After-Orts #57

The sun makes days, seasons, and years, and the moon makes months, but people invented weeks. 
     — Jill Lepore, Weeklings, in the New Yorker, Nov.22, 2021
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/how-the-week-organizes-and-tyrannizes-our-lives-david-m-henken-book


Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?
     — Huck Finn
 
 
A hidden haiku from a NYT list of three quick meditations:
“Take a few mindful
steps, paying close attention
to each sensation.”


CITY LIFE

There was once a sensitive young man who left his
     country home
And moved to the city to be more free
For in the city people considered sensitivity asign of
     intelligence
Whereas in the country they considered it a pain in the
     neck.

So he got a nice apartment and a job as a clerk in a
     bookstore
And he purchased sever=al outfits, all of which were black.
And he went to smart cafes where he always sat in the
     corner
Where the light was dim, which made him appear mysterious.

He enjoyed his city life and stayed out late at night
And went to shows they did not have in Grand Falls
And the only thing that troubled him was what if he
     got sick
And fell down in the street, would anyone notice?

He decided to find out and he lay down in the gutter
And right away someone knelt down by his side
And it was his old neighbor from Granite Falls whio
     had come to the city to visit her neice Denise
And she said, "Jim, I always knew you would wind up this way."

     -- Garrison Keillor, in O, What a Luxury (2013)