"Holding space."

 Perhaps you're noticing this today:

Margaret Cho: "I'm holding space for that CEO shooter, the abs, and that body"

The American left's creepy fascination with Luigi Mangione continuespic.twitter.com/CJbFoys6iN

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) December 15, 2024

That's Margaret Cho: "I'm holding space for... those eyebrows, that body, the abs."

She's being funny... and inappropriate, and I'm not going to say anything more about how bad it is to drool over an alleged murderer. I want to discuss the phrase "holding space," which gained traction a week ago with this promotional interview for the movie "Wicked":

"People are taking the lyrics of 'Defying Gravity' and really holding space with that and feeling power in that."

I see there's a Wikipedia article, "Holding space":

"Holding space" is a psychology concept meaning towards creating a safe space for someone or something by being present for them, physically, emotionally and mentally without judgement.

Sometimes not understanding is the greatest understanding of all.

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo discuss the viral “Holding Space” moment in recent Wicked interview. pic.twitter.com/kdbULBcwgB

— wicked news hub (@wickednewshub) December 7, 2024

"SNL" makes it up to Lt. Com. Dan Crenshaw with Crenshaw on the show mocking Pete Davidson's looks.

This begins with an apology from Davidson, has some good retaliatory jokes in the middle, and ends with some serious Veterans Day thoughts.

(What Davidson did last week was include a photo of Crenshaw in a bit where he gave his first impression of other people's looks, and what he said about Crenshaw focused on his eye patch. As Davidson acknowledged in last week's episode, Crenshaw lost an eye in the war.)

"It would never be my intention to touch any woman’s breast... I don’t know..."

"I guess I put my arm around her. Maybe I crossed the border, maybe I was too friendly or familiar but again, I apologize.... I hug all the female artists and the male artists... Everybody that was up, I shook their hands and hugged them. That’s what we are all about in the church. We are all about love. The last thing I want to do is to be a distraction to this day. This is all about Aretha Franklin.”

Said Bishop Charles H. Ellis III about his encounter with Ariana Grande at the Aretha Franklin funeral, quoted at Page 6. See the picture at the link and tell me whether the Bishop "crossed the border." I say he did not, and the distraction was created by idiots looking for something to say while watching the live-stream of the funeral. These demands for apologies have gone too far, and so I won't say he should apologize for apologizing, but it was totally unnecessary.

Ellis also apologized to Grande, her fans and Hispanic community for making a joke about seeing her name on the program and thinking it was a new item on the Taco Bell menu.

Now, that apology was necessary. That remark really did cross the border. Or made a run for the border.*

And "It would never be my intention to touch any woman’s breast" is really funny. Not a credibility-builder.
__________________

* See "Taco Bell Slogans, Ranked" (putting "Make a run for the border" second to last, just above the current slogan "Live Mas").


IN THE COMMENTS: Bob Boyd said:

"It would never be my intention to fly into any flame." - Scorched Moth

"Two homeless men... Steve Jones and Chris Parker, were in the area to sleep and beg for money."

Steve Jones: "We had to pull nails out of children's faces."

Chris Parker: "I saw a little girl… she had no legs. I wrapped her in one of the merchandise T-shirts and I said 'where’s your mum and daddy?'"

From "The two homeless heroes who helped Manchester attack victims."

IN THE COMMENTS: Paul Zrimsek attacks the very poorly written headline:

"The two homeless heroes who helped Manchester attack victims."

So it wasn't ISIS after all?

You'd think a place the size of Manchester would be capable of attacking a bunch of little girls without the aid of vagrants.

"One of the soldiers of the Caliphate was able to place an explosive device within a gathering of the Crusaders in the city of Manchester."

ISIS claims credit.

ADDED: "[T]he man who blew himself up the previous night at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, was 23-year-old Salman Abedi, who was known to British authorities prior to the attack."

There was security at the concert, but the bomber apparently didn't try to get into the venue, instead blowing himself up in an entrance foyer area as concertgoers flooded out of the arena. Prime Minister May said the attacker had deliberately chosen "his time and place to cause maximum carnage" in the young crowd.

"At least one explosion, which may have been a suicide bombing, thundered through a Manchester concert arena on Monday night just as a performance by the pop star Ariana Grande ended..."

"... in what the police described as a 'terrorist incident.' They said at least 19 people had been killed and 50 wounded as panicked spectators, including adolescents, screamed and fled."

"Ariana Grande Is Not Here for Your Sexist Interview Questions."

I'm only posting about this because I already have an Ariana Grande tag. That tag only has one other post and it's a post that contains the phrase "I'm only posting because...."

The other post is "Thanks for licking the doughnut, Ariana Grande." She's the celebrity who licked a doughnut that was on a tray left unsupervised in a doughnut shop where anyone could just come up and lick it.

I appreciated her calling our attention to unattended doughnuts, and now she's applying her celebrity power to the problem of radio show hosts asking female celebrities questions like "If you had to choose between your phone and makeup, which would you give up?"

As for the doughnuts tag, which this post also gets, it's not languishing so unused I wish I'd never created it. It's rolling along. This is its 33rd appearance.

I wanted to illustrate this post with an image of a rolling doughnut. (Yeah, here's a good one.) But searching for "rolling doughnut" turned up "15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will," and one of them is: "Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?"

#1 on that list is "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" I read that out loud to Meade without identifying the context and he thought I was reading something I'd written. His reaction was: "I think it's below your normal writing."

And that's it for the second Ariana Grande blog post.

Thanks for licking the doughnut, Ariana Grande.

"Ariana Grande and her boyfriend walk into a California doughnut shop. While the employee walks away from the counter, they lick some doughnuts set out on the counter and laugh about it. When the employee comes back with a tray of doughnuts, Grande says disdainfully, 'What is the f— is that? I hate Americans. I hate America.'"

Now, most people are taking shots at Arianna. With good reason, of course. But I'm not going to pile on. I'm only posting because I see another angle, one that's not getting attention.

The doughnut shop put big trays full of doughnuts out, on top of the glass case, at mouth level, where they will tantalize and be accessible to all sorts of people, including those with low impulse control and children (in arms) and other childish individuals. It's easy to see — in the now-famous security footage — how the placement of the doughnuts leads to playful foolery that escalates from "Mmmm, I want" to "I could just bite that" to "Go ahead! Do it!" and "I dare you!" And then some naughty girl licks it and her boyfriend laughs and laughs. If that happened once — we caught Ariana — it happened more than once. I'm glad the weakness in doughnut shop sanitation has been exposed. Now, quit putting them out on top of the case. It should be a health code violation. Even without anyone licking, they're still breathing on them.

As for "I hate Americans. I hate America." Yes, you can trash her. But she said that as a joke, and just as I bet she's not the first person to lick doughnuts, I'll bet she's not the first person to use the line "I hate Americans, I hate America" as a comic expression of minor irritation. The "What the fuck is that?" preface indicates, I think, that she believed the latest tray of doughnuts was so inferior that it was funny to act like they weren't even doughnuts. The followup "I hate Americans, I hate America" is, in this view, over-the-top faux-drama, similar to saying "Everything has gone to hell in this country," just because the latest batch of doughnuts isn't the kind you like. It's a type of humor. You had to be there, in the setting, as the young lady or her boyfriend, having some fun goofing around.