January 2026

January 24-27, 2026: The man and half the country to the south of here deserve one another’s danse macabre. A tarantella danced out by two moving parts – vampire head and mob – celebrates not life but the obverse of it. Or one hears in a dim memory of some barn dance: “roll away to a half sashay”, and a boot-stomping quadrille will haul you over the edge, the call answered by “spiritual suicide r us.” (Consider Ground Zero, Minnesota, January 24, 2026, the video clips thereof, the viewing of which engenders a trading up – the usual brain fog for slack-jawed recognition of an execution.) Moving on…

That the loneliness of others is harder to stomach than one’s own. On occasion, it crushes: the sense of those in one’s field of vision as being fundamentally separate one from the other, no matter what bonhomie floats about, and the fact that we all have skin in the game. The laws that govern the “Vanity Fairian” (consult William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair) would stipulate that poor judgements lead to absurd situations, which invite hardheads to sort things out, but that even Stalin had a sense of the ridiculous, and perhaps Current President does too, though never as it might apply to himself. Human nature, for all that, is quantum-based, as when electrons travel in all directions at once, and in the shine of a human eye is the entirety of a psyche announced. That it is extortion is hardly an original insight into what has been the policy of the regime currently in place. Just that, the last time the e-word was broached in my hearing (some podcast or other, some idle remark biding its time in a time capsule), it clicked like a lock securing itself.

Postscript I: I have had the emperor Claudius on the brain, if only because, like Trump, Claudius wished to treat the Roman treasury as his own piggy bank. On this day in history (41 A.D.), he succeeded Caligula whose bit-currency was comprised of seashells (collected on a French seashore, his legions under instructions to “attack the ocean”). Otherwise: don’t know much about biology… Carpenter, be he up or not on deep backgrounds so far as they pertain to economic matters, and despite visits from the Black Dog, is a fairly cheerful Vanity Fairian, even as he treats with the national Geist a la Mencken, served up with some Schopenhauer, Stone (I.F.), Montaigne, and a Pogo (the cartoon guy, not the rocker) limber enough to leap over towering metaphors in single bounds, the bounder.

Postscript II: And the Lunar who says this: … …. ‘Got home to the news from Minneapolis. Absolutely sickening. Even if he had a gun, they had him on the ground, the operative words here being “even if”. So then, more lies, and, yet again, the ghastly Noem [….]. If America wakes up, presuming this is a period of collective insanity, I think the whole caboodle, Vance, Miller, etc will be sent to pasture. Again, a big “if”’ … …. is essentially the same Lunar who said this: … …. ‘Maybe now people will see what a deeply repellent bastard he is. I needn’t say who “he” is. What he said about NATO troops shirking the front line in Afghanistan may be the wake-up call we have all been waiting for, when even the sycophant Starmer has been stirred to fury. Actually, per capita the UK suffered bigger losses, but saying so is neither here nor there because it doesn’t matter how many people lost their lives. They all died fighting. Don’t forget this is the same president who at the Remembrance Day ceremony in Normandy described the American dead as “losers” and remember too what he said about John [Mc]Cain. I think when coupled with other comments made about the deceased in general there is some weird necrophiliac streak in him. Mocking the dead.’ … …. Indeed. But you say “mocking”, and I say “buggering” with respect to the dead, and with lisps and smirks, and with all the cake one can bring to the wedding and scarf down. Moreover, as per Lunar, slight detour but with a return of serve: … …. ‘[Oh, is that you going on about mental duress as served up by your verse, having to assert, upon submission to this or that rag, that your offering won’t lead to brain bleed inside the imploding skulls of the editorial staff]? Well, I reckon you’ve probably driven a few people over the brink [in your time] and ought perhaps to be made to pay the consequences. Poetry is, after all, bad for one. As for ICE did you see that filmed news clip, a Chinese man taken from his home, dressed in only his boxer shorts, in the snow? That was after they smashed through the front door. These people are [aces when it comes to] humiliation. As for Davos, I haven’t a clue although I suspect someone gave him a talking to. After all, he is alienating the whole world.’ … …. And I suppose that the man truly is, at that, a Lazurus running out of resurrections, getting odorous.

