Friday links! Return to normalcy edition

Warren G. Harding and some skank

Warren G. Harding and some prime postwar tail

Back in 1920, self-made newspaper publisher and beloved milquetoast Warren G. Harding ran for President promising a “return to normalcy”—the resumption of American life as it was lived before World War I. Ask Scott Fitzgerald how that worked out. The past is past, and its very passage confirms our endorsement of the process that carries it away from us. Even when we return to normalcy—or, if you’re a jerk, “normality“—we do so remembering the weirdicy that came before, and we are changed. Today is Friday, and United has returned me to Missoula in a mere 13 hours. My fish are somehow alive, thanks to Ben al-Fowlkes, and I am standing at my desk as if nothing happened. Fortunately for the links, however, a bunch of stuff went down. Won’t you settle in with the uneasy memory of one who has woken from a dream with me?

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