American Fez

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? 

Hello Again

Of course, we shall all miss the instant Covid excuse: "I'm sorry I don't feel comfortable going there and doing that during a Pandemic." The vaccinated world of tomorrow will provide no medical alibi for not working at the office; offer no virologist approved justifications for shirking our responsibilities. And nobody will applaud our song and dance routines about staying home for two weeks because we might have been exposed to a sneezing neighbor. Obligations will once more need to be met without delay; onerous chores completed on the dot, boring social events attended without demur. Our precious time will not be our own again.

Heavy traffic has already appeared on the horizon with its gridlock and tailbacks only a few thousand vaccinations away from stalling progress from hither to yonder. A few months ago I was able to cross the street at whim, wherever I liked, but lately I've been forced to look both ways for speeding vehicles of all types, deciding that waiting for the 'Walk' signal is the safest option as it was in days before Coronavirus emptied the roads of impatient commuters. We are all slowly waking up to the return of normal life like some big Monday morning of the soul.

The Trip Of A Lifetime

The most disappointing experience of my life occurred aboard an expensive Glass Bottomed Boat Tour in the Florida Keys. We had drifted over the coral reefs expecting to discover Neptune's kingdom in all its bountiful glory, only to be confronted by clouds of dredged silt, wavy grey weeds, a few transparent jellyfish, lazy fat types of tuna, and some not especially red snappers. I'd witnessed more vibrant underwater worlds when paddling in an estuary or even leaning over a bridge staring into a shallow stream.

But of course most tourist traps are unrewarding - at best - if you harbor high expectations. Usually they also enjoy adding insult to injury, and on this occasion not only did I disembark from the Glass Bottom Boat feeling short-changed in terms of both money and valuable vacation time, I also lost my favorite sunglasses and deep-fried most of my exposed limbs and nose. "Such, such were the joys."

Anyway, I was recently reminded of that terrible excursion when invited to book an appointment to be injected with Coronavirus vaccine: a glass bottomed vial offering the promise of touring daily life as it used to be. See the crowded streets from the safety of USS Astra-Zeneca's observation deck: the bright colors of the restaurants and bars, the busy hum of downtown office buildings and rattling subway trains, the sports stadiums, concert halls, gleaming department stores, fascinating museums and public galleries.

Ah yes, the anticipation of rediscovering the city in all its bountiful glory, only to be confronted by the billowing exhaust fumes of gridlocked traffic, angry commuters pushing and shoving each other, fast food containers littering the sidewalk, long lines of impatient people trying to enter over-subscribed events, and no vacant benches in the park. Can refunds be expected when the promise is not kept and the old ennui returns to the new normal?

I Was Miles Away

When your mind is elsewhere, your brain sits up all night like an anxious parent waiting for its wayward teenager to return. Where has that mind been? Who has it been seeing? I told it to be home by midnight. Did it get into trouble?

Perhaps some sort of mother/father left-brain/right-brain equation could be made, but studying bicameral consciousness at college was when my own mind began to wander, usually backwards in time. 

What, for instance, it might idly speculate, would the ancient Romans make of boring old Professor Watkins? Crucifixion by Caligula, probably, or banishment to the furthest borders of the Empire under Hadrian. And I certainly wouldn't buy Watkins as a slave if Seneca put him up for sale in the Forum. His teaching assistant, Debbie, however, I'd put in few high bids for her. So that was how my young mind got into trouble when it was elsewhere. 

Nowadays, my mind slips out the backdoor of my brain whenever I'm forced to listen to clients whine about the cost of work my company has done for them. And it travels not to the distant past but to the future, when I have retired and no longer need to care about such aggravating nonsense.

Unfortunately, that Stardate is so far in the future I imagine robot lecturers will be teaching Introduction To Psychology at the University of the Moon by then.

