An Interesting Facebook Thread About the Submersible, and Aviation

John Durham's Testimony

John Durham testified to Congress recently. In his testimony, he revealed a lack of familiarity concerning Russian interactions with Trump's 2016 campaign, which is shocking, considering that that has been his only job for years. It's unclear whether he was covering for Trump or just suffering from FOX News Brain Rot and ignored what he was told to ignore. 

Friends don't let friends watch FOX News. 

David Corn is appalled:

During his turn to question Durham, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) asked Durham about the infamous meeting held in Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, when Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort—three of Trump’s top campaign advisers—sat down with an emissary of the Russian government whom they were told had dirt on Hillary Clinton to share. An email sent to Trump Jr. from a business associate that set up this session informed the candidate’s son that this meeting was part of a secret Russian scheme to help Trump’s campaign. Durham dismissed the matter, remarking, “People get phone calls all the time from individuals who claim to have information like that.”

This meeting signaled to Moscow that the Trump camp was receptive to Russian endeavors to intervene in the election to boost Trump’s chances, and Schiff expressed surprise that Durham found it insignificant. “Are you really trying to diminish the importance of what happened here?” he asked.

Durham answered: “The more complete story is that they met, and it was a ruse, and they didn’t talk about Mrs. Clinton.”

That is not true.

OceanGate Needs a New Tourist Boat

Maybe this one?

 

Something I saw in Mazatlan harbor, December 1, 2010. "Sail On, Titanik!"

Sjeng Scheijen's Biography of Serge Diaghilev

I just finished reading Sjeng Scheijen's biography of Serge Diaghilev, the founder of the Ballets Russes. The author didn't go into too much detail regarding certain events, like the fabled opening of "The Rite of Spring" on May 29, 1913, but filmmakers couldn't resist the spectacle. 

This is from the 2009 film, "Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky." The Ballet Russe had premiered another dance recently, of which the audience disapproved, so they came into this premiere already in a foul mood. The birth of Modernism and a story about Siberian shamans (or Slavic, or Germanic) just wasn't what they wanted that night. 

If I ever think I'm misunderstood, I just watch this clip, and I feel better.

 

Here is a bit from a review of the Sjeng Scheijen's biography:

An itinerant troupe, lurching from season to season on a tide of artistic conflict and rackety financing, the Ballets Russes drew to itself a constellation of talent so lustrous as to transform the theatrical and musical arts forever. At its helm, tirelessly forging deals and collaborations, was Diaghilev. From a purveyor of fashionable exotica such as Scheherazade, which married the music of Rimsky-Korsakov to the virtuosity of Vaslav Nijinsky and the designs of Léon Bakst, he became a pioneer of the avant garde, presenting works such as Parade, which brought together Satie, Cocteau and Picasso. Diaghilev launched the careers of scores of creative luminaries, including Stravinsky and Balanchine, and today most of the world's major classical dance companies can trace their roots, directly or indirectly, to the Ballets Russes.

...That said, this might not be the book for those new to the subject area, for, unlike his predecessors, Scheijen describes the ballets themselves only glancingly. His calculation, presumably, is that the accounts of eye-witnesses such as Sergey Grigoriev (Diaghilev's company manager) and Nijinsky's wife, Romola, have been reproduced so often that they do not bear repetition. But Scheijen takes this policy too far. Of Le Spectre de la Rose, the ballet at the heart of the Nijinsky cult which was so central to the early success of the Ballets Russes, he writes only that it "proved to be an audience favourite". Carnaval, an equally important work by the same choreographer, Mikhail Fokine, doesn't even rate a mention.

...Scheijen's real interest is in the complex and often antagonistic web of male relationships surrounding Diaghilev. Ambitious and celebrity-struck from the start, he had made it his business, by the age of 22, to scrape acquaintance with Tolstoy, Zola, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Verdi and Borodin.

...A decade later, as the editor of the influential Mir iskusstva ("The World of Art"), he was able to mount an exhibition of more than 4,000 historic Russian portraits at the Tauride Palace in St Petersburg, with the Tsar standing surety for the loans.

