Shorts How short can you be and still say something? Ups and downs abound; stability isn't. "Timing is everything," I said, missing the opportunity to make a point. Short, shorter, shortest, with silence winning the battle for brevity. Shhh! Creativity, cringing, fled their harsh laughter. Tump has reduced hope to a curdled memory. The "personal" is a memory from another era. Now "personal" means the settings on some electronic device. They laugh and act like they are having great fun; but their bodies know that it is just the prelude to having sex. Life winds down but even that requires organization and work. Dying is no paid vacation. There is the poetic thought, which requires no rhyme, alliteration, or meter; its truth is ethereal, sublime. And there is the lovely-sounding line that taxes less the meaning, its music demanding no great explanation. A town devoted to tourists and techies: a town without a soul. They have mastered the art of imitation so perfectly that they really no longer exist. The pink streak in the hair does not compensate for the empty mind. Hollow laughter does not void the void. "I can make as much noise as I want," he shouted as they all moved away, turning down his volume the only way possible. Lovely words where both sound and meaning matter. Harsh words that jar the sober senses to stiff attention. The tattoo itself does not matter. It's whether you have one or don't. "Disrupt and innovate": Just one more slogan for robbing the bank. The Millennial Mind: Edgy and irritated but with no real cause. The "Dude": Emptiness and arrogance controlled by a device that the dude fancies he controls. Distempered, dystopian, edgy—and forever horny, never satisfied—San Francisco, you are one sick saint. Techies and tourists are related by fantasy. The tourists live in an artificial world of fun; the techies create the illusion. We live in an age of shallow reflection; the next age may not even come. What would define it? He thinks being loud and disruptive make him an innovator, but he is just being an asshole. He thinks that having many tattoos makes him a non-conformist; they do just the opposite.
	By Louis Martin