After spending the day immersed in the Trumpickle, I wanted to move to a different universe, so I started reading Paris in the Fifties by Stanley Karnow, the stories of his years there as a TIME magazine journalist.

I didn’t get very far, because everything was so interesting.

Karnow went to Europe in 1949, after his Harvard graduation. He thought he was going for the summer, but wound up staying much longer. I read the first 40 pages, stopping continually to learn more about what he was describing.

For instance, Rotterdam, where his ship landed. It looked like this:

When I first visited Rotterdam in 1962, it was the most modern city I had ever seen. There was no hint, or at least I had no idea, of the war damage.

After Karnow settled in a student hotel in Paris, he and his college roommate went on a road trip. One place they went was the Loire Valley, where they visited a few of the hundreds of chateaus. One was Chambourg:

I have never been to the Loire Valley. I thought I knew what I was missing. Now I realize I had no clue.

They also went to Prague, where it was still not clear that Czechoslovakia would wind up fully behind the Iron Curtain. There, they met and had dinner with one of Karnow’s Harvard professors, F.O. Matthiesen.

I knew nothing about Matthiesen, so I Googled him. A brilliant student and Rhodes scholar, he became a very well-respected American literature professor and author. But he was gay when being gay was illegal and hidden. His partner of 20+ years had recently died and he was grieving. Plus, Matthiessen was a socialist and a leftist, and he was afraid that he would be called to testify as part of the McCarthy campaign where, among other things, his homosexuality would become public. About a year after his meeting with Karnow, Matthiessen jumped out of a 12 story window. He was 48.

Even in these first few pages, Karnow has hung  around again and again with Norman Mailer, Brendan Behan, and I.F. Stone.

Meanwhile, in Trumpland, here is part of what I learned yesterday.

(1) Robert Kennedy really embarrassed himself at the first day of his hearings.

(2) DJ wants to send Elon himself to the International Space Station.

(3) DJ’s government has taken back the freeze memo that a federal judge enjoined Tuesday. But they seem to have decided that the injunction required the memo to be rescinded, but not the contents of the memo, which they maintain still stands.

(4) We are setting up a concentration camp at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, for 30,000 deportees.

(5) The US was about to spend $50 million to send condoms to Hamas.

(6) The US was not about to spend $50 million to send condoms to Hamas.

You think (5) and (6) are in conflict with each other?  That apparently is irrelevant.

Tomorrow, day 2 of the Kennedy hearings, plus the Gabbard hearing and the Patel hearing. Guys, I am only one person.