At the Saturday Night Café...

 ... you can talk about whatever you want.

Trump's Waco rally.

 I'm watching on YouTube, here.

"William Wordsworth swore by walking, as did Virginia Woolf. So did William Blake."

"Thomas Mann assured us, 'Thoughts come clearly while one walks.' J.K. Rowling observed that there is 'nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas,' while the turn-of-the-20th-century novelist Elizabeth von Arnim concluded that walking 'is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things.' And ask any deep thinker about the benefits of what Bill Bryson calls the 'tranquil tedium' walking elicits. Jean-Jacques Rousseau admitted, 'There is something about walking that animates and activates my ideas.' Even the resolutely pessimistic Friedrich Nietzsche had to give it up for a good saunter when he allowed, 'All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.'"

From "Whatever the Problem, It’s Probably Solved by Walking" by the writer Andrew McCarthy (NYT).

"Decisions are always difficult when they involve conflicting needs and rights between different groups, but we continue to take the view that we must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations."

Said Sebastian Coe, president of the World Athletics Council, quoted in "Transgender track and field athletes can't compete in women's international events" (NPR).

Fairness for female athletes above all other considerations — those are strong words.

"But of all the backward ass campaign cliches to be visited upon the American public, none is more pernicious than 'beer track/wine track.'"

"What an utter abuse of metaphor. Look, I'm a liberal who lives in Manhattan. In my fridge-right now---you can find a six of Red Hook. I love beer, and instantly distrust anyone who doesn't. In fact, in college, I refused to date any girl who didn't drink beer. None of that Midori Melon and a salad bullshit for me; Nothing says sexy like a Sam Adams and chicken wings. I don't think I have a single friend (who isn't a recovering alcoholic) who doesn't like beer. Most of them drink wine too, but the official drink of young Manhattan liberals is beer, no question. Moreover, I detect a hint of racism here. This false analogy leaves no place for the many tribes of black voters--'The Hennessey Track,' 'The Curvosier [sic] Track,' 'The MGD Track.' Once again the media conspires to keep black folks out...."

Wrote Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2008 (in The Atlantic). 

I ended up there after reading this new article at Politico, "Trump’s beer track advantage over Ron DeSantis":

"The Supreme Court and lower courts have held repeatedly that the mere invocation of national security is insufficient to justify the suppression of First Amendment rights."

Writes Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, in "There’s a Problem With Banning TikTok. It’s Called the First Amendment" by  (NYT).

Forced into acting by a steady diet of chicken patties and canned peas.

I'm reading this obituary of a character actor:

 

That's from 1946. I was interested in Charles Butterworth because I just watched the 1932 movie "Love Me Tonight." I was going on about that movie in the comments to yesterday's post about 3 movies from the 1930s. The other 2 were "The Smiling Lieutenant" and "One Hour With You." 

"I Went on a Package Trip for Millennials Who Travel Alone... visiting Morocco with a group-travel company that promised to build 'meaningful friendships' among its youngish clientele."

Another NYT article about businesses that offer to sell you relationships. Go 2 posts down for the one about expensive gyms that select members who are beautiful/cool and see "the value of mingling with like-minded people."

But this one, about packaged travel that promises to connect you to new friends, is a much better article. It doesn't read like a promo for the industry. It's written by someone — Caity Weaver — who went on one trip and tells us a lot of details. And she has a distinct comic voice and, importantly, distance from the mindset of the tour business... distance and — something I like — sensitivity to language:

"[Jay] Kraemer completed the equivalent of walking around the world on March 2nd, tackling the 24,901 miles by traversing the Madison area..."

"... or going on hikes while visiting his son in Utah.... The 72-year-old tracked his walks meticulously via his FitBit, saying the journey took nearly 50 million steps to complete.... After eight years, and 10 months, Kraemer made it around the world while listening to 148 books, burning through an average of two pairs of shoes each year."

NBC15 reports.

This post is intended as a palate cleanser after that last post on luxury gyms in L.A. and NYC, where only "cool" people can join. Kraemer epitomizes uncoolness — walking outside in a midsize city in the Midwest, paying only for a Fitbit, shoes, and (maybe) audiobooks — but coolness is always a matter of interpretation, and I was never willing to accept that the luxury gyms are cool. Your mileage may vary, and as you journey on your way through the world, it's up to you to decide what counts as cool and what constitutes walking around the world.

Makes me think of this song, which will always be cool to me.

"For those that look at a gym as a selfie opportunity, a place solely dedicated to performance-oriented training or a workout that needs to be done, you can probably find a gym that’s more affordable..."

"... that can deliver those things. We are not looking to bring in people who keep to themselves and don’t see the value of mingling with like-minded people."

Said Sebastian Schoepe, an executive at a fitness outfit called Heimat, quoted in "Think Getting Into College Is Hard? Try Applying for These Gyms. A new crop of luxury gyms requires referrals, interviews and even, in some cases, medical evaluations. And that’s before paying a monthly fee of up to $2,750" (NYT). 

So... they discriminate fiercely, but against whom? Is it too subtle to puzzle out — too hard to identify as something known to be wrong, like the admissions process at an elite law school? 

I thought maybe the name was a signal. What's "heimat"? Sounds German. Oh! It's the German word for "homeland"! Here's the Wikipedia page, "Heimat":

To those of you who are comparing Roseanne and Madonna.

I've seen this now in several places:

What I wrote when I saw it again, just now, at Facebook:

Just now — the spring snow at sunrise.

"The land was so steep, he said, 'it was just a guardrail and a cliff.' But the view over the city was breathtaking."

"And when [he] crept up to the edge of the 0.15-acre lot, he could see that it wasn’t actually a cliff. There was land below, but the hillside fell away like a black-diamond ski run.... 'Obviously, it’s incredibly steep,' [said the architect]. 'But steepness doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not buildable. What makes it buildable is the geology. And we’re pretty fortunate in L.A. to have really steep lots that are actually pretty healthy below the surface.'"

From "The Tiny Lot Was So Steep It Was Almost Vertical. But That View..." (NYT).

Very interesting design making a lot out of what was so close to nothing that it only cost $45,000 to buy the lot. There's even a swimming pool, tucked in behind the house, with an underwater window that looks into the kitchen. And the shower has a transparent glass wall looking out over the city. The caption reads:

Because no neighbors have views into the house, the shower has a wall of clear glass that allows Mr. Arnold to take in the view.... “It’s like showering outside,” he said.

No neighbors. But there's a whole city out there. Yes, the buildings are pretty far off, but people have telescopic lenses, a subject I wrote about in 2014, in "Speaking of naked...":

Trending on Twitter.

pic.twitter.com/iKYCF27BBi

— Thomas Chatterton Williams (@thomaschattwill) March 25, 2023

I can attest to that. I looked at Twitter, saw "Blacks" was trending, clicked on it, and saw contextless videos of black-on-white violence.

Backyard snowdrops.

Open thread in the comments.

"The number of people with the security clearances to view classified material has expanded, perhaps exponentially, since the leak of the Pentagon Papers..."

"... and I wonder, aside from a few people like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, why haven’t there been more Dan Ellsbergs? Why aren’t there more people who, when presented with evidence of something that they find morally objectionable, disclose it?" 

The NYT asks Daniel Ellsberg (who is 91 and dying of pancreatic cancer). 

He answers: