Prince Charles and Camilla in mortal danger (2)

We've posted on this before. FF's position is unambiguous: a Rolls Royce is the only proper car for an evening out at the opera, in particular if it's a Phantom Mark IV from 1976. And while the Waleses are on their way, properly attired (how does one call the fact that one is properly be-car-ed?), the students---who are so blind-sighted not to understand that the tripling of tuition fees is in their own best interest since the bonuses of the Financial Sector have also tripled---the students are making threatening gestures towards the future sovereign and his consort, and we are appalled, and the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) has now identified two or more anonymous terrorists, and asks for your help, as the British Telegraph reports. If you have any clues, please contact Buckingham Palace at +44 (0)20 7766 7300

This brings to mind a report in the Dutch Telegraaf (a Dutch down-market imitation of the Telegraph) from a long time ago, I would say late 70's (this is all from memory, no internet backup) as to the adventures of the Dutch Princess Christina, who had married the Cuban Jorge Guillermo a few years earlier, and was now chauffeured by him in a Rolls Royce into downtown Salzburg, Austria, during the Salzburg Festival, in order to attend the opera, and the police stops them because downtown Salzburg is closed to cars during the festival, and we (the Telegraaf) are shocked, shocked, how a Dutch Princess could be encumbered by the police in her operatic pursuits while being chauffeured  in a Rolls Royce by her consort, and he, stopped  by the police now, is forced to explain that we are a Dutch Princess, and it's all so embarrassing, especially for the cops, to learn that they've just encumbered a princely couple in their operatic pursuits, and one officer drops dead out of pure shame, and the Princess is also embarrassed but keeps her cool and says, "let them eat cake," and the Austrian Minister of the Interior (responsible for the police) apologizes to the Dutch Crown, and the Dutch Queen gracefully acknowledges the apology.

Princess Christina

A second officer drops dead after having been force-fed some Austrian cakes that Marie-Antoinette had left behind when moving to France to wed Louis XVI (we know how that ended), but eventually everything is forgotten, until we learn 20 years later that the Princess and her consort are no longer on speaking terms, and he grabs the behinds of the catering ladies, and chides her for her awkwardness in public (she is practically blind since her mother had contracted German measles during the pregnancy), and the whole nation feels terrible about it, and they sleep in separate bedrooms, and even highbrow broadsheets like the NRC (don't ask) now allude to the suspicion that he married her for her money,* and a divorce is eventually arranged, and he gets a huge settlement, perhaps more than Guy Richie, and no reference is ever made to the Salzburg event 20 years earlier. And, oh yes, we love monarchy.

* which, as we are learning now, she is prudently keeping out of reach of the Dutch taxman in the offshore jurisdiction of Guernsey.

Communist swimwear

It was 1985, before the Berlin Wall had come down, and I was visiting at the Rockefeller College of the State University of New York at Albany. They had arranged for an apartment for me, owned by a physics professor from Union College, Schenectady, who would go to CERN for a sabbatical (yes, click it, and click here, as well). What I did in Schenectady? I learned how to pronounce "Schenectady!"

There was a TV in my apartment, and on the TV, one fine evening, a commercial appears. It's a fashion show with a female man-eater (are all man-eaters female?) who pronounces the words "day wear" with a heavy Russian accent, while a mousy model comes on stage in a shapeless gray garment, and disappears again. The light dims, the man-eater flashes a torch-light, pronounces "night wear," and the mousy model re-appears in the very same outfit. The light comes up again, the man eater pronounces "swim wear," and the mousy model makes her last appearance, this time with a swim belt wrapped around her hopeless dress. CUT. A male person, with an unaccented voice, proclaims:"Wendy is better; Wendy offers choice."

Two days later, Wendy, a fast food chain, pulled the commercial, "because it had raised controversy." I never understood. I thought it was very funny, and very true. Especially the accent was very funny, Zwim-Weaarh,  Zwim-Weaarh. By the way, I forgot to tell, with each appearance of the model, the Stalinist man eater (obviously a member of the Tea Party) would raise her hands and clap enthusiastically while gazing triumphantly at the audience, that would then chime in, reluctantly.

