AdamSmith

A larf riot! As Andy Capp used to say.

Great book... https://www.amazon.com/Brand-X-Poetry-Anthology-William-Zaranka/dp/0330285092

Parodies Lost The art of making fun. Louis Menand September 13, 2010 12:00 AM https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/parodies-lost/amp

Jeff Sessions' marijuana move will backfire By Michael Chernis Michael Chernis is a Los Angeles-based attorney and expert specializing in the cannabis industry. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Jeff Sessions announced Thursday that he is rescinding the Cole memo, which reflected the Department of Justice's relatively passive policy under the Obama administration since August 2013 on enforcement of federal cannabis laws. If Sessions intended to quell the enthusiasm of California's cannabis business enthusiasts and government officials, he once again fell short. Unlike announcements from the DOJ in past years threatening to ramp up federal enforcement of the cannabis laws, this announcement was met with little more than a yawn by cannabis businesses. The harshest reaction came from local and state government officials -- in California and in other states -- who insisted that they were disappointed, concerned, and surprised by Sessions' move. Now, unlike in prior years, government officials in California and elsewhere are totally aligned with cannabis businesses in resisting the federal government's threats. In fact, the landscape has shifted so dramatically in recent years that some of the harshest critics of Sessions were senators and representatives, many of them prominent Republicans, from states with cannabis programs that generate much-needed medicine and tax revenue. They expressed outrage over this action by Sessions, claiming it belies promises he made to them before being confirmed by the Senate. As a result, Sessions has alienated many in Congress, where he can ill afford to lose any friends. Given his recusal -- apparently against President Donald Trump's wishes -- from the Russia collusion investigation, he seems to be in a vulnerable spot with the President. Trump has said that he still stands with Sessions. But the attorney general still faces allegations from Democrats, who say that he perjured himself during last year's confirmation hearings. Without protection from Republican allies in the Senate, Sessions' next appearance on Capitol Hill could be bloody. Cannabis might be the issue that undermines Sessions' already shaky support. Apart from Sessions' announcement being unpopular, it really doesn't have any teeth. The medical and legal cannabis industry has grown so big that it would be impossible to make a dent in it -- let alone stamp it out through federal enforcement. Moreover, Sessions did not actually announce that there would be a crackdown on cannabis businesses, but rather that it would be left to the discretion of the local US attorneys in the various districts to decide how and when to enforce the federal laws. This does not amount to much of a substantive change in policy, which begs the question of why Sessions bothered to make the announcement at all. The Obama administration's policy essentially left it to the individual states to regulate its respective cannabis industries provided those businesses did not engage in activities that threatened federal priorities, like serving as a cover for other illegal activity or violence. Under the Cole memo, in the past four-plus years, the already robust medical cannabis industry continued to evolve with more than half the states now allowing some form of medical cannabis use and commercial activity, and now eight states including California, Colorado, Washington and Nevada permitting recreational or adult use of recreational cannabis. Based on conversations I've had with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, there does not appear to be much of an appetite on the part of federal prosecutors to go after cannabis. And if they do, at the moment their hands are tied, at least when it comes to medical cannabis. Since 2014, the federal budget has prohibited the DOJ from using federal funds to prosecute medical cannabis businesses pursuant to a budget rider championed by US Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, a Republican who considers Sessions a "longtime friend." The Sessions' announcement was likely timed to create anxiety in California, only days after it began issuing permits for both medical and recreational cannabis businesses. California and its attorney general have been somewhat of a thorn in the side of the Trump administration, filing a number of lawsuits challenging various policies, and perhaps most significantly, allowing so-called "sanctuary cities" for undocumented immigrants. Although the spotlight seems to be on California, Colorado -- a swing state -- with a population that is dwarfed by California, has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue from its legalization of cannabis. It would be wise for Sessions to remember that cannabis businesses exist in red and purple states, too. Its investors include prominent Trump supporters like Todd Mitchem. Any real enforcement efforts would alienate this administration's base and be a political risk. For all of these reasons, there isn't much bark to Sessions' bite. And in fact, it could precipitate a legal battle with California and other states -- possibly overturning the authority of the federal government to even regulate legal cannabis businesses, an issue that has yet to be decided by the Supreme Court. That would be the ultimate irony to Sessions' move and an appropriate epitaph on his fight against cannabis. http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/07/opinions/jeff-sessions-marijuana-move-bad-for-him-chernis-opinion/index.html

