Come inside and see gnats and gadflies swarming about the heads of philosophers! Come, you, now! Come and see annoyance and obstructions to happiness! Come inside and watch a man tear down his little blocks mere moments after constructing them. Come see devices of personal torture: paradigms, rationalizations, constructs, obfuscations and simulacra sure to depress and confound! Come one, come all; it’s free!
And she says:
Hey, I’m standing here speaking. I’m pontificating on life and how to live it according to the gospels of my cretinous retinue, here… but all you do is whirl a dervish and speak in tongues. What I’m saying is important here. I’m trying to add value to his life. If you do what I say life will be good and you will want to live it. So now listen:
It’s important to keep it going, even if it means inserting a place holder to expand upon later. That is what this is, this little excursion to distraction.
It is a vilipend of sorts!
I have in that past denigrated all of this, but now it’s a worthy act — worthy of being placed here.
Don’t play with your balls in public. You come off a low class and unkempt fool. I don’t care that you’re a doctor or a fireman with syphilis!
To which I say:
I’m on my mindful way. I’m becoming confident and content again, and quickly aware of my mindless behavior. I’m trying to stay “good” to myself without making myself recoil in new age horror. It’s a start. It’s good.
To which the carny barker says:
Paducah is roiling now, and I’m thoroughly enervated.
Then she says to me:
Kentucky? What do we do now? Maybe have some quiche? Call the doctor? Shoot a speedball? I’m feeling icky. Fuck this!
I say to the carny:
Amicus opacus, I’ll call you!
I wander as lonely as you do, but you are anathema to my peeps. You block my peeps from the sun. You are my sunshine. You make me happy when I’m suicidal, please don’t take my sunshine to Manitoba on the back of a 1975 El Camino.
(The carny is nonplussed)
And I say to her:
Our salad days were filled with bitter herbs and intractable roots, not so much a salad as a buffet of weeds. Intractable and indelicate things in our mouths.
Every mouthful a swig of rot and offal. Awful offal. The bawds of euphony were happily entrenched in the cupboards and the cups were on a two week vacation at a Trump resort. I’m mystified by this all and quite malnourished.
The carny barks:
Let me tell you about the anthropocene age—
She barks back:
I challenge you to look chalky and wan. We’ll wage a hunger strike in absentia. We’ll lay waste to a tofurkey loaf while no one is watching said tofurkey in the phylactery factory lunch room. Snivel and drivel, you! We’ve got you by the short hairs!
She says to me:
Quit your salivatin’ you sententious whippersnapper. You palavering jerk-o’! You have this whigmaleerie in your head… of pixies and unicorns… let me tell you the 900-foot Jesus statue—
The carny barks:
The Christ the Redeemer statue in Sao—
She wheels at him:
Shut the fuck up, Einstein!
Then at me:
That statue is going to take a dump — a loose stool dump, down the side of the sugarloaf.
The carny barks at the midway:
Ladies and gentlemen, we have just passed 800 kidney stones this month! Please refrain from smoking inside the exhibition halls and you’ll be fine… and the Cubans and Jews won’t be hurt.
It’s a sham and a crying shame this consumption. Generally, we try to avoid topics like this, but I just had to speak up. I just had to fill the air with words. Although there is really no accounting for taste, or any parallels here, I do see a parallelogram making its way up to the dais now, and maybe it will explain what is happening…
Hey you, please avoid the quadrilaterals, they’re tawdry and nouveau riche. Thank you!
A sonorous voice over says:
Someway to fill the blankness. Someway to pass the blackness. This thing is that thing.
I say:
Yeah!
(All outstanding suggestions were ignored)
What I’m Reading:
“I don’t know. They’re children. They look like children.”
“Listen, we’re busy people. We have real crimes to deal with. Actual atrocities, you understand. We cannot come out to the island every time another country’s refugees flee and drown. It’s not our problem.”
I was gas huffing one afternoon, by the train tracks near the smelter, trying to shotgun iso nitrite through my paint gun and boom — whoosh! — it hit me.
It was a wrap, and on came a visual rap of distortions through time — shit I hadn’t remembered in forever, cascading — distortion to static.
Momentarily I was up on a Brady Bunch screen: Momma, Poppa, Uncle Justus, Chelsea and Me — the other four were faceless homonculii, who despite lacking features had silver metallic paint smeared all over the bottom of their faces. Well, we had a Brady Bunch, anyway, in garish dayglo…
… and there were leeches, cherry blossoms, attenuated frequencies, and a throbbing tulip.
Avoid the brown Kool Aid.
A letter never sent.
An ideal copy.
What I’m Reading:
… the moment when you are on a swing as high and as far back as you can make it go and everything even your heart pauses before you lean back and kick your legs forward.
… and in another precinct someone latches on to the idea of redemption — but in this rainy neighborhood, and specifically in this newly repointed brick building, a man (we’ll never learn his name) has confessed to his wife that he was seeing her estranged sister. It was he (nameless, but archetypal) who was most responsible for the estrangement — via streams of innuendo, and then the punctiliousness of his criticism.
It doesn’t matter that it’ll stop raining soon or that the savory smell of pot roast wafts up from the apartment below — no. Peace will be broken at 9:37 tonight, when they revisit the same recriminations for the third time. Her name we know. Rachel.
His short entitled fuse results in two shots to her head; and after ten minutes of considering his impulsiveness, he’ll call Rachel’s sister and blame her for what has befallen them.
As the rain tapers off and the L rumbles out of Wrigleyville station, precisely at 10 p.m., he’ll mutter, “there, there’s your white male privilege,” while squeezing his crotch, certain that his god given inalienable right is intact.
He plans his road trip west, well-armed, in the glow of his destiny manifest.
What I’m Reading:
I smelled the corpses on my fingers when I took my smoke break, pressed against a warm brick wall facing the smooth white headless mannequins in thousand-dollar shift dresses
Use this taro chip as your viaticum, the priest says.
Where am I?
In a priest driven ambulance, he says.
Good luck, the one in the passenger seat says.
What are you going to do about the primary explosion? the nurse administering my I.V. asks.
Play it as it lays, another says.
No, you did not leave anything on in the kitchen, yet another says.
So I told them: I put on my tight disco pants, and applied plenty of hairspray. I think there were invaders at the gates. I wrote as fast as I could before midnight. Then I turned into a malevolent parsnip with pomegranate tendencies. I didn’t parry her sari because she asked me nicely not to. Remember that. So I repeated it often through the night to myself. I reminded myself to use my inside voice inside my head. I didn’t have to be so loud. And I made a point of not speaking my internal monologues in front of strangers again.
We are all afraid. It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.
— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AK) / “A Startling Admission From a G.O.P. Senator: ‘We Are All Afraid’” / The New York Times
He’d like to be at one with his new self but memories sit in him like eyes.
— Jana Prikryl / “The Moth”
They use this “anti-woke” talk to justify the destruction of the infrastructure of a functioning government. Because expertise and rational governance, subject to ethics rules and a democratic process, is the enemy of autocracy and unearned wealth. Modern democracy relies on specialized knowledge. It relies on expertise and rational accountability to function. Trump’s people understand intuitively that this kind of rationality is inimical to their efforts to gain power. So they have set about destroying centers of expertise within the government. And they have continued to lie and spread disinformation as vigorously as possible. Very simply they understand that the truth is their enemy.
— Christopher Ketcham, in conversation with Katherine Stewart / “Burn Down the House” / The Baffler
I ate the fruits of loss and shame, not knowing they marinated for weeks under the tree bark out back,
poisoned with words I was too young to understand . . .
. . . I leaned over the sink to wash out my mouth, I caught Loss
staring at me in the bathroom mirror, or at least a girl who looked like Loss.
— Nora Gupta / “Poisoned Elegy (Green Apples)”
The anti-woke derangement syndrome, as I call it, points to the role of scapegoating and demonization in authoritarian movements. These movements always thrive by targeting a specific group and blaming most or all social ills on them. In its first stage, the anti-woke movement targeted the alleged beneficiaries of wokery as scapegoats: LGBT and black people. But as the movement has evolved, it actually has made a scapegoat of the “woke” liberal, who allegedly represents a kind of insidious insider threat that has a disproportionate amount of power. This group is represented as global, secretive, with lots of money, and part of an international conspiracy against the ordinary “folk.” Sound familiar? The “woke liberal” serves the same function as Jews and other groups have served in previous fascist movements.
— Christopher Ketcham, in conversation with Katherine Stewart / “Burn Down the House” / The Baffler
Because I breed. Because I breed what I claim
I breed what I do not understand.
— Amanda Auerbach / “Rights”
The nihilism is also evident in the moral cowardice of leaders of the Republican Party. The Hegseth Signal chat is a case in point. The members of the administration are flat-out denying what we can all see with our own eyes, which is that they engaged in an incredibly dangerous breach of security, and they did so without following lawfully prescribed processes. They lie to our faces about this, and no major Republican leader, as of this writing, appears to be standing up for the national interest. They all cave, just as they caved when Trump started backing Russia against Ukraine; just as they caved when the attacks on federal judges undermined the rule of law and the constitutional order. This is the behavior of people who appear to have contempt for democracy and believe there is nothing of value apart from power.
— Christopher Ketcham, in conversation with Katherine Stewart / “Burn Down the House” / The Baffler
What I’m Listening To:
My mother said Why must you drag all the hopes out of bed I blame the seasons We all have our reasons, I meant
Yes. Well. What is going on with the bike trek from Key West to Canada? What’s the bike trek update? Weren’t you supposed to be back at it today?
First, a recap for those new to this.
The idea was to bike from Key West, FL, to the Canadian border at Calais, ME, on the Atlantic Coast Route & East Coast Greenway—approximately “3,000 miles from Maine to Florida,” according to the East Coast Greenway organization.
I started riding the ECG / Atlantic Coast route heading north from Key West on February 27th, 2025.
I pedaled the first approximately 1000 miles (upon a review it was actually 985 miles) north to Georgetown, SC by March 26th.
I drove a rental car home to Boston, MA—to fulfill two outstanding commitments—on March 27th.
For those of you following the trek you may remember I was preparing to drive back down to Georgetown, SC on April 17th—two days ago.
Last week, I received an email that a spot on the Adventure Cycling Association’s tour of the northern half of the East Coast Greenway had opened up. The ACA’s tour covers the 1,256 miles between Bar Harbor, ME to Washington, DC in 32 days, starting May 7th and ending on June 7th.
Some backstory: I had attempted to register for this tour earlier this year, but having been the tenth person on the waiting list I thought there was no way I’d join the tour.
Strange things happen, indeed!
As you know the world has gone more askew than usual recently, and somehow at least 11 other riders dropped out and/or changed their minds. That was lucky for me if I chose to give up my independence on-tour to become one of a group of 14 riders and two guides.
I took a few days to consider it before I made a decision. So I ruminated…
Pros:
—I don’t have to bike alone.
—Cheaper (by half!)
—Don’t need to do any “plannifying”—all the logistics have been worked out by ACA and the tour leaders. I don’t have to take hours to figure out the overnight stops, mapping, resupplies, mileage, etc.—just get on the bike and pedal.
—Defined start/end dates.
— I’d be 75% done, only needing the D.C. to Georgetown, SC gap to finish the trail.
— Did I mention that it would cost 50% less, i.e., half the cost of what it cost to do the first 32 days from Key West to Georgetown, SC?!
Cons:
—I don’t get to bike alone. There’s something to making all the choices and seeing exactly what one wishes to see. Therefore:
—I can’t necessarily linger somewhere because I need to be somewhere by the end of the day… why?
