The pick-up truck waltz.

last week—July 15

Three reasons.

A couple of noisy readers have complained that there seems to be a lot more weather reporting on the news.

They're right. Some would say Mark Twain, with his observation Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it, should get a mention here, since TV news talking heads just talk, and don't do anything.

There are three likely reasons:

There is more big weather affecting more people. You'll notice that news people always mention how many people are affected by the rain, snow, fire or hurricane. So 117 mill is better than 78 mill, especially where potential viewers are concerned.

Two: the weather doesn't threaten to haul people into court, sue, or generally complain about unfair coverage. So it's a safe target, usually providing lots of visuals.

Three: 'better' (or at least more) technology. We've got satellites, radar, infrared, precision measuring, and an infinity of cameras to detail what's going on. You've got footage, you use it.

Bonus: the weathadoodles get to trot out their 'voice of doom be very afraid' voices. Unless you're right in the eye of the storm or have affected friends, it doesn't mean any more for you than the ad for the drug that cures a disease you don't have that it precedes.

<1>Serendipity.

I enjoy chance occurrences of delight and unintended meaning. This headline from MSN Qualifies: Lindsey Graham’s legacy and a new dinosaur discovery: Morning rundown.

In passing.

R.I.P. Bonnie Tyler. She may have had only one big hit, a sort of of anthemic song, but she put it all out there in her singing.

Apologies.

I was intending to attach a bonus piece on language to this week's post, but as I was reading it, I found it failed the Elle Woods test. As you recall, in the trial scene, the prosecuting attorney interrupts Elle with:

Objection, why is this relevant?
Elle: Oh, I have a point, I promise.
The Honorable Marina R. Bickford: Then make it.

Elle then goes on to win acquittal. Unlike Elle, I found I didn't have a point. So back to the shop for tuning and revision.

Something you have to read.

You can add Billy Collins to the list of 'writers I hate' because they write something delightful/insightful (,desightful?), but while I'm reading, I think 'I can't do that, will never do that, will never approach doing that even if I have a rocket powered sled.'

Why Billy? Mostly because of this poem, which neatly encapsulates the life of every English major Boomer ever.

That's why Billy Collins is a Poet Laureate.

At the same time, I feel bad for succeeding generations of students who didn't get to experience Dick & Jane as a critical part of their upbringing.

The double-edged blade.

I attended an 'open mic' the other night, populated mostly by poets. It was a small group, with only five other audience members/participants. I had a chance to watch people as they went to the stage, read, and return. I don't know if I was the best reader with the strongest material, but I more than held my own.

But part of the 'entertainment,' at least for me, is sussing out the people as they walked to and from the stage. More to the point, I wondered how participants viewed themselves as they performed.

I will admit the question is somewhat self-serving. I know that I am no longer walking as confidently and as steadily as I did even a year ago. But has that freezing of joints obliterated other parts of my aura, of my presence or personality? Just because my knees don't work doesn't mean my brain is fried.

I guess what I'm sort of asking for is what Robert Burns asked for in To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us

No matter how much it doesn't matter, we do form opinions of others based strictly on physical characteristics. In this case, as soon as the other poets started speaking, they revealed dimensions not visible.

In the meanwhile, though, I know I've recently added a couple of clicks on the ol' 'growing old' meter. There's a general slowdown, it takes a little longer to get up from a chair, and the floor is a little further away if I drop something. My mental self-image hasn't quite caught up, though.

I wonder what it will take to update the self-perception.

Oddly enough, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which I just finished reading and has been useful in a number of conversations, kind of fits into this whole thought process, what with the main storyline about trying to deny or hide what we really are.

Words, English. Meaning, unknown.

An advertisement for a hotel proclaims that it is the sanctuary of artistic energy.

Just a funny line.

At least, I thought so. From The Hill: Others settled on 'demonic possession,' which in internet discourse is considered the moderate position.

Nicknames

This post may be a re-cycle, casting, or thinking of the answers I have already given to the question, ' what's in a name?'

My sister was always the more daring sibling, feeling free, among other things, to call our mother 'Margaret.' I was able to master 'Mom' but went no further. She herself never tried to go for a nickname or pet name 1that I know of).

That's because she was always Margaret, just as her sisters were Mary and Kathleen. Only her father and brother escaped, both going by Jack (which, by the way, I was never Jack. Too many Jacks in the family).

It's not like there aren't a lot of 'Margaret' options. One website claims there are over 200 nicknames for Margaret.

That's a lot of choices to make. But I wonder if Mom would be Mom if the world knew her as Maggie. or Meg. Or Peggy. Or Daisy. Or Garet. Would she be less precise? Or less stiff?

We'll never know, especially not even how different out lives would be if Mom went by Peggy.

With deepest regret.

It is with a great sense of loss and profoundest sorrow that we announce that after 22 years of mostly good and faithful service, we are giving up our home telephone, aka 'landline,' aka 'copper wire' telephone. It has, over the course of its life, provided fax services, a safe and secure means of communication during power outages, and a buffer against people intent on hacking cell services. Of course, that was a long time ago, in the days before our cable/telephone provider so ungraciously pushed us into VOIP services, which provides us none of the benefits we previously enjoyed, and why we had the landline in the first place.

We apologize to the seemingly hundreds of families living in small towns across Virginia and the United States whose meager sustenance was provided by breadwinners who depended upon making 'spam' calls to our landline. We wish you success in your future endeavors, as we, too, charge into the future, untethered by copper lines. We wish we could provide our cell numbers (disclosure: no, we really don't), but since you never left a message with a callback number, well, we can't.

Bon voyage!

Popcorn ceilings.

When I was a kid, we had popcorn ceilings in the house. On the one hand, they struck us as a little weird, since the walls were flat-finished and the ceilings bumpy, but no matter.

On the other hand, popcorn ceilings were a bonus for dreamers. Sometimes I'd be in bed looking up at the ceiling. If the light was just right, shapes would emerge, like animals, faces, or somethings that I couldn't identify but were definitely a shape.

I have no idea why I'm mentioning this. Maybe I feel bad for young dreamers who now have one less source of inspiration to be churned for creative output.

A hero-sized dose of ketamine.

two weeks ago—July 8

I dislike themes, but this week we seem to have a surplus of pieces on self awareness, a practice that leads to or requires introspection or stripping away all of our defenses, both of which habits I detest and avoid as much as I try to avoid long-winded bores at parties. Don't always succeed at either. Maybe I should spend a little time thinking about why that is.

Essentials dialogue.

We start with this bit of dialogue from Calvin and Hobbes to encourage the preservation of sanity and perspective.

Hobbes: You know what I like about summer days?/ They're just made for doing things/ ...even if it's nothing
Calvin: Especially if it's nothing.

With apologies to Carly Simon.

I was fetching the paper from the front stoop this morning when the song The Wells Fargo Wagon became today's earworm. I don't know why, but there it was. I thought about the song in the context of the movie (The Music Man). I thought about most of the town gathering with a sense of wonder, excitement and anticipation. I'm 99% certain that didn't happen in IRL, but it did get me thinking.about then and now, and how now is less than then.

Basically, (and the Conspiracy Theorist agrees with me) there is an organized plot to destroy any sense of anticipation we might have. Mostly, everyone seems to have a 'Nostradamus Cape,' that they put on to foretell the future. For the last month, sports networks have been prognosticating on what the NFL draft order will be. That's the 2027 draft. Weatherpersons guess what the weather will be a week from now, but when we get there, the weatherpeople neither apologize nor preen about the accuracy (or lack) of their prediction. They are living a week in the future. There are whole websites devoted to predicting what Apple is going to do (although these days they seem to be more interested in product announcements than what Apple might or might not do). And of course there is the whole political pundit class, spouting off about what the leader of country X or country Y will do, and how country A will respond. Of course business will have continual announcements of upcoming products, mergers, and layoffs, many of which won't happen. There are websites that let people make money by predicting events. The nice thing about these gigs is that there are absolutely no repercussions if a predictor gets something wrong.

Certain TV channels are showing Christmas movies 24/7 all this month, and will have weekly refreshers until mid-October, when they kick into full-on Xmas mode again.

And by the time the event rolls around, we're exhausted and just want to nap. The poster child for all this frontloading was probably The Millennium. By the time it arrived, our response was, 'Oh, look. Fireworks. Yay. We'll have to do it again sometime.'

What is sad is how this living in the future destroys senses of anticipation and excitement. It used to be part of the fun of Christmas, birthdays, Halloween and Thanksgiving was before the event, like waiting for Santa, the different parts of the Thanksgiving dinner being assembled, and of course what the presents would be.

