Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

This blog will pay for itself.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Second rate reporter says what?

White supremacy is terrorism.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

You are here: Home / Popular Culture / KULCHA! / How To Not Think About Trump* For Three Minutes And Change

How To Not Think About Trump* For Three Minutes And Change

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*or Virginia, or Brexit, or all things Putin or…

Via my sister-the-music-professor’s ex, this perfectly wonderful youtube came to my attention today.  Now it comes to yours:

 

I have to confess that I’ve been overwhelmed lately — by work and the shock of the new semester, partly, and more by a sudden politics and strife overload. Everytime I’ve started to post here, I’ve found myself facing ten-digit paralysis, unable to move the fingers over the keys to report and fulminate on the overlapping, serial outrages.

Finally, I hope, my rage is once more ready to overwhelm my despair, so I plan to show up a bit more regularly, as soon as the last syllabi are complete…but in the interim glorious foolishness like the above helps me. I hope it pleases the jackalry.

This thread is, of course, open.

Reader Interactions

110Comments

  1. 1.

    Fair Economist

    Argh, another inaccurate claim that the Weimar hyperinflation led to Hitler taking power when it was actually the Depression, 10 years after the hyperinflation ended.

    Also, very cute. Goodbye and good riddance to tone rows, though.

  2. 2.

    germy

    @Fair Economist: I’ve been watching The Dictator’s Playbook series on PBS and they all seem to learn from each other.

    Fortunately for us trump is incapable of learning. Some of his people, like young Mr. Miller are different, though.

  4. 4.

    satby

    I have to confess that I’ve been overwhelmed lately… and more by a sudden politics and strife overload.

    Word
    Been stepping way back or the despair will swamp me.

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne

    Feeling after the last couple of days online. ?

    Getting ready for a visit from out of town from my brother-in-law and his boyfriend. We’re all a little nervous because we haven’t spent much one-on-one time together yet, but it will most likely be fine. I suspect that an engagement announcement is in the offing since they’re already living together, so I really want everything to go well. ?

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    Nice to see you appear–however briefly!

    Video is a hoot, including the John Cage joke. Something Steve Martin might have done.

  7. 7.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I didn’t think about Trump for a while today, mostly because my car wouldn’t start when I tried to drive to B&N to write. The valet parking guys here jumped it for me and I drove 10-12 minutes to B&N, which turned out not to be enough because when I came out, it wouldn’t start again. Mr DAW came this time and used our jumper cables so I could get home. He says the battery isn’t all that old, but I haven’t driven it for a few days and I’d left an interior light on so it was really dead. We’ll see.

  9. 9.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Fair Economist: Also the German “Moderates” deciding that the thing to do the second the Depression hit was pay down Germany’s WWI debt and the whole “Hitler, or you could become a vassal of Joseph “I have a Hammer” Stalin” thing.

  10. 10.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Mnemosyne: I hope it all goes great.

    @satby: My hairdresser rubbed essential oils on my hair yesterday which made it fragrant and shiny. I used to have oily hair but age has cured that. I wash in the shower every day. Does your product line extend to stuff like this? Does it sound plausible?

  11. 11.

    germy

    BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A self-described white nationalist who has harassed Vermont’s only female black legislator who later resigned pleaded not guilty on Thursday to two counts of possessing illegal, large capacity gun magazines.

    Max Misch, 36, was ordered not to possess, use or buy firearms and to have no contact with former Rep. Kiah Morris, her husband or Misch’s ex-wife. The judge also granted the state’s request to have the Vermont State Police confiscate Misch’s weapons and ammunition to ensure that he abides by the conditions.

    “When people talk about stockpiling weapons and ammunition, talk about white supremacy, that concerns me,” said Attorney General T.J. Donovan who attended the arraignment.

    According to an affidavit, Vermont State Police investigated after learning in January that Misch had allegedly purchased an AK-47 and several 30-round magazines. Last year, the Vermont Legislature passed a law banning high capacity magazines.

    Misch’s ex-wife told police that she had disclosed to her therapist concerns about Misch purchasing weapons, large capacity magazines and stockpiling ammunition, the police affidavit said. The therapist alerted police, according to the affidavit. Misch’s ex-wife said Misch “had a predatory nature and tries to intimidate people physically and through the internet,” the affidavit said.

    Police searched his home on Wednesday and found two 30-round magazines, police said. Donovan said he believes it’s the first time that someone has been charged with illegally possessing such magazines in Vermont.

