"These nails are sported by nurses in hospitals who, because of these stupid encumbrances glued to the ends of their fingers, cannot properly perform one of the key hygienic routines..."

"... that has been a simple, essential part of infection prevention in medical practice for decades: thorough hand-washing. First line of defense, proven useful for generations. Hospital management has gutlessly acquiesced to this ridiculousness because these days, everyone has 'rights.'Except, apparently, patients who wish to not contract an infection during their hospital stay…."

From the comments section at the NYT article about those very long, overdecorated fake nails —  "Manicures Fit for the Met Gala/Whether at hospitals or on red carpets, people with manicures by Yulenny Garcia, a nail technician in the Bronx, turn heads."

Another comment: "I like the creativity but as a physician… I despair when I see these talons on fashion and entertainment industry folks. Not healthy at all. Just pull up any study on synthetic nails in pubmed. Just imagine HRs in hospitals have given up on young RNs to abide by the no long-nail rules… these nails can cut through gloves and in one case recently caused a rectal tear in a patient. Just think, everyone does them, so how are you going to stop this? Not happy, this is being highlighted...."

"Why can’t nail biting go the way of body hair?"

Which way did body hair go?

I'm reading Jennifer Hussein's "We’ve Embraced Acne and Body Hair. Why Not Bitten Nails? Nail biters want to know" (NYT).

While acne has been destigmatized to some degree by bold stickers, and body hair appears in ads plastered across buses and trains, chewed up fingers have failed to capture that same cache of authenticity.

"Cache"?! They mean "cachet." A "cache" is a group of hidden things, like a "cache of weapons." Unless you have a box of chewed-up fingers stowed away somewhere, you mean "cachet" — which is prestige or high status.

But anyway, my question is answered. Body hair has gone public, plastered across buses and trains. So this is an article arguing for acceptance of bitten fingernails:

To escape a beauty culture that relies on pretending everything’s always under control, we have to become comfortable showing the tiniest parts of ourselves that are not. "Sit with those nails," [said Dawnn Karen, a former psychology professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology]. "Walk around for a week or two. Don’t get them done. Go through all of the feelings — embarrassment, shame, cringe. Let them pass."

Can we do the feeling where "done" nails seem embarrassing and shameful and — I hate to say it — cringe?

Speaking of words, I see that word up there — "authenticity" (in "that same cache of authenticity"). Just 2 days ago, I had a post "What authenticity means these days," with 4 examples from the current news. That makes me want to do a Friday "authenticity" check. I've already got one — the insane "cache of authenticity" — so 3 more are desirable:

1. "How ‘Fawning’ Is Ruining Your Relationships/Excessive people pleasing can trap you in a cycle of insecurity. Here’s how to break the habit" (NYT): "'When we’re fawning... the fearful part of ourselves chooses dishonest harmony over deep, authentic connection.'... The next time you have the urge to fawn... give yourself an authenticity check: Do I really mean what I’m about to say? Am I saying something I don’t mean to try to appease the other person?" 

2. "When a Close Relationship Becomes ‘Enmeshment’/If you’ve lost yourself in a relationship, it may be time to untangle your identities and establish clearer boundaries" (NYT): "An enmeshed relationship has a lack of clear boundaries, leading to blurred individual identities.... [P]eople in these relationships become disconnected from their authentic selves. 'You get to a point where you don’t even know who you are'.... Is this your emotion, or are you co-opting someone else’s?..."

3. "The Authenticity Paradox/How 'Being Real' Became Performance" (Philosopheasy): "The paradox inherent in Rousseau's ideal of authenticity lies in its dual nature: while it encourages individuals to be true to themselves, it simultaneously demands recognition from others, thus complicating the pursuit of genuine self-expression.... Cultural critics argue that the rise of a 'culture of authenticity' can lead to societal tensions.... The expectation to present a genuine self in every context can feel burdensome... in an increasingly artificial world...."

"For an appearance at the 2024 TwitchCon convention, Mr. Piker wore a tank top that showed off his arms"/"Some of Mr. Piker’s followers say that, by wearing jewelry..."

