Insomnia August 2026

I started cleaning. I had porn on, but soon tired. Then I started Ken Burns’ The Civil War. I’ve seen the series many times before, but I never tire of it. Like Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation , there is much to learn for he and Clark are both master teachers.

That’s enough for now.

Jacques Tati

Criterion Collection has a marvelous collection of the films of Jacques Tati.

He was (is) a genius. Watch these instead of the drivel you have to pay to watch in the prisons they call movie theaters today.

Trust me on this.

Drinking The Kool Aid

It cost me 43 cents. 43.cents, I remember when a packet cost a nickel and was devoid of stigma. The Jonestown mass suicide was facilitated by grape Kool Aid mixed with cyanide. We call that a Public Relations catastrophe.

I bought cherry, not grape, added my cup of sugar, poured in 2 quarts of water and stirred thoroughly.

And….,,

I tasted it. Not Bad at all,

Adults have to swill alcohol at cocktail parties, pig roasts, wedding receptions, They pretend they like it and some do.

But that taste of Kool Aid brought forth innocent memories. Before I knew about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Water Gate break in, marriages and divorces. Joint custody. The long list of nightmares that is adulthood.

Next on my list Cotton Candy,

Box O’Books

To my left , as I sit in my “comfy chair” is a box, filled with books that I ordered from Amazon and I’ve been intending to read, but have yet to read.

Well, doggone it. I am going to read them.

Expect book reports.

Having just completed Stay Alive, Ian Buruma’s history of Berlin during the war years, 1939-45, a memoir of a gay man hiding in Berlin An Underground Life. (Gad Beck) seems like a logical segue.

So here goes.

thiugh

Fall of Civilisations (Households)

Paul Cooper is a podcaster who uses that term as the basic premise of his stories. He describes the fall of cultures throughout the world.

A lot of cultures accumulated very little garbage. They constantly found uses for things before those things became effluvia.

Today, we can watch freight trains hauling containers of trash to giant trash pits on their way to becoming giant trash mountains. We can decry this need to manage our waste, or we can see it as a giant jobs program for future archaeologists. ( The children of the rich who aren’t managing the inheritance will need something to do.)

I can see this phenomenon take place in my own personal living space (lebensraum). “What do I do with my trash?” has become an existential question. Not that Sartre or Camus fretted over their egg shells and old newspapers, but you get the idea.

Horror, 1945

I’m reading Antony Beevor’s The Fall Of Berlin 1945. The full horror of the war on the Eastern Front is brought to light. 27 million Russians died in World War Two. I just noticed that 85 years ago today 22 June, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded The Soviet Union.

This book is a small glimpse into the unspeakable horror that was W W Two. If your father or grandfather never talked much about The War, this book will give you an idea why.

The Porch Becomes Fantasyland

I’m sitting on the porch, drinking an iced coffee with heavy cream, somewhere between a dessert and a beverage.

The UPS guy came with a box of Caswell- Massey Soaps , affordable luxury for an old man

Where is that wife of mine? Oh yes, at lunch with The Girls. Never mind they are pushing eighty. There are times when we are all ageless

Touch yourself. Your Self. You know what I mean. The image in your mind of a lover, long dead, or abandoned or severed.and a memory of time, when you possessed them.

Maybe you had your lover anally and you thought it was your show, since you did the penetrating, But maybe not, since you were indulged.

Maybe , if you’re a male, you’ve done your best thinking with your prick. But that hardon has led you to unknown territory, to your own private Victoria Falls. And you have your own story to tell at the Explorers Club that is a Bull Session.

You haven’t made love in twenty years, because you stopped listening, or you’ve tightened the standards for the entrance exam.

Just get the lube and get to work.