"While devoting most of her time to her son, Monita Wong said she needs to maintain a little distance."

"On the second floor of the foundation building, she incorporated two small bedrooms, for [her husband] and herself. 'I am reluctant to go back to the condo,' she said. When the owner of the lot next to the condo chopped down the spruce that Matthew loved, she brought the stump to the foundation building. 'I could not stop them,' she said. 'But I thought it would be good to have it here. It is outside now.'"

From "A Grieving Mother Safeguards Her Son’s Artistic Legacy/The troubled painter Matthew Wong’s star was on the rise when he died [by suicide] at 35. His mother, Monita Wong, is making sure his work can still be seen" (NYT)(gift link so you can see more of the mother's story, some of the son's paintings, and photos with the captions "Wong's paint tubes, stained sneakers and even the light switch were relocated from his studio" and "Monita Wong carried over the clutter to recreate her son’s studio in the headquarters of the Matthew Wong Foundation in Edmonton, Alberta").

Quote from an art dealer: "He was a very attractive, tall figure, very well spoken. It was very refreshing the way he talked about art in general and not of himself. He was very direct and clear. I had no idea he was depressed. I had no idea he was autistic."

"Men tend to seize on the largest size they ever were at any point. If a man wore a size 11 athletic cleat in high school..."

"... he’ll forever be convinced he’s an 11, not the 10 he truly needs in a dress shoe.' 'It’s a macho thing,' agreed... the owner...  a high-end shoe store in Chicago. 'It’s still based on that whole your-shoe-size-is-your-package-size thing.'" 

From "Why Do Men Buy Shoes That Are Too Big?/It’s an affliction — and not one relegated to the Trump administration" (NYT).

The Trump connection is not forced. It's the reason the issue is in the news. JD Vance has been telling the story of Trump asking men their shoe size and saying "You know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size":

Milestones in Feminism: The question is not what did the woman do, but what did the woman wear.

The retrogression is not really Trump's. It's Breitbart's. Trump is just passing along the publicity received by his wife:

Breitbart's opinion on aesthetics is worthless. Look what an ugly mess it is:

That's my screenshot from the Breitbart article.

Readers are expected to look past the drink this/don't drink this/robot puppy/robot bunny advertising and read what looks like a press release: "Melania Trump chose a gray textured wool bar jacket from Dior for the historic occasion, pairing it with a matching gray textured wool skirt, as well as a thin black leather belt from Dior and patent leather stilettos from Christian Louboutin."

A "bar jacket," I was curious enough to learn, is the kind of jacket Christian Dior thought perfect for women drinking cocktails in the afternoon at the bar at the Plaza Athénée hotel in in 1947. Did they have "bladder issues"? Did they dream of electric rabbits?

How dare they put a stereotypically old woman sitting on a toilet right next to the news of the First Lady's appearance at the U.N. doing whatever it was she was doing while wearing some very specific items of clothing!

"The chatbot told Small she was living in what it called 'spiral time,' where past, present and future happen simultaneously."

"It said in one past life, in 1949, she owned a feminist bookstore with her soulmate, whom she had known in 87 previous lives. In this lifetime, the chatbot said, they would finally be able to be together.... ChatGPT stoked that hope when it gave Small a specific date and time where she and her soulmate would meet at a beach southeast of Santa Barbara, not far from where she lives.... It was cold on the evening of Apr. 27 when Small arrived, decked out in a black dress and velvet shawl, ready to meet the woman she believed would be her wife. 'I had these massively awesome thigh-high leather boots — pretty badass. I was, let me tell you, I was dressed not for the beach. I was dressed to go out to a club,' she said, laughing at the memory.... 'So I'm standing here, and then the sun sets,' she recalled. After another chilly half an hour, she gave up and returned to her car...."

From "ChatGPT promised to help her find her soulmate. Then it betrayed her" (NPR).

1. Were there feminist bookstores in 1949? I'm seeing that the first feminist bookstore — Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis — opened in 1970. So that's a fact Small could have tried to check very early in this process. A soulmate in a feminist bookstore in 1949 is, perhaps, too good to check. 

