My second hammock-like experience on this particular hammock pilgrimage was more of a view than a hammock. Because it actually was a view and not a hammock. So then it wasn't a view from a hammock because then a hammock would have been part of the experience, and in fact dominated the experience as hammocks are known to appropriately dominate most hammock experiences, not completely unlike Jimi Hendrix appropriately dominated The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

To put it in slightly older artistic terms, this second hammock-like experience of a view was altogether different from Arthur Miller's A View from a Bridge. Here, there is no bridge–unless we appropriately consider the second hammock-like experience as a bridge to the third, which we could easily do, or you are currently standing on a bridge, which you easily could be through the magical powers of the internet. But then our adept observational skills would quickly identify other differences as well, as Mensa minds are known to do. So in comparison to A View from a Bridge, this view of (and/or from) this second hammock-like experience proves to be a much more relaxing view of views–with less longshoremen, less focus on immigration statuses, less non-Titanic voyages across the Atlantic bringing you to an Italian-American neighborhood near Brooklyn Bridge in the 1950s, and more focus on hammocks and whimsical fancy.

One unfortunate thing (though much less unfortunate than Eddie Carbone’s fate) about the Accra airport, which is not unique to that particular airport but instead is unfortunately an unfortunate thing about all airports in the world–every single one of them–is that while there are plenty of signs guiding you towards various airport-related destinations (hotel shuttles, taxis, etc.), there are no signs that point you to a hammock. Not one. Not even just one singular sign, an oasis in the desert of lack of hammock direction. Nope. Nothing. Anything one thinks they see in this regard is just a mirage of hope in the imaginative mind of the hammock-starved, thirsty for just a sip of hammock relaxation.

Oh how foolish thy are to believe that Prohibition ended December 5th, 1933 when to this day a laborer seeking a little respite after a hard day’s toil has a harder time finding a hammock than a 1920s speakeasy (in the 1920s, of course—not today, obviously). “Well, there is no Constitutional Amendment against hammocks, you idiot,” the kettle calling the pot black ignorantly asserts.

No, there is not. But alcohol is no longer banned by the Constitution of the United States of America and yet there are many dry locales, and three states—Kansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee—that are dry by default, so it is up to individual counties to pony up and authorize the sale of alcohol because unless someone brings the wetness, the default is a dessert of dryness. So look around you! Are not most locales throughout the world “dry by default” of hammocks?

Certainly they are.

Certainly it is disgusting, a mockery of humankind.

How fortunate is society that the Hammock Lovers are indeed lovers and don’t resort to the violence and greed of the likes of Al Capone and start smuggling hammocks and causing bloodshed and mayhem?

Very fortunate.

But how much longer will it be under these conditions before Hammock Lovers rise up—and then lay down, in hammock?

Hard to say.

But this rising up and laying down in hammocks shouldn’t have to happen only in the discreet locations shaded by trees or fenced-in backyards where the anti-hammock agents’ views are obscured by the said trees or fence, whether latticed, picketed, or another protectively private design that successfully interferes with anti-hammock voyeurism, which is admittedly a natural result of one repressing natural desires.

No, this is in stark contrast to how the world should be, as society and so-called civilization is so often on the wrong side of things. On the right side of things, in the ideal world, in the world we should all be striving for (oft called the The Beautiful Hammock Future), when one lands at the airport, signs directing you to the nearest hammock should be as standard as signs for baggage claim, ground transportation, or restrooms.

For where is the ideal place to rest? A hammock. Certainly. Obviously the ideal resting place is not next to someone taking a shit after eating hours and hours of airplane food. That’s why we don’t take shits in cemeteries. At least we shouldn’t be. Let people rest in peace for God’s sake! What kind of twisted society are we currently living in? What kind of cruel jokes is the English language trying to pull on people? Restroom?! Please! That’s a bunch of (bull)shit. #PoliticalCorrectnessGoneTooFar

Oh, but having a hammock to rest on instead of a toilet following a transatlantic flight is not even the ideal world; that is but simply the realistic good world. The pragmatic good world. If we are really to use a greater percentage of our brain, and really dig into our imagination, we can do better than that. Yes, in The Beautiful Hammock Future there are more than just signs pointing you to the nearest hammock: there are people. Instead of people looking for tips to get you to the nearest taxi that will not take you to the hammock, those same people only take you to the respectable, honest taxis that take you to honest hammocks. Yes, that is what the future should hold in the beautiful future, The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Oh, but that is yet still not ideal. We can do even better than that. Much better. For we are still being pragmatic and not allowing ourselves to really dream, to truly push the limits of what this beautiful world and evolution is truly capable of. Let’s look generations ahead.

What do we want the future to look like for our children and our children’s children?

Those seeking hammocks at international airports get ushered past Customs and Immigration* because they are obviously safe and respectable people. Getting the real VIP treatment that is well-deserved, they get shown to a red carpet (with optional paparazzi taking photos) leading to a limousine that leads to a hammock. #Posterity

Then, and only then, will the Ace of Base prophecy finally be fulfilled (like the Brenda Carlisle Prophecy already has).

If we are not to turn our world into one big leach field, hammocks need to be more common than bathrooms, which will have previously been called restrooms, but such a word will be laughed at and shamed whenever one uses it in modern discourse just like no one uses bumbershoot to refer to their umbrella anymore or rock to describe Dashboard Confessional, or music to describe Backstreet Boys.

It’s time we really grow to maturity as a society and listen to Marshall Mathers when he says boy bands make him sick (2000) and then years later (2018) subsequently still nothing has changed in society and so he must go to the bathroom and requires reading material. While boy bands have only grown as an international problem (citation: K-pop), we have at least provided better literature than was available to Eminem in 2018, in the form of these Hammock Reviews, which have the intellectual flexibility to be read in the bathroom of any member of the hoi polloi who could be the next famous international rap superstar or even Hammock Reviewer; likewise, these Hammock Reviews, flexing their classical class-flexible appeal of Shakespeare, could be indulged upon (read) in the parlor of an 18th-century English country gentleman literally born with a silver spoon and a private tutor so he could better digest Hammock Reviews.

So evolution is taking place. We are basically creating bigger problems (like more boy bands) while also creating bigger solutions (like Hammock Reviews) to help us cope with these societal ills that cause us so much hurt and pain, especially to our most famous artists (like Eminem).

But we can nip this problem in the bud through linguistics. Rather than having language respond to communication needs, which has done little to solve the Tower of Babel (what an architectural nightmare, to say the least!) problem that has plagued society over the years, we need to be proactive with our foreign language lessons. So instead of teaching “Where is the bathroom?” as an essential phrase when one travels to a new place with a different language, we should be teaching, “Where is the hammock?”

Because then the recipient of the question must respond.

And to do so politely, they must know where on God’s green earth, a hammock is.

C’mon people! We don’t need to build a big tower to see Godly ways: we just need to hang more hammocks!

Yes, in The Beautiful Hammock Future, people will be able to rest and get privacy in the ergonomic comfort of a hammock rather than the smelly, hellish horror of a bathroom stall where one sits on a toilet creating a circulation system nightmare. Yes, doctors rightly tell people to not spend more than ten minutes on a toilet while no respectable doctor has ever told a patient to not spend more than ten minutes in a hammock!

Yes, we should listen to our healthcare professionals if we are to live longer, healthier lives! #Wellness

So next time you’re at the doctor and ask you if you have any more questions for them, respond appropriately:

Where is the hammock?

Yes, that question should sing like a refrain that not only fixes our broken healthcare system, but all systems everywhere.

Like airports.

Air travel is really stressful for people, largely because of delayed flights, missed connections, and dearth of hammocks.

Hammock signs should be so common that when you arrive at an airport and ask where you can find a hammock that no one gets confused or laughs in your face–or gives you a business card for some random hammock-hating psychiatrist or therapist who thinks that the answers to life only come on couches that have been sat on by a whole host of strangers with a variety of psychological and emotional issues (and quite possibly hygiene issues as well, which are unlikely to be offset by any alleged—by liars—considerable couch cleaning in the ten minutes between appointments). It is indeed a sad, sad situation when there are so often stagnant results from these stagnant “professional” minds who possibly burn hammocks in their leisure hours to better position their conspiracy with the Big Couch Industry so they provide furniture that doesn’t move and promotes to clients a feeling of fixed, failed fate that does not (and in fact, cannot) sway so gently in the breeze like a hammock, instead selling the search for the source of some deficient definitive so that the Indigo Girls feel so much further from fine.

So naturally, living in such an overwhelmingly anti-hammock global climate, in order to find a hammock in Accra, like has been necessary in so many places, I had to use the famous hammock-finding tool called Google, one of the positive elements of 21st century technological advances: hammock locating. We should use modern technology in this positive way, rather than the anxiety and depression-inducing ways it has been thrust upon and affecting much of the global population. After all, by using this great hammock-finding tool, I did not find anxiety or depression.

I found the Hammock View Hotel.

It was in a section of Accra called Daama (I think), which did not seem like a popular destination for travelers–but I was not your average tourist with a fanny pack; I had my mind set on hammocks, which should make me the average tourist in a sane world, but unfortunately does not at the date of publication as the world is far from sane. Who would really agree with those anti-hammock extremists who believe the world currently is sane? No one reading this Review**; that’s for sure.

Hopefully***, one day readers will look back at this writing and say:

That would make him the average tourist today, for all people–let alone tourists–have their mind set on hammocks. This guy was really ahead of his time. He is a little weird–weirder than most–but he is also more handsome than most. In fact, I have a crush on him. But he is long dead because I am reading this centuries in the future. Is it weird to have a crush on an old dead guy? Or is it completely normal because he was not always old and dead, but quite oppositely once the premier sexy hammock pioneer of his time?

Such will be a typical response from future readers.

Argue with it if you like, but we all–those in this generation of this Review’s publication–will all be dead by that point when readers consider such valid philosophical points that may not be as highly debated in our current epoch where we are still stuck on questions about chickens and eggs and trees falling in forests, which should only be an important question if the tree holding a hammock; in which case the answer is a resounds “Yes!”

For we have a big problem if a tree fell in the forest and no one was there to hear it; and then a sad soldier returns after saving a village (not even his, just some neighboring village) from invasion, has both of his legs blown off, and just wants to rest in his hammock, but a tree had fallen that no one had heard and thus everyone assumed didn’t make a sound and thus didn’t matter. And so no one re-hung the hammock on a different, non-fallen tree. Then this war hero couldn’t rest in his hammock and quickly died of depression and/or blood loss or other issues related to losing two of his limbs. Future generations then saw how war heroes in that village were improperly treated and did not sign up for the local army. They also saw how hammocks were treated and never hung another hammock. This combination of events caused the village to not withstand a future invasion and this village no longer exists, which is why no one has heard of it. We would obviously have known more about this village if they would have taken the time to promote important record-keeping, like Hammock Reviews; but as we can see they were doomed by their own ignorance.

Let’s learn from their mistakes!

We won’t get into the chicken and the egg thing because it is not relevant here with no hammocks involved.

With such essential preamble under our belts, I can also answer essential questions that you may have about The Hammock View Hotel.

Was the The Hammock View Hotel a nice hotel?

Yes.

Was The Hammock View Hotel an affordable hotel?

Yes.

Was The Hammock View Hotel a safe hotel?

Yes.

Was The Hammock View Hotel your grandfather’s hotel or “not your grandfather’s hotel” as they say in cheap copy (even in such prestigious writing such as you can find in corners of sweetlivinproductions.com)?

Yes, it was your grandfather’s hotel (if your grandfather stayed at The Hammock View Hotel, but it could also not be your grandfather’s hotel if he did not stay there).

Now we come to the more urgently important FAQs:

What do Hammock Views look like?

Pictures do not do Hammock Views justice.

But we will show you the pictures anyway, for it is what we have in the current epoch, which is obviously not The Beautiful Hammock Future.

To be fair, those are backside hammock views. Rearview hammock views, gearheads might say.

What do forward-looking-to-fate hammock views look like at the Hammock View Hotel?

Here’s the forward-looking-to-fate hammock view:

Much bigger. Much better.

But really, all hammock views are good views and should be given gratitude.

We are grateful.

The first views may seem silly when given the title of hammock views. But there are lifetimes of untold stories in those views. People living their regular lives. Interesting lives with successes and failures, loves and lost loves, and the simple human commonality of striving to find joy in everyday living–which is much easier to do if you have the privilege of a hammock.

