"The answer: Often, they don’t. In Trump Country, people have learned to take a wait-and-see approach to the president’s extreme and categorical statements... I believe this explains the low-key response so far to the threat of a trade war with China among the farmers who stand to lose the most.... This distinction between the president’s words and his deeds might seem to cut against the Midwestern mythos of straight-talking folks who say what they mean and mean what they say. But there is another kind of mythical Midwesterner, the sort that Meredith Willson celebrated in 'The Music Man,' whose flinty exteriors cloak a soft spot for fast-talking flim-flammers. Trump entertains them and, besides, they never really expected a marching band."
Writes David Von Drehle in "Folks in the Midwest have Trump all figured out" (WaPo). I guess David Von Drehle has "folks" in the Midwest all figured out. He seems to live in the Midwest. Me too, but only on the island of Madison, so I know basically nothing about the Midwest Midwest, except from the viewpoint of people who are horrified to be surrounded by it. And last I looked "Music Man" was a Broadway musical, but it was written by a man who grew up in Iowa (albeit more than 100 years ago).
That said, I have something of the midwestern attitude toward Trump that Von Drehle described. Settle down, give the man a chance. See what he actually does. And, good lord, isn't he entertaining! Let's be kind to our guest, even if he's rough and weird.
And I can't help connecting this to the previous post, the notion that the whole truth must be told at a slant. By the way, I have always seen the feminine in Donald Trump.
The funny thing is, Trump seems to be delivering clear speech and stating the harsh truth straight on. That flummoxes some people when much of what he says turns out to be wrong.
Abril 7, 2018
"Tell all the truth but tell it slant..."
Wrote Emily Dickenson, quoted by the novelist Mary Gordon, leaving out the word "all," talking with the actress Glenda Jackson, in "Mary Gordon & Glenda Jackson Talk Poetry, Theater and the State of Feminism" (NYT)"
GJ: I’m so pleased you said that, because I’m a big fan of Emily Dickinson. The view of both Stevie [the British poet Stevie Smith, played by Jackson in "Stevie"] and Emily Dickinson seems to be that here were these two solitary, depressed, lonely women, but they lived in these fantastic worlds!
MG: They’re great, greater than anybody around at that time. But their forms are small. And so, female gets defined as minor. Some of American women writers’ best work was done in the form of the short story: Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, Jean Stafford. I think what’s funny is around the same time that Emily Dickinson wrote, “I’m nobody! Who are you?” Whitman wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
***
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —ADDED: This seems to gesture, differently, at the "fake news" problem we fakely fret about these days. Maybe the participation of women has changed public discourse in a way that we haven't quite acclimated to. Consider the benefits of circuitous truth. It's the only way to get the "all" that even Mary Gordon let slide.
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise,
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Molly Ringwald "can see now, Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film" — "The Breakfast Club."
Ringwald is writing in The New Yorker.
The "impropriety of the films" is a strange phrase. Fictional characters do all sorts of bad things. It doesn't make the film improper. You need bad things to happen in fiction. It's kind of the whole game. But you may ask, what is this film trying to make me think? Am I supposed to disapprove of what this character did or not? If it's hard to answer that question, that might be a sign it's actually art. If we identify with or enjoy or empathize with a bad boy like John Bender and we hold the film responsible for choosing to make that happen to us, does the film become "improper"? I don't think so, and yet I do think films have worked powerfully to shape our ideas about how men and women should treat each other.
When he’s not sexualizing her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her “pathetic,” mocking her as “Queenie.” It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol. Claire acts dismissively toward him, and, in a pivotal scene near the end, she predicts that at school on Monday morning, even though the group has bonded, things will return, socially, to the status quo. “Just bury your head in the sand and wait for your fuckin’ prom!” Bender yells. He never apologizes for any of it, but, nevertheless, he gets the girl in the end.Much more at the link.
If I sound overly critical, it’s only with hindsight. Back then, I was only vaguely aware of how inappropriate much of John [Hughes's] writing was, given my limited experience and what was considered normal at the time.... I’m a little embarrassed to say that it took even longer for me to fully comprehend the scene late in “Sixteen Candles,” when the dreamboat, Jake, essentially trades his drunk girlfriend, Caroline, to the Geek, to satisfy the latter’s sexual urges, in return for Samantha’s underwear. The Geek takes Polaroids with Caroline to have proof of his conquest; when she wakes up in the morning with someone she doesn’t know, he asks her if she “enjoyed it.”...
