I’ve had exactly nothing good to say about Hungary on this blog, but that changes today.

Tarrant: Where even the judges brandish firearms! At court!

In a quiet corner beside the lower deck, a hosta puts out circular shoots.

A neutral palette (grays, whites) makes the eye-popping yellow coverlet and its rich array of guns really stand out in this East Harlem bedroom. “They’re there during the day to make a statement,” says the owner of the apartment; “obviously, at night, I put them in my safe, unless I plan to be out using them.” The new Unsecured Firearms aesthetic has taken America by storm, and interior designers are rushing to be part of the movement. “The days of the good ol’ boy in rural Texas hanging the odd hunting rifle on the wall above the fireplace are over,” says Reka Farkash, principal at Farkash Armamental Designs. Farkash is known for her so-called AK Circles, where she stages a gun-owners’ AK47s in a rough circular pattern on dining tables and other surfaces.

However you arrange it, the point is to take the gun out of hiding and make it a prominent part of domestic American space.

… with my sister, on a ridiculously beautiful April Day in DC.

This is the fourth shooting [by a 15 to 17 year old] to happen on the Coronado Mall premises over the last year, explains an Albuquerque reporter; and it’s just a wee snapshot of the state with the nation’s highest crime rate.

No surprise, then, that New Mexico’s governor yesterday called in the national guard. Parts of Albuquerque are the wild west, and the gunslingers are fifteen years old.

Dude can’t help himself, and things get worse for him; but as long as he can play at a high level, things won’t get too bad.

Unlike his surly fictional precursor, he seems to have come from a stable loving middle-class sort of background; but he also seems mentally unstable, and guns/defiance look to be a crucial part of his shaky self-care.

Beyond all this, there’s his hugely powerful symbolic resonance in the gunsickest country in the world. Ja Morant is America’s gunsickness right out there on the world’s biggest screen for all the world to see. Look out, world, here we come!

… El Patio, an Argentine place we like, claiming that it’s soon going to be National Empanada Day, and they had a celebratory special on them tonight.

First we toasted to the memory of my Argentine Uncle Mario; then we chowed down.

[Conspiracy theorist] Kim Iversen… speculated on her [talk] show … that nefarious forces were deliberately spreading the measles in Texas to make Kennedy look bad.

“Did somebody go and release measles?” she asked.

… for public schools to use in issuing statements to parents when – as so often happens – students are found on campus with loaded guns. Either you call the weapon an “inappropriate item,” or you gesture vaguely in the direction of “police activity.”

Fort Worth ISD sent … a letter … to parents, reading in part, “our campus was briefly placed on lockdown due to police activity near the school.” The letter did not mention why there was police activity or explain that there were guns recovered. 

Three guns, from three tykes.

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UD proposes further euphemisms:

Extremely short words that have other meanings: GAT. ROD.

Extremely obscure words no one will recognize: HARQUEBUS. CULVERIN.

Regular readers know that UD‘s kid, La Kid, has worked at international consulting firm Hakluyt for some time. What you didn’t know, and what I didn’t know until I saw this piece in Architectural Record, is that their SF office (pictured), and I think all of their other offices, feature well-equipped bars.

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Photo © Bruce Damonte

What’s shocking is that 18 year old cutoff age. It seems unfair and arbitrary, in a country where millions of 15-17 year olds currently buy/carry/trade/threaten with/injure with/kill with guns, to suddenly disenfranchise this large group of citizens. In the present American context, an 18 year old with a gun is a seasoned marksman. It’s absurd to think of disarming 18-20 year olds.

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/06/measles-texas-outbreak-death-unvaccinated

For a Bethesda garden club’s annual tour.

Why pretend to be blasé about this, UD? Admit your excitement that your garden, only one small piece of which was professionally designed, and all of which is maintained by you and you alone, has attracted this sort of attention.

Of course this means I have to fast track the Bonhoeffer meditation garden at the top of the property. Not to mention sniff out the random dogshit, catshit, deershit, etc. The tour takes place in June.

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Will they expect me to walk around with them, chatting in a casual highly informed way about my plants? I don’t tag anything! I’m an old hippie! I grab stuff I like in plant stores, throw it in the ground, and immediately forget – if I ever knew – what it is. I can only identify hydrangeas. But not the type of hydrangeas. And I often call hydrangea hibiscus because they both start with the hi sound.

The Milwaukee public school system comes up with a new phrase for “loaded gun.”