I’ll overlook that.
Here is a pair of pronunciations that defy logic:
Rough (ruff) / Dough (doe)
Posts by Rice
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Still, I really like your ingenuity in removing the curtain hook to try to pull the cork out. Good for you, Bombonera !
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I will NEVER get the hang of the supermarket game.
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Beautiful - and tasty!
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One of the nicer long drives to take. Cafayate is a very small town to end the few hours drive from the big city of Salta. Easy year round climate
Yes! And the most delightful winery in the area is Finca las Nubes, just outside of Cafayate. Highly recommend a lunch visit.
Bombonera , I’ve never pushed a cork into the bottle, but believe me, it’s not from being less than desperate. Any tips on doing it successfully rather than disastrously?
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Good plan, serafina . And keep dumping out any standing water in the garden!
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Maybe the storm will bring some relief from today’s sudden heat. At least a breeze?!
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Yes! Not me, so I can attest to its perfection.
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Lucky you! A cucaracha-devouring kitty!
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By Jove, I think you’ve got it!
Shareable newsletter from NYT columnist Frank Bruni today, on this very subject - -
FOR SUBSCRIBERS DECEMBER 12, 2024 Ben Wiseman If you missed the previous newsletter, you can read it here.
The president-elect is marketing new merch. It reeks.
By Frank Bruni If you could smell like any U.S. president, who would it be?
I’d probably avoid anyone from more than a century ago, because we’ve made huge strides in plumbing and access to running water since then, and antiperspirant technology has definitely evolved. I now see roll-ons advertising 72-hour protection. If you’re trusting and testing that promise, please stand at least six feet from me.
And I think Ronald Reagan has the olfactory edge over Richard Nixon. We humans excrete chemicals consistent with our emotions — hence the belief that our dogs can read our distress — and Reagan’s smiling confidence surely had a better bouquet (maybe myrrh and tonka bean) than Nixon’s twitchy resentment (I’m guessing cabbage soup and kerosene).
Before this week, such musings might have seemed off-topic. Now they’re on the nose. On Sunday, Donald Trump digressed from the painstaking policy development, careful vetting of potential staff members and high-minded diplomacy that consume so very much of his time to announce the release of a new line of Trump colognes and perfumes. And so we must wonder: Does the patchouli make the president? Must the leader of the free world also be the leader of the fragrant one?
Like Trump himself, Trump the scent is big on braggadocio, short on details and gaudily packaged. The Trump Fragrance site calls it the Fight Fight Fight Collection (all uppercase, no commas), which it says is for “Patriots Who Never Back Down” and is “Your Rallying Cry In A Bottle.” I’m tempted to order some just for the conversation: “Frank, what is that you’re wearing?” “Why, it’s a rallying cry!”
The site doesn’t say whether Fight Fight Fight men’s cologne and Fight Fight Fight women’s perfume are much different from each other. Or whether they’re different from Victory 47 men’s cologne and Victory 47 women’s perfume, both of which allude to Trump’s situation as the about-to-be 47th president of our odoriferous nation and come in bottles with golden Trump figurines standing tall, speciously chesty and suspiciously svelte atop their caps.
The site also offers little information about the fragrances’ top notes or debased notes — sorry, base notes — so whether you’ll wind up smelling like a Florida flower garden, a New Jersey pine forest or a Washington swamp is a mystery. Could be any of Trump’s habitats!
It’s mute as well about whether Trump spritzes himself with one of these elixirs, so while wearing it presumably means that you’ll pass nasal muster with the king of bluster, it may not match the man’s musk.
The price, however, is unambiguous: $199. That’s almost double an entry-point Hermès. But no French parfum is “curated to capture the essence of success and determination,” per the Trump Fragrance site. No Italian profumo is going to Make America Aromatic Again.
And only Fight Fight Fight and Victory 47 pay tribute to a plutocrat with an insatiable desire to monetize everything about his life in any way possible. To turn political supporters into paying customers and political support into a personal profit center. Not even the honor of the presidency and the dignity once expected of presidents can prevent Trump from presiding over what my Times colleague Katie Rogers aptly called “the churn of a conveyor belt spitting out one Trump product after another.”
I’d swap “spitting” for “belching.” And I’d add that the whole thing, well, reeks.
His products now include Trump acoustic guitars and Trump electric guitars, enabling, I suppose, the playing of Trump folk or Trump heavy metal. They include footwear, coins, crypto, a Trump Bible and “Save America,” a picture book with Trump’s alternate version of American history.
All of those follow in the greedy footsteps of Trump steaks (so you could sup like Trump), Trump ties (so you could swan like Trump) and “The Art of the Deal” (negotiate like Trump). Also Trump University (attain his erudition), which closed amid lawsuits accusing it of fraud. In the end, it had more metaphoric than pedagogical value.
Trump was an influencer before there were influencers. He was a brand before people commonly and crassly began to describe themselves that way. And from the beginning of his first presidential campaign to the present, the political arena has been, in many ways, an exercise in brand extension, a means to maximize his economic potential, a tool for complete cultural domination.
Much has been written about party affiliation as the new religion: You accept its edicts in return for an identity and a community. But party affiliation has also become a lifestyle. It’s where you vacation, what you eat and now, thanks to Trump, how you perform your toilette. If Kamala Harris is really smart about her endeavors on the far side of the vice presidency, she’ll slap her name on a hydrating face serum and de-puffing eye cream. For the Democrat recovering from the stress of 2024.
Forward this newsletter to friends …
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OK. What is happening? Look at Monday’s rates, above, compared to today’s?
Are bonds payable in USD coming due? Or is it just The Season of the Witch??
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We’ve had exactly 2 so far this year.
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You don’t want to ask.
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… and putting her thousands of miles away.
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Looks like one of the least controversial appointments so far. He certainly speaks Spanish. And at least Argentina, unlike France, isn’t receiving a trump in-law with a prison record.
Additional qualification: GREAT at sucking up!
Peter Lamelas tweeted on X:“Mr. President, thank you for this incredible honor. The world sees it clearly: America is back because Donald J. Trump is back. “
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Good one, GlasgowJohn . Bless your heart!
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A very positive first-year review!
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Barbaric, yes, but I’m far less concerned about vandalism to the dead than I am about potential torture of the living. The Assad regime engaged in that, and I hope the rebels don’t also do it. The world is waiting to see.