By then, Diaghilev was part of an upper-crust homosexual coterie whose mores Scheijen describes in diverting detail. The clique included the designers Alexandre Benois and Leon Bakst, and writer Walter Nouvel. They liked to cruise for sex in St Petersburg's Tauride Gardens, boasting of their conquests (mostly hard-up students and cadets), and swapping partners.

...As Scheijen makes clear, the emotional dynamics of the Ballets Russes were as relentless as the financial pressures. Diaghilev was always happy to trample on the feelings of his colleagues if he thought that the outcome merited it and at different times we see Fokine, Benois, Bakst and Nijinsky all desolated by jealousy and injured amour-propre. We are presented with a charming and ruthless tyrant, whose sexual and emotional manipulations of those around him were born of a need for absolute control.

Propane Adventures for the Budget-Conscious

Getting Stuck in Awkward Places

The various memes about the Titanic submersible don’t bother me much, but I am reminded of the 1951 film “Ace in the Hole,” starring Kirk Douglas, about the publicity surrounding a trapped miner, and based on a real event (a trapped spelunker) in Kentucky. (Primary filming location off Route 66 in New Mexico near the Arizona state line).

 

Not Cold At All!

I was feeling a bit miserable here in Sacramento, shivering through summer solstice in what seems like the coldest year since 2011, or maybe ever, so I started looking at climate statistics to see whether or not we were reaching an all-time minimum temperature, or not. 

Turns out, temperatures in the first half of 2023 have been about AVERAGE since records have been kept (since 1877) - not really notable at all! Global warming in recent decades has affected our perception in California of what normal feels like (ten of the Top-20 warmest years Sacramento has ever experienced have been this century), so now a normal temperature just feels cold. 

So far, 2023 is the coldest year since 2011 (such a chill August that year!), and 1999 before that, but otherwise not remarkable at all. 

I'd better dig out my knit cap.

Plausible Deniability

Fallen Branch

Apropos of nothing, a substantial tree branch fell on the neighbors’ place from the neighbor's tree.  Just as Jasper and I returned from our evening walk, I heard the branch cracking and I became apprehensive.  I'm worried that there might be roof damage.  Their landlord Steve needs to jump on this.

Not in Our Yard

A more positive outlook would be helpful. Think of it, like, a resource.

Summer Solstice at To'hajiilee

This is a photo taken on Saturday June 17th by Gaetano Petrone, from Italy. The mesas at To'hajiilee look gorgeous. The reason they look so good is because of the lighting. You can't avoid shadows on the north-facing mesas EXCEPT when you’re near summer solstice sunset, when the sun is finally able to wheel around into the northwest sky. THIS is the time to visit To’hajiilee!

Leave the Possum Alone

Monday midnight walk with my dog Jasper. Upon our return home, Jasper quickly located a possum in the yard. He couldn’t believe me when I explained that the proper thing to do with a possum that collapsed at his approach is to leave it alone.

Cancer and Positive Thinking

Less there than one would think:

For the first half hour in her office, we just talked about how sick I felt and how frightened I was. Then—nervously—I confessed: I wasn’t doing the work of healing myself. I wasn’t being positive.

“Why do you need to be positive?” she asked in a neutral voice.

I thought it should be obvious, but I explained: Because I didn’t want to die!

Coscarelli remained just as neutral and said, “There isn’t a single bit of evidence that having a positive attitude helps heal cancer.”

What? That couldn’t possibly be right. How did she know that? 

“They study it all the time,” she said. “It’s not true.”

Cows Kill More People Than Sharks

Rita Ora - Praising You

I like the pep talk:

   

 I like this video concept too:

 

A Visit to the Cardiologist

Rachel accompanied me to see my cardiologist Dr. Xu on Tuesday, June 13th. Dr. Xu charmingly referred to Rachel as "Mrs. Valdez." 

I described two separate incidents, that occurred on May 16th and May 28th, where my heart rate was racing and I took a prescribed drug, metoprolol tartrate, to slow it down. 

At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then, suddenly, a shock ran through me - nonspecific as to location in my body - and I nearly fainted. What was up with that? 

Dr. Xu explained that the transition to a slower beat wasn't smooth, that the heart had stopped for a bit, then resumed its beat. 

Well, I'm glad my heart saw fit to start beating again. That would certainly be awkward if it didn't.  And I hope these incidents are few and far between.

A pacemaker may be in my future....