These entertainment people are "freethinkers," according to Anderson, who also says, contradictorily, that "the prevailing politics are extremely progressive," so "they don’t feel safe to question an asserted identity by one of their children."
So what is it? Do they feel compelled to go along with whatever the child says — politically compelled — or are they — because of their inherent creativity — celebrating and encouraging unusual expression?
I'm seeing a mysterious merger of freedom and compulsion.
IN THE COMMENTS: Bob Boyd: "I think she means outside-the-box thinkers. Out-of-the-box usually means you don't have to do anything yourself, no assembly required."
That's closely observed and correct. This is the case of a dying metaphor. What is this box we're talking about when we say "outside of the box"? Grok tells me the expression originated with the 9 dots puzzle:
You're an outside-the-box thinker if you realize you can connect the 9 dots with 4 lines if you go beyond what is only an imaginary box. Apply that metaphor to thinking about how to parent a child who doesn't fit the gender stereotypes associated with its physical form. That's what an outside-the-box thinkers would do. Now, compare the out-of-the-box thinker. This would be someone who has pre-determined ideas built in and really doesn't think at all.
I bailed early, preferring to interact with Grok. My prompts, exactly as I wrote them, presented in order and with zero Grok-written material:
1. Summarize this article: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/how-joe-biden-handed-the-presidency-to-donald-trump
2. I skimmed it and it seemed so Clooney-focused it put me off
3. I'd like a critical perspective on the piece that is skeptical of this interest in Clooney. I don't care to read a step by step story of what happened as Biden got excluded from the nomination he won in the primaries. I want much more skepticism about the way the Democratic Party allowed him to win the nomination in the first place and got itself into the seeming (or bullshit) jam it was in last summer
4. Did Democrats engineer a nomination for Harris that she couldn't have won in a fair primary or did Democrats accidentally wait too long to lose hope in Biden and find themselves in the position where they couldn't avoid giving it to Harris? And how did the mainstream media contribute to the problem?
5. Make a clear and concise list of why Tapper's going Clooney-centric exemplifies what's wrong with mainstream media politics and with the Democratic Party
I've spared you any material written by Grok, because I presume you don't want to read what was written without a human mind. But I think what Grok wrote is more useful than what's in The New Yorker.
In case you want to read how the machine reacted to my prompts, here's the link.
"Both simple and strangely hypnotic, Mr. Trump’s wiggle incorporates the kind of stiff swivel often employed by arrhythmic wedding guests or awkward, one-too-many conventioneers."
It says there that McKinley is "a Styles reporter who covered the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump earlier this year, from opening statements to guilty verdicts."
McKinley has written a lot of other things too. Why focus on Trump's criminal trial? Maybe subtle humor: Not long ago it seemed that New York authorities had found a way to put Trump in prison, and now we're just wondering if it's okay for football players to dance the Trump dance.
“I gotta laugh because I accepted the invitation not for being white, but because I’m a dude you know?” said actor Jeff Bridges, who pushed back on a philosophical point on the messaging from the campaign that Democrats must “fight” for democracy. “It’s not so much a fight, but a surrender to higher thoughts of how we want the future to turn out,” Bridges said. “That’s just my opinion, man.”
"That’s just my opinion, man" suggests he's joking. I get the reference.....
... but which way is he joking? Is it that the movie character of "The Dude" is averse to fighting and takes a slacker route to the same destination? You don't have to fight. Only surrender. That seems like a satire of the Democrats' message. Is he toying with them? Just fooling around? Or is he saying that white men really ought to surrender. Stand down and think of "higher thoughts." The future belongs to... somebody else.
"Elon Musk shared a video of an AI-generated fashion show featuring world leaders such as PM Modi, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Vladimir Putin, showcasing them in futuristic outfits. The video, which has garnered significant attention on social media, highlights the capabilities of AI in creating visually striking content. The event has sparked a wide range of reactions, with some users expressing excitement and approval, while others are skeptical or critical. The AI fashion show has also raised discussions about the potential impact of AI on the fashion industry, including its role in enhancing creativity and sustainability."
