‘The question at stake,’ said Epictetus, ‘is no common one; it is this: Are we in our senses, or are we not?’ —The Golden Sayings of Epictetus We cannot truly know whether we are not at this moment sitting in a madhouse. —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms There are those to whom one must advise madness. … Read more
I stopped over to visit my old friend Rich last night. Rich is having a bit of a tough time, or so he had told me on the phone. I go way back with this guy, and on a certain level I’ve always gotten a kick out of him. That said, he is, like many … Read more
I recall reading somewhere about a party of British adventurers who were mucking about in some primitive, forsaken place. This was, if I’m not mistaken, some time in the 19th century. According to a handful of sketchy journals they left behind they’d had an arduous expedition and had lost several members of their party to … Read more
Look, man, I’m not saying every McDonald’s manager is a 265-pound white woman, I’m just telling you that that pretty much describes every one I’ve ever worked for. You really think Tina’s 265 pounds? If she isn’t, she’s not much more than a couple Big Macs away. Shit, man, why don’t you ask her? That … Read more
My family’s been hunting snakes down around Lake Pepin for generations. My old man’s from one of the longest lines of snake hunters in the entire country, in fact. My mother’s own family was famous in those parts for creeping in caves, and the snake hunting, I gather, was sort of a natural off-shoot of … Read more
I close my eyes, whistle, and send the dogs off into the brush to see if they can scare up any words. I’m not sure how long I sit here –it varies, I suppose, from night to night. When it gets quiet like this, though, and I can’t even hear the rustling or baying of … Read more
Fantasy baseball is one of them. Fantasy league is even worse. There’s something essentially emasculated about these terms, and to use them in the form of an admission –“I am in a fantasy league”– seems somehow shameful. I’ve no doubt that a first-rate thesis could be written on the homoerotics of fantasy league baseball, but … Read more
I don’t suppose I can reliably claim that I have just seen, at four a.m. in the third day of March in the Midwest, the first firefly of the summer. That won’t, however, stop me from staking my claim. I see what I see, and the world can believe whatever the hell it wants. I … Read more
I’d like, if I could, to correct a common misconception regarding Paradise. The animal sanctuaries are actually, in fact, offshore, a couple islands just off the coast which have been set aside for cats, primates, and horses. As with humans, however, not all cats, primates, and horses are admitted to Paradise, although virtue is not … Read more
A man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost. —Henry Thoreau Man will never find the end of the trail. —Robert Hofstadter Probe and rummage and ruminate all we want –through, past, back, forward, beyond, up, out, now— we can’t see through any of it, … Read more