Madman
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Pygmalion and the Image - The Soul Attains
(1878)
"Pray for the retinue."
He rambles when he speaks, just as if he cannot help himself. He doesn’t seem capable of sticking to any topic, though he does tend to swerve back to some chief irrelevance, depending upon what he might be obsessing about at that particular moment that week. Very little of whatever he says seems terribly focused. He calls a press conference as if only to berate the dutifully assembled press, sometimes insisting that all reporters leave the room before he begins, to punish them for some imagined infraction, I guess. He often appears to doze, though, admittedly, that might just be some sort of negotiating ploy, if only he had been negotiating anything in those instances. He wasn’t. He moves like a drunk through the world, coming very close to bouncing off things he passes, bullshit wending through a china shop. He pretends a lot, though it might be that he believes everything he says. If so, he’s a Madman. Of this, little doubt remains.
He will not be talked out of his irrational convictions.
WhatDidYouDo?
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Perseus Cycle 7: The Doom Fulfilled
(1882 )
“…it matters how we answer when we ask ourselves this one absolutely essential question…”
WhatDidYouDo when the world was going to Hell? Did you doomscroll in resignation or defiantly curse your obviously undeserved fate? Did you take to the streets to protest the unfair outcome? Did you write a haughty letter to the editor insisting upon what should have been done, what still might be done to avoid the worst-case scenario? Did you just tend your garden as if tending garden might be the best anyone could contribute, given the unfortunate circumstances, nurturing a few more hours in heaven before finally submitting to the apparently inevitable? Did you encourage the fall, believing in the transformative potential of some well-deserved time spent, even if it’s spent in God’s penalty box? Did you rail against the unfairness or quietly submit? Did you purchase an AR-15 class weapon to defend your Second Amendment rights? Did you hoard or sacrifice? Were you generous or stingy under the pressure? Did you cheer the political cowardice that led us all there or demonstrate genuine political courage, whatever that might entail?
This world has been headed for Hell since before it was born, depending upon whose stories one depends upon.
KIng'sHorses
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Perseus Series: The Death of Medusa I
(1882 )
“All the King’sHorses and all the King’s men seem unlikely to save our incumbent from himself again. Thank Heavens!”
The administrators and cabinet heads in our incumbent’s first administration were fringe characters, but several seemed to retain enough of their native senses that they eventually acted to prevent a few of his more disgusting abuses of power. These interventions ultimately frustrated and angered our malignant narcissist, and he leveraged these experiences to ensure that no sane person would get a chance to serve in his second administration, the one he clearly intended to remain steadfastly indifferent to administering very much of anything, especially our federal government. And so it came to pass that he nominated not merely the bottom of the barrel, public servant-wise, but generally, creatures who had never quite managed to matriculate to inhabiting the inside of any barrel, but those who hailed from somewhere beneath one. Carefully coached and in collusion with some of the worst legislators in the history of legislating, most of those horrible nominees managed to gain approval. These became what are generally referred to as The King’sMen, even though a significant number of them purported to be women, though none of them in any way traditional or as DEI hires, except, of course, in the caricature, cartoonish way.
Anyway, we ended up with an epic crew.
DeathWatch
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Laus Veneris
(Between 1873 and 1878)
"…once the sour spoilage this incumbent leaves behind as legacy, finally fully decomposes, thank Heavens."
Rarely has an anticipation received such an enthusiastic public reception. News of the impending event has become an obligatory element of every edition of every paper and news program across the spectrum, from amateur podcasts to stately professionally-produced broadcasts: video, audio, and print. Each morning first carries news of astonishment that our beleaguered and clearly ailing incumbent has somehow managed to survive another night intact, though he reportedly gleefully appears worse than when last reported. More makeup has invariably been ineptly smeared over some fresh rotting part of his body, typically the other hand. His ankles continue to swell, defying geometry as well as gravity. He’s clearly cognitively not quite what he used to be yesterday, and certainly worse than he was the day before. His demise always seems inexorable.
He enjoys an unusually asymptotic relationship with his demise, though people often depart by way of seemingly infinite increments.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 05/07/2026
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Studies of an Arm and Hands
(Not Dated)
This week’s EndDays dispatches arrived in the same week as Cluelessness itself — the physical copies of the long-awaited book finally landing on the porch in their plain brown box. The week held that particular tension between the personal and the political that EndDays has been delivering simultaneously. I read myself whole for the first time. I chased phantom typos through predawn light. I watched our incumbent’s Craziness spread through Congress like a communicable disease while his MakeUp spread across his face like a communicable disease. MakingBelieve turned out to describe both a despotism’s operating model and the condition of anyone credulous enough to volunteer to inhabit one. Apparently, Vacuity got elected president again. I came out the other side of this week feeling remarkably different for having read that thing I wrote.
MakeUp
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Council Chamber
(1892)
"Thank the Lord or somebody for such small blessings."
Scripture predicted that many strange things would appear during EndDays, but if these are, indeed, EndDays, even stranger things have manifested. I suspect that no self-respecting prophet could or would have unashamedly predicted what we see emanating from our Administration Still Remarkably Uninterested In Administering Anything. That label alone would have challenged even an experienced Ezekiel to announce. “And, verily, The EndDays will bring an Administration Still Remarkably Uninterested In Administering Anything.” Even the more devout and penitent would welcome such news with a heartfelt, “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.” Our actual experience, given that these might be those long-anticipated EndDays, surprises us all, however Nostradamus-hardened we had become. This life, as usual, wouldn’t really qualify to be believable fiction. That’s probably the primary way we can determine for certain that these times are not, in fact, fictional. We’re not delusional, merely present and attentive. Nobody could credibly MakeUp this stuff.
Perhaps at the top of what would have previously qualified as unbelievable stands the now common practice, broadly engaged in by self-proclaimed conservatives, of males wearing MakeUp.
SelfReference
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Mirror of Venus
(1875)
"…I lay down for a well-earned nap I might never quite wake up from."
Who does he think he’s writing to? For? Who did he intend to enlist to perform in the role of his reader? The book seems to have more premise than plot. He titled it Cluelessness, then cast himself as the protagonist, as almost the only focus. Should he be classified as a Narcissist? A Maschochist? If I weren’t the author, I wouldn’t be able to answer. Even as the author, I question whether I could be capable of coherently responding. As the author, my answers might be even more troubling than those posed by any reader. I cannot be certain. I suddenly can’t be certain about anything. I might be experiencing SelfReference poisoning. Have I disclosed too much? Have I revealed fundamental shortcomings? Have I gone and spoken what no one should ever say out loud? Does this publication mark the start or end of whatever might have been left of my reputation?
In the first sentence, I explain that the book is a work of philosophy, autobiography, history, and fiction, simultaneously, all at the same time.
Craziness
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Madness of Sir Tristram
(1892)
"I feel reasonably confident that there's no pill for that."
Modern governments have struggled to respond to their leader’s incapacity. When King George III went mad the first time, Parliament moved to reassign his authority to his son, the Prince of Wales, but the king recovered before the vote was taken. Later, when he went mad again, his authority was formally reassigned to his son, though George retained his title until his death ten years later. Here, repeated calls for our current incumbent to be removed from his office under the Twenty-fifth Amendment have resulted in no action from either Congress or the Cabinet, the only two bodies holding authority to act. As his madness progresses, it seems unlikely that anybody will act. This seems to be a feature of madness and power. Everyone might agree that someone should act, but nobody seems to see themselves cast in that role. The political cost of admitting to any madness in one’s party seems too goddamn onerous for anyone to act, so they descend into the same madness they witness in sympathetic response.
We pride ourselves on being a country of laws, though our laws seem to be divided into two broad classes: Laws we intend to enforce and those we don’t.
Erring
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Phyllis and Demophoon
(1870)
"Was any of his ever any different?"
The first copies of my newly published book, Cluelessness, arrived yesterday. I opened the box to find five fresh copies, covers still sticky with whatever they use to cover new paperbacks at the factory. This qualified as an out-of-body experience, akin to witnessing the birth of a child, though significantly less messy. It was emotionally complicated, for such moments reintroduce the age-old tussle between me and my imposter syndrome, for in most ways, I remain a pretend author. I write in the very early mornings when no witnesses can catch me. I publish to a fairly select list, not tens of thousands of social media fans. Heck, I don’t even earn anything other than experience for my efforts. If I were a real writer, my bestseller would have rendered me rich and famous. If I were the real McCoy, publishers would be storming my door seeking additional material. As it is, I write for my own edification, mostly, and for a small and extraordinarily generous community around The Muse and me.
My life immediately went on hold.
Vacuity
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Studies of a Suit of Armor
(1875)
"…that's what always happens when Vacuity LLC,
gets himself elected President of a country."
If every particle possesses an opposite, then, I suppose, every polity must also carry an opposing polarity. During our own American Revolution, fewer than half of the colonists supported the patriots’ position: 40–45% were Patriots, 15–20% were Loyalists, and roughly 35–40% remained neutral or “fence-sitters”. (USHistory.org) Nearly as many were apparently indifferent to that world-changing opportunity, and many were opposed. Once won, the resulting freedoms were not universally embraced. Several of my forebears felt oppressed by the emerging Federals and fled into territory not yet governed by anybody but natives, preferring their own chances for liberty over those offered by any more newly-formed polity. Some were religious zealots who firmly believed that The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, had predetermined history so it couldn’t possibly make a lick of difference what anyone resolved to achieve, and that went at least double for any earthly government or slave.
Those anti-polity sentiments followed us through the two and a half centuries since independence.
MakingBelieve
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Adoration of the Magi
(1904)
"That age-old truth never once stops stalking."
Despotisms utterly depend on fictions. No reality can properly sustain them. They begin with a lie, then inevitably end with some age-old truth piercing whatever’s left of their heart. In between a despotism’s birth and its inevitable death lies a world at least circumscribed by lies, fervently held. Its tenure becomes an extended game of MakingBelieve, with peek-a-boo pieces to retain the true believers’ beliefs, which, in one of the cruelest twists of fate ever to befall them, base their existence on lies. If this seems like a tenuous basis upon which to root any existence, political or otherwise, you probably haven’t yet succumbed to the continually reinforcing messaging intended to reassure and secure your unquestioning support. Those who are not constantly MakingBelieve cannot comprehend what believers gain from engaging in such fictions.
It might be that everybody eventually becomes practiced at MakingBelieve, for accepting reality seems to require plenty of accepting a fair number of unresolvable mysteries.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 04/30/2026
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
A woman with a lyre
(circa 1880)
This week’s EndDays dispatches moved from the surreal to the civic, from the undead persistence of a failed presidency to the tentative arrival of genuine prosperity on my valley’s western edge. The week held its familiar tensions — political exhaustion, garden disruption, the launch of a new book into an indifferent marketplace — while finding fresh angles on each. A new coinage appeared, Flacts, to name what we’d all noticed but couldn’t quite label. The series passed its fortieth installment, and sod arrived at the Villa Vatta Schmaltz just in time for the end of this Writing Week.
Thank you for following along!
Prospering
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Wine of Circe
(1900)
"…I'm hopeful we might finally escape the scarce resources allocation quicksand."
Our economics foretell our fate. Those who arrived late lose to those who came earlier, before we were discovered and became a destination. Then, our economics devolved into focusing on allocating seemingly ever-scarcer resources rather than sharing communal plenty. Some jealously guarded their plenty lest someone less deserving try to wrest it away from their grasp. We became most masterful here at pinching pennies, at somehow pretending to make odd ends meet, at cinching up the old belt yet another notch, at essentially starving ourselves for our own imagined good. We regretted the uneven distribution of our common largess and hoarded the best against possible future turndowns, justifying our penury as evidence of an underlying righteousness. The cynical defense insists that in the long run, we’ll all be dead anyway, so nothing really matters.
Prospering demands a different perspective.
