Things we're starting to understand.

I'm starting to understand why The Joker made a billion dollars.

— Bridget Phetasy (@BridgetPhetasy) June 2, 2020

Okay, everybody lean back, stretch out your neck, and push your chin up toward the sky.

That's the pose of the moment:



What does it mean — for Judy, for the Joker, and for all us?



It means: I don't know what the hell is going on in this crazy world and I've got my problems but — damn you all — I am here and I am moving forward! I turn my face toward the heavens and I soak up  inspiration! Energy! Lunacy!

Or something.

Try it, when you're running low. You can do it Judy-style, with fingers splayed across your clavicle, as if to pledge allegiance to your own ego. Or you can do it Joker-style with fists flung sideways as if to say "O, universe! Take me! I'm yours!"

Brilliantly executed parody: SNL's trailer for "Grouch."

This is so well done that I shifted from enjoying the mockery of the idea of taking a comic-book villain's origin story utterly seriously and filming it with high artistry (which is, I think, what happens in the movie "Joker") and getting drawn into the fantasy of how Oscar the Grouch (and other "Sesame Street" characters) could have become the people they are. "Sesame Street" has always been a falsely sunny fantasy version of New York City, so what's really there if you remove the sunshine filter. Who are these creatures? They're just puppets, it's all made up... that's what you're supposed to blithely tell your kids if they ever wonder. Hours and hours of watching these candy-colored freaks... but what if you looked past the surface and sought to understand them as human beings?

It's the most familiar song that no one knows the name of or who it's by.

It's "Rock and Roll — Part 2" by Gary Glitter:



There's a big controversy about it right now because Gary Glitter is a convicted pedophile and the song is used in the gigantic movie "Joker": "Convicted pedophile Gary Glitter set to earn big royalties from ‘Joker’ movie" (CNBC).

The song plays for approximately two minutes as Joaquin Phoenix, who has received rave reviews for his portrayal of the eponymous villain, dances down a long flight of steps outside his Gotham City apartment.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Gadd, is reportedly expected to receive a lump sum for allowing the recording to be used in “Joker.” He is also thought to be in line for music royalties depending on the success of movie theater ticket sales, DVD sales and film soundtrack sales.

That song is already played everywhere and has been for decades. But a lot of people are looking for ways to say something bad about "Joker." Maybe everyone will finally decide that song is really evil. It's used in the movie to convey the evil of the character. It's used to stimulate emotions at sporting events. It has a uniquely weird quality, so I think it's very useful and will not go away. But who knew it was by Gary Glitter and had the stupid name "Rock and Roll — Part 2"?

"'Joker' reflects political cowardice on the part of a filmmaker, and perhaps of a studio, in emptying out the specifics of the city’s modern history and current American politics so that the movie can be released as mere entertainment to viewers who are exasperated with the idea of movies being discussed in political terms—i.e., to Republicans...."

"[T]he movie plays into the hands of current-day political rhetoric—namely, the emphasis by Republicans who, when it comes to gun control, would rather deny weapons to the mentally ill than restrict weaponry for everyone. In the wake of Arthur’s killing spree, a public figure—Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), a wealthy banker for whom Penny worked decades earlier, and who, of course, is the father of a boy named Bruce—speaks of killers such as Arthur as 'clowns.' This comment gives rise to a sudden mass movement of activists who dress like clowns and target the rich and the powerful. The trope resembles Hillary Clinton’s reference to many of the supporters of Donald Trump as 'deplorables,' a term that was adopted by some as a badge of honor—except in 'Joker' the epithet applies rather to radicals on the left, who loom as a menace waiting to happen...."

From "'Joker' Is a Viewing Experience of Rare, Numbing Emptiness" by Richard Brody (in The New Yorker).

Brody is bothered by the movie's "incoherence," and I think he's mostly annoyed that the comic-book material isn't organized according to a comic-book politics of right and left. He calls the movie "empty" over and over, but it seems as though he's bothered by complexity — there's too much and it's not composed in a stark, easily recognized pattern.

"Large-necked man and Joker lookalike are upping the ‘Florida Man’ mugshot game."

Miami Herald headline.

"Tired of Small Talk? Try Medium Talk."

"Everyone has an intuitive sense of what 'medium talk' might mean...."