But now I do understand why Wendy pulled the commercial. Because, you know, the swim wear under communism was much better that I (we?) thought---as the newly discovered picture from the former, communist Eastern Germany, published in Der Spiegel, exemplifies.

-"If only the Tea Party would know, it would change their outlook completely."

-"It could mean the end of the culture wars."

-"Communism is OK, really."

-"Moderates, independents, centrists, whoever is out there, draw your Tea Party friends to this post and see the world change."

President Obama in the Oval Office

-"Do you like my new curtains?"

And when the markets get into a funk, they'll buy your paper, even though it's junk

Sex on the beach

Well, not quite, but you can call it formal foreplay (perhaps better: formalized foreplay?)



There they come.



When we showed these pictures to Lesley (yes, it's on the beach of Hilton Head), she shared some thoughts with us, and we, bitchy gay Europeans, couldn't agree more.



Will she say yes?



Will he say yes?



We'll never know.

Hyatt Harborside Boston

We arrive at the Hyatt Harborside next to Boston's Logan airport at 3:30 in the morning (our time). With a valet parking price tag of US$ 36,00, this must be a good hotel. We are tired and plan on a quiet room service evening, but Chang reads the fine print of the room-side menu: "All Room Service orders are subject to State and Local taxes, a Delivery Charge of $3.00, a service charge of 15% and an administration fee of 3%. Only the service charge is given to service personnel."

View of downtown Boston from the Hyatt

Why is the "Delivery Charge" in large caps but the "service charge" in small caps? We are getting suspicious of the Room Service, and descend to the Hyatt Harbor-Side Grill, where the outside patio with a view of downtown Boston across the harbor is closed because of smog ("Air Quality Alert"). Only minor confusion arises as we enter the grill --- stop, we do not enter the grill where we would burn on freshly ground charcoal, we enter the Grill --- enter the Grill at the wrong entrance, and only one waiter is irritated.

Chang reads the menu backwards but cannot find a dish below $36.00. I read the winelist backwards and cannot find a bottle of wine below $36.00. Thirty-Six Dollars is the lower bound of the financial algebra of this hotel. They must have hired a marketing psychologist from HBS across the Charles River to figure this out. "Why not $40.00," a pugnacious junior executive must have asked pointlessly during interminable Power Point Presentations. Was she fired?

Chang declares his lack of hunger. I declare a certain lack of alcoholism, and settle for one glass of Mondavi Chardonnay, an utterly pointless white wine served in an utterly smallish carafe.

Washed-up scriptwriter (reposted)

While we were strolling on the Croisette in Cannes the other day, a man approached us right in front of Hotel Martinez, a huge stack of manuscripts in his hands.

"Allow me to introduce myself", he said. "I am a washed-up scriptwriter, and I have been following your blog for quite some time. I am writing political satires framed as action comedies---think Lethal Weapon meets Dr. Strangelove---but I cannot find an agent, let alone a studio that would produce my work. I am at the end of the rope, I cannot carry on. I need your help."  

The washed-up scripwriter, after he handed his stack to us

Then he handed me his stack of manuscripts and continued:
"Here is my work; do what you need to do to get it into the Krug-lights."
"Get it into the Kruglights"---I was weighing his words---"perhaps you would have more success if you were to use better metaphors."
"It's too late now." he replied. "Promise you'll do what's necessary."  With those words he turned around (pictured), ran up to the jetty of the Martinez hotel (pictured), and jumped into the water (not pictured).

"Cool", I thought. Well, there we are. I sort of promised, and a blogger has to do what a blogger has to do. Here is an excerpt from his first script, titled "Promises and Consequences". Judge yourself (I refrained from any editorial input; agents, directors, whoever is out there, take note):

LustralBoy

We had met him the day before at dinner with Cliona, our neighbor, and Yael, a friend of Cliona. We are all invited over for drinks at his place and will have dinner later at l'Air du Temps, which is halfway between his house and the mansion of Pierre Cardin on the water.

Clockwise: Michael, Pierre Cardin's place, Michael's place, outside, with Yael and Chang

Michael ran a few advertising agencies and is now in charge of his own brand-positioning shop, London, Sydney, the works. The pacific rim is indispensable. The living room is pictured below, including Cliona.

mezzanine	candelabra in the kitchen

The place was a bergière. The shepherd would sleep on the mezzanine, and the sheep would sleep below. The fire place is new. The house is not as old as you think. It was built in 1942.

