Thanks, Meemaw. For the record, I don't like "all gas no brakes" as a slogan, used as it was by the 2023 Jets, one of the lousiest, most disappointing teams in recent memory...
Tumid hyperbole. I can't wait to use that in conversation. Meanwhile Greg, I truly love your love for words and for literature. And that you say "fuck" a lot. I mean, a lot. I never have come across someone as steeped in the English lit canon as are you, who lives and breathes it so thoroughly, it is your lense on everything. And I was an English major! Only one professor i can think of could match your level. Roll on. x
Thanks, Whitney. I actually had to look up "tumid," and that rarely happens. I think I made it through this one without dropping a single f-bomb. It sounds like your one professor was amazing!
As always, strong work, and yes, it is fun to watch Trump decompensate and great to feel hopeful. How did I not know of Thomas Love Peacock, though I think I will like his prose better than his poetry. Thanks, Greg!
No, "we" don't "go high" any longer. We now celebrate sinking toward his depths (not that many could ever reach them). And why not? Wisdom be damned. The cheering and newly flowing bucks say crass jokes about violated couches are the language we all now admire, and so we may win. Yay us.
I understand your sentiment, Maureen, as I don't particularly enjoy crassness. However, us "going low" is basically bringing up couches and calling their side out on their shit.
The genius of the couch joke is that it doesn't hurt anyone but JD, and JD is a creepy fascist who wants to hurt EVERYONE. The original joke was funny not because of the couch, but because it suggested that no one read his stupid book. And if it weren't PLAUSIBLE that he was a weirdo who would do something like that, it wouldn't stick. Like, you could never do the couch thing with Tim Walz, because he's refreshingly normal. This is an irreplicable thing, and I am enjoying it. It's fun to mock them when the mocking doesn't hurt anyone.
Writing is hard, so thankful for people like you who have a keen sense for making things understandable. Anyway reading this triggered my mind. I remembered that my daughter wrote a poem when she was about 10 yo and got it published in The international Library of Poetry-The Gleaming Path. She titled it Life. She was an English major in college. Thanks Greg for your insight on life. Hope the moving to college is going well for you and family.
I sent her a screenshot of it. She replied Why did I write that ? Lol she had to have gotten the idea from a teacher because I had no knowledge about publishing a poem.
I'm not sure if we have license to "go low," as much as we have license to "go righteous." And not righteous like evangelicals like to cosplay, but righteous as in, "YOUR country? Think again, small man." I can go low with the best of them, but it's not very satisfying because I've left the middle-school playground behind, and MAGA has not. They literally have NOTHING to run on, and barely had anything when Biden was the candidate. Now? OMG, no, they have nothing at all. Trump's record is one of dismal failure.
I just finished reading "The Plague Year" by Lawrence Wright. I felt like I was far enough away from 2020 to get his take on COVID. It's first, a great book, it's to COVID what "And the Band Played On" is to AIDS. Of course, Wright addressed the failure of Trump's administration to even ATTEMPT to handle the pandemic -- how could he not? At some points, I thought, if MAGA reads this book, they'll read these portions as a TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) hot take on how Trump dealt with COVID and dismiss it entirely. But the book isn't that; it's simply a first draft of the history students will be reading in the future. Strip everything else away, and only based on his first term, the idea of returning Trump to the White House is repugnant to everything America stands for -- or is supposed to stand for. And he's on his way out! I thought I was going to have to stay alive long enough to see the literal funeral, but this metaphoric funeral may actually be better. We get to watch him get what he so richly deserves; to be held accountable. THEN the literal funeral!
Unless my memory is faulty (possible), the excitement over Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is even stronger than it was for Barack Obama. Trump and Vance are both cowed, and so is the mainstream media. THEY are following US, for once, and they don't know how to handle it. I heard one or two pundits try to talk about "the honeymoon" that Harris/Walz are enjoying and how it will dissipate with time, and does anyone see that happening? I don't, at least not until after they're inaugurated on January 20th. NOTHING has made a dent in their support. "Willie Brown?" Yeah, we knew about it. Next! "Stolen Valor?" Sure, "journalist," knock yourself out, and confer with Cadet Bonespurs while you're at it. Next! "Destroyed California?" Um, seems to still be standing and the 5th largest economy in the world. Next! "But they're WINNING!!" Ahh, there it is. 🤣 MAGA has NOTHING to offer but the 900+ pages of Project 2025, and a broken-down old never-was trying to stay out of jail, and/or bankruptcy.
