Last Dancehall Class of the Year

Slumber Party - December 29-30, 2021

Egads! Jumanji, Aladdin!, Babe, and Chicken Run. (I tear up with Babe.)

Museum of Science and Curiosity (MOSAC) - December 28, 2021

Website

Wet Winter Still Holding

The 2021-22 La Niña rainy season in northern California has so far been erratic af, but in Sacramento we are still holding at about 230% above average. Goodness knows we can still snatch drought from the jaws of inundation, but the longer the precipitation lasts, the better things look. We just broke a December snow record in the northern Sierra that had held for 50 years:

 

The Sierra has officially beat a snow record for this month that was set more than 50 years ago.

As of Tuesday morning, the new December record is at 202.1 inches. According to the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, the previous record was set in 1970 at 179 inches.

Even more snow is expected to come to Northern California Tuesday night into Wednesday. 

Although the previous record is from 1970, that year is also the first time they began keeping track of Sierra snow. It’s possible there may have been years before 1970 with more snow that wasn’t recorded.

The Standells - "Dirty Water"

I've always been puzzled why the Classic Rock radio format often ignores the songs that people were actually listening to back in the day. Like an alternative reality I only half belong to, even though I was there. 

Listening to rock music on the radio in the Sixties, I gravitated to Motown - so energetic, and for someone from Corrales, NM, so exotic! - but I also liked anything with a good beat. 

I'm amused that none of the California-based Standells had been to Boston before releasing this song. According to Wikipedia, "Tower Records producer Ed Cobb wrote the song after a visit to Boston, during which he was robbed on a bridge over the Charles River."

New Covid-19 Case Rates in the U.S. are Now at the Highest Level of the Entire Pandemic

And wham! - just like that, new Covid-19 case rates in the U.S. are now at the highest level of the entire pandemic. There are places overseas with higher rates, but the U.S. keeps striving. New Covid-19 cases in Washington D.C., and the state of New York, are just as high as in Denmark.

That Transistor Radio!

When I was twelve years old, early in 1969, I fetched the AM transistor radio out of storage. Our family was supposed to use the newly-purchased radio to get updates from the government after the Cuban Missile Crisis went nuclear in 1962, after we had fled Corrales and relocated (by family consensus) to the ironically-named town of Cuba, NM (provided we weren't incinerated first, of course), but since that didn't happen, the radio, along with the newly-purchased 50-gallon water tanks, had been collecting dust ever since. 

Playing with the radio, outdoors, after the sun set, I was shocked at just how many radio stations I could listen to, from all over North America - KSL (Salt Lake City), KFI (Los Angeles), KRLD (Dallas), WHO (Des Moines), KSTP (St. Paul) - from all over! So sensitive! Totally beguiling! 

Rock music was red hot in 1969, of course. I loved listening to Wolfman Jack, broadcasting from XERF in Ciudad Acuña, just over the Mexican border from Del Rio, TX,, broadcasting at 250,000 watts, five times the regulated U.S. maximum limit. XERF dominated the airwaves. Apparently you could drive from New York City to Los Angeles and never lose the signal. The radio station was so powerful that Europeans and even Soviets could sometimes receive it. 

And so many good Sixties tunes! Like this one, from 1966. Never gets old!

 

Unfurling of the James Webb Space Telescope - Animation

Sacramento Woman Pleads Guilty

No other way out:

A California woman has pleaded guilty to punching a flight attendant in the face -- bruising her and chipping three of her teeth -- during an argument over mask wearing and other air safety requirements.

Vyvianna Quinonez, a 28 year old resident of Sacramento, had initially claimed she was acting in self-defense, before accepting Wednesday the federal charge of "interference" of a flight, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The incident took place on May 23, when Quinonez's Southwest flight began its descent into Sacramento, according to the plea agreement.

The flight attendant requested Quinonez to fasten her seatbelt, stow her tray-table and to reposition her mask so that it covered her mouth and nose.

In response, Quinonez pushed the flight attendant and then began "punching her in the face and head with a closed fist and grabbing her hair," the agreement stated.

"The flight attendant who was assaulted was simply doing her job to ensure the safety of all passengers aboard the plane," said Randy Grossman, a federal prosecutor in California.

The prosecutor's office said it intends to ask for a jail sentence of four months plus six months of house arrest.

Quinonez will also be banned from flying for three years.

