Category: Uncategorized

A few months ago, M. told me, “You’re looking very”—and here you have to imagine a short pause— “American today.”

When I stopped laughing, I asked what American looked like, and you can insert another, somewhat longer pause before you go on, because he had to think about it. Or else he was looking for a gentle way to say it.

“You walk as if the sun always shines on you and you own the world,” he said. Not unkindly, I should add, although from someone else it might have sounded like a complaint.

Semi-relevant photo: The sun shining on a herd of cattle. Actually, they were making sure we left their field, and I can’t remember if the sun was shining on them or not–it looks like diffuse sunlight. That may or may not count.

The sun wasn’t shining on me that day. I’ll skip the details, because they’ll…

A porcupine peaking out from behind a lodgepole pine near Willow Creek Pass in Colorado. We seldom see theses guys while out and about so this was a treat.

This night has taken on a coal-black darkness,

No light has entered and no light has escaped.

A chasm of despair and impending doom,

I fear that this night may go on forever.

Mission accomplished

The main difference
between predator drones
and commercial airplanes
is the number of people involved in the flight,
and how those people react
when they hear the cries and screams
of little foreign babies.

*

True story

My grandmother does things her own way.
She doesn’t pull weeds, or use weed killer
instead, she lays spare lumber on top of them
until they wither and die.
It’s eco friendly,
it’s not labor intensive
& at the end of the day, no one wants to question
a ninety year old Chinese woman who
this morning
smothered some dandelions with a door.

THE SELECTION

Aha! This week we use the perfect randomizer: four spins of a Life board game dial. Szzzzzzzzz-tika-tika-tika…. and the gods of creativity have chosen!

NOWHERE MAN (LENNON-MCCARTNEY, RUBBER SOUL)

Oh, wow. Once again, the gods seem to have looked out for themselves. Here’s another divinely inspired song, or at least divinely delivered. More on that later.

“Nowhere Man,” from the album Rubber Soul, was written in what John later called his “fat Elvis” period, when he was unhappy, bitter, isolated, troubled, uncertain. Oh, you never knew that? You never knew he was suffering? Here’s Paul:

I think at that point, he was a bit…wondering where he was going, and to be truthful so was I. I was starting to worry about him.

(Gee, Paul, you think? I mean, the guy only wrote a song called Help!)