Sometimes I think you haven’t lived until you’ve been given the shoulder by a drunken horse in a bar. Other times I think the very stuff of life happens from being the drunken horse in a bar. But usually, it has to do with neither of these things, and I’m fairly certain that none of it would be worth the slightest damn if there was no Queneau to neigh by.

Well, I’ve been reading some unavoidable news about Death Panels and baby killing nazi zombies terrorizing in the Norwegian mountains and all sorts of incessant catfighty nastiness which I suppose our world can take, given that it’s really all pretty hopeless, when confronted by the threat of health care. Or zombies.

Tonight’s story came from one of several boxes of books that were recently given to me by a stranger, someone apparently vying for the title of Miette’s Best Friend.
And as I mention when reading tonight’s story, this alone makes today one of the best days anybody’s had, in a good long while (if [...]

I hope those of you celebrating All Things Autumnal are settling into it well, the roast fowl and the hot cacao and woodfire smoke for dessert, and, well, you know the picture I’m aiming for here. It does wonders to the general countenance, I think:

As you know, there’s not much room on these pages for political soapboxing, both because there are already plenty of internet playgrounds for that sort of thing, and because I’d rather freestyle on such endlessly gripping topics as the weather or this podcast’s sound quality. However. I have an opinion that must be voiced.

For your bonus bedtime track this week, I’ve decided to double up on (I suppose?) relative abstrusity, author-wise. But this time, I’m in the fortunate position of already knowing and loving and potentially endlessly blathering about today’s subject, to prevent us all from hitting the high mile dudgeons ove

Is there anybody out there who has a cure for acute compulsion? The thought had entered my mind that I had very little knowledge of tonight’s author, and that, further, I was quite curious to know what he looked like. And, given the tendency toward googlification of the nubs of my fingers, this curiosity was one that I felt compelled to satisfy.

True to form here’s a nice short one to balance out the more time-demanding Gogol from last time. And let me add that just because it’s short doesn’t mean it’s not gruesome, contentious, vitriolic, or even a little caustic, because when lagged by the potentate of a jet, that’s all you want waiting for you at home:

Hypnalgiaphobia, the nightly quest for a real OOBE, learning to read more slowly and maybe with no accent, elas, these are the things that make us turn in the wee hours and if ether were the answer I’d be first in line. But maybe a new bed is a fine substitute? Maybe just a bedtime story?