2.28.2025 - Weekly Digest
Welcome to Without a Gun's first Friday Digest. Thought about going with 'Frigest' but that made my spleen cramp up so this will have to do.
This is not an arbitrary or automatically generated contact list, by the way. If you got this email I'd love to hear from you. I'm available to talk about anything or nothing for as long as you can stand it.
A bit about the project:
I left the U.S. in January 2025 with no solid plan other than to not return against my will.
The name comes from an old Kids in the Hall sketch:
I'm Canadian. It's like an American without a gun.
Daily Posts (Monday– Thursday): short essays, musings, dreamscapes
Weekly Digest (Fridays): everything from the previous week's daily posts
Features (Sunday): longer posts with a theme - essays, stories
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-JAckles
Weekly Digest
M 2.24.2025
In this one I'm in Montreal.
I am interested in the science around staring furiously at snow through a window willing it to melt.
Can read and understand the language pretty well but still timid about speaking. I fear the consequences. I fear if I ask where the hardware store is I will tell someone to fart on me.
Hard up for companionship I crumbled up some old crackers I think were exposed to ants and tossed them out the backdoor onto the snow drift that covers what the pictures tell me is a little yard out there. Then I watched, like a hunter waiting for prey to spring his trap. A pair of sparrows flew down, pecked at the crumbs, conversed about which ones they wanted, and took off. They still haven't come back and I am hurt and offended. Come get your crackeures you ingrates.
Plane on a southward trajectory toward the States. Don't do it! I shout. You all ignore me at your peril.
T 2.25.2025
Sweet gods the wind blowing sideways parallel to the street. Gotta be 80 kph and it's visible and white like in cartoons. Snow on everything piles up everywhere past windowsills and covers top floor landings and some of these folks have been shoveling out cars for days like it's what they're paid to do.
Would bring the birds in if I could. Tough resilient little bastards. Taking refuge on the trellis pecking at frozen berries on the vine grouped together and nipping away at the frozen glaze on their feathers and the wind gusts from every side and they just wait it out and don't seem all that alarmed.
In times of distress some animals give up territorial disputes and cooperate for communal survival. They share resources. Squash their beefs. Good luck with that dorks.
If this was Chicago there would be gunfights over dibs. The whole ass dentist’s chair on my street in Logan Square was my favorite. Spoils go to the most obnoxious players. You can’t just set a plate in a shoveled out space and expect someone to notice or not run over it or steal it or throw it against the bricks.
W 2.26.2025
The absolute bliss of a planetarium. Spent a day on Mars with a dozen strangers. We tasted dust and felt the cold and learned to differentiate shades of orange in the dirt. Then I wandered out into the exhibit area where I learned about the Rovers and the little helicopter and I remembered the Seven Minutes of Terror every time they drop one of those on the planet and I'm tired of everything feeling like a metaphor for my own anxiety. I would like some science fiction please.
Next door they've repurposed the old velodrome from the '76 Olympics and converted it into climate controlled sectors to mimic conditions in different regions. Carol Marcus takes Kirk into the Genesis cave. 'Let me show you something that will make you feel young, as when the world was new.' In the subtropical room I'm greeted by red and blue macaws. Reminds me of my neighbor in Traverse City. Why that guy had a tropical bird at 44.7 degrees north I don't know and it's my loss. Warmest I've been since I came to Canada. Could nap in here with the capybaras and wake up on the straw and eat from an auto-filled tin and never complain again.
Couple two three penguin species. They repurpose wet suits to make little boots for them. I guess their feet wear out and I wonder if that happens in Patagonia or just artificial environments. Atlantic sturgeon glide along the glass looking bored. All fish look bored when they're not eating or being fed on or caught by humans. Takes a lot of energy to be frantic and worried. There's wisdom in being fish. The sugar kelp looks tasty. Have to remember to remind myself to eat.
Th 2.27.2025
Monsters attacking Dad's cabin. Oh no the dogs are out. Is that a bear? Simian, long arms like a baboon. Noisy attacker. Seems counterproductive. I can get behind this door but it's just a few strips of wood and glass panels between us. Now the ape-bear is attacking one of the other monsters so that's good, let's keep 'em busy.
There's a plane to catch, a mysterious benefactor, we're in a hurry but no one will tell us where we're going. They're all like this now. My recently married friends are trying on outfits. Neil settles on this short fuzzy crop top thing and mom jeans, Whit is fashionable in a shiny dress.
I’m at an altar and everyone is trying to get a seat in the pews. Pink and green phone cases on the arm rests as dibs. There’s chatter and anticipation, like we’re here to check out the buzz on a movie the critics are horny about. I don’t want to take anyone else’s seat – they paid to be here, after all, and I’m just a volunteer or something – so I find a place over on the side, careful not to have my view blocked by a column. Nothing happens, no one arrives. Someone needs to make a sacrifice but who will it be.
A gas station with a deli kitchen in back. Day old breaded chicken pieces on a heating element on the counter. A women works back there, she’s kinda goth, just sitting there with no pants on, as you do when your job sucks. We become friendly. Later I come back with this notion I need to make something, a short film or a music video, about a guy who thinks it’s romantic to bother his girlfriend at work. Maybe it’s a satirical country song, I say, and sing some. She agrees to let me do that and she asks if something is wrong and I say no I’m just reading your tattoos. She gets flustered. Sorry, I know you’re shy, I say.
Adjacent to all of this I’m trying to establish citizenry in my own country for some reason. The TSA folks or consulate or whoever I’m dealing with don’t believe me, don’t think my passport and my driver’s license have enough information on them. There’s some elaborate set of tasks I have to perform involving ordering clothing from a limited selection – like a Sears or Kmart catalog from the 80s – and having it sent to my mom’s house in Ann Arbor to prove I exist.
Neil shows up again and we’re involved in something important but he can’t tell me what it is, I’m just supposed to follow him, and I’m in a new apartment but there’s trash everywhere and a gallon jug of cleaning solution and a coffee maker which is my only present concern. Then the news: Mike Drew had a little side project, a software company or an app. It was called Jub. None of us know what it does, but he just sold it for 12 billion dollars. He’s in obvious shock and doesn’t seem to be fully aware of what’s happened. It’s a scramble to do what we can to protect him and also make sure he remembers us and what we're doing for him. Maybe not all billionaires have to be bad, we say.