Leftovers & Links #44

My backfiring old beater is being recalled, for some possible mechanical issue. I know this because I’ve received a post card from Chevrolet. Every month. For the past three years.

Take a hint, Chevrolet.

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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said his wife dropped off his ballot for him, which is illegal and punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in prison.

Nothing will come of it, of course. After all, he's the Governor, not Crystal Mason.

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Almost everything I ever write starts as a handwritten note to myself, ideas scribbled in magazine margins, on index cards, on paper bags, whatever. I’m a lazy slob, though, and I’ve let the notes pile up. Half a milk crate of notes!

Now I’m going through ‘em all, page by page, and already five _New Yorker_s and two _Harper’s_es are in the trash, plus half a ream of scrap paper. That's what’s with this flurry of these leftovers the past few days, sorry.

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I’ve written about sondering, the realization that each of the billions of us on this rock has their own dreams and drama, failures and phobias, all as complex as your own.

I’ll call this reverse sondering, then: the realization that all of us, you, me, the Mayor, the President, every rock star, everyone in the Taliban, every evangelical Christian — we all enjoy a good fuck if we’re lucky, and beat off if we’re not. All our feet stink, and all of our pits, and all of us sometimes haven’t wiped as tidy as we thought.

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Because they rarely call racism racism, here’s the New York Times’ top 10 euphemisms for racism.

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I became aware of an unexpected blotch of color on my otherwise beige ceiling, which was a dime-sized spider. I dislike but usually tolerate spiders — dislike, because they’re disgusting and terrifying, but tolerate, because I’ve heard spiders are mostly harmless and eat bugs that aren’t. So I gave the spider a pass, and just watched as it hurried across the ceiling toward the window, on the other side of the room.

An hour later it was back, in the same area of the ceiling, above my computer monitor. I’m assuming it was the same spider, because the apartment isn’t infested, and I rarely see spiders. Again, I wished it well, and again it made seemingly the same journey toward the window.

An hour later it was back a third time, standing still and upside-down on the ceiling above my monitor. “You’re in jeopardy, my spider friend,” I said aloud. It stayed still for a few seconds, then began crawling across the ceiling again, but this time toward the ceiling space above my chair. I would’ve let it make a few more trips toward the window, but I’m less patient with a spider directly over my head, so it got bookflattened cuz I hate spiders.

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Was the Escape from Alcatraz escape successful? The answer is still unknown, but here’s something I didn’t know: In 2013, police received a letter purportedly from one of the escapees:

“My name is John Anglin,” it read. “I escape[d] from Alcatraz in June 1962 with my brother Clarence and Frank Morris. I’m 83 years old and in bad shape. I have cancer. Yes we all made it that night but barely!”
...In the letter, the writer explained that he was the last living member of the trio, with his co-conspirators dying in 2005 and 2008. He offered a deal: If authorities announced on television that he would receive a single one-year jail sentence, in which he could have the medical treatment he needed, “I will write back to let you know exactly where I am. This is no joke…” The FBI did no such thing, and instead repressed the letter.

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There are rules we all live by, like paying the rent on time and renewing the tabs on your license plates. There are also lots of ‘extra rules’, from God and family and work, and especially from plain old peer pressure and always trying to ‘look good’ — rules that aren’t required, but rules most of us follow anyway.

I fuck up and sometimes those extra rules snag me, sure, but for the most part I ignore all the optional rules, and that’s what I recommend whenever anyone’s dumb enough to ask my advice: Write your own rules to live by. It’s worked out OK for me.

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Other than dreams of my late wife — always wonderful, but then sad when I awaken — and dreams of other dead folks, and long-lost friends, and forgetting to get dressed before going to work, my most common genre of dream is difficulty driving.

Like, for some reason I’m in the back seat, but still steering the car contorted. Or lost on suburban streets that make no sense and follow no maps. Or the dream I had last night: I’m in traffic, surrounded by little foreign cars, so little that I can’t see whether there’s a car in my blind spot, and now I have to back up, but I can’t see whether there’s an itty-bitty car behind my bumper.

My driving record is pretty good — only a few cars pulverized in my whole darn life — but I guess driving is neither first nor second nature to me.

What’s your common genre of dreams?

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From the always-excellent Anderson Valley Advertiser:

“I couldn’t help but notice the large number of locals who did not stand for the national anthem, certainly a departure from years past. I overheard one end of a gruff exchange when a man seated in front of me angrily explained to somebody down on the field why he hadn't stood, words to the effect that “the flag doesn't represent me anymore.” Well, it sure as hell represents me, and I've spent my entire adult life opposed to this country's policies, foreign and domestic. But these bitter chasms between us citizens is recent and sad. And ominous. Used to be you said where you stood, I said where I stood, but we still managed to pull at the same oar. No matter what, we had more in common than not. No more. This working man at the Boonville football game Friday night seemed ready to go to war.”
—Bruce Anderson

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Neurons jangled oddly this afternoon, and I remembered my mom long ago saying, “You’ve got to get out of the house. Go play with your friends.”

“I don’t have any friends, ma.”

“Well, get out of the house and go make some friends.”

It’s good advice, probably, but I’ve never much taken it. Why would I get out of the house, where I have a cat, a comfy recliner, and a fridge full of exactly the foods I like, to venture out into the world where there’s none of that?

Other than a weekly breakfast at the diner, quick errands to keep the fridge stocked, and daily walks I’m increasingly skipping because winter is here, I haven’t left the house since... March?

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I’ve been trying some new-to-me podcasts over the past few weeks, and finding nothing that’s worth listening. Your suggestions are invited, but I am a picky bastard:

I don’t like cutesy ‘banter’ between the hosts, won’t slog through panel discussions with four different guests at the same time, and I’ll click it off if it seems NPR-style professionally over-produced. I’m likely less interested in anything created for profit than in something created for fun. I’ll put up with some advertising on a podcast, because this is America damn it, but there is no quicker way to drive me away from your podcast than by beginning with an ad, soon as you click 'play'. That’s the audio equivalent of a pop-up, and announces that the show is about the ads. Outta there.

So — anything you’d recommend to a very finicky listener?

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Mystery links — Like life itself, there’s no knowing where you’re going:

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Sing along with Doug:
School's Out, by Alice Cooper
Sincere tip 'o the hat:
BoingBoing
Captain Hampockets
Follow Me Here
Hyperallergic
Messy Nessy Chick
National Zero
Ran Prieur
Vintage Everyday
Voenix Rising
EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS:
Becky Jo
Name Withheld
Dave S.
11/8/2021
Leftovers & Links