American Fez

Twang!

Using an old beer bottle cap as a plectrum, I raked the steel strings of my Laser Banjo back and forth. Ear-lacerating feedback is the usual trick to focus attention on the stage at the Moon Saloon, but tonight I had chosen stomach-churning power chords instead. It was that sort of crowd: lonely lunar pioneers, boozing like gloomy Russian cosmonauts, as fat as Jove and already murderously bored after the evening's first act, an unfunny Martian comedian who delivered a series of nonsensical knock-knock jokes through a faulty voice translation box. I stepped up to the mic, best Elvis sneer on my lips, still violently slashing at the banjo strings like Jimi Hendrix looking for a fight. "This one's called I Lost My Heart In Zero Gravity," I growled. "It's about a little lady I left behind on Alpha Centauri and goes something like this ..."

The above is the opening paragraph of a science fiction novel I was writing about a washed-up – aren't they all? – Country and Western singer, who makes a living gigging around the rundown planets of the known universe. I say "was writing" because I've recently decided to set my story in Ancient Rome instead of outer space. Nevertheless, I'll still keep the C&W singer character. He will now be a time-traveling unreliable narrator; unreliable because I'm far too lazy to do any actual research about Ancient Rome. This way, if the story contains glaring historical inaccuracies, as it undoubtedly will, I can claim such errors are character-driven and thematic. Furthermore, I know absolutely nothing about Country and Western music beyond the infamously corny song titles. And I'm definitely not doing any research into stetson hats, cowboy boots, or elaborate line dancing steps. I'd rather turn my hero into a reggae artiste and embark upon a week long fact finding mission to Kingston, Jamaica. Although I'd probably be accused of cultural appropriation if I went that route.

Still, come to think of it, the idea of a Rastafarian time-traveler joining forces with Julius Caesar is tempting. But it would surely work better as a movie than a novel. Imagine the epic sweep of Caesar crossing the Rubicon in widescreen while his dreadlocked friend belts out Many Rivers To Cross on the soundtrack. I can see myself accepting the Oscar for best screenplay as I type. But I need to learn to walk to the bookstore before I can run down the Hollywood red carpet. So for now I'll concentrate on the Honky Tonk gladiator from the twenty-first century who loves a Vestal Virgin from the first. I just need a title corny enough to appeal to the kind of people who sign-up for ghost tours of Nashville recording studios. Then I can make my C&W Sci-Fi Fantasy pitch to the publishers. I Left My Hearth In The Temple of Vesta? No, perhaps not. I'll have to put my ten gallon thinking cap on.  

Safe Space

Should I find myself aboard an interstellar HMS Endurance of the future, irrevocably swallowed into the gravitational pull of the blackest of black holes, I'd think I'd prefer to be vaporized in the void rather than shoehorn myself into one of those claustrophobic escape pods I've seen in science-fiction films.

Although never actually professionally diagnosed with a fear of confined spaces, I doubt I'd last more than twenty anxious minutes in a little capsule without pounding on the aluminum alloy walls, demanding to be let out. This is also true of ocean-going mini-submersibles or just any conveyance smaller than the buffet car of the Orient Express when traveling through a tunnel. As such, until some boffin develops an aircraft carrier-sized research vehicle, I will not be setting foot in any final frontiers anytime soon, which is unfortunate as I've always wanted to spearhead a voyage of discovery. 

And this psychosomatic disorder is obviously scientific exploration's loss. I'd refuse to "boldly go where no man has gone before" unless my starship had sufficient room for at least sixty other men and featured an observation deck as big as a football field. Captain Nemo must forever remain a stranger to me. "It's not that I don't want to fight the giant squid. It's just that I don't want to do it while squashed into that itty-bitty bathysphere."

Ah, what an adventurous spirit the world has lost with me. Imagine if Lewis and Clark suffered from raging cabin fever so never even made it halfway up the Missouri river; or if Marco Polo, in his cramped caravan, complained it was "getting too hot in here to go any further," so never met Kublai Khan, having returned post-haste to Venice with a cold sweat upon his formerly noble brow.  Such is the disastrous consequence of my debilitating mental Achilles heel. 

And I really think I would have been superb at cataloguing unknown deep sea worms in the Mariana Trench or, better yet, rescuing Dale Arden from the Emperor Ming. I can see myself as a sort of Flash and Dr Zarkov combination character. Brains and brawn in one irresistible but potentially very anxious package. Those firework powered rockets from the fifties television show did not look comfortably capacious to me. 

Perhaps I should limit my ambitions to shouting "that planet over there looks nice!," while staring out the window of a Space Ark's reconnaissance probe when the human race is finally forced to find another galaxy to colonize. I'd just need a good nose for life-supporting atmosphere and a large packet of terraforming seeds. I could do that easily. Provided I wouldn't be required to spend the rest of the trip in an alarmingly narrow suspended animation tube. 

It's awful to think the future of mankind might be jeopardized by my petty nervous disorder. But along such trivial fault lines does the fate of worlds depend. For instance, the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae were all afraid of spiders. Had the Persians unleashed a single tarantula onto the battlefield then Western civilization would look very different today. That's not true, of course, but I always find consolation allowing irreverent thoughts to wander freely through my mind until they come to rest in the safe space between my ears. 

Where The Buoys Are

I dreamt I was Matthew Arnold, musing on Dover Beach, until my poetic reverie was disrupted by a family of apes on jet-skis and I woke up in a cold sweat thinking Sophocles long ago most certainly did not hear those obnoxious screeching engines on the Aegean; nor would Sophocles suffer endless traffic gridlock on his way to the Athenian Agora; or pitch his tent on the Attic plain only to wake up and discover his tranquil beauty spot has been transformed overnight into a parking lot for enormous camper vans.

Although not actually in ancient Greece, I am in Acadia, the national park in Maine. I just wanted to 'get way from it all' for a while and relax in the mountain air. Mission impossible, of course, because everybody else is also trying 'get away from it all,' so I am constantly followed by 'It All' and its entire family in their fluorescent orange colored kayaks and rattling mountain bikes. Mind you, I suppose it's equally as painful for everyone else being forced to tolerate my unsympathetic  presence. "There he is again," they whisper, sitting around their portable fire pits. "That judgmental misanthrope who thinks he's Matthew Arnold in hiking boots."

So I escape to Bar Harbor town center, where there are fewer people than in the park's rolling hills. Feeling hungry, I order Maine's version of surf-and-turf: a dollop of lobster salad and a slice of moose meat served inside a huge, genetically enhanced blueberry orb. I wash this down with two blueberry infused martinis poured into a lobster-claw shaped glass. Dessert is blueberry pie topped with blueberry "moose mousse" layered on a bed of fresh blueberries. I pay with greenbacks because I have no beaver pelts to trade with. 

Leaving the restaurant, I spy a colonial-style hostelry next door named the Lobster Trap, sporting a large and inviting Vacancy sign. Any potential guests are obviously crammed together cheek-by-jowl up in the mountain campground ghettos, failing miserably to 'get away from it all,' so there is plenty of room at the Inn. I book an ocean view room called the Blueberry Suite and hang my straw hat on a moose antler coat rack for what remains of my vacation. It's so peaceful here in the harbor. Perhaps I could even take a stroll along the shoreline at low tide and consider composing a poem about what Sophocles might experience in a similar situation.

 

Cassandra At The Movies

At the time, the Trump versus Biden election recalled to mind a Laurel and Hardy film: the fat loudmouth who believes he knows everything but actually knows nothing; and the frazzled nitwit who runs around aimlessly while scratching his head. Voters, of course, were the long suffering saps whose piano the incompetent double act will fail to move safely from one place to another. We are currently well into the third reel and the Keystone Kops have appeared, Trump is now  recast as evil Fatty Arbuckle and Biden wants to be Harold Lloyd but has failed his screen test. "Not ready for his close up" it seems.

In fact, last week at work, while despondently discussing the state of the world, I momentarily forgot who was President of the United States. I could easily name check Johnson, Macron, Draghi, Scholz and all the other pretenders to defending the free world, but who was in charge here? It took me at least a few seconds to dredge Biden's identity from the depths of my brain, where it languished in apparent ignominy. Compared to Trump, whose bovine, pungently visceral personality was inescapable during his administration, Biden is the shapeless shadow of spectral vapor left by decrepit DNA engulfed in an opaque cloud.

So what comes next? Which two celebrity icons of zany, madcap dogmatism and delusion will contest the next election by knowingly exploiting and exacerbating the American public's fear and desperation? We are so far beyond parody now that even second-rate vaudevillians of the recent past like Bush and Obama seem like venerable jesters from a golden age of comedy. Who knew they were merely the warm-up act for Laurel and Hardy, followed by 2024's high camp farce, featuring two cartoon clowns hitting each other over the head with red and blue balloons while trying to drive away in a tiny car stuffed with spoiled ballots.

Seventies Revival

I somewhat remember the austerity of the nineteen-seventies: washing in a thimble of hot water; three rooms illuminated by a single light bulb; long-distance telephone calls regulated by a stopwatch; Coca Cola rationing; the cookie jar patrolled by guard dogs; and grandmother merrily knitting a draft excluder like one of those French crones at the foot of a guillotine. She'd survived the war, you know, and knew everything there was to know about deprivation. But on the whole my memory is hazy. The world back then was engulfed in a cloud of spray-on deodorant, after all, so perhaps I only saw through a veil of polyester, darkly.

Inflation, stagflation, conflagration of money. Here comes Herr Bankrupt with his Weimar wheelbarrow full of worthless Deutschmarks. This bodes well for nobody but the steel barons. They not only manufacture the wheelbarrow but the bombs and guns that load themselves in its wake also. Then again, who knows what the weapons of modern armageddon will be? I imagine heat-seeking missiles are the equivalent of blunderbusses and muskets now. The last President mumbled something about 'Space Force.' Maybe we will destroy Moscow with lasers fired from the moon. Or will it be a ferocious struggle for control of our minds? There is already a large scale skirmish underway for our attention. Yes, it's battleground brain these days with a no man's land of the heart.

As always, it is the best of times and the worst of times. While we improve at one life skill our aptitude for another declines. I blame the tale of having only two political parties. The perpetual 'who's on first' double act that's more Vladimir and Estragon than Abbot and Costello. At least there were happy endings with Bud and Lou, no matter how badly they screwed things up. We, on the other hand, are heading for a flooded planet, wracked by earthquakes and withered by chemical poisons. It's like one of those disaster movies I remember watching in the nineteen-seventies, except humanity is waiting for Godot to post another distracting video on TikTok instead of teaming up with The Professor and Jacqueline Bisset to stop the rot. 

