"The New Dream Guy Is Beefy, Placid and … Politically Ambiguous/Amid pitched debates about masculinity, the 'himbo' stands stoically above it all."

What??!

That's a headline in the NYT for a piece by Casey Michael Henry (a writer who's got a novel called "Not Recommended").

Excerpt: "Calls have proliferated for a left-wing parallel to Joe Rogan.... Consider, for instance, Zohran Mamdani’s surprise win in the New York City mayoral primary, which came with the strong support of the young male vote. A key part of Mamdani’s strategy was finding vessels for an uncomplicated message about affordability, including a few men who could be described, and who might describe themselves, as 'himbos.' The candidate was endorsed by Hasan Piker, the leftist pinup, marathon livestreamer and co-founder of a clothing line called Himbo Fitness. Joshua Citarella, a bodybuilding enthusiast and the host of the left-wing show 'Doomscroll,' facilitated a fund-raising panel. The comedian Stavros Halkias, a heterodox Bernie Bro who could be called a 'himbo' of a more freewheeling, bacchanalian variety, filmed an Instagram endorsement. There were times when Mamdani’s praetorian guard of male influencers looked like an Ultimate Fighting Championship undercard or at least the set of 'The Man Show.'"

Here's what the more freewheeling, bacchanalian himbo looks like:

"Juvenal said that being a gladiator turned an ugly man into an Adonis in women’s eyes. 'It’s the steel they love,' the poet wrote."

"Men were obsessed too. Maecenas, a patron of the arts under the emperor Augustus, discussed the warriors’ form on a carriage ride with the poet Horace; the playwright Terence complained that one of his performances had been ruined by a crowd rushing in thinking that gladiators were fighting. The Romans felt it was good luck to part a bride’s hair with a spear that had been thrust into a gladiator’s body and drank tinctures of their blood to cure epilepsy...."

From "Sex, sesterces and status — the perks of being a gladiator/Those Who Are About Die is a myth-slaying history of the world of Roman fighters by the classicist and novelist Harry Sidebottom" (London Times).

"In a lot of ways, I was withdrawing from mainstream society. I was trying to drop back about two centuries to become an eighteenth-century man..."

"... who relied on hunting and fishing for his livelihood. But I was living in the twentieth century, and everything was constantly changing around me.... I’ve always believed that if we did what was morally and ethically right, while continuing to steadfastly believe in what we were doing, we’d end up okay in the end.... Now, I’m not a man of great intellectual depth, but it sounds to me like God Almighty has said we can pretty much rack and stack anything that swims, flies, or walks, which I consider orders from headquarters.... After studying several political parties to find out what they believe and stand for, I decided my political ideology was more in line with the Republicans. I definitely was no Democrat—that’s for sure—but I don’t really consider myself one or the other. I’m more of a Christocrat, someone who honors our founding fathers and pays them homage for being godly men at a time when wickedness was all over the world. Our founding fathers started this country and built it on God and His Word, and this country sure would be a better place to live and raise our children if we still followed their ideals and beliefs."

Highlights I selected from a book I read and blogged 11 years ago, retrieved this morning on seeing the obituary of the author. Do you recognize the voice?

"If there is one word to define Trump’s atmosphere, it is 'pagan.'"

"The pagan values of ancient Rome celebrated power, manliness, conquest, ego, fame, competitiveness and prowess, and it is those values that have always been at the core of Trump’s being — from his real estate grandiosity to his love of pro wrestling to his king-of-the-jungle version of American greatness. The pagan ethos has always appealed to grandiose male narcissists because it gives them permission to grab whatever they want. This ethos encourages egotists to puff themselves up and boast in a way they find urgently satisfying; self-love is the only form of love they know...."

That's David Brooks, tending to your soul, in "How to Survive the Trump Years With Your Spirit Intact" (NYT)(free-access link).

I hadn't encountered that men-thinking-about-the-Roman-Empire meme in quite a while. Okay. Nice to see its return. Helps us understand what the men are doing these days.

Anyway, I wonder, is this analysis unfair to pagans?

If paganism is a grand but dehumanizing value system, I’ve found it necessary, in this increasingly pagan age, to root myself in anything that feels rehumanizing, whether it’s art or literature or learning. I’ve found it incredibly replenishing to be spending time around selfless, humble people....

Anything that feels rehumanizing?

Well, read the whole thing to be fair to Brooks, not that he's being fair to Trump... or to pagans. 

Looking into this blog's archive to see what I might have said about pagans over the years, I encountered this May 29, 2017 post, which focuses on a quote from Andrew Sullivan calling Trump "a pagan":

"Thank you all for coming, and shame on you for being here."

Said Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, quoted in "'Twain hated bullies.' Conan O'Brien receives Mark Twain Prize at the Kennedy Center" (NPR).

