French for beginners --- Ikea

(Maud sends us this cartoon:)

Had enough of Facebook?

Winter in a shit-hole country

(Give it 20 seconds or so)

Yesterday

Thunderstruck

Fire and fury (3)

Yesterday

Picture taken on the beach of Théoule sur mer, next to the site of the former Marco Polo restaurant.

Checking facts

We're reading the Fire and Fury book by Michael Wolff that came out on Friday, and it's much better than expected, much deeper than the usual collection of scabrous/scandalous anecdotes. Wolff really proffers insight---Krugman, in his Friday column in the NYT wonders rhetorically whether he needs to read the book---yes, Paul you do, trust us. 

And here, just in between, the funniest thing we came across so far, and by our reckoning still unaccounted for in the weekend news cycle of this publication...

Steve Bannon and you-know-who

(Dramatis personae: (a) Anthony Scaramucci,  (b) Steve Bannon, adviser to Donald Trump; (c) Ryan Lizza, a journalist with The New Yorker; Place: US East Coast; Time: July 2017)

Anthony Scaramucci

Having lobbied desperately for a White House Job for seven months, Scaramucchi has been appointed White House Director of Communication. There is a party to celebrate, and Scaramucchi ("The Mooch") has had one too many, apparently. He gets on the phone with Ryan Lizza and unloads about a few people, including Steve Bannon, we quote: 

"I'm not Steve Bannon. I'm not trying to suck my own cock."

So Ryan Lizza writes this up (he publishes roughly one piece per day on the NY blog about Trump and his White House). Next thing, the Fact Checking Department of The New Yorker contacts Steve Bannon and asks, hands down, whether he has the habit to suck his own cock.

(That was the punch line).

Reince Priebus

You may remember what followed. Reince Priebus, Chief of Staff of the White House, throws in the towel, citing Scaramucci's appointment. Priebus is replaced by John F. Kelley, a retired 4-Star Marine general, whose first order of business is to fire Scaramucci.  

Fake news

I

am

a

very

stable

genius

He won't go away

You've possibly heard of the book by now. Michael Wolf's Fire and Fury---inside the Trump White House

Here's one quote, just one:

"Trump didn’t read. He didn’t really even skim. If it was print, it might as well not exist. Some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than semiliterate . . . . Some thought him dyslexic; certainly his comprehension was limited. Others concluded that he didn’t read because he didn’t have to, and that in fact this was one of his key attributes as a populist. He was postliterate—total television.
But not only didn’t he read, he didn’t listen. He preferred to be the person talking. And he trusted his own expertise—no matter how paltry or irrelevant—more than anyone else’s. What’s more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention."

Meanwhile...

(not photoshopped:)

Murder on the Orient Express

So we finally went to Cannes to watch the movie.The box office gal was very happy to see us, since we had tried four days ago, but then we'd gotten the opening hour wrong. 

Us (our hills) seen from Cannes; all pictures by Chang (Jason Yoon)

Well...not a bad movie, although I enjoyed the previous "Murder..." more---which I saw forty years ago. Kenneth Branagh directs this remake and stars as Poirot.

Still almost the same angle. It's about 3:10 PM. We're in a hurry.

Harem rock (reposted)

People were asking: Paint it black, quartertones? Here, millennials, is the answer:



And now the post again:

The bigger button

You have the BIGGER BUTTON, you say? What? You don't even sleep with your wife.

Happy New Year!

Harem Rock

By Michael Ampersant (text) and Theo Blaze (art)


Michael Ampersant had dreamed of using some poetry in THIS IS HEAVEN---one character speaking in verse, say---but nothing came of it. But then he discovered that the first part of Chapter 33, "Harem Rock" would actually work as poetry if reformatted as a stanza. Nothing up to Shakespeare standards, but still. Next, the formidable Theo Blaze put up an invite on his site, asking authors to come up with a brief story to illustrate one of his pictures. Michael reacted, and they got a deal; Michael would write a story, if Theo would create an illustration for "Harem Rock." And there we are:
  

John,

Why couldn’t you,

At the end of a page-turning,

Adverb-packed day,

Of unparalleled heat levels.

Why couldn’t you,

Just down the third ‘fortification’ the lady of the house was handing you,

And chuck your dirty shorts one more time,

And let the sex slave fix the Magic-Mike collar around your neck.

In view of the advanced hour,

We’ll keep the strip-tease to a minimum.

Yesterday---a clear day

We went to Cannes to see the new Murder on the Orient Express movie, and this is what we got:

Yes, this really is Cannes, or at least the western part of it ("Cannes la Bocca"). The snowy background is the "Mercantour" which constitutes southern-most part of the Alps, with peaks up to 3,300 meters. It was a clear day.

The color of racism

Peace on earth

Our friend Glenn sends this from America and writes: "My grandson gave me this for Christmas."