Are we feeling sad these days? I know I am. Not stick-my-head-in-the-oven sad, but more like gray-bowl-of-Michigan-winter sad, mixed with I-need-to-read-more-novels-and-less-Twitter sad and orange-elephant-in-the-room sad. If I were wealthier, I’d book a flight to Havana and do the major change of scenery thing. Can’t do that either? Then maybe this will help, a two-parter from New York magazine on the jokes that shaped modern comedy.

It’s not actually a two-parter, just a piece that was published last year, and the new one, dropped in the last couple of days. I like both, because you can really get lost in them, and then you find yourself laughing, and soon it’s as though you aren’t living in the first months of 2017, but in some bubbly comedy land.

Until you hit 1988:

The most influential magazine of its era left a mark on every other: complicated tiny typography, kitschy clip art, little floating heads as illustrations, charts and graphs analyzing everything it covered, and big memorable stories told with an ironic sensibility and unironic rigor. But clearly its single device with the longest legs was the compound hyphenated pejorative epithet, an update of the old Time house style. “Churlish dwarf billionaire Laurence Tisch,” “sex-kittenish Vanity Fair model Diane Sawyer,” “musky, supersuave love man Billy Dee Williams”: Spy’s editors had a knack for summing up an entire person in three or four words. Including one “short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump,” whose rage at this characterization continues to this day, and who now has his tiny, tiny finger on the button. (Sad!) Their glib irreverence would continue well beyond the magazine’s final issue in 1998; it’s almost impossible to find a funny blog that doesn’t at least somewhat depend on Spy’s voice and tone.

Oh, well. Nothing lasts forever. It’s still funny.

I remember that era at Spy. Tisch had his lawyer send a letter that explained Tisch was not “medically, technically a dwarf,” and cease calling him one. So they started ID’ing him as “Churlish billionaire Laurence Tisch, who is not medically, technically a dwarf.” Good times.

We need more use of the word “churl” and all of its variations.

So, what else happened today? The president got into a pissing match with a department store, that’s what. Something I didn’t know:

Last week, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores sent a note to employees — a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times — telling them to throw away signs for Ivanka Trump products.

“Effective immediately, please remove all Ivanka Trump merchandise from features and mix into” the racks where most products hang, the note read. “All Ivanka Trump signs should be discarded.”

The instruction was to eliminate special displays for the merchandise, “not to remove it from the sales floor,” said Doreen Thompson, a spokeswoman for the TJX Companies, the retailers’ parent corporation.

And no one even called the first daughter an escort to wreck her brand. Maybe something else is at work here. Hmm, what could it be?

Finally, no less a writer than Hank Stuever decreed this story the best feature story about life in 2017, an account of Milo Yiannopoulos’ visit to the University of Washington, and the events that flowed from it. I’d say it’s right up there, and totally worth your time, Sherri and others.

Who’s ready for a measles outbreak? Because it’s coming.

Question for the room: Does Donald Trump have his Pete Souza yet? That is to say, has he chosen a White House photographer? The only pix from the White House I’m seeing are the ones of him signing executive orders with his flunkies arrayed in a half-circle behind him. Pence always stands on his right, and applauds like the toady he is.

The pictures are unremarkable, wire-service stuff. The White House’s Flickr photo stream is empty, so I have to assume that this is one of those still-unfilled positions, like most of the East Wing staff.

And if you’re one of those people who doesn’t know who Pete Souza is, here’s part of his 2016 White House portfolio. I don’t recommend it if you’re feeling …emotional.

Especially this week, when yet another of the 10,000 veils dropped between the American public and the Trump administration. Yes, I’m talking about Natasha, makin’ money. I just can’t believe this stuff; I’m almost literally open-mouthed when I read it. What is wrong with these people? How is it even possible to be this crass?

Change of subject: Wendy was lying next to me the other day when she did something she’s never done before: Farted, audibly. There was a funny little toot, like the horn on a Fisher Price clown car, and then? Mustard gas. Do any of you have those dogs that bark at their own farts? Because that would be hilarious.

This little dickens:

She who smelt it absolutely didn’t deal it.

I am watching the Super Bowl right now. The ads so far have been unremarkable. The game so far hasn’t — the Falcons are winning, and anything that ruins Tom Brady’s perfect little world can’t be all bad, can it?

