I’ve been in a pissy mood and feeling sort of out of sorts and tired all day and not in the mood to do much of anything. I get like that from time to time, as you know, and it makes me wonder. Sometimes I wonder if I have a shitty immune system and get minor colds a lot. But then I remember that when it comes to wounds and bones, I heal like Wolverine. Or maybe, despite the size of it, I am more in touch with how my body feels than most people. Or maybe I am just a privileged lazy twat with enough time on his hands to notice the slightest change in something hurting that other people are too busy moving to notice.
Maybe it is all of the above. One suspicion is that for whatever reason, just the way I was born, is that I notice changes in weather fronts and changes in barometric pressure. I swear when it is overcast after a couple days nice weather, my vision gets a little less acute and my head just feels swollen. Whatever. Still can not believe people log in every day to read this insane bullshit.
If we talk about nothing else today, I need to know that you have left this here blog with the following knowledge:
Alan Dershowitz has fought many battles over the course of his legal career. He has fought on behalf of O.J. Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein, and Donald Trump. Now he will fight for himself—against a pierogi seller at a Martha’s Vineyard farmers market who was mean to him.
During Wednesday’s episode of the Dershow podcast (that’s what it’s actually called), the constitutional attorney announced his intent to sue a pierogi vendor at the West Tisbury Farmers Market in Massachusetts after the man refused to fork over the dumplings.
“I don’t approve of your politics, I don’t approve of who you’ve represented, I don’t approve of who you support,” Dershowitz recalled the man saying.
Dershowitz recounted that he’d earned strange looks from the same man when he’d visited the stall the week before wearing a T-shirt identifying him as a “Proud Zionist.”
“The clear implication was that he opposed me because I defended Donald Trump and because I was a Zionist,” Dershowitz claimed.
I remember when I was a kid and we would go on vacation to Maine (I will circle this back to Dershowitz, people- trust the process), and we had this absolute unit of a station wagon- a 1983 Caprice Classic Wagon with the diesel engine that led to lemon laws, I believe. Our engine never broke down, but we only had it three years before it got stolen in Philadelphia. I suppose I have another story to unpack.
Many years ago, in 1986, we were headed on a two week vacation to I believe Bethany or Rehobeth beaches in Delaware, but first we were going to stop for the night to stay with our family friend (whom we had met when she lived in Bethany), Dr. Zoila Airall (who now is a nationally renowned academic at Duke), at her place in Philadelphia. Long story short, we unloaded the car, stayed with her, went to load the wagon the next day, and it was gone. It had been stolen but the BMW in front of us and the Mercedes behind were still there. The cops were useless, we then packed six people and a station wagon’s worth of luggage and bullshit into a rented Ford Taurus for the worst fucking car ride to the beach ever.
Again, I have no idea why my parents are surprised none their kids had children. Once was enough, thank you. But it was lovely. Once.
At any rate the vacation was great other than the drive and we did eventually get the station wagon back. A couple weeks after vacation the Philly Police called and they found the car by a wharf with a bunch of others that had been abandoned. The tires, stereo system, and engine were all missing and the car was completely flooded so my dad and his buddy Sam loaded up his farm truck with tires and they drove to philly and got an engine and put it in somehow and drove it home, except now it was a gasoline engine, I believe it was a v8 from a firebird or trans am that was junked, I don’t remember.
Prior to all of this, though, it was a beauty of a vehicle, and I sat in the back with our luggage facing backwards where I could be less of an asshole to the other kids and where if my dad swerved quickly he could get all the luggage to topple and temporarily crush and slow me down. At any rate, I remember at one point in the drive one or several of the kids had their feet hanging out the window or visible in the window, and my mother was absolutely mortified and told us to put our feet back down, that “We have West Virginia license plates and everyone. And in that community, no one is hated more than the person who makes us look bad to the outside.
All of which is a long way of saying that I bet a lot of people in the Jewish-American community, every time he opens his fucking mouth, just sigh and wish Alan Dershowitz would just shut the fuck up and go away forever.
Cheeto Benito has announced a new massive ballroom for the White House:
For 150 years, Presidents, Administrations, and White House Staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed. President Donald J. Trump has expressed his commitment to solving this problem on behalf of future Administrations and the American people.
