Rita Butar Butar - Bintang

Judul Album : Bintang 

Artis : Rita Butar Butar 

Tahun Rilis : 1981 

Music Director : Rinto Harahap 

Produser : Rinto Harahap 

Produksi : Lolypop Records

Etnis Batak di Indonesia memang dikenal punya bakat alam sebagai penyanyi hebat. Ciri khas penyanyi dari suku ini adalah kemampuan mereka menjangkau nada-nada tinggi dengan mulus dan tidak terdengar 'menyakiti' telinga. Salah satu penyanyi asal Batak yang dikenal dengan nada tingginya yang luar biasa adalah RITA BUTAR BUTAR. Ambitus penyanyi asal Pematang Siantar ini memang mencengangkan. Jangkauan vokal 5 oktafnya mampu mencapai nada tinggi (bahkan sangat tinggi) sampai ke nada F7! Tidak heran RINTO HARAHAP yang mengawal karirnya sejak awal selalu memberikan lagu yang mengharuskannya meniti nada-nada tinggi dan selalu dilahapnya dengan sempurna. Lihat saja lagu-lagu semacam SEANDAINYA AKU PUNYA SAYAP, WANITA, HATI, AIR MATA atau AKU TAK INGIN MENGEMIS LAGI. Nyaris semua lagunya memang membutuhkan kemampuan tersendiri untuk menyanyikannya. Termasuk ketika merilis album BINTANG, Rinto masih mendaulat Rita untuk membawakan lagu semacam itu. Hasilnya cukup menggembirakan. Meskipun tidak berhasil secemerlang SEANDAINYA AKU PUNYA SAYAP yang berhasil menjadi alltime hits, tapi album ini cukup diminati penikmat musik, dan menghasilkan juga radio hits SENDUNYA HATI INI. 

Track List:

1. BINTANG

Rinto Harahap

2. SUDAH SURATAN

Rinto Harahap

3. SENDUNYA HATI INI

Pance Pondaag

4. PELANGI CINTA

Gophur

5. BISIKAN HATI

Anto

6. SETIA JANJI KITA

Budi Thimas

7. RINDU

Nuri Gemuri

8. BEKUNYA HATI INI

Ram Sagita

9. WANITA DAN AIR MATA

Rudi Rampengan

10. HARI INI BAHAGIA

Azis A.

11. KATAKAN PADAKU

Arche Rampengan

12. ASMARA

Monthy

BINTANG

Bintang, mengapa kau tertawakan diri ini

Oh jangan pikir aku tak sanggup sendiri

Bintang, jangan kau tertawakan diriku lagi

Oh akan aku buktikan nanti padamu

Walau kini aku sendiri

Aku yang mau

Bukan karena aku ditinggal pergi olehnya

Walau ada tangis di hati

Akan kusimpan

Biar senyum ini menemanimu malam ini

Bintang, masih ingatkah kau dulu jadi saksi

Oh dia ingin diriku ini miliknya

Bintang, masih ingatkah apa jawabku dulu

Akan aku buktikan dulu cintamu

Ira Maya Sopha - Kumenanti

Judul Album : Kumenanti 

Artis : Ira Maya Sopha 

Tahun Rilis : 1985 

Music Director : Raidy Noor 

Produksi : SB Records/Irama Tara 

Distributor : Varia Nada Utama Records

Dari banyaknya penyanyi anak-anak di era 70an yang meneruskan karir sampai dewasa, IRA MAYA SOPHA adalah contoh yang berhasil eksis selain beberapa nama saja yang juga 'lolos' seperti CHICHA KOESWOYO, DINA MARIANA, ADI BING SLAMET atau NOURMA YUNITA. Menginjak masa remaja, album-album Ira ada di genre pop melankolis dan melejit saat ditangani oleh POMPY. Upaya perubahan terlihat ketika album KUMENANTI diproduksi. Kali ini Ira bekerjasama dengan RAIDY NOOR sebagai music director dan dibantu oleh sederet musisi sekaliber BAGOES AA, HERMAN GELLY, UCE HARIONO dan WACHID AJIE. Di deretan komposer juga ada nama JAMES F. SUNDAH, BARIN RD, DAVID MESSAKH atau RAIDY dan RAZI NOOR yang menyetorkan lagu-lagu yang berbeda dari yang sebelumnya dibawakan Ira. Hanya saja untuk kepentingan pasar sepertinya Ira memang harus lebih berkompromi. Lagu KUMENANTI garapan hitsmaker pop melankolis OBBIE MESSAKH tetap diusung sebagai ujung tombak. Dan alih-alih aransemennya digarap berbeda untuk menyesuaikan dengan keseluruhan lagu di album ini, lagu KUMENANTI tetap diaransemen sebagaimana umumnya lagu-lagu pop melankolis ala Obbie saat itu, bahkan secara khusus di lagu ini ditampilkan permainan gitar EDDY SYAM yang sangat lekat dengan genre ini. Tentu saja karena saat itu lagu yang dipromosikan hanya lagu andalan saja, maka lagu-lagu pop kreatif yang sebenarnya kuat seperti DISINI atau BUNGA BUNGA REMAJA menjadi tidak terdeteksi. Upaya perubahan pun sayangnya tidak berhasil, dan ironisnya lagu KUMENANTI juga tidak mampu berbicara banyak di pasar pop melankolis yang persaingannya sangat ketat. 

Track List:

1. KUMENANTI

Obbie Messakh

2. DOI

Cherry LZ

3. KAN KUSAMBUT BAHAGIA

Johny Lisaholet

4. BUNGA BUNGA REMAJA

James F. Sundah

5. PUISI CINTA

Cherry LZ

6. CINTA PERTAMA

Meddy Emde

7. MENTARI

Addie Permono

8. PANDANGAN

Barin

9. DISINI

Raidy Noor & Razi Noor

10. GENGSI

David Messakh

KUMENANTI

Malam yang sepi

Di kamar yang sunyi

Ada getar rindu ingin jumpa kamu

Kau di sana dan aku di sini

Terpisah jarak yang semakin jauh

Kukecup mesra bingkai kenangan

Yang masih tersisa dari masa silam

Kau lihatlah diriku di sini

Setia menanti sampai kau kembali

Ku menanti, ku menanti

Kuncup bunga yang telah layu

Bersemi kembali

Ku menanti, ku menanti

Kekasih datang di sini

Melebur duka

12 Lagu Terbaru 12 Bintang Terpopuler

Judul Album : 12 Lagu Terbaru 12 Bintang Terpopuler 

Artis : Various 

Tahun Rilis : 1987 

Produksi : Keyboard Records 

Distributor : Atlantic Records

Album kompilasi lagu-lagu baru dari penyanyi-penyanyi terpopuler menjadi trend di industri musik Indonesia di paruh akhir 80an. Strategi yang cukup jitu mengingat para penyanyi yang terangkum dalam album-album semacam ini adalah nama-nama yang berada di jajaran depan, sehingga menarik minat para pembeli kaset yang selama ini hanya mendapatkan satu penyanyi saja dalam satu album. Terlebih pada masa itu sangat lazim di sebuah album seorang penyanyi hanya berisi satu dua lagu yang terbilang catchy dan potensial hits, sementara sisanya adalah lagu-lagu yang sepertinya hanya sekedar pengisi kuota. Sementara di album kompilasi semacam ini, masing-masing penyanyi seperti 'bersaing' menampilkan yang terbaik agar bisa menarik perhatian. Tidak semua album semacam ini berhasil mencetak penjualan tinggi memang, karena kalau sudah urusan pasar akan sangat banyak faktor yang menentukan. Seperti di album 12 LAGU TERBARU 12 BINTANG TERPOPULER terbitan KEYBOARD RECORDS yang menghadirkan jagoan-jagoan pop melankolis seperti RATIH PURWASIH, DEDDY DORES,  RANO KARNO, TWIN SISTERS, IIS SUGIARTI, ADE PUTRA, NELLA REGAR, IYUT BING SLAMET, HANNY TUHETERU, ADI BING SLAMET, NIA ZULKARNAEN dan ANGEL PFAFF. Deretan komposer yang menyumbang lagu juga terbilang meyakinkan seperti POMPY, DEDDY DORES, DEDDY DHUKUN, ADRIADIE, MANTHOUS, FERDY FERDIAN, DADANG S. MANAF atau HANNY TUHETERU. Lagu melankolis AKU MENANTI dari RATIH PURWASIH dijagokan untuk menarik perhatian pasar. Sayangnya meskipun lagunya 'sangat Ratih' tapi tidak cukup kuat menembus persaingan. Yang berhasil menjadi radio hits justru duet DEDDY DORES & DAGMAR yang menyanyikan lagu manis SENADA DALAM CINTA. 

Track List:

1. AKU MENANTI

Pompy

Ratih Purwasih

2. SENADA DALAM CINTA

Deddy Dores

Deddy Dores & Dagmar

3. GADIS MANIS

Rudy Rampengan

Rano Karno

4. DOI SAYANG

Adriadie

Iis Sugiarti

5. BEGITU SAJA

Manthous

Ade Putra

6. KUMISNYA JEJAKA

Ajie Indra

Nella Regar

7. RAGU

Ferdy Ferdian

Iyut Bing Slamet

8. SATU DI ANTARA SERIBU

Hanny Tuheteru

Hanny Tuheteru

9. HATI BERBUNGA

Tigor Gipsy

Twin Sisters

10. SIAPA

Deddy Dhukun

Adi Bing Slamet

11. KEMBANG MERAH

Dadang S. Manaf

Nia Zulkarnaen

12. CINTA YANG PUTIH

Dadang S. Manaf

Angel Pfaff

SENADA DALAM CINTA

Biar daun-daun kering

Layu berserakan

Biar ranting-ranting patah

Terkulai di bumi

Biar burung-burung berhenti berkicau

Hati kita berdua tetap bersemi segar dan bernyanyi

Walau mega-mega putih

Di angkasa sana

Berubah menjadi hitam pekat dan menghilang

Hati kita tetap putih dan berseri

Tak setitikpun noda melumuri cinta yang kita bina

Senada cinta berdua

Senada kita bersama

Sampai akhir dunia ini

Walau bintang ak berkelip

Walau bulan tak bersinar

Hati kita kan selalu bercahaya

"everyone: you can’t dance to bob dylan... me:"

everyone: you can’t dance to bob dylan
me: pic.twitter.com/XrAg6hCeTf

— rebecca ✨ (@ithrewtheglass) January 26, 2022

pic.twitter.com/XrAg6hCeTf

"' I think it’s just about finished,' he says. 'It looks pretty good, doesn’t it?' He shows me dancers doing ballet poses on green backgrounds...'"

"... a series that follows his recent 'Calvin Klein Girls' and 'Coca-Cola Girls.' The latter is a collection of blonde women in white dresses, dancing freely across cherry-red canvases and currently on view at Timothy Taylor gallery in London. Katz didn’t go to the opening. 'I’d rather stay home and paint,' he says. The thing about Alex Katz is that he never fitted in. His parents immigrated from Russia to a New York neighbourhood with just one other Jewish family; he says he was known as 'that crazy Katz kid.' When he found his style, about a decade after art school, it was also out of joint: 'I didn’t fit in with the old Realists, I didn’t fit in with the Abstract Expressionists, I didn’t fit in with Pop Art,' he says.... And while Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns introduced politics into their art, Katz painted the lake and trees around his summer home in Maine. So now, looking back, is he glad he never fitted in? 'Yeah... I think it worked out great!... I painted nice pictures in the ’50s, and people didn’t like them. So I thought, I’m going to stick a big face of my wife in your living room and it’s going to kill everything, and you’re going to have to throw out some furniture.... When I met Ada, she said something very unforgettable. She said, "You know something? You are very bright." I don’t think anyone got that about me. They knew I was bright, but not very bright.... I said, Oh. This girl’s got my number.'"

I'm reading "Artist Alex Katz: ‘I’m 91, for Chrissakes, and I’m cranking out paintings’/Over Bellinis in New York, the outsider of American art talks about screaming patrons, making masterpieces and not fitting in," a Financial Times article from November 2018 (and I checked, he's still alive). 

The reason I'm reading this is that in a post this morning, I wrote about a man who's suing Madison for allegedly discriminating against him in its effort to hire a "police monitor," and I linked to an article that has a photograph of him that looks, to my eye, like an Alex Katz painting. 

Blow it up 10 feet high — look! — and attach it to a museum wall. 

But quite aside from that initial reason for my looking for Alex Katz, that 2018 article is just completely wonderful.

"Well, you know, he's a bland, older white guy."

Says Adam Liptak about Justice Stephen Breyer. Liptak was asked, on the NYT "Daily" podcast — at 8:48 — why it is that Breyer is the Supreme Court Justice people have the least opinion about (according to a poll).

Breyer, we're told, took into account — in deciding when to leave the Court — a desire not to have his "legacy" undone by the person who replaces him, and that raised the question what is his legacy? Maybe the podcast listeners don't know. In an effort to enlighten them, Liptak began with the notion that Breyer is "a bland, older white guy."

Now, let's be clear. Liptak didn't say that because a person is male, old, and white he's bland. He piled "bland" onto the list of things that supposedly cause people not to have an idea of what Justice Breyer is about. But the suggestion is there: to be white is to be bland. Of course, Liptak isn't saying that white people are bland, only that people, seeing a white person, may get no further than to perceive him as bland.

