Book of Daze Archives - Page 14 of 18 - Postcards from The Pug Bus

Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

"And then all of a sudden I've got this vaginal wart."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Overshare at the Office Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 10 months

Boundaries are for people who don’t have a story about their rash. Accordingly, we celebrate today those who can’t read the room, the sad souls… Read More

man drinking from a carton while standing at a refrigerator that's open

"It always tastes better right from the carton."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Drink Out of the Carton Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 10 months

Today we honor the brave, the bold, the backscratchers. The people who look a carton of milk dead in the spout and say, “You. Me.… Read More

four chickens standing near a heaping pile of chicken merde

"""Not bad for a few days' work."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Chicken Spit Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 10 months

(Editor’s note: We cannot use the original term for “chicken spit” because Google does not approve. So chicken spit will have to suffice. Just use… Read More

image of a marijuana leaf with eyes and a mouth, smoking a joint

"It's OK as long as you don't inhale."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: THC Rules Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 10 months

The average American pick-up truck has gained 1,142 pounds since 1990. Theaverage American, about the same. Theaverage Phish tune, in concert, added nearly two minutes… Read More

December calendar with Christmas and New Year's Eve marked.

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Penultimate Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 10 months

Our culture is obsessed with going the extra mile, giving 110 percent, leaving it all on the field. Supermarkets are open 24/7/365 to satisfy our… Read More

the cartoon head of a devilish creature holding a pitchfork; there are flames behind him

"When going through hell, keep going." (W. Churchill)

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Hell Is Other People Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 11 months

Jean-Paul Sartre observed that hell is other people. Who can disagree? Anyone whose dinner conversation was drowned out by louts sitting three tables away? Anyone… Read More

image of a young man holding a globe of the world in his hands

"I've got the whole world in my hands."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Solipsism Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 11 months

In these postmodern times, where civility, not to mention consensus, is a battered artifact of the past, America needs a new vision, a singular, unified… Read More

a sign that reads "Upgrade Now Before It's Too Late"

"Starting next week we will no longer provide tech support for your current software. Sorry."

Book of Daze

Book of Daze: Refuse-the-Upgrade Day

philmaggitti bookof-daze 11 months

Welcome to the stubborn, dig-your-heels-in celebration of defiance against corporate peer pressure and the tyranny of the “new and improved.” Today we stand tall, defending… Read More

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.