January 2026

January 4-7, 2026: Now and then, in various medias, I hear voices saying that they knew it was going to be bad; they never thought it (You-Know-Who getting-all-Mussolini-getting-all-Roman) would be this bad. It speaks to a condition of mind not terribly flattering to said voices. It is as if they dozed off watching old episodes of “The Avengers” and missed a few clues, or, as per some belief system or other, they are engaged in seconding the motion that graphic novels, coursing through the left temple of Zeus, are the calvary, sanity returning to hold down the fort. Such as leads me to: [to] vilipend. Meaning: to regard as worthless. But I wonder for what context the word is best suited. You-Know-Who’s promises? Otherwise, suggestions?

And if presenting sex explicitly in fictional settings often exposes one’s ignorance of the matter, making analogies between present day and past epochs only shows how feeble one’s grasp of history is. I raise my hand. As I, for one, have never felt as approximated to the spirit of the 1930s, all these “peace” deals going down, all the memories of von Ribbentrop floating up like dead fish. Venezuela, anyone? The-we-are-not-imperialists-but-you-had-best-do-what-we-say-because-we-are-putting-might-makes-right-back-in-the-driver’s-seat-and-hey-it-is-our-rainy-day-endeavour-so-get-over-it. All hail the heil.

In light of which, I thought I would reacquaint myself with the ancient Greek notion of chaos. I went by way of Robert Graves and his work on the myths, the book going by the title of, what else, The Greek Myths (which I think first appeared in 1955). The upshot: that “chaos” simply refers to what is “unformed’, is a void or chasm &c. You know, inchoate, as in a few seconds after the Big Bang and the universe was getting its wheels up. Anything but our notion of the word as that which has come undone, unhinged, unworkable. (Digression: A dream I had when I was much younger, and pretty serious about writing alleged poetry: that the world was a valentine with an arrow piercing it, one accompanied by a Latin inscription. The words, as it turned out, stated – in translation – the following: “The world is unworkable”. Why Latin? Why not Greek? Swahili? Mandarin? But perhaps a conglomming conglomerate of swell-head jerks are even now doing just that: endeavouring to return us to a garbage pit and succeeding at it.)

I had another of those dreams just the other night. In this dream a woman was barnstorming the country (presumably the U.S. of A.) speechifying about moral regeneration. She insisted that, without “God”, there can be no such regeneration. Her cast of mind was intellectual, in no way evangelical. Perhaps she had degrees in the humanities and in business administration. Anything is possible. The dream took it on faith that she was an honest broker…. The next morning, as synchronicity never quits, parked in my computer’s inbox, was an e-mail from a friend which linked me to a poster-ad for a book.

Still, at first blush, I thought this poster-ad had to do with Oberammergau’s Passion Play, as, by way of imagery, a crucifixion scene figured as well as the words Tod in Oberammergau. (“Death in Oberammergau”. Where, incidentally, I was born – in sight of an enormous cross. Where, incidentally, my father (US army) drank with the Christ.) A bit later, I took another look and saw that it was, indeed, a poster to do with a crime novel. It appears the novel does, in fact, include elements of the famous pageant play which is performed every ten years and has done so since the 1600s when a plague raged through the area. If God would cancel the sickness, the villagers, in their gratitude, would perform… und so weiter. But back to the dream at the top of the paragraph – it signifies what? I have since said (to various friends) that moral regeneration seems to be what the doctor would order, but who can abide missionary zeal? Or this: we have had decades of “listening to one’s inner voices” and where has that gotten the tin can that we kick down the road, all the while keeping in mind we have had centuries of this or that church imposed on our druthers, and what has that spared us by way of atrocities, so that (in this never-ending sentence) we are between a rock and a hard place, and not just between but well and truly stuck, and, as per Livy, the cure may well have to be so much worse than the disease. Secular remedies? How many circles of hell do you imagine there are, as you freefall your way through a bottomless self?

And I asked myself (almost as a matter of course) what William Makepeace Thackeray intended by his title “Vanity Fair” and was reminded that he got the notion from Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, and who knows, perhaps from Shakespeare’s all the world’s a stage. Signified the petty operations of materialism and social climbing. Vapid mentalities with the instincts of hyenas. The being deucedly low when incommoded by the least vexation. Ah, your credit card balance… Your failed souffle… How about a boardwalk on which Sentimental and Satire, arm in arm, might strut their stuff and each make a leg?

