The Signet Ring
Or: Man in a Bind
Lisbon is filled with expatriates fleeing financial, cultural and environmental collapse. There’s a young Ukrainian man at the dog run who won’t tell anyone his name. And Russian boy baristas who all say they’re Moldovan.
The French came to escape a 2014 tax hike which placed them in a bind: they believe French culture is superior to Portuguese culture, but also…not worth paying for. And yet in this self-negation they are, arguably, more French than ever.
One, a nobleman, got engaged to a girl. He invited all his friends here to celebrate. They partied into morning, good wines, rails of cocaine. Not for the first time, a French noble passed out with his pants down. Then his friends had ideas.
One observed that his penis was very small.
Another observed the signet ring on his finger. That the ring diameter was roughly the same as that of the penis. So, thought the French nobles, why not put the ring on the penis? Then their friend could rise and see their genius.
So they pried the ring off his one pinky and — voila! — slipped it on the other. And then the French rested. Iberian moon fell. The sun twinkled up from the East and—
The nobleman woke. A pinch. An ache. Opened his eyes and—
In time, dear reader.
Last autumn, when it was clear the Biden administration had become a remake of Weekend at Bernie’s, and that Pelosi-Schumergarchy was simply gerontocracy in a kente stole, I had a sad realization about having moved away.
If Harris won, I’d misjudged America.
But if Trump won? I’d have saved four years of my life from his chaos, the psychedelic madness that this week saw him berating a reporter for reminding the world, during an Oval Office visit with Saudi autocrat Mohammed bin Salman, that Trump’s family is doing business in Saudi Arabia, aka whoring out the Presidency; and that the CIA concluded Salman “orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist,” Jamal Khashoggi.
“Who are you with?”
“ABC News.”
“Fake news,” says Trump, then gushed it: “I’ve made America more successful than it ever was,” says the man whose tariffs would make Reagan vomit up his jellybeans; and whose attack on democracy, on January 6th, haunts me as he recruits ICE goons from the ranks of those immiserated by his own trade war, men whose loyalty can only be ultimately more to MAGA than a Constitution they’ve never read; jackboots whose $80 billion in funding is part of a $38 trillion debt whose annual interest is now 20% of national income. France, just before the Revolution, was spending 50% of national income servicing debt. We’ve got catching up to do, but if interest rates surge (they have, and can), and the gluttony continues — we could get there.
💍
The Frenchman looks down and sees:
Sunrise glinting off gold.
His signet ring. On his penis? It must be a dream.
Closes his eyes again and—
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Ezra Klein wrote a piece sympathetic to Charlie Kirk, and for this was chastised by Ta-Nehisi Coates, accused of white-washing; wanting to explain himself, and even do a bit of brand-washing, Klein had Coates on his podcast.
Where we learn he is awed and troubled by the size of Tucker Carlson’s platform, his raw power. Ta-Nehisi tells Klein that he himself never set out for power, only to write clearly. Klein presses on, wondering if they should speak differently, so as to win elections. Ta-Nehisi must break it to Klein that many things, not just op-eds and podcasts, influence a nation’s fate. Ezra Klein really struggles to accept this. It’s such bad news for…Ezra Klein. At length Coates tells him that a Black man has never had the luxury of forgetting American evil. Which leaves Klein worse than he began, old before his time; Thomas Friedman wandering the hotel lobby of the soul.
“I’m reading a book called The Brothers,” says Coates, at the end. This is by Stephen Kinzer, about two very lethal men, effectively Protestant missionaries: the Dulles Brothers. One ran the CIA, the other the State Department. They loved making coups. Toppled governments in Guatemala, Indonesia. When they tried in Vietnam it went sideways. They went sailing. Another hour might delve into their origins, and the problem of the American founding by English extremists: Puritans for whom only a few souls can ever go to heaven, leaving most damned (deplorable); Virginians who measured Liberty by the number of people under their boots. The best of these were the pacifist Quakers of the Delaware River Valley, but even they would burn the letter A into your forehead for adultery. What a house of horrors to wake in—
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The noble reopens his eyes: Coke tray. Wine bottles. His penis. Larger than it’s ever been, and for a moment he thinks prayers have been answered. Then he sees the engorged flesh, sickly dark like a feisty baby eggplant, a tiny Caesar’s toga.
Blood-flow choked by the signet ring.
Every signet has an animal on it. What does the Frenchman see? A cow? Too gentle. A pig? Too cruel. A lion, raging, claws bared? He screams, hands shaking just like Tim Cook’s did when he gifted Trump a glass Apple logo atop a hunk of gold—
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Tucker Carlson, using his massive platform, interviews Sam Altman about the mysterious suicide of an OpenAI whistleblower who had the courage to say what everyone knows: ChatGPT is built on stolen goods, a bandit operation. His mistake was thinking he lived in a just society; Tucker Carlson’s father was involved in the CIA; and Carlson fils knows a funny thing when he sees it:
“He was definitely murdered,” says Carlson, to Altman. “The surveillance camera, the wires were cut. He had just ordered takeout food. Come back from a vacation with his friends on Catalina island. No indication at all that he was suicidal. And then he’s found dead with blood in multiple rooms so that’s impossible. It seems really obvious he was murdered.”
Sam Altman’s impression of a Concerned Human is a work in progress.
“Have you talked to the authorities about it?” Carlson.
“I have not talked to the authorities about it.”
“And his mother says he was murdered on your orders.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I think it is worth looking into.”
“I haven’t done too many interviews where I’ve been accused of like…”
A lone voice against AI mania comes from J.P. Morgan Chase, whose analysts this week noted: “$650 billion in annual revenue is required to deliver a mere 10% return on AI buildout — equivalent to $35 payment from every iPhone user, or $180 from every Netflix subscriber…in perpetuity.”
Perpetuity means forever.
And when he’s asked about this Sam Altman gets even pricklier than when accused of homicide. He flashes raw anger, a certain princely wickedness.
💍
The signet ring has two snakes, fighting. Close on their faces as the Frenchman hisses pain. Loss. Panic. Destruction—
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The East Wing of the White House has been demolished to make room for Trump’s ego mausoleum — a gilded ballroom, bigger than anyone expected, but in an ominous way: engorged. Google, Meta, Amazon are all paying for this project. Graft in plain sight. Silicon Valley needs massive power grid expansion, and accompanying environmental destruction, to achieve AGI, or at least to offer predictive burrito curation on UberEats. If we don’t get there? China will. The Chinese cannot have our burritos. It’s the domino theory all over again, for a generation who never learned about the domino theory in the first place. An authoritarian, they feel, will be easiest to control. Bribed with baubles, ballrooms. Where does it end?
💍
The Frenchman received medical attention, but too late. Doctors amputated. They say that his fiancée left him, he’s suing all his friends. End of the line, then, for the signet ring. People laugh as they hear it. Creepy laughter. Gallows humor.
But we have need of happy endings. Here’s a try:
Given the choice between a nepo-thug bought by real estate cartels, and a charismatic young man promising free buses, New Yorkers chose youth and free buses.
It happened just after precious jewelry was stolen from the Louvre — the old home of the French kings. The theft thrilled the masses, a reminder of the fragility of any structure, however seemingly invulnerable. And despite a viral AI video showing dachshunds as the culprits — they still haven’t found the jewels.
So there’s a place now, one imagines, for the signet ring.