Spring Fever! [DOT 22/3/21]

22/3/21 MegMegMcGee 49

Yesterday was the first official day of spring. The weather in the the Mid-Atlantic was gorgeous! I got a ton done around the house and toured some wineries. While you may have spring fever, please do try and avoid actual fevers…

…unlike these guys:

State of emergency in Miami Beach extended to April 11 as spring breakers overwhelm the city
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/21/miami-beach-state-of-emergency/

My kid went on spring break and all they got was pepper-sprayed and ‘rona.

Miami Beach officers shoot pepper balls into spring break crowds to enforce emergency curfew
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/20/us/miami-beach-crowds-clevelander-covid/index.html

Sprots!

Stonks!

Stock futures slip as Wall Street looks to rebound from losing week
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/21/stock-market-open-to-close-news.html

What’s it going to be called?

Trump is returning to social media in a few months with his own platform, spokesman says
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/21/media/donald-trump-social-media-network/index.html

Interesting life story

Elsa Peretti, fashion model and renowned jewelry designer, dies at 80
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/elsa-peretti-dies/2021/03/21/b3ede7f0-898c-11eb-bfdf-4d36dab83a6d_story.html

Have a great day!

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49 Comments

  1. That CNN link to Jason Miller going on Fox News and blathering about Trump’s new, self-created social media platform is a thing of beauty. A man who can’t make money off casinos…should it ever come to pass, there are many questions to ponder. What will it be called, yes, probably something like “TrumpTalk,” but what will it look like? How will they stylize the swastikas to avoid getting banned in the many countries that forbid its public display? I foresee gold, sparkly, shimmering gold backgrounds, like a GeoCities page from 1996. Where will the American bald eagles come in? Will the NRA still be around long enough to advertise on it? Which will be the first corporation to outsource social media marketing to a couple of 23-year-olds and, through their ineptitude, be on the receiving end of calls for a nationwide boycott once their ads on TrumpTalk are screenshotted and made public? How long will it take for parallel parody sites to pop up? 45 minutes? So many questions. So, so many, many questions.

  2. Elsa Perriti was ubiquitous as the jewelry designer whose work one aspired to own and whose look one was to emulate. She was one of the original lifestyle influencers. Even if you do not know or care about fashion, you have seen, worn or given this design or a knock-off thereof. She was a forerunner in organic shapes and this little necklace was rumored to have been used to carry coke to night clubs. By working in sterling silver, she made Tiffany jewelry affordable to more of the masses, and even the everyday worker could give his special person a gift in a Tiffany blue box. The blue box is so iconic that they sell it is a ceramic keepsake.

    Thirty years ago, when I was a buyer and regularly took the train into the city, I would always make time to window shop Tiffany’s, and watch the beautiful people and things (I was poor as a church mouse, retail underpays terribly, and could only look.) And yup, I recognize that retail encourages an avaricious nature, but part of my then-job required trend awareness.

        • You don’t think the dynamic between Jo (Audrey Hepburn) and Dick (Fred Astaire) is a little strange? In real life Fred Astaire was 30 years older than Hepburn, and the age gap somehow seems even larger in the movie. I like BaT because it’s frothy and fun (the book is darker, and Capote wasn’t entirely happy with the movie) and glamorous, NYC in the early 1960s. If you want real background scenery eye candy, “Charade” is excellent. It was filmed entirely in Paris and by all accounts the cast got along famously and had the time of their lives.

          • “Charade” is an excellent film.  I wasn’t as put off by the age difference for a couple of reasons:  the first is because it wasn’t uncommon for a much younger female lead to be cast with a much older male lead in films of that period (Charade is no different).  The second is because I’m 14 years younger than Mrs. Butcher;)

             

            I also enjoy the film because Astaire’s character is basically a dramatized version of photographer Richard Avedon (Astaire was “Dick Avery”), and Avedon actually did all of the stills for the whirlwind fashion photography sequence.

            • If you’ve never seen “Earthquake” you must. In it Ava Gardner plays the bratty, spoiled young daughter of Lorne Green. Gardner was in her early 50s at the time and Green was, in real life, only seven years older. Somehow it all works. It was written, or co-written, by Mario “The Godfather” Puzo and features an all-star cast. If you catch it on basic cable it goes on for like five hours (those commercials for obscure medications and reverse mortgages shilled by Robert Wagner, who amazingly is not in “Earthquake”) but you know who is in it is George Kennedy, who was also in “Charade” (he played a bad guy) and in “Airport 1975.”

          • meh, the age gap is so prevalent in hollywood movies, at least it is 2 likeable actors.  I seethe with rage every time ‘As good as it gets’ is on. Really? old dirty gross jack nicholson with mental problems is as good as helen hunt can get. fuck that.

          • I will see you BOTH movies, and add in a *third* for “Wonderful Audrey flick, but ZOMG problematic in hindsight, with yet another man practically (not EVEN practically!) old enough to be her father…”
            Sabrina
            Another FABULOUS movie, with beautiful costumes, acted superbly… but like SO many faves from that era (my faves, too!😉💖), soooooooo disturbing in hindsight.
             

          • …I think a lot of the film’s of that era are what we tend to call “problematic” these days…gigi springs to mind, for example…but I’m pretty sure in my family the response to that where breakfast at tiffany’s & such are concerned has always been “…but audrey hepburn”

            …& I’m not sure I have a counter for that? 

