"For the past few summers, men’s shorts have somehow been getting both shorter and longer."

"On one end, there’s the unmissable thigh-baring hemlines.... On the other side, you have the slouchier, below-the-knee joint.... [One fashion writer] cites that photo of Giorgio Armani on the phone as 'the Bible' for shorts right now. And then there’s the ongoing John F. Kennedy Jr. cosplay, as sparked by Love Story. 'Last summer, short shorts were everywhere. Now, a lot of men are like, "Oh, but JFK Jr. wore baggier shorts. Let’s ditch the short short...."' Of course, there will always be the extremes. Some guys prefer the ultra-trendy, downtown look of giant, capri-like shorts with white socks and black leather shoes.... But... 'In the city and polite society, you kind of want your shorts hovering right at the knee.'"

From "How Long (or Short) Should Your Shorts Be in 2026?/Here’s the definitive answer to the ultimate summer menswear debate" (GQ).

Who knew men were in such a quandary about the length of their shorts? One solution is don't wear shorts or don't wear shorts whenever you care how you look.

I'm interested in the notion that there is "ongoing John F. Kennedy Jr. cosplay" — interested enough to look up "cosplay" in the OED. Cosplay involves not just dressing up like a character but also performing as that character. Who would even know if you were performing the role of JFK Jr.? You'd know. And maybe that's all that matters.

"I was walking with my girlfriend when we saw him. Shirtless, in late-afternoon sunlight, J.F.K., Jr., was playing Frisbee, wearing nothing but black athletic shorts..."

"... tennis shoes, and droopy white socks. This was the Ivy League. Nobody worked out. (Nobody I knew, anyway.) And so I wasn’t prepared for the muscularity, the anachronistic virility, on display. John’s physique was so classically ideal he might’ve been throwing a discus instead of a Frisbee and been carved out of stone. You looked for the defect in him and you couldn’t find it. There had to be something wrong somewhere, but it would take a magnifying glass to detect. Most of his clan had inherited the freckled, rabbity Kennedy looks. John, lucky in everything, had received the enhancing admixture of dark, French Mediterranean, Bouvier blood. I mentioned it was 1979. Bisexuality was undergoing one of its periodic upticks. I’d fallen into some confusion on that score myself. But I had a girlfriend now. That wasn’t what was going on. The urge I felt wasn’t to possess. It wasn’t even to resemble. It was to draw near. To be allowed to draw near...."

Writes Jeffrey Eugenides, in "My Unrequited Love Story with J.F.K., Jr./I knew John F. Kennedy, Jr., not that well and not that long, but enough to have experienced the gravitational pull he exerted, like some great big moon"
 (The New Yorker).

"But a recent tragedy-exploiting television series about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette features a character using my name and presents her as me."

Writes Daryl Hannah, in the NYT.

The choice to portray her as irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate was no accident. In discussing the show, “Love Story,” one of its producers explained: “Given how much we’re rooting for John and Carolyn, Daryl Hannah occupies a space where she’s an adversary to what you want narratively in the story.” Storytelling requires tension. It often requires an obstacle. But a real, living person is not a narrative device. 

There is also a gendered dimension to this thinking. Popular culture has long elevated certain women by portraying others as rivals, obstacles or villains. Isn’t it textbook misogyny to tear down one woman in order to build up another?... 

I have never used cocaine.... I have never desecrated any family heirloom.... I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s....

"[George Magazine's] purportedly post-partisan stance seemed to many people naïve."

"'Ultimately, you can’t have a political magazine that doesn’t have a politics,' Victor Navasky, then the publisher of The Nation, told The New York Times in an article headlined 'George Wins Readers, but Little Respect.' Arguably, the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal was the publication’s undoing. In the spring of 1998, when the independent counsel Ken Starr was deep in his investigation of the Clinton White House, George published a puffy cover story on the film 'Primary Colors,' an adaptation of the roman à clef about Mr. Clinton’s 1992 campaign. (For a brief while, America had its own Elena Ferrante in Joe Klein). The magazine further showed its hand when it referred to the under-fire president as the 'chief charmer.' When Mr. Kennedy and his staff tried to cover the imbroglio, they made choices that would now seem cringe, like publishing a write-around article about Ms. Lewinsky’s past accompanied by a full-page caricature of her biting into a hot dog."

From "The Lasting Appeal of John F. Kennedy Jr./A CNN documentary and an upcoming series by Ryan Murphy delve into the nation’s most famous son, who remains fixed in the 1990s" (NYT)(gift link, so you can see the whole story... and all the beefcake pix of the famously gawked-at boy).

Why is it so difficult to find that caricature of Monica Lewinsky biting into a hot dog?

Google gives me 2 pix of Obama stuffing something into his mouth and one of Reagan. This is the most obvious caricature idea for Lewinsky. You'd think dozens of lame efforts would show up in this search. And George Magazine published one. Where is it? Is Google caring for our presumed devotion to the beloved boy? I mean John John. Not that rogue Bill!

The "JFK is alive" crowd.

QAnon supporters gather in Washington DC for the return of JFK (June 11 2022) pic.twitter.com/QK6OWmtAEI

— Catastrophic Failure (@ohshidt) June 11, 2022

Here's a Daily Beast article: "QAnoners Gather for Big Announcement From JFK Jr., Who Is Dead."

Isn't this in the category of things that includes levitating the Pentagon?

You remember: "Fifty Years Ago, a Rag-Tag Group of Acid-Dropping Activists Tried to 'Levitate' the Pentagon/The March on the Pentagon to end the Vietnam War began a turning point in public opinion, but some in the crowd were hoping for a miracle" (Smithsonian).

That's what springs to mind when I see — in today's Washington Post — "Why hundreds of QAnon supporters showed up in Dallas, expecting JFK Jr.’s return." 

It means something, but it doesn't mean they really believe.

At the site overlooking where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated nearly six decades ago, scores of QAnon believers outfitted with “Trump-Kennedy 2024” shirts, flags and other merchandise gathered. They forecast the president’s son John F. Kennedy Jr., who has been dead for over 20 years, would appear at that spot, emerging from anonymity to become Donald Trump’s vice president when the former president is reinstated. The prophecy foretold online, of course, did not come true.... 

The spectacle captivated people, some amused at the ridiculousness of the far-fetched theory that Kennedy faked his death. But the size of Tuesday’s gathering was concerning for Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab who researches domestic extremism. The claim about Kennedy Jr. is considered fringe even for supporters of QAnon, a collective of baseless conspiracy theories revolving around an idea that Trump is battling a Satan-worshiping cabal that traffics children for sex. The sprawling set of false claims that have coalesced into an extremist ideology has radicalized its followers and incited violence and criminal acts. The FBI has designated it a domestic terrorism threat....