    Misch’s lawyer declined to comment after the arraignment.

  14. 14.

    AThornton

    @Fair Economist:

    The Great Depression caused the collapse of liberal democracies across Europe, not just in Germany.

    But we never hear about them.

    (Can’t imagine why :-)

  15. 15.

    Major Major Major Major

    Should this apply to anybody here, Uncanny Magazine is taking submissions (fiction, nonfiction, poetry) for the “Disabled People Destroy Fantasy” issue:

    Disabled People Destroy Fantasy is a continuation of the Destroy series in which we, disabled members of the science fiction community, will put ourselves where we belong: at the center of the story. Often, disabled people are an afterthought, a punchline, or simply forgotten in the face of new horizons, scientific discovery, or magical invention. We intend to destroy ableism and bring forth voices, narratives, and truths most important to disabled writers, editors, and creators with this special issue.

    I am writing a story about a 12-step program for “magic-dependent” wizards.

  16. 16.

    VeniceRiley

    After 2016 I asked a friend to join me & a scrabble board in a bunker for 4 years; afterwhich we would emerge, blinking in the overbright sun.
    I still think that would have been better.

  20. 20.

    Anonymous At Work

    …but I want to think about Virginia and what will happen when *I* become next in line for the Governor’s office…

  24. 24.

    AThornton

    @Fair Economist:

    We seem to conducting a Real World/Real Time experiment to see if the old bromide “Fascism is the failure mode of liberal democracy” is accurate.

  31. 31.

    mad citizen

    @humboldtblue: I bookmarked but haven’t read this article–thanks for it–but I am continually astonished that the Catholic Church even exists after all of the horrendous scandals.

  32. 32.

    The Pale Scot

    @MagdaInBlack: You’re a honky I know, but Merle you got soul
    I ended up putting the album on, Cole has Little Feat, PPL Taking the Stage is timeless

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    Apparently, Cindy McCain isn’t adjusting well to her new life as a not-important person.

    Was there ever any thought given to appointing her to her husband’s Senate seat, having her run, etc.

    Also, I thought she would just settle back into life as a wealthy beer heiress and avoid the public sphere.

  36. 36.

    J R in WV

    OMG, that music video is frabjously wonderful. Gimme some of that old Atonal Music! Wow. And then the banjo picker dies just that.

    Wow, thanx Tom!!!

    Also, for me, more rage than despair. Just sayin’. Can at times damage my expensive crowns, when I grind my teeth in the wee hours. Also hoping for another pre-dawn arrest visit by a large squad of FBI agents, perhaps escorted by Secret Service staff.

  37. 37.

    Yutsano

    @Brachiator: I wondered that myself. She had more money than God even before McCain’s pension. She could have just shut up and retreated into the background. Except maybe she never wanted to be there to begin with. I dunno. I’m done with giving rich people the benefit of the doubt anymore.

  38. 38.

    TaMara (HFG)

    more by a sudden politics and strife overload. Everytime I’ve started to post here, I’ve found myself facing ten-digit paralysis, unable to move the fingers over the keys to report and fulminate on the overlapping, serial outrages.

    Why I’ve been posting mostly pets and fun stuff. The rest completely overwhelms me.

  44. 44.

    Raven

    It’s 74 degrees as the sun drops and the princess is going out with her pals so me and the pups are at the BBQ by the tracks.

  45. 45.

    eemom

    @mad citizen:

    I am continually astonished that the Catholic Church even exists after all of the horrendous scandals.

    It has not only existed, but thrived, for well over a thousand years in the face of a solid track record of mass murder, child abuse, torture, complicity in genocide, corruption, extortion, and demagoguery, amongst other things….so why would a few scandals stop it now?

  46. 46.

    JPL

    What’s not to love about this quote “keep your Bach and Chopin, they’re melodic and passe” Oh the Aha’s were nice also
    Thank you Tom and Tom’s sister.

  50. 50.

    Yutsano

    @JPL: Georgia sounds downright balmy. It was 7 degrees when I left for work this morning. 7 degrees FAHRENHEIT.

  51. 51.

