Bits and Bobs
A note to subscribers, travel photos, and a look at that hideous Trump coin
Paid Subcriptions Paused
A few days ago, I paused all paid subscriptions to PastPresentFuture.
Paid subscribers and I have a contract, perhaps not in law, but certainly in ethics: You pay me for reasonably regular writing and I do the writing reasonably regularly. That’s the deal. But I haven’t kept up my end of the bargain of late thanks to a speaking schedule that has swallowed all my time.
Over the last four weeks alone, I spoke in Minneapolis, Austin, Pontresina (Switzerland), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), and Toronto. I enjoy it, mostly because I get to have conversations with people doing fascinating work. And I get to see some beautiful places I wouldn’t otherwise, like the Texas “hill country” (the hard-scrabble lands where Lyndon Johnson grew up) or the Swiss Alps (which is everything I imagined it to be and more.)
But it also means spending a horrendous amount of time in airports, planes, cabs, and hotels. Plus jet lag. Plus insomnia. Plus the inevitable illness that follows when you’re exhausted and you haven’t slept more than a couple of hours a night for two weeks. Still, one must make hay while the sun shines, as every farmer knows, and it was shining this autumn.
But now I only have a few more close-to-home gigs and I’ll be done for a couple of months. Back to my next book. And back to PastPresentFuture.
In the meantime, please bear with me. And because I owe you, my beloved paid subscribers, I’ll keep payments off to the end of the year or so.
Look Up
Earlier this year, I spoke in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, and I found myself spending a remarkable amount of time looking up. Because the oil-rich royal families of the Persian Gulf love an ornate ceiling.
Then I was in Riyadh last week and… more amazing ceilings. It’s become something of a theme in my iPhone photo roll.
Following is a small sample.
At the end is a ceiling in a category of its own: The Louvre Ab Dhabi — the UAE branch of the French museum — would be spectacular even if its exhibit halls were empty. Picture a cluster of square and rectangular buildings, all bright white, on a point jutting out into the Persian Gulf. Above the cluster is an enormous canopy made of a textured lattice work. The purpose of the canopy is shade. This is the Arabian desert, after all. But the latticework is designed to allow occasional bolts of light to penetrate to the ground, in irregular shapes, where they dazzle in the cool dark of the shade. The effect is magical. Designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel, it is one of the most enjoyable spaces I’ve encountered in years.
L’État, c’est Trump
On Donald J. Trump’s long rap sheet of crimes, betrayals, obscenities, outrages, idiocies, grotesqueries, and offences against decency and good taste, one must look way, way down the list to find the man’s face on a coin.
Still, it is telling.
Next year is America’s 250th anniversary. A few weeks ago, the Treasury Department announced it intended to make the occasion and celebrate America — America, please remember, not Donald J. Trump — with a coin featuring Trump on both sides.
The White House press secretary played coy. She wasn’t sure if Trump had seen it, said the Mouth of Sauron, but she was sure he’d love it. Unlike most statements from that particular Mouth, this one is almost certainly true.
It is illegal for a living person to appear on American currency — and has been since a law was passed in 1866 — so this is a coin that conflates America and Trump, that portrays the president as a conquering Caesar, and is an opportunity to demonstrate Trump’s power by trampling yet another law. If it’s also shiny gold, it will be Trumpian perfection.
But that got me thinking. Has there ever been a living person on American currency? Google surprised me.
There is. And that person was Calvin Coolidge.
Coolidge was a dour New Englander whose style was understated in the extreme — they didn’t call him “Silent Cal” for nothing — and whose desire for power and glory was so slight he walked away from the White House in 1928 rather than accept the landslide victory he could have won merely by letting his name stand.
Picture the polar opposite of Donald Trump on every dimension you can think of. That was Calvin Coolidge.
Yet Coolidge is the only other living person to appear on American currency since 1866. And, remarkably, it happened in 1926, exactly 100 years before the yearlong Trumpfest that America will be subjected to next year.
That’s not a coincidence. That year was the 150th anniversary of the founding of the United States. So official coins were minted — with the president’s face on them.
Does that sound like precedent for what Trump is doing? Superficially, yes.
But take one look at the coin featuring Coolidge and you know it’s completely different.
On one side: the Liberty Bell. On the other: George Washington with Calvin Coolidge tucked in behind.
That is a coin that celebrates America, not the current president. Coolidge only appears to show the unbroken line of presidents to the present day. It is Washington and the Liberty Bell that are glorified. It is America that is venerated.
Now look again at the Trump coin. The only national symbol is the flag, which flaps in the background, highlighting what really matters — the towering grandiosity that is Donald J. Trump.
Two coins, one hundred years apart. Similar to the casual observer. But in reality, they could not be more different. One is the product of a republic with firm republican ideals. The other marks the intended death of that republic at the hands of a man who fancies himself Augustus Caesar.
Marx was right. The second time is farce.
Your photos today and description of Abu Dhabi Louvre are worth my subscription.
Thanks for the image from Riyadh. Things have changed since I was there in 1980-81. And thanks especially for the historical info about Coolidge and his coin for the 150th.