Going Outside

You have decided to venture outside? Well, you'd better tiptoe your way around the prostrate garden rake, sidestep the banana skin, hop over the sink hole, slalom through the dog turds, and cross the street to avoid walking under that ladder. If driving, beware an elephant stampede of traffic on the highway so stick to the back roads whenever feasible. You can try cycling but there are so many other riders on the bike path you'll disappear into this year's Tour de France trailing pack if you're not careful. Hot-air ballooning is always an option, of course, but you only want to go downtown for forty minutes, not around the world in eighty days. If only there was a terrible storm that flooded the town, then you could commute back and forth in a canoe. But is the pleasure of rowing merrily, merrily down the stream worth ten feet of water in your basement. I guess not. 

So wearing a blazer and slacks, jaunty cap on my head and parasol in hand, I pedal a penny-farthing down the street like a character from The Prisoner who forgot to escape. "Let me show you around the village, Number Six." Here's where the corner store used to be. These days it's a Capital One bank and cafe. And this was the site of the old VFW, now a condominium tower. And remember dear old Luigi's quaint storefront ristorante? The family sold up and the space is currently a Chipotle Mexican Grill. "Be seeing you."

Let Us Eat Cake

At an increasingly awkward dinner party, prompted by simmering cross-table conflict arising from discussion of current affairs both foreign and domestic, our nervous host attempted to lighten the mood by wondering which historical figures we found most sympathetic? 

'Wehrmacht foot soldiers at Stalingrad,' I replied unhelpfully, immediately escalating an already tense situation. But it's my usual facetious response to such questions, covering events as diverse as interminable travel delays at airports and train stations, being stuck at my desk waiting for client approvals on Friday afternoons in the summer, and mentally coping with late March snowfall accumulations of one inch or — God forbid — more.

And occasions where the Stalingrad motif applies seem to become more common with every passing day. We find ourselves constantly surrounded by hostile forces with ever dwindling routes of escape. All we did was follow orders by striking out into the world to see what we could conquer. And here we stand, supported by makeshift crutches and blood-stained bandages, with nothing to show for our efforts except frost-bite, a dead comrade's overcoat, and one last remaining bullet. Meanwhile, by the light of their glowing bonfires, we can see the silhouettes of SS officers pinning medals to their own chests while eagerly boarding the only homeward bound plane in town.

I tried explaining my analogy to the other guests but they had long since rolled their eyes at me and moved on. Someone more congenial than I had claimed kinship with the creative spirit of David Bowie, whom everybody loves nowadays, and talk shifted from political and social turmoil to the undemanding topic of popular music. With a sigh of relief, the host went to fetch dessert, a selection of colorfully baroque Petit-four. 'They look like something Ziggy Stardust might wear,' I said, eliciting laughter and precipitating my reentry into polite society. 

Cakes, fine wine and convivial company in a comfortable home. Who was I kidding? In truth, I was clearly a million miles away from any equivalent of trench warfare in a freezing Hell on the Eastern front. Me and my glib hyperbole getting me into trouble again. Nevertheless, the daily grind can still resemble a hopeless stalemate from time to time, and it's difficult to shake the dust of struggle from off your shoulders when you're shell-shocked by the news, even on the weekends.

But at future dinner parties, when asked to nominate persons from the past, I should definitely forgo Stalingrad references and perhaps invoke Buenaventa Durruti instead. Nobody knows who he is, so the other guests will just smile and nod. 'He died on a makeshift operating table at the Ritz in Madrid,' I'll explain. 'While fighting in the Spanish Civil War ... oh, just decaf for me, please, but I will have another slice of flan.'

The Misuses of Literacy

A tiny wooden library on a pole has been erected in the front yard of an apartment building near mine. Neighbors are invited to freely exchange books they have finished reading for ones they want to read. It looks much like a fancy bird house but is fitted with shelves for around thirty or forty paperbacks instead of space for seeds and nesting straw. Confused and disappointed pigeons can be seen perching on the roof, and not because those eager, covetous sparrows have already nabbed the new releases. 

But I also rarely discover anything of interest in this so-called library. The inventory is mostly dog-eared science fiction, obsolete computer manuals, bestsellers with mysterious stains and cracked spines, and lots of out-of-date travel guides to Europe and the Caribbean. I once even came across an antediluvian edition of Fodor's Italy with hotel prices listed in Lira. Maybe useful reference material for time travelers but of little practical value to anyone else.

In other words, rather than an altruistic initiative for promoting local literacy, the library is really just a convenient depository for people who would otherwise feel guilty about tossing old books into the garbage. As such, I suppose it does provide a worthwhile service for the community, although the custodian should probably discard that copy of The South Beach Diet that's been available for so long its pages are starting to grow mold. 

This morning, however, I noticed a new sign on the library's facade asking patrons to refrain from leaving "religious books," and remembered seeing an illustrated children's Bible there earlier in the week. No doubt that was the offending article, immediately removed before any impressionable minds could be exposed to its devious message. Ah, the hard-nosed, petulant prejudices of the modern world where multiple copies of Fifty Shades of Grey  can find a home but the "light of the world" must be extinguished.

Fire Fighter

Frank was clicking mournfully on all the folders on his computer screen like the victim of a house fire, sifting through the smoldering debris of their burned-out home, searching for something, however small, they might salvage from the charcoal ruins.

Penny for your thoughts, Frank, I could have asked him, but remained silent as I knew Frank's thoughts were not worth that much. Indeed, had Frank actually experienced a house fire you might suspect he'd set it himself to collect the insurance money, only to discover afterwards that he'd forgotten to renew his policy. That's how Frank's world turns, juddering and creaking, revolving around a black hole instead of the sun. 

I've often thought there should be a special Zodiac created just for Frank. A horoscope all for himself where he was born under the bad sign of Pyro, the Arsonist. If you gazed into the night sky, Pyro would be constellation raging haphazardly across the cosmos as if lost, crashing dangerously into other stars and flickering on and off at random intervals. The music of the spheres played too fast on an out of tune ukulele.

After several minutes of desultory clicking, Frank shoved his keyboard and mouse aside with a great deal of irritation, turning his back on his entire computer, evidently having failed to exhume whatever crucial data he had hoped was buried in its memory banks. Frank looked, not for the first time, like a dim-witted deadbeat who had believed "my ass is covered" but suddenly found that ass publicly unveiled in all its guilty, quivering, pockmarked horror.

How, I wondered, would Frank try to explain away  the important information he had lost yet again; the files he had apparently not backed-up or foolishly deleted by mistake yet again? This was surely an error too far, his final chance wasted, and Frank's manager was already practicing that "we'll have to let you go" speech. Frank was about to get fired and his career at our company reduced to ashes.

But no doubt the long-suffering phoenix of his job prospects would rise once more from the flames of another termination. Fortunately some kind-hearted but professionally irresponsible person would write him a good reference. And I've nearly finished the first draft. 

Forty Years Before The Mast

I was standing on the dock at sunrise, staring at an empty horizon with other frustrated commuters. We were waiting for the SS Office Block, our local ferry, which was at least half-an-hour late. Meanwhile, three empty Marie Celestes sailed past in the opposite direction. Typical. You can blame the trade winds but I think it's just poor scheduling.

This particular morning, a rerouted Raft of the Medusa came rolling by as well. "Is this the right mooring for Human Resources?" one of the haggard, delirious mariners from the raft yelled.

"No, you're going about fifteen nautical miles off-course." I yelled back. "You need to catch the The Flying Dutchman, eastbound," But I don't think he heard me above the sound of crashing waves and the inconsolable wailing of those who were late for work. 

I glanced back towards the horizon. Still no sign of the ferry so my boss would be furious with me again. Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth getting out of bed and putting on my sailor suit and life jacket. Surely it makes more sense to work from a safe berth at home than spend hours lost at sea, bailing water aboard an overcrowded and unreliable commuter ark. It's all hands on deck every day. 

Unfortunately I don't have that luxury. Press-ganged into clerical service since my teens, I'm still barely clinging to the rigging rather than studying maps and charts in the Captain's cabin. I've never been offered a squint through the Admiral's spyglass or found myself celebrated with a twenty-one gun salute either. 

So here I am, singing shanties out of tune and carving third-rate scrimshaw as I wait on the dock with my fellow old salts. But I suppose it's either this or Davy Jones' Locker until I finally hear my financial adviser shout "Land ahoy!" and I can hopefully afford to retire like a rat deserting a sinking ship.

Carpohydrates

Unwinding beside the pond, I spent my lunch hour watching greedy fish attempt to devour the discarded remains of a hot-pressed panino. A study in failure since they were unable to swallow a single mouthful of the waterlogged crust, despite taking turns to attack it from diverse angles.

I felt some degree of empathy for the defeated fish as I, too, had experienced a morning of futile endeavor. Bottom-feeders such as us are repeatedly lured to the surface by tantalizing prizes we are ultimately denied for one reason or another.

Eventually the fish abandoned the delectable but inedible hunk of bread, disappearing with a flash of silvery indignation into the murky depths where they could eye-up less appetizing but bite-size grubs and algae no bigger than their bellies. But I had to return to my office and continue hunting non-existent truffles, out-of-season, in a barren field with the wrong sort of dog. Which is what work feels like much of the time.

As I recall, Jesus did not suggest we pay heed to the fish in his speech about considering the lilies and the sparrows. How very wise of him. After all, fish are often being caught and eaten in the New Testament, therefore not setting a particularly good example for humankind.

Indeed. For all my envy of their abrupt vanishing act, they were stunted fish doomed to circumnavigate the same changeless, negligible expanse of stagnant water day after day, Whereas, at five in the afternoon I could at least emerge from my pond for an evening's respite from daly failure and ennui, however brief.

Although we are both bottom feeders, the fish and I, thankfully their bottom is much lower than mine. Hooray for evolution, the formation of legs, and the ability to breathe on land. Feeling much better after these thoughts, I finished munching on my sardine sandwich and slowly strolled back to the office.

Royal Flush

During recent, very minor renovations, one of our office bathrooms was not only equipped with a selection of fragrant hand soaps and an inexhaustible supply of extra-strength air fresheners but was also renamed Executive Washroom. A prominent sign bearing this new hierarchical designation was even been screwed into the door, which is now permanently locked and the location of its concealed key only vouchsafed to so-called executives via an email subsequently forwarded to all other employees.

So the only reason for upgrading this particular bathroom, situated near the elevator, appears to be to discourage couriers and delivery men from taking advantage of our facilities. Such intruders are often accused of blocking the toilet and using too many paper towels which they leave scattered all over the floor instead of depositing in the receptacle provided. Although I sympathize with the people who consequently have to clean up the mess, I do believe prohibiting universal access to a means of bowel and bladder relief is callous and cruel; not a million miles away, in fact, from the work of demons, trolls and dungeon-masters. After all, when you have to go you have to go and not being able to go is an exquisitely agonizing torture we have all experienced.

Alas, my protests on behalf the mailman with interstitial cystitis, the UPS guy taking a diuretic, and the IBS impacted bike messenger were noted but ignored by what I currently refer to as the Water Closet Comintern. Rendered thus powerless, my only recourse was to post my own makeshift, satirical sign above the toilet roll holder: Executive Wiping Station. It's still in place three weeks later so I'm thinking of planting another. Something along the lines of Apply To Chief Executive Officer In Person For Permission To Use Plunger.

Box Fresh

Surveying a cardboard Stonehenge of weekly meal kits and farm-to-table subscription boxes delivered to my neighbor's porch, I wondered whether mail-order food supplies were symptoms of a neurotic need to avoid supermarkets brought on by still virulent acute Covid anxiety, or simply a convenient way of stocking the pantry for someone who "doesn't have time to shop." However, as I've never actually met and never even see my neighbor I was unable to come to any conclusion. 

Later, rummaging through my refrigerator in search of random vegetables to roast on a pan with the remains of a rotisserie chicken, I decided that my neighbor's mail-order food delivery lifestyle, this plug-and-play cuisine of his, was some new-fangled form of conspicuous consumption that, rather than exhibiting the fruits of his personal wealth, demonstrated his successful navigation of and complete immersion in the high-speed world of modern interconnectivity. It's as if he was hanging a flag from his porch that displayed a QR Code instead of Old Glory; or planting a flower bed in his front yard that resembles the face of Elon Musk when in full bloom.

What next? Will he put his home on the market with a price listed in cryptocurrency? Perhaps he will the demolish the house altogether and rebuild with an architectural design more redolent of Silicon Valley. I'm pretty sure he's already installing a charging station for an electric car in his driveway. No doubt he will soon cancel all those mail order food delivery subscriptions, subsisting entirely on full-flavor nutrition pills and protein capsules instead, dining in a Virtual Reality Michelin-starred restaurant generated from the comfort of his own bedroom.

Thus will my neighbor be self-condemned to the pre-planned solitary confinement of technological dependence, never to know the joy of dragging six bags of heavy groceries back from the market and only then realizing he forgot the shallots his wife told him she needed for a recipe. But who knows? Perhaps one day he will emerge from his Internet dungeon and, not unlike the proverbial neighbor of yore who asks to borrow a cup of sugar, will ask to borrow a portion of my WiFi bandwidth because his WiFi is down which means he can't tell the oven to turn itself on.

Salvator Daily

I enjoy drinking German beer during the winter months. Monk-brewed, face-slapping, lederhosen-staining, oompah-farting doppelbock. Imagine a Bavarian burgermeister with a barrel all to himself, sitting in front of his roaring fire, dreaming of pigtailed milkmaids while waiting for the April thaw, only stirring from his reveries to carve another side of spit-roasted wild boar.

Well, that's not exactly how I celebrate beer o'clock in modern Boston, but it's as near as damn it bearing in mind that I wield no executive power over my fellow townspeople and an entire wild boar is prohibitively expensive these days, never mind rental of the spit-roasting equipment. So I'm confined to merely ordering the dog around and tearing strips off a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket. I also have central heating, which is far more convenient than a roaring fire although obviously not as picturesque. Still, after three or four doppelbock Salvators in my pewter stein, I soon forget about these minor deviations from the Deutsch ideal.

Come early Spring, however, my malted fantasies turn their attention to traditional English pale ale. A similar copper color but not as strong or heavy on the stomach as its German cousin. 'Hail fellow well met.' Imagine the local squire in his tricorn hat and cloak, toasting lambing season with a pork pie and an overflowing tankard. Both dandy and rake, he occupies my favorite armchair until October when the Burgermeister reappears. Because I'm not drinking any of that yellowy lager they sell in the summer. The beach bum in flip flops is not a role I wish to play even if his beer is cold and refreshing on a boiling hot day.

Double Bogey

At work, my brain is required to be like a bag of golf clubs because it is the eleventh hour on the eighteenth hole. I need a driver for teeing-off difficult discussions in the conference room; that request for more project funding needs to fly down the fairway as if it were an intercontinental ballistic missile. Some sort of sand-wedge will be useful when nefarious colleagues try to trap me in their Powerpoint bunkers.  A nine-iron will come in usual for hitting out of the rough when the debate gets heated and my strategy is called into question. And I will very definitely need a simple putter for explaining obvious concepts to stupid people.

The putter is, of course, the club I use the most. Hold this flag, idiot, while I attempt to tap this little ball of information into your tiny hole of a mind. Its five o'clock in the afternoon and I'm already well over par talking with the account manager. I invest in new clubs when I can but he's happy with a rusty old set picked them up for a song at someone's garage sale. Maybe I should walk off the course and just head to the clubhouse? Drown my sorrows in cognac and memories of the halcyon days of razor-creased plus-fours and Argyle sweater vests. Back then, we wore our smart Gatsby caps at a jaunty angle. Now it's logo-emblazoned polyester visors pulled over our furrowed brows.

The other solution is to give up golf altogether and play and different game. One that demands less walking and fewer clubs. Darts, for instance. I only need three darts to throw at the treble twenty and I can drink while I'm throwing them. In fact, I'm told drinking is an integral part of darts and, like billiards, the more you drink the better you play. Now that's what I regard as a good benefits package.

The Powers That Be

Different politician's brains run on different types of energy. This senator has a nuclear brain reactor liable to meltdown at any moment. That congressman has a brain of static electricity produced by rubbing a child's balloon on his shirt. He has a slow moving steam-powered brain that huffs and puffs but eventually grinds to a halt. His brain only works because a Sisyphus of neurons are rolling it up a hill without ever reaching the summit. Most, of course, are merely clockwork automaton minds who require winding-up by the lobbyist with the money otherwise they don't work at all. But all of them are horribly deformed bags of flesh inflated by noxious gases and hot air. And unfortunately all these types of energy are extremely renewable.

My own brain is operated by battery (not included). It requires three of those AAA type, and often I can only find two of in the kitchen drawer when my intelligence feels drained. You know how it is when your comprehension of world events begins to flicker and go dark. A few years ago, I considered switching to a rechargeable lithium battery, just so I could remain on top of current affairs, but was told my cerebellum was no longer supported by the manufacturer. Apparently they don't make those kinds of old-fashioned brainstem connections anymore. It seems my average attention span is far too long for the hyperactive frontal lobes in circulation these days. Alas, they only offer disposable brains now. When your current brain is full you just throw it away and order a new brain formatted to download the latest conventional wisdom. Then your capacity for critical thinking enters automatic sleep mode and a simple screen-saver appears where your personality was. Oh brave new world that has such people in it.

L'Avventura

I was watching an old black-and-white movie about a man whose life was much better than mine. Well-groomed and well-dressed, he lived in a well-appointed apartment overlooking the Tyrrhenian sea. When he wasn't staring at his private ocean, the man draped himself across a sleek mid-century leather armchair, contemplating his cufflinks while talking to Monica Vitti on the phone, drinking different types of drinks at different times of the day. Sometimes he drove along a coast road in an open-top Alfa Romeo like a one-man carnival float, right arm cradling the steering wheel, left arm flung over the back of the passenger seat, his lustrous hair flowing in the breeze, tanned face reflected in the rearview mirror which revealed a gridlock of Vespas trailing in his wake.

There was a great deal of ennui in the atmosphere, obviously. But it was the glamorous cinematic ennui of the nineteen-sixties that always seems so enviably stylish and sophisticated. A glamorous listlessness that has consistently topped my list of enviable lifestyles. It's ennui that pairs well with sunglasses and Italian shoes, tapping its toes to cool jazz trio soundtracks while thumbing through existential books beneath the umbrellas of sidewalk cafes. I've seen it in the theaters, I bought the VHS, and now I own the Blu-Ray too. Don't get me started on the framed posters and lobby cards displayed in every corner of my mind. 

Provided you know how to mix a Negroni, it isn't difficult to Live Action Role Play the protagonist in this kind of movie once you're suited and booted and have collected all the requisite Italianate props. Nevertheless, I can't imagine anyone sitting through a film of my daily grind for ninety minutes, no matter how much ersatz European chic I exude when commuting to work on the subway. Perhaps it's because I appear in a full color palette and not an artful black and white frame. Or the fact that the only ocean my apartment overlooks is a narrow ocean of wintry grey city streets unlined with either elegant cypress trees or seductive palms. No matter how far apart I fling the curtains, the world outside my window will never be widescreen. So I've decided to finally edit out the suave Neorealist antihero and recast myself as the happy-go-lucky star of a modern TV dramedy, available to stream right now. Whatever happens, I hope the result will be 'binge-able' as they say nowadays.

An e-Message From The Lower Depths

Digital technology, for me at least, has become a sort of Plato's cave. After all, here I am, still communicating by twentieth-century email and updating my antediluvian blog, staring at flickering shadows on my computer screen cast by protean technologies beyond my troglodyte powers of understanding. I might as well spend the day downloading primitive images of bison and aurochs traced with simple pigments on a wall of solid rock. Meanwhile, outside this dark grotto that is my Internet stone-age-man-cave, there is a bright, brave new world of NFTs, virtual reality, cryptocurrency, and TikTok video waiting to be discovered. So, I'm sorry venture-capitalized Plato, but the only sane course of action is to retreat further into the depths of my cave instead of dissolving my brain in Silicon Valley acid.