The White House is one of the most beautiful and historic buildings in the world, yet the White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders and other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away from the main building entrance. The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.
Look- there are so many fucking awful things where people are dying and being hurt because of this fucking guy, but shit like this is adding insult to injury. This motherfucker has no sense of taste or design and certainly not enough appreciation of the arts and music to hire people to pay attention to details that actual matter. So it will probably have no flow or depth to the design, and you know the fucking acoustics will be fucking horrible and make the magnificent “President’s Own” Marine Corp band sound like a bunch of fucking meth heads playing kazoo and banging on ammo crates inside a fucking shipping container.
And it will be fucking permanent- it will fucking be there forever, the entire gaudy mess, unfixable and unmanageable design flaws and all, into perpetuity under the protection of the most powerful nation to ever exist. Meanwhile, every fucking small town (especially in the rust belt) has a dying and decrepit theater or music hall with beautiful acoustics that absolutely should be preserved for future generations. Like the old Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh. Fucking hell. I’m so lucky I got to experience that.
Last episode of Whitechapel tonight. Curious what I will watch next.
zhena gogolia
Just wanted to see that deathless piece of prose again.
I’m binging Girls. Really enjoying it. Never thought I would.
zhena gogolia
And yes, these desecrations of the White House are eating away at me more than anything else. I know it’s illogical.
Baud
zhena gogolia
But my husband has to see the brewery episode of Morse for the 1000th time. It does hold up, I have to admit.
ETA: “Sins of the Fathers,” for those keeping score at home.
Ryan
On cold fronts, hey, you do you.
On the Dersh, I mean isn’t this logical extension of Masterpiece? Some pierogi vendor saying, “you do not need 6 pierogi, you are overweight enough?”
And for the WH, I don’t think likening this to who know who’s obsession with the Volkshalle is overkill.
New Deal democrat
zhena gogolia
@New Deal democrat: I hope I live to see that.
John Cole
@zhena gogolia: I hope you do too, nana.
They Call Me Noni
@zhena gogolia: I echo that sentiment.
OlFroth
The Syria Mosque was an amazing venue. And to think it was torn down so UPMC doctors could have a parking lot (never mind that the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall parking garage was right across the damn street!
Bupalos
How has there been no thread on the MLB micro-gambling scandal??? It’s basically the most emblematically USA-is-rotting thing that’s happened this year. No one is touching it
I guess this is more appropriate over at Lawyers Guns and Nihilism, but I’m genuinely flummoxed that it’s just not getting addressed anywhere, at all.
Suzanne
If it makes you feel better, it is almost certainly going to be a design competition, and firms will have to be invited to participate. To be invited, they’ll have to be prequalified, so I’m sure they’ll be capable. So I’m not concerned about the technical quality of the building. The architecture is another matter.
If I had to guess, it’ll go to Robert A. M. Stern, who does lots of fake history crap.
ETA: And the GSA is, I think, the project manager for all White House work.
mrmoshpotato
This entitled bitchass defender of a murderer and two child rapists.
MattF
New WH ballroom will be 90,000 square feet. The area of a football field is 57,600 square feet.
Scout211
That happens to me, too. My family calls me a human barometer.
Gin & Tonic
@mrmoshpotato: He also defended Claus von Bulow on appeal, and won (it was a big case in RI.) von Bulow was a completely unsympathetic character and quite obviously guilty of attempting to murder his wife with an insulin injection, yet Dershowitz somehow got him off.
ruckus
People with money or access to money have always had an upper hand, since the concept of money began. Very often money will buy anything. Even items not sold in stores. People like money and they really seem to like more of it, more so even an excess of it. I don’t suspect this will ever change. Money has become too big a part of humanity. At least for most of it.
mrmoshpotato
Again – why wasn’t Fred impotent?
Harrison Wesley
A friend texted me that since pandemic protection was dropped in 2023, Florida has dropped 1.4 million people from Medicaid – a reduction of 27 percent. I’m sure this will cause no lasting damage.
Suzanne
Dug into this a bit more. According to FTFNYT, architect and contractor are already selected.
