"María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this week... dodged a reporter’s question about her views on the threat of U.S. military action in Venezuela."

"But she repeated the Trump administration’s talking points on Mr. Maduro’s government, comparing him to a criminal mastermind engaged in a vast array of illegal activities in partnership with America’s adversaries. 'Venezuela has already been invaded,' she said. 'We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents, we have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime. We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels.'... In response to questions about the seizure of the oil tanker, Ms. Machado said that she supported cutting the funds of Mr. Maduro’s government. She added that he finances himself with gold smuggling, human trafficking, drugs and illegal oil sales...."

From "Nobel Peace Prize Winner Machado Vows to End Maduro’s Rule in Venezuela/María Corina Machado reappeared on the global stage as the Trump administration ramped up its pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro" (NYT).

ADDED: I'm reading "How Nobel peace prize winner María Machado fled Venezuela, in a wig/The Venezuelan opposition leader took great risks to reach Norway, where her daughter had accepted the prize, making a surprise appearance hours later" (London Times): "... Machado left her safe house in the Caracas suburbs on Monday night, wearing a wig and a disguise.... [and] embarked on a ten-hour journey through ten military checkpoints before reaching the coast by midnight. After resting for a few hours at a coastal fishing village, she and two others set out at 5am on a traditional wooden skiff — a small lightweight fishing boat with a shallow bottom, designed to be used near shore — and made the 35-mile trip across the Caribbean Sea to Curaçao, an island nation within the kingdom of the Netherlands. Strong winds and choppy seas delayed her crossing.... [A] source said that the Machado escape team alerted the US government 'so that they would not blow up the boat.' The opposition leader has been a vocal supporter of the Trump administration’s increased military presence in the area...."

AND: The NYT quotes Machado: "I believe that President Trump’s actions have been decisive to reach the point where we are right now, in which the regime is weaker than ever. You need to raise the cost of staying in power and lower the cost of leaving power. Only when you do that, this regime will break down. And that’s where we’re moving toward right now."

"I think what you look like is a standard poodle and I love standard poodles."

A model for a perfect husband, revealed in "My cool cancer story/A year after losing my hair and self image to cancer, I put on my $5,000 prescription wig and look at myself and say, 'THERE she is.'" (WaPo video, free access).

There's no better interior decoration than Amy Sedaris interior decoration.

"'I think that, like, boys’ rooms as a concept is interesting,' said Mr. Isaacson, who is a full-time comedian."

"'It’s just very fun to see myself and these other, you know, contestants, for lack of a better word, in their natural habitat.' Mr. Isaacson’s apartment tour included a large amount of clothes spread across the floor; a dresser filled with gray wigs (for his sketch comedy, he says); and a desk that was given to him by his grandmother. 'I think of the clutter as, like, if you’re crossing a creek,' said Mr. Isaacson, who has since cleaned his apartment in response to some of the comments. 'There are sort of steppingstones that you use to avoid the water. And I think in a good messy boy’s room, there are steppingstones of floor.'"

From "Bravely Exploring the Squalor of a ‘Boy Room’/Male 20-somethings are showing off their messy apartments in a video series that poses the implicit question, “You live like this?”" (NYT).

Here's the "Boy Room" tour of Chris's room. More of "Boy Room," here, at Instagram.

I came away from the experience wanting to paraphrase Leo Tolstoy: Messy boy rooms are all alike; every neat rooms is neat in its own way. 

Now, it's the negative that's all alike, so I've reversed Tolstoy's idea —  Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And that makes me want to examine the possibility that unhappy families are all alike and every happy family is happy in its own way. I mean, why not? Who has done the research here?

We're talking about chaos and order. It's chaos that is always the same. There are so many possibilities for order.

"If Wendy was of sound mind when she was filming, she would have never allowed for them to tape her like that. She never allowed to be seen without her hair."

From "'SHE DIDN'T KNOW'/Wendy Williams ‘did not realize she was filming a documentary’ in dementia struggle as Lifetime show preps for release/'Wendy would not have allowed herself to be seen sans wig'" (The Sun).