Neediness
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Calling of Perseus
(between 1877 and 1898)
"Never be needier than the country you were elected to lead."
Perhaps the first principle of project management, which I used to teach and practice professionally, must be: “Never be needier than your project.” This principle was not supposed to be interpreted as an invitation to strive to be selfless in service, or in servitude, to your effort, but to more properly focus the professional’s attention. If one intends to provide some service, it doesn’t do for that service provider to be needier than their client. The client’s needs remain paramount in that context, and while it still matters that the service provider’s needs are attended to, the purpose of the engagement cannot degrade solely into ensuring the caregiver’s satisfaction. I do not intend to ignore the service provider’s legitimate needs, just to reinforce the notion that those needs should not be the primary focus of a service relationship. This principle requires some maturity from the professional, some ability to at least defer their needs in favor of somebody else’s, at least for the duration of the engagement, or, lacking that, how about during office hours?
This principle might, in practice, prove to be pure fiction, for in fact, the service provider’s needs must remain a significant part of every service provider’s personal equation.
Flacts
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
A Sea-Nymph
(1879 )
"…this world remains wise enough to usually deny us such privileges."
One EndDays feature involves taking information out of context. Facts can natively seem confusing enough, but taken out of context, they cruelly turn false, rendering their champions foolish, though rarely in their own eyes. I suspect we all engage in this business, largely innocently, though others, especially those we characterize as opponents, might try, without success, to clue us in. We suspicion more deeply then, and might even wonder when an old reliable turned toward some newly-imagined dark side. We rail on about emerging divisions while staunchly defending whichever side we somehow find ourselves on.
A seeming raft of issues has been subsumed with Flacts, facts innocently or more malevolently taken out of context.
StageCrappery
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Golden Stairs
(1879 )
"All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;"
William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII
"I tire of these endless, meaningless performances…"
Contrary to popular misconception, all this world was never a stage, and human existence never once very closely resembled mere players. Shakespeare’s assertion, delivered via character Jaques, seems like a cynical approximation, perhaps an apt analogy, but falling far short of anything resembling definitive. Though in our time, one might be forgiven for believing that everyone’s more or less acting their way through life. So much of our experience gets represented on the same small screen on which we’ve seen actual performances, with actual actors: merely players. It seems important, though, to draw at least one fundamental distinction between acting and living. What might such a distinction entail?
Authenticity seems utterly different for a player and a person.
Unsettled
Alphonse Legros:
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833–1898)
(1879 )
"…I'm wishing that I'd just stayed home, where my heart already was."
As the grand planned in-ground irrigation system installation spills into its fourth day, my usual composure slips away from me. I sit uneasily, unable to watch the unavoidable desecration happening out in my sacred yard. This has long been my place, almost a secret garden, reserved almost exclusively for The Muse and me. We only very rarely ever invite anybody else into this lair. We are both particularly particular about where we place plants, how we water, and how we mow. We would never even think of hiring an alien to weed or mow. We wouldn’t expect them to understand. Indeed, we would be certain that they couldn’t understand, and not just because we wouldn’t prove capable of explaining, though it’s doubtful we could adequately explain the boundaries of acceptable behavior there to any alien other.
This place isn’t merely special, it’s our special.
Undead
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Orpheus and Eurydice
(Between 1898)
Hasn't he already lingered longer than absolutely necessary?
During Saturday Night Live’s first two seasons, its original News Update anchor Chevy Chase ran a continuing joke, each week proclaiming, “Francisco Franco is still dead.” The joke played off the news media’s apparent obsession with Franco’s recent demise. These days, we have what seems to me to be an analogous situation in that our incumbent has reportedly been continually on his last legs since before the start of his second term. Doubtless, he has been feckless and hugely ineffective at accomplishing anything lasting, though he has attempted and perhaps succeeded in undermining a previously stable world order. That accomplishment’s not nothing, but it seems unlikely to persist. Salvation seems ever-impending, simply awaiting his demise, which has been reported as imminent for four-hundred and sixty-one days as of this morning. That qualifies whatever ails him as a long-running illness by anyone’s measure. I’m starting to doubt that he’s actually teetering on death’s door. Perhaps it would be better if we just considered declaring him Undead instead.
Donald J. Trump is still undead.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 04/23/2026
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Helen's Tears'
(Between 1882 and 1898)
This week's EndDays dispatches moved from disorientation to defiance, from the poisoned noise of deliberate falseness to the quiet dignity of pea-shelling, from the billionaire class's ravenous absence of Enoughness to a small-town civic supper where a librarian earned a blown-glass heart on an engraved stand. The week asked what sustains a serious person when the signals arriving from the world can no longer be trusted at face value, and found its answers not in grand political resolution but in dirt, in preparation, in recognition, and in the stubborn practice of generous interpretation.
Thank you for following along!
ReceivingWisdom
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Beguiling of Merlin
(1874)
"Maybe we find our underlying connections beyond disconcerting."
Who knows how wisdom visits? Who knows what even constitutes wisdom in these EndDays featuring so damned many false idols? We each seem to imprint on our own trusted sources. Who knows how we discern which ones to trust? Our neighbors seem to rely upon other sources that do not seem nearly as wise to us as they do to them. We cite our sources until long after we begin to turn blue in the face, without convincing anyone not dependent on the same experts we depend on. We each hold Received Wisdom without often considering how it was that we set about ReceivingWisdom in the first place. Does knowing with such certainty even qualify as wisdom, anyway, or does wisdom somehow sort of transcend knowing to more agilely hold controversies unresolved?
The Muse returned from a public meeting having bailed.
Recognizing
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Cinderella
(1863)
"If only we could remember this inescapable fact and more frequently act upon it."
No week passes without The Muse, in her Port Commissioner role, being invited to some ceremonial supper or solemn civic society gathering. Her presence is expected as a part of her charter to represent the citizens of the county and, especially, of her district. She only sometimes expects me to string along in what I explain amounts to fulfilling the underappreciated role of Arm Candy. We arrive, with her remembering names from last time, and constituents somewhat pleased at her appearance. The majority don’t know her from Eve, and even fewer know the first thing about me. We’ve registered online beforehand and dutifully purchase our raffle and 50/50 Split tickets, the latter of which awards half the evening’s raffle and drinks takings to one fortunate attendee, which amounted to $61.50 that evening.