I’ve worked with Clark, they’re a major GC, and they’ll be fine. McCrery does fake history crap. LOL.
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic:
I take it he’s a rich, attempted murderer.
mrmoshpotato
@Suzanne: I’d ask if either were owned by John Wayne Gacy if that fucker was still alive.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne:
But how much fake gold do they use?
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: According to my extensive research (30 seconds with Google) the White House is 55,000 square feet. Are there any renderings to show where and how, exactly, they add a 2-acre room to that?
NotMax
Y’all notice who’s been silent as a tomb throughout all the chaos? White House chief of staff Susan Wiles.
One must presume by now there’s a forehead-shaped dent on her desktop.
Jackie
@Suzanne: The link shows the gaudy gold projected monstrosity design. It’s absolutely hideous and looks very unAmerican.
Melancholy Jaques
@Bupalos:
On baseball websites, it has been discussed fully with a consensus of “well, what did you expect?”
For the most part, I think people a) don’t care about baseball that much (the opposite of me) and b) will wait for a final report.
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: I was just last night wondering how Ms Wiles was handling all this.
Suzanne
@mrmoshpotato: I loathe Fake History Crap architecture. It always looks like a theme park.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Guessing they’ll demand payment up front
.;)
MagdaInBlack
@Jackie: Wow.
Gin & Tonic
@mrmoshpotato: Claus von Bulow was a rich attempted murderer (he is feeding the worms now.) But his wife was richer, hence supplying motive. The case was the talk of Rhode Island for years. He was actually convicted twice, for two instances of attempted murder, and those convictions were later overturned, whereupon he moved to London and lived out the rest of his life quietly. His wife remained in a “persistent vegetative state” for quite a few years until she also died.
There was a movie made about the case, which, if I recall correctly, more or less perfectly cast Jeremy Irons as von Bulow.
Sister Golden Bear
@Jackie: Very Ceaușescu “Palace of the Parliament.”
Steve LaBonne
@OlFroth: I try to think about the kind of shape Cleveland would be in today if the magnificent Playhouse Square theaters had been torn down for a parking lot (as nearly happened) and the thought gives me an instant headache.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: And Ron Silver hagiographying Dershowitz.
Irons does give a superb performance. There’s a priceless scene in a Chinese restaurant.
Suzanne
@Jackie: So it’s likely to look less gaudy once built. All these renders show the interior materials as white, which is a common technique we use when we haven’t made all the material selections. The gold accents they’re showing are chandeliers — and I believe the ones in the East Room currently are brass, so that makes sense — and the chairs. By the time they fit out the whole thing, I bet it will be marginally less flashy. If that helps.
And it looks like a whole new wing, not just a ballroom. I would imagine there’s a bunch of additional conference rooms and support spaces and stuff. 90,000 square feet is a lot.
Spanky
This might need to be a permanent, non-rotating tag.
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: Less gaudy? It’s trump we’re talking about here, ya know.
Jackie
@MagdaInBlack: Exactly. Look at what he’s done to the Oval Office :-(
Steve LaBonne
@Jackie: My eyes- the goggles do nothing!
Chetan Murthy
Isn’t the Yiddish “a shonda fur de goyim” designed to describe the Dersh?
Suzanne
@MagdaInBlack: The gold stuff stands out in the renders against the whitey-white walls and ceiling and tablecloths and stuff. They even show the trees and the grass as white.
We lie in renderings all the time, LOL. Everything looks shinier and more sparkly than it does in real life.
RevRick
A pissy mood, John? Moods are sentiments that settle in, have no evident connection with what’s actually going on, and just color everything you see. There is usually a triggering event, but the psychological reaction goes way beyond it.
One thing about moods is that they make it hard for us to step out of ourselves and interrogate the mood. A pissy mood often indicates that you are angry about something, but feel helpless to address it. Can you name the things that make you feel helpless?
For most guys, answering that question is like being asked to swallow broken glass. Helpless is the last thing we ever admit to. And because that’s the case, we often redouble our anger, turning the inner turmoil outward.
I hope you find a way out.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: Reversal of Fortune, IIRC.
