SUMMER FRIDAYS DEP'T.: Friday on Thursday
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 142
BUSINESS DEP'T.
The editor of Indignity is in transit, so in lieu of the regularly-scheduled MR WRONG column, which will be delivered tomorrow, we present tomorrow's SUMMER FRIDAYS edition. Thank you for your patient support of Indignity!
Previously, on INDIGNITY
JOE MACLEOD
In recognition of the image roundups past and, we hope, to come, we present our image-saving end-of-July photographic roundup (keyword: ROUNDUP), composed of image roundup posts from our previous incarnations at Hmm Daily, Hmm Weekly, and the Brick House.
RANKED LISTS DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
Selected Names of Birds in the Pocket Guide to Birds of Southern Africa, Ranked
SUMMER RERUNS DEP'T.
JOE MACLEOD
My desk was in a cubicle in the middle of a roomful of cubicles. There were windows in the building, I could see them, but they were far away. My primary light source was fluorescent. I had worked in open bullpen-style rooms for years, not really cubicles, and there’s just something about the cubicle arrangement that is really depressing. Still, doing time in a cubicle is not hard as long as you remember that there is no yesterday and no tomorrow, only today. All you have to do is get through today.
REAL ESTATE DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
People guess who they are and what their lives are about, and they guess wrong. Over and over the house-hunting column in the paper describes couples who bought a one-bedroom—or even a studio!—apartment, at the limit of their budget, and then discovered that they were human beings who were going to have children. Sometimes the discovery sends them clear up the Hudson Valley.
WEATHER REVIEWS
Johannesburg and environs, August 5, 2025
★★★★ Yellow light through the slight gap in the curtains was the sign that this was a new sleeping-place. With the curtains opened wide, the sun shone directly on the bed until a tower across the way cut it off. The blue of the sky was yellowed a little around the edge. Open fields on the city's northwest outskirts were brown on brown. The car passed a burned roadside margin with round hay bales in the fields beyond. The sky was deeper blue over the cultural village, where the grim high-Kelvin light in the dancing theater and the buffet hall made the sun outside all the more beautiful and refreshing. Schoolchildren in red jackets ran along the road to catch up to a waiting car. Pied crows circled a bell tower of a vast Italianate casino complex. The western sun coming in over the pool deck offset the touch of coolness in the air for working or lounging outside; it took its warmth behind a building just as the secondhand smoke from a nearby table got too strong. Conditions still felt nothing like winter but it was good that the toiletries bag had lip balm in it.
Johannesburg to Cape Town, August 6, 2025
★★★★ Today's haze was white and the morning was cool. The clouds were rumpled little sheets with stray pieces coming off them, and they were tinted like old ivory. Desultory tree plantings were dark against the dead yellow slope of a hill of mine tailings. Breeze played around in the enclosure of the Mandela House and the melaleuca tree in front waved. In the street outside, the bare-chested men in loincloths and furry leg coverings had now put on Polo sweatshirts and sat on the curb to wait out a lull between tourist groups. Clouds moved over the corrugated metal roof. In the course of an afternoon inside the dark of the Apartheid Museum, the sky had mostly filled with mostly gray clouds, but for a while the glory rays around a gap became a wash of full sun filling the exit courtyard. By the drive to the airport, the western share of the clouds had broken apart and the clouds in the east were dabbed with bright white highlights on complex grays and golds and purples. The car curved westward onto the airport ramp and the few clouds in that direction were traced in burning pink. The airport restaurant had a cold gust blowing over the table and the airport gate was colder still, though without any gusts, and the bus to the stairs to the plane was colder than that. Turbulence set the open cup of coffee at the next seat sloshing higher and higher until it eventually cleared the rim. The cabin attendant bounced on her feet as she stood bundled in her coat saying goodbyes by the open door to the jetway.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS THE Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
POD JOB DEP'T. Vacation season is upon us and the Indignity Morning Podcast Studio anticipates a two week shutdown unless some un-ignorable piece of news breaks, and I find myself with unstructured time and a connection to the Internet, but, assuming nothing unexpected happens in either direction, we will talk again on August 11th.
ADVICE DEP'T.
HEY! DO YOU like advice columns? They don't happen unless you send in some letters! Surely you have something you want to justify to yourself, or to the world at large. Now is the perfect time to share it with everyone else through The Sophist, the columnist who is not here to correct you, but to tell you why you're right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Dr. Allinson's Cookery Book: Comprising Many Valuable Vegetarian Recipes, by Thomas Richard Allinson, published in 1915, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
CHEESE SANDWICHES.
Cut some slices of rich cheese and place them between some slices of wholemeal bread and butter, like sandwiches. Put them on a plate in the oven, and when the bread is toasted serve on a napkin.
CREAM CHEESE SANDWICHES.
Spread some thin brown bread thickly with cream cheese, then put any kind of jam between the slices; sift with powdered sugar and serve.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net .
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
Indignity is presented on Ghost. Indignity recommends Ghost for your Modern Publishing needs. Indignity gets a slice if you do this successfully!
