Cyrano Thyself

Wordplay is the New Foreplay

Spoiler alert. This is the best I have to offer. Those who have met me in person will attest to the fact that I’m much more sociable, engaged, and entertaining in this textual format than I am in in-person exchanges. I suffer from the Cyrano de Bergerac version of FOMO (Fear of Meeting Offline). So I could relate to this excerpt about a woman who was deeply disappointed during her first in-person date with someone with whom she had been texting with for weeks. “The man who greeted her inside the pub – polite, pleasant but oddly flat – felt like a stranger. Gone was the quickfire wit and playful rhythm she’d come to expect from their exchanges. Over pints he stumbled through small talk, checked his phone a little too often, and seemed to wilt under the pressure of her questions. ‘I felt like I was sitting opposite someone I’d never even spoken to,’ she says. ‘I tried to have the same sort of conversation as we’d been having online, but it was like, ‘Knock, knock, is anyone home?’” The woman might have wondered if there was a Cyrano behind the scenes who she’d actually been texting with. But in the modern world, where wordplay is the new foreplay, aspiring daters don’t need to employ the skills of a French poet and novelist (or even an alarmingly talented newsletter writer) to ghostwrite love letters and speeches. They can just get AI to do it. ‘I realized I’d been ChatGPT-ed into bed’: How ‘Chatfishing’ made finding love on dating apps even weirder. (If we do happen to meet in a social setting, please don’t bring this up. Or anything else. Do us both a favor and just quietly wait for the next edition.)

+ This is not to suggest that AI is only for wooing. Even married couples are using it to spice things up. Sometimes, a little too much. WaPo (Gift Article): Woman sent husband AI photos of intruder as a prank. He called 911. “The initial 911 call was concerning enough: A man was racing home from work, he said, because his wife had just told him a stranger had forced himself into their apartment. A moment later the caller said his wife had just sent him a photo of the intruder on their sofa.”

2

Clipped Wing

“As roaring machinery tore down one side of the White House, President Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that he was having the entire East Wing demolished to make way for his 90,000-square-foot ballroom, a striking expansion of a project that is remaking the profile of one of the nation’s most iconic buildings.” NYT (Gift Article): Trump Is Wasting No Time in Tearing Down the East Wing. (Reality is clear enough. We really didn’t need the metaphor.)

+ Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google are among the many companies who donating cash for this ballroom project. I’m guessing they didn’t realize they’d be forever associated with the demolition of the East Wing (and a lot more).

3

The Fog of Warmongering

“The shocking development comes as protesters gathered at the entrance to Coast Guard Island in Alameda on Thursday morning, where the federal forces were being deployed. At least two people were reported injured after federal forces used a flash bang device and pushed through protesters as they drove onto the island.” San Francisco was set to be the next city to face an unwanted and unnecessary invasion of National Guard and ICE raids. But through a combination of backchannel requests and very strong public statements, the moves appear to have been called off. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie: “The president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning.”

+ NYT: “While the President may enjoy absolute immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate under his orders do not. Our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law — and if they are convicted, the President cannot pardon them.” Pelosi Says Police May Arrest Federal Agents Who Violate California Law.

4

We’ll Leave the Neon Light On For You

“The motel might seem like an ageless fixture of the American landscape, but in fact, this roadside mainstay didn’t exist before Dec. 12, 1925. That’s when Arthur and Alfred Heineman, two brothers with a successful Southern California architecture practice, opened the Milestone Mo-Tel, the first ‘motor hotel,’ in San Luis Obispo, roughly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.” NYT (Gift Article) on the Neon Signs, Swimming Pools and American Dreams represented by 100 Years of the Motel. (When my dad first moved to America, he was taking a bus across the country. At one point, he leaned over to his travel companion and asked, “Who is this guy Motel, he owns half the country?”)

5

Extra, Extra

All Bets Are Off: “Indictments against current and former N.B.A. players, including a well-known head coach who is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, were unsealed on Thursday, in a pair of criminal cases involving professional athletes, including one scheme in coordination with Mafia families.” (Who do these guys think they are, government officials?) U.S. Details Gambling Cases Involving Pro Athletes and Mafia Families. “The charges announced today stem from separate indictments. One charges defendants with using private information about N.B.A. players, including whether they would be sitting out N.B.A. games or exiting early, to place hundreds of thousands of dollars in bets at online sports books and in casinos ... Another indictment involves a series of rigged high-stakes poker games that were backed by organized crime families.”

+ Oil Change of Heart: “The US has announced new sanctions targeting Russia’s two largest oil companies in an effort to pressure Moscow to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine. The announcement came one day after US President Donald Trump said a planned meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Budapest would be shelved indefinitely.”

+ Law of the Jungle on the High Seas: “President Trump says the strikes are legal, and that the boats were trafficking drugs, but he has not offered evidence to substantiate the claim ... The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has reportedly deemed the strikes lawful, but its analysis hasn’t been disclosed.” The Secretive Office Approving Trump’s Boat Strikes.

+ Bi Curious: “Since Trump’s election, Binance has also been a key supporter of his family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture, a business that has driven a huge leap in the president’s personal wealth.” Trump Pardons Convicted Binance Founder.

+ You And What Army? Tesla Profit Plunges as Musk Turns Focus to Robot Army. “My fundamental concern with how much voting control I have at Tesla is, if I build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted in the future? ... I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army if I don’t have, at least, influence over it.” (Editor’s note: We’re all going to die.)

+ Adams’ Apple: “Mr. Adams, a Democrat, ended his re-election campaign last month after it became clear that he did not have a path to victory in the November election. He lashed out at Mr. Cuomo for pressuring him to leave the race, calling him ‘a snake and a liar.’” All that being said... Eric Adams Will Endorse Andrew Cuomo for Mayor. (This could be the last nail in the Cuomo candidacy coffin...)

+ Just Plain Text: “Each [modern note taking app] encourages you to adapt to a certain philosophy of organization, with its own formats and filing systems. But nothing has served me better than the brute simplicity of TextEdit, which doesn’t try to help you at all with the process of thinking. Using the app is the closest you can get to writing longhand on a screen. I could make lists on actual paper, of course, but I’ve also found that my brain has been so irredeemably warped by keyboards that I can only really get my thoughts down by typing. (Apparently my internal monologue takes place in Arial typeface, fourteen-point font.)” The New Yorker: TextEdit and the Relief of Simple Software. I’ve been writing NextDraft using the same program (BBEdit) since day one.

6

Bottom of the News

“In France, we pride ourselves on enjoying life’s simple pleasures: food, drink, and the occasional grand larceny. To rush through these things would not just disrupt our leisurely schedule; it would be a sin. One must savor the moment, not run from robbery to robbery like a buffoon.” McSweeney’s: I, a French Jewel Thief, Refuse to Rob the Louvre Before Mid-Morning.

+ Here is a selection of the finalists in this year’s Nikon Comedy Wildlife awards.