“It was then I began to feel like Rip Van Winkle. Nothing in our old neighborhood bears any resemblance to the charming quarter of only 20 years ago. When I first arrived, the…

“Because I paid for Ouzo, I claimed naming rights and, though he had no ‘papers,’ we knew he had a pedigree. Ouzo was a pure-bred dalmatian, with all the havoc such breeding (such…

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and that might have been sufficient back in the day but, with word inflation over the years, a thousand words really won’t get you…

“My people are dying,” said the whale. “Our only salvation lies in becoming land animals again. Each time the dolphins and we beach ourselves, we get a little farther inland. I’ve gone past…

“For years, I have kept a set of file folders in the back of the ‘General Reference’ drawer of my four-drawer, salmon-colored file cabinet, and inside these folders are classroom assignments for a…

“He hopped a freight train one day, unannounced, and hoboed his way across the country. Reaching the end of the line in New Mexico, he spent the next year and a half as…

“But, Oh Best Beloved, without psalms of lament, we are cut off from our anger or our grief. We give up the opportunity to be honest with God about our emotions. Just as…

“Your package was delivered . . . and then stolen. If you are Mark Rober, this demands an ingenious engineering response. It’s time for porch pirate payback (and fart spray). YESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!”—Tim Bayer Won Over…

“Even though I majored in English Literature in college, I was never fond of Ezra Pound’s poetry (or politics). Even though T. S. Eliot dedicated ‘The Waste Land’ to him, calling him il…

“Donne’s flea, Keats’s cricket, Dickinson’s buzzing fly,/and Neruda’s lust-filled generic crawler/ making its way across a lover’s hip, to name a few.”—By Rick Mulkey Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—January…