I don't want to sound like a Luddite. I'm not anti-progress by any means. I just prefer technology that makes life easier rather than technology that makes life not life. That is a 'divided line' that should not be crossed or even straddled. Take the so-called Singularity, for instance. Robotic vacuum cleaners will liberate us from the shackles of domestic drudgery, which is a great boon, but a robotic life partner is just going to whisper sweet digital nothings to your bluetooth-connected toaster every night while you're playing virtual golf on the moon in your VR goggles and touch-sensor gloves. Even worse, when everything in your home is connected to the cloud, your robotic life partner might also whisper those sweet digital nothings to somebody else's bluetooth toaster. Surely it is more fulfilling to languish amongst the stalagmites, reading some foolish blog on an obsolescent laptop? Not that most people will, of course, but I am grateful that you do. 

Domestic Superposition & Quantum Sloth

I didn't really want to do my laundry ... but was tempted by the alluring possibility of discovering a forgotten twenty dollar bill in a trouser pocket. Then again, all trouser pockets could be empty and I'd only discover myself to be the self-deluded victim of a sluggard's daydream. Was there a forgotten twenty dollar bill in a trouser pocket or not? It was like the household chore equivalent of Schrodinger's cat experiment, if the cat were made my Brooks Brothers and crumpled up in the bottom of a laundry basket. Best to remain lazing here on the couch, the pessimist in me decided, and just imagine I might be twenty dollars wealthier instead of doing all that sorting and folding for no profit. Was the cost of clean socks and underwear worth the price of losing my dinero dreams? Maybe for five potential bucks but not twenty. 

A few days later, however, when the need to do laundry had progressed from subject of financial reverie to absolute necessity, I did in fact find forgotten money while pretreating a pile of dirty clothes with detergent. It was in the form of a twenty dollar gift certificate to a local liquor store, stuck in the breast pocket of an old shirt I seldom wear. A nice reward for finally confronting the combined challenge of washer and dryer, except I was unsure whether I had already used it or not. Many weeks had passed since I'd last worn that shirt and, sad to say, I'd bought a lot of booze during that time. Surely I must have paid with the gift certificate at some point? But try as I might I could not recall what would've been a highly satisfying transaction. So I was back to Schrodinger's cat again, with two possible outcomes if I attempted to use the gift certificate for purchasing that expensive four-pack of fancy Belgian abbey ale I've been wanting to try: either it was still good and I'd obtain the expensive four-pack of fancy Belgian abbey ale for free, hooray, or it was not good and I'd be embarrassed into reluctantly paying more than I usually would for four bloody beers.

Fortunately, to my great relief, the gift certificate turned out to be still good and I, unwisely, celebrated by consuming the four very high alcoholic volume ales in a single sitting. And it was while draining the dregs of the fourth, I came to the conclusion that Schrodinger's cat is not merely certainly alive in its stupid box but actually immortal. Alas, I doubt mainstream theoretical physicists will bother to verify these findings any time soon. After all, the modern scientific establishment prefers new research to be peer-reviewed in respected journals rather than mumbled into the lip of an empty beer bottle by people who are going to be extremely hungover in the morning. Their loss. I mean, take a look at old Einstein, obviously a man who enjoyed a pint or two while deferring his domestic duties in favor of scrawling equations on a blackboard with an unsteady hand. 

In A Lonely Place

A twenty-four hour city convenience store at midnight. Dirty windows of yellowy-green florescent luminescence half concealed behind unsubtle advertising signage on an otherwise dark and deserted street. It's almost an Edward Hopper scene suitable for framing. Inside, the security guard from a nearby office tower is buying popcorn to munch on while binge-watching the single-shot shows displayed on his closed-circuit television system. Twitchy students gather energy drinks and snacks to fortify themselves for eventually slogging through that biology paper due in the morning. A refugee from the bar room next door buys microwaveable pizza and aspirin to soak up all the booze he's consumed. And I'm here also, wandering the two narrow aisles in search of the cooler containing oat milk. A mere pint will do for my purposes. Please God may it be in stock.

I'm not one of you, I want to tell the other late night shoppers as I go about my quest. I may have been you in the past but I'm not like you any longer. I am a normal human now, a stranger in these parts who keeps regular hours and limits himself to two glasses of wine. Nevertheless, here I am. You see, we're entertaining a guest who only puts alternative dairy products in her morning coffee, and someone who shall remain nameless forgot to pick it up from the supermarket on his way home from work. That's right, I'm employed in an old-fashioned nine-to-five business. I'm not a part-time rent-a-cop wearing an ill-fitting uniform who gets paid an hourly wage. I'm not a stitch in the gig economy quilt nor or a partying tech-bro with a flexible schedule. So take the opportunity to examine me now for you may never seem my kind again. And having said all that, do any of you somnambulant weirdos know where I might find a bottle of oat milk in here? 

No such luck, of course. The closest thing to oat milk turns out to be a grimy carton of almond milk, possibly past its expiration date but the printed numbers are too smudged to read. I'm not sure it will be satisfactory but it will have to do. I'm the only customer paying with actual cash; everyone else uses a credit card or some scannable app on their phones. But we clients of the twenty-four hour city convenience store all have at least one thing in common: we'll all be in trouble come the morning. The students for handing-in a rushed, last-minute paper; the bar-room patron with his debilitating hangover; the security guard for falling asleep at his station; and me for forgetting to buy oat milk. Outside, the silent Edward Hopper scene dissolves into a shadowy film noir. I turn my collar up against the cold and slink home with my counterfeit goods. 

Mind Body Mistakes

There is an infectious, visceral response to frenetic orchestral music that can turn even the most mild-mannered individual into an imaginary-baton-wielding Toscanini, arms flailing and body bending back and forth like a human-shaped wind-sock on a garage forecourt. And listening to such frenetic orchestral music while at the gym was how I nearly broke my neck on the elliptical machine.

My limbs were exercising in perfect coordination, arms simulating cross-country skiing and legs faking cycling, when suddenly the aural hurricane called Platee: Orage by Jean-Phillip Rameau came ripping through my headphones. An irresistible inner-urge to 'conduct' the music immediately took over, so I unwisely let go of the elliptical machine's handlebars, waving my arms wildly in the air in time to the hyperventilating sound of the string section. Thus unbalanced, my feet lost their moorings in the whirring pedals and I found myself leaping backwards onto the floor mat, landing awkwardly but safely in a very undignified crouching position, Imagine the acrobatic equivalent of an anxious giraffe being shot out of a cannon and crashing right-side up into a bouncy castle.

All eyes in the gym were upon me. Raised-brow stares of curiosity and amusement rather than concern for my wellbeing. Ecce homo, I wanted to tell them, this is just who I am. The sort of person who listens to eighteenth-century opera, who wants to keep fit, and who often combines two very different activities that become dangerous if combined. For instance, I always take a brief respite from the stove to calculate my BMI when I'm cooking dinner. Sometimes I even do a few tai chi moves when I'm pruning roses in the garden. I'm a daredevil multitasker. What of it? 

But I said nothing, stooped down gingerly to pickup my water bottle as I was still a trifle dizzy, then wobbled my way back to the changing rooms. I don't know. All that money in monthly gym subscriptions and expensive sweat-wicking shirts, and instead of rippling muscles all I've got to show so far is a reputation for exercising like a Loony Tunes cartoon. Perhaps I'll cancel my membership and try combining simple squat thrusts on the carpet at home while reading the novels of Patrick Modiano. What could go wrong?

Is Anybody There?

My colleague just said 'we need to think outside the box on this,' without realizing, of course, that using the expression 'thinking outside the box' is about as far inside the box as anyone's thinking can get; so far deep inside the proverbial box, in fact, that I doubt they will ever get out again. 

My colleague thinks about thinking outside the box without understanding that the box has become himself. What he believes to be new ideas are merely the same old recycled contents of the box concealed in different colored bubble wrap. And it's not really even a box. It's more of a cardboard coffin where his defunct brain is laid to rest. 

But my colleague's brain will never rest in peace because it's constantly quoting chapter and verse from "Fifty Techniques For Increasing Your Sales." The grave of his mind is a conference room echoing with corporate cliches and executive aphorisms. An unquiet soul wearing a power tie and casual Friday clothes. 

I suppose we should send flowers to my colleague's desk: Sorry for your loss, except it's our loss as well in a way for God knows we need another working brain these days. Instead, here we are holding a seance with his empty skull and I write the words 'fraudulent medium' on my memo pad.

Waters of the Mind

I recently replaced my old rowing machine with a new-fangled gondola machine. Calories are burnt by imitating Venetian canal poling instead of river rowing and O Sole Mio can be sung during the workout if you wish, but I would need a personal trainer for any vocal exercises so I concentrate on the poling action. Neither do I wear a stripy shirt nor a circular straw hat circumnavigated with ribbon. I do, however, pretend that my IKEA shelving unit is the Bridge of Sighs. It's almost as if I'm actually gondoliering around Venice but with no fear of drowning. Then, when I'm thoroughly exhausted from my poling, I collapse into the couch like a Doge relaxing in his palace after a hard day's doing whatever a Doge did. Who needs to travel?

So I'm now considering upgrading to the home gym paddle-steamer machine manufactured by the same company. "Excellent for cardio," it runs on pedal power, obviously, and is equipped with a realistic funnel and preprogrammed Dixieland jazz soundtrack. I can imagine myself floating down the Mississippi river while strengthening my abs and gluts. But I'll probably just settle for the yacht machine which is much simpler and has a smaller footprint in the living room. This fitness regimen involves repeatedly running fore and aft while shouting incomprehensible sailing gibberish and ducking to avoid being hit in the head by the swinging boom. Should be a novel, not to say, naval, way to lose some of that excess winter weight.

Getting Away From It all

I flew to Florida last week, taking a brief vacation from Coronavirus, swapping surgical masks and paranoia for palm trees and sea breezes, Franz Kafka for a trashy beach novel. Here, lounging poolside at a tiki hut clinic serving rum cocktails with a fancy straw instead of vaccines in a syringe, it's good to feel the sun on your uncovered face. After all, the only protection required in these parts is UVA/UVB factor fifty. Nobody whispers anxiously in your ear 'Peter just tested positive andJanice is self isolating.' There is just the soothing sound of waves crashing on the shore and a waiter asking if you need another drink.

The pandemic is a bothersome stingray in the ocean of life. But we should still go swimming regardless. Vacations are always far too short, so don't hide away in your hotel room playing solitaire on a laptop and staring out the window. The water is warm, the sand is golden, the sunsets are spectacular.

