Why is the Wall Street Journal's big story on Trump behind a paywall?

Are they trying to destroy him or not?

Here's the link if you want to try to use it. I found a way last night, but it's not working for me now. I was going to quote the part about Donald Trump supposedly drawing the figure of a woman with 2 big curves for breasts and the scribbled signature "Donald" as the pubic hair.

Is that in the article or just the detritus of a bad dream? I don't know. There's that paywall. If you want to take down Trump — save the world from the marker-wielding fiend — you've got to show what you've got to everyone, not exploit the occasion for subscriptions.

And if I remember correctly from last night — or was it a dream? — you didn't even show us the drawing. I want to see this famous historical drawing that brought down a President. Has there ever been a drawing like this? 

Here's what I prompted Grok: "Imagine a contest where you have to do a drawing that is supposedly by another American President that would reveal something this bad about him. What would be some entries in the contest? That is, what would it have been possible but terrible for Abe Lincoln to have sketched, etc." I'm sure you could think of funnier ideas that Grok described.

But let's see if I can get Grok to draw that picture Trump supposedly drew but the WSJ did publish (perhaps out of fear of getting "Rathergated"). Oh, no: "Unfortunately I can't generate that kind of image."

ADDED: If you were trying to play up to someone you knew was a pedophile, why would you emphasize a woman's pubic hair? It seems more like a way to call out and needle a pedophile. Try that interpretation, Trumpsters, if the letter turns out to be real.

"There’s a book that my therapist recommended. I didn’t read it, but I did read the first chapter on this practice called morning pages."

"It’s meant to get you connected with your creativity. I’ll sit down and free associate, either with writing or with doodles. I might sketch shapes that relate to an interior or a table. It was pushed on me by my therapist, to wake up, make tea and create a soft, uninterrupted moment for myself."

From "How the Owner of a Nightclub and a Roller Rink Spends His Sundays/Varun Kataria owns various nightlife venues in Bushwick, Brooklyn. His Sundays usually begin with creative projects and end with his dog, Mushroom" (NYT)(I made that a free-access link because the photographs draw you into a particular world).

1. "Morning pages" — similar to but different from what I'm doing here on this blog. Before this blog, I'd use a sketchbook and a fountain pen. There were more doodles, fewer quotes. 

2. "I didn’t read it... pushed on me by my therapist" — he's getting "connected with [his] creativity" and disconnected from that therapist. 

3. "Mushroom" — name your dog Mushroom, and those people who just have to ask "What's his name?" — or "What's his name or her name (I don't want to misgender him... or her)?" — will forever be inquiring whether it refers to psychedelic mushrooms. Good conversation starter actually... probably.

"These cryptic smears are nevertheless meaningless, nor do I know how they got there.... Mess, not mystery."

From "The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey" (Paris Review/no pay wall).

A nice selection of Gorey drawings — on envelopes — from what will be a book, out in February, "From Ted to Tom: The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey" (commission earned).

Have you ever drawn on envelopes? I have... enclosing fan letters when I was a teenager... long ago.

"He helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism."

"He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. The politician I'm referring to is Mitch McConnell.... He’s been a truly awful public official. McConnell has always put party above America. Remember when he said his most important goal as Senate leader was to make Barack Obama a one-term president? The fact that he hasn’t always kissed Trump’s backside has infuriated the former furor-in-chief. Despite his opposition to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election — admitting publicly that Trump 'provoked' the attack on the U.S. Capitol — McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021...."

Writes Robert Reich, in "Goodbye, Mitch: You were the worst/But the Republicans might find someone even worse to replace you" (Substack).

I'm not agreeing with this, just calling attention to it for its harsh language and for Reich's drawing of Mitch McConnell, which is quite nice.

And then there's "furor-in-chief." Did he mean Führer-in-chief? "Führer," which means leader, is strongly associated with Hitler. "Furor" refers to an emotional state, not to a person. It means "fury, rage, madness, anger, mania" (OED). Maybe saying Trump was the "furor-in-chief" is like calling Aguirre the "Wrath of God"...

"The four children found alive after surviving for 40 days in a Colombian jungle were told by their mother to leave the site of a plane crash and seek help..."

"... their father said. According to the oldest child, their mother lived for about four days after surviving the impact of the crash that left the group stranded in the wilderness.... Fidencio Valencia, an uncle, told reporters... that the siblings initially sustained themselves on cassava flour known as fariña, which was being transported aboard the aircraft.... 'When the plane crashed, they took out a fariña, and with that, they survived.... After the fariña ran out, they began to eat seeds.'... [R]escuer Henry Guerrero said the children also found one of 100 emergency supply kits scattered by the military — as well as wild fruits and plants in the jungle."

From "Mother told kids to leave Colombia plane crash site for help, family says" (WaPo).

