Mystery Most Fowl

This has happened twice to me: I encounter a cardboard box outdoors, in a public place, containing a big dead bird.

The first time was during the summer, and the situation was smelly. I saw the bird’s feathers were speckled, but I didn’t poke around to get a view of the head or feet. I thought it might be a pheasant.

The second time was yesterday. This time I took s better look, and it turns out the bird was a decapitated Guinea Fowl. Its feet were tied together with string.

I think it was the same kind of bird each time.

It is weird that someone would kill these birds, which are poultry, and leave them in cardboard boxes in public places.

There are some religions that kill birds of this variety. For example, voodoo. But I have the idea they usually eat the poultry they sacrifice.

This seems an offense
Against moral sense.

Thankful

May your travels
Not unravel,
May your dinner hosts
Serve up the most
Scrumptious food,
And may your mood
Be warm and mellow
With all your mealtime fellows.

While We're On The Subject Of Times To Avoid

If a time-traveler offers you a trip,
Be wary, and request an an itinerary
That's specific, not vague.
I've found it's best to skip
The Year of the Plague.

536

'Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536." ... A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months.'

According the article, massive crop failures followed, resulting in a mass starvation of human beings. Some scientific researchers believe that the mystery fog was probably due to the eruption of an Icelandic volcano. This claim is based on some very high-tech ice-core studies.

When it comes to years, 536
Is apparently the roughest of picks.
I don’t remember it, but as you can probably intuit,
I did have ancestors who lived through it.

Chilly

Is it true cold showers
Give you superpowers?
Well, make no mistake,
They sure do jolt you awake.

Headquarters and Hindquarters

Alexa, will you,
Explain the HQ
Situation to me?
Of course I knew
You wanted two,
But say, can it be,
That you really need three?

Melville Cane

Speaking of dead poets suddenly coming to my attention, there's Melville Cane.

Apparently he was a lawyer as well as a poet, and was admired in both capacities by Ayn Rand, who I've spent a lot of time studying.

According to this article, "reliable speculation" has it that she was a big admirer of these lines by Cane:

She was not bound by mortal sight,
The stars were hers, at noon.
Against the malady of night
She stood, alone, immune.

It reminds me a bit of "Invictus" at first glance.

Mr. Cane, although published in his time, and award-winning in his time, seems to have zero poetry represented on the web for some reason. He died in 1980, so perhaps his estate is trying to protect his copyrights, or perhaps everything is on the New Yorker site, a step removed from easy viewing.

Meanwhile, I bet,
Few are beating down the paywall door
For a chance to explore
His poetry, just yet.

Kate Light

I was sorry to see that the poet, Kate Light, had died. I had never read much of her until recently, when I picked up a book of hers, "Open Slowly", at the local used book store. She died a couple of years ago, it turns out, at the age of 56.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading this book. My favorite poem was one I don't see anywhere on the net, so I'm going to type it in here. It seems to be part of a series of poems about a man she loved but who was emotionally distant.

Funny, As In a Man,

one man, for instance, trying
to express tenderness with no model to base
his take on it on. How this severe face
struggles to be concerned, to be clear; shying
just short of simply saying what
he wants to say (or does he not
know?) As in a poet explaining, Class,
if you know what you want to say, you
will be clear; and if you don't (sarcasm
here) nothing will help you get through,
not even a room full of anxious coaches.
Funny, as in this man, whom
it happens I feel quite tender towards,
stumbling on his attempts to put into words
kind words. Trying more direct approaches,
a drunken bull in a matador
shop, he's lurching at the spinning room;
searching, looking for a door,
to open into what - one can assume -
would be a wider field, a fuller range.
Look at him. It's kinda funny, I mean, strange.

I particularly liked the altered metaphor, the "drunken bull in a matador shop". That brought me up short. You see, you expect the bull indoors to be heedlessly wrecking things, but it turns out that the indoors location is actually dangerous for the bull.

It's not simply that the man cannot express his feelings, and so wounds his beloved by accident. It's that he believes that if he says the wrong thing he will open himself up to a skewering! I am certain that many men feel that way at times. Many women, too, I suppose!

One interesting aspect is that she seems to be a step removed from his efforts, observing him, as if she too is emotionally distant in her way. She sees him a funny and strange.

It's a bemused, ironic stance
toward her object of romance.

Urban Fauna

I was walking to the drugstore
On a busy downtown street
When I saw a furry creature
Just ahead of my own feet.

