—DON’T KNOW WHO I’M KIDDING, IMAGINING YOU THERE

 

…“What I realized is that most people always want to live outside their moment—either in the past, or the future—but never in the present.” Robert Vaughan

 

…7 million views here. Wow. Really? How? Thank you, thank you so much.

 

…I really wish people didn’t have to die, especially the ones I love.

 

…Thursday mini concert. Yay.

 

 …Trust me—you’re never going to regret taking a photo with the people you love, no matter how awkward it might seem in the moment.

 

…I scrolled through thousands of photos yesterday. Some made me cry, but most made me smile or laugh.

 

…The only thing I know for sure is that I’m confused a lot of the time.

 

…“A sure way for me to have a disastrous experience is to do something because ‘it will be good for me’.” Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

 

…What’s crucial, when you ask a friend a question, is knowing beforehand whether you really want them to be honest, and whether they will be.

 

…“Writers are the opposite of athletes—they get better with age.” Alan Sorkin.

 

…My kids have lots of them, and it seems like 85 percent of all people do, too, but I’m still not a fan of tattoos. Nope.

 

…Even now, weird as it seems, I still sometimes think: I wonder what Karen’s up to, and I’ll go to text her, but she’s not there.

 

…What does, “You’re on a roll” mean? I know it’s meant kindly, but still.

 

…hitting notes like you’re Mariah…

 

…“I’ll be good, if you want me to.”

 

…I think I need to walk a bit.

 

…I think there’s more to it—life. I’ll never get to the end of it, but I’ll get to an end.

 

…Sometimes it’s easy to forget you’re supposed to have fun.

 

…If sad music wasn’t the best music, I’d probably feel a lot more joy than I do.

 

…Back then, I think I was happy every single day, though I didn’t even realize it until now, when I was trying to describe my college experience to a friend. Fucking college. The best time ever.

 

--Is this a good idea?

--I’m not sure. 

--You’re not sure?

--Ask me tomorrow.

--Why?

--When I’m not fucked up.

 

…I don’t know. Maybe?

 

…Oh, Hi. Welcome back, you kids. Umm, er,. follow your dreams??

…Lately, I feel super grateful for everything. I’ve had more than I should have, that’s for sure. 

 

…Sometimes you know precisely what you’re supposed to say, but saying it feels really false and so you have to decide--Am I going to be real here in the moment, or am I just going to fake it, like everyone else would?  

 

--You know what I need right now? 

--What?

--A big F*#cking chaw.

 

…I’m probably obstinate, (I know I am) about a lot of things, but I think friends need to show you they really want to be friends, or else they’re not a friend.  Right?

 

…Mac—you kill me, and I don’t even know why that is since I never even knew you.

 

…I don’t know. Did I? What the fucking Hell?

 

...I know what you were trying to say. I heard it all the way into the attic.

 

…I should probably get rid of that chime. Or maybe I should just get rid of everything.

 

…I’ve got, two tickets to paradise…

 

…I wish I didn’t hate him, but how can you not?

 

…Trump Just Threatened to Annihilate Iran. He’s Given the World Very Little Reason to Take Him Seriously. (Slate, 9/23/26)

What sort of world leader talks like this?

Over the past year, Donald Trump’s actions on the world stage have ushered in a new era, in which most of the world’s leaders realize they no longer need to pretend to respect the president of the United States. Their reception of his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday made clear that this era has firmly taken hold.

His 38-minute address was interrupted just four times for mild applause—when he said that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, that all of Israel’s hostages had been freed from Gaza, and that no international bureaucracy will pass a tax (as if this would have a chance of happening), and to thank his wife, Melania, for heading a group that recovered Ukrainian children who had been kidnapped by Russia.

Otherwise, crickets, and deservedly so.

•His previous U.N. speeches have been jammed with bluster and bunkum, but none more so than this one. He began with boasts that seemed meant for a domestic audience—and that were clearly false to everyone in the room.

“Our country is stronger today than ever before”—this, as the U.S. military is failing to subdue Iran, a third-rate power, despite firing bombs and missiles at more than 15,000 targets. “Our economy is the envy of the world”—this, as the rest of the world maneuvers to withdraw assets from U.S. markets and seek alternative supply chains. “The entire world is being lifted by the wealth, strength, spirit, and momentum of a newly energized and very powerful United States of America”—when, in fact, the world is suffering from an energy crisis created by Trump’s unnecessary war, which has moreover revealed weaknesses in our military arsenal.

Trump also said, “We inherited a dark age of America from the previous administration, and we turned it into the golden age of America”—a claim that no president should have to make if it were true, and that anyone looking at any data would know is not true.

