Meade rides my mountain bike across 3 stacked loops that have come to exist in our backyard.

The dog barks at 0:15 and every time I replay the video the dog (in real life) barks when he hears it.

Note the 6 well-placed arbor vitae. Those were delivered a few weeks ago...



... and left on the terrace. Meade single-handedly moved them to the backyard and planted them. Though the trees with those rootballs were 300 pounds each, he says the hardest part was digging the holes.

Donald Trump does pretty well with Jimmy Fallon (and Fallon's pretty good too).

"I don’t expect them to understand everything I do... But the fact that they don’t consult with experts and then charge me?"

"Put my family through all this? Damage my reputation? They shouldn’t do this. This is not a joke. This is not a game."

Said the physics professor, Xi Xiaoxing, who was charged with sending the schematics of a secret design to China. But the evidence, the blueprint he sent, was not the design of the thing that was secret, and the U.S. government has dropped the charges in "an embarrassing acknowledgment that prosecutors and F.B.I. agents did not understand — and did not do enough to learn — the science."

About a dozen F.B.I. agents, some with guns drawn, stormed Dr. Xi’s home in the Philadelphia suburbs in May, searching his house just after dawn, he said. His two daughters and his wife watched the agents take him away in handcuffs on fraud charges....

Temple University put him on administrative leave and took away his title as chairman of the physics department. He was given strict rules about who at the school he could talk to. He said that made it impossible for him to continue working on a long-running research project that was nearing completion.

Dr. Xi, who came to the United States in 1989 and is a naturalized citizen, was adamant that he was innocent. But it was only when he and his lawyers reviewed the government’s evidence that they understood what had happened. “When I read it, I knew that they were mixing things up,” Dr. Xi said....

"The defining feature of kitsch is that it preys on our desire to feel art succeed."

"It follows the formula of meaningful expression and exploits our willingness to manufacture the sensation of meaning. How wonderful, after all, to see a painting and be moved. As a species of contemporary kitsch, sarcasm takes advantage of our readiness to respond to actual wit. It, too, is mechanical and proceeds by formula. And online sarcasm is now industrially produced, thanks to the mass quantities of content that digital media must churn out each day. The style of Internet writing often called snark participates in sarcasm, typically by adopting the derisive tone of satire without the complex irony."

Writes Dan Brooks in a NYT article, "Banksy and the Problem With Sarcastic Art." You may not want any help deciding what to think about Banksy's "Dismaland," but, midway through, the discussion becomes "Sarcasm is our kitsch" and the problem with internet sarcasm — the derisive tone of satire without the complex irony.

Brooks gives an example from Wonkette: “George Kornec and Phil Nappo have a mining claim on federal land; they’ve put up a garage and a fence, and the dastardly government is pushing its weight around and being a big bully and being really terrible and stuff by telling Kornec and Nappo to take them down.” Writing like is completely lazy, leaning on the assumption that the reader will already agree that Kornec and Nappo are bad and the government's good.

There’s no insight here to raise this irony to the level of satire. There is only mockery, backed by certainty that the reader shares the author’s contempt. Sarcasm is a natural fit for partisan news aggregators, because it relies on a calculated appeal to shared attitudes.

Kitsch banks heavily on these shared attitudes. It substitutes them for artistic insights, and it relies on its audience’s agreement with them to produce a feeling similar to profundity. Sarcasm works best when people already know what you mean.

As I read Brooks's observations, I'm thinking that the problem is that people are now finding comfort in sarcasm. But sarcasm should feel bad. It should heighten your awareness of what's not right. Now, what can make you aware of what's wrong with low-quality sarcasm? You need to feel revulsion for the sarcasm, not short-cut into the contempt that the sarcasm nudges you to feel.

Yes, I could in the woods of Wisconsin.

At the Freedom Café...

... feel free to talk about anything.

"Large, ambitious and unavoidably, dizzyingly peripatetic, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event."

Release the crowds! The NYT has published its rave review of the "Museum of Modern Art’s staggering 'Picasso Sculpture.'"

Picasso was more completely himself in three dimensions: a magician, a magpie genius, a comedic entertainer and a tinkerer with superb reflexes. His many gifts — versatility, voraciousness, a need for constant reinvention — are more sharply apparent in real space and tangible materials. We can’t miss his consummate grasp of tactility and form or of the potential for found objects and materials to lead double lives.