Jackie
@Suzanne: Are there photos of MAL’s ballroom? As FFOTUS is determined to replicate the WH to MAL’s image, that’s what we can expect to see. It’s gonna be GOLD and GAUDY. That, we can count on.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: How many statues to himself or Putin are in the design?
Suzanne
@Jackie: Honestly, I’m more disappointed by the exterior renders. These look deeply uninspired.
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic: Reversal of Fortune from 1990 apparently.
ThresherK
“Our (Olds diesel) engine never broke down, but we only had it three years before it got stolen in Philadelphia.”
And after it was stolen the thieves took the effort to steal the engine out of it? Ha!
—
I know a woman who was riding gunshot; she was fairly short and had her bare feet on the dash up against the windshield on a balmy night. Something minor happened–the auto was stopped in a parking lot–and she popped the windshield out. That must have been a fascinating insurance claim.
mrmoshpotato
Cry harder, New York Post!
mrmoshpotato
@ThresherK: Riding shotgun? 😁
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: I replied to your request yesterday, although I was probably not all that helpful.
Jacel
@New Deal democrat: Trump certainly blew away the present East Wing and rose garden on that side of the White House. I was wondering what the gaudy ballroom was taking the place of, and the East Wing had previously been used for the First Lady’s office and as an entry for White House tours. I suppose this construction has the benefit for Trump of keeping unwashed members of the public out of his place.
Ohio Mom
@Chetan Murthy: Yes. But there are lots of others on that list, starting with Stephen Miller. Though maybe he deserves his own list.
Jared Kushner, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, the Commentary crowd, I could go on and on.
This could be an activity for a long car ride, brainstorming who should be on the list.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne: The focus of the historic structure is the residence with the wings low lying, this monstrosity will throw that balance off. Looks gawd awful.
Lyrebird
@mrmoshpotato:
I try to give a lot of credit to defense attorneys and public defenders. Love to read PopeHat, and know that I could never do his (previous? IDK) job.
But it is so true and then some, what John Cole said here:
kalakal
@Suzanne:
I work in a Robert Stern building. It’s a trumph of form over function.*
*And it leaks
kindness
Trump’s new ballroom doesn’t have to be permanent per say. We can learn a lesson from him and the next Democratic president can just have it demolished. Who is going to care they will whine like spoiled children. That’s all they do when a Democrat is in power anyhow.
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: Maybe it’s better that the new wing doesn’t call attention to itself.
I’m going to have to look at Google Maps to see if there is even space on the grounds for that monstrosity, or are they going to have to tear some other buildings down.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Ohio Mom:
Gin & Tonic
@Ohio Mom: 90k sf is just a hair over two acres. That’s big.
Suzanne
@Ohio Mom: So it’s not clear from the drawings I looked at what exactly is happening on the site. Like, I cannot tell if it is fully or partially replacing the East Wing, or adding onto it. Also, it is unclear where in the project they actually are. What I read it that “the project starts in September”, but I don’t know if that means design or preconstruction activities. These renders look like very early concepts, so if they’re further along than that, I would think they would share more.
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: Well, for me some of it is the (intended) permanence John mentions.
Kristine
@zhena gogolia:
Wasn’t that the best? I also loved
Don’t ever change, Cole.
Unless your continued well-being depends on you doing so, of course, but I hope it never comes to that.
Suzanne
@kalakal: Robert A. M. Stern sux. One of my former colleagues worked for him for a while, so I don’t say that amongst other designers. But most of us know it. His buildings look like cartoons.
Kristine
@zhena gogolia:
So much peel-n-stick gold…
prostratedragon
@MattF: I’m trying to make that jibe with a stated seating capacity of 650.
Suzanne
@prostratedragon: I am guessing (because there drawings and the press release are not very informative) that it will end up replacing much or all of the existing East Wing, and that 90,000 SF includes the ballroom as well as space for all those other functions.
A significant amount of it will be bathrooms, LOL.
laura
Since this is an open thread- Dersh; in my opinion; deserves mockery, derision and where possible, a public shunning that leaves a burn.