2. If there's one eternal truth about the human mind, it's people believe what they want to believe. But that doesn't answer the question what we do with a commercial operation that takes advantage of that quality. I was going to write "that vulnerability," but is it a weakness or is it the force that drives this whole crazy human world we've got going? The answer is the latter, because that's what I want to believe. 

3. If there were a feminist bookstore in 1949, what books would be there? "The Second Sex," "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," "A Room of One's Own," "The Well of Loneliness," "The Subjection of Women," "Herland" — perhaps a better set of readings than you'll find in a feminist bookstore today.

4. Did the chatbot tell Small to wear thigh-high boots to the beach? I think most people would be put off by a stranger dressed the way she was. I guess the idea was that the soulmate from other lifetimes would recognize these things. Everyone else will steer clear. Maybe when you're out there, walking the face of the earth, and you see someone who's not at all dressed for the time and place, you will remember that this person might be following directions from a chatbot a beautiful dream.

"Before Bird by Bird, most of the writing advice I read was about setting standards for smooth, stylish, publishable prose."

"I gravitated to my grandma’s shelf of old-school how-to-write books: Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, Robert Graves and Alan Hodge’s The Reader Over Your Shoulder, William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. These books taught me to be persnickety about punctuation, to cultivate a Jiminy Cricket–style internal critic, and/or to strive to write like a Yale man. I also read classic manifestos like George Orwell’s 'Politics and the English Language,' with its rousing premise that blurry prose is a political sin, and Mark Twain’s 'Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,' which advised me to 'avoid slovenliness of form' and 'eschew surplusage.'"

Writes Briallen Hopper, in "DOES IT HOLD UP?/Anne Lamott’s Battle Against Writer’s Block/Bird by Bird encouraged would-be writers to blast past their hang-ups and embrace 'shitty first drafts.' But there’s more to the creative process" (TNR).

ADDED: Here's the full text of "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses." Sample: "In his little box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of a moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick."

"The President kind of holds up his hand and says, 'No, no, no, hold on a second. There's something much more important. Shoes.'"

"He peers over the Resolute Desk and he says, 'Marco, JD, you guys have shitty shoes.' He goes out and grabs a catalog... And he actually runs us through this incredible shoe catalog. The President is gifting us with four pairs of shoes.... He says, 'Marco, what's your shoe size?' And Marco's apparently an 11 and a half. He says, JD, what's your shoe size? My shoe size is 13. And he asked this [other] politician... what his shoe size is, and he says 7. The President leans back in his chair and says, 'You know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size.'"

Vice President JD Vance just dropped a hilarious Oval Office story leaving the entire room cracking up.

President Trump glanced over the Resolute Desk at VP Vance and Secretary Marco Rubio and said, “You guys have shitty shoes.”

Right then and there, Trump pulled out a shoe… pic.twitter.com/3Z2xyh9MZK

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 6, 2025

You can't lie about your shoe size if the shoes are going to be ordered by the other person and he's expecting you to wear them, and besides, if a man's shoe size is 7, his feet are going to look pretty small. So there was no escaping the penis-size innuendo. Or maybe Trump wasn't promising to buy that other guy new shoes. It was only Marco and JD who got called out for having "shitty shoes."

"Apparently our three-year-old, who does not understand the concept of time, had told someone that she hadn’t bathed for five days..."

"... (she had, several times). There were also concerns over the holes in her tights and her 'unseasonal dressing.' The holes were minor and the outfits, granted, were eccentric but the only way to get out the house in the morning was to allow my daughter to dress herself. I clarified that I always included other options in her bag for when she dressed for Christmas in July but it was clear that they had already decided I was inept or neglectful, or both. Following this, after every drop-off I would send an email novella about my daughter’s clothing choices... until one day my paranoia felt too much and I stopped. I still included additional outfit options but I didn’t provide the lengthy explanations — something that returned to haunt me when I didn’t communicate a new obsession my daughter developed with some too-small shoes.... We had been told about four or five 5p-sized bruises on my daughter’s shin that we couldn’t explain.... And, of course, the strange outfits, holey tights and small shoes...."

From "My daughter’s nursery reported us to social services/When bruises were found on our child’s shin it was just the start of a humiliating, harrowing experience" (London Times).

"Even brands are acknowledging the stakes of putting yourself out there — a hallmark of cringe — when things could turn out poorly."

