... I wonder how your attitude toward those types of songwriting have differed under President Trump..."

"... versus, at the time, under George W. Bush, when you wrote 'When The President Talks to God,' one of your best-known songs."

The NYT interviewer asks Conor Oberst, in "How Conor Oberst Survived Teenage Rock Stardom" (gift link).

Oberst answers: "You know, it’s really hard for me to even articulate the Trump era. Maybe at some point I’ll be able to do it. It’s like, you can’t satirize what’s already a parody. It’s already a disgusting, gross cartoon.... I’m sure it permeates everything I write, but to write directly toward, I found it almost impossible.... I mean, I’ve thought about it and I’ve had plenty of people be like, where’s the new 'When the President Talks to God'? I don’t know. It’s such an avalanche of insanity."

What is the origin and history of the idea that something/someone is beyond parody because what they already are is the parody?

"Moko was asleep at the time. We decided we want to wake this thing back up again."

Said Mark Kopua, who "grew up in a Māori community that had lost all its tohunga tā moko, or ritual tattoo artists."

He is quoted in "A Once Outlawed Māori Art Form Is Alive and in the Flesh/Young Māori in New Zealand are embracing tā moko, the ritual tattoos that were banned under British colonial rule and became an act of protest in the 1970s" (NYT gift link).

Without forebears to teach them, Mr. Kopua — a tohunga whakairo, or a master woodcarver — learned tā moko from the patterns he used in carving and weaving. They studied moko kanohi patterns on decapitated heads that were under the care of New Zealand’s national museum. Māori warriors believed that decapitation severed their enemies’ connection to the gods. In the 19th century, British settlers collected the heads as curiosities and trophies and offered guns and gold in exchange — prompting some Māori people to hunt down those who wore mataora and moko kauae.

"It's very beautiful in its shattered state.... Do you see how wonderful it is?"

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Pastel.

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