I to and froed from Sacramento to San Francisco by train yesterday and saw tsunami waves with almost no interval between waves- very low, but with no visible waves back out all along San Pablo Bay. On today’s return, a ghost town on the bay. I counted five ships. The port of Oakland was empty and idle. Two ships in the port. Zero trucks leaving with containers. A veritable neutron bomb of economic activity. And so very few tractor trailers on the highway. Both of these experiences were unsettling. The tsunami will likely be the least impactful.
prostratedragon
@Jackie:
The only recent ones I’ve seen have the decor obscured by boxes of secret government documents.
prostratedragon
@Suzanne: Christ!
Geminid
@MagdaInBlack:
@NotMax: We don’t hear much about Susan Wiles and I expect Wiles likes it that way. I think that’s one reason she has lasted over four years as Trump’s consiglieri.
From what I’ve seen, Wiles is the second-most powerful player in this administration after her boss; also, the most underestimated.
Jackie
@Kristine:
So perfect. And so sad for what used to be The People’s House.
NotMax
@Suzanne
With pay toilets.
“We take crypto coins.”
Hoodie
@ThresherK: IiRC, those GM diesels from that period were crap. I think they were built from 350 cubic inch blocks and just couldn’t take the vibration and torque of a diesel. I once rode in the back of a GMC pickup with one of those engines from Monteagle TN to Suffern NY. A fairly miserable experience but for the scenery going up I-81. Diesel exhaust and mind numbing vibration the whole way. Kind of shit you do when you’re young and indestructible.
Anne Laurie
Pressure changes, in advance of a weather front, cause the fluid in your sinuses (& for many people, joints) to expand, the same way mechanical barometers measure those changes.
Since you’ve told us more than once about your giant head & vast sinus capacity, Cole, not a surprise that you feel these changes more acutely than most.
Weather changes also play hell with people who suffer from migraines. Back in the day, I pointed this out to one of my bosses, who bought a high-grade barometer so she’d know when to carry her injectable medication with her.
Jackie
@prostratedragon: LOL! I thought about that as I asked the question!
kalakal
@Suzanne: I agree. The place actually looks quite good but only from selected viewpoints, shuffle a few feet sideways and it’s a boxy lump. On a practical level where I work is pretty awful. It is expensive to maintain, eats power to keep it cool ( and doesn’t do a great job of it), has utterly awful acoustics for a library, wastes huge amounts of space internally, and is a mould magnet. As an example the very first thing we had to when it opened was install a whole new lighting system, depite having acres of glass it was so gloomy, and the designed lighting so inadequate, people couldn’t actually identify books on the shelves.
Mart
Before 8th grade pretty sure I saw BB King and Marcel Marceau at the Syria Mosque. To be honest, the acoustics for Marcel Marceau were terrible, I couldn’t hear a thing. (Only olds would find funny.)
Jackie
@Suzanne:
Full of boxes?
I had to ask LOL
eclare
Is the current South Lawn tent location really a football field away from where people enter the event?
Ramona
@Gin & Tonic: Oh! I did not know that Von Bulow had indeed been convicted and Dershowitz got him off on appeal! I also don’t know if he was charged while his wife was in a coma or after her death. I vaguely remember some things from the Jeremy Irons movie. Wasn’t it the wife with the money?
Hoodie
@Suzanne: I wouldn’t be surprised if this is never built. Same thing for the refit of the Qatari 747. Trump will get a bunch of donations for it and somehow they’ll find their way to his pocket.
Ramona
@zhena gogolia: What’s the Chinese restaurant scene? Do you remember the name of the movie about Claus von Bulow? I agree that Irons was perfectly cast in it.
kalakal
@Ramona: Reversal of Fortune
mrmoshpotato
@Hoodie: Yes, “somehow.”
NotMax
@Mart
Extremely strange film starring Marceau, Shanks.
Mart
@NotMax: Shanks for the tip.
Ramona
@RevRick: I hope I remember this excellent counsel the next time I find myself feeling low. Helpless though I may conclude myself to be, at least I’ll be able to lift my mood.
Mr. Bemused Senior
It is to be hoped.
Ramona
@Mart: hOhio! I only got that as I scrolled away!
NotMax
@Mart
Felt compelled to at least mention it.
After all, a mime is a terrible thing to waste.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Architects who work for developers and are lying sacks of shit?