I didn't know about that book, Steve. Thank you. I will try and get him on the podcast. People don't like to think about the pandemic -- which is consistent with all previous pandemics. But man, Trump fucked it up so badly. I have one chapter in Rough Beast about it, how he sidelined Rod Rosenstein's sister and installed scarf lady, and how the former was prescient and right about everything. It's infuriating.
Kamala can both run on Biden's stellar record, deviate from his policy on Gaza as she's been doing, and present as young, new, pioneering. It's wonderful to watch. The worst part of that debate was watching the two old guys talk about golf. Has Kamala ever played golf? I hope she has not.
The MSM? Ha ha ha. Screw them. People have been watching live streams of the rallies, bypassing MSM completely. Jake Tapper can go fuck himself.
Lawrence Wright would definitely make a great guest.
I saw him speak at the then Austin Writers League just after his first real work concerning the crazy religious inspired witchcraft phenomenon in the northwest. After the speech he talked with everyone that gathered around. One of the questions was how much made from the magazine piece, and he gave a figure plus expenses. For three months in-depth involvement with those kind of people, I thought it was a low amount and hoped that his 'expenses' included dining on plenty of fat sheep from the valley. But as a young writer he had to make some investment. He brought clarity and insight to the situation, and it simply ceased to exist.
I think so much of trump's hysteria falls into the same category.
When I learned about the 1918 pandemic I didn’t believe it. How could such a thing happen and NOBODY talked about it. Finally I started asking old people. They still were emotional so many years later.
Another fascinating Sunday literature lesson. Thanks.
We must overcome his rage!!!
This election feels like Olympic basketball. The men down by 17 to Serbia, come back and get the W then in a tight final pull away from France for a comfortable W. Compare to the women, a nail biter final right to the final bell. A 1 point W, a foot in the wrongplace, 2 points not three for the tie. Both got the Gold but one left me cheering loudly, the other gasping for air. Hopefully the 2024 election is more like the men's tournament, the W his rage all but done, a whimper, not a roar. Biden's exit was the win over Serbia after being down 17, Walz pick as VP, a Steph Curry 3 pointer to start a homestretch run to the comfortable finish.
In bridge, when declarer is to play a trump card on the opponent's ace, he/she must before playing assess the possibilities. Does declarer trump with the deuce only to be over trumped by the oppositions' trey. Did declarer ever think that if he/she is short the suit the opponent may also be. If Harris Walz have an advantage, dipshit 45 believes he is the smartest player at the table. This hubris causes him to play knee jerk bridge, just as he has lived his life. At the moment Harris Walz are playing thinking bridge and hopefully hold the Ace of trump. Time will tell. I am breathing better these days but have yet to quell heart palpitations. A US men's basketball team W will certainly be a welcomed event.
BTW at Joyce Vances' recommendation my wife and I went online to check our voter registration status. Thankfully it was fine. Even if people have no reason to believe otherwise a few minutes online may save big hassles on November 5.
Having watched both gold medal games, and the last part of Serbia (I was at the coin show and we watched on my friend's phone), I appreciate the references. This election is going to be Dream Team v. Angola. Heading into the game, Charles Barkley said, "I don't know anything about Angola, but they in trouble." Final score: USA 116, Angola 48.
I think she wins all the swing states and at least one we all thought would go red.
From where I sit NC is in play, frankly Ohio may simply make an anti Vance vote and go blue. I was consulting in Nashville during Bush v Gore and when touring the shop floor all I heard was anti Gore comments, mostly about how they hated his "stuck up" wife. He lost his home state. Very strange the things that make people vote as they do.
I’ll go with flailure anytime. In bridge, the only way to trump a trump card is with a higher trump card. Better yet, bid “no trump”, set your long suit up and watch a deuce top a king.
I discovered The War Song as a pre-teen, in one of the 1930's text books my mom had used when she taught English before her marriage. I LOVED it and always have. The whole rhyme-scheme shrieks "parody" though back then I wouldn't have known it, but I knew it wasn't a poem I was expected to take seriously as a vision of war (which was just ending in Korea.) "Sweeter and meeter! "Led off " and "head off."
And it rollicks! It's like one of those marching chants: "LEFT, LEFT, left my wife and thirty six children in starving condition without any gingerbread did I do RIGHT, RIGHT, right by my country by golly I had a good job but I LEFT...... (If you haven't tried this, do so: it is a mainstay of my increasingly feeble walks).
