"Arise, fair sun..."

1. At 7:18, a yellow orb comes into view...


2. What light through yon cloud cover breaks? It is the East, and Meade is the sun! I thought I would have no sun in my sunrise photograph, but Meade has importantly and profoundly worn a sun-costume on his globelike head. I only discovered his head as a sun substitute when I got home. If I'd noticed at the time, I'd have repositioned myself to frame the sun-head right where the sun was rising behind those clouds.

3. Something I did notice at the time — with Meade's helpful, flappy gesturing — were 2 bald eagles. I said "You have good eyesight," but then I got closer to one. It was huge! Quite seeable. Meade also had hearing, unlike me, with my AirPodded music, and when I wondered if I could recognize the call of a bald eagle, he reminded me that I knew it through "The Colbert Report":

"Tony Robbins punishes followers who fail at his self-help tasks by calling them onstage in front of large crowds and making them drink an unidentified mixture 'designed to have a lasting effect for several hours.'"

"Video and internal documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News reveal that Robbins places 'L' stickers on audience members’ foreheads and then, while the song 'Loser' by Beck plays over the speakers, forces them to down a 'gross shot' whose contents he does not disclose to them.... Robbins’ lawyers denied that the “gross shot” contained laxatives –– only 'pickle juice, apple juice, lemon juice, tomato juice and a dash of tabasco'..."

Buzzfeed reports.

"It’s a great form of communication... a tremendous form... I have a method of fighting back.... So it’s a modern form of communication. There should be nothing you should be ashamed of. It’s — it’s where it’s at."

Said Donald Trump, speaking about social media — "Facebook and Twitter and I guess Instagram" — to Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes" the other day. She was probing into whether he's going to give it up once he's President, and his answer is that it's a way to easily reach 28 million people. That would be "very tough" to give up, but he's "going to do very restrained, if I use it at all, I’m going to do very restrained."

I like that Trumpism — "to do very restrained." Ordinarily, in English, we'd say "to be very restrained." But he's a doer. "Do" should get an adverb, not an adjective ("restrained"), so it's technically grammatically wrong.

But "do" is perhaps his "be," and "be" gets an adjective. See? I'm doing very pedantic. Hope you like it. I'm not ashamed. There should be nothing you should be ashamed of. Yikes! What a concept! No shame. No more shame. Do — and don't regret. Trump doesn't do regretful.

But the reason I'm writing this post — doing this modern form of communication — is because of the phrase "It’s where it’s at."

That's a real 1960s phrase — right in there with "Do your own thing" and "Let it all hang out." How much 1960s is in the mind of Trump? I only know what's in the mind of Althouse, and "It's where it's at" screams 60s to me.

If you're younger, maybe you know it from this highly honored 1996 recording by Beck:



But Beck's source for the phrase was from 1969, an educational recording titled "Sex for Teens: (Where It's At)," which you can listen to here.



I listened. Very sincere and thus very funny.

"Where It's At" was the title of a British TV show. The Beatles used it to present "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" to the world:

KENNY [Radio personality Kenny Everett]: "What do you think of this new LP? It's a bit strange compared to the others. Would you term it 'Psycho-Deeelic'?"

RINGO: "Only if you want to think of it as psycho-deeelic."

JOHN: "Now we'd like to play you one. It's a sad little song. (pause) Where's it gone?"

PAUL: (giggles)

JOHN: "Oh, this is it, yeah. Picture yourself on an old-fashioned elephant. Lucy in the sky for everyone, now."

The best use of "where it's at" is, I think, from Bob Dylan, in that most Bob Dylan of Bob Dylan songs, "Like a Rolling Stone." Forget the old-fashioned elephant. Bring on the chrome horse:

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal

I call out to Meade, and he points out that he already texted me what is to him the better Bob Dylan usage of "where it's at," "Positively 4th Street":

You say you lost your faith
But that’s not where it’s at
You had no faith to lose
And you know it

You're probably wondering by now whether the 60s and Bob Dylan and The Beatles are where it's at and, to put it another way, whether the Althouse blog is where it's at. Or maybe is Trump where it's at. But we're all here on social media, and Trump says it's where it's at.

"And Beck needs to respect artistry and he should have given his award to Beyoncé and at this point, we tired of it."

"Because what happens is when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in the face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration. And we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day. And they listen to that Beyoncé album and they feel like it takes them to another place. Then they do this whole promotional event, that, you know, they’ll run the music over somebody’s speech, the artist, because they want a commercial advertising. Like no, we not playing with them no more. And by the way, I got my wife, I got my daughter, and I got my clothing line so I’m not going to do nothing to put my daughter at risk — but I am here to fight for creativity. That’s the reason why I didn’t say anything tonight. But y’all know what it meant when ‘Ye walked on the stage."

Kanye West at the Grammys, which I think is a reality show.

Beck covers John Lennon's "Love."

Streamable today here.

"In the wake of Modern Guilt and The Information, Beck’s latest album comes in an almost-forgotten form..."

"... twenty songs existing only as individual pieces of sheet music, never before released or recorded."

Sweet. People used to play their own music. Back in the 1930s, my mother bought sheet music. That was how the hit songs were purchased back then. I have a box of those old songs in my hall closet. But things are different today: Beck is inviting people to record these songs, and he's working with McSweeney's to make (some of) our versions of his songs available on line.

"And if the elevator tries to bring you down/Go crazy (Punch a higher floor!)."

Prince lyric, which just occurred to me in the context of the feminist-in-the-elevator-at-the-atheist-convention incident. Prince was telling us to live now, because we're all going to die, which he sometimes said clearly — "You better live now/Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door" — and sometimes said absurdly — "Let's look for the purple banana/Until they put us in the truck." He also expressed a clear belief in the afterlife. ("In this life/Things are much harder than in the afterworld/In this life/You're on your own.") He's no atheist. How he behaves in an actual in-this-life elevator, as opposed to a metaphorical elevator, I have no idea. I bet he silently occupies his corner and avoids eye contact, in classic elevator etiquette, and waits for his floor.

Sorry I can't link to a Prince "Let's Go Crazy" video. Prince is super-possessive about his songs and doesn't appreciate the value of letting people like Althouse win him new fans. So here's 1. Beck, "Elevator Music" and 2. Eminem, "Elevator." Beck says:

All the dudes with banjos
Chicks with wicks
Animals with bananas...

Eminem says:

That’s a no no who even she knows dada’s f-cking crazy
Fucking animal, cookoo, bananas, fucking AP

Whether those are purple bananas, I don't know.

ADDED: Actually, for now, at least, here's Prince, "Let's Go Crazy."

AND: For the sake of completeness, there is at least one more elevator/banana song.