Covidomatic Libs

Leave a Comment / By Paul Hughes / May 7, 2020

Dear _____ , (supporter, donor, customer, friend, co-afflicted)

In these _____ (unprecedented, challenging, dangerous, difficult) times, we know you’re _____ (standing strong, bearing up well, getting ripe, fingering the edge of the cleaver and gazing at your partner’s neck) and miss our _____ (plums, belly dancers, unmatched selection of fine wines, engine repair tutorials) as much as we wish we could offer them.

_____ , (Unfortunately, Bummer, Too damn bad, Ontologically), however, _____ (jack–booted brownshirt government thugs; miscreants, thugs, and scapegraces; current healthcare policies, our respective horoscopes) prevent us.

But _____ (never, sometimes, daily, maybe just a little) fear! We will _____ (soon, probably, any day now, by winter — absolute latest) be in a _____ (prime, mostly ready, greatly reduced) position to once again _____ (connect, circle back, partner, exchange goods and services for cash) with you.

Please bring the _____ . (cash)

That is, if you _____ (still want us, ha! ha!; wear a mask; pay in cash; aren’t agoraphobic by now) and continue to enjoy _____ (plums; zither music; humans, but not like that Twilight Zone, the one about the cookbook and the aliens; fine wine). Practice Safe Specs! Be _____ (aware you’re not the only aggrieved party, ready to back off, kind). Remember social distancing: the six feet we all seek is similar in length to _____ (an adult male, a broadsword or musket, two friends facing each other extending their arms outward with the fingertips … juusst barely, but not quite, touching, the depth of a grave).

And hey, have _____ (fun! extra gloves! your own disinfectant!)

See you _____ (around Christmas — remembering there are 12 Days of it, and that winter technically extends into mid-March).

_____ , (Cheers, Lotsa luck, Don’t cough)

Rex Kwando
In Vino _____ (Nevahmind)

Image:
Vegas Craps 1982
by LeRoy Neiman

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.] One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Random

Steps

Adore and obey, don’t fulminate and flee Be a man not a guy A producer not a consumer Solution not problem (or be quiet) (which doesn’t mean don’t talk ever) Measured not random Good not bad Lean not fat Walking not sitting Writing not watching Reading not watching Watching not sleeping Pay attention! People not things

Fast Food Nations

Sometimes the blogs write themselves. “There’s a really strong pull … to come to different countries. There is a growing familiarity outside the United States with Mexican food.” (Fast food exec in Bloomberg, Dec. 2015) “They don’t always understand what the food is, or how to order the food, or what the ingredients are. Taco Bell takes the mystery

I See That Hand

We imagine Thomas even doubted himself. When the other disciples said Christ had risen, this earnest empiricist first said, “unless I see” … then he realized it wasn’t enough. So he demanded to “thrust my hands into His side.” For Thomas, seeing wasn’t believing. But touch … that he had hopes for. * Seeing isn’t

Semi Stuff

Here’s a way to say it — I pay attention, I notice things, I remember, I make connections; my mind moves fast — and long, on the connections. Draw the well deep, carry far the water. [The semi-colon technically ‘replaces’ the period but artfully between the two a difference wd be how a semi-colon can

Related

Happy in Our Work

To put the last first … Yes … can’t always get what we want Yes yes … we work as unto the Lord Yes yes yes … sacrifice, live, die, etc. But … what for? How then shall we live and die? + Saito says it’s this. To End All Wars — what Prisoner of

Everyman’s Death

It’s legit unseemly. Our being ‘gutted’ and whatnot by the deaths of people we don’t know. Still, there is John Donne and there is continuity and there is in the end … us. Well, there ought to be but we usually skip not to the end — that bell tollling for we. + Also unseemly

Ensamples

Among the worst things about The Slap is how it has fed self-righteousness in all but the two participants, and they already had it or it wldn’t have happened. But there is Solzhenitsyn, again, with the line between good and evil that cuts through every human heart, and there is Dostoevsky, always, reminding us via

Finding Level

Relationship finds its own level. Generally it looks like we [and others] choose — a boy’s entreatment rejected, an attorney makes partner, 158 million of us vote — but there is a finality to much that we ostensibly do. This is how such absurdities as determinism gain purchase, how authors can talk and be misunderstood