Tiny Minnesota high school aims to put a washing machine in outer space. (Mpls StarTribune) @StribGuy

I went over to Crazy Henry's place because he asked me to help him set up a stellar lint trap on the roof. This sounded too crazy to pass up, so I dropped what I was doing (which really wasn't much of anything) and hightailed it over to his apartment -- where I found him ripping the innards out of his microwave. He at least had enough presence of mind to unplug it first. It was an old, boxy model, probably a dozen years old, so I didn't see any problem with him sacrificing it to the demands of astrophysics. He could get a better and newer one down at the thrift store for ten bucks. 
"Explain it to me, babushka, how the trapping of the lint is taking place" I said to him; we sometimes joke around with each other using accented voices.
"Tell ya what I'm gonna do, my little crumpet" he boomed back at me. "I have determined that by tweaking this mechanism I can attract and capture lint from outer space aliens when they are doing their laundry . . . ah yes, it should net me quite a bit of boodle . . . "
I dropped my accent -- Crazy Henry was actually having a halfway decent idea for once in his life. It made me begin to wonder if he were actually evolving into a higher life form.
"Dryer lint from the universe?" I asked, impressed in spite of myself.
"Why not? They talk about all this stellar dust falling on earth by the ton each day -- so why can't there be intergalactic dryer lint just floating out there waiting to be snatched up and examined by NASA." He grinned at me. "That's the kind of stuff they give out Nobel Prizes in Astrophysics for" he said happily. For once I didn't feel like arguing with him or even bringing him back to reality. I was in an open and happy frame of mind, because an old girlfriend had refriended me on Facebook that morning.
So we fiddled with his decrepit microwave, until Crazy Henry pronounced that it was ready for a test run. We took it up on the roof and pointed it skyward. Then Crazy Henry plugged it in. There was an immediate shower of blue sparks that flew up at great speed -- some of them landed on a pile of leaves next door, starting them on fire.  
But before we could call the fire department a huge grey fuzzy ball of lint hurtled out of the sky and landed at our feet. It must have been five feet in diameter. And out of it stepped a little gray man. He had no eyebrows and his ear lobes hung down to his waist -- but otherwise he looked like a regular sort of person who might emerge from a giant lint ball. Of course, he was only three feet tall.
"Greetings" he called out cheerfully. "I am a Gleep, from deep space -- and your device has interrupted my flight to bring me here, undoubtedly to shower me with treasures more glorious than any Gleep could imagine!" 
"Whoops" I whispered to Crazy Henry.
"You said a mouthful" he replied, sotto voce. But Crazy Henry is never at a loss for craziness -- so he ushered the Gleep down into his apartment and showered him with presents including a bar of soap on a string, a Slinky, two bowling balls, and a bottle of ketchup. 
"Truly, these are wonders beyond reckoning!" gasped the Gleep to us, and then bowed at our feet.
"None of that, Mr. Gleep" said Crazy Henry gruffly. "We don't believe in that sort of scrapping and brown-nosing." He reached down and gently lifted the prostate Gleep up. 
"And now, noble sirs -- I give you a small token of my deepest gratitude -- from my home world of Gleepsy" said the Gleep, and from beneath his green cape he produced a waxy white box, from which emanated a lovely smell. 
"Don't touch it" I cautioned Crazy Henry. "It may be a trap of some kind. Let me take it." So I took it and sniffed it closely.
"Smells real good" I told the Gleep, without opening it. The box was warm to the touch.
"It is our sacred Pork Vindaloo, with which we honor all those that honor us. Eat it in good health!" Saying which, the Gleep popped through the roof, leaving a gaping hole. We could see him reenter the big lint ball and take off. 
"Darn it!" I exclaimed, as I opened up the box of pork vindaloo and began spooning it out onto two plates, "I forget to get any samples from his lint ball!"
"Not to worry, boychik" said Crazy Henry with a grinning accent. He held up a dusty clump of interstellar lint. "Oy, I should maybe let him get away widdout a souvenir -- nu?"
"How perspicacious" I rasped back at him. "Now let us find something to plug yon hole in the roof before the landlord places us in durance vile . . . "

Incline Your Ear

Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live . . . 
Isaiah 55:3

My ears inclined, I would obey

all the Lord to me would say.

My soul to spark with living light,

I want to listen day and night.

But know I well that inclination

doesn't always mean fixation.

I have strayed and been distracted,

since life, I thought, would be protracted.

But now it's autumn; harvest's near --

may thy sweet voice alone I hear!

The Great Revulsion

It began in the fall of 2019, when farmers, looking out over their fields of plump ripe grain waiting in the sun to be harvested, or bringing in fat bales of hay for the winter feeding of their stock, broke down weeping in desperate abhorrence.
"What is the use of this backbreaking labor, repeated year after year after year until we're old and crazed?" they asked their children and spouses in despair. Then they stopped their harvest work to sit on their front steps, howling in anguish at the banality and senselessness of exploiting the animal and the plant kingdoms.
Their deep seated repulsion affected their families. Farm wives wearied of baking bread and putting up preserves; their children grew sick of 4-H programs and high school football. The countryside waxed slack-jawed and hollow, with denizens lethargically shambling into civic arenas and hockey rinks to hold group mopes. 
From there the Revulsion, as it was now called, spread into cities. Financial institutions shut down as their employees poured out from their offices, screaming "the love of money is the root of all evil!"
Police found their guns too heavy to carry, and told anyone who would listen that violence and coercion were infantile, and futile in the long run. Fire departments across the land let buildings burn to the ground rather than let streams of mindless water lose, water which was so inert and inane that firefighters couldn't bear any further association with it.
Crooks and cartels gave up, too. Assault rifles needed endless care and oiling; better to let them rust than spend one more minute on their soulless upkeep. Prisons were emptied, as both guards and inmates walked away from their symbiotic suffering with a shrug of the shoulders, muttering "whatever."
Bakers could no longer stand the sight of flour. Doctors told their patients to 'take two aspirin and never call me again.' Artists stopped creating, throwing away their brushes and paints, their chisels and marble, to morosely sit around working crossword puzzles. Writers and poets simply gathered in large groups and silently set fire themselves on fire. They were not missed.
Teachers told their pupils to go home and prepare for a lifetime of triviality. Politicians and legislators donned hair shirts and wandered away into the wilderness, subsisting on wild honey and lobbyists.
This Revulsion, this great turning away in disgust from normal pursuits and interests, should have ended in a world-wide graveyard as famine and disease took deadly hold. But on the brink of extinction it was discovered that buttered popcorn, when ingested on a regular basis, restored mental balance and dried up the weeping horror of daily life. For movie theaters had become the last bastion of survival in the darkest days of the Revulsion -- and pimply ushers in ill-fitting and rancid uniforms, musty from glory days long gone, had continued to make popcorn even as they groaned at the empty calories of it all. Providentially, there were immense stores of theater popcorn in warehouses all over the world. As bags of popcorn spread from person to person, the Revulsion slowly lifted, and retreated -- until it was contained on an island in the Sea of Japan, where the remnants of the Revulsion still exist to this day . . . eating white bread and hiring out as telemarketers. 

Here are the indigenous people Christopher Columbus and his men could not annihilate. (Headline in today's Washington Post.)

Poor Christopher Columbus isn't popular no more.

His antics on the ocean and with islands we abhor.

When I was but a younker we were taught in our grade school

that Christopher Columbus had been chosen as God's tool

to widen man's horizons and spread blessings far and wide;

we never heard a thing about the natives that all died.

But still we have his holiday -- no mail, or banking done.

 Italians have disowned him, and he's treated like a Hun.

In time I guess they'll pull down all the statues with his name;

How fleeting, Ocean Admiral, the fripperies of fame!

@gbrockell

Rewards

And he said to David, Thou art more righteous than I: for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil.
1 Samuel 24:7

What have I rewarded to the beggar on the street?

How react to those who give me sour for my sweet?

Is there any righteousness in my response to those

who contradict my wisdom and then step upon my toes?

Alas, I often give back what I get or do perceive --

spinning webs of sorrow that I hardly can unweave.

O Lord, forgive me when my temper flares or passions peak;

help me reward but goodness when'ere I act or speak!

Lights. Camera. Prayer. A Mini-Hollywood Grows in Utah. (NYT)

"Movies made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are an important part of a film and TV ecosystem in northern Utah. And there’s not an R-rating in sight." (NYT)   @Liz_A_Harris

Movies with religious bent

may be duds, or heaven-sent.

Playing angels ain't too hard;

devils can be avant-garde.

When directors want their way,

all they have to do is pray.

Utah shoots are caffeine-free,

yet they still have energy.

What has Hollywood to lose,

cutting sex and drugs and booze?

Atheists might controvert

(but then again they might convert!)

Speak Ye Every Man the Truth

These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates
Zechariah 8:16

Does the Lord approve the Gates

we keep in the United States?

Do we send the truth abroad

or do we try for proud facade?

Our Gates of peace are just as far

away, it seems, as Zanzibar.

Peace as a river, I do pray,

will flood our land in full one day.

The Merciful Man

The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.
Proverbs 11:17

My soul is flesh; my flesh is soul;

one sans t'other is not whole.

My flesh demands accounting cruel.

My soul seeks kindness like a jewel.

No trouble, Lord, can harrow me,

when I am merciful like Thee!

Ode to Gumbo, Chili con queso, California rolls, and Spaghetti. @timcarman @Tan_Shelly

The annals of my tummy are a long and glorious slog;

I have often nibbled daintily (or gobbled like a hog.)

My appetite is welcoming and no distinction made

between pate de foie gras and some Wyler's lemonade.

But lemme tell you sumpin 'bout the vittles I inhale;

there's four of 'em I'm partial to (and none of 'em use kale!)

Let's start with chicken gumbo, with the okra piled on high;

a dish with rice beside it makes me almost want to cry.

A chili cheese fiesta, with crisp corn chips by my side,

makes me think of heaven (and so happily I died!)

 Ya gotta have good salsa with that kind of meal, muchacho --

hot enough to roast your tongue until it is a nacho.

I think about the Beach Boys as to market I do stroll

to snag a tray on which resides my California roll.

Unctuous with mayo, it reminds me of my youth --

when happiness came easily (and didn't need vermouth.)

And then there is spaghetti, which with meatballs must be dotted;

such a dish, with crusty bread, will leave me much besotted.

Could I but have these four things for my sustenance each day,

the world with all its problems would seem very far away . . . 

