LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat 2014

I warned you yesterday; scant stuff. Column night and other duties. But:

Dog ate five meals yesterday and nothing today. Nothing much, anyway. Ate grass, which dogs supposedly do to cure a stomach ache, but which usually gives them . . . a stomach ache. If he was mopey I’d worry, but after a day of being pasted flat by the heat he was running around like a mad creature, woofing at shadows and being fiesty, after a long long walk and an hour of play at the park. SO IT’S NOT PARVO.

But he’s not eating, and that’s never good.

It seems like I’ve been worrying about him since we got him.

Other than that, I don’t know what to say. Let me see if there’s any bookmark I saved for Future Outrage . . .

Okay, a link to a video about a Cat Sitting in a Chair. Saved for some reason. Now I’m watching the video. Two minutes of a cat sitting in a chair. It was preceded by an ad, of course, which was 4:08 in length. I could skip it after five seconds. Four minute ad for fabric softener. Then two minutes of a cat sitting in a chair. A Celebrity-Approved Cat, because Will Wheaton appears in the comments, giving an endorsement of the Cat which is Sitting in a Chair.

Video: truck full of watermelons is hit by a train. Preceded by a two minute ad with a click bait headline: she wanted a gift for her dad. What happened next was incredible. Well, good for them. Your five seconds are up. Video is indeed a truck full of watermelons hit by a train. Takeaway quote “watermelon juice everywhere.” Noted. Vertical video, of course.

Link to a GIF that consists of a man being hit in the face with a pie in slo-mo. Saved for future reference in case I ever need to sum up a mood that is consistent with having an expression of resignation that anticipates the impact of a pie, which is already en route. This will be helpful because it is too difficult to find words for these things, and GIFs and memes are a shared source of communication that has a built-in feature words lack: they cannot be misunderstood. You write something, there’s someone who will misconstrue it. You put up a GIF, there’s little room for someone to willfully contort what you said because your argument was expressed quickly or inelegantly or used words that have loaded meaning for someone who does not share your world view.

Link, for some reason to Buzzfeed, which is telling me - as I go to press - things I don’t know about ebay, ice cream, and Dunkin’ Donuts. Also “29 babies who are totally throwing shade.” I am waiting for “14 Times The 90s were like not like fleeing an Iraqi Petroleum Facility because ISIS had taken over,” with a subhead of “This war needs SCRUNCHIES because 90s.” And then people will totally understand the situation because of a seven-frame GIF of someone from “Saved By The Bell” looking sad. Sorry, having a sad. A sad being a feel.

A piece about airlines reducing the size of carry-on baggage. I believe this is a plot hatched in concert with luggage makers. I saved it with the idea of checking the dimensions of my own carry-on. I am not at this moment compelled to get out the tape measurer and drag out the bags. I will not be in the mood tomorrow. You’d think a fellow would plan ahead, and I’d get right on that. I am not getting right on that. This is where I should post Considering Cat Meme. Hold on . . .

There.

Was it always so? Of course. The inconsequential always outnumber the large stories, because we need a cyclone of amusement over our heads if we don’t have actual work to do. I’ve met busy people who do things like operate on human bodies or prevent massive lawsuits from the Attorney General’s Office and for the most part they are unaware that a large portion of some people’s day consists of passing around pictures of a pug wearing a Darth Vader helmet.

If there are enough such pug-pix generated, then there will be a list of 53 Pugs Who Totally Nailed Monday by Rocking Sith Headgear. Previously these people watched game shows.

I was one of those, to be honest; in the summer as a kid I watched them all. You had to watch every segment and then you had to watch commercials. They were 30 seconds long and after a while you got to know them well enough. I wonder what I would have thought if Future Me went back in time and said “commercials will be four minutes long in the future, but you only have to watch 10 seconds.”

Why? Does anyone watch all four minutes if they don’t have to?

Probably not, unless they walk away from their computer.

Wait, the ads are computers? How is that? Why are people watching ads on computers?

That’s just how it worked out.

But only ten seconds? Instead of thirty? That’s great.

It’ll seem like an eternity.

Really? Why?

Because you were promised a cat sitting in a chair and now you have to watch something else and it’s usually five seconds, but now it’s ten.

So what does the cat do?

It sits in a chair.

Is it cute?

Adorbs.

Sorry, what?

BRB. Yo me l8r.

I had something else for this week. I changed it.

As ordinary a small town as one could imagine. Grain silos, a few tidy buildings, the general sense of time standing still - and time having fled.

This structure as that odd rusticated stone that makes me wonder if it's stamped tin, but I don't think so. Nothing in the way of ornamentation, except what the construction boys could do. And they did what they could.

It looks abandoned. Probably been a surreptious teen hangout over the years. Or decades. The big door suggests it had a garage, but I don't know what purpose it served.

Next door, another structure which doesn't seem to make sense. The garage. The flanking wing that had a big door, but narrower. The big windows filled in. The unused driveway. A mystery.

It's probably gone.

Pilger got hit by a twister on Monday.

A rarity: a small-town bank building that's still a small-town bank. The renovation era is a bit hard to place, but the white stone probably puts it at the mid 60s.

Down the block, the usual senior citizens - a building whose remodelling looks to be based on the expression of a wall outlet, and another structure with its windows boarded up.

Farmer's Cooperative Station says the old paint; a celebration of the town's 125th is newer.

As good a time as any for some town details: 352 people these days. 160 households, a quarter of which have kids under 18.

One fifth the town is someone over 65 living alone.

The town's site says: "The present site of Pilger was taken by Peter Schauble as a homestead. The homestead was then purchased by Peter Pilger. In 1880 the Village of Pilger was platted by the Elkhorn Valley Land and Town Co. On June 11, 1887, the county officially incorporated Pilger as a village. "

1919:

Next to the bank it was probably the pride of Pilger, and proof the little town had prospered. Sure this was a garage as well. Heck, maybe everything was a garage.