See also, "Wendy Williams documentary will still air this weekend after legal guardian files lawsuit against Lifetime’s parent company" (CNN).

"Unlike sheep, people feed themselves, wash their own hair and pay to be shorn at barbershops and salons."

"All Kollar has to do is collect it. But all the processing that comes afterward is expensive, especially because Human Material Loop is a start-up producing fabrics in small batches.... For the human-hair textile industry to take off, it would have to collect massive amounts of hair, which can be a logistical challenge.... 'If you look in the garbage can of a hair salon, it’s 95 percent hair,' said Lisa Gautier, who founded Matter of Trust in 1998. 'All we have to do is get that 5 percent of debris out of there. It’s really very doable.'... [A]rchaeologists have found mummies with human hair wigs that are thousands of years old. 'Imagine a sweater you can buy that will last 9,000 years,' she said. 'The products we will produce will outlast humanity.'"

From "Would you wear a sweater made from human hair? Entrepreneurs are looking for ways to recycle human hair, including weaving clippings swept off the floor of salons and barbershops into clothes" (WaPo).

My sweaters tend to wear out at the elbows. Mummies don't lean on their elbows. And mummies don't utilize laundry services. Cleaning takes a toll on one's sweaters. But a hair sweater — not to be confused with a hair shirt — might be nice. I have a yak hair sweater that I like a lot. Not counting on it lasting 9,000 years though.

A man from a place called Dildo has taken a photograph that turns everyone into a comedian.

Link to CBC.

And, yes, Dildo is a real place. I looked it up. It's on the island of Newfoundland. Wikipedia:

"The longer I reviewed restaurants, the more I became convinced that the unknown customer has a completely different experience from either a valued patron or a recognized food critic."

"For all practical purposes, they might as well be in different restaurants."

Wrote Mimi Sheraton, quoted in "Mimi Sheraton, Innovative Food Critic at The New York Times, Dies at 97/She was the first to wear a disguise in order to get a normal diner’s experience for her Times reviews and worked for many publications in a six-decade career" (NYT).

What sort of disguise did she wear? You might wonder if the different treatment she received had to do with her method of disguise. We're told she used wigs and colored glasses. Were the restaurants discriminating against the ordinary person or was it anti-wigism?

"Augustus Gloop now ‘enormous’ instead of ‘fat’, Mrs Twit no longer ‘ugly’ and Oompa Loompas are gender neutral."

"Roald Dahl books rewritten to remove language deemed offensive" (The Guardian).

Hundreds of changes were made to the original text – and some passages not written by Dahl have been added.... 

In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches are bald beneath their wigs ends with the new line: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.... 

References to “female” characters have disappeared. Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, once a “most formidable female”, is now a “most formidable woman”....

Chris Rock — punched by Will Smith for a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's hair — once made a documentary about black people and their hair.

Here's the trailer for "Good Hair": 

 

Here's Rock making the joke, Will chuckling, and Jada not amused, and then Will striding onto the stage and hitting/"hitting" Rock:

 

At 0:42, I felt sure what I'd seen was a fake "Hollywood" punch. Rock stood planted in position and even leaned his face forward, then — it seemed — threw his head back after the seeming contact. 

And Rock recovered so quickly, still smiling, and chattered out "Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me." But if it was scripted, would he have said "shit"? I haven't been watching the Oscars in recent years, but back in the days when I used to care enough to live-blog the hours-long show, I had the tag "fleeting expletives" to keep track of the litigation that arose after Cher's saying "fuck" at the 2002 Billboard awards activated the FCC. Who can even remember what the Supreme Court ultimately did about that threat to free speech? 

But when Will Smith got back to his seat and proceeded to yell "Keep my wife's name out ya fucking mouth! Keep my wife's name out ya fucking mouth!" it was hard to believe it was scripted. But, as I said, I don't know where we are with fleeting expletives these days, and maybe we are right where it would be scripted precisely because it would create the illusion that it was unscripted. 

Then Smith wins the best actor Oscar, and we get to listen to his speech, which give us another chance to assess the real-or-fakeness of the punch/"punch"/slap/"slap":

But if he's such a great actor — do we really still believe the stars who get the statuette are "great actors"? — he should be able to sell a scripted acceptance speech with faux-sincere lines about his being a "river of love" or some such nonsense and to cry seemingly real tears of apology.

