When Harper won, Mendelson Joe lost his mind. He was so freaked out. He said nothing will ever be the same. He gave me shit one time for waiting for him in my car which was on. It was winter and he said I should turn it off to pollute less. I understood, I respected him and turned it off but I also loved that surprising moment at his memorial when Stan Joscowitz spoke about seeing Joe discard an empty candy wrapper on the sidewalk. Stan called him on it and Joe replied yeah I’m also an asshole. I liked the paintings he did of political people as literally assholes and the one he included of himself also with an anus for a face. I liked how obsessive and paranoid and insecure and confident he was. I admired him but could not console him when he was certain Harper was the apocalypse. Imagine how much more Trump must have fucked him up. Whatever Harper represented, Trump was next level. Something about his extremes didn’t sit right with me but I did not know how to say it, how to explain our analytical differences. You do realize even though you say this is right and that is wrong, you yourself have moments not living up to the very thing you say everyone else is supposed to. Does that not open deeper conversations about the madness and complexity of us teensy weensy little forms of life? It is the same in the classroom. Positions about musical artists defiantly drawn lines in the sand. If I take Drake over Kendrick or Kendrick over Drake or Biden over Trump or Trump over Biden. It’s war and no talk of the other side is tolerated.