February 2026

February 24-25, 2026: Have an idle moment on your hands? Hunker down with Juvenal’s Fourth Satire. Read the thing, should you wish a classic depiction of minions and grovelling. Apply said depiction to the potentatious throughout history. Otherwise, no other analogies need be drawn between the time of Domitian and our travail of You-Know-Who, though a minion is a minion is a minion, and grovelling is grovelling. We here at Ephemeris do not mind promulgating the odd fact or two, do not shrink from offering up an opinion on this, that, and the other thing on occasion, but outright pronouncements? No doubt, some “utterances” have slipped into our discourse and will, most likely, do so again, and for that, well, we confess to a capacity for showing off, but outright pronouncements, getting all steamed up and oracular – it goes against our grain. Even so, what follows is a pronouncement, no getting around it and so, we “let fly” as it were. Incoming:

You want wisdom with your chicken soup and Triscuits? Wisdom – whatever it is, knowledge combined with scruple perhaps and gained by experience and some study – has been made irrelevant to the survival of our kind, and to much else, for that matter. And you, as individuals or as a collective, are nothing more than problems to be solved – one way or the other thusly: how best squeeze you so as to maximize the profits of a coterie of clowns, some of whom will inform you that leverage is a bitch. What few gains we’ve made on the wisdom score have been cancelled by the highballing world of “tech” or the drive to surpass the functions of the human brain by some, what to call it, digital omniscience. Experience itself is rendered moot. It tells me that we understand our brains even less than we did in the medieval era (you will catch hell for your sins), or the pagan times (the gods are everywhere and watch your hubris) …. Intellectually-grasped ethics and or morals are not the same as that which is innate, as when one is willy-nilly sickened by the sight of someone kicking a dog or thrashing a horse – that sort of business, of a man or woman or child browbeating a man, woman, or child, but I suppose an obligation to live by a moral or ethical code is better than having no obligation at all to honour anything but greed, sadism, and leverage, in conjunction with which caprice, coupled to the brute exercise of power, becomes everything, all she wrote. Pontius Pilate as House speaker and second-tier bag man…

Postscript I: Mercury is approaching retrograde. In the meantime, let it be known that, on this day in the year 1836, defenders of the Alamo sent out distress signals. I am betting that Carpenter figures they may as well do so again, never mind the recourse to upside-down flags at half mast, and no matter what those mad-for-slavery defenders thought they were doing. The man will also provide grief counselling should your republic pre-decease you. Warning: he goes heavy on the tough love stuff.

Postscript II: Lunar, on occasion, samples levity, like so: … …. ‘We watched an old British film noir Payroll last night with a devastatingly sexy Françoise Prévost. I mean she was bad as in one very bad femme fatale, maybe even the baddest girl ever. There was one cracker of a line when she tells her hapless husband who she met in Vienna at the end of the war. “Three invading armies and all I got was you.” … …. So much for a match made in heaven, Lunar’s har-har a knee-slapper. So on to Lunar Review #1016 ½: … …. ‘Gruelling stuff but I recommend the BBC 4-part adaptation of Lord of the Flies. Some critics say it lacks the power of William Golding’s language, which may be true, but visually, viscerally, it is pretty damned powerful. Otherwise, I’m at a loss what to say.’ … …. Do not believe a word of it, Lunar’s loss of what to say. However, his estimation of a flick’s worth – it goes one better than anything to be gleaned from official review services. Hence, Lunar apropos of not much: … …. ‘I think part of the bigger problem has been the largely unreported death of the critical faculties.’ … …. One hardly knows where to begin with this assertion. Ya think comes to mind. Not that we are gainsaying the man. At what point does the understated resound as a thunderclap? Is there a tracking device on a prophet’s wheelchair? Last, and perhaps somewhat least a Lunar prediction: … …. ‘C, by the way, sent me an article on the rise of the Right in this country. I said yes, but not quite, and it strikes me how Americans tend to get this country wrong. Yes, you could say the Right here has adopted Christianity, but it simply can’t be compared with America. The UK is famously irreligious and, unlike in America, the ghastly union of faith and politics will never take hold the way it has over there.’ … …. What country is Lunar speaking of? Presumably Hammersmith. And well, we will see.

