Regarding Trump’s actions and their impact on Zelensky’s domestic support.

There are only three scenarios:

1. Trump knew his way of engaging with Zelensky was going to make Zelensky massively popular at home and supported even by his biggest challenger in the next election (which is what happened.) But Trump likes Zelensky and wanted to do him a solid. We can all agree that this scenario is utterly unrealistic.
2. Trump has no idea that his actions would have this effect because he’s completely stupid and has no clue what he’s doing. This is the explanation Democrats will like but it leaves open the question of why they keep losing to somebody they consider so dumb and what it says about them.
3. Trump has absolutely no interest in what Zelensky’s ratings are and whether he’ll win the next election in Ukraine because Trump’s base wants him to do stuff domestically and not be very engaged internationally. Trump is withdrawing from international engagements to fulfill his electoral promises. I believe this is the likeliest scenario.

“He threatened / disrespected / slighted our president / our country.”

The entire world is subsumed in hysteria over manufactured threats and affronts. People know that something is wrong but have no idea how to verbalize their anxiety. The nation-state is dying, and they are hoping to resuscitate it with these tantrums. Wail it back into existence. They purse their lips in patriotic resolve long after there’s last been an entity in need of patriotic attachment.

“He threatened to invade, he should have worn a suit, he didn’t say thank you, he said thank you 33 times, he did, no, he did, no, he did.”

The playground-level poutiness of this bickering shows that the nation-state is dead. We are arguing over how to decorate its corpse to make it look less putrid.

Back during COVID, we had raging debates on campus over who was at risk, what measures worked, and so on. While we raged and ranted, faceless, mediocre bureaucrats moved into our buildings, committees and responsibilities. They said, “stay home, save lives” but came to work in person every day and stayed late, putting together a structure that made us irrelevant. Now they have move in to take our Epstein arrests jobs away.

These bureaucrats go to actual seminars where they are trained how not to be emotionally incontinent. The only boundaries that exist any longer are the ones you erect and police yourself. They encourage us to rage and emote while they turn themselves into tightly guarded fortresses and they beat us every time, in every contest. They appeal to our emotions masterfully but never engage their own.

When international agreements are signed, a press conference usually follows. There can be a press briefing before, but a long sit-down press conference normally follows the signing. It doesn’t precede the signing because there’s nothing to discuss if nothing has been signed.

The incapacity of people to see that nobody was planning to sign anything yesterday in the White House because there’s nothing to sign is painful to watch. How do they deal with telemarketers with this degree of gullibility, is what I don’t understand.

Here’s an article on how AI is used in movies and TV. For example, when an actor has to say a few phrases in a foreign language, AI can make him sound natural and not ridiculous. Or actors can be given cobalt eyes, like in Dune. Documentaries and historical films can have the voices of the dead people they talk about resurrected. To me it all sounds fantastic. Special effects, including of the computer-generated kind, have always existed. We didn’t expect characters in Buffy actually to turn into vampires with the power of their talent. The transformation that happened five times in each episode was computer-generated. And that was back in 1998.

As for accents, it will be a relief no longer to hear supposedly Mexican characters say “pour favour, ameegow,” so I don’t see a downside.

De-aging is something now done with AI. Again, I think it’s better than actors getting pumped full of fillers and Botox, which they have been massively overdoing. I very rarely watch anything American and prefer European TV series and movies because in them characters look like people and not robots. US movies and TV shows have chosen to make actors pursue the ideal of abnormal perfection that turns them into plastic dolls on a shelf. This was long before AI. I don’t understand this choice and have removed myself from the American visual culture almost entirely.

To me, the problem of American movie-making is that there are no stories. Often, a script starts to fail somewhere in the middle and collapses from here. Endless remakes that we’ve been discussing here on the blog testify to the scarcity of captivating, meaningful stories, as well. You can find good acting, excellent photography, elaborate special effects, and even AI, but scripts have turned into cardboard cutouts, clunky and embarrassing.

Things are still not as dire in TV, although the golden age of American television that we all experienced starting in the late 1990s has come to an end. There are still some fine shows but the era of Seinfeld, Buffy, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, House, Game of Thrones, and other conversation-changing shows is gone. Now it’s all Netflix documentaries and mushrooming Real Wives franchises. Maybe people are so into performative politics because there’s nothing to watch.