At first I thought, how darling,
What can that creature be?
But as I focused on him,
I realized I could see

A rat, a good-sized rat!
It dived right through a grate.
Nobody else had seen him
And now it was too late

To offer him a tidbit
Or maybe sage advice
About which local restaurants
Have food that's extra nice.

Armistice Day

One hundred years ago, the killing paused -
A pause too brief.
For soon enough the world faced the jaws
Of yet more grief.

Possums

Of all American mammals,
They’re our most distant cousin.
They take up less room than camels,
So I’m ordering a dozen.

Parker Solar Probe

Now that most of its travel is done,
It’s going to hang around the sun,
To catch some rays and collect a ton
Of data.

Draw One In The Dark

Finished reading Sarah Hoyt’s fantasy novel, Draw One In The Dark. The title turns out to be old fashioned diner lingo for black coffee. Years ago I knew some of this humorous lingo, although I heard it referred to as Hashhouse Greek.

Anyway, it was an interesting shapeshifter novel, pretty logical on its own brain-straining terms. There’s a softpedaled sweet romance.

Your dating options may seem atrocious and bitter
If you sometimes become a ferocious critter.

Typical Midterm Resultd

An energized electorate has selected...
Massive gridlock, just as projected.

Judgment Slips

Many "how could that happen?" puzzles are solved
Once you're informed that alcohol was involved.

By Their Nature

Children aspire
To bigger and higher.

Unskeletal

Traditionally by Halloween
Lots of trees are bare.
But this year, as is clearly seen,
The leaves don’t seem to care.
Some of them are even green...
Come on, drop down from there!

Bomber

I’m disappointed this is just some isolated loon.
I was hoping for a convoluted conspiracy - and soon!
So I’m starting a rumor that this guy was framed
By some very bad people, never to be named!

Routine But Ouch

My dog had an operation.
She seems to be healing.
Seeing her tail wag again
Brings a wonderful feeling.

Yawn

Took a class on yoga for restful sleep,
But had to wake up to drive home.
I hope my state of relaxation will keep
Ready while I finish this poem.

Did It Again

Once I sign up for a race
I feel bound to do it, just to save face,
But I don’t tell anyone of my plans,
So I wouldn’t be disappointing any fans,
Except the guy in the mirror, who I hope
Won’t think I’m a mope.

Effects

A life is like a a stone
Thrown in a pond.
It goes on rippling
When the stone is gone.

Java Juice

Am I drinking coffee enough?
It’s just one daily cup of the stuff.
But it’s a large, so is that in fact
Two cups stacked?

Rattling

A big supply of rattlesnakes
Really makes
Being trapped in a mine
Exquisitely fine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45893215

Excelling

A proper spreadsheet glories
In hierarchical categories.

Sessile

The lovely Sea Cucumber
Is rather prone to slumber.
Unlike the busy ant,
It gets mistook for a plant.

Product Idea

Someone needs to sell time-release safes for home snacks
To protect ourselves from late night craving attacks.

Tick

I hadn’t known the Tick
Was an Arachnid.
I'm sure some smart kid
Sitting in the back did.

Glad Hostage Is Free, But...

Why did we go from “minister”
To calling people “pastor”?
I’m sure it’s nothing sinister,
And not a big disaster,
But word-choice alteration
Always jars my brain.
Just when you know a language
It goes and changes again!

Staying On Track

From what I can figure, a train engineer
Doesn’t even have to steer.
They hit the gas, they hit the brakes,
And try to avoid catastrophic mistakes.

Dry

I talked to a Chicago police officer who had worked marathon support for the race here last Sunday. I asked about the weather and she said it rained a lot. So I suddenly felt I had stumbled into a bit of good fortune because it hadn’t rained that morning in Milwaukee, where I was running that other marathon.

I’m not quite sure that made up
For hours of extra travel,
But something about cold rain
Makes my brain unravel.

Milwaukee

After steady forecasts of rain this morning, and after a rainy early morning drive from Chicago to Milwaukee, the rain stopped for the actual marathon.

Went out way too fast
And had to slow down
But still had a blast
Seeing the town.

Driving Out Of My Way

I was downtown today, to do some work. The place was jammed with out-of-towners here to run or watch the Chicago Marathon. Forty-thousand runners, that's a lot.

