Some Thoughts on the Presidential "Debates" -- and the presidency in general

The final presidential candidate "debate" was held on Thursday in Nashville moderated by Kristen Welker, an African American NBC News personality -- which inspired plenty of pre-game fireworks and insults from Mr. Trump.

The performance by Mr. Trump was less of an imitation of the Tasmanian Devil from Warner Brothers cartoons than the first "debate" but he did little to reassure the haters and the leery that he was at all well-wrapped and capable of understanding anything that wasn't entirely about him. The man's id and ego dominates everything and spills over into the real world with sometimes devastating consequences. He's a destroyer -- at least his public persona is. He has become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.

I got to thinking about that some time ago, because he has long had a reputation (however often sullied) in the real estate business as preservationist and builder. You look at his performance as president and that seems impossible. The man could not build anything if his life depended on it. As for preservation, his contempt and chaos would destroy anything in his path. Wouldn't it?

Well, I don't know. Apparently certain signature properties of his -- Mar a Lago, the DC Post Office building, the Plaza Hotel and several other historic buildings in NYC  -- are worthy preservation and adaptive re-use efforts that he was set on doing and did with considerable brio. How they were done is not the question. That they were done and still stand as relatively well-done examples of the genre -- and with his name on them -- is the point. 

None of it could have been easy and watching him as president you would think it wouldn't have been possible for him to do it at all. He's too out of it, too crazy, to chaotic. And yet... somehow these projects and many others got done.

There was nothing in the "debate" on Thursday that let me see or know that part of him. Maybe it's gone, I don't know. There was certainly nothing that convinced me that he even remotely understood the devastating and continuing effects of the Virus on American lives and livelihoods, or that the devastation is in large part due to the failures of his administration to adequately address the situation. Blank stares is about all you'll ever get from them.

Trump's demands that everybody just go back to work and school and shop till they drop again while they "learn to live with it" -- the Virus -- seems hollow and bizarre. The premise is that everything is up to the individual and the market, and if things go south, oh well, too bad, so sad, there's nothing to be done. 

That's the status quo right now, and he won't deviate a jot or a tittle from it.

Meanwhile, there's Old Joe Biden. Sigh. I was convinced Democrats would not nominate him simply because I didn't think the political situation would be stable enough to put up such a tired retread against the Destroyer. But in spite of all the objections, they did it anyway. Oh. Dear.

Joe is not as feeble as he's been made out to be by his critics and haters, but he's not entirely there either. He's old. And it shows. During the performance on Thursday, he lost track and misspoke several times, and he seemed to fade out as the evening wore on. Assuming he wins, he'll have to be molly-coddled through his reign, much like Reagan had to be and Wilson had to be toward the end, and probably lots of others had to be, but that's not always a bad thing. What bothered me is that from a policy standpoint, he seems to be trying to revive the early '90s, and I got the willies. No, we can't go back, we have to go forward, a direction he and his handlers don't seem to recognize. 

Oh. Dear.

That means to me that things are not going to get better with either old man on the throne. And that is apparently the policy of our rulers regardless of party. No. That's their watchword. No.

So we sleepwalk into the Darkness... 

The presidency itself has been jokified by Trump and his antics, and I don't see Biden somehow reverting it to dignity. Yet the presidency has too much power and too much deference is granted to presidential bullshit. There's no sign of reining in the powers of the presidency (just the opposite) nor of restoring some sense of monkish  propriety to the office holder. We're going down another path of ever wilder and obnoxious presidents it seems. 

The Revolution doesn't come. But the transformation isn't delayed. 

Buckle up. 

A.S.M.R

 ASMR is something I'd never heard of before a few months ago, even though I'd been experiencing it for several months (maybe years) before I found out about it. I'd seen and subscribed to videos of fine art restoration by Julian Baumgartner and came to discover that they are considered among the finest ASMR videos out there. I'd also seen urbex videos by Bros of Decay, a couple of Dutch speaking Belgian brothers who travel around Europe (and sojourned in Japan) exploring abandoned castles, mansions, and houses and telling tales about them -- in English. Come to find out they too are considered ASMR by many of their fans. 