One of my simple everyday-type of joys is wandering and wondering, strolling about rather aimlessly and ruminating about various things, like lazily speculating what the people I encounter do for simple, everyday joys. Hidden joys we don’t necessarily communicate outside the crevices of long conversations with people who truly love you enough to care hearing about undramatic moments in your daily routine. Private joys we may be embarrassed to even admit, not because they involve some elicit behavior (they don’t), but because they may simply seem weird, random, or awkward to verbalize and may receive a look that says (perhaps accompanied by the actual words): “Why the fuck did you say that?” Undercover joys only uncovered, revealed, and spotlighted in accepting corners of loving Hammock Reviews where we can relax in the notion that the smart readership is either wise enough to attach their own brilliance to rather mundane moments of writing to make reading it an interesting experience or gloss over it altogether without complaint and retroactively pretend they enjoyed it, especially when an ahead-of-their-time professor assigns it as an optional alternative reading assignment to Jane Eyre, which has been described as a “classic,” but never labeled a mundane joy**** like one might describe drinking coffee and reading a Hammock Review or drinking rum and reading a Hammock Review or so on (which may be a little too exciting to be called mundane—our mistake underselling ourselves here).

Because the parenthetical statement ending the above paragraph seemingly contradicts the other contents of the paragraph, we must take a moment to define our use of the word “mundane” here, with a history that may or may not be called “mundane” itself as thus its etymology has often gone ignored in history classes–or any conversations happening anywhere. Rather than pile onto the bullying that mundane experiences through societal neglect of it and mundane attitude towards it, we will give it attention here out of the kindness of our hammock-loving hearts.

Mundane has its history in this world, the physical world around you. While commonly meaning “boring” or “dull,” it retains its Late Latin and Old French roots of ancestral words meaning “belonging to the world” and “of this world,” which is contrasted to the cosmos or things outside of this world that may be seen as a little more interesting–and less mundane. Which is why Galileo lost his eyesight staring at the sun instead of retaining his eyesight by staring at the ground.

In other words, mundane has historically been beat up, laughed at in contrast to the cool cosmos. Kicked around like a studio wrestling jabroni with a regular name waiting to be smashed by the showcased wrestler, like Macho Man Randy Savage, or made fun of by The Rock.

But this is a tag-team match here and the historical jabroni named Johnny Mundane is about to tag teammate seemingly (under contract of the esteemed Hammock Management Group).

So when we talk about mundane joys here, what we really mean is seemingly mundane joys that may seem or look so outwardly mundane to the viewer, that they won’t normally cause them to stop, watch, and consider (unless performing extensive research for a Hammock Review) not only because we don’t have the time to sit and contemplate the deeper meanings of someone walking to the end of the driveway and picking up their newspaper, but because for most people that is not among the chief joys of their day and even for those that it is, they don’t normally communicate it in outwardly obvious ways through screams of elation or hallelujahs. They do not express it like they may familial love through big hugs or romantic love through PDA or Hammock Love by creating a website featuring long poetic Reviews dedicated to such expressions like the old legends of an “Evenings Star” (a hammock*****) written by the great Romanian poets of old.

These grandiose outward expressions–like those that involve hugs and kisses and hammocks******– are obvious and easy for the viewer to interpret and usually in visual contrast to the expression of mundane loves, which those outside of the person experiencing the mundane love may never recognize exists because the outward evidence of such joys is normally so subtle that the casual observer never has the time or care to interpret. We cannot sit and wonder if this quick Friday bank deposit is a necessary errand and absolutely mundane without any element of cosmos or if it is that woman’s seemingly mundane–but actually cosmos-infused–weekly joy for reasons unknown to those outside of the woman, and maybe not articulable even by her herself as the cosmos entering the mundaneness of the errand cannot be pinpointed to a specific fact–she is not depositing large sums of money that make her happy–or a particular sense: she doesn’t love the smell or sight of the bank lobby. She just enjoys it, for whatever reason.

The outside person may never know she enjoys it. And if we did, we may be the recipient of a stalking complaint, which is not typically a mundane joy of anyone–at least not the greatly respected Hammock Review readership.

People may call what we have so mundanely described above as people watching. And perhaps it is. But the term people watching is often used with a negative angle to it, with people often looking for things to make fun of people for. But that is not our goal here. The type of hammock-moment-watching we are discussing seeks the positive, those moments where people find their daily hammock, the daily moment of relaxation and comforting joy where it doesn’t appear, where they allow the cosmos to enter the mundane, where they have moments of “living the dream,” not sarcastically, but genuinely. In short, they find the hammock (the cosmos) where there is none (the non-hammock mundane)--and marry the two, in holy matrimony.

Thus you could call our observations wedding crashing had Hollywood not already profiteered from that term. Thus we may more lamely but more accurately call it people wondering: just wondering what people do. We suggest that term not because we believe it to be so clever, but rather because of our penchant for veracity, our almost obsessive compulsion for truthful, meticulous exactitude necessary for the laying the framework for the hurricane-resistant hammock base of the future that will lead us laying down into The Beautiful Hammock Future.

But in the present we are left wondering about the seemingly mundane joys of others. Not only because there is not yet a respectable poll to tell us people’s mundane joys like there is for global bear popularity in a given year, but more that it is simply that we never know these things for sure because we really cannot ask.

Imagine the following dialogue:

Coworker A: Hi Ahmed, how are you?

Coworker B: Good Jeff, and you?

Coworker A: I am great Ahmed, at this moment, as we meet here at the office Keurig machine, which is one of the small moments in life I look forward to. I really enjoy pressing the buttons on the machine, having the first cup of coffee (at the office, for it is my second cup of coffee for the day because I had one on the drive in, I always do), and enjoying morning pleasantries with you. I may have never told you that, I may have kept such pleasantries to myself, but now I want to open my heart to you and articulate how much I enjoy this moment.

No one wants to hear that from Jeff–at any time of day, but especially so early in the morning, before you have gotten YOUR first cup of coffee, because this is Ahmed’s first cup for the day–which would have been one of HIS simple everyday joys, had Jeff not ruined it by opening his mundane heart.

It is certainly not coffee from the cosmos.

Not from a Keurig machine, it is sure isn’t.

To not be creepy, awkward, and boring like Jeff, to not ruin the simple joys of others, we usually forgo articulating such Keurig-based joys.

For instance, I have never told the gas station clerk, “I really enjoy coming in here after filling up my tank and buying Slim Jims from you. I am way too excited about snapping into a Slim Jim. I eat mostly healthy and normally would avoid the ingredients in the Slim Jim, but the pure honesty of ‘mechanically separated chicken’ on the label, makes me laugh. I am sure this pleasant comment from me–and the fact I will give you five out of five on the keypad questionnaire asking how your service was–will more than make up for the fact that customers are giving you glares expressing their impatience of waiting in line as I go through this long, mundane diatribe. Plus, Macho Man Randy Savage has endorsed my action.”

I never say that, despite the fact Macho Man Randy Savage really has endorsed my action.

So such rich daily routines of the reasonable masses become life’s mini-mysteries. Unsolved. With no Robert Stack to guide us towards closure, the questions persist.

Is this person’s prized daily joy going to the corner store and buying a snack? For that person is it their morning coffee? Is it something else? Maybe they are the first to rise in their household and enjoy that moment of stillness (great for laying in a hammock or reading a Hammock Review). Maybe they are the last to rise and enjoy activity around them. Or does one really look forward to lunch? Perhaps it is their commute to or from work. Or completing a certain task in a workday–or beginning a certain task. Or the middle moments of performing a certain task.

Or skimming through a certain task, like one might skim through Shakespeare or a Hammock Review while acting like they really enjoy it and understand the genius of it all to sexually impress a romantic partner so they will get laid later in the day.

For me, these are the questions that lead to the world’s most interesting people. When you can infuse the cosmos into the mundane, you have done something interesting. When you are an outwardly “regular” person–a busdriver, a waiter, a customer service whatever–and you find joy in the small moments. Like Akakiy Akakievich Bashmachkin finding joy in his copying, especially being delighted by certain letters, when he encountered them, being able, in a way, to copy the cosmos, to be its scribe, to write down the heavenly into earthy words like the great scribes of old. Akakiy actually does that in a way because most would probably find that job painstakingly boring, painstakingly mundane. But to find a real joy in the shape of a letter: that is interesting. In fact that is more interesting to me than the people who are normally the subject of biographies and biopics–the famous people who have often separated themselves from the mundane as much as possible in favor of the of-this-world-fancy-cosmos things.

Yes, the happy bus driver, driving us on the worldly world roads to the cosmos: that is the most interesting person to me.

But even if we just compare ourselves to ourselves, I find those cosmic mundane joys the most interesting parts of just one person. We spend such a minority of our lives doing “sexy” and “glamorous” things–even for sexy and glamorous people like Hammock Reviewers–what are the ordinary things that bring us joy (even if they may not bring us social media likes)? That is an ever interesting question for me. One that has endless correct answers. And can be endlessly explored. And when we are in the right mind to observe it, we are able to share the humanity in that joy, and hear the refrain reverberating: “I am your brother.”

“And furthermore, brother, I am in a hammock.”

What gives you that hammock-like feeling?

That is the universal question of humanity. The cosmic question.

It is also a Great Daily Poll. If you didn’t participate by clicking on the link the first two times around, we are giving you another chance here. #ThirdTime’sTheCharm

Examinations into daily hammock-like feelings are not some large questions about life’s meanings we can never answer. But small everyday questions that we can (citation: The Great Daily Hammock Poll).

So I walked up and down the streets by the hotel just daydreaming about these simple things, wandering with my feet and mind.

Such a view may differ greatly from what someone thinks when a friend mentions they traveled far from home. A different portrait is pictured. At least a different image enters my mind. A different kind of moment.

Postcard moments.

Dramatic moments. Iconic moments. Memorable moments.

Something the youngsters could describe as “epic.” #EpicMoments

Though postcards are a dying breed, their legacy lives on. When someone tells me they are going to Paris, I think of them sipping coffee happily in outdoor cafes and chilling in front of the Eiffel Tower. Even though I know that will be the minority of their trip. Those are the postcard moments.

Even though I may have never actually seen that on an actual postcard. In my mind, I feel like I have seen that postcard a million times. I have daydreamed of it at least, when I think of Paris. That’s what we imagine, what we dream of, what we are sold, what we sell ourselves. Those postcard moments.

That have evolved or devolved or simply changed and morphed into Instagram moments.

And that is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. It can be fun and positive. #HashtagsMakePeopleHappy

Especially the youth.

So the youth may identify these more as hashtag moments. #HashtagMoments

But the world passes us all by in time, with time.

Either by time going by and us not keeping up with the times, as no person can truly do. Or by not having the time to comprehensively observe that which goes on around us, which no one usually has the time for.

Unless we are on hammock adventures.

Then we have the time.

So call it hashtags from the volcano if you are from one generation or postcards from a volcano if you are from another. But those lava-laden methods of communication are more interesting to me than their more sparkly, more popular lava-less brethren.

It is not a matter of whether you see Richard Harrow as a freak or the tinman. He is not part of these moving pictures, for these erupted volcanoes appear unerupted. Whether wounds or wonderful things, the histories are not apparent, do not surface to the surface. Instead allowing mundanity to take center stage.

Things which happen that we are normally unaware of–whether or not we are younger, whether or not we represent the next generation like in Wallace Stevens’ moving poem:

Children picking up our bones

Will never know that these were once

As quick as foxes on the hill;

One cannot visibly see foxes on this street by the Hammock View Hotel. It is just a street (other than its wonderfully-close proximity to the Hammock View Hotel, of course). A regular street (other than its conveniently-close proximity to the Hammock View Hotel, of course). A mundane picture. A non-commercial postcard moment. Not even a carefully-crafted professional photo posing as the mundane. Not a thoughtful hashtag feigning impromptu unpremeditation. No, instead it is truly a privilege to have the handsomely hammock-hung time to read authentic, true postcards from volcanoes, of zero commercial appeal.

What histories does this street hold? What histories do these houses hold? “Spirit[s] storming in [the] blank walls” of the seemingly mundane, the non-traditional postcard moments.

But unlike Stevens’ poem, I am not the narrator. I am not the postcard sender. I am on the outside. Just a lazy reader. And because the moments are not carefully staged or crafted like a powerful professional photograph or Stevens’ poem, the intensity is not there. There is not the flood of emotions–positive, negative, and everything all around. There is just the hammock of emotions, which filters the heavy ones out and allows the soft ones to rest.

