"This garden is very interesting in that it’s part of a spiritual practice: It’s used for meditation. Moss is very tiny..."

"... and being in the garden, looking so closely to distinguish one type from another, requires a special kind of attention. It opens up a completely different kind of universe."

Said Harvard architecture professor Toshiko Mori, about the Saihoji Kokedera Temple and Moss Garden in Kyoto, quoted in "The 25 Gardens You Must SeeWe asked six horticultural experts to debate and ultimately choose the places that’ve changed the way we look at — and think about — plants" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see all the photos and read about the other gardens).

I love the story of the creation of this garden: "In 1339, Muso Kokushi, a Buddhist high priest and master gardener, created what’s believed to be the first-ever karesansui (dry landscape)... carefully placed rocks and swaths of sand or gravel raked to invoke rippling water... In the nineteenth century, Saihoji was flooded repeatedly when a nearby river overflowed its banks... Rather than fight nature, the monks embraced change... With more than 120 varieties [of moss]... Saihoji looks quite different than it did in Kokushi’s day, but, in the hands of the monks who continue to maintain it, its purpose of encouraging serenity and contemplation hasn’t changed....."

The monks carry on a traditional practice of meditation, bound to this site for 7 centuries. But what would it be for you to drop in one day?

Sunrise — 5:23, 5:46, 6:09.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Will Hutchins, who had a comically genteel starring role during the craze for television westerns in the 1950s, playing a sheriff who favored cherry soda..."

"... over whiskey on 'Sugarfoot,' died on April 21 in Manhasset, N.Y., on the North Shore of Long Island. He was 94.... Mr. Hutchins’s character, Tom Brewster, was the sugarfoot in question: an Eastern law student seeking his fortune as a sheriff who sidles up to the saloon bar to order a sarsaparilla (Wild West root beer) 'with a dash of cherry.' He abhors violence, tries to stop women from throwing themselves at him and lovingly gives up his share of drinking water for his horse. Mr. Hutchins played the role for comedy, following up a villain’s insult with a dramatic pause, only to critique the man for not being 'sociable.'... [H]e was likely to end a fight not with a killing but rather a comment like, 'All right now, how about that apology?'... [Hutchins said] the best advice he had received about comic performance was to act as if you were doing something no less severe than 'Hamlet.' "In order to make people laugh, you have to act seriously,' he said. 'Chaplin was just as sad as he was funny. Buster Keaton never smiled.'"

From "Will Hutchins, Gentle TV Cowboy Lawman in ‘Sugarfoot,’ Dies at 94/He starred in one of the westerns that dominated TV in the late 1950s. After losing traction in Hollywood, he became a traveling clown" (NYT).

Here's a snippet that shows the beginning of the second episode, "Reluctant Hero." I like how our law student character is reading what looks like a casebook as he rides his horse into town:

Watch the whole first episode — the pilot — here. Look for Dennis Hopper as Billy the Kid and Slim Pickens as Shorty.

And here's a clip from an episode of "Bronco" where Will Hutchins — as the Sugarfoot character — has a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt!

"I can tell you... '16 was providential. That was the hand of God.... The pandemic and the stealing of the 2020 election was also the hand of God."

"At the time, it didn't seem that [way] but if we had gone right into a second term, it would have been like trench warfare. It would have been like the Western Front in World War I, just two sides dug in, and they kind of had Trump surrounded. God's hand worked that we would step back.… We had the time to regroup. Trump had the time to think.... You had those four years of preparation."

Said Steve Bannon.

That made me think about something Ross Douthat said in that podcast blogged 2 posts down: 

"Neighbors soon grew frustrated with the constant hubbub at the house. They saw people coming and going carrying gun holsters..."