And – One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent. Anyone of us might figure in this remark quoted direct from a page of "Vanity Fair", but I can think of at least one man for whom the quote is apt, an enormous ego rendering the world picayune, Vanity Fairians notwithstanding. We here at Ephemeris would say that sometimes the only life one has is in succumbing to the temptations one might do better to resist, but pleasure taken at the expense of others is an evil, especially when the proceeds line your pocket. Oil, oil, oil. Oily-in-for-free. Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. A vastly different order of Vanity Fairian. T minus zero. Will that be fries with your burger? Endless pouty lips? Greenland?

Postscript I: On this day in history (1870), don’t know much about biology, somebody named John Wesley Hardin shot a man over a game of cards. He was 16 years old at the time. In the next ten years he is said to have shot 19 more men. He, apparently, adored his wife. I do not believe Carpenter is a gambler (much less does he golf), and no, he is not notorious like Jesse James is infamous, or Billy the Kid or the aforementioned JWH, but he has had his innings as a commentator on the American political scene, a man who is in the mold of both Mencken and Montaigne and Wild Bill. Read ‘em and weep.

Postscript II: Lunar without further ado: … …. ‘As for V. it is one of those moments when it would appear Trump is smarter than we think, diabolically smart, but smart all the same. Smart as in crude but also smart as in the sound of rustling banknotes. There is a great deal of money to be made, and it really would make the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America with USA control from all sides. Topple Cuba and you’re home free. We watched the old Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy series again and, my God, Alec Guinness can act with a single movement of his eyelash, so much unsaid, so much implied, and without histrionics.’ … …. What? Great acting aside… That the man thinks the brass-knuckles-across-the-water charity work is going to work, and the coffers overflow? A caveat to the immediately above on the part of Lunar: … …. ‘I have only just discovered that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world.’ … ….. George Smiley waggles a brow. Lunar rambles on: … …. ‘Venezuela. What is really going on there? I don’t want to enter M’s conspiracy world but methinks I smell a rat whose smell reaches as far as the Kremlin and some quiet agreement between the leaders of the world’s two most powerful countries that it is quite alright to break into one’s neighbours’ houses. I take Greenland, [kemo sabe], you take Estonia? I can’t speak on Kant as I’ve never read him and tend to go to pieces whenever philosophy is concerned. [Even so], I’ll say it again, the world’s hideousness seems to have insinuated itself into the relationships between people. [Friends falling out with friends?].’ … …. But what if oil and drugs were not the most compelling reasons for the incursion, extra degrees of difficulty on standby? What if one thug had but irked the other, did not like the other’s beguine at the podium? Pissing contest. No doubt, behind-the-scenes factions have agendas and play a marionette. You say tomawto, I say potawto, let’s rag on the Chinese, scrooge them on New World oil…. On a different matter altogether, if one circling back to an earlier thread, I did a bit of reconnaissance, checking out the terrain, speaking of the news that young men are turning to religion, and got back from Lunar: … …. ‘Yes, but it is religion harnessed to people’s ulterior purposes, hence the rise of weirdo Catholicism in the USA, which would defy even Rome. A young man’s religion is usually a young man’s absorption with himself and where you get that kind of self-absorption there is no room left for God.’ … …. Lock, stock, and barrel. All she wrote. Penultimizing. Angels auditioning on the head of a pin.

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, honk if you see a protection racket looking for traction in your neighbourhood. It may have missed its flight to Caracas: … …. ‘It's generational, [ ]. If they're idiots who fall for demagogues their kids will be idiots who fall for demagogues, as will their kids, and their kids ... And there's no way to stop it except for Plato's recommendation in The Republic: Get the kids away from ignorant parents and educate them properly. Which, of course, won't ever happen. So bring on another generation of idiots.’ … …. Grim, eh? Has a Clockwork Orange feel to it. Moreover, Drake has loved The Third Man (1949 film noir movie, you say black market penicillin, we say mother boards) since, as a mere lad, he heard Harry's discourse about the Borgias' Italy and Switzerland's 500 years and [its only contribution to civilization] the cuckoo clock. And oddly enough, Harry was right: corrupt Italy was a lot more interesting. N’cest-ce pas? As for Count Ciano, Drake has this to say: … …. ‘[ ], what a perfect personal metaphor for little Marco (Rubio), two ciphers counseling monsters.’ … …. Yes, I would agree: the shoe kind of fits.