I can see the argument that this perception is good. Let's begin, when we see a person, with a presumption of blandness. Nothing special about this person. A blank. We'll see if he does anything to distinguish himself. Until then: bland. And don't let that be white privilege. Give everyone this privilege. Until you know something about this individual, leave an open space. If they never put anything in that space — that space in your head — let them remain an enigma, nothing but potential. You do not know them, and maybe you never will.

That conversation at Meadhouse at 5:22 a.m.

I'm downstairs about to make my second cup of coffee, and this text is the first sign that Meade is awake:

Here's the article he was texting me about: "After failed search for police monitor, Madison oversight board opts for recruiting help" (Wisconsin State Journal). 

The search for someone to fill this newly created position was deemed to have failed "after the person recruited and selected by the board, with help from the city’s Human Resources Department, took himself out of the running amid revelations that he’d discriminated against a woman he’d been having an affair with and violated state licensing requirements at a company he ran more than 15 years ago." 

We're told the position will pay $125,000. I can't picture it ever being properly filled, yet apparently now we're going to pay people to try to fill it, because God knows, they can't back down.

ADDED: More about Eric A. Hill's lawsuit here. 

[H]e began looking at the public social media pages of members of Madison’s Police Civilian Oversight Board [and found]... “29 separate instances of biased, defamatory statements — occasionally containing obscene language — impugning my race, gender and former profession, among the social media accounts of seven out of the 11 voting members in charge of hiring for this position,” he says....

“As a white, male, former military policeman, I found their brazenly racist, sexist and anti-military posts not only personally demeaning, but professionally deleterious to my status as a candidate for this position, as I was additionally required — and not permitted to decline — to self-identify my race and gender to the city of Madison in its initial application form,” Hill said in a statement....

"Joseph Frank Keaton spent his youth in his parents’ knockabout vaudeville act; by the time he was eight, it basically consisted of his father, Joe, picking him up and throwing him..."

"... against the set wall. Joe would announce, 'It just breaks a father’s heart to be rough,' and he’d hurl Buster—already called this because of his stoicism—across the stage. 'Once, during a matinee performance... he innocently slammed the boy into scenery that had a brick wall directly behind it.' That 'innocently' is doing a lot of work, but all this brutality certainly conveyed a basic tenet of comedy: treating raw physical acts, like a kick in the pants, in a cerebral way is funny. 'I wait five seconds—count up to ten slow—grab the seat of my pants, holler bloody murder, and the audience is rolling in the aisles,' Keaton later recalled. 'It was The Slow Thinker. Audiences love The Slow Thinker.' A quick mind impersonating the Slow Thinker: that was key to his comic invention. The slowness was a sign of a cautious, calculating inner life. Detachment in the face of disorder remained his touchstone.... It was only when Joe started drinking too hard and got sloppy onstage that, in 1917, the fastidious Buster left him and went out on his own. It was the abuse of the art form that seemed to offend him."

From "What Made Buster Keaton’s Comedy So Modern?/Whereas Chaplin’s vision was essentially theatrical, Keaton’s was specific to the screen—he moved like the moving pictures" by Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker).

Anita Sarawak - Gayamu Biar Sederhana

Judul Album : Gayamu Biar Sederhana 

Artis : Anita Sarawak 

Tahun Produksi : 1979 

Tahun Rilis : 1984 

Music Director : S. Atan 

Produser : S. Atan 

Produksi : EMI Singapore 

Distributor : Virgo Ramayana Records

Penyanyi asal Singapura ANITA SARAWAK memang tidak hanya kondang di negaranya saja. Karirnya juga mulus di Malaysia dan juga di Indonesia, sebelum kemudian hijrah ke Amerika dan menjadi penyanyi di Las Vegas selama 20 tahun sejak tahun 1985. Di Indonesia sendiri karir Anita cukup mapan pasca pernikahannya dengan BROERY PESOLIMA di tahun 1981. Secara khusus Anita juga merilis album di Indonesia dengan membawakan lagu-lagu ciptaan komposer Indonesia BAWALAH DAKU PERGI yang mencapai sukses besar dengan superhits TRAGEDI BUAH APEL. Sejak itulah album-album lama Anita yang belum edar di Indonesia kemudian dirilis, termasuk album rilisan 1979 GAYAMU BIAR SEDERHANA yang dirilis di Indonesia pada tahun 1984. Album ini sendiri di negara asalnya berhasil melejitkan lagu DENGARLAH INI CERITA dan juga AYAM DEN LAPEH yang merupakan lagu berbahasa Minang dan populer di Indonesia lewat suara NURSEHA dan juga kemudian oleh ELLY KASIM. Sayangnya kehadiran album ini di Indonesia tidak dipromosikan sebagaimana mestinya, boleh jadi karena label yang mengedarkannya juga bukan label yang saat itu menaungi Anita di Indonesia. Maka tidak heran lagu-lagunya juga tidak berhasil populer di sini. Album ini juga tidak memuat seluruh lagu di album versi aslinya, hanya ada 7 lagu dari 11 lagu yang ditampilkan di Side A, sementara di Side B justru berisi lagu-lagu dari BROERY.

Track List:

(track 1-7 Anita Sarawak, track 8-13 Broery Pesolima)

1. PERASAAN

S. Atan & Haron Abdul Majid

2. GAYAMU BIAR SEDERHANA

S. Atan & Haron Abdul Majid

3. SELAMAT HARI LAHIR

S. Atan & Haron Abdul Majid

4. SEMENJAK AYAH PERGI

S. Atan & Haron Abdul Majid

5. AYAM DEN LAPEH

Abdul Hamid & Nurseha

6. MASIH ADA JALAN PULANG

S. Atan & Haron Abdul Majid

7. DENGARLAH INI CERITA

Copyright Control & Haron Abdul Majid

8. PESANKU

Onny Suryono

9. BAYANGAN

10. SERULING SENJA

11. TANASE

12. CUMBU RAYU

13. MINGGU PAGI

14. CINTAKU

GAYAMU BIAR SEDERHANA

Andai engkau cinta kan diriku

Jangan pula kau mengubah cara

Dengan gaya pakaian dan lagak yang sega

Untuk memikatku

Hati ini lebih menghargai

Kejujuran dan kesetiaan

Biar saja gayamu serba sederhana

Engkau tetap kuterima

Hey usahlah engkau curiga

Sekali aku bercinta

Tak mungkin aku durhaka

Bahagia derita bersama

Namun aku akan mengenangi

Jika engkau tetap sederhana

Tidak perlu gayamu yang luar biasa

Cintamu kuhargakan

At the Healing-in-Progress Café...

 

... you can talk about whatever you want. 

