I live out here. And while Nanos is being portrayed as a clown—yeah, he’s out of his element—he‘s been adamant that the Sheriff’s Department will not enforce federal immigration law and will not concern itself with people’s citizenship status.

and built such buildings that entire centuries could not destroy. In the present philosophical times people think otherwise; we count our days, and their limit is the limit of our desires and intentions. We extend our gaze no further, and no one wants to plant an oak tree
(2x)
#rome #russia

Affordability is a real thing, I guess.

Someday it will play to packed houses.

This is just to say

I have drunk
The martini
That was
On the island

And which
You were
Probably
Saving for breakfast

You must be very proud!

Thanks for standing strong, Adrian.

I’m not sure it would have been better if she had called it a floret.

Life, in its bounty, had provided ample opportunities to know beforehand how this was going to play out. But some people have to learn the hard way.

The just-minding-my-own-business cat.

I saw T.C. Boyle at the airport in Tucson some years back. He was surveying the boarding scene at the gate with a faint ironic smile of writerly detachment. But it may have been some other guy, like Walter Mondale, who I saw outside the teacher’s union in Seattle when I wandered out for a donut.

During Snowpocalypse (or was it Snowmageddon?) I payed a young man to do some shoveling and was anticipating a lordly vista of others’ labor, but he ran out of steam early and we had to make it a two-man job. It’s the old horse pulls the cart, as John McCain used to say.

I shudder, and not with the cold.

I had to think about this since I’m not much of a film person. Then I remembered being the only person in the theater at a showing of National Lampoon’s European Vacation and walking out after about 15 minutes. Memorable desolation.

How far we have strayed from our ancestors.

”Lucky lucky lucky me
I’m a lucky son-of-a-gun
I work eight hours, I sleep eight hours
I have eight hours for fun.
Hey!”

(An allegedly Romani song my parents used to have on vinyl)

Looking at myself, I tend to discount the objective value of whatever rather esoteric knowledge I’ve acquired. But when I look at others my opinion changes, and I can only sincerely praise any effort at all that they have made at self-cultivation. Our civilization relies on people knowing something.