ARinSF

@arinsf.bsky.social

388 Followers 770 Following

Longtime lurker, first-time poster; TBTL Ten (https://www.tbtl.net/about-tbtl)

Cartoon by Johnny DiNapoli in The New Yorker: A bird is pictured on a branch, in a combative pose. Caption reads, "Hey, buddy—how about you come up here and call me a tufted titmouse to my face?"
The Critic: It stinks!
William Shawn talks to Hannah Arendt before her series of articles on Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem are published in The New Yorker. (From Hannah Arendt, 2012)
A million to one shot, doc!
Niagara, a “murderous melodrama” from 1953, now playing on the Criterion Channel (https://www.criterionchannel.com/niagara); directed by Henry Hathaway; starring Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters.
Patricia Highsmith / Eleven "Highsmith's first and best story collection."-MICHAEL DIRDA, THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS FOREWORD BY GRAHAM GREENE
The effusive Banya with Jerry on Seinfeld
Three slices of an Alphonso Mango, the King of Mangoes, on a plate. (They lived up to their exalted reputation.)
Malika Favre’s take on Eustace Tilley, the iconic mascot and fictional dandy of The New Yorker, animated.
A collection of sixteen recent New Yorker covers by Malika Favre
Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog
Bella Freud relaxes on her recliner, as one does. Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/15/bella-freuds-podcast-offers-a-talking-cure
Dosai, (Drumstick) Sambar, Coconut Chutney, Tomato Chutney
Ad for LinkedIn on The Rewatchables podcast, downloaded at Frankfurt Airport on March 26, 2026
Downtown SF hidden by fog (May 21, 2026)
The Golden Gate Bridge hidden by fog (May 21 2026)
The GGB just after sunset, from the Presidio Tunnel Tops (May 19, 2026)
The central question, William F. Buckley wrote in National Review in 1957, is “whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes.” He continued: “The White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.” If a “majority wills what is socially atavistic,” he added, “then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened.”
Email alert from Bookshop.org May 18, 2026 re: a new book by some woman named Phoebe Maltz Bovy being prepped for shipping
YouTube Ad for a dating site for seniors (!): An attractive thirtysomething woman is pictured posing on a hillside, all dressed up and apparently nowhere to go.
Leonard Nimoy does the Vulcan salute
The Way We Live Now / Anthony Trollope A satirical and political novel, published in London in 1875 after first appearing in serialised form. It is one of the last significant Victorian novels to have been published in monthly parts. The novel is one of Trollope's longest, comprising 100 chapters, and is particularly rich in sub-plot. It was inspired by the financial scandals of the early 1870s; Trollope had just returned to England from abroad, and was appalled by the greed and dishonesty those scandals exposed. This novel was his rebuke. It dramatised how such greed and dishonesty pervaded the commercial, political, moral, and intellectual life of that era. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_We_Live_Now
Carol Kane as Allison Portchnik in Annie Hall (1977)
A bookmark made of copper and punched with holes of different sizes, like the exterior of the de Young museum in San Francisco
Picture of a gosling taken by Laurel Gale in her desk calendar (May 2026)
View of the Golden Gate Bridge from Presidio Tunnel Tops just after sunset (April 29, 2026)
i-see-you gif
The ruling class, in this vision, is not actual oligarchs or politicians, but rather anyone in a snooty cultural sphere. Left-wing cosmopolitans, nudge nudge. She's presented as a rich, insufficiently leftist white lady in contexts where that's a bad thing to be, but also a dirtbag progressive artist weirdo in ones where that would be the problem.
A typical response from a woman to this man’s “opening move” (on bumble). I gather, from my women friends, that this has been their experience with men from the get-go.
A patch of Calla lilies at Sutro Heights Park in San Francisco (April 19, 2026)
Sunset at Crissy Field in San Francisco, Wednesday (April 15, 2026)
Liz Taylor in The Sandpiper, wearing a red wool poncho designed by Irene Sharaff
How Zendaya’s film characters are “raced” is almost always an outgrowth of their romantic or sexual worlds, which are almost unilaterally with white men. An extremely fragile veneer of post-racial logic blankets these spiky romances, which take place in conspicuously progressive cities. Tashi Duncan sneering “I’m taking good care of my little white boys,” in “Challengers,” is a perfunctory gesture—really, a tell—in a film that had no use for her psychology elsewhere. Because Zendaya plays young women, these women still have parents, and the actors cast to play her parents—which is to say her history, the expository reasons for her Blackness—typically flit in and out of the background, there to signify and do nothing else. It can often feel as if Zendaya has been added to a preëxisting story, like salt on a finished dish. The ostensible fear is that of identity hardening into a cudgel, foreshortening a character’s emotional palette. But why can’t it expand that palette?