I'd love to hear a lecture demonstrating — with lots of quotes — Mark Twain's hatred of bullies. I have a Kindle copy of "The Complete Works of Mark Twain" (only 99¢ at Amazon!), so I can easily do my own search, though it's hard to do a search for the word "bully," since many of the occurrences are in things like "Bully for the lion!" — shouted by "young ruffians" during a tour of the Coliseum in "Innocents Abroad" — an archaic usage.

But how can you delve into Twain and his times when you've got Trump... and your "shame" for showing up in what was once an arts paradise and is now the humbled plaything of that garish clod who is remaking everything in his own horribly orange image?

"One celebrated offering is pigeon meat cured in a casing of beeswax and served suspended, like a ham, with the bird’s feathered head intact."

"Another is ice cream made from pig’s blood and filled with a ganache of juniper oil and deer-blood garum. ('Fatty, with a weird umami aftertaste,' in the judgment of a food blogger.) Not all diners appreciate being scolded during their meal. 'I care deeply about climate change, yet I don’t necessarily go to a restaurant to worry about it even more,' Jeff Gordinier wrote in Esquire. 'I go to a restaurant to get away from the awful news for a few hours.' One night, a guest threw the chicken cage across the domed room, declaring that he hadn’t signed up to be lectured by Greenpeace. But that was in itself a satisfying moment of theatre. On only three or four occasions has a diner walked out in disgust."

From "Can Your Stomach Handle a Meal at Alchemist? At the Copenhagen restaurant, diners are served raw jellyfish—and freeze-dried lamb brain served in a fake cranium—while videos about climate change swirl on the ceiling. Is it 'gastronomic opera,' or sensory overload?" (The New Yorker).

Ha ha. It's funny that the climate change propaganda is the most disgusting part.

I had to look up the word "garum," and I found "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Garum/A culinary star in ancient Rome, this fermented fish sauce transforms everything it touches" (Eater)("it has been called the ketchup of the Roman world"). Are we still doing that thing of thinking about Rome all the time?

"So you can have people who attempt to gesticulate. Again, modern politicians, you’ll see this sometime where they feel like, 'I’m supposed to be making hand gestures'..."

"... and they’re terrible at it. And it undercuts it. Cicero and Quintilian give some very amusing examples from ancient Rome. He says, there was this one guy who when he spoke, looked like he was trying to swat away flies because there were just these awkward gestures. Or another who looked like he was trying balancing a boat in choppy seas. And my favorite is there was one orator who supposedly was prone to making, I guess, languid supple motions. They actually named a dance after this guy, and his name was Titius. And so Romans could do the Titius, which is this dance that was imitating this orator who had these comically bad gesticulation...."

From "Transcript for Gregory Aldrete: The Roman Empire – Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome | Lex Fridman Podcast #443"

The segment on gestures begins here. Or watch the video:

Terse texting is not misunderstood at Meadhouse.

Received in the middle of the night:

Meade intended to say: Please add that to our Audible account. But by hitting a share button, Amazon added the seemingly friendly generic message, "I think you might like this book." The book is "How to Die"! I think you might like How to Die....

In case you want to buy the book — and send us a commission — here's the Amazon link: "How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)."

I'm glad to see that I already had a "Seneca" tag, and I like that this is the second post of the morning that reminds us that men are always thinking about the Roman Empire. 

Actually, I think the "Seneca" tag originated as a commenter name, here. Back in 2009, someone with the pen name Seneca helped me distinguish a butterfly from a moth (and another commenter made a comic animation out of my photograph of a rather moth-y butterfly).

You have to buy something with your money. Why not something atrocious and uxorious?

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

And, of course, it's nice to be reminded, once again, that men are always thinking about the Roman Empire.

"At the convention, he had a new role: He played the Roman emperor, like a Julius Caesar who survived that 'foul deed' and 'bleeding piece of earth,' fist in the air..."

"... sitting high in the forum, gloating, as his vanquished foes bent the knee. Caesar had a cult of personality as well, the epitome of the strongman authoritarian politician. That Caesar was martyred. But before that he had already eroded republican rule and was on his way to emperor. (Some Trump supporters on X call Barron 'Octavian.').... Playing Caesar, Trump asked gladiators to speak before his speech: Dana White, the U.F.C. chief, to introduce him, which seemed fitting since Trump always treated politics like a blood sport, and Hulk Hogan, the W.W.E. star. Hogan ripped off his shirt to show his muscly arms and a red Trump-Vance T-shirt. He said he was 'bleeding like a pig' the last time he saw Trump at a championship match at Trump Plaza. 'I know tough guys,' Hogan said. 'But let me tell you something, brother: Donald Trump is the toughest of them all.' Trump blew Hogan a kiss...."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Trump the Lion, or Trump the Lyin’?" (NYT).

