Fifteen Minutes
This content was posted February 22, 2025. … Andy Warhol is quoted as saying that “in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” If a celebrity is getting tiresome, people will wonder when their fifteen minutes will be up. After hearing about fifteen minutes my entire life, I began to wonder if Drella really said that. If you can’t be cynical about Andy Warhol …
Wikipedia is a good place to start. “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” … appeared in the program for a 1968 exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. Photographer Nat Finkelstein claimed credit for the expression, stating that he was photographing Warhol in 1966 for a proposed book. A crowd gathered trying to get into the pictures and Warhol supposedly remarked that everyone wants to be famous, to which Finkelstein replied, “Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.” Nat Finkelstein was a sketchy character, in the Warhol tradition. His version is suspect. The Swedish museum part is real.
“Andy Warhol’s first European museum solo show took place at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm from February through March 1968. Pontus Hultén curated the exhibition together with Olle Granath. The exhibition came with a catalogue that was, like the show, named ‘Andy Warhol’. Kasper König, who worked for the Moderna Museet as an intern of sorts in New York, developed a basic concept for the book. … After Warhol had given his approval to this first proposal, König proceeded to create a dummy. … When König returned his dummy to the Factory, Warhol scrutinized it carefully but made only a small number of changes. Contrary to what Warhol wanted to be popular belief, those who produced input at the Factory were carefully monitored. … The final edits on the dummy were made in Stockholm by Olle Granath. He compiled a small selection of Warhol quotes and aphorisms from a stack of books and clippings collected by Hultén and placed them in the book as an introduction before the image sections.”
““Sometime in the autumn of 1967, Pontus Hultén called and asked me if I (Olle Granath) could help him and the Moderna Museet to organize an Andy Warhol exhibition that was due to open in February…. An important part of the exhibition was the production of a book. It was not supposed to be an analytical catalog of Warhol’s work, but a book that conveyed his aesthetics without heavy texts. … One day, Pontus brought me a box, almost the size of a Brillo box, and told me that it contained everything written by and about Andy Warhol (today the equivalent would probably be two truck loads). My job was to read it all and present a proposal for a manuscript with Swedish translations. After a couple of nights of reading and taking notes I delivered a script to Pontus and awaited his reaction with great anticipation. ‘Excellent,’ Pontus said when he called me, ‘but there is a quotation missing.’ ‘Which one?’ I said. ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,’ Pontus replied. ‘If it is in the material I would have spotted it,’ I told him. The line went quiet for a moment, and then I heard Pontus say, ‘If he didn’t say it, he could very well have said it. Let’s put it in.’ So we did, and thus Warhol’s perhaps most famous quotation became a fact.”
“The exhibition in Stockholm attracted a relatively small number of visitors, due to the extremely cold winter, but also to the fact that leftist radicalization increasingly drove the Museets public to mistrust anything American or consumerist. There was no space yet for a more complex reading of Warhol’s relation to consumption. The book, however, became very popular: its enormous edition allowed it to be distributed in nightclubs and record stores, not only museums. A timeless update on the latest from New York, it first became a cult object, then a collectors item.”
Did Andy say that? Probably, but not definitely. Andy was shot by Valerie Jean Solanas on June 3, 1968, a few months after the show in Sweden. Andy survived, and had fifteen more minutes. Pictures today are from Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The 1927 pictures were taken at “California Beauty Week, Mark Hopkins Hotel, July 28 to Aug. 2, auspices of San Francisco Chronicle.”
James Baldwin And The Magic Word
This content was originally published September 10. 2013. … In the spring of 1963, KQED filmed a show, “Take this hammer, featuring James Arthur Baldwin. The snippet in the video seems to have been the last three minutes of the show. Here is a transcript. Mr. Baldwin discusses a six letter insult. The n-word is more about the speaker, than the spoken of. A 2010 blogger had this to say:
“I’ve often felt that people’s projections of me are oftentimes just that – their projections. However, Baldwin’s ending sums up a solution to this perfectly: “But you still think, I gather, that the n****r is necessary. Well he’s unnecessary to me – he must be necessary to you. Well, I’m going to give your problem back to you…you’re the n****r, baby…not me.”
