"Meta’s new gizmos are ordinary-looking Ray-Bans and Oakleys that have been juiced to the gills with hidden technology..."

"... Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, two tiny speakers, five microphones, a wide-angle camera.... [T]he real selling point is A.I. — an opportunity to chitchat with a disembodied superintelligence that can see and hear everything you do... So what do my miraculous sunglasses tell me? Many things. They inform me, in the voice of Princess Anna from 'Frozen,' that my dog is a golden retriever mix (he is not) and that a tree I am looking at is probably an oak (it is not). They tell me to walk north when I know I should be walking south. One afternoon, on a sunny stroll, I stop to admire a bright red cardinal singing its heart out in a tree. 'Hey, Meta,' I say. 'What kind of bird is that chirping in the tree?' My sunglasses make their little ding-dong noise, analyzing the world. Finally, they speak. 'I don’t see a bird in the tree or hear any chirping,' they say. I point directly at the bird, which is still chirping. 'I don’t see a bird in the tree where you’re pointing,' my sunglasses say, cheerfully. 'Just bare branches and sky.'..."

Writes Sam Anderson, in "I Feel So Sorry for My A.I. Sunglasses/Plenty of people hate Mark Zuckerberg’s superintelligent, supercharged spectacles. I was ready to hate them, too" (NYT).

There's your future — just bare branches and sky

"On social media, Mr. Macron’s sunglasses were seen as a political statement, projecting a tough image in the face of Mr. Trump’s threats to..."

"... impose tariffs on French wine and champagne and to annex Greenland. He has previously used his clothing to send a message, donning a turtleneck in the winter of 2022 as Europe contended with an energy crisis in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some people likened the bespectacled Mr. Macron to the naval aviator played by Tom Cruise in 'Top Gun.' Others recalled former President Joe Biden’s penchant for aviators, though Mr. Biden was not known to wear his sunglasses while addressing world leaders...."

From "Why Was Macron Wearing Sunglasses at Davos? An eye condition, not a style choice, prompted President Emmanuel Macron of France to don aviators to address the World Economic Forum" (NYT).

I've written about aviator sunglasses before. Let me find that. Here, from March 2017, "And gold aviator eyeglasses are one of the sexiest shapes you could possibly wear." I wrote:

For the annals of sexiest shapes imaginable. Aviator glasses are back in style, we're told in the NYT.

I'm not buying that these glasses are obviously sexy. There's also... 

"One of my style icons is Gloria Steinem, and she’s worn that look forever."...

Aviator glasses were adopted by stylish people in the 60s. I'll never forget seeing Mort Sahl — the political satirist — on "The Tonight Show" holding up a picture of Gloria Steinem and railing against her, harping specifically on her glasses. As I remember it, he took the position that it was ludicrous to wear aviator glasses unless you were an aviator.

"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).

"It’s the people who aren’t artists who sacrifice. Artists somehow stumble onto the best life in the world, and I have no complaints."

Said Gena Rowlands, asked about any "regrets about having sacrificed her life to her art."

Quoted in "Gena Rowlands, Actress Who Brought Raw Drama to Her Roles, Dies at 94/Known for playing on-the-verge characters, she twice earned Oscar nominations for her work in films directed by John Cassavetes, her husband" (NYT).

She sometimes said that if she had not married Mr. Cassavetes, her career might have taken a very different turn: She could have been the blonde in romantic comedies. But, she contended, physical beauty was so common in Hollywood that it was irrelevant. When People magazine named her one of the most beautiful people in the world (she was 69) and asked for beauty tips, she suggested: “Sunglasses are the secret. Sunglasses and a little lipstick will take you to the market.”

Virginia Cathryn Rowlands was born on June 19, 1930, in Madison, Wis....

ADDED: Here's the clip from "A Woman Under the Influence" that I blogged when Peter Falk died in 2011: 

And here's something Mia Farrow wrote that I blogged about in 2009:

One workday, while we were waiting to shoot, Roman [Polanski] was discoursing about the impossibility of long-term monogamy given the brevity of a man's sexual attraction to any woman. An impassioned John Cassavetes responded that Roman knew nothing about women, or relationships, and that he, John, was more attracted than ever to his wife, Gena Rowlands. Roman stared at him and blinked a few times, and for once had no reply.

It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap....