This makes me think of a trend from last year: "The Roman empire: why men just can’t stop thinking about it/Women across the world are asking men how often the ancient civilisation pops into their head – and the answer is frequently startling" (Guardian). Back then, the women were flummoxed. What's up with men thinking about the Roman Empire "three or four times a month," "every couple of days" or "at least once a day."

But here's Maureen Dowd, famously female, going all Roman Empire on us. Why is this happening?

"The mythological couples provided ideas for conversations about the past and life, only seemingly of a merely romantic nature."

"In reality, they refer to the relationship between the individual and fate: Cassandra who can see the future but no one believes her, Apollo who sides with the Trojans against the Greek invaders, but being a god, cannot ensure victory, Helen and Paris who, despite their politically incorrect love affair, are the cause of the war, or perhaps merely a pretext. Who knows? These days, Helen and Paris represent us all: each day we can choose whether to focus solely on our own private lives or whether to explore the way our lives are entangled with the broad sweep of history...."

Said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the Director of the Archaeological park of Pompeii, quoted in "Pompeii: a dining room decorated with characters and subjects inspired by the Trojan war has emerged from the new excavations" (pompeiisites.org).

"At one feast, he had several of his guests lashed to a water-wheel, which turned slowly and drowned them as their horrified fellow diners looked on."

"In another... he released dozens of leopards and lions among his guests once they had finished eating. On one occasion, he let poisonous snakes loose among the crowds at the gladiatorial games, causing widespread death and injury.... Elagabalus was also known to dress entirely in precious silks and draped himself with gems.... Elagabalus was rumoured to have consulted his physicians about an early version of a sex-change operation, and he took a series of male lovers. He was said to have spent his days in the company of women in his palace, singing, dancing, weaving and wearing a hairnet, eye make-up and rouge. 'The soldiers were revolted at the sight of him,' wrote one ancient historian. 'With his face made up more elaborately than a modest woman, he was effeminately dressed up in golden necklaces and soft clothes, dancing for everyone to see in this state.'"

From "Cross-dressing Roman Emperor was transgender, woke Hertfordshire museum declares: Elagabalus, the savage teenage hedonist who once set leopards and snakes on dinner guests for a prank, 'must be referred to as she'/The North Hertfordshire Museum refers to the 3rd-century AD ruler as 'she'" (Daily Mail).

Which group wants to have this sadistic torturer identified as one of them? This "woke" museum isn't doing the group it is trying to favor any favor. Quite the opposite. 

"Am I for kids being able to read about anything in school? Yeah, I am. I don’t give a shit what kids read."

Said Howard Stern, quoted in "Howard Stern Tells Off Critics Who Say He’s ‘Woke’/Now: I’m Anti-Trump, Pro-Vaccine and Support Transgender People… ‘I Am Woke, Motherf—er’" (Variety).

Does he have "woke" right? Not "giving a shit" about what kids read?

He also said "I support people who want to be transgender." Isn't that ideologically incorrect? Aren't you supposed to manifest a belief that people are transgender and not that people just "want to be transgender"?

Let's compare Howard Stern to Russell Brand. Both were, in the past, something some people might call sexist pigs. Whatever, it's arguable. And both have restyled themselves either to keep up with the times or because they've gotten older and matured or declined. You can speculate. But Stern is appealing to the left while Brand is appealing to the right. More or less. And Brand is the one experiencing retaliation while Stern seems to be protecting himself.

Anyway, searching the 2 names together, I came up with this old interview (perhaps from 2017). Watch it while you can, and don't miss the random reference to the Roman Empire (within the first 2 minutes):

"Do you think there’s an element of like, 'This is a time where men could really be men,' that’s appealing to men about this?"

The Rolling Stone interviewer asks Mike Duncan, the "History of Rome" podcaster, in "Why Are So Many Men Obsessed With the Roman Empire?" 

Duncan responds:

"What utter nonsense. If this many men were thinking about the Roman Empire every day, they would not be voting for Republicans..."

"... who are working hard to cause the collapse of the American Empire. They're thinking about Rome as depicted in Marvel movies and other pop culture fluff. They think the NLF [sic] are gladiators and so are they as they watch from their couches or tailgates. They don't know beans about the Roman Empire because that would require reading and studying and learning to look at the world with a contextual perspective. The internet makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber. And dumber. And dumber."

That's the top-rated comment — from someone named Paula — on the NYT article, "Are Men Obsessed With the Roman Empire? Yes, Say Men. Women are asking the men in their lives how often they think about ancient Rome. Their responses, posted online, can be startling in their frequency."

This post continues a discussion begun yesterday, about a trend on TikTok of women asking men how often they think about the Roman Empire and expressing amazement at the answer.

