Guilt! -- The Muppets

(We post this for our friend Sacha; you need to switch on the sound:) 

 

https://internclarabelle.tumblr.com/post/643287403672616960/obsessed-with-this-muppet-clip-where-gonzo-breaks

IQ-test -- Fill in the blanks

 

Zeitgeist -- How to stay afloat in the days of Twitter

(1) Twitter didn't even exist when Monica Lewinsky was comforting Bill Clinton in the off-room of the Oval Office;

(2) That was 25 years ago;

(3) And now what? How to stay afloat 25 years later?

(4) Study physics and outdo Einstein?

(5) Or...

(6) Well, while you are studying physics, we study expressions such as:

(7) "Yesterday"...

(8) "All my troubles seemed so far away" (Beatles)

(9) "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my head..." (Eagles)

(10) Not quite, instead:

(11) "i [sic] hadn't driven on a highway i [sic] hadn't driven on in years"...

(12) ...and then, of course: "My dark decade"...

(12a) ("dark" (?)  -- don't they have electricity in the Oval Office?):

 

(13) Note the subtle tiptoeing around her own gender ("(she/her)"), as if she would be in doubt herself;

(14) We are so politically-incorrect here, it's intentional terrible intentional terrible...

(15) But we do this because 50% or more of all Twitter posts are like this: undiluted self-promotion of has-beens and non-entities.

(16) We know, we know, we are one of them.

Broken promises -- It's raining cats and dogs

We once assured you that there would never do a dog-or-cat post on this blog. Well, there you have it (the third one is the best):

Alcoa-Baça

 Pictorial warning: this is not an exciting picture, but...

...it answers a question that expats living in the Alcobaça area are facing when they move into town and learn that our name derives from the confluence of two rivers (or "rivers"), one called Alcoa and the other called Baça.

They may have searched Google Map and Google Earth for answers, yet in vain. Google is misleading, in that it elevates the weaselling Alcoa to a full-fledged Alcobaça:

There, there, the yellow arrows pointing at it: the misnaming of the Rio Alcoa by Google running past the east of our world-famous monastery. Google, the world's fifth-largest company by market capitalization (@ 1.3 trillion in American $$$), mistaking a pars pro toto as it cuts through our little town (@ 6 k inhabitants). But what can we do about it? 

Research. 

And so, at the top of this post you see photographed the real confluence of the two "rivers" where it occurs, at the phallic top of the Jardim do Amor...: 

...whence the entire river system of Alcobaça is about to say goodbye to our charming community and ejaculate carelessly into the Atlantic Ocean a few kilometres away. 

But the Baça, you ask, where does it show? Not on Google. But it shows on these pictures  we took yesterday: 

The Baça, just south of the confluence, as it arrives at the Rua 16 de Outobro

This rua just bridges over the Baça. But now, if we turn the camera in the opposite direction, we should see the southern part of the bridge with the Baça still flowing. Instead, we see this:

The Baça has disappeared. It's channelled underground through old Alcobaça downtown until it resurfaces 400 meters further south, here:

Yes, channelled underneath cobblestone alleys, but you can still hear her...

...if you can.

A mystery of expatriate importance finally solved! Read our lips: "Baça, Baça, Baça..."

Waiting for...

...our friend Glenn sends this...

..."Godot", yes, Godot.

Paredes da Vitória this afternoon (updated)

So, we received a new gate control per Nacex this afternoon at exactly15:06 (even though we are unfindable on Google maps (perhaps we should consider selling our place to some priceless celebrity at a priceless price)), and so we triumphantly decided to excurse on a visit to Paredes da Vitória, an ancient harbour which is now completely silted up by a marvellous beach, all this 10 km north of Nazaré.  

Waves were breaking several hundred meters out. A serious ocean, folks. That's why we came to Portugal.

And the gate control...well, we're working on it...

...note the Russian license plate! Dans le vent as always, we're operating in serious conspiracy territory. 

Alcobaça, this morning...

...or, to be more specific, a view of the eastern environs of Alcobaça seen through the haze of a very cold, very charming morning, as usual from our house. Note the outline of the Serras de Aire e Candeeiros on the horizon.

"I love you...Me neither" (updated)

 If you're old enough, you'll remember the eternal French words "Je t'aime...Moi non plus", spoken by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, in what...let's look this up...in 1969 (meaning you possibly won't (remember)).

But we got struck by this not so jugendfreie poster on the internet...

We added the fig-leaves after having read a beautiful essay in The New Yorker about Nabokov's Lolita 

...and feel encouraged to engage in another act of self-promotion by invoking our novel "Green Eyes", which--regular readers of this blog may have come to regret--is always about everything, and so it's also about this song...

We're in Chapter 17 of the GREEN EYES, and the whole thing is NOT jugendfrei at all, so you'll read this at your own risk. John, the narrator, and Alex, the lead character, have met once before, and now they meet again--in Johns bed: 

We’re back in the bedroom. We finally embrace, kiss. This is it, this is the moment. Should Alex expect me to sink to my knees now, unbutton his fly, like in the porn flicks? Or unzip his zipper, most porn flicks are so cheap, they don’t have money for the more expensive, button-holed Levis—-unzip his cheaper jeans and start caressing his briefs with my lips, drawing the attention to his budding tumescence under the cotton? 
Well, I might, at least in the sense that my bedroom looks almost as bad as the motel rooms where those flicks are shot. A chest, two wooden bedside tables, two wooden chairs. A timber-framed bed done in cherry imitation, a mattress and dirty sheets, a discordant collection of things that speak of my financial (and mental) condition. 
Yet Alex isn’t waiting for the cotton kiss (besides, he doesn’t wear any fly-enhanced leg-wear but is still clad in his hospital sweatpants). Instead, he undresses unceremoniously. T-shirt, pants, briefs, shoes, socks are all arranged into a neat pile on the second chair. 
He climbs onto the bed, folds himself into some relaxed, unassuming position, like a model in a drawing class, but without the attitude. The simplicity of his movements I will never forget, they changed my life.
I follow his example and make an unusual effort at apparel-folding. Although we had fairly rough sex the previous morning, there is not the least suggestion of anything untoward between us in the past, for all practical purposes we could be virgins. I lie next to him. 
“You’re beautiful,” he says, caressing my face. I’m caressing back. This would be the moment to say ‘I love you,’ although you never know what you get back, like ‘moi non plus,’ statistically the most honest answer (moi non plus, French, used by Serge Gainsbourg, the one and only basis for his fame, this noun phrase, meaning “me neither”), or ‘I love you too,’ but uttered unconvincingly, or ‘I love you too,’ uttered more convincingly, although you know it’s bullshit.

(I hold back.)

(I cannot hold back.)

“I love you,” I say.

“No sweat,” Alex comes back—-bypassing world literature from Homer to Spielberg. Have you ever heard anybody saying ‘no sweat’ in this situation? There’s a teasing movement of his eyelashes, although his green eyes stay neutral as if it’s head or tail. “In human sexual behavior,” he says, “foreplay is a set of emotionally and physically intimate acts between two or more people meant to create desire for sexual activity and sexual arousal.” Ooh, he’s so sweet!

(There's more educational content below, first the self-promotion:)

"Click"

(And now the educational stuff:)

 

 (And the lyrics:)

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Comme la vague irrésolue

Je vais, je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Et je me retiens

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Tu es la vague, moi l'île nue

Tu vas, tu vas et tu viens

Entre mes reins

Tu vas et tu viens

Entre mes reins

Et je te rejoins

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Comme la vague irrésolue

Je vais, je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Et je me retiens

Tu vas, tu vas et tu viens

Entre…

Today

So, while SCOTUS ruled in an unsigned court order sans dissent that Trump has to hand over his tax declarations to the NY prosecutor (almost ascertaining his future as a convict in orange jump suit and shackles), we, in blissful ignorance* of said ruling, went to the Praia do Norte nearby, which holds the Guinness Book of Records for the highest surfable waves on the planet.  (continues below)

The killer surf happens twice a year or so, but we had never seen the sea this agitated, with breakers perhaps 7 meters high (max is something like 38 meters). They are caused by the Canyon de Nazaré, an underwater fold of the continental shelf that reaches the floor of the Atlantic Plate 3000 meters down very quickly and echoes/reinforces the waves'  amplitude.

---

*Nassim Kaleb, the author of The Black Swan, writes in his book that it's practically useless to follow the news. Almost nothing really important ever happens, he holds--until a Black Swan Event occurs.

(Ask us in a comment if the link is not informative enough).