Leaving 2019; Entering 2022

(h/t Margo)

Werner Herzog Nihilistic Take on "A Charlie Brown's Christmas"

This is just silly:

The End of the Cretaceous Was in Late Spring or Early Summer

(h/t, John) Amazing the detail from 66 million years ago!:

In the new research, scientists turned to the Tanis fossil site in western North Dakota, a part of the vast Hell Creek Formation, a geological layer that spans several states and is dated to have been laid down at the time of the impact. Some 10 – 13 minutes after the impact in Mexico, immense seismic waves passed the Tanis site, causing flooding that most likely came from the nearby Western Interior Seaway, a huge but shallow sea that ran north/south across western North America at the time. This in turn created what’s called a seiche, a huge standing wave in water that can generate waves a hundred meters high. This is similar, for a much smaller and mundane scale, to when you scooch back and forth in a bathtub in time with the waves generated, amplifying the crests enough that you can splash water out of the tub.

Now picture the tub being a lake, and the waves reaching 20 stories high. 

This happened quite suddenly at Tanis, and the geography of the area makes it possible to actually get extremely fine time resolution of the events. It’s also replete with fossils, including fish, insects, plants, and more. Here’s where this gets cool: By examining these fossils, it’s possible to figure out the time of year of the impact.

Oh, Hi Mark!

More analysis than you'll ever need of how Gen-Zers address me:

 

Toys For Thoth

RIP Joan Didion

RIP, Joan Didion, Sacramento's native daughter. Here is her childhood home, just a short bike ride away.

Frickin' Anti-Maskers

"West Side Story" was a success, but I didn't much like the three young women next to us in the movie theater. Unmasked, in open defiance of theater regulations. I directly asked them to mask up, and they directly refused, with a touch of naughty smugness. 

So, what to do? I was inclined to thrash them with my jacket, but I had just purchased a high-quality N95 mask. So I sat next them, masked up (except when I ate popcorn). The seats were of the larger sort, so there was a bit of separation. And thank goodness I'm vaccinated up the wazoo. 

Throughout the movie, I fantasized whipping them with my jacket. 

Maybe next time.

"West Side Story" 2021

 

We went to see the new "West Side Story." I liked it! Better than the original. Much better backstory development, with much better exposition at the start of the movie. I loved all the little details, rendered lovingly by Steven Spielberg and his crew, like the ragtag sign opposing Robert Moses and his vision for the future of New York City. 

I noticed the dancing was a touch slower and less angular than the original. That suited me fine. The character development was better. The cinematography was awesome; light years ahead of the original. And Rita Moreno was in it too! 

The only things I didn't like was scene in the morning at the apartment after the dance - it dragged a bit. And I didn't like the Anybodys character - not as sassy as the original, and somewhat inexpressive, with a disconcerting hint of horror. Still, in the grand scheme of things, very minor complaints.

Just a triumph of a movie!

I Like The Mall!

Christmas season means it's time to start prowling the mall. And I like it. Even in this Covid year.

The greatest mall I ever knew was Cinderella City, near where I lived for a time on the outskirts of Denver, in 1976.  The largest mall west of the Mississippi!  I can't believe it's gone: 1968-1997.  That's just 30 years!  I guess I'm getting old!  It came and went like a dream.  They even have a virtual tour.

 

But Sacramento's Arden Fair Mall is still here....  Let's go!
 

This display in J.C. Penney's is inexplicably ticking.  Like a time bomb.  I won't wait around for the BOOM!

Grande vistas at Arden Fair Mall.

Skylight!

Cool displays.

This display at Barnes and Noble is ticking too.  Apparently there are theft-deterrent devices on these items.

Covid-19 Apocalypse Now

It looks like it's the calm before the Covid-19 storm here in the U.S. Omicron is coming! Omicron is just as infectious as Measles, heretofore the most-infectious disease known to mankind. 

The wave of Delta infections in central and northern Europe is finally waning, as represented on this graph by the Netherlands. Nevertheless, despite improved rates, the Dutch are going into immediate lockdown, because they expect Omicron to start hitting them very soon. In the UK, where Covid-19 rates have been unacceptably high all year, rates are suddenly accelerating, likely due to Omicron. 

It's astonishing how quickly Omicron slammed South Africa. Exponential growth is fearsome to behold! As recently as Thanksgiving, there was very little Covid-19 in all of South Africa. Now, South Africa Covid-19 rates have climbed as high as those in the United States. Suddenly, everyone sickened! 

The United States has been on a high but eerily-calm Covid-19 plateau for the past two weeks. If Omicron slams the U.S. as hard as people fear, things will deteriorate so fast that it will break the U.S. health care system, perhaps as soon as the end of January.

Update: Omicron is spreading with astonishing speed. At Thanksgiving it was beginning to spread from Johannesburg, South Africa. Last week, 70% of new cases in the U.S. were Omicron (in purple). By New Year’s, Delta variant will be essentially gone; thoroughly outcompeted by Omicron. Not even forest fires spread this fast.

