Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: World War III.

Lacked time and inclination for a proper post for this, the sixteenth day of September in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight. So I'll just leave you with the concluding verse to Robert Zimmerman's "Talking World War III Blues," one of his series of dream narrative songs, revolving around being one of the only humans left alive after a nuclear war (a topic that was not so played out or fanciful in 1963 as we might regard it today).

Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves walkin' around with no one else.
Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
Some of the people can be all right part of the time.
But all the people can't be all right all the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
"I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,"
I said that.

All the great artists of the past half century or so (Mr. Zimmerman, I venture, may be counted in this group) have had to be expert at juggling the twin balls of irony and sincerity. But that reminds me sadly of the recently departed David Foster Wallace, one of the hallmarks of whose art was that negotiation. Mad posthumous props, D.F.W.