Derek Thompson of The Atlantic complains that the prestige press just don’t get no respect for how they handled the President’s mental competence issue over the last four years.
Worthless Karine Jean-Pierre held a worthless press conference today attempting to defend her boss’s apparent decision to stay in the race despite what we all saw last week. My only question is if he wants to convince us that he is truly able to do his job why not simply show up in person and answer questions from the press? If he is competent performing without a teleprompter in such a setting we would immediately see it and concerns would be lessened. Then repeat every week until the election. That he refuses to take that simple step speaks volumes.
Whether we call it age, style, dementia or eggplant, Joes struggles last Thursday may have been more clearly displayed but were certainly nothing new. The numerous video collections of Joes syrup slow handshakes with invisible people, lead footed shuffling off in random directions, brain freezes and confabulations have been present for years. The galactic insincerity involved in pretending any of this is a recent development does seem to be stylistically new in its magnitude.
"galactic insincerity involved in pretending any of this is a recent development"
It's explained easily as a(n attempted) palace coup, by leading elements of the Regime. It happens in all "regime types." The way it's played out in mid-2024 points a little towards the "media-run state" theory.
Beethoven in older years (50's) was amazing. Did any other artist do such pathbreaking, avant-garde forward looking work at the end of their lives. He invented rag time in his last piano sonata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7NqqpcKUg which almost certainly influenced the classically trained Scott Joplin. Compare that rock musicians. How many of the artists from the 1960's and 1970's produced anything musically profound in their 30's? (Paul McCartney certainly didn't).
If I was writing music for the classical scene my muse would be Debussy. Beethoven, Sebelius, Chopin, all great. What I found in Debussy is enchantment. Sonically he is on another planet. A nice one, where mysteries and deep wells of wonder dwell.
Shakespeare probably peaked around 1606 with Macbeth, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra, but his radically compressed use of language in more experimental later plays like Coriolanus and The Winter’s Tale in his late 40s bears comparison with Beethoven. Avant-garde dramatists like Brecht and Beckett found Shakespeare was out in front of them over 300 years later.
Dylan’s last album of new material released when he was 78 actually has two songs about dying presidents.
The dreamy “Key West”:
McKinley hollered, McKinley squalled
Doctor said McKinley, death is on the wall
Say it to me, have you got something to confess?
And the nightmarish “Murder Most Foul”, which is like an inverted version of “American Pie”, with November 22, 1963 as the start of history going awry:
Zapruder’s film, I’ve seen that before
Seen it thirty three times, maybe more
It’s vile and deceitful - it’s cruel and it’s mean
Ugliest thing that you ever have seen
They killed him once, they killed him twice
Killed him like a human sacrifice
The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son,
Similarly, I was skiing at Mammoth Mountain on 3/30/1981 when I learned President Reagan was shot. My initial reaction was that the bad guys had won again, just like on 11/22/1963. But as I heard ski-lift attendants recount Reagan's jokes on his way into the operating room, I cheered up.
I know now that Reagan had been seriously wounded and he was putting a brave face on his injuries.
The memorable "I hope you're all Republicans" by President Reagan with a smile on his face to the OR Surgeons and staff and the response (this is in DC, mind you) by the Surgeon "Today we're all Republicans" seems far away and long ago. Let us pray that it returns in our day.
Fun. I began to read out the piece to my companion who enjoys a good list, but he stopped me at the NYT headline: "When Beethoven was Biden's age he'd been dead for 30 years".
And yet I feel like A.O. Scott knows this, but it's hard to always come up with something against a deadline. I can only imagine how hard it is.
It is humbling to consider I likely lack the capacity to understand the style shifts of era-defining geniuses like Beethoven, Mozart and Biden. Reckon I'll stick to sportsball and porn from now on.
Worthless Karine Jean-Pierre held a worthless press conference today attempting to defend her boss’s apparent decision to stay in the race despite what we all saw last week. My only question is if he wants to convince us that he is truly able to do his job why not simply show up in person and answer questions from the press? If he is competent performing without a teleprompter in such a setting we would immediately see it and concerns would be lessened. Then repeat every week until the election. That he refuses to take that simple step speaks volumes.
