“Trump lets himself be a truly weird buffoon (even as he makes a lot of sense a lot of the time). ”

That’s something I wrote in November 2005, when I was blogging about the TV show “The Apprentice.”

ADDED: From the comments back in 2005, Pete wrote: “I agree that Trump cares about his image but I find him amazingly tone-deaf about it. Or maybe he truly isn’t bothered by his bizarreness. Or his bizarreness is part of his mad, mad plan to dominate the world.“

“Some liberals tried to come to my hometown and start some trouble. That ain’t happening. I did get arrested. I got charged. That’s all right. I’d do it again given the opportunity.”

Said Hoyt Hutchinson of Tuscaloosa, arrested for slashing the baby Trump balloon, which was on display near the stadium where President Trump attended a football game, WaPo reports. The charge is first degree criminal mischief.

ADDED: Flashback to July 2011! There was an attack on a balloon during the Wisconsin protests. Blogged here:

"The incident allegedly involved a citizen, a state worker and a balloon..."

Protesters have been releasing red heart balloons throughout the months of demonstrations...  The protester involved in Monday's incident told a Capitol police officer that the worker came at her with a knife. She did not appear to be injured, but was holding a blood-smeared paper bag and what looked like popped red heart balloon....

Blue Cheddar has some more detail:

Jenna says that she was standing with Leslie when Ron [Blair, the assistant facilities director,] approached “out of nowhere”... Jenna says Ron rushed at the balloon and popped it and then darted down a back stairway. In the course of the action Jenna says he did not say anything she could clearly hear, though he may have been mumbling.

“Students described him as both a talented lecturer who spoke French and did impressions of Napoleon and as a ‘freak’ who called his lover ‘Josephine’ and asked to be addressed as ‘Sire.’”

From “Russia professor admits murder after woman's arms found in bag” (BBC).

Sunrise, 6:53.

Actual sunrise time was 6:44. Night ended, and it was light, but there was no sun to see.

"When I listened to 'West Side Story' again, when I read it again, I discovered this very brutal world, a divided world where people search for unity by exclusion of the other—the person who is not like you."

"It seemed as if it were written yesterday," said Ivo van Hove, the director of the new Broadway version of "West Side Story," quoted in "How Ivo Van Hove Remixed West Side Story for the 21st Century" (Vogue). I was reading that this morning because it was discussed in "New Broadway 'West Side Story' to Kick Up a Fuss: No Intermission, Famous Song and Ballet Cut, Video Projections for Sets" (Roger Friedman's Showbiz 311), which is linked at Drudge.

Back to Vogue:

[T]he show will be trimmed to run without an intermission by cutting the “Somewhere” ballet and—gasp—“I Feel Pretty.” The changes have not only been approved by the creators’ estates but, in fact, reflect the original desires of Sondheim, still going strong at 89, who candidly confessed in his 2010 book Finishing the Hat that he had long been uncomfortable with some of the lyrics of the latter song. Van Hove isn’t streamlining to be perverse; the show’s action takes place over 48 hours, and he wants the production to capture that race against time. “I want to make a juggernaut,” he says. “You feel that these people are running toward their death and there’s no escape from it.”

An intermission can serve some good purposes, giving people a chance to discuss the show and share interpretations and maybe compare notes and decide to get the hell out of there and maybe to help each other appreciate what's going on. You know, something like this:



But I like when a show has no intermission. Movies rarely have an intermission, and we are used to plunging straight through the story, keeping the momentum. Recently, I saw a play that had no intermission. It was the George Bernard Shaw play "Man of Destiny" (at the American Players Theater). Running time, an hour and a half. It was great.

But what about cutting "I Feel Pretty"?



Aside from the declaration that she feels "gay," this song and dance strikes me as very of the moment. Maria seems like she's got an Instagram account. Maybe the problem is that the audience isn't going to see Maria as delightfully hopeful and innocent, someone we don't want to see hurt, but a narcissistic fool who deserves a harsh dose of reality.

That this is even thinkable reveals the full extent of our mental rot.

I'm talking about this part of Andrew Sullivan's most recent New York Magazine column:

Sixty-two percent of Republican supporters have said that there is nothing Trump could do, no crime or war crime, no high crime or misdemeanor, that would lead them to vote against him in 2020. There is only one way to describe this, and that is a cult, completely resistant to reason or debate.

Well... first, let's be accurate and fair or you sound like the one who is in a cult and resistant to reason. The question in the poll, asked of those who said they approved of Trump, was "Can you think of anything that Trump could do, or fail to do, in his term as president that would make you disapprove of the job he is doing, or not?" You have to interpret the question to answer it, and a calm look at it makes me think that supporters were just deflecting the question and saying that, no, they couldn't think of anything. That could mean, no, I support him and I'm in no mood to imagine wild things that I don't think will happen. They weren't prodded with things like, oh, yeah, well, what if he shot a man on 5th Avenue just to watch him die?!!!

