WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
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Remarkably simple and elegant.
Include a few bread bag closures in your bugout bag backpack. They make great clothespins for your paracord clothesline and weigh nothing.
I use an Altoids mini-mint tin to hold them.
Just fold the end of the tape back on itself (sticky sides touching) and you will have a handy tab to pull on next time.
Only in America could I be beset with choices! about how to make the ends of a tape roll more accessible. I’ve been an inveterate end-folder-over for years, but now I’m obligated to give the bread wrapper thingy a try, if only to save that “wasted” bit of folded tape at the end. Hmm, I wonder if I can parlay this into a bit of self-promoting, virture-signaling, save-the-planet revelation… Nah, I’m not woke enough.
You could always proclaim something nasty about the degenerates that feed their families factory bread instead of homecrafting bread. Make sure to say something about gluten free or whole wheat. Mention your brand of bread machine, imported from china by approved globocorp (verify that globocorp participated in pride month and BLM). Finish by being glad not to poison our oceans further with plastic waste.
The virtue signal writes itself (if there was anything hard about it today’s journalists wouldn’t be able to get it done).
Great. Now something else I need to keep around. As if folding over the end of the tape wasn’t good enough.
For fellow painters, altoid tins are great for holding half pans of watercolor or oil paint when getting outdoors to paint. Just attach the pans with sticky magnet pieces. No need to carry a giant case of paints.
Glad those things work on something. It’s pure hell trying to open and close bakery stuff with them. Then on the second or third use one of the little plastic legs breaks off. We ditch that pesky thing first time the bread is opened, then use a twisty tie until the bread is used up.
Aha! We’ve struck the hidden vein of plastic-thing-a-phobia! (We use both at our house; horses for courses, etc.). I had forgotten to mention that there is a subculture of disorder that actively disdains ANY effort to simplify the chore of finding the end of the tape; these hapless folks often embarrass themselves sneering at tape-end sophisticates, online or even in person. By their fruits (and raggedy tape ends) ye shall know them.
I do the same thing. And I keep the twist ties when I throw the empty bread bag away, also.
Fun fact: This time last year, Daughter#2 was employed by the company that makes Duck Tape (not the generic stuff–“duct tape”–but the company that took it’s name from the way we all pronounce it.). And in my garage, I’ve got a bin full of Duck Tapes. Silver Duck Tape (of course). Black Duck Tape. Camo Duck Tape. Peace sign Duck Tape. Clear Duck Tape. The really, really sticky Duck Tape. More Duck Tape than I could possibly ever use. Any time there was an over-run or an artwork that they decided against, it seems like I got a roll of the stuff.
And I bet that an enterprising young man could take that idea of using the bread do-hickey and turn it into a side-hustle, if not a fortune. Get a stock of a bigger gauge plastic and cut out some tabs. Call it “new-and-improved” or “more-bigger-more-better” or something. Package five of them (maybe 3 cents of product) into twenty cents of packaging, and then sell ’em for $5. Instant Amazon.com gazillionairre.
I hate those little things. While I’m at it, can’t they come up with better packaging for cereal?
You have my sympathy. Isn’t eating cereal punishment enough, without struggling with the package?
Sometimes a medical person–just following orders, sir–will ask the incredibly intrusive question “Has anyone recently subjected you to abuse or violence?” Rather than demonstrate my own ability to mete out abuse and violence, I respond sweetly, “Well, I was strongarmed into eating cold cereal last week.”
I’m done answering anything “public health” related in the doctor’s office. They can turn on a stick for all I care.
…While I’m at it, can’t they come up with better packaging for cereal?
My blessed bride, mother of my children and the Official Best Grandmother Ev-ar, has never been graced with patience. And in 38 years of marriage, I think that every single time she’s opened a box of cereal, she’s left a tear halfway down both sides of the interior bag. The idea that one could reach into the kitchen drawer for scissors is completely foreign to her. But nonetheless, she’s a keeper, and I know that my list of faults is longer than hers.
“What can I say except “You’re welcome!””
https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM
THE deeper meaning of bread bag tags.
Only you would find it (the deeper meaning). This is
the way MY brain works, “Why would I want to tie them
together?” It finally dawned on me just now.
I have a wall of tapes in my work shop and not one of them is duct tape like you imagine. BTW, duct tape has never been the stuff you think it is. Why? Because it doesn’t hold very well especially to things that vary in temperature. One of my best friends has been an HVAC mechanic and technician for the past 40 years. He takes a truck full of duct board to a job site and with a few tools, some blueprints, and his knowledge and he fabricates the HVAC duct work for the building. Guess what’s not in his arsenal? Duct tape like you imagine it. He does use tape to seal all of the joints but it is heavy duty paper backed aluminum tape and it works well. Having worked briefly in the HVAC trade back in the early 70’s I can attest that aluminum duct tape is a thing and has been for a long time.
Back to my wall of tape. I don’t use tape a lot. When I need to tape 2 pieces of wood together, that I am going to mill on the lath, saws, or other tools, I usually use packing tape because it holds good and is very thin. I use the Gator brand of packing tape and the roll holder has 2 small plastic arms that prevent the tape from sticking to itself. It’s not perfect. There have been plenty of times when I had to grab an xacto knife to find the end and carefully unroll it and get it behind the little arms again. I have tried the ‘folding it over’ trick and it’s a pain in the ass twice. Folding it over is a pain and then cutting the folded part off is another pain, and waste. Also, the tape has slipped from my fingers while folding it and cutting it off resulting in me reaching for the xacto again. The same would be for the bread clip thing too. A Pain. The only thing that works for me is to not use tape much. srsly My arteries just can’t take the strain.
The bread tab thing is cool, but I use a penny or a nickle, as they’re always right there in my pocket.
Besides, it gives actual “worth” to them- since 2006, it costs 2.41 cents to make a penny, and 11.18 cents to make a nickel. Quarters and other (higher) coin denominations still cost less to make than their face value.
Also, once drilled, pennies and nickels make great washers. And they’re a fraction of the cost.