Waste Paper Waste Paper by H. P. Lovecraft sister projects: data item. Horror author H. P. Lovecraft, who despised T. S. Eliot, called Eliot's poem The Waste Land "a practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general" (S. T. Joshi, A dreamer and a visionary, p. 179) and wrote "Waste Paper: A Poem Of Profound Insignificance" as a parody. — Excerpted from The Waste Land – Critical reception on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A Poem of Profound Insignificance Contents [hide] 1I 2II 3III 4IV I[edit] Out of the reaches of illimitable night The blazing planet grew, and forc'd to life Unending cycles of progressive strife And strange mutations of undying light And boresome books, than hell's own self more trite And thoughts repeated and become a blight, And cheap rum-hounds with moonshine hootch made tight, And quite contrite to see the flight of fright so bright I used to ride my bicycle in the night With a dandy acetylene lantern that cost $3.00 In the evening, by the moonlight, you can hear those darkies singing Meet me tonight - in dreamland... BAH! I used to sit on the stairs of the house where I was born After we left it but before it was sold And play on a zobo with two other boys. We called ourselves the Blackstone Military Band Won't you come home, Bill Bailey, won't you come home? In the spring of the year, in the silver rain When petal by petal the blossoms fall And the mocking birds call And the whippoorwill sings, Marguerite. The first cinema show in our town opened in 1906 At the old Olympic, which was then call'd Park, And moving beams shot weirdly thro' the dark And spit tobacco seldom hit the mark. Have you read Dickens' American Notes? My great-great-grandfather was born in a white house Under green trees in the country And he used to believe in religion and the weather. II[edit] "Shantih, shantih, shantih"..."Shanty House" Was the name of a novel by I forget whom Published serially in the "All-Story Weekly" Before it was a weekly. Advt. Disillusion is wonderful, I've been told, And I take quinine to stop a cold But it makes my ears... always... Always ringing in my ears... It is the ghost of the Jew I murdered that Christmas day Because he played "Three O'Clock in the Morning" in the flat above me... Three O'Clock in the morning, I've danc'd the whole night through Dancing on the graves in the graveyard Where life is buried; life and beauty Life and art and love and duty Ah, there, sweet cutie. Stung! Out of the night that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole I never quote things straight except by accident. Sophistication! Sophistication! You are the idol of our nation Each fellow has Fallen for jazz And we'll give the past a merry razz Thro' the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber And fellow-guestship with the glutless worm. Next stop is 57th St. - 57th St. the next stop. Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring, And the governor-general of Canada is Lord Byng Whose ancestor was shot or hung, I forget which, the good die young. Here's to your ripe old age, Copyright, 1847, by Joseph Miner, Entered according to act of Congress. III[edit] In the office of the librarian of Congress America was discovered in 1492 This way out. No, lady, you gotta change at Washington St. to the Everett train. Out in the rain on the elevated Crated, sated, all mismated. Twelve seats on this bench, How quaint. In a shady nook, beside a brook, two lovers stroll along. Express to Park Ave., Car Following. No, we had it cleaned with the sand blast. I know it ought to be torn down. Before the bar of a saloon there stood a reckless crew, When one said to another, "Jack, this message came for you." "It may be from a sweetheart, boys," said someone in the crowd, And here the words are missing... but Jack cried out aloud: "It's only a message from home, sweet home, From loved ones down on the farm Fond wife and mother, sister and brother..." Bootleggers all and you're another In the shade of the old apple tree 'Neath the old cherry tree sweet Marie The Conchologist's First Book By Edgar Allan Poe Stubbed his toe On a broken brick that didn't show Or a banana peel In the fifth reel By George Creel It is to laugh And quaff It makes you stout and hale And all my days I'll sing the praise Of Ivory Soap Have you a little T. S. Eliot in your house? IV[edit] The stag at eve had drunk his fill The thirsty hart look'd up the hill And craned his neck just as a feeler To advertise the Double-Dealer. William Congreve was a gentleman O art what sins are committed in thy name For tawdry fame and fleeting flame And everything, ain't dat a shame? Mah Creole Belle, ah lubs yo' well; Aroun' mah heart you hab cast a spell But I can't learn to spell pseudocracy Because there ain't no such word. And I says to Lizzie, if Joe was my feller I'd teach him to go to dances with that Rat, bat, cat, hat, flat, plat, fat Fry the fat, fat the fry You'll be a drug-store by and by. Get the hook! Above the lines of brooding hills Rose spires that reeked of nameless ills, And ghastly shone upon the sight In ev'ry flash of lurid light To be continued. No smoking. Smoking on four rear seats. Fare will return to 5 cents after August 1st Except outside the Cleveland city limits. In the ghoul-haunted Woodland of Weir Strangers pause to shed a tear; Henry Fielding wrote "Tom Jones" And cursed be he that moves my bones. I saw the Leonard-Tendler fight Farewell, farewell, O go to hell. Nobody home In the shantih. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Waste_Paper

The Waste Land (its key tonalities lifted entirely from Tennyson, then papered over with cartloads of High Modernist bric-a-brac) is nothing but one long late-adolescent moan about the difficulties of Getting It Up and Getting It In.

Scribblings of the artist as a young man King Bolo's swarthy bodyguard Were called the Jersey lilies A wild and hardy set of blacks Undaunted by syphilis. They wore the national uniform Of a garland of verbenas And a pair of great big hairy balls And a big black knotty penis. Old Possum's treasury of smutty verse TS Eliot's secret bawdy side is revealed in newly published poems http://www.independent.co.uk/news/old-possums-treasury-of-smutty-verse-1311139.html

Almost a Dr Seuss line!

