Tuesday "Authenticity" Watch.

1. "'Authenticity' can be the goal only of the inauthentic. Only those removed and fool enough to think they can get over on actual people by imposture try to 'project' authenticity, which can mean only 'to lie in a way someone you paid told you would be effective.'" — David Mamet in "Back When We Gave a Fuck" (Free Press)(and thanks to tcrosse in last night's open thread for bringing that quote to my attention and prompting this authenticity watch). 

2. "Democrats try a new tone: Less scripted, more cursing, Trumpier insults/Party leaders are swearing more, recording more direct-to-camera videos and trying to project an authenticity many voters have come to associate with Trump" (WaPo)(free link)(proving Mamet's point (or, given that this was published a few weeks ago, giving Mamet the idea to problematize WaPo's point)).

3. "Why 4?," asks Meade. "Why do you need 4 items to make it solid?" He's reacting to the notice I had here before, that I would need 4 "authenticity" items to make "a solid 'Authenticity' Watch post." He challenges: "Why not 3? Wouldn't 3 be solid?" Me: "Mmm... semi-solid."

4. [TO COME, AT LEAST IF THIS IS TO BECOME A SOLID AND NOT MERELY SEMI-SOLID "AUTHENTICITY" WATCH. I NOTE THAT THE LAST "AUTHENTICITY" WATCH 2 DAYS AGO WAS ONLY SEMI-SOLID.]

The NYT game "Connections" was pretty funny today.

 

Play here.

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse asked, "Is it possible to get three and then miss the fourth?"

It depends on the meaning of "miss" for you. Once you have 3, the 4th must be the remaining 4 items. But until you select them and press "enter," you can still try to discern what the connection is. You know those 4 are connected, but why? If you press "enter," you'll be given the answer. The machine has no way to know whether you figured out the connection, so it will treat you the same if you did or you didn't. That's a bit of a flaw in the game or, if you prefer to see it this way, a matter of private self esteem.

How Joe Biden can make Barack Obama President again.

I invite Joe Biden to pledge to follow this pathway to putting Barack Obama back in the White House. By pledging, he may improve his chance of getting elected. Who knows? The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dying Wish must come true. The vacancy on the Supreme Court must remain open. I won't spend time on that step, because that's what everyone's already talking about. So let's jump forward to the new things:

First, President Joe Biden nominates Vice President Kamala Harris for the Supreme Court. He pledged to pick a black woman. Pledge kept. Now, he has the distinction of choosing not only the first black woman for the Court but also the first Asian person.

The choice would also meet a long-discussed goal of putting someone with political experience on the Court. This is something Bill Clinton wanted to do. In reminiscing — just a few days ago — about his choice of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he openly talked about his original preference for someone political (specifically Mario Cuomo). Trump has shown the same interest when he put Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton on his Supreme Court list.

When Harris is confirmed, she will resign from the vice presidency, which will give President Biden the power to appoint the new Vice President. He can pick Barack Obama. Then all Biden needs to do is resign. He's feeling too elderly to serve. Oops! Thought I could do it, but turns out I'm getting weaker by the day. Whatever. Or don't even surprise us. Tell us now that you'll follow this path. Then, when you resign, you'll just be doing what you promised, keeping your pledge.

And don't tell me Barack Obama is term-limited. As Supreme Court nominees like to say, you read the text and you say what it means, not what you wish it would mean. Here's the text of the 22nd Amendment: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice...." There's no point in this scheme where Barack Obama is elected to the office of the President more than twice. He's appointed Vice President, and he assumes the presidency not by another election but by the resignation of President Biden.

ADDED: Meade is accusing me of "energizing Trumpers." Hmm. Do you think so?

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse asks "What's in it for Obama?" Well, for one thing, he gets to appoint the next Vice President. And then he's free to resign whenever it works best for him — so that he will have appointed the next President! He can restore what will be proclaimed "civility." Make us feel like we're good people again. Pat us on the head for behaving better. Make concerts in the White House great again. Pose with world leaders. Win another Nobel Prize.

ALSO: tcrosse's comment had more to it: "What's in it for Obama? It might get him off the hook for the huge advance he got for the book he has yet to produce." And the really cool thing is, then Obama could win the Nobel Prize for Literature! He won the Nobel Peace Prize without doing anything for it. He should win the Nobel Prize for Literature for figuring out the most high-flown, brilliant way of NOT writing a book. Conceptual art, blah blah blah. Stunning!!!

"I do stand behind white people needing to talk to other white people on how to undo whiteness."

"Can I keep refining it and doing it differently and better? Yeah, and I will forever and ever. But I believe in this space as one tool."

Said Laura Humpf, quoted in "Seattle yoga teacher’s ‘Undoing Whiteness’ class: Founded on deep purpose, it’s triggered outrage" (Seattle Times).

