This could be trouble. Three of my favorite girls in the whole world — Mary, Skatje, and Iliana — are converging on my house this afternoon for a little holiday get-together. I hope they don’t ask me which one is my favorite, because I don’t have a good comeback at hand, and I’d rather not have an unfortunate encounter with Philoctetes.

I got my present the other day, shipped to me by my niece, Rachael.

Are you dazzled? I know, let’s get real: if I tried to sell that at a garage sale, I might get $5 for it, and that would be entirely for the frame (it is a nice frame). It’s worth a lot more to me, though, and it’s entirely because of its history. It was passed on to me after my brother’s death, and he had in turn inherited it after my father’s death, and he had rescued it from my grandmother’s house after her death. Grandma had several paintings by this artist hanging in her home, proudly displayed in good frames, and I remember them from my childhood. They were the most prominent pieces of art in her home.

The artist was my father.

He had painted these watercolors when he was a teenager, which would date them to the mid-1950s, when he was pretty much a stereotype of the classic 50s teenage troublemaker — hair slicked back with Brylcreem, on the football team, letterman’s jacket, tinkering with cars or playing hooky to go fishing, all of that. But also…he wanted to be an artist. That was the dream. He painted, he sketched, he had standards. Unfortunately, his family was dirt poor — his father had died when he was very young, and he and his 5 siblings were raised by their widowed mother, who worked picking fruit in season, and at a cannery in town out of season. They lived in a shambles of a house (but I loved that house!) right next to the railroad tracks, and apparently on the wrong side of those tracks.

I don’t think he ever even considered the possibility of art training. Once he graduated from high school, he went straight into the work force. He worked on the railroad, as a logger, as a mechanic and gas station attendant, as a water meter reader, as a custodian, as anything he could do between stints at Boeing — Boeing was, of course, the big kahuna in Seattle, with the best pay and benefits, but they were also a fickle lord, with regular waves of layoffs. It was a tough struggle to raise a family as a blue collar worker in an unpredictable economy, and he was sometimes reduced to working two jobs to make ends meet. Art? It doesn’t pay the bills. There was little free time, either. He’d get home at some odd hour and flop his aching back down in bed, to try and get a little rest before going off for another shift of hard labor.

Sometimes he’d ask me to read the comics to him while he rested, but he was picky. Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant or Burne Hogarth’s Tarzan, that was the good stuff, although he also liked Turok, Son of Stone. It had to have good art, none of that talking animal stuff. Some evenings the whole family would just sit at the table and draw, while he showed us how to sketch people and do perspective. My brother continued that practice for years after he moved out and started his own family.

He never did get any professional training in art, and had little opportunity to practice it, but I think it made a difference to his family. We grew up with a working class appreciation of the arts and an aspiration to do more than just work for a living, since we could see how the demands of labor had deprived our father of his dream. We never fell into the trap of anti-intellectualism or turned into Fox News zombies — I’ve got a remarkably progressive and open-minded family, and never had those uncomfortable holiday get-togethers I’ve read about. I credit that to a father and mother who were reasonable people who never fell victim to the irrational fears and paranoia that has poisoned so many American minds. We could just look at the walls in Grandma’s house and see that there were greater depths, depths that they were deprived of exploring, in our family of poors and manual laborers and struggling lower class workers.

That’s what the painting means to me. Don’t saddle people with your biases about what their class should be like, because they’re human beings who might surprise you with their hopes and ambitions. Also, damn, but the demands we impose on working people and our own biases have deprived the world of great potential.

Have a good Christmas this weekend, and remember that the best gifts you can give are mostly intangible.

My wife says, “Manly, aye, but I like it too.” (you have to be a certain age to get that reference.)

It started out as a bland bean soup, but after I added carrots and potatoes and sausage (Impossible Sausage, so still vegan) and onions and garlic and a lot of mysterious spices, it became hearty enough to keep a man (and a woman) warm and strong through even the most savage blizzard Minnesota might throw at us.

Doesn’t it give you a little thrill when the National Weather Service informs you of “life-threatening conditions” about to descend upon your home?

…WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST THURSDAY… …WIND CHILL WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM THURSDAY TO NOON CST SATURDAY… …BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM NOON THURSDAY TO 6 AM CST SATURDAY…

WHAT…For the Wind Chill Warning, dangerously cold wind chills expected. Wind chills as low as 40 below zero. For the Winter Storm Warning, heavy snow expected. Total snow accumulations of 5 to 8 inches. For the Blizzard Warning, blizzard conditions expected. Winds gusting as high as 50 mph. For the Wind Chill Advisory, very cold wind chills. Wind chills as low as 30 below zero.