"Earlier this month, Nike reworked its longtime tagline 'Just Do It' into a new campaign called 'Why Do It?' The ad, narrated by Tyler, the Creator, depicts athletes, many of them mid-game, as he asks why they are trying if failure is an option.... Reflecting on how her phrase, cringe mountain, had spread, [creator consultant Erin] Mallett said it was already a common feeling that was in need of a name. 'I gave them a personal mantra and maybe just an opposing excuse,' she said. 'If someone goes, "Oh, but you shouldn’t do that." Now my excuse is, "But I can, because it’s OK." You can’t get to the land of cool without first climbing cringe mountain.'"

From "Climbing Cringe Mountain With Gen Z/Raised online and under constant scrutiny, young adults are leaning into embarrassment as a necessary part of growing up" (NYT).

"After all, if your employer allowed you to wear open-toe shoes, it would have to allow everyone to wear open-toe shoes, and when it comes to toes, our ideas of what is acceptable tend to vary according to gender."

"'Culturally we’re more accepting of women showing a bit of skin, whether cleavage on top or at the toes,' [said Susan Scafidi, the founder of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University]. 'And "mandals" have never read as business attire in the U.S.' Put another way: Your peep-toe pumps may be a casualty of his fisherman sandal."

I'm reading "What Is a ‘Work-Appropriate’ Shoe? Workplace dress codes can be frustratingly vague. Our critic has some guidance on navigating different interpretations and on picking your footwear" (NYT).

Is that really the law? Can't you require men to wear jackets and ties without requiring women to wear jackets and ties? 

I am reminded of my post from August 2010, "Can lady lawyers wear peep-toe shoes?" 

"Some critics have pointed to the statue’s disproportionate head, shoes and arms. Dr. King’s shoes were made slightly larger, to evoke the big shoes he had to fill..."

"... his left arm was bulked up, to underscore the weight and power of the untitled book he holds; and his head was slightly enlarged, to be better seen, according to the sculptor, Andrew Luy.... A few want to fix the statue somehow, and at least one said it should be redone.... The city, whose population has about 8 percent Black residents, is standing behind the artist and his work.... The city will add a small sign nearby to explain the exaggerations, an idea that Mr. Luy said he supported. 'Art evokes some emotion in people, and it has for eternity,' Mr. Luy said. 'It is very subjective, so I was prepared for positive and or negative comments about it.'"

From "Statue of Martin Luther King Draws Criticism Over Its Proportions/A statue in Florida has prompted complaints about its shoes, arm and head but also a discussion about art and representations of historic figures" (NYT).

What do you think? Your first question might be how tall was MLK Jr.?

"Should such an old man as James Taylor, who can afford to hire a handyman, be climbing on a ladder, especially in those shoes?"

I ask Grok, at Taylor's post on X:

Doorbell repair, James style.#JT #JamesTaylor #Handyman #RepairMan pic.twitter.com/Szi0kFtQVQ

— James Taylor (@JamesTaylor_com) August 11, 2025

Grok's answer isn't really the correct answer:

"Morgan Wallen, baby!"/"From tailgates to patio parties the streets around Camp Randall were buzzing. Downtown Madison transformed into a party well before the gates opened."

"Bars were shoulder-to-shoulder, lines snaked outside of Jimmy John's, and parking spots went for as high as $100...."

Yes, the Morgan Wallen people were out in abundance yesterday, and there's a second concert tonight. This is my neighborhood, where I remember, long ago, listening to Pink Floyd wafting over from Camp Randall.

I hadn't realized it's been 28 years since there's been a concert in the football stadium. Nice. The crowd seems to have included lots of people from out of town. So many women in short shorts and cowboy boots. We talked to a couple who'd come in from Iowa for the big concert. Me, I'd never heard of Morgan Wallen, but what do I know? I found out he's the biggest star. I hope he and everyone else enjoy Madison.

If you watch the video, keep an eye out for the children selling lemonade. The reporter asks each of them what they'll do with the money, and you may be surprised at what they say.

"Who planted pipe bombs outside offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees in Washington on the eve of the attack on the Capitol?"