But there is one thing in my mundane picture that stands out to me, that does accurately remind me of this moment: the blue, cloudless sky. It felt so endless, matching the open ocean it is so near, not framed by islands in the distance or a relentlessly jagged coastline like where I live in Maine, with endless inlets and bays that allows Maine to upset heavy favorite California 3,478 miles to 3,427 miles in the American tidal coastline competition.

And so when you look out on the water in Maine, there is almost always some land somewhere framing it. When you look at the sky, there are almost always some clouds anchoring the view. I don’t have statistics to support this cloud assertion like the coastline in the previous paragraph, but endless songs have been written titled “Counting Clouds” and there is this amazing video. Of course many people mistakenly think the title of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” is “Clouds” as the first third of the song is so cloud heavy with clouds having “got[ten] in [her] way.”

The song was released on, and concluded as the final track of, her wonderful album Clouds.

But on this particular day in Accra, no clouds got in my way of my goal of walking in circles.

I like to do the same thing–walking aimlessly–at home as well. I love to take a stroll around the neighborhood*******, sans plan, and end up where I started********. I actually don’t need to go halfway across the world to get circular. It just makes the circle larger, I suppose. Such contrasts in circular strolling are things better examined by the great geometers of this world, for geometric greatness is not exactly what one strives for when walking in circles.

When one walks in circles, they aren’t exactly striving. They are just walking.

Most of my life, I suppose, is just walking in circles. How the fuck did Joni Mitchell know me so well? It is just that work and responsibilities seem to often interfere with such a pastime when at home. So, often I have to travel far to walk aimlessly in circles. In retrospect, it seems like this is a correctable issue, an obstacle that could be overcome with a little planning and thinking (or walking in the same unbroken circle).

But this is no time for thinking here. This is not a time for endless circles. This is time for hammocks. And there certainly is a time for hammocks. (citation: Ecclesiastes, The Book of).

And so we stroll forward towards hammock, circuitously.

Having seen the hammock view and the view of the street below, you may also be wondering what the hotel's hammocks themselves look like. For that, you must use your imagination. Not because I didn’t take a picture or lost the picture–all reasonable possibilities–but because the Hammock View Hotel did not really have any hammocks, per se, just hammock views.

As shocking as that may initially be, set your defibrillator aside for the moment because who was it that allowed us to believe there would be hammocks at the Hammock View Hotel?

Ourselves.

Hope is funny thing. It can play with our expectations. To what statistical degree exactly is something for the mathematicians to explore. For here, we seek not statistical accuracy. We seek hammocks.

Which the Hammock View Hotel never claimed to have. One cannot fault them for false advertising because only the view is specified in the name. It is not called the Hammock Hotel.

Though there should be a Hammock Hotel on every highway and byway of the world. And there will be, in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

But we are not yet in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Sometimes we have to establish the view before we hang the hammock.

That is likely to be an ancient hammock proverb in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

Even now, it is a smart thing to say.

Don’t believe me? Say it at a dinner party, and you are likely to get a response, “Oh, I never thought of that before.”

Because you are smarter than that person, you had thought of it before.

And you are better educated than that person, because you have read this Review.

The accompanying quizzical expression when one currently spouts future ancient wisdom is natural because they don’t know the answers to the quiz.

But you do.

They don’t even know the quiz exists.

But you do.

Because you have read this Review, which has supplied you with the necessary knowledge to be a distributor of future ancient wisdom. And so we equip you here with what a Hammock View looks like, so you don’t go into such dinner-party situations unarmed and looking like an idiot.

And so we must pause here and give credit to the Hammock View Hotel’s name, which forces us here–in the most positive and productive of ways–to pause and consider what a hammock view is, what separates a hammock view from an armchair view or an oceanview. Or other views that may be commonly adjectivized, like obstructed views, common in the architectural designs of the baseball cathedrals of old, like Fenway Park.

This could be a whole essay into itself. The overlap between oceanview and hammock view is obvious. The lesser overlap between hammock views and obstructed views is less obvious. Hopefully, hammock views will eventually get enough respect that all dictionaries will accept it as a closed compound–hammockview–like some dictionaries currently accept oceanview as one word rather than two: ocean view. Closing a compound is indeed the greatest sign of achieved respect in this world. #HammockReviews

So we must do the work here to build hammock view up to the respect it deserves and close the space in between. As we shy away from no seemingly impossible task (that relates to hammocks), we will do the heavy lifting. And so like the great definition of the great bodybuilders of old, we will bulk up and provide great definition here:

A hammock view is thus a relaxing view, a calming view, an effortless view.

But that is not a fixed definition, but rather simply an entry. Like the great madmen of old, we can easily provide another entry:

A hammock view is a view that creates a breeze where there once was none.

We naturally could continue on here with entry after entry as sure as the day (and this bright Hammock Review) is long because the definition of hammock view has endless potential entries, as it is flexible and endlessly malleable and moldable, putty in the hands like the great bodybuilders of old in the hands of their spouses after the decades of steroid use have stopped and one form of six pack has been replaced by another as Facebook memes marvel at how models of fitness can further improve their looks (and sexual appeal) by transforming into models of hammocks, and still be the same person despite the altered, enhanced outward appearance, achieved by all-natural means, just like life—and this very paragraph (citation: naturally)—began.

But there is a time for the heavy lifting to stop, especially when you have already achieved the physical peak of man as we did in the previous paragraph. While one (idiot) could think that might mean it is time to conclude such a robust Review or that it would thus all be downhill from here, as the saying goes, that saying is wrong in this instance, as that simple, sunken, and stunted saying never anticipated how mountainously metaphorically high above sea level Hammock Reviews can miraculously maintain such surprisingly (to idiots) high levels of oxygen. So we can rise from that squat position with those hefty loads in defiance of gravity. Yes Dear Reader Friend, there are higher altitudes yet to climb to and even more impressive peaks to reach as we ascend to new spiritual heights that eclipse the old physical peaks from before (the previous paragraph) that will look then look like small, deflated men of once ego-inflated puffy chests.

As we have now provided definition to hammock views and some proven examples from the Hammock View Hotel, we will ask our large readership to submit their own versions of hammock views and start, along with us, writing hammockview as a compound word as we are transitioning to doing in real time here so that dictionaries will be forced to accept it. #GrassrootsDictionaryMovements

Still, one could imagine how such a crafty distinction between Hammock Hotel and Hammock View Hotel may have caused frustration or anxiety in a world so seemingly increasingly filled with frustration and anxieties. For the internet and social media sites, it has been well-documented (partly above, in a previous paragraph we have now lost track of–but more largely so in a vast amount of academic and internet articles, which we won’t link to for they may cause anxiety or depression themselves for lack of hammock-centered content), have helped fuel so much anxiety and depression throughout the globe. So one could imagine how using such a common stress-inducer of the internet with the intent of finding a hammock and instead finding a hammock view, sans hammock, could have precipitated sad and self-deprecating statements like:

Oh, where am I to find a hammock in this lonely hammock-less world?!

or:

If hammocks–the kindest entity in this world–don’t love me enough to find me, who will?

or:

If I cannot find a hammock, I am a worthless piece of shit who doesn’t even deserve a moment of relaxation, so I will work myself to death and then afterwards hopefully someone, somewhere will see some value in the life I lived, for I neither do now nor never did.

We write Hammock Reviews so people never have to feel that way.

For we show you the way to hammocks.

Follow us:

Where negative feelings and emotions slip away as the hammock is the great emotional filter of the world: not restrictively muzzling what we should or should not say for public consumption, but rather letting the heavy emotion slip through the spaces in the weaving while the good, light stuff (your body, filled with lighter emotions) remains supported.

There is no stress in the hammock game; there is no bullying; there is no ruthless backstabbing to fame or profits.

You cannot even really stab someone in the back when they are in a hammock–at least it would be difficult: you would have to crawl under the hammock and stab upwards, which is likely against any desired or ideal ergonomics when stabbing—certainly not what trainers would recommend in most stabber training videos for the newly hired, or even recurring training to maintain expertise and certification for the veterans who may otherwise get lazy with technique—the stabber is likely to incur an elbow injury, perhaps “tennis elbow” for the repeat offenders.

While “tennis elbow” may not seem so bad to those that haven’t it and may sound like a country club injury of sorts, it can nag you for life. This unadvised upward stabbing method can also result in the stabber getting blood on their face, which is usually frowned upon in country clubs–unless you’re The Juice of course, and quite good with the rock, breaking records and stuff.

But wait! There’s more!

Other elbow injuries could also occur. It is possible sloppy stabber would instead need Tommy John surgery, which would sideline their stabbing activity for a significant amount of time and greatly harm their leverage during their next contract negotiations.

But rather than go on and on here about elbow injuries and take up a whole issue of a medical journal if this were to be published in one after the organic peer reviewing process of some of our medical professional readership (we are unaware of any stated stipulations that peer reviews must be conducted sober), we will kindly move on to where our professional credentials lie.

Quite literally.

And we are not sorry for that dad joke. Because it is not a dad joke. It is a hammock joke. Rather, it is Hammock Humor.

And there is abundance of good humor where hammocks are involved: not backstabbing.

So no, there is no backstabbing or corruption where hammocks are involved. No one ever heard of the powerful Hammock Lobby writing legislation (though this actually sounds like a good idea, come to think of it, so we are working on starting one so we may expedite our entry into the Beautiful Hammock Future) or governments warmongering to gain control of hammocks or hammock-rich soil. Neither do the world’s few remaining readers often read stories of car thieves taking a sabbatical from their regular carjacking routine to instead take your prized hammock, which doesn’t cost you an arm and leg quarterly for your insurance anyway like your automobile does. No tree hugger ever chained themself to a tree to prevent a hammock being attached to it, for they know trees were meant to have hammocks, as a hammock attached to a tree makes a tree feel wanted and increases its self-confidence (citation: proposed studies with pending financing) just as horses love having humans on their backs (citation: westerns). Children of wealthy parents who recently died of non-hammock-related causes may fight over the beach house or the Bugatti in the will, but will return to civility when it comes to the hammock inheritance, for while the hammock is the most desirable and durable multi-generational possession (not depreciating in value like the Bugatti or requiring upkeep from salt damage like the beach house), its inherent nature calms the tension in the room, cuts it like a knife, as the saying goes, or like a saw: possibly one used to cut wood that will later be used to construct the base of a hammock–if the hammock base is wood-based of course.

The construction of hammock bases is something we should always be aware of and work towards, always paving the way for hammocks. Just like we are doing here in this Hammock Review, where we are not rushing towards building an improperly-built base that will falter under heavy winds and kill someone kind. Instead, we are doing it properly so that it will hold under even tormentous conditions and a good person doesn’t have to die before they have the chance to change their will and avoid giving the Bugatti to the wrong child, who they recently realized is a spoiled, entitled asshole who hates hammocks and doesn’t even deserve that poor RAV4 that Kanye West won’t drive. After all, designing a base, cutting wood, finishing it, hammering it together, etc. takes a long time. #Craftsmanship #Pride #Woodworking

The base essentially is the Magic Johnson or John Stockton of the Hammock World, setting up the scoring of the hammock, allowing its success to be a slam dunk. A good hammock base is indeed like a good hammock point guard that makes everything look easy: like laying in a hammock or Karl Malone, a guy neither Michael Jordan nor Phil Jackson thought was a natural scorer, once reaching second on the NBA all-time points leaderboard with 36,928*********.

To know where to put the base, how to set up the hammock play and be a good basketball point guard, one must have a view of the whole court, one must have vision, one must know where a good Hammock View is. That is a step towards success (hammock, athletic, and otherwise).

Besides being a point guard, NFL quarterback, or most important person you know, another way to look at a hammock base is to view it as the early stages in Maslow’s Hierarchy. The hammock base is your food and shelter, your safety and security; the hammock base, at times, literally is your property. Abraham Maslow is kind of a piece shit for not not making all of this clearer.

That’s one way we justify making this Hammock Review so long: so it will all be so clear for future generations. Instead of cranky, frustrated, and increasingly bitter********** parents lecturing their children about how they go to jobs they don’t like “to put food on their table,” “to put a roof over your head,” and other such old, lame, worn-out refrains, they will instead more pleasantly do their unpleasant labor for the more pleasant thought of “putting a hammock on a hammock base,” a phrase no one can say in a seriously cranky voice–and something kids can truly understand the value of. Kids don’t give a shit about roofing.