That's just sad. The email goes on to ask me to "join" Carole King by giving money to "Joe and Kamala."What celebrity are they throwing at you? At least I know they're not using Spotify to try to find out which musical artist might be able to reach me. The answer is no one, but I don't think I've ever played one of Carole King's recordings. I've been subjected to them on a number of occasions. I don't dislike her. I just don't care. And even if I did care about her — or anyone else's — music, I wouldn't care about her name slapped on some political email... other than to find it insulting that the campaign thinks I might be stirred to action by a celebrity's name.Carole King. I mean, it's annoying. It's like some idiot was wondering how to call out to Boomers.
"... a case his wife, Amal Clooney, worked on, according to three people familiar with the conversation. Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, to express concern about Biden’s denunciation of arrest warrants sought by ICC prosecutors for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, especially his use of the word 'outrageous.'... The actor was also upset about the administration’s initial openness to imposing sanctions on the ICC because his wife might be subject to the penalties, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation. Clooney’s call came just weeks before he is set to appear at a fundraiser for Biden’s reelection campaign June 15 in Los Angeles. His concerns spread throughout Biden’s orbit.... In 2020, [George Clooney] donated more than $500,000 to Biden’s campaign effort and co-hosted a virtual fundraiser for him that raised $7 million.... The White House later said sanctions against the ICC were 'not the right answer'...."
"That’s because, when you win that many primaries as a hostile outsider, you physically replace the long-serving delegates who made up the base of the party with the alienated neophytes who supported you. In other words, Trump was not suddenly in charge of the party as it existed the year before; he actually created an entirely different party, beholden only to him. So, for Trump, pledging loyalty to the party is indistinguishable from pledging loyalty to himself...."
Bai ends with this prediction: "The age of pop-up movements and celebrity takeovers in our politics is likely just beginning, I’m afraid. And the time for loyalty oaths — to any party — is rapidly coming to an end."
"'The View' co-host said on her show Thursday that she was 'scared' about how the strife in Ukraine might affect Western Europe, specifically Italy, where she planned to take a vacation this summer, long-delayed by things including the COVID-19 pandemic. 'You know, you plan a trip. You want to go there. I want to go to Italy for four years and I haven’t been able to make it because of the pandemic,' she said."
I'd thought this morning was the first time I'd ever used the word "grotesquerie" on this blog. I was talking about the female Olympics figure skaters. But no, back in 2014, I wrote of "the grotesquerie of politicians finding love with the Hollywood stars." I did not like seeing Leonardo DiCaprio and John Kerry locked in embrace.
But it felt new. I even looked it up in the OED to see if it counted as an English word (because if it were only a foreign-language word, I'd have put it in italics). Yes, it's English. They were saying it back in 1655:
1655 Ld. OrreryParthenissaIV.ii.vi. 536 In a large Compartiment compos'd ofGroteskerywere seene Sphynxes, Harpyes, the Clawes of Lyons, and Tygres, to evidence, that within, inhabited Misteries, and Riddles.
Of course, "grotesquerie" is just a noun version of "grotesque," and I got sidetracked into the original meaning of "grotesque": "A kind of decorative painting or sculpture, consisting of representations of portions of human and animal forms, fantastically combined and interwoven with foliage and flowers."
It looks as though Thunberg passes things along without processing them through her own mind. You can see the deleted tweet here. She says "Here's a toolkit if you want to help" and gives a link to a document, which you can read.
Apparently, somebody included her in the distribution of the document and she — or whoever does her Twitter posting — thought she could contribute by widely distributing the document instead of crafting an individual post using tips from the document. I'd argue that she's not part of a conspiracy because the sharing of the raw document is evidence that she didn't know what she was doing. She hurt whatever conspiracy there was. She exposed it.
This incident is interesting because it shows the mechanisms of shallow political activism and because India is taking such a strong position in response to the political speech of people outside their country:
Delhi police on Thursday confirmed that it had launched “a criminal case against the creators of the ‘Toolkit document'” that Thunberg shared. “The call was to wage economic, social, cultural and regional war against India,” police said of the plot supposedly taken up by the celebs.
The cast members participating in this unusual fundraisers are Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, and Billy Crystal. The director Rob Reiner is also participating.
Here's the IMDB list of the whole cast of the 1987, in case you want to figure out who's not going along with this event. Peter Falk and Andre the Giant are no longer among the living. But Christopher Guest and Fred Savage are not in the group. All the other non-participants in the credited cast are English actors.
Actually, Christopher Guest, though born in New York City, "holds a hereditary British peerage as the 5th Baron Haden-Guest." He would be entitled to a seat in the House of Lords, but the membership was reformed in 1999. He's expressed interest in seeking election to the House of Lords. So I can see why he'd want to stay out of American politics.