Stay

My poor little dog, Lola, passed away two days before Christmas. I felt like kicking the Three Kings all the way back to the Orient from whence they came. Royal David's City could be demolished and turned into luxury condos for all I cared. King Herod was my kind of people. Dismantle the tree, turn off the twinkly lights, incinerate all the mistletoe and holly, as W. H. Auden might say if his friend died during the festive season. She was genetic mixture of pug, Boston terrier and min-schnauzer. Now she is just ash and memories and, I hope, a spirit of the air.

We nicknamed her Lopsided Lola because of one ear that stood straight up and one ear that flopped down and her paws that stuck out at odd angles. "I do hope your dog is called Scrappy," someone once said to me, as Lola gamboled around seeking connection with everyone in the immediate vicinity, her tail vibrating like a tuning fork. She loved everyone and everything. She was the sort of  happy-go-lucky mutt from a child's pop-up book who would befriend a butterfly, or a wildebeest. Size was not important to her. 

Lola suffered from congenital heart defects which caused several mini-strokes and made breathing difficult so, after much deliberation, we decided to put to her to sleep as her quality of life became increasingly compromised. The vet visited our house, performing the deadly operation while Lola sat in my lap. It was all very peaceful, as they say, and I guess euthanasia was all for the best. But how can you really know?

You see, I too am bedeviled by heart disease. So when recalling Lola's final moments, as I often do, I ask myself if I should want the plug pulled were my medical problems to kick a hole through my day to day existence. Or would I request a natural death over time with all the pain and indignity involved for however long it took? Lola didn't have a choice, of course, and I shall always feel conflicted about my role in that bleak procedure.

The alternative, at least according to science-fiction films, is to be a brain in a glass jar attached to electrodes, subsisting in a virtual realm of life, demanding my formaldehyde be changed every other day. I could live forever on a shelf somewhere and be reasonably content maybe. But frankly I'd prefer to be a spirit of the air, chasing Lola across the clouds. And I can sense here there now, tennis ball in drooling mouth, waiting for me to come and throw it for her once again. Stay, I tell her impatient ghost, stay. 

No Reindeer Required

Children staring with wonder at a toyshop window is an enduring image of Christmas, as are the gleaming wares on display within: the wooden train, the raggedy doll, the stuffed bear, the Ruritanian soldier, the multi-colored blocks with numbers and letters printed on them, and all the other timeless stocking-stuffers made by elfin hand in a North Pole workshop. But all these traditional Christmas presents have clearly been forgotten in the bottom of Santa's sack, left behind on the back of his sleigh, stuck in the middle of the chimney. No self-respecting kid wants to discover an old-fashioned rocking horse beneath the tree anymore, not when they can ride a three-speed, battery-powered inflatable dragon (suitable for ages 3-10) instead. The pop-up book of fairy tales is usurped by a spoken-word Hans Christian Andersen digital audio file.  In fact, rather than gathering in front of a toyshop window, the cherub-cheeked children of modern Christmas are more likely to be found dancing around a holly-trimmed rack of Amazon gift cards, staring with wonder at a glowing iPad screen offering a limitless choice of music, movies and games. And so, as Santa's grotto becomes an Internet shopping cart, it seems all toys have been exiled to the Island of Misfit Toys. Even the three-speed, battery-powered inflatable dragon must take its place beside the jack-in-the-box and the jigsaw puzzle in the pile of unwanted and obsolete childhood ephemera. I wish you a merry download and happy new landfill.

Bethlehem Down

Via San Gregorio Armeno in Napoli is a street practically devoted to selling Christmas ornaments. It's the Neapolitan alleyway equivalent of Santa's grotto, but staffed with wheeler-dealer Geppettos rather than cheerful elves. Perusing the vast array of hand-carved figurines on sale, you can choose to expand the historical scope of your family's nativity scene with such characters as Pulcinella and deceased soccer star Maradonna, neither of whom, as far as I'm aware, were present at the virgin birth. But then I'm one to talk. 

Over the years, I've collected so many different types of animal for my own nativity scene that it more resembles a first-century veterinary clinic than a lowly cattle shed. I have four plastic camels because presumably the three wise men brought a spare; enough sheep and goats to supply baby Jesus with a lifetime's supply of artisanal cheese; some assorted-sizes of ducks and geese; two fluffy buffalo; an army of free range-chickens; and, for some reason, a leopard. Since one of the shepherds got lost somewhere along the way I've always assumed the leopard simply ate him. No tooth-marked, mangled cadaver has ever been discovered as evidence, but I prefer that explanation to blaming my own carelessness.  

'Silent Night, Holy Night' disturbed by the deafening echo of feeding time at the zoo. That's how I imagine the nativity scene I've created might sound. Just the raucous quacking of ducks alone would drown-out the Herald Angels singing. No need to follow a star you Wise Men with your extra camel, because the clucking of all those crazy chickens and the bellowing buffalo will guide you to the manger much faster. In fact, the only 'silent' things here are the stealthy footsteps of the leopard stalking its unwary prey. You'd better watch out, as the song goes!

There's Always Something

November's first really cold day reminds me that winter probably won't be the walkable wonderland of popular song; more likely it will be a frozen tundra from dystopian fiction, an icebound Hell patrolled by unsympathetic snowmen impersonating the sinister 'Parson Brown.'

Clearly, I should have concealed my skull within a wooly hat before venturing forth. But I am not yet mentally prepared for winter's frigid weather. Shouldering the burden of a thick coat and muffling myself in scarves and ear-muffs still seems like the evil fate awaiting he who wanders away from the light of reason. After all, who in their right mind would willingly choose a front row seat for Sol's disappearing act? Yet here I am living in New England where we remain in the frosty amphitheater long after the sun god's show is over. Here come the Robin Redbreast usherettes bob bobbing along selling hot chestnuts and spicy cider. Some small consolation, I suppose.

So why venture forth at all when indoors can be so cozy by comparison? It is always the dream, of course, to be one of two sleepy people sprawled in front of a roaring fire wearing flannel pajamas while the world outside turns into the Antarctic, and winter's bitter chill allows us to live that dream ... at least until smoldering logs in the fire set the smoke alarm screaming. There's always something.

From Studio 101

I avoid broadcast news for the same reason I avoid walking down dark alleys in the bad part part of town: I fear the clear and present dangers lurking in its telepromptered shadows.

For example, an in-depth report on rising wealth inequality will cause severe cranial trauma from banging my head on the nearest coffee table. Any segment covering congressional politics feels as though I'm being kicked to the ground by a gang of vicious delinquents.

Even a vacuous item revealing some attention-seeking celebrity's unsympathetic personal problems can induce spine-chilling terror. It's like listening to a serial killer's grisly confession, including details of where all the bodies are buried and an ingratiating demand that society should shoulder the blame.

"A cautionary tale for everyone there. And now over to John of the Apocalypse with the weather."

But then I don't really read the newspaper, either. I assume we still have one delivered; it's hard to know. Sometimes it's there on the doorstep. Sometimes it's stolen. Sometimes it's thrown into next-door's fish pond. Sometimes the kid with the paper round calls in sick and nobody bothers to replace him. Sometimes the printers go on strike. And sometimes there aren't enough advertising dollars to justify publishing the damned thing anyway.

So where do I get my news? I guess from the look on people's faces as I pass them in the street. And I have to say the news has got that manic-depressive look in it's eyes. In fact, I'd say the news wants to throw itself under the wheels of an oncoming bus and won't be back after these messages.

Things And Other Things

Tuesday morning. The sun elbows the moon out of the sky, 'I was sitting here,' and makes itself comfortable with a couple of clouds for pillows then spreads its legs across the land. A fist of light knocks that clump of sleep from your head, wipes away the residue of dreams, and drags you from your bed by what's left of your hair. And the voice of yesterday, still camped in the back of your head, reminds you of all its plans for today, all those tasks that you put off until .... 

Meanwhile, the mirror in the bathroom tries to catch your eye: 'Something needs to be done about that nose thing,' its reflecting surface says. 'Do it now with those tweezers while you remember.' But you need at least two cups of coffee before tackling any nose things. Besides, the bathroom mirror can't see your feet so is ignoring the foot thing; and, let's face it, the foot thing should probably take priority over the nose thing, especially this early in the week. Above all, there remains this perpetual lack of energy thing, as if your bones have been soaked in essence of ennui, an invisible problem impervious to tweezers and even the magic potion called caffeine. 'Let's make every day a great day,' sniggers the Ghost of Ambitions Past. 

Last Christmas, the Secret Santa gift I received was a desk top calendar of motivational quotes from various sources. I only managed to get to January 13th before changing the calendar's status from desk top to trashcan bottom. The thing about motivational quotes, of course, is that the quotes are often a melange of contradictory platitudes, as if written by an indecisive guru who can't choose between the spiritual and the materialistic. On Wednesday he counsels stopping to smell the roses, then changes his mind on Thursday and advises grasping them by the thorns instead, but by Friday thinks it's actually better to ignore the roses altogether and consider the lilies. Sort of like Rumi refereeing a fight between a hermit and an entrepreneur in the overgrown garden of Mary Mary Quite Contrary.

In other words, reading motivational quotes won't boost your energy levels. You'd be better off with a daily calendar of Shakespearian insults or Gary Larson cartoons. At least they might be amusing and laughter can always be relied upon to lift the spirits.when nothing else will. If only Confucius had been a comedian who published pictograms of his best skits. And with a grim smile from that thought you get dressed in your sloth costume and ride the electric snail to your office, listening to the voice of tomorrow offering to take care of all those things you were supposed to do yesterday. It's not so bad, after all.

Bible Studies

I'm well aware of what the Sermon on the Mount referred to as 'the beam' in my own eye; and the beam reminds me of one of those iron girders hanging high above the black-and-white city in old pictures of skyscrapers being built, complete with cloth-capped laborers balanced on its rivets eating their lunch or waving at the camera. But I don't know what to do about this beam. If it's removed, I know from experience that the restless construction workers of the mind will simply hoist another one into view, followed by another one, until I have the entire Empire State Building rising into my pupils. Before too long, there will be so many beams in my eye I might as well be wearing a pair of those novelty sunglasses in the shape of the Manhattan skyline.

