Disintegrating
John Martin: Fall of the Walls of Jericho,
from Illustrations of the Bible (1834)
"It would never raise a credible head again. It's done."
The apotheosis appears as a trajectory more than a peak. At that point, nothing's obvious yet, though subtle and, in retrospect, not so subtle signs point to an inescapable conclusion. That arc peaked. It will never regain that height again. It's downhill from there, though not necessarily a power dive. There might be a series of plateaus and even a few apparent recoveries on the inevitable way down, but the momentum is lost along with the surprise that the initiative initially depended upon. Opponents easily anticipate what were once utterly baffling motives and moves. What seemed like magic was rendered barely tragic. Only theater remains. The outcome will never again find itself in serious question. So begins the slow shuffle toward the exits. What began as a mammoth traffic jam as everyone tried to arrive before the start winds down with people who paid through the nose for tickets leaving well before the end to avoid traffic or something.
Our incumbent still believes he successfully outsmarted everybody.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 07/10/2025
George Inness: After a Summer Shower (1894)
Now Must Be The Time
I once believed that a time might come when my patience would be amply rewarded, though I never invested much time defining what that payoff might entail. Would it come in the form of no longer needing to exercise patience? After all those decades diligently practicing my patience, I might have earned a payoff that promised only the continued practice, by then masterful, of ever more patience. I might have mastered waiting. It seems now, from the perspective of this once far and distant shore, that practicing patience itself might have always been the underlying purpose, promise fulfilled in the very act of striving to practice. Of course, anyone who has practiced patience understands that this practice never seems to approach perfection. Even the avid practitioner understands that even diligently practicing patience involves experiencing considerable impatience, too, and that it's ultimately a failed pursuit if judged too absolutely.
My mother's Uncle Curtis served as an early example of both diligence and patience.
BrightIdeas!
Harold Edgerton: Death of a Light Bulb (1936, printed later)
" … the crutial resource I need to deploy to succeed."
I learned early in my consulting career that my most successful clients started their projects with the worst ideas. These often seemed initially inspiring but ultimately unrealistic, and rarely survived into implementation. The less successful operations married their earliest notions and spent the bulk of their development efforts trying to avoid divorce. They would end up implementing something nobody really needed to satisfy some urge that hadn't survived the earliest phases. The most successful companies seemed to be most skilled at skewering their originating BrightIdeas!
I later realized that all development efforts start with BrightIdeas!
Lowbernation
Edward Clark Potter:
Sleeping Infant Faun Visited by an Inquisitive Rabbit (1887–89)
"All might be right with the world contained within the midsummer guest bedroom walls."
Midsummer brings a lethargy every bit as overpowering as any mid-winter might induce. In both instances, the weather turns inconveniencing, even menacing, introducing a definite reduction in initiative. If I'm not finished with my outside work by ten in the morning, I'm best off just forgetting about making progress that day. When the mercury fails to make it below seventy overnight and has already climbed to eighty before six, its trajectory becomes obvious. This is a performance I've seen before. In my youth, I'd head for the swimming pool and stay in the deep end all afternoon. Now, I head for the guest bedroom to lie beneath a screaming ceiling fan to read another detective novel until I doze. I swear I never know where any of those afternoons go.
I later take to the back deck and water the planters.
Tariffied
Lucian and Mary Brown:
Untitled [baby reaching for typewriter] (c. 1950)
"Nobody ever applauds a terrorist."
Far from appearing to be a skilled negotiator, our incumbent exasperates his counterparts by continually switching his terms. On trade, he made up a "novel" definition of tariff, one which no economist can make heads or tails of. He promises one thing before reneging, typically delivering some punishing terms to trading partners who've loyally served as our manufacturers for decades. Even where no hope of developing domestic production exists, he hits a former partner with some punishing, seemingly random blow. Nobody knows what he's trying to do. If anything shines through his increasingly thin veneer of sanity, his trade negotiation policies qualify as nearly pure insanity. Or, perhaps, they're only inanity. The two seem indistinguishable in him.
The urgent need to seem victimized might fuel much of this theater.
Disasters
Thomas Rowlandson:
The Double Disaster or New Cure for Love (July 10, 1807)
Published by Thomas Tegg
" … after the previously almost unthinkables start occurring regularly again."
In an apparent contradiction, MAGA governance has ushered in an unprecedented —and indeed, previously unthinkable — number of Disasters. From airplanes suddenly falling out of the sky or inexplicably leaving taxiways on takeoffs or landings, to so-called Natural Disasters, those deemed caused by acts of a somewhat less than benevolent God, the MAGA-verse has seen more and worse than recent administrations. While the incumbent hastily explains that these can be traced to lingering effects of President Biden's administration, no explanation seems entirely necessary. Actual Disasters come from nowhere, are utterly unforeseeable, and provide almost endless potential for sympathetic photo opportunities. Few things demonstrate an administration's authority more than mustering the National Guard to help locate flood victims with their Hueys. This sudden spate of horrible events might have boosted the incumbent's ratings.
