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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
The Calliope Hummingbird migrates. This recording has a lot going on: A weedwhacker, or possibly a drone, plenty of other birds including what sounds like an owl, plus this hummingbird “foraging or fating,” and other hummingbirds.
#COVID19
Either exhortations aren’t working, or there are data problems.
61.5% of the US is fully (doubly) vaccinated (CDC data, such as it is, as of December 20. The stately 0.1% rise per day returns. We have broken the important 61% psychological barrier! Mediocre by world standards, being just below Hungary, and just above Turkey in the Financial Times league tables as of this Monday).
Case count by United States regions:
The fiddling and diddling abruptly ends. I have added an anti-triumphalist “Fauci Line.” As happened in 2020, I would expect a second, higher peak, from Omicron if for no other reason.
At a minimum, the official narrative that “Covid is behind us,” or that the pandemic will be “over by January” (Gottlieb), or “I know some people seem to not want to give up on the wonderful pandemic, but you know what? It’s over” (Bill Maher) is clearly problematic. (This chart is a seven-day average, so changes in direction only show up when a train is really rolling.)
NOT UPDATED One of the sources of the idea that Covid is on the way out, I would speculate, is the CDC’s modeling hub (whose projections also seem to have been used to justify school re-opening). Here is the current version of the chart from the CDC modeling hub, which aggregates the results of eight models in four scenarios, with the last run (“Round 9”) having taken place on 2021-08-30, and plots current case data (black dotted line) against the aggregated model predictions (grey area), including the average of the aggregated model predictions (black line). I have helpfully highlighted the case data discussed above. Not updated:
Case data (black dotted line) has been within the tolerance of the models; it does not conform to the models’ average (black line), but it stays within aggregated predictions (the grey area).
I wrote: “It’s too early to say ‘Dammit, CDC, your models were broken’; but it’s not too soon to consider the possibility that they might be. The case data still looks like it’s trying to break out of the grey area. We shall see.” The case data has now broken out of the grey area (see at “Oopsie!”). Since the models are aggregated conventional wisdom, it’s not fair to call them propaganda, exactly. Nevertheless. conventional wisdom is looking a little shaky, and anybody who relied on them to predict that we would be “back to normal” by early next year should be taking another look at their assumptions. And this is — I assume — before Omicron!
NOT UPDATED MWRA (Boston-area) wastewater detection:
I wrote: “We’ll see if gets choppy again, or not.” This blip upward is the first sign of choppiness.
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) service area includes 43 municipalities in and around Boston, including not only multiple school systems but several large universities. Since Boston is so very education-heavy, then, I think it could be a good leading indicator for Covid spread in schools generally.
From CDC: “Community Profile Report” (PDF), “Rapid Riser” counties:
Maine better. Boston to New York bad. Upper Midwest improved. More flecks of red in the South. Weird flare-ups, like flying coals in a forest fire. They land, catch, but — one hopes — sputter out.
The previous release:
Hospitalization (CDC Community Profile):
Better than previous; calm before the storm. II have helpfully highlighted the states where the “trend” arrow points up in yellow, and where it is vertical, in orange. (Note trend, whether up or down, is marked by the arrow, at top. Admissions are presented in the graph, at the bottom. So it’s possible to have an upward trend, but from a very low baseline.)
Death rate (Our World in Data):
Total: 828,836 827,323. At this rate, I don’t think we’ll hit the million mark by New Year’s.
NOT UPDATED Excess deaths (total, not only from Covid). Not updated:
Hard to believe we have no excess deaths now, but very fortunate if so. (CDC explains there are data lags).
Covid cases in historic variant sources, with additions from the Brain Trust:
South Africa is looking better, but I think that’s a reporting artifact. Gauteng empties out in the holiday season, I am told; some go to the beach, others up-country. So it’s really too soon to declare victory. Look at the UK, too. This is a log scale. Sorry for the kerfuffle at the left. No matter how I tinker, it doesn’t go away.
Politics
“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51
“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune
“They had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.” –Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
Capitol Seizure
“Gina. Rosanne. Guy. What do you do the day after you storm the Capitol?” [New York Magazine]. “Hundreds of people caught on-camera committing what was arguably sedition went home to families that feared them, strangers who admired them, federal agents already setting up surveillance. Over a year’s time, many of their lives would be transformed. They would discover the dark state of American prisons. They would be fired and divorced and bankrupt and subject to extraordinary kindness from strangers. They would become fodder for the kind of conspiracies that had summoned them to D.C. in the first place. They would become a price paid for the right to stand on a dais and say You’ll never take back our country with weakness. Gina Bisignano would lose her salon, Guy Reffitt would lose his freedom, and Rosanne Boyland would lose her life.”
Biden Administration
A good question:
Is there a reason Joe Biden didn’t invoke the Defense Production Act to distribute free masks and at-home testing kits to Americans eleven months ago
— Don’t vote for Democrats or Republicans (@DoctorFishbones) December 21, 2021
Because Biden has molasses for brains? That’s the charitable explanation.
Everybody loves a winner:
Quiet winners in the Manchin-sunk BBB: FB, Apple, Amazon, Google, which now are facing a DoJ and FTC without an infusion of $1B to pursue antitrust enforcement.
— Bobby Allyn (@BobbyAllyn) December 20, 2021
“Democratic critics link party problems to bad messaging” [The Hill]. “One Democratic strategist said the problem is far worse saying the White House ‘needs to completely reprioritize their priorities.’ ‘They need a wholesale revamp of their entire communications, political and strategy team,’ the strategist said.” • Hire me!
“The Democratic Agenda Dies of Delusions” [Eric Levitz, New York Magazine]. “Manchin and his Democratic critics each fell prey to their respective delusions. Put simply, Manchin cannot recognize the intellectual bankruptcy of Clinton-era conceptions of fiscal responsibility, while the Democratic leadership has refused to accept that it has no real leverage over him.” • Good analysis from Levitz, worth reading in full (though I still think prosecuting Manchin’s daughter would be an option of Merrick Garland weren’t who and what he is).
Democrats en Deshabille
Lambert here: Obviously, the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself. Why is that? First, the Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community. (Note that voters do not appear within this structure. That’s because, unlike say UK Labour or DSA, the Democrat Party is not a membership organization. Dull normals may “identify” with the Democrat Party, but they cannot join it, except as apparatchiks at whatever level.) Whatever, if anything, that is to replace the Democrat Party needs to demonstrate the operational capability to contend with all this. Sadly, I see nothing of the requisite scale and scope on the horizon, though I would love to be wrong. (If Sanders had leaped nimbly from the electoral train to the strike wave train after losing in 2020, instead of that weak charity sh*t he went with, things might be different today. I am not sure that was in him to do, and I’m not sure he had the staff to do it, although I believe such a pivot to a “war of movement” would have been very popular with his small donors. What a shame the app wasn’t two-way.) Ah well, nevertheless.
For an example of the class power that the PMC can wield, look no further than RussiaGate. All the working parts of the Democrat Party fired on all cylinders to cripple an elected President; it was very effective, and went on for years. Now imagine that the same Party had worked, during Covid, to create an alternative narrative — see Ferguson et al., supra, to see what such a narrative might have looked like, and with the unions (especially teachers) involved. At the very least, the Biden Administration would have had a plan, and the ground prepared for it. At the best, a “parallel government” (Gene Sharp #198) would have emerged, ready to take power in 2020. Instead, all we got was [genuflects] Tony Fauci. And Cuomo and Newsom butchering their respective Blue States, of course. The difference? With RussiaGate, Democrats were preventing governance. In my alternative scenario, they would have been preparing for it.
And while we’re at it: Think of the left’s programs, and lay them against the PMC’s interests. (1) Free College, even community college. Could devalue PMC credentials. Na ga happen. (2) MedicareForAll. Ends jobs guarantee for means-testing gatekeepers in government, profit-through-denial-of-care gatekeepers in the health insurance business, not to mention opposition from some medical guilds. Na ga happen. (3) Ending the empire (and reining in the national security state). The lights would go out all over Fairfax and Loudon counties. Na ga happen. These are all excellent policy goals. But let’s be clear that it’s not only billionaires who oppose them.