There are no cranky voices involved in hammock discourse. In the hammock game, positivity is king, a relaxed fate where the view is almost always (best to be careful of the burden of absolutes that don’t allow for wiggle room) with hammocks. A potential thief may have tried to break into your home, but then saw the hammock, laid in it, and fell asleep, and then left in the morning before you even knew your life was in danger along with your family heirlooms, expensive jewelry, and freshly mopped kitchen floor. Yes, it is all good outcomes when hammocks are involved. And we didn’t even have the time or space to go into detail about how the now-retired-thief chose a different career path a good night’s sleep in your hammock and now plays an important role at your local hospital (not as the anesthesiologist for your upcoming surgery, but an important supporting role). #HIPAA

We should be ever-cognizant of the malleability of fate so we can gently twist it when need be, like whatever material (likely cotton) is used to make the hammock in this metaphor, to something positive.

So all is positive with the Hammock View Hotel. In fact, we should never look at the Hammock View Hotel as lacking. Because it is necessary to provide us the platform (a base of sorts) for this essential discussion here. The Hammock View Hotel allows us to emphasize just how important the metaphorical hammock is, which would be impossible to do if we were at the Hammock Hotel***********, filled with physical hammocks.

The Hammock View Hotel allows us to visualize what we would like to happen, before it happens, thus prepaving the way for it indeed to happen. In other words, Hammock View Hotels, along with their unofficial affiliates, are how one can get a glimpse into the future. To call the Hammock View Hotel Nostradamus’s favorite hotel would stating an incorrect fact, but stating that the Hammock View Hotel should have been Nostradamus’s favorite hotel would be stated a correct fact, which could be followed up by stating another factual statement: the Hammock View Hotel would be the perfect hotel for Nas to stay at to write a sequel to his 2008 album Nastradamus.

The Hammock View Hotel would also be a great hotel for an athlete to stay before a big contest (provided they can travel back to wherever the game is in time) because they could practice visualization and see the game play out before it happens—without having to spy on the opponent and tape practices, etc. like the great New England Patriots scandals of old.

Just like a successful athlete may practice visualization–seeing what they’ll do before they do it–or simply be able to recognize a play unfolding faster than others, so too does a hammock view (as present in the Hammock View Hotel) allow us to see our play (laying in a hammock) before it happens. Thus to call Hammock Models among the great athletes of the world is something that may be a little ahead of its time at the time of publication, but we are just practicing visualization, taking a peak through our Hammock View and setting up you, younger generations, the Karl Malones of the Future with our John Stockton-like court vision.

If you think this is all nonsensical, haphazardly harmonized hogwash, consider what a waste it would be to harmonize hogwash and then consider the following question. What name do more people know: Austin Richard Post or Post Malone?

Answer: the latter. Yet, they are the same person (citation: A, DN). But the latter takes on the namesake of Karl Malone by the former having the Hammock View foresight to make the Stockon-like pass to Malone. If Austin Richard tried to score fame on his own name alone, we would never know him and John Stockton would never be in the Hall of Fame (if he acted similarly in this unsuccessful hypothetical way).

The Hammock View is necessary to the success of the Hammock. We humbly assist the Hammock here (though we are not sure yet either how to get it to defeat Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals; that’s still a work in progress).

So visualization, actualization–the Hammock View is the “ization” of life, the process of becoming. Actualizing a Hammock View, where there was just once a view. And later, actualizing a hammock where there was once just a Hammock View.

The Hammock View is the vision, the wisdom to see what is not yet there, to infuse the cosmos into the mundane, the seemingly mundane.

The Hammock View Hotel did that. It took a place of lodging that I would have never gone to, never would have known about, never would have found, and brought me there.

And now it’s brought you there, in a way. Or at least it’s brought you to the view, the Hammock View through this Hammock Review.

What the Hammock View Hotel lacked in actually having a hammock it made up for with the wise decision to put the word “hammock” in its name. As such, I have to give it five stars out of five.

That may seem generous given the fact that it did not have a hammock. But we cannot always have a hammock in our lives, yet we can always say the word “hammock” and think about hammocks if we like. As such, the Hammock View Hotel gets five out of five stars from me in the kind of astronomical generosity not seen since Rex Walls, the great Glass Castle engineer of old, gifted stars to his children for Christmas instead of other more worldly, commercialized gifts.

And you too should feel the same five-out-of-five-star feeling if you have any decency–or hammocks–in your life (and if you have the latter, then you definitely have the former).

It (fate, the hotel, and hammocks) also guided me to some good local food–and here is where I must also credit the aforementioned circles, because after wandering around for some time, I landed right back near the hotel, almost completing a full circle.

Great food!

Good local food & good eater of food.

That is the last time you’ll see my hands clean during that meal, a truly delicious meal.

I did not realize I was supposed to eat with one hand rather than two as I consumed the wonderful fresh food.

Sometimes we can stumble over explanations as try to explain our profession of Hammock Reviewers. While the sexiness and sauce from our foods may drip right off of us, sometimes the articulate version of a job description does not quickly drip right out of our mouths. It is not always so easy to explain exactly what a Hammock Reviewer does. Despite the Brobdingnagian levels of talent, good looks, good work ethic, and overall goodness that goes into constructing a good Hammock Review, I would dare say post-meal fufu making is more difficult.

Fortunately, I had a 3-step intensive course.

Beginning Fufu Making

Intermediate Fufu Making

Advanced Fufu Making

Oh somewhere in this land, somewhere in the neighborhood I had roamed, someone stopped for some fufu, filled their belly with the fufu made above, and said “I am full.” Did they then go home and tell their wife, “wow, that was some mighty good fufu. While fufu is not normally known as an aphrodisiac, let us now make love and have a baby that may cure cancer.”?

As it takes some time for one to grow up and study cancer-curing, it may be some time before cancer does get cured. But just know that people are working on it.

In that way and this way, I must also credit circles–for while this fufu that I was helping (using the most pliable version of this word “helping”) to make would then be eaten in a similar to meal to what I had eaten earlier, like a semi-Circle of Life situation (citation: John, Elton; King, The Lion).

Also in this way and that way (and maybe other ways), considering the videos from above, a professional************ hammock connoisseur, an experienced Hammock Reviewer like myself, is not completely distinct from a professional football player, who will look at film to study what they have done incorrectly on the field in order to better themselves the next time in continuously honing their craft.

The next time, in this instance, may refer more to how I look back at fate and better retroactively justify it, rather than how I look back on my fufu-making abilities and actually improve them, for I must confess that I believe I have hit a plateau in that arena of life, for I will never be like–-and have no desire to be like–-Tom Brady who would take a different approach to fufu making as described as Man in the Arena: “We outworked you. Now, when the chance came, we outwilled you.”

Calm down Tommy Boy, why would you want to take such an approach to fufu making? So does Brady plan to outwork you in the film session of his fufu-making technique or outwork you in this part of the fufu preparation? When is he going to outwill you? What happens when? He probably doesn’t know. He just said something he thought would sound cool. Tom Brady is full of shit.

Tom Brady has probably never laid in a hammock. It is probably against his TB12 Method.

He probably approaches hammocks like he approaches coffee: he doesn’t.

Our approach to fate, in the hammock world–-in the “hammock arena,” if you want to call it that–-is a little different. We do approach fate like one walks on the beach towards the ocean (after lying in a hammock for some substantial time). And then we ride the fate wave; we go with the flow–we work with you, rather than outwork. We won’t outwill you; we will will you to a hammock–something Brady never talks about in his TB12 book because he is only concerned with what makes his muscles more pliable. But what about making fate more pliable? So, when we get the chance, we look back reflectively with a positive spin on things.

In the Hammock Review world*************, we are more apt to listen to the Spin Doctors: of the “Two Princes,” we are the prince who wants to buy you rockets and live the whimsical life; whereas Tom Brady is the arrogant rich prince who doesn’t know shit. We are the Jimmy Olsen with the Pocket Full of Kryptonite and the breakout classic 90s album; Tom Brady is the boring Superman who gives everyone anxiety–like the Other Internet–and the need for blood pressure medication by waiting until the last minute to save the day (citation: Brady has all-time record for 4th quarter comebacks). #Narcissism

With the hammocks, the day is saved in the first quarter—in pregame warmups, in fact, as soon as you step on the field of hammocks and lie in the first one. With hammocks, the moment of anxiety never comes. For a sports comparison, hammocks are Secretariat–making winning look easy and doing so with a big heart**************.

And a big hammock.

Or a medium-sized hammock.

Or a small hammock.

For any hammock does the job, when you are the Man in the Hammock, the anti-Tom Brady film. The anti-Tom Brady fate.

The anti-Tom Brady everything.

The good everything.

The sweet everything.

The Sweet Livin’ everything. Which such sweet hammock fate brings us.

Hammock fate is less dramatic than Brady’s arena or other arenas of traditional film study such as film critics and academics who may take film so seriously, often looking for deep meanings supported by textual evidence. For hammock-induced fate lightly looks for comfortable meaning, not needing textual evidence for support and thus forgoing everyone’s least favorite part of writing class.

Things like fate, things that could be anything we put our minds to (like ordering something on Amazon we don’t need but feel better about than we should because we get 5 percent back through rewards on the credit card), might often be best taken less seriously anyway. If we apply the top gambler of the 17th century–Blaise Pascal–and his famous wager to fate, would you logically rather believe in a fate that you have conveniently constructed and is ridiculous and fun or something terrible like you are meant to scrub floors forever in a loveless life en route to dying before the median lifespan in your demographic (and thus lower the life expectations of others, even by the smallest decimal point, in the process)?

Most people who associate with fate, probably retroactively make it up anyway, without admitting it. After all, it is often said that the first step to solving a problem is to identify that you have one, to admit that you have one. By admitting it, in the hammock world, it better allows for some revisions and tightening up of punchlines for jokes and whatnot as to make your life a more entertaining bit, or entire routine–perhaps justifying more alcohol intake and lazy days on hammocks. After all, revision is one of the most integral parts of the writing process (citation: University Writing Centers).

Most people just usually never credit hammocks as the co-authors of such fates, making hammocks the hardest working ghostwriters this side of https://www.sweetlivinproductions.com/ghostwriting-services-1 (and probably harder-working than them as well). It is the metaphorical hammock that their mind rests on–-or where they allow the annoying, heavy hard facts of truth to rest on before they simmer in the sun and relax into retroactive fun–-that allows fates to be so softly adjusted and massaged into the meanings we want.

Normally people credit God, Mother Nature, some large universal force that is at the core of their lives–-and those forces may or may not have had an effect on their fate and may or may not deserve to be listed as co-authors on this highly hypothetically fate article we are currently discussing–-but to leave hammocks off of the authorship, to not at least credit hammocks in the “et. al,” is a pure breach of academic integrity in the field of retroactive fate academia.

Fate will be rather unbearable if stripping away hammock’s fate co-authorship becomes stare decisis in the eyes of global editors. Luckily, there is still some time to fight the good fight (which we are doing here in these gutsy Reviews) as there has yet to be any serious discourse on this (important) matter. And if we are able to get hammocks enough fate authorship credits quickly, then stare decisis will be on the side of hammock in this matter, and thus on our side in this matter, and thus on fate’s good side. Yes, once stare decisis kicks in, with hammocks already writing fate, it will be a permanent positive path to The Beautiful Hammock Future.

It would be difficult to find any sort of legible or coherent or interesting meaning in anything pertaining to fate if hammocks were left on the sideline, out of the field of play, as has already happened far too for way too long.

For, in the ideal world (The Beautiful Hammock Future, the only true functional utopia that supplies gainful employment for artisans) hammock involvement in fate is not only as a great co-author, but also as the greatest of editors. Your hammock is your Maxwell Perkins to your Thomas Wolfe.

Pretty much all stories–-whether in print, film, oral***************, or some other form--need editors.

Imagine, for instance, you had Hammock Reviews that were just written whimsically on coffee and alcohol, on everything TB12 is against, and included just whatever thought entered the author’s mind, no matter how divergent from the main point it was, without the benefit of a team of highly-paid and well-scholared editors coming in to tighten the writing up and improve the Hammock Review’s efficiency and clarity. Just imagine how much time it would take you to slog through unnecessarily long reviews that never had the fat trimmed down by TB12-style editing and boring lifestyle choices so that you could get the “best” Hammock Review performance possible?

Or would you just prefer the juicy, fatty bacon-like Hammock Reviews for breakfast served any time of the day that the internet–or paper printed that you brought with you into the woods so you could contemplate the Hammock Review off the grid–is available?

