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Sep, 2025

Sep 1

Article idea: "Internal Rhyme in 'The Bare Necessities" (And puns)

"Take a glance at the fancy ants"

One point of contact is insufficient, two is necessary but still insufficient, and four points of contact is unnecessary. Three points of contact is necessary and sufficient for a rock to stand atop another.

// Two points of contact are insufficient. Four points of contact are unnecessary. There points of contact are necessary and sufficient.

// Two points of contact are insufficient; four points of contact are redundant.

The bird has urgency—Get the worm!—, but even so, and even though it moves quickly, it is not in a hurry.

Another example of an oxymoron (this one, quite edgy): "the goddamn Eucharist"

(For that matter, maybe goddamn itself is an oxymoron.)

Sep 4

SLC Gate-Agent's Salesmanship

I'm at the Salt Lake City Airport waiting at my gate, and this gate-agent at the adjacent gate just blew me away with the most deft use of language, salesmanship, and rhetoric in his announcement. It was the typical "Please gate-check your carry-ons, because the airplane doesn't have enough overhead space to accommodate everyone's bags," but he totally reframed it as a benefit, an offer—a "limited-time opportunity"—rather than as a request for volunteers.

The usual pre-flight announcement of this genre goes something like this:

Welcome all passengers for [United Airlines] flight [1234] to [Houston]. We have a full flight today, and it's unlikely that the overhead bins will accommodate everyone's carry-ons. Right now, you can gate-check your carry-on to your final destination at no additional charge. And if we don't have enough volunteers, we will begin tagging and checking bags near the end of the boarding process, once the overhead space is full. If you'd like to gate-check your bag at no charge, please approach the podium.

And, of course, barely anyone ever volunteers.

His announcement went something like this, which is unlike any other I have heard of its kind:

Aloha! Welcome passengers of Hawaiian Airlines flight [1234] to Honolulu. I'd like to let you know that you have the option—right now—to gate-check your bag to your final destination. We can only check a limited number of roller-bags, so this is a limited-time opportunity. If you have a hefty carry-on that you think might not fit in the overhead compartment, or if you don't want to lug your bag around the airport to your connecting flight, please bring your roller-bag to the podium. Mahalo.

He used these textbook sales and marketing tactics, and exhibited a wonderful use of rhetoric that you almost never see in a place like this where everything is templated and regurgitated:

• Establishing a sense of urgency by creating artificial scarcity
• Focusing on the benefits to the customer; making on offer and providing an opportunity rather than asking for a favor
• Clear CTA right at the end of the message
• Using personal pronouns and images (lugging your bag around the airport to your connection), statements rather than commands (except for the CTA), and brand-specific language ("Hello" and "Thank you" in Hawaiian)

And, of course, people started lining up in front of this guy's podium—a long line, immediately. I was shocked. I have never seen that sort of response. Within five minutes (before I had finished the first paragraph of this note), the same guy got on the mic and announced,

We have reached our limit for the number of roller-bags that we can check at the gate. Please remember that you are allowed one personal item and one carry-on, so please be sure to consolidate your luggage into two bags.

I'm now connecting in Denver, and I just heard another announcement like this. It was, by comparison, rhetorically atrocious. Here it is, almost verbatim:

If you paid for a checked bag, you can come check your bag for no additional charge. There is limited space [in the plane]. Once that space fills up, I will be tagging the rest of the bags. To avoid a delay, bring your bag to the podium.

SLC is Kitsch

• “Stairway to Heaven” and “Ave Maria” (and, the first song, a pop song) on the tunnel to terminal B in the airport, which songs I suspect are on repeat, which is why they change the song twice while you're in the walkway
• The State Capitol building is at the intersection of State and Capitol streets
• Wallgreens sodcasting (blasting through a whole system of wrap-around, outdoor speakers) instrumental music, like tracks from “The Phantom of the Opera”
• The Mormon church (especially the Tabernacle in the city center)
• In general, the city is full of façades and lacking character and seems to be concealing something.
• Streets as numbers relative to the main streets downtown (700 E & 300 S)
• I was here for two days and really enjoyed my interactions with the people, but I was put off by the uncanny nature of the whole place, which made me feel like there was a gap between form/appearance and essence.

Kitsch is the aesthetic taste of the pristine and proportionate, polished and highly-palatable art. Uncomfortable, challenging, or initially confusing art is not beautiful on the aesthetic standard of kitsch.