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, honk if you happen to spot a Fourth Amendment lying around looking a little trod upon, Insurrection Act in the wings: … …. ‘10 shots? One guy? Already down? Yeah, I'd say that's the definition of trigger happy.’ … …. And: … …. ‘I've not read about Carney being corrupt, but "they're all corrupt" is a common refrain among people who prefer the simplest explanation of politics. It saves a lot of thought. At Davos, Carney gave a 17-minute seminar in foreign relations. I thought it was masterful. And I do hope he takes the lead. Macron will be gone, Merz is toast, so he has scarce competition.’ … …. Scarce competition for what? Skeet shoot? Simulation of a hunting scenario? No, not giving you, Drake, the gears.

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing. I’ve been more than a poor correspondent, I know. My excuse? It’s like I’m watching the approach of an asteroid the size of a ferry with a thousand car capacity. And I say, “Oh, look, there’s a rock in the sky, and it’s headed this way.” All the while Percival continues to placidly munch on this and that. Maa, maa, maa. My, my, my. And I don’t know what the rock signifies most. That I’ve gotten old and only just noticed (save for some generic lumbago)? That, accordingly, Trump tramps on soft-boiled eggs? That the spirit of Mussolini, like over-cooked spaghetti, is sticking to every surface in the western world? That I weep when lovers kiss and reach for their smokes when once I could take all that in a no-nonsense stride and chip in with my “guarda e passa”? No, I’m an islander made of stern stuff, 1 degree Celsius out there, and I’m in cargo pants. I just hit “delete” and the latest draft (my novel) dropped into the digital compost. How many weeks now in these new digs and I can’t feel the ground under my feet? Bear with me.’

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘Well, as I cross the Channel headed for my old haunts, I can tell you, by way of Suetonius, that: “Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.” Seems apt, don’t you think, if in a rather “broadly-speaking” way? Will be attending the funeral of a poet, dead one, not one breathing yet the ionized air of formalism versus anything goes. Will be pronouncing on my own mortality by showing up. Who will I recognize? Who will I fail to recognize among the attendees? Not your problem. Poets? Is there a shrine for the actor Harry Dean Stanton? I’d bring a candle, light it, and mumble something wiseacre about fair play. Claudius was a scholar, a serious one, hippy-dippy too, and keen on gladiatorial spectacle. He was well-versed in the arts of playing the fool. Whereas the other guy, he’s so not-over-himself that the word fool is a generous readout of his character.’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. ‘Shut-in, today. Minus 24 out. I’ll pass on the chill, thank you very much. Cupcakes in the oven. Means I’m relapsing. Let the doctor chew his grievance. French horn rolls his eyes, having recently sat with Schubert’s “Trout Quintet”, thinking it, as he listened, the oddest duck. One too many “Stairways to Heaven”? Polish cousins, amongst themselves, argue “rupture” as opposed to “gentle ripples”, given Davos and the PM and the speech heard around the world, slot machines coming up cherries or bust. Don’t know. Don’t know what else to tell you. Loneliness? It’s like a curtain one draws so as to get a better sleep at nights, and then, morning, opening the curtain, one examines the light for threats and something upbeat. Caught a flick a few hours ago, romantic tale of two misaligned but prospective lovers on the Italian island of Ischia, Jack Lemmon in the frames. Surprisingly unsentimental despite the happy days ending. Female lead as a fool for romance but deep down, unregenerate realist. Thought to my self: as per moi. And in her mind, she thought she had a weight problem. Meanwhile, the US State Department of the day was pilloried.’

