"'It is kind of our job to give a "wow" experience,' says William, a Trader Joe’s employee in Seattle.... 'Hey, how’s it going?' is William’s only prepared line."

"'From there, if they seem like they want to talk, I’ll ask more questions. If not, I’ll let it be, I just ring them out and bag them and let them go.' Shoppers tell him about their ongoing chemotherapy and the death of their beloved cats.... During morning shifts at Trader Joe's, elderly people come in wanting someone to talk to.... On TikTok, nearly 6 million followers tune in to watch actor and longtime server Drew Talbert dramatize restaurant behavior from a server’s perspective. Bartenders go viral for satirizing pushy customers. Lawrence, who does stand-up comedy, makes videos reenacting interactions with customers who inexplicably demand made-up coffee drinks. Servers have taken to TikTok to imitate the 'Gen Z stare,' a reference to the way some young adults stare coldly at servers, as if rebuking them for the question, 'Hi, what can I help you with today?'"

From "What your barista thinks of your small talk game/Some people live for chitchat. Others hate it. Service workers have two seconds to figure out which camp a customer is in" (WaPo).

At Meade's Sweet Potato Café...

... you can talk through the harshest sunlight hours.

Meade took that photo on the occasion that led to yesterday's "After talking with Meade about the sweet potato vine he's got trailing over the edge of the deck railing...."

"I am having a hard time understanding the following Logan Pearsall Smith quote: 'People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.'"

"Googling didn't help much other than whose quote it is. What exactly does the above quote mean?"

Wrote someone at the English Language & Usage website, 12 years ago.

I'm reading that because I was reading — not living — this 2017 New Yorker article: "Philip Larkin and Me: A Friendship with Holes in It": "I remember him one day snatching from my mantelpiece a bookmark, on which was inscribed Logan Pearsall Smith’s remark 'People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.' He threw it down in a little fit of anger, protesting that nothing is more important than life."

These days, someone who couldn't even understand the quote — perhaps someone new to English and mystified by "is the thing" — would probably ask A.I.

I talked to A.I., which is not living, and I said: Understanding the quote (and the love for or objection to it) on a deeper level requires you to come to terms with the question whether you are not living when you are reading.

And then, getting into my A.I.-induced flow, I said: Smith is making a joke out of the implication that to read is not to live. Presumably other people, like Paul's grandfather, in "A Hard Day's Night," say that those who are reading are not living. Instead of fighting with that assertion, Smith says he'd rather read. That's a cheeky response. But it infuriates Larkin. 

How does it happen that the lawyer addresses the judge as "honey"?

NEW: Lawyer is speechless after he accidentally calls a Colorado judge "honey" while arguing whether or not a violent s*xual assault counts as one act or can be broken into multiple acts.

So awkward.

Judge Terry Fox was seen holding back laughter during the incident.

Lawyer:… pic.twitter.com/6FJQyIiPds

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 21, 2025

I can see at the link that one theory is that something about the judge or the kind of argument they were having felt so much like talking to his wife that the endearment he uses on his wife popped in on its own.

Another guess would be that he's one of those men who use "honey" on women when he's putting them in their place. It's a diminishment, not an endearment. 

But what a screwup! He not only let the word slip out, he expended a lot of his time — his client's time — apologizing and attempting to recover.  

"It reminds me of a line that I hear less now, but I used to see it a lot, which is: It’s not my job to educate you."

"I always thought about that line because on one level, I understood it. It’s probably not your job to educate anyone. But if you’re in politics, if what you’re trying to do is political change, I always found that line to be almost antipolitical. That if what you want to do is change a law, change a society, change a heart, and you’re the one who wants to do it — well then, whose job is it? And who are you expecting to do it?"

Said Ezra Klein, interviewing Sarah McBride , in "How to Beat Back Trump on Trans Rights — and Much Else/Representative Sarah McBride reckons with the trans rights movement’s shortcomings and how to win hearts and minds through a politics of grace" (NYT)(audio and transcript here, at Podscribe).

And here's something McBride said, elsewhere in the long discussion: "I think just candidly, I think we lost the art of persuasion. We lost the art of change-making over the last couple of years.... I think a lot of it can be traced to a false sense of security that the L.G.B.T.Q. movement and the progressive movement writ large began to feel in the postmarriage world. There was a sense of cultural momentum that was this unending, cresting wave.

"I think the NYT has framed men as a problem. They're not thriving, they're not aspiring. We need to figure out what's wrong with them..."

"... maybe even empathize with them, because, after all, we do need them to function."

So I said, in the previous post. And one reason I said it was because I'd already opened a tab for a second article on the home page of the NYT today: "Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone? I have many guy friends. Why don’t we hang out more?"

