Culture Archives - Page 13 of 30 - 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.

a plate with a sodt boiled egg in the middle surrounded by sluices of melba toast

"Let’s hatch a plan. "

Culture

Ranking the Five Worst Diet Plans

philmaggitti cultural commentary 10 months

5. The Air Diet. Breathe deeply, chew nothing. This French-invented horror involves pretending to eat while gazing hungrily at soup. Weight loss is guaranteed–along with… Read More

"Cat owners are 50 pwecent less likely to suffer from a heart attack because their hearts are already broken."

Culture

More Serous Than a Heart Attack

philmaggitti 10 months

From corporate catastrophe to bodily betrayal, life’s most humiliating moments do not always wait for permission. They kick down the door, pants you in front… Read More

"I shot an arrow into the air."

Culture

The Five Most Bizarre and Impractical Items on Sale This Prime Day

philmaggitti 10 months

Prime Day–that forty-eight-hour fever dream (plus prequels and extensions) when adult humans willingly buy Bluetooth egg trays and USB-powered neck massagers shaped like squid. Prime… Read More

a bottle of Yeast Free, a yeast infection medication

"Who's going to believe that it isn't for you?"

Culture

Five Drugstore Items You Always Buy “For a Friend”

philmaggitti 10 months

Breathes there a man with soul so dead who never to a clerk has said, “It’s for a friend”? Indeed we have all mumbled that… Read More

"Let's re-calibrate this relationship."

Culture

Eight-and-a-Half Indicators That Your Dog Thinks You’re in a Co-Dependent Rom-Com Relationship

philmaggitti cultural commentary, dog 10 months

You’ve found yourself Googling, “Does my dog love me or is he just manipulating me for liver treats?” Welcome to the parasocial ecosystem of modern… Read More

a picnic spread set out on a red-and-white checkered tablecloth

"Living life, one beautiful picnic at a time!"

Culture

Five Innocent Words That Might Be Cancelled Next

philmaggitti 10 months

The following list was compiled by someone who is already being monitored for saying “Bless you” in public. Picnic–The quaint, sometimes romantic, outdoor meal with… Read More

an amish transgender woman knitting a quilt

"Why just as sure as my name is Stoltzfus."

Culture

Transgenderism on the Rise in Amish Country

philmaggitti cultural commentary 10 months

Wearing a soot-stained old straw hat, nineteen-year-old Micah (formerly Miriam) adjusts her suspenders and adjusts again. “The elders think it’s a new type of quilting… Read More

"This is what muskrat love is all about."

Culture

Ten Muskrat Sliders Served in Dive Bars, Ranked Worst to Worser

philmaggitti 10 months

There comes a time in every gastronome’s journey when he or she must ask: “Am I brave enough to consume aquatic vermin pressed between two… 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.