The tribalism is so deep that Trump seems incapable of dropping below 40 percent in the national polls, and is competitive in many swing states.

The anti-Trumpism is so deep that Sullivan can't imagine anyone supporting him without being in a "tribe."

The cult is so strong that Trump feels invulnerable.

He's just making that up. How could he know that Trump feels invulnerable? How could he know that Trump feels invulnerable because his supporters are a cult? This is the inside of Sullivan's head, if I can judge by what he's writing. I don't really know. Maybe he's bullshitting, going for clicks, and I'm clicking.

If Trump survives impeachment, and loses the 2020 election, he may declare it another coup, rigged, and illegitimate. He may refuse to concede.

Again with the furious, paranoid ideation about how all those other people are furiously paranoid.

And it is possible the GOP will follow his lead. That this is even thinkable reveals the full extent of our constitutional rot.

Soooo... Andrew Sullivan gets ideas going in his own head, then declares that he has revealed what's out there in the world — all that rot!  — because it was possible to think it. That this was even thinkable — that the thinkability itself was revealing of the full extent of rot in the real world — reveals the full extent of the rot inside his head.

"Do you like TikTok? A lot of people do.... It’s one of the fastest-growing cultural phenomena in years..."

"... and is more popular than Facebook among 13- to 16-year-olds in the United States.... That’s also why some people hate it. Silicon Valley companies dislike it because it’s cashing in on a market opportunity — and they haven’t yet successfully replicated it....  Officials in the United States also worry about the Chinese ownership of an influential app.... Former U.S. employees said moderators based in Beijing had the final call on whether flagged videos were approved... And during a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri [said], 'A company compromised by the Chinese Communist Party knows where your children are, knows what they look like, what their voices sound like, what they’re watching and what they share with each other.'"

From "The Week in Tech: TikTok Is in Trouble/The video app has been a runaway success around the world. But U.S. lawmakers have recently taken a strong disliking to it" (NYT).

I'm one of the people who like TikTok. I tend to open it up at around 4 in the afternoon — a time that has long been my mental low point — and just relax into the entertainment. It's mesmerizing, slipping from one little thing to the next. Here are the 2 things that appealed to me the most in yesterday's session (and I challenge you to find something nefarious and Chinese about it!):





It's just fun, mostly pretty happy and sweet. I know happy sweetness could be a commie plot! That's how they get you, rotting your brain, but if that's what we should be wary of, I'm paranoid about what the Americans are up to, what with all this pop culture we've been spewing for a hundred years.

It's funny that we're supposed to be worried about censorship by the Chinese, and our Congress seems to be gearing up to interfere with the flow of free speech on TikTok.

32 writers beg the NYT not to use "quid pro quo" because it's important to stick to words people understand in "these... parlous times."

Writers! Always good to hear from them. Are they really for clear speech? Let's read "A Plea From 33 Writers: Words Matter. Stop Using ‘Quid Pro Quo.’ The writers urge The Times to avoid language that people don’t understand or that underplays the facts":

Please stop using the Latin phrase “quid pro quo” regarding the impeachment inquiry. Most people don’t understand what "quid pro quo" means, and in any case it doesn’t refer only to a crime. Asking for a favor is not a criminal act; we frequently demand things from foreign countries before giving them aid, like asking them to improve their human rights record.

That is not a crime; the crime is President Trump’s demand for something that will benefit him personally. But using this neutral phrase — which means simply “this for that” — as synonymous with criminality is confusing to the public. It makes the case more complicated, more open to question and more difficult to plead.

Sometimes when people are making an argument, they choose the obfuscatory approach.

Please use words that refer only to criminal behavior here. Use “bribery” or “extortion” to describe Mr. Trump’s demand to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, making it very clear that this is a crime. The more we hear words that carry moral imputations, the more we understand the criminal nature of the act.

Thanks for making it clear why the NYT is choosing not to make it clear! Let me be clear: If the NYT is clear about what would be a crime as distinguished from what Presidents ought to do when giving aid to a foreign country, then it won't be clear at all that he did it. You would have to guess what was going on inside his head. You would have to make inferences that go beyond the text of the transcript. You would have to fold in your subjective notion that Trump is a bad guy who should never have become President.

Please also stop using the phrase “dig up dirt.” This slang has unsavory connotations.

Yes, it's saying that there is dirt — dirt on Biden and son — and all that needs to be done is to excavate it. Yes, "dirt" sounds bad, but in the previous sentence you were urging the NYT to use "words that carry moral imputations." Did you not notice that you flipped on your own idea? It's pretty embarrassingly obvious that you switched because you want the press to use negative words when speaking about Trump, but you think it's so wrong to be negative when talking about the Bidens.