These gatherings are typically small towny.
Impreparation
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Garden of the Hesperides
(Circa 1880)
"Amen, again, with real damned purpose this time!"
EndDays time seems short, as if a clock was winding down or the universe itself was wearing itself out. When did improvisation replace careful, studied preparation, and most things start happening haphazardly, as if everyone had conspired to just start making up shit as they went along? Seemingly gone are the more careful crafts, replaced with the more relatively careless ones. Reflection, too, might have been overwhelmed by a plethora of knee-jerk reactions. Yes, EndDays seem simply reactive rather than reflective, as if thinking, considering beforehand, had become crimes committed by the cowardly. Goaded on by our chief executive as an extremely public and seemingly ever-present example, we often reject planning as something belonging to an alien culture, as if we were smarter because we didn’t feel compelled to peek ahead. EndDays collapses the long term within which we’re all said to be dead into a presence composed of some combination of unwarranted certainty and dread. In this short term, we live as if we were essentially undead.
I recognize this difference because this week I’ve had an actual future event that I needed to prepare for.
Dirt
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Study for 'The Sleeping Knights'
(About 1870)
"I'm Just Visiting here."
I engage hesitantly, reverently. I never take this work lightly, for it contains consequences. I am less a homeowner than a steward of soil, the house and fences, gazebo and garage, mere backdrops for the real engagement. I know every square inch of the soil surrounding this house. I have crawled across it more than once or twice, though I never counted the number of my interventions, for that would surely have violated some deeper, if unspoken purpose. One stewards soil invisibly, dedicatedly. I cannot seem to leave alone what others might believe was already well enough alone. I seek no less than perfection, knowing full well that shortcomings will always enter into my equation. I know my base soils. I can feel the difference between that powder-fine NW corner of the front yard that’s never had an ounce of amendment and the NE corner, which has absorbed its original weight and volume in perlite, peat, and attention.
I was inspired by exposure to the original Victory Garden PBS series, the one hosted by its founder, James Underwood Crockett, a charming Down-Easter, a master gardener.
Enoughness
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Tile Design - Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth
(c. 1861)
"There might not be a large enough 'enough' to ever regain that once lost balance."
The last forty years have witnessed a steady erosion of what we might acknowledge were decent values. Their replacements have travelled under a multitude of euphemisms, each of which seemed to have been chosen for their ability to elicit a felt sense of whatever they were eroding. Family Values seemed most popular for a time, though when I delved beneath its glossy exterior, it seemed to insist upon a narrow, exclusive definition of family that most couldn’t possibly relate to from personal experience. Other, often Christian-themed replacements, flooded the meme market over this time, each distilling into some fresh mammon unworthy of broad appreciation, though they gained broad appreciation, anyway. One could be excused for concluding that these terms served as Trojan Horses, intended to draw attention from the wholesale burglaries the billionaire classes were committing against the least of us. Income distribution skewed upward while the costs of living soared, utterly undermining what had previously passed for a middle class.
I remain amazed that the You, Ess of ‘A’ hasn’t yet suffered from a popular insurrection.
TangledWeb
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Perseus and the Graiae
(c. 1877)
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, / When first we practice to deceive" Sir Walter Scott, Marmion
"They're sunk."
I navigate my way through these EndDays not quite blindly, but nearly. My depth perception seems intact. Same story for distance, yet I’m growing to distrust my senses since something I’ve long relied upon seems to be missing. Even as I began to grasp that I might reliably presume the cues coming to me are false, I struggled to reverse first impressions fast enough to maintain my balance. I feel forever cattywompus, suddenly slightly sideways to the world, seriously disoriented. Perhaps that’s the underlying intent, the purpose of what I’m growing to expect to reliably prove to always be deliberately false. I more often seem well served by presuming the opposite of whatever story they serve, though it remains cumbersome to find, let alone to translate, the signal received into one I can believe I actually comprehend.
I remain a simple man, prone to accepting most signals more or less as face value received.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 04/16/2026
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Merciful Knight
(c. 1863)
This week's EndDays dispatches traced the arc of a chronicler straining under the weight of his own dedication. The series moved from outrage through exhaustion, from the streets of Budapest to a pile of fresh fava beans, from the spectacle of a collapsing administration to the quiet renewal of a Spring kitchen. The week asked how any serious person sustains witness through an ending that refuses to end on schedule, and found its answer not in resolution but in rhythm — the diastolic pause embedded in every heartbeat, the sanity found inside a pea pod, the glimpse of a future already arriving somewhere else in the world.
Thank you for following along!
DiastolicRelief
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Baleful Head
(c. 1885)
"…confident that these EndDays remain well on their way toward ending."
Endings sometimes seem to take forever to arrive. What might have begun seeming as certain as any fait accompli turns sluggish in process. Progress comes begrudgingly, if at all, and what seemed like a sprint or a routine walk in the park becomes a trudge. Progress might only be imaginary after all, after all initial evidence to the contrary. This campaign will also demand more patience than anticipated. Faith never flags, though energy does. It’s genuinely wearying to require a fresh reason to keep on keeping on every morning, when yesterday’s brilliant reason proved itself inadequate as leftovers. This series necessarily needs ninety good and decent reasons to continue believing that the evil intruding will ultimately have only been temporary, when each fresh intolerable second already seems to have lasted an eternity. What will end this seemingly never-ending ending?
My strategic plan called for engaging to maintain my attention.
BananaRepuglicans
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The fight: St George kills the dragon VI
(c. 1866)
"…defending our democracy from such villainy going forward forever."