This is a long piece in the NYT Magazine, by Sam Graham-Felsen, and like the article discussed in the previous post, it assures us that there's nothing gay going on here: "I never had sexual feelings for Rob, but there was an intensity to our connection that can only be described as love. I thought about him all the time, and cared, deeply, about what he thought of me. We got jealous and mad at each other, and often argued like a bitter married couple — but eventually, like a successful married couple, we’d always find a way to talk things out."

Graham-Felsen has had many other close male friends — "nearly a dozen other dudes — dudes I spent thousands of accumulated hours with; dudes I shared my most shame-inducing secrets with; dudes I built incredibly intricate, ever-evolving inside jokes with; dudes I loved and needed, and who loved and needed me...." 

But he doesn't have dudes like that anymore. Is that because he's older, and his contemporaries are absorbed in family and work, or is it because American men in general "are getting significantly worse at friendship"?

"Young people in the city are very boring now. I am only in my early 30s but the difference between 10 years ago is stark."

"When I was in my early 20s, you would go out and meet new people every bar you went to. Every night had a funny or interesting story. Contrast that with the Gen Zs you see out: they sit glued to their phones, are scared of speaking to new people, vape constantly, and are only interested in the latest viral tiktok they saw. If you are in New York and spend all your time hanging with other transplants from your same home city, scrolling your phone, and order delivery from a franchise for all your meals, why even live here? You can eat chick fil a and watch TikToks in any city in the US. Guess I'm getting old!"

Says Bud Weiser — if that really is your name — in the comments section of "Why Are These Clubs Closing? The Rent Is High, and the Alcohol Isn’t Flowing/The financial decline of some of the city’s most popular clubs has put a spotlight on the realities of nightlife" (NYT).

Agreeing with Bud is Clark:

"He's much more self-aware than he lets on in public.... Everything I've ever not liked about him was — I swear to God — absent at least on this night with this guy...."

"I've had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected... And he mostly steered the conversation to: What do you think about this?... There were there were so many moments when I hit him with a joke or contradicted something and no problem.... I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him.... I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump.... I feel it's emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.... My favorite part of the whole night was: We were standing in the Blow Job Room*... and he said 'You know, I've heard from a lot of people who really like that we're having this dinner — not all, but a lot.' And I said "Same — lot of people told me they loved it — but not all.' And we agreed. The people who don't even want us to talk: We don't like you. Don't talk? As opposed to what? Writing the same editorial for the millionth time and making 25-hour speeches into the wind?"

Bill Burr goes on "The View" and insults nerds... sexistly.

NEW: Comedian Bill Burr says he is mad at Elon Musk, calls him a "nerd" who doesn't "know how to talk to hot women."

The comments come days after Burr directly compared Elon Musk to Adolf Hitler.

Behar: "Is there anybody getting your ire up more these days than usual?"

Burr:… pic.twitter.com/6aOOtacajl

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 20, 2025

I'm saying it's sexist because of the line: "All these tech nerds that want to build robots because they don’t know how to talk to hot women." This is the kind of sexism you used to hear all the time half a century ago. A negative personality trait — or even just an interest in science or a hobby — would be attributed to a failure to have sexual intercourse. People with very little comic talent would think they were witty to say things like "You need to get laid."

I heard Tim Dillon — who's kind of my favorite comedian — make a similar joke on his podcast that came out on March 13th: "Now I understand there's man children out there that wanna fly rockets to Mars because they can't fly their penis into a vagina."

Did Burr just steal Dillon's joke, sanitize it, and run over to talk about it with the "hot women" on "The View"?!

The commenter lonejustice said: "Grok is much too chatty for me. I just want straight answers."

That was back in the thread about... well, maybe go back and read it. It was about how underwater scenes — in movies ("Thunderball") and on TV ("Sea Hunt") — are boring.

In the old thread, I'd answered: "All you need to do is instruct it in how you want it to talk and it will change for you. Please talk to me as though we were 2 scientists at a conference or 2 philosophers in a French café or the 2 most laconic jerks on the face of the Earth. What is it you want?"

Then I wanted to check whether I was right about Grok's adaptability so I shared lonejustice's statement and my response to it. Grok gave an answer that made me laugh out loud:

"Your brain knows bullshit," said Joe Rogan.

"You could kind of bullshit someone for an hour, but... hour two and hour three.... that's when the real you comes out.... How much are you bullshitting the world?...[T]he narrative about Trump has always been that he's bullshitting everybody.... But that's him, that's the, the guy's right there. You could talk to him about everything and anything. He's right there.... Your brain knows bullshit...."

Context (from the full transcript at Podscribe, which I edited a bit for accuracy):

"Am I the only one in the city being lectured on dates about Burning Man?..."

