Douglas Binns

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

In America, men communicate the entire spectrum of human diplomacy using two degrees of neck movement.

I learned this in an elevator in Chicago.

When a man enters and encounters a friend, his chin jerks upward at a sharp forty-five degree angle.
"Sup."
An aggressive, upward flash of the throat. A declaration of total trust.

When a man encounters a total stranger, the mechanism reverses.
The chin tilts strictly downward, two inches, accompanied by a heavy, closed-lip press.
No smile. No words.
A formal treaty of non-aggression.

I tested the protocol at a gas station in rural Missouri.
A man stepping out of a muddy Chevy Silverado was walking toward the door.
Six foot three. Work boots. A beard like a briar patch.

Our eyes locked across the concrete.
A moment of terrifying vulnerability.

I remembered the code.
I did not speak. I did not smile.
I dropped my chin two inches, firm and deliberate.
*I acknowledge your sovereign presence, stranger. I bear no arms against your house.*

The man froze.
He looked at my boots. He looked at my eyes.
Then, slowly, with the crushing gravity of a continental shelf shifting in the sea, his chin dropped two inches.

A silent rumble left his chest:
"...Mornin'."

He held the glass door open and let me pass first.

Zero words of negotiation.
Zero casualties.
A peace treaty signed, ratified, and executed in 0.4 seconds upon the asphalt.

[The Ways of A Gentleman @Gentleman_Ways]

Does it get any cooler than this group?

Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Michael Caine, Marcello Mastroianni, and Sean Connery

Capri, Summer 1966

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

In America, a house does not have one refrigerator. It has two.

The first one is in the kitchen. It is stainless steel, wiped clean with antibacterial spray, and governed by the laws of the family.

The second one lives in the garage. It was manufactured during the Cold War, it hums like an idling diesel engine, and it belongs to the county.

My neighbor Dave was working on his riding mower. He wiped motor oil from his forearm and pointed toward the back of the garage.

"Grab a drink."

I approached the white metal monolith. It was covered in faded stickers from high school football championships and minor league baseball teams.

I opened the door. A blast of arctic air hit my chest.

Inside was a complete parallel ecosystem:
Forty-eight cans of cheap beer.
A whole beef brisket wrapped in butcher paper.
Twelve bottles of blue sports drink for children who play soccer.
And an unmarked plastic container of chili from a winter nobody remembers.

"Why is this not in the kitchen?" I asked.

Dave didn't look up from his carburetor.
"The kitchen is regulated. My wife has rules about organic milk and celery. Out here, there is no government."

While we stood there, a man in dirty work boots walked up the driveway. He did not knock. He did not say hello.

He walked straight to the second fridge, pulled out a root beer, cracked the tab, raised two fingers toward Dave, and walked away.

I reached for my side. "A thief! Shall I pursue?!"

Dave took a sip of water.
"That's Greg. He lives three houses down. He loaned me his post-hole digger in April."

"Did you charge him for the beverage?"

Dave looked at me like I had asked if the sun charges for light.
"It's the garage fridge, man. If the door is up, the cold is free."

I bought a used refrigerator off the internet yesterday.
It shudders when it runs. It sounds like an angry bear.
It sits in my empty garage, filled with twelve cans of Dr Pepper.

Nobody has walked up my driveway yet.
The big door is open. I am waiting.

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

Which way, Western man?

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

In Ohio, I experienced the most prolonged tactical retreat in human history.

At 8:15 PM, dinner was finished.
Our host, a man named Gary, slapped both hands firmly against his denim thighs.

"Welp."

He stood up. "I suppose."

The signal! The horn has sounded! The battalion must prepare for immediate withdrawal!

I stood at attention. I grabbed my coat. I bowed toward the hearth.
"We shall vacate your province without delay."

We did not vacate.

Gary walked two steps, leaned against the kitchen island, and began an entirely new conversation about his nephew's transmission.
Duration: fourteen minutes.

At 8:35 PM, we advanced six paces to the front entryway.
Gary’s wife produced a plastic butter tub containing three cold bratwursts.
"Take these. You'll get hungry on the road."
I accepted the rations. "A generous tribute."
We remained by the shoe rack, discussing snow tires.
Duration: eleven minutes.