“I was seeing white people show up in yoga spaces in racist ways,” says Humpf.... Humpf opened Rainier Beach Yoga in 2014. She says the practice coupled with reflecting on white supremacy’s role in society helped her understand how racism manifests itself internally, including defensiveness, perfectionism and the “white savior complex.” It’s these attitudes, among others, the class seeks to neutralize.

The evening workshops feature Humpf and co-facilitator RW Alves sounding off words such as “oppression” and “liberation” to about a dozen students. The paired participants then physically interpret them, posing to form human sculptures. The exercise is one of many intended to highlight how both body and mind can absorb “the conditioning of whiteness.”...

People attracted to the class are mostly racial-justice-minded white people looking to go beyond an “intellectualized” view of how racism harms everyone, according to student Anne Althauser.

“When this ‘Undoing Whiteness’ yoga class came up, I felt like it answered two cravings of mine — to work through racism and how I hold whiteness in my body, and to bring an anti-racist lens to an appropriated practice that so many of us white folks participate in. If I’m only “woke” in mind but not body, I will only continue playing out harmful, subliminal racist actions unintentionally,” says Althauser, a longtime yoga practitioner....

That name is strangely similar to my own.  And the image of self-purifiers inventing their own pose as the word "oppression" is shouted out at them and worrying about the racism lurking inside their body while proclaiming their conscious mind "woke"... it's just too silly to worry about.

And isn't yoga cultural appropriation?

The song playing over the hotel lobby speaker while I'm trying to write this is "Play That Funky Music, White Boy."

IN THE COMMENTS: This story made me think of Jules Feiffer, so I was happy to see tcrosse had the same feeling and found the perfect cartoon for the occasion. ADDED: Here's the link to the great cartoon! Sorry, I'd forgotten it.

"I wanted to be able to present a theater piece that was a little more intense."

Says Jenna Carol, owner of the dance studio Express Yourself in Madison, about the show "Spring Awakening," which opens this week at the Bartell Theatre here in Madison, reports the Cap Times:

Among her 27 actors, more than 20 are minors, some as young as 15.... With themes of incest, sexual abuse, suicide and abortion... [t]ypically the show is cast with college-age performers...

“We’re pushing the envelope,” Carol said. “We are not cutting anything — the songs, the content in script is still going to be presented....”

Carol said she asked auditionees’ parents to sign a release form.... And she’s decided not to stage the nudity. Further, she’s placing dancers between the main characters and the audience during the most graphic sexual imagery.

“I don’t see it necessary to flash a boob for shock value,” Carol said. “The scene between Wendla and Melchior is extremely well-choreographed. The audience will know what is happening.... We are not trying to do things just for shock value,” Carol said, “but I am trying to create something specifically for teens and young adults to perform relevant shows, something that makes you think...."

I'd like to see a copy of the release form. You're using children who are too young to have sex and they are on stage dancing about sex, amid "graphic sexual imagery"? And you need their parents to sign the release. That put me in mind of Roy Moore's approach to dating teenagers:

HANNITY: You mentioned you'd never go out with any young girl I assume you meant like when you were 32 at that time of your life, would you always ask the permission of the parent before you would take a girl out?

MOORE: Well I mean I'm saying that in their statements that they made these two young girls said their mother actually encouraged them to be friends with me. And you know that's what they said. I don't remember....

ADDED: "I am trying to create something specifically for teens and young adults to perform relevant shows..." She's using the word "relevant" in a way that was the vogue in the 1960s. You might ask now (as people asked then) relevant to what? In the 60s, the answer might be: Relevant to what's happening.

The OED has a definition for this usage — "having social, political, etc., relevance." It's illustrated by this quote from 1969, Harper's Magazine: 

Either we can commit ourselves to changing the institutions of our society that need to be changed, to make them—to use a term which I hate—‘relevant’..or we can sit back and try to defend them.

College students of the time used to criticize course material that was not "relevant." At the time, I myself was a college student, and I attended a college — the Residential College at the University of Michigan — that was so intent on meeting the younger generation's idea of relevance, that we laughed at them. I remember the Western Civilization chapter-unit titles all beginning with the word "Revolution." It's funny when kids make demands and the grown-ups just cave. Then we feel embarrassed for them.

IN THE COMMENTS: james james said...

A little more intense. Pushing the envelope.

That requires children now, doing adult things.

We've already seen the intense adults pushing envelopes; no longer a big deal.

We're bored, they think.

Speaking of pushing, let's dance...



Tcrosse: "Pushing the envelope outside the box."

Meade: "#EnvelopePushesBack."

Disallowing the disappointable flâneuse to augurate.

