EPISODE 405 AND THREE QUARTERS: WHEN MESS IS LORE
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
I had this terrible feeling after I sent out the newsletter Thursday that for as many words as it had in it somehow it seemed mostly a very long bout of verbal flatulence. For which I must excuse myself; maybe I had more than my usual share of dairy or maybe instead of the writers’ task of killing your darlings my subconscious had secretly decided to take all of the ones I was supposed to have eliminated over the last three years and secretly kept them in hiding somewhere near my amygdala and then released them onto your screens.
(I’ve just noticed that for some reason my spell check has just changed flatulence to “fistulence”, which is both not a word and somehow very naughty-sounding, and goodness gracious me Apple.)
If you were feeling frustrated, please know that the universe was with you. And to punish me, the following morning it sent me to the LEGO website, where instead of being able to buy a birthday present for my 10 year old nephew I was given the gift of my sanity shattered.
(I would like to congratulate the Joker for his fine work on designing that website. The internet really is the 21st century Joker gas. Thank goodness that every Jesuit community comes with one padded cell, for “down time”.)
Also, in response to my comments about emails, the universe was kind enough to send me this tweet today, which I pass along to you as maybe the best conclusion to that thicket of ramble.
Those few moments on Twitter also yielded a tweet from Disney with by far my favorite thread of comments in recent memory. Just to tee you up, here’s the tweet:
Okay, now go to the tweet itself and scroll through.
Basically, that thread is what Twitter looks like when the mob decides let’s respond with joy rather than destruction. Never say our better angels have fully departed.
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Been thinking a bunch this week about Aging. I know, good times. At 49, I’m one of the younger people in my community. That’s not an uncommon experience for guys of my generation in the Jesuits, at least in the US. And you end up navigating a somewhat bifurcated life; at work or with family you are or headed toward being an Old (#GrandSlamHereICome) (#GimmeThatMovieTicketDiscountStat); but then you come home and you’re still kind of the Kid, relatively speaking, and so you tend to think of yourself that way.
Then suddenly you’re at a community meeting about generational differences and you speak out about what it’s like to be one of the Younger Men and the scholastic (guy studying to be a priest) who is currently living with you raises his hand and talks about what it’s like to be in your late 20s in the Jesuits and suddenly you realize he was born the year before you graduated college and his parents are your age and Oh Nooooo.
For years I’ve heard older guys talk endlessly about how they don’t feel old. And you know, you just nod and restrain yourself from rolling your eyes because look in the mirror, Grandpa Joe. But it turns out, maybe if God willing your health is good this is just how it works? You don’t feel old, you look in the mirror and think it's kind of the same it's always been, but people are holding doors for you and calling you Sir while strangers are mentioning you might want to try working out "while there's still time".
For the life of me I cannot understand how this could happen, but it does seem like a weirdly disturbing and accurate metaphor for getting older.
If your Sunday is in need of reading material, this is a wonderful piece about driving California’s scenic Route 1; here are some powerful short interviews with people connected to the Parkland shootings (the one year anniversary was Thursday); and this may make you reevaluate Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”.
Speaking of roads not taken, rather than patter on again I shall take my leave. I hope you can forgive me my Friday fistulence -- God Apple, NO. BAD. -- flatulence.
We do our best, right? Sometimes it comes out fine; sometimes it's more in the vein of "kind of nasty" meets "Game of Thrones nun ringing her bell and shouting Shame".
See you next week.