"... I hadn’t even finished chewing my first mouthful of pasta before his 37-minute tale began. (Yes, I timed it.) He fiddled excitedly with a loose dreadlock as I once again fell victim to an eternity of spiritual mansplaining. The formula was all too familiar. A compulsory mention of the 10 'core principles' of Burning Man, which, in more obnoxious settings, have also been referred to as 'the truths.' 'Inclusion is the core of our culture' he said. 'It’s written in the charter.'... [A]ttending Burning Man often costs a minimum of $5,000. And what kind of person my age, early career, has nine days to spend frolicking in a desert?..."

Writes Cate Twining-Ward, in "Men, Please Stop Talking About Burning Man/Am I the only woman meeting Burning Mansplainers on dates?" (NYT)(free-access link).

"I told [my 12-year-old daughter] she needed to read because novels are the best way to learn about how people’s insides work."

"She said she could learn more from watching the people she followed on social media, who were all about spilling their insides. I said books offered storytelling. She said, 'Netflix.' I said books taught history. She said, 'The internet.' I said reading would help her understand herself and she said, 'Um, no thank you. I’ll just live.' I promised, extravagantly, that I’d buy her all the books she wanted and construct bookshelves in her room, so that she could see the spines of all the books she loved from her bed. She said, 'Mama, welcome to your dream.'... So I decided to cut through all the reasoning.... I told my 12-year-old I would pay her $100 to read a novel.... $100 if she finished the book within a month. We then embarked on a beach holiday, along with my boyfriend, to a romantic Greek island...."

Writes Mireille Silcoff "I Paid My Child $100 to Read a Book" (NYT).

Should you use money to get your kids to do things you can't reason them into doing? Money becomes the reasoning. Money talks, as they say. 

I don't know. But I do know you shouldn't take a 12-year-old daughter along on something you call "a romantic Greek island" "with my boyfriend."

What was the "romantic Greek island"? Santorini?

"When you are half-naked or even sometimes completely naked, it allows for deeper discussion."

"You talk in a way that doesn’t happen when you are sitting around a table with a tie on or at some formal thing."

Said Mikko Hautala, the ambassador of Finland to the United States, in "'Whatever Happens in the Sauna Stays in the Sauna': Diplomacy, Conducted in the Nude/The Finnish Embassy offers one of the hottest invitations in Washington: a chance to discuss serious topics in a sauna" (NYT).

Donging echoically.

You could go your whole life without using a word, then one day, it seems like the perfect word, and you use it for the first time. That happened to me yesterday, with "echoically": "Trump responds echoically, then darkly...."

Trump dealt with something Musk had said by echoing it, then quickly inserted what he wanted to say, which was quite different. The segue was easily accomplished. Listening to the audio, you might not notice how little he gave back to Musk and how abruptly he changed the subject, but it jumped out at me, reading the transcript.

The first commenter, Mike (MJB Wolf) said, "Dig that word 'echoically' and don't recall ever encountering it before." 

Yeah, I don't recall ever encountering it before either, so why did it strike me as the perfect word? That's odd, no? How often do you use a word and know you're using it for the first time and have no memory of anyone else using it either? 

"[M]y notes weren’t always as illuminating as I’d expected them to be. 'What does ‘Alt’ mean?' I asked Hugh over dinner one night."

"He looked down at the page. 'It’s not "Alt,"' he said. 'It’s "A.L.T."' Then I remembered. We’d been out early that morning, observing a short parade of ostriches. It was misty, and I pointed to a vague shape on the horizon. 'What’s that?' I asked Dalton. He followed my finger and told me it was likely an A.L.T. 'Animal-looking thing,' he explained."

I'm so glad to see a new David Sedaris essay in The New Yorker, "Notes on a Last-Minute Safari/We saw every animal that was in 'The Lion King' and then some. They were just there, like ants at a picnic, except that they were elephants and giraffes and zebras."

I liked seeing the first syllable of my last name in a new context, but more important was the opportunity to find out David Sedaris's opinion of going on "safari," because I had quite recently asserted, to a complete stranger, that going on safari was really basically the same thing as going to the zoo. These things are packaged. It's not as though you're exploring the authentic natural habitat of elephants, giraffes, and zebras.

Things I talked about with Meade this morning.

1. How Tucker Carlson told Joe Rogan that Bari Weiss is a fraud and not honest at all. She called Tulsi Gabbard a "toady" and she didn't know what "toady" meant.

2. The similarities and differences between the Bob Dylan song "You Got to Serve Somebody" and the Band song "Unfaithful Servant."