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, and those SOTU scraps of notes swirling about in the streets like candy wrappers or discarded “platinum packs” (safes) might be worth a honk, your call: … …. ‘Juvenal's satire is perfect for T, my favorite line, "all those thousands of sesterces ... were belched up by a purple-clad parasite of the august Palace." [And] what's hilarious [as per a different subject] is that Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which the Mad Queen is now using, became obsolete before it passed Congress. It was designed to deal with balance-of-payments deficits, which were no longer a problem — or even possible — once Nixon adopted a floating exchange rate in 1973. So Trump is again on illegal ground, since the statute is meaningless. But that's no problem for Trump. [But you, sir, do have a problem. Call “moral insanity” an oxymoron if it gets you through the night.] [I say] moral insanity is not only a real condition, as a human force in history it's more prevalent and powerful than whatever it is that most people vaguely consider standard-issue morality to be. Jerry Falwell was "fundamentally" crazy as hell and supremely moral, so much so the evil bastard managed to convince millions of Americans to become similarly morally insane. We're living with the consequences today — Trump's exploitation of vast moral insanity. The Bolsheviks were moral, Hitler was moral, the idiots who dragged us into Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were moral. And fucking nuts.’ … …. I am still not convinced, but sure, nuts – that seems germane. … …. [‘As for the bard (see link below) showcased in a YouTube clip], he's right about the poor being more generous than the rich. Same in US, the poor contribute far more to charities. He's also right about the rich and aesthetic taste. Again, same here. Mencken wrote a hilarious piece about the philistinism of American "aristocrats."’

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘Don’t know about you, but I’m halfway through Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Rather gorgeous. Find myself lolling about in the scenes, the imagery, the sentences, as if in a warm pond. Percival says hello. Is he the GOAT among island goats in these parts? I don’t think he gives a toss. Solzhenitsyn has been swallowed by some trash bin in my brain, forgive the whiff of computerese. You once dived into Cioran, didn’t you? Ebullient kemo sabe, say what? The catastrophe of birth. The rejection of ambition as the straightest course to living a genuine life. Where be-est thou now, brown cow, with all that? Are we headed for a late-in-life conversion to, say, a more generalized program of well-being or not-so-well-being, one with a touch of Mary Poppins in it, sit-com hoopla? People seem convinced of the notion that life is something you can break into manageable bits, like the way one approaches learning a piece of music measure by measure, and then, voila, you’ve got yourself a musical interlude. Maa. Hang it all, Browning, but I reckon I see a purple people-eater in the yard spooking my goat with a pan pipe tune. Could mean spring is coming. Late for a stint at the Recycle Depot. I once hauled an Ezra Pound out of there.’

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘I continue to have nothing to say about Slovakia and Epstein, or Slovakia’s doings at the winter Olympics, or the weather in these parts. Some medical issues concern me just now. But I await the return of birdsong and the busting out of wild garlic. I will leave you with this though. From Thucydides: "We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all". A bientot.’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. ‘Haydn. A chance hearing of. I’m guessing it was one of his concertos as I didn’t catch the disc jockey’s intro. But French horn is all worked up. He lies on the table by a stack of serviettes and one intact onion. And the unopened pouch of coffee awaiting its debut in my Bodum. Did I say lie? He’s in a swoon. That violin adagio as performed by a young woman who went to town on it... Back, otherwise, on the cupcakes. They are in the oven at 350 F. A Polish cousin has compared Zelensky and Putin to a Punch and Judy show. Trump as the sausage-eating crocodile? Doesn’t seem a match. We are, in fact, wintered out, French horn and I. We’ll give the evening’s SOTU blah-blah-blah… endless endlessly blah-blah-blah exhortation the widest possible berth. The man and his aggrieved amour-propre discombobulate the world. Even the uncontacted tribes. Black plague on steroids. Check your armpits.’

