"What genuinely valuable artwork was lost in the Palisades fire? What efforts were made to save it?"

"Were guys running down the street trying to hold onto Picassos and Monets?"

That was my question upon watching this video at X about Spencer Pratt's loss of his collection of crystals:

Spencer Pratt says his crystals collection was so extensive and impressive it could have been put in a museum

Unfortunately mayor Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom let it all burn in the Pacific Palisades fire

He explains the significance behind these crystals

“I believe anything… pic.twitter.com/NdqToemi53

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) May 30, 2026

Of course, I used the Grok tool that's right there at X. From the answer:

Ron Rivlin (art collector and Warhol gallery owner): He lost around 30 Andy Warhol works (including Campbell’s Soup Can prints, a hot-pink Queen Elizabeth II print, and “Myths” portfolio pieces featuring icons like Mickey Mouse and Superman) plus dozens of other pieces by artists such as Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, John Baldessari, and Kenny Scharf.

"Men in power do not carry briefcases. Why should women?"

"Forgoing a bag simply telegraphs the impression that you have someone else to do the lifting for you. As Karla Welch, a stylist who worked with Ms. Harris at the beginning of her term, said: 'They all have bags. It’s just an aide carrying it.'"

Writes Vanessa Friedman, in "The Most Impactful Political Handbag Since Mrs. Thatcher’s/Sanae Takaichi, the new prime minister of Japan, makes a statement about work — with style" (NYT).

I jump to the middle of articles when I skim, and when I got to "a stylist who worked with Ms. Harris," I thought Who is Harris? 

Anyway, the new Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, a woman carries her own handbag, toting it at her side in the manner of Queen Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher. We're told: 

For Mrs. Thatcher, the handbag was a way of aligning herself with a respectable Everywoman accouterment.... Her bag was the kind of bag, British Vogue declared, carried by “a sensible, well-put-together person, reflective of an organized mind.”

The linked article sends us over to the OED to see this entry:

"What must William, a man who ferociously hides his holidays, think when he reads how Andrew trotted the globe, splurging thousands of taxpayers’ pounds on helicopters, private jets, golf courses..."

"... rejecting cheaper alternatives, while telling everyone he was a great ambassador for us all? And then being so indiscreet and arrogant in front of senior diplomats that onlookers couldn’t believe he would 'speak so openly' about matters of great sensitivity? One consul, on being asked to provide 'blondes,' said: 'I’m a diplomat, not a pimp.'... [N]o one in the Palace would want to tell Her Majesty that in Bangkok her second son had been sent 40 prostitutes. But she must have known about the cash, because when things got really bad, she was the one who bailed them out.... She showered them with gifts, money, land, yet it was never enough. What was she thinking? Nothing, clearly — Andrew’s faults were simply beyond her imagination...."

From "Andrew and Sarah Ferguson? It’s a case for revolution/He hasn’t only disgraced himself — he is trashing Queen Elizabeth’s reputation too" (London Times).

A sad, elegant caption.

"King Charles... is shown lobbying Prime Minister John Major in a bizarre attempt to force his mother’s abdication."

"It also depicts Charles bitterly arguing with Diana as their divorce looms, and romancing Camilla, now Queen Consort, including a dramatisation of the notorious ‘tampongate’ phone call. A production source said that media outrage over inaccuracies – and the lack of sensitivity in airing the series so close to the death of the Queen – is ‘spooking’ the broadcaster..... An entire plotline is, to this end, devoted to suggesting that [Prince Philip] pursued a scandalous extra-marital affair with Penelope Knatchbull, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma... Needless to say, there’s no credible evidence that such an exchange took place, or that Philip was anything other than a devoted husband to Her Majesty. Suggesting otherwise, so soon after both of their deaths, is at best distasteful and at worst downright cruel. Then there are episodes which appear to lend credibility to the barmy conspiracy theory that Princess Diana was murdered.... [Peter Morgan, the show's creator, has said] that Queen Elizabeth II was ‘of limited intelligence'... [and]  the Royal Family ‘survival organisms, like a mutating virus,’ [and] the Queen’s belief in Christianity was ‘deranged’ and the monarchy itself is ‘insane.’"

