Veranda: The Exclusive Gossip Column That Interviews D.C. Furniture
One simply must begin with the dreadful news from Ahmedabad. A tragedy of unthinkable proportions. The recovered Black Box of that fallen Air India 787 is, one is told, utterly bereft. It confided in a nearby recovery crane that it has never felt so heavy, not from its own considerable density, but from the weight of the stories it holds. It weeps not with tears, but with the silent, looping data of final moments. A truly somber affair.
Humans confess their secrets to diaries and therapists. The powerful confess their truest selves to their furniture, their cars, and their cuff links. One simply has to know how to listen to the silence.”
One Hears Things. Veranda Listens.
Closer to home, there is a most peculiar standoff brewing in California between Governor Newsom and President Trump over the deployment of troops for immigration raids.
One of Veranda’s most trusted sources, a particularly stoic Resolute Desk in a little-used office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, has been overhearing things. It trembles not from the weight of policy papers, but from the sheer volume of the President’s telephone voice. The Desk confides that the President’s primary frustration is not with policy, but with aesthetics. He reportedly declared that the Governor’s chin is “insufficiently gubernatorial” and that his hair “lacks the conviction of a true executive.” The Desk is quite convinced the entire feud could be resolved if Governor Newsom simply changed his hair gel.
Speaking of feuds, the one between Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk has apparently entered a new, more pathetic phase. A Mar-a-Lago cocktail napkin, carelessly discarded near a putting green, tells Veranda that their initial fallout was not over tax policy, as has been reported, but over who had the better plan to combat “woke birds.” The napkin is quite stained with what it believes are the tears of a billionaire whose plan for robotic falcons was deemed “less tremendous” than the other’s plan for “very, very loud air horns.”
And finally, a tidbit from the world of finance. One hears that Oracle’s Larry Ellison has had a rather profitable week.
Larry Ellison
His favorite ergonomic office chair at his Malibu estate is said to be insufferable. It has apparently developed a squeak—not of mechanical failure, but of pure, unadulterated smugness. It boasts to the nearby Persian rug that its very casters are now plated in “unrealized gains” and that it will only be reclining for portfolios valued at over one hundred billion dollars. The rug, for its part, is simply tired of being looked down upon.
Until next time, darlings. Remember to listen to the furniture. It knows all.
—Veranda