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … …. ‘Two events are jumbled in my mind. That I was in Spain once (Madrid? Barcelona?). Where I chanced on a crowd that the then Spanish king was headed for. I sensed a pair of eyes boring into my head. I have never felt so seen, so assessed. I looked around for the source of my discomfort and then saw what I took to be a member of the king’s security detail scanning the area. I’d just received extra attention. For an instant our eyes locked, and then the security man turned away, no longer interested. He spoke into his walkie-talkie. The next event, Italy, Verona, I think, and someone took a shot at the pope just as I happened on the scene. Or so it seemed. Trouble is, it never happened. I’ve looked it up and I see that I was five years too late and in the wrong city for that assassination attempt. Which took place in St Peter’s square, 1986. No pope visited Verona in that year. And yet, I’m not imagining this. Not a case of blown brain cells, I can assure you. Anyway, don’t mind me. My favourite café is shut down. I’m out of sorts. The trendier venues I’ve tried give you the performing arts at every table. The seedier places are harder to find, disappearing like extra bacon. Can one say far-er? Winter’s shit show – all that pissy snow... What makes Bach so special? No doubt, AI will catch me up on the whys and wherefores. Compositional mastery, to be sure. I dreamed last night that I was telling a funny story and it was received as such. Hilarious. I was a hysterical guy. Showed promise. Electable. Later, I was asked to tell the same story to someone else (who had a rep for being Wit’s very own well-spring), and the story came off distinctly unfunny, tedious to hear, and I was a wanker, a bore, a weirdo, possibly a full-out persona non grata, a danger to the human species. Avoid. That’s what I rated, and You-Know-Who was elected. The universe is more twisted than not. You know what I mean.’

Last of the Bards Department: Bards youtube.com/watch?v=LzsVS07eovM

February 14-16, 2026: So, 6th century B.C. and peaches had come all the way from China to Greece, 300 years earlier than what other sources state. I take my cue here from The Classical World, Robin Lane Fox, 2005. Another lame piece of knowledge brought onboard. So that, from the same book quoting Herodotus: This is the most hateful anguish of all among men, to understand much and prevail in nothing.

Now You-Know-Who may be thin-skinned or impervious to every Bronx cheer, but this rather innocuous line from Juvenal’s first satire applies to him all the same, poetic justice pending: who cares for reputation if he keeps his cash? In an introduction to another of that poet’s (55-127 A.D.) satires, I came across the words as offer a blow-by-blow account of what gives in a particular Juvenalian screed: Selfish greed, selfish indulgence are, between them, destroying all human intercourse and affection. The individual now stalks through life as though it were some kind of no-man’s land, in armoured isolation, out solely for what he can get, giving no quarter and expecting none. Hell, as Sartre said, is other people; but it is also oneself. How can this, in the broad strokes, not ring familiar? Though talking the particulars of this moment in time, and with AI breathing down our necks, one might ask for a touch more precision: greed is virtue, and virtue is what gets you through the night. Just that I have seen and heard so much invective directed against Trump and his capo regime that I, for one, am all invective’d out. Some of which reviling drills all the way down to the pecker-sniff-category of instant recoil.

The elites of another day were expected to have prowess in any number of endeavours, never mind cruising the keyboards of laptops. From The Classical World the ideal resume: Judging and speaking were not the limits of an aristocrat’s accomplishments. He was also brought up to dance, to sing and play music, especially on the aulos, an instrument like the modern oboe. He learned to ride, still without stirrups, and to use his sword and spear, but he could also compose verses and cap a neighbour’s wit at a party. He was accomplished in ways his modern critics tend not to be. Ah yes, those grammar-free Truth Socials and the e-mails that orbit them, glib exchanges between the right and left hemispheres of know-nothing brains keystroked to “connecting”, high-fives flying, and who needs parallel parking skills anymore, anyway, the computer, the cell phone, and the surveillance state will eat your homework. At least Ice Barbie is getting it off, so we understand, in pursuit of her worst of the worst and a proper vote-registry, and her next level orgasms.

How long did that last – the neo-lib world order? As long as it takes yeast to ferment in honey and oil and a trade wind or three, regime change on the half shell? And this too belongs to a world dead and gone: how I went, random act of another lifetime, into a Victoria B.C. bookstore of some renown (when the review pages of the NY Times still had authority and credibility, in other words texture). How I picked, at random, a copy of Juvenal’s satires from a shelf. How I had myself a little read. How I inwardly had an eureka moment: you mean a guy gets to say these things, this before the culture wars were dispensing their party favours to all concerned? How, in an instant, much of my pimply confusion with respect to poetry was cleared up. I would come to know that Juvenal was a wanker, had unwarranted animus toward Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, anything that was not “Roman” though Rome was all those things, all roads leading to the place, off-ramps everywhere. But that Juvenal also had a thing about fair play, and that the rich and their hypocrisies and a rigged game were obstacles to such.

