griff.works

Fishing the Potomac is impossible.

The whole thing is too big; you can only fish small sections of it at a time.

Less than ideal conditions with a storm moving in, but visited the confluence of the Monocacy and the Potomac this morning. Earned the zero after about four hours of fishing. The strategy was simply to cover water, swinging streamers. And I did that. In a less than ideal way in retrospect. Learned today that having particular features–riffles, pools, channels, etc.–allows me to easily work a specific piece of water. After a while of standing in flat, featureless water a quarter- to half-mile wide for an hour, my technique was probably just as likely to foul-hook a fish as to induce a strike.

The primary goals were to (a) hook up with smallmouth (b) work on casting – specifically, bending the rod down into the cork and paying attention to loop formation. On the latter, I realized that choking down on the handle allows the rod to bend more. Seems obvious in hindsight; odd that I never read that anywhere. I also need to pare back on the size of my streamers. There was no real reason to fish a size 4 Clouser Minnow other than that was the size I tied them. A size 8 or 10 would suffice.

The stretch of the Potomac there at the confluence is relatively featureless. 3 – 4 foot gravel bottom flats extend about 50-100 ft from shore and make it highly wade-able. That said, I am not eager to try the area again soon, or at least not during the mornings, when the water is the coolest. I would expect that fishing at last light would have the fish much more active.

I found a different place north of Point of Rocks that I liked much better. The rain had come in by then and the weather was absolutely lousy, plus it was later in the day & I had other things to do back home. The water was full of features: runs, riffles, seams, the works. I snagged often on a floating line and weighted streamers; I suspect that unweighted streamers on an Intermediate sink tip is just the ticket for the area. I plan to go back on an afternoon sometime when the water is above 70’F.

The day before Easter

Two weeks ago I thought winter might have been over and as soon as I said it out loud it started to get colder again. Things are warming up now though and so far Spring looks something like:

I associate these with Maples but I don’t know if they’re mutually exclusive or not. Until the leaves come in, Red Maple is now my best guess for our ‘Street tree’ out front.

Flora in bloom:

A little over a month ago, I was on a favorite local-ish river and took some time to seine for insects to get a better idea of what the fish had on offer. Midge larvae, ants and mayfly nymphs were the overwhelming food items in the drift.

It was raining heavily (all day) and I seined for quite a while as I was hoping to find larger bugs, but after about 45 minutes in multiple types of water, I was fairly well convinced that this was representative of that section of stream – at that time. Since then, I’ve been using the photos as a reference matching these sizes/profiles/colors for the nymphs I tie with that piece of water in mind.

I noticed the olive midges had white gills, while the grey-ish midges rocked brown gill tufts. I have ideas for adding gills down the line, but for the short term, immediately tied up about a dozen and a half #20 and #22 weighted midges. I settled on a pearl-tinsel undercoat, followed with almost-touching wraps of dun, brown or olive peacock quills for the body. Coating thinly with resin, they looked great and have since produced well.

I note that a day later I looked at them again though and realized all I really did was make tail-free Perdigons. (That didn’t occur to me at all while I was making them)

Heading back to the same stream tomorrow, I wanted to bring something to mimic the mayfly larvae — and and am eager to put them to the test.

Recipe: Hook: Size 18 nymph hook: 2X long, 2X heavy; Weight: 2.5mm black tungsten bead; Thread: Semperfli’s 12/0 Classic waxed; Tailing: Hen hackle or Partridge; Abdomen: natural or/and orange pheasant tail; Ribbing: gold UTC wire; Thorax: Semperfli’s Dirty Bug Yarn in Mottled Olive; Wingcase: Large HoloTinsel (black).

These were my first flies using the ‘FFF’ Anchor beads. At their price point, I was worried about the quality, but they’re straight-up good. Because I was building in legs into this pattern, I wanted to avoid spiky dubbings for the thorax; I tried Semperfli’s ‘bug yarn’ instead. It provided consistency, but at the cost of versatility (there are two strands to the yarn, so it either goes on at the diameter it comes off the spool – or at 1/2 of that by unwinding it). Because of that it doesn’t end up looking good at all when you wrap it over itself – you can’t seamlessly ‘build up’ and shape with it like you can with dubbing material.

The ‘Mottled Olive’ yarn’s peacock & auburn fibers (shown above) are mottled enough to make me think it has hope (if not promise!) as a material, but next time I’ll probably just dub the thorax like a normal person.