 

Yes! I was able to get out and do my sunrise run this morning. Photos taken at 7:23 and 7:25. Unfortunately, there was 100% cloud cover, but the temperature was a nicely warmed up to 20°. The next 2 days are going to be too cold again — 2 below tomorrow at sunrise and 1 below on Saturday — but then it looks like there will be a stretch of sunrise-runnable days — at least until next Thursday or Friday. By then, we'll be launched into February, and February won't be as cold as January... probably. Plus, it's short. I can already feel the spring approaching. Certainly, the darkest 20% of the year is over. We're entering the most balanced days, in terms of light and darkness, and I like that.

I'm old enough to remember....

I’m old enough to remember when people thought censorship was an inherent evil. Now censorship is the go to solution for every public ill. https://t.co/dLUKBOl89X

— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) January 26, 2022

Descendant.

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The Best Dasa Tembang Tercantik LCLR 1977 - 1990

Judul Album : The Best Dasa Tembang Tercantik LCLR 1977-1990 

Artis : Various 

Tahun Rilis : 1993 

Produksi : Prambors, DD Records, Hemagita Records, Aquarius Musikindo 

Distributor : Aquarius Musikindo

Ajang tahunan LOMBA CIPTA LAGU REMAJA (LCLR) yang diselenggarakan Radio Prambors Jakarta memang fenomenal. Dimulai dari penyelenggaraan pertama di tahun 1977,  ajang ini berhasil 'mengubah' arah bermusik anak-anak muda masa itu sekaligus melahirkan nama-nama komposer baru yang kelak mampu berbicara banyak di industri musik tanah air seperti JAMES F. SUNDAH, CHRIS MANUSAMA, BAGOES AA, BASKORO, HARRY SABAR, IKANG FAWZY, DIAN PRAMANA POETRA dan masih banyak lagi. Lagu-lagu hasil ajang ini sangat khas baik struktur melodi maupun kalimat-kalimat dalam liriknya yang rata-rata menggunakan bahasa puitis dan bahkan lazim menggunakan bahasa Sansekerta. Sayangnya setelah penyelenggaraan di tahun 1983, ajang ini mengalami hiatus dan bangkit lagi di tahun 1987 dengan spirit baru sesuai perkembangan industri musik. Di era ini LCLR menghasilkan nama-nama seperti EDWIN SALADIN, YOVIE WIDIANTO, DIAN HP, DIDI AGP, BRAM MOERSAS, WIWIE GV dan DEDE ANWAR POETRA. Album-album kompilasi berisi lagu-lagu terbaik LCLR memang sudah sering dirilis dalam berbagai versi, tapi album rilisan AQUARIUS MUSIKINDO tahun 1993 ini bisa dibilang yang paling 'berwarna' karena mewakili berbagai era LCLR dari mulai LILIN LILIN KECIL, KIDUNG, APATIS, sampai KERAGUAN, JUJUR, SALAHKAH AKU dan MENEPIS BAYANG KASIH. Saat album ini dirilis, LCLR juga kembali mengalami hiatus setelah penyelenggaraan tahun 1990 dan baru diselenggarakan lagi di tahun 1996 yang sayangnya menjadi penyelenggaraan terakhir sampai saat ini. 

Track List:

1. LILIN LILIN KECIL

James F. Sundah

Chrisye

2. KIDUNG

Chris Manusama

Pahama

3. KERAGUAN

Edwin Saladin & Adelansyah

Trie Utami

4. SUARA HATI YANG DAMAI

Sam Bobo

Vina Panduwinata

5. JUJUR

RH. Bramanthio W.

Bram Moersas

6. DALAM CITA DAN CINTA

Oetari S.

Dhenok Wahyudi

7. SALAHKAH AKU

Rully Chairul & Adelansyah

Titi DJ

8. DALAM KELEMBUTAN PAGI

Baskoro

Jockie Suryoprayogo & Dhenok Wahyudi

9. APATIS

Ingrid Widjanarko

Benny Soebardja

10. KEHIDUPAN

Michael P.

Louise Hutauruk

11. KHAYAL

Tommy WS

Purnama Sultan

12. MENEPIS BAYANG KASIH

Iszur Muchtar & Gita Gartina

Rita Effendi

MENEPIS BAYANG KASIH

Malam kian kelam

Berjalan ke ujung hari

Ku masih di sini, di remang bayangmu kasih

Kucoba mengerti

Apa yang tengah terjadi

Ku harus sadari akhir perjalanan ini

Kisah cintaku

Aku harus mencoba

Untuk menepis semua

Kenangan yang terindah

Kala segalanya masih penuh asa

Semuanya ini

Hanyalah sepenggal kisah kehidupan

Bagi kita berdua

Kan kukenang dirimu

Dan semua yang ada padamu

Walaupun ku tahu 

Kau bukan milikku

Oh selamat tinggal kasih

"If you’re in a wheelchair I get your point — ramps all round! But it is ludicrous for those voluntarily on two wheels rather than..."

"... forced to be on four to act all aggrieved. It’s pedestrians and drivers who need protection from them.... When I was growing up, bikes were for kids to play on and working-class people to get to work on. Their image was so mild that — along with cricket grounds and warm beer — John Major evoked George Orwell’s image of ‘old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist’ in a rather laughable and desperate attempt to persuade us that his Tories were a wholesome bunch, rather than sneaking around having extra-marital dalliances with each other. Or bikes were amusing things ridden by clowns.... [A]ggressive young men on two wheels would have been written off as ton-up boys in the past; but because they know how to pronounce quinoa, this new lot are planet-savers, a shining example to the rest of us gas-guzzlers...."

From "The ceaseless self-pity of cyclists" by Julie Burchill (Spectator).

It was in a 1993 speech to the Conservative Group for Europe that the prime minister, John Major said, "Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county [cricket] grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers, and—as George Orwell said—old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist." 

The George Orwell essay is "England, Your England" (1941): 

When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin-tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids hiking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning—all these are not only fragments, but characteristic fragments, of the English scene. How can one make a pattern out of this muddle?

Um... there's no bicycling in Orwell's essay! I can't be the first person to notice that this famous quote of Major's got the wrong impression of the old maids in the autumn mist. Come on, England! I know an "h" looks like a "b" but "hiking" isn't "biking," and when you inflate it to "bicycling," you're really drawing attention to your carelessness, there being no such thing "hicycling."

"Over the past 10 years, hundreds of thousands of men have traveled to Qatar to build these structures. Migrants from all over the world — from Mozambique to Nepal, from Egypt to the Philippines..."