Instead, please use the more formal, direct and powerful phrase “create false evidence,” or “find incriminating evidence” or the simpler “tell lies about.”

But that makes it easier to say that Trump didn't do it! There's nothing in the transcript where Trump says he wants Zelensky to manufacture evidence. If you state the accusation clearly, the accusation sounds worse, but it also sounds untrue. Why don't these writers consider the potential for bad motives and sneakiness in the press?! These writers seem to be mostly (perhaps all) novelists. Their books necessarily show us multiple characters, so shouldn't they naturally think of all the complexity going on inside everyone who participates in a human activity? Now, I'm giving some thought to the complexity of the intentions and schemes of the writers who signed this letter! What are they really up to? How honest is their little lecture?

Words make a difference.

Indeed. That's why I love your next sentence. It's so revealing!

These are parlous times, and we look to public voices for dignity, intelligence and gravitas.

Parlous! Why would anyone ever use "parlous" instead of "perilous"? This is a question I've had for half a century — ever since I first encountered "parlous" when studying for the SAT. Outside of a Shakespeare play (or a vocabulary test), when do you ever hear this word? I guess in this case, the writers are attempting to display their dignity, intelligence, and gravitas.

Gravitas! Hey, that's funny too! They started off advising against using Latin, and then they used Latin! I looked up "quid pro quo" and "gravitas" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Both have entries, which means both are considered part of the English language. But the usage of "quid pro quo" in English goes back to the 1500s, and the earliest usage of "gravitas" in English is 1924.

The letter concludes:

Please use precise and forceful language that reveals the struggle in which we now find ourselves. It’s a matter of survival.

So it's not a plea for "precise and forceful language" per se.* It's a plea to write with an agenda: We're in a struggle for survival and the NYT ought to choose the words that instill that point of view. Just as you can't "dig up dirt" unless there is dirt, you can't "reveal the struggle" for "survival" unless there is a struggle for survival.

The writers present themselves as experts on the use of words, but a good reader can find many problems in their effort to lecture about language. And it's easy to see that they're not really sticking to their zone of professional expertise, that what they're expressing is their antagonism toward Trump, which is just an amateur opinion. There's no literary depth in their understanding of Trump. In fact, they present Trump as a one-dimensional villain. He's dragging us into a struggle for survival! That's a comic-book level presentation — at best — and it makes me squeamish to see writers displaying themselves so crudely.

____________________

* "Per se," like "quid pro quo," has been used in writing in English since the 1500s. And I say that with gravitas in these parlous times.

Sunrise, this morning.

"Doing something once may engender an inflated sense that one has now seen 'it,' leaving people naïve to the missed nuances remaining to enjoy."

Said Ed O’Brien, professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, quoted in "The Unexpected Joy of Repeat Experiences/Novelty is overrated" by Leah Fessler (NYT).

I was interested to see this because just a few days ago — inspired by something I read about repetition as mesmerism — I wrote:

I love repetition. Sometimes I puzzle over why I'm so happy to live another day composed of the same elements, so I'm interested in the suggestion that repetition itself is mesmerizing. I've had some success introducing new elements — notably breaking up the morning writing with a venture outdoors at sunrise.

O'Brien did a study that tested the conventional belief that we experience a diminishment of pleasure when we repeat the same thing. Actually, it's not really the same thing, because of what you miss the first time around:

"Maria Perego, an Italian puppeteer and the creator of Topo Gigio, the lovable mouse who became famous to American audiences..."

"... as a frequent guest on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' in the 1960s and early ’70s and was known worldwide, died on Thursday in Milan. She was 95.... Topo Gigio was a sort of cross between a puppet and a marionette; three puppeteers, hidden in a black background, moved various body parts with rods.... Ms. Perego and two other puppeteers were on hand to impart the movements, and a fourth provided Topo Gigio’s voice — but... Mr. Sullivan had not realized that someone would also have to serve as the puppet’s straight man. Mr. Sullivan, who was famously wooden on camera, stepped into that task for the initial appearance, figuring he would arrange for a professional comic to take over for later ones if the bit caught on. 'It was evident from the very first appearance, however, that the chemistry between Sullivan and Topo Gigio worked extremely well... The exchanges between Sullivan and the mouselike puppet revealed another side of the host, a warm and humanizing element.'... The appearances often ended with the mouse saying, in a thick Italian accent, 'Eddie, kiss me good night.' 'The line became famous... and it was not unusual for passers-by to call out, "Eddie, keees-a-me goood night" as Sullivan walked the streets of New York.'"

From the NYT obituary.

"I thought this was Putin."

