002: Continental Divide

~ James Wright, "Outside Fargo, North Dakota"

First, COMPILATION.

Right when a certain MCU show starring a certain Hiddles premieres is a really piss-poor time to come back to Twitter for someone that's at least two movies and two series behind. Always ahead of the curve, except when I'm behind it.

This is me reiterating my desire to have an Orson Welles biopic starring Jonathan Frakes. I figure if I repeat it enough it will eventually happen.

In keeping with my BRAND I have decided to remind you all that the next season of Blaseball is starting in about 35 minutes. I have heard rumors that the commissioner is doing a great job.

Ned Beatty died over the weekend. Behold the greatest five minutes ever put to film.

Did you ever get the feeling Jackson Browne could have had a way more aggressive edge to his songs?

Second, TIME TRAVEL.
Moved cross country this week. I have a number of places I call home, and until recently, I'd called Twin Falls, Idaho home for a few months of the year. Due to several intervening factors, I've since packed up an entire house and two pets, and moved that home to Enderlin, ND, a little town about 45 minutes out of Fargo. The unfortunate part of this is the drive itself: roughly sixteen hours of absolute nothingness, though about a third of that is punctuated with mountains and badlands. The drive went through West Yellowstone and about 20 miles of the park proper, along the Gallatin River, which flows on to form the Missouri. There's also a significant stretch adjacent to the Yellowstone River. I considered how long it might take a rubber duck to get from Yellowstone to the Gulf of Mexico. Napkin and Wikipedia math says that from the Gallatin headwaters, it's about 3651 miles to Louisiana.

My actual favorite part of the drive was crossing the border from Montana to North Dakota and being immediately greeted with a rusting fracking lot that was abandoned in the middle of construction. You can tell they got about two-thirds done and then just decided to up and leave. This is the primary export of western North Dakota: the corpses of mildly inconvenienced robber-baron infrastructure.

Third, CONSUMPTION.
I haven't been able to do much at all the past week that wasn't packing, moving, hyperventilating, or playing M:tG Arena (to stay sane), so I only have a little bit for this week.

- Regular Car Reviews on Youtube. Yep. I started with the Pacer review, which is some kind of pop culture... thing... that's compelling in a way I can't explain. It's what happens when you grab a couple Hunter S. Thompson-worshipping English grads and stick them knee-deep in car culture, with a side dose of Millennial non sequitur. It's car reviews for kids that grew up on Gran Turismo 3. And thank god, it doesn't have that same corporate copy-reading that MotorWeek has.
- Currently reading Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, and Louise Glück's Poems 1962-2012.
- You've probably heard Marvel's new Loki series is out, and I haven't seen it, and if you spoil it I will shank you.

Fourth, PROMOTION.
This is the part where I talk about my book, A Void and Cloudless Sky, which you can order here. I just got the first round of galleys emailed to me last night, and haven't so much as read the whole email yet. This one is the copy-editing round, to make sure formatting is correct, there are no spelling errors or punctuation marks lost, to fix typos, etc. I'm sure that, considering the format of some of the poems, I'll be making some comments there. That's just one of many things on the docket today, though, and I have a little time to sit down with that, I'm sure. Somewhere.

Finally, THE OUTRO.
Spent the first night in Idaho Falls, Idaho, about 40 miles away from the only (immediately) fatal nuclear reactor meltdown on US soil. Apparently a friend of mine once worked for the Navy at the same laboratory complex.

Small world.