^{If you remember my old Substack (2023-2023), a newsletter that only four people read, then you will know that I’m no Fran Lebowitz. I’m more like Doyle Harkavy, and my musings are … incongruous. Like me.}

^{Although I lack New York sensibilities and sophistication, I make up for it with my own brand of foolishness. (Believe me, I am a fool and a clown.)}

^{Over on Substack, I used to post monthly updates — which is why I called that newsletter Barrett Monthly. My first couple of updates were a bit like op-eds. But after awhile, I realized it was harder to weave all my thoughts into cohesive essays — so I started posting little multi-part updates, with each topic in its own section.}

^{I figure that’s what I’ll be doing over here. Brief updates about a little bit of this and a little bit of that.}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

_{CAR TALK}

^{The Ford Mustang’s sequential turn signal is too beautiful not to use. This is my polite way of telling other Mustang drivers that they absolutely need to start using the turn signal, as the Good Ford Global Innovation Lab intended.}

^{It feels like a crime to have such beautiful taillights and never use them. You can also use electrical tape to cover the lights and spell fun messages — will run, lol run, run lol, lol lol — but I’m just sticking to the basics.}

^{It’s a safety thing and it actually looks cool. (And keep the aftermarket Raxiom Halos where they belong — on the front end.)}

^{______________________________________________________________________}

_{KENTUCKY CORNER}

^{For it to be such a small state, Kentucky has many counties. A map of the counties gives the appearance of a cookie that’s about to crumble at any moment. Over the centuries, these counties have gradually withered away, splintering into smaller fragments, becoming mere husks of their former selves. This is why Ohio County, which once touched the river it was named after, seems to have retreated twenty miles inland.}

^{I was looking at a map of the tornado damage, and I suddenly realized why the map looked so familiar. Fulton County, Graves County, Marshall County, Lyon County, Caldwell County. Hopkins County, Muhlenberg County, McClean County, Ohio County — every single one of these counties are places that some of my ancestors called home.}

^{The Pittmans, the Boyds, the Sandersons, and the Sullivans. The Morgans, the Haynes family, and the Mullinses. The Copes/Kobs and the Paces. The Barretts, the Grays, and the Murphys. The Parks family. The Manus and Elkins families. The Henrys and the Howtons. All of these folks — and many others.}

^{The tornado traveled to the northeast; my family traveled southwest. We covered the same ground — around 125 miles, on a path that winds through the Jackson Purchase and the Western Coal Fields.}

^{Whether I like it or not, western Kentucky will always be a part of me. It’s shaped the person I am, the same way that bending, winding rivers have shaped it.}

Western Kentucky is all hunched over, bounded and bordered and crumpled by rivers. It resembles a feral animal that’s curled up in a den, sleeping on its side. It’s still, but it’s breathing. It’s home.

_{______________________________________________________________________}

_{THE EMPEROR’S NEW LOWS}

_{I can’t watch shows like Succession, because I’m afraid it might humanize the Murdochs, who I like to assume are about as complex as prokaryotes.}

^{I wonder, what will Murdoch have his talking heads get fired up over now? As a thought exercise, I’ve tried to come up with ridiculous scenarios. But it’s a useless exercise, because I already know that they'll find something to get mad about. Performative outrage has become a cherished American (and Australian?) pastime.}

^{It makes me wonder how it feels to be angry all the time. Even if I were paid to be outraged, I’d be too worn out to keep up the schtick for more than a couple of weeks.}

^{I’m pretty passionate about things, but I pick my battles. I scroll past comments sections. And when I rant, I may ramble or talk in circles — but I haven’t shrieked about M&Ms. (As a wise confectioner once said, “Give me a break.”)}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

_{KENTUCKY CORNER, PART 2}

^{I just noticed this:}

^{Martin County borders Lawrence County. Damn, Gina.}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

🎶

^{I never watched Glee. I swear that this isn’t coming from a place of judgment, but …}

^{I feel like “APT.” was a crossover hit engineered in a laboratory specifically to be performed by a bunch of glee club kids.}

^{I’m a bit wary, though. The return of Recession Core may be a harbinger of the return of Glee, which means we’ll also be seeing more shows like The Big Bang Theory and Last Man Standing.} 🥴

_{______________________________________________________________________}

JUST ME BEING ME

^{Nobody can change me – except for me. There’s a lot of discussion about resistance, and I personally believe that it’s important to stand up for marginalized people, oppressed people, and other progressive people. But there’s nothing furtive, for me, about my support for oppressed people. I don’t want to make a secret of my support for marginalized people, if it means “playing nice” with hateful people.}

