Recent
No Prizes for Subtlety
It was the sort of place you wouldn’t be found dead in; the guy on the floor didn’t agree. Didn’t seem to like the floor — but it was in better shape than his face. Then someone had gone duck hunting on his chest. And either another guy was standing in front of me, or
Can We Tawk?
Comedienne Joan Rivers’ catchphrase was, ‘Can we talk?’ with all that that entails — its rhetorical nature, the Jewish thing, an implication that at least one of the parties will be better off for having done so … Like God. T’other day a priest spoke of ontological remembrance, the immediate and ongoing memory of past-present-future
Hide and See
Something lost, Dallas Willard said once, might yet be very valuable. One’s car keys for instance. He was speaking somewhat in the context of salvation, if I recall … the general point was calling something lost doesn’t mean it’s not wanted — quite the opposite. Yet it remains … until finding its way out or being found
Greater Love Blah Blah Blah
Do we doubt locals thanked them for their service? I’m not equating the two. They were wrong; glad we crushed them. Only noting it’s likely they thought as much about such things as we do, which is to say not much. German citizens who believed their leaders, loved their country, watched their sons get on
Random
Plough Lines
“For sale: baby shoes” is a classified ad. “For sale: baby shoes; never worn” is a story. It’s Hemingway’s, in fact. * “The king is dead” is a news bulletin. “The king died, and the queen died of grief” is a story. Better yet, “The king died, and the queen and her lover died in
Animal Planet
We’re watching Planet of the Apes. No, not the Charlton Heston one — this one. Only it’s supposed to be this one, from last year. So we’re on the middle one, the “first remake” (excluding the 17 sequels to the Charlton Heston one) and it’s by Tim Burton, with all that that entails, from Helena
The Fat Guy And Food
The Fat Guy does not particularly like food. There are gourmands, who also are likely to be massively obese — think Mario Batali, who can be easily envisioned in one of those old “Faces of Death” videos, hammering the monkey trapped in the middle of the dining table and scooping brains out of the not-yet-dead
Tubercular Dude
Did not know this until just now but a few weeks ago was World Tuberculosis Day, which honors the date the TB bacterium was discovered in 1882. The CDC says no ‘celebration’ until it is eliminated. The discovery came with its own pandemic, killing 1 in 7. From the safety of 140 years thence, this