Most people seem to interpret the question the way you’d expect — how do you lift a fleeting and likely unimportant-in-the-grand-scheme conversation up out of dulls-ville so that you’ll at least remember or learn something from it?

Reddit being Reddit, many of the answers are jokey and stupid, consisting of intellectually stimulating fare like “Would you rather have a vagina on your forehead or a row of penises down your back like a stegosaurus?” But there’s some good stuff, too. The top-rated response is “What's something you like that most people don't?”...

Actually, the top-rated response now is "If Batman died, would the Joker be happy?"

"This Town Needs a Better Class of Racist."

That's the title of an interesting essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic.

The idea is, roughly, that Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling are so crudely racist that we look at them, easily see that they are quite awful, deserving condemnation, and — this is the bad part — not at all like me and everyone I know. If those two are to be America's stereotypical "racists," it's going to get even harder to see the subtle, below-board, pervasive forms of racism that Coates and others have been urging us to perceive. We will self-indulgently feel smug that: 1. We've ostracized the racists, and 2. We are nothing like the racists.

If you're wondering what "Town" needs a "Better Class of Racist," I assume the town is Gotham, that is, that Coates means to evoke The Joker:



But it's this whole country Coates thinks needs a "better class of racist." He wants us to have to confront and mentally anguish over individuals who: 1. Are nice and normal enough that we identify with and cannot distance ourselves from, and 2. We're somehow compelled to perceive as racist.

I wonder what Coates would be willing to do to smoke out some high-class racists like that? And what would it take — especially after the harsh treatment of Bundy and Sterling — for Americans to respond to invitations to see nice-enough fellow citizens as racists?

"Colorado theater shooting suspect was neuroscience Ph.D student."

At the University of Colorado-Denver.

[James] Holmes is suspected of walking into an Aurora theater's midnight showing of "Dark Knight Rises" wearing a gas mask and bullet proof vest and shooting at least 54 people. Twelve are reported dead.

There's a photo of the 24-year-old man at the link. He looks ordinary. Smirking... but it's the kind of smirk I associate with the character Jim on "The Office."

ADDED: Breitbart reports:

According to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, James Holmes, 24, the alleged perpetrator of the mass murder at the Aurora, Colorado theater showing of The Dark Knight Rises, claimed he was “The Joker” during the shooting. “We have some information, most of it is public,” said Kelly. “It clearly looks like a deranged individual. He had his hair painted red, he said he was ‘The Joker,’ obviously the ‘enemy’ of Batman.”...

Health Ledger’s portrayal of Batman arch-nemesis The Joker in the last installment of the Batman saga, The Dark Knight, won him a posthumous Oscar. The Joker was focused in that film on destroying Gotham City through chaos and mass murder; he also rigged buildings with booby traps in order to achieve that end.

"What is government if words have no meaning?" — the question Jared Loughner asked Gabrielle Giffords at a "Congress in Your Corner" event in 2007.

Mother Jones reports what he said to his friend Bryce Tierney: "Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question." Tierney says, "Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her." (By the way, 2007 is a year before Sarah Palin emerged on the national scene.)

Loughner would occasionally mention Giffords, according to Tierney: "It wasn't a day-in, day-out thing, but maybe once in a while, if Giffords did something that was ridiculous or passed some stupid law or did something stupid, he related that to people. But the thing I remember most is just that question. I don't remember him stalking her or anything." Tierney notes that Loughner did not display any specific political or ideological bent: "It wasn't like he was in a certain party or went to rallies... It's not like he'd go on political rants." But Loughner did, according to Tierney, believe that government is "fucking us over." He never heard Loughner vent about about the perils of "currency," as Loughner did on one YouTube video he created....

As Loughner and Tierney grew closer, Tierney got used to spending the first ten minutes or so of every day together arguing with Loughner's "nihilist" view of the world. "By the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing—illusion," Tierney says. Once, Tierney recalls, Loughner told him, "I'm pretty sure I've come to the conclusion that words mean nothing."...

Tierney believes that Loughner was very interested in pushing people's buttons—and that may have been why he listed Hitler's Mein Kampf as one of his favorite books on his YouTube page. (Loughner's mom is Jewish, according to Tierney.)...

Loughner believed that dreams could be a sort of alternative, Matrix-style reality, and "that when you realize you're dreaming, you can do anything, you can create anything," Tierney says....