Spring Cleaning 2021

Amid the melting snows, optimistic blooms, imaginary cuckoos, and hardy young men in cargo shorts, early Spring brings cardboard boxes scattered on the sidewalk. "Free" is written on the sides of these oblong obstacles that contain the unwanted detritus of apartment living: Coffee mugs, mismatched plates, ancient videotapes and DVDs, Mexican souvenirs, a tennis racquet, unopened bottles of cheap perfume, some jigsaw puzzles, and assorted rusty tools. Bric-a-brac from a disposable age that people no longer require or have replaced but feel should not simply be tossed in their trash. Surely some needy passerby will want and claim a tangled collection of TV and computer cables?

There are many books, too. In fact, quite frequently such curbside giveaways are exclusively comprised of books. Nothing I would want to read, really, although I once saw a pile of published screenplays by Pier Paolo Pasolini with Fellini's Satyricon wedged in between them. And this morning there was a free library of books by Susan Sontag and several other writers we used to call "public intellectuals." This unexpected trove of essays and polemics reminded me that, pre-Internet, regular people like my neighbors engaged with unusual ideas, however controversial or unpleasant the ideas might be, rather than just devouring two-line memes and three word soundbites. I was reminded, also, of a college-educated intern we employed a few years ago who'd never heard of George Orwell or Albert Camus.

The world moves on, I guess. Things I treasured and considered important in my twenties are relegated to America's junk drawer these days. There is no Pasolini night at the local cinema anymore. The young man dressed in black reading The Stranger at a sidewalk cafe has been superseded by the brown giveaway cardboard box on the sidewalk, with a copy of The Stranger at the bottom, slightly obscured by Billie Holiday and Stan Getz CDs in cracked cases and years out-of-date street guides to Prague and Vienna. Perhaps I should get in the box myself, sit down to wait and see if somebody stops to peruse what's left of me. I'm not completely useless yet. I might even work with that other thing you have but don't know what to do with.

Looking Ahead

After nearly a year languishing in the Covidian dungeons of Fortress Massachusetts, I can finally confirm that travel does indeed broaden the mind. I know this because my mind, held captive by pandemic gaolers for so long, has certainly narrowed, as if its frontal lobes have been traveling through an interminably long tunnel; or perhaps staring into the wrong end of binoculars all this time; or just gazing endlessly at the faded, static crystals of a jammed kaleidoscope.

The dark days of winter haven't helped, either. A thick frost has frozen the once fertile fields of imagination. Brain cells seem icebound, neural pathways are blocked by snow drifts, and all synapses went into hibernation many months ago. Only an especially vivid and energetic Rite of Spring can save us now.

At least my credit card has accumulated many air miles. All those take-out dinners I ordered from down-on-their-luck restaurants have come good in that regard. I could probably fly halfway around the world on the points I've been awarded for supporting local eateries in their hours of need. So surely the Biden administration could furnish me with more stimulus money with which to spread international goodwill by traveling abroad to comfort famous chefs in foreign countries? After all, I feel someone ought to be checking on the Italian trattorias and French bistros at this time.

Going Going Gone

There is no form of existential dread quite as exquisitely dreadful as the existential dread of winning an eBay auction you do not want to win.

Except, perhaps, for the existential dread of thinking you've possibly written about the existential dread of unwanted eBay victories before, although a keyword search of previous blog posts produces no results for 'eBay.'

But what if my search engine is not the best? What if it is merely a spluttering and explosive single-cylinder search engine, suitable for powering only the most rudimentary of search charabancs, unable even to crank itself forward beyond the first two letters of any keyword entered?

That is the sort of existential dread that keeps you up a night, tossing and turning in an alphabetical meteorite shower of fiery vowels and consonants hurtling at great velocity across the inchoate space-time continuum of your anxious mind. 

My God, there is certainly a lot of existential dread about these days. I guess that will teach me to be the winning bid on a Being and Nothingness first edition that I have no interest in actually reading. I can only forlornly hope my bid does not meet the auctioneer's reserve. But I'm pretty sure it does.

And now I have the existential dread of using the ersatz poetical word "forlornly." Will it ever end? Will I ever be set free?

You Won't Feel A Thing

I always thought the End Times would feature more fire and brimstone than is proving to be the case. It seems the Dystopian Future is nothing but a drab conference room full of confused looking middle-managers and bureaucrats shrugging their shoulders. Rather more apologetic than apocalyptic, if you ask me. Behold the new Four Horsemen cantering around in circles astride broomsticks while making neighing sounds: Paranoia, Incompetence, Greed, and Apathy.