John’s movies convey the anger and fear of isolation that adolescents feel, and seeing that others might feel the same way is a balm for the trauma that teen-agers experience. Whether that’s enough to make up for the impropriety of the films is hard to say—even criticizing them makes me feel like I’m divesting a generation of some of its fondest memories, or being ungrateful since they helped to establish my career. And yet embracing them entirely feels hypocritical. And yet, and yet. . .
The "impropriety of the films" is a strange phrase. Fictional characters do all sorts of bad things. It doesn't make the film improper. You need bad things to happen in fiction. It's kind of the whole game. But you may ask, what is this film trying to make me think? Am I supposed to disapprove of what this character did or not? If it's hard to answer that question, that might be a sign it's actually art. If we identify with or enjoy or empathize with a bad boy like John Bender and we hold the film responsible for choosing to make that happen to us, does the film become "improper"? I don't think so, and yet I do think films have worked powerfully to shape our ideas about how men and women should treat each other.
Oh, but The Wall is more of an idea.
Drudge, this morning, links to "Hopping the wall into Trump's US, in under 2 minutes" (Yahoo).
Isn't just the message of WE DON'T WANT YOU worth all the money and effort? And don't you like that hulking rusty monstrosity outlining our border?
Isn't it sort of like locking the doors on your house — a determined burglar can kick the door in, but it keeps out the "opportunistic criminal," like the kid who tries doorknobs to see if he can maybe just walk in and swipe something?
Or is Yahoo kind of fake-newsing us?
What a disaster for African Art History programs to see this blatant hostility toward their students and prospective students (if any!).
I've written about Kristen Windmuller-Luna before, but I need to talk about her again, based on something in this new NYT article, "Amid Opposition, Brooklyn Museum Stands by Its New Curator of African Arts, Who Is White":
By the way, as noted in my earlier post, her research is on "cross-cultural exchange, early globalization, transcultural art, and the depiction of non-Western cultures in museums and popular media." Her dissertation was "Building Faith: Ethiopian Art and Architecture during the Jesuit Interlude, 1557-1632." It seems that she's focused on the role of white people in Africa, but I have no idea whether that's racially humble or arrogant. I presume that to get along in this world, Windmuller-Luna approached African art through criticism of the colonialists and hope for a better form of "cross-cultural exchange."
But the cross-cultural exchange going on now is: Get out of the field that belongs to black people.
Even though black people (it seems) don't want to work in this field.
And why should they?
I'm sure African Art History programs are desperate to answer that question as white female students wake up from their dream of a cross-cultural exchange and get the hell out of a program that releases them into a world of stumbling blocks — where instead of getting welcomed for choosing to study the artwork of black people they are regarded as one more cog in a system of racism.
Marla C. Berns, a director at the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles, which highlights art and material culture from Africa, among other regions, said on Friday that there were not a lot of curators and academics of African-American or African descent who specialized in African arts.Who are these white women who choose to specialize in African art? They have their motivations. White males don't feel drawn to these field, apparently, and black students — male and female — also go elsewhere. What is an African Art History program to do? Imagine teaching this subject to a whole lot of white women and knowing what's happening to Kristen Windmuller-Luna, an accomplished young lady who found a job and got lambasted for lacking the one credential she's powerless to acquire, a different skin color. She's made to look like a fool for choosing this field.
“Graduate departments seek diversity in making decisions about admissions,” she said, “but the pools of candidates still remain predominantly white.”...
Steven Nelson, the director of U.C.L.A.’s African Studies Center, agreed, saying on Friday that he was “one of a very small number of African-American specialists in the field.” Art history as a whole has done “a very poor job of recruiting a diverse pool,” he said, adding that “African art history in the U.S. is primarily white and female.”
By the way, as noted in my earlier post, her research is on "cross-cultural exchange, early globalization, transcultural art, and the depiction of non-Western cultures in museums and popular media." Her dissertation was "Building Faith: Ethiopian Art and Architecture during the Jesuit Interlude, 1557-1632." It seems that she's focused on the role of white people in Africa, but I have no idea whether that's racially humble or arrogant. I presume that to get along in this world, Windmuller-Luna approached African art through criticism of the colonialists and hope for a better form of "cross-cultural exchange."
But the cross-cultural exchange going on now is: Get out of the field that belongs to black people.
Even though black people (it seems) don't want to work in this field.
And why should they?