Episode 1113: The War Doctor December 18, 2017Sam Hall, September 1970doctor who, lies, sherry, smart people,trickster She calls herself a Collins; they usually do. She says that she’s from England, by way of Pennsylvania, which is just as good of a cover story as anything else. She’s Barnabas Collins’ daughter, apparently, and she’s also Barnabas Collins’ sister, and frankly, given the chance, she’d be his wife as well. It’s complicated. So here’s Julia Hoffman, using the time-tested time-travel trick adopted by all of the horologically diverse visitors who turn up at Collinwood at haphazard intervals. If you ever find yourself in a surprising century, the formula is to knock on the nearest door and pretend you’re an ancestor. It’s easier if you’re Barnabas, of course, because then you’ve got a portrait right there in the foyer that you can use like a driver’s license. Julia doesn’t have that advantage, so she falls back on a popular strategy: blame the government. “I really meant to get in touch with all of you,” she says. “How embarrassing all this is. I did write! The posts are so bad, I only wish they were better.” If this doesn’t work, she’s going to try “fake news”, and see how far that gets her. It’s always stressful when you meet the in-laws, especially if you’re an impostor and not actually part of the family in any way, but Julia’s holding up well. Samantha seems like kind of a pushover, but Julia also has to deal with Gabriel, who’s a poisonous viper, and Gerard, who recently in the future killed a lot of her friends and burned down two houses while she was standing in them. She does fluster momentarily on sight of Gerard, but she holds it together, because if there’s one thing that Julia can do, it’s lie. Well, two things I guess, because the first one is finding her light. The second one is lie. She expected her brother Barnabas to arrive before her, she says, armed with a letter of introduction and a face that looks like a portrait. She’s a cousin from England, which is why they’ve never met before, and she’s also a cousin from Pennsylvania, which is why she doesn’t have an accent. She might also be from a couple other places that she’s holding in reserve just in case she needs them. Fortunately, she’s got an accomplice on the inside, ready to noisily believe her story, which helps put things over. Plus, accepting her alias makes this another opportunity to pass the sherry around, and nobody at Collinwood can resist that. So they raise their glasses and drink to gullibility and mail delivery, as the boom mics swirl moodily overhead, buzzing suspiciously. But it was never in doubt, really. This is Julia Hoffman, the woman who was exposed as an impostor back in April 1968 and was then issued a permanent parking space in an upstairs bedroom. If anybody knows how to talk her way into Collinwood, it’s her. Because Julia is a smart character, and they’re always welcome. She’s allowed to live perpetually onsite because she can move the plot along, in ways that the Collins family members never seem to quite manage. Smart characters can’t be put off the scent; they investigate, and get into trouble. That’s why she’s finally been upgraded to main character, and now she’s the one traveling in time. Julia is the Doctor, currently engaged in the Second Great Time War. The walking dead men have jumped forward to the future and destroyed her home planet; now the War Doctor has the awful responsibility of circling back, and destroying theirs first. Obviously, the hero can’t carry this story on her own; she needs a worthy adversary with smart-person powers of his own. There’s another mad renegade in this story: Gerard Stiles, the dark twin of the Doctor. He’s also insinuated himself into the house under an assumed name, and he can recognize a fellow mendacitist when he sees one. Gerard’s been carrying an aberrant earring around in his pocket, a careless clue that Julia dropped in the playroom a couple episodes ago. Gabriel found it and passed it on, and now Gerard is musing on the mysterious Julia Collins, when she returns to Collinwood from a suspicious early-morning walk to the cemetery. This is his opportunity for a fishing trip. “Any news from your brother?” he asks, and she says no. “You must be terribly worried about him,” he observes, and she says yes. This is the traditional opening move. Gerard: Tell me, how long has it been since you’ve seen your brother? Julia: Not since I came to America, I miss him very much. Gerard: I see. Tell me, where do you live in, uh — Pennsylvania, yes? Julia: A farm, just outside Philadelphia. I’m something of a recluse. Gerard: Ah, I hope not so much that you don’t remember the famous restaurant on Chestnut Street — Julia: I never go to the city. Gerard: Pity. You miss so much. They’re always recluses, these cross-time impostors, who have been nowhere, seen nothing, and known no one. She’s done this before. “By the way, Miss Collins,” he columbos, “I have something that belongs to you.” “Oh? What?” she asks, and then he brandishes the earring. “My –” she begins, and then catches herself. She has a split-second to come up with a recovery, which she does. Split-seconds are the appropriate unit of time, when she’s lying. “My word,” she continues. “What is it?” He says it’s an earring. “Really!” she coos, as if this is a brand new experience. “Such an unusual design!” “Isn’t it?” he retorts, and he can’t resist just the hint of a smile, as he admires a colleague’s skill. “I found this in the playroom, the night before last.” She adopts a sarcastically innocent tone of voice, signaling that she knows what he’s up to. “But I wasn’t here, why would you think it would be mine?” “Because there’s another one just like it on your dresser!” he retorts, and that’s it, he’s lost the match. This is how the Doctor operates — she provides an opening, and the monsters fall into their own traps. Now he’s giving her information, which is the opposite of how he wanted this to go. “Why were you in my room?” she snaps, and he gives away more intel. “I brought your luggage in from town,” he explains. “One like this was on your dresser. Now, this can’t be a coincidence, can it, Miss Collins?” He paces toward her, and grabs her arm. “Now, tell me,” he thunders, “who are you, and what do you want here?” She makes a face that leads into a cliffhanger, but she’s clearly winning on points. He’s answering more questions than she is, and he’s the first to raise his voice. And then he just keeps telling her every fact that he knows. Observe the technique. Julia: What right have you to question me? Gerard: Would you prefer Gabriel Collins to do it? He was the one who found the earring. He’s as interested in this as I am. Daniel Collins says there was a woman in the room, the night the earring was found. Now, was it you? That’s two more pieces of information that he’s given up, for zero of hers. Julia is amazing at this. Julia: I arrived this evening, you know that. I’m not accustomed to strangers doubting my word. Gerard: When Gabriel showed me this, I had a feeling that it belonged to a woman who did not dress as a woman ought to do. Julia: You’re a psychic, too? Gerard: Not professionally. And oh my god, dude, get it together. Julia’s using the greatest trick in the impostor arsenal: invoking social norms to make her challenger uncomfortable. “What right have you to question me?” and “I’m not accustomed to strangers doubting my word” are specifically designed to remind him that she outranks him. She might as well call him an upstart. And then she pulls out that irritatingly disarming crocodile smile, which is the last thing you see before the Hand of Omega wipes out your homeworld. “Well, whatever your interests,” she needles, “I can answer your questions about the earring very easily.” He just stands there, stiffening as he waits for the banana cream pie to fly into his face. “It was on the bureau when I went into the room.” And that’s it. The game is over. “Nobody has been into that room since all the time I’ve been here,” he says, “and that’s been several months.” But his heart isn’t in it; he knows what’s just happened. “I meant to call it to Mrs. Collins’ attention,” she says, and then gives a little chuckle designed to stab him directly in the heart. “But you can do that now.” She cocks her head, and does a victory lap. “There’s no way of telling how long it’s been there, is there?” “No, there isn’t,” he says, and he wants to exterminate her, more than he’s ever wanted anything before. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to solve the little mystery yourself,” she chirps. “We will solve it,” he vows, “and soon.” And then he takes the long walk upstairs, wondering if he knows anyone who could get their hands on a reality bomb. Tomorrow: The Unshakeable. Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for: Julia tells Ben, “I was hoping to see you, so that I could hear more stories about Father, when he was young. My brother and I used to listen to how Collinwood was, then.” The mic cuts out at the end of Gerard’s line: “I’m afraid I’m only interested in — [the living].” Gerard says, “No, Leticia — I’ve learned to recognize that peculiar look she gets in her eye whenever she wants to — whenever she wants to see me.” Besides the flub, how could Gerard see the look that Flora gets when she wants to see him? If he sees it, then she’s seeing him already. Barnabas tells Stokes, “She opened the door, and the stairs was there.” Tomorrow: The Unshakeable. Dark Shadows episode guide

Did Jeff Sessions Just Increase the Odds Congress Will Make Marijuana Legal? The attorney general has created intolerable uncertainty for a growing industry that is now demanding legal protections from Congress. And lawmakers are listening. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/06/jeff-sessions-marijuana-legalization-congress-216251?lo=ap_a1

LMMFAO!!! ...as it were.

Reading more about said Lambert Chaumont, Fenner Douglass's evil genius overwhelms me! Chaumont, from his musical background, is likely the one musician of all time whose ideas and insights about temperament could have let Fenner direct Dirk to architect an instrument capable of performing with fidelity not only the high North German repertoire, but then also the early Spanish Baroque works -- and then, all but impossibly! -- all the great early French Romantic compositions as well.Lordy! To quote Comey. https://message-forum.net/threads/the-organ.117576/page-40#post-1321231

