Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Lady Picking Flowers
(1890)

This week’s EndDays dispatches moved between the political and the personal with unusual ease. A presidential DeathWatch stretched into another exhausting anticipatory week. The King’sHorses of our incumbent’s second administration proved no more capable of saving him from himself than the nursery rhyme predicted. I turned from political catalogues to ask myself the only question that matters — WhatDidYouDo? — and answered it honestly, if not flatteringly. A Madman held court. Commerce frustrated me into near total abstention. And a parade of publishing AgentScenes reminded me that my aspirations for Cluelessness remain cheerfully unimaginable to those who profit from the Published Author Myths. A good week’s work, all things considered.

Thank you for following along!

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Weekly Writing Summary

DeathWatch
“…once the sour spoilage this incumbent leaves behind as legacy, finally fully decomposes…”

This EndDays Story finds me maintaining an enthusiastic public DeathWatch over our beleaguered and clearly ailing incumbent.

In this EndDays Story, I noted that rarely has any anticipated event received such an enthusiastic public reception as the impending departure of our incumbent. Each morning first carries astonishment that he has somehow survived another night intact, though he reliably appears worse than when last reported. More MakeUp has been ineptly smeared over some freshly rotting part of his body. His ankles continue to swell, defying geometry as well as gravity. He enjoys an unusually asymptotic relationship with his demise, the beer cooler ice melting and needing replacing while nobody even imagines relighting the hamburger-and-hot-dog fire. He will be curiously fondly remembered as the president who teetered on the edge of death for the bulk of his foreshortened second term — a zombie presence remarkably uninterested in administering anything and, at any rate, incapable of administering even if some spirit might have moved him to try. It never did. Eventually, the sour spoilage this incumbent leaves behind as a legacy might finally fully decompose, thank Heavens.

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: Laus Veneris (Between 1873 and 1878)

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King'sHorses
“All the King’sHorses and all the King’s men seem unlikely to save our incumbent from himself again.”

This EndDays Story catalogs the epic crew our incumbent assembled for his second administration, those creatures who hailed from somewhere beneath the bottom of any barrel.

In this EndDays Story, I surveyed the extraordinary Cabinet our incumbent assembled for his second administration — carefully chosen for their studied indifference, their contempt for constitutional oversight, and their cheerful willingness to double down on whatever transparently illegal activities they’d been caught attempting. A Secretary of Health and Human Services who didn’t believe in science. A Homeland Security Secretary who believed her primary responsibility involved cosplaying cowgirls. A Treasury Secretary whose son ran a tariff arbitrage scheme. These King’sMen ran rampant, appearing anything but penitent before congressional hearings, declaring their Fifth Amendment rights with near absolute impunity. Their boss, meanwhile, has very likely out-dumbed himself this time around. All the King’sHorses and all the King’s men seem unlikely to save our incumbent from himself again.

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: The Perseus Series: The Death of Medusa I(1882)

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WhatDidYouDo
“…it matters how we answer when we ask ourselves this one absolutely essential question…”

This EndDays Story turns from political catalogues to ask the only question that might matter when the world is going to Hell.

In this EndDays Story, I grew weary of recounting the incumbent’s sins and turned instead to the more uncomfortable question: WhatDidYouDo while the world was going to Hell? I chose to improve my garden, and might have ruined it in the process. I now walk on somebody else’s sod, past barely anticipatory beds, feeling like an alien on my own soil. What Did I Do while Hell descended? I helped. I didn’t intend to help. Perhaps helping might just be another instantiation of the human condition. Find a newspaper from way back when, and you’ll find clear evidence that the world then was also descending into Hell. Those who came before us helped too, often by attempting to improve their situations. If entropy rules, we rightly have little say in the matter. Still, it matters how we answer when we ask ourselves this one absolutely essential question: WhatDidYouDo?

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: Perseus Cycle 7: The Doom Fulfilled (1882 )

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Madman
“Pray for the retinue.”

This EndDays Story portrays our incumbent as a Madman and traces the historical practice of retinues reinterpreting idiotic commands into serviceable policy.

In this EndDays Story, I portrayed our incumbent as a Madman — rambling when he speaks, dozing through press conferences, moving like a drunk through the world, bullshit wending through a china shop. He will not be talked out of his irrational convictions, and his Big Tough Guy stances have left him appearing to be the biggest wussie on the planet, while he self-publishes comix, casting himself as the sole superhero president. Throughout history, civilizations have sustained themselves through The Great Man Theory of governance, in which a king’s retinue learned to interpret whatever directions the king might give in ways that wouldn’t ultimately undermine his authority, even if those directions were idiotic. The watchwords were: The King Is Wise. Our retinue faces precisely this challenge today. If they cannot successfully reinterpret our Madman’s commands, we’re screwed. Pray for the retinue.
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: Pygmalion and the Image - The Soul Attains (1878)

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Commerce
“…Commerce there will likely be no better.”

This EndDays Story covers what I consider the end of Commerce, where convenience has transformed what was once simple acquisition into an often unresolvable dilemma.

