MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2026
Truth beauty, beauty truth: "Truth is beauty, beauty truth?" Or was it the other way around?
We couldn't quite remember! We've never ingested the poem in question, but that bromide has been banging around inside our heads over the past few days.
Today, we finally googled it up. There Keats had gone again, at the end of a famous ode, addressing some ancient pottery:
Ode on a Grecian Urn
[...]
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
That's the way the poem ends. Aside from its famous bromide, we wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
Truth is beauty, beauty truth? The misordered saying had been banging around in our heads because of what we got to write about on Friday afternoon, after spending some time down at the medical mission.
We had taken two books along to combat the hours of sitting around. As we noted in Friday afternoon's report, the two books in our satchel were these:
Mary L. Trump
Too Much and Never Enough
Simon & Schuster, 2020
Francine Prose
Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife
HarperCollins, 2009
Until that very day, it hadn't occurred to us that there's a type of connection between those two books. The connection is lodged in the first thing Prose includes in her endlessly fascinating book.
Prose starts with something John Berryman wrote about Anne Frank's extremely famous book way back in 1967:
I would call the subject of Anne Frank’s Diary even more mysterious and fundamental than St. Augustine’s, and describe it as the conversion of a child into a person….
In fact, each of the books we scanned that day involve "the conversion of a child into a person"—or perhaps, the way that conversion may fail to occur in the case of the unfortunate child who is raised in a profoundly unhelpful way.
Mary Trump's book describes the disordered upbringing of her uncle, starting at age 2 and a half. There is also a passing mention of the fact that certain kinds of (serious) "personality disorders" can be inherited—can be passed along right there in the genes.
Mary Trump describes a tragically disordered upbringing. As Prose describes Anne Frank's upbringing, she describes something quite different.
On Friday, we posted a pair of anecdotes from Prose's book. We didn't want to post on Saturday morning—didn't want to leave those captured moments behind.
There ain't no truth or beauty when the fat orange yam opens his pie hole. Jesus we are so fucked by these clowns.
ReplyDeleteThis is what the maggots voted for, and anarchy.
ReplyDeleteThe main thing the 2 books have in common is that they are both books.
ReplyDeleteTrump administration to pay Michael Flynn in settlement over earlier prosecution.
ReplyDeleteBecause fuck you, what are you going to do about it!
Catch-22, in its most general formulation, says that they can do anything you can't stop them from doing. Or, as you say, "Fuck you, what are you going to do about it?!"
DeleteYes and we’re now waiting to see how much Trump decides to pay Trump to settle the Trump suit
DeleteI’ve read Mary Trump’s book. The bulk of it is about her father not her uncle. You’d never know that from Somerby’s discussion of it. She blames her grandfather for turning her dad into a drunk, by denying him the chance to become his own person. It is a book about grievance.
ReplyDeleteAnne Frank never would have written and had published a journal if it were not for the madness of her captivity. That result does not justify the torture of a little girl, much less the six million or more others who died with her.
ReplyDeleteSomerby is an asshole to make a fetish of her life this way. His raising of diary to some ridiculously inflated status prevents all of us from seeing the humanity that was obliterated by Nazi Germany, an organized system of tyranny and abuse that touched the lives of everyone who lived through that time, not just those who died.
Now we are faced with the imminent creation of a similar system in our own country. Calling it madness is not enough. It is evil and it must be resisted. Somerby ignores that entire aspect of Trump's presidency to focus on Trump's mundane idiocies. But there are people being killed on our streets by our government, people being imprisoned and removed from their families and their lives through a bureaucratic neglect that they are people. Just as occurred to Anne Frank. How many are afraid to leave their hiding places, as Frank and her family were? What disease will they die from in ICE detention? Who is our army fighting in another country, while Hegseth bombs another school and sports complex?
Meanwhile, Somerby cannot decide whether to read Prose or Mary Trump's diatribe against Fred Sr so he choose Keats and cannot make good sense of his poem because the title has the word "urn" in it. Whatta guy our Somerby is!
Who carried two hardcover books in a satchel if they don't have to, to a medical appointment? Books are heavy. I don't believe he took either book with him anywhere. This is all made up. But why? To tell us to pity Trump? What good does that do anyone? Trump needs to be stopped, not pitied.
Delete"His raising of diary to some ridiculously inflated status prevents all of us from seeing the humanity that was obliterated by Nazi Germany"
DeleteAre you sure? I think I'm still capable of seeing it.
Grecian urns have beauty but this work of art has truth:
ReplyDelete"The Washington Post reported that a golden toilet seat on a faux marble pedestal was installed on the mall, accompanied by a plaque reading "a Throne Fit for a King." It was built just days after more than 8 million people across the U.S. participated in the nationwide "No Kings" protest.
“In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what really mattered: Remodeling the Lincoln Bathroom in the White House," the plaque reads. "This, his crowning achievement is a bold reminder that the president isn’t just a bussinessman (sic), he’s taking care of business. It stands as a tribute to an unwavering visionary who looked down, [aw a problem, and painted it gold.” [The Guardian via Rawstory]
Digby says:
ReplyDelete"We see this phenomenon all over our politics and the culture at large. Trump didn’t anticipate that Americans would actually resist his authoritarianism because he promised to bring the bread and circuses. He’s certainly brought the circus but it isn’t a fun one, at least for most people. And the bread is stale and expensive. He just assumed he could use lies, hype and bribes to make yet another of his “deals” with the American people and everyone would end up loving him. It turns out that many people actually care about something more than money and being entertained by hurting vulnerable people. Go figure.
These people do not understand how other people feel and think because they have no empathy. Our leading tech lord Elon Musk even likes to say “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy” so they are actually proud of it. They think it’s a brilliant insight. But he’s wrong too. It’s vitally important to have empathy if you need to understand your adversaries — and your friends.
This is a big reason why they are so incompetent at governance. They just don’t understand what motivates people besides fear and they assume that always leads to capitulation. They couldn’t be more wrong."