"... and painting his nails, he has helped to promote different forms of gender presentation"/"Fashion is something Mr. Piker, who is 6 foot 4 inches tall, has loved since he was a 'too-big' teen growing up in Turkey, he said"/"Mr. Piker, who fasts daily as part of his fitness routine, usually has his first meal around 2 p.m."/"His studio is littered with boxes of Nicorette gum and cartons of Zyn nicotine patches."

Just some of the photo captions from the NYT article: "A Progressive Mind in a MAGA Body/Hasan Piker pumps iron, likes weapons and wears pearls. His brand of masculinity has won him many fans online — and has been a useful vehicle for his politics" (free-access link).

The author is Jack Crosbie. Sample sentence: "This fluency between culture and ideology has led many to brand Mr. Piker a Joe Rogan of the left — if Mr. Rogan had a mop top and painted his nails."

I'll just say: The search for The Joe Rogan of the Left goes on... with low-level desperation.

Stray sociology:

"If we have to fight with our fingernails, then we’ll do what we have to do."

From "Biden-Netanyahu rift causes ‘tremendous anger’ in Washington/US fears its goals for Gaza — freeing hostages and aiding Palestinians — do not align with Israeli PM’s desire for political survival and an invasion of Rafah" (London Times):

Biden has reiterated that America’s support to Israel remains “ironclad”, but has warned Jerusalem against a full-scale land invasion of Rafah, fearing it would lead to a civilian bloodbath. Israel insists that the operation will go ahead and is necessary to find and kill the architects of the October 7 attacks.

It then emerged that the US paused a shipment of weapons to Israel last week, consisting of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs. The reaction from Jerusalem was swift. “If we have to fight with our fingernails, then we’ll do what we have to do,” a senior government official told Reuters.

On Wednesday Biden doubled down in an interview with CNN, saying for the first time that he would halt shipments of American weapons if Netanyahu went ahead with the operation. “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah … I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities — that deal with that problem,” he said.

"And is it wrong to say that I may not belong to one sect or the other but am, instead, whatever the nail equivalent of bi(coastal) is?"

"I love each expression precisely because of how different it can make me feel, taking me from a beacon of old-school femininity (with a twist) to something more practical but equally delicate. If the short nail is Audrey Hepburn, the long one is Sophia Loren. In modern terms, let’s say my Natalie Portman sun is facing off against my powerful Cardi B rising. And don’t we all contain multitudes?"

Writes Lena Dunham in Vogue in "The Long and the Short of It: Lena Dunham on Her Nail Journey."

Found because I was wondering what Lena Dunham was doing these days.

"It’s absolutely ludicrous that you have an officer with pink hair and nails longer than their fingers."

"We’re a police department not a hip hop department. Let’s go back to being police officers."

Said one Manhattan police officer, quoted in "NYPD to go ‘old school’ by banning facial hair and changing uniforms, new video reveals: ‘Bring back some traditions’" (NY Post).

Retired NYPD sergeant Joseph Giacalone, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said: "I was against all the beards.... It’s about a sense of pride.... This is absolutely a necessary aspect about showing a good front to the community because I think once the cops look good that comes with a modicum of respect because people perceive if you look like a slob they treat you like one."

The named person speaks in terms of looking "good" and the unnamed person speaks in terms of "hip hop" characteristics.

"What’s up with all these dudes painting their nails nowadays"/"That’s like someone asking what’s up with all these dudes getting tattoos. Self expression."

From "'Gotta keep your hands fresh': why male athletes are wearing nail polish/Men’s sport can be a hard place. But a rising number of stars are choosing to express themselves even if it annoys those with more old-fashioned views" (The Guardian).

"Her husband, whom she met when she was 21 and he was 81, dictated precisely what shade of nail polish she should wear (pink, pale and sheer, never matte)..."