Here's a tweet from Colombia’s military showing a drawing from the 2 oldest children. We're told: "This drawing represents the hope of an entire country":

"Andy Dick, Anchor-Head McGillicuddy, and Shakespeare"/"Beatnik Three Stooges"/"They are all Bob Dylan"....

Answers to a question I'd never — in all these years — thought of asking: "Who are the three men on the 'Planet Waves' album cover?"

Here are 9 TikTokk videos I found to while away your next 10 minutes. Let me know what you like best.

1. The lizard's table manners.

2. The chef disapproves.

3.  A drawing of chaos and order.

4. Sidewalk chalk art.

5. Broadway Barbara can help you get a good night's sleep.

6. Nurse Melissa is back with her Nancy Pelosi lip-synching.

7. Infuse other exercise classes with religion the way yoga classes use Hinduism.

8. "I want to be the Bob Woodward of 'Family Feud' clips. I want to lead a ragtag group of journalists into the Steve Harvey reaction underworld, like that movie 'Spotlight.'"

9. Evel Knieval and all his friends.

"Question: When will we put Dr. Seuss on the twenty?"

That's a question I wrote in this page of the sketchbook I drew when I was in Paris. (It was some time in the 1990s. I forget when. I blogged this page in 2004, the first year of this blog, after St. Exupéry's plane was found in the Mediterranean Sea, 60 years after he crashed and died.)

I loved that France had put an artist on its money, and I felt a little sad that we Americans don't put our artists first. So I must feel elated that we've done it at last. We've put an artist on our money:

I got my wish, so I'm just going to be happy about an artist on the money, not argue about the particular artist chosen. 

When I wrote in my sketchbook, I picked the name Dr. Seuss not only because he wrote accessible words and drew charming drawings, which is what St. Exupéry did. I picked it because I thought virtually all Americans could get behind the choice of Dr. Seuss. We all know him and have enjoyed his work. Who can't like him? But 18 years have passed, and... is Dr. Seuss cancelled? He's somewhere on the road to cancellation.

So I couldn't get my precise wish.

When you wish upon a Star-Bellied Sneetch/Makes no difference who you reach/Something like your heart desires/Will come to you....

So I got my wish imprecisely. I got Maya Angelou! 

***

Like a songbird, her legs are invisible as she flies, arms outstretched/Darting into the slots of vending machines/Across America.

"I don’t know, and I’m not going to try to read her mind. Maybe she was just bored coming out of her jail cell. I know her sister sometimes also sketches in court. Maybe the Maxwell family just likes to sketch in their free time."

Said Jane Rosenberg, the courtroom artist who found herself on the receiving end of drawing by Ghislaine Maxwell, quoted in "'My life is weird': the court artist who drew Ghislaine Maxwell drawing her back" (The Guardian). 

She and another artist, Liz Williams, were sketching Maxwell one day during a pre-trial motion when they noticed that Maxwell, armed with a pen or pencil, was returning the favor. 

It made me think of the phrase, "When you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you." 

There's no gazing like the gazing required for drawing. 

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster . . . when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you." 

When you draw the monster, the monster draws you.

The artist puts a light spin on it — maybe it was just boredom or she likes to draw. I don't think so. I think Maxwell is speaking silently, saying: You're looking at me? I'm looking at you. You see evil in me? I see it in you.

imagine doing a court illustration of ghislaine maxwell while she stares directly at you and draws you right back pic.twitter.com/zGQBSkSbzl

— ¬(abcdentminded) (@abcdentminded) December 2, 2021

"By the time I’m done with a sketch, it is as if I’m a new man. This is partly because drawing has taught me to make the most of my mistakes."

"I work in ink, from life. It is as if every line is already out of place from the start. It is oddly liberating, as I have learned to forgive myself. I draw not for the result but for the process, and fortunately I’ve been doing it long enough that the results are pleasing. I love capturing the three-dimensional image on the two-dimensional page. If Wordsworth’s heart leapt up when he beheld a rainbow in the sky, mine jumps when I convincingly foreshorten the handle of a frying pan, and it rises off the page."

From "The Big Impact of a Small Hobby/Drawing mundane things like my dish rack had helped me survive job loss. Could it be helping me through the coronavirus?" by John Donohue (NYT).

You can see a lot of his drawings at this Google image search: here.

And here's a New Yorker article of his from 2016: "The Drawing Pad as a Fatherhood Survival Tool."

"The archive’s drawings, which date to between 1905 and 1920, range from self-portraits to pictures of other people and quick sketches..."