"Inside the hall, the three presidents sat in matching white armchairs and took the stage to strains of 'Born to Run' by Bruce Springsteen, the unofficial bard of the Democratic Party...."

I'm reading "4 Presidents, 2 Events and a Preview of Campaign Clashes to Come/President Biden raised $25 million at a Radio City Music Hall event, adding to his huge cash edge, after Donald Trump pushed his law-and-order message at a wake for a police officer killed on duty" (NYT).

Three Presidents were sitting in white armchairs before people who'd paid up to $500,000 apiece to sit in the audience in the most beautiful theater in the country. The comments over there are mostly about the fourth President. That guy, Mr. Trump, steals focus from everything.

Also stealing attention were the protesters at the 3-Presidents event. They were shouting "blood on your hands." Obama chided them: "You can’t just talk and not listen. That’s what the other side does." Seems to me protesters on Obama's side have interrupted more speeches than those on the other side. But it's subjective, and the old adage is as true as ever: All the assholes are over on the other side.

"9 Surprising Moments in the History of Sunglasses."

At Science Museum.

#1 is "Emperor Nero's Emerald":

In his work Natural History, Pliny the Elder described how the Roman Emperor Nero would watch gladiator matches through an emerald. This has been considered by some as a rather opulent, if a bit ambiguous, account of a precursor to sunglasses. Some speculate that this was because Nero was near-sighted or that it was meant to shield the Sun’s glare....

You might think I'm reading this because of my own surprising moment having to do with sunglasses, a few posts down, here. But no, Nero's emerald came up in the "Car Tongs" episode of "The Frank Skinner Show" podcast, which I've been bingeing on lately. 

Whole Foods is watching me.

Yesterday, as I was browsing amongst the fruits and vegetables, a voice came over the loudspeaker saying we should check our shopping carts for the sunglasses somebody had, apparently, lost. I heard it, thought about it, but assumed I knew what was in my shopping cart and continued on my way.

Over by the cheeses, as I was standing about 15 feet from my cart, I thought I heard someone call my name, "Ann... Ann..." I glance over and see no one I know and assume, as I've assumed since I was a first grader, that when the syllable that happens to be my name is heard, it's probably not an effort to get my attention.

"President Biden... traveling under a cloak of secrecy into a war zone..."

"... to demonstrate what he called America’s 'unwavering support' of the effort to beat back Russian forces nearly a year after they invaded the country. Mr. Biden arrived unannounced early Monday morning to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the two stepped out into the streets of Kyiv even as an air-raid siren sounded...."

NYT reports. 

"Mr. Biden joined Mr. Zelensky for a visit to St. Michael’s monastery in downtown Kyiv, where the sun glittered off the golden domes as the air-raid alarm wailed...."

Biden wore sunglasses, not mentioned in the text of the article, which does say that Zelensky wore "his signature black sweatshirt with dark green pants and beige boots." Are not the sunglasses Biden's signature sunglasses? Or were they not particularly wanted but especially needed because the sun glittered off the golden domes.

"(The mother of Marina Warner, the beautiful and brilliant English cultural historian, used to ask her, 'Why do you keep disagreeing with men? They don’t like it, you know.')"

"Women who are admired as beauties risk dismissal as brains. But Didion was both. It was non-negotiable: it was impossible to dismiss her words, and it was impossible to ignore her looks. Like her words, they were spare, elegant, and arresting...."

From "Joan Didion’s Priceless Sunglasses/An auction of the writer’s possessions is further confirmation of how, for Didion, style was not surface but essence" by Roxana Robinson (The New Yorker).

"As the president got out of the car, wearing dark glasses but having ditched his mask a few seconds before, he and his wife held hands, which was either a gesture of matrimonial affection or a useful bit of support as the president negotiated the dais steps."

That's how the London Times describes Biden meeting the Queen in "President Biden pays Queen the mother of all compliments."

The "mother of all compliments" — haven't heard that "mother of" phrasing in a long time — was that she reminded him of his mother.

"The fashion pendulum inevitably swung away from giant sunglasses into almost comically tiny territory, which means it's just about time for that bug-eyed look to return."

Fashionista explains fashion succinctly. 

Everything that goes out of style is just waiting around in exile until its badness has ripened into oblivion and somebody cool can then wear it and make it sing again. In this case, with the giant bug-eye sunglasses, we've got the Olsen twins looking just perfect and making you think you can wear those things again. 