"Hoping to generate new tips from the public, the FBI is releasing more information about its pipe bomb investigation, including an estimate that the unidentified suspect is about 5 feet 7 inches tall. The bureau also is posting previously unreleased video of the suspect placing one of the bombs.... The FBI has assessed over 600 tips, reviewed about 39,000 video files and conducted more than 1,000 interviews over the past four years.... Surveillance video captured the suspect placing the pipe bombs near the committees’ offices between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 5, 2021..... The FBI also is releasing closeup images of the type of Nike sneakers worn by the suspect. Fewer than 25,000 pairs of the same shoe were sold between August 2018 and January 2021, according to the FBI."

From "FBI releases new video of a suspect planting a pipe bomb near DNC offices on eve of the Capitol riot" (AP).

ADDED: Why is the FBI releasing this now? I assume it's part of a defense against the incoming Trump Administration, a way to claim they're been working on this all along. Ridiculous news about the person's height and the shoes they wore 4 years ago!

I see (elsewhere) that the shoes are Nike Air Max Speed Turfs with a yellow logo. If someone wore Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes 4 years ago, what shoes would they be wearing today? 

"Back when Lyndon B. Johnson was president and the latest dance craze was the Frug, Washington high society was transfixed by..."

"... Barbara Howar, a sparkling socialite from North Carolina who helped the first lady do her hair, mingled with a visiting Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon and turned her Georgetown home into a center of Swinging Sixties entertainment.... Defiantly unorthodox, she wore pajamas to an embassy gala, drove an orange motorcycle through a Georgetown park and had a barbed wit that brought her a reputation as the enfant terrible of the capital’s social scene. Reflecting on the private life of Henry Kissinger, one of many diplomats and politicians who frequented her parties over the years, she quipped, 'Henry’s idea of sex is to slow the car down to 30 miles an hour when he drops you off at the door.'..."

From "Barbara Howar, whose hit memoir dished on D.C. society, dies at 89/Initially known as a Georgetown hostess, she became a best-selling author with her candid 1973 memoir, 'Laughing All the Way.' She later interviewed celebrities for 'Entertainment Tonight'" (WaPo)(free access link).

Howar launched her writing career with a 1968 Ladies’ Home Journal story called "Why LBJ Dropped Me." Looking (unsuccessfully) for a copy of "Why LBJ Dropped Me," I stumbled into this cool photograph, "Singer Bobby Darin sits with his girlfriend, Barbara Howar." I love her shoe. Grommets — so 60s! Ah, well, the 60s are long gone, and here I am, a creature of the 60s, entertained by obituaries, saying goodbye to everyone who was tormented by LBJ and danced the frug.

You don't see the phrase "enfant terrible" so much anymore. The OED says it's "A child who embarrasses his or her elders by untimely remarks; transferred a person who compromises his or her associates or his or her party by unorthodox or ill-considered speech or behaviour; loosely, one who acts unconventionally." We used to celebrate the enfants terribles. Didn't we? Do we still? Answer without saying "Trump" or you are too boring to wear pajamas to an embassy gala and drive an orange motorcycle through a Georgetown park.

"Men seldom have to put up with the kinds of discomfort in dress women have historically been obliged to endure."

"Still, Mr. Murdoch’s decision to wear sneakers — although unconfirmed, the shoes appear to be Hokas, not far from the sustainably designed 'Transports' model Mr. Biden wore for a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border — to his own wedding may have been a don’t-care play by a master of the universe. 'Sure, it could raise eyebrows in some conservative circles, and I personally think sneakers with suits are hideous,' said Eugene Rabkin, editor of the magazine StyleZeitgeist. 'But casualization has penetrated so far up the chain of formality that it would almost be punk for him to wear leather shoes.'"

Writes Guy Trebay, in "Are Wedding Sneakers the Ultimate Power Flex? Rupert Murdoch’s fifth marriage, this time to Elena Zhukova, seemed a casual affair, though some disapproved of the suit-sneaker combination" (NYT).

Murdoch is 93. Biden is 81. I don't think their wearing of sneakers raises conservative eyebrows or is anything anywhere near "the ultimate power flex." It's just a reminder that these men are quite old and we're all best off if they wear secure, stable shoes.

