I’m tired of a food system built around engineered cravings and shelf life instead of actual food. Here is the recipe to yield 1.5 liters of finished horchata. Ingredients & Equipment 1 cup long-grain white rice (uncooked) 1 whole cinnamon stick 1 tsp pure vanilla extract ½ cup sugar (adjust to taste) 2 cups milk Read More …
Category: Life
I will finally acknowledge that there are some nice things in this world that do not involve the bass.
A Letter to the Editor
From the desk of Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, lately of the river, now of the republic To the Editor: Sir — I have been dead a good while now, but a man does not have to be alive to recognize a confidence game. What is being run on the American public at present is as Read More …
The Poorhouse and the Powder Keg
I have lived in enough states to know that a man who tells you the trouble is Left against Right is usually selling something, and the thing he is selling is your attention, so you won’t notice who’s holding your wallet while you argue about the bathroom or sports. Here is what I notice instead. Read More …
Music will be safe for now
This is not going to be a traditional book report. In that sense I will go over the book a little bit, and maybe why you should read it, but instead, and surprisingly, this book reaffirmed my belief that in the long run, human made music will still be around for thousands of years, and Read More …
How Quick Fixes Borrow from the Future
A man I used to work with in Chicago had a habit of taking out small loan every Tuesday to cover his Monday night choices. By Thursday, he was working for free just to pay off the interest on Tuesday. He thought he was solving a cash problem. In truth, he was simply renting tomorrow’s Read More …
I Paid My Neighbor in a Zucchini
This post is about a zucchini, a broken microphone, and why I think the outrage cycle is the most effective inertia machine ever built. Today in Chicago it was Kanye and the ADL. Next week it’ll be someone else. I’m not interested in relitigating who’s right, I’m interested in what all this click-bait, rage-bait do Read More …
A Mirror for Two Faces
Out in Maine, a gentleman named Graham Platner enters the political arena. He is accused of a dark and offensive offense against a woman, an allegation of the gravest nature. Instantly, the machinery of his own party is oiled and set in motion. The high priests of the organization assemble, their faces white with a Read More …
The National Cosmetic Studio
I have been observing with breathless awe the latest triumph of our grand Republic’s economic engine. We are told by the public prints that the government has appointed its first Chief Design Officer, a gentleman of immense private fortune and impeccable aesthetic taste, whose solemn patriotic duty is to “modernize the internet-facing portions” of our Read More …
The Gospel of the Crumbs
I was sitting in a diner off the Ike recently, watching a man in a grease-stained union jacket argue with a fellow in a crisp button down. They weren’t arguing about the score of the game or the price of a ham sandwich. They were arguing about “identity”, who’s taking whose “spot,” who’s “woke,” and Read More …
From the Assembly Line to the Golden Ticket
I have lived long enough to watch the soil of the Midwest turn from something we plowed into something we paved over for data centers. I see the world through a window pane that is cold, clean, and increasingly expensive. Being a man of quiet habits and a fair amount of book-learning, I spend long Read More …