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … …. ‘I was just revisiting Suetonius on Claudius. Clearly, the latter man had a sense of the absurd. Are there Trump-Claudius comparisons to be made? Claudius, it seems, was inconsistent, had scant impulse control. He liked watching gladiators inflict pain on gladiators. He was, as it were, pussywhipped. But he also liked to drink and gamble, unlike the Orange Phenom. Here we are talking of two men – an imperial president and an emperor – as though we, like the old Romans were, are wont to talk of our dear leaders in terms of their eccentricities, not their policies. He (Claudius) slept in short snatches. And, as he put it: how can anyone live without an occasional snack? So much for Claudius. Afterwards deified… My preferred café is closed for two months, as previously mentioned. Damn cold out there. Ah, Cuba, mojitos in the sun. But maybe that’s not such a good idea just now, Caribbean skies buzzing with drones. I hate it when the BBC enjoins: “Tune in when we do the arts”. Ah, Titian plus hip-hop. Another protection racket goes to the barricades. I think I could like a man (Valentino) who senses never encountered hide nor hair of the Iraq War, that it was news to him twenty years after the fact, but to live for beauty only? And then to sell one’s fashion business for the rather homely sum of three hundred million? What am I on about? You sure fooled me. To what extent does Trump coquet? Does he titter when he has his laugh out? In Vanity Fairese: He was proud of his hatred as of everything else. Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world? (See note below.) Is there a theme to this round of postering? Maybe tomorrow I’ll put a foot out the door, a citizen of the world.’

Note: Before a man goes to the devil himself, he sends plenty of other souls thither. Or: We grieve at being found out, and at the idea of shame or punishment; but the mere sense of wrong makes very few people unhappy in Vanity Fair, or, say, Boise, Idaho.

January 14-16, 2026: The way things are going, perhaps it is best not to be caught relieving oneself near an image of the president. It was a capital offense in the time of the Caesars, heeding the call of nature when in shouting distance of a statue of a half-man, half-god. And now, since we have kicked things off on a law and order note however legato, and roughly paraphrasing the ex-marshal in the classic western High Noon (he was tendering advice to an out-on-a-limb Gary Cooper on the true nature of law enforcement), in light of recent doings in Minneapolis and whether the country will choose not to countenance the absurd spectacle of heavily-armed masked men looking for traction in the streets: “Maybe people have to talk themselves into law and order maybe because deep down they don’t care….” That is one way of looking at it, I suppose. At any rate, virtuous acts, such as they are, in the face of outlaw gangs or rogue regimes, just might get you alone and dead.

Well, Current President thinks he is nature’s law. Perhaps he has accepted the fact of his mortality, but man, what fun he is going to be missing out on, seeing as he has been making so much of his “morality”. As for him and Venezuela, a quote from William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair as, perhaps, never heard of the place, let alone oil deals: “Polly”, says she, “your sister’s got a penny.” At which the children got up from the puddle instantly. To be sure, the words in this quotation have no direct application to the “Venezuelan situation” and oil companies and Trump’s pit of a treasury, and all the niceties and “exquisities” of the transactional way of life, but the spirit of those words has possibilities….

Now, on a subject of the internet and isolation, was it ever true? Is the following still true? As he walked away (from the kids in the pizzeria) he had one question in his head. How was it possible, in the age of global communication, where all cultural, linguistic, geographical, and economic borders had been erased from the face of the earth, that this vast new realm had only created a multitude of loners, infinite numbers of lonely people in communication with one another, yes, but still in a state of solitude? Perhaps the word solitude, which is not necessarily a negative, is inappropriate here, and instead of “solitude”, or “loneliness” for that matter, an image of citizens, each encased in cubes of Jell-O, better suits what boots it for the state of pushback to the regime’s various agendas, mid-terms or not on the horizon, holding facilities for lib-tards of an intractable cast of mind no doubt contemplated. The quote was extracted from Andrea Camilleri’s crime novel The Safety Net, as per the continuing adventures of Inspector Montalbano who, in the TV series based on the books, is my favorite genre character, in addition to the Aubrey-Maturin duo in Patrick O’Brian’s serial fiction dealing with the Napoleonic wars on the high seas. Otherwise, I am not keen on genre writing, and for years, I avoided fiction itself, preferring histories and other non-fiction, but anyway, it seems my standards have slipped somewhat….)