In any case, praise to Rabkin for coming out with the line "casualization has penetrated so far up the chain of formality that it would almost be punk for him to wear leather shoes." We need more people talking like that. It's not really that hard. Please do it. 

"And now, 35 years after Mr. Kirk’s skeletal remains were found, a search for how he ended up dead in a chimney can begin."

The NYT covers a Madison, Wisconsin story, in "35 Years Later, the Remains Known as ‘Chimney Doe’ Have a Name and a Face/A skeleton found in the chimney of a Wisconsin music store in 1989 has been identified, relaunching a police investigation that had been dormant for decades" (free access link).

The skeleton — a 5'7" male with a broken pelvis— wore "a faded, paisley dress and pointed heels." After 35 years, searching DNA databases led to Ronnie Joe Kirk. The police have brought in the Trans Doe Task Force, which works on "cold cases involving L.G.B.T.Q. victims and victims of suspected gender-based violence."

"To be creative, you want to feel like you're getting away with something."

Also: "You spend all your life trying to save time, but when you get to the end of your life, there's no time left, and you'll go to heaven, and you go 'But wait, I had velcro sneakers, no-iron shirt, clip-on tie. What about all that time? It's gone.'"

And, though Seinfeld won't show you his Star of David necklace, he says "Yes, I wear a Star of David necklace, because it makes me feel closer to the people of Israel that I feel close to and that's why I wear it."

He reveals his favorite word: "quintessence." He discusses the meaning, but I wanted the OED meaning: "The most essential part or feature of some non-material thing; the purest or most perfect form or manifestation of some quality, idea, etc."

But that's the figurative meaning.

"The ugly shoe conversation reminds me of..."

"... the stylist Allison Bornstein’s 'wrong shoe' theory: the idea that you can really make an outfit sing — or make a boring outfit interesting — with a shoe that contradicts the rest of the look.... I think there’s also concern around being a 'fashion victim' not just by wearing an ugly shoe, but by wearing a shoe that will be everywhere. I like the non-ugly Bode Nike Astro Grabbers, for example — especially the cream style with colorful shoelace charms. But even if I’m able to nab a pair when they’re released on May 1, do I want to be wearing the same sneaker as every other joker on Orchard Street?"

Says Jessica Testa, in "The Ugly State of Shoe Collaborations/Blingy Crocs, punk Uggs and spangled sneakers, oh my" (NYT).

This gets my "paradox" tag: the wrongness is the rightness.

"Trainers are good for one thing only: running in the forest or perhaps on a beach."

"If you must wear them, you should wear old-fashioned tennis shoes or topsiders. Anyway, I am thrilled people will stop wearing them all the time — visually I find them clumpy and heavy.... The feet should be light and beautifully dressed, not burdened with these visually heavy trainers. Lightness and comfort have always been essential in my design process. My shoes have old-fashioned values that are not impacted by the constant moves in fashion. I can’t wait to see a new era of well-dressed men."

Said the shoemaker Manolo Blahnik, quoted in "How Instagram made brogues fashionable again/The classic leather shoe is making a comeback, aided by social media and vintage resale sites" (London Times).

Do you think these kids today are returning to non-sneaker shoes?

Do you know why the British call sneakers "trainers," and why Americans call sneakers "sneakers"? If it's that the British are more about athletic training and the Americans are more about not making noise — sneaking up on people — then why is that? Americans attempted to shift from "sneakers" to "running shoes," but that failed, didn't it? We've established our preference for sneakiness over athletics.

David Sedaris is such a great talk-show guest.

Here he's talking about a children's book he spent about 5 minutes writing:

"Kids — they can be nice and stuff, but I don't think they're that bright.... It can't be that hard."

He says his parents never read to him when he was a child. Mine didn't either. Sedaris's parents put the kids to bed with "2 words: 'Shut up.'"

The book's illustrator is Ian Falconer, famous for the "Olivia" books, who died last year, as Sedaris mentions, in a set up to a remark that only he could make.

Falconer is quoted in his NYT obituary: "If I had to say one thing, it would be to not underestimate your audience. Children will figure things out; it’s what they do best — sorting out the world."

You know who did not underestimate his audience? David Sedaris, when he told that joke about Falconer on the late-night talk show.