Hold the presses

Our friend Glenn sends this:

(If you are puzzled, leave a comment, and we'll explain)

Spring has arrived -- updated

 

Our garden, as yet untended, on Feb 12, at 11 AM; we are at: 39°32′30.7″ N, 8°58′54.3″ W in Alcobaça, PT

The same garden on Feb 15, at 11:30 AM, now under reconstruction by Louis, our trusted gardener

Our Lady of the Flowers --- Variations on a Genet classic

Jan van Rijn, the celebrate bibliophile publisher, has a new book out, and it's about "Notre Dame des Fleurs", the mind-boggling first oeuvre of Jean Genet. Genet wrote it in a Paris prison in 1942, on brown-bag paper, whence his "manuscript" got confiscated by prurient prison guards. Undaunted, he asked for more brown-bag paper and rewrote it from scratch. Eventually it got published, so that Jean-Paul Sartre could discover it---Sartre, the inventor of Existentialism---and promptly declare the author a "saint". Genet's career was made---such was the way of French cultural life at the time. 

We read the "Lady" four times and it got better with each pass. Four times? Yes, because we had promised to contribute to Jan's publication and didn't know for quite some time what to do.

 

But then, in late 2019 we hit on an idea during a chance meeting with...

...the mysterious founding fathers of the Verse Reconstruction Movement. 

We had always dreamed of writing prose that could pass as poetry (and vice versa), and---having already isolated the "hottest" passages of the Fleurs---we undertook to turn them into poetic language. Six poems resulted, and they are in the book. Here's the first one:

EACH CELL A HISSING NEST OF SNAKES

(by Michael Ampersant)

I’m like those prisons,

Open to all the winds,

Empty and pure,

Swarming with dangerous,

Promiscuous males,

Sprawled out on their beds.

Prisons of dreams, I’d say, for a race of murderers,

Each cell a hissing nest of snakes,

And a confessional.

Their eyes,

Without mystery,

Terrifying,

Like empty theaters,

Machinery at rest,

Deserts.

I approach, my heart racing,

And see nothing,

Nothing but looming emptiness,

Sensitive and proud,

A foxglove possessed by terrible souls.

There are 16 contributors to this volume (if we don't count Genet himself), and one of them is John Coulthart, gay life's most prolific high-culture blogger. Have a look at his post about the book here.

You can order the volume here. It is also for sale in a few bookstores throughout Europe, ie,

Vienna 

buchhandlung löwenherz

https://www.loewenherz.at/

Milano

liberia antigone

https://www.libreriantigone.com/

Berlin

prinz eisenherz 

https://prinz-eisenherz.buchkatalog.de/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CK6rSnOlNM1/

and if things work well in Paris very soon at

les mots à la bouche 

https://motsbouche.com

PS: There are only 150 copies printed; it's a bit like bitcoins, and if we manage to convince Jan to rechristen his book "GenetCoins", or "CoinGenet" or anything else alluding to blockchains, the price will certainly skyrocket into the millions, especially if and when Elon Musk chips in a brief tweet. So, please, hurry.

Total eclipse of Covid, or something

(This is funny:) 

And...yes...you have seen it coming: our Green Eyes are always about everything, and so they are also about Bonny Tyler's "A Total Eclipse of the Heart." Ben, the ravaging black guy, has missed the bus, and John, the narrator, is taking him home. The conversation is turning to Truman Capote (who was born in a Southern town called Monroeville):

Okay, let’s press the issue. “These directions,” I say, “they’re for Monaville, or for Monroeville?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Capote was born in Monroeville,” I say. 

“Truman Capote?”

“Yes. Your Monaville?”

“No,” he says, “I would know.”

“Monaville or Monroeville?”

“Yes,” he says.

I’m trying to flirt, that’s obvious, but is he flirting back? All these yes’s and no’s, what do they mean? Reader, do you realize—-perhaps not a big insight, but anyhow—-do you realize that in our situation a flirt means more than a fuck? Much more?

I can’t ask him whether he’s flirting, of course. “You’re like the Bible, it’s yes, yes, or no, no,” I flirt.

“Yes.”

It’s coming back to me now. And I don’t mean the Bonny Tyler song “A Total Eclipse of the Heart,” I mean the Harold Halma photograph scandal. 

Yes, that’s the way to go, much better than to ask him to carefully evaluate our homosexual encounter retrospectively and split the infinitive in the process. “You know about Truman Capote?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“You’ve heard about the Harold Halma photograph scandal?”

“No.”

“Capote was already a budding young author, after World War Two, when Harold Halma, a photographer in New York City, was commissioned to take an author picture of the prodigy, Capote recumbent on a winged settee, eyes staring into the camera, the hand resting on his abdomen. Halma’s picture caused a scandal at the time, people got very upset, even though Capote was fully dressed, mind you, since, since there was this suggestion that he--quote--was dreamily contemplating some out-rage against conventional morality--unquote.” Because, evidently, he had one hand in talking distance of his crotch. Quote, contemplating some outrage against conventional morality, unquote. Pathetic. Imagine this happening today.” 