Our seeds finally arrived this week. I have potted up one of our starter pallets and watered in the soil, but still have yet to place the seeds. I need to do that soon, but procrastination is a hell of a drug. Also, the grass is looking pretty green and we don’t have a lawnmower yet — or a shed to put it in. Decent problems to have all-in-all.

Also – this week I learned of Jason Randall who was a guest on The Orvis Flyfishing Podcast:

Jason is a Veterinarian by trade and a scientist at his core who has written several books related to Flyfishing for trout, specifically. His approach to understanding the interplay of physics and biology within stream ecology are quite singular. I was so impressed by his interview with Tom Rosenbauer that I found five other podcast interviews, listened to them in full, and then bought two of his books.

If so inclined, you can hear him at the link above, or here, here, here, here or here.

currently reading: Nymph Masters: Fly-Fishing Secrets from Expert Anglers, Jason Randall

Last full listen: Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd

Forsythias in full bloom; Stoneflies are hatching

All week I have walked around eying the Forsythia that is fairly popular in landscaping of my neighborhood. It came into full bloom this week with millions of diminutive yellow flowers threatening eventually carpet lawns across the area.

Photo of Forythia by: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On the Gunpowder this weekend, water temperatures were breaking into the 50′ F range by 11am and there was a simultaneous midge and stonefly hatch starting at about 1 pm. I started the day early though and left around 2pm with one fish shy of 10 on the day. I wanted double-digits but that stretch of river was getting crowded. I’ll have to fish faster next time.*

I should look into stonefly patterns at some point. These were almost as long as my thumbnail, with a black skinny body and light dun downwings. Interesting to observe that in flight their body-length wings make them appear relatively large, while at rest they become quite slender. None were spotted on the water’s surface — but I wasn’t seriously looking.

Today (Sunday) I installed screens in all but two of the house windows. SEEB had to hold the ladder on a few climbs as the house has inclines on all sides and our ladder doesn’t have extendable feet for non-level surfaces. It is nice, particular on the second floor, to have the windows open and a nice breeze blowing through.

Tying notes: I tied up a handful of heavier nymph patterns this afternoon (Pheasant Tail bodies on size 14 jigs w/ CDC & black squirrel collars) using 3.8mm tungsten beads. Threw in a few Perdigons on 3.2mm beads. The heavier weights will come in handy when flows in the GP get higher. Tonight, I returned to struggle with Sparkleduns. After tying midges the last couple of months on Veevus 14|0 and 18|0 thread, dialing in the amount of torque to use when cinching down deer hair wings (on 6|0 Danville and 8|0 Uni-thread) snapped a lot of thread ruining a good deal of work. Mid-week last week I tried to tie up a half dozen and failed spectacularly, not able to get a single fly to my liking. I believe I started w/ Nanosilk 30D then, but the GSP kept slicing the deer hair. Moved to wider non-gel-spun threads, but again with the snapping. I tied up Comparaduns last year, and didn’t remember having so much trouble — hoping these notes come in handy in years to come.

Lesson tonight: tying in the wing first is probably best. If the thread snaps while cinching the hair down, you’ve saved time by not tying in the shuck and starting the underbody first. SemperFly NanoSilk 50D worked well tonight (w/ wax applied). Splitting the wings at some point would be interesting, as would mixing in some sighter material in the wings — at least w/ this dark dun-wing pattern I am tying. The Varner short-fine (dun) hair that I was so stoked about actually doesn’t work that as well as I was hoping. Not to say that it can’t, but it is so short that getting enough of it into a mid-sized stacker is a bit of a work-up. The fineness of the hair is amazing though – best I’ve seen tbh – so I may figure something out yet. On a lark, I used the shittiest ‘compardun hair’ I have (from Hareline) and made it work. I now have a whopping two dun-wing sparkleduns now for my efforts. If they catch a fish one day, I hope I remember that those were the two flies that were such a pain in the ass on a random Sunday evening in March of 2024.

currently reading: FilterWorld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, Kyle Chayka
last full listen: Long Time Coming by Sierra Ferrell

Casting Church

a short video featuring TPFR & the Potomac River

Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders, a charter branch of Fly Fishers International, holds monthly casting clinics in Georgetown (D.C.) on the second Sunday of each month. I have known of this for well over a year; until today I had been to exactly zero of these. I went to Church this past Sunday morning, and found it exceedingly useful. Getting feedback from a certified casting instructor, who could observe from a neutral position, and tell me exactly what they were seeing with my mechanics was pretty awesome.

