{"id":27,"date":"2002-08-02T11:39:41","date_gmt":"2002-08-02T19:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jokeofalltrades.com\/root\/archives\/2002\/08\/02\/my-stream-of-consciousness-is-drying-up\/"},"modified":"2002-08-02T11:39:41","modified_gmt":"2002-08-02T19:39:41","slug":"my-stream-of-consciousness-is-drying-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/2002\/08\/02\/my-stream-of-consciousness-is-drying-up\/","title":{"rendered":"My stream of consciousness is drying up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nAcross the street from my office is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unionstationdc.com\/\">Union Station<\/a>. I frequently go there to get coffee, lunch, and trains home. This morning I needed a second cup of joe to fuel my engines, so I went over around 10:00am. As I walked into the building, I passed a rather unkempt and dirty man standing around&#8212;none too uncommon at Union Station. What caught my eye and stuck in my head was his t-shirt. [sidebar: I&#8217;ve never understood what to take away from seeing someone wearing clothing with catchy phrases or ads or brand marks. Are they saying, &#8220;Look at me, I buy cool clothes,&#8221; or, &#8220;This phrase\/product\/brand resonates with my self-conception,&#8221; or, &#8220;I&#8217;m precisely the sort of person whom this product targets; no need to read into me any further,&#8221; or, &#8220;I wear stuff without much regard to what&#8217;s on it, and this shirt was cheap\/free\/a gift\/found on the street,&#8221; or something else entirely? Dunno&#8230;] This guy&#8217;s shirt was royal blue (where it wasn&#8217;t dark with dirt) and featured bold white letters on the front: <strong>H O B O<\/strong>. Well. No confusion here.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nUpon <em>exiting<\/em> the Station to return to work, I was presented with quite a spectacle. A gentleman (I use the term <em>loosely<\/em>) wearing a red t-shirt emblazoned with scriptural references was holding up a picket-type sign, hung on a cross, that informed me: <strong>It&#8217;s not enough to be good! You must be born again! Read the Bible (John 3)!<\/strong> He was also passing out small squares of paper. On one side, it simply said, &#8220;Jesus.&#8221; On the other were biblical references, presumably verses that would lead the reader to the same spiritual enlightenment this gentleman enjoys. I was possessed of an urge to make my own sign and picket right next to him. I think mine would say simply: <strong>Read&nbsp;Voltaire!<\/strong> I would also pass out excerpts from the <i>Philosophical Dictionary<\/i>. Oh, to have some posterboard&#8230;\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"np\">NP: Gorky&#8217;s Zygotic Mynci, <i>Face Like Summer<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Across the street from my office is Union Station. I frequently go there to get coffee, lunch, and trains home. This morning I needed a second cup of joe to fuel my engines, so I went over around 10:00am. As I walked into the building, I passed a rather unkempt and dirty man standing around&#8212;none [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhoke.name\/oldblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}