As for Fred Savage, this might have something to do with his nonparticipation.
Said Joaquin Phoenix, accepting the Oscar last night for his performance as a clown-faced murderer. As you can see in that short quote, he's expressing effusive empathy for his fellow creatures, but I wouldn't see his movie, because I believe there is something soul-damaging — something erosive of empathy — in watching the graphic depiction of murder. I don't know why Phoenix considered "Joker" a good place to put his talent, then lectures us about our insufficient love for the living things of earth. And I'm writing that as I drink my coffee with milk.
Here's the full transcript, worth seeing in text, because the actorly performance of the text makes it harder to understand the rationality of it. It feels like an emotional cascade. You get caught up wondering how does he feel and does he really feel what he is expressing and what is he really saying and is he coherent and is coherence necessary?
I’m full of so much gratitude now. I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees or anyone in this room, because we share the same love...
This speech will also end with "love" — "Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow" — and we just saw a montage of the nominated actors that ended with Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce) saying "Remember, truth may be vital, but without love, it is also unbearable." But the love in question at this point was:
... the love of film. And this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don’t know where I’d be without it. But I think the greatest gift that it’s given me, and many people in [this industry] is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless.
Oh, no! It's going to be a political speech. The Oscars got off to a bad start with Brad Pitt — who won the best supporting actor Oscar — saying he only had 45 seconds to speak, "which is 45 seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week" and maybe Quentin Tarantino could do a movie about the impeachment where "in the end the adults do the right thing." Tarantino has been doing movies based on historical events where the good guys win in the end, and the movie Pitt won his Oscar for is one of those movies, so his line was well-crafted, but I hated seeing one political side given precedence. The show was just starting, and he was telling half the country their perspective on the world is not valued. Ah, maybe not. His remarks are focused on the desire for witness testimony in the Senate, not the quest to be rid of the President. That puts him in the Susan Collins position, which isn't all that divisive. But it rubbed me the wrong way. Me — and I'm not a Trump voter — I'm just someone offended by the 3 years of disrespect shown to the people whose candidate won an election.
But Phoenix didn't go into partisan politics. In fact, he is trying to pull people together:
I’ve been thinking about some of the distressing issues that we’ve been facing collectively. I think at times we feel or are made to feel that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality.
That's the opposite of divisive.
I think, whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice. We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity. I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world. Many of us are guilty of an egocentric world view, and we believe that we’re the center of the universe. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakeable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.
We're called back to nature, away from the disconnection. If we put milk in our coffee, there is — somewhere out there — a cow that was used. Phoenix doesn't go from there into a PETA lecture. He gets back to human life:
We fear the idea of personal change, because we think we need to sacrifice something; to give something up. But human beings at our best are so creative and inventive, and we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and the environment.
That's almost right wing. It's at least inclusive of the right. The environment matters, but we can go for innovation and technology and find solutions. It's not about giving things up. Then comes another right-wing-friendly idea, personal responsibility:
I have been a scoundrel all my life, I’ve been selfish.
This reminds me of Trump, last Thursday, going on about his impeachment acquittal: "We went through hell, unfairly, did nothing wrong, did nothing wrong, I've done things wrong in my life, I will admit, not purposely, but I've done things wrong." Oh, Trump couldn't confess "I have been a scoundrel all my life," but he did confess "I've done things wrong in my life."
I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I’m grateful that so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. I think that’s when we’re at our best: when we support each other. Not when we canceleach other out for our past mistakes...
A clear statement against the cancel culture.
... but when we help each other to grow. When we educate each other; when we guide each other to redemption. When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. He said: "Run to the rescue with love and peace will follow."
The brother, River Phoenix, died in 1993, when he was 23. He wasn't rescued or educated or guided. Joaquin Phoenix was 19 when he lost his brother, and now he resurrects that brother's spirit in a simple call for love.