Michael is asked about brand positioning. It's about trends, preferences, worldwide, he replies. His left brain works and his right brain works, that's important. He gets a lot of vibes from Facebook and other internet sites. Trends, preferences, people are young.

His lovers are young, too. While we are taking in the view of Cannes, he relates the story of Yomin, this guy whom he met on the internet, 17.99 years old. The next day they would meet physically,  and Yomin's birthday wish would come true, and his virginity would be gone.



Michael knows about straight life, too. At university, he had been president of the historic society, the student's newspaper, and the nightclub. You meet people. He bedded at least 15 straight men, utterly straight men. I ask whether I can relate this on FF. Sure. Should I use a pseudonym for him. Why? 

Together with his present boyfriend, he runs an internet site, Lustralboy; have a look.

À propos internet: while dating on the internet, one of Michael's friends, a raving queen, finds his own picture used by another guy.

Mickey-Minnie-Pluto-Huey-Louie-Dewey-Donald-Goofy-Sacramento (Jacki)

She had been told the password had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

Back from the races

The 7ème grand prix historique of Monaco is still on, while I am introduced to Alastair, the master of the black holes. Yes, he is a computer scientist at CERN, where the new quantum ring (located conveniently under the town of Willem-Voltaire that erected a minaret recently in the honor of Prince Willem’s sexlife)...where the new quantum ring was built to make newer and better particles.

Alastair	black hole

The problem is, some of these buggers might coalesce to form black holes---BLACK HOLES---ultra-dense objects that exert a merciless gravitational grip on their environment and could, once created, swallow up the planet in a nick of time. Alastair keeps his cool. "Don’t worry," he shouts across the sound barrier of the vintage cars below, "cosmic rays would long since have created similar black holes,"---the implication being that the holes would long since have swallowed the planet. That’s a comforting thought, and I tell everybody.

Ann-Carole in the middle	Rasender reporter

The glasses are filled again, and we dance to the sound of the vintage decibels to celebrate our new friends, the counterfactual cosmic rays.

Terry and Josie, another neighbor

De Lempicka in Monaco

We are still watching the 7ème grand prix historique of Monaco. (Click here for the first part of the story). The champagne flows, more up here than down below on the decks of the superyachts. Is this a good or a bad sign?

I suddenly realize (it must be the alcohol) that two suspiciously small paintings of Tamara de Lempicka, the art deco painter, adorn the room. I try to get the message across, but nobody is interested. Tamara had a run of auction records with paintings selling above US$ 7 million recently, much to the dismay of M&’s favorite art critic, Souren Melikian, who never fails to mention “Edelkitsch” in her presence. The paintings here on the wall should be worth millions, I tell the other guests. Still, nobody is interested. One, out of sheer politeness, mentions that one should never insure in France, what with those leaks at the assurances.

Are these de Lempickas real? One is signed, one is not. Closeup, they look suspiciously flat, as if printed. But they do raise interesting questions, like, “where is the kitchen,” and “is this the right or the left bosom?”

The 7ème grand prix historique race continues with a parade of vintage models, while an alien spaceship lands effortlessly on the shining Mediterranean outside, and then transmogrifies into the super cruiser, The World, the home of homeless billionaires.

No, I stand corrrected. It's not The World, it's just some minor cruiser of the Holland America Line, a hopeless outfit for the toiling masses.

Stay tuned. The story continues here.

The giant wave: the mysterious visit of Donna Pérignon

Saturday night. The wind howls around the house, the timber creaks, the rain beats on the windows, the sea roars below.


The doorbell rings.

On the intercom, a female voice. "Excusez-moi de vous déranger," the voice says, "je ne peu pas expliquer trop, mais je suis Donna Pérignon," (Sorry to disturb you, I can't explain too much, but I am Donna Pérignon)." "Donna?", I ask, and she replies: "Yes, Donna like in Ma-Donna, or Donna-stag, or Donna Versace, or Gianni Versace, or Giorgio Armani, or Emporio Armani, or Emperor Napoleon." I push the remote for the gate. Michelle Pfeiffer emanates from the dark.