Even more people would like to run it, if they could, but forty thousand is some kind of practical limit. So they put in a lottery to get in, for normal people, like me.

Tomorrow is the Chicago Marathon,
But I'm not going to run it, I'll be gone,
Off to Milwaukee to run a marathon there.
Such are the burdens that lottery losers must bear.

Pirate Pet Preference

Said the pirate with a parrot,
“Other pets are just absurd.
Neither dog, nor cat, nor ferret,
Can repeat your every word.
If your pocketbook can bear it,
Then you ought to buy a bird!”

Scholarly Advice

You want your homework
Eaten by a doggy?
Just add gravy -
Get it nice and soggy.

Street View Sighting

I saw the Google street view car.
Will I soon be a street view star?
Will I be shown for all to see
With blurred-out physiognomy?

Stella

Stella, our beloved cat,
Who always went tuxedo-clad,
After eleven lives, has passed,
Leaving us alone and sad.

We Had Them Laughing Last Night

The Matchmaker is your one and only chance,
To see me as the lead in a romance.
You’ll watch as I, an old and cranky miser,
Get ambushed by my social-life advisor.

Another Opening

Dress rehearsal’s done, it’s in the bag.
Now let’s hope we open without a snag.

The Matchmaker, by Thornton Wilder

Here’s a startling fact:
In this show I act.
I play a man named Horace,
A sort of tyrannosaurus,
Who endlessly rails about folly
But ends up outsmarted by Dolly.

Harvest Time

Most seasons have one name
And then there’s autumn/fall.
Can this be explained at all?
And who, pray tell, is to blame?

Tomorrow

I think the autumn equinox
Should be locked up in some dark box,
And summer needs to stick around
About six months, till spring is found.

The Root of the Problem

It’s my belief that “root canals” are dreary.
I much prefer the one that’s known as “Erie”.

Surge

Sometimes when acting a scene, I will feel a startling wave of emotion, emotion I didn’t plan on feeling, but that pertains to the character’s situation. The trigger is acting with another person, which has an amplifying effect. This is a hazardous moment for remembering my lines! Fortunately it’s mostly something that happens in rehearsal.

By the time we’re on stage
I know what to expect
And my concentration’s
Less likely to get wrecked.

Show Closing, Show Opening

Well, the 4-day Hale Park Theatre production of O'Brien & O'Brian is complete. I'm sad to wrap it up because it was so much fun while it lasted. We had nice big audiences every day, and on Saturday night we filled almost every seat. There was lots of laughter every night, and I heard from the cast that they had a lot of fun doing the show. It's the nature of live theater to be ephemeral, of course, but it's so intense while it's happening.

There is no rest for me, however, because I acting in a show - in the same festival at Hale - in about a week and a half. I'm playing Horace Vandergelder in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker, which is the basis of the big hit musical, Hello Dolly. I'm playing the male lead, and of course at the end I am engaged to Dolly herself. It's a big part with lots of lines. I'm just about there on having all my lines by heart, which is good.

I've been pounding my lines
Into my brain
And it's holding up fine
Under the strain.

Hale Theatre’s O’Brien & O’Brien

Mike Murphy, who directed, has a sure sense of what’s funny, and he was working with a cast he knew, so I figured this’d would be s very funny production. I was right.

O’Brien & O’Brian opened to a great crowd at Hale.
I’m proud to say they laughed without fail.
We all had a blast.
Thank you, dear cast.

Worldwide

“There are members of the flat earth society
All around the globe.”
Boasts of that variety
Hurt my frontal lobe.

Disease Not Understood

A lot of money has poured into Alzheimer's research. So far, it looks like not much practical progress has been made. A few drugs have been tested, but not successfully.

So I thought this NPR story was interesting: Infectious Theory of Alzheimer's Disease Draws Fresh Interest

There re some statistical reasons to think something infectious could be involved, but it's certainly just another hypothesis at this point. There's one line of thought that Alzheimer's is come kind of late-life reactivation of the roseola virus - a rash that most babies get. For some reason the roseola virus shows up a lot in the brain tissue of Alzheimer's victims.

Could the dreaded disease
Have a connection
With a childhood rash
Or some other infection?

But Do You Feel The Condition Is Real?

You might think that a fear of palindromes would be called palindrome-o-phobia. But someone came up with this: aibohphobia.

It seems distinctly unkind
That the phobia’s name is designed
To unsettle the sufferer’s mind!