It is now 2026. (All discussions of race must mention the year.) The TV show was sixty three years ago. A few things have changed. To many white people, overt expressions of racism are seen as bad manners. The n-word is taboo in polite company. The overall attitudes may not have changed, but most white people are careful how they say things.
Mr. Baldwin offered an insight into who the user of this nasty word was really talking about. Now, there is another six letter word being casually tossed about these days. It starts with R, where the other ends with R. What would happen if you took Mr. Baldwin’s talk, and substituted racist for the other six letter word? It is an interesting way to look at things. What follows is not a perfect fit, and may be offensive to some. A few times, it is very close to the truth.
“Who is the racist? Well I know this … and anybody who has tried to live knows this. What you say about somebody else, anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessities, my own psychology, my own fears … and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you … I’m describing me.
Now, here in this country, we got somebody called a racist. It doesn’t in such terms, I beg you to remark, exist in any other country in the world. We have invented the racist. I didn’t invent him, white people invented him. I’ve always known, I had to know by the time I was seventeen years old, what you were describing was not me and what you were afraid of was not me. It had to be something else. You had invented it so it had to be something you were afraid of, and you invested me with it. … I have always known that I am not a racist … but if I am not the racist … and if it is true that your invention reveals you … then who is the racist?
I am not the victim here. I know one thing from another. I know that I was born, am gonna suffer and gonna die. And the only way that you can get through life is to know the worst things about it. I know that a person is more important than anything else. Anything else. I’ve learned this because I’ve had to learn it. But you still think, I gather, that the racist is necessary. Well he’s not necessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. So I give you your problem back. You’re the racist baby, it isn’t me.”
Chamblee54 has discussed Mr. Baldwin before. 071222 100722 032623 Pictures today are from Georgia State University Library. The social media picture was taken November 11, 1954. “Roxy Theatre, Atlanta, African American entrance ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Tiny American Faith Groups
This content was published February 11, 2015. … As you may have heard, a man killed three of his neighbors in North Carolina. The victims were Muslim, and the alleged perp is white. Since America is now a nation of media critics, the way this incident is covered is getting as much chatter as anything else. The usual comments about lack of media coverage, and the different ways the race of the perp affects what the media calls the person, are being made.
Some stories report that a dispute over parking spots was behind the slayings. While this may seem trivial to some, parking disputes can be heated. Did the condo community have enough parking spaces? Is killing over a parking spot any sillier than killing because of differing opinions about God?
The Washington Post has a story about the killing, “Chapel Hill killings shine light on particular tensions between Islam and atheism”. “The alleged assassination by an outspoken North Carolina atheist of three of his Muslim neighbors is shining a light on particular, deep tensions between two tiny American faith groups: Muslims and atheists.”
Is that tiny America, tiny faith, or tiny groups? How can atheists be called a “faith group?” Maybe we should go back to saying religion, instead using faith as a semantic substitute. Or maybe, just maybe, we should quit labeling people based on their opinions about God. Is it really any of your business?
The WP story has a link to the facebook page of alleged killer Craig Stephen Hicks . There are numerous comments criticizing the Abrahamic religions. There is also a puzzle, a video about New Zealand, and a link to a story about what occupations the 50 states have. The Hicks page is not different from most facebook pages.
Perhaps the facebook page has a clue to the real motive for the killing. Mr. Hicks is a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. Mr. Hicks is married, and went to Disneyworld two months ago. Mr. Hicks is in two facebook groups: Atheism on Youtube, and LET’S REACH 1 MILLION PEOPLE CAMPAIGN…It’s a start! LGBT EQUALITY. Mr. Hicks likes the movie “12 Years a Slave.”
This incident is tough to wrap your head around. Mr. Hicks probably did not need to own a firearm. Since he is white, the media guide says he is a troubled individual, which does not seem to be in question. If he had been black or brown, Mr. Hicks would be labelled thug or terrorist. Those two labels also seem to fit, regardless of whether or not this was a hate crime.
On June 12, 2019, Craig Stephen Hicks was convicted of first degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison. 1456389 is currently held at Central Prison, Raliegh NC. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media pictures in August 1941. “Children of Albert Lynch, FSA client of Dummerston, Vermont” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Diarization
sing elders welcome · Be necessarily mean · use facilities
We’re starting today feeling good. We’re going to try to write something, instead of just looking in the archive and dredging up past glory. Yesterday’s controversy was about a facebook meme that rubbed me the wrong way. My rule for such things is to let it slide. If I need to take action about it, I snooze the person who sent it. Yesterday I had a weak moment when I saw this meme. Somebody was using religion to manipulate people. I noticed some things about it that didn’t add up, and I decided to write something. I may have offended the person who put it up. The only indication I have that he was offended is not clicking like on my reply. This is pretty superficial.
Lawyer Survivor · incompetent cover up · they’re not good at it
Round two this is basically going to be a diarization of my morning. I should be careful. Diarization sounds a lot like diarrhea. Pouring out my thoughts, as I get going in the morning, is very close to diarrhea. … We’re getting ahead of ourselves. The first step in my morning, after I plug in the phone and turn the computer on, is to take my meds. My drugs. My pills. You can’t get your thrills if you don’t take your pills. You might get some bugs if you don’t take your drugs. If you don’t take your meds, we’ll have to call the feds.
stern security · arrested corrupt leader · WITCH HUNT! Come along
Like so many other things in my life, morning meds thing has evolved. I have a plastic tub, on a shelf by the desk. I put the pill bottles on the desk. I have a tupperware cup. I take the proper dosage from each bottle, put the pills in the tupperware cup, and put the pill bottle back in the tub. This way I know that I have taken what I need out of each bottle. One exception is the carvedilol, which the doctor wants me to take twice a day. I put the bottle on the desk, and try to remember to take a second dose. This afternoon treat puts the LOL back in carvedilol.
influence Kanye · Many despise public scribe · correct buggery
The intent of this project is to react to the Haiku reductions. In this case, you have a screen shot of two tweets. “influence Kanye” God help you if you let that idiot influence you. “Many despise public scribe” I mean that kind of could stand alone. The nature of being a public scribe involves creating content that is going to piss off somebody. What’s really interesting about this reduction is the second half. The reply tweet is from @buckleycarlson, the son of Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson. Young Carlson’s tweet is reduced to “correct buggery”. If TSNC was to actually say the words correct buggery, he would explode. The diarization of Tucker Carlson.
trauma pumping out · hormone chemical cocktail · anxiety cult
When I said diarization at the start of this endeavor, I meant taking my morning, and presenting it as a minute-by-minute real-time diary. It turns out diarization is a real word. There’s something called Speaker Diarization “Unlock the full power of your audio content with industry-leading speaker diarization. Identify speakers to create structured, speaker-labeled transcripts that bring clarity to even the most complex conversations.” The example given here is from a service center phone conversation. The AI wonk took the transcript, and identified the speakers. “We identified 11 positive sentences, and 3 negative ones.”
penniless eighth-grade · prison pa America · forever unjust
Maybe it’s time to think about Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson. For many years TSNC was the boogeyman of the cool people. I vaguely absorbed all of this, but didn’t really pay much attention to it. I hadn’t actually watched him on Fox News, and didn’t understand the fuss. Then TSNC got fired from Fox News for opposing the war in Ukraine. I then realized that I really didn’t know the guy. All I knew was what his opponents had been shouting about him. Now TSNC is saying critical things about Israel. The same people that loved him before now hate him. He is taking on the one issue that you are not allowed to take on. There’s something troubling about this.
never float over · perceivable transparent · iridescent rat
This reduction is under a picture of Franz Kafka. When I google his name, I see this: “Anxiety, Absurdity, and Alienation: The Life of Franz Kafka — Franz Kafka’s troubled life made him one of the most successful writers of all time. Unfortunately, not many people know his story, and many don’t know that he was Czech.” If you want to see the full article, you have to click through a notice: “This website uses cookies to provide you with the best possible service. Your continued use of the site means that you agree to their use. Want to learn more? Visit here: COOKIES Agree”
©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Whose Christianity?
“If our Christianity causes kids to go hungry, the sick to go without healthcare, the stranger to be unwelcome, and the needy to be treated as “parasites,” all while billionaires get richer, we’ve ignored the most basic elements of Jesus’ teachings.” A meme based on this quote appeared on my facebook feed. Strange things to turn up when you take a closer look. God/Satan is in the details.