Noting here that the Potomac was browned out with the recent rains, running muddy as hell and tons of woody debris in the currents. Stream guage at the Little Falls Pump Station marked it at 5.6ft and it has risen all day. I would speculate 4.5ft as the maximum viable wading conditions on the river.

The (last?) winter fishing day of the season

Buds are forming on all the trees, the clock rolls forward an hour tonight, and I expect that with the possible exception of a slight frost between now and April, winter is behind us. Spent the afternoon on a favored MD stream, fishing with a fiberglass rod that is probably my favorite rod to cast tiny dry flies with. I did not plan on casting tiny dry flies though.

Conditions were rainy and colder (high of 44’F), rained all last night and then continued all day long — quite heavily at many points. Water stayed clean though – no brown-outs although the stream banks were fairly treacherous and with that slick red Maryland clay providing some slip & slide moments throughout the day. Browns were taking pheasant tail nymphs (and only PTs) in a size 18 or 20.

I hadn’t used New Zealand indicators in a while — maybe two years ago back in CA, and wanted to spend the day working with those again. They were always lovely in theory, but I never really set them up right on those California rivers. I was playing around with them this week and realized that the amount of wool one uses has to be just so — and back then I was either using too little or too much, trying to learn it in-the-current, to no avail. I have a much higher esteem of them now as an indicator, although I am probably more sour on indicator fishing as a whole, reminded of the lack of connection. At one point today I tried lifting the line and casting upsteam again and after three attempts couldn’t figure out why my line wasn’t getting back upstream, and it turned out I had a fish on the line, a couple of feet below the indicator. Couldn’t feel him at all. It was a beautiful little brown trout, had just traded his juvenile stripes for the purple and pink spots of adolescence, but without a tight connection between my rod tip and the hook, he was imperceptible to the hand. I do honestly get tired of tight-line nymphing all the time though so it is good to have that arrow in the quiver.

Because anglers tend to exaggerate, I am often surprised when something happens exactly as people describe it — I probably dismiss much of the superlative as hyperbole. I believe I heard Tom Rosenbauer once say “if you treat the New Zealand wool with some floatant it’ll float all day long.” Well, turns out that is true. All. Day. Long. Even in the rain. I remember the phrase, but never took it literally. My mistake.

There was a modest but unmistakable hatch all day of size 22/24 white wing midges (I think) but I couldn’t spot any rises or surface takes in the rainy conditions and trying to catch one of the flies for examination didn’t seem worth the effort. I did not seine the water, as I had done that two weeks ago, and did not expect much difference. Water temperatures were 43′-44’F on the day — same as the air — and I am curious as to whether than encourages a midge hatch. For Mayflies and Caddis species, I would expect that warmer air helps them dry off their new wings as they emerge, but it may be the case that Diptera has evolved with less reliance on warmer air at emergence due to their wings having less surface area. Rainy days bring less bird and other activity from avian predators, and so maybe there is a trigger there for the little guys to ditch their nymphal stage and take flight.

Finally – one last thing on the fishing in heavy rain: I now have four boxes (and hundreds of flies) drying out under a circulating fan to avoid any rusting of hooks or matting of materials in soggy boxes ahead of the next outing. I am used to caring for the handful of flies that get lightly used after a day on the water, but when one opens a box to switch out flies in a deluge, no matter how much care is taken, a fair bit of water gets in and all of the flies get wet. Future days of foul-weather fishing may call for more a more pared-back selection carried in a single box.

We are still waiting for our seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange to arrive in the mail. The inaugural garden at the new house will consist of:

4 species of tomatoes (we want to learn canning this year)
French Marigolds (for the pollinators during the season, and to control nematodes thereafter)
Fava beans (because hell yeah)
Kebarika bush beans (for drying)
Red Hardneck Garlic
Dyer’s Correopsis (because they look cool, and who knows – maybe we’ll dye something)

There will be other items, likely, but this is a start. SEEB also has watercress seeds coming but for obvious reasons they will not be in the garden. We have deep window wells in many spots in the house though and with a few glass containers, we could likely grow a fair amount. Also, if we get some oak casks for rain barrels, they could be used in there.

There was one species of tomato that I missed out on, as I delayed the order and it was no longer in stock: Aunt Lou’s Underground Railroad Tomato: The story is that the seeds were brought up from a black man escaping slavery in Kentucky and given to someone named Aunt Lou as he entered the free states in Ripley, Ohio. The plants are still in cultivar today, but you won’t find them in gardening shops and they aren’t Burpee branded Home Depot tomatoes. I dig the story though – there are skeptics on the veracity of it — but the idea of growing those seemed really cool to me. Seems like something that people should keep growing, even if only to consider the fact that it could have happened.

Thus far, the bird species we’ve seen in the yard are: Morning Doves, Cardinals, Mockingbirds, Sparrows, Starlings, Robins, Woodpeckers, and a pair of Blue Jays. Sarah has seen Kingfishers down on the Turkey Branch of Rock Creek — which until today I had misunderstood as Sligo Creek. Crows and Peregrine Falcons are not far off, but I have not seen them in the yard just yet. The bird feeders and bird baths are drawing tons of early activity to enjoy over coffee in the morning and I expect we’ll see more and more as we convert the front lawn to a more appropriate Chesapeake/Piedmont habitat.

SEEB painted the living room today while I was out fishing. It looks really good. Its a kind of soft yellow — almost a subdued mustard — which I honestly would have never expected to work, but contrasting the white trim of all the baseboards and framing around doors and stairs, ceiling, etc., it makes the whole place come alive in a really warm way. I would have expected it to make the room feel smaller too, but it feels bigger. It was a bold move; it paid off.

Now I am contemplating what color to paint my office.

Modern Ideas in Chess (1923)

Most chess enthusiasts at least know the name, Réti, but until about a month ago, I had no idea this book even existed. As part of a training regimen I was recently given a choice for required reading between two titles, this being one of them. I could not find any used copies of the out of print book online and thus resigned myself to studying the other title. Then last week, on a shelf at Second Story Books in Rockville, Maryland, sat a perfect, unread copy of a 1960 printing from Dover Publications. The first I’d ever seen.

The listed price was $6, and all books there are 50% off the listed price. I have been reading this at the dog park over the last week, with some stints here at the house. It is a quick read, but one whose benefits, I believe, will linger.

In this book, Reti sets forth on the task of concisely illustrating the preceding hundred years of chess. He begins with Adolph Anderssen (b.1818) who leads into Morphy (b. 1837) and illustrates the ideas and developments of each successive era. That the book itself is written from a vantage already almost a century in the past, reading it was exceptionally insightful and made me–makes me–wonder: What have we forgotten?

I was born in 1974. I grew up post-Bobby Fischer, but in terms of chess culture, the world I knew growing up was one in which the Russians still dominated the game. As far as I knew, it had always been thus. Yet here in 1923, this Austro-Hungarian (later Czech) Master published an entire chapter titled AMERICANISM IN CHESS where he extolled the virtue of American Chess, deeming it superior to that of his native Europe and predicting that the future of chess (and more) belonged to the Americans.

For such is the strength and weakness of the European thinker and plodder, that he always strives after the impossible. The American is steady and turns what is possible to account…

To the European mind has undoubtedly belonged the past; possibly to Americans belong the present and the future.
-Richard Reti, Modern Ideas in Chess

About twenty years ago Garry Kasparov, arguably the strongest player the game of chess had ever seen, was releasing his series of books: My Great Predecessors. In these volumes, he systemically covered chess history in the modern era through the games and lives of past World Champions. The knock on that series–and one that I tend to agree with–is that the content is too intense. Countless side lines and variations and histories of which moves had been played from exact positions all added up to muddled and confusing incomprehensibility that few can cut through. Réti avoids all of that with simplicity and brevity. He provides no more than a single game per each Master mentioned, and the games themselves are only analyzed to the point of illustrating what each successive master brought to the game. He sets out to explain in prose and then support through concise presentation.