^{What will the folks in charge do, if I decide I don’t want to compromise my own beliefs? Sit on me?}

^{My sense of resistance will always be there. I’ll be loud when I can, and I will try to be quiet when I need to move with more caution. But I will never change myself to fit molds that are broken — and molds that should have been cast aside years ago.}

^{______________________________________________________________________}

THE FLYERS

^{I don’t think I’ve written about this incident before – anywhere, ever – but a recent news story had me thinking about it all over again.}

^{One night, way back in the summer of 2016, my dad and I went on a walk around the block. My dad, in the summertime, is relatively dark. (Picture included below, so that you’ll see I’m not exaggerating.)}

^{Like lots of folks in our area, my dad has Irish and Scottish ancestry — but he also has other ancestors from other countries and continents. Through one of our family tree’s branches, he has Central African (Congolese/Bakongo) ancestry.}

^{This comes through my dad’s mother’s side. Big thanks go out to our Bryant ancestors on Grandmom’s side, for making sure that our family’s history was recorded, and big thanks to many of my Bryant and Elkins cousins for having done their best to keep documenting our family connections.}

^{One of my distant Bryant cousins — via an Internet message — was the first person to put me on to our family’s Atlantic Creole and Congolese heritage. I was able to do some followup work tracing our cousins and our shared ancestors. If you’re also descended from Anne and Richard Bryant, Elizabeth Bryant Elkins, or Gabriel Elkins, you’ve probably noticed that you have lots of DNA matches with “Cameroon & Congo” or “Western Bantu” roots. These DNA tests have backed up the family lore.}

^{Most of the time, I assume other Southern folks don’t think about our genealogy at all. If they’re prone to having a Prince Charles moment, they think we’re Melungeon – and they’re essentially correct. We’re descended from Atlantic Creoles who moved inland and became Mountain Creoles.}

^{(And the path from Virginia to North Carolina to Tennessee to Kentucky? It was well-traveled by many other folks. I’m lucky that other researchers on genealogy websites have been willing to talk about this bit of our family history, instead of trying to hide it.)}

^{Anyway — back to my original story. My dad isn’t pale at all. I’m far less fortunate. I’m luminously pale. I’ve lived in fear of being sunburned by a full moon. I’m worse off than the Cullens.}

^{Anyway! We were outside at twilight — ha! — and we were taking a walk down the block. This was in the summer of 2016, when everything was already feeling tense and weird. That month — July — was the same month that Pokemon Go had its debut. And I’d decided, on a whim, to take a walk and see if we could find any Pokemon.}

^{As we walked around the block, darkness fell. The back side of the block was illuminated by nothing – and the front street, the main street, was only illuminated by two LED lights. These are the kind of lights that are coated in phosphor, the kind that look purple from a distance, the kind that make sidewalks look dim and dreary.}

^{We kept walking. Two men in a truck slowed down, rolled down the passenger side window, and asked what we were doing. I held up my phone, and showed them Pokemon Go.}

^{“Oh, that’s that game the kids are playing.” The man seemed to think I was a teenager — just a kid. They smiled at me, and then they drove off.}

^{The very next morning, in every front yard in our neighborhood, there were leaflets. Leaflets about joining a certain well-known hate group.}

^{For years afterward, I puzzled over the men in the truck. Were they the ones who dropped the leaflets? Or were they just regular guys, whose presence may’ve saved us from having a confrontation with whoever was dropping the flyers?}

^{Whoever dropped the flyers probably dropped them in the middle of the night — because the types of folks who do that are too cowardly for a direct confrontation. They threw the flyers out like litter — one in every yard, right at the edge, right along the street. Too cowardly to bring them up to the front door or to step in front of a Ring doorbell, but bold enough to spend money printing them out and distributing them.}

^{I don’t even remember picking “ours” up. I think it got shredded by the lawn mower.}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

_{OVERCONSUMPTION}

^{Has anyone ever bought one of those Foreverspin tops? It seems like something that would lose its novelty – but someone must be buying them, because they have a ton of money to spend on ad campaigns. I can’t go a day without seeing one of their ads. But who needs a forty dollar spinning top? Who?!}

^{I’ll keep going topless.}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

JEOPARDY - CATEGORY: IRISH MUSIC

“What is GO HOME BRITISH SOLDIERS?”

