Words and Thoughts — July 6, 2023

Hello again, alleged readers. Allow me, if you will, to start this week’s correspondence off with quite a surprising bit of information. Buckle up. I recently discovered that my somewhat weekly content is being published by Subject. Up to this point, I had assumed my only readership came from the printed PowerPoints I’ve been duct taping above the second urinal in the restroom by the Labatt Bar on the 200 level of the KeyBank Center. And while the urinal readers will always have a special place in my heart, I am humbled that Subject is presumably photocopying my PowerPoints and converting them for use on THE World Wide Web. 

I have noticed though, that Subject has been crediting me as Stav Kundsen, rather than my actual, and very real name: Stav Knudsenen. I’ve checked the PowerPoints, and they all say Knudsenen. And while it is known that I am barely literate, Knudsenen is one of the words I do usually know how to spell. I do not know how to directly get in touch with the publishers over at Subject, however if any of you have the means, please do send them a postcard, or money order, on my behalf, requesting that they toss another “e”, and then another “n”, but then nothing else, on the end of Knudsen. 

Really puts some pressure on ol’ Stav knowing that people other than users of the second urinal might also allegedly be reading these letters, I tell you what. 

Anyway, I was recently watching the Cantonese dub of a documentary about Tom Hanks (of Joe Versus the Volcano fame) trying to go to the moon so as not to catch Gary Sinise’s measles. Fascinating stuff. However, once the documentary was over, another video came up and it was about a man who eats butter. Y’all, this man was just eating butter. I’d like to think I’m a fairly open minded individual on most non-Utah based topics, but in the America I grew up in, we used butter for one thing: greasing Hot Wheels tracks. 

Yet, here comes this man, taking a stick of lightly salted right to the face like some kind of ice cream bar, no Hot Wheels track in sight. Two auto-play videos later (both about the well documented theories regarding the Satanic leanings of Jay Jay the Jet Plane), I began some real introspection regarding my deeply rooted and staunchly held beliefs regarding butter. I began to wonder if my predispositions toward the product were the result of a blind ignorance; fed by my own failure to seek a knowledge greater than that I already possess. I broke into a cold sweat. How could I permit myself to flail so stupidly in the universal tide that we are all beholden to. It was at that moment, that I paused the video currently playing about how all the Arby’s in Billings, Montana line up in a meaningful way, and I resolved to always ensure that I never miss an opportunity to open my mind to the new and the different. 

From here on out, I’m eating only butter.

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