"It’s time to not just try to love one another, because we know the difference between trying and doing. It’s time to do."

Said Jesse Colin Young, in 2018.

Quoted in "Jesse Colin Young, Singer Who Urged Us to ‘Get Together,’ Dies at 83/As the leader of the Youngbloods, he sang one of the enduring anthems of the peace-and-love era. He went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist" (NYT).

ADDED: Here’s a Youngbloods single that I owned and played many times back in the 1960s: “Grizzly Bear.”

AND: 

"At former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral... Melania Trump... opted... for... an extra-wide, pilgrim-esque collar printed with images of a Renaissance sculpture of a kissing couple...."

"Melania doesn’t usually bake big ideas into her fashion choices...  The one time Melania tried to send a message with her outfit — you know, when she wore that 'I Really Don’t Care, Do U?' jacket to visit a migrant children’s shelter — it backfired. In her 2024 memoir, she wrote that her jacket’s message was intended as a kiss-off to the media, not the migrant children.... Was this funeral ensemble a not-so-subtle statement about the importance of love and unity in a divided nation? Given her stilted body language as her husband giggled with Barack Obama, probably not. (No one gives off an air of 'I’d rather be anywhere else' like Melania.)..."

From "What’s Up With Melania’s Collar?" (New York Magazine).

What does it mean? Obviously, it's an expression of a desire for love. But NY Magazine doesn't want to give her that — not to credit her with desiring love for the world and certainly not to fulfill any desire she might have to receive love. She will get no love from New York Magazine, where she will always be seen as icy, even if she is wearing a photograph of kissing lovers around her neck. 

"For the unacquainted, Mr. Trump’s gyrations are a far cry from the complexities of the moonwalk, the Macarena or the Electric Slide."

"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."

Writes Jesse McKinley, in "Trump’s Signature Dance Move Finds Its Way to the Sports World/Jon Jones punctuated his U.F.C. win with the president-elect’s shimmy, and numerous N.F.L. players followed suit on Sunday" (NYT).

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.

McKinley also wrote, recently:

"It was incredibly different and it was incredibly painful and hurtful, this division of Americans that he has embraced of normal people and everyone else."

"I am a normal person. Queer people are normal Americans. I, I mean, I don't, whatever, I don't, I don't divide the world between normal and abnormal people. I don't think that helps anyone. And in a lot of ways, I think I lead a much more average life than he does. I am not a millionaire. I lead a private existence. And, and specifically the term 'normal' really scared me because he has set up a war between 'normal' people and those who are trying to attack them. You know, I, I'd shared some pretty personal stuff with him about my experience as a trans kid, because I know what it's like to sit and cry as a kid and think I have to fix myself. There's no way that I can be this person and be loved and have a job and be accepted and be okay. And that is a devastating experience. And I was so hopeful that it would be easier for future generations...."

Says Sophia Nelson, in the new episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "She Used to Be Friends With JD Vance."

She's speaking to the podcast host, Michael Barbaro, who had just said, based on Nelson's text exchange with Vance, "You say to him... 'The political voice you have become, seems so, so far from the man I got to know in law school,' and JD Vance replies to you, 'I will always love you, but I really do think the left's cultural progressivism is making it harder for normal people to live their lives.'"

Here's the background article, by Stephanie Saul: "JD Vance, an Unlikely Friendship and Why It Ended/His political views differed from a transgender classmate’s, but they forged a bond that lasted a decade — until Mr. Vance seemed to pivot, politically and personally" (NYT)(free access link).

I avoided that article because it seemed like a politically motivated betrayal of a private, personal relationship. I almost avoided the podcast.

Trump's convention speech had 2 phases, both brilliant, but very different.

In the first phase, Trump describes the assassination attempt from his perspective and for what he asserts is the last time:

So many people have asked me what happened. “Tell us what happened, please.” And therefore, I will tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell. It was a warm, beautiful day in the early evening....

