Andy Revkin on our ability to notice big things:

We’re hardly the first life form to become a planetary powerhouse. Blue-green algae profoundly changed the composition of the atmosphere, adding the oxygen that today’s life forms rely on. But, as far as we know, those microorganisms weren’t aware of that achievement. Through science, humans are slowing becoming aware of planet-scale changes to ecosystems and the atmosphere with potentially enormous and long-lasting implications for climate and biology.

As far as we know.

How awesome would it be if the algae was aware of the oxygen they produced and the potential changes it was making to their world, and somehow we unlocked the records they kept of their conversations about it?

Ridiculously awesome. And equally sad.

There's a Borges story, I think, involving an unintentionally poetic murder and the observation that history repeats literature.

Makes sense. Literature, if it's good, is true.

Apparently some birds don't lie either.

Thank you PSFK.

Ever wondered what kind of parking lot shopping cart free-for-all inspired that very first bleeding edge grocery store to sacrifice a precious medium-good parking spot in favor of a mid-lot cart return?

 I have.

 And I'm sorry I missed it. Tears. Screams. Riots. Blaring horns. Daring escapes. Wow. I bet someone has home video footage somewhere.

A comment over on A More Perfect Market sent me running to the YouTubes to get a hit of Jeff Spicoli.

Gotta love the globe scene.

And why are so many teachers so mean? What good does it do anyone? I get that you need to keep kids under control, but don't Jedi Pied Pipers do that way more effectively than drill sergeants?

Just sayin.

My great grandfather grew up in rural central Sicily.  He was a musician.  There was some kind of dispute with the mayor of his town.  A parade.  A request for a bribe.  An assault with a clarinet.  So he fled the island.  And landed in New York City.  In the nineteen teens I think.

When he arrived, he found himself in a Little Italy situation.  He found some other Sicilians.  Rural people.  People like him.  And made some great friends.

And, every Sunday, he and a few of those dudes would hop on the Long Island Railway and cruise east, out of the city.

And, when they'd get where they were going, they'd wander off into fields or woods, separate, dig holes, squat, and poop.

They did it, they said, for the breeze on their balls.

I feel like sometimes (quite often, in fact) it's hard to resist changing a story. A little embellishment here. To accentuate the very real intensity of something that happened. A little order switching there. A character role change maybe. Putting thoughts in another character's head.

I do it ALL the time.

And I'm a fanatical truth addict.

I can't imagine what pathological liars do.

Unless I'm secretly (secretly from myself) a pathological liar. Yikes.

Anyway, if I change the history of my life every day by telling embellished stories, don't you think it's likely that storytelling historians change things all the time?

Not manipulatively. But for effect. For a better story.

I would if I were an historian.