"One is an intimate portrayal of Kafka’s mother, who wears her hair in a high bun and dons small, oval-shaped spectacles. Another ink drawing titled Drinker shows an irate-looking man slumped in front of a glass of wine.... Among the newly digitized papers is a scathing, 47-page letter to [his father] Herman; never delivered, it describes Kafka as a 'timid child' who cannot have been 'particularly difficult to manage.... I cannot believe that a kindly word, a quiet taking by the hand, a friendly look, could not have got me to do anything that was wanted of me.'"

Smithsonian reports.

View the archive here. Here's "Drinker":

"If you didn’t know Ms. Anglund’s stories, you probably knew her drawings of children: Their faces were blank orbs with just two wide-set dots for eyes."

"They became ubiquitous, appearing on Hallmark cards, dolls and ceramics, as Anglund merchandise secured a prominent niche in the collectibles market... Ms. Anglund’s illustrations were particularly distinctive. While the adults in her drawings all displayed fully formed and expressive facial features, the children had none at all, save for those dots for eyes. Ms. Anglund, who used her own children as models, said she had never made a conscious decision to omit her young characters’ mouths and noses. But over time, she said, she realized that unformed, untouched faces better evoked the innocence of childhood. 'I think perhaps I am trying to get down to the essence of a child,' she said, 'not drawing just a particular, realistic child, but instead I think I’m trying to capture the "feeling" of all children, of childhood itself, perhaps.'"

 From "Joan Walsh Anglund, 95, Dies; Her Children’s Books Touched Millions/Her first in a prolific career, 'A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You,' was a phenomenon. And her illustrations capturing childhood became a cottage industry" (NYT). 

Anglund wrote the line "A bird doesn’t sing because he has an answer, he sings because he has a song" — which Maya Angelou, author of “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” took to quoting.

"It's March 2021, and I'm looking back on this comments thread about drawings from Van Gogh Museum. It's so weird to see the one commenter breaking in..."

"... with the emergency news that Peter Jennings has died and I must get right on it," I write in the comments to a post I put in 2005. 

We were talking about a post that had my ink drawings of Van Gogh and of a museum guard yelling at a baby who'd sat down on the ledge that is there to keep people from standing to close to the paintings, and of the baby muttering "Bummer, bummer, bummer." 

I thought that was pretty amusing, but the commenter was all: "Ann, if you're still up, Peter Jennings' death was just announced 15 mins ago. I have a link in my blog, but so far, only lgf have the story. Since you're doing Glenn's blog this week, it seems you're going to be doing extra-duty on the obit watch -- they'll start to pour any second."

The notion that I'm here to hop to it when there's breaking news... it was absurd then and it's absurd now. Everyone knew Peter Jennings was dying. It was one of those death-watch situations. And yet it seemed important to some people to burst in and be first! when the dying man is actually dead. Why?!

"The Louvre museum in Paris said Friday it has put nearly half a million items from its collection online for the public to visit free of charge."

"As part of a major revamp of its online presence, the world's most-visited museum has created a new database of 482,000 items at collections."  

Yahoo reports.  

Here's the site.  

Here's the first thing I looked for:

I wanted to see that because I have a strong memory of drawing it (in person) and only remembered my drawing (blogged before, here): 

ADDED: Oh, no, wait. It's this one — an older, nakeder Voltaire. This is the "portrait absolument fidèle" that I drew:

"Though I may be late, I am willing to admit that I was ignorant to the truth of Dr. Seuss’ writings until recently. I have unknowingly read many of his books to my own children."

"But now that I am better informed, I am committed to advocating for change. Because when we know better, we should do better."  

Writes Maureen Downey (in the Atlanta Journal Constitution). 

So drearily earnest...

She means well. Is she anxious about what else she may be unknowingly doing... such as depriving children of the fun of reading Dr. Seuss or generating morbid fears about strange manifestations of racism or being too subservient about taking instruction from dull people who are oversure of their puritanical notions of racial correctness?

Downey links to what she calls a "fantastic list" of other books to give to children, but it's not just a list. It's an opinionated blog post, "Dr. Seuss was racist. Why are we still reading his books?"

... I pulled out the extensive collection of Dr. Seuss books that I have in my home and re-read them with a critical lens only to find that the themes of anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and Orientalism are garishly prevalent. I have used Dr. Seuss books in my classroom for the last ten years. I feel disgusted knowing that I not only celebrated these texts, but the life of Theodore Geisel. Dr. Seuss books will no longer have a place in my home. The messages that children absorb through literature will impact their racial beliefs. Without proper support in navigating the harmful messages from books like Dr. Seuss’s, children are likely to transfer what they read to their play and social life....

Go to that link to see the suggestions of books to read in place of particular Dr. Seuss books. The book covers are depicted, so you can get a sense of the kind of drawing that anti-Seussers think could work as a substitute for his highly idiosyncratic work. But these substitutes just have blandly realistic, sentimental illustrations that depict people of color. If you want to replace Dr. Seuss, the first thing you'll need some exciting, inventive drawing! And you've got to have a little edge to the story. It can't be just love is important and nice people are nice.