Man, defensive linemen look like big fat guys, even in the championship game. I know everyone on a team has their own job to do, but I’d hate to have one of those behemoths fall on me.

I should watch football more often if I want to have opinions about it, so I’ll shut up now.

Another Atlanta touchdown! This could be pretty good. But I’m basically here for Lady Gaga.

Did you know Detroit has a gay sports bar? It does. I’ve never been there, but I should. Winter bucket-list item, maybe.

This was a weekend for winter bucket lists. Got to Belle Isle for a Wendy walk and to look at the ice, because it looks like the chances of a polar vortex long enough for serious ice are fading, so no ice walk this year. Instead, we watched it float by:

A February day spent exploring all the ways Great Lakes life is just like the Caribbean, only different. #ice #detroit #belleisle

A video posted by nderringer (@nderringer) on Feb 4, 2017 at 12:04pm PST

This may sound a little disjointed today, and it is. I have a million things to do early in the week, and I can’t think of much else. So, have a link? Post it. I’ll be back later.

How many people are upset about the violence in Berkeley last night? For the record, I disapprove. Violence is only the answer when it’s Richard Spencer taking a … nope, not even then. That was a sucker punch, and sucker punches are cowardly. Call him out, tell him to put his hands up, and then punch him. Not upsetting.

Wednesday night, though — that was a trap. Why is this so hard to see? This is exactly what the Young Americans for Wearing Rep Ties, or whatever their name is, did in Grosse Pointe, when they invited sparking intellectual Rick Santorum to come speak at one of the high schools, and insisted it be during school hours. The administration waffled, and then it became whassamatter, don’t you believe in free speech? and Game Over for the grownups.

Milo what’s-his-name doesn’t have anything to say. He’s a troll. He styles himself as a “dangerous faggot,” goes onstage and calls Trump “daddy,” all that lame shit, and that’s his act. If you’re willing to go onstage and say women, boy they stink at math and I bet their pussies stink, too, then you’re going to get attention. But sensible people shouldn’t allow themselves to be baited so easily. When I woke up this morning, all the liberals were tweeting about the presidential insults to Mexico and Australia — I’m still stunned to write that — and the conservatives were acting like the Berkeley demonstration was the sack of Rome, and not a few scuffles and vandalism in a city most of them wouldn’t visit at gunpoint.

So yeah, I agree with this: Don’t give him what he wants.

God, this shit is exhausting. It’s all Tom & Lorenzo for the rest of the evening. Have a great weekend, all, and let’s hope the world doesn’t end before Monday.

Every time I try to settle my mind, to think about something other than That Thing, to write about something other than That Thing, then – you know how this sentence ends. That Thing happens.

Jerry Falwell Jr. leading a higher-ed task force — that thing was this morning’s thing.

Len Stevens, the university’s chief spokesman, told NBC News that Falwell would bring a focus on “overregulation and micromanagement of higher education” to the task force.

I expect this means Trump University will rise again. Among other “colleges.”

This was this afternoon’s thing. The Black History Month remarks:

Last month, we celebrated the life of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., whose incredible example is unique in American history. You read all about Dr. Martin Luther King a week ago when somebody said I took the statue out of my office. It turned out that that was fake news. Fake news. The statue is cherished, it’s one of the favorite things in the—and we have some good ones. We have Lincoln, and we have Jefferson, and we have Dr. Martin Luther King. But they said the statue, the bust of Martin Luther King, was taken out of the office. And it was never even touched. So I think it was a disgrace, but that’s the way the press is. Very unfortunate.

I am very proud now that we have a museum on the National Mall where people can learn about Reverend King, so many other things. Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and millions more black Americans who made America what it is today. Big impact.

And then there was this evening’s thing. Which may be the worst thing of all:

It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.

Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.

Every night I wake up and wonder what the new day’s things will be. I’m not sleeping well.

So you can maybe see why the one bright spot of the day was realizing my new phone software update finally contains a shaka emoji. And then I learn it happened more than a month ago.

I think I need therapy. The whole world needs therapy.

Oh, Canada. What a country you’ve got there. We spend the weekend walking around without ever once thinking about being robbed or ‘jacked or whatever, and what happens as we’re almost literally boarding the train home? A mass shooting.

By one of these guys, because of course.

