“Poetry is a language in which man explores his own amazement” — Christopher Fry

I never really cared that much
For tabloid celeb news
It doesn’t change my life as such
To learn whose spouse screwed whose
Weddings, babies, drugs, divorce
It’s all the same to me
I see enough in life’s real course
To skip what’s on TV
I’ve never read a People mag
I think I’d just feel wrong
I’ve looked past every grocery rag
Despite the line being long
It seems I just don’t see the point
In learning things about
Our pretty vapid movie stars
And who is in and out
I guess what I am trying to say
Is I don’t give a shit
And now I will be on my way
I’ve got my rhyme for “Pitt”

Hear me out

Did you know that there are a hundred and four dining options in Chicago’s O’Hare international airport? If you are flying anywhere — to Minneapolis, to New York, to Paris — you can dine at one of one hundred and four different places in the five terminal airport. This is insane. There should be a hundred and four McDonald’s in the O’Hare airport and nothing else.

I am never more bummed out than when I see restaurants in airports. And I’m not talking “Chili’s Too” bummed out. I’m talking places called stuff like “La Tapenade” or “Wicker Park Seafood And Sushi.” What are you thinking, eating sushi at an airport? What are you thinking, eating a caprese salad at an airport? You’re about to fly for several hours in a dirty sky bus, but you need a crepe first?

If you have heard of restaurants and been to restaurants, you should go to them when they are anywhere but inside an airport. I have tried a Wolfgang Puck Express in my day, of course, I am not “above it,” but I just feel sad and weird after. Here I am at the Wolfgang Puck Express, a restaurant that only exists in airports, pretending I am not at an airport, but in fact, at a real restaurant. Food at an airport should not be consumed at a table with very high chairs while you are forced to sit upright. Food at an airport should be consumed as you are slouched over in a terminal upon learning your flight has been delayed another half an hour.

And so, McDonald’s is the great equalizer among us. We are all the same at the airport, no matter what boarding group you’re in. You can eat McDonald’s for any meal of the day at any time of the day. They have more options than you can even dream of. I’m never happier than when I’m eating two hash browns and drinking an iced coffee the size of my torso. This is a portable food. It takes less than a minute to get. When you are eating at an airport, you are eating simply for fuel. You need a quick, carb-heavy meal that is going to knock you out on a flight. You do not need a frittata. McDonald’s is not a meal for all the time and always, but McDonald’s is a hundred percent for airports, the giant hallways of America.

Why is there a Jamba Juice at the airport? I drink a Jamba Juice twice a year, when I am so painfully hungover I think I am going to die and ask for an immunity boost. I don’t want to drink twenty-four ounces of melted sherbet before getting on a plane. Yes, I am even advocating against Starbucks in airports. Starbucks at airports have incredibly long lines. They’re somehow more expensive. (I know complaining about the price of a Starbucks drink is very 2007, but indulge me.) Everyone is so mad and so impatient. McDonald’s coffee is twice is fast and one hundred times hotter. It comes in flavors now.

Imagine a paradise where an airport has a-hundred-something McDonald’s. You get your quick meal, you eat it on a weirdly firm terminal chair, you take off in a plane, you land, and you find a restaurant in the city in which you land. This restaurant is good. It’s got all the food you like, and you can eat it in an environment you have total control over. And McDonald’s? Well, it’ll be there, waiting for you in the airport, on your way to your next destination.

Fran Hoepfner is a writer and comedian living in Chicago.

This is the way, step inside.

Sure, everything else still sucks, but there’s a new Danny Brown album out at the end of the month, with a Joy Division-referencing title. You’ve gotta keep an eye out for the bright spots, I guess. Enjoy.

★★ Down below the hotel window in the gray morning, out past the borrowed car, an old man in shorts stood smoking and staring out over the empty access road. Sometimes the shape of the sun glimmered whitely through the clouds. The air was dense and uncomfortable to be out in. Past the massed flashing lights on the right shoulder of the highway, off in a ditch among the trees, the eye could find the shine of chrome and then the white of a detonated and sagging airbag. A lightweight, presentable churchgoing sweater felt heavy. The light increased. Cows switched their tails. Little purple flowers hugged the ground in the field at the crest of the hill, and purple grass heads floated above. The front lawn was dry and hard underfoot. A mourning dove hunkered down in the birdbath, breast in the water. Some full sun made its way through the leaves for a while. Out on the interstate again, a cloud of dust floated off to the right, where another car had just left the roadway and the nearest cars in the slow lane were coming to a stop. The state troopers said they knew and were on their way. Now clouds thickened up ahead, now clouds glowed; neither made much difference. A few drops of rain ticked on the windshield, but only a few. In the twilight, up in New Jersey along the Turnpike, a man balanced on one pale leg in the beam of a police flashlight. The city air was as stifling as the air in the exurbs and the country had been.

You know, the cold cubes that go in your drink to keep it cold

Did you know about ice cubes? The Wall Street Journal does:

The world of high-end cocktails is being stirred by a development that would have been unthinkable in years past.

Bartenders want to put ice cubes in the drinks.

Get out of my face. Stirred!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bartenders want to put ice cubes in the drinks.
Bartenders want to put ice cubes in the drinks.
Bartenders want to put ice cubes in the drinks.
Bartenders want to put ice cubes in the drinks.

Did you know?

Bartenders want to put ice cubes in the drinks.

“Ice spheres are so seven years ago,” said Joseph Ambrose, owner of Favourite Ice Co., a hand-cut cocktail ice distributor in Washington that provides to about 30 bars in the area. “It’s the 2×2 cube that bars want most often.”

What’s the Hottest New Thing in Craft Cocktails? Ice Cubes

AHHH so you mean specifically cubes, as in the 3D shapes that have squares on each side? Wow cool ice. You know how I know not to take any of this seriously? That man misspelled the name of his ice company. What is this, Canada? No, it’s D.C., where maybe it is still 2006 in the “craft cocktail” world.

The business is often based on experimentation, which can have chilling effects since makers can only produce so much by hand. Ice distributors say the shift back to the plain-old cube reflects both economics — cubes are cheaper to make than other shapes — and the realization that to most drinkers, size matters. The trendy cubes are bigger than regular ones; most glasses can only accommodate one.

Chilling effects! You don’t say.

“If I was on a date, at least the giant ice cube would give us something to talk about,” said Susan McCarthy, a recent patron.

Susan, this is why I don’t date. Last but not least, the ol’ cube got a hedcut:

The above is not a good article about ice. Here is a much much much better one for you to read instead:

The Emperor of Ice – The New Yorker

Science finds a way.

Problem:

“Our anti-microbe mission has been accompanied, in industrialized countries, by an explosion in the prevalence of chronic noninfectious diseases and disorders. Diabetes, allergies, asthma, inflammatory bowel diseases, autoimmune diseases, autism, obesity and certain types of cancer are at an all-time high. The incidence of some of these disorders is doubling every 10 years, and they are starting to appear sooner in life, often in childhood.”

Solution:

“You may think your floors are so clean you can eat off them, but a new study debunking the so-called five-second rule would suggest otherwise. Professor Donald W. Schaffner, a food microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said a two-year study he led concluded that no matter how fast you pick up food that falls on the floor, you will pick up bacteria with it.”

Plus: The truth about how to be happy

There are many terrible things about being me, but way up near the top of that very long list is the thing about being right all the time and not receiving any acknowledgment for it. I am not even necessarily asking for some grand celebration — like, I don’t expect everyone to be all, “Huh, Alex Balk was right all along, we should shower him with accolades and admiration and give him some sort of position where he is wildly compensated for his continuing correctness, even though he is correct so frequently that no amount of compensation would really be out of line,” which is not to say that it wouldn’t be right, or appropriate — but it would be nice if every time one of my theories were proven legitimate (which, as noted, occurs with approximately the same frequency as the rising of the sun) anyone who had earlier dismissed me by saying, “Oh, Alex Balk is always so negative, you can’t listen to him,” took a moment or two to recognize that actually they were in the presence of genius and maybe next time they should act as if that were the case instead of sharing some snotty sentiment about my bad attitude in whatever secret Slack room they use to vent the opinions they are too cowardly to post in public these days. I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Sorry, that one got away from me there. Anyway, I would like to share this with you:

A 2012 study undertaken at the University of Queensland and published in the journal Emotion found that when people think others expect them to not feel negative emotions, they end up feeling more negative emotions. A 2009 study published in Psychological Science found that forcing people to use positive statements such as “I’m a lovable person” can make some feel more insecure. Further, New York University psychology professor Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues have found that visualizing a successful outcome, under certain conditions, can make people less likely to achieve it. Researchers have also found that people in a negative mood produce better quality and more persuasive arguments than people in a positive mood, and that negative moods can improve memory.

Yes, you read that right, the power of positive thinking is a bunch of bullshit shoved in your face by a members of a sinister cabal who want you to shut up about how awful everything really is or who think they can make money by selling you something that tells you you can trick your brain into being less realistic about life.

Here’s how positive thinking can be bad for your health

Does positive thinking work for some people? Of course! Some people think drinking their own piss makes them more healthy. And for those people that may actually be true. The brain is a remarkable organ about which we know so little, but we have for sure learned that in some people it is more susceptible to suggestion than it is in others. But what you can’t do — and remember, this is coming from me, and I am right about almost everything — is con yourself into giddiness if your mind is stuck on the “realism” setting.

Do you want to know how to truly be happy? Be born to people who can pass along the genes that let your brain see the positive side of things. Listen: You know how there are people who run into burning buildings to save the children trapped within? And when they are asked later why they did it they are humble and don’t quite understand it themselves? It’s because they are driven by impulses over which they have no control that are a direct product of the chemicals passed down to them from their parents. The person who runs away from a burning building is no better or worse than the person who runs into it (unless he started the fire in the first place, I guess), he just doesn’t have the genes that make him what we call “good” in our super-judgmental society. By the same token, the woman who can’t manage to dupe her brain into thinking that everything will be better if she writes a list each evening of what she is grateful for when everything is clearly terrible and only getting worse isn’t in any way to be scorned or dismissed for her inability to put blinders on herself and whistle a happy tune as the earth falls apart around her, she just doesn’t have the genes that allow all our smiley fuckfaced cheer-uppers to wander around oblivious to the tidal wave of shit upon which we are all trying to surf each day. Some people get them and some people don’t.

Anyway, there are three points I want you to take away from this: Positive thinking is not going to cure your terrible case of seeing the world as it is. Smiling will not make you happy. And Alex Balk, who has been saying these things FOREVER AND EVER, is pretty much always right about this stuff. It might be nice if you let him know how much you appreciated that while you still have him with you. True prophets don’t stick around forever, you know.

Because you’re an idiot, like everyone else.

A couple of days ago a friend of mine, who had kept herself away from Twitter for a few weeks, gave in to curiosity and looked to see what was happening. “It made me hate myself,” she said. “You can tell everyone on there is sad and anxious, and they don’t understand why, but it’s because being on Twitter makes you sad and anxious.”

“Maybe it’s also the election?” I asked.

“No, it’s Twitter. Twitter makes you sick.”

Another friend announced that she had “deleted Instagram from my phone because it was giving my soul cancer.”

I can’t even imagine how people who are on Snapchat all the time feel, although maybe they are somehow okay, Snapchat being the platform for the youngest and dumbest among us, the lucky souls who are so vapid and sanded-down to the horrors of digital existence that they don’t even notice how they are being eaten away from the inside.

Anyway, the point here is that the Internet is poison. It is a point I have made before (see: “Being on the Internet is like drinking poison”) and will continue to make again until you people FINALLY LISTEN TO ME. You won’t, though, because you’re too far gone. You need the poison like you need the air. “If I don’t have another reason to hate myself today,” your stupid brain tells itself so quietly that you can’t even hear the conversation, “I’ll just die.” And then you think, “Gee, let me look at Twitter,” and you’re sad for the rest of the day, but you don’t know why. It is because all the promise of the Internet turned out to be lies. The Internet makes you depressed by showing you how you and everyone around you look at your worst, which is how you and everyone around you look most of the time. The Internet is a mirror that reveals the worst things about us, because it’s a mirror, and we are mostly worst things.

