Friday Ephemera (841)

Morning, all.

Scritches.

Lesson two is making fire.

I see Salon has finally winked out of existence.

For those unfamiliar with said publication and its scrupulously progressive readership, do let me offer a flavour of the content on offer. 

Wrenching tales of water bottle separation anxiety:

What follows is a catalogue of unobvious woe and amateur dramatics. “Activist Manuela Barón” – whose area of activism is left fashionably unspecified – explains how her ancient, battered water bottle had become a “part of” her, and how the loss of it, at airport security, resulted in a swell of emotional activity: “I cried as I went through the scanner and ran off to my gate; I didn’t realise it would be like saying goodbye to an old friend.”

At which point, it occurs to me I may be misusing the word explain.

There were of course other feats of delusional hyperventilation:

Dr Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a lecturer in Italian Studies, is of course on-message: “I’m very upset that there are in fact Trump supporters and I have zero sympathy towards them.” This is followed by pointed references to Hitler and Mussolini – because hey, why not? – and whisperings of a cowed and fearful media: “Many people in the news media are afraid to really engage the fact that Trump is an authoritarian because if they do so then reality becomes too threatening, and therefore they would have to take a different stance publicly.”

Readers are invited to take a moment to reflect on Mr Trump’s famously warm and not at all fractious relationship with the mainstream media, which never, ever calls him names. Like “proto-fascist,” for instance. Or when MSNBC’s Niccole Wallace breathlessly announced that the President was genocidal and, for reasons left to the imagination, clearly bent on “exterminating Latinos.”

Or when the same broadcaster’s Frank Figliuzzi suggested that Trump’s lowering of flags following a shooting tragedy was actually a coded salute to Adolf Hitler.

Apparently, these things never happened, are not in fact bizarrely routine, and the pundits at CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, NBC, Salon, etc., are just too terrified and deferential to admit, as Dr Ben-Ghiat puts it, that “they are living in the middle of a fascist, authoritarian takeover.”

We mustn’t forget the alleged phenomenon of Trump-inflicted erectile dysfunction: 

While I can boast no credentials as a high priestess of the erotic arts and sciences, unlike Dr Susan Block, “founder and director of the Dr Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences,” a layman’s thought occurs. If the existence of Donald Trump is interfering with your sex life, bringing it to a standstill, then perhaps you’re thinking about Mr Trump a little too much. More than one ought, at least while under the duvet and attempting to get busy.

Oh, and a mad woman who can’t stop thinking about Donald Trump while having panic attacks and clutching soil.

Salon. Written by and for totally normal people, not at all unhinged.

Nurse! He’s off his meds again!

So much of Salon‘s content was bewildering, written by – and for – people unmoored from reality, untroubled by obvious fabrication, and intensely neurotic. As with Everyday Feminism, also now defunct, it seemed to attract a remarkably high concentration of contributors with non-trivial mental health issues.

These were not merely people with whom one might disagree about some issue or policy decision. They were people with whom realistic communication did not seem possible.

I’m watching these people shoving him ineffectually and thinking “You are standing right next to a entire rack of heavy glass bottles weighted with liquid. Am I missing something?”

Well, you’d think that the spitting at, and punching of, random people might offer a clue as to kind of creature he is and how one might respond. The idea that one should be inhibited by some concern for his wellbeing is… morally disgusting.

And in Mission: Impossible theme music trivia news.

The Restroom Archive, an interactive repository of toilets. Includes graffiti and discolouring.

I’m poking through the (impressively extensive) collection and I have to say, some of these would not look out of place in a horror film. Still, the annotations are helpful.

“The floor is exactly as sticky as it looks.”

‘Ping’

Bless you, sir. May your enemies have clearly visible skincare issues.

Simultaneously loathing and emulating females is next-level DSM-5.

It doesn’t bode well. And I doubt it would make female readers inclined to beckon him into their toilets and changing rooms. I’m guessing that sisterhood won’t be the word that springs to mind.

They’ve obviously never been introduced to Gaelic in any of its forms.

I remember a holiday in Wales in the mid-Nineties. Attempting to pronounce the place names on road signs was fun. Imagine a car full of Klingons having seizures.

I AM RELIVING 1991.

A good year, actually.