3. The use of the tuba in popular music recorded in the last 60 years and why it matters if they had an actual tuba player in the studio as opposed to a digitalized tuba sound.

4. "Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole."

5. Whether flags of foreign countries should be waved by members of Congress and how the use of the flag may mean different things to different people.

6. It was Richard Nixon who originated the wearing of a flag lapel pin and how everyone followed along and now they can't stop.

7. The way some people these days are calling their loved one "my person." I heard it in Salman Rushdie's new book "Knife" and I opened The New Yorker at random and saw it in a Roz Chast cartoon.

8. Some people call a dog's owner the dog's "person," and that seems related to the old joke "Are you walking him or is he walking you"?

9. Bill Maher asked why people want drag queens reading to children and said it would be better to have disabled people reading, but drag queens are entertainers and disabled people are not. 

10. How little children shouldn't be exposed to overly exciting entertainment and even peekaboo can be too intense for young minds.

11. How it's already too late to go south for warmer weather and we are better off here in the north, where there was frost on the grass this morning.

12. How fluent and funny Tucker Carlson was describing his boss at the New York Post who had a hairy back that he would rub against the door jamb while he talked to Tucker and the 5 or 6 ways that Tucker could have known that the man had a hairy back.

13. What a big part of life hairiness is — for the lower animals and for us, the humans. 

14. Was the hairy-backed man John Podhoretz? Carlson mutters the name.

15. The annoyingness of Carlson's laugh and how hard you have to commit to do a good enough imitation of it.

16. The energy Joe and Tucker had. Doesn't Tucker wear a hairpiece and Joe just shaved off all his hair.

17. Meeting for coffee and not an entire meal so you're free to leave whenever you want and how some people have trouble getting out of small-talk conversations and this one simple trick that's all you need.

18. The perception that a conversation can't end until both participants want it to end and the way some people keep adding new topics as if keeping a conversation going is a game.

19. The very low level of tennis playing that has you just trying to keep the ball in play as long as possible.

20. How all this talk is taking the place of writing on the blog, but I could just make a blog post out of all the topics that didn't make it onto the blog because I was talking about everything with Meade.

If not for homophobia, we could have had Utopia... through LSD.

I'm reading "Could LSD Have Achieved World Peace? Ask Margaret Mead. In 'Tripping on Utopia,' Benjamin Breen chronicles the legendary anthropologist’s doomed effort to save the world through hallucinogens" (NYT).

Here's the book: "TRIPPING ON UTOPIA: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science" (commission earned).

The the reviewer, Charlotte Shane, writes:

"[T]he abrupt rise in digital interaction following the arrival of the pandemic made knowledge work more tedious and exhausting..."

"... helping to fuel the waves of disruption that have followed.... So long as these new and excessive levels of digital communication persist, more haphazard upheavals will inevitably follow. We need to get serious about reducing digital communication—not just small tweaks to corporate norms but significant reductions, driven by major policy changes.... [Business owners] could declare that, from now on, e-mail should be used only for broadcasting information, and for sending questions that can be answered by a single reply. One implication of this system would be that any substantive back-and-forth discussion would need to happen live; to prevent an explosion of new meetings, managers could simultaneously introduce office hours, in which every employee adopts a set period each day during which they’d be available to chat in person, online, or over the phone, with no appointment needed. Discussions that seem likely to take fifteen minutes or less should be conducted during office hours, minimizing the number of intrusive meetings and freeing everyone from endless back-and-forth e-mail threads.... The need to constantly monitor ongoing chats can be even more disruptive than frequent e-mails and meetings.... [Businesses could] opt out of chat services completely...."

Writes Cal Newport, a computer science professor, in "An Exhausting Year in (and Out of) the Office/After successive waves of post-pandemic change, worn-out knowledge workers need a fresh start" (The New Yorker).

"Fans of walks love to point out that Virginia Woolf dreamed up 'To the Lighthouse' on a walk around Tavistock Square."

"Insomniac walks through London powered Dickens’s novels. Bathtubs and apple trees get all the attention, but many more scientists have had their eureka moments while on long, solitary ambles. Friedrich Nietzsche famously wrote that 'only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.'... The writer Teju Cole often gets invited to take walks....But he usually demurs. 'Really, what I love more than walking itself is getting lost,' he said in an email. 'And getting lost with someone else in tow is difficult. This might be why my favorite walks have been in solitude and in cities with which I am unfamiliar....’… Walking is a rare moment in our modern life where you can just let your mind wander. Aimless walking is a lost art in our ever-optimizing society. So let’s meet for coffee. I’m sure I’ll come up with lots of fun things to talk about on the walk over.”

Writes Lydia Polgreen, in "No, We Shouldn’t Make This Meeting a Walk" (NYT).