However, for all these sturdy beams being erected in my eye, I'm not so sure there's just the single, paltry mote in my neighbor's eye. In fact, I'd say it's snowing motes across his face; an impenetrable blizzard of motes accumulating in his eyelids. And with all due respect to Jesus, I sometimes feel it's better to have an architectural wonder in my eye than a barren tundra of frozen motes. After all, you can see a lot from the top of the Empire State Building whereas my neighbor's mote storm has obviously reduced visibility to near zero. This presents a difficult problem for theologians, especially Biblical literalists. But those people have so many motes in their eyes that the motes are coming out of their ears, so I can't expect them to hear what I'm saying, never mind see my point of view.

Consumer Unendurables

The Business of America is business, claimed Calvin Coolidge, back when bewhiskered financiers wandered around Wall Street wearing homburg hats and coats with astrakhan collars. Nowadays, of course, the Business of America is importing disposable consumer goods from sweatshop gulags and so-called stock futures are traded by hungover playboys in silk pajamas. But it's all good as long as we don't actually think about it, like so much else in modern life. Just pre-order your must-have plastic garbage now to avoid disappointment later.

Unfortunately, however, there appear to be "supply chain" problems at the moment. Not enough minimum-wage workers to process the minimum-quality products from one place to another. It remains to be seen whether the powers-that-be allow transportation issues to transform Black Friday's shopping bonanza into an economic gray area, but a holiday season not dominated by discount electronics destined for the local landfill, not to mention a fast fashion retail slowdown, would make a welcome change.

Which brings me to Hallowe'en. It never ceases to amaze me how a celebration of the incorporeal has become such a busy marketplace of the material world, almost as if Celtic Twilight has been superseded by Walmart Dawn, or All Saints Eve renamed All Sales Final Eve. The traditional parade of ghouls is now a catwalk of "sexy" witch costumes and Harry Potter lookalikes. Meanwhile, my neighbors have even installed a giant inflatable Frankenstein's monster in their front yard and strung a mass of neon spider's web across a row of bushes. Festive decorations are always nice, obviously, although personally I feel a flickering Jack O'Lantern on the doorstep is all that is required.

I doubt those aforementioned supply chain problems will stop the flood of high-fructose corn syrup that engulfs Halloween every year, either. After all, Willy Wonka doesn't need licensed truck drivers when there are eager child laborers willing to transport his candy bars across town in pumpkin-shaped plastic orange tubs for free. And that is the shady little sideline that the Business of America promotes: encouraging the greedy sugar high of youth that will decay into the chronic credit card debt of adulthood, because America's sales pitch convinces us that cravings should be satisfied even if we can't afford them. As always, the treat is also a trick. Boo! Beware.

Cider With Poesie

I tarried awhile on the bridge, taking pictures of the river in early morning autumn fog, imagining myself a character in the atmospheric opening paragraph of a spy novel, or obscured somewhere deep in the umpteenth verse of a T. S. Eliot poem. "Who is the third who always walks beside you?" It's the gloomy ghost of a street-sweeper, perhaps, forever doomed to wave his spectral broom at swirling leaves. Or maybe it's just a sleepy college student returned from Coronavirus break. I had not thought Intro To Western Civilization had undone so many.

Despite the strong claims of Spring to be the season of renewal and rebirth, I've always felt Autumn is the true time of fresh beginnings, probably because September was the month when school started and year-long leases were signed for new apartments with new friends in new areas of the city. In other words, I associate Autumn with embarking upon great adventures, with a first foot on the road of those picaresque quests that lead to an exciting future. But here I am on the bridge again, neither here nor there, as yet another Autumn floats upstream with the fog. I can't help thinking the apples I picked were already rotten.

Technicolor Dream Raincoat

An overly-enthusiastic shop assistant tries to sell me a new-fangled rain jacket that is so "Hi-Tec" I can't understand how the hood works. There are so many straps, buckles, snaps, zippers, and draw-strings it 's more like a Rube Goldberg machine than a regular anorak.

According to the dictionary-sized sales brochure attached to the jacket's adjustable sleeve, it's possible the inside lining can pull-out and with the help of some pegs and a telescopic pole (not supplied) provide emergency shelter in the form of a portable bivouac. In fact, the pockets are so deep and roomy they can easily contain all your camping equipment and food, making the traditional back-pack and picnic hamper obsolete.

That's great. But will the damn thing keep me dry in a storm? The assistant claims the jacket is so waterproof that some deep-sea divers have even started wearing it instead of a conventional wetsuit when exploring the ocean depths. Indeed, so positive has been the response of the oceanographic community to this jacket, the jacket's manufacturer is currently sponsoring Season Seven of Under Water Mysteries on the Travel Channel.

Okay, fine, I say. But can you explain to me how to put the hood up?

There's a full-length instructional video on YouTube, the assistant replies, featuring slow-motion HD aerial drone footage of how to operate the hood in a series of easy to follow steps. Online chat on the manufacturer's website and twenty-four-hour telephone helplines staffed by a team of certified experts are also available.

In the end, much to the assistant's chagrin, I opt for a much simpler and cheaper jacket. This jacket comes with an ordinary hood you just pulled up over your head when it started raining and pushed back down again when it stopped. Not very fancy but at least I know how it works. And the cheaper jacket is only "water resistant," not "completely waterproof," but seems to offer reasonable protection against the elements should I get caught in an unexpected downpour.

You won't be able to go swimming in that, the assistant says, and you'll need to bring a separate tent if you plan on sleeping in the woods.

I just want to wear it traveling back and forth to the office, I say Mine is an average commute, not a triathlon, and it's a desk job, not a Survivalist course.

The assistant gives me a pitying look, as if I'm missing out on life's great adventure. You only live once, his eyes imply, so you should live each day as an extreme sport. But of course, that is exactly what I do do. Every day I play the extreme sport of trying to be a normal person in this day and age. And it's extremely exhausting, I can tell you.

Specious Offers

Somehow, despite all my digital defenses, a spam email written in block capitals and italics wriggles its nefarious way into my inbox. This very vulgar communication promises that, with the sender's expert assistance, I can become wealthy by investing in Boston real estate. A tempting proposition except you have to be extremely wealthy already to afford even a single square foot of Boston property at current market prices, so that counts me out.

I can't imagine a more redundant and inappropriate proposal except perhaps spamming Priapus with penis enlargement advertisements. Besides, I've never wanted to be a real estate magnate or even a well-endowed Lothario for that matter. My ambitions in both those particular spheres are far more modest, namely a room with a view and underpants that don't chafe. In fact, there is nothing I want from the spam emailers and advertisers other than to be left alone.

Ah, to be left alone. The dream of dreams. These days, even an off-grid, misanthropic hermit living in the deepest cave atop the most inaccessible mountain can only forlornly hope that the marketing messages won't find him. Because they certainly will. They'll carpet bomb his mountain with colorful brochures and catalogs from J Crew and Banana Republic. They'll hire a team of crack German yodelers to sing into his cave twenty-four-seven until the hermit realizes he must switch to Liberty Mutual to get the best home insurance deals. 

The Bloating World

We've come a long way from the days of Jack Sprat who could eat no fat and his unnamed wife who could eat no lean. Nowadays, eating disorders are as common as the common cold, and medical science apparently has no cure for peanut allergies and lactose intolerance either. A modern day Jack Sprat and their, we'd better call them their 'partner,' are only going to lick the platter clean if it's a portion-controlled serving of soy-based protein and macrobiotic rice the couple can share. I don't mean to make sport of such people. I'm related to some of them and such dietary restrictions are obviously no fun at all. But I wonder if these diagnoses are occasionally more the result of loosely interpreted tests and psychosomatic illness than actual issues with specific foods, and I especially wonder this when forced to eat gluten-free birthday cakes at family functions.

Recently, when attempting what is now the Herculean task of ordering just a regular coffee at a hipster cafe, I stood patiently in line while the customer in front of me asked the weary barista to recite what types of "alternative milks" the cafe offered. These included almond, oat, cashew and the ubiquitous soy. Decisions, decisions.  Almond has a weird aftertaste, oat has an unpleasant mouthfeel, cashew is too buttery, and soy is passé. Eventually, the customer decided against coffee altogether and purchased a raspberry flavored soda water instead. As far as a sensitive stomach is concerned, I suppose dairy discretion is the better part of caffeine valor. After all, no gastroenterologist wants their patient abusing antacids for the sake of a mid-afternoon energy boost. When my own chance to order arrived, I briefly considered jokingly demanding a list of the various percentages of fat in the milks available: fat-free, one-percent, two-percent, whole-fat, half and half, and so on. However, a rather disturbed look in the barista's eyes persuaded me against any form of levity.

After requesting a regular, whatever that might turn out to be in modern cafe speak, I returned to my office carrying a coffee topped with milk of unknown fat content. I wasn't going to ask and the barista certainly wasn't going to tell me. I have no problems with lactose as far as I know, but the thought of nut-based creamers does make me vaguely nauseous. Fortunately, none of my colleagues had asked me to fetch a specific fat content or alternative milk laced coffee for them, so at least I would not be responsible for anyone else's dairy induced aggravated bowel condition.Nevertheless, seated at my desk, cautiously enjoying my beverage, I quickly updated the Jack Sprat rhyme thus: 'Jack Sprat passed excessive gas, his wife was constipated, and together both they looked up the symptoms of peptic ulcer.' Surely we will be hearing that echoing around the school playgrounds of America before too long. 

Smoke Blackened Ikon

Last night, the Greek Orthodox church around the corner caught fire. Two alarms and many sirens. Perhaps a forgotten stick of still burning incense escaped from its censer, fell into the anointing oil which got knocked over and ignited the recently dry cleaned liturgical vestments. Or maybe, more dramatically, a lit candelabra crashed to the floor when nobody was watching. Either way, God seems to enjoy a good conflagration in His house from time to time: a celestial warning, one thinks, that the Patriarch probably shouldn't smoke roll-your-own non-filters with a bushy beard like his, unless of course he employs one of those long, antique cigarette holders like a Byzantine Noel Coward. 

Personally, I've always been afraid of fire. The thought of waking up amid a midnight inferno and running into the street in my dressing gown is the nightmare I have when I'm sleeping. Had I been the stone age man responsible for technological advances the human race would've sat in our caves in the dark for the duration. There would've been none of that dangerous rubbing two sticks together on my watch.To be honest, even the sudden blue heat of a lit gas ring makes me think twice about cooking dinner. I am quite happy with a green salad and cold cuts. I don't know whether they have an icon of Saint Florian, patron saint of firefighters, in my local smoky Greek church, but if they do I'll gladly wipe the ash away from his picture if he continues to keep me safe from the flames.