Despots must, seemingly by their nature, continually challenge the boundaries normally placed around any leader. Enough can never adequately serve as enough for them. More must be continually commanded. This means that every Despot’s rule must become inherently unstable, fragile, and ultimately temporary. When a Despot declares themself Ruler For Life, they’re essentially predicting a radically shortened lifespan, if not for their physical life, then most certainly for their political one. It has seemed much the same for our BananaRepuglicans, our present infestation of despotism. [Thanks to Jamie Raskin (D-MD) for apparently coining this term back before the 2024 election.] They have been actively colluding to undermine many of our proudest traditions, a seemingly cursed mission from its earliest actions, but they moved quickly this time, intent only upon breaking things, and in that modest intention, they have proven wildly successful, though with glaring caveats. Virtually everything they’ve attempted has later proved either ineffective, self-destructive, or both. Their blows to our country’s spirit seemed to have angered and awakened it.
It always proves dicey to accurately pinpoint the moment when enough became more than enough, a parody of its originating intentions.
Indulgences
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Love Among the Ruins
(c. 1894)
“Better to extend a few mollifying indulgences than mimic the sinner’s self-destruction.”
Trump’s re-election represented the American Brexit. When Britain decided to economically divorce itself from neighboring economies, those economies responded with considerable frustration, as if responding to a toddler’s immature act of independence. The toddler didn’t necessarily register that their neighbor was demonstrating tough love in their response, essentially giving those Tories precisely what they asked for: bureaucratic tangles, logistical nightmares, and a deepening dependence rather than their dreamed-for self-reliance. These complications have helped normalize relations, with Britain somewhat chastened and the Europeans relatively strengthened. The EEU extended Indulgences to Britain for its obvious sins. Rather than seeking vengeance, which might have been fully justified, they insisted upon justice instead and became a different, relatively unexpected ally in the process.
It might have been a testament to our stockpile of goodwill that our trading partners didn’t immediately respond to Trump’s adolescent tariffs with extreme protectionism.
Glimpsing
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Hero lighting the Beacon for Leander
(c. 1892)
"…tall enough to maybe even catch a Glimpse of ourselves standing proud once again."
The news from our beloved Budapest this morning buoys my spirit. I feel as though I’m Glimpsing one of the most alluring futures we might also be facing. The electoral defeat of a corrupt, entrenched, extreme right-wing oligarchy that has served as the lead sled dog in the worldwide effort to unseat liberal democracy. Victor Orbán was the figure inspiring every wanna be dictator in the world, including ours. Our incumbent praised his presence and supported his efforts to hobble the European Economic Union while serving his Kremlin overlords. He even sent our vice president to campaign for him, though initial voting results strongly insist that it made little difference, and might have even further encouraged his opponents. The winner was once an Orbán insider, but left when he found himself unable to stomach the overwhelming levels of corruption dominating Orbán’s rule.
The streets of Budapest were overflowing with cheering young people, a presence that has been disturbingly absent from our domestic protest rallies.
TalkinInto
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Pan and Psyche
(c. 1892)
“Now that it’s here, I fear it might not go away.”
I feel a sudden overwhelming need to talk myself into engaging during these EndDays. I remember a kind of naturally flowing into and back out of engagements in before times, but now I seem to need to sit myself down and talk myself into beginning or, once engaged, sit myself down to talk myself out of continuing. Whichever, I feel a missing flow, as if I sense or perhaps know I will be further endangered if I proceed. I say ‘further endangered’ because I feel surrounded by danger, threatened, imperiled. This sense lends a certain uncertainty to my proceedings, and it might successfully amplify my sense of presence, but the resulting wariness drains spontaneity from my performances. I no longer lightheartedly float through my days. I slink through them instead, more likely some days to negotiate myself out of doing very much of anything if I feel I can get away with it. I do not always feel moved to contribute.
I accept full ownership of this state.
Parody
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Madness of Sir Tristram
(c. 1892)
“…Make America Meaningful Again, please!”
I think of myself as a serious person. Neither particularly pious nor frivolous, I try not to take myself too awfully seriously, but still seriously. I am not trying to fritter away my life. I think of myself as someone who supports worthy causes. I maintain a high moral standard without being prudish. I can be crude, but prefer decorous. I never mind a little pomp if not necessarily very much embellished with circumstance. I read, but not to the point where I consider myself especially well-read. I prefer a well-written novel to pretty much any other form of entertainment. I do not very much like movies, for I find them to be too theatrical and often simply too long for me to bear sitting through. I prefer audio over video because audio reproduces color better. I maintain a low tolerance for unserious performance, the sort our present incumbent seems to prefer and exclusively engage in. I find it offensive, anything but entertaining or informative. It seems a Parody of something real rather than being something real itself.
It irks me to be surrounded by such unserious business, as if it might infect me.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 04/09/2026
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Ariadne
(1863/1864)
This week’s writing carried me deeper into the lived texture of EndDays — not the grand mythological architecture of the first week, nor the disorienting loss of landmarks from the second, but something more personal and more unsettling: the daily work of continuing to exist with dignity inside a world that seems determined to make dignity impossible. The week opened in HardTimes, where I found myself having to choose between accumulating reasons not to act and finding even one dog-eared reason to proceed. It moved through Restsurrection, a quietly subversive Easter spent on my knees in the garden rather than in any pew. NewlyNormalizing brought the recognition that we may never snap back, and that the disorientation itself has become our permanent condition. PlayingChicken named the incumbent’s chief governing strategy for what it is: a child’s game played by someone holding civilization’s steering wheel. EndingAWorld mapped the despot’s oldest trick — declaring victory over an apocalypse he himself manufactured — and Esteem closed the week by tracing the low self-esteem at the root of the whole sorry spectacle, from the incumbent’s throne to the society he’s poisoned. I did not expect to find this week’s theme until I reached the end of it. Thank you for following along.
Esteem
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Philip Comyns Carr
(1882)
"…the overwhelming stench of somebody chasing greatness."
Esteem must be one of the more curious human properties. Who even knows from whence it comes? We seem to more easily bestow it upon others we admire more readily than we ever consider bestowing it upon ourselves, yet bestowing it upon ourselves seems both necessary and essential. Those without self-Esteem seem to suffer a self-inflicted fate, as if they should have somehow obviously understood the absolute necessity of fulfilling this one fundamental obligation to themselves. Nobody knows better just how much their own shit stinks than the one mounting that ignoble throne each morning. What from one’s own perspective might ever lead them to hold themself in anything even approaching high Esteem?