Anderssen – and his brilliance in calculating sacrifices and combinations. Morphy–playing the exact same position faced by Anderssen–and declining the immediate combination or attack and opting instead to develop his pieces to positions less favorable in the moment, but exceedingly advantageous within a short series of moves. Steinitz, later facing similar positions to Morphy, but having an approach to placing his pieces in accordance with more static and permanent features of the developing position. On and on for another 160 pages! Tarrasch. Lasker. Pillsbury. Akiba Rubenstein. Capablanca. Alekhine. With mentions and commentary on other notable figures throughout the years: Maroczy, Jaenish, Chigorin, Breyer, Schlechter, and more – namesake discovers of opening variations and positions students of the game study to present day. Réti provides an easily comprehensible context and chronology of them all in this short 180 page work. It is a beautiful thing.

For anyone who is interested in the history of chess or maybe even the history of ideas, this book is a must read. If one considers themselves a student of the game, and particularly if they utilize the study of so-called “Master Games” to improve their play, then this book becomes almost a Rosetta Stone. I have recently been studying Alekhine for example, and had a hard time understanding all but his tactics and endgames; the context Richard Réti provides on the ‘hyper-moderns’ illuminated much for me, by way of example. The book is not for understanding why Akiba Rubenstein –or any other Master — was brilliant in all the ways he was brilliant, but rather to show how each of them fit in the legacy that is the birthright of most anyone alive today.

In short, the book is amazing, and I would argue even more relevant today than when it was published a hundred years ago. If you are remotely interested in the book, obtain a copy and give it a shot. You will be glad you did.

(Baby) It’s cold outside

I just took the dogs outside for their morning rounds. I bundled up, sans gloves, and was struck immediately at how cold it was. Infantry cold. I thought to myself (incredulously): “It has got to be twenty degrees out here!”

It was 7.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to Congress this week. It troubled me for the first ten minutes or so, watching him be so beggarly in his remarks — until I fully committed to his role as a politician (not a soldier), doing politics with the politics people in the politics place. And then it was troubling for different reasons. I have a strong aversion to seeing the people who are Doing The Work explain themselves to those helping out when they can.

Especially in front of so many timid souls inside that chamber.

To reiterate my position, if the US intends to be any sort of force in the world–and I think it should– we should fully support Ukraine, short of putting US troops on the ground, and encourage our allies to do the same. Training support, Logistical Support, Intelligence, Material, the works. Every dime in treasure we spend today is an investment against the blood and treasure the world would pay later.

I won the lottery last week. Not one that gives you money, but one that allows you to run ten miles. I am not sure I have enough time to successfully train up for the event, but am working toward it anyway. If I come up short by race day, the progress can be thrown at something a few weeks later in the year. I hope to get back into running in 2023.

currently reading: Silman’s Complete Endgame Course (Part 4)

last viewed: Nope

100,000 Kilowatt hours per person.

Climate Change — From A to Z, was a rather good piece of writing from Elizabeth Kolbert in this week’s New Yorker. Part optimism, part lament, it shines some light on emergent areas of hope while also assessing the reality of a status quo bias, and if nothing else, informed me a bit on a topic I rarely sit with.

She does a phenomenal job with the piece. It goes in many directions and covers more than a few things (It is not a short piece). I am not sure if The New Yorker is entirely behind a paywall or if there are a certain number of stories one can freely access per month, but I recommend it. Of note to me, a short section on per capita energy usage (and the comparative analysis by nation to follow) was worth the time alone. Mind boggling stuff. Those two paragraphs of hers are below:

excerpt from Climate Change: A to Z by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Once a month, as I write the check to the electric company, I check the Kilowatt-hours (KWh) billed and look to see how we are doing compared to previous periods and reflect on ways to use less energy/write smaller check amounts in the future. Based on the KWh billing alone, I knew we were on the hook for something like 7,500 to 8,500 KWh annually, but did not (do not) grok the sheer amount of energy flowing through and across the US.

Trying to contemplate the additional 192,000-ish Kilowatt hours (96%) being used out-there-in-the-wild that balances the two of us back to American per capita energy usage kind of does my head in. And meanwhile, I’m still at my desk trying to find a marginal gain to reduce that 4%.*

IF ANYONE IS LOOKING for something great to adorn their walls, Zoe Keller is an artist working in the scientific illustrative tradition that might merit consideration. Her subjects focus on wilderness and biodiversity and her talent is out of sight.

You should check our her site here.

I LEARNED TODAY that the Chesapeake apparently has a proper swamp nearby. There are no alligators, presumably no pitcher plants, but just the same, I am interested in visiting Zekiah Swamp, Maryland’s largest, next spring.