Meanwhile, what's been in style becomes seeable as ridiculous, which it always was, and the least cool people are the last to notice, which sends these things off into exile where they can wait until they're forgotten again. So save your "comically tiny" sunglasses — if you were ever in fashion enough to have acquired them — because you'll get the cue some day that they're snazzy again.

"No. You can not base your life on frowning and glaring at others literally behind your shades and think you are making a positive impact on lives."

"Just like the met gala is a ridiculous, outdated event that does no good except for advancing privilege. I hope we begin to understand how many generous, kind people there are in the world and that those are the individuals we should be celebrating."

The second-highest-rated comment on "Can Anna Wintour Survive the Social Justice Movement?/A reckoning has come to Bon Appétit and the other magazines of Condé Nast. Can a culture built on elitism and exclusion possibly change?" by Ginia Bellafante (NYT).

The first-highest-rated comment: "It's kind of rich when a newspaper that oozes white privilege and credential worship, prints endless real-estate stories about zillion-dolllar properties, and covers celebrities endlessly in its style magazine and arts pages goes after Anna Wintour."

The NYT is going after Anna Wintour — not because she said anything arguably racist or got caught in blackface or anything like that, but simply because she is powerful and imperious and because, apparently, Vogue is a fashion magazine.

They also have this quote from André Leon Talley, "a black man and longtime former editor at Vogue": "I wanna say one thing, Dame Anna Wintour is a colonial broad; she’s a colonial dame. I do not think she will ever let anything get in the way of her white privilege."

A colonial broad, whatever "colonial" is supposed to mean. As for "broad"... it's a blatantly sexist word, but sexism was last year's concern. This year it's race, and for some perverted reason, we can't concern ourselves with both at the same time.

She is literally a "Dame" — I'm reading that at Wikipedia, where I also learn that she lives in Greenwich Village, rises before 6 a.m., "rarely stays at parties for more than 20 minutes at a time and goes to bed by 10:15 every night." For lunch she eats "a steak (or bunless hamburger)" but years ago it was "smoked salmon and scrambled eggs every single day." She wears sunglasses all the time because they are "actually corrective lenses" but also (as one acquaintance says) "you know, really, armour."

Politically, she's a big supporter of Democrats. They say if Hillary Clinton had won, Anna Wintour would have become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. And now, look what she gets. The NYT coming after her for nothing. You can't devote your life to fashion for the sake of fashion in the Social Justice Regime.

ADDED: From "Anna Wintour Isn’t Going To Cancel Herself/Vogue’s editor is now promising to do better for Black employees and readers. Does she not realize that she, largely alone, had all the power all along?" (BuzzFeed News):

Wintour has built her entire career on the foundation of fetishizing white-woman meanness... Wintour’s persona isn’t just of a boss that’s tough to please, but of a woman boss who’s just as awful as a man could be. It’s an earlier, less PR-optimized incarnation of the Nasty Woman/Girl Boss modus operandi: the idea that being authoritarian or contemptuous at work is feminist, because if men get to do it, why can’t women?

Wintour embraces a version of femininity that says you have to be skinny, white, elegant, aloof, and rich..... Wintour found power in being icy, while third-wave “feminist” bosses learned to hide their harshness behind public displays of feminist solidarity.... 

Feminism is so last year. This year is all about race. Wintour is white, so she's out.

"You Love to ‘Hate to See It’/It’s the phrase of the summer. Why do we hate to see it so often?"

It's a NYT article about a trend that I had not noticed, which makes the article really hard to skim. I just don't get it, and I don't need to get it.

If it's ubiquitous, it's on the downside of cool, and I don't need to be cool, but even if I did, this wouldn't get me there. This is something that can only be skipped. Of course, I'm a little worried that I'm so old that everything new that comes along will only be noticed by me when it's already on the way out and then I'll just be skipping everything. But there's liberation in that. Does anything in the newspaper demand my attention?

“You hate to see it” is a barb, a hex protection and an imperious shake of the head. It is the exhilarating sensation of observing a rival attempt to enter a just-locked post office, manifested in text. It is inescapable on Twitter, where it is flaunted like a universally flattering pair of sunglasses capable of adorning almost any sentence.

So... sentences are wearing sunglasses now?

