Coming and Going

Last night, I gave up early to watch Fringe, but before then I submitted two of my stories. "The Sloe Gin Effect" went to BoomerLit and Orca, and "Aftermath" went to Spank the Carp.

I did three more job applications. 

This morning, I was up around 6 and six hours later, I do not know where the time has gone.

I made a trip to McClure's around 8 am.

Fringe has been on since 9 am.

I found "Road Tripping" was missing its updates, and I spent a few hours putting those back together and then editing my changes.

Breakfast was oatmeal and peanut butter. This is something I brought back from prison.

Some pieces from The Guardian were read. I made a blog post out of two.

I lunched on macaroni and cheese with lima beans.

I read Pitchfork's review of Warren Zevon's album:

Zevon had already accrued substantial debts, financial and emotional, at this relatively early juncture in his life, and he would continue racking them up for a long time after. Only those who knew him well—the friends he alienated, the wife he subjected to drunken beatings and threats of suicide, the children he all but abandoned, and whoever happened to be around when he indulged in his habit of firing guns indoors as a joke—can say with any authority whether the music he left behind is enough to repay them. His self-titled album, at least, settled his bill with the Hollywood Hawaiian. 

Zevon sometimes seemed to view his own story as a sort of fable scripted either by fate or the doomed protagonist himself, if those two entities could even be separated. “I’ve been writing this part for myself for 30 years, and I guess I need to play it out,” he quipped upon learning, in his mid-50s, of the mesothelioma that would soon kill him. Take the Zevonian view, and you might wonder whether some larger cosmic debt at the Hollywood Hawaiian remains unpaid. The author and tragic hero of this fable is no longer with us. The hotel has changed names in the decades since he stayed there. But the building still stands.

And you really should listen to the album. 

Electric Lit passed on "Best of Intentions":

Thank you for sending us your work; while it was not a fit for Electric Literature, we appreciate the chance to consider it.

Sincerely,

Editors,
Electric Literature

The best idea I have heard so far about Trump's Manhattan indictment came in an email from The Intercept:

Twice-impeached former President Donald Trump has been indicted by the Manhattan district attorney in New York.

Trump faces potential criminal charges in a range of cases, from federal investigations of the January 6 insurrection and alleged illegal handling of classified documents to local inquiries into election tampering in Georgia. But New York is the first jurisdiction to indict Trump on felony charges.

While the specific charges are currently sealed, the basic facts are known: Trump is accused of committing and covering up campaign finance fraud by paying $130,000 in hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels in an attempt to hide an extramarital affair before the 2016 election.

This is the first-ever felony indictment of a former United States President. The public interest requires complete transparency from beginning to end.

That means Trump’s trial must be televised.

Yes, he will be his usual showboating self, but not televising would allow him to be an even bigger showboat.

 Also, read Lucid Dreamers over at Forms of Life. A view that autocracy might be stopped by the people.

I have to say that reading I feel drugged’: details emerge about Colorado dentist accused of poisoning wife makes me wonder why I did not blame others for the harm I had done to myself. I am also happier being a failed suicide than an accomplished murderer. Don't let anyone think they cannot screw up their lives.

I tried reading We are living through a trillion-dollar rebalancing from the Financial Times, but the only thing that got through my thick head was:

As recently as 2021, we were still worried about how we would cope with insuperable debt levels in a world of secular stagnation and chronic low inflation. Now the nominal GDP of debt-ridden Italy is increasing so fast that, to the third quarter of 2022, its debt-to-GDP ratio fell year on year by almost 7 per cent. Though no one wants to be seen to be celebrating the inflationary wave, we are, beneath a decent veil of silence, living through one of the most dramatic and powerful episodes of financial repression ever. This is what lies behind the trillions of dollars in unrealised losses on the balance sheets of financial institutions around the world. The figure would be even greater were it not for the fact that central banks, thanks to QE, are also big holders of government debt and are thus sharing the paper losses. Beyond the narrative of feckless banks and bailout-happy regulators, the truly systemic question is how we see our financial institutions through this giant trillion-dollar rebalancing. That is what will define this historical episode. Though debtors benefit from inflation and the revaluation of debts, they need to brace for the surging costs of debt service. Those who did not stretch the maturity of their obligations in the era of low rates now face an interest rate cliff. But if we can adjust to higher debt service and avoid a rash of bank crises, the one-off shock to the price level opens up unexpected fiscal space. We must use this wisely. We need public investment so as to escape the reactive cycle we are locked in and to begin anticipating the challenges of the polycrisis, whether in public health, climate change or destabilising geopolitics.

 I found interesting How a DNA ‘Parasite’ May Have Fragmented Our Genes - even if I do not understand how it affects human DNA.

And I finished this post. Thinking it is time for a nap, then to work on my next short story.

 

 

sch 2:08 pm