Bart the Bear has his trainer's entire head in his mouth.

Terrible Ideas

by

Dan Jewett

Kilroy is watching you.

Feeling pretty good about what Kansans did last night.
No.
No to cruelty.
No to control of the many by the few.
And for many of us, no to primitive ideologies that destroy the essence of our humanity.


First Paragraph:

“New Year’s Eve 1899 must have felt momentous even if you weren’t a four-year-old backstage at Proctor’s Twenty-Third Street Theater, still buzzing from last week’s Christmas gift: a big brown stitched-leather ball meant for playing an American game less than a decade old, which was just beginning to organize into professional leagues. Of course, Buster was still too young to grasp what it meant for one century to turn into the next, or for that matter what it meant that his parents—who had struggled so hard to find work in New York that winter that the three Keatons had at times gone cold and hungry—were suddenly flush enough to buy him such a lavish present."

—Dana Stevens, Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century


A warrior stands alone with his sword, facing an oncoming charge by soldiers on horseback.

Don't worry. I got this.

I understand everything I read.

Loneliness builds character.

A fiscally based environmental policy is smarter than an environmentally based fiscal policy.

Lima beans have any redeeming qualities.

Misty Copeland is real.


Composite photo of album covers, Joe Henderson - The Milestone Years, My Bloody Valentine - Loveless, and John Coltrane - Blue Train, and a photo of a real steam locomotive decorated with blue lights.

A cold walk in the dark tonight.

At home today it was obscure Chet Baker and then a few hours of this Joe Henderson treasure.

Out walking I took MBV to try and stave off the cold.

But I should have taken...

Because I ran across...


Black and white photo of an old persons hands.

Photo by Berkan Küçükgül

Am I a stupid, silly man?

Would I add my desires to the weight of her struggles?
Would I hold her a pixie, a sprite I conjure to relieve my lonely hours?

But yes.

I would have her fall into me and
feel what strength remains in my arms and
I would lift her up and kiss her eyes.

What is it to anyone else if I am a stupid, silly man?

—d.j.


Hazy, dirty lens photo of coffee shop counter.

Kelly Moon

I went for a walk downtown.

I tried the door of a restaurant but it was locked. I went somewhere else to eat. I went into a store and bought a book by an author I've read before.
I stopped in a coffee shop and got a large cup. Paper or styrofoam? Paper please.

I walked home, taking a different route.

I don't know how far I walked. I didn't take the device that measures. There will be no more ledgering the vectors of trips like these.

I have a commitment to measure something I'll do later this month. After that, I will lop off those metrics forever and see what might replace them.


Disarray

listening my-big-mouth something-beautiful first-paragraph music-art-film-design learning-fun-interesting rowing-c2 information people this-blog cartoons-memes the-days books-reading-writing poetry-lyrics small-web computer-web-tech fun health-lifestyle lawrence observations django watching defined places quotes-excerpts walking politics