And perhaps this question might be proffered as good medicine in times of increased duress: What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute in another’s behalf? Et cetera &c. Again, from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, with application to a Vanity Fairian or two acting out of noble disinterest though it breaks the heart to do so, especially if said Vanity Fairian is the odd man or odd woman out in a love affair or in the pursuit of justice (as when greyhounds chase motorized wabbits on racetracks). In a recent post, Lunar offered a farewell to Bridgette Bardot the famous starlet, she having, as it were, kicked the bucket at a nice old age, and though he may have known, I did not know that Ms Bardot, her animal rights activism notwithstanding, had made a slew of anti-immigrant pronunciamentos in the course of her life. Where one is asked to choose between what is just and what is just plain obstreperousness, may one scrawl N/A? Live a day and toss a coin.

Postscript I: On this day in history (1954), don’t know much about biology, hapless Joe Dimaggio and the film star Marilyn Monroe got hitched, but that it was soon over. Dimaggio was too old school, Monroe too much in the public eye. Carpenter might have advised against the liaison, seeing the conflicts coming from miles away, had he been of age, mature enough to render a head’s up, had he any tendency to commit marriage counselling. His attentions would have been diverted by the McCarthy hearings, in any case….

Postscript II: Lunar, chronic pain and all, but getting more exercised by the minute: … …. ‘Seems to me there is no event that has revealed more the sheer rottenness of the Trump regime than what has just happened in Minneapolis. What Vance said is enough surely for Pope Leo to excommunicate him, but nothing has sent a shiver through me more than Kristi Noem. All it requires is a slight turning of the dial to make a woman who might be considered good-looking extremely ugly. She is Ugliness with a capital “U” personified. Filthy bitch. Meanwhile, the protest in America strikes me as insufficient. The country ought to damned well explode. ICE has obsessed me for some time, the very idea of “immigration agents” armed to the teeth, their faces covered … again, we need to bring new words into the language to describe what is happening.’ … …. In response to which, certain parties have told me that “fascism” and “Gestapo” work just fine, thank you very much, for painting a picture of an administration’s highlight reels. Indeed, there is word out that plenty of people are attempting to reacquire their Plato for thoughts on democracies transitioning to tyrannies. Where was some Plato omnibus last seen? Right. In the boot of the old gas guzzler along with that long-lost six-pack of beer.

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, honk if you hear all around, as if stemming from a secret device, the sound of a toilet flushing: … …. ‘[ ] if Noem can excuse murder in Minneapolis, she can excuse it anywhere. For agents, there's just nothing like having the federal government defend their criminality.’ … …. Which goes to show you can have your cake and eat it too, pass the ammo.

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘Yes. Got nothing. Been a poor correspondent, I know. But sometimes when I’m in a rut, and even though I just moved (was forced to move), my get-me-back-on-track reading material is Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, De Quincey, only this time around, I can’t stomach it. Other people, at a similar pass, might consult the I Ching or fly a kite. Not me. No, I’ve got to feel I’ve escaped the straitjacket of time and space &c, all the while saying three hail Mary’s, then monologuing like Johnny Depp at the beginning of The Libertine. Percival says hello. Maa. Not going to get him to see Hamnet. Not this goat.’ … …. Damn straight. And it is still something of a “thing”, goats as regimental mascots, goats leading regiments into battle, goats...