"... worked hard 10-hour days, six days a week, to raise stadia out of the desert, but also to build luxury residential developments, construct museums and cultural spaces, and lay down new geometric islands in Qatar’s glistening bay. Day after hot day, scaffolders hauled tons of scaffolding pipes, planks and clamps up the lattice structures they fixed together. Cladders and rope artists craned huge panes of aluminum and glass into the air and then balanced off the edges of buildings to attach the panels. Welders torched metal to create the curved joints of buildings, wrapping their workspaces in fire retardant tarps against the desert wind and enclosing themselves in an excruciating whirlwind of fire and sparks. Workers tore up the ground to excavate deep foundations for towering high-rises or to bore tunnels for Doha’s new metro network, which aims to be the fastest driverless system in the world.... I know because I spent a year on construction projects in Qatar interviewing them and shadowing them on-site. They described the fear that stalked them as they scaled the skeletons of buildings. They spoke about the way the extreme heat — averaging highs of more than 105 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer months — seemed to melt the air and made them feel as if they were drowning. They recounted the rage they swallowed at being asked, under threat of deportation, to do things that violated their company’s safety regulations and that they knew would put them at risk of injury...."

From "Opinion: In Qatar’s glittery World Cup, the poor toil for the thrill of the rich" by Natasha Iskander (WaPo).

That tab was open in my browser, and it was open, unread, when, earlier today, writing a post about the new Supreme Court nomination, I needed to see the percentage of women in the American population — it's 50.5 — and I ended up on this World Bank site that shows the percentage of women in all the countries of the world. I clicked to sort the countries from the smallest to the largest percentage. How low do you imagine that percentage goes and what country do you think is at the top of this column? The country is Qatar and the percentage is 24.8.

24.8?! What could possibly be happening? Are they killing their women? Is there an insane rate of death in childbirth? The abortion of females? No, I thought, it is most likely the importation of extra men, used for work, and, seeing this article now, I think that was the right guess.

Qatar has, by far, the lowest percentage of women, and it's the only country with a number in the 20s. There are a few countries in the 30s: United Arab Emirates (30.9%), Oman (34.0%), Bahrain (35.3%), Maldives (36.6%), and Kuwait (38.8%).

An "elite destination"?

I'm trying to read Axios: "MSNBC will soon announce plans to move morning anchor Stephanie Ruhle to the 11 pm ET hour that Brian Williams turned into an elite destination, two sources familiar with the move tell Axios." 

Did Brian Williams ever even achieve the comeback he needed? I didn't watch closely, but I don't even understand the claim that he created an "elite destination" out of the MSNBC 11 pm time slot. 

It could mean that very few people watched. Is Axios snarky like that?

But "elite" doesn't mean just small — unless you're talking about type size. It means "exclusive, select" (OED):

1962 G. Murchie Music of Spheres ii. 24 The most elite of the elite new breeds grew powerful antigravity muscles and air gills called lungs.

1985 P. W. On & C. H. Persell in P. W. Cookson & C. H. Persell Preparing for Power i. 28 Janitors pick up the litter of the elite students and the dogs.

2014 G. Tholen Changing Nature of Graduate Labour Market ii. 45 Recruitment practices for elite graduate positions may not deliberately be unmeritocratic.

White people and men have always been represented on the Supreme Court out of proportion to their portion of the American population.

If Biden keeps his pledge and nominates a black woman, and if she is confirmed, then, for the first time, the percentage of black people on the Court (22.2%) will exceed the percentage in the population (12.1%).

Women will still be underrepresented in proportion to the population — 44.4%, instead of 50.5%.

Does 22.2% seem like too much representation for black people on the Court? Consider that there has never been even one Asian American or a Native American nominated to the Supreme Court. But also consider that many people believe that Clarence Thomas, because he is conservative, doesn't represent black people at all. 

Look how clearly Thurgood Marshall stated that position as he vacated the seat Thomas took (scroll to 2:30):

See the top right corner of every page of this blog? It says "Create blog."

If there's something I'm not accepting that you want to say, you can hit that button and immediately acquire a place for yourself to say what you want.

What I'm not accepting in the comments: Things that don't fall within the scope of my post, things that I believe were written in bad faith (that is, with the purpose of harming or degrading this blog), low-effort peevish junk.... I can't complete this subjective list, but to quote the Supreme Court Justice who was my favorite back when I was in law school — I graduated in 1981 — I know it when I see it.

A blog is a triumph of subjectivity and exquisitely limited personal power, and I intend to keep it that way.

Usman Bersaudara & Heidy Diana - Warung Tegal

Judul Album : Warung Tegal 

Artis : Usman Bersaudara & Heidy Diana 

Tahun Rilis : 1989 

Music Director : Usman Bersaudara 

Produser : Judhi Kristiantho 

Produksi : JK Records

Kelompok asal Surabaya USMAN BERSAUDARA mengalami masa keemasan di era 70an lewat sederet hits yang mampu menarik perhatian penikmat musik tanah air seperti OMONG KOSONG, KASIH MAMA, SORRY BOY, WULANDARI dan masih banyak lagi. Banyak yang membandingkan kelompok ini dengan KOES BERSAUDARA karena akar bermusik mereka sama, terlebih personel-personel USMAN BERSAUDARA adalah juga personel NO KOES yang notabene kelompok bentukan NOMO KOESWOYO pasca hengkang dari KOES BERSAUDARA. Sayangnya di era 80an nama mereka mulai memudar seiring dengan membanjirnya wajah-wajah baru dan bersinarnya para penyanyi solo di industri musik dibandingkan kelompok band. Meskipun tidak serta merta hilang karena sempat merilis beberapa album di era ini, tapi mereka sudah tidak sekuat era sebelumnya dalam menaklukkan pasar. Termasuk saat mereka digaet JK RECORDS untuk merilis album berjudul WARUNG TEGAL. Mengusung musik riang dengan lirik merakyat dan jenaka, strategi JK untuk meraup massa juga terlihat dengan 'menyandingkan' Usman Bersaudara dengan HEIDY DIANA yang merupakan jagoan JK di lagu-lagu riang, meskipun porsi Heidy di album ini sebenarnya sekedar pemanis. Strategi yang ternyata tetap tidak mampu menembus pasar.

Track List:

1. WARUNG TEGAL

Sofian

feat. Heidy Diana

2. SALAM RINDU LEWAT ORARI

Usman

3. BUAH HATIKU

Mamo Agil

4. KASIH MAMA

Dadang S. Manaf

5. BUJANG CARI JODOH

Sofian

6. GUDANG ASMARA

Sofian

7. KENANGAN MASA LALU

Said

8. CINTAKU DI DOMPETKU

Mamo Agil

9. CINTAKU KAU ANGGAP DUSTA

Usman

10. MIKIRIN JODOH

Dadang S. Manaf

WARUNG TEGAL

Gelas kaca loyang besi (ya bung)

Ditaruh di atas meja

(Komplit semua ada di situ)

Bicara sambil bercanda (ya bung)

Perut lapar, perut lapar ke warung Tegal

(Paling enak warung Tegal)

Warung Tegal kaki lima (Ya bung)

Makanan rakyat semua

(Enak, boleh nyomot asal kontan)

Harga murah dan meriah (ya bung)

Tinggal pilih tinggal pilih semua ada

Mau minum apa (kopi susu) (teh poci)

Mau makan apa (nasi tempe) (nasi tahu)

Mau lalap apa (pete jengkol sambel terasi)

Duh aduh enak sekali

At the Gold Bird Café...