So Andrew Sullivan has some thoughts on this. I sort of skimmed through it, there’s a lot of stuff there and if you’ve ever read Andrew Sullivan before you know exactly how quickly “the guy’s got a point” turns into [MAKES “JERKING OFF” MOTION SO HARD THAT THREE KINDS OF WRIST AND SHOULDER SURGERY ARE REQUIRED]. I mean, he waits a little longer than usual to mention Michael Oakeshott, but damned if he doesn’t bring him up near about the halfway mark. Does he say some indisputable things about how awful the web is now and what kind of damage it is doing to us? Yes, yes he does. There is a whole lot of other stuff that is considerably less correct, but you are encouraged to read it for yourself, if only so I can make it clear that there are a growing number of voices telling you how terrible the Internet is and it’s not just me shouting into the void.

Andrew Sullivan: My Distraction Sickness – and Yours

Sullivan’s piece focuses more on the distraction and loss of focus that our terrible addiction to constant connectivity breeds, but, at the risk of repeating myself, there are so many other terrible things about the Internet. It makes you lonelier, and less likely to have real friends. It’s eating our children’s brains. It’s only going to get worse. Even if you remember how good it was it just makes you that much more depressed about how awful it is now. It’s a big fucking trough of heartbreak, vomit flakes and asswater, festooned with quizzes, Jew-hating frogs and soul-crushing itemized listicles signifying nothing but sounding furious. There is no escape. Merely pointing out how awful the Internet is results in any number of idiot men who think they’re geniuses for noticing that you’re on the Internet talking about how irredeemable the Internet is taking their thumbs from their buttholes long enough to type out a tweet where they point out your supposed hypocrisy as if they were blowing the lid off of Hillary Clinton’s body double. It’s enough to make you wish we were all condemned to silence for a year. You know what? That doesn’t sound so bad.

How Silence Works: Emailed Conversations With Four Trappist Monks

Hahaha, isn’t it pretty to think so. In conclusion, fuck the Internet. But also, we’re fucked, by the Internet. I have no hope to offer you, for we have burned off all our hope in constantly praying for hearts and shares. There is nothing left but despair. What will survive of us is puppy clips and impenetrable memes and detailed descriptions of meaningless dreams and photographs we took to show everyone else how just how happy we are, how totally terrific our lives are turning out to be. When the Internet has finally finished us off we will still be there as spectral presences, sitting by the sea in front of an amazing sunset, which we mostly missed because we were busy taking the picture. We deserve everything we’re going to get. It can’t come quickly enough.

Stop what you’re doing and read his blog post.

Once upon a time, Kelly Conaboy called for people to “Blog so we have something good to read.” Well, my dear Kelly, your call has been answered by John Angus McPhee, living Princeton mascot, and the greatest writing teacher ever. Over at The New Yorker’s Culture Desk, he recalls his first sip of alcohol, at age ten:

The sniff. The snort. The dilation of the nose. The glowing briquet in the throat. As the gastroentomologist Ian Frazier has reflected after munching brown-drake mayflies, it was hard stop at just one. Across fifteen, twenty minutes, I took in several gulps of whatever it was. One thing it wasn’t was unpleasant.

Dah Dah Doo Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah Doo Dah La Ti Mi Fa La So Fa Mi – The New Yorker

Just look at that title. Could anyone else get away with that? No, because John McPhee is a drop-everything-and-read kind of writer, and for all I care he could title his blog post “This Is My Blog” and it would be perfect. Go forth and click, my friends. Everything out there in the world is bad and gloomy, but it doesn’t have to be that way because now you have a delightful morsel to read. Cheers to the golf-ball fisherman.