-"You can't be Michelle Pfeiffer", I say.
-"How so?", she replies.
-"You are without your entourage."
-"Elémentaire, chèr Watson, she replies.
-"Enchanté", I say.
-"I am coming for ... ," Her voice trails off, her sentence ceases. Then, in French: "C'est urgent, mais d'abord, Pérignon."



A pause. She gazes at me through her shades---she wears shades at night, radioactive vision, cool. What can I say? "Pérignon, Pérignon" I say to Chang. Chang gives me the Marx Brothers look. "Any Pérignon left in our cellars?" I ask, kindly.

Chang has been a fan of Keeping up Appearances, the BBC tragedy, all his life. He disappears, and while I am helping Donna to undress (only the coat), a cork pops in the kitchen, and Donna takes notice, and Chang reappears with three champagne glasses, filled. "Dom Pérignon", Chang says, handing out glasses. She raises her glass. "Santé," she says. She drinks.

Chang refills her glass, artfully hiding the label on the bottle. This bottle does not look like a Pérignon bottle to me (they have a special shape), and it does not look like a Pérignon bottle to Donna. She drinks some more. "Truth to be told," she says, "a great champagne tastes differently every day. Show me your blog."

We proceed to my desk.


"La vague géant," she commands, more Brigitte Bardot than Michelle Pfeiffer now. She sits down in my Eames aluminum chair. I bring up the giant wave posts on the screen (pictured). She studies the pictures, carefully, intently. Then she gets up. I need a cigarette, she says, and proceeds to the terrace outside. There, her glass is refilled, her cigarette lit.



She returns after a cigarette length. "The blue tulips," she commands. I'll go and fetch a blue tulip. She sniffs at the blue tulip.
-"Elementaire, chèr Michael", she says, and then, "Je dois partir maintenant" (I have to leave now). She claims her coat. We refill her glass. She sniffs her tulip some more. "Il n'y a pas des secrets" she says. She posits her empty glass on the secretaire in the hall, blows kisses, makes her exit, makes more of her exit, exits, is gone.

Please cancel my subscription to David Brooks

Sirrr: Please cancel my subscription to the International Herald Tribune, as David Brook's column on health care, published today in the NYT, will inevitably appear in your pages.

Brooks riffs about the dichotomy between Republicans ("individualism, vibrant markets, vigor") and Democrats ("inevitable fractiousness, the neuroticism, the petty logrolling, but also the basic concern for the vulnerable and the high idealism"), and then he writes:

"Today, America’s vigor is challenged on two fronts. First, the country is becoming geriatric. Other nations spend 10 percent or so of their G.D.P. on health care. We spend 17 percent and are predicted to soon spend 20 percent and then 25 percent."

Brooks is implying here that the 17% GDP are indicative of America's geriatricism. However, the US population, compared to those 10%-nations (France, Britain, etc), is much younger, so the American waste of resources should not be attributed to America's demographics, at least not when the conclusion depends on the comparison with other, older nations. Then Brooks continues:

"This [health care] legislation was supposed to end that asphyxiating growth [of spending], which will crowd out investments in innovation, education and everything else. It will not."

So, Sirrr, let's keep this in mind, Brooks just said "it will not." And why will it not?

"With the word security engraved on its heart, the Democratic Party is just not structured to cut spending that would enhance health and safety. The party nurtures; it does not say, 'No more.' "

So it is, or rather, will be, the Democrats fault (naturally). Now, when Brooks uses numbers like 20% - 25% GDP, he is talking about secular trends, future decades, not just the next two years of Obama's administration. His argument makes sense only if we can assume that the Democrats will stay in power for decades (and, as he will imply in the next paragraph, the Republicans are capable of budget cuts). Is this his assumption? Is this a plausible assumption? He does not say, but he continues:

"The second biggest threat to America’s vibrancy is the exploding federal debt. Again, Democrats can utter the words of fiscal restraint, but they don’t feel the passion. This bill is full of gimmicks designed to get a good score from the Congressional Budget Office but not to really balance the budget. Democrats did enough to solve their political problem (not looking fiscally reckless) but not enough to solve the genuine problem."---But Brooks feels the passion, right? The Republicans feel the passion, right? Like in Dick Cheney's "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter", or in Bush's unfunded tax cuts that left a 1.6 trillion hole in the federal budget.