Lucking Out With Rain This December

Such an erratic rainy season so far! Wetter than we usually get in a La Niña year. 

At the end of October, following the immense rainstorm of October 24th, Sacramento was a surreal 700% above average precipitation for the water year, which started October 1st. Then November was mostly dry, so by last weekend, we were only 190% above average. With the most recent rainfall, we are now 237% above average. We've already surpassed normal December rainfall amounts. 

There are more storms coming too! After a few days of sunshine, Dec. 21-22 will be rainy, as will Dec. 23-24, and Dec. 25-27. 

December will be very rainy, but we've got to bank the water we get, La Niña might kick us with drought again, the way she's kicking the Southwest right now.

Leonora Carrington The Lost Surrealist

Watching this BBC documentary. Lots of empathy for her.

 

Did Somebody Say Something?

I was walking behind a young man on the sidewalk. Bum calls out, “Hey, do you have any money?” Young man replies, “No, sorry.” Bum replies, “I wasn’t talking to you, but to the old man behind you.” (I affected deafness)

Belated RIP: Ken Young

This weekend, after about 35 years, I spoke to my graduate school officemate. We compared notes about the professors at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. So many have passed on! 

My Master's Degree advisor, Ken Young, passed away in 2018. Even though he lived in Petrolia, California, and ran in the Sacramento area, I never met him here.  I wrote a paper regarding equilibrium rainfall drop distributions under him. Many people cite that paper these days. We are still having an impact! I should see how our reputation is standing up these days.

I recall the first time I met Ken. I was a new graduate student.  I told him, "I understand you like to jog." His jaw dropped in shock.

"JOG????!!!!" he replied with overwhelming sarcasm. "JOG!!!!???? I AM A RUNNER! I RUN!" 

I stood corrected.

He had problems with injuries later in life.  I remember his difficulties with two of his Grand Canyon runs: running from the South Rim to the North Rim, and back, in one day.  Twice, he had knee issues on the very last leg of the runs. So hard!  (I'm amazed anyone thought to do that at all!)

Runner and statistician Ken Young, who practically single-handedly revolutionised the way road running is tracked, passed away on 3 February, aged 76. 

While working on his Ph.D at the University of Chicago, Ken joined the school’s track club where he met Ted Haydon, an assistant coach for the USA Olympic team. Haydon got Ken to help him with statistics for a handicap race which launched his lifelong passion for computer analysis of running data. He began to compare results from different distances to determine who the faster runners were and developed a model to predict race times. He visited libraries across the US and Canada to collect running data from their archives. In 1973 he founded the National Running Data Center.

Under Coach Haydon’s guidance Ken targeted particular records. In 1972 he succeeded in setting a world indoor marathon record of 2:41:29 in Chicago. Later that year, on an outdoor track, he set an American Records on separate occasions for 40 miles (4:08) and 50km (3:08).

Through his National Running Data Center he became the official record keeper of the USATF Long Distance Running Committee from 1979–1988. He also took a keen interest in the measurement and certification of running courses.

In the early 1990s these various interests coalesced in the publication of a statistics-heavy newsletter, The Analytical Distance Runner. 

In 2003 he banded together with other like-minded statisticians to establish the Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) which maintains the website arrs.net. By 2016 the ARRS database included more than 1.1 million performances from 214,000 races. He maintained a system of ranking elite runners worldwide for head-to-head competition which race directors used to decide who to invite to their races. 

Over about a 40-year period he spent about 40 hours a week sorting through running data. “The world is full of so much chaos, and I’m a born planner, an organizer,” he said. “I try to make sense out of things and look for an underlying structure.”

Kentucky's Rand Paul and Thomas Massie Sure Have Balls For Asking For Disaster Aid For Kentucky

These two bastards have opposed disaster assistance for large hurricanes for the last decade if the storms focused their damage on blue areas: Sandy, Harvey, Irma, Maria - all of them! These GOP clowns treat disaster assistance as a red state piggy bank. It's time to smack them in the face! The hell with them!:

When former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey requested federal aid for Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Paul criticized Christie for having a "gimme, gimme, gimme," attitude. In 2017, the Senate passed a disaster relief bill for Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, with Paul being one of 17 senators — all Republicans — who voted No. Paul, speaking against the bill, said "People here will say they have great compassion and they want to help the people of Puerto Rico, the people of Texas, and the people of Florida. But notice they have great compassion with somebody else's money." Aaron Rupar, former journalist at Vox, wrote on Twitter, "Turns out, @RandPaul, that people can't bootstrap their way out of a storm destroying their house."