Postscript I: On this day in 1980, Lillian Hellmann and Mary McCarthy had themselves a literary spat. The one said of the other: “Every damn word she wrote is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’. What put the bee in this particular bonnet? Anti-Stalinism, apparently, had something to do with it, and dollops of professional jealousy. Of which Carpenter has not an ounce in him, so far as is known, but do not quote me. Even so, let Fidel Castro allow that he could not get through “Das Kapital” and Carpenter will have himself a sympathetic lark.

Postscript II: Speaking of half shells, lo, here are some Lunar remarks on tap: … …. ‘There is a price to be paid for inhabiting and worshipping Reason because it’s there that one is led astray. It is a place which allows for no mistakes, one consequence of which is that one’s whole life is rendered a mistake.’ … …. Well, one down, is it safe to sample another Hail Mary pass? … …. ‘And yes, only yesterday I read two articles about Cuba and, well, it is sickening, all these decades later revenge for the Cuban Revolution which, after all, was of America’s making turning the island into a whorehouse.’ … …. Apparently so. And while the going is good so far: … …. ‘I watched a fair chunk of the Pam Bondi hearing, and it is a relief to hear some sane voices, one woman in particular who quietly demolished the hateful bitch. You can measure an awful lot by how rattled she becomes in the face of simple eloquence. I call it (copyright) Bimbo Politics.’ … …. Could be. Are there women out there who might care to second the emotion? Some as yet uncontacted tribe? Is there life after an Executive Order? Where were you when hell froze over, Minneapolis caught in a bind, between law and a hard place, and the squeeze killed, and lies, spooked by their own shadows, made for such a din? Lunar’s last word on happenstance: … …. ‘Rubio, don’t take your love to town.’

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, honk if you see a pack of jackals hanging about, aiming to upend the food chain, snorting coke off toilet seats all the while in homage to Fat-Headedness, to time travel via wormhole expressways. (See Current Secretary of Wellness and Oblivion. His drive-by Proxima Centauri hit jobs may have left him with permanent jetlag.): … …. ‘Those poor Cubans. We've screwed that island from the get-go. Castro went to DC after he took control, looking for help, and he got cold-shouldered. So he turned to the USSR. Then we complained about him being a commie. Hell, he once said he couldn't even get through Das Capital. (Who could?)… …. And apropos of everything and nothing: … …. ‘Sickening. Every fucking goddamn thing gets more sickening by the day.’ … …. Indeed, inglorious language as spoken by an inglorious pointillist of the political scene. Whereupon: … …. ‘No, I've not listened to the music of Brecht's “The Threepenny Opera” nor read the play, but we read a short story of his in one of my German classes. It was enough to put one on antidepressants. [Just now], I'm catching bits of “A Man for all Seasons”, running on some network. I wish I had the script. He [Sir Thomas More?] just spoke a line about "a state of virtue" as opposed to [what was] the criminal maelstrom of England's [then] governance; it was brilliant, and, needless to add…’ … …. I expect Drake meant to say, had he cared to follow through, that if there is a lesson in this for us, forget it. And if it is eloquence you hanker for, forget that too…. What is history? The state of the elastic in one’s sweatpants, the last time they stayed snug around the waist, and you were mainlining this or that beer and this or that foodstuff? You know, when you were having a personal day.

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘I see you’ve moved on. My Seneca, however, is still bleeding reason (reason – can’t live with it, can’t live without it), the book turned to page [ ], face down on the kitchen table, next to the toaster, and I’m going to make some homemade Worcestershire…. In which case, "I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good." (From Seneca.) Does this explain my on-again, off-again relations with Solzhenitsyn? In the way that moral epiphanies may be consequent upon viewing Duck Soup, I was going to watch that old “Anna Karenina” flick with Vivien Leigh, but something caused me to hang fire. A factoid buried deep in my brain vis-a-vis Leigh and Olivier, whose marriage (while a loving one, was a nightmare), brought on, unaccountably, a spate of melancholy. Or so I read somewhere. And the film’s black and white format, seemingly oppressive as the first frames rolled by, was a Deep Despond as I’d never get free of, once my toes locked on. Interesting, because I like black and white film for the most part. Otherwise, as you can see, a whole lot of nothing is going on with me. Rather chilly out here on the island. Percival, he… You see, every now and then a scene from an old miniseries (“The Odyssey”) flashes in my mind, that one of the goat-offering to Scylla, the animal maa-maa-ing away, knowing he was in for it, but with no idea of as to what might finish him off. It vexes. And then, ever since I heard that story about the “Ice Barbie” and her “blankie”, I will now always wonder about such blankets as turn up at the Recycling Depot. Why? Fear of contagion, I suppose, the Great Replacement Theory a virulent bug, creepie-crawlie thing with prejudice.’

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘I’ve nothing to say about Slovakia and Epstein. I would say, but someone beat me to it: Rubio, don’t take your love to town. (This hood ornament was here, as you may know. Did someone say Count Ciano?) Not in the mood for scandal, though I suppose, when it comes to scandal, one should always be in the mood, salacious details, on occasion, life affirming. Taster’s choice. And are we still on about Seneca? "A guilty person sometimes has the luck to escape detection, but never to feel sure of it". Yes, that would be the philosophe himself at the helm of something quoteworthy. It’s snowing in these parts. Wind advisories in place. I find myself continually validating myself, as per my capacity for quiet inner scorn. I’ll see myself as Prince Salina (he appears in The Leopard). A noble, enlightened spirit. A rat bastard. Shall I smile for Rembrandt, screw the camera? That there is a tug of war within a man as when a man would play tragedy as farce and farce as tragedy, especially as he catches chance glimpses of himself in a mirror and sees someone still on his game, but for how long, at the mercy of who knows what butterfly effect? I can’t help but see Trump as an irrelevance at times, for all that he dominates the news and has at his zero-sum games. (Either he destroys the Man – the Establishment, or the Man – the Establishment destroys him.) Besides, we are all of us what clinical shrinks say he is, only that, perhaps, we’re not as shameless, not quite as lethal or wholesale corrosive, and may even have some genuine regard for persons not strictly ourselves. What say you? Are you appalled by my heresy? Hey, I love my wife.’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. ‘It’s “Quit Cupcakes Cold Turkey Week” here in this household, French horn soaking up the winter sun blasting through the window, and maybe I’ll make it through the weekend without succumbing to a carb…. I’ve seen nothing, heard nothing, absorbed nothing, fought off nothing vital enough to be worth expatiating about, though there’s a dog with something like a squeaking rubber duck in its mouth on the floor above me that I’d like to shoot, and I’m not even an ex-governor. How to characterize the squeak? It has occupied my wits all morning. Squidgee squidgee squidgee eee? Like the sound of a dying republic? Of Greenland having a fright? I’ve not heard from any of my Polish cousins in ages. No doubt, they’ve got frog toxins on the brain after the latest revelation as to Russian extracurricular activities, how their spooks play “pin the donkey on the tail”… False narrative? Winter’s dog days, don’t you know, speaking of dogs. The brain isn’t so much fried as indifferent, flat-lined, actively sluggish. Evil is a grand word, but what’s diabolical in the news is shabbiness beyond compare… I’ve read some Mary McCarthy, not Hellman so much. Can’t remember what I read, but it was a duty read. Someone I thought I ought to read. Along came 50 Shades of Grey or whatever. After which, time for an antidote, and I figured I’d book me a pilgrimage to Papua, hang out with the tribes, eat grubs, look droll, and play whites for suckers. How is it a people steeped in beliefs that witches and unholy spirits roam the earth at night, can still spot every angle more clearly than a Washington lobbyist or a Vegas card sharp? Not only do whites only see what they want to see, they film it. And then they call it the Oscars.’