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘It stares us in the face: the centre has not been holding and all that beeswax. In the It’s-Truer-Than-Not-Department: "No mortal man has ever served at the same time his passions and his best interests." Sallust at the helm here. But I see we’re on about Claudius this time around whom Suetonius wrote up as being unexpectedly bright and canny and an utter fool. It’s a bill the president halfway fits. Which half? You decide. And risk insulting fools. Sometimes I wonder if we haven’t all gone overboard in our calumniations against the man, but then he goes, you know, and you-fill-in-the-blank, and even here (Slovakia) it looks like we’re in the tender hands of a lunatic. And as one works through the implications of some lunacy or other, one now wonders if this or that wacky physicist was right all along, and we really do live in a dream, all the world not a stage, not even a catwalk for the tread of flaming egos, but a Mad King Ludwig hallucination. Here the temps are just above freezing. Ground ice represents potential risk for human activities. For instance, a poet wham-bam on his keester. Just shut me up anytime.’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. ‘No more cupcakes in the oven, at least for the time being. Doctor is incensed. But French horn is free to pursue any aim he wishes, be it Schubertian or rock-opera-ish measures. Polish cousins commiserate, sympathetic as they are in both the old and new worlds. Even in Cracow. I was sitting in a café the other day, treating myself to a fancy coffee. Two young men were going at it, divulging the plot points of their screen treatments at excessive decibels and yet, trying to sound so in the loop. If this is all there is, I just might hibernate for another few months. Last evening, I was on a bus headed back to NDG from city centre when there came to mind that scene in Dr Zhivago (the movie) in which the good doctor unexpectedly spots Lara after a long, long parting from her. He tries to get off the tram so that he can join her on the street before she disappears from his life once more, but bang, coronary event. For me, as I looked out the window at all the storefronts the bus was passing by, it was as if I had in a sombre gaze a more innocent time in the world, if there has ever been such a time, and no, it was not to be. I did manage to disembark at my stop. I proceeded to my apartment. Felt desolated. For no reason. For a million reasons. So much for “solitude” and “loneliness” and your Jell-O encubed citizenry. I figure it’s pointless for them, as words, as significations of life without expectations great or small, to ever apply for a position again. Don’t let the bed bugs gnaw on you.’

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … …. ‘When do liberal objections to the daily orders, usually level-headed enough, begin to come off silly-like, because too indulgent and velcro’d to wishful thinking? I’m not even sure I phrase the question here in a way that might invite a useful answer. My café, the one that, over the past few months, has become my preferred haunt, is closed for renovations. Seems like landlords all over the city have gotten antsy with renovations, perhaps seeking to trade up. Adds to the compounding feeling that the whole world is bent on renoviction, never mind the terms of the lease you hold. Now literature has been my life’s bête noir. Those people who manufacture Barbie dolls must have literary-minded dolls in mind for their next project – with his-and-her accessories, seeing as they’ve got a line of autistic ones on the market as we speak. What ho, I’ve had Yeats in my thoughts of late. And old movies with Jack Lemmon in them. And The Paris Peace Treaties of 1947, the year of my birth. And Satchel Paige the baseball player. (Look him up): "Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common."’ Not “Sailing to Byzantium” high diction, sure, but ranging in speed between blazing fast and “midnight creep”, his “pitch” could point to a spirituality in which there is more for the soul to contemplate than a “tattered coat on a stick”, all the while cringing. Why? Well, do you get all cozy, cooing away when in earshot of the voice of Trump? I ask because I’m in a place across from the Dollarama, snow falling between this espresso bar and the emporium of cheap goods most of which is tacky goods. An old lame woman, ex-Torontonian (imitation fur coat, pale blue tuque, crutches), with some commotion having just entered, goes off her nut. She gets a load off. “Every generation brings us a Napoleon, a monster, I mean Trump. Has to own everything. Double cream, please.” I figure that she hasn’t quite got it, but she’s close enough for folk music…. And emboldened, she continues: “All Gaul is divided into three parts. Yep. That’s what’s been missing. My old Latin class, kissing cousin to civics.” I turn to look at what I have been assuming is a dementia-riddled female. Sane if mischievous eyes let me in on a secret. She’s having fun.’

Note: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres – from Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars.

January 4-7, 2026: Now and then, in various medias, I hear voices saying that they knew it was going to be bad; they never thought it (You-Know-Who getting-all-Mussolini-getting-all-Roman) would be this bad. It speaks to a condition of mind not terribly flattering to said voices. It is as if they dozed off watching old episodes of “The Avengers” and missed a few clues, or, as per some belief system or other, they are engaged in seconding the motion that graphic novels, coursing through the left temple of Zeus, are the calvary, sanity returning to hold down the fort. Such as leads me to: [to] vilipend. Meaning: to regard as worthless. But I wonder for what context the word is best suited. You-Know-Who’s promises? Otherwise, suggestions?