Still Plenty of Toilet Paper

Today in the pandemic, I’m finally nearing the end of the bundle of paper towels I bought in the frantic early days of March and April, 2020. Still, haven’t made much of a dent in the bundles of toilet paper purchased at the same time. I’ll have to think of something.

Bagpipes in the Cathedral

Steady Rain Today

2.36 inches, and counting! Rainfall since October 1st jumped from about 189% above average, to 237%, and climbing. And there is more coming too, over the next week. Such an erratic season, so far!

Green Valley Theater Company's VerteFée Cabaret's Merry Krampusnacht - December 11, 2021

Been Working On My Surrealism Talk For February

This is fun stuff. Surrealism has definitely affected "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul."

Weird Fitness Mystery - November 21, 2021

Who ARE these people! I saw the flags and assumed it was a political demonstration of some sort that was about to pass my house: maybe some pro-Trump rally. Instead, it appears to have been a mass jog by some fitness studio. No real explanation.

No One Wants To Date Conservatives Because They Are Moral Lepers

The whiny white-boy babies are pouting again. Too bad. No one will ever love them:

"Young Dems more likely to despise the other party," blares Tuesday's Axios headline, noting in the article that "5% of Republicans said they wouldn't be friends with someone from the opposite party, compared to 37% of Democrats," and "71% of Democrats wouldn't go on a date with someone with opposing views, versus 31% of Republicans."

...On the right, there was a lot of trumpeting how this supposedly proves the left are the ones who are "really" intolerant. Radio talker Matt Murphy whined that liberals "don't believe in our republic cannot abide people who think differently than them." As if not getting to have sex with or go to parties with liberals is exactly the same as having your basic rights as a citizen stripped from you. "This doesn't bode well," complained GOP lawyer and ABC commentator Sarah Isgur, who previously defended the Trump administration's policy of separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border as a former spokesperson in the Justice Department.

...This is about desirability, not "tolerance." Democrats are desirable as friends and lovers, not just to their fellow party members, but to Republicans, as well. But Republicans? They apparently don't have much to offer to Democrats as friends, and certainly not as lovers. Digging into the polling shows why this is. 

As the Axios write-up by Neal Rothschild notes, young Democrats believe that GOP positions "spearheaded by former President Trump — are far outside of the mainstream and polite conversation." In particular, "human rights, and not just policy differences, are at stake." Which, no duh. Just last week, the GOP-controlled Supreme Court made it clear they plan to strip basic bodily autonomy rights from everyone with a uterus. The Republican Party is rallying around violent and white supremacist rhetoric.

Covid Vaccinations For Children - Kaiser Roseville Hospital - December 3, 2021

Children and their parents line up in the hallway.  Not enough children are vaccinated yet to avoid a winter spike, but at least this is a start.

I found the bottom label on the fridge amusing.

Kiki Dee Band - I've Got The Music In Me - 1974

I've had a cold the last several days, but I'm beginning to feel better again. I took one of those BINAX Covid tests, and it came up negative. Beginning to feel - good! 

Good theme music for the moment...

 

Rat Jumped To Conclusion

My big urban moment yesterday came while driving through the pharmacy parking lot. To exit the parking lot, I was faced with a choice. Do I turn left, or do I turn right? 

I started to turn right, but then changed my mind and turned left. I surprised a large rat, exposed crossing towards the pharmacy, who thought, for sure, that I was turning right.

That Damned Delta

It looks like the post-Thanksgiving disease rush has started in earnest. Covid cases zoomed 62% in the past week - the fastest percentage increase of the entire pandemic! The northern tier is bad: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan. New England is bad: Vermont, New Hampshire, with increases moving into the urban northeast too (particularly Rhode Island). New Mexico is bad. I'm hoping the mass inoculation of school-age kids will blunt Delta's impact, but despite that, it looks like we'll see a bad winter after all.

Culinary Forensics

I’m not terribly good at cooking and related domestic arts, and don’t even know much about what’s in my own cupboards. I remember back in the 90s, when a sudden fly infestation revealed that a hidden 20 lb. bag of potatoes had aged and liquefied. Goopy! Those were the days! 

Still, I’ve been cleaning out old food, and noticed a box of brownie mix, so I whipped up some tasty brownies. I noticed the box had an expiration date of January, 2016, but age doesn’t seem to have affected quality or taste. Just a big scare notice. Next up, some powdered green chile mix that, if memory serves, dates to about 2006.

Nite School: Haunted New Mexico

Amusing Albuquerque-oriented by the improv types at the Vortex Theater.