Nike

It's interesting how a big publicly held company will decide to go all-in behind some controversial issue. On the one hand, they risk alienating people on the other side of the controversial issue. Hence the slogan, "Get woke, go broke." The additional danger is that your own partisans may turn on you, when it turns out that you're really just another profit-seeking company without a truly deep commitment to "sacrificing everything".

There's a theory that soon there will be liberal shoe brands and conservative shoe brands. Ditto with all consumer products.

Shoes do come in left and right,
But keep your politics out of sight!

Sat Pic

Plane flying over the local woods,
Cruising by my neighborhood.

This surprised me. I don't know why it should. My neighborhood is on the flight path to Midway Airport. Why shouldn't one of those Southwest 737's show up in a satellite view? And yet - I've never noticed a jetliner in the satellite views of my own neighborhood before.

This one popped up at the USA Track & Field website, where they have a "Map It" application that lets you draw your running routes on a map or satellite view. That's what I was in the middle of doing when I noticed that big plane. You can see the blue line I was drawing on Longwood Drive, parallel to the plane. There's something a little bit funny about the left wing of the plane - there's a dark splotch on it. I don't know if that's some kind of artifact of the photography process, or what it is.

I see them everyday, but from the ground.
Here my point of view is all turned round.

Memorizing a Part

Got in a visit to the beach.
Got in some swimming in the lake.
Lay in the sun and tried to teach
Myself my lines beyond mistake.

Richard Frisbie

I attended my godfather's funeral yesterday. Richard Frisbie, 91.

My sister Kathy and I went with my father, who was the best man at Richard Frisbie's wedding.

He made his living as a writer, which is no mean feat.

His son, Tom, gave a charming remembrance of him. One of the funnier lines was that his father was "Google search before there was Google." In other words, the man was a walking encyclopedia.

It was a sad but loving event
Celebrating a life well-spent.

Disappointing

I see Facebook ads that promise
To show X "destroying" Y,
But when I break down and watch,
Nobody seems to die.

Story In Pictures

You can make out that I was working hard on the bike, then felt ready to wilt mid-run, but picked up my attitude at the end.

At the finish of the Chicago Tri,
I was trying hard to look like
I wasn't about to die.

Nomenclature

There’s a disappointing restaurant
Known as Panda Express.
A panda steak is all I want,
But they never, ever say yes.

Heat Index

They shortened the triathlon today
Because of the heat,
So I’m just exhausted and tired
Instead of completely beat.

Chicago Triathlon

The guy who gave the mandatory course talk yesterday referred repeatedly to the beautiful view in the bridge over the Illinois River.

That river is why this city is here, but it’s not the Illinois. It’s the Chicago.

What he said was mostly true:
It’s a lovely view.

It’s Bananas

It seems that somehow impeachment
Has little to do with peaches,
But rather concerns bad apples,
From what my textbook teaches.

Endurance Insanity

I just read my second story about a woman planning to do 50 long (Ironman distance) triathlons in 50 days, in the 48 contiguous states plus twice in Haiti. I thought it sounded almost impossible, but then I saw there was a guy who did it already.

The guy who did it says he averaged about 14 hours per triathlon. That's most of your waking day, right there. So when did he sleep? Well, in Tennessee he says he fell asleep on the bike and crashed. Anyway, if this appeals to you, you'd better be a person who can get by on short hours of sleep.

These aren't regular organized triathlons, of course. These are stunts, where you run a course you design yourself. If you wanted to cheat, the opportunities would seem to be there. But maybe nowadays these people hook themselves up to electronic tracking devices and broadcast their locations real time, with pictures, as they move, on Facebook or Twitter. That's the modern way!

I'll just say what I feel:
This holds no appeal.
An Ironman's a brutal test.
Afterwards, you need a rest.

Probably

How does cotton get preshrunk?
Does it involve a warm-water dunk?

Diet

I heard word of the new Snake Diet
And studied its fast/binge laws.
Although I don’t totally buy it,
I’m trying to un-hinge my jaws.

The Matchmaker, The Film

I'm acting in Wilder's The Matchmaker, so I spent some time looking at the old film of the play tonight. I play the miserly half-millionaire, Horace Vandergelder. Paul Ford played him in the movie. Walter Matthau played the same role in Hello Dolly, the musical made from the play. I've long been very partial to Matthau, and I may want to watch Hello Dolly next. In the little excerpts I've seen, the camera loves his interplay with Barbara Streisand.

I know some actors purposely avoid looking at previous portrayals of the characters they are working on. But I never feel overly influenced by such looking. I feel like I pick up a few possibilities. But I'm not going to become Walter Matthau, or even try to.

Speaking of influences, this play is thought to have an ancestry that traces back to a play by Terence, the ancient Roman playwright:

"Many of the stock personages in Phormio directly correspond to characters in The Merchant of Yonkers: the rich old man, the young men looking for brides, and the parasitus, who finds her incarnation, or rather apotheosis, in Dolly Levi."

Accept that you will be influenced,
Though hopefully not overmuch.
There's much you may learn from tradition,
But do let it show your own touch.

Sample Marketing Material

The show is in rehearsals
And barring any reversals
I'm expecting lots of yuks -
And the price is right - ten bucks!

Indistinct Singing

I heard a not-too-new pop song on the radio, and it got caught in my head, and I realized I didn’t really know the words. Usually I know enough of the words to find lyrics on Google, but I was failing on that front.

So I downloaded an app called Sound Hound to my phone, and sang just the melody to the app, using La-la-la as the lyrics. And it found it. I’m impressed by its ability to pick a melody out of my singing, and I was impressed by my own inability to have picked any full three-word-phrase from the song, which was Say It Right by Nelly Furtado.

At least I could hum it right
And didn’t have to stay up all night
Wondering over words
I never quite heard.

August Twelfth

“Twelfth” has just one vowel
But lots of length.
Still it’s beaten out
By good old “strength”.

USPS Rebranding

“Snail mail” sounds derogatory, so...
I’m recommending “lettres de escargot”!

A New Part

Brain, embrace the challenge of size:
Lots of lines to memorize!

Freedom

Individual rights
Give some people frights,
But the best is attained
When no one's enchained.

Neonatal Vision

I suppose it’s quite a surprise,
Having lurked in the dark endless days,
To suddenly open your eyes
And meet your mother’s gaze.

Violence

I see in the news that 40 people were shot in Chicago in a 7 hour span. Four of them died. It's mostly the usual stuff - mostly gang rivalries in rough African American neighborhoods. It was a hot weekend, so lots of people were outdoors, which always seems to increase the likelihood of shootings.

Earlier this week, a couple of ministers led an "anti-violence" protest march through the nice neighborhood near Wrigley Field, where the Cubs play. The march snarled traffic during evening rush hour. The ministers said their goal was to "redistribute the pain", which sounds like a threat, and which got a lot of local press coverage... but which didn't really seem to scare anyone much.

There's a lot going on with these shootings. But I want to talk about one particular problem where witnesses won't i.d. perpetrators. Sometimes this is because witnesses are scared of the perpetrators. But not always. Sometimes this is because witnesses - and even victims - think the matter should be settled between the gangs themselves, that it's the gangs' business, not really police business.

These sorts of attitudes
Help continue the feuds.

Red Blooded

The blood donation people call our house everyday. I've given gallons over the years, but nowadays I think I average 1 or 2 pints a year. I have the sense it affects my race times, so I like to give in the cold months, when I'm not racing. When I looked it up recently, trying to stick to substantial studies, it does seem statistically likely to slow me down a bit.

I remember mentioning to a doctor once that I thought I could feel the effect of donating on my running times, even after 2 weeks. He seemed skeptical. But, maybe it's all about the fact that I actually push up to my personal maximum when I race. And, nowadays, my personal maximum speed isn't all that maximum, so I really notice any slow-down!

The standard donation info online says that you replace all your red blood cells in 8 weeks. But apparently that's an average.

"Blood donors are allowed to give one pint of blood every eight weeks. A major concern is that about 25-35 percent of regular donors develop iron deficiency."

That's a big percentage of people who evidently need more than 8 weeks. Anyway, it turns out that taking extra iron helps your red cells recover faster. So... what the heck... Even though I normally resist dietary supplementation...

I decided to take some iron pills
To make up for my racing ills.

Sounds

Distant din of children at the park,
Summer evening long before it’s dark.

I.D. Required

My grocer said I shouldn't be makin'
Breakfast with Canadian bacon
Unless I could demonstrate
That my passport was up to date.

Mean vs. True - What Should I Do?

It kind of annoys me when I'm outside, and I see the sun is at its highest point of the day - due south - and I think to myself that it's true noon. The I look at my watch, and often it's not that close to noon! 