What makes me think it was real is that it makes Smith look bad. He looked ugly yelling "Keep my wife's name out ya fucking mouth!" And he overshadowed his own winning of the Oscar. Why would anyone do that? The best explanation is that he lost his temper. But exactly why did he lose his temper? I think we'd need to know more about his relationship with his wife. Remember he was laughing at the joke, and she was looking grim. The camera wasn't on them continuously, but I imagine she said something to him or gave him a look that meant you'd better act now or you are not a man. 

Finally, it's sad that the Smiths aren't proud of Jada's hair. She boldly shaves it down to almost nothing and that's a way of expressing great confidence in one's own beauty. I'm seeing some articles talking about her alopecia, but if you go to that link, you'll see she has a thin line of baldness across the top, and it's something that would be hidden if she didn't shave her head. She's highlighting the beauty of her face and the elegant structure of her head. She's not like those women in Chris Rock's movie who spend so much time at the hairdressers, use harsh chemicals, and cause so much importation of human hair from India. 

Jada Pinkett Smith could have had any wig she wanted. To go to the Oscars with a shaved head is to make a strong statement that you think this is your best look. Chris Rock said she could play in a sequel to "G.I. Jane," which means she could play Demi Moore's iconic role. Demi Moore is famously beautiful. 

The best response to the joke would have been an imperious smile that meant: Yes, I know I am beautiful. Not: My husband will now punch you in the nose!

Is the requirement that barristers wear wigs — perukes — racially discriminatory or maybe just fashion nonsense?

I'm reading "Ban culturally insensitive wigs, says black barrister with afro hairstyle" (London Times).

Leslie Thomas, QC, said that wigs were “fashioned for caucasian hair” and look “ridiculous” on black advocates. He was speaking after Michael Etienne, a black barrister who has an afro... wrote to the Bar Council to seek clarity over what would happen if a barrister with an afro declined to wear his wig before a judge....

Etienne found out he could be held in contempt of court. 

Those who support the wigs, we're told, say they are "a symbol of authority and solemnity" that give the barristers "a degree of anonymity."

Thomas dismissed the justifications for them as “nonsense” and called for wigs to be scrapped from the legal profession entirely. “Wigs are 17th century male fashion,” he told The Times. “To have them in the 21st century is nonsense.”

I can see that Thomas is trying to help, but why did he say the wigs look "ridiculous" on black people? Maybe they look ridiculous on everyone, but those who want to keep them believe they lend solemnity to one's appearance. So, are they serious or silly? How could that have to do with black and white?

Or is it just that a particular male barrister is choosing to wear his hair long, and wigs work best with short hair (or baldness)? Note the references to "a barrister with an afro." A wig may look "ridiculous" if it's pushing down the top of big hair and distorting the overall shape. What about women? It seems that the wig requirement applies to them too and that if there's a race discrimination claim to be made, there's a sex discrimination claim too. There's at least disparate impact, but the retention of the requirement could be said to serve the needs of traditionally groomed white men.

By the way, the wigs are only worn in some situations. Read this Wikipedia page if you want to know the picky/revered details.

"She wanted that hairstyle. She was so curious about why so many women have that hairstyle, especially on the Republican side of the ticket."

The "she" is Meryl Streep and the quote is from the hair person for the movie "Don't Look Up," in "Micro Bangs, Mullets, and a Republican Bob: Every Out-of-This World Hairstyle in Don't Look Up" (Pop Sugar). Streep plays the role of President of the United States.

We're told that Streep kept saying, "Don't try to make it look pretty. I like it when it has this flat weird thing!'" 

I share her curiosity about why so many women have that hairstyle. It's so incredibly stupid...

It's hilarious to have a President with that hair. Can everyone please stop? It's like Shirley Temple grew up and couldn't figure out she wasn't a child anymore. That is, it's like Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"

"While some have questioned the university’s use of the term 'blackface,' and whether such a definition is solely limited to using makeup on one’s face..."