I'm sure African Art History programs are desperate to answer that question as white female students wake up from their dream of a cross-cultural exchange and get the hell out of a program that releases them into a world of stumbling blocks — where instead of getting welcomed for choosing to study the artwork of black people they are regarded as one more cog in a system of racism.
Abril 6, 2018
At the Friday Night Café...
... you can talk about anything you want.
(And please think of using The Althouse Portal if you're making purchases at Amazon.)
(And please think of using The Althouse Portal if you're making purchases at Amazon.)
The violence of Madeleine Albright's NYT op-ed, "Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late?"
Here's the first sentence:
The next 2 sentences also present death as the solution:
On April 28, 1945 — 73 years ago — Italians hung the corpse of their former dictator Benito Mussolini upside down next to a gas station in Milan...."Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late?" has coy deniability. But why on earth would you go straight to dangling the upside down corpse of Benito Mussolini unless you meant to say violence is necessary?
The next 2 sentences also present death as the solution:
Two days later, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker beneath the streets of war-ravaged Berlin. Fascism, it appeared, was dead.What's going on?! If you stick with the op-ed for 8 more paragraphs, you'll get to a paragraph that begins: "What is to be done?" (I can't understand why Albright used that phrase, which is the title of a famous pamphlet by Lenin.) Anyway, Albright answers the question with some nonviolent ideas:
First, defend the truth. A free press... is the protector of the American people. Second, we must reinforce the principle that no one, not even the president, is above the law. Third, we should each do our part to energize the democratic process by registering new voters, listening respectfully to those with whom we disagree, knocking on doors for favored candidates... We should also reflect on the definition of greatness.Well, that's the opposite of violent. It's utterly bland! It doesn't even follow through on the "Before It’s Too Late" business in the title. There's no sense of urgent time pressure. She probably didn't write the title, so she may be out of the loop about the synergy between the title and the first paragraph. Once you get past that, you've got an op-ed that's too dull to print. It seems like some boilerplate speech of hers. Ridiculous, but actually also appalling, because the invitation to violence is plainly there and ought never to have been published.
How did those 2 goats get there — 100 feet above the ground under a bridge in Pennsylvania?
They walked out of the yard where they lived and out onto the 8-inch-wide beam. They made it in about 200 feet, until they reached a barrier. But only one was able to turn around. That's why they are facing each other, and both are stuck, NPR reports:
[T]he brown goat "kept hitting the white one with its head" to make it walk backward. "It would take one step, two steps back, then stop," he says....It took a "snooper crane" to save them:
"A lockbox instructed me to abandon my phone for the duration of the stay. There are no mirrors, I discovered."
"The survival manual encourages you to avoid emails, work, competing, planning. And – interestingly, paradoxically – suggests being bored.... That first evening we worked our way through the What Now? booklet, full of riddles and poems about the woods, and a list of questions to ask each other...."
From "Is ‘being bored’ the next travel trend for millennials?" (UK Telegraph).
From "Is ‘being bored’ the next travel trend for millennials?" (UK Telegraph).
"You made me feel embarrassed for having responded to you."
Said Susan Anspach, telling off Jack Nicholson in 1970:
Watch Jack Nicholson mess with all the bottles on the dresser, and then watch Woody Allen messing with bottles on a dresser before Susan Anspach tells him off — "I don't want alimony, you can everything, I just want out":
Goodbye to Susan Anspach — the paradigmatic unsatisfied woman of the early 1970s. "Susan Anspach, 75, Dies; Daring Actress in Maverick Films" (NYT). She was the mother of a son whose father was Jack Nicholson and of a daughter whose father was another actor, and she was married twice, for short periods of time, to other men. But she said she didn't believe in marriage or even in living with a man, because “if the kids get attached to him and you break up, it just isn’t fair.”
Watch Jack Nicholson mess with all the bottles on the dresser, and then watch Woody Allen messing with bottles on a dresser before Susan Anspach tells him off — "I don't want alimony, you can everything, I just want out":
Goodbye to Susan Anspach — the paradigmatic unsatisfied woman of the early 1970s. "Susan Anspach, 75, Dies; Daring Actress in Maverick Films" (NYT). She was the mother of a son whose father was Jack Nicholson and of a daughter whose father was another actor, and she was married twice, for short periods of time, to other men. But she said she didn't believe in marriage or even in living with a man, because “if the kids get attached to him and you break up, it just isn’t fair.”
Barack Obama was "the ‘good parent’ at home... The responsible parent, the one who told you to eat your carrots and go to bed on time."