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘Things working out, new digs et al. Percival – Job among goats – is resigned. I’ve had time to cut to the chase. Skipped a debacle, proceeded forthwith to the very end of Solzhenitsyn’s August, 1914 and read, all caps: UNTRUTH DID NOT START WITH US AND WILL NOT END WITH US. Whoa ho! Shall I take up “Childe Harold” next, Byron’s extended poem-opus on world travel? “Looks for distraction in foreign lands”? Anyway, now I can shelve the tome until such time – some really rainy day, some Pineapple Express roaring over, when I may want to remind myself of various Peter Principles. They build a new computer and say they will come. I came. It defeated me, the new whizbang. Took forever to work out how to attach a file…. Hence my travails with technology, now that, as a consequence of my move, my ancient Buick went to the scrapyard, and the world staring back at me had a hideous smile.’ |

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘Here’s a wry statement from our local Weather Bureau. “Wind warning. [ ] kph. This wind speed represents potential risk for human activities.” Now for Machiavelli on Livy (which it is not the effects of an atmospheric river, but dogged persistence on my part), and come by with sheer randomness: For the heart and the vital parts of a body have to be kept armed and not its extremities, since without the latter it lives, but if the former are hurt it dies; and these states keep the heart unarmed and the hands and feet armed. How do you like them gooseberries circa 15--? I’ve a bridge I could sell you, as maybe T will decide that he requires Presov for our rare poets, I mean, rare earth rocks.’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. ‘Cupcakes in the oven, French horn bribed. A splash of vodka from a batch sent me by a Polish cousin did the trick. It had had a yen, that horn, to muscle in on one of Brahm’s clarinets. Well, as I all too often say, I don’t do politics until after ten in the morning, but man, I get it: a fortress made of sand was just kicked to smithereens on the beach, some extroverting bully the genius well in front of the scenes, cell phones blocking the sun. (Remember when we were in our pail-and-shovel phase of our various childhoods?) Otherwise, this is it for this go-round. I look for words to match up with the curious sensation in my gut, given the politics, the caudillo prez (he who blustered and a Bill of Rights came down with a case of the whooping coup), but it’s a fool’s errand.’

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … …. ‘Well, I was standing by a book bin on the street. I was thinking that perhaps I ought to buy it: The Road to Wigan Pier. (Orwell’s book on poverty, northern England, socialism his answer if a socialism not too eggheaded and Stalin-heavy.) Buy and so, save it from being pulped. Or just let it lie there, fallow. I’d already perused the book some thirty, forty years ago; let someone else come across its contents and twig. Seeing as the cloud passing overhead had a Darwinian leer on its countenance… I’d just walked out of a café where I viewed on a screen the press conference that crowed, announcing, announcing what, ops as had had Venezuela in its crosshairs, Maduro fodder for American justice. All the words that flew into my brain as would say, “Rumpus room play action, and then spike the football….” All the words as would say, “Blowhard.” All the words as would say, “My balls as sound like windchimes, degrees of difficulty at compound interest in the wind.” Oil? Sure. Drug interdiction? Could be. The guy would be a Big Guy with Gargantuan Clout. Like so, Caligula, his legions at hand, gathered seashells on a beach and called it his crypto treasury, would erect a triumphal arch thereafter. Should Trump have a horse, you senate ladies and gentlemen, watch out. As if you didn’t have enough sh-t to shovel already. For all that, other guys wanted to be Big Guys, yippee-ky-yaying third-rate masculinities coalescing around an alpha dog huffing hero, and a few ladies simp about with cojones. Whereas ghosts haunt the halls of Congress, if not henchmen. Where’s a show trial when you need one? There’s so much pig smeared on that lipstick… Incoherence becomes me. I am as (name some god seeking vengeance….) Signing off.’

Note to the Immediately Above: Caligula had a horse name of Incitatus whom he thought to install in the Roman senate, ivory stall and all – yes, so as to insult the august senate members. Tell me again what the reconstituted East Wing is for?

Note to a Dream: Mundus non fungitur – the world is not workable. I am not certain that this was the Latin in the dream. All I remember is the English trade-off, and how surprised I was to apparently know Latin in the first instance. Xenoglossy? Cryptomnesia? Should I have sought help?