"... the university used the term as it is often used by historians — comedic performances of ‘blackness’ by whites in exaggerated costumes and makeup. Regardless of how one views this particular definition, it does not change the nature of the underlying conduct."

So said the president of California Lutheran College, Chris Kimball, quoted in "They Were Accused of Wearing Blackface. Now They’re Suing Their College" (Chronicle).

You need to be careful when you're putting highly defamatory labels on your students. You should worry about lawsuits, and you should also worry about the welfare of the young human beings who are in your charge. It is sloppy and reckless to use a term that has a specific meaning where the specific meaning does not apply and to argue — when you are called on it — that there is also broader meaning. 

Kimball used the term "blackface" against students who had done nothing to darken their skin and had put on blonde curly wigs — what they're calling "Napoleon Dynamite" wigs. 

To say "blackface" against your students, when there was no blackening of the face is like calling them "whores" when there is no prostitution — because some people use the word "whores" just to refer to women who are sexually active. 

ADDED: The students did a performance of the "Fresh Prince" theme song. Are young white people getting the message that they should never sing songs associated with black people? Never do dances that originated with black dancers? Never dance to music performed by black musicians? Or is it just don't demonstrate your enjoyment enthusiastically? Be sure to maintain whiteness as you sing and dance? Who can understand these rules? But how nefarious of oldsters to impose these rules on the young! These mysterious rules. And isn't it awful to have confusing, mysterious rules that you can only be sure you'll avoid breaking by restricting and restraining your speech and behavior? It doesn't take a real disease to send us into lockdown.

Glimpsing The Beatles, Bill Maher, Margaret Thatcher, and — above all! — Craig Brown.

I read Craig Brown's "Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret" — as I noted here — so the minute I see that he's got a new book, "150 Glimpses of the Beatles," I put it in my Kindle. Nothing more is needed to get me. It's Craig Brown! And The Beatles.

But I'm interested to see what Bill Maher — of all people — has to say about it in the New York Times. Let's read this:

I like the old stories — frankly, if I wanted something challenging to read, I wouldn’t be reading “150 Glimpses of the Beatles.”... Glimpse No. 53 begins: “For Christmas 1964, when I was 7, my brothers and I were given Beatles wigs by our parents.” If you change 7 to 8 and brothers to sister, I could have written the exact same sentence. So I knew I was disposed to like this book — and I did.... 

"Brake out your small violins for these older male celebrities — their hair has grown voluminously out of control in isolation."

"Humble bragging about how wild their hair has grown while sheltering in place has become a trend among famous men, who are sharing photos of their untamed quarantine locks while salons, barbershops and beauty parlors sit shuttered.... Some actors and athletes have decided to lob off their locks instead."

That's NY Post headline.

It's right to tag this as humble bragging, wrong to spell like that ("brake" for "break," "lob" for "lop").

Anyway, I note that these are rough times for wig wearers. That thing will not grow. Maybe some toupee guys are so rich they're having messed-up, grown-out-looking wigs made to continue their sad charade.

"Now, I wrote something off the cuff, if I can read this," said the My Pillow guy. "Okay," said Trump.

Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy, was there at the Task Force press briefing yesterday, and he delivered his prepared remarks, about how his company was helping — putting 75% of its manufacturing capacity into cotton face masks. But then he wanted to add something that — presumably — nobody had checked out. Trump said "Okay."

Lindell laughed and plunged straight into religion and politics:

God gave us grace on November 8th, 2016, to change the course we were on. God had been taken out of our schools and lives. A nation had turned its back on God. And I encourage you: Use this time at home to get — home to get back in the Word, read our Bibles, and spend time with our families. Our President gave us so much hope where, just a few short months ago, we had the best economy, the lowest unemployment, and wages going up. It was amazing. With our great President, Vice President, and this administration and all the great people in this country praying daily, we will get through this and get back to a place that’s stronger and safer than ever.

Trump said:

That’s very nice. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it.... I did not know he was going to do that, but he’s a friend of mine, and I do appreciate it. Thank you, Mike, very much.

Trump did not know he was going to do that, but he's a friend of Trump's, so Trump must have known religion was coming. Religion is one thing, but this felt too much like campaigning — campaigning with religion. Trump said "okay" — go "off the cuff" — but he "did not know he was going to do that." Okaaaay.