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … …. ‘Verily. Winter’s dog days, March to come. March is always a long month though it’s shorter than some. Juvenal, you say? Never warmed to him. There’s something in me still that’s just sucker enough (one born every minute, as ever) that poetry ought to come off with a Rilkean flourish or two when it presents itself, that Rilke would’ve seen in Rome’s painted whores and trannies and nouveau riche assholes the eternity of his own soul or some such, stick a posy in one’s buttonhole. Just taking a stab here. Juvenal was, of course, relentless, but I expect you know that. Somewhere in recent days, and I now regret I lost it, I came across an A-list of insults to do with You-Know-Who, and some would’ve grossed out Grosz the Berliner, painter-satirist of the 20s of the previous century. I’ve always wondered if he’d seen the Nazis coming, and I looked it up, and glory be, it’s asserted that he did, so much so he split, as it were, vacated the premises. Saw it years in advance, the descent. I don’t know if there were political anti-nausea pills one could’ve taken for that stomach-churning plunge. I don ‘t know that there are any now, ginger tablets for the reluctantly prescient.’

February 5-6, 2026: The contention is, as I understand it: we have overstated cases. The bleak picture often expressed here with regards to the “situation” is unjustified by the fact that American democracy is 250 years young or thereabouts, and one cannot just huff, puff, and blow the thing down. Even so, “four-wheel drift” comes to mind often when scrolling through the news. Or that we lurch from “inflection point” to “inflection point”, drunken sailors having shipped on a rudderless ship. And yes, apologies for a classical metaphor following so soon after imminent car crashes. It might get to the spirit of things, but it does not necessarily best describe the current pass in which we find ourselves: tragedy at first, then farce, then farce, then farce, then farce, then farce, fractals of which multiply unto the horizon and beyond. And what of the power of distraction to heal? Ba-dee-ba-dee-ba-dee-ba – that’s all folks.

For there are people (Ayn Rand-ized tech bros as messianic as the Christian nationalists and variations thereof with whom they are intertwined) attempting to secure the helm for their mercenary aims, party drugs doing meet-cute in their bloodstreams. So as to pirate how we do things, how we vote, how we spend our money; how we earn our money for that matter; how we love, pray, how we eat, the whole nine yards. MAGA: one methamphetamine delivery system among others. Yes but, hang on a second. It is said that there are more people turning out for “democracy” (street protests) than there are people lobbying in those same streets for a dictator and his accessories. One of which accessories is a private militia. Another of which is a chain that lets him yank the chains of the entire judicial apparatus. One of which is a ghost network of detainment camps, justice by another name as might still possess onerous connotations. What are we going to say of such thugs and their accoutrements? It is not over until the Fat Lady sings?

On an unrelated matter, our cleaving apart from nature has had consequences. (Consider Toronto. Alright, just joking.) Not the least of which is how we view the old philosophical notion of the “good” as opposed to the not-so-good. The highest value of the good is “freedom”, the basest evil being slavery – so far as Seneca had it. He was a Roman man of letters. He mentored Nero in the early part of Nero’s reign when it was recognizably sane. He was a man richer in his day, in real, material terms, than Musk is in ours. (Seneca had vast holdings. It was just that, on occasion, they embarrassed him.)

And well, it is one thing to present greed as a virtue (reflect back on them there 80s), to turn all notions of value upside down, and it is another to wipe the field clear of all terms, all values, all distinctions of good and evil, and just declare a moratorium on being human. Which is where we are as we cruise about on the Good Ship Spectrum Dominance. There are reasons to dismiss Seneca and his ruminations on virtue and charge the man with gross hypocrisy (on account of his obscene wealth), though he did die honourably.

How so? Nero wearied of the philosopher and his lectures on this, that and the other thing. And as the philosopher was implicated in a plot against the First Citizen among all lesser homebodies and their gladiatorial beatitudes, the philosopher was instructed to slice his wrists. Said philosopher complied, but in a dignified manner, with comportment, one might say, his long battle against distraction and petty vexations at an end. As if to say, “Not you, Nero, but I. I am the, as it were, captain of my (metaphorical) ship, so bite me.” Truth was in nature and nowhere else, certainly not in a bunch of wordplay, unless wordplay involves a Petroniusian limerick. (See Petronius Arbiter.) Seems there was bad French theory before there was bad French theory….