Showing the PMC’s inability to govern, as a class they seem unable to expand their scope of operations into new fields. Consider the possibilities of the “Swiss Cheese Model.” Layered defenses include extensive testing, contact tracing, ventilation systems (not merely blue collar HVAC work, but design and evaluation), and quarantines. If we look at each layer as a jobs guarantee for credentialed professionals and managers, like ObamaCare, the opportunities are tremendous (and that’s before we get to all the training and consulting). And yet the PMC hasn’t advocated for this model at all. Instead, we get authoritarian followership (Fauci) and a totalizing and tribalizing faith in an extremely risky vax-only solution. Why? It’s almost as if they’re “acting against their own self-interest,” and I don’t pretend to understand it.
And I’m not the only one who’s puzzled. “Even if you…
already did suspend the filibuster for specific reasons in the past and would now for SC nominees. It has razor-thin margins yet can still pass massive spending bills. Invoking Manchin or Sinema doesn’t really explain the puzzle; it just re-describes it.
— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) December 2, 2021
A second example of the PMC’s inability to govern comes under the rubric of “our democracy.” Of the various components of the Democrat party, NGOs, miscellaneous mercenaries, assets in the press, and the intelligence community all believe — or at least repeat vociferously — that “our democracy” is under threat, whether from election integrity issues, or from fascism. But other components — funders, vendors, apparatchiks, and electeds — don’t believe this at all. On election integrity, HR 1 has not passed. Gerrymandering continues apace (also a sign that Republicans take their politics much more seriously than Democrats do). On fascism, I suppose we have Pelosi’s January 6 Commission. But nothing unlawful took place, or we would have Merrick Garland’s January Investigation. The combination of hysterical yammering from some Democrats and blithe indifference from others is extremely unsettling. (This leaves aside the question of whether Democrats, as a party, have the standing to whinge about either the erosion of democracy or the imminence of fascism. I say no.) Of course, there is a solution to the problems with “our democracy”:
Prediction
Democrats will solve the problem of minoritarian tyranny by losing the popular vote. https://t.co/hdw4IxTu2b
— Alice in Winter (@AliceFromQueens) November 18, 2021
It is said, I believe by Thomas Frank, that the Democrats are the Party of Betrayal. Certainly the “Build Back Better” debacle provides many examples of combinatorial betrayal. Manchin betrayed Biden (by lying to Biden at his house). Biden betrayed everybody (by believing, I am persuaded, and acting as if he had Manchin’s vote in his pocket*). Schumer betrayed everybody (by keeping Manchin’s written request a secret). Pelosi betrayed Jayapal (by splitting BIF and BBB into two bills and by relying on Republican votes). The Democrat leadership betrayed the Progressive Caucus (by explicitly and verbally making the face-to-face promise that BBB would be passed, and then not delivering). And, though this is harsh, Sanders betrayed his voters with his 2020 turn toward electoralism (by personally liking Biden, and relying on his deal-making ability, now shown to be a sham). I don’t think the Squad betrayed anybody, unless you regard participating in the process as a betrayal, so there’s that. NOTE * I believe Biden’s top line was Manchin’s from the beginning, and nowhere near Sanders’.
* * * “The Dreyfus Affair” [John Ganz, Unpopular Front]. • Ten parts, very easy read, contemporary relevance. From Part Six: “The riots across France appeared to be spontaneous outpourings of rage against Zola’s broadside, but in fact they were the product of concerted organization and agitation. Antisemitic posters appeared before the riots and antisemitic conferences took place in many of the cities that witnessed large scale rioting. There was also, as we’ve seen, a growing antisemitic press. The Catholic press, not to be outdone, was increasingly packed with anti-Jewish articles. In Paris, the mobs were becoming organized on an almost paramilitary basis by the Ligue Antisémitique Française.”
Republican Funhouse
“How Dark Money Bought A Supreme Court Seat” [Daily Poster]. “A conservative dark money group led by former President Donald Trump’s judicial adviser Leonard Leo bankrolled Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation campaign with nearly $22 million in anonymous cash, while another nonprofit that Leo helps steer saw a fundraising bonanza and showered cash on other organizations boosting Barrett, according to tax returns obtained by The Daily Poster. The new tax returns shed light on how Barrett’s successful last-minute confirmation campaign was aided by a flood of dark money. They also reveal the rapid growth of Leo’s already highly successful dark money network and its tentacles in the broader conservative movement… Leo is a longtime executive at the Federalist Society, a group for conservative lawyers.”
Realignment and Legitimacy
“A Good Day w/Special Guest Matt Stoller” (podcast) [The West Wing Thing]. Brutal takedown of Kamala Harris, plus a discussion of Reddit antiwork (stirrings of something out in the biomass).