This fills 20 minutes and segues into an unrushed tribute to the man who died and the 2 other men who were injured. There's an iconic stage prop, Corey Comperatore represented in the form of his empty helmet and jacket. Trump kisses Comperatore's head and pats him on the shoulder then returns to the lectern to lead a silent prayer. Again unrushed (but not overlong). We see different members of the audience in different attitudes of prayer. (Jared Kushner, eyes wide open, looked straight ahead.) 

The first phase continued with the uplifting abstract material that Trump had promised to deliver. I've copied this section in full:

"We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness."

Wrote Donald Trump, in Biblical prose, this morning, on Truth Social.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.... Our love goes out to the other victims and their families. We pray for the recovery of those who were wounded, and hold in our hearts the memory of the citizen who was so horribly killed. In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win. I truly love our Country, and love you all, and look forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from Wisconsin.

ADDED: What's great here, rhetorically, is the combination of love and fighting. No one can forget his fist pumping and repetition of "Fight! Fight! Fight!" less than 2 minutes after he "felt the bullet ripping through the skin." But as his antagonists call for shared love — and an abandonment of fighting — he brings the love into his fight message, merging love and fighting. Notice that he isn't calling us to fight against any human being — indeed, he calls all Americans to fight on his side.  The enemy is "Wickedness" and "Evil."

"For progressives, waiting to have children has also become a kind of ethical imperative."

"Gender equality and female empowerment demand that women’s self-advancement not be sacrificed on the altar of motherhood.... Unreserved enthusiasm for having children can come across as essentially reactionary.... Yet it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans and Democrats fought over who could rightfully claim to be the party of 'family values.'... After [Bill] Clinton was impeached in the wake of his own family-values hypocrisy and George W. Bush was elected with the help of energized evangelical voters, family-friendly rhetoric became anathema to liberals — perceived as phony, intrusive and toxic...."

From "The Success Narratives of Liberal Life Leave Little Room for Having Children" (NYT).

The essay — by Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, authors of  “What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice” — has to end with hope for progressives. They're given this admonition:

[P]rogressives must not let partisan loyalties stop them from thinking about the ways in which having children does or does not express their values, and what shape they really want their lives to take. Children are too important to allow them to fall victim to the culture wars.

How do you read that and not jump back to that line I put in boldface above: "Gender equality and female empowerment demand that women’s self-advancement not be sacrificed on the altar of motherhood." Of course, children are extremely important, but — watch out — it will be too late if you release one into your life and it doesn't "express [your] values" or fit the "shape [you] really want [your life] to take." You will have "sacrificed" your "self-advancement... on the altar of motherhood."

How do you get out of that bind without drinking the “phony, intrusive,” right-wing toxin? I thought of the answer: You fall in love....

I rushed to search the essay for the word "love." It's not there. Maybe it's "essentially reactionary."

But my neighbor sucks.

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"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."

Said Jesus Christ, quoted in Matthew 5:44-45.

Recalled on reading Trump's Truth Social Easter message:

"I did everything by the book the whole time. They changed the rules, and I should be grandfathered in. I shouldn’t have to abide by them."

Said Tony Cavallaro, quoted in "Authorities Seize Alligator Being Held Illegally in Home Near Buffalo/The alligator, Albert Edward, had been with his owner for 34 years" (NYT).

He was 11 feet long, 750 pounds heavy and 34 years old, and until this week, he lived in a pool house attached to his owner’s home in Hamburg, N.Y., about 13 miles south of Buffalo.

The [New York State Department of Environmental Conservation] said that Albert’s owner, Tony Cavallaro, had a license for the alligator, but it expired in 2021. In an interview, Mr. Cavallaro, 64, said that while visitors to his home did sometimes take pictures with Albert, they never swam with him or rode him. Instead, they would briefly get in the water for a quick photo with the animal, often when he was sleeping, Mr. Cavallaro said.

Cavallaro bought Albert as a newborn and believes "the poor thing loves me."