Then finally, while scrolling through some of the food videos, I came across numerous Korean Street Food videos (made and posted by various people) showing the process of creating and serving a range of so-called street foods in Korea -- though often the videos are obviously not of street vendors but of indoor restaurant cooks. ASMR. All of it.

But what is it?

Well, that took some digging. Apparently it's been a Thing online especially at YouTube for some time, and it comes from some sort of fringe psychology research. A.S.M.R. stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response which in turn refers to a physical and psychological response in many people to auditory and visual stimuli. 

"Basically, it feels like the amazing chills you get when someone plays with your hair or traces your back with their fingertips," says Heather Feather, a popular "ASMRtist" with nearly 400,000 YouTube subscribers. The dulcet tones of famed soft-spoken painter Bob Ross are among the most common ASMR triggers. Indeed, "Bob Ross" is among the terms most frequently associated with ASMR—and so are "Heather Feather" and "GentleWhispering," another top ASMRtist on YouTube.

Julian Baumgartner has well over a million YouTube subscribers, and each video he produces generally gets hundreds of thousands or millions of views. He conserves and restores fine art in a vast loft cum restoration studio in Chicago. He acts with extreme precision and care, taking as much time and resources as necessary to repair and recondition the works of art (mostly paintings) his clients send him. He describes every step and comments on the work in great detail using his "ASMR voice" speaking softly and carefully and precisely, never becoming either over excited or bored, but staying always positive and intrigued by his discoveries. Some of his videos are released with commentary, some without -- and the ones that have no commentary are referred to by him as ASMR while the ones with commentary are not, but his viewers see both as different forms of ASMR. He says he produces the videos mostly by himself, moving the camera from place to place in the studio, doing the setups, doing the restoration work both on camera and off, then editing and doing voiceovers. Occasionally, he'll ask someone else to record part of a video if he needs a tracking shot while he moves a work from one part of the studio to another. But we never see anyone else in the studio. It's never quite clear how long it takes to restore a particular piece, nor are costs ever mentioned, but those are minor details to most of his viewers. They focus, as does Julian, on the process of fine art restoration, the detail of the work, the many steps and stages that must be taken and followed, the sequence of assessment, cleaning, repair, retouching and restoration, and... the Washi Kozo paper he uses to protect and maintain the integrity of the piece while he works on it.

It's all fascinating. Seeing it done, seeing it done so well and so consistently, is rewarding in and of itself. I don't know that I experience a tingling sensation from my scalp to the tips of my fingers and toes as I watch -- which is supposedly the definition of ASMR -- but I'm always intrigued and pleased when I see the process, which is an experience I have rarely had in real life (I have on occasion witnessed conservation and restoration work in museums, but it's typically been very brief glimpses and without much or any explanation.) 

Likewise Korean Street Food videos are process oriented, usually with no talking at all, just the sounds of the work being done. The what and how of creating dozens of (say) egg toast sandwiches at one time is shown in video after video -- the skills and dexterity of the cook are featured -- while the setup and ingredients vary from place to place and the results are showcased sometimes including someone taking a bite, but often not. 

That there are so many different people posting Korean street food videos, all of which are similar, makes me wonder if there is a central clearing house for the genre. I don't know -- or particularly care. But it's one of several mysteries of where these videos come from, who produces them and how they are distributed. But those are minor questions. The process is what's important and what is on show.  

There's another set of process videos that come from a production factory in Cyprus. 5 Minute Crafts is one of their brands. Their videos have millions of subscribers and get millions of views. They purport to show "hacks" -- food hacks, household hacks, pet hacks, and on and on. Many of them, apparently, don't work or are falsely presented, but few seem to mind. And in some circles, they are considered ASMR. 

So it's out there, lots of it. 

Kitchen Vernacular and ASMR

 [Once again a diversion from the multiple crises afflicting our fair globe and nation, crises I believe we can do little about. The pandemic still keeps me mostly at home; if I go out it's for groceries and supplies, or to various medical appointments. So I spend at least some of my time exploring the YouTubes and reading glossy magazines where I make discoveries.]