Month To Month

September, first of the reshuffled and misnumbered months of Autumn and Winter. Surely it would have made more sense to rename these divisions of the calendar after the emperors who succeeded Julius and Augustus? Then kids would return to school in Tiberiust and 'Trick or Treat' their neighbors at the end of Caliguly. Thanksgiving would fall on the 25th of Claudich and Christmas be celebrated in the festive season of Neroary. Those sound like much more fun dates than the dreary and inaccurate Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec sequence we are stuck with for the rest of eternity. Imagine if New Year's Day was the 1st of Unober and St. Valentine's Day was Dueary the 14th. All the romance would evaporate from our almanacs and diaries.

Not that I hold any particular torch for the long dead despots and fallen idols of ancient empires. The world can rename all the months after more modern deities for all I care. I'm quite happy to take my summer vacation in the sweltering heat of late Obamaber and go skiing in early Pricessdianary before the snow melts. Just don't rename my birth month after any popular entertainers, that's all I ask. Imagine having to say something like "I'm turning sixty-five in mid-Beyonce, so nearly eligible for retirement," or "I was born on Elvis the 23rd which puts me on the cusp of being a Virgo." But I have a terrible feeling that is exactly what might happen. You can never trust the shapers of the zeitgeist, especially these days, so perhaps it's just best to leave the calendar as it is, even if it doesn't make numerical sense.

Citrus And Its Discontents

The vapid exhortation "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" has seldom provided me with either comfort or solace. I can't stand the taste of the disgusting cloudy, over-sugared, off-white beverage. I would much prefer, in my time of trouble, to keep the lemons as lemons. After all, a large lemon makes an nice, weighty, hand-grenade sized object to throw at someone's head. I suppose you could fill a water pistol with lemonade, but squirting juice at people is not nearly as satisfying as hitting them full in the face with a whole fruit. 

So far, I've been lucky. Life has mostly given me a basket of pomegranates, many apples, several tangerines, and the odd guava or two. Much tropical punch has been made, obviously, which, although a trifle sweet, has sustained me admirably throughout the years. And so as I grow older, I find myself researching various recipes for sangria. I'm just waiting for life to give me the many crates of wine I require and surely deserve. 

Meanwhile, yesterday, as I crawled to work in skull melting conditions of excessive heat and humidity, I came across this unedifying spectacle in the street. A case of "When life gives you lemons, squeeze them into the sewer and discard the crushed husks beside the curb." At least the local rats might cure themselves of scurvy, I suppose, should they drink from the limoncello flavored effluent currently irrigating their rodent habitat.  

Suitable For Framing

Below is a portrait of my dog by Frans Hals .... actually, it's a just a random photograph I took then treated with a "paintify" app from the Internet but I think it would fool most curators (the world's most gullible people if the current state of blockbuster exhibitions is anything to go by). Perhaps the subdued color palette might also remind me a little of Andrew Wyeth, although his work is generally much browner than mine. Whatever, I'm quite prepared to invest in a high-quality printer and fancy textured paper and an ornate golden frame. It is time to remove those museum souvenir reproductions from our walls and decorate instead with my own computer art. A rogue's gallery of iPhone snaps transformed into ersatz oil and canvas.

Portrait Of A Mini-Schnauzer, 2021: colored ink on expensive paper (gift of the artist to himself)

When Whippoorwill's Call

Maybe in late-August, when both fortune and a Cape Cod sun smile down upon your head, you might finally experience the perfect Edward Hopper summer's day. The weather is warm but not too stultifying; shadows are cool and long and strung out across the lawn like Apollo's freshly laundered linen; and there's a hint of rolling thunder in the skies above the next town over. But best and most Hopperish of all, the streets and fields are devoid of other people as far as the eye can see. Not everybody's cup of iced tea, for sure, but my drink of choice when a week of relaxation is required.

Alas, such dog-day bliss is mostly the stuff of oil and canvas and artistic license. Hopper was a poor hand at painting summer's crowds of radio-toting tourists; its excessive humidity and millions of mosquitos; its perspiring armpits and sunburned nose; its grown men in flip flops and childish men on jet skis; and all the other irritating detritus of vacation season's turbulent jamboree. Sometimes I reimagine his Rooms By The Sea as a modern motel room, where the clean white walls are invaded by cheap nautical knick-knacks and an overweight family in neon-colored cargo shorts bundle their way into the sunlit space. Meanwhile, pleasure cruisers and inflatable rafts clog the ocean outside as a paragliding Icarus crashes into the waves. 

If I were a rich man, as the song goes, I would buy myself an island and a sail boat to enjoy a little peace and quiet. For now, however, I must be content with an over-priced Airbnb named My Blue Heaven which also charges a preemptive and rather insulting "cleaning fee." But the house is off the main drag, near the beach and behind a secluded bluff, offering partial water views from an upstairs window if you can crane your neck far enough. I tripped over a decorative lobster trap, Monsieur Hulot-like, while trying to open the patio doors, but I can overlook such boobytraps when they apparently provide my family with endless amusement. After all, these are the things a lifetime of holiday memories are made of.

Gander Dander

There can be few creatures more irritable than geese. They seem perpetually outraged by something. Perhaps it's their constant need to defecate, a relatable discomfort for many consumers of a typical American diet. Or possibly the misuse of their feathers for the stuffing of over-priced "puffa" jackets, also an understandable complaint considering the bloated ugliness of such winter coats. Or maybe it's just because a mid-range vodka has expropriated their name, which is a minor indignity arousing zero empathy in most of us. A low-end, flavored schnapps, for example, would surely provoke greater distress in any human or fowl. At any rate, the sheer volume of shrill bellyaching produced by a gaggle of geese is not dissimilar to that of a mob of wailing brats marching across the park demanding an immediate change of diapers.

Yet geese have their moments of peace and tranquility, too, especially when impersonating swans on a lake or river. When a goose takes to water it's suddenly transformed into a model of meditative elegance, as if instantly exorcised of its demons by some sort of self administered baptism, clearly believing itself to be the social equal of those snooty cygnets. But, of course, pretty soon the goose desperately needs to crap again and the spell is broken. There is much unseemly splashing and screeching as the goose clumsily waddles back to shore to evacuate its over-active and embarrassing bowels. Such were my observations at the local wildlife reservation for what they're worth. I'm no James Audubon, I admit, but I thought I'd record them anyway and photograph the main culprit. 

The Half-Dressed Lunch

Exotic and unusual spices always add an element of Michelin-starred derring-do to every meal. They are super fuel for that long journey from frowning at an ambitious recipe to elegantly plated haute cuisine. With luck, it's a journey that won't make pit-stops at Botulism and E-Coli, because exotic and unusual spices can cast a discreet veil over questionable meat. Trust me, I have sprinkled those spices liberally over what I believed to be farm-fresh poultry, oven-roasted my creation, devoured its wings and thighs, done the dishes, then sat on the toilet for what seemed like an eternity.  

I always wanted to be a broth-sniffing, onion-juggling, talented amateur chef who can chop multiple vegetables in the blink of an eye while expertly reducing several sauces on his stove top; and sometimes, when splashing a cup of red wine into my sizzling pans, I pretend that I am such a superior being. But the truth is, culinary destiny has not been kind to me. I'm much better off just reading  directions off the back of the box and so are my fellow diners. In fact, my cooking style is more freezer-to-microwave than artisanal butcher to cast-iron skillet; more Uber Eats to table than farm-to-table. There is no teacher like volcanic diarrhea and self-prepared spicy food has been my Krakatoa. 

Yes, the egg-timer of life has run out on my kitchen dreams. It has become winter in the land of seasonings; my gravy has turned to thick mud all the au jus is iced over. The bloom is definitely off the rosemary, so to speak. Yet sometimes in the quiet of the evening, when I'm defrosting packaged lasagna, I can still sense the disapproving shade of Julia Child hovering over my shoulder. And, to paraphrase Hans Johst, that's when I reach for my salt and pepper.

Foot Fetish

Learning how to tie your own shoelaces is a youthful rite of passage; as is getting those shoes stolen by the local bully, who also knows how to tie laces, but misuses his knowledge to knot other people's shoes together and hook them over an unreachable telegraph wire, where they hang like a pair of mournful bats. Jason Munger, a contemporary of mine, thought he could out-wit our bully by wearing only slip-on loafers. Alas, this ruse did not deter the bully who, unable to knot them together, simply filled their insides with stones and tossed them in a nearby pond.

These events took place at a pre-teen age when my parents still picked-out my shoes for me, usually round-toed and turd brown in color. Plain boring shoes that unctuous salesmen described as "sensible." I begged and pleaded for those trendy black models that all the cool kids wore but to no avail. In fact, my mother often reminded me I was lucky to have any shoes at all. Back in her day, apparently, children shuffled to school and back again in bare feet across sharp rocks and burning hot gravel. And observe the Kenyan marathon runner, my father might add, does he complain about running twenty-six miles without the benefit of expensive sneakers? He does not and wins his race anyway. 

The purchase of so-called sensible shoes, however, was anything but a sensible process. Correct shoe size was determined by enclosing the foot in a slide-rule contraption. It looked like a mini, medieval iron-maiden that exclusively tortured below the ankle. Once your toes were crushed and your heel severely bruised, the gloomy salesman mumbled some alpha-numeric gibberish and trudged to the backroom to find the desired shoe. Then he returned with bad news: The smart black shoes you wanted weren't in stock in your size but this ugly Frankenstein pair in turd brown that would fit correctly were available. They are fine, my parents would say, we'll take those.

Walking around with my feet stuck in what appeared to be two shapeless loaves of whole wheat bread was no fun. Even the local bully sympathized and took no action against me. Consequently I was forced to surreptitiously throw my own shoes over the telegraph wire. How else was I going to get rid of them with a readymade excuse? But I failed in this attempt at auto-persecution five or six times before finally admitting defeat. Being a bully is harder than it looks, I thought, and must require hours of practice; also consoling myself that at least I needn't walk home in my long-suffering socks, which at that point were in a condition of decrepitude only slightly less embarrassing than my hideously unfashionable footwear. 