... you can talk all night.

That's titled "Bird Finial," and it's in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum. It's from the Zenú culture of the "5th-10th century." I ran across it today because I was searching for finials, after the icy, snowy weather formed what looked like finials on the railing posts of the deck. Something about the birds on the deck had me looking for bird finials, and I was delighted to find this gold ornament.

"Spotify sides with Joe Rogan after Neil Young ultimatum."

The Hill reports. 

Spotify is removing Neil Young’s music after the musician gave the streaming service an ultimatum, saying it could not provide a platform to both him and Joe Rogan due to the podcast host’s “fake information” on COVID-19 vaccines. “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both,” Young wrote in a letter earlier this week to his record label and management team....

Well, of course, Spotify should side with Joe Rogan. The person who makes an ultimatum like that should lose. It's ridiculous. If that worked, there'd be an obnoxious celebrity throwing his weight around every day. 

So much for "rocking in the free world," Neil, you big jerk.

"Oh? I'd forgotten that he'd pledged to choose a black woman. Isn't that inconsistent with his 3 reasons for not giving us a list?"

"There can't be that many potential choices if he's got the type of person narrowed down like that. Who are the under-60 black female federal judges appointed by Democratic Presidents? Won't they all be influenced in their decisions — reason #1, [below] — even though their names are not on a list? Aren't they all just as vulnerable to 'unrelenting political attacks' as the individuals on Trump's list (reason #2)? And are you not violating reason #3 by making this pledge? You are trying to gain favor in a partisan election campaign, and when it's over, you'll be locked into that limitation and not able to make the sober, nonpolitical analysis you want us to think you will make. And isn't your pledge to appoint a black woman — just a black woman, not the person with the greatest skill and integrity — more political than Trump's list of real people, whose skill and integrity we can investigate?"

I blogged on September 20, 2020, after Biden gave 3 reasons why he would not, like Trump, give voters a list from which he'd choose his Supreme Court nominees.

The 3 reasons were:

1. "[P]utting a judge’s name on a list like that could influence that person’s decision making as a judge, and that would be wrong, or at least create the perception that it would have influence."

2. "[A]nyone put on a list like that under these circumstances will be subject to unrelenting political attacks."

3. "[I]f I win, I’ll make my choice for the Supreme Court not based on a partisan election campaign, but on what prior presidents have done.... [A]fter consulting Democrats and Republicans in the United States Senate and seeking their advice and asking for the consent... ... I’ll consult with senators in both parties about that pick, as well as the legal and civil leaders in our country...."

Breyer will retire!

Big news! 

I'm reading the report in the NYT:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the senior member of the Supreme Court’s three-member liberal wing, will retire, two people familiar with the decision said, providing President Biden a chance to make good on his pledge to name a Black woman to the court.

Oh, so there's a "pledge" and he'll need to "make good" on it. 

ADDED: We've already got affirmative action on the Supreme Court's agenda this year as we move toward the elections, and if Biden fulfills this pledge, it will intensify the political theater. He already fulfilled a black-woman pledge in selecting his Vice President, and there's a fair amount of disappointment in her. (She's got worse poll numbers than he does.) But that doesn't mean he should violate his pledge. (I'm assuming it is, indeed, a pledge.) He should elevate an extraordinarily impressive black female judge, so that the political theater is highly supportive of this kind of selection process, and the resonance with the pending cases helps the pro-affirmative-action side win favor with the people. 

ALSO: At WaPo, Neal Katyal, the former Solicitor General and a former law clerk to Breyer, has an op-ed that was all ready to go: "Breyer’s act of listening will pave the way to a healthier democracy." I thought the "act of listening" was going to be the act of listening to people who were telling him he needed to retire to give Biden a chance to nominate somebody before Republicans took back the Senate, but no, it's about judging cases:

A deep part of his listening practice was to pay attention to experts in the field. He often said federal judges are not experts on national security, or the environment, or the economy, and that a deep part of wisdom was deference to expertise. Breyer’s path was to triple check his personal impulses, and particularly so if they conflicted with the views of true experts on the question before him.

That's pretty sober and lofty, but here's how Katyal brings it in for a landing:

Consider just how different that is from the political debates today, where extremist ideology has attacked things that should be noncontroversial, from wearing masks to taking vaccines, from addressing global warming to protecting voting rights.

America stands at a crossroads. On one path is more toxic extremism, the culmination of which we witnessed on Jan. 6. Despite that armed insurrection, the path remains just as seductive as ever to many.

Armed insurrection?

The other path is quieter and more difficult to practice. It is a path forged by Breyer: respect for others, reverence for the law, and most of all, a commitment to listening to and learning from one another.

You know, if you want to be quieter and reverent and committed to listening to and learning from one another, you wouldn't have written "armed insurrection." Or "toxic extremism." This gets my "civility bullshit" tag.

And why shouldn't we be able to debate wearing masks and the best way to protect voting rights and whether we're getting accurate reports of the science about vaccines and global warming? We are not deciding cases and dictating what other people must do, the way the Court does. We're exchanging opinion in the public forum, debating and expressing ourselves! 

That's not "toxic extremism." It's toxic extremism to say that it is!

AND: From right before the 1980 election: "Reagan Pledges He Would Name a Woman to the Supreme Court" (WaPo). In June 1981, Potter Stewart announced his retirement, and Reagan got his slot to fill. I had just graduated from law school, and I remember telling my father that I was excited about the first woman on the Supreme Court. My father scoffed and said he didn't expect Reagan to make good on his pledge. He confidently asserted that the nominee would be William French Smith.

"What is it like to be you?"

 

Joe Rogan does a good job with Jordan Peterson — putting on the brakes now and then and questioning assertions and checking them on the spot but mostly letting Peterson expatiate in his inimitable style I'm just putting up the longest clip currently available. The episode is over 4 hours long. I'm well past the midpoint, so I'm proud of my stamina on this one.

"They were very, very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.' You’re progressive in one way … but you’re still making that … backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave. What … are you doing, man?"

Said Peter Dinklage, on the Marc Maron podcast, quoted in "Peter Dinklage slams Disney’s plans for ‘Snow White’ remake: ‘Backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave’" (WaPo). 

From the comments over there: "I listened to the podcast before reading this article. The editors that picked the title should ask themselves whether they deliberately feed th[e] media hyperventilation. Dinklage didn’t 'slam' anything. He calmly discussed the issue and critiqued it in a thoughtful way. Stop ginning up controversy where there need be none."