A lot of that sense seems to be missing these days, under assault from how many things have become routine, how generally jaded we have become, and there's always someone who is going to criticize or have a problem with what should be a happy event.

Remember that Wells Fargo wagon I mentioned? Now, if we want, when we order stuff from away, we can track the progress of a package almost to the point when the truck enters our street. Even if we choose not to track, we have at least four delivery vans that cruise the street regularly, taking away any anticipation or wonderment. Routine kills surprise and anticipation.

Now this may not seem like such a big deal, but hope grows best in an atmosphere of anticipation and wonder. Boundaries are lowered if not erased, allowing us to see new and expanded horizons, opportunities for betterment and growth. A world where anticipation can flourish.

Now, if I can just get that d*mn song out of my head.

Another revelation.

There will always be someone to believe anything a 'figure of authority' says, no matter how stupid the statement or suspect the speaker's authority is.

Today's question.

Why does it seem I'm more likely to break an item that I really like than just a plain ol' thing?

If you like it more, you probably use it more, so the Law of Opportunity kicks in.
The odds are that you're probably more careful handling or using special or cherished items than you are with ordinary things. This throws off your natural equilibrium, motions, and body weight distribution, leading to increased risk of imbalance, fumblefingers and general oopsies.
If you are of a Puritanical frame of mind, you may have made the item a graven image, a blasphemy in the eyes of the Lord. This could lead to the Lord smiting the loathsome object, dashing it to the ground, and breaking it. While sad, think 'better it than me.'

We need some terms defined.

Throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, the title character is set up as an arbiter of taste and fashion. I was willing to go along wit that until I ran into this:

At another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long latticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of olive-green lacquer.

At no time in human history in any civilization could that color combination be described as anything other than an assault on the retina.

Longings.

While making lunch, I noticed that the buns I was using were 'enriched.'

How old school! Bread products have been enriched for as long as I can remember. Then I wondered what the bread was enriched with (but didn't care enough to check), and if anyone ever checks to see what the enriching ingredients are. Do people actually buy this product because of the enrichment (the letters are large and front and center)?

But here's the big question: can I get enriched, preferably as easily as they enrich hot dog rolls?

I'll have to wait, though—before I commit, I'll have to decide how I want to be enriched—Financially? Socially? Physically? Emotionally? Creatively? Mentally? Or are combo packs available?

The jig's up, writer guys!

Firstpost reveals that cannabis users may recall events that never happened.

Damn! Now everyone's going to be able to write creative, fascinating poetry and fiction.

And might I point out that 'recalling events that never happened' is not limited to cannabis users or writers, it's limited only by the size of the human race.

Time to update your personal logo!

three weeks ago—July 1

Today is the first day of the second half of the year. Use it wisely—perhaps in contemplating your life to this point, rejecting attempts at body shaming, or enjoying a mildly hallucinogenic fungi.

Today's spine-chilling read.

is provided by The Wall Street Journal, who, on a perfectly fine morning of reading, snuck this line into an article: [they] populated virtually every important leadership role in their organization with candidates barely old enough to remember the Clinton administration.

Or stripped of the cuteness, they barely remember the eighth Presidential election I was eligible to vote in.

But I'm not angry or bitter. In fact, I say let's frame it in a context and medium that encourages the young 'uns to learn more about and understand events of the last century. So I propose we make a video game, tentatively called Kenneth Starr, Demon Hunter. It's got it all—Sex. Power-grabs. Alleged assassinations. Frustrated Republicans. Graft. Bribery. Saxophones. Arkansas politics. Welfare reform. And Billy beer.

Rule breaker—

a confessional.

When I wrote the paragraph immediately above, I realized I was starting a sentence with a conjunction, a crime almost as heinous as leaving a verb out of a sentence, comma splicing, infinitive splitting, or ending a sentence with a preposition.

I gotta admit it felt good. When I looked around, though, I saw no civilizations crumbling, no rioting in the streets, no packs of confused, disappointed readers of The Chair, and the Washington Nationals were were playing .500 ball, which isn't right.

Well, since we're confessing, I knew a long time ago that I was breaking not just the conjunction-sentence rule, but a lot of rules.