And if presenting sex explicitly in fictional settings often exposes one’s ignorance of the matter, making analogies between present day and past epochs only shows how feeble one’s grasp of history is. I raise my hand. As I, for one, have never felt as approximated to the spirit of the 1930s, all these “peace” deals going down, all the memories of von Ribbentrop floating up like dead fish. Venezuela, anyone? The-we-are-not-imperialists-but-you-had-best-do-what-we-say-because-we-are-putting-might-makes-right-back-in-the-driver’s-seat-and-hey-it-is-our-rainy-day-endeavour-so-get-over-it. All hail the heil.

In light of which, I thought I would reacquaint myself with the ancient Greek notion of chaos. I went by way of Robert Graves and his work on the myths, the book going by the title of, what else, The Greek Myths (which I think first appeared in 1955). The upshot: that “chaos” simply refers to what is “unformed’, is a void or chasm &c. You know, inchoate, as in a few seconds after the Big Bang and the universe was getting its wheels up. Anything but our notion of the word as that which has come undone, unhinged, unworkable. (Digression: A dream I had when I was much younger, and pretty serious about writing alleged poetry: that the world was a valentine with an arrow piercing it, one accompanied by a Latin inscription. The words, as it turned out, stated – in translation – the following: “The world is unworkable”. Why Latin? Why not Greek? Swahili? Mandarin? But perhaps a conglomming conglomerate of swell-head jerks are even now doing just that: endeavouring to return us to a garbage pit and succeeding at it.)

I had another of those dreams just the other night. In this dream a woman was barnstorming the country (presumably the U.S. of A.) speechifying about moral regeneration. She insisted that, without “God”, there can be no such regeneration. Her cast of mind was intellectual, in no way evangelical. Perhaps she had degrees in the humanities and in business administration. Anything is possible. The dream took it on faith that she was an honest broker…. The next morning, as synchronicity never quits, parked in my computer’s inbox, was an e-mail from a friend which linked me to a poster-ad for a book.

Still, at first blush, I thought this poster-ad had to do with Oberammergau’s Passion Play, as, by way of imagery, a crucifixion scene figured as well as the words Tod in Oberammergau. (“Death in Oberammergau”. Where, incidentally, I was born – in sight of an enormous cross. Where, incidentally, my father (US army) drank with the Christ.) A bit later, I took another look and saw that it was, indeed, a poster to do with a crime novel. It appears the novel does, in fact, include elements of the famous pageant play which is performed every ten years and has done so since the 1600s when a plague raged through the area. If God would cancel the sickness, the villagers, in their gratitude, would perform… und so weiter. But back to the dream at the top of the paragraph – it signifies what? I have since said (to various friends) that moral regeneration seems to be what the doctor would order, but who can abide missionary zeal? Or this: we have had decades of “listening to one’s inner voices” and where has that gotten the tin can that we kick down the road, all the while keeping in mind we have had centuries of this or that church imposed on our druthers, and what has that spared us by way of atrocities, so that (in this never-ending sentence) we are between a rock and a hard place, and not just between but well and truly stuck, and, as per Livy, the cure may well have to be so much worse than the disease. Secular remedies? How many circles of hell do you imagine there are, as you freefall your way through a bottomless self?

And I asked myself (almost as a matter of course) what William Makepeace Thackeray intended by his title “Vanity Fair” and was reminded that he got the notion from Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, and who knows, perhaps from Shakespeare’s all the world’s a stage. Signified the petty operations of materialism and social climbing. Vapid mentalities with the instincts of hyenas. The being deucedly low when incommoded by the least vexation. Ah, your credit card balance… Your failed souffle… How about a boardwalk on which Sentimental and Satire, arm in arm, might strut their stuff and each make a leg?

And – One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent. Anyone of us might figure in this remark quoted direct from a page of "Vanity Fair", but I can think of at least one man for whom the quote is apt, an enormous ego rendering the world picayune, Vanity Fairians notwithstanding. We here at Ephemeris would say that sometimes the only life one has is in succumbing to the temptations one might do better to resist, but pleasure taken at the expense of others is an evil, especially when the proceeds line your pocket. Oil, oil, oil. Oily-in-for-free. Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. A vastly different order of Vanity Fairian. T minus zero. Will that be fries with your burger? Endless pouty lips? Greenland?