I'm interested in the law here, the always enticing notion that the law doesn't apply to you. Cavallaro also seems to believe that the law of nature — the dangerousness of alligators — does not apply to Albert.

But what's missing from this article is any mention of the comic strip that was once central to our culture: Pogo. There's an alligator named Albert, and you don't cite Pogo?

ADDED: The Wikipedia article linked above describes Albert Alligator as "An exuberant, dimwitted, irascible, and egotistical alligator."

"The way I experience love seems to be very different from the so-called neurotypical experience."

"My experience of love seems less emotional. If I had to explain what love feels like to me, I would say symbiotic. So, a relationship that’s beneficial to both people involved. Not transactional, not possessive, not ego-driven. Mutual homeostasis. It’s not that I’m unable to access emotions or empathy. It’s that my experience of those emotions is different...."

Says Patric Gagne, author of the memoir "Sociopath," in the interview "What It’s Like to Be a Sociopath" (NYT)(free access link).

"Limerence is a state of overwhelming and unexpected longing for emotional reciprocation from another human, known as a limerent object..."

"... who is often perceived as perfect but unavailable.... The LO is most often a friend, colleague, or stranger met in passing... 'It’s often not romantic or sexual in nature. It is very much about wanting to feel loved and cared for.'... We begin to mistake anxiety for excitement and excitement for joy.... One strategy... to de-idolize their LO is listing reasons the LO is not perfect... [or the] ways in which the LO and the patient are not compatible. Name it to tame it: You can deliberately interrupt the habit by calling it out — 'Hello, limerence' — and paying attention (for example, through journaling) to what it feels like when you’re in that state of longing.... You should also believe you deserve more...."

From "Is It a Crush or Have You Fallen Into Limerence? How an intense longing for a romantic connection can lead to a serious addiction" (NYT).

The article says the word "limerance" was coined by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov, and the OED finds her first use of it in print in 1977. 

That first quote denies any etymology: "I first used the term ‘amorance’ then changed it back to ‘limerence’... It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me it has no etymology whatsoever."

So if you were seeing a connection to "sublime" or "limn," just forget about it. If you can't forget it, make a list of things that are rootless, nice looking, and well functioning in French.

"Former President Donald Trump is a cultural phenomenon.... For his legion of passionate supporters, he is more than a politician."

"He is like a sports team or a rock band that helps define who they are as much as the families and communities to which they belong.... Uninhibited by concerns about decorum and tradition, Trump has aggressively figured out ways to market himself like a cultural product, not a standard politician, knowing that this would forge much deeper ties....To be sure, Trump is not the first president to command strong cultural currency with voters that goes beyond traditional political attachments. Stuffed toy bears identified with President Theodore Roosevelt became a phenomenon in the early 20th century. During the 1930s, saloon owners famously hung portraits of President Franklin Roosevelt over their bars.... There were President Ronald Reagan dolls in the 1980s while Shepard Fairey’s 'Hope' poster from President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign remained iconic throughout his two terms.... Rational appeals about the inconsistencies of his rhetoric, the dangers of his positions and the practical reasons for choosing someone such as DeSantis... don’t mean much to the fans whose homes are stuffed with MAGA hats, shirts and coffee mugs...."

Writes Julian Zelizer, a Princeton history and public affairs professor, in "What’s really working for Trump" (CNN).

There's always a lot of irrationality in politics, but it's very disturbing when the candidate you fear and hate is working the emotional backchannels of the human mind much better than the guy you're stuck with. Yes, of course, that fear and hate is also irrational. But it's negative, and isn't it a bitch that that positivity is stronger? Love beats hate. 

Hey, remember "Love trumps hate"?

"This is not the first midcentury, middle-America food craze to find new life online: Jell-O molds, 1970s-era desserts and 1970s-themed dinner parties..."