I’ll admit to a smidgen of schadenfreude, but I can honestly say I don’t wish him suffering; I wish him the awareness that, as most of us have come to realize, we don’t become better people without acknowledging the role of our mistakes. "I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Peacock’s poem, for me, served to underscore the baseness of human nature at its most unevolved. Trump wants to win so he can, among other things, fight back (read hate) at his enemies. When Kamala says, “When we fight we win,” she’s referring to the hard work of waking the voting public up to the real issues and getting them out to vote. The joy in her campaigning—and Walz’ too—is infectious. I think people intuitively recognize the current milieu as a higher vibration than we were feeling when Trump was seeming to trump.
All the church going did have some effect on me, because I really don't like to see other humans suffer...but in Trump's case, I don't think it would bother me much...
I’m so sorry I missed this about six weeks ago, Aug was most forgettable in many ways for me. However I found it and I have to comment about the Trump name. I ran across an old definition that I think describes him to a tee.
“Trump’er.y, n.; to deceive, cheat.
1. Deceit; fraud
2. Anything calculated to deceive by false show; anything externally splendid but intrinsically of little value; worthless finery.
3. Things worn out and of no value; useless matter; Trifles; rubbish; nonsense.
trump’er.y, a. Trifling; showy but worthless; trashy; paltry.”
Well, who can argue with such a description. He is so much more a LOSER than a WINNER. But your poem describes the joy of vanquishing a most evil foe. May it come to pass…
Thank you! Full steam ahead!
Thanks, Meemaw. For the record, I don't like "all gas no brakes" as a slogan, used as it was by the 2023 Jets, one of the lousiest, most disappointing teams in recent memory...
Wow. Nice pocket history, Greg. Kind of an acid flashback floating in Trump-gas
The Dinas Vawr was fascinating
Thank you
Thanks, William!
Tumid hyperbole. I can't wait to use that in conversation. Meanwhile Greg, I truly love your love for words and for literature. And that you say "fuck" a lot. I mean, a lot. I never have come across someone as steeped in the English lit canon as are you, who lives and breathes it so thoroughly, it is your lense on everything. And I was an English major! Only one professor i can think of could match your level. Roll on. x
Thanks, Whitney. I actually had to look up "tumid," and that rarely happens. I think I made it through this one without dropping a single f-bomb. It sounds like your one professor was amazing!
As always, strong work, and yes, it is fun to watch Trump decompensate and great to feel hopeful. How did I not know of Thomas Love Peacock, though I think I will like his prose better than his poetry. Thanks, Greg!
Thanks, Frank!
Here is his short poem, "A Day at the India Office," about his day job:
From ten to eleven, have breakfast for seven;
From eleven to noon, think you've come too soon;
From twelve to one, think what's to be done;
From one to two, find nothing to do;
From two to three, think it will be
A very great bore to stay till four.
Cute. Doggrel, but cute. :-) Thanks.
No, "we" don't "go high" any longer. We now celebrate sinking toward his depths (not that many could ever reach them). And why not? Wisdom be damned. The cheering and newly flowing bucks say crass jokes about violated couches are the language we all now admire, and so we may win. Yay us.
I understand your sentiment, Maureen, as I don't particularly enjoy crassness. However, us "going low" is basically bringing up couches and calling their side out on their shit.
The genius of the couch joke is that it doesn't hurt anyone but JD, and JD is a creepy fascist who wants to hurt EVERYONE. The original joke was funny not because of the couch, but because it suggested that no one read his stupid book. And if it weren't PLAUSIBLE that he was a weirdo who would do something like that, it wouldn't stick. Like, you could never do the couch thing with Tim Walz, because he's refreshingly normal. This is an irreplicable thing, and I am enjoying it. It's fun to mock them when the mocking doesn't hurt anyone.
Their verbiage is divisive, destructive, and damning to so many.
Dems can NEVER sink as low as repubs. They try harder.
Writing is hard, so thankful for people like you who have a keen sense for making things understandable. Anyway reading this triggered my mind. I remembered that my daughter wrote a poem when she was about 10 yo and got it published in The international Library of Poetry-The Gleaming Path. She titled it Life. She was an English major in college. Thanks Greg for your insight on life. Hope the moving to college is going well for you and family.
Thanks, Christine. That's great that she got her poem published! Does she still like it? I tend to hate anything I wrote when I was young...
I sent her a screenshot of it. She replied Why did I write that ? Lol she had to have gotten the idea from a teacher because I had no knowledge about publishing a poem.
Me thinks we don’t go low no no.
