Recently when I referred to one of the Other Blogs, Kiss the Culprit, as “my personal Winchester Mystery House,” FOB Knox commented:
Your personal Winchester House gives structure and meaning to your life which otherwise might be missing.
Which I knew, of course, but it never hurts to be reminded.
In fact I have two, the other being the music library on my computer. When we moved into our current house about a dozen years ago, my darling wife commissioned custom shelves for my CD collection (which numbers about 3000 and has held pretty steady since then – I’ve mostly sworn off physical media, for music anyway). When they were finally done and the boxes unpacked I decided it was time to put all of my music in one digital library, which I had never actually done before.
At first I just burned stuff as fast as possible, but I soon realized that was stupid. If you’re not actually listening as you go, what’s the point? So I slowed way down and just accepted that it was going to take A Long Time.
I mean, sure — the hungrier you are, the better that peach is going to taste. But that’s the wrong reason to do it. The right reason is that it’s time for the peach to be eaten.
You can’t just pick up a peach and stuff it in your mouth. There is a process — equal parts art and science. There are elements of seduction and of mutual consent. Many are the times I have let a promising-looking specimen go bad because I waited too long. (Story of my life.)(I like to think that when I die, all these lost peaches will be restored to me, sort of like the 72 virgins — which, I know, aren’t real either, don’t @ me.)
Do I regret this? Well, what do you mean by “regret”? Certainly I wish things would have worked out better. But in this as in so many areas of life, decisions must be made, and the results are not always the desired ones.
And when it does go right — ideally a peach should be eaten outside, in the blazing sun, with the juices trickling down one’s bare chest — few things in life are better. There’s one on the table in front of me right now. Later.
I have mixed feelings about the 4th of July this year, to say the least.
This is a big anniversary for my home country — they are calling it the “semiquincentennial,” which I eventually figured out means “half of 500.” Which is a weird way to measure time, but the Romans were like that.
Speaking of which, America feels awfully Roman lately, don’t you think? Gladiators brawling on the White House lawn, decadent oligarchs running roughshod over the land…. And how about those orgies where toga-clad senators stuff themselves with the finest meats and cheeses, gorging and vomiting, gorging and vomiting, stopping only to bugger pretty young boys?
OK that last bit hasn’t happened yet. But is it really that far off?
Today finds me in Edgewood, WA awaiting the birth of my second grandson. The fact that I now have grandchildren after never having children is a continual source of amazement and confusion, but in a good way.
Despite this being the middle of January, it was a glorious summer’s day here in Arcata, sunny with a high of 59. (For whatever reason, that feels like 75 here; on those rare occasions when it does get over 70, it starts to feel too hot.) I find myself thinking about the good people of Minneapolis, where it was a balmy 43 degrees today, but the forecast for Saturday is a high of 8 and a low of –1.
Also they are currently in the midst of being invaded by a foreign power called the United States. ICE is on the streets there shooting people, throwing teargas around, and generally behaving like the low-rent Gestapo it is. So far the Minneapolitans are handling it admirably well — taking to the streets and resisting without slipping over into violence, which of course is what the Alt-Reich (new nickname, what do you think?) wants, an excuse to kick out the jams.
I am also thinking about the people of Iran, who are currently being slaughtered by their government on a whole different scale. Demonstrating once and for all that he is immune to irony, our president has been threatening to bomb their country, which is sure to help. Here is his message to them:
Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price.
I would say the same thing to the Minnesotans, and to Portlanders, and to anyone else currently under siege. Stay strong, stay peaceful, and Illegitimi non carborundum.
Today is the solstice, which means it’s the beginning of winter, also the beginning of the end of winter — every day will be a little bit longer for the next six months, which is nice.
Where I live we’re already in the midst of Humboldt Winter, which means what feels like 38 straight days of pissing rain. A minor inconvenience for me, a major hassle for those without a roof over their heads. I feel very fortunate today as I sit here sipping a Super Shroom Mocha and listening to Mulatu Astatke on the stereo.
In a few days it’ll be Christmas, and this year I’m finding very little enthusiasm for the holiday season. But maybe a Festivus Miracle will happen two days hence.
I must admit to somewhat addictive behavior when it comes to the TV news. More often than I’d like to admit, I find myself tuning in to see what insane and horrible thing has happened now. But I can’t actually watch it for very long, because, you know, insane and horrible.
So then I end up looking for other things to watch. Fortunately it’s basketball season now, and the Warriors look pretty good. I’ll throw on a football game if people on my Sports and Booze chat are talking about it. And this week I even watched a little baseball — a World Series game in which I became interested, then very interested, and suddenly not interested anymore when it dragged on into the, like, 13th inning. (It ended up going 18, by which time I had long since departed for dreamland.)
This being Halloween week, there have been a lot of seasonally appropriate movies on, so at times I’ve found myself flipping back and forth between the news and, say, Little Shop of Horrors, House of Wax , or The Thing. And what I’ve discovered is that there is no movie, however scary, that does not come across as light relief in comparison to the real things happening in the US of A in 2025.
Is it hysterical of me to say that the Fourth Reich has arrived? That we now have a secret police operating with impunity across the country, teargassing and terrorizing the populace? And that it’s only going to get worse, as the big budget increase recently given ICE kicks in, and That Fucking Guy follows through on his threats to invoke the insurrection act and send the military to our cities? They are sending federal monitors to oversee our election on Tuesday; why do that if you don’t intend to find fraud, whether it’s there or not, and try to overturn any unwanted result?
I don’t mean to be a bummer. I think — I hope — I pray that when push comes to shove, people don’t want this and won’t tolerate it. Unfortunately we’ve handed an enormous amount of power to evil people who won’t readily give it up.
