Humdrum Places - BlogFlock

🔭 The Record Essay - foofaraw

2026-02-17T17:00:16.000Z

Back when I had a record player. HSS-CRCK-POP!

“No!” my little sister shouts. It's her room and she's scared.

“Last one,” I lie, cross-legged on a Garfield-colored rag rug. I can't listen alone. Because of the nightmares.

The yellow-orange Fisher-Price record arm surfs vinyl. MONSTER SERIES, POWER RECORDS. All caps. Yellow label. The logo looks like The Hulk in a not-so-incredible Mummy costume.

We have three.

Drunk DRACULA, head tilted, blood dribbling; a WEREWOLF doing his best Jack Nicholson; and a constipated FRANKENSTEIN, although it's clearly the Creature. (“They must be idiots,” I think then. “Branding trumps accuracy,” I think now. “Thanks, Capitalism.”)

The two of us weathered near-universal monsters, snowstorms, helicopter crashes, dead parents, dying parents, corpse desecration, and drowning.

Seven minutes at a time. Over and over. Looped fever dreams.

My sister whispers, “Stop, please.”

I jam the dial from 33 to 45 RPM.

“Listen,” I say. “They're chipmunks.”

We laugh. I swap records.

“Last one,” she lies.

Back when I had an 8-track player. CLICK, CLACK, CLUNK!

Let It Be is the last album by The Beatles and my first 8-track. Well, technically, their second-to-last. And I just tossed aside a half-dozen other sandwich-sized hunks of plastic.

All through the day, I replay it between nuggets of Steppenwolf's Gold, Issac Hayes' Shaft, and Art Garfunkel's Fate For Breakfast. (I know what you're thinking: “Which of the six electrifying album covers of Art at the breakfast table was it?” Sorry, I must've blocked that out.)

Then bedtime. The chuckle of sitcoms in the living room muffles my music—as long as it’s quiet enough. Crawl over the rag rug—mine's blue and purple, the kind reserved for hippos, elephants, and marine animals in children's books—hold your breath through the analog clonks, and twist the volume to a hair above zilch.

Now crawl back in bed and drift off to George Harrison singing…

KHKRRHH! (Shit! Something's crushing me!)

KHKRRHH! (What's that noise? What's happening?)

KHKRRHH! (What's that thing over there? NO-NO-NO!)

A decade later, I learn about sleep paralysis and hypnopompic hallucinations. This answers most of my questions about The Beatles, the witch who lived in the wood grain of my closet doors, and those swirling lights that turned into Mutilor and Scorpius, robeasts from planet Doom. (You know, from Voltron. Or are they deros from The Shaver Mystery? Wait, is all this just a screen memory?)

These days I'm more of an Elvis guy.

Back when I had a boombox. ZHEE-VGN-VGN-ZHEEP!

That's the sound of the radio. It's also got a tape deck and a CD player.

Between birthday presents and piggybacking on Mom's Columbia House dozen-albums-for-a-penny-then-we-get-your-firstborn, I've collected a couple dozen jewel cases.

But I keep coming back to mixtapes. I can listen to any song I want, as long as they play it on the radio first.

Right now I'm mashing ⏩︎ and ⏯︎, looking for The Prodigy's “Breathe.” It's somewhere after Our Lady Peace's “Superman's Dead” and right before Green Day's “Basket Case.”

Context: I'm in middle school and just started lifting weights.

Over-sharing: a weight. A belt weight, to be precise, like for diving, attached to my genitals with medical tape. (Let's ⏸ here and say, unequivocally, that this is dangerous. And doesn't work.) Short story long, the weight slips, bounces off the boombox, and now the CD player lid won't stay shut.

Not my first rodeo, but I don't have a spare copy of Jack London's “The Sea Wolf,” which is the perfect weight for holding down the lid at Mom's house. The closest thing at Dad's is a red, illustrated children's bible—the only bible in the house, actually.

Nope, too light.

I try the weight. It works, but leaves scratch marks where the moon don't shine.

Back when I had a CD player. VING-VING-VRIHRING-ING!

The end is nigh. Not Y2K, though that's nigh, too. The local alternative radio station, 107.9 The End, is changing formats. On their last day, they play R.E.M.'s “It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” over and over again. (They did this when they started, too, but I didn't know that. I do know R.E.M.'s Monster summons a dope dragon on the Playstation game “Monster Rancher.”)

I only tune in a few minutes. I'm distracted.

You guessed it, I'm in love.

Her name is DragonRealms. She's a MUD—Multi-User Dungeon—and she's a text-based, open fantasy world, like Zork, but with D&D rules.

A month later, I meet a girl. (On DragonRealms, duh.) She invites me to an AOL chat room where we roleplay we're in a goth club and she cyber kisses me. I promptly raid the neighbors' mailboxes and swipe enough free AOL trial discs to outlast the Apocalypse.

Evenings pass as the answering machine picks up calls from pollsters and telemarketers who want to know if we'd be more likely to vote for Al Gore if he switched long-distance carriers.

One evening, I lose my cyber virginity. All while listening to a CD player with headphones around my neck so I can hear if Mom or my sister comes downstairs. Probably a Sony Walkman with Dynamic Bass Boost. Winamp is lame. I need to be mobile.

I start downloading music on this new thing called Napster and burning CD-Rs. I even make a few bucks selling bootlegs in high school. (Thanks Jason!)

One evening, my cyber girlfriend turns me into a vampire. Then she dumps me for a werewolf or something.

The world is over, but life goes on. I keep burning CDs until Columbia House shows up to collect.

—Nicholas De Marino

Glimmering fragments - The Independent Variable

2026-02-14T17:00:37.000Z

by Grigory Lukin

🎙️ David Roe - foofaraw

2026-02-13T17:00:50.000Z

Read David’s story, Par for the course, on Foofaraw now!

Do you think DiAngelo ever manages to make it off traffic duty in Ivory Bluffs?

In the universe I’ve created, which is a barely exaggerated version of our own world, DiAngelo will never make it off traffic duty. Detective Pound is a bigoted buffoon and will therefore have a long and illustrious career with the Ivory Bluffs PD. Detective DiAngelo is a reasonable, evidence-based person, and will therefore find herself permanently benched. If DiAngelo were a real person, I would strongly urge her to consider any other conceivable career.

If this story were to continue, would the death eventually be ruled death by golf ball or is Hopkins doomed to get wrapped up in the legal system?

Hopkins' fate is inextricably linked to DiAngelo’s. Both are falsely accused of something; Hopkins’ false accusation is, of course, much more serious, but DiAngelo is likewise accused of being emotional and incompetent, which is clearly untrue. In this world, both accusations will stick, and the very absurdity of the accusations will make them all the stickier. Ivory Bluffs is a clown show from the Mayor’s office down, and clowns with power can be the most dangerous people imaginable.

Does a rotten apple spoil a bunch? Can a spoiled bunch ever be fixed?

Absolutely, and it all has to do with training and acculturation. In the police example, imagine a fresh-faced rookie who notices his colleague is on the take and performs his job with casual cruelty. A morally compromised person will gleefully take this as permission to become their worst selves. But even a righteous person will feel themselves degraded over time; swimming upstream is exhausting, and the temptation to grab one’s own share of the spoils can be overwhelming.

Can it be fixed? Yes! But it requires both external pressure and a careful selection of leadership. It also calls for a certain ruthlessness—usually, large swaths of an organization must be terminated. Policies can be altered swiftly, but changing a culture takes tremendous time, effort, and a willingness to be hated.

Do you have any personal experience with bigoted police officers?

I am a heterosexual white man in Canada, a privilege that has shielded me from any negative experiences with the police, bigoted or otherwise. However, from a subject matter standpoint, institutional corruption always fascinates me as a plot driver. It creates interesting stakes and obstacles, and sets the scene for betrayals and twists. And from a comedic standpoint, I find the funniest characters are those who are both utterly confident and absolutely wrong about everything. This story combines both of these elements.

Since you made mention of the Cardinals, are you a Cardinals fan?

I am going to be honest: I may be the least sports-aware person on the planet. My wife and I are big trivia fans, and we’re pretty good, but we always need a sports expert on our team because we’re stumped by even the most basic questions. I figured our hero, Detective Pound, would be a big football guy, which is the sole reason the Cardinals make an appearance. This story did not require much research, with one exception: “Google, what is Arizona’s football team?”

Have you seen the show Deli Boys? It opens with an assassin killing an important character with a pinpoint-accurate drive.

I have not seen that show, but it sounds hilarious! I must watch it. I recall an episode of Six Feet Under, which had a framing device at the beginning of each episode where some random person would die and then end up in the main characters’ funeral home. One episode began with a character being killed by an errant golf ball to the head. No doubt this was rattling around in my brain as I wrote this story.

What book are you reading right now?

I always have two books on the go, one fiction and one non-fiction, so please forgive the double answer. My current fiction book is Faithful Place by Tana French. It’s a murder mystery set in Ireland, featuring much more competent police officers than Detective Pound. It’s part of a series called The Dublin Murder Squad. I’m always a bit reluctant to commit to a series like this, because I prefer variety and like to read as many different authors and stories as possible. But I adore French and I’m enjoying this moody Irish mystery immensely.

The non-fiction is Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. It’s about the difficulty of undertaking big, much-needed infrastructure projects in America these days due to well-meaning but ultimately self-defeating regulations. They call for “a liberalism that builds,” specifically, a liberalism that can build the future: more (clean) energy, more transit, more housing. Abundance, in short. So, I suppose my current reading list reflects the interests illustrated in “Par for the Course”: murder and broken institutions.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank my endlessly talented friends in my writer’s group, “Up, Down, Left, Write.” We’re an international band of misfits and malcontents, ranging from newer writers all the way to published novelists and award winners. “Par for the Course” was reviewed and helped along by UDLW, for which I am eternally grateful. And a word of advice for all the writers out there: find a great writing community! They will sharpen your craft, hold you accountable to deadlines, and offer encouragement after that thousandth rejection letter.

Thanks to David for chatting with us about rotten apples and the terrible state of our world right now...

⛳ Par for the course - foofaraw

2026-02-12T19:41:44.000Z

The Ivory Bluffs Police Station thrusts into the clear blue sky, white and ramrod straight, gleaming under the Arizona sun. I always stand a little taller walking up these steps. At home, I’m just another schlub—mowing the lawn, folding the laundry, sweating over the grill. But here, I don’t carry groceries. I carry a gun and a badge.

I check in with the guys coming off the night shift, see what the city’s troublemakers have been up to since the sun went down. Sounds like nothing special, just a couple of regulars drying out in the drunk tank, so we talk football instead. Fucking Cardinals, they shit the bed again last night. What’s a guy gotta do to get a winning season?

Suffering through a play-by-play of my team’s defeat leaves me cranky by the time I reach my desk, so I stare daggers at DiAngelo, my partner. She’s new to Ivory Bluffs PD, transferred from somewhere in California. One of the “Sans,” I think—who knows which, and frankly, who cares. They stuck her with me since the Pinkos at Internal Affairs put my real partner on paid leave for “brutality.” DiAngelo’s a real ballbuster, a bit of a bleeding heart, and probably a lesbian.

“Mornin’,” I grumble.

“Good morning,” she says curtly, eyes never leaving her computer screen. She doesn’t watch football, doesn’t even have cable. We never have anything to talk about, no common thread. These damned Gen Z’ers, they probably just sit around all day watching TikToks about dancing trans people.

As soon as my chair creaks beneath the weight of my rock-hard ass, my desk phone rings. “Sergeant Pound speaking.” I listen to the crackling voice on the other end and slam the phone back in its cradle. “Saddle up, DiAngelo—it’s go time. We just caught a murder.”

We pile into the cruiser and tear out, sirens blaring. DiAngelo sure isn’t one for chitchat. She’s silent the whole drive, sipping from her thermos. I suspect it’s some sort of oat milk and uterine tea concoction.

I know we’ve arrived once we pass the Barry Goldwater Golf Course, a green aberration in the endless red wastes. The victim’s house is on Squaw Creek Lane, right off the seventh hole. It’s a wealthy neighborhood: grand houses, manicured gardens, and Range Rover SUVs. Folks around here are soft, too rich for their own good. They sure ain’t used to dead bodies—no doubt they’re already bitching up a storm. Chief’ll be ridin’ me on this one.

Two patrol cars are already on the scene. “What do we got, Officer?” I ask one of the uniforms.

The officer gestures at a man splayed out on the front lawn of a three-story McMansion. “Victim is Sheldon McGillicuddy, age fifty-seven. He’s the homeowner. No witnesses.”

I saunter over to the corpse. McGillicuddy is starfished on the grass, wearing sweatpants, a white t-shirt, and a bathrobe. “Christ almighty,” I say, lowering my aviators. “What do you make of this, DiAngelo?”

She bends over for a closer look, and I inspect her toned posterior. Not bad. Must be all that Zumba or Jazzercise or whatever the kids are doing these days.

“There’s bruising on his right temple,” she says. “Looks like blunt force trauma.”

I squint through the morning rays. “Good eye, Detective. These rich-types are always hiring illegals to pretty up their yards. I’m thinking some bad hombre looking for a quick score beaned him with a shovel.”

She frowns. “The contusion looks too small for that.”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re always defending the illegals,” I say. “Is DiAngelo a Mexican name or something?”

She mumbles something about Italy, but I don’t have time for her globalist claptrap. “Officer!” I shout, waving at the uniform. “Secure a ten-block radius and stop anyone who looks like they came from one of those Mexican countries.”

“All due respect, Sergeant, I think that’s premature,” DiAngelo says. “We should search the scene first.”

“By all means, Detective, let’s waste our time while cartel gangsters run rampant through our town!”

DiAngelo ignores me and scans the area. She zeroes in on something a few yards from the body and drops to one knee, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. She plucks a small, white object from the grass and holds it aloft.

“It’s a golf ball,” she announces.

“I can see that.”

Artwork by Tony Tran

“I think it’s pretty obvious what happened here.”

“Agreed,” I say, placing my hands on my hips. “Not Mexicans after all.”

“Right.”

“Must be the Indians.”

DiAngelo’s jaw drops. “What?”

“Yeah. This golf course was built on some old burial ground. The Indians have been whining about it for ages. They must have murdered our friend here and left the golf ball as a message.” I click my tongue. “Sick bastards.”

“No, Sergeant,” DiAngelo says, a distinctly snowflake exasperation bleeding into her voice. She points behind the house where the rolling hills of the fairway peek above a privacy fence. “I think a stray ball hit Mr. McGillicuddy while he was coming out to get his newspaper.”

I’m barely listening. “Interesting,” I murmur as I study the verdant grass. “On second thought, it must have been those environmentalists who’re always blabbing on about the golf course for suckin’ up all the water.” I hail the uniform again. “Officer! What was the name of that Black fella y’all arrested at the golf protests last month?”

“Hopkins,” he says. “He’s that Commie professor down at the university, always riling up the students.”

“Put out a fresh warrant for his arrest. I got some questions for him.”

We hang around while CSI performs their dog-and-pony show. DiAngelo wanders off, leaning against our car, arms folded. Stewing, no doubt, over my natural instincts and lightning-quick deductions. She’s yet to crack a case since her transfer.

My phone rings. “Pound.”

“Sergeant, it’s Mayor Hardman. I just wanted to thank you for the swift arrest in this case. Mr. McGillicuddy was a close friend and a major donor to my campaign. If you ever need a favor, just let me know.”

“Well, sir, any chance you could get my partner reinstated? Detective Payne.”

There’s a pause on the line. “Payne... is he the one who tased that nursing mother?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“And maybe get DiAngelo reassigned to traffic? She’s a bit emotional. Doesn’t seem like detective material.”

“Consider it done.”

I hang up and light a well-deserved cigar. Another notch in my belt, another scumbag off the streets. A smile spreads across my lips as I exhale a steady stream of smoke. It just goes to show, even in today’s America, hard work still pays off.

David Roe lives and works in beautiful Nova Scotia, Canada. He has a lifelong passion for writing, literature, and history, a passion that culminated in a rarely consulted Master of Arts degree. These days, he can usually be found writing by the seashore and thinking thoughts of great importance. His work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine and Writer’s Playground.

🫠 Ai Weiwei on China, the West and shrinking space for dissent - The Independent Variable

2026-02-11T17:13:52.000Z

Reuters

In China, censorship relates to red lines. You cannot cross some red lines. It’s about state policy and discussions (about) state power. It’s also related to what they would call minority or religious issues, which can be very sensitive, so people would not touch those topics. If touched, it could cause you different levels of damage. But in the West, especially now, you also see censorship everywhere— not necessarily just from the state but from companies, from institutions, from schools or museums.

Anything by or about Ai Weiwei (艾未未) is worth a read. He’s dynamic and nuanced, and I don’t always agree with his views, but his passion, compassion, and willingness to speak truth to power are unimpeachable.

A quick reminder, he’s the artist who dropped a 2,000-year-old urn in a series of black and white photos in the '90s.

Historically speaking, iconoclasm is pretty ugly and makes for some craven, manipulative bedfellows, but those urn drop images are still important and potent today.

🇭🇰 Jimmy Lai: Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon gets 20 years' jail under national security law - The Independent Variable

2026-02-11T17:13:23.000Z

BBC

Meanwhile, in China…

This isn’t a “count your blessings” moment. It’s a preview.

Fun FAKE NEWS Fact: During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln curbed freedom of speech by suspending habeaus corpus.

🧸 Chicago Cubs spring training preview: Players feel primed to contend after banner offseason - The Independent Variable

2026-02-11T02:16:13.000Z

Athletic

The last thing I need right now is hope in the Cubs chances…

🤖 As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts - The Independent Variable

2026-02-11T00:47:26.000Z

Reuters

The device had already been on the market for about three years. Until then, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had received unconfirmed reports of seven instances in which the device malfunctioned and another report of a patient injury. Since AI was added to the device, the FDA has received unconfirmed reports of at least 100 malfunctions and adverse events.

Medical devices, including those used in surgeries and critical monitoring should never have AI because we know AI hallucinates and will always make avoidable mistakes. It may be useful for research and diagnosis (or secondary monitoring) where a human has time to review and confirm, but when someone’s life is on the line, we don’t need to add additional variables that might ignore critical information or take circuitous routes for no good reason, compounding the potential risk of human error that already exists—which AI is not reducing.

The Weapons of World War IV - foofaraw

2026-02-10T17:00:57.000Z

I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones!”
—Albert Einstein

Those goddamn aliens ruined everything. We had everything lined up, from artillery and nukes to a few experimental weapons that would’ve made one hell of a bang, if nothing else. Sure, the other guys had their own weapons and stratagems, but that’s what made war fun—a chance to prove your mettle, your glory, your ingenuity—casualties be damned.

And then, the moment the first nuke launched, those damn greys showed up and got their stubby little fingers into our business. Just like that, no war ever again.

“Violent self-destructive actions are hereby banned,” they said. “We assume conservatorship of your planet.” That’s all they told us. There were no gifts of alien technology or cold fusion, no fun or wacky or creative ways to blow up our enemies. Bunch of gray-skinned cowards…

It drove our scientists nuts: ever since that intervention, all our weapons stopped working. It makes no sense. Guns won’t fire at all—not even cannons—but you can still shoot fireworks. Except that any fireworks that happen to fly in the direction of someone’s face (or, say, a major city) freeze in mid-air and disappear. Even slingshots won’t work anymore! Hell, you can’t even have a good old-fashioned snowball fight because those damn interlopers view that as violence, too.

We’ve tried so many things—oh, how we’ve tried. Violent speech is allowed. Face-slapping isn’t. (The hand just freezes an inch away from the face.) Parents can’t spank their children. The S&M crowd got particularly depressed because even consensual violence is off-limits. Gently flicking someone on the forehead is allowed. Strong flicking gets you frozen in place. Bombs won’t detonate, regardless of how you build them; even poisons won’t work. And if you only knew what they did to all our beautiful, precious nuclear stockpiles… That, in particular, just breaks my heart.

Those damn aliens treat us as if we were children, and what’s worse, the civilians are loving it! “No more wars!” they chant. “Maybe we can all get along after all,” they sing at all their hippie get-togethers. Iran and Iraq are having peace and reconciliation meetings. Russians and Ukrainians are still scowling and shouting, but they can’t even so much as shove each other.

A bunch of women are suddenly running for office, now that they don’t have to worry about violence of any kind. And a whole lot of men are going back to school, studying physics, chemistry, and whatever else might help us find a loophole in these nanny-state rules that banned all violence.

But little do they know… It took a lot of research; it took a lot of funding; it took more embarrassing experiments than I care to admit, but we did it. By god, we finally did it. We found a loophole that those damn peaceniks from outer space did not think to cover, and tomorrow, at the break of dawn, our paratroopers will land in key enemy capitals, and we will win this new and final war, this long-awaited, glorious World War IV.

The generals and admirals of eons past would laugh at us if they could see our preparations, our extensive training, the new fighting style we had to develop, but that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is victory, and victory shall be ours. The final world war will be fought with pillows. Our good ol’ ingenuity, combined with the heaviest, fluffiest pillows ever made, will ensure victory. They’ll never see it coming, and when we pillow-fight them all into submission, we shall prevail at last.

Grigory Lukin (rhymes with "story" and "win") is an award-winning filmmaker and an internationally published author of fiction and nonfiction. He’s also a vagabond with three passports and far too much free time. His writing has appeared in Phano, Black Cat Weekly, and multiple anthologies. He enjoys pastries, museums, and hiking from Mexico to Canada. His secret lair is in Montreal. Find him at www.linktr.ee/grigorylukin

🤖 From Chatbots to Dice Rolls: Researchers Use D&D to Test AI’s Long-term Decision-making Abilities - The Independent Variable

2026-02-09T20:30:27.000Z

UCSD

Of course they’re using bots to play D&D. Who wants to have fun with their own imagination? We’re only on this rock to track metrics, increase productivity, and shape our blobby flesh into copyrighted bionic cogs.

Key phrase in the article: “The simulations focused on combat: players battling monsters as part of their D&D campaign.”

So, you just made a “Diablo” simulator?

Why not just scrape “Tomb of Horrors” and call it a day? Or, better yet, base an entire campaign on that “Sacred Geometry” feat from Pathfinder.

Dollars to princess doughnuts, whoever designed this simulation is no fun to play D&D with.

Remember “Tucker’s Kobolds”? Clearly you missed the point.

D&D mean many things to many people. Not all of it’s optimizing glass cannons and exploiting corner cases. For the love of Carl, please stop trying to make everything I love part of The Matrix!

Even those bots realized you need to spice things up with roleplay. That’s the, you know, play part of the word.

Weekend Edition Vol.090 - foofaraw

2026-02-08T21:31:00.000Z

Quick reminder our second novelette came out on the first! Go get it! Or you'll have bad luck for seven years.

Faceless by Ellie Montemayor

a 44-page print novelette

foofarawfoofaraw

This weeks story from Gio Clairval captures the feeling of self-isolation—whether due to living a solitary life of an artist, or I'm sure how some people felt throughout COVID:

📷 Filbert

by Gio Clairval

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We talked to Gio about photography, depression, and self-isloation:

🎙️ Gio Clairval

An interview with the author of Filbert

foofarawfoofaraw

This months poem is a fun piece of fiction mixed with prose poetry from Frank Spiro:

🕴️ Man is a good man

by Frank Spiro

foofarawfoofaraw

And Nick returned with something a bit different than his usual ADHD column:

🔭 Good AMERICAN News 3

by Nicholas De Marino

foofarawfoofaraw

Nick also did a little fun little subscriber-only column over on TIV, annotating the opening of Walden with links from across the vast interwebs:

Walden: Annotated

Directed by Nicholas De Marino

The Independent VariableNicholas De Marino

Week 06—2026 - The Independent Variable

2026-02-08T20:17:24.000Z

When you're reading this, you may already know what has happened at the Super Bowl on Sunday. Hopefully, the Patriots lose and ICE doesn't do anything idiotic like try to detain Bad Bunny—or anyone at the game... but they are just crazy enough to try some stupid shit like that...