Speaking of "staggering," I love photos of people stumbling and bumbling through art galleries, so don't miss the slide show at the link. And let me highlight this one with — amid the Picassos  — a choice "living sculpture" I'll call "Man In Shorts."

And, yes, of course, I know Picasso himself wore shorts and posed for pictures in shorts. Here's a selfie he pulled off circa 1915:

"The home of the New England Patriots, the team that has been accused on and off the record of just about every kind of football skulduggery, was the site of yet another controversy..."

"... Thursday night when the visiting Steelers’ headsets malfunctioned...."

If the system had totally failed for one team, the league would have shut down both teams’ sets for fairness. That apparently did not happen Thursday night.

Apparently...

The Steelers’ website’s account of the game hinted at sinister goings-on: “Strangely enough, whenever an N.F.L. representative proceeded to the New England sideline to shut down their headsets, the Steelers’ headsets cleared. Then, as the representative walked away from the New England sideline, the Steelers’ headsets again started to receive the Patriots’ game broadcast.”

"And sir, I just want to say I think your experience and your example of suffering and service is something that would be sorely missed in the race."

"Not that there aren't good people on both sides running. But I think we'd all be very happy if you did run. And if you don't, I know that your service to the country is something we should all salute. So thank you so much."

Said Stephen Colbert to Joe Biden on "The Late Show" last night, in a profound and moving interaction between 2 men who have suffered.

“My mom had an expression: What’s the use of being Irish if you don’t know your life is going to break your heart,” [Colbert] told Biden, while Biden—whose first wife and young daughter were killed 43 years ago in an automobile accident that grievously injured his sons Beau and Hunter—pointed out that his interviewer was himself no stranger to devastating tragedy.

When the 51-year-old Colbert was 10—exactly 41 years ago on September 11, two years after the then-30-year-old Biden lost half his family—Colbert’s physician-father and two of his school-age brothers died in a plane crash....

“I marvel at the ability of people who absorb hurt and just get back up,” Biden said. “You’re one of them, old buddy. Losing your dad when you’re a kid... It’s like asking what made your mother do it every day?”

Colbert chimed in: “She had to take care of me.”

But, Colbert continued, he really was the one who had to take care of her. She was shattered. That means that Colbert was to his mother what Hunter and Beau were to Joe Biden, who spoke of how his young sons supported him. I was moved at the realization that these 2 men were — and that point — like a parent and child to each other.

Biden never said he'd run for President and never said he wouldn't. Perhaps that's part of why he came across as so appealing. It did seem that he lacked the emotional wherewithal to run. There were long pauses and broken syntax. But that would be the candidate's presentation — reluctant, senior, suffering, but willing to serve, if we really need him. A couple times during the interview, asked about his suffering, he turned to the audience and wondered about their suffering, which in some cases, he observed, is worse and harder to bear. I chose that quote for the post title for a reason.

ADDED: Something I said a couple weeks ago: "It's very sad that Joe Biden lost his son Beau, but I'm very skeptical about everything Beau-related that's being thrown out in front of us to smooth the way for a presidential campaign.... His 'heart' and 'soul' are 'banged up,' but if he runs, it will be because he's determined that he has what it takes, that there's plenty of emotional fuel, there's fuel because of Beau, because he's worked through this tragedy and come out tougher, more determined than ever and because Beau wanted him to run... he's doing this for Beau! We're supposed to get caught up in this win-one-for-the-Gipper sentimentality. This is political propaganda. However real Joe Biden's pain may be — and I'm sure it is — I'm standing at a cold distance from this emotional politics. I'm more interested in how Hillary feels about it. You know, she has feelings."

"Notice how Letterman started out: 'If we are going to continue to do shows . . .' That seems like a silly thing to say now."

"But back then, he was invoking a serious concern: it didn't seem to make sense for anyone to do a comedy show anymore."

Everything seemed to have turned completely serious all of a sudden, and it was hard to imagine ever getting out of it. That's probably how people often feel in response to the death of a loved one — but that happens privately, not to the whole country at once.

It's interesting to compare how Letterman and Stewart dealt with the situation. In many ways, they were similar: they both highlighted inspiring Americans and lambasted the terrorists' way of life. But their emotional quality was different. Letterman was clearly rattled, but he also had a steadily controlled determination. Jon Stewart seemed absolutely raw and barely able to get through a sentence....