"... as the security team ballooned along with Mr. Musk’s safety concerns. Though Texas has permissive gun laws, the activity stood out. 'I call that place Fort Knox,' said Mr. Hemmer, a retired real estate agent who lives across the street and is president of the neighborhood homeowners association.... Mr. Hemmer, who has long owned a Tesla, grew so frustrated with his neighbor that he began flying a drone over the house to check for city violations, and he keeps a video camera trained on the property around the clock. Last year, he complained to West Lake Hills officials about Mr. Musk’s fence, the traffic and how he thought the owner was operating a security business from the property. Mr. Musk’s security team also contacted the West Lake Hills Police Department about Mr. Hemmer, according to city records. One security official accused Mr. Hemmer last year of standing naked in the street, according to the records. Mr. Hemmer denied that he was naked and said he was on his property wearing black underwear. On another night, he said, he was walking his dog fully clothed and stopped when he suddenly needed to urinate — which Mr. Musk’s camera captured. 'The cameras got me,' Mr. Hemmer said. 'It’s scary they have guys sitting and watching me pee.'"

I'm reading "Won’t You Be My Neighbor? No Thanks, Elon Musk. Residents of an upscale enclave outside Austin, Texas, learned the hard way what it’s like when a multibillionaire moves into the mansion next door. Some of them have started a ruckus over it" (NYT).

Some screwy details in that story — Texans bothered by holstered guns, flying a spy drone into your neighbor's airspace then complaining that he's got cameras aimed out at the street where you took the liberty to pee, that whole nakedness-or-black-underwear conundrum....

In any case, doesn't Elon have his own city now? I'm reading "Voters Approve Incorporation of SpaceX Hub as Starbase, Texas/A South Texas community, mostly made up of SpaceX employees, voted 212 to 6 in favor of establishing a new city called Starbase" (NYT).

"The TV show 'Girls' is a right-wing show.... [That's] some labeling we’re grafting onto this thing after the fact."

"But what these pieces of work are doing is telling the truth about the world in a way that is not compromised by artistic or ideological preferences.... about [what]... society wishes were true about these people. So my thing is that if you are telling the truth about the world, then you are going to make right wing art..."

I'm listening to Jonathan Keeperman on Ross Douthat's podcast in an episode called "The New Culture of the Right: Vital, Masculine and Offensive":

 

The quote above is Keeperman's. Douthat responds: "Then you’re saying all great art is somehow right wing." He thinks there can be some great art that is "left coded," but he agrees about "Girls," because "it’s a scabrous satire of a particular kind of upper middle class lifestyle in a liberal city."

Keeperman denies that he's saying "if I like it, therefore it’s right wing art, or if it tells the truth [it's right wing art]." Click on the embedded video if you want to hear Keeperman clarify or hear Douthat wedge in the concept of "vitalism" ("a celebration of individuality, strength, excellence, and an anxiety about equality and democracy as... enemies of human greatness").

That reminds me of the time — back in 2005 — I incurred the wrath of lefties by saying "To be a great artist is inherently right wing."

But back to "Girls." Why talk about "Girls" now? The reason for me is that Lena Dunham has a new essay in The New Yorker: "Why I Broke Up with New York/Most people accept the city’s chaos as a toll for an expansive life. It took me several decades to realize that I could go my own way."

"The tariffs have made it impossible for Mr. Liu to continue selling on Amazon, where he previously made about $1 on every garment but now just 50 cents."

"And he felt he could not cut his employees’ pay, Mr. Liu said, as workers at a labor market crowded past his motorbike, which he had parked on the sidewalk with a dress sample draped over the handlebars. 'You can’t sell anything to the United States right now,' Mr. Liu said. 'The tariffs are too high.'"

From "China’s Garment Factories Face a Tipping Point After New Tariffs/As a U.S. tax loophole ends, the apparel makers that sell to America are forced to consider alternative markets or cheaper locations in and outside China" (NYT).

Sunday in the Arb.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

Trump on "Meet the Press."

Watch the whole thing. I did.

I thought it was good, balanced sparring and that he said nothing that surprised or shocked me. How about you?

ADDED: Kristen Welker likes to needle Trump with questions in the form of "What do you say to people who say....?"