Where the original says “our Christianity”, the facebook version says “your”. The original says “we’ve”, while facebook says “you have”. “The needy” becomes “the elderly on social security”. The original is on the instagram of Benjamin R. Cremer. BRC “is a Wesleyan pastor, theologian, and writer based in Idaho. He currently serves as the Amity campus pastor at the Cathedral of the Rockies.”
The meme has the logo of Brian Tyler Cohen, and is on his facebook page. Rev. Cremer is not mentioned. As you might surmise, BTC is Jewish. Some would question the propriety of a Jew lecturing people on how to be Christian. Maybe that is why BTC changed “our” to “your”.
BTC is a curious character. He is the co-founder of Chorus Creator Incubator Program, a “dark money” effort to promote progressive influencers. “(Stuart) Perelmuter cofounded Chorus with Democratic influencer Brian Tyler Cohen, who has over 4.6 million subscribers on YouTube and leads messaging check-ins for the creator cohort on “rapid response days.”
There is also this: “Former David Pakman producer reveals that he, Brian Tyler Cohen, and Meidastouch decided to suppress coverage of Gaza because it was “too divisive” at White House meeting with Kamala Harris … I actually have an email from him after he visited the White House last year on the day of Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. … And he told me in an email that they talked amongst themselves and came to the conclusion that the topic is too divisive, it might drag down their channels, that it’s a poison pill, and that it’s better if they just don’t talk about it at all.” The colossal tragedy of Israel’s war of annihilation in Gaza was too divisive for Democrats to talk about. (FWIW, David Pakman is a Chorus content creator.)
BTC may have the “right” to tell us how to be good Christians. A better question might be why we should care. All we know about the “teachings of Jesus” is what the Bible says. Not that this matters to “some” Christians. The church mostly talks about “Salvation,” not what Jesus said when he was alive. Logical consistency doesn’t matter when you are trashing MAGA.
Pointing out examples of hypocrisy is very boring. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in August 1941. “Having dinner at the home of Ray Lyman, FSA client near Castleton, Vermont” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Debugging BAD Arguments
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Caravaggio: Murderous Artist Who Died In Mystery (Waldemar Januszczak Documentary)
A Lecture on Logical Fallacies: Debugging BAD Arguments | Atheist Debates
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queer bars · cumtown · the pew pew jew · frannie · rubens
iran · fuentes · ramadan · liberace · bookmarks
oscar · nixon grand jury · caravaggio · caravaggio · solange
gay tech mafia · listen to your skin · times v sullivan · chatham house · eric dane
nixon grand jury · jesus is my friend · toasters n’ moose · only thing worse · rubens prado
shut up · sophia script · priv 10 · privatzilla · spy blocker
“For too long, historians have accepted the claim that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine caused the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be both brutal and lax.” – Rodney Stark in “For the Glory of God.” · 1 – I think I have not been drinking enough water. While this is good for sodium, I suspect that this is one reason why my blood pressure has been elevated. I have gone back to drinking more water. 2 – The eye procedure was postponed because of the ice storm, and finally performed February 11. I have been holding off on taking bp readings, because of that stress. 3 – The arm based blood pressure monitor I got did not work. For the time being, I am using the wrist device. 4 – My reading a few minutes ago was 137 – 082 · Chamblee54 posted part two of this series yesterday. Once you read part one, posted today, you probably will not understand why. When you are talking about seventies California, you are not supposed to understand · @Codi_Vore Okay ready for the ACTUAL 5 biggest lies of porn? Here’s how it works, tricks and all 🧵⬇️ · There was a popular video created in 2013. It shows an Iowa minister delivering a hip hop message about Jesus. It includes the line “Jesus Christ is my N****” The entertainment has 97m views · @grok This is a screenshot from a recent debate between streamer Hasan Piker (HasanAbi) and political commentator Adam Mockler, discussing the future of the Democratic Party and figures like Gavin Newsom. It’s frustrating for some viewers due to the back-and-forth. Watch it on YouTube or search “Hasan Debates Adam Mockler” for clips. · PSA: ShutUp10++ lets you control every single setting where Windows 10 + 11 can accesss and share your private data, easy for free and without any installation. · It’s very nice to meet you. I’m 20 years old now, I live with my grandmother, I work as a welder, and I’m not from your country. I live in Rivne, Ukraine. I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, but I’d really like to continue our conversation. Please let me know if you’d be willing to get to know me better. Can we continue this conversation? Do you mind, Luther? · have a nice day go kill some russians · Haha, that’s a funny joke. You didn’t tell me if you wanted to talk to me? · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Jack Delano took the social media picture in July 1942. “Ingalls Shipbuilding Company, Decatur, Alabama. Workmen at the launching of an Army barge” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Beyoncé
This content was published February 10, 2016. … “Seriously. Beyoncé releases an awesome video for an awesome song that empowers Black, southern women and it makes racist white people’s dicks invert. White folks: tell me more about how Black culture needs your approval. Or better yet, Just. Shut. Up.” (unsourced) A sentence should have more than one word, but only one period.