Episode 343: The Apparatus March 5, 2014Joe Caldwell, October 1967apparatus, blood, hope, love triangle, mad science Okay, now we’re talking. Right out of the gate today, the first thing we see: dark red liquid bubbling in a glass jar. It’s connected with tubes and wires to a bunch of other equipment, and there’s a grinding motor noise that indicates that there’s some kind of complicated machinery at work. Backing up a step, we see Dr. Julia Hoffman in a pale blue lab coat, squinting at equipment and making adjustments. She’s in a basement room, with brick walls, exposed timbers and huge cobwebs. The doctor uses a pair of tongs to grab chunks of dry ice, and she drops them into a huge bubbling cauldron. That cauldron is full of more dark red liquid. It’s a bubbling cauldron of blood. This is mad science, we’re actually watching mad science. And it’s about damn time. They’ve been sitting on this “finding a cure for the vampire” story for a month, just letting it simmer in the background while Barnabas and Julia dealt with one manufactured crisis after another. We spent all that time arguing in the drawing room, and there was a bubbling cauldron of blood downstairs that we didn’t even know about. Barnabas walks into the room, and Julia turns off the motor. He objects. Barnabas: Why did you do that? It was magnificent! Julia: I only wanted to test it. Barnabas: Well, obviously, it works! And he’s right — if it’s bubbling and making a noise, then that means it works. He must have taken an elective in mad science. Julia: No, there are still a few details to fix. Barnabas: But you explained to me previously that it only needed a test to prove that the acids had activated. Well, I’d say that you’ve succeeded admirably… as you always do. And he’s right, it is magnificent. Just look at it, bubbling away. Acids are activating all over the place. But Julia isn’t happy; she doesn’t want to go on with the experiments anymore. She’s done. The other day, she helped Barnabas kill Dr. Woodard, because Woodard had learned about these experiments. A first murder can rattle anyone. But it’s too late to turn back; he’s already got a speech prepared. Barnabas: I’m sorry, but you’ve given me one irretrievable gift… hope. He walks a few steps, and strikes a pose. Barnabas: The hope of becoming human again. The hope of being able to love, and not destroy. Even the hope itself is a hint of what it must be like to be a human being. I love this scene. Remember what I said the other day about Joe Caldwell being a great writer? He’s writing four of the episodes this week. Yesterday was the obligatory useless law enforcement episode that they still think they need to have after a murder, but the rest of the week is this: Melodramatic speeches about what it means to be human, delivered by a vampire in his secret basement laboratory. It’s an impossible scheme, really — to take the psychopath who took obvious pleasure in cold-blooded murder only two episodes ago, and guide him through a moral reboot that will make him the hero of the show. But maybe there’s a science behind this madness after all. Barnabas: If I can love and not destroy, surely forgiveness can be found. Julia: For what you’ve done? Barnabas: Perhaps not. But let me love first, as a human being loves, and if there’s still no forgiveness, well, let me take the punishment… not as a monster, but as a man. And that’s the point, really, that he’s got a desire to change. That’s not quite the same thing as remorse, but it’s pointing in the right direction. Then he walks over to the huge bucket of bubbling blood, and says, “I wonder what I’ll be like, as a human being?” And you can just feel the acids activating. Over at Collinwood, Vicki and Burke are having another little quarrel about where they’re going to live when they get married. They’ve been doing a lot of this lately. She doesn’t want to quit her governess job and leave David right now, because he’s become emotionally disturbed, and he needs her. Vicki and Burke have had a series of conversations about this, and they don’t seem to be getting anywhere. It usually looks like they’ve reached some kind of understanding by the end of a given episode, but the next time we see them, they’re back at it. This is what they do now. But there’s a larger agenda at work here. Vicki and Burke can stay trapped in this little circular argument for as long as they like, because ultimately the writers aren’t invested in helping them work it out. This is a soap opera, and what really matters is the love triangle, an experimental apparatus lashed together with tubes and wires, connecting a tangle of loose storylines. On their own, Burke and Vicki don’t generate a lot of heat. She’s young and pretty and not very bright; he’s wealthy and he wants to marry her. They have no obstacles in their way, and they’ve spent the last several weeks trying to determine which enormous mansion they’ll move into after the wedding. But when you get a third party involved, there’s a chance for some interesting chemistry. Unfortunately, the Burke/Vicki/Barnabas triangle was pretty comprehensively nerfed more than a month ago. Vicki told Burke to stop being suspicious of Barnabas, Burke gave in, and the storyline just kind of rolled over and died. But it turns out that wasn’t the real love triangle after all. Burke’s about to be taken off the board, and the real triangle is Barnabas, Vicki and Julia. That situation has a lot more potential, because Julia has a hypnotic medallion, several terrifying secrets, and a bubbling bucket of blood. Chaos will ensue. Like any mad science experiment, it’s hard to say exactly how the love triangle is going to end up. But it bubbles and it makes noise, and that’s a good place to start. Let’s chuck some more dry ice in there, and see what happens. Tomorrow: Haunted. Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for: At the start of the first scene, while Julia is adjusting her equipment, someone in the studio has a loud coughing fit. When they come back from the titles, it sounds like Barnabas and Julia started the scene too early. Barnabas begins the scene by saying, “Nonsense! You’ve done nothing but take chances,” which doesn’t relate to anything. This has happened a few times since episode 333, when a scene started while Dr. Woodard was halfway through the word “-peared”. They need to get a handle on the timing. When Barnabas brings up Woodard’s murder, Julia says, “I didn’t kill anyone.” Barnabas is supposed to say, “You handed the hypodermic needle to me,” but he messes up the rhythm of the line. He puts stress on the wrong end of the sentence, so it comes out as “You handed the hypodermic needle to me,” which doesn’t mean anything. As you can see in the picture above, there’s a huge boom mic shadow obscuring Julia’s face during the entire terrace scene. It’s still there every time they cut to her reaction. Alone on the terrace, Julia is supposed to be startled by a ghost, which appears and vanishes using a Chromakey effect. But they mess up the timing, so Julia turns around and screams after the ghost has already come and gone. Behind the Scenes: Peter Murphy plays the ghost of Dr. Woodard here, silently gesturing to Julia on the terrace. Murphy started on the show a couple weeks ago, as the recast for the crazy old Caretaker. We’ll see him again next week, standing in for Burke in Vicki’s dream. Tomorrow: Haunted.