That's because our official time keeping is done by means of the "mean sun" rather than the "true sun".

"Now, the variations in the true Sun's motion causes it to sometimes be ahead of, sometimes lag behind, and sometimes be neck and neck with the mean Sun."

Also, because Daylight Savings Time really throws things off around here.

I was thinking of switching to solar noon.
I planned to do it very soon.
I bought a super precise sun dial,
But late at night, it's not worthwhile.

Storage

It was brilliant to call it the cloud
And to claim it was everywhere,
Rather than saying “it’s just a crowd
Of random servers, here and there.”

Hale Theatre Rehearsal

They've officially started rehearsing the new production of my play, O’Brien & O’Brian.

Tonight’s initial reading
Gave me laughs I was needing.
Now I just have to remember
Not to miss the actual show in mid-September.

Language Shifts

Call them “senior citizens” I was told.
It was a euphemism for being “old”,
But biased against non-citizens - that’s clear.
Now just “seniors” is mostly what I hear!
It seems to mean we’re of an age to retire,
But not quite ready to just give up and expire.

Twitter Stock Dives

When you're a kind of dive bar,
Where lots of fights occur,
Just admit what you are,
And go on as you were.

Don't try to redeem your brand,
By forcing the trolls to leave -
That easily gets out of hand,
And then your investors will grieve.

Manteno 2018

I did the Manteno Triathlon this morning.



Last year I was the only male in my age group. I took first place, just for finishing.

This year there were 4 of us, same age group as last time. I took third place. I worked harder because I purposely passed someone in my group and kept up my speed to maintain my lead.



I think intrinsic goals are generally better, in a number of ways. But there is something natural about the urge to compete, something natural that can improve performances.

When I was in my thirties I did my first foot race as an adult - a 10k. I was surprised, as we left the starting line, by what I felt.

I felt the urge to compete
Possess my feet.

Casting that Spell

There's something ironic
About the spelling of phonic.

English orthography
May seem like a mystery.
But really it's a lesson
In geography and history.

Strings Attached

“Everybody knows about fire and the wheel, but string is one of the most powerful tools and really the most overlooked,” says Saskia Wolsak, an ethnobotanist at the University of British Columbia who recently began a PhD on the cultural history of string. “It’s relatively invisible until you start looking for it. Then you see it everywhere.”

The invention of string and rope
Helped humans cope.
I suspect they looked at a vine,
And stole the design.

Alarms

I thank you, dog, for being on such steady high alert.
With that great bark, the burglars will be scared of getting hurt.
But there’s no need to raise the roof each time a dog goes by.
You’ll scare them more, I swear, by giving the silent treatment a try!

Terrible Lizard

If you hear a stegosaurus
Sing the Hallelujah Chorus,
In a bright soprano voice...
Recall that you are dreaming and rejoice.

Professional Bike Racing

We had some serious bicycle racing in the neighborhood yesterday, and we walked around the course while the women were racing.

The women were noticeably slower than the men. My wife was wondering why that was, since it didn't seem likely to be due to male upper body strength. She wondered if it was something to do with the different hip structures. I said I didn't know why it was, but that female champion marathoners are slower than male champions, and that there were no women that I'd heard of in the Tour de France.

Anyway, I found an article about why men are faster runners, and it turns out it's multiple biological factors, including both the hip structure and the fact that men actually have more muscle in their legs. Well, this is why we have separate prizes or races for women.

Here's a separate article about the difference between male and female Olympic cycling, which gets into some of the arcane aspects of advanced cycling.

Of course, every single one of the women cyclists on the course could beat me in a bike race.

I think everyone riding had a ten thousand dollar bike,
Any one of which... I would like.

With Feeling

When puppies fight they start snarling -
Ferocious-sounding snarls!
When people love they say darling,
But no one ever darls.

Walk Away

Headline from the NY Times:

Psychology Itself Is Under Scrutiny
Many famous studies of human behavior cannot be reproduced. Even so, they revealed aspects of our inner lives that feel true.

Maybe "reveal" isn't quite the right word here.

Results you can't reproduce
No matter how true they feel
Are of truly minimal use
As a guide to what's real.

O'Brien & O'Brian Again!

The Hale Theatre Company has announced auditions - this week - for a September production of my play, O'Brien & O'Brian.

I am excited
And beyond delighted.