So fate can be mixed not only with hammocks but also film study and philosophical gambles (or just regular gambling like poker or sports betting, if you like–you can do whatever you want in these scenarios), as has been just so well-described and shown for you.

Oh yes hammocks are like the literary license applied to fate, instead of just older literature. Why do long, old novels get a monopoly on all of the revision? Why does lengthy literature get all the leeway on length and phallic symbols being cool instead of juvenile and the idea that a long, layered novel is indicative of the author having a long, layered penis? Has the Federal Trade Commission fallen asleep at the wheel? Or is this willful neglect? #Corruption

But no need to worry, society****************: hammocks do not wait for the FTC to act. Hammocks make their own soup (metaphor).

There are a lot of things you can throw in the fate/hammock soup metaphor. And it always tastes good, just like the classic fable about stone soup where the townspeople get tricked into being kind to each other, feeding each other, and being overall good and fun human beings like will be commonplace in The Beautiful Hammock Future as hammocks encourage such generosity and camaraderie–but without such deceitful trickery. Yes, hammocks can honestly feed a rural town, metaphorically, just as they can an urban area because even when places are crowded, hammocks take up no floor space; and so, like the Great Jell-Os of Old, there’s always room for hammocks.

In other words, hammock fate is like a charcuterie board that you can put any food on you damn well please–as long as you eat it with your fingers or toothpicks. No traditional utensils permitted (sorry silverware industry).

But every soup needs its core, its star player, its selling point. When you see a soup on the menu, you naturally ask, “What kind of soup?” At least a person who is not dumb would ask that. Such a dynamic was detailed in the famous movie chronicling dumbness–Dumb & Dumber–when they stop off at the diner. Jim Carrey orders the soup du jour without knowing what it really is–who its star player is–because, the message of the movie goes, he is dumb (or dumber, depending on your perspective and interpretation of the film).

Yes, the prudent person appreciates that a soup must have a purposeful taste, a signature element, a star player who can step up in the final minutes and take the final shot that scores with your tastes buds and makes you come back to that restaurant so Flo can earn enough tips to keep heat in her humble home so her kids don’t freeze to death or, more reasonably, get frostbite and possibly lose an appendage (though probably a smaller and more minor one of the lot, nothing that would prevent them from rebounding as adults, getting their life together, and still being able to hang a hammock).

To avoid such a terrible fate for Flo, in other words and metaphors, the soup must have its protagonist (whom the prudent person prudently descries among the hearty cast of supporting characters, the other ingredients in the soup). You can’t tell a story with a bunch of random characters and no protagonist–unless you trust the storytelling credentials of your drunk friend rambling to you at the bar, refusing to shut up for even the smallest amount of time for you to take the much-needed piss break.

As such, with most of the world recognizing this dynamic and the earlier-described dynamics, most soups feature a protagonist who will achieve their goal of pleasing your taste buds, the primetime player. Potato soup has potatoes; tomato soup has tomatoes; bean soup has beans; the aforementioned stone soup has the aforementioned stone. So, naturally, hammock soup has hammocks.

And we already have a hammock soup because of our figurative hammocks and other things tossed in there: the other elements related to this hammock pursuit, such as beer and fufu, random walks, sunshine, nice weather, nice days, and nice views.

Great views.

Hammock views.

But what if we want to make the metaphor chunkier, like the Great Chunky Campbell Soup Commercials of Old featuring the Great NFL Greats of Old? What if we want to make it more delicious and fuller to the reader (than it already is)? What if we want it to be more believable for them? What if we want it to be a stew?

Well then, it would be helpful for the reader to either be getting into a hammock, getting drunk, or for us to be getting serious about the mixed-up mixed-method mixed-metaphor metaphorical culinary arts by tossing a physical hammock into the mix.

To be clear, a soup filled with metaphorical hammocks is just a soup, but a soup starring a physical hammock–the most visible physical embodiment of the star player or a protagonist–becomes a stew.

To call the hammock the Michael Jordan of the stew would be accurate but would also get the Lebron James’ supporters upset.

To the hammock the Lebron James of the stew would be also be accurate but would get the Michael Jordan supporters upset.

So perhaps, for now, in this sentence, we’ll simply call the hammock the Earl Manigault of the stew, the original GOAT (citation: Axthelm, Pete) you may have never heard about (because society widely undersells and underpublicizes hammocks just like they have kept Earl “the Goat” Manigault a secret for all these years), but will help you Rebound, perhaps from soup status to stew status or from winning seasons to championship seasons.

A team without Lebron James or Michael Jordan could be a playoff team, could have fans dreaming of them as contenders, but they are not really true contenders without one of these greats (citation: 93-94 Bulls, et al.).

Likewise, a stew is historically thicker than a soup. So to be around hammocks, to be around championships, to be around stews is to be in “the thick of things”—and now you know the more interesting***************** origin story of that expression or idiom.

And now you know why this Hammock Review is so necessarily long and so filling, and have a better explanation of why you missed the dinner plans with the boring couple double date your partner arranged but you so dreaded on attending tonight and so you spent the evening hiding in a back room drinking high levels of whisky and feeding yourself the nutrients of this satisfying Review. #Justification #AvoidArguments #EverythingWIllBeAllRight #YouDidTheRightThing #AndYou’ReContinuingToDoTheRightThingByContinuingToEducate&NourishYourselfByContinuingToReadThisReview

Yes, doing the right thing and eating the right thing (even if metaphorically) is one in the same (sometimes in the same metaphor, often mixed) and is almost always much more filling than doing the wrong thing which can leave you with a sinking, empty feeling inside. So you are doing the right thing by continuing to consume this metaphor which is more stewy, and thus more meaty, the the soupy metaphor you had been consuming to this point.

Seeing that a stew is more meaty than a soup, things are about to get thicker here and you are certainly entering the thick of things. As Marshall Mathers may articulate the matter: “Get ready: this shit’s about to get heavy.”

So you may equip yourself with a stronger metaphorical spoon, for a metaphorical hammock is more soupy while a physical hammock provides more of a stewy taste. Hardcore stew advocates may simply call soup the base for the stew. It is not our goal here to throw down into any culinary battles that may (or may not******************) result in bloodshed, so we are not ourselves advocating stew over soup other than in this hammock metaphor situation where we have been long building the base for the hammock of this Hammock Review and so building a metaphorical hammock soup as a base to an eventual hammock stew is a very logical progression of events.

And logic has never smelled so good (or lasted so organically-long, sans preservatives) with the enticing aromatics we are providing along the way.

If people (readers of this riveting Review) are wondering about chowder’s place in all of this, which would be natural for our vast and highly intellectual readership—then you must look at it in terms of an historical and sociocultural context. In the first two millennia of the common era, New England was just a normal place where people liked chowder–or at least everything that occurred historically was leading to this fate and could not be stopped or done differently (citation: fate).

Then something happened.

You may be wondering what that something was.

That something was Tom Brady.

So chowder–-and any metaphor surrounding it–transformed from just a regular metaphor, to something oddly fixated on idolizing Tom Brady, which is why Moses got into the stone table-hauling game in the first place.

So now, with such sloppy morality surpassing-forgivable sinfulness of Tom Brady worship recklessly being added to the chowder metaphor at the onset of New England’s metaphor industry’s 21st century transition to unregulated, unclean practices, we cannot use a chowder metaphor with anything to do with hammocks, other than recognizing the need to avoid our fates–and associated metaphors–from ever delving into the anti-hammock nature of the TB12 Method and chowder, the latter of which the former would ironically be likely to only endorse metaphorically.

Fuck Tom Brady.

We’re not going to eat chowder in our hammock. It’s not going to happen.

It’s not part of the Hammock Modeling Method.

With all that in mind, we focus on the dynamic of stews. vs. soups in this current metaphorical situation we are so delicately discussing here in such a dedicated mindful manner, powered by the plentiful politeness of our majestically-manicured manners so often absent on the Other Internet and New England Patriot bars filled Tom Brady paraphernalia that worshippers bow to every autumn Sunday or other disreputable and disgusting New England establishments like illegal New England prostitution and/or drug rings.

It is the position of this Hammock Review, this most sacred of documents in this esteemed genre (greatness), that a stew is to be sought after, yet not necessarily inherently superior to a soup. This will be further explained more in this Hammock Review to prevent potential bloodshed–that probably wouldn’t happen anyway but we will take precautions to prevent later anyway because we should prevent bloodshed any time we have the opportunity to do so, not only for the person who does not receive a scar or death from the potential bloodshed that we potentially prevented but also for our own benefit of getting into heaven because the prevention of unlikely bloodshed is a solid accounting trick for getting into heaven that most of the world needs to learn because most of us may not otherwise be doing enough other good deeds–like being kind on a daily basis, volunteering, or lying in hammocks–to get into heaven without cooking the books a little (known as “searing the books” in the non-rhyming, back-alley poetic accounting community).

For now, the possible potential bloodshed is postponed so we can positively pursue the protagonist for the stew.

In other words, while we are content, as one always should be, with our hammock soup (the hammock mixture of metaphors, etc. sans the physical hammock), we also pursue the physical hammock necessary for the hammock stew, which one should also always do in a perfect patient persistence with satisfying serenity embedded in it in the metaphorical form of hammocks.

These two elements work in tandem because the pursuit of the hammock for the hammock stew causes one to always have vitality and not need to search for sketchy products like Nugenix repped by legendary retired athletes while the contentment of the soup prevents the pillaging one might otherwise partake in the pursuit of such vitality. This was all discussed in confusing metaphors, symbolism, and allegory in the heartwarming The Pursuit of Happyness, starring a pre-slapping-Chris-Rock, pre-gunslinging wholly wholesome Will Smith.

So with contentment in our hearts and excitement in our veins, we pursue the hammock happyness for the hammock stew.

We look for the hammock.

The physical hammock.

The literal hammock.

The one we can actual lie in.

The one.

Noting that God often puts hammocks near beaches by inspiring people to bring them there, and further noting that sometimes fate needs to be nudged a little*******************, I decided to nudge******************** fate in the direction of hammocks, hopefully, and get a hotel near a beach area and later go to the beach, for where there are beaches, as noted just previously, there are often hammocks.

There weren’t hammocks.

But there was the beautiful ocean.

Which begs the question: why does God inspire some people to bring hammocks near the ocean but not others? For there are many beaches in the world and every single one of them has water, but not every single one of them has a hammock. #Blasphemy

The meaning of life is a tough nut to crack, and all of the nutcrackers I’ve been around have been ornamental or onstage in a Christmas play*********************, which is close enough to metaphorical for me not to be able to answer this hammock/meaning of life riddle at this moment. #Backburner

But, in staring at the beautiful ocean, I had a lesser (but still wise if we use the relaxed hammock version of wisdom) revelation:

Hammocks are probably what the wise alchemist symbolizes in Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist that show us the important views and things of life and teach us about ourselves as we–-all poor Andalusian shepherd boys named Santiago**********************-–realize that it is about the journey rather than the destination and that cliches, when well articulated, can turn into international sensations, making the author filthy rich and the one who finds the treasure, leaving poor Santiago with just the metaphorical wealth.

So I learned a lot about myself, I guess, at the beach and other parts of the journey, but we won’t get into all that sophisticated character progression because we don’t want to bore you. Let’s just say I learned whatever Santiago learned, more or less (probably less), but we’ll leave such difficult analysis on this amazing hammock journey up to the hoards of literary critics dying to make a career off of finding meaning from Hammock Reviews; yes, let’s leave that hard work up to the people typing in front of computers while sitting in chairs, for we ourselves are trying to talk hammocks here, which is not about sitting and instead about lying, which is not about hard work and instead about lying, which is probably more about dissolving stressful careers than building them (unless that career is hammock modeling).

But can one build a hammock modeling career without a physical hammock?

Well that is another tough question to answer and was not the goal of this trip.

The goal of this trip was to be a hammock model with a physical hammock.

On a physical hammock.

In a physical hammock.

It matters not which preposition we use as the connector of hammocks: it only matters that we connect the hammocks.

But even as I lacked a hammock connector, both syntactically in a sentence and literally on the beach, I did not suffer mental injury or anguish from a lack of a hammock. No, there is no such thing as a hammock headache, which may seem strange given the supple catchy linguistic value alliteration supplies such a phrase with. Because everyone knows that the answer to any distress a lack of hammock could cause is the hammock itself.