His incessant budget cutting and reallocating could be seen as at least a proximal cause of this shocking increase in Disasters.
3rdWorld
Vasily Kandinsky: Painting with Green Center (1913)
"Nobody imagines us essential anymore."
I was born into THE 1st World nation. Others would catch up to become almost our peers, but for nearly all of my years, my country held distinct advantages over every other country in this world. In the early years, this advantage encouraged our compassion. Sure, we still exhibited vestigial evidence of a lingering arrogance, but we were most often seen as benefactor and breadbasket, goodwill ambassadors more than vicious competitors, except with the Communists, of course, but we invented our Communists because we needed the appearance of competitors. We could well afford to be egalitarian, and we befriended everyone we could. We agreed to host the United Nations headquarters, and few could question the reason. We were the original democracy, and we were definitely interested in sharing our social technology, even when, unfortunately, it was not of our target's choosing.
We always had a primitive minority who opposed modernity, seeing government programs as reckless intrusions into sacred traditions.
UnAmerican
American Issue Publishing Co.: Liquor Problem: United States.
A "wet and dry" Map of Temperance Reform in the U.S.:
"Wet" and "Dry" Map of the United States, January 1, 1912:
Areas shown in white are areas in which
the sale of alcohol is prohibited by law.
(1912)
"I wonder if we can survive until the curtain rises on our next performance."
This year's 4th of July, coming on the day our incumbent signed the most repressive bill in American history, didn't hardly seem worth celebrating for many, me prominently included. I moped around the place, grieving for a fictional America I still believed in, for that's what makes me an American. This new bill seemed too gawd-awful cynical to accurately represent actual American interests. It seemed unworthy of even any Banana Republic, and might be evidence that we've finally gone and done it, become the very opposite of our Founders' originating intentions.
There was always much contention between the pretensions necessary to maintain governance and what are widely considered to be rights and freedoms.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 07/03/2025
George Platt Lynes: Frederick Prokosch [writer] (c. 1950)
Worsen Our Collective Experience
I suspect that one of these days, the old Father Forgive Them For They Know Not What They Do routine will finally lose traction, especially in a country predicated upon the notion that we could and so really should be striving to improve rather than incessantly backpedaling. Our latest ignorance seems forced and unconvincing, as if we had not been living for the last three-quarters of a century. Ignorance didn't used to be a choice. It could appear without overdue blame before the Enlightenment. After, those who chose to ignore history's lessons tended to undermine themselves, so most avoided dabbling in it on anything like a societal scale, except for those who gained their power and authority by associating with the biggest losers in history. One by one, the more primitive philosophies bowed down to emerging realities, and while all was still not entirely right with this world, things were arguably better, enviably so.
But being human, we couldn't just accept obvious improvement and retire to smell sweet roses.
Cluelessnesses
Raphael Sadeler, the Elder:
Allegory of Wealth, Lust, and Stupidity (1588)
" … some just manage to cope better with its presence."
M'Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in our imagination,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on Earth as within our deepest intentions.
Give us this day our enriched white bread,
And forgive us our debts
As we persecute our debtors.
Lead us well beyond temptation and
Forgive us our Cluelessnesses
As we persecute those who seem most clueless to us.
Award us the franchise to deliver evil,
that we might finally vanquish decency,
For thine is the power and the glory
We intend to invoke forever and ever. Amen
Raphael Sadeler, the Elder:
Allegory of Wealth, Lust, and Stupidity (1588)
" … some just manage to cope better with its presence."
M'Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in our imagination,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on Earth as within our deepest intentions.
Give us this day our enriched white bread,
And forgive us our debts
As we persecute our debtors.
Lead us well beyond temptation and
Forgive us our Cluelessnesses
As we persecute those who seem most clueless to us.
Award us the franchise to deliver evil,
that we might finally vanquish decency,
For thine is the power and the glory
We intend to invoke forever and ever. Amen
Humildity
Wayne Miller: Heat Wave, August 1947 (1947)
" … shirts that wrinkle far too easily in such low humidity."