 

RIP, Stephen Sondheim

Ah, the master passes away:

NEW YORK (AP) - Stephen Sondheim, the songwriter who reshaped the American musical theater in the second half of the 20th century with his intelligent, intricately rhymed lyrics, his use of evocative melodies and his willingness to tackle unusual subjects, has died. He was 91.

...Sondheim influenced several generations of theater songwriters, particularly with such landmark musicals as "Company," "Follies" and "Sweeney Todd," which are considered among his best work. His most famous ballad, "Send in the Clowns," has been recorded hundreds of times, including by Frank Sinatra and Judy Collins.

The artist refused to repeat himself, finding inspiration for his shows in such diverse subjects as an Ingmar Bergman movie ("A Little Night Music"), the opening of Japan to the West ("Pacific Overtures"), French painter Georges Seurat ("Sunday in the Park With George"), Grimm's fairy tales ("Into the Woods") and even the killers of American presidents ("Assassins"), among others.

Tributes quickly flooded social media as performers and writers alike saluted a giant of the theater. "We shall be singing your songs forever," wrote Lea Salonga. Aaron Tveit wrote: "We are so lucky to have what you've given the world."

"The theater has lost one of its greatest geniuses and the world has lost one of its greatest and most original writers. Sadly, there is now a giant in the sky," producer Cameron Mackintosh wrote in tribute. Music supervisor, arranger and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire tweeted: "For those of us who love new musical theater: we live in a world that Sondheim built."

Six of Sondheim's musicals won Tony Awards for best score, and he also received a Pulitzer Prize ("Sunday in the Park"), an Academy Award (for the song "Sooner or Later" from the film "Dick Tracy"), five Olivier Awards and the Presidential Medal of Honor. In 2008, he received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement. 

Sondheim's music and lyrics gave his shows a dark, dramatic edge, whereas before him, the dominant tone of musicals was frothy and comic. He was sometimes criticized as a composer of unhummable songs, a badge that didn't bother Sondheim. Frank Sinatra, who had a hit with Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns," once complained: "He could make me a lot happier if he'd write more songs for saloon singers like me."

To theater fans, Sondheim's sophistication and brilliance made him an icon. A Broadway theater was named after him. A New York magazine cover asked "Is Sondheim God?" The Guardian newspaper once offered this question: "Is Stephen Sondheim the Shakespeare of musical theatre?"

A supreme wordsmith - and an avid player of word games - Sondheim's joy of language shone through. "The opposite of left is right/The opposite of right is wrong/So anyone who's left is wrong, right?" he wrote in "Anyone Can Whistle." In "Company," he penned the lines: "Good things get better/Bad gets worse/Wait - I think I meant that in reverse."

He offered the three principles necessary for a songwriter in his first volume of collected lyrics - Content Dictates Form, Less Is More, and God Is in the Details. All these truisms, he wrote, were "in the service of Clarity, without which nothing else matters." Together they led to stunning lines like: "It's a very short road from the pinch and the punch to the paunch and the pouch and the pension."

Taught by no less a genius than Oscar Hammerstein, Sondheim pushed the musical into a darker, richer and more intellectual place. "If you think of a theater lyric as a short story, as I do, then every line has the weight of a paragraph," he wrote in his 2010 book, "Finishing the Hat," the first volume of his collection of lyrics and comments.

These Central and Northern European Values Are Just Out-of-Sight!

Jesus on a Tortilla - A Very New Mexican Story

A touching retelling of a strange episode in New Mexico's history:

One October morning in 1977, Maria Rubio was in her small green stucco house in southeastern New Mexico, preparing her husband’s lunch. It was 6 a.m., and she was making burritos—cooking beans, scrambling eggs, and preparing tortillas from scratch. And then she saw it, as she was putting together the second burrito: a burn mark on one of the tortillas, in the shape of a little face. Maria felt chills, and she could sense her body moving, though she wasn’t sure if it was out of joy or fear.

Maria shouted at her 17-year-old daughter, Rosy, to come into the kitchen. She asked Rosy what the burn mark looked like to her. “Oh, my God,” Rosy recalls thinking. “That looks like the face of Jesus.” Maria agreed. She hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, because she didn’t want Rosy to think she was crazy.

...That image was about an inch tall and an inch wide. If you look at photos from back then, the likeness is unmistakable: It’s Jesus Christ in profile, complete with a beard and a crown of thorns. Maria and Rosy were overwhelmed with excitement. But Eduardo felt warier. He worried the tortilla might be a bad omen.