Yes, the hammock’s ability to remedy the lack of itself is among the hammock’s nature as the perfect remedy to anything, like the great medicines of old sold by the great snake oil salesmen of old. Hammocks are like a soothing aloe that smooths over the difficult questions in life and suavely makes life silky, soft, and savory–and simply good–like the great softshell tacos of old (and new) that provide clarity to one of those difficult life questions of which taco you would like to order, preventing that question–and over life uncertainties–from leaving mental scars or headaches. One could even say that hammocks are greater than any existing migraine medication. Such a statement does feel more believable, it should be noted, when one is not currently suffering from a migraine. Let’s say hammocks are a kind of a preventative medicine in this case.

With hammocks, everything is always okay (or better than okay). And so I did not descend into a deep depression–or any unhappiness at all–when there was not a hammock at the beach. Everything was okay; in fact, it was more than okay.

Besides, I still had a chance at a hammock for the hammock stew; and even though eating modeling is not my true profession the way hammock modeling is (featuring the lying modeling inherently embedded therein), much of our audience would surely love nothing more than to see me do some more modeling in the culinary arts, especially metaphorically, with the hammock stew as the product of promotion.

Yes, we must remember that once a good thing happens, it continues to exist–and more than that, it actually prospers, for “A thing of beauty is [not only] a joy for ever[,] Its loveliness [actually] increases” (citation: Keats, John). We simply have to remember it and/or relocate it.

So just like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman will always have Paris because Paris isn’t going anywhere*********************** and their fond experiences there can always be fondly be relocated and accessed (remembered) in their minds, hearts, and sexual organs, we will always have Google, the modern hammock-finding tool (that also has the ability to find Paris for you) you may have remembered from earlier (unless your mind is so well-relaxed in a hammock that you forgot about Google; if so, good work my friend) that we can use to help us find a hammock, and all the fruitful joys associated with such an amazing fruitful-joy-bearing item.

This Google tool had revealed a business with a hammock-bearing name in downtown Accra.

We did not go directly there as we were continuing the circuitous, shepherd-boy-Santiago-stylized-and-shaped routes of inefficient travel from earlier, which allow you to see great things during the inefficiency and have an overall jolly good time. A taxi driver************************ showed me some sites of the city, which included Independence Square or Black Star Square, the largest mosque in Western Africa, the soccer stadium, prominent government buildings, and other notable places. We concluded our mini-tour by going to the location of that hammock business on the map.

In such a way, the hammock would be not like the climax of this informal tour, but rather like the denouement as you relax into the ending like you relax into a hammock. The important stuff has already happened and now you tie up the loose ends of the story, like weaving the final threads of the hammock. (You are welcome, English teachers, for us here at Hammock Reviews, the classrooms of the world, helping you do your job in the classroom of schools and teach story structure).

Our denouement was not exactly what Hollywood looks for in a final scene.

But was instead more of the classic movie middle, when you think things are about to be wrapped up for your new protagonist pal (if you never took the time to look at your watch, have no sense of time passage, or the fact that the movie could never possibly be over yet) then suddenly–-surprise!--fate throws you a curveball and you still have half the movie left.

Or, in this case, over half of a Hammock Review, as we are more generous than Hollywood with the giving away of entertaining offerings.

In this entertaining scene, we were on a busy Accra street right where Google said the hammock business was.

But we couldn’t find it.

Not every drive around Accra in search of hammocks has a Hollywood ending.

Some have Hammock Review endings (stay tuned to find out what that means–but please note you may not find out exactly what that means even if you reach the ending of this Really Respectful Review; additionally, if you do find out what a Hammock Review ending means, please do let us know, while also teaching it in every classroom across America–and the world–so that no child will ever be left behind standing when they should be resting in a hammock).

I mentioned to the driver that the hammock wasn’t meant to be and all was good without the hammock, that things were fine (without going into the figurative hammock speech or soup metaphors, naturally, because in addition to not having had thought of these lovely lackluster metaphors until right now in writing this Riveting Review, I am not a completely crazed hammock lunatic*************************.)

But he still was determined. He was not deterred by our lack of hammock-finding success or my complacent words of acceptance regarding such absence of hammock-finding success. I suppose he had caught Hammock Fever. Not to brag, but I am almost certainly the one who infected him with said Hammock Fever, a beautiful thing for which there is no vaccine, no yellow card saying you are immune to loving hammocks because such a thing is impossible. While airports do not have signs leading us into hammocks, at least we do not live in a world where countries try to force anti-hammock vaccines (however ineffective they would inherently be, for the desire for hammocks inherent in the human breast is strong) on you before entry or make you read and sign some ridiculous anti-hammock manifesto.

Because Hammock Fever tops the list of the best of fevers, in terms of most helpfulness, it would be desirable for society to focus on spreading Hammock Fever instead of focusing its time on spreading other fevers, like Indiana Fever.

Not mentioning this to the driver (it would have been odd because at the time Caitlin Clark was still in Iowa and Indiana Fever was yet to become a thing; it would have been like suggesting Shoeless Joe was about to walk out of an Iowa cornfield pre-1989), but possibly seeing (or imagining) something that communicated this in the look in his eye, this attractive sparkle one could possibly potentially call Hammock Fever, I watched in respectful awe as he asked everybody he could find about the hammock business.

But no one knew.

If we were just looking for something dumb, like an umbrella let’s say, I imagine the cabbie would have quit. But there was no quit in his finding this hammock.

“Do they have a number listed?” he asked me, referring to the hard-to-find hammock business that Google said was right where we were.

They did.

“Call the number,” he said, in what may have been the turning point, the fulcrum in his life (but probably was not), where he took control of his life–in terms, of being assertive in his own hammock pursuit; I really knew not enough about him in (less) personal terms (though we had spoken for hours on various subjects) to really evaluate his assertiveness in pursuing his destiny in areas less important than hammocks.

So we called the phone number associated with the business and learned from the gentle gentleman hammock business owner on the other side of the phone that Google had just put the business on a random spot on the Accra map, a very controversial act indeed, for has Google also capitalized putting by France’s capital of Paris on a random place in its capital Maps app as well? No. Obviously Google treats hammocks differently from Paris. #DoubleStandard #Despicable

Google had just been acting like it was doing the wise alchemist act of showing us extra stuff along the way but ended up being a lip syncing phony because this area was just a congested traffic, non-beach area with nothing notable (other than hammocks, had they been there). Google, and its Other Internet antics, had led simply us astray with its little Milli Vanilli act.

But the hammockly gentleman on the phone with the hammock business, who evidently actually lived up in the mountains, a critical detail the Other Internet had failed to disclose to us, said he could get me a hammock–-the next afternoon.

See, fate can be especially volatile when you are traveling on airline benefits. Working for the airlines does indeed have benefits beyond pulling dirty diapers out of seat backs while cleaning planes, having up-to-date knowledge of your state’s minimum wage laws (which often dictate your pay), and getting yelled at by passengers lacking knowledge of hammocks, kindness, or human decency. When you work for most airlines in the United States, you also get the benefit of flying for free.

Yes, that’s right: you don’t have to pay for your ticket. It’s quite amazing. Some might even call it Sweet Livin’.

But, there’s a catch.

Fate.

Fate is not always Sweet Livin’ (until we retroactively make it so).

When flying for free on airline benefits, the seats are unconfirmed. You are standby. If there is a seat, you fly for free. If there is no seat, you don’t fly: you stand at the gate watching the plane taxi for free.

Unless you have instead turned around to buy a beer at the bar and plot your next move, in which you might have just spent at $15 on a beer that would have cost you $2 at your local gas station whose bartender, dressed in you local corner store cashier outfit, you don’t have to tip and don’t have to feel guilty about not doing so because you are in fact not legally allowed to and so you can tell him or her, with a conscious as clean as your thinly-rubber-glove-covered hands pulling shitty diapers off of a plane, “I would love to tip you, but I can’t: because of the law.”

So as you sip the expensive beer, you hope that by the end of it you have figured out how to revise fate to why not being on a sunny, beautiful beach with a five-dollar drink much better than your fifteen-dollar beer is a good thing, why being in a busy terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, at this moment, is better than being en route to any of the many beautiful destinations on the flight monitor.

While this Hammock Review has mostly focused on the critical element of fate called revision, which is also a key component of the writing process, we would be derelict of duty if we did not at least mention touch upon the pre-writing process, which is a key component to not only writing (at least non-Hammock Review writing, which does have the same special exemption from this sometimes-annoying part of the writing process that Hammock Review Writing has) but also the fate process.

And part of the pre-writing of fate process when it comes to travelling standby is monitoring the flights in regards to their seat availability. When you have flight benefits, you can see how many seats are available on a given flight and how many other people have listed as standby, along with where you fall on in the standby pecking order, what standby social class you currently are.

I was lower class, at that moment. The seats out of Ghana were not looking good. I might not be able to fly out on any of the possible flights. There were not many seats available–some flights were in fact oversold, and those that weren’t, had standbys with priority above mine.

But the social ladder of standby can change quickly.

As quickly as a cancelled flight. A previously cancelled flight, probably because of mechanical issues or something, had a resulted in a miraculous substitution flight that had over 60 available seats. My low level on the standby class had been replaced with a high level. It was like an oasis of available seats amidst a desert of non-available seats. That flight was that very night. The cabbie and I would not have time to go to the mountains and back. I could not pass up on that oasis.

But the sparkle in the cabbie’s eye said something like:

“We should try; sometimes in life you have to take a gamble. Let’s go for it. You only live once. What do we have to lose? ‘Look: if you had one shot, or one opportunity, to seize everything you always wanted, in one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip?’ Do you want to tell your future grandchildren that you wimped out on a chance to get a hammock on this trip and instead played it safe? What kind of precedent would you be setting for them? You want them to play it safe in life? Do you think Pittsburgh captured six Lombardi trophies by dinking and dunking their way downfield and playing prevent defense? Or did they win their Super Bowls on the arms of gunslingers and becoming Blitzburgh?”

But as we were stuck deep in rush hour traffic, we relaxed into the more sober-minded spirit of the hammock soup, the spirit of still being full without the hammock. The spirit of not needing the hammock.

This would not be the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and the car guy make the test drive the test of how far you can go on “E.”

The cabbie and I ceded to the sober, rational words of our actual logical conversation, rather than the more ambitious Hammock Fever in our eyes.

Sometimes you just need to dip bread in the soup base and live on bread alone (without hammocks).

Physically. Materially. The cosmos, the spiritually we can allow in whenever we are open to it.

So I began to open my spiritual pores, my cosmic pores, my metaphorical hammock pores, which the metaphorical soup with all of its liquidity can more readily seep into that than the more meaty stew. #EverythingHasItsTime&Place;It’sNotUsuallyAboutBetterOrWorse* #*ExceptWhenItComesToInstrumentsOfResting:InWhichCasesHammocksAreAlwaysSuperiorToChairsAsNoPoorSoulWantsToReadLengthyChairReviews

So I began rationalizing the hammock soup in my mind, elevating its metaphorical means:

When there is an oasis in the desert, one must drink from the water. And that water would actually be alcohol because these open seats were beyond first class, where you lie down in a hammock-like recliner seat and get fed you as much food and alcohol as any man, woman, or child (they don’t normally card on planes) can eat or drink. So, it would seem, fate was nudging me out of Ghana tonight.

Sure, having not seen a hammock in Ghana could have felt like a let down, like I were “Casey at the Bat” striking out and letting down Mudville, which in this case would represent the whole hammock community in this simile, I think.

It is not hard to imagine, for instance, parents across this great globe reading this Hammock Review to their little boys or girls as a bedtime story, trying to instill good hammock morals into their conscience as they put them to sleep with the soothing words of literary boredom we have embedded in this Review so strategically and successfully.

It is not hard to imagine, at this point in the story, little Jimmy or Maria, pretending to be asleep, having a tear enter into their eye after learning that no actual hammock may be found. It is not hard to then imagine, the mother or father (or nanny, for the child may be neglected from affection by their parents and the only emotional comfort they receive in their life is hearing Hammock Reviews at night, rejoicing in these wonderful hammock tales), with love for their child in heart, picking up the child and embracing, telling them it is okay because the hammock is metaphorical in the soup, kind of like that children’s book they sometimes read about the stone soup we touched on earlier and made clear is much dumber than this very intellectual Review more appropriate for smart children and (drunk) adults alike.

So, it is not hard to imagine then little Jimmy or little Maria reprimanding their parent (the first of the neglectful pair they could find), telling them they are not a dumb, little kid who can be tricked by silly stories of stone soups, that they want to read a real story, with real grit and wisdom.