Sep 8

First Impressions of The Giddy Goat Coffee Shop in Plaza Midwood, Charlotte, NC

I think I found the Bwé of the Queen City. Reddit, once again, delivered a better recommendation than what I could find from any other Google result, after searching "best coffee shops to work from in Charlotte." The consensus on that thread was: The Giddy Goat—for good reason, I came to realize. At 8:30, there were ample parking spots available in their private parking lot. Their outdoor patio is loaded with picnic tables and other seating, and they have an upstairs lounge with more seating, high-top tables, an auxiliary coffee bar, and another patio with more seating. I can't imagine this place ever being too full to find a seat to work, which eliminates any guilt I may feel for spending eight-hour stints here. Rather than the bland and trendy, lifeless, white faux marble that coffee shops are studded in these days, this place has a mix of stone and wood and a speckled-granite floor. The wood is on the walls and above the checkout counter, and I'm currently sitting at a huge, live-edge table with a deep-blue resin filling its cracks; this table seats eight people, which is only a third of the seated capacity of the indoor space on the first floor.

I ordered the three-meat quiche and a London Fog. The cashier wasn't confused, as many usually are, about what a London Fog is. I asked for vanilla but didn't specify an alternative milk, and he didn't ask me "What kind of milk?" as they do in Hoboken/NYC. He assumed, since I didn't specify, that I'd like whole-ass cow's milk. The quiche came out first, then my drink. The quiche is already gone, and the London Fog is going fast. Both are delicious, and that one piece of quiche is plenty for a full breakfast. The meal plus my fancy drink was $14.50.

Lining the stairway, along both walls, on the way up to the lounge are canvas paintings from local artists for sale. Above one of three prominent posters of the wifi network & password are laminated flyers promoting what seem to be the baristas' side-hustles, which I gathered from the CTA printed on a piece of paper in 178pt font, as its own flyer: "SUPPORT OUR GIDDY CREW." Beside the pick-up counter are trash cans and buckets for dirty dishes and water on tap—both "chilled still" and "sparkling"—which makes the place feel like a WeWork but without the $30/day fee (at least that's what it costs to work for day on Broadway in Midtown Manhattan). I poured myself a glass of sparkling water while I waited for them to finish preparing my London Fog.

I walked in just after 8:30, and the track had just flipped to Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life." Standing in line, I was humming along: "Do do do! Do do do dooo. . .". It takes a care and a clear vision to create a place where walking in immediately provides a sense of comfort and belonging. Giddy Goat, like Bwé, is that kind of place. It's now 9:15, and the parking lot is almost full. Remote workers have arrived and claimed two-top tables. The place is fully alive for the day, and it won't close until 7 p.m. The Giddy Goat is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day. The only coffee shop I've ever known to be open 12 hours a day is Jefferson's Coffee, and the hours are the main downside of Bwé. They run 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. and close at 2 p.m. on Mondays. So, maybe the Giddy Goat is better than Bwé. That's not easy for me to say. But Bwé's big tables are faux wood; they're warped and bent and slanted. They have water available to fill up bottles, but it's only a five-gallon metal jug, not a tap (and no sparkling water). Bwé has two stories but no couches and barely any outdoor seating. It may seem like a small thing, but experiencing this place today makes me feel much better about moving to Charlotte next February.

P.S. Since I've been here, I've also heard Cage the Elephant and Fitz & The Tantrums and at least three other songs that I have on my playlists. What better vibe-check is there than whether I can work here without having to wear headphones?

P.P.S Oh! And they have empanadas—quality TBD. I'm going to order a couple for lunch before I head to the airport.

Cleft Sentences

My friend and line-editor has been flagging many examples of cleft sentences in my manuscript—too many. That construction is clearly a crutch of mine, and I didn't realize I was doing it. It's a cheap way to achieve emphasis. A cleft sentence splits what could be one simple clause up into two clauses, using what, that, who, or which. I didn't quite get it until i read this article. In it is a great example (that's a "pseudo cleft" construction—also no bueno when used in excess) There's a great example in it, from Mr. Roger's song:

Cleft: "It's you I like" Non-Cleft: "I like you."

To solve and reconstruct these, I need to identify the two parts and swap them around so that they flow as normal SVO. Cleft sentences have their place, but I am clearly tiring out my line-editor with how often I use them.

Man, sometimes, Mark Manson just puts together a one-liner that rips. Here's one from his recent video "14 Brutal Truths I Know at 40 and Wish I Knew at 20":

Confidence and fear both require believing in something that hasn't happened yet.

