"A comedian and his friends are transforming a vacant retail space at the West 4th Street station with freebies, art and puppet shows to make commutes more enjoyable."

I'm reading "A Newsstand That Aims to Delight N.Y.C. Subway Riders" (NYT gift link).

Trading cards that highlight fun facts about retired subway conductors and operators. Key chains with a fake rat’s foot for “good train luck.” A bucket hat with a sliding veil that riders can borrow to cry in private.... The transit-themed newsstand will have no other purpose than to amuse and intrigue New Yorkers....

Nice photos. I like this kind of art installation. Comical. For the people.

Trump styles.

🚨WOW: President Bill Clinton has COPIED President Trump's signature red 45-47 hat, now wearing a red 42 hat.

Trump owns our culture and style, and if you can't beat them, join them!

Even Bill Clinton can't deny it. pic.twitter.com/5HtLdDOEPx

— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) July 21, 2026

"The weekly gatherings of knitters at Needle & Skein, a yarn store in Minneapolis, are typically filled with giggles and storytelling."

"But, earlier this month, a heaviness hung in the air. 'It was just collective exhaustion,' said Paul Neary, a shop employee. 'Minnesotans — we're not going to say the big thing, but we often know what the big thing is just by looking at each other.'... They pulled out their knitting needles and got to work. Neary created the pattern that has now become the well-known 'Melt the ICE' hat, a red beanie-shaped cap topped with a braided tassel.... As a history buff, Neary chose the pattern based on a Norwegian hat used to protest the Nazi occupation of Norway in the 1940s. The hats were called 'nisselue,' which roughly translates to Santa hat...."

From "A red hat, inspired by a symbol of resistance to Nazi occupation, gains traction in Minnesota" (NPR).

"Peter Fritzsche, a history professor at the University of Illinois, said the Nazis were operating on 'obviously a very, very different scale,' but with ICE's presence in Minnesota, people can still feel 'occupied.'... Wendy Woloson, a history professor at Rutgers University at Camden and fellow knitter, said the red hats are a classic response of the crafting world. When knitters want to help in their community, they put their hands to work, she said.... She recalled the pink 'pussy hats' from the 2017 Women's March...."

It's poignant, this urge to do something that finds its release in knitting. It's something very calm indoor people can do when they want to feel they too are engaging in activism. 

ADDED: Speaking of hats in Minnesota, I just ran across this fascinating passage in a NYT article from April 2025:

"There is no evidence that Gladis and her pod are attacking humans or that they intend to harm people at all."

"In fact, wild orcas have never been seen treating people as prey. They do, however, have a thing for 'fads,' where they take up behaviour that has no obvious benefit. One famous example involved a female in the Pacific northwest who, in 1987, was seen wearing a dead salmon on her head. The trend spread. Other orcas across Puget Sound were soon spotted with their own 'salmon hats.' And then, as abruptly and as mysteriously as it started, the fashion fizzled out. Other orcas have been seen draping kelp over their backs or heads.... To scientists, the behaviour with the boat rudders looks similar. After wrenching one free, Gladis and her companions tend to bat it around for a while, then lose interest and swim off.... One [researcher] believes the orcas see the yachts, with their long detachable rudders, as 'giant toy dispensers.'"

From "Orcas blamed for yacht attacks are speaking their own language/Scientists studying killer whales linked to hundreds of encounters with boats near Gibraltar have discovered that the pod communicates using a unique dialect" (London Times).

"For Nguyen, the point — and pleasure — of games is play, not efficiency; a person who simply wants to catch more fish would trade Nguyen’s feathery hand-tied flies..."