Leave that to the lying low life parasites.
We soar, we fly cutting through all the
bull ‘briar’that’s placed in our way.
It is true that the only way we've really gone low is to make some jokes at weirdo JD's expense.
I'm not sure if we have license to "go low," as much as we have license to "go righteous." And not righteous like evangelicals like to cosplay, but righteous as in, "YOUR country? Think again, small man." I can go low with the best of them, but it's not very satisfying because I've left the middle-school playground behind, and MAGA has not. They literally have NOTHING to run on, and barely had anything when Biden was the candidate. Now? OMG, no, they have nothing at all. Trump's record is one of dismal failure.
I just finished reading "The Plague Year" by Lawrence Wright. I felt like I was far enough away from 2020 to get his take on COVID. It's first, a great book, it's to COVID what "And the Band Played On" is to AIDS. Of course, Wright addressed the failure of Trump's administration to even ATTEMPT to handle the pandemic -- how could he not? At some points, I thought, if MAGA reads this book, they'll read these portions as a TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) hot take on how Trump dealt with COVID and dismiss it entirely. But the book isn't that; it's simply a first draft of the history students will be reading in the future. Strip everything else away, and only based on his first term, the idea of returning Trump to the White House is repugnant to everything America stands for -- or is supposed to stand for. And he's on his way out! I thought I was going to have to stay alive long enough to see the literal funeral, but this metaphoric funeral may actually be better. We get to watch him get what he so richly deserves; to be held accountable. THEN the literal funeral!
Unless my memory is faulty (possible), the excitement over Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is even stronger than it was for Barack Obama. Trump and Vance are both cowed, and so is the mainstream media. THEY are following US, for once, and they don't know how to handle it. I heard one or two pundits try to talk about "the honeymoon" that Harris/Walz are enjoying and how it will dissipate with time, and does anyone see that happening? I don't, at least not until after they're inaugurated on January 20th. NOTHING has made a dent in their support. "Willie Brown?" Yeah, we knew about it. Next! "Stolen Valor?" Sure, "journalist," knock yourself out, and confer with Cadet Bonespurs while you're at it. Next! "Destroyed California?" Um, seems to still be standing and the 5th largest economy in the world. Next! "But they're WINNING!!" Ahh, there it is. 🤣 MAGA has NOTHING to offer but the 900+ pages of Project 2025, and a broken-down old never-was trying to stay out of jail, and/or bankruptcy.
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
Goddamned right!
I didn't know about that book, Steve. Thank you. I will try and get him on the podcast. People don't like to think about the pandemic -- which is consistent with all previous pandemics. But man, Trump fucked it up so badly. I have one chapter in Rough Beast about it, how he sidelined Rod Rosenstein's sister and installed scarf lady, and how the former was prescient and right about everything. It's infuriating.
Kamala can both run on Biden's stellar record, deviate from his policy on Gaza as she's been doing, and present as young, new, pioneering. It's wonderful to watch. The worst part of that debate was watching the two old guys talk about golf. Has Kamala ever played golf? I hope she has not.
The MSM? Ha ha ha. Screw them. People have been watching live streams of the rallies, bypassing MSM completely. Jake Tapper can go fuck himself.
Lawrence Wright would definitely make a great guest.
I saw him speak at the then Austin Writers League just after his first real work concerning the crazy religious inspired witchcraft phenomenon in the northwest. After the speech he talked with everyone that gathered around. One of the questions was how much made from the magazine piece, and he gave a figure plus expenses. For three months in-depth involvement with those kind of people, I thought it was a low amount and hoped that his 'expenses' included dining on plenty of fat sheep from the valley. But as a young writer he had to make some investment. He brought clarity and insight to the situation, and it simply ceased to exist.
I think so much of trump's hysteria falls into the same category.
When I learned about the 1918 pandemic I didn’t believe it. How could such a thing happen and NOBODY talked about it. Finally I started asking old people. They still were emotional so many years later.
Yes! Let’s slay this Beast.(metaphorically speaking, of course). I got real King & Queen of Swords energy from that rad poem. Thank you again.
Love that energy, Amy!
Another fascinating Sunday literature lesson. Thanks.
We must overcome his rage!!!
This election feels like Olympic basketball. The men down by 17 to Serbia, come back and get the W then in a tight final pull away from France for a comfortable W. Compare to the women, a nail biter final right to the final bell. A 1 point W, a foot in the wrongplace, 2 points not three for the tie. Both got the Gold but one left me cheering loudly, the other gasping for air. Hopefully the 2024 election is more like the men's tournament, the W his rage all but done, a whimper, not a roar. Biden's exit was the win over Serbia after being down 17, Walz pick as VP, a Steph Curry 3 pointer to start a homestretch run to the comfortable finish.