Postscript I: On this day in history (1870), don’t know much about biology, somebody named John Wesley Hardin shot a man over a game of cards. He was 16 years old at the time. In the next ten years he is said to have shot 19 more men. He, apparently, adored his wife. I do not believe Carpenter is a gambler (much less does he golf), and no, he is not notorious like Jesse James is infamous, or Billy the Kid or the aforementioned JWH, but he has had his innings as a commentator on the American political scene, a man who is in the mold of both Mencken and Montaigne and Wild Bill. Read ‘em and weep.

Postscript II: Lunar without further ado: … …. ‘As for V. it is one of those moments when it would appear Trump is smarter than we think, diabolically smart, but smart all the same. Smart as in crude but also smart as in the sound of rustling banknotes. There is a great deal of money to be made, and it really would make the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America with USA control from all sides. Topple Cuba and you’re home free. We watched the old Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy series again and, my God, Alec Guinness can act with a single movement of his eyelash, so much unsaid, so much implied, and without histrionics.’ … …. What? Great acting aside… That the man thinks the brass-knuckles-across-the-water charity work is going to work, and the coffers overflow? A caveat to the immediately above on the part of Lunar: … …. ‘I have only just discovered that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.’ … ….. George Smiley waggles a brow. Lunar rambles on: … …. ‘Venezuela. What is really going on there? I don’t want to enter M’s conspiracy world but methinks I smell a rat whose smell reaches as far as the Kremlin and some quiet agreement between the leaders of the world’s two most powerful countries that it is quite alright to break into one’s neighbours’ houses. I take Greenland, [kemo sabe], you take Estonia? I can’t speak on Kant as I’ve never read him and tend to go to pieces whenever philosophy is concerned. [Even so], I’ll say it again, the world’s hideousness seems to have insinuated itself into the relationships between people. [Friends falling out with friends?].’ … …. But what if oil and drugs were not the most compelling reasons for the incursion, extra degrees of difficulty on standby? What if one thug had but irked the other, did not like the other’s beguine at the podium? Pissing contest. No doubt, behind-the-scenes factions have agendas and play a marionette. You say tomawto, I say potawto, let’s rag on the Chinese, scrooge them on New World oil…. On a different matter altogether, if one circling back to an earlier thread, I did a bit of reconnaissance, checking out the terrain, speaking of the news that young men are turning to religion, and got back from Lunar: … …. ‘Yes, but it is religion harnessed to people’s ulterior purposes, hence the rise of weirdo Catholicism in the USA, which would defy even Rome. A young man’s religion is usually a young man’s absorption with himself and where you get that kind of self-absorption there is no room left for God.’ … …. Lock, stock, and barrel. All she wrote. Penultimizing. Angels auditioning on the head of a pin.

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, honk if you see a protection racket looking for traction in your neighbourhood. It may have missed its flight to Caracas: … …. ‘It's generational, [ ]. If they're idiots who fall for demagogues their kids will be idiots who fall for demagogues, as will their kids, and their kids ... And there's no way to stop it except for Plato's recommendation in The Republic: Get the kids away from ignorant parents and educate them properly. Which, of course, won't ever happen. So bring on another generation of idiots.’ … …. Grim, eh? Has a Clockwork Orange feel to it. Moreover, Drake has loved The Third Man (1949 film noir movie, you say black market penicillin, we say mother boards) since, as a mere lad, he heard Harry's discourse about the Borgias' Italy and Switzerland's 500 years and [its only contribution to civilization] the cuckoo clock. And oddly enough, Harry was right: corrupt Italy was a lot more interesting. N’cest-ce pas? As for Count Ciano, Drake has this to say: … …. ‘[ ], what a perfect personal metaphor for little Marco (Rubio), two ciphers counseling monsters.’ … …. Yes, I would agree: the shoe kind of fits.