"It’s a chatbot that encourages people to tap, tap, tap on hand-held small screens as they watch films on a big one."

"Users gain access to exclusive trivia and witticisms in real time (synced with what’s happening in the movie). Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has positioned Movie Mate as a way 'to get audiences back in theaters.' Nearly 20 percent of moviegoers ages 6 to 17 already send text messages during movies even though it’s against the rules.... Why not try to channel that instinct, Blumhouse argues, toward what is happening on the theater screen?"

I'm reading "Chatting in Movie Theaters Is a No-No. But What About Chatbots? Blumhouse, the horror movie studio, has teamed up with Meta on a chatbot that encourages people to use their phones while watching a movie" (NYT).

In the last moments of the film "Sunset Boulevard," the delusional actress says, "There's nothing else — just us — and the cameras — and those wonderful people out there in the dark." But the phones have taken away the dark. The "wonderful people" are interposing lighted screens between each others' eyes and that screen that used to control the flow of light.

The delusion is over.

"The client, a townhouse owner in Williamsburg, had a vision of a rooftop greenhouse for morning yoga and coffee."

"Dankman had been hired on in January and the initial estimate for the project was around $55,000 — $40,000 for materials alone. But by the time he started placing aluminum orders in April, Trump had kicked off his chaotic tariff spree, and the cost of materials jumped to almost $50,000. This is a tricky thing to have to tell someone, even if that someone has the sort of funds to build a yoga gazebo on their roof. 'Some of our clients are understanding the situation; some of them are just expecting us to eat the cost,' says Dankman...."

I'm reading "How to Tell a Client Their Yoga Gazebo Just Got $10,000 More Expensive/Navigating the tariffs on high-end renovation projects" (NY Magazine).

A rooftop greenhouse for morning yoga and coffee.... yes, this is exactly the point at which I'm going to start caring about the tariffs.

I almost started caring a few days ago when I heard a story about a young woman who ordered 4 dresses because they only cost $8 each and might later cost $12 each. 

Are these tariff empathy stories trying to get us not to care?

"The usual justification for rehashing Diana’s story is that she — a barely educated aristocrat who married a future king — is just like us..."

"... whoever we might be: feminists, gay people, Jews, Asians, Americans. White is very aware of this and rounds up some of the dafter examples of such deluded narcissism. The journalist Julie Burchill once claimed that Diana ticked off all the classic traits of a Jewish woman: 'Profoundly maternal, disliking horses, strong-nosed, comely, needing too much and giving too much.'"

From "Britain was obsessed with Princess Diana — not any longer/The barely educated aristo was a blank screen on to which we projected our dreams and delusions. Edward White’s biography delves into this strange 'Dianaworld'" (London Times).

Meanwhile, also in the London Times: "Prince Harry: I want reconciliation but the King won’t speak to me/The Duke of Sussex, who opened up in an interview with the BBC, earlier lost his appeal for the right to taxpayer-funded police security" (“So, you know, I miss the UK. I miss parts of the UK. Of course I do. And I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show, you know, my children my homeland.... Of course, some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book...')."

"I got off at the city center and walked to Helsinki’s main library, which looks like a ship made of carrot cake. It is called Oodi...."

"On the ground floor of the library was a cinema, a cafeteria serving beet lasagna and carrot soup and 22 children playing games of chess.... [T]he second floor... featured a 3-D printing station, a laser cutter, a large-format printer, an engraving machine, conference rooms... rocking chairs... electric and acoustic guitars — nice ones — to borrow, as well as a drum kit and multiple zithers. A podcast studio, an electronic-music studio, classrooms.... In the course of a text conversation with a friend... I rambled about my sorrow at watching the Finnish children rove and play, and told her about how mothers of all ages gathered spontaneously in the library to chat or rest or idly massage their feet. I explained that one of these mothers had placed her baby, a child of no more than 9 months, in a highchair at a library cafe table and handed him a vegetable purée to consider, then left for 20 minutes to fetch books. When she came back we exchanged smiles.... We talked about children and libraries and the relative safety of our nations. 'Every few years there’s a crisis where a baby is stolen but then it is returned or found 15 minutes later,' she said...."

