Masterclass in Messaging
Devotional navels and genitalia
As a writer, I also immediately post corrections or retractions if someone points out a mistake or misstatement. I don’t think it’s about journalistic standards per se. It’s about being a decent, ethical human being.
— That fucktard from Arizona with whom I had some fun the other day (he did eventually grasp the humor of suggesting the phrase ‘intellectual property is theft’ was stolen, though not before making a babyconservative ass of himself), brandishing his Kyiv Post/OCCRP integrity on Twitter about the new Ukraine bureau of The New York Times…
Neither as a spectacle of entertainment, nor as a thing to run away and join, I’ve never understood cuddle parties. I think I went to one when in Albany once, but in memory it was loud and scarily dark — too much psilocybin And nothing in adulthood has led me to wonder why there wasn’t more circus in it: I spent the relevant passage of Wings of Desire wondering why Peter Falk was in the movie. What after all are a tent and some animals and kids dressed as clowns compared to the rich reward of hours running far, or dozing with a fat novel on your face. I ask you.
Having spent most every nonhorizontal moment of the last few months ensnared in the Project at Hand — avoiding accidental death in World War IV — it barely registered when Jeffrey Gettleman informed me Himself that an cuddle party had been arranged in Podil and that the MDMA was free.
Okaygreatsoundsgood. Clicky clicky scowl scowl.
The tendency of Ukrainian youngsters to downplay the risk of catching monkeypox at these venues partly reflects dismissive messaging by Kyiv health officials about the viral disease. But it may also relate to the deeper ideological suspicion by the President’s Office of science in general.
Which brings me to Z and his Churchill award, as advertised in many languages.
A close reading of the presiden’ts increasingly voluminous revisionist speeches reveals many further examples of events that one thinks cannot really be true, or cannot be true if the quasi-official or consecrated narrative is to remain regnant. Punchy combinations of frankness and emotional power don’t trump competent governance. In other words, message isn’t as important as reality, minus pep talks.