Speaking for Wisconsin, I'm glad it doesn't get any worse than Wisconsin Dells.

The worst attraction in every state (according to my IG followers) pic.twitter.com/qQFrztEyTs

— Matt Shirley (@mattsurely) August 20, 2020

We could have been Rhode Island...

Possibly the most famous quote with the word "calamari" in it got uttered at the Democratic Party convention last night.

"The calamari comeback state of Rhode Island casts 1 vote for Bernie Sanders and 34 votes for the next President Joe Biden."

The "Calamari comeback state" of Rhode Island caught viewers' attention during its turn on the #DemConvention roll call across America 🐙🇺🇸 https://t.co/6tjma19Dq4 pic.twitter.com/4jp0thiAir

— Bloomberg (@business) August 19, 2020

I mean, really, is there any competition? I found "Top 12 Quotes About Calamari." It includes one by Scott Adams: "If you think it's easy to write jokes about fried calamari, you've probably never tried."

I don't trust this list, though, because it includes, as #10: "I want to be a poet, from head to toe, living and dying by poetry" — by Federico Garcia Lorca. Maybe if you're a poet — from head to toe (from fin to tentacle) — you can visualize how that's about calamari.

If we extend our tentacles into "squid" quotes, we've got Aldous Huxley:

The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace,
The prurient ape's defiling touch:
And do you like the human race?
No, not much.

There's also this insight from Marlon Brando: "The most repulsive thing you could ever imagine is the inside of a camel's mouth. That and watching a girl eat octopus or squid."

And here's something Clare Boothe Luce said about the Democratic Party: "Its leaders are always troubadours of trouble; crooners of catastrophe ... A Democratic President is doomed to proceed to his goals like a squid, squirting darkness all about him."

The tea/sex analogy.

An animation from Emmeline May and Blue Seat Studios (note: language warning):



I found that after seeing this version — with a British voiceover — by the Thames Valley Police:



I found that via Metafilter, where people seemed charmed by the Britishness... even though Blue Seat Studios seems to be located in Providence, Rhode Island.

"People became crazed by the idea that they didn’t get it."

"If you rolled it out over weeks, you could have made a case for it. But in the absence of a real presentation, and the presence of so many mistakes, the whole thing became enshrouded in negativity. The social media thing is a killer."

Said the great graphic design artist Milton Glaser — he of the great "I Love New York" campaign — about his work for Rhode Island branding, including "Rhode Island: Cooler and Warmer," which got thrown out summarily after it was mocked on social media.

Mr. Glaser said he felt the use of Iceland in the video and the other mistakes in the rollout prejudiced people against the end product. “We didn’t have a chance,” he said.

I had to make a new tag for Rhode Island. I think it's the very last state I've blogged about — I'd thought I already had a tag for every state — and it's a story of it not getting respect. Oh, Rhode Island. You can use that previous sentence as your slogan if you want.