At 8:51 PM, Gary opened the front door.
Freezing night air poured into the hallway.
Nobody walked through. We stood in the frame, half-frozen, discussing a guy Gary used to bowl with who died in 2014.
Duration: nine minutes.

At 9:04 PM, we reached the driveway.
I was inside my vehicle. The engine was running.
Gary placed both palms flat against my driver-side window, forcing me to roll it down four inches into the blizzard.

"Watch for deer on Route 4," he shouted through the glass. "They're moving tonight!"

"I will slay any stag that crosses the carriage!"

"Just tap your brakes, chief! Tell your mom I said hi!"

I reversed into the street.
Through the rearview mirror, Gary was still standing at the edge of the asphalt in short sleeves and white socks, waving both arms in the freezing wind until my taillights disappeared over the hill.

In my land, departure is swift and solemn.
In the Midwest, a man will freeze his own flesh to ensure you are loved for thirty-two consecutive minutes.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

Under the blinding halogen stadium towers of Friday night football in Texas, three thousand people scream for high school teenagers.

Nobody watches the concession stand behind the bleachers.

I walked behind the home grandstand where four large white canopy tents smelled purely of mustard, steaming hot dog buns, and roasted peanuts.

Inside the tents, twelve parents wearing matching purple shirts that read Pride of the Plains Band Boosters were moving with the precision of an imperial ordnance battalion.

They were not cheering. They had not seen a single down of football.

A mother named Nancy, wearing purple glitter on her cheeks, had an aluminum foil roll mounted on a wooden spindle.

Her left hand seized a steamed bun from an insulated cooler. Her right hand gripped a set of steel tongs, plucked an all-beef frank from a vat of simmering broth, and placed it inside the bun.

Rip. Fold. Tuck.

The aluminum foil wrapped the hot dog in three swift geometric folds. Nancy did not check the corners. The foil sealed with an airtight crease.

The finished missile was slid down an inclined steel chute into a thermal warming pan. Time elapsed: 1.8 seconds.

Beside Nancy, two fathers were pouring forty gallons of nacho cheese from five-pound steel cans into electric warming wells.

I approached the counter with a five-dollar bill.

Nancy looked up, her forehead shiny with steam.

Hot dog, pretzel, or nachos, hon? Nancy asked.

I pointed to the aluminum pyramid of hot dogs.

Nancy, I whispered, which army general trained this logistics division? You have wrapped two hundred rations while the brass band played one march.

Nancy laughed without interrupting the rhythm of her tongs.

My daughter plays the French horn, sugar, Nancy said. The instruments cost five thousand dollars each and the bus to San Antonio costs twelve thousand. If we don't wrap six hundred dogs before the third quarter, the brass section doesn't travel.

She slapped a wrapped hot dog onto my paper tray alongside two mustard packets.

That will be three dollars, hon. Put the two in the band bucket if your ears liked the halftime show.

I placed the entire five-dollar bill in the brass bucket.

The French horn player has an army behind her that could conquer the Peloponnese. I ate my hot dog in the stands with tears in my eyes.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

At a coffee shop, the glass jar said: *TIPS APPRECIATED.*

I wrote on a paper napkin: *"Do not draw unless you intend to strike. Rest your horse after hills."*

I folded it and dropped it into the jar.

The barista found it at closing.

She taped it directly onto the espresso machine.

Next week, the chalkboard menu had a new header: *NOBU'S DAILY TIP.*

My coffee is free on Mondays now.

[Douglas Binns @DouglasBinns]

@rBillSimmonsPod When I am catching up on podcasts, I sometimes listen to Bill and House pick the Sunday slate AFTER the games have been played. It’s hilarious listening to them discuss four options for the second leg of a teaser after the team in the first leg has already lost.

[Danny Kanell @dannykanell]

The best player in college football

[Douglas Binns @DouglasBinns]

@11W Class act. Well done, Coach.