In case you haven’t heard, Beyoncé made a video with a political theme. If you don’t care, it is ok to skip the rest of the text, and look at the pictures. Here is one way to see this. “I can critique the commodification of blackness by a middle class, privileged, light-skinned woman that wears fake blonde hair, shakes her ass professionally … Or I can appreciate a pop singer with a record-breaking level of fame laying claim to her blackness and making references to the crises in her community and its history when she’s not obligated and stands to lose at least a modicum of the cross-over appeal that made her so ridiculously famous by doing so.”
Beyoncé is a commercial entertainment content provider. She is good at what she does. Apparently, Beyoncé Inc. thinks people want entertainment product about #blacklivesmatter. She will probably make a few coins in the process, and more power to her. That is what entertainers do … they give people what they want.
Apparently, the halftime show did not amuse Fox news. A few more right wing whiners criticized the performance. Does anyone seriously think that Rudy Giuliani represents white people in America?
“make racist white people’s dicks invert” Really? Do you have any documentation for that, beyond a youtube comment? In all probability, most “racist white people” just ignore the song, if they even know it exists. The self loathing white sjw are the ones having a collective hissy fit.
You can’t have it both ways. If you want people to pay attention, and learn how #blacklivesmatter, then don’t shout White People: Shut Up About Beyoncé. Why would anyone want to talk about that song anyway? Beyoncé is dancing her way to the bank.
The super bowl itself was supposed to be a showcase for another talented African American. Cam Newton had a spectacular season, and led the Carolina Panthers into the big game. Mr. Newton likes to dance after scoring touchdowns, and has a talent for rubbing people the wrong way. Sunday was going to be his moment of glory. The Denver Bronco defense had other plans. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Charles R. Rees took the social media picture. “Colonel Felix L. Price of Co. I, 14th Georgia Infantry Regiment, in uniform and CS buckle” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Jesus Gets A New Nickname
This content was originally published February 13, 2013 … There is a video making the rounds now. The title involves Jesus, and a certain racial slur. When you go to many links, you get this message. “Jesus is my N…” This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Brian Spinney, LLC.” You should not worry about missing out. Just go to youtube, and search for the phrase that pays. Someone else will have posted the video, and you can feel the magic for yourself.
Here is a story about the song, with the edgy language bleeped. “One pastor is trying to spread the word of God with an edgy rap song. The rapping pastor and his wife claim they have “Christian swag” while tossing around the n-word. “Jesus is my ni**a!” Proclaims the pastor in one verse. The video of the rapping pastor was recently uploaded to YouTube but it’s not clear when it was filmed. It was taken at a church in Iowa which closed in 2004.” Another helpful interneter has the lyrics.
In case you didn’t know, Pastor Jim Colerick, and Mrs Mary-Sue Colerick, are melanin deficient. They are, as Bette Midler once said about Karen Carpenter, so white they are invisible. It is not considered good manners for Caucasians to use this word, with or without salvation.
There is another angle to this equation. Many Jesus worshipers see not using cusswords as a sign of righteousness. As a result, many Jesus worshipers use the words God, and Jesus Christ, as tools of their anger. This violates the third commandment. Now, this use of a sacred name, as profanity, is being extended to using a sacred name as a racial slur.
