South Korean Appliance Manufacturer Claims to Have Invented Time Travel

and more clickbait from Dale Wisely

I.

I’ve been reading a fine book by the singer, songwriter, musician, poet, novelist, and artist Nick Cave, along with journalist Sean O’Hagan, titled Faith, Hope, and Carnage. Released last year, the book consists entirely of phone conversations between Cave and O’Hagan. There aren’t many rock stars whose interviews could fill a 300-page book and still be engaging, let alone profound. But Nick Cave, perhaps not surprisingly, is an exception. He is smart, wildly talented, erudite, and generous in answering a wide range of questions about creativity, spirituality, family, and grief. Cave’s son died in 2015 in an accident that may have been drug-related. In 2022, a second son died at age 31 from undisclosed causes. I’m inclined to pay attention to what he says about grief.

A psychiatrist friend of mine, who has treated people experiencing particularly devastating bouts of depression, once told me that those he had treated who had lost the most someone ended up doing better than those who hadn’t lost so much. This idea has stayed with me for a long time.

About his grief, Cave told O’Hagan—

“You either go under, or it changes you, or worse, you become a small, hard thing that has contracted around an absence. Sometimes you find a grieving person constricted around the thing they have lost; they’ve become ossified and impossible to penetrate, and, well, other people go the other way, and grow open and expansive.

“But what I want to say is this: this will happen to everybody at some point — a deconstruction of the known self. It may not necessarily be a death, but there will be some kind of devastation—a marriage breakdown, or a transgression that has a devastating effect on a person’s life, or health issues, or a betrayal, or a public shaming, or a separation where someone loses their kids, or whatever it is. And it shatters them completely...at times it seems like there is no coming back. It’s over. But in time they put themselves together piece by piece. And they thing is, when they do that, they often find that they are a different person, a changed, more complete, more realized, more clearly drawn person.”

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II.

I’m reading An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon, Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House, and Carlo Carretto: Selected Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters).

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III.

Here at The Danged, we’re introducing “Dale Tells You What You Need and Then Provides It.” If you’d like to have your request considered, by regulation you must make the request in this form: "Dale, tell me what I need and then provide it." Email it to urgentcodex@proton.me. I hope to be selecting some of these for fulfillment and a mention here in The Danged.

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IV.

I’m attempting to wean myself off of Microsoft Office in favor of open-source and free Libre Office. It just closed itself out and vanished from my screen when I was writing this, section IV. Fortunately I had a back-up, or you would never have known the joys of this paragraph.

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V.

Nothing on TV is grabbing me lately, although I was surprised at how much I like “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” Great production, great look, and a stunningly good performance by Chris Hemsworth, who is menacing, funny, and truly impressive. He may actually benefit as an actor from the decline of his hunkiness, should that ever occur.

And I appreciated Anya Taylor-Joy’s performance. She’s impressed me in everything I’ve seen her in, including “The Queen’s Gambit,” which is the only other thing I’ve seen her in. You probably know “Furiosa” is a prequel to “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The filmmakers pull off a seamless and fully believable transition from the ending of this movie to the beginning of that one. The filmmakers pull off a seamless and fully believable transition from the ending of this movie to the beginning of that one. You’ve got a child Furiosa, Taylor-Joy as the teen/young adult one, and then Charlize Theron as the adult. It works very well.

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VI

I’ve been trying to get an appliance bought and delivered. Tried to order it from Costco and it was backordered. I ordered it from Sears and scheduled the delivery. The night before the delivery was supposed to happen, a woman called me and said she was with Costco and she wanted to deliver my appliance in a few days. This confused me. I figured I must have ordered it both from Costco AND Sears. Uh-oh. So, I called Sears and, a half-hour later, had canceled the Sears order. It never came. From either store. It turns out that the delivery person delivers for Sears AND Costco and was confused and told me my order was coming from Costco. It wasn’t. It was going to come from Sears until I cancelled the order.

So, I decided just to cut out the middle dude and order direct from LG. They promised delivery by a certain date. Didn’t get it. But they did send me an automated text on August 28 that the order was shipped on August 28 and would be delivered on August 27, a date which, if you’re tracking this, had already passed. Speaking of tracking, I later got another text from them, asking me to go online and schedule my delivery. For some time in the future.

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VII

I’m voting for Harris. Gladly. (All of my friends just went back in time to 1992 just so they can say “No, duh.”) Whenever possible, I avoid voting for malignantly narcissistic sociopaths. And also people who spend 4 years at a job which they went into fully unqualified, and somehow managed to come out the other side even LESS qualified for. Not that I’m naming names or Barry Goldwatering anyone in particular. I deny it.

Just to give you a heads-up: when the Constitution is rewritten to call for a method of choosing the President in which I, Dale of The Danged, anoint the President, I’ll be anointing Pete Buttigieg. And I know we all agree that would be a better system of choosing the President, until the nation goes sane.

Thanks,

Dale