The problem with a lot of grammar rules is that we try to cover all situations with one set of rules, sometimes made up, sometimes imported from other languages, sometimes anachronistic, sometimes intended for one situation but applied universally, sometimes conflicting, or sometimes just plain wrong and/or dumb.

The way I see it, there are two choices: make yourself crazy and try to follow all the rules, or rebel, free yourself from the tyranny of the King's English (sorry–I've been watching too many of those 250th American Independence TV shows)! If you do, remember the context/audience, be selective, make the 'mistake' fit the voice and context, be consistent.

I think we should give Humpty Dumpty the last word:

When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.'

Tooth fairy.

So what's the deal with the tooth fairy? All of the other mythological figures of our childhood have a backstory grounded in religious or cultural practices, with meaning and significance at the time of their creation.

But here's the tooth fairy, just floating around with no associated origin story or history, no purpose, no motive, no set date of appearance, not even a commonly agreed-upon form. I mean, say 'Santa Claus,' and an image will pop out almost immediately–Beard. Red suit. Jolly laugh. Bowlful of jelly. You know–the guy in the Christmastime Coca-Cola ads. But the tooth fairy? Once we get past 'wings,' confusion reigns.

We don't even know why she does what she does. I mean, was there some time in our past that made monetizing discarded bits of mouth enamel profitable? Was there a black market in baby teeth sponsored by ADA lobbyists? Was it to keep cryptids from taking over the neighborhood? If it's that last one, well, it hasn't worked.

Success!

I am pleased to report that on page 172 (of 278 [or 62%, almost 2/3 of the way through the book]), the picture of Dorian Gray made it to the attic.

Piling on.

There are few things as enjoyable as a good pithy quotation. Ben Franklin understood this when he penned, in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

The only problem is, people keep mucking up the beauty and conciseness of aphorisms. In the past, I myself have been such a phrase-mucker, adding both change and criticism to Franklin's phrase.

And now I'm back with a new candidate for inclusion: the future, making the phrase in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, change, criticism and the future. But what we gain in accuracy and comprehensiveness, we lose in memorability.

Easy come, easy go, I guess.

Reentering an age of belief(s).

I bumped into My Dinner with Andre, a 1981 film featuring Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory sitting around talking, mostly about the nature of reality. At one point, Shawn speculates that we may be entering, or at least have the opportunity to re-enter an age much like that before the scientific revolution of the Middle Ages, when it was possible for anyone to hold their own reality.

It was 45 years ago he made that statement. Now, with the growth of the world wide web, social media, the death of the gatekeepers, and AI, I think it's much more achievable for anyone to hold to their own reality. Probably impossible not to, even several realities, simultaneous or sequential.

Related to this conversation, there are many other indicators (some of which I have mentioned here before) that the 20th Century may become known as 'the age of literacy.' Declining book sales, for one. The current popularity of podcasts ( it seems everybody [except me] has a podcast, even people who have no right having a podcast.) and homemade videos on TikTok and other social media sites. Education is putting less emphasis on literacy and reading. Our own history, which has detection of motion central to our survival.

Education and books, along with commonly-watched popular media, are two of the main ways the gatekeepers have of maintaining control over our view of reality. If we're all watching I Love Lucy and Ozzie and Harriet, we all know/learn what family reality looks like.

And at core,

READING IS UNNATURAL.

And yes, in the course of the movie, Mr. Shawn did say 'inconceivable' at least once.

Now incentivized!

four weeks ago—June 24

Last Sunday, June 21st, was very busy. Fathers' Day. US Open. World Cup. Locally, the Tall Ships in port. And, most significantly, the summer solstice officially shuffled in at 4:24 in the morning. The first day of summer has the most sunlight (and right now we're blessed with a lot of it here), and the North Pole is facing the Sun directly. We're going to ignore the Druid impersonators/cosplayers who gathered at Stonehenge and other sites to wear tablecloths and bang pie plates together, or whatever it is they do to make the evening news.

On the Fathers' Day front, I was in the grocery store when I saw a young millennial (aren't they all?) picking out a couple of bunches of flowers. I said, 'Interesting choice for a Fathers' Day gift.' He looked at me blankly and said, 'They're a Father's Day gift.'
I'd really like some insight into that relationship.

For some reason, while listening to 'news' that the war with Iran was entering its fifth month, the perpetual war in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four popped into my head. Being a diligent sort, and not remembering the name of the countries at war (c'mon, cut me some slack! I read Nineteen Eighty Four long before 1984), I hie myself (hie is a new entry on my favorite words list, along with fraught) off to Wikipedia, where, before finding what I'm looking for, I read Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party's Thought Police. The Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance....