When I was twenty-three,I experienced high humidity for the first time. I could not believe that people could tolerate living with it, that every soldier in the Civil War wore a heavy felt wool uniform and still managed to move around in that stuff. I promptly contracted a severe case of sun poisoning, a condition I had previously been blissfully unaware of existing. It occurs when bright sunlight filters through extremely moist air. The effect seemed similar to what happens when sunlight passes through a well-focused magnifying glass. I blistered and felt seventh-circle-of-Hell horrible for a week, taking ice baths and slathering ineffective calamine lotion all over my upper body. I had never really bought in to the concept of an Old Testament vengeful God until that experience. I wear long sleeves and havelocks through my summers now.
Summers here near the center of the universe feature a drier heat, the sort that vacationers to the Southwest use to explain away triple-digit temperatures.
Moosenator
John Woodhouse Audubon:
Servus alces, Moose Deer. Old male & young. (1845-48)
" … a little heaven here in The Villa so close to the center of our universe."
I have no more steady companion than our formerly feral male cat Max. Since he became a member of our entourage five years ago, he has accumulated a fair raft of nicknames, if only because he's a member of our family and everybody in our family gets assigned at least one nom de famille. He sports several, including: Maximum, Moose, and Moosenator (pronounced Moose-EN-a-tor). Those who ask why I call him moose, I answer by insisting it was because of the antlers. Of course, The Moose does not actually have antlers, which might be my point. Perhaps the finest reason to assign nicknames in the first place involves the creation of an absurdist mythos around the old family unit. I imagine myself a budding Roald Dahl, writing a book about the wholly unlikely adventures of a typical American family who just happens to have a Moose and a Muse involved. I believe that every life requires some air of mythic mystery surrounding it. Mine features a Moose.
The Moosenator is clever, but not particularly intelligent.
Trepidation
Alfred Stieglitz: Self-Portrait with camera, tripod, and pistol (1886)
"It feels like the thousand deaths …"
This week promises to become one of those weeks that were. So many weeks come and go without leaving many footprints. I recently failed to recall entire quarters where I'd dedicated myself to writing series now lost to memory, if not necessarily to history. I reassured myself that nobody remembers all the books Twain wrote, and he remains perhaps the most popular writer in our history. This week, my copyeditor promised to deliver her completed work on my pending manuscript. I am not warmly anticipating reading her results. Though I firmly believe in the copyeditor's beneficial contribution, I would have preferred to forego this specific stage of manuscript development. I'd asked her last December if she could provide a quick check to prove that my manuscript required her effort. She asked me to send her a few pages. She almost immediately responded that she found five glaring errors in the first paragraph!
Humbled into acceptance then, I told her I'd get back to her after some deeper consideration.
DaysOff
Russell Lee: Seaside, Oregon, is vacation spot (1941)
United States. Farm Security Administration
"My work, my play."
I don't take vacations. DaysOff seem out of the question. My summertime's filled with obligations that effectively prevent me from leaving home. Who would water the gardens and tend the cats? More than that, who would write the daily missive if I went missing? I understand that my time isn't refundable. If I miss a day, I've forfeited it, never to be recovered. I will never again stand in that place or time. I feel a sacred obligation to keep my nose near to this grindstone. When I have to go away, I take my business with me. I can rise just as early elsewhere as I can rise here, so my production continues even if I'm jury-rigging connections in a tiny hotel room in Paris. I will consent to visit, but I will not agree to suspend my writing for even a day.
I do not write for a living; I live to write.
CounterIntuitive
Jack Gould: Untitled [women lined up in front of counter,
seen from behind shop counter] (c. 1950)
"We're destined to become mere observers of our computations."
A great myth was created at the dawn of the personal computing age. Before then, when computing exclusively resided within large organizations, computer professionals took considerable pride in their ability to work within tenaciously hostile intellectual environments. They were, after all, professionals, so their methods and practices should have, by all rights, remained obscure and mysterious to the general public. These professionals reveled in their status as eggheads and were seen as much more intelligent than the Average "Regular" Person. Many became conversant in what was properly referred to as "machine language" and could think and dream in ways never imagined by Average "Regular" Persons.
The dilemma arose when technology advanced to the point where personal computers became feasible.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 06/26/2025
Stuart Davis: Study for “’Art Digest’ Cover” (1953)
Just Like This Administration
Physicists maintain a unique sort of humor within their ranks. They award an Ignoble Prize to scientists performing particularly absurd studies. They're attracted to Irreproducible Results. They amuse themselves analyzing Cartoon Physics, the sort to which Wylie Coyote runs sideways. Does Coyote Gravity exist? It turns out that, while the realization that nothing supports you doesn't actually trigger gravity into action, a discernible delay comes into play when someone inadvertently attempts to walk on air when blindly running off the end of a mesa. Objects do not flatten to the extent shown in cartoons when running full speed into an immovable object, though some flattening does occur.
Our incumbent engaged in Cartoon Physics last week when explaining what happened when some Bunker Buster® bombs hit an Iranian uranium enrichment facility buried deep underground.