The OED homepage has a list of "recently published" words. Right now it's:

augurate, v.
disallowing, n.
disappointable, adj.
flâneuse, n.

Try to use them all in one sentence.

"Augurate" is familiar as 80% of the word "inaugurate," but it's more easily understood by seeing the word "augur," which means to predict the future using signs and omens. I don't see why you'd ever need "augurate" when you have "augur," but it's in some old books, so you might need to look it up. But I wonder how "inaugurate" got started. The etymology does go back to using "omens from the flight of birds, to consecrate or install after taking such omens or auguries."

"Disallowing" is one of those words that, if you use it, some pendants will inform you, is not a word. But the OED found lots of old examples, e.g., "A petition..against the disallowing of the drawbacks on calicoes and foreign linens, was offered to be presented to the house" (1764).

"Disappointable" needs no explanation. Example: "Idealists..are very disappointable people—disappointed in themselves for failing their own high expectations and in others" (Colorado Springs Gazette, 1985).

"Flâneuse" is easy if you know "flâneur" and understand French endings. A "flâneuse" is "A woman who saunters around observing life and society; a leisurely woman about town." There's an example from 1879, but I like that the OED has a quote from just last July (in the Sunday Telegraph): "Elkin has written a delightfully meandering study of Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys and other female flâneuses who dared to stroll." The italics seem to indicate that the Telegraph believed it was using a French word. But the OED is proclaiming it an English word.

Now, I want to get out and saunter around, observing life and society in Madison, Wisconsin, but I invite you to use the 4 newly official English words in one sentence.

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse asked:

So has "fuckable" yet been admitted to the Language of Shakespeare?

As a matter of fact, it has:

Key sentence in the NPR article "Forest Bathing: A Retreat To Nature Can Boost Immunity And Mood."

"It's my hope that the health care system will include [forest therapy] into the range of services they reimburse for."

What is the cost to be reimbursed? "Forest bathing" is simply walking peacefully in some natural setting and noticing the sights, smells, and sounds.

There are "certified Forest Therapy guides." They talk to you while you attempt to focus on the forest. That is, to my mind, they interfere with the focus by telling you to focus. But you, you're such an idiot, you can't focus without some certified, reimbursed professional telling you to focus.

"Close your eyes and just breathe, just breathe," Choukas-Bradley intoned. It felt a bit like a meditation retreat.... "When you open your eyes, imagine you're seeing the world for the very first time," Choukas-Bradley told us....

A forest guide "helps you be here, not there," says Amos Clifford, a former wilderness guide with a master's degree in counseling, and the founder of the Association of Nature & Forest Therapy, the organization that certifies the guides.

Clifford's goal is to encourage health care providers to incorporate forest therapy as a stress-reduction strategy. There's no question that stress takes a terrible toll in the United States; a 2015 study found work-related stress accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costs each.

Mm. Yes. So I've heard. Too much money is spent on treating ailments. We wait for people to get sick, and so something like 90% of the money flows to 10% of the people. Never mind that health insurance only works because a lot of people put much more into the pot than they take out. Just insanely imagine that it's unfair that you're not sick, and you're not getting any treatments paid for.

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse said:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
They're paid for by my HMO.

The most embarrassing thing about this CBS News puff piece isn't that it proclaims that "Hillary Clinton lets her 'guard down'" based on nothing more than that...

... the Introduction to her new memoir makes the statement "Now I'm letting my guard down."



If NBC News cared about factual reporting, it would say "Hillary Clinton Claims She Is "Letting [Her] Guard Down' in Her New Memoir." Most of us won't believe that, and NBC must know that, so why would it ludicrously tout the book as if someone at NBC had read the book and found it revealing and forthcoming?

But the most embarrassing thing in that NBC news article is in the third paragraph. Did you notice? Let me close in on it:



They called it a "novel"!

Ironically, that's more believable than the idea that she's letting her guard down.

By the way, the book is called "What Happened." No question mark. You're supposed to read that title in a flat just-the-facts tone of voice. Not in a comical what-the-hell-just-happened? way.

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse said: "'What Happened' has to be the most disingenuous book title since 'If I Did It.'"

"The grasshoppers add a nice crunch and subtle spice to the sundae, which is boozy and delicious."

"It’s actually the perfect vehicle to try bugs for the first time, as the sugar rush and comforting nature of ice cream soften the blow."

Annoying thing about the linked article: Using the words "crickets" and "grasshoppers" interchangeably.

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse wrote:

Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Cockroach” and “Cicada” and ingredients like grasshoppers, crickets and a locust baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.

"What part of Donald Trump reminds you of Jesus Christ?"

A question — aimed at Evangelicals (but anyone can answer) — from Ken Burns, the film documentarian (the one with the still images that slowly move forward).

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse said, "He was despised."

AND: My answer: He's a tekton.