Let’s see what Ben’s going to say. I guess he masturbates a lot. Two times per day. Three times on Sundays.

“It’s not yes,” he says, “it’s 'yea':...’But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.’ Matthew, five-thirty seven.” 

Are you still there? Then you will like the book. Give it a try: 

"Click"

French for beginners -- Brexit

Our friend Maud sends this:

 

Bye, bye

 

What's wrong with this picture...or the Queen, or Windsor Castle, or England...

 

...nothing, you think (?)...well, let's see...

...the Queen, nah, nothing is wrong with the Queen...she wears the sort of dress my mother would wear (and tailor herself) at an advanced age...

...the corgie (?)...nothing could be wrong with a royal corgie, especially after some minor photoshopping...

...this miserable newspaper holder then (?)...

...it's empty, this miserable newspaper holder, but that could be because the Queen has stopped reading the miserable British Tabloids that promised an additional 350 million £ a week for the National Health Service post-Brexit...

...so, it's not the miserable newspaper holder...

...Windsor Castle, then, in a more general sense (?)...

...

...hold on, what's this (?)...

...this is a miserable little auxiliary heater...

...on casters (!), the sort people have to use post-Brexit because something went wrong with these 350 million £ a week...

How Trump could get convicted by the Senate -- By Keith Norton

Donald Trump had a pretty good run in Washington — rampaging through the Republican Party, driving the media to distraction, enraging the Democrats and treating his own co-partisans in the Senate like a bunch of valets. But that’s all about to end. And I predict it will end with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — as the new minority leader — incinerating Trump’s political future for good. McConnell needs just 18 votes to finish off Trump. Conviction on impeachment can bring with it a ban on holding federal office — which includes the presidency. A two-thirds majority or 67 votes is necessary for conviction. For McConnell that means 18 votes if West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin opposes or 17 if Manchin joins in. (Preferably, McConnell would want to get to 68 votes so that no Republican could be accused of being the one vote that convicted Trump).

Why should McConnell and the Republican senators convict?

For Republicans, allowing Trump to continue to be eligible to run for president is a recipe for disaster. Trump simply cannot win in a general election. The combination of events at the Capitol and his ejection from the major social media platforms is fatal.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t get the GOP nomination in 2024.

The way the Republican primary system is structured helps a candidate like Trump who has a dedicated base — even if it is the minority of the party. GOP primaries and caucuses award a disproportionate share of delegates to the top vote-getter and in some states the winner takes all. In 2020, Trump failed to get even one-third of the vote in South Carolina, but that was enough to lead the field and collect all 50 delegates.

In fact, Trump failed to get a majority of the Republican vote in any state primary or caucus until his home state of New York voted in April 19 (Ted Cruz had four majority results). Trump won 10 states with less than 40 percent of the vote and two with less than 35 percent. In total, Trump failed to crack 40 percent in 22 states and caucuses and only won majorities in 16 states, with nine of those majorities after everyone else dropped out. If no-hopers like Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Carly Fiorina had dropped out early, either Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio were in a strong position to beat Trump.

If Trump holds on to just 35 percent of the Republican electorate and a crowded field chops up the anti-Trump vote, Trump might get the nomination — at the very least he draws out the nominating process and hurts the eventual nominee’s chances. A recent Morning Consult poll has Trump with support of 40 percent of Republicans for 2024; it’s worth keeping in mind a couple of points: 1) this is mostly a name recognition number and 2) given that Trump got 94 percent of the Republican vote, a 54-point collapse is pretty terrible — but that 40 percent looks like his hardcore base.

Importantly, Republicans need to remember that were the roles reversed, Trump would vote to convict without hesitation. If Trump had the chance to kill off an opponent, he would not pause for a second to consider the principle or the morality of the matter. He would act in his own interest, 100 percent of the time.

Trump is always at war, and a large segment of the GOP does not appreciate this. You don’t play by the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules in war. Being a principled gentleman when faced with a feral brute ready to shank you in the back doesn’t make you brave or heroic — it makes you a fool.

Can McConnell get the votes?

Surprisingly, getting the votes might not be that difficult. Because Trump simply rages uncontrollably — without thought or foresight — at the slightest criticism or disagreement, he has managed to alienate plenty of Republican senators, most of whom have been winning elections in their home states long before Trump barged onto the scene — and often with much greater margins. Add to that the staggered terms in the Senate, as opposed to the House, and that several senators may be in their last term with nothing to lose, and you have a toxic stew of animus about to be served up to Trump.