"And now we have the other parent. We thought it’d feel fun — maybe it feels fun for now because we can eat candy all day and stay up late and not follow the rules."
Said Michelle Obama.
I don't really understand the idea of the "good parent"/"bad parent." In a stereotypical traditional family, you might have one parent who's softer and more empathetic and the other who's more about strict enforcement of the rules, but aren't both responsible? If not, did Michelle just unwittingly take a shot at mothers and even, obliquely, at the Democratic Party (the "mommy party")? And Michelle's idea of the rule-enforcing parent sounds more like the mother, who's generally the one concerned with getting you to eat your vegetables (and, indeed, Michelle Obama made getting kids to eat vegetables her cause). But usually it's the father who gets portrayed as the "bad cop" in a "good cop"/"bad cop" routine that might describe some families of the wait-'til-your-father gets home kind.
So I don't know what kind of family she's envisioning — or even if she's presenting her husband as the mother or the father.
What she's talking about seems more like the contrast between any parent and some weird interloper like the Cat in the Hat:
And don't get me started on Hillary Clinton and carrots....
Said Michelle Obama.
I don't really understand the idea of the "good parent"/"bad parent." In a stereotypical traditional family, you might have one parent who's softer and more empathetic and the other who's more about strict enforcement of the rules, but aren't both responsible? If not, did Michelle just unwittingly take a shot at mothers and even, obliquely, at the Democratic Party (the "mommy party")? And Michelle's idea of the rule-enforcing parent sounds more like the mother, who's generally the one concerned with getting you to eat your vegetables (and, indeed, Michelle Obama made getting kids to eat vegetables her cause). But usually it's the father who gets portrayed as the "bad cop" in a "good cop"/"bad cop" routine that might describe some families of the wait-'til-your-father gets home kind.
So I don't know what kind of family she's envisioning — or even if she's presenting her husband as the mother or the father.
What she's talking about seems more like the contrast between any parent and some weird interloper like the Cat in the Hat:
And don't get me started on Hillary Clinton and carrots....
Now, the script says onion rings, because that's what the Sopranos were eating in that final scene, but I doubt if any blogger will disagree with my assertion that, coming from Bill Clinton, the "O" of an onion ring is a vagina symbol. Hillary says no to that, driving the symbolism home. She's "looking out" all right, vigilant over her husband, denying him the sustenance he craves. What does she have for him? Carrot sticks! The one closest to the camera has a rather disgusting greasy sheen to it. Here, Bill, in retaliation for all of your excessive "O" consumption, you may have a large bowl of phallic symbols! When we hear him say "No onion rings?," the camera is on her, and Bill is off-screen, but at the bottom of the screen we see the carrot/phallus he's holding toward her. Oh, yes, I know that Hillary supplying carrots is supposed to remind that Hillary will provide us with health care, that she's "looking out for" us, but come on, they're carrots! Everyone knows carrots are phallic symbols. But they're cut up into little carrot sticks, you say? Just listen to yourself!...
I have been challenged in my use of "akimbo" in "posing on the chair arm with an arm akimbo."
I knew that was a risky phrase, because the cliché is "arms akimbo," but does that mean "akimbo" relates only to the 2-armed gesture? In the comments to the post, ballyfager said "How do you make that 'arm akimbo'? My understanding is that arms akimbo (as it is usually expressed) is hands on hips." Well, the answer to how is just that you're doing it only on one side, but the issue is whether "akimbo" is restricted to 2 sides. Another question is whether "akimbo" is only about the hands-on-hips pose (which seems to be the only way people use it)? Here I am, trying to use it just slightly more broadly, to cover the unilateral and not bilateral arm position, but why isn't it a much more useful word?
Now, let me pause a moment, to talk about Kevin B. Williamson, who's so much in the news this week. He mostly got in trouble (and fired from The Atlantic) for opining that women deserve hanging if they got an abortion, but he was also criticized for writing, back in 2014:
Oh, but I guess Williamson didn't mean "With hands on hips and elbows turned outwards" (the OED's first definition of "akimbo," and the one I, reading Williamson, assumed). I couldn't find an image of an ape or monkey standing like that, but then I reread Williamson's turgid prose and noticed the hands are on the chest, not the hips, and I can easily picture a gorilla doing that.
Anyway, back to the OED. The oldest examples have the arms or hands "in kenebowe" or "on kenbow." It becomes "akimbo" in the 1700s. What's a "kenbow"*?!
