A blog by Dan Brooks
Remember that thing I wrote yesterday about summer hours? Yeah, that wasn’t true. I’ve got a job of work to do today, just like any other day, and summer hours are but a bitter dream. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Today is Friday, and nuisances are tenacious. Neither president nor weirdo in his apartment is safe, and hope is a fool’s fortress. All we can do is enumerate the slights against us. Won’t you compose a quick list with me?
A 1939 photo of Harlem containing a man who looks strikingly like Jay-Z
That is not Jay-Z in old-timey photographer Sid Grossman’s picture of Harlem, sent to me by old-timey pornographer Ben al-Fowlkes. It sure looks like Jay-Z, though. Either I am some kind of hair-toucher who does not notice subtle facial distinctions among people of other races, or that Depression-era Harlemite looks uncannily like Hov. The already alarmingly low level of can is reduced even further by the familiar idea of Jay-Z dressing up in old-fashioned luxury clothes to evoke a particular period in black history. Appearing in a wool suit and newsboy cap in Harlem is not something he did do, exactly, but it sure is the kind of thing he might do. Today is Friday, and the world is full of striking discrepancies. Most of it fits, and then one detail blows the whole thing into weirdo territory. Won’t you demand an impossible consistency with me?
Wednesday’s weather map for Iowa
In conclusion, China is a land of contrasts. It’s been a long week here at the Combat! blog offices, and today will be the longest week of all. Strangely, though, I’m not scared. It’s probable that my brain is shutting down in response to cat video deprivation, but whatever—today is Friday, and even the worst Friday offers that glimmer of hope which so contrasts with the earlier days of the week. Probably I’ll be dead by Monday, so today could be my last day of work ever. It’s basically the weekend now, except for the crushing tedium that lies ahead. But that’s life: you have to take the good with the bad, the hot with the cold, the glimpse of sunlight with the inevitable hail. Won’t you enjoy/despise what you read/watch with me/yourself?
Oh, people and to a lesser extent animals—it’s impossible to know what’s going on in their heads. You want to assume that they feel stuff and see green and whatnot in roughly the same way as you, but who’s to say? You’d think that would be a call to empathy, but for the most part it’s an excuse to treat other minds badly. The first time we went fishing, my grandfather explained to me—precocious child I was—that fish don’t have nerves in their mouths, so they can’t feel the hook. It sounded questionable, but believing it enabled me to shut up and keep fishing with my grandpa, and besides—how could I know? Today is Friday, and the opacity of other minds is all that makes life bearable. Won’t you adopt a cavalier disregard with me?
Just a little 2008 Democratic primary lolcat tax humor, courtesy of Google
Future humans will find the image above completely inscrutable. I’m kidding—they won’t be able to look at it, because the loss of present-day operating systems will turn all digital files into gibberish. It’s inevitable, just like death and, presuming I can get a free minute this weekend, taxes. Pretty much all the inevitable things suck. Otherwise we wouldn’t be trying to evit them in the first place. Today is Friday, and all that might have been avoided has come to pass. All that cannot be prevented will happen, too. Won’t you hurtle forward helplessly into the gaping maw of the future with me?