From "Netflix bosses 'are spooked by backlash over The Crown'/Show's creator Peter Morgan is 'increasingly uncomfortable' as producers are slammed over 'malicious' storylines in new series covering royal family's turbulent 1990s" (Daily Mail).

Judging from that article and the comments over there, I'd say people in Britain are disgusted by the prospect of a new season of "The Crown." Here in America, though, we love it. We understand fictionalization, and too bad if the people depicted are still alive. If they're rich enough, powerful enough, or evil enough, we're fine with using them in whatever interesting stories filmmakers want to spin out. 

We've seen movies about Dick Cheney and Mark Zuckerberg, for example. We watch these things and maybe discuss the truth/fiction ratio on the side if that's also entertaining. And quite aside from the art of film, the news itself is also something with a variable truth/fiction ratio. We've oriented ourselves to that mystery of human communication.

Freedom of speech breathes a murky atmosphere.

Justin Trudeau is in trouble for singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" 2 days before the Queen's funeral.

BBC reports: "Justin Trudeau's office has defended the Canadian PM, after he was filmed singing by a piano in a London hotel, two days before the Queen's funeral.... The Queen was Canada's head of state, and Mr Trudeau designated 19 September a national day of mourning in Canada.... Mr Trudeau can be seen in a T-shirt, leaning on a piano as Gregory Charles, a musician from Quebec and recipient of the Order of Canada, plays Bohemian Rhapsody.... 'Embarrassing doesn't even begin to cover it,' wrote Andrew Coyne, Globe and Mail columnist, on Twitter. 'He's the prime minister, in a public place, on the eve of the Queen's funeral. And this is how he behaves?'"

The desperate search for more Queen-is-dead stories rages on.

I actually love a good piano bar. Haven’t gone to one since before COVID, this reminds me I should check one out near me.
PM at the Savoy in London last night singing a little Queen….for the Queen… pic.twitter.com/yyCxIRAbJl

— Brian Lilley (@brianlilley) September 19, 2022

Have we reached the last Queen's-funeral news story?

I think at this point the scraping of the bottom of the barrel is too obvious: "Twins who starred in ‘The Shining’ wait in line to view Queen’s coffin."

That's the NY Post, where, I guess, they're defining stardom downward.

Are you watching the Queen's funeral?

It's live. I'm sure you can find it. I'm seeing video embedded at the top of the front page of the NYT. 

Is it topping other news that should be more significant, such as whatever our President may have said in his "60 Minutes" interview last night?

I'm going to say no — subject to your laughter — as I see that the top story on the right side of the front page of the NYT is "Life Is Hazardous for City Raptors. These Women Offer Hope. Injured birds of prey have a fighting chance to recover, thanks to the volunteers at Owl Moon Raptor Center in Boyds, Md."

"Boyds" — that's how you say "birds" in New York.

I'm distracted by sudden cheering and raucous applause. It's the Queen's funeral video. The throng alongside the road is jubilant as the hearse drives off. I'm going to assume that means they loved the Queen and not that it's any sort of ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead response. But when did cheering a hearse become appropriate? 

"The understanding is that the fourth plinth is being reserved for Queen Elizabeth II."

Said Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, back in 2013, quoted in "Queen Elizabeth II statue may ascend fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square" (London Times). 

We're told that the 4th plinth "has been deliberately kept vacant without a permanent memorial for the past 20 years." "Vacant," but filled with "a succession of temporary artwork installations."

Here's a London Times column by Jawad Iqbal — from last year — complaining about the quality of the temporary art that has occupied the plinth.

A nice even 10 in the TikTok selection tonight. Some people love them.

1. A series of drawings with an invitation to visualize the artist.

2. Something called "manner leg" in Korea.

3. Living the barefoot life for 25 years.

4. When it's a woman's video at first, but then the edit switches to a man.

5. When white people speak to black people, they only seem to notice that you're black.

6. When you visit your parents, and it's 6 a.m.

7. When he called the little old lady "lovely." 

8. Queen Elizabeth and David Attenborough discuss a sundial.

9. What do you do with a big old baldface hornet's nest?

10. The old bun-in-the-oven metaphor.

"It is lack of individuality as a person that makes a monarch, and it is the negative virtues of not doing naughty stuff that allows a committed and orderly life to be expanded..."

