O poverini

A couple of weeks ago I was kind of watching the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Così fan tutte. They set it at what looked like Atlantic City in the 50s.

I confess I’m only vaguely familiar with Così; the plot is 18^th Century potboiling guys-brag-how-chaste-their-girlfriends-are-so-of-course-they-test-the-theory.

In other words: the usual.

Because of that, the Met’s 50s Jersey Boys construct seems appropriate.

However, I cannot figure out whether the set designer built the “Hero’s” sign on purpose to underscore the unlettered nature of the food stand’s management, whether it’s ironic, or whether the standards of the Met are so low that no one noticed.

Tremendously red sky at morning

As of time of writing, it’s looking like Florence—that tremendously big and tremendously wet hurricane swirling around the Atlantic—looks like it’s going to strike more toward the Carolinas and Georgia, as opposed to the Carolinas and Virginia. This means that I’ve got a few more days to stock up on bottled water, because they’re still predicting some rain next week.

I also have time to lay in a few bottles from the ABC store.

Here is an official image from the National Weather Service from Tuesday, depicting Florence’s approach to the Carolinas. I am not making this up, it’s a legit image from the NWS:

A couple of things: for—well, ever, really—pols in North Carolina have bashed the warnings about the effects of climate change are having on all kinds of things, including storms. (They aren’t alone, of course; Florida’s another one, and it’s discovering that climate change is real, and it’s biting them in their all-important tourism industry. Boofuckinghoo.) So they’ve not only not done anything about controlling things like carbon emissions and coastal over-development, they’ve not done anything to ramp up hurricane disaster relief or recovery.

(I’m betting that they’re going to go with their hands out to the feds for those latter two, expecting blue state taxes to pay for their reckless disregard for science and their feckless fiscal policies. The legislature is white, so I’m also betting they’ll get it from the kleptocrat’s regime. Even so, FEMA has a $10M shortfall in its disaster response coffers, since that amount was transferred to ICE to build cages for children at the border. Cadet Bone Spurs thought only brown folks are affected by hurricanes.)

The other thing is that the luck of the draw gave this hurricane a feminine name. So it’s really cool that the lost-causing, climate science-denying, racist, misogynistic goobers of North Carolina are about to be thoroughly rogered by a Category 4 tremendously big and tremendously wet and tremendously powerful bitch of a storm.

They seek him here

Okay, well, y’all know about #PlaidShirtGuy—Tyler Linfesty, the Billings, Montana, high school kid who stole the kleptocrat’s specious rally last week. He was placed right behind His Orangeness on the stage and reacted as any sentient being would to the idiotic claptrap coming out of that puckered mouth.

Then he got booted from the stage (along with his friends, who weren’t as enthusiastic enough for the campaign team), interrogated by the Secret Service (seriously) and tossed out of the auditorium.

Linfesty was the hero of the hour, in a week that I’m betting Li’l Donny Two-scoops wishes never happened—what with Bob Woodward’s book and the anonymous self-styled resister in the White House’s op-ed in the New York Times. No wonder his minions couldn’t stomach having the high school kids up there.

Anyhow, I don’t know why there are not Zelig-like instances of #PlaidShirtGuy all over the Internet, but so far this is the only one I’ve found:

But speaking of the Goebbels of 1600, she apparently made the mistake of showing up for one of her lying turns in an outfit that provided the perfect green screen for projecting something appropriate (sorry—you have to click to see the video):

Wait for IT

😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/AMBV7slGxA

— Maggie Resists Trump (@Stop_Trump20) September 10, 2018

And on that uplifting note, I’m out.

Natural relief

Ordinarily I'd have written something about today's anniversary, but yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at work, in which one of my colleagues—who is very defensive about this program being her program—described me to someone in marketing as “[Bas Bleu] is helping us with [program] business planning and some marketing.”

No, honey, I am not helping you with this and that, like a sales clerk at Macy’s; I am putting together a business strategy, which includes marketing, but also things like operational timelines, with all of which you seem utterly unacquainted. I’m contributing expertise in two completely different arenas (product management and marketing), for which the company would have to hire two people were I to walk out the door. (I am not receiving the combined salaries they’d have to pay, BTW.)

At any rate, as I wait for the world and his wife to add their inputs to what should have been a reasonably simple info piece, but which has now become an endless daisy chain, I shall contemplate Nature.

Because I need something that’s not a complete cluster.

Gratitude Monday: A new year

Jews around the world gathered with families and friends at sundown last night to welcome in the year 5779. Rosh Hashanah begins with the call of the shofar at a synagogue service, and continues with a meal that traditionally includes a round challah (symbolizing the circle of life) and apples dipped in honey (for a sweet year).

(I love the way food is fully integrated into religious observation. And now I know why Whole Foods was giving out samples of both plain and raisin challah. Delish.) 

It also marks the ten Days of Awe, when Jews reflect upon the past year and consider what they might have done better. The Days end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews acknowledge the wrongs of the previous year and ask forgiveness—from both the person(s) they’ve wronged and from God.

As I’ve written before, I think it’s a custom that pretty much everyone could benefit from. Most Christians pay lip service (literally) to the notion of atonement when they recite that passage of the Lord’s Prayer that goes, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But there are a shedload of Christians who run through that whole prayer without giving it much thought. They also run through their lives the same way.

That may be true of Jews at the High Holy Days, too. But I think that taking entire days out of your life and devoting them to thoughts of enumerating your transgressions and asking forgiveness (as well as accepting others’ apologies) tends to focus the mind.

At any rate, I’m grateful for all my Jewish friends and their families, and I wish them all (whether in Herndon, Chicago or on a cruise around Cuba) L'Shanah Tovah.