Episode 342: Shadow of the Bat March 4, 2014Joe Caldwell, October 1967bat signal, fashion, incompetence, police futility, recast, the supernatural You know, we’ve been spending a lot of time with the monsters lately; we should probably check in with the good guys while we still have some. Yesterday, Barnabas and Julia murdered Dr. Dave Woodard, because he’d found Julia’s notebook that described her efforts to cure Barnabas of being a vampire. Julia prepared a hypodermic with a drug that would make it look like Woodard had a heart attack. She chickened out at the last minute, but Barnabas jammed the needle into Woodard’s arm, and the doctor died. This has caused a great deal of inconvenience for everyone, because earlier in the evening, Woodard had called Sheriff Patterson, and made an appointment to share some important evidence. So now the Sheriff is wondering whether Woodard was killed to conceal that evidence. Naturally, this raises an important question, namely: Why do you need to make an appointment to bring the Sheriff crucial evidence about an unsolved murder and kidnapping? What else was on his schedule today? Sam was with the Sheriff when he found Woodard’s body, and now he has to tell his daughter what happened. Enter Maggie, wearing an incredibly inappropriate skirt. Now, when I say it’s inappropriate, I mean several things. For one thing, this is a fairly grim scene, and that’s not an outfit that expresses “sympathy for your loss in these trying times.” It’s also inappropriate for her age, her body type, her social class, her IQ and her character arc. But most of all, it’s not a good thing to be wearing in a television studio when the cameras are turned on. So the question is: What does Maggie’s skirt mean? It can’t mean that she’s glad Woodard is dead, because Sam hasn’t told her yet, and when he does, she seems pretty broken up about it. Sam: It just looked like he’d fallen asleep, that’s all… only his eyes were open. Maggie: Pop, maybe he died a natural death. Sam: A man doesn’t call and make a special appointment to see the Sheriff and then just die by natural causes. He just doesn’t! I guess I can understand the skepticism. Personally, I don’t have a lot of rules about what people do after they make special appointments, but Sam does, and I have to respect that. Maggie is uneasy, because they’re still not sure what happened to her while she was abducted. Willie has been blamed for the crime, but Maggie is still unable to remember what happened for all those months. Sam says, “Listen, I told you not to think about that. You just forget about the whole thing,” which given the circumstances is kind of insensitive. Sam remembers that he saw Woodard with a little red notebook earlier in the evening, and if it’s gone, then that may be a clue to what happened. Maggie doesn’t want him to go out — she’s scared that her kidnapper might still be at large — but he insists that he has to go. I don’t blame him; I wouldn’t want to stay in the house with that skirt either. It might go off, and hurt somebody. Sam goes to Woodard’s office, where he meets a man claiming to be Sheriff Patterson. He’s another recast; this is actually the third Sheriff Patterson we’ve seen in the last three weeks. They’re burning through the cops these days. I don’t have a lot of good things to say about Patterson’s outfit, either. I know, I’m being super shallow today, but look at those pants. I’m only human. Anyway, focusing on the fashion is helping to take my mind off the dialogue. There’s nothing that’s particularly bad about it, but this is one of those episodes where people stand around speculating, and the audience is fully aware that they don’t have the essential information that they’d need to figure out whodunit. These “police futility” episodes are an important staple of the conventional soap opera structure, where a crime is always followed by several weeks of inconclusive law enforcement. This helps to reassure the audience that our society is founded on principles of justice and order, and it also fills up time while the writers figure out what to do next. The Dark Shadows writing team hasn’t figured out yet that it’s okay to skip the pointless police investigations, and just go on to the next werewolf attack. They’ll get there eventually. Then we get one of those Dark Shadows moments that’s so breathtakingly incompetent that it makes you wonder how they ever manage to do anything else. To set the scene, I’m not entirely clear where the hell this is. Sam and the Sheriff are currently standing on the set that represents Dr. Woodard’s office. Previous episodes have established that this room is in the Collinsport Hospital, especially when Maggie was kidnapped from the hospital. However, in a later episode when Julia brought Maggie to Woodard’s office, they made a point of saying that the office was in Woodard’s house, because they were pretending that Maggie was dead, and she would have been recognized if she was in the hospital. And in yesterday’s episode, Sheriff Patterson was standing in this room when he picked up the phone and said, “Operator, give me the hospital.” So maybe this really is Dr. Woodard’s house. Oh, except there’s a sign on the door that says “David Woodard, M.D.” which I don’t think you would have in your own house, and also if it’s his house, then who let them in? But whatever. Anyway, Patterson and Sam are in this room, wherever it is, and Patterson hears footsteps approaching down the hall. He turns the lights out, and waits as the approaching visitor knocks on the door. The door opens, and Patterson draws his gun, snapping, “Stand right where you are!” Then he recognizes that it’s Burke, and asks, “What are you doing here?” And he just keeps on pointing the gun at Burke’s midsection. So, there’s your challenge: Make sense of that scene. If this is the hospital, then why is Patterson suspicious of somebody walking down the hall? If this is Woodard’s house, then how did Burke get in? And in any case, why does Patterson need to draw his gun, when as far as he knows, this isn’t even a crime scene? It’s a nice reminder, in the middle of all the supernatural shenanigans, that conventional soap opera scenecraft already exists at a sharp left turn from reality. Compared to this scene, the vampire stuff is practically a documentary. The ensuing conversation is basically a pageant of Great Moments in Forensic Science, which includes the following statements: #1.) “All right, forget the facts. I’ll settle for a few suspicions.” #2.) “A man like Dave Woodard doesn’t just sit down and die!” #3.) “Are you trying to tell me that Dave might have died of supernatural causes?” And while they’re having this conversation, at the window we see the silhouette of a large bat, hovering in place in exactly the way that bats don’t. Nobody in the room notices the bat, so the implication is that Barnabas is eavesdropping on the conversation, in bat form. I’m not going to be able to tie all this up, by the way. Some days, I can pull some kind of insight out of the episode, and some days I can’t, and this is one of the can’t days. It just keeps stumbling along, from one scene to the next, with no particular focus. Once the autopsy is complete, the Sheriff calls Sam and tells him that Dr. Woodard died of a heart attack, and there’s no evidence of anything other than natural causes. Apparently, they didn’t notice that he had a puncture wound in his bicep, but autopsies are funny that way. The end. Tomorrow: The Apparatus. Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for: Sam has some pronoun trouble in his conversation with Maggie: Sam: The red book, it was gone! Maggie: Maybe he just put it away. Sam: Well, if it is, then we’ll find it. Also, Sheriff Patterson doesn’t know how to pronounce the word “autopsy” correctly. He puts the stress on the second syllable. Behind the Scenes: The recast Sheriff Patterson is played by Angus Cairns, who only appeared in two episodes — yesterday’s and today’s. This is Cairns’ only screen credit, but he had a long career on Broadway, playing mostly ensemble and understudy roles, going back to 1938. This is the last time we see Sheriff Patterson for seven months — he’ll appear next in episode 505, in late May 1968. At that point, he’ll be played by Vince O’Brien, who we saw filling in as Patterson a few weeks ago, in episode 328. Tomorrow: The Apparatus. Dark Shadows episode guide – 1967

