Venal, Inept, “King Turd”

Beijing is building a “belt and axel” corridor of greenery across the city center and emanating down from the Grand Canal.  I read about this in my daily dosage of one-a-Chinese news article.  Considering the photos it will be a lot more ambitious than, say, Chaoyang Park.  I suppose this feeling of disorientation will likely never abate here in Beijing.  I’ll come back to visit a capital and fly in to the newest biggest airport down in the southwest of the city who’s public officials are all out in Tongzhou, none of which properly exists just yet.

The New York Times columnist Richard Cohen who I just about always love, was writing about Trump and Russia referred to him to him as “King Ubu.”  I didn’t catch the reference and looked it up.  A French play by Alfred Jarry, which opened and closed the same night in 1896, it apparently was a harbinger of Dada and Surrealism.  Venal, inept, “King Turd” references MacBeth, Hamlet and other Shakespearian tragedies, opened with the word ‘merde’ and ended with a riot.  Everyone competing then for how to most appropriately malign this hard-to-believe-it’s-real presidency.  George Will over in the Washington Post had another editorial entitled “The Shabbiest U.S. President Ever Is An Inexpressibly Sad Specimen,” which was posted right beside Dana Milbank’s entitled “Trump’s Laughing Stock Presidency."  This is how I spent much of my Saturday morning.  You as well?

Down with the kids at my son’s new apartment after the sun went down.  The girls headed down to spend the day together with him and his wife and were handed paint brushes and Ikea wrenches.  We arrived, assuming dinner was pending.  But soon we picked up wrenches ourselves and started tightening screws and eyeballing how best to turn a heavy, sliding table upright.

The kids want to bolt.  I thought we were all dining together?  I missed the memo.  It will just be the two couples.  We walk across their compound and out the south gate towards the mall.  Before we can get there we roll up to a Dongbei restaurant they recommend.  Upstairs there is only one other table of old people who smoke and swear and yell.  My wife sharpens the hairy-eyeball when granny goes on a tirade but we ask her to let it ride.  The food’s not bad and the price is right. All the dishes are less then three bucks per and when she brings up the Yanjing beer and pops two open at room temperature, it doesn’t seem to be worth mentioning. 

Saturday, 01/19/19