Shot Dead

A barber got shot dead by the police in my old neighborhood - the neighborhood I left 50 years ago. It's rougher now. The local people were up in arms about the shooting, but the police released some body-cam video today. For some reason there's no audio. But you can see that the police have stopped this guy, then they try to arrest him, but he breaks away. There's very clear footage that he's got a semi-auto pistol of some kind on his pants. He runs sort of haphazardly, flailing his arms. You can see where you might think he's reaching for that gun. And one of the cops shoots him down.

If you're a real 2nd-amendment absolutist, the police shouldn't have stopped him in the first place, since they were stopping him for looking like he was carrying a gun. At least that's the current report. Apparently, according to Illinois laws, he shouldn't have owned a gun, and he shouldn't have been carrying it around in public either. Didn't have the right cards and permits. You can see where he might not want to get arrested and searched.

Maybe had a good reason for being armed, even though he didn't have the right permits. So, provisionally, I feel bad for him. But once you start resisting police arrest and once you start looking like you're grabbing for a gun, your life expectancy is unfortunately shortened. It's a brutal fact of life in the big city.

Think very hard before you resist arrest.
Compliance with the law is usually best.

CORRECTION: As of a day later, it looks like he did have the card from Illinois that says you can own a gun, what we call the FOID card (Firearm Owner's I.D.). He just didn't have the concealed carry permit.

Over In Washington State

"Burglar breaks into escape room, can't figure out how to escape"

No matter what
You want to take out,
Don’t break in
If you can’t break out.

Limits

At races I need to crank up my acting
Crossing the finish line.
My photos often look like I’m dragging
Rather than feeling fine.

On Wabash Avenue

Warm sun is in the sky
And we have snowballs in July.

Triathlon Creatures

I wish
I could swim Ike a fish.
And it would be swell
To run like a gazelle.
But there’s no faster species to like
When it comes to riding a bike.

Lake Zurich Triathlon

There's a Lake Zurich in Illinois. That's where I did this triathlon today. I didn't go to Switzerland, where the more famous Lake Zurich is.

The last time I did this race was 2005. They had changed the design a bit. They used to have you swim point-to-point, across the lake, from one beach to another. I liked that, except it meant you had be bused from where you left your bike to where you started your swim. I didn't like that part.

The run portion is a run around the lake. For the distance I was running, you have to do that twice. I like running around the lake, it feels natural somehow. But somehow the second loop was a lot harder than the first today. I started off fast and slowed way down.

I've reached the age where my age group is a lot smaller than the younger age groups. The number of people who are 65 and up, who do this sort of thing... well, age takes its toll. I feel lucky to still be able to do it. Yes, some of this is my doing, but not all of it. I feel that I've been lucky with my knees, for example.

Knees, if you go bad,
I'll try to understand,
Treasuring the fun we had
Traversing water and land.

Poe At Sea

I came across that Emerson quotation about Poe, because I was looking at books about Poe at the library, because I was reading a couple of stories by Poe: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and A Descent into the Maelström. I remember that I was supposed to read them in college, for a seminar devoted to Moby Dick. I neglected to read these works back then, so I decided it was time to make up my coursework belatedly. These 2 works are often thought to have influenced that mega novel about the Great White Whale.

Poe wrote many a big-whopper tale
But none, I believe, involving a whale.

Jingle Man

Perhaps Emerson was being small-minded about his competition:

'Emerson, irked by Poe’s lack of moral gravity, called him “the Jingle Man.”'

The linked article mentions the strange phenomenon that the American critical establishment has never much cared for Poe, while the French critical establishment raved about him. It's an earlier version of the Jerry Lewis controversy.

I'm a poor student of Emerson's poetry, which I find boring. But two poems of Poe's I always find enchanting - The Raven and The Bells - so I periodically reread them with pleasure.

I like moral gravity well enough,
But not as all-in-all.
When Poe unleashes his jingly stuff,
I fall into his thrall.

Lull

After the first cloudburst,
Homeward I scramble.
Maybe I can escape the worst.
Of course, it’s a gamble.

Long Live The Revolution

Glad to be back to the states!
Other nations’
4th of July celebrations
Are not that great.

Language

“Doppio” means a double shot
Of espresso coffee, black and hot.
It sounds really dopey, but it’s not.

Swimming

Jellyfish, you are hauntingly lovely.
Only your touch feels tauntingly ugly.