"... and gently tapped her on the head when her roots were showing. When he was in residence, he issued a 6pm curfew ensuring his young wife was home to share his dinner (always chicken soup with cream cheese and crackers) and watch his favourite movies. Then, after dark, she was expected to participate in the group sex for which Hefner was famous. 'It was embarrassing. I don't know the most people there'd been in our bedroom at one time but – a lot. Pretty bad. We were like, "Oh, now it's your turn." Nobody really wanted to be there but I think in Hef's mind, he still thought he was in his 40s, and those nights, the people, the mansion, solidified that idea. He felt, "I've still got it."' There were also the famous 'Sunday Fundays' when 200 young women would descend on the Playboy mansion. Its octogenarian owner took so much Viagra that it made him lose his hearing on one side (a recognised side effect of the drug). 'Hef always said he'd rather be deaf and still able to have sex. Weird,' says Crystal...."

From "The hell of being married to Hugh Hefner by his Playboy Bunny third wife: Crystal Hefner, 37, describes how he took so much Viagra it made him deaf and imposed a 6pm curfew so she'd stay home and share his chicken soup" (Daily Mail).

Always chicken soup with cream cheese and crackers?

"I finally understood the most important thing: You need to love yourself and live for yourself. Finally I will live the way I want."

Said Iryna Filkina, 52, who had reached out to a makeup artist named Anastasiia Subacheva to ask about makeup classes. 

Filkina was, according to Subacheva, hoping to get more Instagram followers, and talking "about what she would wear and how she would do her makeup" for "an upcoming concert by the Ukrainian pop diva Olya Polyakova." 

The quotes are from the NYT article: "A makeup artist recognized this Bucha victim’s picture by her manicure." 

At the link, you will see the photograph of the dead woman's hand. 

I will give you this, from Olya Polyakova:

"When she crossed the line and looked at the clock, McLaughlin covered her mouth with two hands and 10 pristine-white fingernails."

Fingernails loom large in WaPo's report "Sydney McLaughlin sets world record in 400-meter hurdles at U.S. Olympic trials." 

Pristine-white — has that descriptor ever appeared in the news before? 

Anyway, here's what matters!

Sydney McLaughlin = 🐐pic.twitter.com/wsw2el42xZ

— FloTrack (@FloTrack) June 28, 2021

And yet, I don't have a tag for running, and I'm not going to create one, but I do have a tag "fingernails," and I'm delighted to get to use it again. 

I hadn't used it since July 2018, when somebody had "tapered nails painted bright sapling-green." There's been newsworthy fingernail biting. And Viking beliefs about cutting one's nails. 

And my all-time favorite: "'Record nails broken in car crash.'... Not the worst car accident injury, though possibly the worst fingernail-breaking injury.... I wish somebody would bring her the world's largest blackboard."

"bold, courageous, beautifying, radiant and captivating when there’s a story and based on a conversation that led up to it. It’s not just an image. It shows an element of trust."

A man rhapsodizes about the photo of a "full-frontal bare vulva" texted to him by his his 24-year-old girlfriend. Quoted in The New York Times in "The Selfie That Dares to Go There/Men are not the only ones texting pictures of their private parts."

Much of the article is about how to take a good "v-selfie":

“Snapchat filters banish blemish and razor bumps,” she said, adding that when she gets really fancy she uses Photoshop. “My mother is a photographer — lights and background are everything. Sometimes filters can make the ‘v’ look shaved even if it’s been two days and you’re stubbly. You want your ‘v’ to look good, so whatever light, filter, position will make your ‘v’ look best, that’s the one you should use. I use it as a narrative, as if you’re telling a story. It’s an aspect of that, it’s not just a vagina.”

I was going to say the use of "v" was a convenience for those who know the correct word is "vulva" but feel they ought to say "vagina" to fit in with those who don't.

Lexi Stout, 27 and the executive director at VSpot Medi Spa on Madison Avenue, which provides grooming services for the nether regions, has flashed her iPhone flora, stored in the cloud, to friends at a bar. “When I was in high school, if you had pubic hair, it was embarrassing,” Ms. Stout said....

“We’re in a generation full of people that want cosmetic improvements so they can share images,” [said adonna’s dermatologist Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank]. “I think the feeling of one’s sexuality is very much a center point of one’s image of themselves.”...