February's LLoN went out right on time on the first—although we will probably shift to the first Saturday of every month moving forward. It's a depressing one, but an important one.

February 2026

Here is the Little Letter of Nonsense for February! Available to paid subscribers as a PDF and/or in print, delivered straight to your mailbox.

The Independent VariableKevin Kortum

We also launched a new subscriber-only monthly column, Semi-Sequitur, from my friend Nick. It's a really fun take on sharing links, as he annotates public domain works with links to all sorts of things.

Walden: Annotated

Directed by Nicholas De Marino

The Independent VariableNicholas De Marino

When it came to actual linkage, we of course focused on the only thing that really matters right now and that’s what ICE is doing in Minnesota. Luckily, they are pulling agents from MN, but the job isn't done—we still need to keep making our voices heard. Just because they vacate one place, doesn't mean it won't continue elsewhere.

This first link, featuring Aliya Rahman’s testimony, is heartbreaking. To think any human being is being treated like this should terrify all Americans.

🏛️ The testimony of Aliya Rahman

0:00 /6:45 1× It’s absolutely devastating to watch this. I’d love to echo the sentiment I’ve seen on social media and say, “how could anyone watch this and not be devastated?” But I’ve become too jaded. The people doing and celebrating this terrible shit

The Independent VariableKevin Kortum

🧑‍⚖️ Top Minnesota prosecutor says ICE cases are sidelining ‘pressing priorities’

Politico Actual criminals are absolutely loving what’s happening right now. ICE isn’t going after the (extremely small population of) undocumented immigrants that are in gangs because those people would actually fight back and have criminal attorneys on retainer and the idiot goons of ICE want nothing to do

The Independent VariableKevin Kortum

🔫 Mexican Cartels Overwhelm Police With Ammunition Made for the U.S. Military

NY Times Government doesn’t want undocumented immigrants in the country, but they are more than happy to sell non-citizen cartel members high caliber ammunition.

The Independent VariableKevin Kortum

✊ Resist and Unsubscribe

Link Good list/resource for things you can do around various giant conglomerates who have influence over the administration and/or are enablers of ICE. I think my Apple One subscription is the only place I’m still subscribed—and I had a lifelong vendetta against FedEx—but Spotify is

The Independent VariableKevin Kortum

And to end things on a lighter note, the trailer for the latest show from Steve Conrad, who made two of the most underrated shows of the last decade in Patriot and, my personal favorite, Perpetual Grace Ltd.

📺 DTF St. Louis (Trailer)

This is one to keep an eye on when it premiers March 1 on HBO. It stars Jason Bateman, David Harbour, and Linda Cardellini, but more importantly, it comes from writer and creator, Steve Conrad who is also the mind behind the fantastic Patriot as well as my favorite Perpetual

The Independent VariableKevin Kortum

🕴️ Man is a good man - foofaraw

2026-02-08T20:01:20.000Z

Man is a good man.
Calls his parents once a week.
Let a stranger use his metrocard.
Got his doorman a gift card to Macys.
He isn’t even rich.
But he’s comfortable.
Gives to charities he believes in.
On the board of a not-for-profit. A good one too.
Volunteers at a braille library.
When he talks to you you have his full attention.

If that’s not enough he also set up a little free library.
Treats his lover like a god.
His children like planets.
He lets his kid sneeze into his hand and doesn’t find it gross. Seriously.
Every so often he calls them in sick to school.
Do a day just for them. Dadsgiving.
Once he took them to a baseball game.
Caught a home run. Gave it to his youngest.
Who gave it to a crying baby.
He taught them right.
Posted about it on his Instagram.
Look. Funny caption.
He has friends.
They tag him in pictures.
Went to the beach.
Did a hangout. It was effortlessly casual.
People smile around him. They seem proud.
He plays a small instrument.
There’s a video.
He plays it very well.
His voice is idiosyncratic.
It’s like that because he’s so vulnerable.
Have to respect that.
He won an award at his job.
Which is teacher.
He could’ve been an astronaut.
He just finds teaching to be more gratifying.
6th grade English.
Man starts to get tired.
Usually once a year.
Sometimes in April.
Sometimes in August.

Man takes a drive.
North.
Maps out the spots he’s already been to.
Careful not to do a line.
Likes to imagine someone somewhere. In front of a map. FBI on their hat.
They’re on to him. But they’re stumped.
Can’t make out a discernable pattern.
He smiles to himself in the car. He drives faster.

He stops at a sign.
Welcome to Connecticut.
Still 30 minutes out. Can’t be too safe.
Takes the bag out of his trunk.
Takes the bag out of the bag.
Unfurls the white coat.
The stitching and name tag match the group employee photo on the homepage.
He did it himself.
Sometimes he’ll check the hospital complaints on Google.
Sometimes they’ll write about him.
When it’s late at night he’ll read them.
Relive it. Think about it from their perspective. A little pick me up.
Those nights he’ll sleep well.

Back in the car now.
Feels the anticipation.
It’s scary. In a good way.
Takes the right into the hospital parking lot.
Parks close to the stairwell.
Gets into character. Shakes it out. Clears his throat. Practices the nod.
Places the stethoscope around his neck.
Game time.

Knows where to go. Did his research.
Walks into the lobby.
Avoids eye contact.
Glances at the welcome desk.
Gives the practiced nod.
Casual. Perfect.
No one was paying attention. Even better.
Makes his way to the elevators.
Presses up button.
Scared of getting caught.
That’s part of the fun.
Nobody stops him.
Up to the 5th floor.
The ICU.

Knows how to spot them.
The families waiting for news.
The ones without hope.
Finds a group.
An old man and two women under 30.
Easy to tell. Mother is missing.
Easy to tell. They’ve been here for days.
Easy to tell. It’s bad.
Cha-ching.
Puts on his sternest face.
He tells himself in his head: Man is a doctor.
Makes himself a coffee.
Approaches the family.