...By the end of 1977, more than 6,000 visitors had signed Maria’s guest books. People streamed in from all over New Mexico, many of them Latino, drawn by word of mouth and local news stories. “We related a lot more to the Mexican Catholic people,” Rosy says. “Those were the people I remember just coming in with a lot of faith, with a lot of intention.” The visitors prayed for sick relatives and lit votive candles. One woman said that she was “looked down upon because she [was] poor and Mexican American.” She believed that Jesus had appeared “in a poor person’s house to show … people are all the same.”

...Maria and Rosy did a lot of interviews. But the one they taped in 1994 was their biggest yet. The Phil Donahue Show was recorded in front of a live studio audience in New York City. That trip was the first time that Maria had ever been on a plane. As they took off, Maria said, “I think I’m going to die now.” For Rosy, it was thrilling to be in New York, but Maria was overwhelmed. When they went to a nice dinner downtown, Maria was too nervous to eat her apple pie.

Filming the show itself wasn’t any easier. The studio audience started laughing less than 30 seconds in, when Donahue uttered the phrase “Jesus in a tortilla.”

...On The Phil Donahue Show, Maria and Rosy got presented as potential scammers. “If you give up your caution and your common sense,” one guest, a well-known debunker of phony religious miracles, said, “any charlatan with a pocketful of magic tricks can come in and take your money and sometimes your life.” Later in the episode, an audience member told Donahue, “Although I’m not much for tortillas, I am going to keep a close eye on my potato chips.”

On the outside, Rosy managed to keep her composure. But on the inside, she says, “I remember just seething.” What she wanted to do most of all was give that potato chip woman the finger.

After that experience in New York, Maria told Rosy that she was done with TV interviews. The next year, when The Oprah Winfrey Show called, Rosy went to Chicago without her mother. But her second big television appearance didn’t go much better than the first. “I just don’t know why Jesus would want to be on a tortilla,” Oprah said. And the crowd roared with laughter.

...By the 1990s, Jesus on a tortilla had become a kind of small-scale meme. Kurt Cobain wrote in his journal, “I saw Jesus on a tortilla shell.” The Simpsons referenced it. (“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to appear on a tortilla in Mexico,” God tells Homer.) There’s even a feature film, Tortilla Heaven, about Jesus’ image miraculously appearing on a tortilla in New Mexico. The Rubios weren’t consulted for that movie, which critic Justin Chang called “as flat as a tortilla and considerably less nourishing.”

In Tortilla Heaven, everyone tries to make a buck off the holy image, charging admission fees to see it and selling tortilla merchandise. That was the popular conception—that anyone who saw Jesus on a tortilla surely had impure motives. But for Maria, the tortilla was always a duty. Something she’d been asked to share, for reasons she didn’t understand. In 1977, she opened her home to the entire world. But over many years, very gradually, that sense of obligation to the public started to go away. 

...The tortilla broke sometime around 2005. “My mom says she lent it out to one of my nieces,” Angelica says. But she thinks nobody wants to tell the real story. “They’re afraid of what might happen,” she says, “which is nothing. Like, the tortilla’s a tortilla, it was bound to break at some point.” The tortilla now sits in pieces, and the part with the actual burn mark has gone missing.

Europe's Got Big Covid-19 Issues

In the United States, Covid-19 rates are beginning their expected, steep wintertime increase, just as the holiday season starts. (Rates in California are still edging downwards.) Nevertheless, U.S. rates are still moderate compared to elsewhere. Rates in central and northern Europe are really soaring. Austria looks scary - a steep increase with no sign of leveling out.

 

Taylor Swift - All Too Well - SNL

A very impressive performance by Taylor Swift! 

As the author here notes, her performance emphasizes that one should never, ever break up with Taylor Swift, unless you're willing to pay a very high price.

 

Marc Shark At The Zoo 6 - Who Are You, Flamingo Forty-Two?

Friday November 13, 2021

 

Republicans are the Totalitarians Now

I've been up to my usual tricks - corraling Walt with arguments reviling his precious GOP. This article from a year ago, by a Chinese historian, makes exact parallels between Trump and Mao, and shows how the GOP is decaying from a Leninist party (Hastert Rule!) into a Maoist one.

The process of Leninist degeneration in both China and the GOP was completed through the apotheosis of the charismatic leader. There are many differences between Mao and Trump, but their similarities are uncanny. Both are sons of wealthy landlords. Both rely on ties to propaganda machines to stoke hatred of ostensible enemies. Both sabotage international alliances. The political rallies of both men are vermilion spectacles of adulation as the legions hold aloft their “Little Red Books” or adorn their crowns with red MAGA caps. Such populist extravaganzas manifest their unparalleled political advantages. 

