Two Hundred Fifty Words or Fewer

Few Will Understand, and of Those Who Do, Fewer Still Will Speak of It

I’m not sure what that means, but it has a ring to it, same as So Let It Be Written, So Let It Be Done.  For years I couldn’t remember where I’d heard or read that. Turns out it is spoken by Yul Brynner in that kitschy old Cecil B. DeMille movie The Ten Commandments. It is frightening that our parents and grandparents took such movies seriously, but then, who are we to talk? We have huge and huger audiences for Fast X and Super Mario Brothers. It is, indeed, the end of Western civilization.

Which is right and good. Time for us to take a rest. Pax Americana and all that. Yes, we are still protecting the perimeter and, yes, we are still beholden—more than ever!—to the billionaires and gazillionaires who rule us (let’s be honest about that…they do, and we seem not to care), but things are winding down. This is the Anthropocene, after all, soon to  be the Anthropo-gone, as we burn up or melt away or drown or whatever awaits us. It is coming at us, some of it already here.

Anyhow, the meaning of the title of this blog, and of more to come, is this: Typically, once I start typing (or talking), I don’t know when to stop. So the only way to stop is…to stop. Which I will do in every blog from now on, whether it