Still life with Stupid

After a couple of perfect days, it appears that fall is falling on Duluth. The leaves are changing, there is a bite in the wind, and I have the urge to cook up a big pot of soup and snuggle up with a knitting project (or ten).

I don’t know if I am weird in this respect, but I have an odd habit of looking not only at scenery but also situations as a series of snapshots or still lives, I guess it is the cheap assed art aficionado in me. So a couple of days ago I truly had the feeling that I had stumbled into an exhibit intended not to bend your mind and extend your senses, but in fact, to make your head explode altogether.

It involved two fine upstanding young men on the bus conversing with each other while simultaneously listening to their I-Pods. It went something like this:

“SO, WHAT CLASSES DID YOU SIGN UP FOR?”
“WHAT?”
“SO, WHAT CLASSES DID YOU SIGN UP FOR??”
“WHAT??”
“I SIGNED UP FOR HISTORY OF THE VIETNAM WAR!”
“WHAT???”

After this enlightening conversation, I stepped off the bus and onto an elevator where I was surrounded by three people, all carrying on a different cell phone conversation.

And now for today’s poem…

A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

-- Stephen Crane