“Largest” is just kind of thrown in there for kicks; it seems considerably smaller than places like Pinhook or the Okefenokee I’d frequent many moons ago, but just the same, I would like to get a feel for the place and maybe drag a canoe through the place.

ALSO OF INTEREST NEXT SPRING is The Cherry Blossom 10-miler (a more urban affair). The route seems pretty great, there is plenty of time to train up for it, and from what I gather, it is a great time of year to be in the District. Should be a great day, if it happens. There is a lottery involved, but registration starts in December and entrants should know if they’re invited to run by late December as I understand it.

FINALLY, I found the chart below interesting. Trend lines suggest the population using Twitter could be rapidly changing. It is kind of funny to think that if this trend were to continue, ELNO would have bought Twitter (for far too much money) only to turn it into Parler.

currently reading: Simple Chess by Michael Stean.

currently watching: The Peripheral (Prime) and Shantaram (Apple+).

last full listen: Lotta Sea Lice by Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile (2017).

Thoughts post-election (2022)

(Two weeks later) Welp?

It was a bad night for the GOP, but they did gain control of the House.

Warnock is +4 in the polling I’ve looked at, however, as it turns out, Warnock is kind of a decent man, which makes me think the Universe will conspire to ensure he loses.

It seems certain that Biden will run again; I think that is a bad idea. Thus concludeth my thoughts, post-election. (2022)

I have been working on endgames over the last month or so, and have particularly found the pawn endgames the most interesting. The Knight and the Rook endgames are interesting, but it seems like the pawn endgames hold the most variety. In the course of studying, I learned the name Nikolai Grigoriev–a name I’d not learned in twenty (+) years of mucking about on the chessboard–and found his studies to be wildly informative, almost a hundred years after his final breath.

Obviously, there is no way to relay all the positions or ideas I’ve looked at, so perhaps the most practically powerful idea is below. White to move and win (decisively).

Keep in mind that if Kd4, Black has …Kxb4 and will take the white pawn at f2 right after you capture the black pawn on h7 (assuming you don’t try to take on d5).

–30–

Thoughts ahead of election night. (2022 edition)

Gas prices and inflation, coupled with the mid-term curse, should make it a banner year for the GOP. Despite that, I guess the Republican Party will be limited to about a +20 change in the House and +3 change in the Senate. I suspect that the Dobbs v. Jackson decision and the selection of some really horrible candidates in the primaries will likely drag on what could have been an actual wave election. I’m probably around 10% less bullish on GOP prospects than FiveThirtyEight. In recent elections going back to 2018 (IIRC) they have overestimated Democratic Party performance, however. If that trend held, it would be an absolute Tsunami by the GOP this cycle, and I am way off the mark (it wouldn’t be the first time).

Moving forward on my assumptions, Kevin McCarthy will be the Speaker, McConnell the Majority Leader. I expect Pelosi to retire – I’m not sure what keeps Steny Hoyer around, either. I would expect McConnell to be realistic involving things like the debt ceiling, budgets, government shutdowns, etc., and advance his judicial project to the best of his ability, but the House is a different kettle of fish altogether. I am still trying to imagine how McCarthy (of all people?) will manage must-pass legislation. Particularly while adhering to the Hastert Rule – which is a dumb rule, fwiw – and avoiding a leadership challenge or abject failure. Facetiously, the happiest day of John Boehner’s life was the day he dropped the gavel. Paul Ryan picked it up and quit politics shortly after that. My guess is that earmarks and pork-barrel spending are McCarthy’s only shot, but if he doesn’t enjoy his first few days as Speaker, I suspect the entire tenure will be joyless.

PBS Newshour recently reported that 51% of GOP candidates this cycle are election “deniers or doubters.” The overwhelming majority of these candidates are in safe seat districts and on a glide path toward public office. The 118th Congress will have far more representatives beholden to convenient fictions than even the 117th Congress did. Accordingly, I am unclear on how the leader of such a party can effectively govern in a world of uncomfortable realities. The Circus part is coming; the bread, probably not so much.

My prediction would be that at a minimum, the country is in for debt ceiling drama (and a possible default) in Feb-Mar of next year, and later in 2023 there will be government shutdowns. No bipartisan legislation will be possible, and over the coming two years, the GOP will remain “the opposition” party — forever against x, y and z, but never really coherent or unified on being for actual a, b or c legislative policies.

Time, obviously, will tell.