"But the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the 30s. Do you think they saw the shit coming? Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all. And I’m not advocating for Hillary or Bernie. I like them both but frankly I wish the next president was a conservative only because we had Obama for eight years and we need balance. And not because I particularly enjoy the conservative agenda. I just think the government should reflect the people. And we are about 40 percent conservative and 40 percent liberal. When I was growing up and when I was a younger man, liberals and conservatives were friends with differences. They weren’t enemies. And it always made sense that everyone gets a president they like for a while and then hates the president for a while. But it only works if the conservatives put up a good candidate. A good smart conservative to face the liberal candidate so they can have a good argument and the country can decide which way to go this time. Trump is not that. He’s an insane bigot. He is dangerous.... Please pick someone else. Like John Kasich. I mean that guy seems okay. I don’t like any of them myself but if you’re that kind of voter please go for a guy like that. It feels like between him and either democrat we’d have a decent choice. It feels like a healthier choice. We shouldn’t have to vote for someone because they’re not a shocking cunt billionaire liar..... I get that all these people sound like bullshit soft criminal opportunists. The whole game feels rigged and it’s not going anywhere but down anymore. I feel that way sometimes. And that voting for Trump is a way of saying 'fuck it. Fuck them all'. I really get it. It’s a version of national Suicide. Or it’s like a big hit off of a crack pipe. Somehow we can’t help it. Or we know that if we vote for Trump our phones will be a reliable source of dopamine for the next four years. I mean I can’t wait to read about Trump every day. It’s a rush. But you have to know this is not healthy..... I know I’m not qualified or particularly educated and I’m not right instead of you. I’m an idiot and I’m sure a bunch of you are very annoyed by this. Fucking celebrity with an opinion. I swear this isn’t really a political opinion. You don’t want to know my political opinions. (And I know that I’m only bringing myself trouble with this shit.) Trump has nothing to do with politics or ideology. He has to do with himself. And really I don’t mean to insult anyone. Except Trump. I mean to insult him very much. And really I’m not saying he’s evil or a monster. In fact I don’t think Hitler was. The problem with saying that guys like that are monsters is that we don’t see them coming when they turn out to be human, which they all are. Everyone is...."
I looked it up because, since we've been talking about him a lot lately, I wanted to get a sense of his politics. I'm trying to process the current spate of sex stories without reference to the politics of the particular person who's coming under fire. It's easy to assume anyone in show business is a political liberal, but I think a lot of that is completely shallow, people saying what it's to their advantage to say. The passage above is actually extremely well-written and full of twists and turns and ideas that I loved getting the chance to read. Don't turn off just because you hate the Trump-is-Hitler meme. He does something different with that.
"... [Bethany] Mota, the anti-bullying fashionista, who is Hispanic and has a homeschooling background; Hank Green, a video engagement entrepreneur who also does educational programming and has a friendly nerd-next-door persona; and GloZell, a pioneering 52-year-old comedian with a big audience...."
“The mainstream media still matters a great deal, but you can’t just do that anymore,” said White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri. “You have to work harder to reach a larger audience. It’s so disaggregated that you have to put more effort into it. The good news is there’s ways to reach people who really care about a particular issue.”
Discussions about how to reach a broader and deeper audience this year through non-traditional and social media began six months ago, Palmieri said. “We’re trying to make sure as many Americans know about his proposals as possible,” she said. “And you have to make sure that people who really care about a particular issue know what his proposals are and what he’s done."...
Palmieri summed up their collective appeal to the president... “These people have a huge following.”
That was weird, although I see the connection to my long-time habit of feeling the need to buy 2 things if I'm going to buy 1 thing. I don't have a problem buying nothing, but 1 seems to require 2.
Asks Meade, after he sings along awhile with the song I'm playing on my iTunes as a consequence of that "Oh" discussion in the previous post.
I say: "Yeah, what are all the celebrities saying about Syria? Are any of them talking now?" They loved to love Obama on the issues they loved to love him about. They helped America love him, and they looked so lovable loving him like that. But they won't look so pretty talking up a war, so I think they're off somewhere else. La la.
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That's just sad. The email goes on to ask me to "join" Carole King by giving money to "Joe and Kamala."What celebrity are they throwing at you? At least I know they're not using Spotify to try to find out which musical artist might be able to reach me. The answer is no one, but I don't think I've ever played one of Carole King's recordings. I've been subjected to them on a number of occasions. I don't dislike her. I just don't care. And even if I did care about her — or anyone else's — music, I wouldn't care about her name slapped on some political email... other than to find it insulting that the campaign thinks I might be stirred to action by a celebrity's name.Carole King. I mean, it's annoying. It's like some idiot was wondering how to call out to Boomers.
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