Not to worry. Democrats are proposing yet another immigration amnesty bill. We all know how much Americans want migrant caravans to come back. This is sure to bring those ratings right back up.
Month: July 2025
Book Notes: Angela Thirkell’s Wild Strawberries
Wild Strawberries is a charming British novel from the 1930s. This is the first book by Thirkell I’ve read, and it looks like she was inspired by Anthony Trollope to write a series that would continue his Barsetshire novels. Thirkell isn’t really Trollope, of course. She’s much lighter, and Wild Strawberries is sweet and lovely but it’s not a work of art. It’s exceptionally high-quality amusement. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
What Thirkell does share with Trollope is that her writing is a lot less about plot than characters. She creates some absolutely delightful characters, and they make her books worth reading. In Wild Strawberries, for instance, there’s Agnes, a mother of three, who is so blissfully happy being married and having kids, that it’s a joy to read about her. It almost never happens in literature that you meet a female character who is fine. Just simply fine. She’s not unhappy, resentful, oppressed, of covetous. Agnes loves everything about her life. And it really makes you sit up and notice when you realize that you can’t think of another female character who is so content with life. There are tons of male characters who dig their lives but no female ones.
Then there’s Lady Emily, Agnes’s mother. She’s hilariously fussy and exceptionally delightful. There’s also Martin, a teenage boy, who’s living his boyhood with great enjoyment. The whole novel is just so gosh darn enjoyable. If you need some peace and lightness in your life, do read it. It’s outstanding.
Growing Disappointment
This is very disappointing. I want to keep supporting Israel but it’s getting hard. It doesn’t seem like anything will be enough for Israel to stop going to war.
I’ve been extremely supportive but it’s getting so I’m starting to wonder if Russia is not the only culture of death on the planet.
AI Music
An AI-generated band got 1m plays on Spotify. Now music insiders say listeners should be warned
The Velvet Sundown released two albums before admitting their music, images and backstory were created by AI.
I listened to the song, and it’s very curious how recognizable it is. Of course, AI doesn’t create. It compiles snippets of what already exists. But so much exists that it can present its concoctions as standalone artifacts.
I couldn’t listen to more than 20 seconds of this AI-generated song not because of any ideological opposition to AI. My objection to it is on the same grounds as my objection to wearing a leopard print top with zebra print leggings. It’s in bad taste. It’s outdated, it’s vulgar. Not sexually vulgar but lacking all discernment. The song is bad precisely because it’s made out of snippers of past melodies. It’s outdated. It has the “God, not this again” flavor.
Unfortunately, many people sincerely don’t understand why Lays chips aren’t food and this music isn’t music.
By the Pool
I know I said it a trillion times already but I’ll never get over how well-behaved, polite, and sweet American children are. And how well American parents treat their children. You only know it if you grew up somewhere else, otherwise it feels natural and I don’t notice.
Three large families appeared at the resort in the past couple of days. One is definitely from the South, with accents that I’d place in South Carolina. Each family has a bunch of kids, plus there are grandparents and a couple of college-age youngsters. And everybody is calm. Nobody is screaming at the children or editing their behavior at all. I don’t know whether it changed but, in the country I left, moms would make themselves hoarse yelling at children to stand here and not there, sit, no, stand, no, come here, no, go away.
And the children have the loveliest manners. Older kids are very sweet with the little ones. Such a great environment.
An Admirable Neoliberal
I can’t get over the fact that this is how she looked at 75:
And yes, she saw through that KGB prick when other Western leaders were completely bamboozled.
What an extraordinary woman.
Resorts Win
Traditional resorts are still enormously better than Airbnb where you are practically taken hostage until you complete a series of bizarre and dimeaning quests before being able to leave. One of the worst quests I’ve had to complete was to emerge from an apartment in Madrid, lock the door, crawl into a strange little space behind lines of drying laundry, and throw the key back into the apartment through a small window so that it would land in a spot that the instructions described in a long-winded and pompous way. You only got one chance at landing the key correctly since you couldn’t get back into the apartment and redo the exercise.
At the same (very pricey and extraordinarily well-appointed) apartment in Madrid, there was a dishwasher that gave me a neurosis. Every use of the dishwasher would short-circuit the stove, necessitating the owner to come and lie under the stove for an hour with a hairdryer in his hand to dry it out. This gave me paroxysms of guilt, especially since the owner tried to be an extremely good sport about it and tell me in detail how he absolutely didn’t mind spending his Saturday night under a stove.
“Why didn’t you stop using the dishwasher, then?” you’ll ask, thinking that by “using the dishwasher” I necessarily mean “turning it on to wash dishes.” But no, as I found in complete desperation, dripping a couple of water drops on it from the dishes one washed in the sink has the same nefarious effect, resulting in the elegantly dressed owner lying under the stove again with a cheerful explanation of how he didn’t mind spending both Saturday and Sunday drying appliances with a hairdryer.
Boiled Water
Is it true that you shouldn’t boil water twice? For example, if you boiled a kettle of water and used it to make tea, then should you pour the water you didn’t use out?
I always reboil many times until the pot is empty. Has anybody heard any wisdom on the subject? N says his Grandma was adamant that water should never be reboiled but is anybody else aware of this?
Q&A about Inner Monologue
This is very frequent. It’s so frequent that more people do it than don’t. The only way out is to train yourself out of it. Every time it starts to happen, stop yourself and do something calming. If you are tactile, carry a little object in your pocket that has the texture that grounds you. If you are olfactory, use a little piece of cloth with the scent that you find soothing. If you are verbal, recite your favorite poem to yourself, slowly and with gusto.
Another method is to rub your fingertips against each other while breathing deep and clearing your mind of everything. Some people imagine that they are floating in a swimming pool, with sun caressing their forehead. Others repeat in their head, “inner peace, inner peace.” On “inner” you breathe in, on “peace” you breathe out.
At the end of the activity, imagine that you get in a car, slam the door behind you, and drive away from these people. “Bye bye! You can’t have me!” Let a wave of relief that you escaped wash over you.
It takes time but the method works. Only today I received news that the Dean is retaliating against me. The need to address passionate inner monologues at this bastard was strong. But I beat it because I’m on vacation and don’t want to waste it on him.
Mysterious Lunch
Does anybody understand what this means?
I ask in complete sincerity. There must be something very cultural going on here that I don’t get.
I read the comments, and they seem very aggressive.
Does anybody get this?
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