The legacy of all-American surrealism

David Lynch, director of Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, and Eraserhead, was that rarity — a grant-funded filmmaker who was also a true artist. Staying apolitical in his work, Lynch expressed the personal idiosyncrasy that reflected his upbringing in Midwest America (born in Missoula, Mont., and of Finnish-Danish heritage) as well as his private, frightened knowledge of national terror.

The party on Eldridge Street could hardly be contained: Bodies spilled out of the front door onto the sidewalk, and joyous screams echoed from the roof. Inside, under the wood beams of the $7.5 million carriage house, a DJ played techno for a young and queer crowd. Amid throngs of twentysomethings who were pierced and shorn in unusual places, a performance artist named Crackhead Barney roamed around in a Trump mask, breasts bared, past a man painted green from head to toe, wearing only a jockstrap and an alligator headpiece, shut inside a dog kennel.

Merriam-Webster on Tuesday changed its definition of “preference” to note that the term is “offensive” when used in connection to an individual’s sexual orientation, just as a Senate Democrat was criticizing Judge Amy Coney Barrett for using the term during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

Until at least September 28, the dictionary had defined “preference” to include reference to sexual orientation, but on Tuesday, the official definition was edited to include a note that the word’s usage in that context is “offensive.”

Donald Trump’s Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore was a call to arms to take on the evil mob destroying our beloved country’s values. It was a thunderous condemnation of the political left, and a promise to seize the country from the “totalitarian” proponents of “social justice” who are destroying our culture of “free and open debate,” replacing it with “cancel culture and speech codes”:

As U.S. industries contend with a national reckoning on race, Hollywood has started to grapple with its past.

A self-described lifelong Kansas City Chiefs fan once asked me the meaning of the words that are sung as the crowd performs the “Arrowhead Chop” at Chiefs games, the beloved fan chant made up of a series of literal “oh oh oh”s.

“They don’t mean anything,” I told him, disgusted and annoyed.

“Really, nothing at all?”

Alot has happened in the last decade — including a lot of things being called racist, sexist, offensive, or insensitive.

Here, in no particular order, are 24 of the most absurdly politically correct moments of the decade:

I knew nothing about Cole before meeting him; he was just a name on a list of boys at a private school outside Boston who had volunteered to talk with me (or perhaps had had their arm twisted a bit by a counselor). The afternoon of our first interview, I was running late. As I rushed down a hallway at the school, I noticed a boy sitting outside the library, waiting—it had to be him. He was staring impassively ahead, both feet planted on the floor, hands resting loosely on his thighs.

TORONTO (AP) — Don Cherry, Canada’s most polarizing, flamboyant and opinionated hockey commentator, was fired Monday for calling immigrants “you people” in a television rant in which he said new immigrants are not honoring the country’s fallen soldiers.

Rogers Sportsnet President Bart Yabsley announced the decision following discussions with the 85-year-old broadcaster.