There's a dream journal, which I'm sure we'll get to read.

... Loughner seemed ticked off by what he believed to be a pervasive authoritarianism. "The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar," he wrote in one YouTube video.....

Since hearing of the rampage, Tierney has been trying to figure out why Loughner did what he allegedly did. "More chaos, maybe," he says. "I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what's happening. He wants all of that." Tierney thinks that Loughner's mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: "He fucks things up to fuck shit up, there's no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: 'Another Saturday, going to go get groceries'—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in."

It sounds as though the movies were more a source of inspiration for his craziness than politics.

"What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?"

"Save the country from trending toward Socialism!"

The [PowerPoint] presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said...

One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.

Okay, now, that's just terrible. Everyone knows that Republicans can't do humor. But. And this is a big but. How do you depict Harry Reid as Scooby Doo? I did a Google image search and got nothing. Pelosi as Cruella and Obama as the Joker I've seen. But what's the Harry Reid Scooby Doo? Is it an audio joke connected to the last 2 syllables of his name?

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.” Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”

Rut roh.

But wait. Top donors were there for presentation. Driven by ego and benefiting from access, apparently. And — gasp! — able to laugh at themselves. Nooooooo. Not possible! They are Republicans!

Shepard Fairey — who made the famous Obama "Hope" poster — thinks the Joker Obama poster is "great."

"The artwork is great in that it gets a point across really quickly. The Joker is a sinister, evil character that can't be trusted. And if they want to make that parallel with Obama — bam."

Somehow the L.A. Times sees fit to headline the article "Shepard Fairey has 'doubts' about intelligence of Obama Joker artist." The intelligence doubt is actually a "grammar" point, that the caption should be "socialist," not "socialism," because it's a picture of a man, not his belief system. Hmmm... but Mr. Fairey, your poster of Obama has the word "Hope" as the caption. If it's an error, you made it too. If it's a sign of low intelligence, why should I listen to you, a man of low intelligence?

About that poster of Obama as the Joker.

A lot of folks are outraged and there's the predictable crying of racism.

But — as Drudge points out — Vanity Fair did exactly the same thing to the image of George Bush a year ago.

Did Al Franken win?

We still don't know. The erstwhile funnyman faces a recount. And it doesn't look like he'll be smiling that enormous Joker-smile in the end. 99% of the precincts are counted, and Coleman has a 800 vote edge.

Live-blogging Halloween.

5:08: I'm ready for the kids. I've chosen M&Ms as the classic all-American candy. How about you? Last year, I was in NYC and my house was unattended. I felt bad about that. I've lived in my house since 1986, and that was the first time I did not give out Halloween candy.

5:23: No kids yet, but I've started eating some of the candy on the theory that the peanut M&Ms make a substantial dinner entree.

5:41: The first person is an adult! Weird, but female, so not scary. She's collecting nonperishable foodstuffs, and I give her some canned soup, peas, and tuna fish.

6:09: Finally, some kids. 4 teens. One was the Joker, but only one. There was also a cat, a Supergirl, and... oh, I forgot.

6:47: Uncomfortable dialogue:

Me: Are you a KKK guy?

Kid: Uh, no. I was asked that a couple of times. I'm a snow trooper from [unintelligible].

Me: Oh. Uh. Good. That would have been scarier.

6:49: A bat and (a little girl in a tux) a magician.

6:59: A professional wrestler and a (very well done) wolf.

7:10: The tiniest Halloweener arrived, in the classic baby costume: pumpkin. I'm just going back and reading my original Halloween live-blogging, from 2004. Hippie was a popular costume back then. Haven't seen a hippie tonight. I think that's a sign that Obama will win. (Get it? The year the conservative won, the hippie was "scary.")

7:33: Best example of me thinking twice before guessing the costume: "Are you 80s girls?" That was correct. Prostitutes would have been incorrect.

7:42: More 80s girls. 80s girl seems to have replaced hippie. A generational shift. Also, there was a witch. I complimented her for choosing the classic Halloween costume.

8:18: It seems over. Not much of a crowd this year. There's always Freakfest, but it's said that Freakfest isn't what it used to be. For the last few years, you've had to buy a ticket to get onto State Street, and this year they've installed a lot of surveillance cameras to keep the freaks in line.