In bridge, when declarer is to play a trump card on the opponent's ace, he/she must before playing assess the possibilities. Does declarer trump with the deuce only to be over trumped by the oppositions' trey. Did declarer ever think that if he/she is short the suit the opponent may also be. If Harris Walz have an advantage, dipshit 45 believes he is the smartest player at the table. This hubris causes him to play knee jerk bridge, just as he has lived his life. At the moment Harris Walz are playing thinking bridge and hopefully hold the Ace of trump. Time will tell. I am breathing better these days but have yet to quell heart palpitations. A US men's basketball team W will certainly be a welcomed event.
BTW at Joyce Vances' recommendation my wife and I went online to check our voter registration status. Thankfully it was fine. Even if people have no reason to believe otherwise a few minutes online may save big hassles on November 5.
Having watched both gold medal games, and the last part of Serbia (I was at the coin show and we watched on my friend's phone), I appreciate the references. This election is going to be Dream Team v. Angola. Heading into the game, Charles Barkley said, "I don't know anything about Angola, but they in trouble." Final score: USA 116, Angola 48.
I think she wins all the swing states and at least one we all thought would go red.
From where I sit NC is in play, frankly Ohio may simply make an anti Vance vote and go blue. I was consulting in Nashville during Bush v Gore and when touring the shop floor all I heard was anti Gore comments, mostly about how they hated his "stuck up" wife. He lost his home state. Very strange the things that make people vote as they do.
Very strange things…
I’ll go with flailure anytime. In bridge, the only way to trump a trump card is with a higher trump card. Better yet, bid “no trump”, set your long suit up and watch a deuce top a king.
A higher trump card? Like Ivanka? ; )
I said deuce not douche ;)
I discovered The War Song as a pre-teen, in one of the 1930's text books my mom had used when she taught English before her marriage. I LOVED it and always have. The whole rhyme-scheme shrieks "parody" though back then I wouldn't have known it, but I knew it wasn't a poem I was expected to take seriously as a vision of war (which was just ending in Korea.) "Sweeter and meeter! "Led off " and "head off."
And it rollicks! It's like one of those marching chants: "LEFT, LEFT, left my wife and thirty six children in starving condition without any gingerbread did I do RIGHT, RIGHT, right by my country by golly I had a good job but I LEFT...... (If you haven't tried this, do so: it is a mainstay of my increasingly feeble walks).
And flailure is perfect. So, for November 5--
Trumpy, king of flailure,
His head was borne before us;
His steaks, deceased, supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.
Yes! I've read it out loud a few times, as fast as I can, like a march, like a rap song. It really adds to it.
LOL steaks! Yes!
I’ll admit to a smidgen of schadenfreude, but I can honestly say I don’t wish him suffering; I wish him the awareness that, as most of us have come to realize, we don’t become better people without acknowledging the role of our mistakes. "I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Peacock’s poem, for me, served to underscore the baseness of human nature at its most unevolved. Trump wants to win so he can, among other things, fight back (read hate) at his enemies. When Kamala says, “When we fight we win,” she’s referring to the hard work of waking the voting public up to the real issues and getting them out to vote. The joy in her campaigning—and Walz’ too—is infectious. I think people intuitively recognize the current milieu as a higher vibration than we were feeling when Trump was seeming to trump.
All excellent points, Earl. Thank you.
All the church going did have some effect on me, because I really don't like to see other humans suffer...but in Trump's case, I don't think it would bother me much...
Hope you get to visit Wales one day. X Totally thrilled to see the Welsh language appear again in your substance.
I’m so sorry I missed this about six weeks ago, Aug was most forgettable in many ways for me. However I found it and I have to comment about the Trump name. I ran across an old definition that I think describes him to a tee.
“Trump’er.y, n.; to deceive, cheat.
1. Deceit; fraud
2. Anything calculated to deceive by false show; anything externally splendid but intrinsically of little value; worthless finery.
3. Things worn out and of no value; useless matter; Trifles; rubbish; nonsense.
trump’er.y, a. Trifling; showy but worthless; trashy; paltry.”
Well, who can argue with such a description. He is so much more a LOSER than a WINNER. But your poem describes the joy of vanquishing a most evil foe. May it come to pass…