When you call a book “the word of God”, you give certain words too much power. When you decide that the lazy way of saying black is a super duper naughty word, you give those five/six letters way too much power. Now, we see the convergence of these two taboos. Let the party begin.
AI update: Gain of Fauci recently tweeted this golden oldie. @DschlopesIsBack Easily one of the best videos in the history of the internet 😂 · There was a reply: @grok is this real? · @grok The video appears to be an edited compilation of old televangelist footage (likely from Jim Bakker’s shows in the 1980s), with added cartoon effects, speech bubbles, and humorous animations for comedic effect. The base clips are real, but the final product is satirical, not unedited reality. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in April 1943. “Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room, C. & N.W. R.R., Clinton, Iowa ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Didion & Babitz Part One
This content was published February 12, 2025. … Didion & Babitz has hit the streets, as anyone who reads instagram knows. Lilianne O’Lick knows how to sell the soap, as well as a dirty story that leaves many readers wanting a bath. This is not my first time with either Eve Babitz or LOL. D&B is the story of Eve Babitz and Joan Didion. … Neither lady had a middle name. Chamblee 54 has written about EB on several occasions. 123021 032622 010523 This is not the case with JD. I once had a paperback copy of The White Album … I never got past the abandoned gas station being the authentic west.
“Finishing Didion and Babitz has become a Herculean effort on my part. Lili Anolik clearly hates Joan Didion and continually criticizes and condemns her. This book should be called Loving Eve Babitz, Wench, Whore and Failed “Artist”. Anolik seems to fashion herself as a therapist, making some drastic, others ridiculous, excuses for Babit’s tawdry behavior. … This seemed to be an exercise in “look at my big word vocabulary. I’m going to repeat what I just said using big words that no one ever uses just to impress you. “ From an Amazon one-star review, “Loving Eve Loathing Joan,” by NFox.
(“The seventies in LA weren’t a decade under themselves but an extension of the previous decade: the Sixties the flower child, the seventies the juvenile delinquent that the flower child—a Bad Seed all along—grew into.” p. 124) The sixties were special, too beautiful to live, too profitable to die. Being a kid in Georgia was just one way to see it all. I had little notion of what was going on then in California, and by the time I started to get hip, California had Mansoned its way into a permanent Altamont. EB was playing the game, and the players.
Carrie White was a celebrity hairburner, who wrote a book Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life. She is probably not the same Carrie White as the telekinetic teenager at the center of “Carrie” but one cannot be too certain. The CW in D&B went to Hollywood High with EB, and was in the glamour sorority that EB missed out on. CW remained close to Rosalind Frank, who was the fairest of them all in High School. Alas, life after graduation did not work out, and Miss Frank died an early, drug related death. This untimely demise got EB busy writing.
Page 168 sees the first appearance of Bret Easton Ellis, who simply had to be in this book. The first time I heard of EB was on the BEE podcast, which later had an appearance by LOL promoting her first book about EB. BEE idolized JD, and was a close friend of JD’s daughter Quintana Roo Dunne. It is rather poignant that BEE enters this narrative as part of a discussion about JG Dunn’s apparent taste for male company. John Gregory Dunne is the husband of JD, and the younger brother of Dominick John Dunne, … another bicoastal fudge packer.
I was trolling google, looking for dirt on JD … there is a small mountain of dirt on EB … and I stumbled onto a bit of clickbait, “It’s Time To Retire Joan Didion’s Most Famous Line.” The line is “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” I had probably heard it before. I process a lot of commodity wisdom these days. It goes in one eye and out the other … assuming that useless knowledge leaves the head the same way it gets in. Which brings us to page 211, where LOL ends a chapter with JDMFL.
