A Media Diet for Thanksgiving, and Beyond

Give Your Brain Cells a Break!

Calvin Trillin famously campaigned to switch the traditional Thanksgiving holiday dish from turkey to spaghetti carbonara. We can make a similar upgrade in our media consumption by eliminating fatty, empty calories in a Trump-heavy diet.

But first, back to Calvin Trillin. (The above link is not to that story from 1981, but a follow-up making the case for Thanksgiving in Chinatown—a sensible wrinkle on what some of us call “Jewish Christmas." Dim sum on Christmas Day can’t be beat!)

Click on this button to hear Trillin read the original! ( Excerpt below)

It does not take much historical research to uncover the fact that nobody knows if the Pilgrims really ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving dinner. The only thing we know for sure about what the Pilgrims ate is that it couldn't have tasted very good.

It would also not require much digging to discover that Christopher Columbus, the man who may have brought linguine with clam sauce to this continent, was from Genoa, and obviously would have sooner acknowledged that the world was shaped like an isosceles triangle than to have eaten the sort of things that the English Puritans ate.

[At the first Thanksgiving,] The Indians, having had some experience with Pilgrim cuisine during the year, took the precaution of taking along one dish of their own. They brought a dish that their ancestors had learned from none other than Christopher Columbus, who was known to the Indians as "the big Italian fellow." The dish was spaghetti carbonara--made with pancetta bacon and fontina and the best imported prosciutto. The Pilgrims hated it. They said it was "heretically tasty" and "the work of the devil" and "the sort of thing foreigners eat."

When Newt Gingrich and his gang of bros took over Congress in 1995, I similarly swore off whole sections of The Washington Post and The New York Times that I might have called “the sort of things Republicans read.” I’m renewing that vow today.

I don’t think we need to be conversant in the minutiae of Trump’s conversations, legislation or planning to take down democracy as long as we’re up-to-date on the big picture.

So, I’m skipping background stories about Trump appointments (with exceptions for dumpster fires like Gaetz, Kennedy, Hegseth and Gabbard) and forecasts on the impact of Trump’s “policies” on different issues. I know that Trump’s connection to policy solutions is limited to what he hears from friends, and sees on TV.

As Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan show in this Times story about Natalie Harp, the Trump aide described as “a Gatekeeper With an Open Door to Conspiracies” Donald Trump does not exhibit behavior based on deeply held commitment to long-term solutions.

A top adviser to Mr. Trump used to say he would ask 49 people what they thought of something, stopping only at 50 if the last person told him what he wanted to hear.

There’s no way to accurately report on the trajectory of Trump’s thinking, or his actions. Talk about a fool’s errand! (By fools, about fools, makes a fool out of you and me).

I’ll trot out that Maggie Haberman quote again, which for months in this space I so confidently thought helped my case that Trump couldn’t win:

Mr. Trump has treated his own words as disposable commodities, intended for single use, and not necessarily indicative of any deeply held beliefs.

It turns out that not having any deeply held beliefs isn’t a drawback for a president. Who knew?

Even so, I’ve decided not to devote my little grey cells, patience or tolerance for pain to following the mental gymnastics of Donald Trump. A wise man I know vowed after the election, “I’m not going to let Donald Trump into my head!”and that’s why I’m still not tuning into Morning Joe or afternoon Nicolle.

Reading more Calvin Trillin is always a good alternative, and so might be watching some television that reminds you why politics and elections can be worth caring about.

I thought Borgen was the best show I’d ever seen about how politics really works, but I’ve just finished the second season of Total Control and can’t wait for the third. The show, about an indigenous Black Australian who takes on the white political establishment is West Wing without the moralizing, inspiring and downright thrilling. It’s on Acorn and other places.

Or maybe, like many of my neighbors here in the Berkshires, (or the New York State-adjacent parts like where I live) this Thanksgiving you’ll be listening to Alice’s Restaurant. Alice Brock died recently, and the Berkshire Eagle reprinted the original news story about Arlo Guthrie’s run-in with the law.

The mention in the article of the Indian Hill School is a reference to a music and arts summer program run by family friends named Mordecai and Irma Bauman who were surrogate parents to my father and lived in Stockbridge and the West Village. Paul Robeson was a godfather to one of their children.

The Guthrie kids went to Indian Hill, Marjorie Guthrie taught there, and so, briefly, did Pete Seeger. A reader of this newsletter and I (OK, it’s my cousin) spent a day with Pete Seeger talking about Indian Hill for a hoped-for documentary, and as we were leaving I asked Pete if after all these years of activism he ever got discouraged.

“No, I don’t,” he said.

“I know that all over, every day, people are doing things to make a difference.”

He looked out his big picture window overlooking the Hudson. “They’re cleaning up the river. They’re doing things all over the country. Things that matter and that other people see them doing. No, I don’t feel discouraged. I feel encouraged every day.”

Whether it’s listening to music, watching a good political drama, or following some of my suggestions for comedy, give your brain cells a break this Thanksgiving—and beyond.

You don’t have to read all those stories, wallow in the woeful analysis online or rend your garments along with the panelists on cable news. All the terrible things that Trump is going to do will happen without you hanging on every latest development.

We’re better off practicing healthy news consumption and focusing on how to win the midterms. In the meantime, I just got another Antony Berkeley novel. What’s your diversion from the news? Let me know in the comments.