—Shared cooking. This is what I hate about ACA’s self contained tours (self contained means there isn’t a car or van carrying your gear—which I don’t mind at all…) BUT: we split up ACA cooking gear for 14 people and buy groceries for meals on a daily basis, and wash all said gear in the pm and am. This means teams of 2-3 people have to prep food, cook, and wash up daily—meaning every few days you have to be early to camp to prep & cook, then wash; and each morning you have to get up at 5 or 5:30 am, after a late night of washing dishes to make coffee & breakfast, then wash. I so wish ACA would allow people to carry their own cooking gear, or none at all (if one prefers take out at camp). This requirement has kept me from taking many of the ACA’s trips which I’d like to take. In fact it’s why I didn’t sign up for this tour originally when it was announced last year.
—Did I mention shared cooking.
But I ruminated and thought… why not?
Just shift mindset and deal with the team effort of grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning for others, as they will grocery shop, cook and clean for me. (But let me tell you there are some memorably bad meals that have been sourced at convenience stores on the self contained ACA tours in my past.) But what the hell!
Now, I’m looking forward to joining about a dozen others in Bar Harbor, ME on May 7th. And we’ll all be heading southbound to Washington, DC soon thereafter (I think there may be a shakedown ride, not sure).
So, you may be map savvy with Maine and beg the question: If you’re doing the entire East Coast Greenway, what about the miles from the Canadian border to Bar Harbor, ME—about 140-150 miles depending on the route chosen?
I’m heading up to Calais, ME—the northern terminus of the ECG—on May 1st, and on May 2nd I’ll start biking down to Bar Harbor, ME to join my fellow bike trekkers.
There are no doubts about this as I’m registered and paid-up. I will be headed south on the ECG first week of May.
And, once the tour is done in Washington, DC on June 7th—and after a day off, or two—I’ll continue the 688 miles from DC to Georgetown, SC and complete the entirety of the trail.
And while it wasn’t the continuous and contiguous bike trek I envisioned, I will have covered all the mileage in one bike season—after having spent so many miles on dreaded US 17 which is almost entirely behind me now.
Though, tarnation(!) it’s the road I’ll finish the tour on… go figure!
So it’s set. In roughly 13 days this space will turn into a short term bike journal again which I hope you will forbear and endure.
Things were not so good I can’t make light of it My poor soul, it was having a dark night of it It was a long night A week, maybe a year Maybe a long dark night is coming down Maybe a long dark night is coming down
You: insouciant acolyte of peregrinations plus, and you ameliorate my angst. You’ll find me a way to progress as a pilgrim that isn’t full of that old time religion. Then you’ll find me a way to plant a flag in Patagonia.
I tell you the farfisa is the garfish of spell correct.
You spell check me on the profane and change it to the divine.
No one is truly enthralled with conspiracists — our eyes on the mounds of flesh decaying while the landfills overflow with our wretchedness — we are all husks.
We become the planet we kill.
We are elaborate confectioners and puppeteers of malice (we are) — we add no value. We desecrate and fill morgues with dispatch.
You call me Angel, but you are a devil of a teenage hoodlum, hoodwinker, hood scratcher.
Sell me a Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy planner to keep the narrative slant.
Instead we Rochambeau thumb it for rock flautists: you get the Moody Blues guy spouting poetry, and I get the Jethro Tull tippy-toe psychotic. We’ll play it like it’s 1972.
What I’m Reading:
Beasts At the threshold Rats At your feet Mansions Madness&murder In the streets…
A vicious penny farthing flashes across the window, as the dreadful coins are placed upon her eyes. The incantations from the holy man’s mouth sound like blaspheme as the sky grows bright outside.
We move across the floor in time to the funeral dirge, we move across time with the conviction of mute ascetic monks. When we stop the shadows affix us to our places; we stop sobbing and silence fills the empty spaces.
As the sun arcs out the top of the window, we remain frozen in place. The shadows grow long in filtered light and we grow as we stand here still.
What I’m Reading:
There have been attacks on those campaigning for safe cycling. The rhetoric is unbearably predictable. In Montreal, often seen as North America’s most European city with a progressive take on cycling and cycling infrastructure, thumbtacks were thrown onto bike lanes to get a rather stark point across.
— Ron Johnson / “Why is Riding a Bicycle in the City Turning Into a Culture War” / Momentum
thee istsfor manity reader 