Peter Hunt Welch's Blog, page 2

The Tom Cruise Effect

Everybody forgets. Nietzsche was super into it. I forget why. Forgetting a celebrity name is common enough that they acronymed "tip of the tongue" to TOT for studying it. I have TOT moments for everything and everyone, but occasionally, something more severe happens, and for no reason I can come ...

Immuniday

Tomorrow is Leah's immuniday. It's what we're calling the two-week mark after the second vaccine. It one of the new words in the small personal language we inevitably created after months of being each other's sole companion. The cat became "Beeb" soon after her recovery. All meals are "One food, ...

The Steak Knife Incident

There were no steak knives. It's one of those things you don't notice until you notice. I glanced over at the dish rack. No steak knives there either. I searched my memory. No recent parties, obviously. No steak-knife donation drives. There was clearly a place for steak knives: Four little slots ...

A Better Place

This morning I felt something I couldn't identify. I was sitting in my yard in Brooklyn, wondering what to do about the ten-foot branch that fell on the walk during the hurricane. I drank my coffee and tried to decipher the feeling.
Oh, yes. Peaceful.
I have not felt this way in four years. I've ...

In His Own Words

Forget the media. Forget fact checks. Forget facts. If, and I know this is a lot to ask, we can trust video footage of Trump speaking, let's make an argument based solely on the words Trump has spoken, and stood by, on camera. I'll even avoid the more famous clips, except for this one:



Eleven ...

The Life and Times of Cerebus Hobbes Welch

Cerebus is named Hobbes for a week, because everybody who read the newspaper in the 90s has an instinctive urge to name cats Hobbes. At the end of that week, I remember I'd always meant to name my next pet Cerebus, so Hobbes is shunted to middle name status. There are few fictional characters more ...

A Very American Suicide

(This is the first ever guest entry on this website. I am making this exception because its author is unable to speak their mind publicly for fear of their safety. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are 100 percent in agreement with the views of this blog, its parent company, and its ...

The Entropy of Isolation: Why Time Got So Wibbly This Year

Einstein once said something like, "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it's only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it's two hours. That's relativity." According to lore, it was a quip he gave to his secretary to fend off reporters asking for explanations ...

The Market Value of Life

I come from a small town in Maine populated year round by mostly poor people. Every summer, it doubles in size to accommodate a bunch of mostly rich people. This is true of a lot of places in Maine.
At the beginning of the pandemic, that rich contingent came early. This is one of the many reasons ...

The Problem With Bill Gates

Out of all the billionaires I know, I only like Bill Gates. Steve Jobs was an awful person who deleted his employees' work for fun. Jeff Bezos is a systemic bully. Zuckerberg refuses to admit that no one should have the kind of power he has, so he tries to pretend he doesn't have it. Richard Branson ...