I wonder if the trees in that painting are the ones still there. Unlikely but ...

The (brilliant?) thing about The Naked Gun is that it is pure comedy, only faintly touched by plot. It's all pratfalls, vulgarity and laughs. The lack of sophistication and depth is its strength. It's a top 10 for me in this genre for sure.

The woodpecker is beautiful, but that worn wooden (utility?) pole is a work of art on its own!

"That night I felt the winter in my veins,
A joyous tremor of the icy glow;
And woke to hear the north's wild vibrant strains,
While far and wide, by withered woods and plains,
Fast fell the driving snow."

[from "How One Winter Came in the Lake Region," by Wilfred Campbell]

Brilliant! Love the 'curfew' etymology.

Two more thoughts, now that I've finished reading the excerpt: will this book mark a turning point in which the memoir genre at last collapses on its own contradictions? And did no editor whisper, even silently to themselves, that that Billy Joel fire song might have been an apropos title?

Not Didion, not Calloway, but any one of the Manson murderesses in interviews. That dreamy, amoral sense of inevitability.

Such a tempting invitation in this painting!

This calculus is correct!

Fraser fir is my favourite Christmas tree because of its intoxicating smell, but Frasers are pricey here in Toronto so we usually end up with a Balsam fir (Balsams also have a lovely smell). I grew up with firs and spruce, and once a (white) pine tree, but firs are my favourite too.

Nice trizuby!

Lived there for years (was back on the weekend): this is such a gorgeous + representative shot!

It's strikingly similar to the ways ultra-conservative ideologues co-opted workaday conservatives' concerns into what became the MAGA movement. One has the feeling many ordinary US conservatives aren't sure how 'owning the Libs' became 'Constitutions are for suckers.' /3

E.g., heady claims that the rallies' appeal to "normies" creates buy-in and provides cover for the actual Revolution (coded, as usual, as "struggle"). /2

It's strikingly similar to the ways ultra-conservative movements co-opted workaday conservatives' concerns into what became the MAGA movement. It's a reminder that 'populist' movements risk being harnessed by authoritarians with profoundly anti-democratic aims. Something worth weighing.

Having said that ... I read some of the overnight commentary, and it's giving me some troubling vibes. E.g., heady claims that the rallies' appeal to "normies" creates buy-in and provides cover for the actual Revolution (coded as "struggle"). [con't]

Beauty!

My deeply conservative mother would have cheered every marcher. Especially the frogs.