Daft

The sort of person who pays to be cryogenically frozen in hope of being brought back to life in the future suffers from the worst kind of stupidity and naivete.

If someone cryogenically frozen a hundred years ago (in 1921) were brought back to life today, that person would be condemned and cancelled within moments of regaining consciousness. Likewise, anyone from our day who was restored to life a hundred years from now would wake to charges of racism, sexism, and dozens of even worse accusations of thought crimes that don’t even exist yet, not to mention punishments that don’t exist yet either.

Physician, Heal Thyself

“When the classroom experience goes dead, it is tempting to blame the students falling asleep in the front row, or the mouthy kid who is mouthing off more than usual, or your coworkers who assign a demoralizing volume of homework, but at the end of the day, someone has to take responsibility for the mood of second period and that someone must be the teacher.”  

-From “When You Are Finished With The School Year Before It Is Finished With You,” my latest for CiRCE.

Fantino

I was watching the 90s channel on Pluto TV this evening and Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” video came on. It reminded me of high school, when someone might have asked me to explain myself–my purpose in the world, my ethos, my intentions, my soul–and I could have played a single four-minute song which more or less summed up everything I wanted to say in response. “Who am I? Well, have you heard ‘Fake Plastic Trees’? That’s me.”

At some point, though, you stop fantasizing about people asking you such questions.

Why I Bought My Teenage Son An Invisibility Cloak

“You can’t be too careful these days, and when you know your child has an invisibility cloak, you feel a lot better about letting him leave the house. If he ever gets lost in a bad part of town and some unsavory characters start following him, he can put on his invisibility cloak and get away easily and quickly. There are more than six hundred mass shootings every year in America, and I want to know that if someone opens fire at Carter’s school, or the mall, or a movie theater, Carter can slip on his invisibility cloak and evade being shot. These are rather obvious safety features of an invisibility cloak, but it can also be used to get out of risky social situations. If he’s at a party and everyone begins smoking marijuana or drinking liquor, Carter might feel pressured into doing it. If he didn’t have an easy out, he might make a decision he would regret. However, with an invisibility cloak, he can excuse himself to the restroom and just not return to the party. That way he could avoid a potentially embarrassing situation where he had say “No,” and make a scene.

Statistically speaking, I know Carter is not likely to find himself in an active shooter situation, and to be honest, the real reason I bought him an invisibility cloak is because it will help him grow closer to his friends.”

Read the rest of Why I Bought My Teenage Son An Invisibility Cloak on the CiRCE website.

Overgrown Adolescents: Rise of the 18-34 Year-Old

“Once Americans hits the age of 18, their tastes are not expected or required to change all that much for the next sixteen years. Between 18 and 34, a person will likely leave home, go to college, graduate college, and enter a career. The average age of a first-time homebuyer in this country is 32. So far as successful corporations are concerned, though, none of these events is expected to make much of an effect. Even marriage benignly bounces off a fellow, creating no more indelible a mark on his priorities than smoke on the wind. Life itself is not thought an important enough thing to warrant significant change.”

-from Overgrown Adolescents, my latest for CiRCE 

Poetry: After Luther’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes

Making Up a Room For Grief

by Joshua Gibbs

Lest I be surprised and over

thrown as though by a family of five

arriving suddenly before dawn announcing

a twelve year residency in my tiny

house

I have decided to begin making up a room

for Grief I do not know

when he will come but when he does

I want him to be comfortable

I have made up a bed for Grief beside

a warm gorgeous yellow lamp

so he can read his terrible books late into the night, laughing

I have eaten less sumptuously but not given to the poor

because I do not want them to eat Grief’s food

I have slept less, saving those spared hours

like pennies in a jar for Grief so he can sleep till noon

if he pleases I purchased with my tithes a robe

I do not wear but save hanged

on a peg behind Grief’s door so he need not embarrass himself

when he rises wandering naked through my home

I have given away my sharpest knives gun and poison

lest Grief get any big ideas

when the evening comes I expect him to knock

although I know he owes me no such courtesy

He is a grown man for God’s sake and the house

belongs to him anyway