I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game. -Walt Whitman Walt, you were right old friend, but maybe not in the way you might've anticipated then. I say that and then think that he worked in military hospitals during the Civil War. He probably would have understood this moment better than I do. Yesterday, at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, where I lived from age five through ten, my beloved Marietta, there was a rally featuring the Mad King. A

Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that's what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity. -Albert Camus After all those repetitive shots of life goinng past outside the window here at the Schoolhouse, I figured I'd post a different shot, from my windshield as I drove to the post office a few minutes ago. Market Street is a block to the left, in the

"The German army was the best tactical instrument in the world, but it was employed in the service of a strategy of bedazzlement that was essentially lunatic.” -Max Hastings This morning's headlines included the whopper that the Department of Defense/War is about out of money. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/07/21/pentagon-sinking-billions-into-iran-is-quickly-running-short-cash/ How exactly does one run a trillion-dollar-a-year enterprise out of money w

Anxiety How do you always get the best of me? I should be living in a fantasy I can't enjoy a goddamn thing Anxiety Why am I never where I am supposed to be? Even with my lover sleeping close to me I'm wide awake and I'm in pain -Jason Isbell We've been listening to a lot of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit lately. I've written about that before. The above lyric sort of captures this Monday, every Monday for years now, from 3 a.m. until I finally roll out of bed. I may blame my

"Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer provide bad examples." -Francois de La Rochefoucauld Yesterday evening, as Peg was immersed in planning for the furnishing of the new Manhattan apartment (it's so small I figure she's given several minutes of her attention per square foot on the subject), I was reading an online essay that casually dropped a quote from one of my favorite little books, La Rouchefoucauld's Maxims: "Hypo

"Is global warming causing more extreme weather events of greater intensity, and is it causing sea levels to rise? The answer to both is an emphatic 'no.'" -Jim Inhofe Jim, you may want to come out here to the street and take a look at the sky. Or I reckon you could just peek out the window from here inside the condo right now. I guess the good news is that all this particulate has driven down the temperatures a bit. We hit 100 degrees in Corning on Tuesday, the second time w

“About half the practice of a decent lawyer is telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should shut up. ” ―Elihu Root Without really knowing much about Elihu Root, I put that quote on the back of the t-shirt we gave away to runners in the annual Bay County Bar Association Race Judicata. I was the chair for three or four years early in my legal career. I guess my jaundiced eye toward the role played by our profession was obvious even then. Lately I've been watch

"Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator." -Confucius This blog has become sort of vapid, hasn't it? I mean, what insights emerge here (as if they ever did)? Yesterday I turned 62. I've been in sort of an anhedonic grump for a while now, and P was determined that a trip to Manhattan might pull me out of this funk. Returning to the recent site of a

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" -Satchel Paige Sitting here in our very expensive room at the Abbey in Peekskill, NY, about to drive the 1+30 down into Manhattan for my birthday. This hotel isn't as great as I remembered the last time. They advertise a pool, but it's actually at the apartment complex across the street. In November we didn't care, but yesterday it would've been a welcome amenity. There's no place to sit outside without baking in the

I heard enough of the white man's blues I've sang enough about myself So if you're looking for some bad news You can find it somewhere else Last year was a son of a bitch For nearly everyone we know But I ain't fighting with you down in a ditch I'll meet you up here on the road I know you're tired And you ain't sleeping well Uninspired And likely mad as hell But wherever you are I hope the high road leads you home again To a world you want to live in -Jason Isbell No post yes

"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe" -Carl Sagan Trying to hustle some work out the door this morning before P and I head down to Williamsport, PA, for a quick getaway to see Todd Rundgren in concert. P has today and tomorrow off, and this morning she was still in bed after 8. So was I, reading the paper because I didn't want to slip off and leave her to wake up by herself. Which ma

"You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me." -C. S. Lewis This morning's mail preview from the USPS, which we receive by email, shows Peg's about to receive a love note from the Corning City Court. We are pretty sure we know what this is about. Roughly a month ago I sent a check for that ridiculous ticket she received for looking at her phone in the Wegman's parking lot, but in reviewing our bank records they never cashed it. What fresh humiliatio

"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics." -John Adams "Mistah Kurtz—he dead" -T.S. Eliot and Joseph Conrad A gloomy one out there, with light rain and temps in the low 70s. The a/c on the family room side of the condo died over the course of the heat wave, so the damp overcast is a blessing. That'll likely be several thousand dollars to fix. Then the boat should be ready soon after nine months in th

"A member of the armed forces on active duty shall not . . .Wear a uniform during or in connection with furthering political activity or when an inference of official sponsorship for the activity may be drawn." -DoD Directive 1344.10 Never seen heat up here quite like this. It's been above 80 out there since I stumbled out of bed with a bad bout of insomnia at 5:15 this morning. Yesterday in Corning we spent several hours over 100 degrees, and the a/c couldn't keep up as I

"If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?" -Steven Wright A hundred degrees in Corning yesterday. And today's forecast to be about the same. Our air conditioner can't keep up, what with these thirteen foot ceilings and us on the top floor, the whole building's heat rising into our wing. And there are no a/c registers in this fancy home office of mine, so it quickly turns into an oven. Yesterday I made my near-daily grocery stop, this time at the Elmira Wegman's. I noticed

"I have the greatest job in the world, and my life revolves around my love for food - particularly devouring hot dogs." -Joey Chestnut My time in the City led me back to an old, well, not exactly love, but strong like. I'd drifted away from eating hot dogs. Peg doesn't much care for them, seeing as how they're the very wiggly embodiment of the ultra-processed foods she avoids (and therefore so do I, as her dining companion). But in New York City, hot dogs are everywhere. Not

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations After posting probably hundreds of "my view out the window" shots to open these posts, I figured I'd start the day with a photo of what I'm looking at right now. My home office in Corning. Books that I love, and leaf through most days when I need a break from a work project. The Letters of Rupert Brooke. Bill Moyers's Genesis. Round the Clock, a photo gallery of images from the Eig

"It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong." -John Cheever On its way to being a blistering day out on the lake, with the onset of the heat wave we've been promised for the week leading up to America's 250th. I've taken that shot so many times over, what, three years now? I figured including Peg's cactus pot in the foreground would add a little conversation to the shot. We switched from strawberries to succulents this year because we're away

"One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time." -Hermann Hesse Why was there no post this morning? Oh yeah--I was flying back from Perry to KELM. An early departure gives the best chance of avoiding thunderstorms in late June, so early it was. A lovely flight at 15,000 feet up the east coast. Here are a couple shots from the trip. No clue why the shot out the window was so blurry. Last night before I left the farm, a

"But when from a longdistant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structur