MR WRONG: This ain't no holiday

COLUMN DEP’T.

MR WRONG: The Age of Sale Is Sinking My Festive Spirit

THIS IS AMERICA and I’m not trying to tell anybody how to Do Their Thing, but since my Thing is complaining, I would like to say, and I am saying, in this here column-space, that it seems like everything is everything all the time now, in a highly unsatisfying and blurry way. Halloween became Spooky Season, or Scary Season, and it goes on for weeks and weeks, and in my neighborhood, if the Halloween stuff isn’t still up right now, it has been replaced by Xmas stuff, and it ain’t even goddamn fucking Thanksgiving yet.

For the record and in Full Disclosure, I have an array of colored lights on my porch year round, lit up every night, because it pleases me, and sometimes somebody will say, like, “Oh yeah, you keep your Xmas lights up all year,” and I’m like, “they’re not Xmas lights, they’re lights, aren’t they great? They are colorful!” Also it really helps with Pizza Delivery, seriously, I put LOOK FOR THE COLORED LIGHTS on my delivery instructions, except during December.

And like, Halloween stuff on your house used to mean a pumpkin on your stoop or a Jack-o’-lantern in your window and maybe some skeletons or ghosts and witches hanging off your porch, but that’s now appended with Halloween lights, like Xmas lights, and I think that Mission Creep, the Halloween Hegemony, started after people began putting Easter Eggs on their outdoor trees or putting Easter Bunny stuff outside their house, which, in my neighborhood, it’s not usually a lotta Jesus-y Easter stuff, it’s just Eggs and Bunnies, as opposed to the other side of the Christian Jesus Continuüm, the Xmas displays with Baby J and company. Maybe Easter is tricky because the symbol should be a Cross or a Crucified Jesus? Crosses on the lawn is problematic, eh? The auto-correct on Google Docs tried to auto-correct my three-finger typing of “crucified” into “certified,” and in the Spirit of Divine Intervention, I am gonna embrace Certified Jesus™ moving forward, on my own, personally. Wait, wait, howabout a big Easter Rock out on the lawn, since Jesus moved the big rock to open His tomb and become Risen? Inflatable Easter Rock! If there isn’t one, I invented it, OK? Copyright© and Trademark™ by me.

Anyway, this couple-few weeks before Thanksgiving used to be a Safe Harbor time of year, with a Solemn Observance of Veterans Day, and no Buying Stuff kinda Holiday pressure manifesting itself. There’s so much available time during Holidays Actual for all that sorta Holiday pressure!

Meanwhile last week, fuckin’ MACY’s mailed me a postcard telling me BLACK FRIDAY IS NOW, and like, I dunno, when is Now, what is Now anymore? I mean, people say “live in the now,” but there’s gotta be some non-Now time, especially when we are on the precipice of when it’s The Holidays, you know? I don’t want any Now right now, OK? I want a lull, a period of slack sails, but because Big Business does not want slack sales, everything is Now! CONSUME! NOW! ECONOMY!

So right now more than ever, the lines between Celebration of Holidays are all smeared because Merchandising of Holiday wants you to get all fuckin’ stressed out about getting a good deal for Black Friday by making Black Friday NOW, and then, you will think, if it’s NOW, then others will get the Deals, and you will FOMO in your pants trying to get to the NOW.

Look, it’s like, I am not trying to tell anybody they gotta color inside the lines, it’s just, are we gonna have a three-day New Years Eve now? Valentine’s Month? Groundhog Weekend? I would support Groundhog Weekend so that there could be more than one day to venerate the noble Groundhog in a responsible and positive manner, but you know, what’s next, what Holiday is left that will be co-opted from children and corrupted into an Adult thing? Sexy Easter Egg Hunt? Jesus Christ.

Getting back to almost-Thanksgiving, I don’t think I have ever seen any specifically-Turkey decor in my neighborhood, but it does exist, and I gotta say I dig the light-up leaf display you can get for $13.99, which is more of an Autumnal celebration, and I don’t get anything for hawkin’ stuff on Amazon like The Wirecutter does; however, in my season of being annoyed by The Holidays, you should consider kicking a few bucks toward supporting INDIGNITY! Thank you.

The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly wherever it can appear. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.

COMMENT DEPARTMENT

HERE IS A comment on last week’s Mr. Wrong column, (Carbon Footprint, INDIGNITY VOL. 3, NO. 178) from Indignity supporter AnonymousBosch. We remind the Readers that commenting is restricted to supporters of Indignity, and we thank them all, and we encourage all readers to support the right to comment by supporting Indignity with cash money.

physicist here:

Anyone selling carbon capture is a moron who doesn't understand the laws of thermodynamics, is counting on making enough money pretending they dont exist to do so, or thinks you're too stupid to understand them.