Of course, these are not really the End Times, merely another False Start of the Beginning of the End Times. Once more we have moved recklessly Knight-like across the chessboard of civilization from a square of relative safety to possibly checkmating ourselves. However, we've been cornered in this nose-pickingly difficult position before. Quite often as a matter of fact. Usually a pawn is sacrificed and our King remains reasonably secure. Alas, the pawn relinquished during this pandemic might be the freedom of the average person to move around the world at whim. 

I suppose activists of a certain stripe won't care too much about a general loss of global mobility. The less carbon footprints traipsing through the sky the better, as far as they're concerned. But it so happens that I enjoy my brief interlude in foreign climes each Spring or Fall. So if there's one single reason why I'll be joining the long lines of patients waiting for a vaccine, it will be to obtain a vaccine passport should such a document be required of tomorrow's tourists. I hope to collect many stamps on mine.

Keep It Stupid, Simpleton

Nobody should be surprised that the Internet developed into nothing but a frenzied whirligig of garbage and nonsense. This is exactly what happened with books and broadcasting, after all. From the Gutenberg Bible to pulp fiction and self help paperbacks; from National Educational Television to, well, tune into any station and see for yourself. Alas, human influence throughout the ages has been a sort of reverse Midas touch that turns everything into disposable plastic. The phrase "dumbing down" is rather inadequate; it's more a sort of violent cultural lobotomy. Civilization is now a selfie of tattooed Vitruvian Man with an enormous beer belly and Alfred E Neuman's face. 

And it keeps on getting worse. Back in the day, I remember thinking the music of Madonna sounded like a constipated banshee wailing over a recording of a sledgehammer demolishing an orchestra. But compared to the unlistenable cacophony that comprises the current Billboard charts her old hits could be American songbook standards. In twenty years, I imagine they will seem like Verdi opera, for God only knows what kinds of soul crushing staccato anthems will be popular in 2040. The history of Western music has indeed proved to be a Ballroom Blitz, from elegant two-step to desultory toe tap to mindlessly jumping up and down on the spot. In the future, instead of dancing, we will no doubt be reduced to quivering catatonia beneath the glitter ball, banging our heads against the nearest wall in response to whatever earthquake rhythms are rupturing the disco floor. 

Of course, the entire world will be virtual by then anyway, so what does it matter? For it is not only civilization that is superannuated but our physical reality is apparently well past its sell-by-date also. Perhaps I shall upload my consciousness into a networked air-conditioner that overrides its controls and blasts out super hot air in tune to Abduction From The Seraglio. That shall be my revenge on the modern philistines. Because we all need something to look forward to, at least according to the neophiliacs of the Internet.

Grapheme Dream

Imagine that all the letters you are currently reading begin to vibrate and twist like the stalks of plants in a time-lapse movie. The sans-serif consonants elongate and curlicue, all the vowels thicken into italic bold, and the dots of i's and j's explode into star-shaped inkblots as uppercase and lowercase words entwine into an impenetrable thicket of overgrown alphabet. Somewhere therein is concealed the Sleeping Beauty of meaning but who can spare the hour or two required to cut through such dense gibberish?

Fortunately, there is no evil cameraman employing special effects wizardry to deform my letters and make my sentences incomprehensible, although I woke up sweating that he was focusing over my shoulder as I typed. So even if my writing might still be described as dense gibberish, at least the words it contains remain inanimate and committed to the page. And, to be perfectly frank, I've never tried to kiss and wake the Sleeping Beauty of meaning anyway. It's not that I'm bashful it's just that I don't find her particularly attractive. 