Where were we? We were speaking about an hombre in a toga, pea jackets not yet on the scene, who liked to say that there is no higher or lower virtue; there is only virtue, the item itself. At least the man was putting his thought to conduct, not to natural-born ambiguities in the use of language, in the nature of language itself as a way of giving any sort of hot seat the slip. “Did you at any time have thoughts of bringing harm, through language, to the operations of justice, of the ability to make distinctions, meddling with the laws of cause and effect, of rebranding Newtonian physics, using the old assertions as a towel rack or ash tray or plea deal? Answer the question.” (Seneca liked to avail himself of legalese when in the heat of discussing this or that First Amendment, I mean, principle.)

Postscript I: On this day in the year 1870, the 15th amendment to the Constitution was ratified, and Bob’s your uncle, the right to vote not restricted to whites. There was a mass murder in the year 1780 (Connecticut) with which Carpenter had nothing to do, and Samuel Clemens decided to come it as a nom de plume i.e. as Mark Twain (1863), don’t know much about biology. A lady outlaw was shot in the back (1889). Another Missourian, she had received an education in the classics. Apparently, she could hold her own on the piano. What put the kibosh on her life? The Civil War at six to one odds.

Postscript II: Lunar: … …. ‘[ ] we did make it to Boris Godunov [ ]. I wonder how they managed to ring the bells in the coronation scene. They were somewhere, possibly coming from beyond the ceiling above. The Russian composers certainly knew how to get pomp into their music. I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin had that music at breakfast every morning. JB, who is a bit of sap when it comes to women, sent me a riotous defence of Melania, saying that if he had got to her first years ago “she would never have ended up, sour as a Danubian sow, in her present tacky hellhole. Her cheekbones still suggest aristocratic instincts. And I still entertain hopes she will murder her husband - she does at least come from the Balkans - admittedly, the most neutered Balkan…” [ ] dwell on that morsel.’ … …. And we shall, with a tra la la and a yippee ki yay, remember the Alamo. … …. ‘I spoke of the knock-on effect and so it goes: Starmer may be finished any minute now for his failure to vet Mandelson for his appointment as ambassador. So Starmer admits to knowing about the Epstein connection and his closest allies have turned on him. What Mandelson has done in providing Epstein with secret financial matters is nothing short of treason. Meanwhile Randy Andy was involved in a threesome with Epstein and an “exotic dancer”. If Starmer goes, will there be an election and will Farage come to power? Quo vadis? I guess in some ways this puts us on a higher moral ground than America in that politicos here are still accountable. B’s birthday today and so I’d better be accountable. Now here’s a chilling thought: in Florida “cold-stunned” iguanas are falling out of trees. They’re not dead but semi-conscious. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it. It’s time to see that film again [The Night of the Iguanas]. I’m onto the third of the Stefánsson trilogy and it holds up, the genius of it being it holds up with so little like one of those unsupported domes. An unlikely analogy, okay, let’s go for igloos then. And how does a spider throw a single line over a wide space? And what goes on in a spider’s mind when it does so? The political fall-out brought on by the Epstein may prove to be greater here than in America. I think we can safely assume the nitty-gritty relating to T. will remain suppressed for a long time to come.’ … …. Why, Sherlock, your slip is showing.

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, honk if you see a deep state that, like a time-travel cyborg, has come in from the cold: … …. ‘Your years-ago visions weren't wrong, that's for sure. There have been cries of American "fascism," so to speak, since Jefferson and Jackson. Then Lincoln's heavy executive hand. The literal word came into fashion against FDR when he was busy trying to save the country from abject ruin. All of it, the cries, nonsense (except for Jackson, whom I detest, the Nazi bastard). And, of course, progressives have screamed fascism for decades. I never joined in. Until Bush II, who got the fascism ball rolling for real; "unitary executive," a euphemism for "dictator." Trump is just an heir of the Bush regime, and like so many second-generation heirs, he's reckless, frivolous, and deeply ignorant.’ … …. Pause for breath, one two buckle my shoe: … …. ‘Purely secular? No, our worst nightmare would be an America in which 70% of adults believe in angels and 56% believe there's a devil. Oh, wait ... But you're right about "there's no point in going on about" morality, ethics, right, wrong, spirituality and all that — not now. Later, sure, when we have time for intellectually irresolvable debates and absolute unknowabilities. I'm all for it. I love abstractions. I can, and have, chatted about such conceptual critters for hours on end. But at the moment we have a bit of a real problem on our hands, and navel-gazing over right and wrong (which differ from church to church, sect to sect, denomination to denomination) ain't gonna help us. We just need to get these sons of bitches out of power. In whatever way is possible. Go with God, my son.’