As he gets close they notice him.
They sit up at attention.
Despite their best efforts there’s hope in their eyes.
The old man speaks first:
“Yes? Is there an update on Denise Feingold?”
What a gift. Given the name.
“Yes sir. Perhaps we could find a room to talk in.”

The man leads them to a private waiting room.
Door isn’t locked.
They sit down.
They’re shaking.
So is he. He bites his lower lip.
Can’t help but smile. He lives in this moment.
He finally speaks:
“Wonderful news, Denise is going to make a full recovery.”
The family is silent. They don’t know what to say.
The air in the room lightens. The weight lifts.
The man clenches his teeth. Remember this. This is the feeling.
“But… what about the bleeding?”
“It’s stopped.”
“I thought that a full recovery wasn’t possible?”
“It’s a miracle.”
The family collapses into tears.
Happy, happy, happy.
They’ve been touched by God.
The man’s face is red.
He wants to scream with laughter.
He’s touched something.
Set him ablaze.
He’s about to burst.
“Can we see her?”
“In a few minutes. She needs her rest.”
“Of course, of course.”
He needs to get out of there. He can’t hold it in much longer.
“If you’d excuse me, I have to tell a patient they have rectal cancer.”
Too much information. Doesn’t matter. Family isn’t listening.
They’re crying. They’re hugging. They’re more relieved than they’ve ever been.
He gets up and leaves in a single motion.
They’d find that suspicious later.

He’s spilling.
He speed walks to the elevator.
He holds the down button.
He walks halfway through the lobby. Then he runs.
Up the stairs.
Starts his car.
He’s laughing uncontrollably.
He makes sure to drive responsibly in the garage.
Like a doctor.
Pays his parking.
Then he floors it. Speeds away.
He feels it.
From his fingers to his heart.
Alive, alive, alive.
He’s crying now.
The look on their faces.
He gave that.
Like he’d pants’d the veil of grief.
By now they’d be suspicious.
Soon they’d know.
They’d feel the plummet.
“Why? Who would do that?”
I would. I did.
He’s hard now.

Man saw Moneyball.
In theaters and since. Thinks about it often.
Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Underrated role.
Man is a good man, in the aggregate.
He has more than enough good.
What’s a little something for him?
Remember Dadsgiving?
He deserves.
Nothing wrong with that.
He pulls over at a gas station.
He strips off his jacket. Stuffs it in a bag. Stuffs it in another bag.
Throws it in the trunk.
Takes a nonsensical way home. Doesn’t follow his GPS.
He is ungovernable.

He’ll open the door to his children’s room when he gets home.
They sleep in the same room.
It’s not dark.
They fall asleep to soft pink stars lightly projected across the room.
They’re sleeping soundly.
They won’t wake.
He’ll smile at them from the doorway.
Nothing in his head.
He knows peace.
Released from Samsara.
He will not be reborn.

—Frank Spiro

🔫 Mexican Cartels Overwhelm Police With Ammunition Made for the U.S. Military - The Independent Variable

2026-02-07T18:29:27.000Z

NY Times

Government doesn’t want undocumented immigrants in the country, but they are more than happy to sell non-citizen cartel members high caliber ammunition.

Walden: Annotated - The Independent Variable

2026-02-07T17:00:19.000Z

Semi-Sequiturs is our newest subscriber-only monthly column from Nicholas De Marino. We have two other monthly columnists coming soon to join Semi-Sequiturs and the Little Letter of Nonsense.

🎙️ Gio Clairval - foofaraw

2026-02-06T17:00:52.000Z

Read Gio's story, Filbert, on Foofaraw now!

Is this story a metaphor for depression?

It can be read that way but, to me, Filbert is the seduction of retreat: the part of the self that offers relief through isolation, and asks for a bigger and bigger share of your life in exchange. The light in the story is not “happiness” so much as exposure: other people, expectations, noise, being perceived. Darkness is safety, and it is also a slow erasure.

I like metaphors that don’t lock onto one diagnosis. Readers have mapped depression, anxiety, burnout, neurodivergence, grief, and even first love onto Filbert, and I think the story has room for all of those readings.

If yes, what’s your experience with depression?

I’ve never experienced clinical depression. I’m interested in withdrawal as a human impulse.

What is your experience with photography?

Mostly my smartphone. Photography, for me, is less about gear and more about attention: deciding what deserves to be seen, and what can stay outside the frame.

Do you own or have you ever used a Leica?

My father owned one, and I grew up with the myth of it in the house. My own relationship to Leica is partly real and partly talismanic: the object as permission to take your seeing seriously.

Is it worth it?

For pure image-per-dollar, probably not. For the tactile ritual, the patience it demands, and the feeling that you’re making photographs on purpose (not just capturing), it can be.

Do you think Filbert had evil intentions or was the end of the story just the result of the protagonist spending time with Filbert?

I don’t read Filbert as evil. I read Filbert as need. He is the protagonist’s own pull toward vanishing, externalized into a figure she can love and bargain with.

If there’s a villain in the room, it’s the bargain itself: “I’ll keep the light away forever.” That promise slowly changes what “being you” means.

What's one of your recent favorite short stories?

In 2024, I was especially impressed by “The Ghosts of Wannsee” by Lauren Groff.

What book are you reading right now?

I’m reading Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume III, and I love how intensely the author observes the world. The prose is calm and plainspoken, and it keeps narrowing its focus until ordinary objects and ordinary time become strange. Even with that everyday texture, it builds a quiet suspense that makes me keep turning pages.

My favorite among my stories published in 2025 is “Watercode” NonBinary Review #41: Solarpunk

In a future where oceans have become living archives, a data-diver finds the scattered song of a banned empathy AI, and chooses to hide it inside a reef that can let it bloom quietly, beyond corporate extraction.

Thanks to Gio for chatting with us about photography and the human condition!

⚽️ Ronaldo to boycott 2nd Al Nassr game in protest of PIF - The Independent Variable

2026-02-06T04:23:31.000Z

ESPN

Sources told ESPN that Ronaldo tried to block the transfer of French star Karim Benzema from Al Ittihad to Al Hilal on Monday because he felt the move was unfair and indicated that PIF wanted to pave the way for Al Hilal to win the title.