"Chani Nicholas doesn’t care for the hulking Alex Katz painting, depicting a trio of suited white men, hanging behind the front desk of the Langham hotel in New York. It reminds her of the patriarchy..."

"... she tells me one rainy, starless night in February, as we take the elevator up to her hotel suite and sit on the couch. We’re wrapping up a conversation about privilege, gender equality and the zodiac when Nicholas, who’s become popular on Instagram as a kind of social-justice astrologer, notices a different art piece hovering behind her. This one, she likes. The painting, titled 'Mona,' portrays a woman who shares a striking resemblance to Nicholas – dark hair with tight curls, sharp brown eyes, a strong jawline. She compares it to the painting in the lobby. 'The hotel staff must’ve known not to put me in a room with a bunch of weird guys on the wall,' she says. 'I’m basically an angry feminist who just happens to be into astrology and healing.'"

So begins "Meet the Woman Bringing Social Justice to Astrology/Chani Nicholas is transforming horoscopes from quips about finding true love and stumbling into financial good fortune to pointed calls to action" (Rolling Stone)(via my son John at Facebook).

If you get far enough into that article, you'll see some material about a technology and culture reporter at The New York Times, Jenna Wortham:

“I think the Internet is really good at helping like-minded individuals find each other and affirm each other,” she says. “I know a lot of people in my life who don’t give a shit about astrology and think that my interest in star signs is ludacris [sic] and laughable, but I don’t have to talk to them,” she says....

Wortham thinks that the millennial interest in astrology has to do with the correction of an imbalance, in which people are looking at their relationship to technology and finding it, at least to a degree, unnatural. Because social media and the Internet require people to externalize so much of their lives, people are looking for ways to be more introspective, she says. “In the same way that we’re like, ‘What’s the quality of the food that we’re eating? We’re now like, ‘How are we living? Is there a better way to live?'”

Last year, Wortham went through a difficult breakup and decided to switch neighborhoods in Brooklyn.... “I took Chani’s advice, and I made [something] happen,” says Wortham.... “When I think back on it, I don’t think it would’ve been as easy for me to manage all the influxes of opportunity had my house not been in order.” Nicholas’s guidance, Wortham says, helped her affirm whether she was doing the right thing. “It’s cool feeling like there’s something correlating in the cosmos and on the earth,” she says.

I wonder what the NYT's idea of reporting on "technology and culture" really is. Is it articles on technology designed to draw in people who wouldn't normally read about technology? I went over to the NYT and found this video about astrology:



I had to shut that off because I felt a strong and physical revulsion to the visual style. It didn't remind me of the patriarchy or anything like that. It just made me feel like a very annoying robot had the delusion that he could amuse me and intended to relentlessly act on that delusion. I had my own delusion — that I would have a seizure if I didn't shut it off.

ADDED: Jenna Wortham's new article in the NYT Magazine is "On Instagram, Seeing Between the (Gender) Lines/Social Media Has Turned Out to Be the Perfect Tool For Nonbinary People to Find — and Model — Their Unique Places on the Gender Spectrum." Excerpt:

Personally, Vaid-Menon doesn’t identify as any gender. “Nonbinary is so oxymoronic,” Vaid-Menon told me. “We’re defining ourselves by an absence and not our abundance.” When pressed, they will describe themselves as transfeminine, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary — but only reluctantly. “I really try to escape having to put myself in these categories,” Vaid-Menon said. “I wanted to be free from boxes — not end up in a new one.” Social media is one of the few outlets for that uninhibited expression.

AND here's the Alex Katz painting at the Langham Hotel:



Significantly less evocative of the patriarchy than the Rolling Stone made it sound! The "trio of suited white men" is next to a trio of women. And the men aren't wearing suits. White Man #1 has a turtleneck under his jacket. White Man #2 doesn't seem to have a jacket. And White Man #3 has his shirt collar gaping open in a way that suggests he's not wearing a tie. All 6 adults are staring in the direction of a bright light source and all but the one man in prescription glasses are wearing sunglasses, so they're not in an office environment. Where are they? The background is dark, so it's a confusing setting, but there's no reason to think they're in a position to exercise patriarchal power. They're out for some kind of fun. And the women are in front of the men.

"And gold aviator eyeglasses are one of the sexiest shapes you could possibly wear."