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘Checked out some Seneca I’d retrieved a long while back from the Recycling Depot. Said he: Therefore the power and greatness of virtue cannot rise to greater heights, because increase is denied to that which is superlatively great. You will find nothing straighter than straight, nothing truer than the truth, and nothing more temperate than that which is temperate…. Cloud cover above. Heavy sweater weather. I keep expecting this island to float off into a singularity or the next scandal paying dock fees to Djibouti. I think Percival misses our old digs. Maa. Maa. I’ll worry when he starts goating away with “Ta” – like some Brit who just asked for the sugar. I was going to go to the trouble of rustling up a lasagna dish for my evening’s repast. Can one say, “nothing cheesier than cheesy”? The above quote has thrown me somehow, it on a par with Newtonian physics that has been superseded by developing scenarios, but so far as I know, no lasagna is capable of self-organizing. My novel in the digital shitter, I’m at loose ends. A row across the Pacific, Percival looking askance? Think Hawaii would have me? Do tourist visas have any sticking power, these days, against the new installment of brown shirts? Is a raid on the Oscars next?’

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘So somebody of a Slovakian frame of reference has been snagged by way of the Epstein files. Ex-minister. Says he’d been a fool. There is no glory in outstripping donkeys…. (From Martial the poet of a distant yesteryear that’s still in our face…. I’ve mislaid my copy of Juvenal.) Heavy sweater weather? In these parts, it is that for sure. I smell weekend snow on the way. Shall we have ourselves a hike in the Low Tatras? Could be I need to write some nature verses in a mature style. Because I was in England for a week. Revisiting my 70s, as in my “Me Decade”, but I swear unto you I never wore polyester, at least not without my knowledge, and not among my fellow poets, some of whom coupled shagging to fresh new rhyme schemes. Great fun, the canon on shaky ground.’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. ‘I don’t know any more about the moral vs the ethical than what happens chemistry-wise when I’ve got cupcakes in the oven, French horn waiting out winter and the workmen tramping throughout the building with drills and saws and hammers and flashbangs. Must everything remind us of ICE? Turns out Jack the Ripper was one of my distant Polish cousins. Had nothing to do with illegals. Mull that, you gazetteer. I had occasion to watch “The Professor”. Dark com of sorts with Johnny Depp who, in the course of filming, was up on abuse charges. Professor of English, told he’s going to die toute de suite, decides to give up appeasing mediocrities. Some hilarity ensues. He addresses his class thusly: “If you haven’t read a book by now, get the f—k out of my classroom. You’ll get your C.” Natural justice, say what, as the world turns? I also watched “Goya’s Ghost”. I’ve been a busy little watcher. With respect to the Inquisition, if you’re innocent, God won’t let you feel the pain when put to the “question”, i.e. put to the rack, as when the old sages preached that indifference to pain was the secret of a happy life. Didn’t your Seneca reason along similar lines, the ‘sure, it hurts, but the trick is in not minding it, as per El ‘Awrence in a metaphysical moment? Butterfly effect: I can feel a few Polish cousins, shivering in their socks, the Russians breathing down their necks, setting off the next typhoon in the next Conradian classic.’

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … ….' “Goya’s Ghosts”? Some very good scenes. A movie that should’ve been longer even at the risk of alienating the audience, so that certain things would have time to sink in. With respect to which, depravity as comes of intellectual dishonesty is one of the torches that “influencers” pass from generation to generation. Brother Lorenzo then. Corrupt priest, member of the Inquisition shape-shifted into a “special prosecutor” for the French revolution? Of what does this put one in mind? Trumpian minions with bad taste in wine? But who am I to cavil? All this Epstein business – it’s a bog about to freeze over, sex traffickers encased for the next eternity, along with all the titans, fat cats, poohbahs, the luminaries of some speed dial. Perhaps “intellectual” is a stretch when applied to what gives with Chomsky hanging about with the bagman cum financier cum spy cum Lothario cum salon meister. Damn, I miss my café. Perhaps that’s why I’ve got nothing for you this time around.’