Who would’ve thought the fake soccer league that controls the purse strings of every team and overpaid a bunch of old players would do things “unfairly?” Not to mention Ronaldo’s team is stacked still with João Felix, Kingsley Coman, and Sadio Mané—plus a couple young Brazilians.

🧑‍⚖️ Top Minnesota prosecutor says ICE cases are sidelining ‘pressing priorities’ - The Independent Variable

2026-02-06T04:15:50.000Z

Politico

Actual criminals are absolutely loving what’s happening right now. ICE isn’t going after the (extremely small population of) undocumented immigrants that are in gangs because those people would actually fight back and have criminal attorneys on retainer and the idiot goons of ICE want nothing to do with that. Instead they go after people with disabilities, children, and people at court houses “doing it the right way” so they can hit their outrageous quotas. Not only that, local police and prosecutors are now jammed up with all of this nonsense and dedicating less time to going after and building cases against actual criminals and fraud.

📷 Filbert - foofaraw

2026-02-05T17:00:59.000Z

The first time I saw Filbert, I was adjusting the settings on Papa’s old Leica. He’d finally trusted me with that nifty camera—it was like being handed the keys to a kingdom. That Sunday, my fifteenth birthday, I climbed higher than usual to capture the valley as it stirred beneath rollers of mist. I’d send my best pic to the professor. Maybe she’d pick me for the exhibition next Friday.

At school, I existed in the margins: the girl who spoke about obscure things, who noticed patterns others missed. A ghost in reverse, visible to everyone, understood by no one. Here, through the lens, the world sharpened; my vision made real, a part of me normal people might grasp. I existed for everyone when I held a camera.

Then I saw him though the lense.

In a pocket of shadow under a hazel shrub.

Just a flicker at first, a ripple in the dark. A boy, no taller than my hand, standing on a flat stone, watching me with too much awareness for something so small. He looked like a human. Except for his edges, blurred like a photograph in motion—like he wasn’t entirely there. His tiny face tilted up and I caught the glint of dark eyes staring at me with curiosity, as though I were the oddity, not him.

The moment I pushed the branches aside and sunlight touched him, he vanished—as if he couldn’t exist in the light.

I should have left it at that. Pretend I imagined it. But when I started down the mountain, he followed. No footsteps, no sound—just flickers in the corners of my vision, slipping from shadow to shadow. When the sun went down, he stepped into the moonlight. I framed him again: a blurred silhouette, wavering against the grass and shrubs—half there, half not.

I snapped a shot of him.

Back home, there he was, on my bookshelf—until I switched on the lamp.

“Where are you?” I called.

I turned off the light. There he was.

“What are you?”

“I don’t know.” He stepped closer to the edge of the shelf, his small form swaying. “Nobody looks at me, or maybe they only remember me for a short while.”

My hand moved toward the light switch. He jerked back, pressing himself against my copy of No Longer Human. “Please… don’t.”

He told me he could only exist in darkness and paced the length of my bookshelf. His voice was quiet and weightless. He smelled like damp earth.

He didn’t have a name. I told him I’d call him Filbert, after the hazelnut shrub he’d been standing under when I first framed him with my Leica.

When I developed the photos in my tiny red-light closet, he was nowhere to be seen.

“Are you a ghost?”

He stopped to face me and his blurred features shifted into what might have been a smile. “No. But I think I know what ghosts feel like.”

“That makes two of us. Will you stay?”

He sat down on the shelf’s edge, legs dangling. “Only if you keep the light away forever.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Sorry, then.”

The last thing I saw before I fell asleep was his shape, stretched long against my wall.

Then morning came, along with Monday.

And he was gone.

At school, I watched girls in clusters, couples in hallways. A universe I couldn’t access. I pressed my back against lockers, arms wrapped around my textbooks.

That night, when I turned off the lights, Filbert appeared, smiling.

He stood at my darkened window, one translucent hand pressed against the glass. “Can you switch off the sun in the morning?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. But I can keep the shutters closed.”

I moved closer, studying the fine details of his face: sharp cheekbones, a mouth that curved down at the corners. He didn’t trust me.

Morning came, Papa found me sitting in the dark, arms around my knees. “What’s up with you?” He crouched beside my bed, his lined face creased with worry. I turned away from him, shoulders hunched. He looked concerned, but I shrugged it off. Said I was fine.

The day was a blur I drifted through it waiting for the night to talk with Filbert.

When I got home from school, he was the size of a child. I didn’t know what to think. We sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor in the moonlight streaming through my shutters. I told him about myself, the invisible patterns I saw in things, the way I saw the world differently. As I spoke, his eyes never left mine, nodding along. That’s how I knew he really understood me.

Artwork by Tony Tran

On Wednesday, I wore sunglasses indoors, and black clothes. The school’s cafeteria neons were too bright, the constant chatter like needles in my ears. I walked away from the others, head down, shoulders curved inward.

My phone rang for the first time in months. My photography teacher said, “The arts department selected your mountain sunrise for the exhibition. Opening night is this Friday. I know it’s a bit short, but I’m counting on you. I’ll see you there.”

Yay me! Yay! Right?

Instead, my gut twisted. I sank onto my bed, phone still pressed to my ear. I thought of the hours under fluorescent lights, voices echoing off gallery walls, the smell of wine and perfume—all of it weighing down on me.

But I should go.

“There’s an exhibition Friday,” I told Filbert. “They picked my photo.”

He stood near my dresser now, nearly my height. Even in the shadow, I could see the tension in his jaw. “Don’t go. If you talk to people, you'll forget about me.”

“Never!”

He stepped closer, and the temperature dropped around me. His eyes—darker now, more desperate—searched my face. The silence made me hungry for his words.

Friday night arrived. Outside my window, Papa started the car. I stood at my bedroom door, hand on the knob, wearing my one lovely dress. My reflection in the dark window showed a girl caught between two worlds—the fabric beautiful against my skin, but my face pale.

“Please,” Filbert said.

He was taller now. We were eye to eye. His features had sharpened, become more defined, more real.

