Ars gratia POTUS

 It's been a while since we checked in with the reconstituted all-American Kennedy Center.  Meet board member and Leonid Brezhnev impersonator Paolo Zampolli.

Zampolli ran a "modeling agency" in the 1990s and is credited with introducing The Leader to his current consort.  Nevertheless he was appointed to the board during the glorious first term.  As senior member he has given much thought to the Center and how to Make it Great Again.  He has already identified one of its problems:  the absence of a marina.  "The Kennedy Center is very difficult to access.  You put in a little marina and on the weekend you go there.  The yachts park there.  You go to a beautiful restaurant.  It will be a beautiful experience."  Why would you go there?  "We can have a fashion show with Valentino, the top designer in the world, in honor of Jacqueline Kennedy."  (I'm not a fashionista but I seem to remember she favored Oleg Cassini.)  "You can seat a couple thousand people for a gala, who pay $200 a ticket...and the Center will make money." 

"We can franchise the Kennedy Center's name in Europe and Asia and the Middle East, like the Louvre does in Abu Dabi.  That would be lucrative."  But the Louvre is a museum, not a performing venue.  Never mind, he's rolling.  "We need to make the Kennedy Center a destination.  It has the hugest potential ever."  He even talks like The Leader.  Zampolli is credited, if that's the word, with the idea of turning Gaza into the Miami Beach of the Mediterranean back in 2016.  Either he was astonishingly prescient or he has friends in Hamas.

But, you know, performing arts?  They've lost Hamilton but there are plenty of other musicals.  All right, maybe not The Music Man -- a show about a con man might be a tad uncomfortable for The Leader.  South Pacific and Miss Saigon could invite jokes about bone spurs.  My Fair Lady emphasizes the importance of speaking English well, so that's out.  Hairspray and La Cage aux Folles are non-starters.  It's hard to put on Show Boat without black artists.  How about Sweeney Todd?  "He never forgets and he never forgives."  A hero for our time.

Classical music may not be the money spinner that fashion shows are, but 2027 is the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's death.  Since his 250th birthday in 2020 was sidetracked by covid, I would expect a special effort for this.  (Even if there's an outbreak of bubonic plague, you know how The Leader hates shutdowns.)  But even after two centuries, they'll have to be selective.  Take Fidelio.  It pits freedom against tyranny and comes down in favor of the former, which might cause some harrumphing.  More concerning, the title character is a woman who dresses as a man to get inside the prison where her husband is held.  And then another woman starts to fall in love with her.  Oops.  The Ninth Symphony is even more woke.  "Alle Menschen werden Bruder" -- I don't think so.  How about some nice bagatelles?

Zampolli needs to get to work weeding out the riffraff, like the National Symphony Orchestra audience who booed J.D. Vance last night as if he were a common Mike Pence.  Do these people think the price of a ticket allows them to express opinions?  It's a concert, not a town hall. (Oh, wait.)  Did George Soros send them on "ghost buses"?

Ric Grenell was incensed:  

"White and intolerant of diverse political views"?  What the hell does that mean?  Even funnier, "diversity is our strength."  He does know that "diversity" is the D in DEI, doesn't he?  I'm not getting the sense that Zambolli wants more outreach to Washington's residents of color, unless they own yachts and wear Valentino.  When Grenell talks about tolerance he means not being nasty to Nazis.

By the way, Elon is even involved with this, insofar as Zambolli wants SpaceX to "launch art into space."  Live from the International Space Station, Swan Lake in zero gravity.  

The Leader and Bibi are forging ahead with their urban renewal plans for Gaza.  According to the Associated Press they have approached the governments of Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland about taking the inconvenient survivors of Bibi's bombing off their hands.  This is the "beautiful area" that The Leader promised for them.  What, you thought Wyoming?  The Sudanese government declined but who cares what they want?  Like Palestinians, Ukrainians, Greenlanders and Canadians, they don't get a choice.  Big doings, much money, the bulldozers are ready to roll.  You won't recognize this planet when it has been Made Great Again.

The Leader may regret boasting about his Doonbeg golf course during the visit by Prime Minister Martin.  It was vandalized by miscreants.  Last week the same thing happened at Turnberry in Scotland -- someone dug up one green and painted "GAZA IS NOT FOR SALE" on another.  (Who said anything about buying it?)  The Scots love The Leader.  They can't wait for his threatened visit so they can hail him in person.