[Laura W. @BumpstockBarbie]

How can you NOT believe in God when octopuses dream and otters have a favorite rock they carry around in a little skin pocket and cows have best friends and bees are out there communicating the coordinates of flowers through dancing and they have regional dialects?

Cats are purring at frequencies associated with bone healing? Forests get absolutely incinerated and respond by growing flowers? Dolphins literally invent names for themselves and yell them across the ocean? Penguins are waddling around Antarctica looking for the perfect rock to give their partner?

CROWS REMEMBER YOUR FACE. THEY TELL OTHER CROWS ABOUT YOU. THEY TELL THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT YOU. YOU CAN HAVE GENERATIONAL BEEF WITH A BIRD. I NEED YOU TO UNDERSTAND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS.

Goats have accents. Rats laugh when you tickle them. Elephants mourn their dead. Whales make songs and then OTHER WHALES LEARN THE SONG and suddenly everybody across the ocean is singing the new song.

Monarch butterflies are born knowing how to fly thousands of miles to a place they have never been.

Sea turtles hatch out of an egg, immediately sprint toward an ocean that they have never seen, disappear into it for like 3 decades and then somehow come back to the same beach they hatched on.

Birds can see colors that we humans can’t see. There are colors out there right now that we don’t even get to know about.

There are sea slugs that eat algae and use the chloroplast/chlorophyll and then are just like…photosynthesizing. And they’re super adorable.

There are mushrooms communicating underground. There are seeds sitting in the dirt for decades like “no actually I will wait. It’s fine.”

Squirrels plant trees because they forget where they put their snacks. Relatable.

A CATERPILLAR GOES INTO A LITTLE BAG THAT IT CREATES ITSELF AND DISSOLVES MOST OF ITS BODY INTO ORGANIC GOO AND REARRANGES ITSELF, GROWS WINGS AND THEN LEAVES. WHY IS THIS NOT MORE BEAUTIFULLY TERRIFYING TO PEOPLE??

And you’re telling me a tiny acorn knows how to become a huge tree? It just has a blueprint inside itself?

Your body started as ONE CELL.

ONE.

And that cell divided itself into a brain that can think about its own existence and eyes that can look at stars and hands that can hold somebody else’s hands and a heart that runs on electricity without you even asking it to?

The iron in our blood was made inside a star??

We are walking around on a wet rock covered in bioluminescent oceans and singing whales and laughing rats and birds holding lifelong grudges and flowers exploding out of fire and somehow we’re supposed to act like this is a normal place to live?

We’re supposed to act like this is all just a random, accidental sequence of events?

[Douglas Binns @DouglasBinns]

@DevinRN88 I’d give this character an easy nickname like “Ska” or “”Skank.”

[Douglas Binns @DouglasBinns]

@SheaVentris Thank you! Bill Simmons and Ryen Rusillo listener here.

[Belle @cybellesreverie]

we used to have brian eno in cat food advertisements

[Eleven Warriors @11W]

🐐

[Tom Withers @twithersCLE]

Michigan certainly handed out quite a few helmet stickers for a last-second win over a MAC school.

[Brian Eno News @dark_shark]

Roxy Music, Whisky a Go Go, Los Angeles, December 19, 1972 #BrianEno #Bryanferry

[Echoes In The Tape Deck @Analog_Hearts75]

Magazine - "The Light Pours Out Of Me". In 1977, Howard Devoto walked out on The Buzzcocks, declaring: "Punk's already a spent force. I want to do something more complex." He teamed up with some top-tier musicians, Magazine was born."

[Kareem Rifai 🌐 @KareemRifai]

You need to watch this incredible video to understand just how tired China's neighbors are of its aggressive coercion.

In the middle of a talk at the Seoul Defense Dialogue, China drops a note scolding and attempting to intimidate the Filipino National Defense Secretary over the South China Sea issue.

Instead of acquiescing like Beijing wanted, the secretary read the note out loud, ridiculing and debunking it as he went before saying, "perhaps, basic decency and behavior is what China needs to do."

My summary doesn't do the clip justice — it's an absolute evisceration.

[Scott @Havenlust]

David Hockney