The Iceman Gumbeth

often catch myself singing "Badger and Skunk" to the tune of "Carrie and Lowell"

Three hardcover books, laid side by side on a tabletop: 1) Postbop Jazz in the 1960s: The Compositions of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, & Chick Corea, by Keith Waters (bright blue cover with sheet music background) 2) Egg Marks the Spot: A Skunk and Badger Story, by Amy Timberlake, with pictures by Jon Klassen (deep green cover with illustration of Skunk and Badger in hiking gear atop a forested hill) 3) Into the Weeds, by Lydia Davis (white cover with photo of author sitting on a couch looking into the camera)

tax week = new hardcovers week

Where's the Grief?

To bee or not to bee

Forget Target.

It says here that in our world you have another name?

The NFL's lawyers insist that you refer to it as The Big Game Bird

she likes her men like she likes her coffee: cold and odorless

mhm; sadly(?) sufjan's aren't about using the loo, just occasioned by it:

If I’m sitting at the computer for more than forty minutes [...] I inevitably have to go to the bathroom [...] I make a commitment to say something brief and poignant and certainly poetic before relieving my bladder.

tiktok screenshot with caption: "my professor casually dropped that he went to school with sufjan stevens today, and showed us his chapbook of poems." Photo of a chapbook cover with a urinal on a white wall; in the middle of the urinal is printed "piss poems / Sufjan Stevens" in Courier typeface.

We're sorry to see you go! As a token of our appreciation for journeying with us, please accept this parting gift.

Treble: every good boy does fine

Bass: goddamn bastard dammit fucking asshole

do you think Archibald was first asparagus on the call sheet? or Junior?

His eye is on the asparagus

TIL, from Wikipedia:
Asparagus was corrupted by folk etymology in some places to "sparrow grass"; indeed, John Walker wrote in 1791 that "Sparrowgrass is so general that asparagus has an air of stiffness and pedantry".

Benegeau Sadpoor, author of Instanders, Stare, and The Stable Plane

for $800 you can banter with PG-13 Wodehouse

Supple, suppurative, suppository

Farewell to Armsssssssssssssss

Here
are hidden
Rand
and Nance

who didn't
stand
an outside
chance.

I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake By A Horse Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food. I am thinking I would like to try cake. Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape. Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy. Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much. I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on." Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me.

It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

What a cover!

good for a gander

The film "is set to bring Chapters III ('Three Is Company') through VIII ('Fog On The Barrow-Downs') of Fellowship Of The Ring—whose story is largely excised in Jackson's original movie—to life via a framing device set 14 years after Frodo sailed into the West." A limited framing device, one hopes.

Pretty much sums up running

I run ultramarathons and this past year I've been getting the best results of my life fueling midrun primarily with maple syrup, thin mints, granola bars, and pizza.

Instead of energy gels and electrolytes, I parcel out caffeine pills and oral rehydration salts.

#frugalfuel

(handing over résumé) Fortunately I graduated cumma cum laude

The Simpsons' Mr. Burns touches a sign that reads, "DON'T FORGET: / YOU'RE HERE / FOREVER."

Plastic bags don't block sound.

You shall love your neighbour's Bentley
With your Bentley Hart.