Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

Fire pareidolia is the current conversation. Smoking skulls and charred logs. Add or subtract some wood but just keep it blazing. It mustn't go out for at least two more days.

 I stayed up too late but don't regret it. I lie here in my bunk listening to the birds and think about the endless hummingbird battle, the logs on the crackling fire, the endless discussion. I'm rolling back over and sleeping some more.

As someone who writes both fiction and nonfiction every day, I often discover snippets of writing in notebooks or in long-forgotten files on my hard drive. Generally, I know what they are. At least, I have some idea of why I wrote them. If they are nonfiction, I sometimes revise them for blog posts. The fiction snippets are more difficult to use. I always tell myself that I will finish the story or find a place to use it in the ever-expanding novel that I secretly contend is narratively daring. This snippet is amusing, if nothing else, so I am sharing it. Perhaps, I want to remind myself at some future date that I will eventually finish each of these brief pieces. Another thing, why did I think I could use goosebump as a verb? For this story, I wonder what was coming next: a scary ghost story, a humorous tale, a novel about Bill and his madcap crew of camp rangers, or the secret life of William Jefferson Clinton. One thing I do know is that I am now hungry for s'mores. Take it ...

Every year I go camping when the leaves are changing colors. There is a certain mystique involved in packing up the car, making sure I have my tent and all necessary gear. I double check my list for all the "important" necessities: good craft beer, bottles of whiskey, a radio for tunes (if the campsite has electricity), swimming trunks for that balmy fall day, a fully stocked mp3 player (you never know when you might want to hear some powerviolence or garage rock -- not to mention obscure Texas psychedelia), fireworks, books of various kinds (including a handy volume on building shelters out of gathered twigs), just to name a few. I always meet a small tight-knit group of old friends at the campsite. We will stay up most of the night around the campfire bullshitting, but we will at least entertain the idea of doing more than staring at the fire.Our goal is to find a campground somewhere within comparative driving distance of each of our respective homes, so no one has to ...