I pictured my work on the wall, people stopping, smiling at me. For once, I would belong. I saw my father, proud, waiting for me to step into the light. But I also imagined the noise, the crowd of bodies, the way sounds would bounce and multiply until I couldn’t think.

Filbert’s voice curled into my ear, soft and urgent. “I don’t think I exist when you’re away.” Chill radiated from his skin.

I looked through the window at my father sitting in the car. The dashboard lights illuminated his face. He lived in the light, like everybody else.

Filbert stood perfectly still, waiting.

At the exhibition, I’d be displayed like my photograph. Framed, admired, but alone.

And here, for the first time, I wasn’t alone.

My hand fell from the doorknob.

When Papa honked, I knocked on the windowpane and shook my head. He met my eyes through the glass, and then looked away. He sat there for a long moment before getting out of the car. He didn’t come to my door. He knew why I couldn’t go.

I’d worked hard for months. Got the photography teacher’s attention. I touched the Leica on my dresser. My fingers felt carved from air, too heavy to lift anything but shadows.

I always preferred being alone.

So I picked up the camera. Looked at Filbert through the lens. His image was perfectly neat.

But my reflection in the mirror wavered.

I let my hand hover by the switch. It would be so easy. A click, a spark, and the dark would shatter. Filbert would disappear. I’d call Dad. “I changed my mind. Let’s go.”

I should go.

Instead, I turned toward Filbert. He stood there, head bowed.

“I’m not going.”

When he moved toward me, I could see we were the same height now. When he reached me, his fingers—cold, but solid—intertwined with mine.

“Forever,” we said together.

In the darkness, I could no longer tell where I ended and the shadows began. We stood facing each other, hands clasped, and I watched as the edges of his form began to blur again, but this time, so did mine. We bled into each other like ink spilled in water, unraveling in slow, endless loops. Boundaries thinned, stretched, and forgot themselves.

A breath, a ripple, a shift in the air. I felt my own edges soften, my own form becoming translucent. We moved together, two figures becoming one shadow against the wall. I was already less myself, already more of something else.

Gio Clairval is an Italian-born writer and translator who has worked as an international management consultant based in Paris. Her fiction has appeared in The Dark Magazine, Nature: Futures, Fantasy Magazine, and several anthologies. She translates speculative fiction from several languages into English, notably for The Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.

🏛️ The testimony of Aliya Rahman - The Independent Variable

2026-02-05T00:40:50.000Z

0:00

/6:45

It’s absolutely devastating to watch this. I’d love to echo the sentiment I’ve seen on social media and say, “how could anyone watch this and not be devastated?” But I’ve become too jaded. The people doing and celebrating this terrible shit are the people who tortured their pets like Sid from Toy Story as kids. This is exactly what the “anti-woke” folks want—they want to be able to laugh at people with disabilities after they illegally arrest them without reading them their rights or giving them their phone call.

There is no empathy from these people.

I started thinking, “When did this country lose all of its empathy?” But the truth is—and it’s a truth we all know—there never was any empathy to begin with in this country, and we continue to show our true colors as a country more and more every day.

We aren’t a democracy or a republic; we aren’t capitalists or socialists; we live in a corporatocracy, and no action or decision is made based on the will of the people or what’s good for the people—only what provides corporations the most profits.

Because if America actually cared about people—even just a little bit—this shit wouldn’t happen to anyone, citizen or otherwise. Instead, we are a barbaric, third-world, fascist corporatocracy. And we pray to one god.

💸

Humdrum Places - BlogFlock

🔭 The Record Essay - foofaraw

Back when I had a record player. HSS-CRCK-POP!

Back when I had an 8-track player. CLICK, CLACK, CLUNK!

Back when I had a boombox. ZHEE-VGN-VGN-ZHEEP!

Back when I had a CD player. VING-VING-VRIHRING-ING!

Glimmering fragments - The Independent Variable

🎙️ David Roe - foofaraw

Do you think DiAngelo ever manages to make it off traffic duty in Ivory Bluffs?

If this story were to continue, would the death eventually be ruled death by golf ball or is Hopkins doomed to get wrapped up in the legal system?

Does a rotten apple spoil a bunch? Can a spoiled bunch ever be fixed?

Do you have any personal experience with bigoted police officers?

Since you made mention of the Cardinals, are you a Cardinals fan?

Have you seen the show Deli Boys? It opens with an assassin killing an important character with a pinpoint-accurate drive.

What book are you reading right now?

Do you have anything else you’d like to share?

Thanks to David for chatting with us about rotten apples and the terrible state of our world right now...

⛳ Par for the course - foofaraw

🫠 Ai Weiwei on China, the West and shrinking space for dissent - The Independent Variable

🇭🇰 Jimmy Lai: Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon gets 20 years' jail under national security law - The Independent Variable

🧸 Chicago Cubs spring training preview: Players feel primed to contend after banner offseason - The Independent Variable

🤖 As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts - The Independent Variable

The Weapons of World War IV - foofaraw

🤖 From Chatbots to Dice Rolls: Researchers Use D&D to Test AI’s Long-term Decision-making Abilities - The Independent Variable

Weekend Edition Vol.090 - foofaraw

Week 06—2026 - The Independent Variable

🕴️ Man is a good man - foofaraw

🔫 Mexican Cartels Overwhelm Police With Ammunition Made for the U.S. Military - The Independent Variable

Walden: Annotated - The Independent Variable

🎙️ Gio Clairval - foofaraw

Is this story a metaphor for depression?

If yes, what’s your experience with depression?

What is your experience with photography?

Do you own or have you ever used a Leica?

Is it worth it?

Do you think Filbert had evil intentions or was the end of the story just the result of the protagonist spending time with Filbert?

What's one of your recent favorite short stories?

What book are you reading right now?

Do you have anything else you’d like to share?

Thanks to Gio for chatting with us about photography and the human condition!

⚽️ Ronaldo to boycott 2nd Al Nassr game in protest of PIF - The Independent Variable

🧑‍⚖️ Top Minnesota prosecutor says ICE cases are sidelining ‘pressing priorities’ - The Independent Variable

📷 Filbert - foofaraw

🏛️ The testimony of Aliya Rahman - The Independent Variable