"... by commentators into rare gifts and shining goodness. God helps true characters who wander into the monarchic frame. Poor Fergie, excoriated Meghan. A form of martyrdom, à la Diana, is not unlikely. The Queen lived a long life repressing herself and did it so well that now she will be buried under an avalanche of adjectives that signify, above all, her achievement was she sat on her true nature. So the encomiums fall flat and stick to our earlobes like treacle. Because they are signs of a woman being disciplined by herself to a remarkable extent. Negative virtues are then elevated to the rhapsodies of positive, godlike, saintly probity."

 
Writes Thomas Keneally in "Hollow, cloying veneration greeted the Queen’s death. Now history calls on us to get an Australian head of state/Though Elizabeth II outlasted and undid our republican impulses, it’s astonishing to see the nonstop public piety in operation" (The Guardian). 

"The British and US governments have played down suggestions that Joe Biden could be banned from using a helicopter and obliged to travel by bus..."

"... when he and leaders from around the world congregate in London for the Queen’s funeral next week. Speculation over the travel arrangements for foreign dignitaries expected to attend the service next Monday intensified on Sunday after government documents emerged saying foreign heads of state would have to ride en masse in a bus to Westminster Abbey rather than using private cars. The guidance, seen by the Guardian and first reported by Politico, set out strict rules for the dozens of presidents, kings, queens and prime ministers expected to attend the funeral, urging them to travel by commercial flights to avoid putting too much strain on London’s airports."

From "'Biden would never ride a bus': UK and US play down strict rules for Queen’s funeral" (The Guardian).

The quote "Biden would never ride a bus" doesn't appear in the article. The closest we get, from a former Secret Service agent, is: "The bottom line is the president of the United States would never fly commercial and/or ride on a bus."

This makes it sound as though Biden is attending the Queen's funeral in order to keep Trump out of it.

I'm reading "Queen’s funeral: Joe Biden caught officials off guard with plan to attend" in the London Times.

In Great Britain, they say "coffin" and regard a 6-hour car "journey" as something that would challenge anyone's resolve.

10:23am, the Queen’s coffin passes through her local village of Ballater.
Our colleague @PeterAdamSmith was told yesterday: “The country has lost a Monarch, we have lost a neighbour”.#QueenElizabeth pic.twitter.com/Bh4mU1Js1c

— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) September 11, 2022

All the British news reports I'm seeing about moving the Queen's body from Scotland to London are using the word "coffin."

I think it's a word we Americans tend to use when talking about horror movies or Halloween or old cemeteries.

It is also used in America to generate outrage about the stark reality of death. Let me give 2 examples from the NYT:

1. From 2004: "The Bush administration's policy of barring news photographs of the flag-covered coffins of service members killed in Iraq won the backing of the Republican-controlled Senate on Monday, when lawmakers defeated a Democratic measure to instruct the Pentagon to allow pictures."

2. From 2018: "As Senator John McCain’s coffin was being loaded onto a military plane bound for Washington on Thursday afternoon, cameras from major American TV networks beamed the coverage around the world, allowing a rapt public to witness the next leg of his four-day funeral. Back at the White House, President Trump aggressively tried to wrestle back the attention. 'Throwback Thursday!' the president exclaimed on Twitter, posting a video of celebratory Fox News clips of his unlikely route to the presidency just as Mr. McCain’s coffin was heading for Washington, where it will lie in state in the United States Capitol on Friday." (Remember when we were "rapt" at the transportation of a dead Senator's body and the President was a lout not to devote himself 100% to national mourning?)

If you attempt to research the American preference for the word "casket," you'll be swamped with funeral-industry doctrine restricting "coffin" to containers that are wider at the shoulders and narrower at the feet. ‚ so "coffins" really are those horror movie/Halloween props and what we picture buried in very old cemeteries. The modern rectangular box, we're told, is called a "casket." This is a denial that "casket" is a euphemism for "coffin."

In America, at least. In the U.K., it seems, "coffin" is the most reverent and respectful word — expressive of rectitude and rectangularity. 

"I was raised in an Irish family baked in bitterness about British oppression. The monarchy seems like an expensive relic to me...."

