home

The Barn Jester Steps In It

cow pies April 9, 2013

Those who think “nostalgia” is a bad word marking a bad sentiment can pucker my yonder socket.

Read the full article →

Bar Jester Chronicles XVIII: A Proper New Year’s Eve

bonfire January 1, 2013

I’ll return when, looking from the woods, I see total fenestrated darkness.

Read the full article →

Or Die

blackhole_diagram September 4, 2012

Thank God—sorry: thank progress, rather—for that million-year window!

Read the full article →

Going to Hell with Huck

LowWaterNew-Inet August 1, 2012

This life is no trick, no accident.

Read the full article →

Now Let Us Raze Famous Men

Wood plane July 10, 2012

He was looking at me with what appeared to be some degree of disbelief.

Read the full article →

A Lucubration Neither Lugubrious Nor Lubricious; or, A Nocturnal Upon Saint Edward Abbey

Ed-Abbey-The-Journey-Home June 12, 2012

What machine can match a pair of legs?

Read the full article →

On Being a Worthy Heir of the Agrarian Contrarians

666 May 2, 2012

But, as Shakespeare wrote, we sometimes “by indirections find directions out.”

Read the full article →

Primary? What Primary? There’s a Tournament on and a Woman to Impress

College-Basketball-021712L_5 March 20, 2012

How about a little one-on-one, full court press?

Read the full article →

The Bar Jester Says, “Valentine’s Day Can Kiss My …”

couple-valentines-day11 February 15, 2012

Valentine’s day is a trick on suckers.

Read the full article →

What’s Wrong With Iowa? (A Transplanted Professor Knows)

iowa2 February 7, 2012

If you think you may legitimately enjoy the physical benefits of a place while dwelling in the airy regions of judgment above it, you’d better think again.

Read the full article →

Surviving Five O’Clock

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA February 1, 2012

There’s nothing the smell of this can’t solve.

Read the full article →

Homesick Nation

cabin hearth January 19, 2012

In 1852, the first piano arrived in Stockton, California. Imported from Cincinnati, it was a gift to Mary Kroh from her father, a minister who had traveled west to preach to the thousands of gold miners in California. Shortly after…

Read the full article →

O Clemens, O Pia

Interstate January 3, 2012

The answers we give may prove to be fatal rather than whimsical.

Read the full article →

On the Conversion of Grass and Sunlight; or, Round Steak in a World Gone Mad

cow November 1, 2011

An animal with four stomachs is on its way to mine.

Read the full article →