And so the parents oblige, recognizing the potential in their kid, in Little Jimmy or Little Maria or Little Whomever, and continue where they would have, with the quote from “Casey at the Bat:”

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.

That “somewhere,” where “the band is playing” and “hearts are light” and “men [and women] are laughing” and “children shout [with joy]” is this Hammock Review–and all Hammock Reviews, and all hammocks, metaphorical or physical.

Not having seen a hammock would not have been tragedy, like if Dr. Archibald Graham had only “gotten to be a doctor for five minutes.” Yes, having not seen a hammock certainly would have been a little disappointing if it were not for the fact I had not traveled to Ghana for the sole purpose of seeing a hammock (but rather for the primary purpose of seeing Ghana itself; the sole purpose of hammock seeking is never the hammock itself, as Melchizedek has already taught us), that was sun was shining bright in Ghana, and also because of the malleability of fate, the way it can be maneuvered however we like.

See I, like many people, am a big fan of the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken,” a poem that is more flexible in its various interpretations than “Casey at the Bat” and boasts such pliability that does not require heavy duty Yoga experience to put it in a position where see it as a work about flexibility of fate.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Most of us may initially read this poem–or have heard this poem read or interpreted–as “being adventurous” by taking the road “less traveled” rather than the easier path. But when you give this poem a closer look, it is really about retroactively altering our fate like it is a piece of Play-Doh, molding it into whatever image we want, which is normally a hammock.

First, it is unclear really if, or how much, “less traveled by” one path is because Frost uses phrases like “both that morning equally lay” and “the passing there had worn them really about the same” and “as just as fair.” The only evidence that they might be different–in when the narrator is in the present and seemingly objective before the final three lines–is that it had “perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear.”

In the final stanza, the stanza boasting more apparent objectivity that positions itself as more readily trusted than its predecessors, the speaker opens by suggesting that the first three stanzas can be dismissed as in later years, ”I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:” We don’t know for sure if the speaker really means the facts above will be dismissed, but it seems like there was not real clear difference between the paths, yet when recalling the events years later the narrator we use, perhaps nostalgia, to justify saying what is most convenient or helpful at the time to feeling good about what happened: “I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” As such, endowing meaning and significance to a crossroads that really may not have had much meaning or significance.

To be clear, the retroactivity is not changing the facts themselves, for if we take the speaker to be objective in the first three stanzas, and accept (which we are ready to here in this interpretation) that the narrator is delivering the facts to us straight, the first three stanzas does set up that one path was probably a little less traveled by–but it is simply the retroactivity applies meaning and significance that may have not actually existed at the time. In other words, may we did take the backroads on a trip that did not cost us tolls. But at the time, there was really no significance to taking that route, yet years later when talking to our grandchildren or drinking buddies about what was really an innocuous drive somewhere, we retroactively add tons of meanings about why we took the backroads instead of paying the man at the tollbooth, feeding the fat cats of the ever burgeoning tollbooth industry.

This is in line with the hammock mentality because it allows you to “go with the flow.”

We should consider that the title of the poem “The Road Not Taken” may mean that the speaker regrets not taking the easier path because the title could refer to the path the speaker did not take—i.e. the road more traveled. However, the title could also refer to the path that the speaker did take because the “the road not taken” could be synonymous with the road “less traveled” as “the road not taken” could be somewhat short for “the road not so often taken” or “the road not taken by the boring, less adventurous other.” Though it is more likely that “The Road Not Taken” refers to “the road not taken” by the narrator, we really do not know for sure. And we also do not know if “the difference” in “all the difference” was good or bad. But, in the spirit of pliability and the fact that it could be interpreted either way and not disturb the facts, we will say that it is all positive and good.

So largely, this poem could be interpreted as looking back on the facts and applying whatever meaning feels convenient–while not altering the facts themselves.

Agreeable analysis.

Retroactive fate.

To be clear, that is just one possible interpretation of this wonderful poem. It would be neglectful for us to neglect other possible interpretations here, such as an awesome alternate reading those focuses on the geography of living in New England in the early 20th century that limited Robert Frost’s access to hammocks, forcing him into great regret of not taking the other road south (as some roads in a “yellow wood” are apt to do), that would have led to a more hammock friendly region, like the Caribbean.

So considering the two possible interpretations we have laid out here–the malleability of one’s articulation of fate vs. Robert Frost suffering from weird emotional issues derived from severe hammock deprivation—we will have to take the road of the malleability of fate because even if Frost were a hammock virgin, it is impossible to prove a negative, and Frost did not title the poem “The Hammock not Taken,” though that is a great idea for a very moving, future famous poem someone should write.

But both interpretations are more sober-minded than the skipper for Mudville on that fateful day, for what the fuck was he thinking when he made the lineup? Why didn’t the ump, when handed the lineup card, give the Mudville manager a field sobriety test? Why would you put those two scrubs–the “lulu” Flynn and the “cake” Jimmy Blake–before mighty Casey? As a hammock lover, I am far from Mr. Sabermetrics but holy cow!: the Mudville skipper could have used a little logic in constructing his lineup by putting competent hitters before the Mighty Casey. The only excuse would be if the manager were sleeping on a hammock that day. But even so, normally hammock dwellers are more competent than that and there is no textual evidence to support that was the case with the Mudville skipper that day. The poet himself, at least, never mentions hammocks and has seemingly no concern for them, so we just have to look at it as an untrustworthy poem that cannot be used when creating our life philosophies through powerful literary essays in the revolutionary genre of Hammock Reviews.

Considering Frost’s poem (but not Thayer’s) and some of the other things discussed above, I got in the mindset that the hammock I was meant to see in Ghana was metaphorical: a mental hammock view. And that was enough for me.

“But,” the prudent reader may object. “What about that beautiful soup metaphor from above that focused on the high-quality soups, about a stew–thicker with a real, physical hammock–being tastier than the more watery soup alternative. What happens to that metaphor now?

Good question, but easy answer. Because, as continuously noted, everything is easy with hammocks, which is continuously noted while you are on a hammock (citation: relaxation). We can look retroactively and provide different or additional analysis. Are stews inherently better than soups? Maybe it's all in the context. In other words, there might be a time for stew and a time for soup (citation: Ecclesiastes; Byrds, The).

Maybe it is like the Hammock View Hotel indicated with their lack of hammocks: we can’t always have a hammock, but we can always have the word hammock. We can’t literally unfold a hammock on the plane, but we can sit in the reclining seat if complementary bumped up to super first class and drink lots of alcohol and easily imagine hammocks.

Even in writing these words, I see the potential controversy, much like the Great Scribes of Old probably felt when they took pen to parchment in certain important texts and thought, “This will cause quite a stir; people will be talking about this for centuries.”

Well, not only is it important in the culinary sense to stir stews or soups, but always drink you may have alongside them (citation: Strawberry, Darryl), I do indeed want people to be talking about this section of the Hammock Review for centuries.

Or longer.

Not because of inherent narcissism or false attempts at immortality through wise, divine words that will influence the masses to a better life through increased hammock usage that brings them close to other divine things, such as The Beautiful Hammock Future, but because I don’t want any of the hammock writings, part of a spiritual canon or otherwise, to cause wars or violence because people think they NEED hammocks at all times.

Things about hammocks are always positive.

Even (and this is the most controversial of all):

The absence of a hammock.

For even those most ardent, pro-hammock writers can rightly support the absence of a hammock.

For a hammock is never truly absent.

For, as Sextus famously and fabulously wrote:

“Always toward absent lovers love's tide stronger flows.”

Yes, absence does not dull true love, but rather, as we now more commonly say, “make the heart grow fonder.”

So, again, we must use a lot of words in this Hammock Review, to prevent potential misinterpretation or abuse of this sacred(ish) document as many documents have been so problematically interpreted because of the brevity of such documents (in comparison to the thoughtful lack of brevity here).

However, we note, it is impossible to stop future people from misquoting or taking words out of context, like the common botched nose job of Paul’s words “the love of money is the root of all evil” being chopped down to “money is the root of all evil” in a prime example of a fifth-rate armchair articulatory plastic surgeon arbitrarily altering the subject themself from “the love of money” to simply “money,” disassociating the person doing the loving from the situation and removing them of any responsibility while placing all of the responsibility on an inanimate object (on money’s best old school days when it was prudent to stuff cash under mattresses, the succubi for ergonomists of strong individualism ideals) or simply the conceptual idea thereof (on my best credit card-spending days).

Likewise (at least largely so), we should say the full sentence, “the love of hammocks is the root of all good.” Imagine if we just tried to say “hammocks is the root of all good.” That would be grammatically incorrect and ignorant, and word processors would (correctly) go wild with underlines (correctly) telling us that we are grammatically incorrect and dumb.

But it is (well) beyond just the lessons of grammar that we need to constantly say the full sentence, “the love of hammocks is the root of all good.” It could affect the matter of how we treat and interact with hammocks. If we just thought “hammocks is the root of all good” people might just then stockpile hammocks, which initially might seem good, but are the hammocks being treated good? People may just buy a bunch of hammocks and put them in a warehouse, feeling they have stored good, and thus will get into heaven. And while, again, that may indeed be better than some current more botched attempts by some at human goodness, it is in the end not what we are looking for, and not what trees are looking for when they spaced themselves as a perfect distance from each other for hammock placement.

Neither are we looking for people to hoard hammocks and stuff them under their mattress. Not only would such a societal development cause Alanis Morissette to revise her “Ironic” ironies, it is just not how we show hammocks love (even if hammocks will ultimately do much better against inflation than cash).

Yet the above mishaps and missteps are not the only likely way people could misconstrue this mighty sentence, “the love of hammocks is the root of all good.” People could home in on the “root” idea and buy a bunch of hammocks to bury them underground, thinking they are a plant or something. And while they are a plant, conceptually, with the conceptual power to sprout conceptual gardens, we shouldn’t literally be planting hammocks–because hammocks don’t grow on trees: they hang on trees.

So what we need to do when analyzing, writing, and endlessly repeating the sentence “the love of hammocks is the root of all good,” is to really focus in on the love part. We need to treat hammocks with love. Which means use them and fall asleep inside of them, like we do with people we love.

But, the most important element of knowing, understanding, repeating, and living the sentence “the love of hammocks is the root of all good” is that you don’t have to have a physical hammock around to perform this action. Just as you can still love a deceased family member who you cannot physically touch or see, you can still love a hammock without one being physically around.

We already have convincingly convinced any convincible reader that the hammock soup is spiritually sufficient to soothe the soul when one lacks the means to have a physical hammock in the moment. So just as people have long eaten chicken soup when physically sick, hammock soup may be the remedy for what spiritual ails us (when we are suffering from spiritual ailments curable by hammock thoughts). May Hammock Reviews grow in popularity to match and exceed the popularity of Chicken Soup for the Soul of the 20th Century.

This is the power of metaphors we have been working towards: so now for centuries and centuries onward, when people talk of hammock soup, they talk of the metaphorical hammock situation. When people talk of hammock stew, there is a physical hammock involved.

But in both situations, they are talking about love.

The love of hammocks.

And so they are talking about goodness, for:

“The love of hammocks is the root of all good.”

Which is better: the hammock soup or the hammock stew?

It all depends on the situation and what love dictates.

Whether loves manifests itself in a metaphorical or physical hammock is often beyond our control.

And this is how we have fulfilled the promise–prophecy really–that we proposed earlier, the foreshadowing put in the clearest of light–through a direct statement–that we would prevent bloodshed later on in this Review. And so we have effectively done it by emphasizing that one will not pursue a physical hammocks at all costs.

The pursuit of a hammock cannot get in the way of the hammock lifestyle itself. There is a reason there is a soup du jour but not a stew du jour. We can have soups everyday but not stews.

There is just not enough meat in the world. There are just not enough hammocks. And even as hammocks increase in popularity this century along with their illustrious and prestigious Reviews, it can never be assured that the distribution of hammocks and/or stews will be even or good enough to get to everyone. At least not in this pre-The Beautiful Hammock Future epoch.

So, with such manipulation-of-metaphors ability in my back pocket, I looked forward to the possibility of boarding this plane that evening as I was already switching up fate in my mind, preparing the process. Readying it for take off, as it were, if we were to jump on the silly play-on-words wagon.

But what I was preparing to get on was much more comfortable than a wagon.

I wouldn’t be fording a river or risking batting typhoid fever or dysentery just to get to Oregon so my descendants would have only one meddling major professional sports team to root for.