The press briefings should not devolve into testimonials to the greatness of the President. Yes, there can be some room to get a little personal, to express some love, and it's fine to speak of God and prayers — a bit. Not too much. But we can't be having that Mypillowism every day.

For some reason, this subject reminded me of the trouble Trump had with the wind blowing his hair. (The head/pillow connection?) At the beginning of the event — in the Rose Garden — the wind was blowing briskly, pulling the long strands of Trump hair away from the usual stuck-together shape. He said: "And we’ve opened up — whoops, there goes our box" — the President had just done an unboxing of a new testing device — "And my hair is blowing around, and it’s mine. The one thing you can’t get away with. If it’s not yours, you got a problem, if you’re President."

Yeah, if it’s not yours, you got a problem, if you’re President. It's just awful when the President's toupee goes flying in the wind. Which President wore a toupee? I don't mean those openly wiggy wigs the first few Presidents wore. I mean the hairpiece that is supposed to deceive us. I tend to think it hasn't been done yet, but if anyone did, I'm going to guess Reagan.

"Everything I do is political," says Representative Ayanna Pressley, about revealing that she is, in fact, completely bald.

There's no explanation of why she lost all her hair — was it traction alopecia from wearing tight braids? — but she does explain why she's choosing to reveal that she is bald, rather than simply hiding it by continuing to wear wigs. The explanation is that everything she does is political, and that, she says, pushed her to talk about it and actually to show it (which you can see at 6:00 in the video).

I think she looks fine being out-and-proud bald (other than that she's projecting sadness and loss). I wish more people who go bald would be openly bald. If you're bald and you choose to wear wigs, it may be a good idea to wear a perfectly wiggy wig — like they say in the old song, a "wig-hat" — so that there's no expression of hiding or shame.

I think of Andy Warhol. He wore wigs from 1955 on, and they were very wiggy-looking wigs. From "The Andy Warhol Diaries":

"Prison must agree with him...That's the least creepy he has looked in years."

The highest-rated comment on "EXCLUSIVE: Phil Spector is pictured sporting a goatee, bald head and hearing aids in his latest mugshot revealed a day before his 80th birthday after spending ten years behind bars and wearing a selection of wigs during his trial" (Daily Mail).

At the link, there are lots of photographs of Spector, including the different weird wigs he wore during his trial. A woman had died, it was a murder trial, so it was not an ideal occasion for lightweight mockery of wigstyles. I remember getting a call from someone at a TV or radio network. Blogging was a big deal, and I was a conspicuous blogger and law professor, and I would get calls from media and need to try to figure out what they thought they could get from me. I'm no expert on criminal law, but it became apparent that they wanted to fill out time with talk about Spector's hair. They were filling in their airtime and Spector was coming in with different wigs. Weren't they funny? But funny in the context of a murdered woman? Did they want to talk about that, how he was perhaps trying to make people think he was lovable or inept and whether he's deviously playing us? I asked, but I didn't get a straight answer... or an invitation to do on-air commentary. It was pretty obvious that what they wanted was to fill out time on the subject of hair: Wasn't it really weird and silly? Are you a source of multiple words that could more or less say that over and over for the amusement of our audience? If I'd spluttered out a lot of synonyms for "curly" and "big" and "weird" very quickly, I'd have gotten the part, and I could be regretting how dismally I leveraged my transitory blog-fame back in the '00s.

ADDED: I think the reason they called me was that I had blogged about Phil Spector. The post, from September 2007, was titled, "The news is a freak show":

We've got O.J. back in the news. Pushing him out of the headlines is upstart Taser-boy Andrew Meyer. Phil Spector is rearing his ugly head again as jurors cannot make up their minds about whether he's a murderer. Pictures of those 3 characters dominate the front page of The Drudge Report right now, with one more right in the middle: Hillary. This is what we are paying attention to now. Oh, we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves. The presidential candidates have been in the news too long. Are we really supposed to stop everything and study the provisions of Hillary's health care plan? Would we be more virtuous if we did?