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘Things working out, new digs et al. Percival – Job among goats – is resigned. I’ve had time to cut to the chase. Skipped a debacle, proceeded forthwith to the very end of Solzhenitsyn’s August, 1914 and read, all caps: UNTRUTH DID NOT START WITH US AND WILL NOT END WITH US. Whoa ho! Shall I take up “Childe Harold” next, Byron’s extended poem-opus on world travel? “Looks for distraction in foreign lands”? Anyway, now I can shelve the tome until such time – some really rainy day, some Pineapple Express roaring over, when I may want to remind myself of various Peter Principles. They build a new computer and say they will come. I came. It defeated me, the new whizbang. Took forever to work out how to attach a file…. Hence my travails with technology, now that, as a consequence of my move, my ancient Buick went to the scrapyard, and the world staring back at me had a hideous smile.’ |

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘Here’s a wry statement from our local Weather Bureau. “Wind warning. [ ] kph. This wind speed represents potential risk for human activities.” Now for Machiavelli on Livy (which it is not the effects of an atmospheric river, but dogged persistence on my part), and come by with sheer randomness: For the heart and the vital parts of a body have to be kept armed and not its extremities, since without the latter it lives, but if the former are hurt it dies; and these states keep the heart unarmed and the hands and feet armed. How do you like them gooseberries circa 15--? I’ve a bridge I could sell you, as maybe T will decide that he requires Presov for our rare poets, I mean, rare earth rocks.’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. ‘Cupcakes in the oven, French horn bribed. A splash of vodka from a batch sent me by a Polish cousin did the trick. It had had a yen, that horn, to muscle in on one of Brahm’s clarinets. Well, as I all too often say, I don’t do politics until after ten in the morning, but man, I get it: a fortress made of sand was just kicked to smithereens on the beach, some extroverting bully the genius well in front of the scenes, cell phones blocking the sun. (Remember when we were in our pail-and-shovel phase of our various childhoods?) Otherwise, this is it for this go-round. I look for words to match up with the curious sensation in my gut, given the politics, the caudillo prez (he who blustered and a Bill of Rights came down with a case of the whooping coup), but it’s a fool’s errand.’

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … …. ‘Well, I was standing by a book bin on the street. I was thinking that perhaps I ought to buy it: The Road to Wigan Pier. (Orwell’s book on poverty, northern England, socialism his answer if a socialism not too eggheaded and Stalin-heavy.) Buy and so, save it from being pulped. Or just let it lie there, fallow. I’d already perused the book some thirty, forty years ago; let someone else come across its contents and twig. Seeing as the cloud passing overhead had a Darwinian leer on its countenance… I’d just walked out of a café where I viewed on a screen the press conference that crowed, announcing, announcing what, ops as had had Venezuela in its crosshairs, Maduro fodder for American justice. All the words that flew into my brain as would say, “Rumpus room play action, and then spike the football….” All the words as would say, “Blowhard.” All the words as would say, “My balls as sound like windchimes, degrees of difficulty at compound interest in the wind.” Oil? Sure. Drug interdiction? Could be. The guy would be a Big Guy with Gargantuan Clout. Like so, Caligula, his legions at hand, gathered seashells on a beach and called it his crypto treasury, would erect a triumphal arch thereafter. Should Trump have a horse, you senate ladies and gentlemen, watch out. As if you didn’t have enough sh-t to shovel already. For all that, other guys wanted to be Big Guys, yippee-ky-yaying third-rate masculinities coalescing around an alpha dog huffing hero, and a few ladies simp about with cojones. Whereas ghosts haunt the halls of Congress, if not henchmen. Where’s a show trial when you need one? There’s so much pig smeared on that lipstick… Incoherence becomes me. I am as (name some god seeking vengeance….) Signing off.’

Note to the Immediately Above: Caligula had a horse name of Incitatus whom he thought to install in the Roman senate, ivory stall and all – yes, so as to insult the august senate members. Tell me again what the reconstituted East Wing is for?

Note to a Dream: Mundus non fungitur – the world is not workable. I am not certain that this was the Latin in the dream. All I remember is the English trade-off, and how surprised I was to apparently know Latin in the first instance. Xenoglossy? Cryptomnesia? Should I have sought help?