3.25.2026 – I like fallacies …

I like fallacies …
the mistakes that men make … why …
was I against it

Adapted from the passage in the book, The Etiquette of Freedom and The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder, Jim Harrison (Counterpoint: Brooklyn, NY, 2016) where Mr. Snyder writes:

I like fallacies, the mistakes that men make.

For seventeen years, I had an open firepit in the center of my house.

The smoke was supposed to go out an opening in the gables, but a lot of the time it didn’t.

I was trying to live like I was in a Japanese farmhouse.

I even had a hook for the pot over the firepit.

But, you know, it takes a long time to realize certain things, and I realized, yeah, the stovepipe was a good invention.

So finally I boarded it over and started living with chairs and a table, like Americans do.

It’s like a friend of mine who did without electricity for fifteen years, and when he finally connected up to an electric line, he said to me, “You know, I can’t even remember why I was against it.”

3.23.2026 – tried one, that was it

tried one, that was it,
said on landline, and that is …
the way it will stay

Adapted from the story, Record-setting Big Mac eater underwhelmed by McDonald’s new Big Arch burger by Ramon Antonio Vargas, where Mr. Vargas quotes Donald Gorske, who has eaten nearly 36,000 Big Macs on Mr. Gorske’s reaction to trying a Whopper.

Mr. Vargas writes: “I tried one – that was it,” Gorske said on his landline telephone. “And that is the way it will stay.”

So the guy likes and has the receipts to prove it, the Big Mac.

Gotta love a guy who stands by his favorite, only has a landline telephone and, as Mr. Vargas writes, “politely asked why his opinion on something such as the Big Arch was newsworthy.”

In his 1987 book on the history of the Netherlands, An Embarrassment of Riches, Simon Schama tells how the Dutch were the world leaders in Government, Commerce, Military Power and the Arts and were poised to take over the world but being Dutch with their sense of community, allegiance and manners, they were content to just stay home instead.

As if to say why was their opinion on running the world … newsworthy?

And that is the way it will stay.

Donald Gorske in 2011 eating merely his 25,000 Big Mac at a McDonald’s in his home town of Fond du La, Wisconsin. Photograph: Patrick Flood/AP

3.21.2026 – happy restaurants

happy restaurants
still exist, don’t go often …
like a local church

Adapted from the article, Applebee’s and Ihop unite – will new ‘dual’ restaurant tempt back US diners? by Adam Gabbatt where Mr. Gabbatt writes:

Perhaps the truth is that some Americans have been guilty of indulging in nostalgia over patronage when it comes to Applebee’s and Ihop: people are happy these restaurants still exist, in the same way they are about a local church, but they don’t actually go that often – also like a local church.

I am reminded of the last lines of the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

The family of Ricky Bobby included his estranged parents, girlfriend and children are standing out side the Talladega Superspeedway when Reese Bobby looks around.

The movie closes with this bit of dialogue.

Reese: I gotta say things are pretty much perfect right now. And it’s makin’ me kinda of itchy.
Ricky: What’d you say we all get thrown out of an Applebee’s?
Reese: Yeah that’d probably do the trick.

Maybe we all need to go get kicked out of Applebee’s again.

And a local church.

Yeah that’d probably do the trick.

3.20.2026 – boxes on beach are

boxes on beach are
empty shake ’em nails loosen
they have been somewhere

Adapted from the poem Sand Scribblings by Carl Sandburg in Smoke and Steel as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.

The wind stops, the wind begins.
The wind says stop, begin.

A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor.
The shovel changes, the floor changes.

The sandpipers, maybe they know.
Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell.
Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses.

The sandpipers cheep ‘Here’ and get away.
Five of them fly and keep together flying.

Night hair of some sea woman
Curls on the sand when the sea leaves
The salt tide without a good-by.

Boxes on the beach are empty.
Shake ’em and the nails loosen.
They have been somewhere.

This is special to me today as I know the boxes on the beach are empty.

They are empty because we emptied them.

We know they have been somewhere, because we filled them and moved them to the island … were we now live.

Got to go ride my bike to the NEARBY beach and scribble in the sand.

3.19.2026 – know it’s happening

know it’s happening
teleporting is no fun
just go with the ride

Adapted from the article, Top US Fema official claims to have teleported to a Waffle House before by Dharna Noor where Ms. Noor quotes Gregg Phillips, who has been picked to lead Fema’s office of response and recovery saying:

“Teleporting is no fun,” he said “You know it’s happening, but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was.”

When you don’t have to make stuff up, what chance does fiction and humor have?