Poster for Kissing Jessica Stein (2001). [Gemini] “an independent romantic comedy about a straight, single New Yorker, Jessica (Jennifer Westfeldt), who, after a string of bad dates with men, impulsively answers a personal ad from a "lesbian-curious" woman, Helen (Heather Juergensen). The film follows their hilarious and earnest courtship as they navigate a relationship that challenges Jessica's self-perception, exploring themes of sexuality and identity without forcing her to pick a side. Written by and starring Westfeldt and Juergensen, it also features early appearances by Jon Hamm and Tovah Feldshuh.”
Page 1 of the Fresh from Theaters collection on the Criterion Channel
Mr. Pitt staring at a fractal painting while Elaine hovers in the background.
Al Gore did not do much to draw wild applause. All he said was: "George Bush is out of time. Bill Clinton and Al Gore will be automatic for the people." Michael Stipe, lead singer of the rock group R.E.M., had just given the Democratic ticket a passionate endorsement before a crowd of several thousand young people on the University of Georgia campus in Athens, and Mr. Gore's response was a wordplay on the title songs of the band's two hit albums. The event was carefully scripted because this year the Democrats are mounting a broad, coordinated effort to win over a major voting block that has solidly backed Republicans in the last three Presidential elections and that has shown strong support this year for Ross Perot, the independent candidate. Many voters born in the 1960's and 70's grew up with Ronald Reagan as their political hero. But now the Democrats, with their baby-boomer ticket and message of generational change, believe they have a chance to engineer a shift that could make the difference in an increasingly close election.
Side of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, promoting the Garden Court and Pied Piper (Bar), flanked by pretty red flowers.
Jake Gyllenhaal has a question: Where is Riverside?
Poster for the TV series, The Librarians, including the guy with the French-sounding name from Night Court. With magic returned to the world, the Librarians are needed now more than ever. Jacob Stone, Eezekiel Jones and Cassandra Cillian have taken on the role of full-time Librarians, and together with their guardian, Eve Baird, long-time Librarian, Flynn Carsen and their caretaker, Jenkins, they will face all the challenges that this new age of magic is bringing to the world. An ancient spell has brought some of the greatest fictional villains off the page, led by Shakespeare's Prospero and as he seeks to remake the world in his own vision, it is up to the Librarians to stop him - or the world will never be the same.
Bike parked by the Warming Hut at the south end of Golden Gate Bridge.
Poster for Il conformista, the 1970 film by Bernardo Bertolucci, *ing Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, and Dominique Sanda
A perfect rainbow framing the eastern skyline of San Francisco from the Presidio Tunnel Tops. The Palace of Fine Arts is visible dead center. Downtown, off to the right, is mostly fogged out. (April 10, 2026)
QE2 T-shirt
George C. Scott at the movies in Paul Schrader’s Hardcore (1979)
Alito’s childhood and adolescence coincided with a social transformation for which the Warren Court provided the legal underpinnings. Warren, a Republican and an Eisenhower nominee who turned out to be far more liberal than those affiliations implied, presided over the Court from 1953 to 1969. Alito was born in 1950, in Trenton, New Jersey, in a mostly Italian American enclave. His family later moved to Hamilton Township, a nearby suburb. The Alitos were Catholic and belonged to the Our Lady of Sorrows Parish. By the time Alito entered high school, he had developed a keen interest in the law, and was taking note of the Warren Court’s reshaping of American life, which included landmark rulings desegregating schools and other public facilities; recognizing a right to contraception for married couples and to interracial marriage; barring state-sanctioned school prayer; and guaranteeing access to public defenders for indigent criminal defendants.
Clip from the 1940 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, with Greer Garson as Elizabeth Bennet and Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy
A little light beach reading for Don Draper: Dante’s The Inferno
Trader Joe’s Mirepoix: Chopped vegetable mix, a blend of carrots, onions & celery
Three pictures of the Washington Metro, by Jamelle Bouie
Pride of Madeira shrub outside the Presidio Y in San Francisco
Downtown SF skyline from the Berkeley Marina, early evening March 24, 2026