This is why I don’t see the problem with injecting AI into already artificial stories with plasticky actors and fake ideas. Every year, there’s at least one extremely embarrassing Holocaust or WWII movie that is so cliche even AI could have been more original. Every year there’s an equally cringe “Black History” movie. And an unavoidable movie about stoic, long-suffering immigrants and evil Americans who abuse them in inventive ways. They are all so identical that, without AI adding cobalt eyes or some other fussy little thing, there’s nothing to see in them at all.

That’s why, I believe, AI is going to be ever more present in movies and TV. This is an industry that is cyclical, and at some point we’ll see great movies and shows again that will be so engaging we won’t care that the actress has a couple of hairs out of place and doesn’t look like a Barbie doll. Until then, it’s all AI, all the time.

The AI chatbot in my German Duolingo app made fun of me today! It was so cool, like a real conversation.

The chatbot, who is a moody teenager called Lily, asked if I played videogames.

I said I loved videogames and my favorite one was called “My Hotel.”

Lily asked what happened in the game.

“I run a hotel and help guests with everything they need for a stay,” I explained, making six clumsy language mistakes.

“That game sounds like… work,” said Lily. “How often do you play it?”

“Every day!” I chirped proudly, making two more grammar mistakes.

“You must really like work,” quipped Lily sardonically.

Of course, people might wonder why I need to practice with a chatbot when I still run a whole department where German is taught and where there’s both a German conversation hour and a language exchange program that I personally defended from every budget cut for 5 years and made thrive.

The problem is, of course, that it’s embarrassing to appear as a beginner in front of students and graduate assistants. My hubris is keeping me from going. This Sunday is Forgiveness Sunday in the Orthodox tradition, and we conduct a very humbling ceremony. Seriously, it’s very unpleasant. I’d rather get a root canal, and it’s no joke. I’m hoping that I’ll be humbled enough to get myself to the German conversation hour next week.

I really, really hope that one of the reasons of the staged showdown between Trump and Zelensky is not the decision never to produce the Epstein files.

Everybody is currently completely distracted with a nothing-burger scene regarding an imaginary “deal” over utterly fantastical “rare minerals.” Honestly, I’d like to just hear whatever the truth is. If there are no files, if they can’t be revealed because they will embarrass too many people, if they are unprosecutable, whatever, but it’s time to know.

Does anybody even care anymore or am I the only idiot who does?

If you liked The Patient’s Secret by Loreth Anne White that I recommended recently, then you should check out A.R Torre’s The Last Party. I’m usually not a great fan of this author but this novel is by far her best. If you are into suburban murder mysteries with an unusual perspective and weird family dynamics, this could be your great new read.

One very refreshing thing about the novel is that there are no victimized, pitiful damsels and no trace of wokeness. There are great twists, the action moves fast, and it’s all great, psycho-murdery kind of fun.

Also, if you’ve been waiting fruitlessly for Gillian Flynn to come back and write something, read The Last Party. I’ll say no more to avoid spoilers but I have to mention that if you need positive characters to identify with, there are none in this novel.

I looked at my news feed and it’s almost kind of endearing how naive people are and can’t see a clearly staged performance. How can anybody exist in this fun yet cruel world with such wide-eyed naiveté and sweetness?

In any case, here’s my new video about sex spies:

If you got to watch performances, why not to see one where I show a new iteration of my recent haircut?

It’s a very special sort of feeling to sit all day writing about the kind of economy that requires constant readiness for change, pivoting, and moving while awaiting a letter announcing the closure of my department and termination of my job. On a positive note, the problem of how to write the conclusion to my book has solved itself. I always struggle with conclusions, and this time life is writing one for me.

Everybody who knows me says I’m the most positive person in existence, and I have to stay true to the brand.

I don’t know if Republicans realize what a horrible impression thile tacky show they organized around the Epstein files is making on people. The drama, the posing with the files while wearing goofy smiles, the incapacity to explain what is being released and when, the disgusting jokes by the GOP Judiciary Committee – this reads as callous and self-gratifying at best and shady and crooked at worst.

This whole process is a gigantic fail of the current administration, and somebody should put an end to it. I’ve muted my notifications about the Epstein files because I’m embarrassed by what my party is doing. If the files were destroyed, then simply say that. Don’t create a melodrama out of terrible crimes against children.