Kitchen design has evolved somewhat during my lifetime. Above is a picture of a typical kitchen in what I suspect is a farmhouse c. 1930. It's large and square and "unfitted." Ie, without built in cabinets. This means the house and kitchen probably date from around 1900, but the equipment is newer. The stove is probably from the mid-1920s or even 1930, and the refrigerator is a 1930 or later GE Monitor Top. 

Though I don't remember it clearly, this is probably similar to the kitchen in my father's house in Iowa where I only lived a few months after I was born and returned to for a few months in the summers of 1961 and 1962. The house was old, parts of it very old (c.1845-50), but the kitchen was an add-on around 1900 when my grandfather bought it and had it expanded. When I visited in the summers of 1961 and 62, the kitchen was modernized somewhat. I remember there was one of those steel cabinet sinks under the bank of windows on one side and a newer stove and refrigerator but beyond that, I don't remember much.

The first house we lived in in California was built in 1930 and had a very plain and simple kitchen. It was a narrow corridor along the back of the house (actually it was a duplex). There was a black stove up on legs (c. 1930) and a small refrigerator (flat-top c. 1935) on one wall. The other side was a built-in cabinet with sink under the tiny window and tile drainboards on either side. There were upper cabinets for dishes and dry foods. And by the side door, there was a broom closet. There wasn't room for much else, though there might have been a "California Cooler" on the same wall as the sink and the broom closet might have been on the wall with the stove and refrigerator. There was a single overhead light (might even have been a bare bulb), and I remember the room seemed dark and cramped -- even when I was just a toddler. The flooring was varied gray linoleum with a small figure and a border.

We moved from there to another bigger house when I was three. I don't remember the kitchen or much of the interior of that house at all. The house itself was practically new, built as Post War housing on a lot next to a high water Victorian. I remember the kitchen in that Victorian house better than the one next door where I lived. The Victorian one was plain and unfitted except for the steel cabinet sink -- those seemed to have been ubiquitous for a while -- and had a round table and chairs at one end, newer stove and refrigerator at the other. There was a dish cabinet, too. It wasn't a Hoosier, but was simpler, with an upper section with glass doors and a lower section with drawers on one side and a wood-doored section next to the drawers. I believe the cabinet was on wheels. There was one electric light on a dangling cord in the center of the room and there may have been another one over the stove but I'm not sure. 

After that, we lived in a succession of pre-and-post-War houses in Los Angeles County, only one of which left much of an impression on me. It was a very cozy and homey house in West Covina built around 1939 or so, with a corridor kitchen. Built in cabinets, sink under the window, blue and white tiled counter tops, an older but functional stove and refrigerator, both dating from about the time the house was built, and an eating area in a bay window at the back. There was ivy-decorated white wall paper. The room was light and bright -- I remember the sunlight in the breakfast area well -- and I liked it. 

We moved from there to a brand new house a few miles away. It also had a corridor kitchen, but without the charm of the one we'd left. There was the usual sink and tile drainboard built-in cabinet on one side with the usual upper cabinets on either side of the window over the sink and a stove and refrigerator on the other side. We went through a succession of used refrigerators dating from the mid-thirties to the late forties, none of which lasted very long (the longest lasting was a Servel gas refrigerator) before getting a new Kenmore refrigerator which we kept for at least ten or even fifteen years and hauled around to a number of different houses. The stove, however, was an indestructible Wedgewood that had been purchased with the house, and which stayed with the house when we moved again five years later. 

At the far end of this corridor kitchen was an eating area with a window (no bay window) that also served as a laundry area. We had a Kenmore automatic washer but no dryer, and there was no room for a dryer anyway. Laundry was hung on the clothes line out in the side yard or on one of those folding wooden racks indoors when the weather was bad.

The flooring was linoleum with an overall pattern, no border, and I think it was green like the tile border on the countertops. There was a cabinet next to the stove that held the water heater and some brooms and such.  There was one overhead light in the kitchen proper and one in the eating/laundry area.