Dispatches from the Culture War
The astute follower of this blog1The use if the definite article is pessimistically intentional. will have noticed that your Narrator loves books. Almost daily I add three or four titles to my “must read” list. It’s great to look at the list in anticipation of great reads to come. It is also to despair: so many books, so little time. We do what we can.
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Here at i2b, we love a good story well told. Alas, even though we have several to tell and – arguably – the skills to tell it well, the twain have not made acquaintance for several weeks now. It’s not for lack of writing. In fact, the Writer has several pieces he feels merit publication and an increased daily ration of gruel and breadcrust. Lucky for you, dear reader, that the Publisher and Editor, in cooperation with the arbiters of decency in the Standards & Practices Department – good, earnest people whom the writer insults as “pecksniff simpletons” – have intercepted the notes in a bottle the Writer dropped into the privy in hopes of bypassing our essential and benevolent oversight.1We had left him alone – shackled, of course – for our weekly shareholders and board of directors banquet. The menu was sublime, but we lost track of time and gave him time to attempt his deception. Luckily, we foiled his chicanerous efforts. We find them in poor taste, shocking to the conscience, and an insult to human decency. The Writer wept as we burned his makeshift foolscap (inscribed in his own blood with a sharpened toothbrush handle), but he is being made to understand that this is all for his own good. How he wept tears of gratitude when we cancelled today’s flogging in favor of a light racking! It was touching, indeed, to see a man getting his mind right.
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From fashion to futbol to absurdist political horror stories to fabulist fiction to the happiness to be found in an unspotted foot…it’s My Favorite World.
Guys, there’s something about putting on a blazer. Amirite? You stand a little straighter, you carry a little more air. It’s not that it’s hard to slouch or slump with a blazer on, it’s just that it’s easier not to. I hold this truth to be self-evident: that all men being created equal, a blazer will elevate one over the other. It’s one of article of clothing guaranteed to confer gravitas. Or so I thought.
My Favorite World comes at a good time this week. Sometimes the whole MFW ethos can find itself smothered by stuff. But then you just open your eyes, and there it is. MFW.
I just spent a long weekend with extended family, an even dozen of us. A generally good time sprinkled with the occasional fraughtiness, not unlike most family gatherings. Yesterday, a long day of travel that began at 9 am and was capped by weather-socked airports and a short train ride from the airport to friendly local bed space. Good job Delta, you almost got us all the way home.