    NotMax

    Watched a B-minus 1930s movie last night hadn’t seen previously, Sing Sing Nights, because the premise was interesting enough (keeping in mind its dependence on less than the most modern forensics),

    No question a man was shot dead in his home. But – shot three times, with the bullets coming from three different guns, Any one of the three shots would prove instantly fatal. Three people who have never met one another before being taken into custody individually voluntarily confess to shooting and killing him (and each believes he is the one whose bullet killed him) and each turns in a gun but clams up regarding any other information. Who ends up rightfully charged with murder as opposed to shooting into a corpse?

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    @Brachiator:

    They get addicted to the spotlight in the public sphere. She went to the Davos conference, for chrissakes!

    Apparently she’s a big wheel, or fancies herself such, in the anti-human trafficking movement. And she’s prepared to roll up her sleeves and do the hard work, one unhinged phone call at a time.

  55. 55.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Fair Economist:

    Goodbye and good riddance to tone rows

    I feel quite certain that I’ve shared this here, possibly more than once, but when I was a music student I took a class in 20th-century composition. One assignment was to come up with an original 12-tone row and then write a short composition which incorporated examples of retrograde motion, cancrizans, inversion, stretto, and similar rules-based serial exercises. I hated the assignment, so I decided to write a limerick and set it for SATB voices:

    This music that’s dodecaphonic
    I consider a joke quite ironic:
    How can I make incursions
    Into retro-inversions
    When I don’t even know where’s the tonic !?

  57. 57.

    jl

    @TaMara (HFG): No 4 sirens and ‘must quote BJ blog’ on that?

    OK… one think that I like about Josh Marshall is that he is an historian and he reminds me of obscure history stuff that I learned me once in school but have long since forgotten. So, J Fallwell Jr is squawking that the holy blissful Founders would have never approved of whites blackfacing it up, and that they would be horrified that DC burbs would ever spill over into the great sovereign state of By God Virginia.

    @joshtpm
    ok one more thing. The district originally literally did sprawl out into Virginia. Ever wonder why the 10 mile sq isn’t a square. Va got the feds to give that part back to VA so they could make sure it remained safe for slavery.
    https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1093529115414745088

  61. 61.

    Immanentize

    as soon as the last syllabi are complete…

    What? Only someone at an elite institution could finish their multiple syllabi a month after classes started. ?

  62. 62.

    humboldtblue

    @trollhattan:

    Even worse, because they wield far more influence and power due to money from very wealthy donors and patrons.

    @mad citizen:

    Not just survived but flourished.

    The article mirrors what the GOP under McConnell has done over the past eight years, attack the very structures of our governance for single-party gain.

  64. 64.

    evodevo

    I watched Merle quite a lot on youtube during the leadup to the Great Crash – I think my favorite was In the Hamptons lol

  68. 68.

    Raven

    This is Athens. I like this place once in a while by White Tiger is my favorite and he has BBQ and vegetarian.

  69. 69.

    K488

    Getting here late, but wanted to add that my kids (children of a post-tonal composer) have been snickering via Facebook for a few days. My sister (early music person, pre 1750) put it up for the yucks. I was less amused personally, but love that my kids are laughing.

  70. 70.

    Immanentize

    @humboldtblue: I have a huge amount of opinion about such Catholics. They are like the protagonist in Wise Blood, a Church without Christ. Always susceptible to the monies, churches will lean toward promoting the earthly rather than the Divine. I hate those mother fucker control freaks.

  73. 73.

    JPL

    @Raven: Decades ago when I lived in IL I was invited to go out for drinks with a group of women. The bar was near some tracks and a train came by. I mentioned how my two young sons would be excited about that. They didn’t invite me again. Actually I probably said a choo choo.

  74. 74.

    Chris Johnson

    Hey juicers… homeboy made the FYNYT! :D

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/opinion/what-these-grammy-songs-tell-us-about-the-loudness-wars.html?action=click&fbclid=IwAR1xkYXtYK7h0iHMG8g8qCgNm6qz60B4_2mwUWv2tEAhK1r31tDf2nn5Mj0&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

    I am (and have always been) that Chris Johnson. The article was actually based on my research :)

    And just in time for that, my web hosting attacked my site and took everything down complaining about bandwidth and CPU issues. Understandable, right? It’s a wordpress site, and it was getting more than 400 hits a day :D (weeps)

    Not that they linked to me in the article, so small blessings eh?