Yesterday's TikTok trend: Women have no idea how often men think about the Roman Empire.

I was inundated — as I scrolled through what TikTok selected for me — with clips of women asking their men how often they think about the Roman Empire. It was as if TikTok had built an aqueduct to deliver these things. 

And now this morning I'm seeing mainstream news covering the trend.

WaPo has "How often do men think about ancient Rome? Quite frequently, it seems":

"I admit with deepest embarrassment that it was only after what regrettably happened that I learned of the monument’s antiquity."

Said Ivan Danailov Dimitrov, quoted in "Who Knew the Colosseum Was So Old? Tourist Apologizes for Defacement. A man who etched his initials and those of his girlfriend in a wall of the nearly 2,000-year-old monument wrote a letter of apology, and his lawyer says he is hoping for a plea bargain" (NYT).

Il Messaggero, the Italian newspaper, said the apology "defaced common sense."

Believe the science... of tossing coins into fountains.

These maniacs are flipping coins into a fountain for good luck on fighting climate change after they flew their private jets to hang out and talk.

Stop the madness. pic.twitter.com/egt3A0HNhc

— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) November 1, 2021

"It might be supposed that a melancholy man would here make acquaintance with a grim philosophy."

"He should learn to bear patiently his individual griefs, that endure only for one little lifetime, when here are the tokens of such infinite misfortune on an imperial scale, and when so many far landmarks of time, all around him, are bringing the remoteness of a thousand years ago into the sphere of yesterday. But it is in vain that you seek this shrub of bitter sweetness among the plants that root themselves on the roughness of massive walls, or trail downward from the capitals of pillars, or spring out of the green turf in the palace of the Caesars. It does not grow in Rome; not even among the five hundred various weeds which deck the grassy arches of the Coliseum. You look through a vista of century beyond century,—through much shadow, and a little sunshine,—through barbarism and civilization, alternating with one another like actors that have prearranged their parts: through a broad pathway of progressive generations bordered by palaces and temples, and bestridden by old, triumphal arches, until, in the distance, you behold the obelisks, with their unintelligible inscriptions, hinting at a past infinitely more remote than history can define. Your own life is as nothing, when compared with that immeasurable distance; but still you demand, none the less earnestly, a gleam of sunshine, instead of a speck of shadow, on the step or two that will bring you to your quiet rest. How exceedingly absurd!"

Wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne in "The Marble Faun," one of my favorite books, in a passage that I'm reading this morning because — as you know if you are reading this blog chronologically — I am studying the word "bestridden."

"Althouse captures the exact moment the light pierces the center of the dome — the sign ushering in the season of Brumalia?"

Said Ingachuck'stoothlessARM in the comments to last night's open thread, which had my photograph of a view across Lake Mendota that showed the Wisconsin state capitol building at daybreak. 

There's a moment at this time of year when the sun aligns with windows on either side of the dome and it looks, from the distance, as if there's a blazing fire inside. It's just a tiny dot in the photograph, and I was glad to see it noticed. 

The commenter cites Brumalia:

Brumalia (Latin: Brumalia [bruːˈmaːlɪ.a], "winter festivals") was an ancient Roman, winter solstice festival honouring Saturn/Cronus and Ceres/Demeter, and Bacchus in some cases. By the Byzantine era, celebrations commenced on 24 November and lasted for a month, until Saturnalia and the "Waxing of the Light". The festival included night-time feasting, drinking, and merriment.... The short, cold days of winter would halt most forms of work. Brumalia was a festival celebrated during this dark, interludal period. It was chthonic in character and associated with crops.... Farmers would sacrifice pigs to Saturn and Ceres. Vine-growers would sacrifice goats in honor of Bacchus.... 

My word for this time of year is "Darkmonth," and today marks the first day of Darkmonth. I put the solstice in the center — it's December 21st — and count back 15 days to get to the first day, and that is today, the 6th. We have not yet reached the coldest month-long period of the year — and you never know exactly when that's going to be (and it's very rarely 30 consecutive days). But we have reached the 30 darkest days of the year, and by the first day of winter, we'll be halfway through the darkest month. 

I can see that Saturnalia is a more optimistic idea, because you're not saying only 2 more weeks of the darkest month, but it's the waxing of the light. Each day is a bit more light — even as the coldest days are yet to come. 

Here's the first post where I talked about Darkmonth — in the first year of this blog, 2004. I like that Meade shows up and makes the first comment — in 2009, the year that we met. By the way, it was Meade who first saw the dot of sunrise light burning up the inside of the capitol and made me see it too. 

Song cue:

 

Some people work very hard/But still they never get it right...

Like Brumalia to Darkmonth, there's also this other song with the same title.