Some of the lyrics to Alan Jackson's epic, "Chattahoochee:"

"Fogged up the windows in my old Chevy
I was willing, but she wasn't ready
So I settled for a burger and a grape snow cone
I dropped her off early, but I didn't go home."

The specificity of "grape snow cone" = great songwriting.

Jordan Castro, the novelist behind The Novelist, stops by the Buntzcast. We chat about the online magazine he's editing (The Cluny Journal), along with his writing, Christianity, his new "dark academia" novel, the influence of Nicholson Baker, and more. the-buntzcast.simplecast.com/episodes/bun...

“There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosm, and carries the whole world about him.” - Sir Thomas Browne

Didn’t realize until recently that Chips Ahoy! was a pun on “Ships ahoy!” I thought it was just like, “Look, there’s chocolate chips!”

This T.S. Eliot quote is also a good description of narcissism:

"What is hell? Hell is oneself.
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.” - T.S. Eliot

A crisis in social and cultural reproduction. On one hand, it becomes economically impractical for cultures, professions, communities, or even families to reproduce themselves. But on the other, the means to reproduce limitless quantities of low-quality simulacra become ubiquitous.

The first part of an essay I’m writing on music, mysticism, and the end of the world: substack.com/@sambuntz/no...