"... have all made unexpected comebacks. That’s all 'packaged-food cuisine' born of the hyper-consumerism of the 1950s.... For some, the box mixes and cans — triumphs of postwar prosperity — are a rosy portal to an imagined 'simpler time' of family dinners and easy living. 'That is nostalgia for America,' she said. 'That is our national comfort food.'"

From "Watergate Salad Makes a Comeback/The 1970s-era dish made with pistachio pudding mix, canned pineapple and mini marshmallows has caught the curious eye of the TikTok generation" (NYT).

It's absurd that something embodying nostalgia for a lost culture should bear the name "Watergate." But the nostalgia is felt by young people today, who don't mind mixing the 50s, 60s, and 70s together, not like us Boomers who think the early 60s, mid-60s, and late 60s were distinctly different eras and have long indulged in the deep, mystic belief that the first few years of the 70s were the real 60s.

And maybe there is nostalgia for the Watergate scandal. Maybe it seems poignant and delicate compared to the scandals of today... and even for Nixon. My son Chris — who is reading a biography of each American President — texted me about Nixon recently — somewhat jocosely — "Nixon is underrated. He was liberal!/Got more done for progressive causes than democrats do today." 

Anyway, the nostalgia for lost mid-century America is about far more than food. There's a sense that people lived more rewarding, warm, and loving lives back then. Here's something I saw on TikTok the other day. Let me know how it made you feel or, better yet, if you are not young, show it to someone young and ask them how it makes them feel:

RFK Jr. ... and love.

Since when did it become expected that we hate our opponents? Maybe it's because politics has devolved into "lesser of two evils" voting where you vote for the candidate you hate the least.

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) November 3, 2023

True love.

Disney is just determined to lose money. Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot don't get it. Girls and grown women dream of true love. It's not old-fashioned. It's not even exclusive to women. Men dream of having a good wife as well. Don't stand on the shoulders of giants and then take a… pic.twitter.com/GI3M6yQxvf

— Black Tea News (@TrueBlackTea) August 1, 2023

"Make Love Great Again."

Photographed yesterday in the East Village.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"Grief reigns in the kingdom of loss. I refer to not only the loss of a loved one but also the loss of a hope, a dream, or love itself."

"It seems we don’t finish grieving, but merely finish for now; we process it in layers. One day (not today) I’m going to write a short story about a vending machine that serves up Just the Right Amount of Grief. You know, the perfect amount that you can handle in a moment to move yourself along, but not so much that you’ll be caught in an undertow."

That's item #13 on "MONICA LEWINSKY: 25 'RANDOMS' ON THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BILL CLINTON CALAMITY/My name became public 25 years ago this week. What have I observed and learned in the quarter century since? Oh, plenty" (Vanity Fair).

Okay, let me try to write 25 "Randoms" on the text printed above:

"The fact that Zelensky was a performer and is so good at presenting himself, the first reference I have to that is Reagan."

"The master communicator and professional actor. Right? And Trump, the entertainer recast as something. When did you get the sense that Zelensky was genuine?"

Asks the interviewer, Geoff Edgers, in "David Letterman on his surprise Ukraine trip and Zelensky interview A special episode of the former late-night king’s Netflix show, ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,’ grew out of his admiration of the Ukrainian president during the ongoing war with Russia" (WaPo).

A carefully selected sequence of TikToks. Let me know what you like best.

1. When they tell you you look like a "yassified"* Dwight D. Eisenhower.

2. When you're 15, and you write a letter to your favorite actress, and it's Jane Powell.

3. Going emo in 2008.

4. When things are not really that perfect... and it's perfect.

5. How to be spontaneous on TikTok.

6. That CIA document on consciousness and frequencies.

7. How much can a little boy love his baby sister?

_____________

* I learned a new word. According to the NYT: "To 'yassify' something... is to apply several beauty filters to a picture using FaceApp, an A.I. photo-editing application, until its subject — be that a celebrity, a historical figure, a fictional character or a work of fine art — becomes almost unrecognizably made up.”