"... for a big net or a blast of dynamite.... Nguyen, whose day job is as a philosophy professor at the University of Utah, contrasts the delightful thrill of playing games like basketball, The Legend of Zelda and Dungeons & Dragons with the demoralizing pursuit of university rankings, page views and social media likes: 'Why is it that mechanical scoring systems are, in games, the site of so much joy and fluidity and play? And why, in the realm of public measures and institutional metrics, do they drain the life out of everything?'... Nguyen, 48... brought out various toys...yo-yos, spin tops, a Japanese ball-and-cup thingumajig known as a kendama.... 'All of my hobbies involve basically micro-dosing epiphanies,' Nguyen said at one point. 'Every time you’re yo-yoing, you’re like, If I change my angle this much, or if I pull a little bit here, or if I drop it, oh, then it works!' The fact that the stakes are so low is not a deficit of the yo-yo (or the kendama, or D&D, or fly-fishing); low stakes are part of the point, allowing us to move from one game to another. Nguyen argues that problems emerge when the stakes become all-consuming, taking over our sense of self and dictating what we should value...."

I'm reading "Why Keeping Score Isn’t Fun Anymore/In a new book, C. Thi Nguyen looks to his personal passions — from video games to yo-yoing — to illuminate the downside of our increasingly gamified world" by Jennifer Szalai (NYT)(gift link).

I see the connection to blogging. I'm going to read Nguyen's book, "The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game" (commission earned).

I thought the article was going to have something in it about how sports betting ruins the fun of spectator sports, but no. Is that in the book? I can tell you that the word "football" does not appear in the book and "baseball" only appears in the context of a baseball cap worn by Tsukasa Takatsu, "a minor saint, beloved of a very tiny sect of passionate yo-yo players."

ADDED: Nguyen sees low stakes as a positive force, but the most famous thing anyone ever said about low stakes is Sayre's law: Responding to "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake," Sayre quipped: "That is why academic politics are so bitter." Usually restated as: "Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." 

"Violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie."

A quote from the subject of the NYT obituary "Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, Black Power Activist Known as H. Rap Brown, Dies at 82."

He died in prison, convicted of murder. But once: "With his trademark black beret and sunglasses, dexterous mind and imposing 6-foot-5 inch frame — 7 feet, with his Afro — he was a persuasive and charismatic figure to many, adept at rallying Black audiences to his cause while alarming many white listeners."

Other quotes in the article: "Black folk built America, and if it don’t come around, we’re gonna burn America down," "You’ve got to arm yourself. If you’re going to loot, loot yourself a gun store," and, referencing 5 days of rioting, “I don’t think you could articulate the sentiments of Black people any better than they just did in Detroit."

The NYT prints the full "n-word." Is it fit to print? I won't write it. But it is the second word of the 3-word title of the man's 1969 autobiography. The other 2 words are "Die."

These are all things the President of the United States posted on social media 8 hours ago.

pic.twitter.com/na2ivYVFoT

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2025

Is it still hard to believe that the President of the United States posts things like this? He is taunting. He's giving material that will be snapped up and used to say (once again) that he's a racist. And — that last one — that he is grandiose. But this is what we have now. We (collectively) voted for it. He's not bland. And it is — all of it — comedy. He's keeping our spirits up. Some of us have a good spirit about it. They're laughing — maybe even laughing off the budget crisis. Others of us have inflamed spirits, angry spirits. And according to Trump, they come from hell. They've been giving him hell for years. He's entitled to laugh at them. I'd prefer more dignity, but that's more Trump 45, and what did that get him?

King meets President... and the ladies who carry pocketbooks meet the lady who carries only herself.

The wind kicks up as the King steps forward and all the many ladies' hats threaten to undercut the extreme dignity. The First Lady waits until she's duly shaken hands with the King before she reaches up — at 16:57 — to steady her headgear.

Stick around until 18:35, and you won't be sorry, unless you hate horses, white horses, arrayed in fairy-tale style.

It's the King's very best carriage, lavishly festooned with gold leaf, the very frippery Trump's haters deplore in the Oval Office. Their slogan plays in my head: No Kings!

At 23:13, I get the answer to the question that's been puzzling me: How do they keep the horses from shitting? (They don't.)