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of note.
Retail: “Retail’s Battle With Covid Actually Saved Its Stores” [Bloomberg]. “[F]or the big players who got things right, 2021 saw a remarkable rebound. In the U.S., chains with more than 50 stores are expected to have added more than 4,000 locations this year — led by discount chains Dollar General and Dollar Tree. That would mark the first net increase since 2017, according to IHL Group. Total closings among this group in 2021 are estimated to have been 3,500, a quarter of the 2020 total. The comeback is a big reason why the SPDR S&P Retail exchange-traded fund, which tracks the S&P Retail Select Industry Index, has surged 32% this year, easily topping the broader S&P 500 Index’s advance. Retail stocks in other parts of the world haven’t fared as well, though. Even with Covid variants hammering some parts of the country, overall visits to U.S. stores this year are only 0.8% below the same period in 2019, according to Placer.ai, which uses anonymous mobile phone data to estimate foot traffic. Many of the biggest chains spanning various categories are drawing more shoppers than before the pandemic. These include Target, Lowe’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta Beauty and Bath & Body Works. Visits to Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, are just 2% below 2019 levels so far this year, Placer.ai data show.”
Retail: “Lego: The Toy of Smart Investors” [Research in International Business and Finance]. The Abstract: “We study financial returns on alternative collectible investment assets, such as toys, using LEGO sets as an example. Such iconic toys with diminishing over time supply and high collectible values appear to yield high returns on the secondary market. We find that LEGO investments outperform large stocks, bonds, gold, and alternative investments, yielding an average return of at least 11% (8% in real terms) in the sample period 1987–2015. LEGO returns are not exposed to market, value, momentum, and volatility risk factors but have an almost unit exposure to the size factor. A positive multifactor alpha of 4%–5%, a Sharpe ratio of 0.4, a positive return skewness, and low exposure to standard risk factors make the LEGO toy and other similar collectibles an attractive alternative investment with good diversification potential.”
The Bezzle: “Editorial: Slam the brakes on Tesla’s self-driving madness” [Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times]. “While Tesla follows the Silicon Valley ethos of ‘move fast and break things,’ dozens of other companies experimenting with self-driving technology on California roads are following a reasonable set of rules. They must have a trained and certified test driver behind the wheel and send the DMV regular reports on crashes as well as incidents in which the human driver had to take over to avoid a crash…. California cannot continue letting Tesla have it both ways. If the cars are automated enough to be marketed as “Full Self-Driving,” then they must be required to follow the same testing rules as other autonomous vehicles that roam our roads. If the cars are not automated enough to be regulated as autonomous vehicles, then Tesla should not be allowed to market the technology as “Full Self-Driving.”… Gov. Gavin Newsom — a longtime Tesla owner who has known Musk for 20 years and called him ‘one of the world’s greatest innovators and entrepreneurs’ — should lean on DMV Director Gordon to make Tesla play by the same rules as the companies it competes with.” • Lol no.
The Bezzle: “Jack Dorsey Stirs Uproar by Dismissing Web3 as a Venture Capitalists’ Plaything” [Bloomberg]. “Web3, the still hazy term for blockchain-based, decentralized systems and tech that are meant to replace the internet as we know it, has garnered much attention and funding this year, with Andreessen Horowitz being among its loudest cheerleaders. Trading of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains has been the most visible manifestation, with many companies now investing in the development of decentralized apps as well as games for those platforms. ‘You don’t own ‘web3’,’ tweeted Dorsey. ‘The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives.’”
The Bezzle: An interesting thread on NFTs:
NFTs are a massive scam but they are also a beautiful anthropological device that demonstrates the fact that private property is, and has always been, a social construct
— obnoxious transexual hacker (@beka_valentine) December 19, 2021
Key tweet:
as long as Twitter participates in this NFT system, the code of the NFT is law
sure you have rights under whatever country you live in, but under the new NFT property game, you are playing defense
— obnoxious transexual hacker (@beka_valentine) December 19, 2021
The implication:
and what happens, what IS happening right now, is the normalization of the idea that property rights and ownership and fair use and licensure can, and SHOULD, be encoded on blockchain systems, and automatically enforced via software mechanisms
— obnoxious transexual hacker (@beka_valentine) December 19, 2021
The Bezzle: NFTs:
It’s all so tiring pic.twitter.com/YU8pU4P93y
— Crypto Bros Taking Ls (@CoinersTakingLs) December 21, 2021
The Bezzle; “Nikola Corp agrees to pay $125 mln to settle SEC charges of defrauding investors” [Reuters]. “Nikola Corp has agreed to pay $125 million to settle civil charges that it defrauded investors by misleading them about its products, technical advancements and commercial prospects, the U.S. securities regulator said on Tuesday. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused the electric vehicle maker of violating U.S. securities laws with numerous misleading statements made from March to September 2020 about in-house production capabilities, reservation book and financial outlook.” • Now do Tesla.