From "My Miserable Week in the 'Happiest Country on Earth'/For eight years running, Finland has topped the World Happiness Report — but what exactly does it measure?" (NYT).

Here, I found this:

That video says a lot about why Finns may be the happiest people in the world. That man is warmly pleased with small things. The chess boards are credited with "keeping people smart and educated," the ceiling calls to mind the ceiling in a particular Rolls Royce you might remember.

"'What Not to Wear' ended in 2013, but the co-hosts teamed up again for 'Wear Whatever the F You Want'...."

"Instead of rules, it focuses on channeling inner fashion desires. 'I may not think this is the best we could have done, but have I made you the happiest? Because that’s the goal, and that’s the shift between where we were and where we are now as a society,' Ms. London said...."

I'm reading "How Stacy London Spends Her Sundays/Ms. London, the former co-host of 'What Not to Wear,' goes shopping, of course. But she also has a latte with friends and spends time with her dog, Dora" (NYT).

Ha ha. "What Not to Wear" became what not to air so they changed their attitude from telling young women they were doing it all wrong and needed to listen to instruction to telling them they were inherently right and to go ahead and do anything they want.

But this article is just about what Stacy London does on a Sunday... and it's very much like what everyone else in this NYT series does on a Sunday.

From the Althouse archives: "I don't want anybody telling me what to do, so why would it entertain me to see some purported experts telling somebody else what to do?"

"Six hundred and forty-two people are watching when Emily tugs off her sleep mask to begin day No. 1,137 of broadcasting every hour of her life."

"They watch as she draws on eyeliner and opens an energy drink for breakfast. They watch as she slumps behind a desk littered with rainbow confetti, balancing her phone on the jumbo bottle of Advil she uses for persistent migraines. They watch as she shuffles into the bathroom, the only corner of her apartment not on camera.... When Emily started streaming in 2016, her world felt impossibly small. She worked night shifts as a cashier on Long Island and spent her off hours at her boyfriend’s place, watching him play video games. At 19, she chose to save money by staying close to home and enrolling at the local community college, watching as all her friends moved away. One afternoon, her boyfriend told her to try Twitch, saying, as she recalled: 'Your life sucks, you work at CVS, you have no friends. … This could be helpful.'..."

From "Inside the life of a 24/7 streamer: ‘What more do you want?’ A lonely young woman in Texas has streamed every second of her life for three years and counting. Is this life, or a performance of one?" (WaPo)(free-access link, because there's a lot of material here, and I couldn't begin to quote everything interesting/horrible).

If it all feels very deja-vu, perhaps you are remembering JenniCam, which went on for 7 years and went off 22 years ago. Jenni — Jennifer Ringley — got on the David Letterman show: "He predicted that Ringley’s style of entertainment would 'replace television, because this is really all people want.... They’re lonely, desperate, miserable human beings... they want to see life somewhere else taking place.'"

"This order would reduce the number of interracial couples in TV commercials"/"Oh, it's just too many, right?"

"You see them in the kitchen together making meals from HelloFresh. He's wearing loafers, she's got tight braids. You're like: Where'd they meet, you know, what do they even talk about? It's insane."

Most of what is in that sketch has Trump signing orders with respect to things Trump has actually made an issue of his own, but I don't think he's ever seemed antagonistic toward interracial couples. I wonder how that made it into the sketch. And the line "He's wearing loafers, she's got tight braids" prompts us to picture the man as white and the woman is black, but the humor I've been hearing about these ads is that the man is always black and the woman is white. Anyway, the issue of interracial couples in TV commercials is a general topic for comedians these days. It's not connected to Trump, so it's rather scurrilous to throw this subject into the mix.