The worst bathing suit, the hungry dog, interesting/uninteresting sounds, pandemic doodles.

I've selected 4 things for you from TikTok. If you like all 4, you must be like me:

"South Carolinians Mock Redesigned Palmetto Tree on Proposed State Flag."

 The NYT reports.

Scott Malyerck, a political consultant who helped create the design as a member of the South Carolina State Flag Study Committee... "It’s hard to come up with a quintessential palmetto tree that everyone will be in favor of.”... 

Ronnie W. Cromer, a state senator who helped create the flag study committee, said... "It would be nice to have a little nicer-looking tree.”... 

[T]he state has not had one official design for the flag since 1940, when the flag code was repealed.... “The idea is just to make it historically accurate and uniform,” Mr. Malyerck said. “Flag manufacturers should not decide what it should look like.” 

Here's the proposed flag, which relied on a 1910 pencil drawing:

And here's the pencil drawing, which was done by a woman:

The new flag designers seem to have gotten caught up in the idea of honoring the woman, and they went quite literal. A flag image needs a stark, shapely outline. A pencil drawing — like this one — can be sketchy, impressionistic, indicating light and shade. That's not going to work for a flag.

To make a good palmetto tree flag, look for some actual flags that use an image of a tree and select the most successful ones, for example this flag of a county in Norway (Vest-Agder) that depicts an oak tree:

"I was 12 years old in the 9th grade - younger than my classmates, and (as you may possibly be able to imagine) pretty awkward, shy and nerdy.

"And I had a crush on Patrice Y., the girl who sat directly in front of me in math class (because the seats were all arranged in alphabetical order for some arbitrary reason)...."

A very cheerful story from Weird Al Yankovic (at Facebook). Go read it and be heartwarmed.

Is the new New Yorker cover shockingly depressing?

Is this cover intentionally dark? Christ pic.twitter.com/2CryDhwTAd

— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) December 1, 2020

Simonson also tweets: "This woman is alone, living in squalor and drinking." Prescription drugs too. (Click on the image to see the full cover. There's lots of stuff on the floor.)

Simonson adds: "People say it’s meant to be dark but this interview with the artist doesn’t make that clear." And he links to this piece in The New Yorker, an interview with the artist Adrian Tomine. 

And I must say that before I read the interview, I went to Amazon and bought a hardcover book of his, "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist." That's how much I love that beautifully drawn cover.

I think the cover is about the built-up effects of the lockdown on a young person in a small apartment and how it remains nonetheless possible to present a pulled-together image within the frame of a video call. The woman is struggling with the long ordeal of isolation but still looking out into the world for social interaction. She has a pretty cocktail in her hand, so it must be a social, not a business call. She's got her polished looks — lipstick, ruffled blouse, earrings. She's ready to move forward, optimistic. Outside of the frame of the call, the place is a mess, but it's a homey mess, with kitty cats and snack containers. She's comfortable, in shorts and fluffy slippers. And now that I'm looking closely, unshaved legs. The expression on her face is a serene smile.

Now, I'm reading the interview. The book on the floor — lower right — is the book I just bought. Nice. The artist was influenced by Edward Hopper. Here's the closest thing to a statement about the darkness/nondarkness of the cover: 

"My dream from the time I was probably 7 or 8 was to be 50.... That was just always my goal."

"But you have to accept that you are where you are. Like, whatever it is, that’s kind of what it is. It’s probably not going to get a lot better, probably not going to get a lot worse. But, I mean, nobody said to me, 'You’re going to be struggling as an artist for X number of years, and then it’s going to work out.' When you’re younger, you wake up and you work. You don’t know if anyone’s even going to see it. You don’t even have a space to do it in. Now I have a drawing table! I press a button, and the light turns on, and I can trace things. I have that accessible to me at any time. I get to dress weird. I get to have long hair. I’m going to get a tattoo. People say, 'How are you going to feel when you’re old and have that thing?' I’m already old!"

Said Mo Willems, quoted in "Mo Willems Has a Message for Parents: He’s Not on Your Side" (NYT). 

Since we talked about embarrassment 2 posts down, I should include this: "Is embarrassment about unstructured creativity why parents stop drawing? Embarrassment is a learned disease. It can be cured. It’s about willingness to fail."

Willems is estranged from his parents — "when I started to see some of the harmful behavior that had happened to me starting to be moved over to my child by them, that was the line" — and his only child is trans — "One of the great things about queer kids in this culture is that they have to have done the work. They have to do the questioning and say: 'Who am I? What am I? Where am I in society? What risks am I willing to take or not take to be authentic?'"