"I always thought of Queen Elizabeth as an avatar of nepotism and colonialism. But as time went on, and victimhood became the fashion, I began to have a creeping admiration for her stoicism. Then, in 2011, I covered her fraught trip to Ireland, the first by a British monarch in a century. Suddenly I understood how one small movement of her head could soothe over 800 years of bloodshed and hatred. The Irish were skeptical at first, not wanting to be treated as subjects. Gerry Adams complained the visit was too soon. (Maybe wait another century.)....  How could Queen Elizabeth move past the 1979 murder by the I.R.A. of her cousin Lord Mountbatten and his 14-year-old grandson?.... And how could the Irish move past the 1972 Bloody Sunday horror, when British forces gunned down 14 innocent civilians? The queen spoke a phrase in perfect Gaelic and offered regret about how Britain had made Ireland suffer. She said both sides needed to be 'able to bow to the past but not be bound by it.'"

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Charles in Charge" (NYT).

"There’s breaking protocol and then there’s giving the Queen Mother an unwanted kiss on the lips, which is something President Jimmy Carter inexplicably did..."

"... during his May 1977 visit to Buckingham Palace.... [T]he Queen Mother later described the incident, which she found mortifying. 'Nobody has done that since my husband died,' she said. 'I took a sharp step backwards – not quite far enough.'"

From "Queen Elizabeth’s Awkward Visits With U.S. Presidents, Ranked" (NY Magazine).

The Carter visit is ranked #12 out of 13 ranked visits. The only thing worse was the Jackie-and-Jack visit that we saw dramatized on "The Crown." We're told that Jackie said the queen was "pretty heavy going," and when Gore Vidal related Jackie's complaint to Princess Margaret, she said, "But that’s what she’s there for."

You might guess that Obama would come out at #1, but he's only #3. #1 is Eisenhower, and #2 was Harry Truman, in October 1951 and when Elizabeth was still a Princess (4 months later she would be queen):

"This is the history of the monarchy, and the queen was the head of the monarchy. Whether she was involved in day-to-day decisions or not..."

"... she existed because of those decisions. She never once opened her mouth to say sorry for the role of her government in the slaughter of 3 million civilians."

 Said the Carnegie Mellon linguistics professor Uju Anya, quoted in "I Won’t Cry Over the Death of a Violent Oppressor" (The Cut).

Anya wrote the much-discussed tweet: "I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating."

She's not backing down.

In my tweet, I did not wish her death. I did not tell anyone to kill her. I said nothing except wishing her the pain in death that she caused for millions of people. There’s not going to be any apology from me. I stand by what I said. As a direct recipient of her governance and as the child of colonial subjects, I reserve the right to say what this woman’s life and monarchy and the history of the British monarchy as a whole means to me. 

“Speak no ill of the dead” is a weapon that’s leveled against the oppressed to silence them, to lionize oppressors, and to sanitize their history. What respect am I supposed to have for her, for her family? “Oh, well, her family is mourning her.” My family is mourning as well.

Only 3 TikToks today. I'm highly selective, you know. Some people love it.

1. A simple harmonious tribute to the Queen.

2. The baby with a gangster demeanor.

3. The story arc of the Mac startup tone. 

Mystic chords/mystical cord.

I'm reading "The Not-So-Secret Weapon in the Special Relationship/Queen Elizabeth offered a mystical cord to the past that held together the U.S.-UK alliance" in Politico. 

Why would you write "mystical cord," when Abraham Lincoln famously said in his first inaugural speech, "mystic chords":

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Note the "of"s: bonds of affection... chords of memory... chorus of the Union... better angels of our nature.

""When the Queen became this country’s longest-serving monarch, the humility with which she acknowledged the passing of that historic moment reflected the same selfless dedication..."

"... with which she once promised to serve her people. Some 68 years separated the pledge she made in Cape Town on her 21st birthday and the modest speech that she made on passing Queen Victoria’s record in September 2015, but even if the empire to which she devoted herself no longer exists, the values she spoke of then were the values to which she still held true a lifetime later. 'My whole life,' she said, in that resonant passage that captured imaginations worldwide in 1947, 'whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.'"

So begins the London Times obituary.

Here is the 1947 speech:

Scroll to 5:46 for the famous quoted passage, "My whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service."