• I want some rock band, any band, anywhere, to write and perform a hit song with the word “London” in the title, so I no longer have to listen to the song “London Calling” every time an American news program airs a story about Great Britain.

• Much of what people consider entertainment falls into the realm of spectacle.  Circus acts are pure spectacle, but many other performed arts routinely incorporate spectacle to the extent that it not only competes with but defines the art — consider rock concerts, operas, dance troupes, costume dramas and action-hero films.  I have never been much impressed by spectacle.

• Attention All Hipsters: your food trucks are OK and all those micro-brew beers are OK, but I still want you to get off my lawn.

• P.S. to Hipsters:  Calm down.  I don’t have a lawn.  I was being metaphorical.  And a little self-deprecating.  Dude, you’re so serious about everything and stuff.

• My wife is my khaleesi, with a power that is hers alone.

• When I was a boy, I had a reel-to-reel tape recorder.  To identify my tapes, I would get out my typewriter, type numbers on an index card, color the numbers with markers of different colors, punch out the numbers with a single-hole paper punch, then glue the little numbers on both sides of each reel, plus a matching one for the white boxes.  If you were to see my storage room today, you would take heart — no better evidence that obsessive-compulsive behavior does not have to last a lifetime.

• Speaking of obsessive-compulsive behavior: there seems to be competition among the faithful to determine the shortest sentence in the Christian Bible.  “Jesus wept” is the pat answer, but others argue for “And the second.”  Whatever!  (Collins 8:4).

• There needs to be a name for the things that there needs to be a name for.

• We routinely have bears and coyotes wandering the area where we live.  Others — like the residents of Avenue D in Rochester, New York — have to deal with drug dealers and drive-by shootings where they live.  What would you choose, if you could?   What does that say about ability to choose, happenstance, individual effort and personal responsibility?  What does that say about right-wing mythology, where every man is supposedly self-made and has god-given ability to rise above his or her situation?

The difference between Left and Right is the locus of control — the Right would place it in the individual, the Left in social alliances.  But the essential similarity of Left and Right is in their illusion of control.  Not-in-control is the reality of our existence but, ironically, has no political advocates.

• If saying “Jesus” doesn’t work the first time you are struggling to open a stubborn bottle or jar, try “Jesus Christ.”  That extra syllable often does the trick.

• I may not recall the date that George W. Bush publicly announced his invasion of Iraq, but I will always remember August 8, 1974 as the day that Richard Nixon announced his resignation from the Presidency.  Both of these days, deservedly, live in infamy.

• When I die, I want to have a Presidential Library of my own, except it won’t be filled with my stuff — it will be filled with somebody like President Lincoln’s stuff, but I will have my librarians make it look like I thought of it.  I’ll let historians settle the issue.