For the annals of sexiest shapes imaginable. Aviator glasses are back in style, we're told in the NYT.

I'm not buying that these glasses are obviously sexy. There's also:

"I think part of the aviator returning is a result of old shows from the 1980s and 1990s that we get to watch on Netflix. It’s fun to look back at ‘Friends’ episodes and ‘Beverly Hills 90210.’ The eyewear of that time is definitely influencing our designers.

There's also:

"One of my style icons is Gloria Steinem, and she’s worn that look forever."

I think it's more like: Once an old style has been abandoned even by old people, it can be reinstalled as new and retro. You put the old style on young models, and it looks cute, the way nerd glasses once did. Then the long process begins: Less stylish people adopt it, even completely out-of-style people are choosing it, and eventually, it will be pushed out by something else seeping slowly into the culture, and it can be picked up again as retro. I think the cycle takes about 50 years.

I don't know why that one quote talks about the 80s and the 90s. Aviator glasses were adopted by stylish people in the 60s. I'll never forget seeing Mort Sahl — the political satirist — on "The Tonight Show" holding up a picture of Gloria Steinem and railing against her, harping specifically on her glasses. As I remember it, he took the position that it was ludicrous to wear aviator glasses unless you were an aviator.

"Obama paid a surprise visit Tuesday to Snow City Cafe, a hopping brunch spot in downtown Anchorage with a bit of hipster flair."

"Dressed down in a casual coat and sunglasses, he strolled past throngs of cheering crowds into the cafe, where it took just a few seconds for the cinnamon rolls to catch his eye. 'How many of those do you guys have?' Obama asked a bemused barista. 'I'm going to take all of those.'"

I don't know. Seems like a metaphor or something. Should we say the President should be in Washington working or not acting like a hipster or not getting in the way of local hipsters who were counting on getting a cinnamon roll at their hopping brunch spot? I really don't know. I just like the elements of the story, as my tags reveal. Sorry if you don't like "cake."

By the way, "bemuse" means "To make utterly confused or muddled, as with intoxicating liquor; to put into a stupid stare, to stupefy" (OED). Yeah, no one gets that from "bemuse" anymore. Did you know that "amuse" originally meant "To muse intently, gaze in astonishment" or "To cause to ‘muse’ or stare; to confound, distract, bewilder, puzzle"?

"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.

According to the manager of a Chipotle restaurant in Maumee, Ohio, "no one recognized Clinton, who was wearing sunglasses."

ABCNews reports in "Hillary Clinton Makes Surprise Pit Stop at Chipotle in Ohio During Presidential Roadtrip."

I once sat in a restaurant next to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and I never displayed my recognition and neither did anyone else in the restaurant. That did not mean we didn't recognize them.

The sunglasses signal: I don't want to be recognized. People are behaving intelligently and normally if they infer that she did not want to interact with people, that she was just trying to blend in and be like anyone else, and they respected her seeming desire for privacy.

I'm filing this under etiquette. Maybe the snobs at ABC News don't expect to find sophistication somewhere in the wilds of Ohio. I remember that John Lennon liked living in New York City because it was possible there for him to be a normal person:

He went to clubs to check out bands, strolled through Central Park, was a neighborhood fixture on the Upper West Side. He always said New York was the only place he could feel like a normal guy.

That was long ago. Maybe it's not just New York anymore. Maybe even in Ohio a famous person who acts like a normal person can be treated like a normal person.

If so, it wrecks Hillary's Road Trip! concept. She's doing a routine of behaving like an "everyday American" as a way to meet everyday Americans. But in everyday America, everyday Americans leave you alone if they don't already know you. And — isn't it amazing! — everyday Americans might not be under the delusion that they are in a relationship with the various celebrities we see in the news.

The Democratic Party's future's so bright, it's gotta wear shades.

Screen capture from Memeorandum earlier this morning:

"Does she think she’s Marilyn Monroe?"

Somebody said to somebody else about Bristol Palin that night in Anchorage when the police came.

Thompson, who is 56 years old... noticed two girls wearing sunglasses walking with an unusual amount of confidence around the yard. He only noticed them because of the sunglasses. That was odd, because it was at night.

This is just a test of your mind. Perhaps you thought:

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

Or:



Whatever... you are old. Marilyn Monroe is beyond old. The Palins-are-trash meme is old.

What hope is there? For the future... I mean.