In this EndDays Story, I confessed that it has never been more difficult for me to simply buy something, and I blame convenience for the terrible state of Commerce. Finding a product online yields an overwhelming variety of that product, leaving me confronted with the Paradox of Choice, from which I usually escape by quietly deleting the item from my shopping list. On those rare occasions when I successfully trevass that last gauntlet and receive the package, it turns out to be almost completely unlike the item illustrated on that long-before website. I recently had to return some socks with an abominable texture, only to discover a ten-dollar restocking fee waiting for me on the other end. I ached for a salesperson, someone who’d actually used the product and could offer a testimonial and much-needed advice. I am not in any way modern. Commerce has matured to the point that it’s essentially non-existent, and I am not buying anybody’s pants when I’m in Heaven or Hell. Commerce there will likely be no better.

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: Pygmalion and the Image - The Godhead Fires (1878)

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AgentScenes
“If I emphatically whisper, I believe the right readers will hear.”

This EndDays Story finds me navigating the predatory mythology surrounding self-published authorship, courtesy of several “agents” who contacted me following Cluelessness‘s publication.

In this EndDays Story, since publishing Cluelessness three weeks ago, I’ve received several calls from various “agents” seeking to assist me in turning the book into the bestseller they presume I intend it to become. One offered access to a list of “over 600” active purchasers of subsidiary rights for $3,000. Another asked if I wanted Cluelessness picked up by a major imprint — to which I replied that I didn’t really, given that the major houses require authors to transfer their copyrights as a precondition for publication. Several of the agents who’ve contacted me seem to run active shakedown rackets. My aspirations for Cluelessness remain modest, given that I’ve released it into a marketplace expected to absorb four million new titles this year. I never aspired to become either rich or famous, given what seems to have happened to everyone who already had rich and famous happen to them. The most meaningful books in my life came by accidental convergence — a book fell off the shelf, an obscure title in a bargain bin. If Cluelessness has any chance of joining that class, it must be promoted as a poorly-kept secret. If I emphatically whisper, I believe the right readers will hear.

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: Preparatory Design for a Stained Glass Window, Virgil and Horace(Undated)


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Forward Hints To Friends.

Buy my newest book and write a review! Lobby your local library about securing some copies!

As of last week, you could order it from Bookshop.org., Powell’s Books, or from Amazon. It's now more widely available, just as the publisher predicted.

How To Post A Review on Amazon:
Go to the book's Amazon page — you can find it by searching "Cluelessness Schmaltz" — then scroll down to the Customer Reviews section. You'll see a button that says "Write a customer review." Click it, sign in if prompted, then rate it with stars and write your review in the text box provided. You'll need to have an Amazon account in good standing to post.

Amazon's guidelines prohibit authors from reviewing their own books, so I'm directing these instructions to readers I'm encouraging to leave reviews. Reviews seem to be a critically important piece of post-modern book marketing. It's the Monkey See part of the Monkey Do cycle. I don't know if anybody knows if they work.

Next week, I will be visiting my old mothership bookstore, Powell's in Portland, to let them know that I'm on the map as a former Portlander and NW Author. That and a little bit of luck might secure Cluelessness some placement somewhere in there.

My local bookseller informs me that 500 copies of Cluelessness are apparently stored in an Ingram warehouse in Tennessee. They have another warehouse in Oregon, and since I'm a West Coast author, some of that inventory should be transferred out here. I'm working with my publisher to see if they can influence that move. This matters because a bookstore needs to order twenty books from Ingram to secure their full 40% discount over cover price, and bookstores tend to order from the closest warehouse. When he needs to order from one outside their region, our bookseller includes a few very low-priced children's titles to round up his order. The closest warehouse is more likely to be included in his more regular ordering rotation.

The state of the publishing industry is lousy and trending worse. My local bookseller informs me that his shop might not make it through this year, and it's been here since the early seventies. He's weary, and his dedication has not been amply rewarded. My old friend Franklin Taggert, who consults with creatives, confided to me that the probability of anyone creating art and living solely on those proceeds is much less than 1%. The publishing industry continues to be in desperate need of patrons. Not just readers, and probably not only readers, but communities of people contributing what they can, like reviews. I'm a writer, but I'm not fool enough to believe that I can beat those odds. Cluelessness, as I announced in yesterday's AgencyScenes post, joins four million other new titles rampaging around in the marketplace this year, and will be joined by a few more than four million more titles next year, ad infinitum, until far beyond any recognizable horizon.

I'm grateful I have a patron and an audience of fairly long standing. I deeply appreciate the attention and hope that my meager daily contributions prove satisfying. Add Cluelessness to your collection if you're so moved. Encourage your local library to include a couple or more copies in their collection. Forward hints to friends.

Thank you for following along!——

I employed Claude.ai, a commercial AI-powered text editor, using it to perform repetitive copy/pasting work and to create the above story summaries, prompting with: “Please briefly summarize this story in the first person while retaining the original voice.” I manually copy-edited each result.


©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved


©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz