Brian Eno Rick Rubin
I had ran out of podcasts, and went into the archive. I found an interview Rick Rubin did with Brian Peter George Eno, released June 8, 2021. I had heard it before, but might enjoy a repeat listening. … I found a youtube copy, which had a transcript, the lazy bloggers friend. Later, while trying to find the release date, I stumbled onto an Extended Cut, with an extra half hour of content . I am going to listen to the longer version, take notes, write about it, and then absolutely never listen to this again. …
“Yes, and incidentally, I think that’s the power of religion as well. The power of religion is not the connection with God, but the connection with the rest of the congregation. I think the connection with all of the people who also believe in that particular story. I’m not really religious myself, but I really respond to that idea.”
A few years ago, Christopher Isherwood gave an interview with a magazine. (I have never found the source online.) Mr. Isherwood said that it was not the content of the religion that converted a person, but the person who introduces you to that religion. Mr. Isherwood said that if a Catholic had been the right person at the right time, then he might have become a Catholic.
In 1939, after living as an exuberant skeptic, Mr. Isherwood was converted. “Forty-five years ago, on a sultry July afternoon, 35-year old Christopher Isherwood met and embraced Ramakrishna Vedanta in downtown Hollywood, California. Aldous Huxley, writer extraordinaire and ardent explorer of Hindu interior consciousness, had just introduced Isherwood to his guru, Swami Prabhavananda, founder of the Hollywood Ramakrishna Mission Vedanta Society.” … The linked article is worth reading. …
There was a quote that I remembered. “I like being in unfamiliar surroundings. I always used to say that artists are either cowboys or farmers, and they’re both both ways of being an artist are fine. The farmer wants to find a piece of territory and fully explore it and exploit it.” … A talk like this can inspire you to further thinking. You can go paddling up the river, and spend all day exploring the tributary creeks. This is the cowboy side … to follow the thought wherever it goes. OTOH, you can stick to the quotes that capture your attention, let them speak for themselves, and FINISH WRITING YOUR PIECE. This is the farmer side, and is mostly what is going to happen here. …
BPGE was absolutely devastated by hearing It’s Gonna Rain, by Steve Reich. By amazing coincidence, I heard IGR twice on WREK, the Georgia Tech student station. This was many years ago. Both times I heard IGR, large amounts of rain fell the next day. …
I listened to the Extended Cut, and did not suffer any epiphanies. There was one quote. “During the war, when lots of GIs were coming over to England, somebody interviewed an old farmer from Devon and said, so, how do you feel about the Americans coming over here? And the farmer said, well, they’re all right, aren’t they, except for the white ones.” …
One day in the Köln airport, ambient music was born. It was a beautiful day and the airport was nearly empty, and I was sitting there bathing in light, and it was one of those cases like we were talking about earlier, where you think I wish there was another kind of music for this situation, and I started thinking, so what would that be? Like? You know, it’s an airport, so you can’t be too loud. Obviously, people have to hear announcements. It has to be interruptible for the same reason it shouldn’t dominate the vocal register, because people need to communicate. So I just was sort of thinking this out, and quite soon I thought, right, I think I know what I could make that music. I know how I could do that. And that’s how that first ambient record came about. I mean, it wasn’t unprecedented. I had been working on music a little bit like that before, but I suddenly realized what its role in life could be. If you like, what the place of this music could be. I knew it wasn’t dance music. I knew it wasn’t radio music. It was functional, but I hadn’t yet discovered the function. It was then that I thought, I know what this music could be for.” …
BPGE worked with Harold Budd, and created some of the prettiest music ever recorded. This fits in with the ambient music concept. … “I didn’t want drama. I just wanted something like nature, subtle variations. Subtle variations, yes, and variations that stay within a kind of range of possibilities and explore that range rather randomly. I just wanted the thing to be what Harold Budd used to call eternally pretty. That was his way of putting it. Dear Harold. He died about two months ago from COVID, very sad. So I dedicate this thought to Harold. So. Yes, So when Harold and I met, we were both pretty much on this groove of thinking, what about making music that isn’t designed to upset anybody? Now, of course that sounds pretty uncontroversial now, but in the mid to late seventies that was considered to be the biggest sell out of all time. You know, music was supposed to shake the world and create revolutions and upset your parents and all sorts of things like that. And we thought, what about making music that is just really comfortable? Comfortable was probably the most controversial word you could use.” …
I have one last question to ask, just because I’m really curious, what’s your relationship to spirituality? … Well, as you can tell from the way I talk too much, I think about this kind of thing quite a lot. What I always want to do is to cut away as much of the shit as possible and see what’s left. So I don’t want to be a believer. I want to be somebody who, as far as possible, understands and knows things. Believing things leaves me a little bit unsatisfied. If I find myself believing something, I want to test the belief. I want to say, how do I find out how valid this is? How true this is? How? In real belief, in proper faith, you’re not supposed to do that. Faith is supposed to be, by definition, the acceptance of something that you cannot find evidence for. If you can find evidence for, it’s not faith anymore. It’s called knowledge. Then. So this is a long way round of saying that I’m not anti spiritual, I’m not anti religion. Actually, in fact, I can see how religion really cements some communities together and really helps people in their lives. But I’m not by nature a believer, So it’s difficult for me to use that kind of cement. My cement has to come from trying to understand things and to see how they work, and to share those ideas with other people. Yeah so, I think one one of the other things that surrendering prepares you for is the experience of uncertainty, the experience of not knowing the answer but still having to do something. You know, the fact that you don’t know the answer can’t cripple you. And of course a lot of people are crippled by not knowing the answer, and so they just choose an inappropriate answer just for the want of an answer.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the social media picture in August 1942. “Nashville, Tennessee. Welding parts for fuel pumps. Vultee Aircraft Corporation plant” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Deep Dive
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Here is the monday morning reader for labor day. The picture below is Private Fred S. Morse of Co. F, 12th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment · Frank Zappa was generous with his opinions. This did not stop him from saying “Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.” · Belief equals agreement plus attachment · For many years, the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest encouraged perpetrators to submit a bad opening sentence to an even worse novel. Unfortunately, the facilitator of BLFC chose to retire from his duties. Bad writing will not be affected · William S. Burroughs wrote a book about taking heroin. He did his own research · Russell Lee took the social media picture in October 1939. “Main building at trailer park containing cafe and grocery. North Beach section, Corpus Christi, Texas” · This post is about the need for big government, in a capital intensive industry. It is also about a goat getting into your tent. The pictures are better than the text · @IamProHuman As a therapist, I hate to break it to you, but… If your nervous system is stuck in “survival mode,” no amount of journaling or meditation will save you. Here are 7 techniques that heal decades of trauma, increase your stress tolerance, and improve sleep/digestion… 🧵 · Michele Dauber is a law professor at Stanford University. She is widely believed to be the author of the victim impact statement that kickstarted the Brock Turner controversy. Ms. Dauber later got involved in several other controversies. · “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.” Paul Wolfowitz · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress The social media picture is “Private Charles L. Poteat of Co. G, 22nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Greeted As Liberators Part Two
This content was published September 1, 2009. … Paul Wolfowitz has been a government player for years. After finishing his education, he got a job in the Nixon Administration, and worked with Ford and Reagan. He became a star under GHWB and GWB. Under George W. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz (who never served in the military) was Deputy Secretary of Defense. After 911, he became a forceful advocate of War in Iraq. Mr. Wolfowitz is regarded by some as the “Architect of the War in Iraq”.
On February 27, 2003, Mr. Wolfowitz testified before congress. “There has been a good deal of comment—some of it quite outlandish—about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take … to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army.”
The conquest was the easy part. The occupation, the act of putting humpty dumpty back together … this has been the tough part. More than a few people saw this in 2003. … Mr. Wolfowitz gave an interview to Vanity Fair magazine May 9, 2009. The interview had a quote about WMD. “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.”
The possession of WMD by “next Hitler” Saddam Hussein was one of the leading reasons for the invasion. Iraq was known to have used poison gas against the Kurds (while they were allies of the United States). The WMD were never found. … In 1941, The United States was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor. A declaration of war was issued within a week. There was no settling on an issue for bureaucratic reasons. … I found a transcript of the complete interview. HT to TomDispatch. … Gaza’s Looming Cancer Epidemic is the latest post at TomDispatch. It was published September 4, 2025.
Apparently, Mr. Wolfowitz likes to talk. One interesting segment concerns the Cruise missile, and other “smart” weapons. It seems as though the research on these weapons was almost suspended. The United States was negotiating arms control with The Soviet Union. The Cruise missile was almost abandoned as a concession to the Soviets. The Navy supported this, as they felt that the torpedoes on submarines were taking up too much room already. … This is a repost. Here is part one.
This content was published September 4, 2009. … There is a controversy about a picture from Afghanistan. A soldier is being treated, after being hit by a grenade. Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard later died. … Few graphic images from the “War on Terror” have been seen on this side of the Atlantic. The burden of the war is on the volunteer soldiers, and the families who support them. Many people in America have no contact with anyone fighting eight time zones away.
Even less is said about why we fight. The revenge for 911 has long ago been taken. Any fantasies about establishing a democracy in Afghanistan are foolish. The war has spilled into Pakistan with even less debate or public concern than was focused on Afghanistan or Iraq. Nuclear armed Pakistan is an unstable country, with a nervous border with India. The United States is killing women and children in Pakistan from unmanned airplanes. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in November 1938. Men in front of pool hall, Omaha, Nebraska ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Brock Turner
This content was published June 7, 2016. … By now, most internetters know about the Brock Turner case. The Victim Impact Statement has gone viral. The 7140 words of polemic were probably not written by the accuser, known as Emily Doe. The statement is intended to motivate the court to give the defendant a more severe sentence. It was not intended to tell the truth. Was the statement made under oath? Was it subject to cross examination? How did it get such wide distribution?
The statement seems to disconnect from the truth. “I called myself “big mama”, because I knew I’d be the oldest one there. I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college.” In contrast, the Stanford Daily reports: “Doe confirmed that she had previously experienced four to five blackouts in college as a result of drinking. Asked by Kianerci if the Jan. 18 blackout was different from prior ones, Doe said, “In previous blackouts I have never been half-naked outside.”
There does seem to be a bit of alcohol privilege here. Miss Doe went to a party, and got blackout drunk. (“Alice King — a supervising criminalist for Santa Clara County — … estimated that the Doe and Turner’s blood alcohol content (BAC) levels at 1 a.m. would have been .242 to .249 and .171, respectively.”) While at the party, Miss Doe was seen dancing with, and kissing, Mr. Turner. She then left the party with Mr. Turner. Emily Doe trusted a drunken stranger to get her home safely.
This is not an excuse for what Mr. Turner did. He should have known that she was not capable of consent. However, for an adult to go to a party, get blackout drunk, and assume that she would be able to get home safely … this is extreme privilege. In the Victim Impact Statement Miss Doe denies any responsibility: “Campus drinking culture. That’s what we’re speaking out against? You think that’s what I’ve spent the past year fighting for? Not awareness about campus sexual assault, or rape, or learning to recognize consent. Campus drinking culture. Down with Jack Daniels. Down with Skyy Vodka. If you want talk to people about drinking go to an AA meeting. You realize, having a drinking problem is different than drinking and then forcefully trying to have sex with someone? Show men how to respect women, not how to drink less.” (Force was apparently not a factor in the January 18, 2015, incident. It is tough to say who started the fooling around.)
The Stanford Daily had another tidbit, that has gotten little publicity. Craig Lee, a forensic biologist at the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office, “discovered a mixture of at least two individuals’ DNA on the underwear’s waistband. The DNA present in larger amounts matched with Doe, while the DNA present in smaller amounts did not seem to match with Turner, assuming that it represented the DNA of only one person.”
The assault on Miss Doe was wrong, and should be punished. However, it should be noted: “Turner stated that that he took off the victim’s underwear, fingered her vagina and touched her breasts. He said that he never took his pants off, that his penis was never exposed and that he did not penetrate the alleged victim’s vagina with his penis.” While Emily Doe suffered a devastating attack, she was not at risk of pregnancy, or contracting an STI.
There is a double standard here. Many comments about the attack mention “my daughters.” People seem to be defending the damsel in distress … even when she got to the .249% percent distress on her own. Her Victim Impact Statement goes on, and on, and on about her psychological problems after the incident. If a man was attacked while passed out, and he were to issue a victim statement about his hurt fee fees, then he would be laughed out of the courtroom.
Men and Women get robbed and beaten, while intoxicated, all the time. It is commonsense that if you go to an alcohol use facility, and get drunk, then you are in danger of being a victim later. This is especially true if someone is driving while drunk. (If a person is in an accident after drinking in a bar, the bar is liable for damages. Maybe a similar law for sexual assault is in order.) If a person goes to a bar, and gets robbed on their way home, they are seen as contributing to their own victimhood. Should sexual assault, where apparently the woman was not taken by force, be different?
This content was published September 10, 2019. … UCSB Alumna Chanel Miller Comes Forward As Emily Doe was the slow-news-day headline. The lady saw a payday coming out, and decided to publicize her book. The public reaction has been tepid. Maybe people have been outraged out.
@chamblee54 “My first reaction to the impact statement was that the victim did not write it. At the very least, she had help.” There is nothing wrong with using a ghost writer. The story belongs to the person who is telling it. However, some supporters of Miss Miller were offended by the suggestion. @VioletOlivine “There are many folks who have read and interacted with her work far before her survivor statement was published. I don’t know if you’ll be able to take my word for it since you can’t take hers.” This presupposes that Chanel Miller is the she we speak of.
“Totally written by Michelle Dauber.” The discussion had gone on for a while. I had never heard of Michelle Dauber. It seems as though she is a leader in the successful effort to recall Judge Aaron Persky. A bit of googling turns up a few tidbits about @mldauber.
“Dauber’s opponents, however, often speculate that the recall was an act of revenge because of her friendship with Emily Doe’s family. After Doe penned a … letter to Turner that quickly went viral, critics suggested Dauber had been the author. Dauber flatly rejected that accusation, and dismissed the notion that she’s out for personal revenge as “so ridiculous it doesn’t even deserve a response.”
“Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber is one of the leaders of the recall campaign. Dauber is a friend of the victim’s and was in the courtroom for Turner’s sentencing. She’s an outspoken on-campus activist who has helped push through more stringent sexual harassment and abuse reporting and investigation policies. Dauber also is an adept Democratic fundraiser who has organized a well-financed recall campaign with glossy mailers juxtaposing photos of Persky with President Trump and Turner’s booking mug shot.”
@onionringslut “chanel miller deserves to be @TIME person of the year. you can’t change my mind.” @mldauber “YES.” The twitter feed of Ms. Dauber has enthusiastically supported Chanel Miller. This would indicate that Chanel Miller is, in fact, Emily Doe. Rape shield laws protect the exact identity of the victim, and a big payday awaits. This would seem to be an opportunity for a fake Emily Doe to step in. However, Michelle Dauber is acknowledged to be a friend of Emily Doe. Her support of the upcoming book would seem to confirm the authenticity of Ms. Miller’s claim.
Researching this post turned up a tweet from this law professor at Stanford University. @mldauber “Hitler had lawyers. Loads of them. And everything that his government did had a busy beehive of lawyers working away on making sure it was all done legally. The same legal profession that blessed the Third Reich is blessing Trump now. Lawyers serve power not the people.”
Chamblee54 has written about Brock Turner before. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Gordon Parks took the social media picture in June 1942. Washington, D.C. Construction workman … Michele Dauber has deleted her twitter account under suspicious circumstances. She seems to be a controversial figure. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Big Government
This content was published October 6, 2008. … I made it back from the Fall Gathering, and knew, as Dorothy had before me, that there is no place like home. The Gathering was a delight…fabulous food, visual delights, mountain air … but returning to indoor plumbing was equally festive. The yellow jackets swarming on the porch, at lunch, will not be missed. How anyone could admire such a vile animal is tough to understand. … I did learn a thing or two this week. Setting your camera to a lower resolution will get you more pictures, but they will not be nearly as good. While this will provide plenty of editing fodder, sometimes you catch a good image, and wish for quality.
There is a formula for writing. It is ass plus chair. A lady told me that, about having the patience to move beyond blog posts into longer work. I got to talk to her because I asked permission before taking her picture. … When you walk in on a acting workshop, you are in danger of being cussed out. The fact that you did not know the playback theater was in progress does not matter. You will go the rest of the week wondering what it was you walked in on. When you are a veteran of Faerie Gatherings, you learn to take these things in stride.
When you leave a tent open with food inside, a goat might go inside and look for a snack. If you have your camera ready, it can be a photo opportunity. The goats did appreciate the weeds that I fed them. There was a stone staircase that had fallen into disrepair, and I spent Friday pulling weeds off the stones. This is a place where men are men, and the goats are happy. … Friday night, there was an Indian dinner prepared by Frenchmen. Somebody took the kitchen and turned it into a Belle Epoque nightclub, and took a long time talking it up at the dinner circle.
Finally you get inside, walk past the can can dancers, and get your meal. I thought it all a bit much, so I went to the fire outside, and talked to a young man. After a while, I went back to the kitchen, and joined the chorus dancing to “Save all your love for me”. Life is good. Late Saturday afternoon, I was bored before dinner, until I saw a drum without a fresh handprint. Drumming is tough to do wrong, and takes almost no practice. The energy was soon there, through another fabulous meal, more drumming, and a techno dance. At one point a burst of synthetic basstones formed a lightening bolt that ignited the lumbar region. At that moment, I was no longer in control.
This content was published October 8, 2008. … During the debates, JSM has repeatedly touted Nuclear Power as a solution to our energy needs. Perhaps this talk needs a second look. There is a lot of money involved in Nuclear Energy. The plants are very expensive to build. There is a lot of potential for profit, and opportunities for moneylenders to earn interest. With this much at stake, it is not unreasonable to think that someone is paying JSM to promote Nukes. The capital intensive nature of Nukes brings up another problem. Nuclear Power=Big Government With billions of dollars invested, the banks are going to make sure they get a return on their investment.
With this much money involved, Big Government is going to get involved. The safety issue is also a factor. Yes, Nuclear Power is safe. However, there is a need for constant oversight. The potential for disaster is immense. The process needs to be heavily regulated. With the companies trying to show a profit, the temptation to cut corners, and bribe the regulators, is going to be there. With global … and potentially domestic … terrorism a fact of life, the nuclear fuel needs to be constantly watched. Again, this is a job for Big Government.
While Nukes are nominally safe if handled properly, the potential for disaster is huge. There are stories of materials so toxic, that a mass the size of a softball could give the world cancer. While the systems can work well, the potential for corruption, corner cutting, and old fashioned human error cannot be forgotten. … Did someone say that Nuclear Power is expensive? Money is not the only scarce commodity required in bulk by Nukes. Water is also required in vast quantities for a Nuclear Power Plant to operate. The energy from a nuclear reaction is converted into electricity by boiling water to power steam turbines.
This is the same steam technology that has been used since the start of the industrial revolution. The nuclear reaction produces vast amounts of heat, which water is used to cool. With water an increasingly scarce commodity, the allocation of vast amounts for a Nuclear Power plant must be questioned. … It should be noted at this point that I am not a scientist. I am just a slacker with internet access. It is also true that coal fired power plants have horrendous environmental issues, and pump millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. I honestly don’t know what the answer is.
I recently spent a week at a community with solar power. There were constant reminders to use the juice sparingly. I tried to recharge my cell phone, and the system was not strong enough to do so. While solar can reduce the dependence on “the grid”, it is not going to completely replace it. But then, maybe we could do well to use less energy. We have gotten spoiled, like the man who wants an emerald green lawn in October. We can live simply, so that others can simply live.
This content was published September 25, 2009. … Sometimes, the “legitimate” newspapers make the tabloids look tame. Blogs can cover both “real” news and tabloid trash with equal lack of profits. … The mayor of East Cleveland (presumably in Ohio) is a man named Gary Brewer. He is in an election, and somehow pictures of him in drag have been inflicted on the population. The man is too ugly to be seen in public, no matter what gender his clothing was intended for.
Mackenzie Phillips was promoting a book on the Oprah Winfrey show. Miss Phillips opened her mouth, and her lips moved. A sordid tale of incest and drug abuse came forth. … One night, Papa John said to honor Mama Cass by making a ham sandwich. … Mackenzie’s step mother, Michelle Phillips, said that Mackenzie was probably lying. Michelle Phillips had previously sent a letter to People magazine, where she expressed the hope that Papa John’s attempt at rehab number nine would work better than the previous eight. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in October 1939. “Main building at trailer park containing cafe and grocery. North Beach section, Corpus Christi, Texas” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Junky
This content was published September 21, 2015. … It started out slowly. I saw a tweet. It was a promotion for a blog post, featuring William Seward Burroughs reading The Masque of the Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe. WSB has a great voice. The wealthy Missouri background, filtered through years of high class schooling, and low class abuse, comes through whenever WSB spoke. In the helpful links, there was an opportunity to hear an audiobook of WSB reading Junky. As with other addictions, you begin slowly, and do not realize you have a problem until you are helpless to deal with it.
Junky is the first book that WSB published, using the pseudonym William Lee. It is reputed to be semi autobiographical. In Junky, WSB wallows in the gutters of New York, New Orleans, and Mexico City. For this armchair degenerate, whose worst vice is peanut butter sandwiches, Junky is a glimpse into a picturesque alternate reality. With the aid of a copy friendly peedeeoueff edition, we can enjoy samples of the nightmare.
One review of Junky is this Amazon One Star Comment. Dissapointing Tanya N. Miller March 22, 2014 “This is a book that goes nowhere. It ends up right where it started. Every line in the book is about getting drugs and doing drugs then getting off drugs and back on drugs again with some sex thrown in. The only reason why I finished this book is because of my compulsion to finish books that I start and the only reason why I picked it up in the first place is because I wanted to know just who William S. Borroughs was. What a dissapointment and what a total waste of talent.”
The story begins with a semi normal childhood. It gets interesting in New York, during the war. A person named Norton (“a hard-working thief … did not feel right unless he stole something every day from the shipyard where he worked) has a tommy gun he wants Bill to sell. When Norton arrives, he has “a flat yellow box with five one-half grain syrettes of morphine tartrate.” Bill tries one of the syrettes, then another, then another. Then there is an episode which is in the book, but not the video.
“Ronnie’s was a spot near 52nd and Sixth where musicians came for fried chicken and coffee after one p.m. We sat down in a booth and ordered coffee. Mary cracked a benzedrine tube expertly, extracting the folded paper, and handed me three strips. “Roll it up into a pill and wash it down with coffee.” The paper gave off a sickening odor of menthol. Several people sitting nearby sniffed and smiled. I nearly gagged on the wad of paper…. Mary selected some gone numbers and beat on the table with the expression of a masturbating idiot.”
The video picks up with Bill trying to sell marijuana. “Pushing weed looks good on paper, like fur fanning or raising frogs.” Tea heads turn out to be too much trouble. Bill swears to never sell pot again, but not before ranting about the drug laws. … Bill has a habit now, working mostly with prescribed medication. Doctors are known as croakers. Soon the croakers quit writing scripts, and Bill gets busted. Some technicality about giving the wrong address. The case drew a four month suspended sentence. Bill starts to sell junk.
His partner is a piece of work. “One of Bill’s most distasteful conversation routines consisted of detailed bulletins on the state of his bowels. “Sometimes it gets so I have to reach my fingers in and pull it out. Hard as porcelain, you understand. The pain is terrible.” This might be a by product of opiate consumption. … Before long, Bill thinks he is about to get busted, and leaves for Texas. By the time he gets near Lexington, he has junk sickness. He checks into an institution to receive the cure. We learn a new word… shmecker is a user of heroin.
Bill leaves the Lexington facility without completing the cure. The next stop is New Orleans . … “New Orleans was a strange town to me and I had no way of making a junk connection. Walking around the city, I spotted several junk neighborhoods: St. Charles and Poydras, the area around and above Lee Circle, Canal and Exchange Place. I don’t spot junk neighborhoods by the way they look, but by the feel, somewhat the same process by which a dowser locates hidden water. I am walking along and suddenly the junk in my cells moves and twitches like the dowser’s wand: “Junk here!”
WSB co wrote a musical, “The Black Rider.” The performer is Tom Waits, whose voice sounds like WSB. There is a song, Crossroads. This is probably not about Robert Johnson. In this song, we learn about a gun with magic bullets. In the moment of aiming, the gun turns into a dowser’s wand. The bullet goes where the bullet wants to go. Some say the magic bullet is a stand in for junk. When Junky was written, junk was not used as slang for peckers.
It has been noted that WSB is as queer as a crochet bathtub. This circumstance is not noted in Junky. But then, WSB does not speak well of drug addicts either. “In the French Quarter there are several queer bars so full every night the fags spill out on to the sidewalk. A room full of fags gives me the horrors. They jerk around like puppets on invisible strings, galvanized into hideous activity that is the negation of everything living and spontaneous. The live human being has moved out of these bodies long ago. But something moved in when the original tenant moved out. Fags are ventriloquists’ dummies who have moved in and taken over the ventriloquist. …
… The dummy sits in a queer bar nursing his beer, and uncontrollably yapping out of a rigid doll face. Occasionally, you find intact personalities in a queer bar, but fags set the tone of these joints, and it always brings me down to go into a queer bar. The bring-down piles up. After my first week in a new town I have had about all I can take of these joints, so my bar business goes somewhere else, generally to a bar in or near Skid Row.” … Before long, Bill goes into a queer bar, and gets in trouble.
It seems to be a way of life, for someone who says that junk is a way of life. Maybe the magic bullet was aimed at him all along. … We are roughly half way through Junky. The attention span is maxxing out. In case we get druggie withdrawal, a podcast with Keith Richards is freshly downloaded. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These pictures are Union soldiers from The War Between The States. Much of the action in Junky takes place in wartime.
Fabulicity
This content was published August 31, 2018. … The Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest for 2018 has finally been released. It usually appears the first week of August, but for some reason was late this time. “Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged man, woman, and (precocious) child to write an atrocious opening sentence to a hypothetical bad novel.” It is named for Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, a Victorian novelist of some note. This year, we learn that EGBL wrote the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”
I have been writing about the BLFC for many years, and was anxious about the late arrival this year. The contest web page has a new look, which is appreciated. Sir Bulwer-Lytton cleaned up good when it was time to paint his portrait. Unfortunately, the overall contest winner is presented as a .jpg, which means the text cannot be pasted. Here is the 2018 winner.
As a value added feature of BLFC coverage, I compile a list of contestants with funny names. Inclusion on this list is not an indication of being a bad writer, or a good writer of bad prose. Here is the cheat sheet: Shelley Siddall, West Kelowna, BC, Canada, Bridget Parmenter, Katy, TX, Mark Wisnewski, Flanders, NJ, Aasha Sankpal, Monroe, CT, Thomas Purdy, Roseville, CA, Ralph Cutting, Kingston Upon Thames, England, Jay Dardenne, Baton Rouge LA, Talha bin Hamid, Karachi, Pakistan, Peter Seakat, Rochester, NY, Shea Charkowsky, Santa Clara, CA, Hwei Oh, North Balgowlah, Sydney, Australia, Marsha Engelbrecht, Lafayette, LA, Sylvi Warshaver-Stein, New York, NY, Ava Zaleski, Lisle, IL, Brent Guernsey, Springfield, VA, Ben Handy, Philadelphia, PA.
Two of the writers this year are from Georgia. One of them is somebody. They are given special status in the Chamblee54 BLFC report. … Phoebe sighed happily as she read the text from Mark asking her to be “friends with benefits,” as she thought maybe, just maybe, she would finally get that 401k and dental insurance. Amber Burns, Calhoun, GA
In preparation for visits by African dignitaries, we had redecorated the West Wing of the White House in an African motif with numerous artificial plants and animals, but the President asked that we remove the papier-mache wildebeests, saying he was “tired of fake gnus.”
Wm. “Buddy” Ocheltree, Snellville, GA
Dreaded Pirate Larry was somewhat worried, as he looked down at his boot, where his first mate was stretched out, making whooshing sounds, attempting to blow him over, that despite having the fastest ship, the most eye patches, and the prettiest parrots, his crew may need a few lessons on the difference between literal and figurative, as evidenced by the rest of the crew applying ice to the timbers. Shelley Siddall, West Kelowna, BC, Canada
I knew that dame was trouble as soon as I set eyes on her, see: there was a stain on her clingy dress, wine, difficult to get out (you notice these things when you’ve been in the business as long as I have); there was a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her high heel, cherry, that would leave a gristly pink trail following her every step (you pick up on these things when you are as experienced as I); and when she coolly asked me directions to the detective’s office, I pointed her down the hall and went back to mopping the floor. Bridget Parmenter, Katy, TX
Nothing looked familiar to Travis, who, recalling a favorite line from Tolkien — “Not all those who wander are lost” — reckoned the “not all” part implied that most who wander, like himself, are in fact lost, yet buzzards would pick his bones before he would think to ask for directions.
Dr Joel Phillips, West Trenton, NJ
My escape from heavily-guarded Cochon Island, a Hungarian penal colony founded by the Gabor sisters, would have to be well-planned and faultlessly executed, I thought to myself, “and I’m just not the right man for it,” so I stayed and lived out my days there, because having a Gabor slap you around wasn’t that bad, especially when they said “dahling” afterwards. Kevin M. Kinzer, Spokane, WA
“Pooh,” said Piglet inquisitively, “I don’t believe the quantum interplay of dark energy and black holes allows for the anti-matter superposition of a Higgs-Boson vector that you are postulating transported you thru an n-dimensional carbon lattice and got you stuck in the hunny tree . . . just sayin’.”
Tim Metz, Kokomo, IN
For rookie detective Lara Stinson, the hardest aspect of her most recent case was not discovering that the adolescent victim had been thrown from the tenth story of the apartment building by his own grandmother, but rather trying to spell “defenestration by octogenarian” in her subsequent report. Thomas Purdy, Roseville, CA
Inspecteur Rollin of the Paris murder squad lit a cigarette as he stood over the body of la prostituée engorgée (to those readers who don’t know French, a prostitute with her throat cut and, indeed, how else would one describe her — la pute, la fille de joie, la vendeuse de sexe, la travailliste de la rue?) which lay on the Voie Georges Pompidou under the arches of le Pont Neuf on the rive droite of la Seine which flows through the most beautiful city in the world.
Ralph Cutting, Kingston Upon Thames, England
Who knew what answers the elongated, odd-shaped gray trunk would reveal, but there was no doubt that in solving the mysterious homicide at the zoo the great weight of evidence pointed to the elephant in the room. Jay Dardenne, Baton Rouge LA
This content was published in March 2025. … “It is with deep regrets that I announce the conclusion of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Being a year and a half older than Joseph Biden, I find the BLFC becoming increasingly burdensome and would like to put myself out to pasture while I still have some vim and vigor.” Scott Rice … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Arthur Rothstein took the social media picture in March 1936. “Taxicab driver along riverfront. Saint Louis, Missouri.” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Phi Zappa Krappa
This content was published September 25, 2008. … Former Dunwoody resident Aquarium Drunkard weighs in today with a nifty video. It is Frank Zappa, appearing on a TV show discussing censorship. FZ more than holds his own, and makes many good points about the nature of language and censorship. His contention is that censorship is about words, and that words in and of themselves are powerless. Wikipedia contributes this quote: “What do you make of a society that is so primitive that it clings to the belief that certain words in its language are so powerful that they could corrupt you the moment you hear them?” FZ had a way with words… “Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”
I was in high school when I first heard about Frank Zappa. It was in the original Poster Hut, a ramshackle building on Cheshire Bridge Road that was vacant 38 years later. There was a poster, with the words PHI ZAPPA KRAPPA. Below the saying was a picture of Frank Zappa on a commode. To compare that image of FZ on the throne to the sight of him on a TV show surrounded by windbags…he is seated both times.
I did not get that poster of PZK, but I did get a dayglo poster of Janis Joplin. I didn’t notice the exposed nipple on the drawing. When Mom saw it, she was horrified. ” I trusted you!” In my shame, I took a magic marker and covered over the flourescent fuchsia mammary. … Back to FZ on CNN. The guitar picker made a lot of sense. One of the pundits threw the Founding Fathers at FZ, who replied that the FF were slave owners and that Ben Franklin was a wildman. FZ replied that we were heading to a fascist theocracy. Are we there yet?
One whiner mentioned that his band was called The Mothers Of Invention. FZ did not mention that the original name had been The Mothers, and a record label made them add “Of Invention”. Finally, the four man part of the show was over. The two primary whiners agreed that rock music had some gnarly words, but did we really trust the government to intervene. … Just for the record, Frank Zappa was a parent. His four children are Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva.
This content was published October 23, 2013. … The current WTF Podcast features Moon Zappa. At no time does she say grody, gag me with a spoon, or boofoos. Today, she is the divorced mother of an eight year old, and buys quality apple butter. … Moon is the daughter of the late Frank Zappa. FZ did not do drugs, smoked Winston cigarettes, and spent all his time working on music. The four children called the parents Frank and Gail. Mrs. Zappa stays busy these days selling her husbands music. … Adelaide Gail Zappa (née Sloatman) passed away October 7, 2015. Frank Vincent Zappa went to the Dental Floss Farm in the sky on December 4, 1993.
Gail and Moon were walking to the store one day, when Moon was very little. A car stopped, and tried to pick up Gail. Moon screamed “Fuck off pervert.” … Once, Moon broke a finger in school. She called Gail, and waited. Eventually, the family Rolls Royce pulled up. Gail was driving, with Frank in the passenger seat. Frank quit driving when his first drivers license expired. Before taking Moon to the ER, they stopped to get Frank a burrito. … Captain Beefheart was at the Zappa house one time. He had made a hole in the side of his nose with a pencil. When a finger was put over the other nostril, the nose became a whistle. … While listening to this show, I was editing pictures from The Library of Congress. Some of these images appear with this feature.
This content was published March 1, 2020. The first time I saw the word Zappa, it was on an item at the Poster Hut. It showed a man sitting on a commode, with the words Phi Zappa Krappa on display. The poser, Frank Zappa, later said “I’m probably more famous for sitting on the toilet than for anything else that I do.” … It was 1969, give or take a bit. FZ was already well known in some hip circles. His band, the Mothers of Invention, played at something called the Cosmic Carnival at Atlanta Stadium, where the music lovers were actually allowed onto the field.
I paid $1.98 for a copy of We’re Only in It for the Money at the Woolco on Buford Hiway. Years later, I would pay $16.00 for a CD. … The records started to come out like clockwork, with or without the Mothers. FZ started to become a star, with an appeal to druggies who fancied themselves intellectual. It should be noted that FZ was notoriously anti drug. His music made fun of the establishment and counterculture with equal glee. FZ was also a tight fisted capitalist.
FZ stayed with his second wife, Gail, until his death, and produced four children… Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen. … The concerts came to town every year or so, and people liked them. A show at the Fox Theater in 1974 may have caught FZ at his peak. I heard the raves about this show, until buying a ticket for his next one. This was in 1975, at the Municipal Auditorium. I brought a half pint in, and don’t remember a lot, except some song about the Illinois Enema Bandit. Life goes on.
Nine years later, FZ was in legal hell with a former manager, and could only make money by touring. One night, a friend had an extra ticket to a show. I arrived after the band had started, and FZ was playing a fine guitar solo. This was going to be good. Only it wasn’t. The rest of the show was social commentary. The man had opinions on everything, and was generous with them. At one point, the band started to sing “He’s so gay”, while a double headed dildo was lowered from the ceiling. I think I heard FZ sing “one day you might be gay too”, but by then it really didn’t matter.
Frank Zappa was many things to many people. He had lots of opinions, which were dutifully recorded by the press. Here are a few . If this is not enough, @DoomKid assembled FZ opinions into one 9:44:04 video. … Rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, in order to provide articles for people who can’t read. · I think that if a person doesn’t feel cynical then they’re out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization, you can’t just swallow it whole. · When God created Republicans, he gave up on everything else. · Let’s not be too rough on our own ignorance; it’s what makes America great!
The U.S. is a mere pup tent of a civilization. We’ve got two hundred years of stupidity behind us. We think we’re right up there with everyone else who’s been doing it for thousands of years. · Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die. · He wrote this book here, and in the book it says he made us all to be just like him! So if we’re dumb, then God is dumb — and maybe even a little ugly on the side. · Remember there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
Do you think you are protecting somebody by taking away seven words? · For the record, folks; I never took a shit on stage and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973. · There is no hell. There is only France. · The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. … This is a repost. One, two, three, four posts are used. Your archive is your friend. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture is “Untitled”. The picture is in a collection taken by Dorothea Lange in February 1936. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
My Failed Efforts
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The awkward night Joy Division met William S Burroughs—Ian Curtis was told to fuck off
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Robin Guthrie, Composer, Songwriter and Founding Member of The Cocteau Twins
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Ennio Morricone Vintage Soundtracks playlist | Instrumental Retro / Lofi music
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August 22, 1914: The bloodiest day in French military history
lev haolam · mtracey · enya · burn down the house · loc 082925
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jay shapiro · manifestoradiopodcast · ed calderone · shadow haunted · @dzgrizzle
This is the last monday morning reader before Labor Day. The picture below:“Private John Rigby of Co. D, 35th Georgia Infantry Regiment … was wounded at Gaines Mills in 1862 and discharged, then later rejoined the regiment and was captured at the Wilderness, Virginia, and held at Elmira prison, New York, until his death from disease in May 1865 · Sex Offender Registries always sounded like a good idea. Unfortunately, the details can be tricky to work out · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in September 1940. “Jack Whinery and his family, homesteaders, Pie Town, New Mexico” · In 2012, I finally got around to reading Catch 22. In my seven part book report, I wrote whatever foolishness came into my head. Stream of consciousness is more fun to write than it is to read · WordPress changed the way you post material. They do this every year or so, and I struggle for a while, until I figure it out. Today’s post has been the least work of any post since the new system came in · Football season is here, along with many players suffering injuries that they will deal with for years to come. Many people wonder if the glory is worth the human cost · “I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys. I think that’s the record.” Dylan Thomas – “Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!” Karl Marx – Voltaire was asked by a priest to renounce Satan. “Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.” · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture: Private Fred S. Morse of Co. F, 12th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment · ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
Is Football Worth The Cost?
This content was published August 8, 2009. … The United States has killed Baitullah Mehsud. He was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He is blamed for a lot of things, including the murder of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mr. Mehsud held together the factions of the TTP. … Mr. Mehsud was at the home of his father in law. He had an iv in his arm, for what is reported as a kidney ailment. He was also known to be diabetic. His wife and others were killed in the raid. The missile that killed Mr. Mehsud was from an unmanned US aircraft.
The Pakistan government is playing both ends against the middle here. On the one hand they denounce the US raids on their soil, but seem certain to be cooperating with America in these actions. The Pakistan government has issues with the Taliban. This is ironic, since the Taliban was the creation of Pakistani intelligence. This was when the Soviet Union was fighting in Afghanistan. … The raid has gotten little press in the United States. A conservative website was more concerned about a report that BHO (wisely) does not want to use the phrase “war on terrorism”.
I have a few questions. How many raids have been launched in the search for Baitullah Mehsud? How many people have died in these raids? How many of those were women and children? Are these raids legal, both either American law and International law? The United States has not declared war on Pakistan. For that matter, unless I missed something, the USA has not declared war on anybody in the region. This question does not cover the morality of killing women and children from unmanned aircraft, but rather asks if it is legal. … Is killing women and children with unmanned aircraft terrorism? What are our goals in the ‘Stan country wars? … We have long ago punished Afghanistan for 911. We are stuck in Iraq. We are playing with nuclear fire in Pakistan. What do we hope to achieve from all this killing? How long will it take, and how much will it cost?
This content was published August 24, 2009. … Football is just around the corner. The teams are busy with the pre season, and soon weekends will be full of hitting and drinking. Perhaps this is a good time to wonder whether football is worth the human cost. Especially now, with a national debate raging about the future of our health care. … This is a recycled post. There is a helping of hypocrisy here, as I enjoy watching the hits. … Football injuries keep hospitals hopping during the autumn. While the games are fun to watch, the players are paying the price. Football is a contact sport. On every play, the linemen block other lineman to keep them from tackling a back.
Someone gets hit on every play. Most of these hits are “clean” and cause only bruises. Some are “dirty”, and cause injuries. Even the clean hits can hurt someone. It is estimated that 378,000 emergency room visits every year are due to football. What if an illegal drug sent 378k to the ER annually? There would be a hue and cry to kill the pushers. However, football is different. … Note The 378k figure is a very, very rough estimate. It is based on a 2019 report from the US Government. The story says there are 2.7m ER visits annually, with 14% attributed to football.
Knee injuries are especially prevalent. Thousands of knee operations are performed each year due to football injuries. With all those helmets slamming into each other, head injuries occur. “The researchers found that there is approximately one catastrophic head injury per every 150,000 athletes playing, or 7 catastrophic injuries yearly. There were 0.67 injuries per 100,000 players at the high school level and 0.21 injuries per 100,000 for college level football players.” Often, the coaches get caught up in the do or die spirit of a big game, and don’t get the player the medical attention that he needs. “Football is a very macho sport. Athletes are taught to play through pain.”
“But concussions range in severity and symptoms, so all a player may experience is a headache several hours after impact. High school players need to be educated in these symptoms and encouraged to self report.” Even cheerleading squads are reporting more injuries, due to botched stunts. … When you see the players in their youthful glory, you don’t think what they will look like after they quit playing. Many players know this, but the lure of today’s glory justifies the pain of tomorrow. The heroes of yesterday often walk with pain today.
On a more personal note, the Falcons had a winning season last year, and made the playoffs. In 44 years of NFL competition, the Falcons have never had back to back winning seasons. It does not look good for Rankin Blank this fall. … A few years ago, the Falcons had the top pick in the draft, and got Micheal Vick. Number Seven was the most exciting player in recent memory, and led the Falcons to the Conference championship. Before long, he was in prison for dogfighting. This is consistent with the history of the Falcons. … Not only is football dangerous to human knees, it is also puts man’s best friend in mortal danger. When you give millions of dollars to a young man from Bad News, Virginia, who plays for the Falcons, you should not be surprised at the results. It is Philadelphia’s problem now. … The pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture is Dick Gossett, New York AL, 1913. ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah
#Hasbaratwitter
This content was published August 20, 2024. … It was a monday morning for the books. After finishing the weekly notes, I started to download podcasts. Blocked and Reported was available early, which does not always happen. Working my way down the list, I thought to check Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Low and behold, the 2024 winners are here. It felt like winning the lottery.
Going further down the list, I thought of checking in on Search Engine. They had ended season one a few weeks ago, with no indication of when more episodes would appear. Turns out the new episodes started to appear a few weeks later. There are now have 6 episodes to binge on. After depending on youtube for Gaza-bad-news, there is now an overflow of distractions. Life is good. …
Tuesday stormed in uninvited. Though the weather outside appears to be clear and calm, inside, it is as dark and stormy as ever. The winner of the BLFC 2024 is an out and proud “opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.” “She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.” Lawrence Person, Austin, TX. …
@asymmetricinfo “As a gentile, I don’t want to pretend that the surge of anti-semitism online affects me the way it does my Jewish friends, neighbors, and colleagues.” … @rhealforno “You can talk about antisemitism all you like. It’s not going to distract people from noticing that Israel is committing a brutal ethnic cleansing right under our noses.” @asymmetricinfo “How does dislike of Israeli government policy explain spreading vile lies about Jews murdering Christians on Passover?”
This exchange says something about the battle for public opinion. To Megan McCardle, shock about mass murder in Gaza is “dislike of Israeli government policy.” When anti-semites of the future talk, #Hasbaratwitter is what they will discuss.
Pictures today are from the Library of Congress. Marjory Collins took the social media picture in September, 1942. “Dyeing hair at Francois de Paris, a hairdresser on Eighth Street, New York NY”
Yossarian Part Five
This content was published August 31, 2012. … This is part five of an appreciation of Catch 22. Parts one, two, three, four, six, and seven are available. … XXV The Chaplain This is another existential quandary chapter. There is not a lot of action. The saving grace is that it makes fun of religion. … Chaplain Tappman is seen as a pathetic source of ridicule. The other men do not think he is wonderful, which always makes professional Jesus worshipers uncomfortable. Chaplain T is also having weird ideas. He sees a naked Yossarian in a tree during the memorial service for Snowdon, and thinks it is a vision. This is sort of like that lady in Rockdale county who kept having the Virgin Mary visit her. However, no one is under the impression that Yossarian is a virgin, or that he is the mother of Jesus. … So the Chaplain mopes about his uselessness, and decides to go see Major Major, who never sees anyone. The Chaplain takes a sneaky route back to his tent. He finds a man living in the woods. Flume is there because he thinks his tentmate is going to kill him.
After another humiliating encounter with tentmate Whitcomb, whose rank keeps changing, the Chaplain goes to see Colonel Cathcart. The Colonel is in no mood to talk to the Chaplain, and says the flyers are going to go to Avignon again so they can get some casualties. … One of the online cheat sheets has a good quote. “Complex questions of ontology perplex him, but “they never [seem] nearly as crucial to him as the question of kindness and good manners.” I had never encountered “ontology” before. It seems to have something to do with existential questions about the nature of God and man. If you change the t to a c, you get oncology. This is the branch of medicine dealing with the treatment of cancer. As one practitioner said, it is the branch of medicine that no one makes jokes about.
With c, you get oncology. This is the war against runaway cell growth, where the treatment is often treacherous and debilitating. The treatment is often as bad as the disease, which is saying something for a fatal malady. With t, you get ontology. This is where you ask questions that no one really knows the answer to, although many make the claim. Instead of runaway cell growth, you have runaway rhetoric. One chemotherapeutic protocol for ontology is substantial applications of alcohol, which can make the disease worse, can make you puke, but will usually not make your hair fall out.
XXVI Aarfy Aarfy is really named aardvark, although it is unlikely that is on his driver’s license. He should be first on any list of characters, except that the online cheat sheets don’t list the characters alphabetically. In a story like this, there are a lot of characters. It is tough for a simple minded southerner to keep up, and tools are needed. … In this chapter, Dunbar plays a key role. I seem to remember good things about him, but could not be sure. The first list of characters does not mention him. This is frustrating, since it is not alphabetized, and you have to go through the entire thing to see that Dunbar is not there.
Another character list does show something: Dunbar – A friend of Yossarian and the only other person who seems to understand that there is a war going on. Dunbar has decided to live as long as possible by making time pass as slowly as possible, so he treasures boredom and discomfort.” … There is some action in this chapter, and Aarfy is a key player. In the first part, Aarfy, Nately, and Yossarian are in a building in Rome. Nately confesses his love for a whore, and is ridiculed by Aarfy. Later, there is a mission, where Aarfy’s incompetence leads the plane into enemy fire. Yossarian is hit in the leg by flak, and winds up in the hospital. … When Yossarian tries to get out of bed, Nurse Cramer asks if he wants to lose his leg. “It’s my leg” ”It’s certainly not your leg. That leg belongs to the U.S. Government. It’s no different than a gear or a bedpan. The army has invested a lot of money to make you an airplane pilot, and you’ve no right to disobey the doctor’s orders.”
XXVII Nurse Duckett Sometimes you have to stop dilly dallying and finish the job at hand. This series on Catch 22 has gone on since June, and has three more parts to go. … When I decided to do a series on Yossarian, it was using two good eyes. A couple of weeks into July, there was an extra sensitivity to bright white light. When the right eye was covered, the left eye was a mass of blurred vision. Action needed to be taken. Research was done about ophthalmologists, insurance coverage was secured, and an appointment was made with a nearby eye doctor. …
The first appointment revealed a broken blood vessel in the eye. The fancy name is branch retinal vein occlusion. The doctor lectured me on the need for a medical exam, to determine the cause of this spillage. On the way home, I made an appointment for a physical. … When the nurse takes your blood pressure, makes a face, and decides to take a reading from your other arm, that is not a good sign. Yes, the blood work came out fine, and hypertension is a less severe problem than diabetes or hiv. Clearly, some lifestyle changes were in order.
The second visit to the eye clinic was horrible. The nurse said that the dilation drops were going to be strong, and that his eyes would be dilated the next day when he woke up. Then, the retina specialist had to deal with an emergency, and I had to wait, with compromised eyes, for what seemed like forever. … When I got to see the retina specialist, there was a new name for the condition. Cystoid Macular Edema is not an improvement. The doctor said that she could not start treatment with the blood pressure as high as it was. The treatment she proposed was an intraocular injection of a cancer drug. An appointment was made for four weeks in the future.
On the way home from the eye clinic, I stopped at the office of the other primary care dude. He was out of the office for two more days. I sent an email explaining his situation, and the primary called in a prescription for amlodipine. … I had started to decipher the proposed diet, and made an effort to follow it. When you are skinny growing up, you get into the habit of trying to gain weight. Then you get older, and develop a pot belly. The concept of thinking about what to eat is new to me.
The blood pressure readings began to improve. Better yet, the blurring in the left eye is improving. The next appointment at the eye clinic is the day after labor day. I am hoping that an intraocular injection of a cancer drug will not be needed. … Ok, back to Yossarian. This chapter starts out with him in the hospital, taking liberties with a nurse. There is trouble, and a shrink is called in. The head doctor is crazier than Yossarian. … There is a tradition on english tests. You are given a quote, and you have to explain it. There are two wiki worthy quotes for chapter XXVII.
“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?” “Yes, sir, it has.” “Then why do you do it?” “To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.” This is an exchange between the shrink and Yossarian. … BTW, not all therapists, or other rapists, appreciate being called shrink. One such person said “I am not a shrinker, I am a grower”. He did not charge for that. … The last paragraph has a fun bit of wordplay. It has long been known that if you put a space three letters into therapist that you get the rapist. I tried to make a joke about this, and said or other rapist. When he saw those letters on the screen, he realized that “the” and “or” is an anagram for other.
Therapist spelled backwards is tsipareht. This will inhibit palindromic applications of this word. … “You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You’re dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!” Major Sanderson, the shrink, says this to Yossarian. This is another example of the satire in this book. It is not as heavy handed here as elsewhere, and consequently is more enjoyable. Satire can tire is applied without fire.
XXVIII Dobbs When PG was in sixth grade, a popular insult was Dob. Since it was a verbal insult, no one knew whether it had one bee or two. … It turns out the special education teacher at Cross Keys was named Beatrice Dobbins. She was morbidly obese. The special ed students were called dobs. This tidbit of knowledge made its way to the sixth grade at Ashford Park. … The character Dobbs wants Yossarian to help him kill Colonel Cathcart. In this chapter, Yossarian agrees to help. Dobbs is now unwilling to kill the Colonel. Opportunity is a funny thing, as are most things with tuna in the middle. This chapter is really about Orr, who is Yossarian’s tentmate. Orr is a tinkerer, which upsets Yossarian while it is going on. In later chapters, Yossarian will reap the benefits of Orr’s tinkering.
This is the last chapter that Orr appears in. He is flying a mission, and his plane goes into water. All the other men are in one lifeboat, and it is rescued. Somehow, the boat with Orr is never rescued. … There is a curious bit of cultural anthropology here. The life jackets the men carried were called Mae Wests. There was a movie star at that time who used that name. She had big boobs, which were probably real. There were rumors that Mae West was was a man in drag. Miss West made a movie with W.C. Fields, where he was drunk all the time, and they had to shoot the movie around him. … There was a plane crash, and when the men tried to use the Mae Wests, they did not work. The MWs had a CO2 canister, which made them inflate. Milo Minderbinder borrowed these canisters to make whipped cream. There were no other comments about the syndicate in this chapter.
The Orr who perishes in this chapter had a double r last name. There was a football player named Jimmy Orr. He caught passes from Johnny Unitas. Mr. Orr, with a double r, had a nightclub in the Peachtree Battle shopping center called “Jimmy Orr’s End Zone”. In Super Bowl III, the Baltimore Colts tried a trick play called a flea flicker, The quarterback gives the ball to a running back, who tosses it back to the quarterback. Jimmy Orr was by himself in the end zone, and the quarterback threw an interception. This was the year Joe Namath, and the New York Jets, won the Super Bowl. They had no business winning, but they did. People who suspect that the Super Bowl is rigged point to this game as the first obvious example.
XXIX Peckum There is not much action in this chapter. Just of bunch of self important officers trying to impress each other. They all think they are succeeding, and that the others are failing. There is a synchronicity of stupidity. … When I was at Redo Blue, I heard someone, named George, say “Frank thinks Phil is a fuckup”. The names have been changed to protect the guilty and the sensitive, even though it is unlikely that any of the three men involved will ever read this. It is not even certain that all three can read. So, I got to thinking. You could take that statement, and insert blanks where the names are. _____ said that ____ thinks that ____ is a fuckup. You could take any of those three names, and insert it into any spot in the formula. All combinations of names would be true.
XXX Dunbar This chapter was made for the movies. There is a pilot named McWatt. He likes to fly low over people and scare them. At first, it is a harmless little habit. Then it annoys Yossarian so much that murder is contemplated. … Yossarian, it turns out, would rather make love than war. He starts to spend afternoons on the beach with Nurse Duckett. They both enjoy the company of the other. While Yossarian and Nurse Duckett are making whoopee, the other men are swimming. One afternoon, McWatt decides to buzz the swimmers. Kid Sampson waves at him. For some reason, this distracts McWatt just enough to dip the plane a bit lower. Kid Sampson is cut in half. After McWatt sees what he has done, McWatt flies into a mountain. … <a href=”” target=”_blank”>Bookrags has an interesting take: McWatt dips his wings in one final salute and flies into … (paywall).
Another facebooker contributes a bit of commodity wisdom: “Work isn’t to make money; you work to justify life.” Marc Chagall “I think Chagall’s words speak to those who find passion in their work–or that their work sustains their passion. I am privileged to be in that class of folks, but on this labor day I am mindful of those who work to survive and in doing so often find themselves endangered by the exploitation and greed of others.” …
There is a little bit of sophistry/commodity wisdom that usually annoys me. It sounds so good, is a clever turn of words, but is totally without meaning when you think about it. The platitude is “I work to live, I don’t live to work.” Does your heart stop beating when you go to work? We all know people whose brain ceases to function on the clock, but they continue to breathe. Often, when they exhale, these people make obnoxious noise, which is also part of being alive.
Work is a part of life. When you are a living human critter, you are going to do things that you don’t enjoy. But you do them because you have to. When I am editing this, I will try to think of a good analogy for this silly saying. But don’t bet on it. This has gone on too long, and part five is finally, mercifully, finished. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the social media picture in September 1940. “Jack Whinery and his family, homesteaders, Pie Town, New Mexico” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

































































































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