Author: Vic Socotra

Letter to the Editor: Marlow’s Characters

(Vic Socotra conducts field research at the Hotel Roma, Taipei, Tawian, in the delirious year of 1980. God only knows who the photographer was, 42 years ago that alcohol-soaked afternoon. We were worried about a PRC invasion.) Editor’s Note: We get Letters to the Editor at Socotra House, and we publish them as they come […]

Absentee in Person

It seemed early, and you may have felt the same dysphoria we did when the announcement flew around last week. “Early Voting Begins in Piedmont!” As you are aware, Election Day 2022 is not until 08 November, or 40 days from this time zone on the Eastern Seaboard. For whatever reason, the Commonwealth government produced […]

Life & Island Times: Boom, Ian Went, Boom

Boom, boom, boom, boom Ian crushed Ft Myers right down Right off of its feet Ground it down into mincemeat Blew away boats and houses, bittersweet Boom, boom, boom, boom Ow, ow, ow, ow Mm, mm, mm Mm, mm, mm, mm Hated seeing its slow peninsula strut Wiping out everything door to door When it […]

Two Times

We could talk about the Big Storm down in Florida. Or maybe who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines up in the Baltic. Instead, we have often become a little hysterical over the arbitrary changes to our language. External Imposition! It is irritating since it comes and goes based on political need. You may have […]

Olongapo Outerwear

We mentioned the “downsizing” thing the other day. We are spending real cash to do it. Not ours, of course. It is the Chairman’s cash, which he can justify by figuring the real total cost of hiring help to get rid of stuff. That will open up space, anyway. And some of the objects emerging […]

Life & Island Times: Red Hotrod High Speed Driver

I’m a red hotrod high speed driver Screaming on down the road I’m a red hotrod high speed driver Screaming on down the road Goin a 120 down to Darien Trying to lighten my load I‘m a red hotrod high speed driver Runnin on down the state line I’m a red hotrod high speed driver […]

Life & Island Times: No People on the Streets

26 September 2022 Editor’s Note: Here’s a draft of something Marlow typed back in 2017. Then, the pudgy, little big rocket man of Asia was making disturbing noises about something existential. We talked about one of the Earth’s true Big Rocket Men making similar serious noises this week, the ones about “not bluffing” about a […]

Cause and Effect

The challenges to the staff who write The Daily are rising. You know the deal. It is possible that reference even to the most common of items or current topics could trip an algorithm some place with a lot of boxes. Make you pop up on some list of people who should get a visit […]

Commemorative Fly By

(We had a joyful aviation-related show this morning shortly after dawn. It amounted to a cross section of many of the local fliers in a Commemorative Capitol Wing fly-by at Refuge Farm. The humans were active yesterday in a precise flight, the old piston engines snarling and whining as throttles were adjusted to maintain course […]

Hard Copy America

(This image- a “photograph”- surfaced the other day from a tall stack discovered in the Chairman’s debris in the Barn. The image is on shiny paper, produced by a chemical reaction in a tank of noxious fluids. Research indicates the figures are Lenore and George Romney, left and center, and W.E. Reddig, who worked as […]