In any event, Disney responded: "To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period."

It seems to me that the original animated film made a big point of giving each dwarf an individualized characteristic — Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, etc. — so isn't that the opposite of stereotyping? Or is it stereotyping to say that in this category people have one and only one outstanding characteristic — these are a one-dimensional — or 2-dimensional, if you count dwarfism — kind of person.

I remember a times when saying "dwarf" and "dwarfism" was considered politically incorrect and one had to use a euphemism, and I'd happily — not grumpily — do that if I were not taking the lead from The Washington Post and Disney. I don't know exactly when that changed.

"Frank Zappa once said 'the world is rudderless.' I like yours SO MUCH better."

Said RideSpaceMountain, about my phrase "there's a choke point somewhere, controlled by idiots," in the comments to this post about the outsider artist Lee Godie. 

I'd wanted to embed a trailer for a documentary about the artist, and the Vimeo page gave me the HTML code, but then, on publication, it wouldn't display, and there was a reference to some privacy policy. I said: "That seems so out of keeping with the spirit of the artist, so there's a choke point somewhere, controlled by idiots." 

I was just putting up this new post — because I want to encourage the world to adopt the line, "there's a choke point somewhere, controlled by idiots" — when RideSpaceMountain re-commented: "Correction: Alan Moore made that quote, no[t] Zappa." 

I was torn! I do want to popularize the expression there's "a choke point somewhere, controlled by idiots" — and not just because I want to be famous but because I think it might be helpful to think in those terms. It's not that everything everywhere is screwed up and everyone is stupid, a very pessimistic view, but that maybe there's a specific problem somewhere, and maybe just one or 2 idiots. That's actually optimistic!

But maybe this isn't bloggable without the folk hero Zappa. Better than Zappa! What an accolade! And who's Alan Moore? That's quite a plunge, from the Maunaloaesque height of Zappa to whoever this Alan Moore character is. Okay, I looked it up. Maybe he means a lot to you. Maybe better than Alan Moore is bloggable. Sorry, I don't read that sort of comic book (though I am a big fan of a certain sort of comic book).

I'm glad Frank Zappa isn't the source of the quote "the world is rudderless." I just don't imagine Zappa going in for the metaphor the world is a boat. And, Frankly, if the world were a boat, I'd want it to be rudderless — like Noah's ark — because who wants the whole world with a destination and all of us stuck going there?

ADDED: I looked to see whether Frank Zappa had ever used a ship or boat in his lyrics. The answer — if I can trust Genius.com with the lyrics of the lyricist often called a Genius — no. 

On my search for "boat," Genius, apparently grasping at straws, served up things with "beat" (or, desperately, "botulism"):

I clicked through to "Beatles Medley" and read the lyrics while listening on Spotify:

Jim... once had a girl, or should we say, she once had he 

She... showed him her room, isn't it swell, Texas Motel...

Ha ha. Very funny. Speaking of The Beatles, Meade said, "We all live in a rudderless submarine."

Yes, The Beatles had the idea of the world as a sea-going vessel, and they liked it.Isn't it wonderful?

 

I'm seeing a rudder though... and I know that thing had a destination, Pepperland... if you can ever get past the Foothills of the Headlands and the Sea of Holes.

"Do they really believe that the Black voters who formed the base of the Democratic Party think like Ibram X. Kendi, or the leaders of BLM? Are they crazy?"

"I mean, how can they not understand there’s enormous sort of diversity among the worldviews of people within the Black community? They vary by class, they vary by age, they vary in all kinds of ways. And the idea that they are sort of all on board with this crusade against the superficial aspects of so-called systemic racism, that that’s really what they care about, is fanciful, really." 

Said Ruy Teixeira, quoted in "Confessions of a Liberal Heretic/Ruy Teixeira was co-author of one of the most influential political books of the 21st century. Now, he says, Democrats are getting its lessons all wrong" (NYT). 

Teixeira's influential book was "The Emerging Democratic Majority," predicting, in 2002, that the process of demographic change would pile up votes on the side of the Democratic Party.

Interviewed about that idea now, he says that even back then he (and his co-author) "very specifically said — and this is widely ignored — that for this majority to attain and exercise political power, you have to retain a significant fraction of the white working class." And he admits that they didn't recognize how much the "professional-class hegemony in the Democratic Party... would tilt the Democrats so far to the left on sociocultural issues" and lead to positions on immigration and crime and systemic racism that are alienating to many white working class voters.

"For almost 25 years, Godie lived mostly outdoors and slept on park benches, even during subzero temperatures. She stashed her possessions..."

"... in rented lockers around the city. Her studio was wherever she happened to be — an alley, a bridge, atop a deli counter.... In the 1970s, she took hundreds of self-portraits in photo booths at the Greyhound bus terminal and in the train station. In these black-and-white snapshots — which she often embellished with paint or a ballpoint pen — she portrayed her many sides: a coquette; a Katharine Hepburn look-alike; a rich lady flashing a wad of cash; and above all an uncompromising artist whose work can be found today in American museums.... [A]t 60, [Godie] suddenly appeared on the steps of the majestic Art Institute of Chicago, declaring herself a French Impressionist who was 'much better than Cézanne.'... 'She lived in a fantasy world... In her mind she was a world-famous artist. And everything was about France.'... There were recurrent figures, including a woman in left profile with a topknot and bared teeth, the so-called Gibson Girl...; Prince Charming, or Prince of the City, a patrician figure with a bow tie and parted hair, often portrayed in front of Chicago’s John Hancock Center; and a waiter, a mustachioed man with sideburns, based on a real waiter whom Godie found handsome. Some of her female figures resembled the actress Joan Crawford. Other common motifs were birds, leaves, insects, grape clusters and hands playing piano. Godie sometimes wrote on her canvases too: 'Staying Alive' and 'Chicago — we own it!' appear with the frequency of personal mottos.... She reportedly earned as much as a thousand dollars a day, which she squirreled away in her shoes, underwear and hidden pockets of her coat. On brutally cold nights, she splurged for a $10 room at a flophouse."

From "Overlooked No More: Lee Godie, Eccentric Chicago Street Artist/A self-described Impressionist, she hawked her art on Michigan Avenue in the 1970s and ’80s and lived mostly outdoors. But her work is in museums" (NYT).