TechTalk
Kate Greenaway: The disappointment. (1890)
"I will be back at it again tomorrow morning."
Technology promised what every innovation has always promised: ease. It has yet to deliver. Not that this failure has chased off many customers. I know of nobody who made good on their pledge to rid themself of their frustrating technology. No, we return with fresh hopes the following morning, only to rediscover the depth of technology's betrayal. It does not seem to care. It seems incapable of giving a damn. We stopped being mere users decades ago, before our technology became this convoluted. Tangle built upon previous tangles to produce a mess whose designers probably don't understand.
My technology holds the power to transform me into a whimpering eight-year-old at virtually any time.
Broken
J. B. B. Wellington:
The Broken Saucer (c. 1880/90, printed April 1890)
" … not even duct tape holds anything together forever."
I have attained an age where much of what surrounds me seems Broken. I suspect that this acknowledgement accompanies aging, since in my more innocent youth, I seemed surrounded by more operational than Broken stuff. My stove-top espresso maker's handle was missing this morning. It had broken off a few weeks ago when the house cleaner accidentally knocked it off the countertop. I'd fixed it with some superglue, and that held until a few days ago, when it let go. I learned that I'd have to find some high-temperature glue to more permanently fix it, so I placed that need into my ever-burgeoning pending queue. I'll get around to finding that when I finally get around to finding that, assuming I ever remember to. In the meantime, I discovered that two pot holders held just so suffice as a fix until something more permanent manifests.
Much of my existence seems to be suspended in just that state: Pending Something More Permanent.
Preference
Russell Lee: Detail of farmer's blue jeans, boots and spurs.
This man was once a cowboy and still prefers the cowboy's dress,
Pie Town, New Mexico (1940) Farm Security Administration
"I expect that I'll always struggle to get in touch with my heart's desire …"
I struggle when responding to anyone asking about my preferences. I was raised to be more sensitive to what others prefer than to my own preferreds, a valuable skill in a family with five kids where neediness easily translated into a form of weakness. I learned early the value indifference brought and the cost neediness wrought. I was rarely considered to be a picky eater. Quite the opposite, I was known for my adventurous palate. My dad "preferred" chicken backs so his kids could feast on the meatier cuts. My mom could turn into a genuine Christian martyr sometimes, denying her personal preference in deference to her kids'.
Making matters worse, when I was in Junior High School, I found an old Victorian text in the local Goodwill book section, “The Kingship of Self-Control.” I took that book to heart.
DroppingIn
Harold Edgerton: Milk Drop Coronet (c. 1936)
" … not nearly as alone in this world as we could have sworn we were sometimes."
Most of us live well-regulated lives. This renders us more predictable than we might be otherwise. There is no question about whether we imprinted on hunter-gatherer or farmer behavior. We're definitely farmers. We rise at just about the same time each morning. Through the day, we follow a schedule that defines our edges. We reliably show up for supper at the usual time. We even regulate our vacations, planning routes, stops, and experiences. We try to leave little to chance.
Hunter-gatherers, though, left much to chance.
Priorities
Ben Shahn:
Untitled [Washington Court House, Ohio] (July-August 1938)
"The evil done in our name serves as the greatest evil of all."
Our incumbent waddled off his golf course to fly back to his supposed home to deliver another borderline incoherent rant about something. He sounded triumphant as he spewed his usual paradoxes, pleading for a peaceful end to a violent engagement he initiated. So much for the great negotiator, now reduced to pre-emptive triumphalism.
The Muse and I had spent our day harvesting.
FollowingMyself
Louis Rhead: I diverted myself with talking to my parrot (1900)
— Illustration from 1900 William Taylor edition of The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself. (Popularly known as Robinson Crusoe.)
" … accepting that I'm finally in charge of FollowingMyself."
Beyond a certain uncertain point, I find I have to lead myself. The trailblazers and popularizers I once looked to for direction have either left the building or proven themselves incapable of further advising me, so divergent have our paths and aspirations become. What early in my careers became an identity struggle has laid down its weapons. My identity is finally no longer a mystery to me. Neither are my fallacies. I more deeply understand my underlying absurdities as well as my fundamental decencies. I remain incomplete yet almost complacent, satisfied having life come at me, finally understanding and accepting that I never really had any alternative. I have arrived.
Where I've arrived might not matter.
Good For A Goose
CHope (89)
Exiled (90)
Fambly (93)
FollowingChapters (22)
Grace (92)
Humor (2)
iAlogue (1)
Letters to the Editor (1)
NextWorld (91)
Personal (19)
Steam Festival (4)
Vaporized (6)
Work (16)
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