This is how I see fear, especially a highly neurotic perspective on the future. To worry about something is to reify it in your mind despite it not existing or even being likely at all to exist ever. It becomes real because you're choosing to believe it.

Sep 9

The Tomb of the Unnamed Soldier at Arlington Cemetery is a metaphorical mass grave that represents the resting place of the many thousands of soldiers whose remains could either not be found or not identified. It's no wonder that there is a dedicated regiment of guards who train in a ritual to honor the site. It is fitting that The Tomb of the Unnamed Soldier is the gravesite that receives the most protection and visitation, for what greater sacrifice is there then dying fighting for one's country and to not have a trace of one's body return home?

One characteristic of the American West is that there is an excess of vehicles. Looking at the various compositions of metal and rubber—many of them abandoned and inoperable—in lawns, on driveways, and in the gravel lots beside barns and sheds, it seems like the West averages about six wheels per capita.

Sep 10

I drove into Rocky Mountain National Park (Moraine Park Campground) late last night, and I was one of only a couple cars on the mountain pass. Besides the steep cliffs and the sharp, distant peaks being more ominous in the dark, the most striking part of the drive was seeing two pairs of stags. The first I didn't see until I was beside them, passing them when they and their mature antlers were only feet from the passenger door of my car. One of the second pair of stags was crossing the road. I slowed to a stop and waited. I didn't get in until just before midnight, and I was too exhausted to pitch my tent. Within three minutes of parking at campsite A022, I was asleep in the fully reclined driver's seat of my car. I woke up around sunrise to three stags grazing in site 21. One's antlers were broken and had the appearance of petrified wood, the elder and former alpha I assumed, and the other two had big racks that pitched and yawed as they picked at the low-growth plants of the tundra.

I hike faster than almost anyone else, passing people the whole way, but I spend longer on the trail overall because I stop often to admire views, inspect flora and fauna, to stand beneath a waterfall, sit on the bank on an alpine lake, or build a rock balance at the summit of a 14er. This is my preferred way of hiking; it harmonizes challenge (ambition) and stillness.

It is not so important where I walk; it is more important that I walk and that I do so undistracted.

I'm lying inside my tent at the Moraine Park Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park. A thunderstorm has been on its way for about half an hour. It started with small, distant strikes that, while I was brushing my teeth, I glimpsed in my periphery and mistook for a neighbor's phone-camera flash. Then the strikes became more frequent and the flashes more luminous. Since I've been in my tent, I've been blindly observing the storm beneath my rainfly, counting the seconds between the blinding flashes (they actually cause me to lose my vision for a fraction of a second, as if my irises yank the curtains shut before my pupils dilate again) and the echoing booms. In this glacial valley, the rolling, roaring thunder sounds like a crashing wave does from underwater, but these booms are lower and slower. The single, momentary sound cascades down every mountain from at least three directions. The closest mountains (and loudest echos) are to the west. The biggest strikes and flashes lead to more of a cracking sound that then lowers in volume and pitch to a boom that echoes and rolls. The elk respond to many of the booms by howling. I only hear one at a time, and they sound scared, their cries like a cheap sound effect from a horror movie. The strikes aren't as frequent now, but the rain has started—only a bit more than a sprinkle at the moment. Right after I heard the first patters, the temperature dropped by at least ten degrees within my tent, and gusts started playing the trees limbs like strings and reeds, and when they gusts hit me they bend my tent-poles and ruffle the fabric noisily. The elk are silent now; they must have gathered together and under shelter. My shelter should hold. I have to remind myself that I am safe so that I can sleep; the sounds of the storm suggest otherwise.

Sep 11

"I'll pray for you" is Christian for "Fuck you."

Sep 13

The Genius of Eminem Exemplified

The first verse of "Lucifer" exemplifies Eminem's genius. Everyone has seen that interview clip in which he rhymes orange with "door hinge" and porridge by tweaking the pronunciation, inflection, and emphasis of those two syllables. Most people can only think of sibling rhymes, whereas Eminem's verses are full of multisyllabic cousins. These three lines showcase his unique talent:

Before I get banned, kicked off Twitter

And TikTok 'cause they so damn ticked off, bitter

They want me to bounce (Like what?) like a fabric softener

We just got rid of Ye, go kick rocks with him

All four of these lines end in five-syllable rhymes (with the exception of the final line, which breaks the pattern by starting with an 'O' vowel rather than an 'A' vowel and ending with a soft 'I' vowel rather than a soft 'E' vowel). You need to listen to Eminem say these lines to hear it, because when you read these phrases, you wouldn't think they all sound alike:

• "banned, kicked off Twitter"
• "damn ticked off, bitter"
• "fabric softener"
• "go kick rocks with him"

Look at "fabric softener." The way you'd normally say that phrase is with an emphasis on the first syllable of each word ("Fa-" and "sof-"), but that doesn't match the pattern of emphasis established by the first line: "banned, kicked off Twitter." The beat alternates between unstressed and stressed syllables, meaning that of the five in the phrase, the first, final, and middle are unstressed with the stressed/accented syllables being "Kicked" and "Twit-". Those correspond to "-bric" and "ften"—the final syllable of fabric and the middle syllable of softener. So, Eminem stresses those syllables and completely changes the sound of the words to match both the phonics and rhythm of the first line's phrase: "faBRIC soFTENer."

That's the most impressive part of the verse, the most distant cousin from the other phrases. But another thing he does, which is the same as saying "door hinge" like orange, is how he pronounces with in the phrase "with him." There is no soft, hissing 'T-H' sound. Instead, he uses a 'D/T' sound to match the consonant that begins the final syllable of Twitter and bitter. He also uses a soft 'E' vowel rather than a soft 'I' vowel so that him can rhyme with the final syllable of Twitter, bitter, and softener. He says, "Go kick rocks wid 'em."

And on top of all the rhythmic and phonic synergy, the lines flow conceptually and are witty in themselves. Here's more examples of the mastery at work in these four lines:

• The Bounce pun
• The consonance of 'T' in the second line
• The assonance of 'A' at the start of each of the first three lines
• Two phrases using different senses of the word "kick" (that rhyme!): "kicked off" and "kick rocks"—plus an on-topic statement of fact about another rapper, Kanye, being kicked of Twitter.

Eminem may be the best "out of the box" thinker there is. He's bending language to fit his purposes without muddying the meaning at all. Everything he does actually enhances the effect of the words themselves. He changes pronunciation and emphasis to make things more emphatic and similar, connecting phrases a layman would never associate—both conceptually (like connecting Bounce, the fabric softener, with the threat of being canceled) and phonically (like rhyming "softener" with "off Twitter" and "off bitter").

Sep 14

Black Mirror is one of my favorite shows because it makes me feel more than most media. The downside is that the strong feelings I have are overwhelmingly cynical. The most recent episode I watched, "Common People," is disturbing in the extreme. Mike's wife Amanda has a brain tumor and enters a coma with a fatal prognosis, except for the option of a new startup's procedure: Rivermind, which is a subscription service to your own brain function. Mike opts for the $300/mo subscription, incentivized by the surgery being free (like a wireless provider offering a free iPhone). The start-up keeps upping their prices and introduces context-based ads for the "Common" plan that hijack Amanda's consciousness and run through her own mouth and face and body, which forces Mike and Amanda to upgrade to Rivermind Plus, which is an additional $800/mo. To pay for the new subscription tier, Mike starts doing more painful and humiliating things online, on the site Dum Dmmies, for money (like the TikTok streamers performing in response to emojis that represent tips and correspond to certain actions). The only time I experienced any relief from the feeling of dread and cynicism was being surprised by Lisa Gilroy's cameo in the sales ad for Rivermind Lux. Otherwise, I was just being beaten down, alongside these characters, by the profit-over-all mindset on display, and trying to convince myself that the whole thing is hyperbolic and not possible. I was able to convince myself that we won't ever charge subscription fees to operate one's own brain, but Mike's whole arc of desperation and public humiliation to a chat on stream is already happening every day.

Sep 16

On Reciprocity and Our Debts to Humanity

We all feel indebted to the other in the abstract but often mistake that for being indebted to certain people, maybe to people who make us feel like we owe them something for their love. Yes, we are all in debt, but no, we do not owe anyone anything. We owe everyone everything, the same way you owe your body food. This indebtedness is the feeling that underlies the moral obligation of reciprocity. But that obligation, like our debts, is too often mistaken. Reciprocity is not what's inscribed on the Code of Hammurabi: "Eye for an eye." Reciprocity means loving others in an equal or greater portion to the love you have received, to leave a place better than you found it. These debts are not difficult to repay, because no one's love-account can be overdrawn. If you feel indebted to someone, you can pay it back via anyone. For at the bottom line, after all the accounting is done, we are all one.

We each feel indebted, in the abstract, to the other, which means that we are each indebted to one another. These debts are mutual, and the payments are reciprocal. What goes around, comes around. What you give us what you get. What you get from one person, you can give back via another.