            […I am aware she’s not in gigi…which I recall finding pretty creepy even when I was a kid]

            • I didn’t realize until I was in my late 20’s, how old Gigi was *supposed* to be in the book/film, and by then–like your family with the Audrey stuff, I was too hooked on all of them to give them up.
               
              Because the Caron & Hepburn CARRY those films, and the costumes in all of them are a-maaaaaa-zing!😉

              • Eta, the fact that–to this then 18-19 year old, Leslie Caron was so obviously  in her 20’s, was another reason the age thing in Gigi didn’t quite sink in at first.
                She wasn’t *that old,* but she definitely had a woman’s figure, build, and way of carrying herself, which–even though she WAS playing “younger” she couldn’t quite mask all the way.
                So it was probably a good 2-3 years after I first saw it, that I realized how old Gigi was “supposed” to be😬
                 
                one of my freshman RA’s got me sucked into that movie–and the Audrey movies, when she found out I liked costume-movies.
                On her “on duty” nights, she’d grab a couple costume dramas/musicals to watch in the dorm lounge, on the big TV, and it ended up being a really fun “movie time” that a bunch of us would go down & hang out at, eating popcorn/chocolate, with blankets & pillows, and watching in our pj’s, kinda like a regular semi-monthly slumber party😉
                 

          • Honestly, if you like costume movies, these ARE some pretty iconic ones😉
             
            Problematic as HELL (and dear GOD, is Mackey Rooney as “Mr. Yunioshi” racist A.F!!!😳😬🤢🤮–and a role he later regretted!), but they ARE really pretty to look at. 
            And B.a.T. is also the origin of the song Moon River, which is worth it, if only just to hear Audrey’s version of the tune
             

  3. It is still quite chilly here, 32 degrees F this morning, it will climb into the 60’s during the day but I’m a wuss who thinks the perfect temp is 75 degrees F. I plan on walking the perimeter picking up trash today because there are 3 fast food places within walking distance and the wrappers always find their way to my yard. Fun fact, our mayor thinks strategically placed, city maintained trash bins are unsightly, so we end up with trash everywhere because people are pigs. SO  MUCH BETTER!

  5. Just poking my head in to say that I’m not dead… there’s been a lot going on recently, and depression can be utterly  paralyzing. I’m starting to come out from under the darkest clouds, so… hi!

  6. “This new platform is going to be big,” Miller said on Sunday. “Everyone wants him and he’s going to bring millions and millions — tens of millions — to this platform.”
     
    Wait, let’s think about this a minute. “The Apprentice” averaged between 6 and 7 million viewers. I mean, there’s a LOT of racists out there, but expecting “tens of millions” of them to find and use this platform is a bit of a stretch. 4chan has 11 million US users, and its subject matter extends well beyond Nazis, and they’ve actively worked to chase them off. 8chan and 8kun, which were scumbag-specific, both couldn’t make a go of it. 
     
    Somebody needs to take a HARD look at this business plan. 

    • I looked into this myself.  Trump had 88 million Twitter followers. Let’s assume half were Russian bots and malware agents. Let’s assume another 10% were media and other “followers” who followed, to keep up with his ceaseless torrent of tweets generated from the gold toilet. That’s still 30–40 million people who, for reasons known only to them, were following him there.
       
      I don’t know how they think they can monetize this though. I suppose it could generate its own ecosphere, where fundamentalist evangelists could fundraise, and etsy sellers might self-promote, and RWNJs could conduct MLM business…

      • I tried to come at it from the Twitter angle, but I just couldn’t decide how many of the 88 million fit into what category. Like you, I doubt many will follow to a new platform. So I checked Apprentice ratings and then racist websites to get numbers. My browser history is a disaster. But I can’t find user numbers for 8chan or 8kun. Guess white supremacists like to hide. 

  7. I’ve been working with a friend that is life long republican that claims to hate Trump but has voted for him twice anyways, you know because “socialism”.  He is a very smart person so I try my best to reason with him and even challenged him to give one policy that the republicans have passed that has helped anyone making less than a million dollars in the last 10 years.  Insert cricket sounds here.  I recently asked him what his party stands for since I shut down all his arguments about small government/low taxes.  Then he told me he watched Uncle Tom on Prime and that I should really watch it, it is such a great movie.  I read about it & was immediately, no!  I don’t think so!  He hates BLM (the founder is a Marxist!) but claims to not be racist.  So when he find black people that are conservative with shitty ideas he thinks it justifies his shitty ideas and racist thought!  Somehow interviews with Candace Owens, Ben Carson, Herman Cain, and Allen West are going to make me believe this shit?  I can’t even hate watch this shit!  It did help me figure out what the republicans platform actually is though…
     
    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/21/owning-the-libs-history-trump-politics-pop-culture-477203

    • He hates BLM (the founder is a Marxist!) but claims to not be racist. 

      All the Trump voters I know are like this.  They don’t treat the black people they meet in a racist way, and may even genuinely like some of them, but they subscribe to racist stereotypes nonetheless.  It’s the “he’s one of the good ones, it’s those others that are trouble” mentality.  It’s always the vague, anonymous “other” with these fucking people.

      • I used to live in low-income housing and one of my neighbours was rabidly Republican (this was immediately pre-Chump). The sheer mental disconnect it takes for a single mother on food stamps, medicaid, and SSDI, living in subsidized housing, to vote for the very people who want to take ALL OF THAT away… I just can’t wrap my brain around it.

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