Great Exudations

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When was the last time you crossed the line? What line was it? Was it yours or someone else’s? What was the resolution, if any? How do you feel about it now? Is the line still there? Taking callers now… on the line.

“I sincerely hope that the nobility and gentry of the lowlands will not make the colossal mistake of viewing this trial of Scopes as a trivial farce. Full of rustic japes and in bad taste, it is, to be sure, somewhat comic on the surface. One laughs to see lawyers sweat. The jury, marched down Broadway, would set New York by the ears. But all of that is only skin deep… when the curtain falls at least all the laughter may be coming from the yokels. You probably laughed at the Prohibitionists, say, back in 1914. Well, don’t make the same error twice… Now the clowns turn out to be armed, and have begun to shoot.”

— HL mencken for The Baltimore Evening sun in July 1925

So here we are almost 100 years later and the fundamentalist wingnuts are back at it, rolling back reproductive rights, banning (if not burning) books, and supporting any odd charlatan (idiots like MTG and fork-tongued opportunists like JD “My Book Was Wildly Overrated” Vance) who will gladly hitch a slop-wagon to their narrow-minded and self-interested agenda. The fact that a philandering, thrice-married libertine like Trumpf, who had “relations” with a porn star before paying her off, can carry the banner for the evangelical Right is an utter disgrace. Sodom meet, and be repeatedly violated by, Gomorrha. Trump’s new “God Bless the USA Bible” is probably scratch-n-sniff. No amount of Ariadne’s string could disentangle the sulfurous labyrinth of lies, distortions and hypocrisies that the GOP has erected for itself. One risks turning inward and falling into a state of catatonic despair. Except that, as Mencken states, “the clowns turn out to be armed and have begun to shoot.”

Things change. I don’t know why they wouldn’t. It happens all around us. Constantly. Taking place within us and on our very skin. Cells slowly slough. New ones arise, we hope anyway. Memories are lost — perhaps later reclaimed, but even then somehow modified. No two days are the same. The weather. The stock exchange. Even when closed the markets are shifting, like the fates that govern them. Clocks tick. And those that don’t collect dust and fall further behind. People die. Other people mourn. The mourning wanes but never really goes away. Birthdays pass us by. Another year gone. But alive and kicking. Games are won or lost (and ties are just irksome, which is itself an inconstant). School years end. Workplaces downsize. Promotions. Demotions. Even stasis has motion from the rise and fall adjacent. Pictures fade. Plants are tossed. Shoes wear out at the sole. Oh look, a new text message! Now another. Heart emoji. Laugh/cry emoji. A novel obsession replaces the old. Fast fashion. Fake news. Faux passion. Bird flu, new and improved. Currency rates. Tectonic plates. Landfills. Oil spills. Bridges collapse. Woodlands burn. Never a full stop. Always a churn. Some stars collapse while others expand. We turn with the Earth, even as we stand. Temperatures rise, then rise again. Calling to mind whether we can sustain. But there is one thing I’ve read that resisted such change. A McDonald’s cheeseburger that after ten years looked as good, or as bad, as when it first appeared. Though who would dare vouch for its taste??