"There is a crack in everything..."

Barbenheimer to Trumpland, Field Notes along the Red-Blue Divide

Re-entry greetings, with a newShrink take on some prevailing cultural-phenoms of this summer season.

As field notes in the title suggest, today’s reflections are a fairly raw first-download of observations, images and themes surfacing as I resettle from a couple of recent weeks that were varied and packed. (That was in good, some thought-stimulating, ways that may or may not be related or connected.)

These topics will resurface in future editions as well as in the news.

The Christopher Nolan epic history/biopic Oppenheimer is fittingly first-up here, given the two historic bombings’ somber 78th anniversaries this week — Hiroshima today (on posting-Sunday) and Nagasaki on Wednesday.

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“Little Boy” and “Fat Man”

I’ve saved and savored anticipation of this film for deeper-dive and ample reflection time. (Now, one of these weekday afternoons or evenings in a quieter-emptier theater is calling loudly, if only the scheduling stars might align for that.)

After I see the movie, in newShrink will explore Oppenheimer, also again considering its timing parallels with “Barbie.” (The AP story here captures some of the latter.) I'll greatly value your thoughts, comments or stuff you come across about either or both movies as you see and ponder them. Everything’s welcome, from the seriously sincere to satirical or slapstick-humorous.

The story behind “Barbenheimer,” the summer’s most online movie showdown (Associated Press)

Meanwhile, upcoming news notebook editions will report on new and updated developments in ongoing news stories examined in recent newShrinks (all previous posts browsable on the website at newshrink.substack.com.) A few in the pipeline include: Hunter Biden, NC House Speaker Tim Moore, elected NC Democrat/now flipped Republican Tricia Cotham, and a wide nationwide range of state legislatures’ recent actions regarding book bans, sex education, criminalizing of librarians, and more sobering distortions in the teaching of history.

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Title Themes

The main header’s “crack in everything” from the Leonard Cohen song lyric pictured at above center is a well-known, often-quoted one.

It had surfaced for me in dream during the Asheville trip well before thought or writing for newShrink. Set on beautiful grounds alongside a stately old church was a shiny new, copper belfry housing an enormous, newly repaired/refurbished/reconstructed, once-cracked churchbell. The repaired bell was ringing! (Yeah, I know, subtle…)

While not consciously intended, I’m noticing more direct than usual through-lines from recent weeks’ activities drawing heightened attention to title-themes in focus here. For example:

across the red-blue divide

First and primary was travel to and within lovely Asheville itself, much-renowned for: Its beauty, history, welcoming national cultural-creative appeal, gorgeous outdoor mountain backdrop for resort tourism, progressive politics, plus a lively hipster intellectual/artistic vibe.

There was special catchup time and staying in the renovated childhood home of dear longtime Asheville-native friends recently relocated back there after years at Lake Norman.

My touch with a stimulating portion of an international scholarly conference with fellow depth psychologists in my field was at a welcoming well-appointed Asheville Biltmore Village conference hotel.

Best of all were long savored stretches of dry-land joys and pool-soaking fun with one beloved 7-year-old girl — all while being utterly pampered, wined and dined with her mom and dad both at their charming north Asheville home and around the town’s many appealing spots.

All of which drew and underscored stark and immediate contrasts on ventures outside the city, across its stunningly beautiful surrounding Appalachian Mountains and parks such as Pisgah, Great Smokies and Cherokee. On the trip to visit urbanite cousins now-retired in Newland near Linville — and even occasionally along Interstate 40 — Confederate flags on proud display are bigger than houses. Visiting the area during a heated election year, as I did in fall of 2016, can be crash-course exposure to our American red-blue divide.

This one isn’t a TV, internet, academic or media-pundit abstraction, nor does it neatly map to even-illusory geographic, state or Mason-Dixon-like lines. It’s urban-rural — and viscerally so.

These contrasts, plus time spent closely with Grand Miz E and both of her aware and sensibly grounded parents, naturally brought energy and attention to both Barbie and what I’m calling the Trumpland of this week’s news events.

