Not an excerpt from Eliot’s Rhapsody

Lunchtime shakes the memory
As an asshole shakes a platinum AmEx.

Not an excerpt from Eliot’s Preludes

The worlds revolve like ancient women
Burying coins in casino slots.

What We Are Worthily Magnifying

Year of the Snake

Month of deja poos 

Day without PowerPoint

Logorrhea of the wang (mainly Carson)

from an Early Draft of Snow Fall for the NY Times

“But he was no homeless idiot attracted to cold climates. He had once learned to tie knots in an Edwardian khaki-philia society, and may have been qualified for jobs requiring marginal literacy and fresh breath.”

On Vanity

According to my Uncle, the main thing to know about western culture is that Europeans invented photography before toilet paper. This is also the main thing to know about stock picking, Ronald Reagan, the art market, Texas, Atlanta, eighteenth century France, Nancy Reagan, poets and Silicon Valley.

On Taste

Some people I see, they take great pleasure in making a show of rejecting good taste. “I don’t like nice things,” they crow to celebrators who hadn’t asked. Then they sit back and inspect their audience for signs of embarrassment.

In Excelsis

Thomas Hobbes calls laughter “sudden glory,” but I have no record of his opinion as to flatulence.

And yet my enemies praise the significance of silences.

Sultry Weather and Oral Tradition

Whenever we saw sunshine in the rain, Grandpa said Elizabeth Seton and Cotton Mather were making out in heaven.

Now I am the Grandpa and tell this to the little ones, except I say “totally making out.”