Spectator Life

A “Chinese puzzle” in its classic version is a game where you must fit a variety of ill-assorted boxes inside other boxes. The term came to mean any intricate problem, especially one in which what looks like the way forward leads only to new obstacles.   These days, in which we are warned not to use ethnonyms for fear of giving offense, it might be safer to say something like “brainteaser.” But the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to manipulate American society genuinely deserve the old term. The news this past week adds a few curious details to those efforts. Details first; explanations to follow.

Monday night marks the fashion calendar’s most overrated, overcovered event: the Met Gala. Each year it’s the same. The outfits are underwhelming (unless they’re worn Rihanna). The publicity stunts are boring. Its political outbursts are predictable and hypocritical. Most disappointing, the theme of this ultimate costume party is either uninteresting, completely ignored or both. But Monday promises something different, or at least above average. Its theme is “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” in tribute to the late fashion design icon, who revived Chanel and made it one of the greatest houses, and businesses, in Paris. An exhibition examining the work of Lagerfeld will run at the Met from May 5 to June 16.

Start your engines! Taylor Swift hasn’t wasted any time finding new material. Just a few weeks back news broke of Swift's split from actor Joe Alwyn. Now fans are convinced that the singer is secretly dating Formula 1 star Fernando Alonso.  After rumors surfaced last week, Alonso poured gasoline on the fire by posting a TikTok video earlier this week set to the tune of her hit song “Karma.” In the clip, he also scrolled on his phone before looking at the camera and winking.  https://www.tiktok.com/@fernandoalonso/video/7225564591818804506?lang=en The F1 driver also referenced Swift’s song “22” when he commented, “Feeling 33." Alonso captioned the video “Race week era😉,” referencing Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour.

Open Bryna Pomp’s wardrobe and you’ll find a uniform of near identical navy blue and black dresses. Yet squirreled away in dozens of boxes in her closet-cum-office are more than 500 pieces of contemporary jewelry: the bolder the better.  For the last thirteen years, Pomp has curated MAD About Jewelry, the Museum of Arts and Design’s popular annual pop-up that sees makers from across the globe travel to the Manhattan institution to show and sell their wares. In the process, she has built her own vast collection, ranging from brooches to earrings to necklaces.

Last week Stanford University students elected a new government led by a coalition calling itself “Fun Strikes Back.” You won’t have caught this development in the mainstream news, though it was noticed by the distinctly non-mainstream press — outlets such as Pirate Wires and OutKick. It is, however, a very significant event. One of the most important American universities that has spent a generation groaning under the dour, self-righteous domination of progressive virtue-signaling witnessed a rebellion. Students rose up and demanded a campus social life free from the onerous control of the university’s moralistic busybodies.

Pennsylvania experienced a heat wave last week, with temperatures soaring into the mid-80s. It was not to last. This morning it was a balmy 33°F, with that bone-chilling dampness and threat of snow showers that can only mean one thing: spring! When friends and family who live in warm places send me photos of the beach and brag about taking long walks in the sunshine, I block out their bragging with a defiant flip of my hood and insist that people who live in cold places are tougher. We have more character. True grit. And it turns out that may actually be true. "Cold temperature extends longevity and prevents disease-related protein aggregation," according to a new peer-reviewed study from Germany's University of Cologne. Longevity, i.e.

When it comes to using trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote the iconic Bud Light brand — a favorite beer here in the backwoods — my first impulse was in line with that of Kid Rock, who used cases of the stuff for target practice. It’s a reaction many Americans, insulted by what they perceive to be an attack on their traditional values and gender stereotypes, are having to varying degrees as they boycott the beer giant, reportedly to the tune of billions of dollars. Progressives, meanwhile, can’t get enough of Mulvaney.

If you’re a professor at the University of Memphis, you are required to sit through a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training where you’ll learn that you should send polite emails and what basic words like “skills” and “motivation” mean. And taxpayers get to foot the bill!The taxpayer-funded school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, requirements, obtained in full by The Spectator, are expected to take twenty-six minutes. Professors learn about every kind of diversity (from diversity of “spiritual practice” to “public assistance status”) except political.

President Biden is being an American tourist in Ireland this week. In comments to the Irish Parliament in Dublin today, the president touted the merits of rugby, a sport in which Ireland is currently the top-ranked side in the world, over the American brand of football. "I'd rather have my children playing rugby now for health reasons than I would have them playing football," the president said. "Fewer people get hurt playing rugby." Biden is a rugby enthusiast, having played while at college at Syracuse. He made a point of video-calling the Ireland men's team after their historic defeat of New Zealand in Chicago in 2021. (In the video, Biden's brother James is sporting an Ireland hat and coat.

One of the few culture war tropes that has actually dimmed during the Biden era is the controversy over the championship sports team White House visit. This is in large part because the sensibilities of the big leagues, their corporate partners and the media that covers them skews left — meaning a pressure campaign to condemn visiting Joe Biden, for example, just won’t register in those circles. So it was kind of by accident that the women’s college basketball national championship game between Iowa and LSU became a tempest in a teapot.

A public school teacher for three decades, my mother kept me out of them for nearly a third of that time. Her refusal to allow me to partake of the public education system that paid her bills echoed a memorable quote of G.K. Chesterton’s: “Everyone goes to the elementary schools except the few people who tell them to go there.”  If the recent numbers are any indication, more people have followed her example. In 2019, about 2.8 percent of US students were homeschooled. By 2020, that number had jumped to 5.4 percent. And in 2021, it was up to 11.1 percent. Research from Stanford and the Associated Press places the overall increase in enrollment since the beginning of the pandemic at 30 percent.  Around the country, red-state politicians are taking notice.

Iowa Wesleyan is the latest. Finlandia University before that. Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences as of January 2024. Many others you have probably not heard of: Stone Academy, Cazenovia College, Bloomfield College. These are colleges and universities that have breathed their last. Most often they are just local stories. A college that has been reduced to a few hundred students and perhaps two dozen faculty members comes to its final, final end.  In most cases, that final end has been dragged out long past the point where there was any realistic hope of saving the institution. As a former college president once told me, “Colleges die hard.” The faculty and administrators rarely have other career options.

The LSU women’s basketball team won the NCAA National Championship Sunday night. The Lady Tigers beat Iowa 102-85, earning themselves a trip to the White House. But the meeting between First Lady Jill Biden and LSU’s star player, Angel Reese, might be a little frosty, as Jill Biden suggested the Iowa girls tag along for the visit, too. “I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House, we always do,” Jill Biden said yesterday. “So, we hope LSU will come. But, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.” It seems that either Joe doesn’t give a darn what Jill thinks, or else he forgot her suggestion already.

Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts, or so said Charles Lamb in an essay about grace before meals. Other vegetables had come to pall on him, but a noble affection for asparagus still lingered in his heart, a reminder of simpler and more innocent times. One can only surmise that he didn’t much care for the vegetable. Who feels melancholically virtuous when eating greens? People who don’t really like them, that’s who.

Mexican food is my comfort food. My devotion stems from memories of my mother’s enchiladas. I used to love watching her fry the tortillas in oil. They would bob about like lily pads, sizzling gently. Then when the bubbles formed with little pops, Mom would lift each tortilla out of the hot oil and place it on a paper towel. At the same time, she’d be heating salsa roja on the gas stove and, when it was ready, she would dip a spoon in the pan and put a dollop on a tortilla, swirling the spoon to coat the whole tortilla, then turn it over and do the same on the other side. She was such a careful cook, and neat. The bowls of fillings sat ready and waiting on the kitchen island, each with its own spoon.