Episode 292: I Know Who’s Dead December 24, 2013August 1967, Gordon Russellcasper, ectoplasm, idiot, the house,the supernatural Okay, let’s see where we are. Yesterday, Dr. Julia Hoffman — the noted blood specialist and dangerous lunatic — managed to convince a vampire that she should hang out in his haunted mansion and purge his arterial system. She seems to feel that somehow this will be beneficial for humankind, and who’s going to argue with her? Well, I guess Dr. Woodard will. It’s been a whole two episodes since the last time he came over and said sensible things to Julia, and here he is again. Apparently he thinks that it’s “unethical” for Julia to abandon her patient, Maggie, in the middle of a very delicate and intense course of treatment. He’s right, of course. In fact, we learned yesterday that Julia is planning to ensure that Maggie’s amnesia will be permanent, in order to protect the monster who abused her. Unfortunately, if Woodard succeeds in getting Julia to take more responsibility for Maggie’s treatment, then the story gets less interesting. So, on behalf of the entire audience, I would like to shake his hand, tell him he’s one hundred percent correct, pin a medal on him, and then send him out to play in traffic. But as we’ve seen, Julia can talk her way out of anything. In this case, she chooses the most fiendish weapon in the liar’s arsenal. She tells him the truth. Julia: I believe that Maggie Evans came face to face with the supernatural, in a way that frightened her beyond anything you or I can understand. I can’t convince her that what terrified her doesn’t exist, because I know it does exist! Woodard: Are you, a scientist, telling me that the supernatural exists? By the way, yes, they call it “the supernatural”, and then they just carry on as if that’s a single specific thing that you can have a conversation about. Apparently “the supernatural” is the new “the past”. Along the way, Julia picks up a scary new tactic. Julia: If I’m right — medicine is about to break through the ultimate barrier between life and death. You realize that the doctors who helped make that breakthrough will go down in history. Woodard: Between… life and death? Julia: Dave, when you were in medical school, didn’t you dream of making some major contribution? Well, that could happen now, for both of us. Woodard: But Julia, I’ve got to know a great deal more than I know now! Julia: And you will! I’ll tell you, because I need your skill and knowledge, to help see me through. Woodard: Well, I’ll help you any way that I can. It’s fantastic. She could get him to do anything. So that’s another mark in the win column for the monsters. Meanwhile, David’s playing in the woods, and guess who he runs into? The supernatural. It’s just sitting there, crying. This is the ghost of Sarah Collins, who we haven’t seen for a couple weeks. She’s the vampire’s kid sister, and she befriended Maggie when Barnabas was holding her prisoner. Now, Maggie’s hidden away in a sanitarium, and everybody thinks that she’s dead. David asks why Sarah’s crying, and she says she’s lost her friend. Sarah: Her name was Maggie. She’s lost, and I miss her. David: Well, Sarah, I’m sorry that you miss her so much, but… if it’s Maggie we’re looking for, well, we better not look any more. Here, why don’t you help me look for different kinds of leaves? Personally, I’ve never tried that specific method of cheering up a grieving person, so for all I know, maybe it works. I’ll try it out and let you know how it goes. Sarah asks why she should stop looking for Maggie, and David breaks it to her that Maggie’s dead. Sarah chuckles. David: What are you laughing about? Sarah: She isn’t dead at all! She’s just lost! David: Everyone else says she’s dead. Sarah: Well, everyone else is wrong. David: How can you be so sure? Sarah: You know about leaves and everything. Well, I know who’s dead, and who isn’t. So that’s that. Sarah seems to have some kind of weird ghost sense that’s shorting out at the moment: “Sometimes I almost know where she is, but then it all fades away, and I begin to cry again.” I could probably come up with some kind of crackpot theory to explain how her ghost senses work, but really they’re just making it up to fit whatever’s convenient for the episode. And that’s how “the supernatural” works. So all of that is rather far-fetched, but it’s practically a documentary compared to what happens next. Julia and Burke are talking in the Collinwood foyer when all of a sudden Vicki bursts through the door and announces, “The most wonderful thing has happened. I’m in love.” Burke has been dating Vicki for several months, so at this point I guess nothing fazes him; he just stands there and asks her what the hell she’s talking about. And she says, “It’s with a house. I found the most enchanting old house in the world — it’s on the end of the North Road, by the sea. I must have passed it hundreds of times, only this is the first time I’d ever really noticed it. Burke, it’s like it was just waiting there. Just for me.” Okay, let’s do a quick review of Vicki’s financial affairs. Victoria Winters: Left at a foundling home as a baby. Apparently not adopted. Left the orphanage a year ago, when she became a live-in governess for a ten-year-old boy who appears to be doing his Introduction to Botany homework with a ghost. In other words: She lives in a mansion, but she has exactly no money. She’s probably renting the clothes she’s wearing right now. So while admittedly I don’t have any specific data at my fingertips about the Maine real estate market during the summer of 1967, I’m pretty sure she can’t afford a house, no matter how they may feel about each other. She goes on. Burke: Vicki, what’s this house like? Vicki: The house is very old. It faces onto the sea. In fact, it’s almost part of the sea. And there it sits, like a dowager queen, waiting for the ocean to bring her beautiful gifts from all over the world. Spoiler alert: She’s going to keep talking about this house for the rest of the week, and on into next week. This will take the place of what otherwise would be an interesting television show. Vicki: It was wonderful. Finding it, and standing there, and listening to the sea, and feeling that I really belonged there. And the house knew it. And the sea knew it. And I knew it, too, and we were all very happy there together. It’s awful, and depressing. We’ve been having so much fun lately, with Julia and Barnabas and the supernatural. And now this idiot girl runs onto the screen, babbling about some random house that she can’t afford, and the show comes to a complete stop. There’s a whole other scene after this, about David bringing Sarah back to the house, but she disappears before anyone else sees her. It turns into another Snuffleupagus sequence, except she left her bonnet behind on the floor. But why bother? Vicki’s in love with a house. Apparently that’s a plot point. Tomorrow: Untouched. Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for: When David leads Sarah into Collinwood, he doesn’t shut the front doors all the way, and you can see a gap between the two doors. Everyone who touches the doors today seems to have some kind of trouble; at one point, Vicki has to slam them shut. Behind the Scenes: This is the first episode written by Gordon Russell. Over the next few months, two of the show’s three writers will be replaced. Joe Caldwell and Malcolm Marmorstein will leave, and are replaced by Gordon Russell, and Sam Hall, who starts with episode 357. Russell and Hall become a writing team that takes them through the end of this series, and then on to another soap opera, One Life to Live. Tomorrow: Untouched. Dark Shadows episodåe guide – 1967

