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 Rua16 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..."
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.
...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.
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...
...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:)
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).
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.
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:
...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 £aweek...
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.
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):
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
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.
I case you were still wondering: Here's a short clip detailing the Trump-attended Riot Watch Party on the White House grounds, while his "base" was amassing at the Capitol minutes before the attack:
What are these people thinking? The answer is: "We have our Daddy, our Sugar Daddy, our Cult Leader, our 'Base'. We don't need the Constitution. The Constitution is for losers."
