Calaveras 2020 (“No Country for Codgers” edition)

Some hoped it would be the ballot.
Others feared it could be the bullet.
But, one morning, they found him there
Midst-Twittling: “Witch hunt! Very unfai…”
Donald John, dead on the toilet.

Cheshire Joe, always the gent.
Did it surprise you how he went?
Two scoops of vanilla
But the cone was the killer
So, choking, to the hereafter, he was sent.

So little depends on Pale Mike:
Apologist for whateveryoulike.
Never actually alive, can he die?
This manure-wheelbarrow bedecked by a fly,
So closed the lid on them both, buried alike.
(Nevermore.)

The calavera (skull) is a typical Mexican satirical poetic mode. It may have originated as early as the 1500s, but grew in popularity in the late 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The calavera poem is traditionally associated with Day of the Dead, but it became a journalistic genre during the regime of Portfirio Diaz. (Fliers that circulated during those times included angry verses against the dictator Diaz and his cabinet members.) Throughout Mexico, calaveras were also dedicated to working class people, always with a tone sarcasm and humor at the inevitability of death. (Time to write a calavera or two about some folks you know!)

related: camote, calacas, calabazas

otros: medium, universal

40

9/21 - another run in the sky

Aright, sportsfans. I’d meant to get this posted earlier, but here it is now, all the same. (As though there were anyone reading this blog to get the word out to.)

Anyways.

Once again, it’s time for another wonderful long-ass run across the Skyline Drive. This year we’re looking at 40 miles. Here are the details.

Saturday, September 21 (officially still summer, fools!)

Start time: ~8 am

Course: Beginning at the top of Fairview Canyon, across the Skyline Drive (30 miles), and then down Ephraim Canyon (last 10 or so miles). This is level overall with some rolling hills and then down the canyon, mostly on improved dirt road at around 10,000 feet elevation.

Cost: None; free.

Also: There will be a couple food/drink caches, as well as some mobile support, along the way.

Also, also: You’re welcome to run, walk, bike, relay, whatever, all or any part of it as you like. No hurry. We can take all day. Hit me up here with any questions.

And here’s a link to a map where you can really zoom in on the course. Hope you can join us.

lichen facts:

Sundry highland visitors—from through-hiking Cub Scouts to day-tripping Oktoberfest a cappella choirs—have referred to lichen as alpine coral reefs, as tide pools, high and dry. Sing it!

Lichen are mildly psychoactive. You have always been welcome to lick them. But you would have to scrape up and smoke or eat 3.5 hectares for a noticeable effect. Much better to stare directly into them, read them gently like braille, or to lie down on a rock covered with a thin pad of lichen and try this by osmosis.

Lichen are extremophiles, ones that probably colonized our rocky shores by way of meteors from other star systems.

Oh, but why does it have to be like that. Do they always have to be aliens? Who are we to burden these gentle creatures with our postchristian, postsecular cosmic loneliness and existential, spiritual bankruptcy?

How can you behold a lichen and not believe in God?

How can you behold a lichen and still need your belief in God?

How can you behold a lichen and not see a god? A face of God? Imagine why God would create anything but lichens in her own image?

You are correct; the above are not facts. Here’s a fact: Lichens don’t give a shit about you.

Oh, don’t worry, it’s not that, not about you, indifference. They just don’t excrete waste, about anything or anyone. But, yeah, especially not about you.

Lichens will not give your ass sex appeal.

Wait, I was thinking of Lycra. My mistake. Actually, lichens just may. If you decide to try this out, I hope you’ll let me know how it goes. I’d say your odds are good, though.

Lichens’ freckles and cones, once understood to be—and, in antiquity, worshipped as—male and female genitalia (respectively), are actually eyes and ears (respectively).

It was not Sun Tzu nor dogs pissing on stone walls from whom we originally learned the craft of claiming others’ territories, but from the lichens.

Before Altamira, Chauvet, or Lascaux. Before tattoos, Banksy, banks, your mom, your great grandmother, acne, Jackson Pollock, or Accutane. There were lichens. P.S.—After them too, there are lichens, will be lichens.

Lichens are invertebrates. Have no bones. Bite rocks. Grip mountains and crush them to dust. To dirt. You’re welcome. And that’s a rock fact.