The two countries at war are Oceana and Eurasia… no, wait, Eastasia–it changed during the course of the story. At any rate, Oceana is constantly racking up victories, inflicting many casualties on the enemy, and yet the war never ends.

The guys.

I've been seeing lots of groups of guys on the street today, a Tuesday morning. Walking dogs, joggers, a random, spontaneous gathering of guys chatting for a serious length of time. Some are escorting young 'uns, others dogs, but they're all off devices, talking to each other.

This is something I've been seeing with women for a long time. Sure, there are the singles, dedicated runners/joggers, walkers with or without dogs, moms pushing strollers. But as often as not, women are out in groups of two to five, chatting, laughing, emphatically making a point. So nice.

The guys are all ages, too, from just out of college to golden agers. I don't know what to make of it. Vacation? Retirees? Stay-at-home dads? Hybrids or work from homers? Actively looking for work? Have the idle rich invaded our neighborhood?

Anyway, it's nice to see. I can't clearly hear what they're saying. The tone drifts through the door, but it doesn't seem to be idle chatter about sports, lawns or barbecue (although some of those mesquite v. applewood smoke discussions can get heated). Maybe after all this time, men have finally discovered what women have known for a long time, that there are benefits in bonding and sharing.

The future.

Apparently (unnoticed by me) The Wall Street Journal has been running a series of columns called USA250. The one I noticed was called How we will entertain ourselves in the future. The future, for those of you who like to know these things, is 2046, or twenty years from now, and no, I don't know how they settled on that date.

The Journal asked 'a panel of entertainment experts' to weigh in. I have no idea what one of those is or does, or what the qualifications are.

Not that I particularly care, because I probably won't be around at the time, but the list is sad. Also wrong. The first thing that struck me was, of the 13 items mentioned (all of which are individual fantasies), not one mentions work, which currently occupies at least a third of our lives. The amount of work we do and where we do it may change, but we will still work. It's been a thing for a while, and how-what-when-where-how we work will impact how we entertain ourselves.

Here's where the sad comes in.

Consumerism. Almost all of the activities described require devices that themselves require absorption in video games with thought interaction, meta worlds, virtual reality, and brain implants. Only two items mention something we can do right now.
The death of creativity. With the exception (maybe) of board games and enjoying outdoors, everyone describes working with prepackaged entertainment. In this world, nobody writes, sings, draws, paints, or adds anything to the world's store of creative expression. I'm betting in this collective vision, all the software is AI generated.
Other peoples' fantasies. Everything described here is what Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk have been developing. It's their worlds—we just get to hang around in them.
Isolation. With the two possible exceptions, everything is stay at home, alone, with everything piped in, even to the point of being hooked up to feeding tubes.
The death of reading. There are other signs that we may be entering a 'post-literate' phase, including falling book sales, but none of the thinkers/forecasters mention reading as an activity. Ironically, I not only read this piece, but did so in a 'dead-tree' format.

Or, can you say 'dystopia' or vision of hell?

I think there's another reason for me not to worry. Of the items on the list, easily half weren't in existence 20 years ago except maybe in the minds of some crazed Trekkers. We were a couple of years after the introduction ipod, movies were at a Blockbuster or delivered on DVD by mail, a year ahead of the iphone, fifteen years ahead of VR, eighteen years ahead of AI, streaming was just beginning, and fifteen years ahead of pandemic-inspired homebasing, all of which figure prominently in the experts' vision of the future.

In the next twenty years, there will be more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. We will enjoy all sorts of new things we can't imagine. Plus there will be pushback, already being felt in some AI and VR circles. VR is already yesterday's news. Folk will grow angry, frustrated, and most importantly, bored. AI will be a support commodity that no one will care about.

And so it goes.

Revelation.

A paragraph, a sentence, a clause, a phrase, a word, can be or mean anything. Such is the power of metaphor.

Convenient, but...

Men's Journal announces Archaeologists Discover Ancient Roman Necropolis Beneath New Hospital Site.

It probably doesn't make any difference, but it's not a good look or a selling point for the hospital to be able to say 'burial sites on grounds available.' Any decent ghost-hunting show will tell you that.