Back to Brooks predictive statement. "It will not." (health care legislation will not end spending growth). Remember? He said: "It will not." Because Brooks now continues:

"Nobody knows how this bill will work out."

Please send the balance of my subscription fee to the Foundation for the Logically Challenged.

Yours Truly,

Hauptstadt Berlin

You may recall the days of The Wall, when West Berlin was still officially the capital of Germany ("Hauptstadt Berlin"), but the government was ruling from Bonn (the birthplace of Beethoven), and Siemens had left Siemensstadt (Berlin suburb) and decamped to Munich, where its executives were taking classes in Bavarian ac-cent. In those dark days, Berlin (West---the East, on the other side of the wall, was, in fact, the capital of the communist GDR) needed all the help it could get to stay the capital of Germany. Count Dracula's grandson would visit, or a minor relative from the Indian branch of the Windsors, the (West) Berlin press would always manage to ask them about Berlin, and they, right on cue, would always reply "It's good to be back in the Hauptstadt."
Along those lines, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the has-been inverted Islamo-faschist, has pulled the same trick on us, by putting Le Trayas on the background of his election poster for today's regional elections. 

The precipitous decline of RSVP---discuss

Rand Richards Cooper has a piece in the NYT in which he laments the decline of RSVP. He sends an e-mail invitation to 45 friends with the customary RSVP request, for an evening of food, drink, and literature, with readings by himself and two other writers, one month out, and he provides a follow-up email message, two weeks later. His initial message brings in a dozen responses, and the follow-up a few more, but days before the event, he has a paltry 23 replies in total. Not 23 who plan to come, but 23 who had bothered to respond. He is upset.

We are reporting this because we had a similar experience last year. We issued an RSVP request by email and, yes, not everybody replied (our response record was better than Cooper's, of course, but then we promised a poolside orgy to celebrate my birthday in the company of sexual slaves). We blamed the non-response on the bad French of our English neighbors, as Cooper blames it on the bad French of his friends, but our new affiliation with the University of Metaphysical Sciences necessitates a more in-depth historical study.

Sexual slave #1

The first know source to lament the decline of civilization in general was Socrates, in whose days RSVP had an unspeakable Greek meaning (what with those pederasts). In Roman times, Romanum Saeculum Veritatis Protestas meant roughly (we improvise here) in vino veritas, but with more emphasis on the wine and less emphasis on the veritas.

Sexual slave #2

The Gauls, in turn, who inherited the torch of civilization from the Romans, spoke Gaulois in those days, not French, and their meaning of RSVP translates into F@@K, or, more politely, F---. That changed when Charlemagne took over and united France and Germany under his leadership. No sexual undertones with prudish Charly, who proclaimed, famously: "Vorsicht ist die Mutter der Porzellankiste," which is a nicer way of saying "breakable." He used only the P, but he had a tight disposition, and did not want to squander any alphabet soup. (Saddam Hussein later did a riff on Charlemagne with his "Mother Of All Wars," but MOAW is a different story all-together.)

Sexual slave #3

Then, civilization moved eastward with the Vikings, who founded the Kingdom of Rus, and established a dynasty for Ivan the Terrible. Ivan used it a lot, RSVP, because in Russian it means "When it flies, floats, or f@@ks, rent it." Yes, I know, we repeat ourselves, but that's Ivan's fault.

etc.

One day, Ivan got a visit from the Roi Soleil, Louis XiV, and Ivan explained his concept to Louis. Louis immediately thought to himself: "Come to think of it." But Louis was a good husband (he always spent the nights with his official wife while his mistresses had a chance to recover from his daytime routines, so this was really a win-win-win triangle situation---I am not making this up, folks), and he sought a way to make RSVP palatable to his squeamish court. Whence the modern meaning of RSVP.

What did we learn? Well, RSVP had its ups and downs, but it is perhaps too early to blame it for the general decline of civilization, or to blame the general decline of civilization for RSVP's recent troubles.