Supply Chain: “Toyota to halt production at 5 factories in January due to supply chain issues” [Reuters]. “Toyota Motor Corp said on Monday it would suspend production at five domestic factories in January due to supply chain issues, chip shortages and the COVID-19 pandemic. Japan’s top automaker said that the stoppage at the factories will affect about 20,000 vehicles, but won’t impact their annual target to manufacture nine million vehicles. Last week, Toyota said it was projecting a bigger reduction in vehicle production in North America in January to 50,000 units due to supply chain issues.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 30 Fear (previous close: 25 Extreme Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 26 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 21 at 12:19pm. The dial is back! Perhaps writing CNN actually helped!
The 420
“Analysis: Jurisdictions Permitting Adult-Use Retail Facilities Experience Employment Growth” [NORML]. “Local jurisdictions that permit licensed marijuana operations experience job growth at higher rates than do localities that prohibit them, according to data published in the IZA Journal of Labor Economics. A team of economists affiliated with the University of New Mexico and with California Polytech State University compared county-level economic data in Colorado between the years 2011 and 2018. They reported that unemployment fell in counties where dispensaries opened relative to counties in which they did not. Authors reported, ‘[W]e find consistent evidence of a decrease in unemployment and increases in the number of employees in manufacturing.’”
The Agony Column
“Don’t try to be happy. Focus on these 5 things instead” [Fast Company]. Contentment is preferable to happiness (see NC here). That said, this is an odd article. It starts out normal, but begins to veer off the rails: “2. SUFFERING CAN ENHANCE PLEASURE… The burn of hot curry can be pleasurable if it’s followed by the shocking relief of a cold beer. This is the contrast theory of why we choose to experience pain. It’s like the old joke my dad used to tell me about the guy who was banging his head against the wall. When asked why he said, “It feels so good when I stop.’” Helpful theory in the midst of a pandemic! And then we come to this: “3. SUFFERING CAN GIVE US MEANING.” Ditto! Ditto!
Games
“Ubisoft Boss Tells Employees That NFTs Are Just The Beginning” [Kotaku]. “Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot held a video Q&A this week to try and reassure developers about the company’s controversial new push behind NFTs, according to multiple sources who were in attendance. But they said his answers were vague and leaned on buzzwords like ‘metaverse’ and ‘web 3.0,’ leaving some as disheartened by the company’s latest PR disaster as before. The meeting, which sources said wasn’t yet scheduled when the week started, came after the official reveal of Ubisoft’s new blockchain-based technology called Quartz was widely mocked online, with a video showcasing it receiving over 40,000 downvotes on YouTube. Kotaku previously reported that developers at the company were critical of the rollout as well, with an internal announcement exploding in hundreds of comments that ranged from skeptical to dismissive. The initiative kicked off with three cosmetic NFTs in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, including one that required players to have logged over 600 hours in-game to redeem. Axios reported earlier this week that players have already started at least trying to resell the tokens on third-party platforms, for amounts that wishfully range from hundreds of dollars to the hundreds of thousands.”