I thought this was Putin. https://t.co/hOuQSmVPpn

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) November 9, 2019

This cluster of headlines on the front page of the NYT seems to be saying a lot about the meaning of Michael Bloomberg in relation to Pete Buttigieg.

Screen shot from a little while ago:



Bloomberg threatening to get into the 2020 presidential race is something new, and that justifies the big, serious picture along with 2 articles, one about his potential candidacy and another looking back on how he did as New York mayor. It's that other article that catches my eye, right under the somber, flattering photograph of New York City's former mayor, the one about the little city's mayor, Pete Buttigieg: "Why Pete Buttigieg Annoys His Democratic Rivals."

Pete Buttigieg is annoying! I'll have to read the article to see what this annoyingness is all about, but the headline, standing alone, makes him seem like a little twerp. A pest. The next thing I think of is maybe what you want is someone who annoys his antagonists. That has clearly worked for Trump. He's dreadfully annoying to the people who want him out of there. But he's in there, and he looks like he's going to stay. You might want to fight annoyingness with annoyingness. Read that headline again: Why Pete Buttigieg Annoys His Democratic Rivals. He's annoying to his rivals.

That's a good thing, I'd say, if I wanted to push Mayor Pete as the one to go up against Trump. You want your candidate to be the one who IS annoying, not the one who gets annoyed. Remember when Trump was able to annoy Hillary Clinton just by slowly moving around on the stage in the background while it was her turn to talk? She proceeded to lose the election and to write a book in which she expressed regret that she hadn't lost her cool, cast herself as a victim, and snapped, "Back up you creep, get away from me!"

She wished she'd been even more annoyed. I'm suggesting you might want to fight annoyingness with annoyingness. But is Buttigieg really so annoying? As I run through the other Democratic candidates in my head, they all seem pretty annoying. To lean into annoyingness is to throw off the civility bullshit, to forgo the argument that X should replace Trump because X displays a cool, rational, respectful demeanor all the time. X is "presidential," like no-drama Obama.

When I look at that NYT front-page arrangement, I see Michael Bloomberg offered up as that X — the un-annoying, civil, serious candidate they've been waiting for.

But why pick on Buttigieg as the one to knock out of his way. Because Buttigieg is occupying the "mayor" niche? Because Buttigieg, like Bloomberg, is 5'8" and we might mix them up if we encountered them in a dark hallway?

Okay, I'll read the article now. Do I really care what's in the article? Not much! Okay, here's the thing. It's mostly about how the other candidates think he doesn't deserve the money and the attention he's getting because he doesn't have enough experience to justify running for President. To lack experience is not to be annoying. He's not annoying. They're annoyed.

More than a dozen participants in the Democratic campaign — including rival candidates and campaign aides — spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their views about Mr. Buttigieg candidly. They conveyed an annoyance at the McKinsey consultant certitude with which Mr. Buttigieg analyzes and makes pronouncements about the primary....

There's no link on "McKinsey consultant certitude" — no link and no explanation, like it's a well-known term. I'm reading the Wikipedia page on McKinsey & Company and not getting very much about its reputation for certitude. That wasn't a helpful reference! Very insider-y. Presumably, the NYT knows it so well they assume we all get exactly what "McKinsey consultant" adds to "certitude." Me, I'm just hearing "certitude." Is Buttigieg doing too much certitude? Maybe he's making things simple and straightforward, like Trump. That might be what's best in political speech.

But the certitude in question is about one specific thing that Buttigieg said — that it's "getting to be a two-way" race between him and Elizabeth Warren. Of course, that's annoying! It was meant to be, and well-played. He's getting us all to visualize the primary race as a choice between him and Warren, and once we jump forward to that, the great majority of us will heartily embrace Buttigieg.

He's right. They are hacks. And it was blackface.

Now fact check the results rather than writing a tweet that makes it appear to be a false accusation you hacks.

I guess you’ll run cover for anyone in media i.e. Matt Lauer??? https://t.co/0Vxi0o6lCu

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 9, 2019

"Warren Plays to Empty Hall."

That's the Drudge headline. It links to a tweet with 2 photos and the description, "ORANGEBURG — Elizabeth Warren takes the stage at an Environmental Justice forum in South Carolina before a sparse audience. Tom Steyer spoke before her; numerous rivals skipped it."

You can criticize Warren for not drawing a crowd, but everyone who skipped it also faces criticism. It was an Environmental Justice forum.

Trump, yesterday: “I caught the swamp... Nobody else could have done that but me.”

The clip begins with Trump addressing the question of his "behavior" and blaming the press for it:



"You've really shaped my behavior... A lot of my behavior was shaped by the fake news." He praises himself for accomplishing all he has "with all of that going on behind me" and conveys (once again) the compliment from Rush Limbaugh: There's not another man alive who could have done that. Then we get the quote in the headline (at 8:25).