America under attack — 14 years ago, this morning.

(Photos, of my newspapers and magazines, taken 10 years ago.)

The very strange story of Kye Fortune.

"Gayle Newland, 25, has admitted creating a fake Facebook profile in order to meet girls, using a photo of a good-looking Asian man she called Kye Fortune..."

But she denies misleading a woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by Newman wearing a prosthetic penis after they had intercourse, during which the woman wore a blindfold. Newland denies five counts of sexual assault....

[T]he complainant said: “Every time I met up with Kye Fortune, I either had the mask on already or he would wait outside the door and I would put it on. I was so desperate to be loved. It’s pathetic, so desperate for love, so desperate."...

[T]he pair spent at least 100 hours together in person after striking up an intense online relationship over two years, and even became engaged. At each meeting, the complainant wore a blindfold, not just when they had sex but when they sunbathed or watched films together....

"Homo Naledi, New Human Species, Is Found in South African Cave."

"At a news conference on Wednesday, John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a senior author of the paper describing the new species, said it was 'unlike any other species seen before,' noting that a small skull with a brain one-third the size of modern human braincases was perched atop a very slender body. An average H. naledi was about five feet tall and weighed almost 100 pounds, he said."

"A researcher once played a recording of an elephant who had died. The sound was coming from a speaker hidden in a thicket. The family went wild calling, looking all around."

"The dead elephant’s daughter called for days afterward. The researchers never again did such a thing."

"Over the course of 10 days and several close-in encounters, I got to peer behind the scrim of his bluster and self-mythos and get a very good look at the man."

"What I saw was enough to make me take him dead serious. If you're waiting for Trump to blow himself up in a Hindenburg of gaffes or hate speech, you're in for a long, cold fall and winter. Donald Trump is here for the duration — and gaining strength and traction by the hour."

The Rolling Stone article by Paul Solotaroff.

The main thing that's getting quoted is the part about Carly Fiorina's face, and I want to copy that paragraph in full because it also has Scott Walker in it:

With his blue tie loosened and slung over his shoulder, Trump sits back to digest his meal and provide a running byplay to the news. Onscreen, they've cut away to a spot with Scott Walker, the creaky-robot governor of Wisconsin. Praised by the anchor for his "slow but steady" style, Walker is about to respond when Trump chimes in, "Yeah, he's slow, all right! That's what we got already: slowwww." His staffers at the conference table howl and hoot; their man, though, is just getting warm. When the anchor throws to Carly Fiorina for her reaction to Trump's momentum, Trump's expression sours in schoolboy disgust as the camera bores in on Fiorina. "Look at that face!" he cries. "Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" The laughter grows halting and faint behind him. "I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?" 

Who doesn't make fun of the faces that come up on the television? Everyone makes fun of Trump's face. So what is it we're not "s'posedta" do? Theoretically, a candidate is supposed to be more careful, more filtered, but unfiltered is what's working for Trump, perhaps in part because we know we talk like that when we're hanging out with people we like and trust. Another way around the Carly's-face problem is to say that he never specified what's wrong with her face — never said she isn't pretty. In human culture, faces are a rich source of information about a person's character, humor, and honesty. "Would anyone vote for that?" is a perfectly good question. And it's a question we ask all the time about Trump's face.

"Don't Drop the Soap is a controversial prison-themed board game designed by art student John Sebelius as a 2006 class project at the Rhode Island School of Design."

"The game received criticism for its content, most notably for the game's treatment of prison rape. Sebelius also received notice for being the son of Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Magistrate Judge K. Gary Sebelius. The game officially went on sale on January 31, 2008 in Lawrence, Kansas and through Sebelius' personal website, and is considered to be similar to Monopoly in its gameplay."

Wikipedia entry discovered in the context of researching my post "On the new 'Late Show' last night, Stephen Colbert facilitated an anal rape joke told by Elon Musk."

January 2008 — that was just as Kathleen Sebelius was going up for confirmation. The Washington Post had an article —  "Game Changer: John Sebelius" — quoting him: "We both recognize she has a job to do and I have a job to do. It’s reciprocal of being prideful of your family and making sure everyone knows where my intentions were with the game. There was no ill will when the game was created; that’s why the support was there. It’s definitely reciprocated. I don’t see her having a problem getting confirmed."