The Gallery
Model railroading:
Chris Burden, Medusa’s Head, 1990 https://t.co/FENNcAFvMW #chrisburden #museumofmodernart pic.twitter.com/PyoshMnGEQ
— MoMA: Paintings and Sculpture (Bot) (@moma_paintings) December 18, 2021
Circular error probably:
Explosion I, 1965 #roylichtenstein #popart pic.twitter.com/moHeNAW95e
— Roy Lichtenstein (@artlichtenstein) December 19, 2021
Xmas Pregame Festivities
We forget that Warhol started out as commercial artist:
Andy Warhol – Christmas tree pic.twitter.com/XFceNfSUqQ
— @_rt* (@literatura_rte) December 19, 2021
Sports Desk
“What to Know About C.T.E. in Football” [New York Times]. “[Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E.,] the degenerative brain disease associated with repeated blows to the head has been found in the brains of more than 315 former N.F.L. players, Waters the third but whose death brought the condition into the mainstream. The group includes 24 players who died in their 20s and 30s, according to Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist and the director of the C.T.E. Center at Boston University…. C.T.E., which can be diagnosed only posthumously, has been linked to a host of symptoms, including memory loss, depression, aggressive behavior and, sometimes, suicidal thoughts. It is a progressive disease, and the symptoms can arise long after the hits to the head have ceased.”
Our Famously Free Press
“Washington Post Grasps for New Direction as Trump-Era Boom Fades” [Wall Street Journal]. “Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said she was struck by a presentation showing that in one stretch of 2019, nearly all of the 50 most popular articles on the Post’s home page were related to politics, whereas in the same period of 2021, just three of the top 10 were related to politics, people familiar with the meeting said. Ms. Buzbee weighed in with her conclusion: When political news falls out of favor with Post readers, the news organization needs to be in position to excel with other types of stories… The site had about 66 million monthly unique visitors in October, down 28% from last year…. . The [internal] document summarizes five groups of potential subscribers to the Post, including ‘contented and uninvolved,’ ‘middle grounders,’ ‘practical mavens,’ ‘engaged intellectuals’ and ‘confident strivers,’ and estimates their interest in the Post. ‘Our paid product is not attractive to younger people,’ the document reads. Of those groups, the only one listed with a ‘high’ level of interest in the Post are ‘confident strivers,’ which the document describes as ‘affluent, urban married men with kids, more multi-ethnic, skew liberal/Democratic.’” • “Confident strivers,” OMG.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
General George Thomas, not a complete [glass bowl]:
A short time later, a group of black soldiers was marching down the Franklin Pike; Thomas, as general, had the right of way, but he turned his horse to the side of the road, faced the USCT regiments, and removed his hat in silent salute, remaining there until all had passed. pic.twitter.com/cNfZVBAtMr
— Civil War Humor (@CivilWarHumor) December 16, 2021
Intereting thread. (Obviously, I don’t mean that Thomas in any way legitimated the Black soldiers — they did that themselves, through their actions — but I think it’s a splendid gesture.)
“Classical Music and the Color Line” [Boston Review]. “Two new books, Singing Like Germans by pianist-turned-musicologist Kira Thurman and Dvo?ák’s Prophecy by cultural historian and concert producer Joseph Horowitz, promise fresh narratives that interrogate the roles of race and access in the history of classical music. This is precisely what the moment demands, but only one book delivers on the promise. The cover copy of Dvo?ák’s Prophecy touts a ‘provocative interpretation of why classical music in America ‘stayed white’.’ The provocative part, it turns out, is that it mostly appeals to aesthetic and historical debates about the meaning of ‘Black classical music,’ resulting in the glaring omission of racism as a structural force with profound effects for individuals. Singing Like Germans, by contrast, recovers the untold stories of Black classical musicians, complicating any pat suggestion that classical music has ‘stayed white’ while at the same time better explaining the field’s long legacy of racial exclusion, in performance and composition alike. ‘Like whiteness,’ Thurman writes, ‘classical music is frequently racially unmarked and presented as universal—until people of color start performing it.’”
News of the Wired
So meta (1): “Gamer Builds a Gargantuan Computer Inside Minecraft, to Play Games on It?” [Interesting Engineering]. “A Minecraft genius has engineered an 8-bit processor inside the video game that can actually play video games like Snake, Tetris, or even show up as a graphing calculator, according to PC World. Each game and application is also built virtually in Minecraft, plugging into the computer like a game cartridge… It took the Minecraft player called ‘Sammyuri’ seven months to build the processor named Chungus 2 (Computation Humongous Unconventional Number and Graphics Unit). According to Futurism, ‘the resulting virtual processor — assuming that each block is a meter in length and height — would be as tall as a 20-story building if built in real-life.’”
So meta (2):
To access the RAF Luton website please complete the captcha link attached pic.twitter.com/r5Np32K51C
— RAF_Luton (@RAF_Luton) August 12, 2021
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