Good morning. Hello. How are you? #620
WTF is a tarheel, Elon+Twitter=<3, Whack DWAC SPAC, Ólafar's crib, Cherry Blossoms, NYFed Comics.
Good morning! Hello! How are you? Substack changed their WYSIWYG editor again this morning. Always makes me very nervous when they change it, which is unnervingly frequently. So far nothing terrible has happened in these changes but when something not broken changes this frequently, you can’t shake the feeling that it’ll keep getting changed until something is broken.
Did you watch the game last night? I watched a bit of it — I watched UNCs spectacular run at theend of the 1st half (do they call them halves?) to be up fifteen points, and then I watched Kansas obliterate that lead in the beginning of the second half, so that the game was right back tied up when I went to bed. That shit is too nerve wracking to watch, I don’t know how the players do it. People sure do like to expose themselves to absurd amounts of stress in the world.
I am sorry, UNC. You are a very pretty campus and I like your botanical garden and world class medical center where my daughter is born. You do seem slightly overly obsessed with sports, though, and your unrestricted Greek life wigs me out. Emma says she likes your baby blue color and it’s true, it’s clever and distinctive, but the mascot is a giant morass of confusion and let’s face it, is probably racist:
But when, beyond doubt, did the term Tar Heel begin to be applied to North Carolinians? Clearly during the Civil War. In the third volume of Walter Clark’s Histories of the Several Regiments from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861 to 1865, published in 1901, James M. Ray of Asheville records two incidents in 1863 that suggest the nickname’s original application. In a fierce battle in Virginia, where their supporting column was driven from the field, North Carolina troops stood alone and fought successfully. The victorious troops were asked in a condescending tone by some Virginians who had retreated, “Any more tar down in the Old North State, boys?” The response came quickly: “No; not a bit; old Jeff’s bought it all up.” “Is that so? What is he going to do with it?” the Virginians asked. “He is going to put it on you’ns heels to make you stick better in the next fight.”
After the Battle of Murfreesboro in Tennessee in early January 1863, John S. Preston of Columbia, S.C., the commanding general, rode along the fighting line commending his troops. Before the 60th Regiment from North Carolina, Preston praised them for advancing farther than he had anticipated, concluding with: “This is your first battle of any consequence, I believe. Indeed, you Tar Heels have done well.”
Similarly, sometime after North Carolina troops had fought particularly well, Gen. Robert E. Lee is said to have commented: “God bless the Tar Heel boys.” Like the Cornwallis story, however, the exact occasion has not been noted.
I mean, when even the official alumni page gives that as the sanitized explanation of the name, you gotta figure it’s probably racist.
There is a contravening theory that they’re Tar Heels because North Carolina was the last state to secede and they didn’t really want to. Which I guess is a bit better. We were racist but didn’t want to be that racist.
And then on top of that the weird creepy ram mascot Ramses, though I guess he’s got a pretty cool backstory, and I gotta admit Ramses Jr. is pretty f’n cute:
The weird shit you gotta learn about when you move to a town.
So Elon Musk bought 9% of Twitter because of course. To be fair, if I were the richest person in the world, I could see buying Twitter. I’d buy it to kick a lot of people off, though. A real banning frenzy would ensue under my reigh. Elon however seems to be buying it because of “free speech” or some shit. He had been grumbling about starting a social media company and I was so, so hoping he would just to watch it fail, because even if every one of his totally real 80 million followers went with him, it would still fail. But, sadly, he seems to have realized our social media platforms are monopolies and taking them on directly was not viable.
He also seems to be, like, down with Jack Dorsey in this whole episode, almost like they were collaborating if you thought Elon thought this through at all. But he didn’t. You know he didn’t because when you buy more than 5% of a company, you have to file a form with the SEC telling the world about it. And you have to do that within ten days of making the purchase, and Elon just… didn’t get around to it for a while. He’s very busy, you see, and unlike other billionares hasn’t mastered the art of delegating. Also you gotta file one of two different forms, depending on whether you are going to try and influence management with your purchase or you’re just holding the stake as an investment. Elon chose the latter form, which explicitly means he’s not supposed to try and influence the company so, you know, were he a normal, law-abiding citizen, this would mean he’s just holding the stake because “I like the stock” as they say. Except this is Elon Musk and there is absolutely zero doubt he is going to try and influence and change the company, he just filed the wrong form because he is a chaos agent and why on earth should he follow these dumb rules who’s gonna stop me.
It really is something how the rich and powerful just ignore the law. I used to think it was hyperbole when people said that, that we as a country had that decently under control, at least compared to other countries. Maybe it’s gotten worse, or I’ve paid more attention, who knows, but wow, yeah, it’s just astonishing.
Speaking of which, Trump’s obviously fraudlent SPAC and fake social media company is also breaking securities laws, being now five days late on its 10K regulatory filing. And “executives” are quitting. It was always obvious this thing was a sham and it was always obvious the SEC was going to do exactly nothing about it, so I suppose we should be thankful that they are sabotaging it from the inside.
Let’s see. More positive news. The cherry blossom tree is fantastic here let’s go take a picture of it this morning:
I watched this great video last night of a tour of Ólafar Arnalds’ studio and it was so awesome, just every minute I was watching it I was thinking “omg this is so awesome.” The guilt-free Icelandic birch wall! Icelandic trees are very rare, and Arnalds has a beautiful wall of them in his studio, but he has it guilt-free, because he didn’t put it in, it came with the place from back when it was Sigur Ros’ practice space before him, and he just re-designed the whole space around the wall. And then he put in this other gorgeous wall and man, yeah, the place is amazing. Three different permanantly mic’d pianos. An balanced XLR signal path, only changing to patch cables at the last possible moment so that you cannot blow out ribbon mics. Just fantastic I want to live there.
And, finally, about two months ago I placed an order with the Federal Reserve of New York for copies of each of their children’s comics. They are so great. They have titles like How do I Use Economics in My Life, A Story of Interest and, my favorite, One Upon a Dime. I can’t wait to read these to Jane it is going to rule. Yesterday she asked “What is money” and I was very excited about it. Money is awful, Jane, it is the root of all evil and let me tell you every single thing about it so you can go out there and fuck money up.
Oh man I am running out of time today we better do a playlist.
Okay W Hotel mix today. Has a Sinead song on it because yesterday I listened to every Sinead O’Connor album. I had listened to them all before, of course, except, actually, Faith and Courage which was fucking awesome. And so was Not Bossy just the Boss, which I listened to once while walking around Manhattan and was great but then never listened to it again weirdly. Anyway for the next few days this is officially a Sinead stan account and basically every playlist is going to have a Sinead song on it. Probably. I mean, not othe drone ones or metal ones or punk ones or… yeah okay never mind. But she is still awesome.
All right busy day today and my night for Jane bedtime. Wish me luck! Talk tomorrow.