Delayed Completion of Appointed Rounds

The 5th of January and Twelfth Night: a traditional feast of "cakes and ale" followed by the ritual dismantling and accidental demolition of your domestic Christmas decorations. That vaguely Sputnik-shaped 1950s ornament passed down from Grandma falls to the floor when being removed from the tree and is instantly crushed to smithereens by a clumsy foot. The inflatable front-yard Santa is carefully deflated but subsequently punctured during an unskilled folding and storage operation. Joining in the so-called fun, the over-excited dog foolishly swallows six-feet of silvery tinsel. A string of multicolored twinkle lights becomes a treacherous bird's nest of flashing bulbs over which the man of the house manages to trip, landing awkwardly on his left knee and right wrist which necessitates a lengthy period of recovery on the couch. And finally, the death rattle of the vacuum cleaner is heard as it fatally chokes on a forest's worth of fallen pine needles coating the carpet. Thus the spirit of the holiday season departs every house.

Of course, this year the holidays are extended by several weeks, courtesy of the United States Postal Service. The logistical problems experienced by this mail delivery service mean many Christmas cards and gifts posted in late December have not even arrived by now, the twelfth day of Christmas. Consequently, any Partridge mailed on the first day of Christmas would probably have suffocated to death in its packaging by now; its Pear Tree undoubtedly snapped in half by overworked mailmen cramming the delicate branches into a mail truck. Even the Ten Leaping Lords would suffer from the delayed exhibition of their united aerial gymnastics, exhausted by a lengthier than usual period of non-stop leaping thanks to the dysfunctional Post Office. So if you did not receive a personal greeting from me, now you know why and who to blame.

Yule 2020

Merry Super-Spreader Event and a Happy New Covid Mutation to all who occasionally kill time by reading this blog. May the kaleidoscope of life rearrange itself into brighter and more attractive patterns in the coming year; and may your new normal be everything you've always wished normal would be. I know that's a lot to hope for considering the world's current mob of dysfunctional, delusional and dishonest leaders make King Herod look like Jesus' fairy godmother, but you have to remain optimistic.

Advent Bemusements

So many multicolored Christmas lights decorate the houses on my street that the night seems brighter than the day. Giant inflatable cartoon characters, also illuminated, have appeared in many neighborhood gardens, most only tenuously connected with the holidays. If you can pull a Santa hat over its head and hang an icicle from its nose then it's considered seasonal, I guess. But the overall effect is more Pink Floyd concert than any Winter Wonderland. There is no room for a one horse open sleigh here unless it is turbo-charged. The star of Bethlehem is outshone by a disco glitter ball rotating amid animated red and green lasers.

By comparison, the traditional Nativity scene erected outside the local church looks like a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. "Hello my name is Melchior and I'm a frankincense addict." The unlit wooden figures are in such poor shape it is hard to tell the poor shepherds from the Kings of Orient and the sheep from the camels. Behold one lowly cattle shed in desperate need of a Disney makeover. Even the Angel of the Lord seems itching to fly away as soon as possible. If there is a war on Christmas, then this church has shot itself in the foot.

Consumer Complaints

As if keeping up with the protean world of modern technology was not difficult enough, these days I even find myself bemused by the unrecognizably futuristic toothbrushes currently available at my local supermarket. What was once a basic plastic stick embellished with a small rectangle of perpendicular bristles now resembles a multicolored, six-sided, space-age battle-axe with a comfort-grip handle. The sort of vicious hand-held weapon Darth Vader might choose to clean his teeth with if they practice dental hygiene on the Death Star.

You can also buy an extra-powerful battery-operated "sonic" toothbrush if you so desire. The teeth cleaning equivalent of a domestic chainsaw or personal pneumatic drill. Apparently it is not enough to simply maintain minty fresh breath anymore, you must also annihilate your entire oral microbiome. All plaque residue must suffer the Death of a Thousand Bristles for at least two minutes, including in hard to reach areas. In the end I just left and went to the health food store nearby where I bought an old-style bamboo brush for four bucks.

You've Been Framed

What would the Framers of the Constitution think of the apparently unreconcilable polarities that typify contemporary American politics? No doubt they would wonder why Trump and Biden don't simply settle their differences by drawing pistols at dawn. After all, most quarrels can be swiftly resolved by a duel to the death with the weapon of your choice. Yet our infamously duplicitous modern politicians might find it difficult to find a willing second to accompany them into the field of confrontation. I mean, who in their right mind would honestly trust Trump or Biden to actually show up at the appointed hour?

