Absurder than fiction

The toilet tank was refilling periodically so I shut off the stop and sure enough the tank drained to the very bottom, past the neck of the flush valve. So I took the tank off and went to True Value on my bike for a matching shank washer and I installed it but when I reassembled the whole deal it was leaking worse than before. By then it was time to clean up and go the Columns Hotel to play a set of Dusty Springfield hits. That was yesterday. If you’re thinking, “This isn’t very funny,” well, no, it isn’t.

Repurposing fondue pots

Near as I can tell, poké started out as basically Hawaiian ceviche. Now there’s this big poké scare here on the mainland, a build your own approach with little forms where you check off the ingredients you want and somebody piles all this stuff in a bowl. It’s like a salad bar without all the tedious and exhausting legwork. And while it’s a real step-saver for the hungry patron, it also saves the restaurant from the laborious process of creating actual recipes. It can be good, but then so can opening every Tupperware and eating a bowl of cold leftovers.

This bugs me

It’s one thing to be surprised by something wonderful that’s gone on for a long time before you notice it. It’s another to declare that this wonderful thing was unknown and unseen and uncelebrated until you discovered it. Black people make music! Unschooled hillbillies make art! Women write books! Ain’t I clever to have noticed? Often, these amazing discoveries occur long after the work is done, the purpose achieved, the creators long gone. Like busy little insects stumbling across something big and dead, and dragging bits of it back to the hive. Art needs critics like the sky needs astronomers.