“I sit on the bed, prop the phone on a pillow and set the timer,” said [lingerie consultant Stephanie] Ms. Moreno, a petite brunette with large luminous brown eyes and tapered nails painted bright sapling-green. “It’s not just sexual, it has artistic merit and beauty. It’s sentimental and more intimate than sending my face.”

Later, a friend of the author's opines that if the woman doesn't include her face in the shot it looks "like leftovers at a cannibal dinner party."

The article descends into darkness with the discussion of women who don't "feel empowered" by taking and sending "v-selfies." A modest or revenge-porn averse woman is framed as a coward, "afraid to look at or experience their own intimate feminine beauty."

Nick, a 31-year-old software salesman and former Marine who served two combat tours in Iraq and the Republic of Georgia, brought up his girlfriend’s sexual inhibition to his PTSD therapist, who prescribed they take V-selfies over a mirror.

“She was very unsure of herself, very unconfident,” Nick said. “We didn’t have sex very often. It wasn’t something she was super-comfortable with, but I was in love with her. I was like, ‘O.K., well I guess I’ll find a way to make this no longer an issue.’”

A subsequent lover was far more overt, sending some images “including her face, which I thought was ambitious and I would advise against it, but yeah — she just wasn’t afraid.”

Wow! What happened between those last 2 paragraphs?! Did Nick dump the woman he loved because she didn't step up to the therapist-prescribed porn shoot?! Where's the #MeToo spirit now? Does it drop out of the picture whenever it interferes with some giddy theme of the joys of sex?

This article caused me to do an image search...



... I had to wonder what the hell is "sapling green," that color on the "tapered nails"?

"my dog hates his nails getting clipped so my dad literally bought a purse & cut holes in it"

my dog hates his nails getting clipped so my dad literally bought a purse & cut holes in it pic.twitter.com/PWnsUBiiZT

— Kendal Peifer (@KendalPeifer) February 11, 2018

The day in disgust.

What's been disgusting people in the last 24 hours? I wondered, after blogging something that disgusted Meade and me and noticing the the new post went on top of yesterday's post about Comey being "just completely disgusted" when Trump subjected him to a handshake.

Here's what I've come up with:

1. The avolatte. "Yes, this is a latte served inside of an avocado. Look at it. It’s sickening."

2. What's that white thing that seems to be growing out of your child's gums? It's not some weird new disease, just some fingernail bitings. One woman — who ultimately tweezed out 27 shreds — made video of her adventure in her son's mouth and posted it on Facebook. The son's name — if this is relevant to analyzing her level of vigilance about health matters — is Kale.

3. "If Trump took a dump on his desk, you would defend it," said Anderson Cooper last night to his guest Jeffrey Lord.

4. In Japan, promoting the movie "Tokyo Ghoul," there's a Tokyo Ghoul café. Here's the website for the café with some pictures from the comic book and the dishes intended to evoke them. (Here's a trailer for the new movie.)

5. I avoided the hoo-ha over the men's romper, but maybe I can catch the wave on the jeado. "Real men wear speedos, but it takes a confident man to wear a jeado."

6. "It's not that Trump isn't or shouldn't be frightening. But it's conspicuous that our media landscape is now a perfect Ailes-ian dystopia, cleaved into camps of captive audiences geeked up on terror and disgust. The more scared and hate-filled we are, the more advertising dollars come pouring in, on both sides."

7. From "'Alien' Is Sci-Fi Horror's Most Feminist Movie Franchise," by Tom Seymour: "The Alien movies visualize the two things so many men look upon with disgust and horror—getting penetrated themselves, and watching a woman giving birth... In the Alien films... moments of rape are always moments of impregnation. They provide a dual, intensified horror."

8. From "As Indians, we take our cotton heritage too lightly": "Remember the outrage last year in the US when an Indian supplier of 'Egyptian cotton' bedsheets to major department stores was found to have used other cotton? The disgust and horror was akin to sturgeon caviar being found to have been diluted with dyed salmon roe or horsemeat being detected in so-called beef products in UK. But how many know that India also produces... an equally wonderful ESL cotton variety, albeit rather unimaginatively named Suvin, the result of a 'marriage' of a local cotton gal 'Sujatha' with a Caribbean cotton lad called St Vincent in the mid-1970s?"