No, none of that.

I would potentially be lounging in super first class where you can lay down and get served all the food and alcohol you like–nothing a hammock would ever object to, and may be the precursor, the wonderful antecedent to The Beautiful Hammock Future where they finally put hammocks on planes. Where there is economy, economy plus, business (called something different, of course), first class, super first class, and then hammock class.

That might be what it takes for global society to finally value hammocks the way we should.

Or maybe every class would be hammock class.

And probably will be, in The Beautiful Hammock future.

For now we are in the present where planes are not equipped with hammocks.

And we are flying standby.

Often in flying standby you get bumped up to the highest available class (super first class at the time of publication rather than hammock class for those reading in The Beautiful Hammock Future). So you may not fly–or fly in the highest potential style.

Extremes, baby.

It was extremes that helped Billy Joel get on the 2024 Prestigious Gunslinger Poll.

Would it be extremes that got me on a plane?

On the other end of extremes, before that extra wide-open flight, there was also the regularly-scheduled flight. But it was oversold by double digits: it was very unlikely I would get on.

But before any of that would happen, we still had a chance for a real, live hammock because–as you may not have realized given the action-packed dizzying nature of this scintillating narrative–we are not in the airport yet: we are actually still in the taxi.

And the taxi driver still had Hammock Fever, for it is not something that simply goes away easily, but rather has a stronger grab on you even than federal student loans: Hammock Fever does not leave you upon death–or get deferred and enter a very confusing status during global pandemics. No, Hammock Fever is not so fickle.

Most phenomena bearing the name fever end before week or month ends. In the rare, extreme instances that a fever kills someone, the fever also then has caused its own demise and ends with the end of its host’s life.

But Hammock Fever is different. Unlike those bad mortal fevers, Hammock Fever is good and is not a mere mortal. It is not human. You cannot kill Hammock Fever with a gun. Evil forces like Tom Brady cannot defeat Hammock Fever.

It is immortal.

That is very different from the Great Causes of Death of Old, like cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever popularized in the classic educational video game The Oregon Trail, which covers less than a year in traditional world time to complete and less than a day in video game time.

Quite incongruently to typhoid fever (and the others) whose stormy ways die at death, Hammock Fever is a generational fever that extends beyond death. So if one caught Hammock Fever in The Oregon Trail video game, they would then have to simply stop wherever they were and rest in a hammock; then generations of family (real and digital) would be lying in hammocks in Wyoming or Idaho (or whatever location the educated gamer is gaming from), depending on how far you voyaged before catching Hammock Fever, by far the finest Fever of them all. #Posterity #Excellence #GenerationalExcellence

An issue that we neither have the time nor money to go into great detail here about is regarding the the fact that while Matt, famously of Matt’s General Store, may have seemed helpful at the onset of your westward journey, he never offered you a hammock and apparently did not even carry them at his store. Whether or not he selfishly hoarded them in the back (something we warned society about above, and retroactively warn 19th-century pioneers about now), has not been 100 percent confirmed (or denied).

You can certainly into more detail about all of this at the popular (citation: reference here at a popular internet) website: died-of-dysentery.com.

One topic of discussion that is conspicuously missing from that wonderful website is an issue not currently rationated enough (like the word rationate itself) that you might have encountered during the old Oregon Trail days had you lived then: if you had contracted Hammock Fever while still in Missouri but no longer owned a hammock because you had already been forced to leverage (sell) that most-prized possession of your hammock to pay for your wife’s medical treatment for diphtheria and thus (after your wife’s diphtheria’s regimen was completed, being successful or otherwise) you had to travel by wagon to the nearest hammock, which may have been in Kansas–if you were lucky, because it was probably much farther (and further, because we are not only talking about physical distance here) away.

But in this Hammock Review, we were lucky: not because we weren’t in Kansas anymore (naturally I was currently in Accra and had last been in Kansas about a decade prior), but rather because we had the modern technology of the internal combustion-powered taxi.

The taxi driver told me we would swing by Makola Market market and give it a try.

“They have everything there. If there is a hammock,” he told me, pausing for dramatic effect or at least opening the sentence with a dependent clause to charitably allow me the time and space necessary for adding the quote attribution here to retroactively provide a pause (whether or not there actually was one pre-retroactivity) for dramatic effect and the reader’s delight (if they are currently stranded in a dessert of delight and looking for any semblance of a delightful oasis). “It will be there.”

So unlike Frost’s famous poem–where the narrator might choose between a road to Accra’s Kotoka International Airport and a road to Makola Market–we chose to go to both.

First the market.

No hammocks.

They had hammocks from time to time, we were told, but not consistently so; and this moment was unfortunately one of those tragic moments on the wrong end of inconsistency.

But there was a consistent place to find hammocks, we learned, somewhat like the old American phrase “go west, young man,” the refrain here was something like, “If you want hammocks, go to the mountains [middle-aged man, who is strangely obsessed with hammocks].”

But the mountains, also where the aforementioned hammock company owner was, were too far away to reach before returning to the hotel and then circling back to the airport.

Or were they?

Perhaps they were just a Gatsby-green light away; a Jay the Great gamble away of simply climbing that mountain and risking the missed flight, akin enough to making a fortune and fake past just for a chance to get the love of your life: a hammock symbolized by Daisy.

And so, like the great recycling ways of the Great Top Pop Radio Station Rotations of Old, the Robert Frost decision-making poem of divergent roads came back into play.

Oh how the Dear Reader, the consumer of Hammock Reviews and great contributor to society in general that you are, you may wish to hear how, in a made-for-the-movies moment, I said, “Screw the flight: take me to the mountains,” like when in every romantic comedy the protagonist rips up the plane ticket (probably non-exchangeable, non-refundable) to get the girl. And the audience loves it, never realizing that after the movie ends that very decision to cause irreparable property damage to the plane ticket sends the sex-crazed couple in a spiraling sequence of credit card debt they can never get out of, causing arguments eventually leading to lack of intimacy (which seemed impossible not just earlier in the paragraph, but earlier in the very same sentence) and lots of infidelity, inviting boatloads of bitterness in both their lives they can never fully escape and eventually pass along to their children through uninspired parenting that is the direct and undesirable antithetical deadbeat descendant of everything discussed in the posterity of the Hammock Fever-(positively)infected parenting touched upon above.

No, I am a more reasonable man than that, a more sensible man than that.

At times.

This was one of those times.

This was not a Hollywood movie. They have not yet seen the value in a hammock-centric screenplay.

They will: in The Beautiful Hammock Future, they will.

But as we have had to repeat so many times already: we are not yet in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

So the mountains would have to wait for another day, another trip, for fate–along with my friend’s auntie–had secured me a five-year visa to Ghana. As such, there would hopefully be more trips, “yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.” For now, I would go to the airport for a trip west–finally allowing Michael W. Smith a chance to sleep after staying up decades of nights trying to find his “Place in This World” ever since his 1990 crossover Christian Pop album Go West Young Man.

Hammocks, Smitty. You could have just slept in a hammock and all would have been clear.

With Smith’s once-eternal questions now answered, there were two flight possibilities ahead, as previously mentioned: that previously-mentioned oversold flight and previously-mentioned undersold flight. #Previoulsy-Mentioned #Extremes

To keep the balance of extremes intact, it seemed prudent to also try for the first flight because it departed less than two hours before the second one, from the same gate. It would act as an opening act, as I never expected to get on.

But lots of people did not show up. So I had a chance, a la Jim Carrey in Dumb & Dumber.

It got down to the very last passenger: everyone had boarded except this one passenger, someone in the highest class mentioned earlier where you lie down and drink until you believe you are actually on a hammock on the beach on a plane. That last passenger was nowhere to be seen. I was the next person to get on the plane if she did not show up. Because there was the later flight with so many open seats and this one was oversold, all of the standbys except me and one other person had evidently chosen to bank on the later flight. I was actually higher on the standby list than the other present standby, which was very rare for me. Such consistent troublesome placement on lists possibly endures as a continued act of retaliation against me by the list industry for my being so stubbornly, astutely, and staunchly anti-list, but such a situation more probably unfavorably exists because the airlinear subsidiaries I work with are given second, third, or fourth-rate status by the actual airlines, such counting that redundantly accounts for these situations. Other less desirable qualities account for other less desirable list placement in other situations, which we won’t get into detail about here, as we have already definitely given, in what could be considered a very charitable charitable donation, lists more facetime here than they deserve, #Generosity.

So I waited, hoping that last passenger would not show up.

This was almost nothing like the kind of waiting Mary did in the Robert Frost poem “The Death of the Hired Man” where Mary waited outside “to see if that small sailing cloud [would] hit or miss the moon.”

But a little like in the poem where “it hit the moon,” the passenger did show up. Very late, very close to departure.

Also, like the death of Silus–the hired man–in the poem, that was the death of my chances to get on that particular flight.

In other words, I was 0-1.

But the good news is that unlike Silus, I was still alive and my fate–at least I hope–is not dying a lonely death after spending my life learning all there is to know about working hayfields.

That’s the main difference between Robert Frost poems and Hammock Reviews: in Hammock Reviews, mulligans are freely given.

And over 60 open seats on the next flight seemed like a sure thing.

But we have shown you that fate is mysterious in this world and leaves no sure thing except death, taxes, and hammocks (and the last item on that list will unfortunately only be a sure thing in The Beautiful Hammock Future).

They let no standbys on. Too much weight from cargo.

All of those hammocks being shipped back to the United States. Hammocks themselves were adjusting fate for me.

If hammock were indeed the cargo.

Unlikely to actually be hammocks as hammocks are not as popular in the United States as they should be and Ghana is not heavy on hammocks either. But, it is still a possibility–more probable than hay (yes, I am hipper than old Silus–barely).

Whatever the (poetic) case may be, fate had given me another day in Ghana.

A gift.

And so of course, I unwrapped that gift (waking up) and headed towards the mountains to find that hammock.

Sometimes hammocks are the destination, but often they are what you find along the way to the stated destination.

So the stated destination was Aburi—the Aburi Botanical Gardens to be exact. They are beautiful, a lovely place to stroll around. And we already know my propensity for strolling**************************. The gardens also feature this moment, the lineup of trees on either side that reminds me of Hollywood, so far away from Hollywood, it would seem.

But no–not far away. For hammocks have a glamor, an appeal that Hollywood could only hope to imitate.

Look at the comparison:

The first sip is the sweetest.

And the deepest (citation: Stevens, Cat; Stewart, Rod; Dee, Papa; Crow, Sheryl).

*At domestic destinations obviously this step is somewhat skipped, but replaced with another finely-dressed person escorting them somewhere.

**as of the date of publication, word processor technology says this sentence should be “No one is reading this Review; that’ for sure.” Don’t let AI win! Share this Review with everyone you know! We can’t lose to the robots!

***Also hopefully: a clever rapper, like the aforementioned Marshall Mathers, will do some clever lyrical things with “my mind set on” and “mindset” and hammocks, so “mindset” will always be a compound word in every form and everyone will always have a hammock mindset, in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

****Such mundane joys are rarely communicated because most people don’t want to describe to their spouse the joy they have in reading Hammock Reviews because they want to keep marital peace and their current martial statutes.

*****Depending of which alternative translations and interpretations you choose to use.

******physical, not metaphorical, for the metaphorical is the opposite of the outwardly obvious expression.

*******sidewalk-permitting, which it often isn’t (quite unfortunately) in Maine.

********probably because that’s where my car is, or where I live.

*********He since has been passed, and will continued to be, as points have become more prevalent in the NBA as they have made scoring more, dare we say, hammock-like.

**********Unfortunately this is a non-high-quality, high-cacao-content-induced bitterness.

***********This will indeed be the biggest and greatest hotel chain in The Beautiful Hammock Future.

************Some squares, old grammar stiffs, may squabble over the use of professional here and demand we show are tax returns detailing the money we made from our hammock connoissueringship, but would you can call a Von Gogh an amateur because his genius was only recognized after his death? Are NBA players in the Olympics really amateurs? Exactly our point.

*************The better world

**************And a big cock. Dude was fucking hung like a horse after all.

***************How many times do you have to tell a friend to hurry along with a story? Your helping acts as a sort of editor in that case against the insularly perceived superiority of the “director’s cut.”

****************At least the elite part of society that is currently reading this. If the rest of society continues to worry about other stuff, that is their fault for not being with us right here, right now.

**************************Please note my generosity here for not further delving into my propensity for strolling.