The Economist: ‘The oil-futures market, in which speculators bet on where the oil price is going, says prices will fall every month for the rest of the year, ending 2026 at about $88. That implies most of this shock will soon be reversed. If so, traders must believe three things are true: that America and Iran will soon strike a peace deal; that their agreement will reopen Hormuz; and that, soon after the strait is clear, petrol and jet fuel will once again be plentiful. All those are in doubt.’

Why?

The Economist: ‘Markets have a poor record of pricing geopolitical risk. And with oil, they struggle to assess the complexities of the physical trade.’

And: ‘The pain of a scenario that oil analysts have feared for decades is approaching. It will not be pretty. Get ready.’

But how? Stop consuming? Learn how to eat rats?

(a sf 2119)

Nagham Zbeedat in Haaretz: ‘More than six months after Hamas and Israel agreed to a U.S.-brokered cease-fire, the bodies of thousands of Palestinians remain decomposing under debris, as efforts to clear rubble from Gaza have largely stagnated.
‘More than 8,000 people remain buried under rubble as of April 26, according to Gaza's Civil Defense. Rescue teams say they continue to receive calls from families who know exactly where their loved ones are buried under the rubble, but lack the equipment needed to reach them.’

And: ‘In February, Alexander De Croo, the head of the UN Development Program, asserted that 0.5 percent of rubble had been removed from the Strip.’

Also: ‘Ayham Shurab, 31, tells Haaretz from Cairo, where he moved in May 2024: (…) “The least a martyr deserves is a funeral, a proper farewell.”’

It’s Antigone all over again. More tragic, in the absence of Greek gods.

(a sf 2118)

Thomas Powers in LRB (in 2011): ‘The original for “Tom” was of course the original of Mark Twain, born Samuel L. Clemens, a deeply impressionable boy who resisted all entreaty to improve until the grave took him at 74 and closed the case. There is no point in trying to sort out fiction and reality in Hannibal-St Petersburg, or to distinguish “Huck” from the real Tom, or “Tom” from the real Sam.’

And: ‘Some reviewers have been irritated by the book [Twain’s autobiography]’s abundance, disorder and uneven quality, but in my view that is like complaining that a dictionary has too many words in it, including many boring words.’

Also: ‘Twain didn’t quit being funny, but the subjects of his humour changed from things he loved and forgave, to things he hated and scorned.’

I guess that’s what growing up means. Best to postpone it, without nostalgia or childish behavior.

NYT: ‘When agents grabbed Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, they briefly got stuck between two tight tables.’

And: Michael Glantz, a top agent at Creative Artists Agency, stayed in his seat and picked at the burrata on his plate — a stark contrast to the chaotic scene unfolding and one that was captured live on CNN. (…)
‘On Sunday, Mr. Glantz said he did not consider leaving his seat.
“First of all, I have a bad back,” he said. “I couldn’t get on the floor, and if I did get on the floor, they’d have to bring in people to get me off the floor. And No. 2, I’m a hygiene freak. There was no freaking way I was getting in my new tux on the dirty Hilton floor.”’

Mr. Glantz is to my liking.

A burrata is more important than a shooter. After all, the burrata didn’t die for nothing.

(a sf 2116)

Larry McMurtry in NYRB (in 2004): ‘His cranky, abstemious admirer George Bernard Shaw went so far as to say that it was Mark Twain who taught him that “telling the truth was the funniest joke in the world.”’ And: ‘Throughout his life financial folly, not sexual folly, imperiled Mark Twain.’

As well: ‘On the day that he was informed that his daughter Jean was dead—Christmas Eve morning, 1909—he told a sympathizer that now he knew what a soldier felt when he received a bullet in the heart. But the heart-shot soldier presumably didn’t have to get up and go on living the next day, and Mark Twain did.’

The living have to get up, fairly often.

McMurtry adds that Shaw and Twain were willing to discard the truth like a bicycle that didn’t go fast enough.

Financial folly, sexual folly. What’s a writer’s life without it?

(a sf 2115)

Becca Rothfeld in The New Yorker: ‘“Lázár” ’s author, Nelio Biedermann, is a twenty-two-year-old student at the University of Zurich. Biedermann grew up in Switzerland, but his much-lauded book is an attempt to reimagine the life of his ancestors, Hungarian aristocrats who weathered both world wars and lost their fortune under Communism. The novel is a generational epic in the old mold, a kind of remake of Roth’s “Radetzky March” (1932).’'

And: ‘All this is so familiar that reading “Lázár” is like visiting a museum of older novels.’

Also: ‘“Lázár” has topped the German best-seller list for twenty-nine weeks and is set to be translated into more than twenty-five languages.’

As well: ‘Biedermann’s fiction appeals in large part because it is so unapologetically fictional.’

Perhaps the reader got tired of fiction apologizing for what it is.

And a museum of old novels, especially Joseph Roth novels, can be so enchanting.

(a sf 2114)

Christina Hebel and Alexander Chernyshev in Der Spiegel: ‘A one-time bonus of 3.6 million rubles – the equivalent of almost 40,000 euros – deposited into the account no later than five days after signing. On top of that, another 400,000 rubles, more than 4,000 euros, from the Defense Ministry. Travel expenses will be reimbursed, of course… Public official Natalya Lyssenko rattles off the terms her region offers prospective soldiers over the phone.’

And: ‘In more than four years of war against Ukraine, military signing bonuses have never been this high.’

Also: ‘Every territory has quotas from Moscow to fill: More than 400,000 new soldiers must be sent to the front annually. ‘

But ‘even pro-war bloggers are claiming that they are too old and too sick.’

40,000 euros to die and travel expenses reimbursed. Maybe first class? Including a decent meal? Not bad. Elsewhere they die for less.

(a sf 2113)