You can help, you can hide; you can even leave

Weddings are like the Oscars: a few big emotional moments against an overall backdrop of administrivia and waiting around. Sometimes there’s reason to suspect it’s all downhill from here for the couple, so the wedding feels like one of those Best Supporting Actress acceptance speeches from a talented ingénue you know you’ll never see again. And even if you wept (with happiness, with hope, for your lost youth) throughout the ceremony, let’s face it: it’s hard to sustain that rush while you’re sitting with a bunch of second cousins waiting for your table to be called to the buffet. Or during the vaguely unsettling father-daughter dance, or the dreaded cake feeding moment.

I mean, no wonder people drink at weddings. It’s not just because they’re celebrating and in Western culture we celebrate happy occasions by ingesting a depressant. They’re also bored and nervous. And guess what? If this is your first stone-cold-sober wedding, you might be a little extra bored and nervous. Your challenge here isn’t celebrating in your right mind. It’s dealing with your real-time discomfort.

First of all, know that you are off the hook for feeling any certain way at this wedding. It’s not your job to be happy, or reflective, or anything else. Your job is to bear physical witness to the event and not make an ass of yourself. If joy sneaks up on you — if you really hear the wedding vows for the first time in your life, if your body is seized with electricity at the bass line of “Brick House”—then it’s a bonus. If not, that’s just fine. Let your brain do what it wants.

Next, you need a strategy for keeping yourself busy. One option is to have a job. If you’re close to the wedding party, maybe you can arrange an official duty, like guilting people into signing the guest book or standing by the gift table, glaring threateningly and patting your gun pocket when anyone lingers too long. If not, then assign yourself a job. For instance, you could decide to initiate small talk with anyone who is standing or sitting alone.

That’s how I survived my first big sober social event: I worked the room, even though I’m such an introvert that I almost don’t exist. Playing Sober Butterfly turned out to be surprisingly easy, partly because I was doing it on purpose, to work a muscle, and partly because I didn’t have any of my old drinking worries (am I slurring? Am I steady on these heels?) nagging at me. Did I make new lifelong friends or have fascinating conversations? No. But it was fine, and the time passed, and I even felt like I’d done some good. And I didn’t drink, which was really all that mattered.

Is the idea of walking up to total strangers just too much? Then figure something else out. Take lots of candid photos with your phone and send an album of the best ones to the newlyweds the next day. Hound the DJ with requests to play “Bastards of Young.” Dance with little kids. And for the love of God, give yourself breaks if you need them. You won’t be the first wedding guest to hide out in the restroom doing the New York Times crossword puzzle on your phone, because I’ve already done it.

And if staying sober isn’t just a circumstantial need, but is close to a matter of life and death for you — like it is for me — and it’s that after-cake time when people are starting to get really tanked, and the balloons are sagging, and it’s just too much? Leave. If your friends are drunk and try to talk you out of leaving? Leave anyway. They won’t remember, and if they do they’ll understand, and if they don’t understand, well, let’s not worry about that right now. Just say your good nights and go. Always giving into what other people want won’t keep you sober anyway. So work that muscle now.

Those are some starter options. If you’re not white-knuckling it, another is to use your clear eyes to read the wedding like the epic novel it is. The newlyweds have just made huge, scary promises to each other in the face of vast uncertainty. What got them to that point? Faith, madness, a fierce practicality? Look at the parents, the marriages that made the newlyweds exist. See the parents making the same enormous promises to each other however many decades ago. How many marriages exist among the parents now? Still two? Or four, six, ten?

Now look around the room. If it’s a big wedding there will be people who made those promises fifty years ago, and ten years, and ten months, and people who didn’t even have the legal option to make insane promises until June 2015. Someone is pregnant with someone else who will also get married someday. Someone is planning their way out of a marriage. Someone’s marriage was ended by death. Someone is wondering when this dumb capitalistic tradition finally dies out. Someone, hopefully many someones, would do it all again.

You are in a room crammed with enough dead and living promises to make you go “Whoa” like Garth from Wayne’s World. There is no booze (or weed) required to be like Garth. Just eyes to see and the patience to let things mean what they mean. You have both. Let them work for you here. If you need to drown in something, drown in promises.