There is a line about EB, whose inclusion in this feature is required by law: “In every young man’s life there is an Eve Babitz. It’s usually Eve Babitz.” Credit/blame for this tidbit is usually given to Earl McGrath. When “Eve’s Hollywood” came out, the line was on the blurb page, written by “anonymous.” EH “came out” in March 1974, with a glamor girl cover photo by Eve’s number one lady lover, Annie Leibovitz. D&B does not have any hint that EB and JD were cleaning carpets together. … Part two of D&B is available. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. “The social media picture: Unidentified soldier in Company H, Vermont uniform” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Didion & Babitz Part Two
This content was published February 21, 2025. … At 1838, February 19th 2025, I shut the cover on Didion & Babitz. Say what you will about author Lilliane O’Lick, she is one helluva storyteller. D&B was easy and fun to read. The book ends with a description of Joan Didion’s memorial, a star-studded celebrity event. Page 339 had one final bit of tackiness: “On the day Joan’s obituary appeared in the New York Times, journalist and podcaster Maris Kreizman took to Twitter. “I want to believe that Joan Didion lived an extra week out of spite so that she could officially outlive Eve Babitz.” p.339
The dedication page to Eve’s Hollywood mentions Steve Martin (the car.) The car is a 1965 VW, which Mr. Martin gave to EB. She later said “Linda Ronstadt was his girlfriend and I was his girlfriend and we were both doing him wrong.” EH was released in March 1974, about the same time I saw Mr. Martin open for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at the Great Southeast Music Hall. Nobody in the Nitty Gritty crowd had any clue who this white suit wearing banjo player was. John McEuen kept stumbling into the microphone, saying “this guy cracks me up.” p. 215
”Huntington’s disease (HD) is named after George Huntington, who described it among residents of East Hampton, Long Island in 1872. It is a hereditary neurodegenerative disease.” HD claimed both EB, and her father, Sol Babitz. EB was aware of her fate for many years. The most famous victim of HD was Woody Guthrie. Many speculated that son Arlo would get HD, but he never did. “Woody’s most productive time artistically was in the 5 years immediately preceding the onset of overt symptoms of HD. I hypothesize that subclinical HD may have been an important driving force behind Woody Guthrie’s creativity.” p. 244
We know little about LOL. She was 32 in 2010, and went to Princeton, after doing high school somewhere else. LOL has the same last name as her Manhattan Doctor husband, but leaves no clues about her maiden name. We do have “A note my older boy, Ike, left on my pillow Valentine’s Day 2020” “DEAR MOM YOU AR WORM AND COTULY AND YOU HAD SEX WITH BREAT ESTIN ELIS BUT DONT TRY TO HIDE IT FROM ME NAW LETS GET DOWN TO BUSINESS I WANT TO GO TO THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM THIS WEEKEND AND I WANT NO ARGUING ABOUT IT”
Page 290 marks the return of Bret Easton Ellis. EB tuned in to “Less Than Zero,” which made BEE a star before he was old enough to (legally) drink. EB compared BEE to Jim Morrison, … another way that People Are Strange. BEE met EB for dinner about this time. There is no word on whether BEE was EB’s dessert. This was about the time AIDS was becoming obnoxious, and EB decided to tone down the whore-of-babylon act. The bi-leaning-gay Paul Ruscha had been a long playing EB boyfriend, which probably has nothing to do with any of this.
On May 7, 2000, JD appeared on In Depth, a PBS talk show. After a polite discussion, and a chance to promote here most recent book, the show was opened up to callers. One of the callers was EB, who introduced herself as “a friend of Joan’s from Hollywood.” JD dropped her stone face once, when EB said that JD’s house “was the first time I ever saw Spode china.” JD did not show much pizazz in that brief clip. I don’t know about the rest of the show, because I am not bored enough to watch it. JD was never known as a vibrant personality. p.306
There may be one defining difference between author and subject. EB wrote a piece about her near-fatal fire titled “I used to be charming.” Recently, LOL did an interview promoting D&B. “I always think of the last line of a Salinger short story, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut.” … “I was a nice girl once, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I?” I think about that all the time, because I used to be so polite. And now I’m just used to getting yelled at and told I’m a jerk or to go away. I just don’t mind at this point.”
Page 332 has EB in her final years. In 1997 EB was badly burned, and never fully recovered. That story is available elsewhere. By the time Donald J. Trump was President, EB had become a talk radio consuming conservative, to go with HD. LOL went to California frequently to have lunch with EB, and talked to her on the phone. In one of these conversations, EB asked “Where can I find a blouse the same shade of blue as Melania Trump’s eyes?” When I asked AI that. I found a description of the Ralph Lauren dress FLOTUS wore to her first inauguration. ““She looked simply flawless.” … This is the final installment of D&B. Part one is available. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the featured photograph in June 1940. “Brooklyn NY. Red Hook housing development. Jimmy Caputo, seven years old, and Annette, three years old, at their nightly prayers.”