As for Barbie, Miz E, loves playing with a now-vast array of diverse ones… also building with Legos, horseback riding, swimming, gynmastics, Pokemon, voracious reading on her own now and hearing longer chapter books too… plus the occasional slimy creek salamander. Also as context, just before the recent trip I got in a lucky spontaneous outing to the Barbie movie with a longtime close journalist-friend. We’ve just begun mining its many great layers, plus those of our own that it evokes.

Barbie and Trumpland

With the Jung conference several depth-psychology themes came naturally to mind for a newShrink look at these two.

Yes, they’re an unlikely pairing from about every news perspective — except timing. (Donald Trump’s third, most gravely serious, federal criminal indictment did arrive this week amid Barbie’s burgeoning box-office allure across America.)

Both the movie’s iconic doll and bombastic former president seeking a rematch wield hefty impact. They’re objects of so many of our collective and individual hopes, fears, dreams, unconscious projections. As such they present very visible case examples from which psychological perspectives may be useful, even profound.

Some themes to consider:

• The realms of both Trump and Barbie are shadowless, rigidly denying or forbidding deviation from their one-dimensional idealized, or vilified and rejected, respective versions of reality. In Barbie that’s of course all things pink, perky, perfumed… and emotionally and otherwise sterile, for women and for men. With Trumpworld it’s the cult of forever “winning” and “strength” by denial of “losing,” fallibility, vulnerability of any kind… and regardless of factual truth. Trump also carries, and serves back up as desirable, much of the unconscious projection of a lot of our individual and collectivw worst and most shameworthy traits.

• As with the Leonard Cohen “crack,” both worlds face potential or actual rupture. In Barbie the movie this crack appears with her world-shattering pause mid-song-and-dance to ask the other Barbies, “Do you guys ever think about dying?” (As with many of the film’s multi-layered lines, moviegoers are finding this pivotal line both poignant and laugh-aloud hilarious.)

• Similarly surfacing potential cracks in Trumpland, as illustrated this week, tend to take the form of the rule of law, officials adhering to the U.S. Constitution, facts and evidence. Worth noting, whatever one’s political leanings or preference for individuals at either end of the spectrum: Especially in this week’s indictments around Trump’s role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the key grand jury witnesses, testifying under oath under penalty of felony jail time, have been not only from Trump’s Republican party but were his own officials, appointees, even his own vice president.

• In both movie and Trumpworld there’s profound need and emphasis on becoming more and more conscious — or not. And on individuating, becoming more whole and fully ourselves.

• And in particular, there’s the need and value in “holding the both,” Jung’s “holding the tension of opposites” in paradox, layers and multiplicities of experience. This unfolds powerfully and positively over the course of the Barbie movie. And in virtually every Trump story and situation the enormous need and lack of capacity for this is a constant.

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One more pervasive musical theme arrived about mid-trip, as background during a nearby breakfast-out at a neighborhood spot and warmly rich conversation with my close AVL-native friend. Like low-volume soundtrack, it wasn’t just the great classic Rolling Stones’ tune… it was my personal-favorite, the much less often played and heard version. Instead of choir voices, it’s the one with the opening organ-chords from the iconic funeral scene at the start of the 1983 classic film The Big Chill. (I was able to find this version of the song only via You Tube of the movie scene. Presumably because of limited-use rights to the song in the movie, this version doesn’t appear on Rolling Stones’ albums, or on the movie’s recorded soundtracks. So of course it would be the one I like best!)

“You can’t always get what you want…”

Much about these and other criminal cases against Trump, along with his candidacy in the 2024 Presidential election, will be in news and discussed in newShrink. For time and space reasons headlines and highlights are cited here.

Trump Indictment Jan. 6 Riot Was ‘Fueled by Lies’ From Trump, Special Counsel Says (New York Times)

Former President Donald J. Trump was charged with four counts in connection with his efforts to subvert the will of voters in 2020. “Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power,” prosecutors wrote.

From lawyer-activist Robert Hubbell Today’s Edition newsletter:

At 7:14 PM EDT on August 1, 2023, special counsel Jack Smith strode to a lectern in Washington, D.C., opened a folder, and said, “Today, an indictment was unsealed . . . .” With those plain words, Jack Smith announced the most remarkable legal proceeding in the history of our nation. The indictment (US v. Trump) alleges that a former president of the United States attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power between presidents—the hallmark of American democracy.

 From political historian Heather Cox Richardson:

“Each of these conspiracies,” the indictment reads, “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “This federal government function…is foundational to the United States’ democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.”         

4 things that stand out from the Trump Jan. 6 indictment (Washington Post)

To read the concisely and clearly written full indictment:

In the United States District Court in the District of Columbia: United States of America v Donald J. Trump, Defendant

Pence Says Trump Pushed Him ‘Essentially to Overturn the Election’ (New York Times)

Listening to the following radio interview in the car soon after this week’s indictment had me challenging this guy with what I imagined to be stormily quiet force at stoplights. Just a couple of points:

• Regarding mere “protected free speech” (the Defendant’s right clearly stipulated at the opening of the indictment), since most all crimes — particularly conspiracy as in those charged — involve speaking as part of being carried out, by this reasoning only mimes could even be prosecuted much less convicted.

• Regarding “weaponized justice department” and “unfair politicized two-tiered prosecution”… again, virtually all of these sworn witnesses are Republicans, indeed Republican members of the Defendant’s own staff and support organization.

Trump's attorney tells NPR how he plans to defend against the latest charges

Trump’s 2024 Campaign Seeks to Make Voters the Ultimate Jury (NYT)

Fact-Checking the Defenses of Trump After His Latest Indictment (NYT)

Now, about those “unindicted co-conspirators” pictured in the graphic above. (And well, OK, they’re the most likely flippers, to borrow title images from the iconic ‘60s American TV show.)

Trump indictment: Who are the 'co-conspirators'? (ABC News)

Breakdown of details from the latest indictment.

Jared Kushner suggested as "cooperating witness" (Salon)

Key indictment excerpts suggest Kevin McCarthy and Mark Meadows may have flipped as well

And now to Barbie…

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“… but if you try sometimes…”

Pictured here at left are actors Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling with their avatar dolls and a Barbieland scene from the movie. At top right is U.S. President Barbie played by Issa Rae, and The New Yorker illustration is by Tim Enthoven. Brilliantly funny Kate McKennon is at top center as Weird Barbie — who serves as Stereotypical Barbie’s guidelike figure in her first daunting initiatory venture out of sterile one-dimensional Barbieland toward her own individuation. My use of the Jungian terms is intentional here. For the Barbies and ultimately the Kens this is very much a hero’s journey of initiatory challenge and coming into full personhood.

The deftly simple chart at bottom center is thanks to friend and reader Melissa Alford who posted it.

some first-takes

🌀As many have written and said, I found the movie — and especially in memory and reflection it evoked for me afterward — hilarious, intelligent and heartwarming. Perhaps most valuable of all for me in the film’s humor and characters are the many layers, holding of paradoxes and “boths” — including contradictory ones so true to life.

🌀My moviegoer-friend later noted something I find interesting in light of current cultural frenzy around every aspect of sex and particulalry LGBTQ people: That Gerwig draws a vividly clear distinction between sex and gender norms. As with these sterile dolls who literally have no genitals, the movie concerns itself with the vaarieties and power dynamics and relationships and norms prescribed or adapted to gender. That is, up until the movie’s very last, hilarious, shout-aloud victory line. (To anyone opting not to see the movie and unconcerned about spoilers I’m happy to share it individually.) The film does have gay and trans actors, but regarding transitioning it’s hard to imagine much dialogue or story-lines in no-sex/no-genitalia Barbieland.

🌀There’s been a lot of utter silliness from the far-right, about a doll and cross-generational cultural tradition that’s just not red or blue: Over-the-top social media rants from male politicians, Tic Toc lectures on the film’s “man-hating divisiveness”… culminating in the guy setting Barbie and Ken dolls afire in a barbecue. I’ve heard and read rational, sensible people respond to it with “it’s just a toy.” Understandable. But Barbie isn’t. (Nor is any toy, the psychologist in me would argue.) Not only an object of our projections, but play with such figures, images, characters is how we — at every age — rehearse, try-out and act-out, practice to be our future selves and rehearse the stories with which to make sense of our experiences. And consciously and not, it’s how we re-enact — repeat in effort to re-member, re-pair, atempt to heal old wounds and ruptures. To the extent this is a conscious, intentional process it can be most life-giving, even life- saving. Not just a playtoy matter.

🌀I’ve enjoyed and been touched by the surprising number of dads, moms, college-and-law-school-age sons, daughters and significant others I know who’re all dressing in pink to see, then talk about the movie together.

Seeing and thinking about both the Barbie film and looking forward to Oppenheimer got me curious about the creative minds and partners behind them.

Beyond both “Barbenheimer” films themselves, both have notably long and fruitful director-writer-producer and/or actor couple teams. From depth psychological standpoint, here is vivid example of how the interplay of conscious psychological femininity and masculinity can play out in both personal relational and creative lives:

🌀Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan and his wife, the film’s producer, Emma Thomas, met at University College London when he was 19. She has worked as a producer on most all of his films since 1997. The couple have four late-teen/young-adult children and live in LA. (Many sources are browsable with details and pictures.)

🌀For Barbie, Greta Gerwig (39) directed the film she co-wrote with Noah Baumbaugh (53), her life-, coparenting- and creative-partner over the past decade. Given widespread public — and even political — discussion of Barbie messages and dynamics around gender and sexuality, the public-private view and timeline in this Elle magazine article seems relevant and helpful. Highlighted here:

In 2010 Gerwig starred in Baumbaugh’s Greenburg. In 2012 they collaborated on Frances Ha — he directed/she starred, and the two began dating. For 2015’s Mistress America, she cowrote/coproduced. In 2018 her director-debut Lady Bird drew multiple Oscar and other award nods, winning Best Picture and Actress Golden Globes in musical/comedy. Meanwhile, 2019 was an acclaimed creative year for both Gerwig and Baumbaugh separately. His Marriage Story won Laura Dern the Best Supporting Actress Oscar among the film’s many award nominations including best picture, screenplay, music and other acting performances. Meanwhile that year, Gerwig kept her pregnancy with the couple’s first son Harold under wraps while directing the successful Christmas-released Little Women. (Earlier this year as Barbie production was wrapping, the couple “quietly” welcomed their second son together and have refrained from sharing his name publicly. Baumbaugh also shares his son Rohmer, 13, with his former wife and actor Jennifer Jason Leigh.)

As with the Christopher Nolan-Emma Thomas Nolan husband-wife team, not a lot of apparent “man- (or woman-) hating divisiveness” to see here.

Here’s a sampling of reviews and storeis.

‘Barbie’ May Be the Most Subversive Blockbuster of the 21st Century (Rolling Stone)

It’s a long commercial for a legacy corporate brand and a pretty-in-pink "f-ck you" to the patriarchy. It is Barbie — hear it roar.

The tone of the above quote feels off from that of the movie I saw. I’ve been in some whatever-stage-feminism ever since singer Helen Reddy first roared. This movie is way more playfully, subtly powerful than this quote.

Gerwig’s comments in this interview are especially good.

Greta Gerwig on the Blockbuster ‘Barbie’ Opening (and How She Got Away With It) (NYT)

Women Are Discussing The "Barbie" Moments That Resonated With Them The Most, And It Further Proves Why This Movie Is So Important (Buzzfeed)

I walked into Barbie ready to party, and I walked out reflecting on my own existence.

Ignore the pearl-clutching conservatives. ‘Barbie’ is not anti-men | Opinion The Charlotte Observer)

The Double Bind of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (The Nation)

The message of Barbie is that girls can be anything, but you still have to be gorgeous while you’re doing it.

I didn’t come away with these sorts of either-or imperatives at all. In reality, girls and women both love and loathe different aspects of Barbie as with everything else. The quote message here might just as accurately read, “The message of Barbie is that girls can be anything, and it is OK to be — and to like it if you’re gorgeous while you’re doing it.”

Cultural Comment: Decoding Barbie’s Radical Pose (The New Yorker. bottom right illustration above.)

The “Barbie” movie glides over the history of dolls as powerful cultural objects.

This commentary contends that Gerwig’s film “jokes about, but doesn’t ultimately challenge, Mattel’s complicity in upholding the Malibu Barbie version of the world.” Having seen and relished the power of multilayered humor in the film, I find the opposite to be true. For me Gerwig’s ultimate, subversive challenge to Mattel’s — and to all of our forms of — complicity is its joking… and its jokes about the joking… and its jokes about the jokes about the joking.

More generally about this final piece, how I wish these writers would show indications of having first sat down — ever — as, or with a 7-year-old or even parents… to see, touch, or actually play with even one Barbie, any Barbie. Also, it’s understandable that the older book looks at Barbie historically circa the 60s and 70s. But the article (and to some extent many reviews of the movie) seem not to know or do not take into account the vast diversifying of Barbie in recent years around body image, ethnicity, ability etc. This is clearly for marketing not altruistic reasons, but it’s happening.

Played for great comic effect, the movie’s emphasis on the stereotypical doll’s permanently high-heeled-feet is funny but technically outdated. I’m still stunned by my very recent personal experience with “gymnastics coach Barbie.” She’s an athletically built older-teen/young adult in plain old gym shorts, tee, flat feet in sneakers. This Barbie comes with a youngster “gymnastics student” and balance beam equipped with magnets and a simple lever to perform perfectly executed flips and nailed landings. All of which cost doting Tishie something under $30.

At this point my own sleep-robbing concerns around Barbie, Mattel and massive corporate toy industry aren’t about gender or culture-war politics but rather environmental impacts of all of that plastic… and the likely sweatshop-slavelike labor somewhere required to produce this stuff so cheaply and prolifically.

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Now to close with that beloved 7-year-old…

“… it’s how the life gets in.”

Briefly, scenes from the dry-land portions of Asheville time with Grand Miz E. (A lot more of it not pictured was spent submerged until prunelike in a glorious pool.)

At top left are blown-glass triangle earrings for me and a wee-detailed donut for her, both from artists at River Arts District studio where my treasured blue glass pumpkin-gift for a previous birthday was made.

Bottom left is lovely preservation and partial repurposing of historic downtown Citizen Times newspaper building. The former newsroom’s first floor, with some of the former pressroom equipment encased in glass, is a vinyl record store and breakfast/light fare cafe. Newsroom and some operations are now on upper floor while publishing is done offsite.

At center are shots of this lovely leggy mountain-goat of a child who is fast. Setting is sunset-mountain view side of steeply terraced historic Grove Park Inn. Both before and after dinner with her mom and dad, three trips in all, she led me running down then back up all dozens of stairways to the grotto-like waterfall at the spa, down farther still to open event space. In my dress and flat prissy sandals. (I’m still a runner, but not fast and not on mountains or stairs! Somewhere in there I began to mutter, “because I can, because I can.”) In the bottom pix of me she’s having her way with my post-swimming-day hair and giving me lip-glossed kissy faces.

Toward top right is a nostalgia shot of my long-ago first-ever, though not the most beautiful or cleanest, white-water rafting river at the start of a year-long corporate outdoor leadership program. Other rural shots here are outside Asheville for weekly horseback riding lesson with lifelong horse-guru Ms. Lauren. Among her several beautiful horses, Duke is the bay looking for treats over the stall door. Count is the very tall Clydesdale, with black Moose behind him. On this day Miz E had her choice of mounts and opted for little horse Chief “because he is fastest.” She wanted to practice and show her developing skill with posting up and down during the ride at some gaits. This day, visible in very small photo, she advanced to posting with no hands holding the saddle. There were also brief practice rides out-of-sight on the small loop of a trail.

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Now I’ll leave you today, once again with the Stones:

(so if you try sometimes,

"… you get what you need!”

Perhaps some special bonuses of a lunar kind?

Get Ready For a Rare Double or “Blue”, Unusually Bright, August Supermoon (Sciencealert.com)

A blue moon is the relatively rare second full moon occurring within a single month. In its monthly orbit the moon is full when it’s on the opposite side of the earth from the sun. Supermoons are when the full moon happens to coincide with or near perigee, when the moon is closest to earth. That makes it appear its brightest and nearest in the sky.

This month’s blue full supermoon will be Wednesday, August 30. (The month’s first full moon, also a “super” one, was on Tuesday the 1st.)

And another unusual skygazing treat this season: We’re having 4 full supermoons in a row. The first was July 3rd, the final one Friday September 29. (Weirdly that apparently falls again these same months next year.)

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And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.

🦋💙 tish

•🌀🔵🔷🦋💙

… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”