The other drawback with sensible shoes, besides their gross unsightliness, is undesirable longevity. A good pair of sensible shoes are built to last and will serve their unfortunate owner for many years, which meant I was stuck with the whole wheat horrors until my feet grew another size. First world problems, you say. Nevertheless, I would have gladly paraded around town with a flapping sole or worn-down heel if the uppers of my shoes were shiny black with attractive stitching, and would've felt like the cock of the walk while doing so.

Of course, learning that appearances can be deceptive, that there is equal value in the plain as in the glamorous, is another youthful rite of passage. But realizing later that nobody in their right mind actually believes sanctimonious nonsense about beauty being only skin deep is yet another. People may claim that looks don't count but they are surely lying.  At a recent wedding, I openly mocked a fellow guest for the faux pas of wearing tan moccasins with a dark blue suit. It was without doubt a harsh verdict on a trivial sartorial misdemeanor, yet it was also unequivocally correct. I guess the shoe bully is still with us, and he has become me.

Wish You Were Elsewhere

The set design, perhaps, for a low-budget 1950s sci-fi film where Medusa goes sunbathing while Frankenstein's monster kicks sand in Swamp Thing's face? Or maybe the view down Godzilla's throat as he is sucking on a lemon-flavored cough drop?

No, it's actually a gloomy painting by Edvard Munch called 'Summer Evening by the Beach.' Of course, this being Munch, you suspect his screaming self-portrait will soon surface from the murky depths, neither waving nor drowning, but suffering some other sort of existential aquatic crisis; perhaps a jellyfish sting, or stubbing his toe on a submerged pebble, or even the accidental gulping of briny water.

Judging by the mounds of slimy seaweed washed up on Munch's excessively rocky "beach," however, I would suggest a serpentine tendril of current-born seaweed coiling itself around his leg is a more likely cause for screaming. After all, experiencing such an unexpected and unpleasant sensation is usually the reason for my anxiety when taking a dip; that and the freezing temperature of the Atlantic ocean in New England, which could also be another factor in Munch's case, I suppose, assuming he's depicting a very Northern shoreline.

But who gives a empty oyster shell about Edvard Munch's ancient insecurities when my very own post-Coronavirus summer has arrived? Won't the beach seem more technicolor tropical paradise and less gloomy post-nuclear wasteland now? Well, I guess it will be if I can see past the rowdy mob of zombie vacationers unleashed by the cessation of Covid lockdowns. Here comes the invasion of transistor radios blaring cacophonous tunes, Olympic-size bivouacs, mishit volleyballs, rampaging jet skis, windswept umbrellas, and the rest of modern beachgoer's irrepressible equipment. Now that's truly enough to make anyone scream.

Cryptozoology From A Car Window

At the exit ramp, a Highway Yeti in city hall overalls is painting orange arrows on the asphalt, chevroned epaulettes on the hard shoulder, directions from the middle of the road to the curve of the curbstones where nestles a grass verge in rush-hour obscurity. Here is an exhaust fume clouded wilderness where the windswept detritus of transient life finally runs out of gas; a graveyard of blown-out tires and rusting hubcaps scattered across a landscape of broken glass. A single luminous traffic bollard stands sentry over a jagged pot hole. Nearby, an abandoned bottle of brake fluid is rocked back and forth by the jet stream blasts from passing cars, which also briefly inflates a fast food wrapper that takes flight then falls quickly back to earth again. This is the domain of the mythical Highway Yeti, the Interstate Sasquatch, the Turnpike Bigfoot, or the Abominable Automobileman, call the creature what you will.

I've taken several pictures of this cryptozoological figure, photographic evidence that shows a large, unidentified biped loping across the median disguised in a DayGlo high-visibility vest and hard hat, sometimes smuggling a coil of fiber-optic cable back to his lair, sometimes not. Of course, skeptics will claim such sightings are just the fevered imaginings of a weary commuter caught in interminable gridlock. They will dismiss my photographs, admittedly blurry and out-of-focus, as merely depicting some regular humanoid from the city public works going about his business, and definitely not digital proof of an ape-like monster of the road hitherto a stranger to scientific classification. But if that's the case, how do they explain away the fact that none of these so-called "public works" ever seem to get done? After all, that pothole isn't going to fill itself unless a Highway Yeti falls into it unawares.

A Change Of Scenery

I was gazing out of the window when the window briefly blinked. I think, maybe, it has grown tired of the view. 

And who can blame the poor window? Nothing to look at all day except a narrow city street with those anonymous neighbors across the way. Even the old elm tree standing on the sidewalk was decapitated and carted off last year. Only a shadeless stump remains.

Perhaps I should switch the glass panes around from front of house to back and vice versa. New vistas for all my windows. Then the blinking pane could spend a decade or two observing the rear alleyway instead of that all too familiar street it apparently finds so dull.

Although, I must admit, not much happens in the alleyway. Just me taking out the garbage and recycling every Wednesday morning and the odd rat scampering from nook to cranny after dark. In fact, the window overlooking the alley is probably more bored out of its mind than the window facing the street. I guess the grass is always greener, eh? Or, in this case, the asphalt always grayer.

I wonder how much it would cost to have the whole house uprooted from its foundations and transported to a sunny spot beside the beach. Of course, the alleyway window would get the ocean view and the front window stuck with the dune flanked shore road. Still, it's a nice change of scenery for all concerned.

Huh, did the window just blink again? Or was that possibly a twinkle?

The Attire of Attrition

I'm no clothes horse, more of a clothes donkey to be honest, but I do try to take pride in my personal appearance. Alas, I'm usually dissatisfied whenever I study my reflection in a full-length mirror. I wanted to look debonair but this would-be Beau Brummell turns out to be Bow-legged. In fact, what I thought was a sleek and smart parade of fashionable masculinity is actually just an unappealing heap of disheveled deadbeat. 

The proportions are all wrong somehow. Time to summon my inner quick-change artist. I slip on a different shirt, swap out that sweater, kick off those stripy socks, pull on other pants, thread another belt around my waist and do my best to hide everything beneath a dark blue blazer. The mirror still denounces me as the absolute opposite of the fairest of them all. So what if I roll these sleeves up and tuck the shirt tails in tighter, unbutton a second or third button, taper those trousers, shorten the hem on everything and switch the pattern from polka dots to plaid or perhaps just plain?

But nothing I do streamlines my silhouette to an acceptable degree. I don't know. They are all conventional store-bought clothes in my correct size so why do I seem to be wearing clown shoes, jodhpurs, and an off-the-shoulder blouse? That might be fine for the nine-to-five in an Oriental harem but I don't think it's appropriate as business casual in the city. Nevertheless, I have to leave now or else I'll be late for work.

Of course, I'd easily still win the Best Dressed Award at my office, despite looking like Sinbad the Sailor after six years lost at sea. After all, most of my colleagues resemble vagrants who've just crawled out of a bed of nails and through a charitable clothing distribution center before arriving at their desks. Such are the disgraceful sartorial standards of the modern workplace that even a slipshod chap like me can be Cary Grant compared to his slovenly associates.

Personal Myth

Stories from the ancient myths can sometimes offer interesting and instructive reflections of our modern lives. Of course, we never actually struggle though the labors of Hercules or welcome literal Trojan Horses into our homes but I for one do remember Mrs Hargreaves, a high school teacher, who with the simple addition of a few snakes to the crown of her head would have made a passable Medusa.

Which makes me wonder, had I found myself on the wrong side of Mrs Hargreaves, what kind of stone I might have been turned into. Tough and craggy granite? An elegant marble? Perhaps a sun-kissed sandstone? Alas, I probably would just be a pillar of plain crumbly chalk. The sedimentary equivalent of your average, awkward neighborhood white kid.

Although Mrs Hargreaves' head was not adorned with snarling and spitting snakes (at least none visible to the naked eye), I nevertheless always took the precaution of never looking directly at her. This wasn't easy because Mrs Hargreaves was the sort of teacher who enjoyed frequent and usually confrontational consultations with her students, especially me.

'What are you looking at, boy?' She would scream into my face during a heavyweight title examination of my poor grammar and spelling. Obviously I couldn't reply 'Not you Gorgon that's for sure,' so I would be forced to admit to some random object of my attention. 'The blackboard' was a common response; 'The world map on the wall' was another; and once, when I was very desperate, 'Samantha Noble's hair.'

If Mrs Hargreaves played the role of Medusa in my personal myth, and I clearly Perseus, then Samantha Noble had a good claim to be a teenage Andromeda (although it only required escorting her to the cinema a few times, not fighting and killing a ravenous sea monster, to make her mine). Unfortunately she later turned out to be more of a Nemesis than an Andromeda, they always do, but that's another story. 

The Changing Light At Burnt Norton

Here is an idea for a contemporary hit TV show: Father Marple, a religio-transvestite stigmatic spinster who solves crime conundrums while dressed as a priest. Nicknamed "Her Holiness" by the bumbling local police inspector, Father Marple flounces around the pretty yet blood-soaked village of Chesterton wearing a pink cassock and high heels, dispensing justice and absolution and selling the occasional indulgence to the gullible. Episode One could be called The Razor-Sharp Rosary.

Meanwhile, there is a fancy cheese shop not far from my house, staffed by snooty gourmands in white smocks and Dutch-boy caps. Here they will correct your pronunciation of 'gouda' ("howda" more or less) then wince if you can't tell the difference between mozzarella and burrata; and you stand in line behind Bleuchâtel bewitched customers with their noses pressed their against the glass presentation case like suction cups, waiting patiently for the cheesemonger to coax them into making a decision. Personally I just want whatever goes well with the red wine that was on sale at the liquor store. The cheesemonger usually suggests manchego or the aforementioned gouda, which I could pick for myself, so I don't know why I always ask his opinion. It's possible that, despite his condescending air of superior connoisseurship, he doesn't actually know much more than me.

And so I sit at my desk with discount red wine and the same old cheese, inventing Father Marple and the case of the Razor Sharp Rosary. A poet, noted for writing very long poems, has been found brutally murdered in a country house, garroted by a length of rosary with beads sharpened to a fine point. The only witnesses are two fellow poets, TS Eliot and Robert Merrill, but the bumbling local police inspector can't understand a word they are saying because he is unfamiliar with their many classical allusions. Only Father Marple has the wit to find the culprit before they strike again. But forensics have just discovered that the murder weapon belongs to Father Brown herself. Just who is trying to frame the religio-transvestite stigmatic spinster?