8:25: It must be over. Anyone who shows up now is a straggler. I think it's time for me to close up for the evening.

8:42: I've turned off all the lights in the front of the house. I note that there were no political costumes at all. Not one Sarah Palin. No Obama/McCain masks. Not even a Nixon ... and I think in past years, there's usually been at least one kid wearing a parent's old Nixon mask. How do I interpret the lack of political costumes? I think it reflects a relaxed confidence that Obama will win.

"She said the words, but she didn't endorse Obama."

I nearly got my head bitten off for suggesting as much myself, but now I see that I'm not the only one. That quote is from Rush Limbaugh, said on Monday's show:

... [W]hen Mrs. Clinton was talking about herself, she was radiant, buoyant. She was gesticulating. She was smiling. When it came time to mention, not endorse, mention Obama, she read. There was no gesticulation. There was no animation. There weren't any smiles. A couple of smiles here and there, sort of like a McCain teleprompter smile it didn't fit when she did it.

A McCain teleprompter smile... ha ha... so that's why he bursts into those odd smiles when he does?

[I]n that audience we had true believers. She mentioned Obama's name 15 times. She knew that every time she mentioned Obama's name because of the nature of that crowd that there were going to be people in there that would boo, and there were. And the boos were even audible to me and I am deaf.

Please don't think someone else is writing Rush's monologues!

Now, if you are Mrs. Clinton and you are serious about unifying the party and bringing the party together and you know that your crowd's not happy about what you're going to do, that you're going to quit and they don't like Obama, you only mention his name once or twice, not 15 times. She gave that crowd 15 opportunities to boo Barak Obama. And they did.

So saying his name a lot is the secret code that she's not really quitting?

I'm sitting there watching this and there's simply no way that this was a genuine -- she said the words, but she's looking down as she reads them, and then looks up at the audience in sort of a joker kind of smile kind of permanently on the face, an inanimate smile. I was watching this, and I'm listening to the Drive-Bys, particularly on NBC, and they're just having orgasms. "Oh, this is great, this is wonderful. The party is coming together," and all of this and all of that. And I'm saying, "You guys are so blind and so susceptible to the conventional wisdom. We're talking about a Clinton here. The Clintons don't go away." You'd have to show them a cross at sunup two inches from their eyes and even then they wouldn't go away....

She didn't release her delegates. Hold onto them, hells bells. And she can go out and she can raise money. She has to retire her debt and so forth. She can do that up till the convention. She held on to her delegates, meaning if Obama slips and falls....

I do think he's right. She's in sleep mode and can be reactivated the moment Obama slips too far. The Clintons are watching and waiting.

The last paragraph of a famous book sprang to my mind:

And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.

(Albert Camus, The Plague.)

Leaving Teton Village.

Time to hit the road again, checking out of the posh hotel I will now identify: the Jackson Hole Four Seasons. (Hey, it's 35° here!)

I'll drive most of the day, positioning myself for a quick tour of one last national park before driving the rest of the way home tomorrow. Enough driving already. The mental picture of home has gotten achingly clear.

Feel free to use the comments section here as an amiable coffeehouse. An amiable coffeehouse where everyone's obsessed with Mel Gibson. No, really, give it a rest. Surely, there are lots of other things to talk about, from light -- Is Heath Ledger a good Joker? -- to heavy -- Is Israel winning?

UPDATE: I'm still laughing about something Bissage wrote in the comments: "'the Jackson Hole Four Seasons.' Isn't that, like, you know, three different music groups?" Sippican adds:



Anyway, I'm pining for the Four Seasons, as I've reached today's destination, the worst of the four Holiday Inn Express motels I chose for stepping stones on the way to my two posh hotels. I picked Holiday Inn Express because of the clarity of their internet access promise. I was going to give the brand the Althouse seal of approval, but this last one had a busted ethernet wall jack (and a broken telephone), and when I went down to the lobby to say I needed another room, the desk clerk did not take me seriously -- he sniggered at my problem! He also asserted that there were no extra rooms, but obviously, since I'm posting, there was another room. I won't recount the hassle I went through after a long day's drive, but all I'll say is: Holiday Inn, protect your brand! Two of your motels were first rate. One was very slightly off. But this fourth is rather sleazy.

And I just wanted to add that I've seen all the "Batman" movies. And I watched the TV show when it was originally on and a big craze.