The Gate

It was a Sunday when I first noticed the castle gate was in sad repair. The weathered wood was sickly gray with despair and the hinges and flanges were flaking away with canker. 
Not that I was a king or anything, and not that it was really a castle of the Robin Hood kind. But we had a moat and a drawbridge, just the same, and the gate was nearly two stories tall and quite wide. And right now I was seeing it as rusted shut and no good to man nor beast. It hadn't been opened in years, that I knew of. Everyone came in and went out of the tiny side door where the porter sullenly stewed in his foul room filled with rotted hay and red iron pipes that had never been used for anything except beating rope ends to make tow for caulking ships.
As nominal landlord of the castle, I felt that the main gate should be refurbished and opened wide during the day to invite good people from all around to enter and have converse with me and all others eager to enlarge their knowledge of things. 
I had no idea how to go about such a project. The porter was a craven ninny, too fond of his sweetened tea to stir his mind beyond the confines of his room. My parents were off to the wars, slaying foes and laying waste to farmland and orchards with a hearty goodwill. My siblings were being schooled in Duncanny, far away, in the art of brewing butter and shooting leather. I had two counselors, Fatty and Skinny, who occasionally lectured me about my immortal soul but probably knew nothing of a practical nature. Still, I went to them about the gate. At first they were nonplussed.
"What's wrong with the gate?" asked Fatty.
"Yes, what's wrong with it?" echoed Skinny. "It's a very grand gate that keeps the countryside in awe so we don't need to hire a sheriff."
"You would have to pay for a sheriff if we were forced to hire one" said Fatty condescendingly. "They don't work for free."
"I want my gate to be opened wide and welcoming, with a new coat of paint on it and the hinges polished and oiled" I told them firmly. "Hang the cost!"
"Very well, it's your funeration!" they said together and left to gather workmen, paint, and other needful items. 
I am not skilled in choosing pleasing color combinations. I like a wild disharmony in hues and patterns, which Fatty says is because of my Romany blood. So I tried to be cautious about the color of the gate. I decided on gold, with the flanges highlighted in silver.
Several dozen men were rounded up from the village and given stiff brushes to clean and smooth the wood before it was painted. They found that the hinges and flanges were not in a bad way -- they just needed a good dry scrubbing and then lubricating with goose grease.
When the work was done I commanded the gate to be thrown open as wide as possible. At first we couldn't budge it -- it had lain dormant for too long, But I made Fatty and Skinny, and even the sullen porter, help pull on the massive brass rings and slowly the gate swung all the way back with a magnificent swoosh of displaced air and dust.
I thanked the men for their help, told Fatty and Skinny to pay them off (which is when I found out the treasury was barren -- so I divided all my jewels among them), and dragged a stool from out of the milkmaid's shed to sit and watch my open gate.
I could see the village in the distance, with plumes of tired smoke sluggishly rising from broken chimney pots. Beyond the village lay a forest of dusty green trees, with little black specks I took to be birds circling around and around above it all day.  Nearby a dusty lane curved around the outside of the moat, and I saw a farmer driving a cart full of hay past the gate. I waved at him. He took off his hat and bowed his head to me. I wanted to say hello to him and invite him in, but he was already aimed and traveling with a set purpose, so I let him pass in silence.
Then a man on a horse rode across the drawbridge and entered the gate to stare down at me with a withering, supercilious expression. He was dressed much better than I was, or ever had been.
"This your place?" he demanded haughtily.
"Yessir" I answered, standing up anxiously. 
"Waste of time" he sneered briefly, and turned around. The back of his head was a hornet's nest. I'm glad he decided not to stick around.
Two little girls came wandering by, and I was bold enough to invite them through the gate. They skipped over to me, holding hands. 
"Would you two like a bowl of milk?" I asked them.
Shyly they nodded yes, so I told Fatty to bring them each a full bowl from the milkmaid's shed. 
"The milk might have straw in it" he said, eyeing the girls disapprovingly.
Arms akimbo, I ordered him to bring the milk and make it snappy.
The girls giggled as they drank up their milk, then thanked me with unsteady curtsies and ran off, still holding hands. I felt like I was the one who had drunk up the refreshing milk.
For a while there was no more traffic going up or down the lane. I didn't get bored or discontented with just sitting there waiting for something good to come through my open gate. The waiting itself was comforting to me.
Finally an old man, riding a donkey, came into view. He seemed tired and distracted, so I walked out through the gate to greet him and invite him in for the night if he needed it.
His smile made my cheeks blush. But the mood was spoiled by the sullen porter, who chose this moment to rush out of his filthy room and yell at me: "What's to become of me, now that this cursed gate is wide open? I have no work and shall be turned away to starve!"
I assured him he would not be turned out of his dirty room; he could stay there until the day he died, beating old rope into caulking tow whenever he liked. 
"I'm sorry for such unseemly behavior" I apologized to the old man on the donkey. 
"No matter" he said serenely. "I will tell you the secret of your heart tonight, if you wish."
"Oh yes!" I said happily. "Please take my room for your rest tonight. I will have some bread and milk brought for you, and a fine green robe I will give to you."
So he told me the secret of my heart, which I had always known, and I loved him for telling it to me just as I knew it was. 
The next day, after embracing the old man and giving him a woolen cap for his pendulous ears, I told Fatty and Skinny I never wanted the gate to be closed again. Not ever.
"And no sheriff do I want" I told them also. "Nothing but peace will come through that gate or go out of it until time itself drops dead."
They bowed sullenly and went to beat some rope into tow.