The word, which seems so restrictive to us today, did get wider meaning in the 1800s. It could refer to legs and meant "spread or flung out widely or haphazardly." (Did both legs have to be doing that, or could one leg be akimbo?) And it became "More generally: askew, awry; in disorder":
And in the 20th century, "akimbo" became also "Crooked, bent, or askew; that is in disorder, awry."
By the way, I never cared whether I was technically right or wrong in the proper use of "akimbo." I think if you know the standard meaning, with its bilateralism, you immediate get the unilateral concept, and it may be even better, because it's jocose.
Now, let me pause a moment, to talk about Kevin B. Williamson, who's so much in the news this week. He mostly got in trouble (and fired from The Atlantic) for opining that women deserve hanging if they got an abortion, but he was also criticized for writing, back in 2014:
"Hey, hey craaaaaacka! Cracka! White devil! F*** you, white devil!" The guy looks remarkably like Snoop Dogg: skinny enough for a Vogue advertisement, lean-faced with a wry expression, long braids. He glances slyly from side to side, making sure his audience is taking all this in, before raising his palms to his clavicles, elbows akimbo, in the universal gesture of primate territorial challenge.The word that got him in trouble was "primate," but notice "akimbo." Do monkeys and apes — like their fellow primates, us humans — display territoriality with arms akimbo? They have such long arms compared to ours. It's a weird picture, in my head.
Oh, but I guess Williamson didn't mean "With hands on hips and elbows turned outwards" (the OED's first definition of "akimbo," and the one I, reading Williamson, assumed). I couldn't find an image of an ape or monkey standing like that, but then I reread Williamson's turgid prose and noticed the hands are on the chest, not the hips, and I can easily picture a gorilla doing that.
Anyway, back to the OED. The oldest examples have the arms or hands "in kenebowe" or "on kenbow." It becomes "akimbo" in the 1700s. What's a "kenbow"*?!
The word, which seems so restrictive to us today, did get wider meaning in the 1800s. It could refer to legs and meant "spread or flung out widely or haphazardly." (Did both legs have to be doing that, or could one leg be akimbo?) And it became "More generally: askew, awry; in disorder":
c1796 C. Dibdin in Songster's Compan. (ed. 9) 203 In life's voyage, should you trust a false friend with the helm, The top lifts of his heart all akimbo, A tempest of treachery your bark will o'erwhem.Ah! There's only one head for the hat and the hat can be "akimbo." And what of the heart? Only one of those.**
1880 T. W. Reid Politicians of To-day II. 253 They do not wear their hats akimbo.
And in the 20th century, "akimbo" became also "Crooked, bent, or askew; that is in disorder, awry."
1959 New Yorker 5 Dec. 146 He tended to match all of Coleman's near-atonal plunges with akimbo melodic lines of his own.Yes, but can one eyebrow be akimbo while the other maintains its orderly position?... Hmm???!
2002 Esquire Sept. 80/1 He is still blue, with mitteny hands and startled, akimbo eyebrows.
That picture is from "A DEFINITIVE RANKING OF WHITE MALE COMEDIANS RAISING ONE EYEBROW IN A PUBLICITY SHOT" at Thermocow. And speaking of cows, I could not find a photo of a monkey or ape getting its eyebrow (if any) into a position like that.
By the way, I never cared whether I was technically right or wrong in the proper use of "akimbo." I think if you know the standard meaning, with its bilateralism, you immediate get the unilateral concept, and it may be even better, because it's jocose.
"There are a lot of movies about reading. I think there are a lot of people who consume movies that cater to their self-image as a reader of books."
"It's quite silly," I wrote in the comments to the post about the trailer for the high-action, special-effects HBO movie based on "Fahrenheit 451." My comment was inspired by a comment from Ron Winkleheimer:
Here's "25 best movies about books" (Stuff), but many of these are about writing books. The central character is a writer, not a reader. "Neverending Story" "The Princess Bride," "Fahrenheit 451," "Misery"... those fit my search.
Here's "When movie characters read books." For example, the guy in "Friends with Kids" reads "Cod," so, yeah, you get it: That guy! The guy who reads "Cod." Matilda reads "Moby-Dick." You know what that means!