9. "Where do we draw the line on sledging?" I don't know. I had to figure out what "sledging" even is. Fortunately, there's an entire Wikipedia article on this cricket-specific issue: "Sledging is a term used in cricket to describe the practice whereby some players seek to gain an advantage by insulting or verbally intimidating the opposing player.... There is debate in the cricketing world as to whether this constitutes poor sportsmanship or good-humoured banter."

10. "Found this while doing yard work. My brother asked why women would buy baseball themed pads."

"One of the three standard items in the Iron Age toiletry set... is the nail scraper..."

"... the other two are a tweezer (for epilating body hair, including facial hair) and an ear-spoon (for removing earwax). The nail-scraper remains in use up to the Viking period; Vikings believed that one should not cut one's nails, as nail clippings would add to the ship made of the fingernails of the dead which plays a role in Ragnarok."

From an answer to the question how did people cut their finger- and toenails before the invention of the nail clipper. Another commenter insists that the ship was made of the untrimmed nails of the dead. And that sounds right:

In Norse mythology, Naglfar or Naglfari (Old Norse "nail ship") is a boat made entirely from the fingernails and toenails of the dead. During the events of Ragnarök, Naglfar is foretold to sail to Vígríðr, ferrying hordes that will do battle with the gods... The boat itself has been connected by scholars with a larger pattern of ritual hair and nail disposal among Indo-Europeans, stemming from Proto-Indo-European custom....

In the Poetic Edda... the enthroned figure of High...  describes the composition of Naglfar as that of the untrimmed nails of the dead, and warns about burying the dead with untrimmed nails, stating that "the ship is made of dead people's nails, and it is worth taking care lest anyone die with untrimmed nails, since such a person contributes much material to the ship Naglfar which gods and men wish would take a long time to finish".

“It tastes like chicken. It’s crazy. I don’t know how they do it."

"'Yes, it is actually a real thing,' said Anna Mugglestone, marketing and communications director for Ogilvy & Mather Group in Hong Kong, the agency running the campaign."

"This painting by Wojciech Fangor is one of the most canonical works of Polish socialist realism."

"In the canvas, there are two women."

The one of the left hand side is the antagonist: slim, in a fitted, fashionable dress, patterned with English writing (Miami, New York, Wall Street, London, Coca-cola). Her manicured hands, which surely haven’t been calloused by hard labour, hold an elegant green bag....

[The woman on the right] is proud, relaxed, resting one of her hands on her hip, and the other – on a shovel’s handle. She is strong, self-assured, and natural. Under the rolled up sleeves of her jumpsuit we see well-built forearms....

In the background, we see a symbolic representation of the effects of these two positions. On the left hand side, there are ruins.... while on the right, behind the workers, we see a freshly constructed, multi-storey building with rows of windows divided by simple architectonic elements, in a typical socialist realist style. Even the weather in the painting is meaningful. The clear blue sky on the right side of the composition seems to be threatened by the clouds approaching from above the ruins....

What I love about this picture is that for all the heavy nudging to feel revulsion toward the woman in white, she's really rather fabulous. Love the sunglasses. Love the writing on the dress. And I really love the way painted propaganda backfires. The fact that the man is looking askance at her while he maintains a possessive grip on the shoulder of jumpsuit lady transforms the woman we were supposed to hate into a feminist icon. It's no longer obvious that she's not working. She could be working in the tech industry. She's getting on with her pursuits, not wasting energy disapproving of other people. Yes, she's keeping a grip on her handbag, but I would too. Those surly disapprovers look ready to expropriate it.

Have a nice Valentine's Day/Friday the 13th combo weekend.