    DEFinitely enough to distract me from Orange Julius (I mean Caligula)

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Some excellent, if strangely-timed, news from my Congressional District (GA-7): the R incumbent, Rob Woodall, announced today he won’t seek reëlection in 2020. In the 2018 midterms, for the first time in his career, he was up against a genuine challenger (MY GAL CAROLYN BOURDEAUX REPRESENT!), who. came within a 400-vote whisker of beating and unseating him. Good riddance to him, he’s a waste of oxygen. Carolyn has already said she’ll run for the what is now an open seat. She was/is/will be a terrific candidate and I’m pretty confident we can put her decisively over the top in 2020.

  76. 76.

    B.B.A.

    @AThornton: Just once I’d like to get a liberal authoritarian dictatorship out of a failed state. Can you imagine what Nancy Pelosi would do if she commanded death squads?

    But nooooo.

  77. 77.

    jl

    @K488: The post-tonal kids need to study up on their history. Webern spent his last days composing canons that sound to most people to be very tonal (because they kind of were, but except kind of not, formally). And Berg told Stravinsky that he wished he could compose some of Stravinsky’s happy time tonal music. I think the piece in question was Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. And what parts of Purcell’s Fantasia’s are tonal versus not tonal.. interesting question.

    Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, Stravinsky
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXWlkshdCBs

  78. 78.

    Yutsano

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m back to being greedy again. I want them all. And I want us to not lose a single seat we gained from the Republicans in 2018. And I do mean all of them.

    @jl: To quote Shostakovich: “There are still so many things to say in C major..”

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @JPL

    Anyone else remember those diner-type eateries where the gimmick was that your food and beverages were delivered to the booth or table by model trains?

  80. 80.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    No question a man was shot dead in his home. But – shot three times, with the bullets coming from three different guns, Any one of the three shots would prove instantly fatal. Three people who have never met one another before being taken into custody individually voluntarily confess to shooting and killing him

    Was this a thing in mystery novels and movies for a while?

    This plot reminds me a bit of one of the Philo Vance movies I recently watched on TCM, The Kennel Murder Case. A man is shot and his corpse arranged to make things look like a suicide, but it turns out that there was an earlier attempt on his life.

  88. 88.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    If you Google “my first rifle”, you will come across a real company called Keystone Sporting Arms that makes junior-sized rifles in brightly-coloured plastic for children. A few years ago, they were obliged to take down a photo gallery full of pre-teenage children (all of them white, as I recall) firing these rifles.

  91. 91.

    mad citizen

    @eemom: True Enough. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

    In other open thread news, I slapped a Kamala Harris sticker on the back of my SUV this afternoon.

  93. 93.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Raven:

    We briefly hit 78° a couple of hours ago. It’s glorious, but it’s wicked wrong. My Inner Eeyore is worried as to what this may portend. A lot of the flowering trees and shrubberies are already getting all fluffy, weeks before they should. Beautiful. Wrong.

  97. 97.

    Aleta

    Thanks for that song!
    At the top worst times for me these two + years, it’s only music that gave a full relief to my brain. Harmonies and chords especially.

  99. 99.

    Skepticat

    I’ve finally found something that makes U.S. politics look good by comparison. The bodies and parts thereof of the shipwreck victims have begun to resurface and come ashore. Lucky for us that the currents are taking most a bit further down the island chain. I still prefer them to tRump, however.

  100. 100.

    Victor Matheson

    @Fair Economist: I have to say that as an economist and a bluegrass musician, I was extremely disappointed not to hear any economics bluegrass. I think he is dead wrong that the kids aren’t into that these days.

  103. 103.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: FYI the Vytopna Railway Restaurant on Vaclavske namesti in Praha (Wenceslas Square in Prague for the unCzeched amongst us) persists in doing precisely that. Here’s a short vid. I had pivo there once. Overpriced but fun.

  104. 104.

    Ohio Mom

    @Victor Matheson: Merle has lots of songs about economics. You can google such hits as “The Great Unwind” and “How Long (will interest rates stay low)?”

    It’s cute stuff.

  106. 106.

    K488

    @jl: The Stravinsky is a cool piece, and pure delight. Based on Weber (not Webern), if I remember right. And of course Berg’s last work, the Violin Concerto, contains lots of tonal references. Schoenberg, too, when he came to the US continued to compose works based on 12 tone rows, but also wrote the wonderful Variations for Band in a very chromatic, even Reger-esque, g minor. Lots of musical languages were at play in the 20th century, with lots of lovely music, both tonal and post-tonal emerging therefrom. Thanks for the reminder of the Capriccio.

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