Culture Archives - Page 15 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.

man about to biyr inyo a package of liversurst

"If you can get past the smell, you've got it licked."

Culture

The 10 Most Questionable Liverwursts, Ranked from “Why?” to “Why Not?”

philmaggitti 11 months

Liverwurst, pÃ¢tÃ©’s scrappy cousin, bologna’s goth phase, the sausage that refuses to apologize for itself. Some call it a delicacy, others recoil in horror; but… Read More

sad looking mixed breed dog with one floppy ear

Culture

Eleven Things That Shouldn’t Happen to a Dog

philmaggitti 50-Word Stories, dog 3 years

The list of things that shouldn’t happen to a dog forms an interesting cul-de-sac in the public discourse. According to finance writer Jane Bryant Quinn,… Read More

Culture

Portly Singles Kicked Off BeautifulPeople.com Launch PrettyFaces.com

philmaggitti 3 years

Portly singles kicked off the elite dating site BeautifulPeople.com, the self-proclaimed “sexiest website in the world today,” are not taking their dismissal lying down. Many… Read More

Culture

Wal-Mart Employees Embarrassed by Stock Decline

philmaggitti 4 years

MORGANTOWN, Penna. – The recent decline in the value of Wal-Mart stock has decimated company morale, threatened the social fabric of many small communities, and… Read More

Culture

5 Easy Hacks for Improving Your Karma This Summer

philmaggitti 4 years

WEST CHESTER, Penna. – Contrary to popular opinion–and to the creators of My Name Is Earl–karma is not about payback, nor is it about living right… Read More

Culture

Local SPCA Rescues 250 Pug Dog Figurines

philmaggitti cultural commentary, dog 4 years

CHADDS FORD, Penn. – Acting on a tip from a local animal rights activist, police and SPCA officers raided the home of longtime pug figurine… Read More

Culture

Five Signs That Your Karma Needs a Makeover

philmaggitti 5 years

WEST GOSHEN TWP, Pa.–Karma, the law of moral causation, was invented more than 2,500 years ago in Northern India to answer troubling questions about the… Read More

Culture

Local Man Suspects That Some Patients at the Medical Marijuana Dispensary Are “Using” Weed Recreationally

philmaggitti 6 years

Malvern, PA—Devin Maddox, a senior tax accountant, uses medical marijuana (MMJ) to help manage his Crohn’s disease. When a doctor approved him for an MMJ… 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.