8/31/2017 ‒
Butterflies in my mind

I have collected foreign newspapers since 1998.

As I typed that, I realize how far back that habit has gone. Almost twenty years! More than half my life! What a... sad life it must have been.

I mean, you're probably asking, "why are you collecting newspapers?" I wasn't sure, really. I think it was for the design. I did handwritten newspapers as a kid, after all. Folded sheets of bond paper, fanciful stories which are also grounded in reality, and imagined television schedules, when I was terrible at making up imaginary television shows. I wanted to see how other countries did it.

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8/30/2017 ‒
You say you want a revolution

The scenario isn't "everything is failing". Not really. This has been pretty consistent throughout the past fourteen months, in bits and spurts, but in recent days there's been an uptick in talk of how a revolution is needed.

A revolution is needed, he says, to ensure that things really change. For the better, he argues. For everyone, he argues.

The assumptions are are in bits and spurts, but there are enough to play connect the dots with. He's old and is near to death. He has nothing to gain. We have to believe him when he says everything he's doing is for all of us, not like, you know, them. You know, them. Those motherfucking idiots, acting like they know everything, with their "values" and "standards" that will never fit with what you believe in. Those idiots, shoving themselves down your throats, supposedly for the better, but really, they're doing it for themselves. They're blocking all the work we do so they can gorge themselves all they want, and then some.

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8/27/2017 ‒
No, Niko, not another concept piece!

If anything should remind you, in the most impactful of ways, about how much you've missed out, it should be death.

Last week was the fifth death anniversary of writer David Rakoff. He died of cancer, a cancer which has left him with no use of his left arm, but has not dulled his observations.

I enjoyed his work, but that might be considered a lie. I heard his stuff on This American Life (and went as far as writing about his last ever piece for the show on the other blog) but it took his death for me to get my hands on his books. I got two: his last book, a novel written in verse, was a gift for Shalla; and one of his collection of essays, which I bought for later reading.

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8/19/2017 ‒
A few houses down the road

This morning a helicopter was flying suspiciously low over our house.

Well, it wasn't just over our house. It was flying in circles, repeatedly, over my side of the subdivision. Nothing sinister, as far as I know, was happening. It's just that, well, you have a helicopter, flying quite low, right above your head. What is the point of all that?

Today I wondered about what would happen if I got killed in a police raid.

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