 

…Belarus says no potash left after Trump claims massive deal for fertilizer Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Monday that there are no available volumes of fertilizer to send to the U.S. This came after President Trump announced that he was working on a “massive Deal” to buy potash from Minsk at a steep discount amid the trade war with Canada.

 

…I might be a lost cause. Actually, I’m pretty sure I am.

 

…Today I want to do things to be doing them, not to be doing anything else.

 

…Whatcha doing next week? Next week? Next week?

 

…I need all my energy to be who I am today. 

 

…“Hope is a weird word.” Jay Halsey

 

…I just realized my hands resemble a turkey’s feet.

 

…My best friend, who I love dearly, just turned 74 on Wednesday. Like a dope, I wrote him two poems for his birthday because what else do I have to give other than words? He was kind and thankful, but I’m pretty positive he didn’t understand them.

At one point during dinner, he was explaining about the turning point, where you are no longer sorry you’re getting old, but rather you’re really grateful to be getting old.

It was pretty spectacular, but you had to be there.

 

…I think I might need another little finger.

 

…If the word was right…

 

...I’m just a motherfucking kid. Pittsburg. Hey, John, hey…

 

…“And like all lovers, and sad people, I am a poet.” Allen Ginsberg

…It’s so good, it doesn’t even exist.

…Did you ever find out what’s at the heart of it? 

...Boy, I don’t know. I know I still feel like a boy.

…“Anyway, writing isn’t confession. Writing is archeology. I dig through myself and find artifacts I didn’t know I had buried.” O.E. Roux 

…I just need to learn how to say goodbye to Duncan., but it’s been hard.

…“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means, paint, and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent Van Gough

  

…“I used to confuse interpretation as knowledge and outrage as moral. I remember days filled with energy and a voice that wasn't hoarse.” Jay Halsey

 

…“Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. string them together. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that’s not how it works. A human life is a beautiful mess.” Gabrielle Zevin 

 

…“The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.” John Lewis

 

…I watch Rocky and Stevie Nicks every single day. Rocky is so hyper and Stevie is like, Whatever. 

 

…I know what’s in the box, but the real is looking inside the sack.

 

…“Art undoes the damage of haste. It’s everything else isn’t.“ Theodore Roethke 

 

…You can’t say no to Annie.

 

…It took me a while, a long while really, after I left N, to find my identity and take it back. For a good couple years, I didn’t know who I was. 

 

---How do you want to be remembered?

--As someone who loved life and tried to honor it in every way. – Diane Von Furstenberg

 

…The world always refuses to behave.

 

“Bread rises because someone tends to it. A garden grows only when we pull the weeds. A poem lasts because someone listens carefully to the music of being alive.” Timothy Green

 

…How fucking delusional can this guy be? (from CNN 9/18/26): During his convention speech to Republicans last week in Dallas, Trump said “almost every item” is getting cheaper.  

Three-quarters of registered voters say the economy is only in fair or poor condition; 73% disapprove of Trump’s handling of cost-of-living issues, and 62% disapprove of his handling of the economy in general.

 

…I think what most of us want is someone to appreciate what we appreciate as much as we appreciate it.

 

…“Hope is the thing with feathers.” Emily Dickinson.

—UP AND DOWN THE BOULEVARD

 

Orbital

 

Thought I saw you 

in the sky today,

clouds puffing up 

your shoulders 

like some ball player

on the goal line, 

putting it all out there again

whether someone 

notices or not. 

 

Thought I saw you 

in the crowd on 

First Street just now,

all those mannequin people 

trying on shoes and hats, 

tilting mirrors, wondering 

who they might be if 

they just had a different hood.

 

Thought I saw 

you in a chorus of a song 

I almost wrote but

feared it was another

cup of coffee, 

one they always send back.

 

Thought I saw you 

in the sky today, 

soaring, orbital, not

proud whatsoever,

a shiny ghost, 

you just coaxing 

the air as you floated by,

 thanking each cloud.

 

—THE DARKNESS COMES AND THE DARKNESS GOES

 

Fleetwood Mac

 

We stole your cousin’s ’62 ‘Vette that day. It was smooth for a while, tapioca all the way, until the clutch caught, coughed and stalled.

I asked what the matter was, but you just stared out the windshield humming Fleetwood Mac, “Don’t stop, thinking about tomorrow,” when that semi swerved.

Years later, you sent me a note. Said you’d named him Mick, not Mac. Said he had my same smile. Said, Wasn’t it lucky, so lucky that that truck missed us?

 

—SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP

 

…Hey, how was your week? Mine was, um, up and down.