Dark Shadows Every Day The 1960s vampire soap opera, one episode a day. Episode 291: The Alchemist December 23, 2013August 1967, Malcolm Marmorsteinalchemy, backacting, dracula,fly, strangling, turning point In Friday’s episode, Julia baited Barnabas into coming to her room to strangle her. But she knew he was coming, and waited quietly in the corner. Now she steps into the moonlight, and delivers some absolutely explosive dialogue. Julia: I know what you are. You’re Barnabas Collins — the only Barnabas Collins, who died over a hundred and thirty years ago. Barnabas: That’s an absurd statement. Julia: Don’t try to deny it. I’ve investigated you thoroughly, and I’ve seen you in your coffin. Barnabas: You realize that such knowledge puts you in great danger. Julia: Well, of course. That’s why I took the precaution of putting a dummy in the bed. Which is an unbelievably badass thing to say. Whenever someone asks you for an example of why Dark Shadows is the most surprising and therefore the greatest television show of all time, you can direct them to this scene. (Note: There is a very good chance that nobody will ever ask you this question. But it’s good to be prepared, just in case.) Of course, because this is Dark Shadows, the sublime takes a hairpin turn toward the ridiculous within forty-five seconds. Barnabas backs Julia up against a bedpost and snarls, “What is it you want?” Gasping, she answers, “You.” With fire in his eyes, the vampire growls, “I don’t know what you mean, but it doesn’t matter. Because… I am going… to KILL YOU! Miss Hoffman.” And then he stands there and glares at her. There’s a bit of an awkward pause, because he’s supposed to be strangling her, and he forgot. Apparently, if you want Jonathan Frid to start strangling somebody, you need to write START STRANGLING HER on the teleprompter. So Grayson Hall — who will basically spend the next four years of her career as a backup teleprompter for Jonathan Frid — reaches over with her left hand and tugs at his wrist, to remind him that he’s supposed to be grabbing her throat. He takes the hint, and the scene continues. Now her problem is how to get him to stop strangling her, so she tells him that she’s a doctor, and she makes him a surprising offer — he doesn’t have to live this life. Naturally, he’s stunned. Julia: I’ve spent my lifetime studying conditions such as yours. Barnabas: How could you have done this? Have there been others like myself? Julia: No. You’re the only one I’ve encountered. That’s why you’re so important to me, that’s why I need you. Barnabas: Need me? Julia: From the time I entered medical school, I’ve been fascinated by the relationship of life to death. I believe that one is a continuance of the other, and that someday they will merge, and that life will not terminate. That day is close at hand, now that I’ve found you. People often describe Dark Shadows as if it was only the sum of its influences — you mix together Jane Eyre, Dracula, The Telltale Heart and The Turn of the Screw, apply heat, serve for five years. But as far as I know, this plot point is completely original to Dark Shadows. Stumbling along from day to day, groping for some way to extend the vampire storyline, the Dark Shadows writers have come up with a bizarre, laughable and utterly brilliant idea. So: get ready for the science. Barnabas: What is this… theory of yours? Julia: Whole blood is insufficient to sustain you. That’s why you constantly have to replenish your supply. Barnabas: If I were to permit you… what would you do? Julia relaxes, shifting into the confident tone of a lecturer. She’s got him hooked now, and she knows it. Julia: Well, the basis of your problem is the destructive nature of your blood cells. There’s an imbalance which causes more cells to be destroyed than replaced. My objective then, is to alter the cellular structure of your blood, by introducing a new plasma into your arterial system. Barnabas: You begin to intrigue me, Dr. Hoffman. You begin to intrigue me very much. Yeah, no kidding. This is one of those moments where you can’t wait for them to come back from the commercial break because who knows what the hell they’re going to say next. Barnabas takes Julia over to the Old House, where they can talk about crackpot science without worrying about being overheard by a sensible person. They give Willie an update. Barnabas: Willie! Dr. Hoffman will be spending some time here. Willie: Doctor…? Barnabas: Yes. Dr. Hoffman has fooled us all. She’s been investigating us very carefully. Willie: Has she? Barnabas: Yes, she knows everything. Willie: Well, what’s gonna happen? Barnabas: That remains to be seen. You see, Dr. Hoffman is a very… unique doctor. So, here’s a question: What kind of a doctor is Dr. Julia Hoffman? She started out as a “blood specialist”, but she’s also been treating Maggie with hypnosis, to help her uncover repressed memories of her abuse. She has quickly moved beyond even the catch-all expertise of the TV doctor, and become kind of a cross between a mad scientist and a sorceress. Going back to the literary influences for a moment, the character that she most resembles is Professor Van Helsing from Dracula. In Bram Stoker’s novel, Jonathan Seward describes Van Helsing as “a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day; and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind.” That “open mind” is key, because for both Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Hoffman, the boundaries of medical science are too limited to understand and deal with the vampire menace. This “condition” is partly a physical one, which can be described in terms of flesh and blood. But it’s also a spiritual failure, a moral lapse which drives well-bred gentlemen to give in to their appetites for blood and sex and a general deflowering of the innocent. So Barnabas isn’t sure what to make of Julia’s mind-opening offer. He flip-flops several times during the episode, vacillating between hope and fear. While Julia is in the basement, picking out a room to use as a laboratory, Barnabas talks things over with Willie. Willie: You’re gonna kill her? Barnabas: I’m afraid I’ll have to. I went to her room tonight with that intention, but she anticipated me, was waiting for me. I planned to bring the body back here — but now, she’s made that so much easier for me. Willie: She told me what she was gonna do. The kind of experiment she was gonna make. Well, what about that, Barnabas? Can she really cure you? Barnabas: I don’t really know. But this isn’t really an “experiment”, is it? Julia said that Barnabas is the only individual with this condition that she’s ever encountered. There’s no control group, no accumulation of data. She hasn’t even examined Barnabas yet. She’s diagnosed him and devised a complicated treatment plan, based entirely on an analysis of Maggie’sblood. Here’s how she describes the first steps of her plan: Julia: The first thing I have to do is purge your entire arterial system. There won’t be any discomfort, and there won’t be any aftereffects. Now, I think I’ve done enough for one day. So that sounds simple enough, right? “I have to purge your entire arterial system.” Why would you imagine that might cause discomfort? Patients are such crybabies sometimes. Clearly, we’ve left actual medical science far behind, and entered the realm of alchemy. In the Middle Ages, alchemy was both a proto-science and a philosophical tradition, based on the idea that achieving material perfection — for example, turning lead into gold — was the key to spiritual and moral perfection. If you look at her plan as a metaphor — and that’s the only way you can look at it, because medically it’s nonsense — then “purging the arterial system” is another way of saying that she’s going to cleanse him of his destructive and antisocial impulses. Her plan to “introduce a new plasma” is basically a spiritual reawakening, the redemption of the antihero. So Barnabas’ indecision about Julia’s plan is ultimately a moral and spiritual question. Is there enough human empathy left in his undead heart? Can he learn to trust, and to feel? Okay, that’s a no. He grabs her by the throat, and tells her once again that I am going to — KILL you! But she’s got one more ace up her sleeve, and she chokes out: “Maggie Evans!” Barnabas: She’s alive? Julia: And well hidden. Barnabas: What has she said? Julia: Nothing specific as yet. I traced you through my own deductions. At present, she’s suffering from traumatic amnesia. But eventually, she will recover. And then she’ll tell everything she knows. So with that, it seems like Julia has all the ingredients that she needs to transmute Barnabas’ lead heart into gold, and lead him to a new understanding of empathy and human connection. Or… maybe not. Barnabas: But she’ll do that whether you’re alive or dead. Julia: No, she won’t. Because if I’m alive, I will be in charge of her treatment. And I can see to it that her amnesia… remains permanent. Okay, so she’s not perfect either. This might get a little complicated. Tomorrow: I Know Who’s Dead. Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for: Barnabas has the ring on his left hand again, so it’ll be in shot when he’s got Julia up against the bedpost. Barnabas tells Willie, “My existence may not have been what it should be, but at least I have permanence.” (The sensible way to say that would be: “My existence may not be what it should have been.”) Julia tells Barnabas that Maggie hasn’t said anything about him yet: “I traced her — traced you through my own deductions.” Barnabas tells Julia, “I have re-evalued our relationship, and I have come to the conclusion that it is not possible to trust you.” He means re-evaluated. While Barnabas is telling Willie that he can’t trust Dr. Hoffman, a fly settles on his forehead. When Julia enters the scene, Barnabas takes a little swat at the fly. It flies away for a second, and then comes back and settles on his cheek. https://darkshadowseveryday.com/2013/12/23/episode-291/