WHERE…Stevens, Pope and Swift Counties.

WHEN…For the Wind Chill Warning, from 6 AM Thursday to noon CST Saturday. For the Winter Storm Warning, from 6 AM Wednesday to noon CST Thursday. For the Blizzard Warning, from noon Thursday to 6 AM CST Saturday. For the Wind Chill Advisory, until midnight CST tonight.

IMPACTS…Travel could be very difficult or impossible. Widespread blowing snow could significantly reduce visibility. Gusty winds could bring down tree branches. The dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS…This could be a life-threatening situation if you get stranded traveling late this week. Consider adjusting any travel plans now.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…

Travel should be restricted to emergencies only. If you must travel, have a winter survival kit with you. If you get stranded, stay with your vehicle.

The latest road conditions for the state you are calling from can be obtained by calling 5 1 1. Road conditions can also be found at 511mn.org for Minnesota or 511wi.gov for Wisconsin.
More Information
…ACCUMULATING SNOW WEDNESDAY FOLLOWED BY GROUND BLIZZARD AND DANGEROUSLY COLD CONDITIONS THURSDAY AND FRIDAY… …TRAVEL THURSDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT COULD BE IMPOSSIBLE AND LIFE-THREATENING…

.Snow will overspread the region Wednesday and bring 5 to 9 inches of fluffy accumulation through Wednesday night north of a line from Madison to Mankato To Eau Claire, with 3 to 5 inches to the south. Winds will be relatively light Wednesday and Wednesday evening. There should be a break in severe winter conditions late Wednesday night and early Thursday. Then, strong northwest winds gusting as high as 50 mph and dangerously cold air will surge in Thursday afternoon through Friday night. Whiteout conditions are expected during that time with travel becoming very difficult or impossible. This event could be life- threatening if you are stranded with wind chills in the 30 below to 45 below zero range. Travel plans for late this week should be adjusted now. In addition, heavy snow remaining on trees from the last storm and strong winds arriving could result in tree damage and power outages as temperatures drop below zero.

A Winter Storm Warning is in effect Wednesday and Wednesday evening. Then, a Blizzard Warning goes into effect Thursday across southern and western Minnesota, with the Winter Storm Watch continuing north and east where wind and blowing snow will begin a bit later.

So, today — lots of snow. Tomorrow and the next day — 50mph winds pick up all the light fluffy stuff and blow it around and around, reducing visibility, making it painfully dangerous to be outside, and drifting all over the roads and highways. I just looked out my window and the snow is already here.

I’m taking this seriously, of course. Shortly, before the snow gets too high, I’m going across the street to the lab to feed all the spiders and set up the fly stocks for genetics that arrived yesterday, and then I’ll dart home and hunker down. I’m planning a big pot of soup — maybe more of a stew, I’m planning to throw in lots of chunky vegetables — that’ll tide us over for a few days. And then tonight, I’ll huddle around the warm glow of the computer monitor and have a conversation with anyone who wants to join in. Unless the power goes out.

Stay safe, everyone!

The Menu is getting a very short run at the Morris Theater, only a couple of days and then it’s out tonight. It’s not exactly holiday fare, I guess. I got in to see it last night, in a nearly empty theater (the competition running on the second screen is Avatar, which doesn’t interest me in the slightest).

It’s worth seeing! I didn’t know what to expect, and was continually surprised. I could summarize it as your standard horror/slasher movie: obsessed chef with a cult following invites obnoxious upper-class snobs to a private dinner in order to kill them all, the sort of thing you might expect a Vincent Price to headline. But that’s not it at all. Ralph Fiennes is marvelously intense as a chef who has lost all joy in his craft, and plays it with a sorrowful despair. His guests might be frightened at first, but mostly they sink into resignation. “We’re all going to die tonight,” one says, while passively remaining seated at the table. They all stay and eat — no, taste and savor — the weirdly finicky plates of little tidbits artfully tweezered into miniature tableaus in front of them.

Instead of the traditional grisly-murder-one-after-the-other, most of the diners survive to the very end. They instead face psychological torture, becoming increasingly aware of their doom. Even the one set-piece event, in which the men are released onto the island with a 45 second head start before the waitstaff will hunt them down, doesn’t end with any killing — they’re caught and brought back and sit down for the next course. It was more horrifying than culminating the hunt in gore and splatter.

Even the staff are caught up in a cult of depression and despair. No one will get out alive, and all seem to welcome the release of death. There’s no point in living, you know. You’ll never be great enough, other people will suck all the life out of you eventually. Serve the chef, that is all.