But I can’t argue with our weekend, not at all. We stayed in West Queen West, the same neighborhood we were in the last time, where dogs in fancy coats and sweaters outnumber actual children by about five-to-one. It’s January, so you don’t expect it to exactly be balmy. I thought I’d packed well, but when we came across a team handing out free — free! — long underwear from Uniqlo, I was happy to snatch it up. Of course long underwear is now known as “base layers,” for good reason — they’re not the waffle-knit separates you’re used to, but close-to-skin and undeniably-warm …base layers, I guess. They go on under the skinniest jeans and are just what the weatherman ordered.

A memory was just jostled loose: A winter weekend in the Upper Peninsula, when I learned of the one-piece base layer known as the union suit — flannel on the inside, wool on the outside, in heather gray or bright red. I bought one in bright red from L.L. Bean and wore it through some fearsome winters, with a pair of Levi’s 501s and maybe a sweater. A strange ensemble for a young woman to choose in the late ’70s, yes, undeniably, but I was very warm. Eventually it collapsed under the strain of my bustline and I retired it forever, the union-suit-bursting-its-buttons look being better-suited for bawdy postcards about deer camp or maybe cocktail napkins. It sure was warm, though.

What did we do? Walked around. Shopped. Caught part of the Chinese New Year observance. Drank cocktails and coffee, discovering that sub-niche of the cosmopolitan economy, the gay coffeehouse. (There used to be one in NYC called the Big Cup.) The waiter was very nice, but the best part was sneaking looks at a trans individual who had some really striking stick-and-poke dotted facial tattoos, with a little cloud on each temple and a line running up the bridge of the nose.

I love big cities. They’re where magic happens.

On Saturday, chilled and a little burned out on walking, we debated taxiing down to the TIFF Lightbox for a midday movie. Alan, looking at the listings, said, “‘The Silence’ is playing near here.”

“You mean ‘Silence,’ the new Martin Scorsese movie. I’d see that,” I said.

“It’s like, a block away. Starts in 12 minutes,” he said. We paid our bill, bundled up and walked the block to the theater, which was tucked in the back of an art gallery specializing in photography.

Strange place for a first-run movie to be playing, but whatever. Stranger still was the admission price of $0. But when the lights went down, the screen darkened and “The Criterion Collection” appeared on the screen, I knew we’d made a critical mistake, because we weren’t watching “Silence,” Oscar contender of 2016, but “The Silence,” an Ingmar Bergman film from 1963, all that black-and-white Sven Nykvist cinematography. You watch a 54-year-old film and marvel at how ahead of its time it was, with its frank depictions of sexuality — actual semi-shadowed fucking and a scene of female masturbation, not to mention a woman bathing with her 9-year-old son — and what Annie Hall called “that Scandinavian bleakness.”

(“I thought that shot where you see her boob while she’s washing her armpit was pretty hot,” countered Alan.)

So that was Saturday afternoon.

Here’s Sunday morning: First daughter dressed as a baked potato. (HT: TBogg)

You know what was in every furniture store window? This lamp, although I imagine most were knockoffs. Wouldn’t want to bring that through customs in this dark era.

Speaking of dark eras, more paranoia about Russia appears to be called for. And a related billboard defacing in Kalamazoo.

With that, it’s time for 55 minutes of innocuous telly. See you tomorrow, all.

Guys, I’m back, but we got back late and, of course, there was too much to do late last night and this morning to put a proper post together. So just a few quickies so we can start a new comment thread, as the last one is getting unwieldy.

1) Canada is paying attention to us. My highly unscientific eavesdropping/taxi drivers poll, which has a +/- Everything margin of error, reveals that no one sees our position as enviable, moral or even smart. So there’s that.

2) Toronto is on a Great Lake, like Chicago, and is windy, like Chicago. Fortunately there are coffee houses and cocktail bars about every seven or eight doors, for warming purposes.

3) I watched the news from home obsessively. And this, while far-fetched, is disturbing.

Very full plate today. Best start eating.

…you’ll be reading this. Because friends, I have to disconnect for a couple of days. I’ve been trying to finish three novels since Christmas, and can’t, because I keep checking Twitter like a rat in a Skinner box. I have to keep up with the latest news — IT’S MY JOB — but this is simply wearing me out.

So Alan and I are off to a sophisticated Ontario city before the border closes or we start a trade war with them. Like we apparently already have with Mexico.

Peeps, I can’t even. We may have to assume protective coloration up there. You’ll know we mastered our accents if we don’t come back. But plans are to be back on Sunday.