©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Such A Society
This content was published February 24, 2022. … The writing workshop announcement appeared before the event. I went to the signup, and was checked in at 7:27. Tonight’s prompt is to write a “golden shovel.” The gs poem is going to be 25 lines long. Every word in the original piece will appear at the end of a line. The seminal poem is by Dr. Doris Derby. … Pale green husks, Of corn grow, Tall and proud, As the young kernels, Of each one, Emerge from darkness, With bright faces, Bathed in Sunlight. … I finish the first draft at 7:55. I will now edit, until the workshop says to stop.
Seeking the beauty beyond the Pale, blue shimmering waves of green, another shucker looking for husks, recovering from the harvest Of, telepathic aromatic corn, after the earth is done with grow, yesterday’s yellow Tall, and wide and fragrant and, retro rainbow standing proud, wearing polyester of the nines As, whimsical overtures of the, quasi legal sticky ripe young, wallowing in the southern kernels, escaping from the yankee sludge Of, teach one reach one each, five four three two one, fighting and kicking to Emerge, out of the twilight from, the placebo darkness, driving out the donald With, fibonaccian synchronistic bright, well scrubbed faces, dark golden moonlight Bathed, over toes and behind ears in, radiant convulsive Sunlight, just, a suggestion she tells me now.
The day started with breakfast, and medications. I looked on Twitter and I saw this: @robstiles1 “All tyrannies rule through fraud and force. Once the fraud is exposed they must then rely solely on force.” – George Orwell” There are a lot of flaky Orwell quotes. The Orwell wikiquote does have a similar quote, and a source. I did a search of the TLDR document, and found the quote that uses “fraud.”
“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. … The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy … good writing stops. …”
The second quotable is more relevant today. “The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy … good writing stops.” The free flow of information, and entertainment, is currently under fire from many sources. The government, working in tandem with big data, has one agenda. Social Justice Jihad has a powerful ideology, upon which one trespasses at one’s own peril. With all these regulators of information, it is a miracle we hear anything other than football scores.
A poem was well on its way to completion. The soundtrack was a new episode of the Bret Easton Ellis podcast. The poem is a series of nine images, with text added at the bottom. When you finish a picture, the first reaction is to go look at facebook and twitter.
Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4. The book is the Holy Bible, with Jean D. Mckinnon in gold letters. Page 18/line 4: Genesis 18:15 “Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.” Line 4 is underlined.
18:15 is just another verse from Genesis, and did not do much for me. What made me cry was the presentation page. “Presented to Jean, by Luke, 7-23-56” This was in my father’s challenging handwriting, on my mother’s birthday. 7-23-56 was a few weeks after my brother was born.
The guest on the BEE podcast was another writer, Jarett Kobek. The desperate state of modern publishing was lamented. The chat picked up when Mr. Kobek asked BEE if he heard about the amateur American Psycho porn. The video features two women having fun, while reading, out loud, a murder scene from American Psycho. It is moments like this, when you want to see the BEE reaction, that podcasting shows a weakness. Bret recovered fast enough, and said “I hope they were hot.” Soon another image was finished, and it was back to twitter. … 2026 update: The show is currently behind the impenetrable BEE paywall.
Kyle Rittenhouse Reveals He Intends On Suing LeBron James. Announcing intention to sue online might not be a good legal strategy. Of course, we are talking deep pockets, and a deep throat. After the televised testimony of Mr. Rittenhouse, this tweet appeared: @KingJames What tears????? I didn’t see one. Man knock it off! That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court. 🤣🤣
Mr. James likes to express his opinions. “James also made waves back in April for suggesting … that an officer was racially motivated for fatally shooting 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant, who was, at the time, attempting to stab another girl. … I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY.” You should be careful what you wish for. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Sheldon Dick took the social media picture in 1938. “Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Some men having beer at Filipek’s bar” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
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