The Maoification of the GOP enables President Trump to do whatever he wants in the ostensible advancement of “conservatism,” a term which, like “communism” in China today, is rendered increasingly meaningless as it is equated with nothing more than party power and loyalty to the supreme leader. Such a party needs no electoral platform beyond supporting the president’s “agenda.” The GOP is the “party of Trump,” and Republicans who beg to differ have now “self-purged,” to paraphrase Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

SoCal Has Some Interesting Places

I need to see these things:

That’s a pink brontosaurus foot in the foreground, because you can’t get back to L.A. without passing the cement dinosaurs at Cabazon, built in the ‘70s and ‘80s to promote a restaurant that’s gone now. Kids still love them. So do Instagrammers since management went to bolder colors in 2020. What’s not to like about a road trip that ends with a big, green Tyrannosaurus rex that loves California?

Annette Hanshaw - Happy Days Are Here Again (1930)

Traffic Collision Involving Structure

I could hear the sirens. Pulse app said ‘Traffic collision involving structure.’ Sure enough, someone took out the storefront at Famous Pizza on Freeport.

Veteran's Day, 2021

My father rarely spoke of his days with Baker Battery, 666th Field Artillery Battalion - the Battle of the Bulge, and the run-and-gun race across northern Germany, but fortunately Nathan Blumberg (who grew up in Denver and after the war moved to Montana) in adjacent Charlie Battery wrote a book about his experiences ("Charlie of 666: A Memoir of World War II"), and his self-appraisal during the Battle of the Bulge: 

___ 

At some moment during a lull in the artillery battle in those first four days in the snows of Belgium, I walked into the woods near our howitzers, exhausted and disoriented. I rested my carbine against a tree, brushed the snow off a log and sat down. After minutes of silence broken only by the muffled sounds of military vehicles from the highway, I talked with myself. 

Look, I said out loud, four things can happen before this thing is over. 

You could be killed. 

Okay. 

You could be wounded and survive, possibly to spend the rest of your days crippled in some way. 

Okay. 

You could be taken prisoner. But you know about the Malmedy massacre and you have a pretty good idea of what the Germans would do to a captured Jewish corporal who is also a forward observer helping to call fire down on them. Also, since you aren't an officer or a non-com, you wouldn't be exempt from forced labor. Being a POW was a possibility you had ruled out long ago. You'd made up your mind that you would never allow yourself to fall into the hands of those fucking Nazis. You'd die first or try to escape, no matter the risk. You've hated the bastards since you were a kid, listening to the speeches of that crazy Hitler on the radio, and now you've seen with your eyes what they can do. No prisoner - or not for long. Fuck 'em. 

Okay. 

Or, at last, you could survive and come through the damndest experience of your life sound of body and knowing that never again would you experience an adventure so thoroughly dangerous, thrilling, exciting, interesting, exhilarating, fascinating, terrifying - and satisfying. Yes, satisfying. You said this is what you wanted when you enlisted. You have to rise to a dimension that allows you to accept, without reservation, whatever fate has in store for you. You have to go from "What the hell am I doing here?" to "Of all the places I could be, I want to be here. I am lucky to be here. I am honored to be here." 

Okay!

Big Bird Has A New Word For Ted Cruz

(h/t John)

 

Joy - Apollo 100

1972. When I was 15, starting to hike a lot, and the future looked good.

Miscellany

Boosted!

Monday evening! But spent most of Tuesday in a haze.

Covid-19 Rates Increasing in Eastern and Northern Europe

Covid-19 rates appear to have peaked in the Caribbean several weeks ago and are now heading down. 

In eastern Europe, Covid-19 rates are finally going down in certain places (Romania, Lithuania; flat in Ukraine). 

Still, in most of eastern and northern Europe, Covid-19 rates are climbing to alarming levels. Peaks have yet to be reached as winter arrives. 

Covid-19 rates are mostly flat in the United States, but are still high along the northern tier: Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota. Rates are increasing dramatically along the Continental Divide - Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, plus Utah, and, sadly, despite rather high vaccination rates, my home state of New Mexico. It just underlines the importance of getting EVERYONE vaccinated!

 

Interesting Article on Narco-Style

The bane of Sinaloa:

“Buchona” is a slang term first popularized in the Mexican state of Sinaloa as a way of describing the flamboyant girlfriends of a generation of 21st century narcos who are referred to in the masculine as “buchón” or “buchones.”