That wins this week’s Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award with the coveted 4-Claude rating:
youtube.com/watch?v=HMIyDf3gBoY
Also too, Rehobeth Beach. It was the “go-to” weekend, summer place for every DC professional in the late 80s for one massive PARTEH!!!!!!!
I watched nude slip-n’-slide…frequently…in the courtyard of many of condo back in the day when Cole was a punk kid.
SpaceUnit
Late to the thread but I remember the Syria Mosque. I saw approximately two billion shows there. Great venue.
I particularly remember seeing my first (of many) X shows in 1983. What an awesome scene. The best band on the fucking planet at the time and everyone was just milling around like it was some sort of laid back punk / post-punk high school dance and fashion show.
prostratedragon
@Ramona: Sunny vin Bulow was living but in a coma during the trial and appeal. She was heir to a large pharmaceutical fortune. On his own, he was of a “noble” family and rich but not that rich.
Redshift
@New Deal democrat:
Late to the party, but I just wanted to chime in about the Know-Nothings, who were, life the Trumpists, massively corrupt. The Washington Monument was in progress, and there was so much grifting that everything built during their tenure had to be torn down and started over.
This monstrosity will rapidly be falling down and unfixable, and there will be no choice but to tear it down.
M31
best part of the Dershowitz/pierogi dustup is that the pierogi maker uses nongendered pronouns, and that when the cops got there, they (the cops) told Dershowitz (the douchebag) to use the correct pronouns. Dersh had a shitfit, of course, and started squealing about ‘his grammarian’
bsky.app/profile/jbenmenachem.com/post/3lvbdcbkp2c2l
LOL, so yeah, ACAB, but I’m making a one-time exception for these Martha’s Vineyard ones.
NotMax
@Suzanne
You probably are already aware of it. Any thoughts on the bent buildings in Manhattan?
Gin & Tonic
@Ramona: I see your questions have been correctly answered.
mrmoshpotato
@M31: LOL! He’s even more of an assclown!
Ramona
@kalakal: Thanks!
Trollhattan
White House does not need Saddams gold-sprayed ballroom, it needs a new White House badger.
Martin
@kalakal: Got you beat – I worked in a Gehry building. My theory is an engineer dropped him on his head as a child and he refused to listen to one ever again.
Jackie
No matter what Muskrat says about financing republicans, his donations say otherwise. He’s still kissing MAGA ass.
Bupalos
Here’s Chuck Schumer reacting to vulgarian Donald Trump aggressively asserting the right to physically remake the iconic center of the heart of the U.S. government:
“Where’d this money come from? Did Congress appropriate it? I don’t think so.”
This is someone knocking your hat off and replacing it with a MAGA cap, and your response is “Oh yeah, well who’s paying for this hat?! Not me!!! I probably won’t!!! Not unless you explain why I should!!”
MinuteMan
I wonder if the pierogi lawsuit could end up doing some discovery about the counselor’s involvement with Epstein? Certainly that would be a reason to want nothing to do with him so it seems relevant.
kalakal
@NotMax: You’d like the
wobbly bridge Millenium Bridge
I remember when it opened to great fanfare and had to be closed afer 2 days and took 2 years to fix.
To be fair it does look pretty cool and did give the world ‘synchronous lateral excitation’ . I rather like though I think I’d have enjoyed it more when it was doing it’s funfair ride act
Jackie
Here’s FFOTUS’s opening excuse for another term:
Johnson and the MAGA Congress will jump all over this.
NotMax
@kalakal
Fairly certain I saw something very close to that in a stag film back in college.
:)
RaflW
“for whatever reason… I notice changes in weather fronts and changes in barometric pressure”
I joke that one of my parlor tricks is that I can detect a 2º or even 1º change in the dew point. Mostly because I abhor humidity, but also because those around me don’t want to see Sweat Monster. You won’t liiiike Sweat Monster.
prostratedragon
Heh-heh — “lots of cooking shows.” Me, too, still.
NotMax
@RaflW
My (arthritic) knee joints have a good track record of predicting major weather changes 36 hours in advance.
RaflW
@NotMax: Yeah, I have arthritis in my right big toe (result of multiple gout episodes). Sometimes I feel like a new gout attack is coming, but it’s actually a pressure change!