The exception to all the doom-and-gloom is Anya Taylor-Joy (is she going to be in every movie from now on?) who plays a prostitute hired by one of the pretentious twits to be his plus one. She is mainly pissed off when she learns her client knew ahead of time that this dinner was going to end in death, and he hired her because he know he couldn’t attend without a partner. She fights back by reminding the chef of a time when he wasn’t jaded and cynical, and even gets an honest smile out of him.

The real monster in the movie turns out to be wealth and capitalism and greed, and how it consumes people with ennui. But it is at heart a true horror movie, it’s just lacking an Abominable Dr Phibes and replaces him with a sense of sorrowful futility.

A perfect Christmas movie!

According to grinning asshat Jesse Waters, its demographic skews atheist female — urban, atheist, overeducated female! We’ve seen the metrics on it. It is mostly single women that have graduate degrees.

Jesse Watters: "Musk can't poll Twitter. That's a rigged poll! It skews atheist female — urban, atheist, overeducated female! We’ve seen the metrics on it. It is mostly single women that have graduate degrees."

Katie Pavlich: "That's true." pic.twitter.com/zml2uTJyL6

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) December 19, 2022

Wow, really? That sounds great! Conversations with smart women, sign me up.

Except…that doesn’t jibe with my personal experience of Twitter, and, well, it’s out of the lying mouth of Jesse Waters, and the numbers don’t match up with reality at all, as we might expect of Fox News.

Women get harassed and abused so much more than men on Twitter, so that’s much more in alignment with my impressions.

A scene from our yard:

Remember when you were young, and you’d start frothing eagerly for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving (or a bit before)? In my day, you’d get the Sears toy catalog in the Fall, and you’d obsessively study it day after day and make lists you’d leave for your parents to find. Now I was scarcely aware of the existence of the holiday until now. I guess I’m old and jaded.

New rules on Twitter.

You know, if Twitter really were the superior choice for social media, you wouldn’t need to block mentions of the competition. That’s something Musk himself argued a few decades…I mean, a few years…I mean a few months ago.

Twitter. It’s the bad one.

This is the way Musk has always operated…only his usual scheme doesn’t work with this kind of company.

Here’s the Musk playbook: Enter a field with very little competition. Claim that your new company will solve a massive, global problem or achieve a seemingly impossible goal. Raise money from a fervent group of true believers and keep them on the hook with flashy, half-baked product ideas. Suck up billions from the government. Underpay, undervalue, and overwork your employees. Repeat.

Elon Musk. He’s the bad one.

The university board of regents member, Steve Sviggum (for some reason, I always think of him as a Ralph Sviggum), who suggest that maybe the University of Minnesota Morris is too diverse, is still squatting on the board, despite calls to resign. The latest comes from student leaders at all the branch campuses.

Dear Regent Sviggum:

We write to you today asking for your immediate resignation from the University of Minnesota Board of Regents.

Your question at the October 13th Mission Fulfillment committee meeting, in which you asked whether or not the Morris campus had become ‘too diverse’, demonstrated your inability to fulfill the University’s institutional commitment to equity and diversity as written in Board of Regents policy.

While we acknowledge your public apology, what students have shared about your visit to the Morris campus last month make it clear that your apology was meaningless. We do not believe that your reported behavior when interacting with Morris students from marginalized communities is consistent with someone who truly believes that diversity is a strength.

Finally, we acknowledge that many of our campuses are currently facing enrollment struggles. We firmly believe that encouraging students from diverse backgrounds to attend our colleges will be a part of the solution to those struggles. A recent study conducted by Niche found that diversity was one of the top aspects high school seniors want out of their college experience. With that in mind, we are concerned that your continued presence on the Board of Regents will signal a hostile attitude toward diversity and deter prospective students from choosing one of the five University of Minnesota campuses.

He’s lingering on like a foul odor, and it’s quite clear that he has no intention of leaving until he is forced out. The latest bit of petty bullying from him occurred at a board of regents meeting to which student leaders were invited.

Yeah, he’s not leaving. Right now he’s clinging to his position out of spite.

By the way, here are the stats on Morris enrollment.

The University of Minnesota’s strategic plan calls for the Morris campus to have 1,700 students by 2025, but it had just 1,068 at one recent count. About 41% of students describe themselves as a person of color, up from 21% a decade ago.

I was here a decade ago (two decades ago even), and I’m here now. We’ve had no decline in the ability, the enthusiasm, or the brilliance of our students over that time. So much for “too much diversity”!

Finished. All exams graded. All final grades calculated. All letter grades submitted to the registrar.

A day at the beach would be nice, the best I could manage was a walk through the snow. Maybe popcorn and a movie at home tonight? Early to bed and sleep until Christmas? My ambitions are simple and uncomplicated.