I'd never noticed the collision of the 2 dreaded days before 2009:

Because it's a risky place out there. For example, I was out driving, hundreds of miles from home on Friday the 13th, and I blithely made a right turn and drove a half a block before I saw the oncoming traffic in my lane. I quickly made another right turn at the corner, and immediately saw the police car lights in my rear view mirror. The cop — with his beautiful blue eyes — was very handsome — very heart-of-the-heartland handsome. I effused "I'm so sorry." He asked us where we were going. I didn't wisecrack, "the wrong way, apparently."

We said where we were going, and afterward, I wondered what the hell difference did it make where we were going? Nosy cop. Nosy handsome cop. Nosy adorable cop with brilliant blue eyes. I'm theorizing that he asked because the thing is to ask anything to get the driver talking so that words might be slurred, incoherence demonstrated, or alcohol smelled. It's not a speeding ticket he'd like to give me, it's a DUI. And maybe the whole point of making that street 1-way is to net drunk drivers. Why was the cop right there? I bet every 10 minutes, somebody goes the wrong way at that turn, each one a potential DUI, and that was a net that I slithered through. But maybe Mr. Handsome Blue-Eyed Cop let me off because he liked the place we said we were going. And I got lucky that way on Friday the 13th.

No, that was not my first post about falling in love with Meade. This was. No, actually, this. Or was it "Record nails broken in car crash." No, it was "Althouse on the road":



In the comments, AJ Lynch said: "Althouse is...looking for love in all the wrong places. Heh. Be safe!" Yes, be very careful! You never know where your next wrong turn is or who might come tromping through the brush:

"A gift or a present is an item given to someone without the expectation of payment. The gifted item should not be owned by the recipient."

The first 2 sentences of the woefully brief Wikipedia entry for "Gift."

I guess the article could be expanded with more sentences about what a gift is not, but I wanted some elaboration of the history of gifts and gifts in different cultures. There is a list under the heading "Custom, on occasions (often celebrations) such as..." and this has some useful items like potlatch and lagniappe, but it ends (inappropriately, I'd say) with: "Ironically, gift giving also refers to an HIV negative person consensually receiving the HIV virus. See Bugchasing."

Anyway, in case you were wondering, it's not really a gift if the thing is already owned by the recipient. But who hasn't felt the urge find to wrap up something in the house and put it under the tree, to be opened by the the person who already owns it on Christmas Day? Works great for people who say they already have everything they want and people who have forgotten the value of the things they already have.

ADDED: One of the many definitions of "gift" in the Oxford English Dictionary is: "A white speck on the finger-nails, supposed to portend a gift." (1708   Brit. Apollo No. 17. 2/1   Q. What is the Cause of little white Spots, which sometimes grow under the Nails of the Fingers? And what is the reason they say they are Gifts? A. The reason of their being call'd Gifts is as Wise an one as that of Letters, Winding Sheets, &c. in a Candle.")

"Over the past year, we have arrived at an odd cultural and lexicographical moment: To dress 'normal' is the height of chic, yet to call someone 'basic' is the chicest put-down..."

"Basic, according to the BuzzFeed quizzes and CollegeHumor videos that wrested the term from the hip-hop world and brought it into the realm of white-girl-on-white-girl insults, means someone who owns things like Uggs and North Face and leggings. She likes yogurt and fears carbs (there is an exception for brunch), and loves her friends, unless and until she secretly hates them. She finds peplum flattering and long (or at least shoulder-grazing) hair reliably attractive. She exercises in various non-bulk-building ways, some of which have inspired her to purchase special socks for the experience. She bought the Us Weekly with Lauren Conrad’s wedding on the cover. She Pins. She runs her gel-manicured hands up and down the spine of female-centric popular culture of the last 15 years, and is satisfied with what she feels. She doesn’t, apparently, long for more."

From "What Do You Really Mean When You Say 'Basic Bitch'?," in New York Magazine.

David Lynch makes a nail polish ad.

Via Wired, which explains it, in case you have trouble understanding the color red.

I didn't know when I started watching that the brand of the polish was Christian Louboutin, so I was a bit distracted thinking this better be Christian Louboutin nail polish or there's going to be a lawsuit. (Remember this lawsuit?)