Anyway... it's a hypothesis. Something else reading-related that I was reading this morning is "RuPaul’s Drag Race Recap: Fun, Friends, Maybe More" (New York Magazine):
___________________________
* Pandemonium — originally "The abode of all demons; hell, the infernal regions" (OED) — is now usually "Utter confusion, uproar; wild and noisy disorder; a tumult; chaos." Like this:
I'm surprised that HBO made this movie since the people in charge are all leftists. I suppose they are still flattering themselves about being the side that's in favor of knowledge and learning and free speech and all that.What are the movies about reading that cater to this vanity I'm imagining exists?
Here's "25 best movies about books" (Stuff), but many of these are about writing books. The central character is a writer, not a reader. "Neverending Story" "The Princess Bride," "Fahrenheit 451," "Misery"... those fit my search.
Here's "When movie characters read books." For example, the guy in "Friends with Kids" reads "Cod," so, yeah, you get it: That guy! The guy who reads "Cod." Matilda reads "Moby-Dick." You know what that means!
Anyway... it's a hypothesis. Something else reading-related that I was reading this morning is "RuPaul’s Drag Race Recap: Fun, Friends, Maybe More" (New York Magazine):
[A] fun and playfully shady conversation between several of the queens has Asia O’Hara reading Vixen for wearing someone else’s wig during last week’s Best Drag runway. It’s an understandable thing to pick at, and the Vixen responds good-naturedly about it. Until Aquaria butts in.Boldface added. I had to look up "reading" in Urban Dictionary:
“Can we talk about how your best drag is someone else’s wig, though? That’s confusing.” Game over. As the Vixen prepares to go fully in on Aquaria in response, a spider crawls its way up someone’s tulle and wreaks total pandemonium* with its mere existence....
In gay culture, the act of pointing out a flaw in someone else (usually publicly and in front of them) and exaggerating it.Also, "read":
Gay guy 1: "Those shorts weren't made for you, honey. Look at that muffin top. More like a cupcake top!"
Gay guy 2: "Bitch, why are you reading me?
To tell someone about themself, mostly used by gay black men.Great slang. Perfect!
"That was a read honey!"
"Don't do it hone[y], I will read your ass"
___________________________
* Pandemonium — originally "The abode of all demons; hell, the infernal regions" (OED) — is now usually "Utter confusion, uproar; wild and noisy disorder; a tumult; chaos." Like this:
I don't know if this Japanese concept is the answer...
... but it's almost surely helpful and it certainly makes a kick-ass Venn diagram:
ADDED: I just created the tag "Venn diagram" and went into the 15-year archive of the blog to make it retroactive. 15 posts with that tag now! Interesting stuff, too. Click it. I especially like "It depends on what the meaning of 'Venn diagram' is..." — about a diagram tweeted by Hillary Clinton that failed to Venn. Also, how "that popular Venn diagram with circles for prostitutes, doctors, and TSA agents and the 'get paid to touch your junk' punchline in the center is not a proper Venn diagram." I mean, if you're going to Venn, Venn. I'm venting about Venning.
And, from 2005, "Donald Trump has some kind of neurological event," quoting the late, lamented Television Without Pity:
ADDED: I just created the tag "Venn diagram" and went into the 15-year archive of the blog to make it retroactive. 15 posts with that tag now! Interesting stuff, too. Click it. I especially like "It depends on what the meaning of 'Venn diagram' is..." — about a diagram tweeted by Hillary Clinton that failed to Venn. Also, how "that popular Venn diagram with circles for prostitutes, doctors, and TSA agents and the 'get paid to touch your junk' punchline in the center is not a proper Venn diagram." I mean, if you're going to Venn, Venn. I'm venting about Venning.
And, from 2005, "Donald Trump has some kind of neurological event," quoting the late, lamented Television Without Pity:
[I]n the Boardroom... where Donald Trump has some kind of neurological event and goes completely apeshit. And I mean to say that you have never seen this kind of behavior in your life. He first abruptly asks Clay if he's gay, acts stunned that Clay is gay, ascertains that Clay is therefore not attracted to women, clarifies that this Venn diagram excludes even women such as Alla, and then explains to us that this is why restaurants have menus: while Trump likes steak, other people like spaghetti. Later, without even stopping to breathe almost, he: asks Adam straight up if he's a virgin (he is, but won't admit it), counsels him not to be afraid of sex because it is "not a big deal," posits that Adam will ten years from now be more "comfortable with sex," shares that sex has gotten him into "a lot of trouble" and cost him "a lot of money," discusses at length whether Adam is "soft" or "hard," and wraps up by telling Adam that there's "nothing like" sex, and that he should look forward to having it one day, in the creepiest, ickiest, most pervuncular way imaginable.
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