In the meantime, stay safe, stay sane and can anyone else rustle up another women’s march? I need something to calm my nerves. Maybe some Canadian whiskey will help.

Greetings, good people of NN.c land. Sorry I missed the update last night, but I was in a January kinda mood. Seriously, yesterday I told Alan he needed to start with the Vitamin D along with me, because like Johnny Cash, we haven’t seen the sunshine since I-don’t-know-when.

But I’m rested and I’m between phone calls, so here goes, quickly.

First up, a question for LA Mary: Is this the bridge near your neighborhood that we drove over?

There’s just something about it that rang a bell in my head.

And yeah, that’s from “La La Land,” which you may have heard got a few Oscar nominations Tuesday.

In December, I did a story on this guy, who has done that rare thing – figured out a way to make news on the internet pay. Admittedly, only a narrow slice of news (the Iraqi oil market), but still. His readers pay about $2,000 a year to subscribe, and if you’re in the oil bidness, I bet it’s worth every penny. Anyway, one of the things they do is a daily, or near-daily, update from Mosul, which is still partially held by ISIS. It’s so smartly organized, with incidents exhaustively detailed, categorized and sourced (anonymously, for obvious reasons). I wish I could link, but valuable information isn’t something you just give away.

Anyway, I thought of this because apparently POTUS is talking about “taking the oil” again, and even as a casual reader of Iraq Oil Report, I can’t even.

Here’s a roundup of the remarkable leaks coming out of the Oval on, what? Day five? Man, we have a long road ahead.

Related, and nifty: Red feed, blue feed, or what Facebook looks like, depending on how your friend network shapes up. Illuminating. I wish Bridge had the budget to do stuff like this. Instead, we have to rely on good old legwork. Here’s our red/blue project, Divided Michigan, which kicked off this week. Feedback welcome.

Phone just rang. Back to work and see you tomorrow, I hope.

Well, this is what you call a weekend. I’m sitting here bathing in the news firehose, and I think I need to just do the shotgun thing, just write stuff down, whaddayacallit? Stream-of-consciousness, yeah. See what pops up.

My autocorrect keeps changing “Melania” to “Melanie,” so I think the first lady needs a new name. I choose Natasha.

Sean Spicer definitely needs a new suit. Although maybe badly fitting suits are a Thing now.

Is Barron Trump on the autism spectrum? I know speculation has been going around on that topic, and yeah — no one’s business and leave the kids alone. I’m only curious, as it would explain much, including why Andrew Wakefield attended the inaugural celebrations and the new president supposedly plans to put a vaccine questioner on a committee investigating them.

That march. Whew. I had no idea so many people I knew were going, and now I feel like I should have at least come down to take some pictures. My favorite single march? Antarctica.

I’m not the first person to observe that when people who believe the government can’t do anything right rise to power, they put in charge people who can’t do anything right. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Still, a week doesn’t go by that I’m not astonished by how much regular people distrust their government. Two quick examples drawn from that bottomless pit of stupidity, my Facebook feed:

We’ve had some sewer line problems in an adjacent county, and a lot of rain, and some raw-sewage overflows into the lake have occurred. It happens, it’s not good, all freely acknowledged. Crews are working on it. On Facebook, a movement is rising: BOIL YOUR WATER. A person with an adequate understanding of how water systems work steps in to point out that the overflow is into the water source, “raw” water, and it is all treated at the plant before it goes out as potable. So you’re fine, this person said, which only prompted a torrent of how stupid do you think we are? Do you think they’d TELL us the water was unsafe to drink? Boil your water! As though water-plant management, with absolutely zero reason to lie because the problem wasn’t theirs in the first place or to fix, would just lie to nearly 3 million people who drink it. Because GOVERNMENT.

The next day, a person inexperienced with eggs reported getting a double yolk in one. “I threw it away, just to be safe,” she wrote. Smart! replied one of her network. You never know what the government is doing with these chickens! Of course a double yolk is a perfectly natural, if unusual occurrence in laying hens, but please: Blame the government.

Of course, water and food safety in the U.S. are two triumphs of government oversight, with one notable exception.

I could be amused by this stuff if the stakes weren’t so high.

A copied cake? What’s HAPPENING???!!?

Sherri posted this Rick Perlstein piece, low in yesterday’s comments. You should read.

And with that, I gotta scoot. Happy Monday, all.