I wager that ways exist to responsibly discover reasons to hold myself in considerable Esteem.
EndingAWorld
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Paradise, with the Worship of the Holy Lamb
(c. 1875-80)
"…expect to witness him ending worlds."
Eventually, every despot in the history of this world so far has encountered the absolute necessity of EndingAWorld. Despots rely on promises of apocalyptic transformation, something exponentially worse than any actual threat warrants. Such threats encourage a sense of powerfulness like no other stance ever does. If one can end a world, it also demonstrates that essential cavilier nature everyone expects from a despot, seemingly capable of EndingAWorld with all the sangfroid usually reserved for dispatching a gnat. Nothing screams absolute power like such indifference does, a whisper vanquishing a hurricane, a shrug demolishing some ancient civilization.
Worlds end every day, as easily and as often as worlds are born.
PlayingChicken
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
"I rose up in the silent night; I made my dagger sharp and bright"
(c. 1859-60)
"Their approach reliably produces little else but chicken shit."
I believe that I can successfully judge the relative maturity of someone by identifying the kinds of games they choose to play. The field of Transactional Analysis proposes that all humans engage in game-playing behavior, though not always deliberately. The inadvertent games might disclose even more about a person than any consciously chosen one, though. As outlined in the best-selling Games People Play by Eric Berne (Grove Press, 1964, ISBN 0-345-41003-3), a book criticized by many professional psychologists, identifying these games can provide both entertainment and discernment, giving a label and therefore a meaning to otherwise confusing behaviors. Who hasn’t found insight in finally interpreting an interaction as merely a Mind Game? In my hierarchy, the more childish games often seem to be favored by the less mature.
Among the least strategic possible games stands PlayingChicken.
NewlyNormalizing
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Garden Court, photogravure print
(1892)
"…Heaven help us since we can't seem to help ourselves."
It might be that we’re each cursed to die in some foreign land, far away from familiar territory, especially if we stay close to home ground. Changes brought on by travel or relocation hold nothing compared to those that visit me uninvited. I might have expected to hold some of my old life static as I entered the traumatic final stages of my existence, but if so, I seem destined to experience ever more deepening disappointment. My old world was not even inherently that unstable. It seemed capable of continuing to nearly ad infinitum while entropy went right ahead and had her ways with me. But we grew impatient, I guess, or discontented with the balances that have managed to protect us for the better part of three generations. We opted to seek greatness, though we struggled to agree on what achieving that might achieve. We became the product of our discontent rather than delivering ourselves from any ultimately questionable evil.
I live and grieve like I once merely lived and breathed.
Restsurrection
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Council Chamber, photogravure print
(1892)
"…resurrected again until sometime after next Christmas."
I realized again this week that I can no longer claim to be a Christian. I’m uncertain if I could ever declare myself such with conviction, even after full immersion baptism, I felt more conscript than convert. I had bowed to the peer pressure. Everyone else in my Sunday School class had enrolled in the special studying and showed up on that Sunday wearing white shirt and pants while carrying a change of clothes. We’d all stood waist-deep in the baptismal font with the pastor while the little window slid open to reveal the entire congregation watching. We’d each in turn accepted that folded handkerchief over our noses and allowed ourselves to be submerged, ruining our hairstyles for Jesus. We’d also slopped off to a changing room to towel off and change wardrobe, supposed to have been forever changed. I suspect that most of us feigned results as I had.
I still observe the Christian calendar, though.
HardTimes
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:The Briar Wood, photogravure print
(1892)
"Waiting for perfection only perfects waiting."
This story serves as a soliloquy by me for me, an encouraging little sermon to bolster my forward momentum. Yesterday, I finally completed all the hurdles for approving my Cluelessness book for publication. The gauntlet qualified as an absurdist’s rendering of bureaucratic inefficiency, but I made my way through it. It seemed like the least effective process possible, but I still managed to make progress and succeed. I felt like simply giving up several times, but I persisted. Cluelessness will launch into another war, into a distraction machine that worsens anything The Blind Men, my first book, faced. HardTimes are not necessarily EndTimes, just EndDays with trepidations. …
—
EndDays inevitably seem like HardTimes.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 04/02/2026
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Cupid's Hunting Fields
(circa 1880)
This week’s writing carried me into the second week of EndDays, moving beyond the creation myth that anchored the first week and into the territory that creation inhabits. I found myself exploring what it actually feels like to live inside EndDays — the lowered sky, the dimming light, the missing landmarks, the unimaginable actions undertaken without my permission in my once-good name that have somehow become routine. The week opened with a DayOfRest that turned out to be anything but idle, then darkened into the spreading dimness of LetThereBe (Light) before finding its footing through TheLimit, Ungrounding, Negavation, and TheFourOppressions. I ended the writing week with a secular sermon I didn’t know I had in me, contrasting Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms against the MAGA movement’s four grim replacement oppressions. This week’s flow surprised me. The territory I traversed surprised me more. Thank you for following along!
TheFourOppressions
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Sleeping Beauty from the small Briar Rose series
(circa 1890)
"I vote for four simple freedoms again. Amen!"
In the months leading up to the United States entering the already raging World War, President Franklin Roosevelt articulated what he labeled The Four Freedoms in his January 1941 State of the Union Address. He intended these points to inspire a vision of a post-war world, where freedom would once again rule. These points were aspirational then, embodying what he hoped could be the hopes and dreams of those whose faith in freedom might well be severely challenged, even discouraged, over the upcoming period. This speech came nearly a year before Pearl Harbor, when we were still squabbling over whether to lend our support to Britain. Roosevelt decided to try to settle the questions about what we thought we might be fighting for, signaling an end to our period of isolationism.