Jagad Ariani - Goblok

Judul Album : Goblok 

Artis : Jagad Ariani 

Tahun Rilis : 2003 

Music Director : Liliek MS & Ansori Akbar 

Produser : Khamim Huda 

Produksi : Perkasa Project 

Distributor : MGM Record

Besar dari panggung-panggung festival menyanyi pop dan dangdut, JAGAD ARIANI kemudian mantap terjun ke genre dangdut setelah merilis album pertamanya DINDING KACA bersama ZEIN TAMARA yang beroleh sukses komersial dan juga mendapat penghargaan PENYANYI DUO TERBAIK di ajang ANUGERAH DANGDUT TPI 2002. Meskipun duetnya bersama Zein Tamara punya prospek bagus, Jagad kemudian melenggang sendirian sebagai penyanyi solo. Diawali dengan album GOBLOK yang digarapnya bersama LILIEK MS dan ANSORI AKBAR, serta EKO SAKY yang menggarap hampir seluruh lagu di album ini. Berbeda dengan debutnya DINDING KACA yang mengusung genre dangdut klasik, Di album solonya ini Jagad mengambil genre rock dangdut yang memang saat itu sedang digemari pasca suksesnya ALAM. Lagu GOBLOK berhasil mencuri perhatian penikmat dangdut dan mengangkat nama Jagad, disusul beberapa radio hits seperti GILA, MULUT dan ANGGUR TERLARANG. 

Track List:

1. JAGAD

Eko Saky

2. GOBLOK

Eko Saky

3. GILA

Eko Saky

4. TANTANGAN

Khamim Huda & Kuntet Mangkulangit

5. SAMA SAMA MAU

Eko Saky

6. MULUT

Eko Saky

7. SATU JARI

Khamim Huda

8. ANGGUR TERLARANG

Eko Saky & Maulana Syafei

GOBLOK

Putus pacaran denganmu

Buat apa aku harus frustasi

Rugi... rugi...

Putus hubungan denganmu

Buat apa aku harus patah hati

Yeaaaah...

Kamu nggak sayang padaku

Buat apa aku harus sayang kamu

Rugi.. rugi...

Kamu nggak cinta padaku

Buat apa aku harus cinta kamu

Masih banyak orang lain

Dan pasti mau menjadi pacarku

Masih banyak orang lain

Buat apa pusing mikirin kamu

Kamu... kamu...

Nggak pacar-pacaran

Nggak cinta-cintaan

Kalau hanya bikin pusing kepalaku

Ditinggalin kamu, diputusin kamu

Buat aku nggak ada ruginya

Nggak sayang-sayangan

Nggak suka-sukaan

Kalau hanya merusak fikiranku

Ngikutin caramu, nurutin maumu

Sama juga bunuh diri

Goblok!

The tallest mountain in the world — most of which is underwater — has been ascended — bottom to top — for the first time.

SF Gate reports on the climbing of Maunakea, which is 33,500 feet tall, with 19,698 feet of that underwater.

Mountain climber and underwater explorer Victor Vescovo teamed up with Native Hawaiian scientist Cliff Kapono to scale Maunakea Volcano from its base at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to its peak.... The historic voyage included descending to the bottom of the ocean, kayaking to shore, then biking and hiking to the peak.

Oh, this isn't what it sounded like from the headline. They didn't go up the mountain in some underwater trek. Then went straight down to the starting point but then came straight up and kayaked over to the starting point on land:

They... floated back up and transferred to a kayak, with the help of expert canoeist Chad Cabral, and all three paddled the arduous 27 miles to shore, reaching Hilo Harbor just before dark, where they spent the night. The next morning, Vescovo and Kapono mounted bikes and cycled 37 miles from Hilo to Maunakea’s slopes.

Since Maunakea is Hawaii’s most sacred mountain, it was important for Vescovo and Kapono to follow Native Hawaiian protocol during this expedition. Cultural practitioner Tom “Pohaku” Stone advised the pair and conducted ceremonies at Puuhuluhulu, a volcanic cone where Saddle Road meets Mauna Kea Access Road, before they continued up the mountain....

And I will leave them there. My main question is answered, to my disappointment, and now I can see I have new questions and I assume these will not be answered. I mean, what ceremonies?  What is a "cultural practitioner"? How does a Tom Stone become a Pohaku, a Pohaku in Puuhuluhulu?

Big and small headlines at WaPo on crypto.

1. "Crypto collapse erases more than $1 trillion in wealth, forcing a reckoning for everyday investors." 

2. "Melania Trump auctions off her hat, and has become the latest victim of the cryptocurrency crash." 

I'm glad to see that on the "most read" list in the sidebar, the big story is ranking above the big hat story:

Actually, it's the Melania story I choose to read, because it's hard to understand how accepting cryptocurrency hurts her. It's only a hat she doesn't want that's going out in the world. What difference does it make to her — the "I really don't care, do u?" lady — how the cryptocurrency bids translate into dollar amounts? She restricted the bids to cryptocurrency — for whatever reason — but since there are different cryptocurrencies, aren't all the bids presented at the bidding site in dollar amounts? No, she's only accepting one cryptocurrencies — Solana — so that simplifies things. Its value has fallen 40% in the last week, but wouldn't that cause people with Solana who want the hat to pour a lot more of this declining stuff into the quest for the hat? How is Melania a victim? 

Oh, I'm sure people could put together a list of ways in which Melania is a victim. Make a list and rank it, with the Solana-for-a-hat problem on it. If it ranks high, then good for Melania. But I'm laughing at the Washington Post readers who are drooling over the news that Melania is suffering.

 WaPo snatches the hat and runs with it:

Although they’re under no obligation to do so, typically, first ladies donate iconic items either the Smithsonian’s First Ladies collection, or to their husband’s libraries and museums, as a way of preserving history for the public. The hat was custom-made for the occasion [of meeting the French president] by Hervé Pierre, the French-born, New York-based designer who became her White House stylist after making her inaugural gown. (That one is in the Smithsonian.) ...

Certainly, other first ladies and presidents have engaged in for-profit activities, particularly the large advances many of them receive to write their memoirs and for speaking engagements. “But that doesn’t take up nearly as much time as their not-for-profit activities,” [says Lauren A. Wright, a political scientist who studies first ladies at Princeton University]. “That’s most of what they spend time on when they leave office.”

Time? Did it take Melania any time to auction the hat? And I like how Wright lets it slip that the ex-First Ladies don't put much time into writing these memoirs for which they receive lavish pay-outs.

I'm reading this whole long article so you don't have to, and this, near the end is the most interesting thing to me:

[A] mid-December sale of an NFT featuring a watercolor painting of her eyes, called “Melania’s Vision,” by French artist Marc-Antoine Coulon.... Unlimited quantities of that NFT sold for one SOL, which was worth around $185 at the time. Each came with an audio message from Trump: “My vision is: Look forward with inspiration, strength and courage.”

Try to imagine just how banal and awful that painting of Melania's eyes must be, then look to see the actual thing: here. It was quite a bit worse than I'd pictured, and I was expect something atrocious.

Be best!

Coffee time!

@kjetilkrogstad Coffee time! ☕️ #coffeetime #dancingguy ♬ Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke

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