Remove all the Republicans who are up for reelection in 2022 and all those who voted to challenge the Electoral College votes of either Arizona or Pennsylvania and you have 24 potential conviction votes.

Assuming Manchin votes no, we start at 49 votes to convict.

Start with the senators who are retiring or likely in their last term: McConnell, Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), which brings the conviction total to 53 votes. This group has nothing to lose and has served in the Senate for several terms. Toomey has already signaled his dismay with Trump.

Then there’s the enemies list: John Thune (R-S.D.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), which raises the conviction vote to 58. Trump has threatened these senators, often repeatedly. They also have little to lose and have already staked out ground against Trump. Thune and Murkowski are up in 2022, but probably don’t care at this point.

Consider the friends of Thune: John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) — senators from the Dakotas and Wyoming — all have common interests and have won with big margins in small states where people have personal relationships with them. Trump is not much of a threat. They would bring the conviction vote to 62.

Then there’s “Friends of Pence”: primarily James Inhofe (R-Okla.), raising the vote to 63. This list could be — and probably is — much larger. The way Trump dumped Mike Pence and left him to run from the mob infuriated Pence’s allies. Inhofe went public with his disgust.

That total — 63 — leaves McConnell a few votes short, but also with a lot of opportunities.

Senators not in their first term who are not up for reelection until 2026 include Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). Two others aren’t up until 2024. That’s a pretty deep pool from which to fish four more votes. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) might vote to convict out of principle — even though he faces voters in 2022.

Trump has only himself to blame. Yet again he is in a mess of his own making.

Trump has voluntarily taken a seat in the electric chair. The question is whether Senate Republicans have the nerve to throw the switch.


Keith Naughton, Ph.D. is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm. Dr. Naughton is a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant. Follow him on Twitter @KNaughton711.

The view this morning

 

We simply had to put this up -- What is the oddest conversation you've had with a telephone scammer

 We simply had to put this up, an entire post from a member of Quora, our favorite Q-A internet site (which features the invaluable physics whizz Victor T. Toth). Here, however, we have Grizzly Coleman, who "leans" towards  "atheism" (as opposed to the people that storm the Capitol):

Grizzly Coleman

·

Wed

Leaning towards Atheism, although I'd give Pastafarianism a try

What is the oddest conversation you've had with a telephone scammer?

I had a bunch of these.

There was a time where I’d challenge myself to keep scammers on the phone for the longest amount of time - my record was 49 minutes and one of the rules I set for myself is that I’m not allowed to be the one who ended the call.

I had a chalk board near the phone and put another “notch” on the board every time I got one to hang up, I still have the 100% success rate, although don't get many calls these days.

I’ve done the usual “dottering” old man thing with the Microsoft virus scamers for the most part, walking away from the phone for a couple of minutes at a time pretending I was on my hands and knees trying to plug in a hard to reach modem so they could connect, until saying something like “Always have trouble pluggin the iPad thingy into the modem”

But the funniest one was a woman using a scam that was going around Australia a few years ago. They’d offer budget holidays to several Australian locations.

They were usually for nine nights for two people, but you could reduce some of the nights for extra people for the same price.

The first part of the conversation was location - “I really want an Island location”

She suggested the usual Australian tourist spots in Queensland, I said I wanted to go to Torrens Island, and after she “Apparently” checked she said she could get me there. Torrens Island is a power station island in South Australia, also used as a quarantine location from time to time - I used to go fishing there as a kid

Torrens Island - Wikipedia

“Great” I said

She said “So nine nights for $X” (I really can’t remember the price offered,..)?

“No, I’d like one night for 18 people; I have a big family”

She kind of started to smell something was not right at this stage — there was an audible sigh on the phone, but had invested so much time she thought she better continue just in case.

“Yes, we can arrange accommodation for large families.”

“Okay, but what’s your policy if we need to bring back more people than we left with?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I have three daughters in the family who are pregnant, ready to drop any day now. If I go over with the family of 18, I could be needing to return with 21! What happens then, do we need to pay extra?”

I figured it was all over at this stage, just silence for a few seconds.

All this time I was walking around the house with the cordless phone; if I keep moving I tend not to break character and laugh so much. At this point of the call I was walking close to the toilet, so I walked in and flushed it.

“Hold on a sec, I just gotta put the phone down to wipe.”

I kept listening, and after a a couple of seconds I had another notch for my chalkboard.

My wife hates that chalkboard,..