He enumerated four “essential” human freedoms: Freedom of speech and expression, Freedom of every person to worship God in their own way, Freedom from want, meaning economic understandings that secure a healthy peacetime life for all, and Freedom from fear, specifically a worldwide reduction of armaments to prevent physical aggression.
Negavation
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: Ruins at Chiaravalle near Ancona, Italy
(1818)
“…it might not ever snap back to the way it was…”
Familiar reconnoitering points have disappeared. Long-relied-upon way points have turned unreliable, and travel has turned into repeated bouts of disorientation, degrading into despair. Where did the old reliables disappear? I know why they fled, but I cannot know to where or if they will ever return. (I suspect they won’t.) After months of denial, a begrudging acceptance starts settling in, then an emotion almost resembling pride. I cannot successfully hide my grief over losing reliable trails, but I realize that I am no longer precisely lost. I can still anticipate, if not traditionally navigate. I accept that I will face detours and that my original estimates won’t be worth shit, as if they ever were. A different game seems to be afoot now, and I am more-or-less successfully adapting. Do I wish I had not lost the benefit of all my former experience? That’s a definite yes! Am I nonetheless pleased that I still seem capable of discovering viable alternatives? That yields a more hesitant acceptance, though it still distills into a definite yea.
I still register shock when encountering another difference.
Ungrounding
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones: The Prince entering the Briar Wood
(1869)
"Sic semper tyrannis!"
Just like too many EndDays Stories, this one properly begins with the fateful phrase, “If anyone had told me just two years ago…”, before going on from there. Today, I routinely engage in previously unimaginable actions, formerly genuinely unthinkable ones. Some, in defense, hoping to ward off an indistinct yet ever-present sense of impending evil, and others in preparatory offense, as if for an anticipated assault. I’m mostly making my actions up as I go along. I engage in rituals every bit as effective as those my forebears invoked to prevent The Evil Eye from getting them, rubbing salve on imaginary future wounds. For the first time in my pacifist life, I’ve begun to understand the urge my Second Amendment friends must feel when they fondle their assault rifles. I feel protective of my past, which has most certainly already passed now, and I feel genuinely insulted by what seems too likely to become our future.
The Muse and I were invited to join a conversation convened by a local executive.
TheLimit
Edward Burne-Jones: The Land of Beulah (1881)
"…when there are perfectly satisfying wishes lurking much closer and more convenient to home…"
In EndDays, apparent limits shift. What might once have been measured in ‘sky’ seems not nearly as impressive or high. More modest boundaries apply. I might ascribe this narrower sense to the usual limits imposed by age and experience. I’ve learned to moderate my possibility senses in anticipation of not being able to fully satisfy them. This might seem like a dandy adaptation to prevent discouragement or depression, but it also materially affects my sense of possibility. If I give up on myself without much in the way of challenging, it seems I must be prelimiting my influence. Those who cannot imagine might struggle to manifest. Back when the sky served as TheLimit, I felt much less restrained than I do entering my waiting dotage, where I hold the benefit of so much more experience manifesting even impossibilities. I feel forced to admit that I’ve been limiting myself.
I remember consulting with a group in a company that had just been acquired in a buyout.
LetThereBe
Edward Burne-Jones: Flamma Vestalis (1884 - 1890)
Gallery Notes:
Burne-Jones’s daughter Margaret modeled for this painting. The Latin title refers to the Vestal Virgins of Rome, who tended the perpetual fire on the altar of the goddess Vesta. Begun before Margaret’s marriage in 1888, the painting aligns her with these chaste women, suggesting her innocence and purity.
— —
"Let there be light" is an English translation of the Hebrew phrase יְהִי אוֹר (yehi 'or) found in Genesis 1:3 of the Torah, the first part of the Hebrew Bible. In Old Testament translations of the phrase, translations include the Greek phrase γενηθήτω φῶς (genēthḗtō phôs) and the Latin phrases fiat lux and lux sit. It is part of the Genesis creation narrative. Wikipedia
I had grown to take light in all of its variety for granted.
DayOfRest
Edward Burne-Jones: Night (1870)
"I'm planting those flowers this morning."
The Muse and I have several flats of plants sitting beneath our sacred apricot tree. We bought them over the past two weeks in fits of the usual enthusiasm, as Spring started emerging, imagining that they’d somehow just plant themselves, I guess. It’s been more than a week now, and there they sit, still not planted. We love to plant. It’s been our shared ritual since that first Spring we spent together back in that little apartment overlooking The Willamette, just downwind from where my prior relationship played out its EndDays. We planted flowers to thumb our noses at what had so recently seemed like the end. They represented our new beginning, and planting them then seemed like the opposite of work. It was renewing and rewarding, and reassured us that we still inhabited a welcoming world, regardless of the EndDays still trailing their toxicity along just behind us. Planting day always feels like a DayOfRest to us, yet I’d still been resisting engaging.
I spent time earlier this morning, warmly anticipating planting those flowers today.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 03/26/2026
Edward Coley Burne-Jones: The Days of Creation (1876)
This was the most remarkable writing week I've experienced since I began writing this series of series 35 quarters ago. The flow quickly and easily established itself, and I found myself following two patterns I'd barely imagined before becoming entranced by them. I was pursuing deeper understanding of the EndDays sensations that almost everyone I'd spoken with lately had been remarking upon. It sure seems like something's coming to an end: civility, democracy, sanity, the rule of law, common sense. I sensed that EndDays belong to that class of sensations that cannot be wholly validated, or, indeed, really experienced until they're over, since there's no way to determine between actual and mere sensation until the EndDays end. Counterbalancing those sensations, I stumbled upon the remarkable Days of Creation hexaptych by Pre-Raphaelite painter and designer Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones — a single work composed of six panels. These six panels functioned both independently and as a unified whole, which was precisely how I employed them this writing week. Each panel stands alone as the image for its corresponding EndDays installment, while the complete sequence forms a single, coherent creation narrative underlying the entire series.
In effect, each installment this writing week introduced a part of the universe the bulk of this series will inhabit.
TheBeast
Edward Burne-Jones: The Days of Creation: The Sixth Day
(1870-1876)
"On the Seventh Day, The People rested."
However unsettling the election results had seemed, TheBeast that emerged from that victory was much, much worse. It became clear even to those who had not before figured out the scam that they had been had, and not by any particular master. They had been fooled by a fool, which only amplified their sense of betrayal. The sacred promises he swore all along the campaign trail fell one by one into a gutter soon overflowing with treachery. His inauguration came off as more like a funeral, with fewer attending than at any such gathering in modern history. That first day in office set a fresh record for perfidy as each presidential proclamation seemed to amplify a sense that he was abandoning reason to pursue who knew what? A deep sense of dread and stunned recognition echoed out from the quickly despoiled Oval Office. We were being screwed.
The resistance responded immediately.
Fictos
Edward Burne-Jones: The Days of Creation: The Fifth Day
(1870-1876)
"…if, indeed, our politics even survives this latest unbridled EndDays assault."
Few human activities can seem more boring than the practice of good governance. It definitely does not ordinarily qualify as anything resembling any actual spectator sport, except sometimes it engages in activities of such monumental importance that it manages to attract quite the audience. This quality of only occasionally qualifying for full attention encourages politicians to engage in some studied myth-making. They speak of such things as Masters of the Senate, a label that at best describes some especially skillful bureaucrat. They occasionally engage in brinksmanship, seeming to leave society teetering on some cliff-edge, but much of that amounts to performative statecraft. The actual deals get struck far away from the House and Senate floors, though the office of the President carries by far the greatest volume of mythos, if only because the presidency’s responsibilities definitely border on the mythical.
Chief administrator of every department of government, Commander-in-Chief of the military, perennial plenipotentiary of seemingly damned near everything in our political universe, our president more than borders on the edge of a mythical being.
MassDeception
Edward Burne-Jones: The Days of Creation: The Fourth Day
(1870-1876)
"His results can't and don't validate anything."
The future of each despotism was written before it began, back when its founding deception barely qualified as a foundling. When the lie, wrapped in swaddling clothes, still seemed charming in comparison with many competing distractions. There will always be evil in this world, but some evils have always been worse than others. Those who merely color or circumscribe seem somewhat better than those who exemplify somebody’s essence. When their very presence depends upon some founding deception, the resulting story was already headed in an inexorable direction at inception, for there can be no redemption if the basis upon which one exists is, at root, a deception. Peel away the misrepresentations to produce perhaps much worse than a founding lie: an abiding, all-consuming hollowness inside.
Despotism harbors nothingness in its core.
Collapsing
Edward Burne-Jones: The Days of Creation: The Third Day
(1870-1876)
"…these thoughts haunt and terrify me every day."
Collapsing cannot be properly characterized as a state, for it cannot be validated until after it completes, and much naturally prevents that end from ever appearing. Certainly, the peril might always exist, but distinguishing between growing pains, for instance, and Collapsing patterns should properly prove frustrating. Societies thrive on experiments. They can also die due to them. There can be no sure or certain recipe for avoiding Collapsing, and even the Ancient Greeks understood the principle that one tends to produce whatever they vehemently attempt to avoid. Fifteen months ago, the United States’ economy was widely acknowledged as the envy of the world. It now seems to be leading the world into an economic depression the likes of which we haven’t experienced in almost a century. Leading indicators seem grim, though still not yet completely certain.
Our incumbent seems to embody the very ills he visits upon our society.
Goodness
Edward Burne-Jones: The Days of Creation: The Second Day
(1870-1876)
"…a Goodness we will certainly have earned when it finally arrives."
The definition of Goodness changes during EndDays. What was bad before becomes a deeper sign of impending collapse, and so it becomes a harbinger of sorely needed change. In most ways, things have gotten worse each day as our self-saboteur incumbent reliably raises his already unwinnable stakes. It’s as if he’s trying to prove he can do even worse if he simply applies himself, and, increasingly, astonishingly, he repeatedly succeeds at appearing increasingly simple. However low he already showed he could go, he goes even lower. However indictable he had already seemed, he becomes convictable. However survivable his previous perilous state might have appeared, he seems just that much more like a gonner this time. While each infraction fully qualifies as truly terrible, not mere misdemeanors, the accumulating undermining effect arrives as curiously reassuring. Each insult brings him closer to total collapse. This might be the only beauty in self-sabotage.
I find many once-sturdy isms undermined like this.
EndDaysIntro
Edward Burne-Jones: The Days of Creation: The First Day (1870-1876)
"I intend this series to serve as a ring-side seat for witnessing the upcoming EndDays."
Another new beginning, if that image isn’t too redundant to hold its intended meaning, or even if it might be. Even EndDays need a decent beginning. Not even they can survive on nothing but endings. I begin this series, my thirty-sixth by my count, since I began writing series on June 21, 2017. I sought a new beginning then, after months of professional discouragement. My courage at a historical low, I mustered my foolhardiness and committed to a practice I’ve continued since. I declared myself a writer that morning, though I insisted that I produce clear, unambiguous evidence. I proposed that acceptable evidence might appear in the form of writing, a story every morning, because writers write. If I were insistent upon being so outrageous as to declare myself a writer, I would henceforth hold myself to actually writing rather than merely thinking or talking about it. I would just need to do what I intended.
And so I have continued through thirty-five, ninety-some installment series, each began on the first day of a calendar quarter, and each ended on the eve of the following solstice or equinox.
Good For A Goose
Decency (90)
Decency Unscrolling (1)
EndDays (53)
Exiled (90)
Fambly (93)
FollowingChapters (93)
Grace (92)
Humor (2)
iAlogue (1)
Letters to the Editor (1)
NextWorld (91)
Personal (18)
Steam Festival (4)
Unscrolling (89)
Vaporized (6)
Work (16)
April 2026
March 2026
February 2026
January 2026
December 2025
November 2025
October 2025
September 2025
August 2025
July 2025
June 2025
May 2025
April 2025
March 2025
February 2025
January 2025
December 2024
November 2024
October 2024
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