I had thought there was no music, that somehow silence was the soundscape for the event, but at 24:07 I see musicians and notice faint music. Perhaps there was music all along and a telephoto lens on the camera is creating the illusion that it is much closer than it seems. The faint music informs us of our great distance from these illustrious characters.

At 25:00, the music is (or seems) louder. It's "The Star-Spangled Banner." A song about fighting the British. 

Clutching the lunch cloche.

I'm just reading the New Yorker article, by Lauren Collins, called "The Case for Lunch/Notes on an underappreciated meal." I'm not going to appreciate or fail to appreciate the meal called "lunch." I just want to snip out 2 things that stirred my love for language:

Per Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, the word “lunch” likely derives from “clunch” or “clutch,” meaning “as much food as one’s hand can hold.”... 

It was lunch, so there was sunshine, streaming into the dining room, backlighting the cursive lettering on the plate-glass windows. I felt as though I had just put on a cloche and pulled up a seat in the cafeteria of a Hopper painting....

"Cloche" — which means "bell" in French — is a bell-shaped hat:

"And on his head, where a swooping red beret has sat almost every day of his adult life, there was only a cap-shaped tan line and balding pate...."

"In a city rich with sartorial symbols, few have been more memorable than [Curtis] Sliwa’s ruby red headpiece. It helped the Guardian Angels, his subway patrol group, gain notoriety in the 1970s; was his uniform for a career in television and radio and provided an unofficial motif for his unsuccessful first run for mayor in 2021. Yet as he takes a second, seemingly more viable run at City Hall, Mr. Sliwa, 71, is beginning to show up without it... 'For some people, the beret is a defining issue,' Mr. Sliwa said, volunteering that it could evoke a certain Che Guevara-style revolutionary look. 'Guys and gals, I get it. If taking my red beret off will help you just to listen to me, no problem.'... Mr. Sliwa makes a point of wearing his beret underground — he tries to campaign in the subway two hours a day ('It’s the only way') — and on the streets. It makes him more visible.... Mr. Sliwa said he has six berets in rotation. On hot summer days, the wool can create its own small heat dome. 'I don’t mind shvitzing, but my wife does,' he said. 'She says, "oofa, this beret, it can walk on its own by the end of the day."' He is also hearing from friends who think it is worth more on than off.... 'First, I was all for taking his red hat off,' Mr. Dietl said. 'But now I think when Superman came to save everyone, he didn't take his cape off.'"

From "Curtis Sliwa Wants to Be Mayor. He’s Taking Off His Beret to Prove It. The Guardian Angels founder and Republican nominee for mayor has long been a New York curiosity. Can he become a serious contender?" (NYT).

You know who wore a hat? Lincoln. As Trump likes to say, responding to critics who call him insufficiently presidential: "I would say I can be more presidential than any president in history except for possibly Abe Lincoln with the big hat." And by the way, Trump has a damned distinctive hat and it worked for him. 

If the question is how can you be serious in a hat I think we have the answer, and Sliwa made that beret so much a part of his persona that it's the only thing recognizable about him. Without the hat, he's a generic old guy. It's too late to de-hat. He has to convince people he's serious, without de-hatting.

 

Should Curtis Sliwa prove his worth by going without the hat?

No, it's too late now.

No, the hat is good.

Yes, it's a barrier to being taken seriously. Crucial to de-hat.

Yes, but don't concede that it wasn't serious. Take control of the expression.

Who cares? This clown can't win. Move on to Cuomo or Adams.

 

pollcode.com free polls

"One statement from the ministry urges people to be wary of strangers wearing masks or goggles, driving pickup trucks and carrying large bags or filming around military, industrial, or residential areas."

"Elsewhere, a poster published by the state-affiliated Nour News – which is close to Iran’s security apparatus – singled out for suspicion people who wear 'masks, hats, and sunglasses, even at night' and those who receive 'frequent package deliveries by courier.' The poster asks people to report 'unusual sounds from inside the house, such as screaming, the sound of metal equipment, continuous banging' and 'houses with curtains drawn even during the day.'..."

From "Iran’s Mossad paranoia grows, amid fears of Israeli spies wearing 'masks, hats and sunglasses'" (CNN).

"I was minding my own business, gardening, when it struck up from behind and boofed me on the head.... I’ve decided to wear a hat today because I don’t want it to happen again."

Said Paul Boys, 64, quoted in "In pursuit of the hawk divebombing tall men in Hertfordshire/A Harris’s hawk is terrorising the village of Flamstead, where about 20 people have been attacked in the past fortnight" (London Times).

The hawk was minding his own business too, but its business is boofing tall men.

"Boof," the noun, has been around since 1825. It's "A blow that makes a sound like a rapid, brief movement of air" (OED).

I like the village name, Flamstead, which just means "place of the Flemings." There's an annual Flamstead Scarecrow Festival....

"'Dark MAGA' spreads as conservatives embrace Musk’s influence on Trump."

A headline at AP (AP, which, by the way, is suing Donald Trump for excluding it from White House access because it won't use the new sobriquet for the southward Gulf).

The AP writer, Adriana Gomez Licon, saw a lot of the black MAGA hats at CPAC. Does wearing the black version of the MAGA hat represent affiliation with Musk? 

Also: "Speakers at CPAC frequently brought up DOGE, playfully named after a meme coin with the face of a Shiba Inu dog popularized by Musk in 2021. They variously referred to him as a 'white knight,' a 'hero of free speech,' and according to one of his harshest critics, Steve Bannon, 'Superman.'"

"It wasn’t planned. That wasn’t two coaches throwing guys over and saying 'This is happening' — none of that happened. That was as organic as it gets."

Said Jon Cooper, the coach for Canada, quoted in The London Times:

Here's the video at YouTube. Judge for yourself. Political theater? Is this about Trump — Trump and his tariffs and his fifty-oneness?

Meanwhile, Trump himself was at The Daytona 500 and — with his lovely tiny little granddaughter — the sports-related masculine political theater was not brutishly macho but nobly patriarchal:

ADDED: The oversized MAGA hat emphasizes the tininess of the granddaughter, and it made me think of this image of Elon Musk in a giant hat:

pic.twitter.com/nhRCtyA3wj

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2025

You can see the hat as it is — large — or you can perceive the optical illusion that Musk is a tiny person, a child. Musk famously tweeted: "I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man." And I've been thinking the love is a boy's love for the father he never had. Musk real father was — as Musk tells it — "a terrible human being" who has done "almost every evil thing you could possibly think of." The giant hat is a bid to be seen as a boy, to be loved by a father.

"Ms. Tilevitz, the sex therapist, said that a certain confidence can be gained by wearing generously sized sweaters."

"'There is a sexiness women can feel internally when they wear something that allows them to disappear from anyone else,' she said, comparing the garments to a security blanket. At a time when women in America have lost rights to their bodily autonomy, sweaters that 'obfuscate the body' can also serve as a sort of armor, said Kat Henning, 37, a senior footwear designer.... 'You feel a little under attack and being swaddled in a beautiful knit that completely covers you, not being available as a sex object, makes women feel better,' said Ms. Henning, whose has knits from Lauren Manoogian and Wol Hide, a brand in Philadelphia. Kelsey Keith, 40, a creative director in Berkeley, Calif., ... described their appeal this way: 'It’s about dressing on your own terms. The male gaze is not even a consideration.'"

From "Hefty Sweaters for Heavy Times/Thick, woolly and oversize knitwear has for some become a form of soft armor" (NYT).

Sweaters! This time, they're political.

Last time around, the political knitwear was the pussy hat, and you had to go to a big protest. This time, the knitwear is much larger, and you don't have to go anyplace... other than deeply inside it.

Additional reading: "Goodbye, 'Resistance.' The Era of Hyperpolitics Is Over. Where has the anti-Trump energy gone?" (NYT).

Posing on the front steps... ready to fight... or dance.

We're told that when Trump stepped out of the SUV, President Biden said, "Welcome home." Nice.