Or maybe...

And KABOOM! 'Bannon may already be cooperating with Mueller': tell-all book shifts frame of Russia inquiry In Fire and Fury, Steve Bannon is specific about what he regards as the most dangerous aspect of the investigation: Jared Kushner’s ties to Deutsche Bank One of the many telling vignettes in Michael Wolff’s book is the sight of Steve Bannon, then White House chief strategist, pacing the West Wing, openly dispensing odds on Donald Trump’s chances of surviving in office. Bannon gave Trump a probability of a third that he might limp to the finish line because of Democratic incompetence; a third that he would be pushed from office under the 25th amendment on grounds of mental incapability; and a third that he would be impeached. That a man who was for many months Trump’s right-hand man would brazenly give out such doom-laden predictions is remarkable enough. But letting the world know of it via Wolff could make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. The most explosive aspect of Bannon’s take, revealed by Fire and Fury, is Trump’s handling – or rather mishandling – of the Russia investigation that rages around him. Assuming Wolff’s account to be accurate (and Bannon has said nothing so far to suggest otherwise) the former chief strategist considered Trump entirely out of his depth with regard to special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into possible links between Russia and the Trump team. On a practical level, Trump did not have the “discipline to navigate a tough investigation”, Wolff writes, nor the savvy to bring on powerful lawyers. Most seriously, Trump was, in Bannon’s estimation, unable to grasp “how much Mueller had on him and his family”. “He doesn’t necessarily see what’s coming,” Bannon is quoted as saying. We now know from the Guardian’s account of excerpts of the book that Bannon believes the June 2016 meeting between Trump’s son and Russians bearing promises of dirt on Hillary Clinton to have been “treasonous”. We also know that Bannon puts the chances of Donald Jr failing to have informed his father of the encounter at “zero”. That is not evidence that would satisfy as meticulous a prosecutor as Mueller, but it does shift the frame of the Russia inquiry. Trump may try to belittle Bannon’s involvement with his campaign and subsequent time in the White House, scoffing that he had “little to do with our historic victory”, but few will buy that. “Bannon was an insider in the campaign at the highest level, and in the White House all the way to last August,” said Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under George W Bush. “He was talking to the president constantly – I can’t imagine Trump not confiding in him, including over the Russia inquiry.” That in turn raises the possibility that Bannon might cooperate. Certainly, there is no love lost between him and Trump family members, notably the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. “Bannon may already be cooperating with Mueller for all we know,” Painter said. “He has no incentive to cover up for Trump, or his family members.” Play Video 1:18 Fire and Fury: Key explosive quotes from the new Trump book - video All of which increases the significance of Bannon’s interpretation of the Russia investigation as it reaches possibly critical stages. Where he places his focus is clear from the book: the financial doings of Trump and his immediate family. When Trump gave an interview to the New York Times last July in which he warned Mueller not to delve into his family’s finances, Bannon’s response was scathing. Wolff writes: “‘Ehhh … ehhh … ehhh!’ screeched Bannon, making the sound of an emergency alarm. ‘Don’t look here! Let’s tell a prosecutor what not to look at!’” Bannon is specific about what he regards as the most dangerous aspect of the Mueller inquiry: “It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They’re going to go right through that.” Last month it was revealed that federal prosecutors are looking into Kushner’s ties to Deutsche Bank. Those ties include the $285m borrowed from a bank which has been implicated in Russian money-laundering scandals to refinance his holding of part of the old New York Times building in Manhattan. Last July, the Guardian disclosed that Kushner bought the property from a Soviet-born oligarch whose company was named in a high-profile New York money-laundering case. “Watch Kushner” and “watch Deutsche Bank” seem to be two of the takeaways from this extraordinary chapter in an exceptional presidency. The book also gives an account of events on board Air Force One, in which a misleading public statement was prepared to explain the Don Jr meeting in Trump Tower with the Russians. As was previously known, Trump took control of the statement, insisting the meeting was exclusively about the adoption of Russian children. In fact, the Russian contingent offered incriminating intelligence on Clinton, a crucial detail that was not mentioned but which became quickly public after the email chain involving Don Jr was released. Wolff gives a more complete rendition, again assuming the accuracy of his account. He writes that the entire White House communications team was relegated to the back of the plane while Trump was up front composing a public statement that could be construed as an attempted cover-up, exposing the president to legal peril. “It used to hurt my feelings when I saw them running around doing things that were my job,” Sean Spicer, the then White House director of communications, is quoted as saying. “Now I’m glad to be out of the loop.” The person who remained in the loop was Hope Hicks, currently a successor of Spicer’s as communications chief. Bannon is said by Wolff to have seen Hicks as “nothing more than a hapless presidential enabler” and flunky for “Jarvanka” – Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka. In the fallout from the Trump Tower meeting and false statement, Wolff reports a fight between Bannon and Hicks in the cabinet room. “You don’t know what you are doing,” Bannon is said to have shouted. “You don’t know how much trouble you are in … You are as dumb as a stone!” The pair, Wolff writes, never spoke to each other again. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/04/trump-russia-steve-bannon-book-robert-mueller