OIL, SLICK

^{As someone who occasionally works with government documents, I imagine we’re going to start seeing some unusual publications. (Quick aside: This month, I saw that I was in a photo on the GPO Instagram page. I hollered, because I’m a head taller than everyone else. I look like I should’ve hooped.)}

^{I’m not looking forward to adding a record for a coloring book about how evil seed oils are. Which reminds me, I’m going to start consuming as many seed oils as I possibly can, in the form of the oils that I use to bake cakes. I will keep eating my famous strawberry cupcakes, my chocolate chip cookies, and my zucchini bars. I will never give up on the promise of a delicious treat.}

^{I will never forsake seed oils in my baked goods, because they’ve yet to forsake me.}

^{But because we’re about to run out of safe eggs, I’m going to have to start baking with applesauce. When life gives you apples …}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

MEN ON …

^{The male loneliness epidemic has an obvious solution. Lonely men need to talk to other lonely men. Too many of these lonely blokes want to either talk about, or talk down to – when what they really need is a dialogue.}

^{I realize that I’m saying this from my newsletter, an extended monologue, but so be it!}

^{But the best way to make a friend is to be a friend. You have to approach and be willing to be approached, which is impossible to do if you’re grimacing at everyone.}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

ALA-SKA

^{You can’t spell “Alaska” without “ska” – which could inspire some good music. Guns of Anchorage could be a hit.}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

A RED NOTE

^{In January, I enjoyed “meeting” the folks over on Xiaohongshu. I showed them my kebabs – not code or slang for anything, just a nice picture of vegetable kebabs – and they showed me some wonderful pictures of mushrooms and chicken on skewers. I’ve seen such wonderful food — breakfast pastries, grilled meat, steamed buns, delightful treats. I’ve had so much fun over there, soaking up good vibes and good recipes.}

^{I like XHS, and I hope it never gets blocked — although I can foresee an eventual separation of servers. That makes me sad, because I love the current vibe over there. Lots of low-stakes, friendly chit-chat.}

^{In the meantime, I’m avoiding TikTok and I’m trying to wean myself off of Instagram. I’ve started using Bluesky, too, and I like to bleet.}

^{______________________________________________________________________}

COME ON! FEEL THE ILLINOISE!

^{I’m thankful to be from a town that’s right across from the Illinois border.}

^{Through an accident — or a blessing — of geography, far western Kentucky shares borders with both Illinois and Tennessee. (The restaurants in Tennessee are fairly good, especially as you get closer to Memphis.)}

^{I must admit that I enjoy getting lost in southern Illinois. The Shawnee Hills are occasionally compared to the Ozarks. I don’t think of that area as Ozark-like, though I do think of the caves and rock formations as ancient, from the time of the inland ocean and the Western Interior Seaway.}

^{Southern Illinois is so beautiful, so scenic. And they have a Panda Express. Can’t beat that.}

_{______________________________________________________________________}

CHURCH-GOING

^{The best thing about being unchurched, in the short term, is sleeping in on Sunday morning. The best thing about being unchurched, in the long term, is that I have shaken off most of my mortal fears. I’m still a relatively anxious person, mind you, but I’m not afraid of some of the things that used to scare me. I’m more relieved than I’ve ever been. I do a decent job of minding my own Ps and Qs, and it feels good to be left alone, to mind my own business.} 

^{Lest ye think I’m some heathen, I was educated in what has to have been one of the most economically-humble Catholic schools in our state – where no one had to take the vow of poverty, because it was a foregone conclusion. We used the original school building, which was probably constructed in the prewar era.}

^{Going to that school left an impression on me. I remember that one of our basketball goals looked like a contraption lifted straight from a Soviet playground. I have the occasional fond memory of the place, but I mostly have no reason to think of the place. The last time I spent a good long time thinking about the building was when, after the tornado, they demolished the old school.}

^{I realized that if I have step-grandchildren — someday far from now, in the way-distant future — that I won’t be able to show them the building where I went to elementary school. I also won’t be able to show them one of the buildings where I worked back in college, or the laundry where my grandmother worked, or the building where my mom went to buy records when she was in high school. There are lots of buildings that no longer exist.}

^{There are also lots of towns that no longer exist. My grandparents lived in a town that hasn’t been above water since the 1960s, when the TVA built their dam. The buildings are gone, and only the memories linger. It’s good to savor things, but don’t get too attached to the tangibles. Everything you can see or hold is temporary.}

^{I’ve let go of lots of things over the years, including my interest in being a member of a club where I don’t really fit in. What I’m trying to say is, I enjoy being a Lapsed Catholic more than I enjoyed being a Catholic. (I’m not seeking any recommendations for churches, by the way. Like the other Lapsed Catholics, I will be spending most of my Sunday mornings on rest and/or self-care.)}

^{I don’t begrudge other people of their Sunday routines. If something harmless brings you peace, embrace it. That’s what I’ve done. And that’s what I want to keep doing.}

^{JUST A SONG BEFORE I GO}

Luther Vandross was an all-time talent.