We are each beneficiaries, and we couldn't count our benefactors or tally their accounts if we tried. Any debt we feel we feel we owe them must be understood in the abstract as a debt to humanity, and we must understand that the fruition of (the most evolved form of) reciprocity is to repay one's debts by being a benefactor for others. (All we have to live on is the credit we give to one another.)

[[On Reciprocity and Our Debts to Humanity]]

Sep 18

Example of a good closed-compound adjective, from "Satisfied," the song from Hamilton, when Angelica is describing the first time she saw Alexander:

Intelligent eyes and a hunger-panged frame

Hitchhiking is like exposing your navel to a stranger and inviting that stranger to probe for lint with their fingertip.

The hitchhiker's thumb means, "I'll take whatever you're willing to give me." It does not mean, "Give me what I want."

Sep 22

Phonetic Analsysis

I want to learn the American Phonetic Alphabet so that I can more easily analyze and workshop the rhythm and meter of prose and poetry, and I just came up with a good idea of how to do it. I should come up with a coherent sentence that uses all the vowel sounds (all the vowel symbols of the Phonetic Alphabet) of American English without duplicating any. It would be analogous to how "The quick brown fox. . ." Sentence is 26 unique letters. It'd be a great quick reference for all the symbols and an example word (that I could say aloud) to associate the correct vowel sound with each symbol.

I'm not sure how many total vowel sounds there are; that's the first thing to learn. There are at least a long and short vowel sound for A, E, I, O, and U and then some diphthongs. The Phonetic Alphabet also treats certain consonants differently. For stance, I think the 'P-H' in alphabet would be represented simply with an 'F.' Again, these are the things I need to learn.

I want to become fluent in the Phonetic Alphabet so that I can easily transpose a line of writing (to analyze a great line's rhythm/rhyme or to improve the phonics of a line of my own) and work with it in the phonetic alphabet before transposing it back. I want to a create a sort of custom notation that captures these things visually:

• Vowel and consonants sounds (using the Phonetic Alphabet)
• Number of syllables (using hyphens to delimit syllables)
• And stressed syllables (using either bold, italics, underline, or all-caps to show which syllables within a sentence/line are stressed)

If I could represent all this information visually, I think it would be much easier to understand poetry and to add rhyme and meter to my prose.

Here's an example (using my limited and inaccurate understanding of the phonetic alphabet):

"There is an inner-earth organist."

"Thěr ǏS ǎn ǏN-něr-ěrth ǑR-gǎn-ǏST."

I know I don't have the symbols correct, but with this notation, you can see that there are only four unique vowel sounds across these nine syllables and which four of the nine syllables are stressed. In this case, the notation is a visual representation of internal rhyme: three short 'E's, three short 'I's, and two short 'A's.

Heavy raincoat rebukes pseudonymous hip.

(Yes, this incoherent, but doesn't it sound nice?)

Sep 26

Another lesson I'd like to teach my future kids as soon as possible: No one can make you feel a certain way. So, don't ever say, "You made me mad." Instead, say, "I got mad at you" or "I got sad at you," etc.

Sep 27

I think I'd like a distraction-free writing devise that is digital—somewhere between my mechanical typewriter and my computer. David Kadavy has always recommended the AlphaSmart Neo 2. Here are some other options I'm finding:

• The Micro Journal Rev 7
• Type Folio for ReMarkable 2
• Freewrite Traveler

What I'm looking for is a drafting machine—something I can use exactly as I do my typewriter but in the cases where I want a digital copy on my computer without having to transcribe it from the physical paper.

Sep 29

To convince yourself that God is conspiring in your favor or that God is conspiring against you requires an equal amount of faith. The life-denying nihilist who is a victim of circumstance reifies the existence of God as much as the evangelizing Catholic. The third option is to accept the absurdity (in the West) or the emptiness (in the East) of existence, to know that God/Universe/Nature responds to you and yet remains indifferent to you and your aspirations, hopes, and expectations.

[[Nihilism Is Untenable]]

Sep 30

Security is illusory. I'm from Kansas, which is about as land-locked as a place can be. It's surround by four other land-locked states. Yet, everyone on earth lives in an island isolated, surrounded, pinned down by the formless and tumultuous sea. In Kansas, it only seems that one is on land, surrounded by land, thoroughly grounded and rooted; those borders are arbitrary. Expand the scope of your vision and sea that the ground itself is unrooted, adrift, and that every land mass is an island.