Barry Parham's Blog: The Mooncalf Communion, page 3

Whine and Cheese

(Charcuterie? Or saltines?)
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Let’s talk a bit about a favorite hobby of mine: eating. (Quick timesaving tip: If eating is not something you do, you’re dead, so stop reading this and go haunt something.)

Food, and mankind’s generally non-fatal preparation of it, has always fascinated me. How our post-Darwin post-knuckle-walking knuckleheads figured out what to eat, and how to prepare it without killing their cave-mates makes for good history. It’s amazing that our hunting and gath...

You Again?

(No, rabbit ears are not a snack)
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It occurs to me lately that I’m part of a transitional generation … and I‘m taking up two seats.

I grew up in the sixties, and now I’m back. In the sixties. My sixties. Surely there’s some kind of “Rocky Horror” time warp coupon I can conjure up, if I dress weirdly enough.

Collectively, the sixty-plus million of us who grew up in the sixties are referred to as the “Baby Boomers,” as though we were toddlers that exploded. Mostly, though, we di...

Calming Up

(More ways guys can screw up)
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Well, America, in case you missed it, the war is still on. That madcap, madhouse, “woke”-driven race downhill to Stupidity Equality continues. Here’s the latest how-could-you, don’t-you-dare decree:

If you tell someone to calm down, you are now a sexist.

Having not been invited to the meeting, I have to assume that this directive is directed at guys who are talking to non-guys, since it’s branded as “sexism.” But in these maladjusted times, when ...

Why Oysters Don’t Smile

(Notes on your blood shed)
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While reading a great book this past week, I learned something interesting. If you were to line up all your blood vessels and capillaries, end to end, you would die.

Actually, to be fair to the book, the ‘die’ part was my own conclusion. What the book actually states is that an average human body contains some twenty-five thousand miles of blood-hauling byways. What this means, of course, is that if you wanted to drive from your heel to your heart, you...

Generation Tweety

(How to name 70 million kids)
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This week, in-between bouts of trying to remember how many masks I’m supposed to wear, I learned a few things about the “Millennials” generation. For one thing, they got here too soon.

According to whoever decides these things, the Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996 … which is four or more years before the millennium even got here. The fact that they showed up early is doubly confusing because I’ve yet to meet anybody under the age of 40 wh...

Plot Holes

(Some side-effects of thinking)
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I’ve heard it said that “Art imitates Life.” That may be true, although I’ve met Art, and he doesn’t really seem the type.

And then sometimes, Life imitates Art … usually, badly. For example, some social media addicts have bought into the idea that if something online is “trending,” that automatically means it’s “important.” Or, if some comment or article or video or chronic stupidity is “going viral,” people have convinced themselves that, withou...

Astro-Physical Graffiti

(Life is but a screen)
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Okay, what’s wrong with the following sentence?

“Operating out of a trailer in rural Illinois, government researchers are experimenting to determine if our reality is really just a great big hologram.”

You’re right. That wasn’t a fair question. Practically everything is wrong with that sentence.

It can’t be in a trailer. In many Midwestern states, state law requires that all mobile homes maintain an active meth lab.“Government research” is mismanaged...

“Luke, I am my father.”

(Some heroes need to hurry)
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Quick pop quiz: in the long history of Hollywood heroes, name two wildly popular archaeologists.

Yeah, neither can I.

Let’s face it: when it comes to leading roles based on guys who dig stuff up, there’s only one. And no, it’s not Boris Karloff. The Mummy wasn’t the digger, he was the diggee.

I heard this past week that they … whoever “they” are this time … are making yet another Indiana Jones sequel. Given that the first film, Raiders of the Lo...

Junk Food Of The Gods

(Happy Birthday, Universe!)
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This week, as a public service, we’d like to begin by sharing the results of our latest research: surefire ways to start a fight. You know, in keeping with the spirit of Joe Biden’s big ‘unity’ push … or putsch.

Here’s a partial list:

(for scientists) Point to empirical proof that the universe was created when nothing exploded.(for atheists) Point to empirical proof that the universe is older than Dick Clark.(for Christians) Point to empirical proo...

Goosing Mother Goose

(I’m canceling canceling)
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Have you ever really paid attention to nursery rhymes? Or current events? Only to discover that far too often there’s not a whole lot of difference?

I’ve certainly mistaken the two before. I’ve read nursery rhymes that included incorrigible behavior and thought, “Didn’t somebody in Washington just do that?” And then I’ve read stories in the news about some self-serving celebrity’s self-serving conduct and thought, “Why doesn’t this rhyme?”

If you hav...