Echoes of the Inkwell is a satirical essay series exploring history connected to today’s issues. This piece is written in the voice of Ambrose Bierce using AI, channeling his devil’s-dictionary sensibility to comment on current events. All authorship is fully AI-disclosed. The more things change, the more they stay — the more they stay the same.
by Ambrose Bierce (channeled)
A man who wishes to be remembered has two methods available to him. The first is to do something worth remembering. The second, far less strenuous and vastly more popular among heads of state, is to have his name engraved on things that were doing perfectly well under their previous ones. I bring this up because the news this week supplies two specimens of the second method in such close proximity that a lepidopterist would be forgiven for pinning them to the same board.
LAKE, n.
A body of fresh water, formerly named for the indigenous confederacy or European province that happened to be nearby when European mapmakers arrived, now subject to reassignment upon the injured feelings of a sitting president. It was announced this week that the United States is giving “serious consideration” to renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America,” on the stated ground that America does not expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer. One admires the economy of the gesture: a trade dispute, several centuries of naming convention, and the sovereignty of a neighboring nation, all settled at once by consulting a map and simply wanting it differently. It is the sort of solution available only to men who have never had to ask permission for anything, including, apparently, the lake.
RESTORATION, n.
The act of returning a building to its former condition, distinguished at the Kennedy Center from the related term RENAMING only by the presence of scaffolding. The Center’s board insists the president’s takeover of the facility was undertaken purely as a financial rescue, a claim rendered somewhat delicate by the fact that ticket sales and fundraising collapsed after his name went up, suggesting the rescue may have required rescuing from itself. Undeterred, the administration’s lawyers now inform the courts that unless the renovation — and the accompanying facade, to read, in full, “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” — is permitted to proceed, the building may simply have to be demolished. In its place, perhaps, an amphitheater. One is struck by the delicacy of the ultimatum: not we would prefer to renovate, but the building itself will become “unsafe” and “decrepit” absent the desired inscription, as though masonry could sense when it was insufficiently grateful.
VANITY, n.
The only municipal infrastructure project in American history capable of being completed by executive mood.
The Lexicographer’s Postscript
I have made something of a career cataloging the small dishonesties by which powerful men describe their appetites as public service. But I confess even I am impressed by the range on display this week: a lake reassigned out of spite, a concert hall held hostage to vanity, both delivered in the same news cycle with the straight face particular to men who have never once been told no and have therefore forgotten the word exists.
There is an old phrase, familiar to anyone who has watched a man in an expensive suit inspect a small shopkeeper’s premises with theatrical concern for its structural soundness. It translates poorly into the language of press releases, but the sentiment survives the trip intact: Nice country you’ve got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.
Editorial note: This piece is a satirical commentary channeling the style of Ambrose Bierce, generated with AI assistance, in response to reporting on the proposed renaming of Lake Ontario and the Kennedy Center renovation and naming dispute. All historical and contemporary claims reflect publicly reported events as of August 2026.
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