Capturing carbon is a reduction in entropy. it requires using more energy than was released when that carbon dioxide was created. That is, you must burn a ton and a half of coal to clean up the carbon of one ton of coal.

Its why the ass end of your air conditioner is outside your house. if both ends were inside, the hot end would put out more heat than the cold end removes, and your room would get hotter, rather than colder.

They get around this by saying they use renewables to get their ton and a half of coal's worth of energy. Ok. Sure. You could also use that ton and a half worth of energy to *displace the use of a ton and a half of coal on the grid*.

In that case, one ton of carbon stays kn the air and one and a half ton does not get released, for a net of negative one half ton. Instead, that ton and a half pulls one ton out of the air, and coal plants around the country burn a ton and a half to provide the power that renewable could usefully be putting on the grid. For a net of positive a half ton, or a difference of a full ton of coal.

The only -only!- way carbon capture makes sense other than as a shiny object for capital to distract well meaning but technically unsophisticated citizens with is if every watt of renewables is used to displace carbon until there are no fossil fuels being burnt -anywhere-. and THEN you build a bunch of renewable power infrastructure surplus to requirements, and run it, unprofitably, because there’s no product to sell, to pull carbon out of the air. This being completely anathema to several massive industries and the profit motive in general means it will never happen without worldwide socialist revolution.

Just a thought for next time your basement gets flooded or a hurricane pulls your roof off. Probably gonna need to occupy some government buildings, at least, if thats the kind of thing you would like to not keep happening, more frequently and more severely.

BLUESKY DEPARTMENT

Another Gentle Reader of Indignity (and also possibly the Mr. Wrong column) has sent us Bluesky codes, for people who want to try the still-beta Bluesky social networks. If you haven’t already gotten a code from us, email indignity@indignity.net and we will award Bluesky codes to those who respond, one per reader, first email, first served. Thank you for reading this notice, and special thanks to Patrick Wheeler for the thoughtful contribution of magic codes.

WEATHER REVIEWS

New York City, November 15, 2023

★★★ The touch of haze on the empty blue morning sky resolved into intricate fishbones and translucent sheets, scattering the low-angled sun of midday into November steeliness. In the farmer's market were apples, more apples, apple cider, and Concord grapes. The top of a tree sticking out above the park at Union Square had been stripped bare, but there was still color down where the other trees gave it shelter. In the time it took for a leisurely cheeseburger, the light turned outright gray, though patches of blue were still showing.

SANDWICH RECIPES DEP’T.

WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS for the assembly of select sandwiches from Light Entertaining: A Book of Dainty Recipes for Special Occasions, edited by Helena Judson, Published in 1910. This book is in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.

SHAD ROE SANDWICHES
Among the daintiest and most palatable of fish sandwiches are those made of shad roe. Throw the roe into boiling water, add one slice of onion, and one teaspoonful of salt; simmer gently for about thirty minutes and drain. With a fork remove the membrane. Add one-fourth pound of melted butter, one-half teaspoonful of salt and two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice. The mixture may then be spread on thin slices of brown bread and butter, or filled into rolls.

SWEETBREAD SANDWICHES
Parboil the sweetbreads and place on ice. Put through a potato ricer. Make a paste by adding cream, and season with lemon juice, white pepper, salt, and a few grains of cayenne. Finely chopped celery or cucumber makes a delicious addition to this sandwich filling.

TONGUE AND VEAL SANDWICHES
Take equal quantities of cold boiled tongue and cold roast veal. Make into a paste by the addition of mayonnaise into which has been stirred a little horseradish.

TONGUE SANDWICHES
Tongue sandwiches may be made by either chopping the tongue or cutting it into thin slices. Where the tongue is chopped it should be pounded as for chicken sandwiches, and highly seasoned.

If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.

MARKETING DEP'T.

ATTENTION, BOOK SHOPPERS! We are pleased to announce that we have SOLD OUT the first printing of 19 FOLKTALES. A second printing, which corrects the unorthodox (collectible!) spine alignment of the first edition, is underway, but new orders may be delayed even more than they are under our usual hand-fulfillment system. Some signed copies are available as premiums for Kickstarter supporters of the new FLAMING HYDRA publishing enterprise, which we encourage you to support as it has successfully satisfied its initial kick-starting and is now well into a “stretch drive.”

Totally not sold-out: HMM WEEKLY MINI-ZINE, Subject: GAME SHOW, Joe MacLeod’s account of his Total Experience of a Journey Into Television, expanded from the original published account found here at Hmm Daily. The special MINI ZINE features other viewpoints related to an appearance on, at, and inside the teevee game show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, available for purchase at SHOPULA.

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