 

…I was a Poli Sci major and have always loved politics, national or international, and I’ve never wanted this to become a political blog (it won’t be), but these last two weeks have been fraught with situations that are hard to ignore, and even more difficult to believe, so, fair warning, the bulk of this is going to contain real life headlines from the last two weeks showing how we have the most corrupt “person” ever (including his family) governing in our nation's most important role.

Should you choose to skip those sections (and I understand if you do), I have a couple of nice stories at the end of this post. I promise  we will return to our regular scheduled programing next Friday.

Pinkie swear. 

 

 

… The U.N. backed a map that shows Africa true-to-size. The U.S. was sole objector.

The U.S. was the only country to vote against the U.N. resolution, which encourages the use of an “Equal Earth” map. The U.S. described it as a “radical ideological project.”

The U.N. General Assembly voted 164 votes to 1.

 

 

… Trump threatens to cancel Kennedy Center renovation if his name isn’t added

 

… Trump attacks the three Supreme Court justices he appointed

…Trump administration expands mass deportations with noncriminals A surge in immigration arrests is sweeping up immigrants with no criminal record whatsoever, including many who were already known by the government, as officers push to meet quotas set by the Trump administration.

 

…Trump guts climate rules for coal and gas power plants

The Trump administration on Monday gutted regulations that limited planet-warming emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants.

 

…Trump pledges $5K checks if Republicans do well in the midterms. Can he legally do that? (The Hill, 9/12/26) President Trump’s pledge to give $5,000 to every U.S. adult if Republicans keep control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections has raised questions over whether the plan could cross legal lines

 

…Trump Has Untethered Himself From Reality

(NYT, 915/26) 

 

Trump’s top six lies about 9/11 

(The Guardian, 9/6/26)

1.   Claiming the attacks made his building the tallest in downtown New York

2.     Twenty-five years ago on Sept. 11, whatever else he was doing later, Trump was four miles away at Trump Tower, where he called into WWOR-TV to say that he could see out one window to the World Trade Center. He also took the time, on a day when nearly 3,000 people died, to mention that a building of his, 40 Wall Street, “was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest,” as my news-side colleague Katie Rogers noted last Tuesday. “And then,” Trump continued, “when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second tallest. And now it’s the tallest.”

3.     As Rogers pointed out, “It wasn’t.”

2. Claiming he helped clean up

“Everyone helped clear the rubble, and I was there, and I watched, and I helped a little bit. We had hundreds of people there.”

In 2019, PolitiFact interviewed a New York City fire department battalion chief who did not recall Trump sending any workers to the site.

3. Lying about Muslims

When he first campaigned for the presidency in 2016, Trump repeated a story that “thousands and thousands” of Muslim Americans “were cheering” in Jersey City, New Jersey, on the day of the attacks in 2001.

Despite many fact checks, no evidence has been discovered to back up this claim.

4. Lying about Ilhan Omar

In September 2019, Trump retweeted a video that purported to show the Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Muslim and the first Somali American to serve in the US Congress, dancing on the anniversary of the attacks, calling her: “The new face of the Democrat Party!”

CBS News reported that Omar had been dancing at an event organized by the congressional Black caucus, which was not held on September 11.

5. Claiming to have predicted the attacks

In his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, Trump mentioned the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as among “a bewildering series of smaller crises” faced by the US.

At the time, Bin Laden was known to Americans because al-Qaida had in 1998 orchestrated the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

That didn’t stop Trump from in 2018 writing on X that the US “should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did”, adding: “I pointed him out in my book just BEFORE the attack on the World Trade Center.”

6. Lying about firefighters

During a ceremony at the White House ellipse on Tuesday to honor emergency workers who responded to the attacks, Trump said that when he and a group of workers went to visit lower Manhattan shortly after the attacks, he was carried out by firefighters worried that the lower Manhattan skyscraper One Liberty Plaza – formerly known as the US Steel Building – would collapse.

“Two firemen, big strong guys – and I’m not the smallest guy in the world – they grabbed me under the arm, said: ‘Got to get out of here.’ And they literally lifted me up,” the president claimed. “This is not easy to do – I’m big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said: ‘Fellas, I can run myself,’ but they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It didn’t come down.”

PolitiFact notes that Trump has told a version of this story before, including in an interview with Fox News that aired earlier this week. It appears to be a stretch.

While concerns about One Liberty Plaza’s stability did prompt the evacuation of at least one nearby building the day after the attack, there’s no evidence Trump was present, while his claim of bringing workers to the site is unsupported.