Cooper suggests to replace RSVP by RVOM ("répondez vite, ou mourir") but the French are increasingly moving away from the formal "vous" toward the informal "tu", which brings us to RTOM, or ATOM, for simplicity, which was discovered by Democrit, a predecessor of Socrates. Plus ça change....

They won, they won---notice the trailer

A friend adds helpfully: "I'm not sure what they have won but who gives a shit."

Leave comments!

Senator's remarks cause outrage and destruction

Republican Senator Alexander's remarks on American television, namely that reconciliation (as voting procedure in the Senate) was in the past used only for small things and to reduced the deficit, have caused an immediate reaction by the elements of nature, especially in France (slideshow)



Professor Krugman explains: "In fact, reconciliation was used to pass the two major Bush tax cuts, which increased the deficit — by $1.8 trillion."

The Democrats are now planning to use reconciliation to pass health care reform in the face of stubborn Republican opposition.

"Ahem"...clearing my voice..."ahem"...

OK, let's get serious.  On a regular basis, P. Krugman observes an event sequence that already must have brought Socrates to desperation. Here is Krugman's description:

"It goes like this: Person A says 'Black is white' — perhaps out of ignorance, although more often out of a deliberate effort to obfuscate. Person B says, 'No, black isn’t white — here are the facts.'
 And Person B is considered to have lost the exchange — you see, he came across as arrogant and condescending."

Krugman has tons of these examples on his blog. Here is another example, closer to home: On this blog, in the post "German for beginners (3)", we associate three lines from the washed-up scriptwriter "Am Brunnen vor dem Tore"...where was I...I meant "Vom Eise befreit..." with a picture of two deer stalking through a thick cover of snow. Then we translate these lines with Google, and the result is gibberish. Subsequently, we first blame the poor scriptwriter for his poor poetry and then blame him for the mismatch between his lines and the winter-deer-picture.

And it happens all the time. And the poor scriptwriter always loses.

-"You are doing this to me all the time!"
-"No, it's YOU, you are doing this to me all the time!"
-"That's what I said."

Alexander Haig (1924 - 2010)

Lyn Nofziger, a White House aid to Ronald Reagan, once said that “the third paragraph of his obituary” would detail Alexander Haig's conduct in the hours after President Reagan was shot, on March 30, 1981.

And here it is:

"That day, Secretary of State Haig wrongly declared himself the acting president. “The helm is right here,” he told members of the Reagan cabinet in the White House Situation Room, “and that means right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the vice president gets here.” His words were taped by Richard V. Allen, then the national security adviser."

Reagan was shot, but not killed, kids, and I was there. Sort of. Reagan was shot in March '81 ("Please tell me you're all Republicans" he told the doctors in the hospital---that's the spirit, President Obama), and I arrived on the scene in May '96, for a workshop at the Hilton Hotel. It was the night of the White House Press Corps dinner, and Wolf Blitzer and this woman, she who always sits in the first row in a red dress and gets the first question during a WH presser (Dr. Alzheimer will remember her name), were standing in animated conversation outside our conference room. I could have touched them. I could have asked for an autograph.
We left for dinner downtown. Outside, hunks with sunglasses and big earpieces(white, thick spiraling cables) had descended upon the scene, and were directing towing trucks with spiraling gestures. The trucks were hoisting  vehicles still parked around the hotel. Crowds had gathered. Somebody helpfully explained to me the implications of roadside bombs and the President's plan to attend the dinner. There must have been hundreds of secret service agents, all listening ostentatiously to their earpieces, all gearing up for the big event, the President's Arrival. 
We waited for the president. We waited more. Clinton was always late. Finally the motorcade arrives, hunks on bikes, ambulances, limousines, more hunks on bikes, cars, trucks, more ambulances, larger limousines, ever larger limousines. Suddenly, the motorcade stops, with the largest limousine right in front of the entrance. We would see the President!
Then, without prior warning, the president's limousine backs up into a concrete cubicle next to the entrance. A steel shutter comes down.
And that was that.
They had built a special access garage for the president right where Reagan had been shot in '81.

Learning from history.

The gold standard