But we want to be the poets of our life—first of all in the smallest, most everyday matters.

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Sites of Interest

Interlude: Elbow, “Every Bit the Little Girl”

June 1, 2021 By Outis Niemand in music

« Observe My Expansion» All the World’s Become a Soap Opera

I write in my notebook with the intention of stimulating good conversation, hoping that it will also be of use to some fellow traveler. But perhaps my notes are mere drunken chatter, the incoherent babbling of a dreamer. If so, read them as such.

– Basho, The Knapsack Notebook

Currently Reading

A Theory of the Aphorism: From Confucius to Twitter

by Andrew Hui

Against Joie de Vivre: Personal Essays

by Phillip Lopate

Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel

by Jerome K. Jerome

Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All

by Deirdre N. McCloskey

book reviewsbook club

The Past Is Always With Us

November 2026
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What’s It All About When You Sort It Out?

ai
alan watts
animals
aphorisms
art
atheism
augean stables
battling personal entropy
beards
bonsai minimalism
books
bread and circuses
bricolage
bring me the head of nicholas carr
buried alive
calvin and hobbes
conspicuous crusading
crime and punishment
drugs
editorial vigilantism
education
environment
eric hoffer
extraordinary popular delusions
foolosophy
free speech
fresh hell
gender
george carlin
germans supported their troops too
getting and spending
herbivory
history
humanitarian diet
identity
inscriptions
jests japes jokes jollies
jesus tie-dyed for your sins
language
like cocaine
lin yutang
literature as moral fiber supplement
lucubrations
macho macho men
marriage
media/propaganda
meditation
memento mori
montaigne
moralizing
music
mythology
niemand among the substackers
nietzsche
nihilism
non compos mentis
noteworthies
notorious jbp
nyx
obiter scripta
ohferfucksake
old dixie
omnigatherum
panta rheism
philosophy
poetry
political philosophy
procrusteans
prying eyes
psychology
race
religion
revillaging
samesecks
santutthi
saturday shuffle
science
seasonal
sex-you-all
silent moving pictures
so many books, so little time
socmed
solitude
spiritual-not-religious
technology
thanksralph
the big sleep
the cult of multi
the feeling of absurdity
the geist of the zeit
the great awokening
the madness of crowds
the statusphere
the wire
thursday throwback
tribalism
unintended consequences
verily
waiting for the barbarians
walking
who's žižoomin' who?
work
world football
writing
Ω

Vox Populi

This is disturbing. All of it. God, you are such a good writer.

—Shanna

The prose is immaculate. [You] should be an English teacher…Do keep writing; you should get paid for it, but that’s hard to find.

—Noel

You are such a fantastic writer! I’m with Noel; your mad writing skills could lead to income.

—Sandi

WOW – I’m all ready to yell “FUCK YOU MAN” and I didn’t get through the first paragraph.

—Anonymous

You strike me as being too versatile to confine yourself to a single vein. You have such exceptional talent as a writer. Your style reminds me of Swift in its combination of ferocity and wit, and your metaphors manage to be vivid, accurate and original at the same time, a rare feat. Plus you’re funny as hell. So, my point is that what you actually write about is, in a sense, secondary. It’s the way you write that’s impressive, and never more convincingly than when you don’t even think you’re writing — I mean when you’re relaxed and expressing yourself spontaneously.

—Arthur

Posts like yours would be better if you read the posts you critique more carefully…I’ve yet to see anyone else misread or mischaracterize my post in the manner you have.

—Battochio

You truly have an incredible gift for clear thought expressed in the written word. You write the way people talk.

—Ray

you say it all so well i want to have babies with it…

—Erin

A good person I know from the past.

—Tauriq Moosa

Look what you wrote about a talented man. You’re gum on his shoe. If you haven’t attempted to kill yourself before, maybe it’s time to give it a go. Maybe you’ll be successful at something for once.

—”Fuck Off”

MoFo, I have stumbled in here before and love your stuff.

—Barry Crimmins

It is sad that someone who writes so well should read so poorly.

—Ally

A stunningly well-written blog.

—Chris Clarke

He’s right, of course.

—Mari, echoing Chris

Adjust your lousy attitude dude!

—Old Liberal

↑ Back to top

Interlude: Elbow, “Every Bit the Little Girl”

Manners Cost You Everything

Now and Long Ago

The Ghost In the Paragraph

The Wheel In My Mind Keeps On Turning, I Don’t Know What I’ll Think Tomorrow

Don’t Ask Me Why, It’s Just the Nature of My Grooves

Whose Problem Is That?

Three Bouncing Dots