Skepticism is to cynicism as doubt is to...?

Truth is to fact as faith is to knowledge as hope is to optimism. You can know a fact; you can only glimpse a truth. A fact is like a stick of lumber. Complete, nailed down, utilitarian. You can turn it over and pass it around and examine it from every angle. But a truth is alive, a cool toad between cupped palms. You just barely get to peek at it through a gap between your fingers. Open too wide and it’s gone. Squeeze too tight and you kill it. And it will more than likely pee in your hand.

Deep down inside, I'm very shallow.

If you're a regular reader (Hi. Let's have lunch.) you may remember a rant where I posted some near-automatic writing scribbled on an envelope in the middle of the night. This is even dumber. I woke up and remembered a dream: I was having tea with a group of people when somebody said, “I like that camouflage tea at bed time.” And I said, “You mean chamomile. Camouflage tea is when you drink it on the lawn it's made of grass, but when you're in the woods it's oak leaves.” Great. I make bad puns in my sleep.

Bye Week

It’s April Fools’ day. Probably you’d be assuming that as a professional rantist I would be churning out some sort of especially funny word play or an unusually astute and droll observation about this funny world we live in. I’m not going to do that. I think we agree that I could, and pretty easily. My record is clear. But, see, the point of this special day is to confound one another with wacky pranks and hilarious high jinx, and thereby create laffs. To me, it’s like New Year’s Eve to a truly committed alcoholic: Amateur hour. I’m laying low.

How 'bout them ersters?

Jonathan Swift is supposed to have said, “It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.” But that's sort of more silly than funny, because really, the normal thing to do with anything is eat it and see if it stays down. We don't eat stuff because it's food; it's food because we eat it. And oysters are obviously made of meat and they don't run away. No courage required there. The truly brave person was the one who decided to crawl up under a cow and try to get some of what the baby cow was having.

Homer Eon Flint

I just finished reading a story about four people who travel in a cube shaped space car, eating canned soup and peaches and also cake. They explore the ruins of a long-dead civilization on Mercury, then head for Venus to meet a hyper-evolved race of spiritually advanced people with withered little legs and big noble brows. These Venusians subsist entirely on liquids and have lost their teeth through a combination of desuetude and a flawed interpretation of evolution. I'm not here to ridicule, but rather to note that our solar system was more interesting in 1919 than it is today.

PSA :60 Live Read

When there's a natural disaster, relief organizations show up with water, food and shelter for the victims. Not just the human ones. There are volunteers who work to rescue the victims of disaster who happen to be pets. But what about the rodents? Take a moment to remember the millions of rats displaced each year by nature's savagery, exposed to the elements, deprived of their customary shelter and food sources. Now there's a non-profit group that provides miles of plastic tubing to serve both as shelter and a secure avenue of transportation. Won't you give generously to Habitrails for Humanity?

Get in on the ground floor.

In the near future, a fresh generation of arty creative iconoclastic counter-culture types will be looking for new neighborhoods to be not at all like their parents in. By now, we've pretty much used up all the cool-as-hell 19th and early-20th century real estate that could possibly be converted into lofts and studios and bars and restaurants and galleries. By now, also, the post WWII period is starting to feel like ancient history. Next step: a mid-century tract house will soon be the residential equivalent of that unspeakably cool sweater you found at the thrift store. Levittown. The new Greenpoint.