Jackie
I’m that way with scents. I can smell anything well before any one else – if they ever smell. Perfume. Wildfires. “Unscented” candles. Name it, I can smell it well before anyone else can. Drives my family nuts, but the slightest sense of smell often triggers allergies. Shifting winds sends pollens my way and stuffy or dripping sinuses ensue. And headaches. Allergy pills and sprays sometimes work, but usually I just have to endure until the winds shift.
Anne Laurie
After 15 frequently miserable years working in Boston’s ‘iconic’ John Hancock Tower, I often wondered how I.M. Pei went out in public without an umbrella, to ward off people spitting on him.
Apart from the front-page design flaws (so many windows popped out & threatened passers-by when it was first opened that it had to be expensively retrofitted with massive dampers, which took several floors out of circulation), it was *impossible* to heat / cool adequately. You could be freezing cold in one cubicle, and sweating profusely in a cubicle just down the corridor. And, as an early version of a ‘sealed building’, its ventilation system incubated mold & mildew varieties that, it was rumored, had inspired multiple PhDs among Boston’s fine educational institutes.
Also, it *still* swayed badly enough, when there was any wind whatsoever, that those of us with vertigo issues dreaded ascending to the higher floors. (You could actually *see* the window blinds on lower floors swaying, when that happened.) If it got particularly windy — especially in the winter — attempting to walk on the sidewalks outside was seriously dangerous. Security guards would be stationed to redirect / escort workers (& visitors) to whichever side was least likely to inspire insurance claims due to falls, sometimes on frozen slush.
(I’m told that some of these issues were the fault of the location, not Pei’s design… but he should’ve had enough sense (and clout) to tell his clients that ‘build the tallest building in Boston’ was NOT a smart choice next to Copley Square.)
Kayla Rudbek
@Steve LaBonne: there were a lot of nice old buildings torn down in Minneapolis and St Paul
Marc
@Anne Laurie: I remember those days, I worked a few blocks away and had a apt in the South End and making many detours to avoid the blocked off sidewalks. I think you ‘re slightly understating the magnitude of the window fiasco, for a while it look like nearly half the building was covered by plywood panels.
BTW, part of the problem apparently was a lack of knowledge to that point of the complex aerodynamic loads that impact such buildings. After that and other wind related issues in Kendall Sq (?) MIT started doing a lot more wind tunnel testing of architectural models, including the surrounding buildings.
Kosh III
Check out Bodies on Netflix. Intriguing sci-fi mystery about the same dead body found in 4 time periods.
Kosh III
When we lived in Nashville it was a constant that historic places got torn down.
Jim Reeves magnificent home became a Home Depot even after a court order against the home’s demolition.
Col Parker’s home became a car wash. And on and on and on.
Here in McMinnville the old downtown movie house is now a very busy venue for all sorts of music acts and more.
Another Scott
@Marc: Windows popping out are one (dangerous) thing. Slabs of marble falling off are another (very dangerous) thing.
Medium.com:
Other stories said the Standard Oil CEO demanded that the building be clad in Carrara marble when it was being designed.
CEOs shouldn’t be anywhere near building design decisions like that, but they’re rich so they get what they want… :-/
Best wishes,
Scott.
Susan Flowers
@zhena gogolia: I feel the same. So many horrors are being perpetrated that I’m ashamed that this bothers me so much, but it does. I tried to tell myself that the next President could pull all that awful gold crap off the walls, and even that the paved-over rose garden could be torn up and turned back into a beautiful garden, but this thing! And it’s so absolutely hideous. I swear, I would get behind any effort to crowdfund tearing it down and bringing back the East Room. The White House belongs to every single American, damn it. He has no right to turn it into a 19th-century bordello.
Trump is filth and therefore contaminates everything he touches. I loathe him more than I have every loathed any human being.
Joelle
I am now watching Reversal of Fortune for the first time as I am a sucker for Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons, as well as rich people trying to off one another in an attempt to get richer. It is my hope that they will eventually become extinct if I am patient and can hold out until they all off each other. Then we can take their plunder and do nice things with it instead. Like consistently class act Morgan Freeman independently building a multimillion dollar animal rescue facility.