It is said that Biden will appear on July Fourth, without a teleprompter, on two Black radio-shows: one in Milwaukee, one in Philadelphia.
That will certainly convince me. Not.
Whether we call it age, style, dementia or eggplant, Joes struggles last Thursday may have been more clearly displayed but were certainly nothing new. The numerous video collections of Joes syrup slow handshakes with invisible people, lead footed shuffling off in random directions, brain freezes and confabulations have been present for years. The galactic insincerity involved in pretending any of this is a recent development does seem to be stylistically new in its magnitude.
"galactic insincerity involved in pretending any of this is a recent development"
It's explained easily as a(n attempted) palace coup, by leading elements of the Regime. It happens in all "regime types." The way it's played out in mid-2024 points a little towards the "media-run state" theory.
Beethoven in older years (50's) was amazing. Did any other artist do such pathbreaking, avant-garde forward looking work at the end of their lives. He invented rag time in his last piano sonata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7NqqpcKUg which almost certainly influenced the classically trained Scott Joplin. Compare that rock musicians. How many of the artists from the 1960's and 1970's produced anything musically profound in their 30's? (Paul McCartney certainly didn't).
Perhaps Dylan's mid-30s "Tangled Up in Blue?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKcNyMBw818
Here's the ragtime / boogie-woogie part of Beethoven's 32nd piano sonata from the early 1820s:
https://youtu.be/1ljq4MwzAbo
I read somewhere that all of classical music since is responding to Beethoven in some way.
If I was writing music for the classical scene my muse would be Debussy. Beethoven, Sebelius, Chopin, all great. What I found in Debussy is enchantment. Sonically he is on another planet. A nice one, where mysteries and deep wells of wonder dwell.
Shakespeare probably peaked around 1606 with Macbeth, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra, but his radically compressed use of language in more experimental later plays like Coriolanus and The Winter’s Tale in his late 40s bears comparison with Beethoven. Avant-garde dramatists like Brecht and Beckett found Shakespeare was out in front of them over 300 years later.
Dylan’s last album of new material released when he was 78 actually has two songs about dying presidents.
The dreamy “Key West”:
McKinley hollered, McKinley squalled
Doctor said McKinley, death is on the wall
Say it to me, have you got something to confess?
And the nightmarish “Murder Most Foul”, which is like an inverted version of “American Pie”, with November 22, 1963 as the start of history going awry:
Zapruder’s film, I’ve seen that before
Seen it thirty three times, maybe more
It’s vile and deceitful - it’s cruel and it’s mean
Ugliest thing that you ever have seen
They killed him once, they killed him twice
Killed him like a human sacrifice
The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son,
The age of the anti-Christ has just only begun.”
Air Force One coming in through the gate
Johnson sworn in at two thirty-eight
Let me know when you decide to throw in the towel
It is what it is and it’s murder most foul
Similarly, I was skiing at Mammoth Mountain on 3/30/1981 when I learned President Reagan was shot. My initial reaction was that the bad guys had won again, just like on 11/22/1963. But as I heard ski-lift attendants recount Reagan's jokes on his way into the operating room, I cheered up.
I know now that Reagan had been seriously wounded and he was putting a brave face on his injuries.
The memorable "I hope you're all Republicans" by President Reagan with a smile on his face to the OR Surgeons and staff and the response (this is in DC, mind you) by the Surgeon "Today we're all Republicans" seems far away and long ago. Let us pray that it returns in our day.
I hope we never find out his quips were made up by some press weenie to reassure the country.
They aren't at all delusional. Or, they all understand their role as flunkies meant to defend their king.
Fun. I began to read out the piece to my companion who enjoys a good list, but he stopped me at the NYT headline: "When Beethoven was Biden's age he'd been dead for 30 years".
And yet I feel like A.O. Scott knows this, but it's hard to always come up with something against a deadline. I can only imagine how hard it is.
You really should check out Silence, it's a great movie. The book is good too.
It is humbling to consider I likely lack the capacity to understand the style shifts of era-defining geniuses like Beethoven, Mozart and Biden. Reckon I'll stick to sportsball and porn from now on.