Sinaloa, of course, is the coastal Pacific region that is home to the Sinaloa cartel, once led by the infamous Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman (now serving a life sentence in the U.S.). Guzman’s wife, former beauty queen Emma Coronel Aispuro, is the buchona whose name comes most easily to everyone’s lips — the buchona máxima, if you will. She recently pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges in U.S. federal court and is awaiting sentencing, but her looks and her lifestyle are still a subject of passionate discourse on the internet. 

If in its early days “buchona” referred to a narco’s girlfriend, over the years, the term has taken on added meanings, expanding to include women who are linked to or have active roles in the cartels. It can also include women who simply adopt the buchona style — women with a taste for flashy clothes who don’t hide their love of partying, money or men.

Nearly-Losing Traditional Methods

Interesting tale of Climate Change in Oceania, against a backdrop of traditional skills passing with the elderly:

Lucky Star was one of three canoes sailed to Guam from Lamotrek by the wayfinder Raigetal and his crew of apprentices. What made this particular canoe so special was the fact that its sail was traditional, meaning it was woven from pandanus leaves by the women of Lamotrek.

There, in the weeks leading up to the voyage, it was discovered that the knowledge of how to weave such a sail was very nearly lost. Literally one woman still knew how to do it.

Her name was Maria Labushoilam, a 90-year-old master weaver, and she was dying. Maria would spend the last two weeks of her life teaching 15 women how to make that sail. 

From her deathbed, she taught them how to harvest, dry, and split the leaves, and then how to weave them. After she died, the women completed the sail without her. The community raised it together.

The Water-Poor Town, and the Water-Richer Town That Refused To Help

Interesting story about water and need and complacency:

In 2019, when the Exeter City Council voted on extending drinking water to people in Tooleville, several Exeter residents went to the microphone to say it was the neighborly thing to do. More argued it would strain city staff, that the state’s promises of funding couldn’t be trusted, that their city had problems of their own to fix, and that Tooleville residents had become demanding under the tutelage of activists who helped them organize. The council unanimously voted down consolidation.

This July, as the most recent drought deepened and the heat rose, one of Tooleville’s wells ran completely dry for a day and remains sputtering. The main well is expected to hit sand within months.

Without water pressure, people climbed on their roofs and poured water into swamp coolers. Others couldn’t risk running out of drinking water and sweltered, trying to keep their children still in darkened rooms. 

On Aug. 23, the State Water Resources Control Board sent a letter to Exeter officials warning that if they did not have a voluntary plan for consolidation within six months, the state would step in.

Dune's "Song of the Sisters"

Most interesting song on the Dune soundtrack.

 

Space Station Chile

John sends this:

Astronauts on the ISS indulged in a special treat after harvesting peppers that have been growing on the ISS since July. The plants are from NuMex "Española Improved" seeds, a hybrid Hatch chile. Hatch refers to a town and region in New Mexico known for its peppers. 

NASA astronaut Megan McArthur tweeted on Friday about tasting both red and green chile (the peppers turn red when they stay on the plant longer) and shared photos of the tacos she made, which she described as "my best space tacos yet."

Same Sky Postcards

This is an odd tale. How so many postcards from the Forties through Eighties ended up with the same sky for a background:

 

"Dune"

I love Frank Herbert's "Dune," but it's been 50 years since I last read it (hard to believe). Plus, I'm not a big fan of Timothée Chalamet. Would the new movie by director Denis Villeneuve satisfy me? (I made sure to choose an IMAX theater for maximum boom.) 

The answer is yes! The world of Arrakis, as I hazily recalled it, brought to life through movie magic! Timothée Chalamet is adequate. I don't know how he'll do in Part 2, when he has to launch a universe-wide jihad, but all he had to do in Part 1 was avoid getting killed and he seemed up to that.

 

Help Support Anthony Gonzales In His Time Of Need

Friend and fellow Zumba and Jamaican Dancehall dancer (and Jasper's dog groomer) Anthony Gonzales was attacked in Old Sac on Saturday night. His friends have hastily arranged a Gofundme:

Anthony was attacked Saturday night in Old Sac. He sustained some pretty bad injuries but luckily will make a full recovery. He’s currently at the UC Davis trauma center being treated for broken ribs, a punctured lung, and multiple contusions. As happy as we are that he will recover after some time. This will impact him and his business. As you may know he is one of the best dog groomers in Sacramento. He does everything in that shop including the heavy lifting of dogs. His injuries are going to impact his abilities to make money. His medical bills from this will also be astronomical as he is self employed.

Zero Trick-or-Treaters This Year

Birthday Number 65!

The kids suggested this celebratory video:

 

Ia baked a great cake!

"Into The Woods" Cast Party - Hummingbird Theatre Company

Somewhere on the wilnerness edge of Rancho Cordova near Security Park.