But when they called me, it wasn't because they wanted my metacommentary on their commentary. They wanted me to be part of their freak show. Luckily, I couldn't do freak-show style on command, or my only defense would have been virtue.

"Merkins — pubic hair wigs — date back to at least 1450 and seem to be largely related to lice and syphilis."

"Shaving pubic hair was a strategy to combat pubic lice before there were medical treatments available. However, the absence of pubic hair was a visible sign of a recent outbreak of lice, which was socially undesirable. In addition, without pubic hair, syphilitic ulcers were visible. Merkins offered camouflage for the ulcers and hid the fact that shaving had been needed in the first place. It’s also possible that for some, merkins were fashion."

Info from the NYT.

"Over the last weekend of June she had a full on 'Mommie Dearest' meltdown and demanded that staffers at the Huntington Theater get down on their hands and knees and scrub the floor of her dressing room..."

"...sources claim. She allegedly threw mirrors, combs and boxes of hairpins at the staff of the theater. She also pulled gray hairs out of her wig because she wanted to play a younger version of [Katharine] Hepburn than the playwright had written.... This is not the first time [Faye] Dunaway has displayed erratic behavior in a show. In the early 1990s she toured the country as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s 'Master Class.' She showed up an hour late for many performances. She had bellhops rearrange her furniture in her hotel suites in the middle of night because she didn’t like the 'flow' of the room. Once, a theater in St. Louis sent her a white limousine, and she reportedly had a fit because she hates white. She demanded a rental car from the hotel to get to the theater. The limo company sent a black car instead, but it was too late — Dunaway was racing to the theater, trailed by both the white limo and the black one. I managed to track her down back then and she was charming on the phone. 'Your story sounds like a Fellini movie,' she told me."

From "Faye Dunaway fired from Broadway-bound ‘Tea at Five’ for slapping crew member" by Michael Riedel (NY Post).

The requisite video clip:



That's Faye as Joan Crawford, back in 1981, 37 years ago. A decade after that, she did the raging diva routine again as Maria Callas. And now, at the age of 78, they installed her in the grand persona of Katharine Hepburn. Do it again, Faye. Be the imperious diva.

Some day, somebody will play the role of Faye Dunaway. The fantastically beautiful actress, snagged into playing another beautiful actress, typecast as the actress who plays actresses, actresses who age and resist their predicament, and she get pissed off about it and rages in a way that is ludicrously like the way she played another actress in that movie back in 1981. Ah, she was so young then! Now, she's 78, she's ruined her legendary beauty with plastic surgery, and she's shocked to discover the Katharine Hepburn she's been hired to play is Katharine Hepburn at the very end of her life and Katharine Hepburn lived to be 96.

Oh, that scene where she tenderly lifts the wig and soliloquizes about the depredations of age, absent-mindedly rearranging the strands, plucking a hair or two, then finally ripping out handfuls, ranting loudly and breaking into sobs. She buries her ruined face in the ruins of the Katharine-Hepburn-at-90 wig. Oscar-worthy.



As Faye Dunaway says, "Your story sounds like a Fellini movie." Speaking of Fellini, there's this in the Faye Dunaway Wikipedia article:

During the filming of A Place for Lovers (1968), Dunaway fell in love with her co-star Marcello Mastroianni. The couple had a two-year-live-in relationship. Dunaway wanted to marry and have children, but Mastroianni, a married man, could not bear to hurt his wife and refused, despite protests from his teenage daughter Barbara and his close friend Federico Fellini. Dunaway decided to leave him and told a reporter at the time that she "gave too much. I gave things I have to save for my work." She later recalled in her 1995 autobiography:

There are days when I look back on those years with Marcello and have moments of real regret. There is that one piece of me that thinks that had we married, we might be married still. It was one of our fantasies, that we would grow old together. He thought we would be like Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, a love kept secret for a lifetime. Private and only belonging to the two of us.

Mastroianni later told a reporter for People in 1987 that he never got over his relationship with Dunaway. "She was the woman I loved the most", he said. "I'll always be sorry to have lost her. I was whole with her for the first time in my life."

I gave too much. I gave things I have to save for my work....