And nice hat on Melania and purple tie on Trump. Jill leaves in brilliant blue.

That's my photo, from my remote outpost in Madison, Wisconsin, where it is 29 degrees colder than it is in Washington, where the inauguration solemnities and festivities have been moved indoors. 

What did Elon Musk mean by "I’m not just MAGA, I’m Dark MAGA!"

I saw this in real time in the live feed from Saturday's Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and I thought he might just be referring to his black clothing and his black-on-black Make-America-Great-Again cap.

And then I thought it might be a slang use of "dark" as in "Dark Brandon." Remember that? Wikipedia says:

The phrase "Dark Brandon" was initially a meme created by online progressives to parody supporters of "Dark MAGA", a belief promoted by former U.S. representative Madison Cawthorn that former president Trump would return to power "with a vengeance."  It copies the "fashwave" aesthetic used initially by online supporters of figures like Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis....

So Dark MAGA preceded Dark Brandon. 

Remember Madison Cawthorn?

Railing against "the cowardly and weak members of our own party," Cawthorn wrote [in May 2022]: "It's time for the rise of the new right, it's time for Dark MAGA to truly take command." "Dark MAGA" references a fringe movement advocating a vengeful return of Trumpism.

With that background, why would Elon Musk choose to horse around with the phrase "Dark MAGA"? Could he be seriously connecting to the Cawthorn meaning?

In discussions of Elon Musk's recent declaration, I'm seeing various sources that discuss the 2022 use of the phrase, so let me just select one to quote: "Dark MAGA: Will It All End Here?" by David Levi Strauss (in The Brooklyn Rail, which seems like an interesting publication, around since 2000, but only just noticed by me today).

The NYT creates a multicolored diagram of a Trump rally speech.

That's from "The 9 Elements of a Trump Rally" (free-access link). It should be "The 9 Elements of a Trump Rally Speech," because the article and diagram are only about Trump's speech, but there are, in fact, many elements to a Trump rally that are not Trump's speech.

There are the hours spent in line waiting to get in, during which Trump fans interact with each other. There are the further hours spent inside and waiting for the show alongside fellow Trumpsters, listening to Trump's playlist and dancing or talking. These people are hanging out at Trump's party, having fun.

How do I know that? Have I been to a Trump rally? No. But my husband has been to 3 Trump rallies (and I've watched quite a few on YouTube).

"Biden's fun. Biden's kind of fun... I don't want to lose him now that he's just not going to be the president. He's fun now...."

Says Tim Dillon near the end of this week's podcast, reacting to Biden's putting on a Trump hat he gets from some old guy at a rally and telling the guy not to eat dogs and cats:

And watch beginning at 24:10 for Tim's critique of the Wall Street Journal piece reassuring readers about the viral video of armed migrants in the corridor of an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado: "This is the Wall Street Journal writing an article telling people to relax, going, hey, why don't you fucking relax, you racist, because what you thought was a full takeover of a building was not — it was just 10 violent Venezuelan prison gang members carrying out a routine operation or something they felt needed to be done.... Thank you, Wall Street Journal.... There are guys in the in the corridor with guns, and they're killing someone, but it's okay. They didn't take over the whole building.... Can you imagine writing this article thinking it lands?...."

Here's the Wall Street Journal piece in case you want to fact-check Tim's mockery: "In Colorado, a Murder and a Viral Video Stoke Fears of Migrant Crime/In exaggerated claim that a Venezuelan gang took over an apartment complex spread quickly through an already-on-edge community."

"Remember: No eatin' dogs and cats!"

NEW: Full exchange of the incident leading up to Joe Biden putting on a Trump 2024 hat.

Biden: "Sure, I'll autograph [a hat]."

Man: "You remember your name?"

Biden: "I don't remember my name... I'm slow."

Man: "You're an old fart."

Biden: "Yeah, I'm an old guy... You would… pic.twitter.com/yQcCXmtzIZ

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 12, 2024