… After 'Lake America,' Trump suggests a new name for the state of New Mexico (WP, 9/7/26)

The White House on Sunday amplified President Donald Trump's call to rebrand New Mexico as "New America," reposting an image from the president's Truth Social account showing the state's name crossed out and replaced with "America."

 

…Russian Businessman Paid for Donald Trump Jr.’s Lavish Wedding After-Party (WP 9/05/26)

The payments, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, represented an extraordinary flouting of ethical norms for an American president’s family member.

 

… Jared Kushner’s Dollar Diplomacy

(The New Yorker, 9/03/26)

“Kushner is plagued with conflicts of interest,” Virginia Canter, a former White House counsel, said. “He is supposed to be working for the American people, but in fact he has tremendous financial incentives to further the interests of his investors.”

 

…Trump Administration Moves to Gut a Core Endangered Species Protection

(NYT 9/16/26)

An internal memo reinterprets the law so that only the intentional killing of animals, not collateral harm, is illegal.

The change would be transformative because, in the United States, the killing of endangered animals almost always happens incidentally, in the course of economic activity. Until now, industries and individuals could be held accountable for those foreseeable deaths and, as a result, they have been incentivized to avoid them

 

…Trump Approves $2.8 Billion Arms Sale to Israel, Including 40,000 One-Ton Bombs

(NYT 9/15/26)

The package would be among the largest deliveries of U.S. munitions to Israel.

Human rights groups and some foreign governments have condemned Israel for dropping the giant munitions in densely populated areas, sometimes killing dozens of civilians in strikes targeting just one individual. (At least 74,000 people have been killed in the Gaza strip and 147,000 wounded.)

 

…But finally, there’s good news tonight!

Do You Remember?

         --Melissa Kirsch, The Good List

 

Monday night is the 21st night of September, the date immortalized in Earth, Wind and Fire’s 1978 dance-floor mainstay “September.” In one of the most delightful NPR stories ever aired, Allee Willis, who co-wrote the song, talked about creating what was “obviously the happiest sounding song in the world.” I listen to the NPR segment every year, laughing each time when Willis describes how she pleaded with the band’s lead singer, Maurice White, to change out his placeholder lyric in the chorus — “ba-dee-ya” — for real words:

Finally, when it was so obvious he was not going to do it, I just said, what the [bleep] does ba-dee-ya mean? And he essentially said, who the [bleep] cares? … I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which is never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.

I love this. How do we let the lyric get in the way of the groove in our own lives? How do we let an insistence on being sensible get in the way of the dancing?

Willis, who died in 2019 at 72, never let the lyric get in the way of the groove. Her songwriting hits include the “Friends” theme and “Neutron Dance” by the Pointer Sisters, plus she co-wrote the music and lyrics to the musical “The Color Purple.” “I hear melodies constantly,” she told The Times in 2018. “I always say, ‘If you were to drop dead, I could write to the clunk of the body.’”

If you spend the 21st night of September dancing, then you can spend the 22nd night of September celebrating the autumnal equinox. It begins at 8:05 p.m. Eastern, when the sun crosses the celestial equator, moving from the northern half of the sky to the southern. I plan to follow the example of the Swedish musician Lykke Li who told The Times, “Fall is a time to decide a little bit who you want to be.” Perhaps we should all decide a little bit on Tuesday.

 

Migratory Restlessness

 

We’re at peak migration now in North America. About 8.5 million birds were in flight over New York at 11 p.m. on Sunday, according to Cornell Lab’s Migration Dashboard, a very nifty site that shows the patterns, speeds and altitudes of birds migrating in your area. The Scarlet Tanager is making its way toward South America; the Prairie Warbler is heading for the Caribbean.

The seasonal restlessness that birds experience is called Zugunruhe (“migration anxiety” in German). They flap and flutter, hop and pace: let’s get this show on the road, let’s get out of here already. Who hasn’t known such restlessness, that urge to move, to make a change?

When birds feel Zugunruhe, they take off. For humans, it’s often more complicated. “When the sun turns traitor-cold and all the trees are shivering in a naked row, I get the urge for going but I never seem to go,” Joni Mitchell sang. Of course, there are the human snowbirds who head south for the winter, but the rest of us sit with a version of Zugunruhe, interrogating it, trying to find an outlet for it.

One way to calm the commotion: peruse “The 100 Greatest Bird Names of All Time,” according to the U.S. Bird History Substack. It’s not a thousand-mile night journey to sandy shores, but you’ll find good company in species like the Inaccessible Island Rail, a fellow nontraveler that lives in the south Atlantic and, weighing just under two ounces, is the smallest flightless bird in the world.