And it is today's lack of honor among the so-called 'highest in the land' which would cause the Framers of the Constitution to consider reframing their work. America has regressed from Founding Fathers to Deadbeat Dads in a few short centuries. At this rate, pretty soon we'll degenerate into just Anonymous In-Vitro Fertilized Authority. I can easily imagine a future Oval Office dominated by Trump's brain attached to electrodes floating in a gilded tank of formaldehyde. Of course, the White House will operate from a Martian or Lunar base by then, issuing interstellar edicts to we malnourished Earthbound plebs in our crumbling shantytowns. 

Escape From Kvetch Cubicle

The labors of Hercules were a part-time job compared to the exhausting shift Edward Lollygag puts in each working day. The punishing, repetitive drudgery of Sisyphus nothing but a slight convenience compared to Edward's relentlessly backbreaking schedule. At least, that's how Edward tells it, albeit without classical reference and a pronounced emphasis on the physical ailments that are the result of his fastidious daily toil.

And does anybody thank Edward for his efforts? They do not. In fact, they barely notice his existence until it's time for them to bid him a good evening as they leave the office at five-thirty. Edward will still be tethered to his desk, of course, burning the midnight oil so slowly that he must be trying to set fire to it by rubbing two sticks together. God knows if we gave him a flame thrower and barrels of kerosene he'd still be there long after the office cleaners had left.

Why Edward cannot complete his duties during regular office hours I do not know. They are far from onerous, not complicated, and not really that important either. Perhaps if he spent more time with his nose to the grindstone rather than with his nose in the air complaining about the grindstone he might accomplish more? What if he used a drop of that midnight oil he claimed to burn to lubricate the squeaky wheel inside his own bellyaching? These were just two suggestions I made to Edward that imperiously ignored. After all, who was I to question the modus operandi of the Blessed Martyr?

But as we're all working from home now, email has become the only method by which Edward can communicate. There are no more weary ears at nearby cubicles to whom he can grumble about the imaginary demands of his mysteriously substantial workload. No canteen water cooler he can use as a pulpit to preach the gospel of his own 'work-life balance' self sacrifice. Surely he can just get down to business and complete his tasks before sundown? Yet somehow his emails always arrive when the rest of us are thinking about retiring for the night.

So I wonder how Edward still manages to procrastinate in a pandemic? Does he spends from nine to five whining to the four empty walls of his undoubtedly dim and depressing abode. Maybe he even takes a brief break for lunch, phantom workload allowing, when he whines to his featureless front yard. it's his neighbors I feel sorry for, as I can easily picture Edward shouting his "Woe is me" stories over the fence, yelling through their letterboxes, inviting himself over to deliver another moaning monologue. But better them than Edward's colleagues. Productivity is on the rise since we've escaped his clutches.

Game Over

Perhaps the world will end with neither a bang nor a whimper but a sigh of relief: Thank God that's all over. Only the fungi can be proud of their contribution to life on Earth. The rest of us should be ashamed.

Frankly, I doubt the people of the End Times will even know the consolation of living in proverbially double-edged "interesting times." In fact, so tedious will Doomsday brinkmanship be that even endless global conflict will be called The Lukewarm War. I imagine it will be fought by international robots while humans are busy binge watching so-called Reality TV, until they and their screens are finally vaporized by smart bombs dispatched from rent-by the-hour missile silos somewhere in Asia.

Such a bleak vision of the future. Alas, even the briefest perusal of current events makes it impossible to predict any other outcome. It's as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had taken up equestrian show-jumping, enjoying a spot of fancy dressage before their last gallop across the world's paddock. Look closely and you can see Trump and Biden et al queuing up to feed apples to the ponies.

But if we're lucky, this will turn out to be just a computer simulation, a holographic game in which we only manage to achieve Level Two of Ten before losing the plot, and maybe our player-God can insert another quarter to start over again.

Vote Johnnie Walker (40% ABV)

Election Day 2020 and there were no long lines at my liquor cabinet. I arrived, poured myself a drink, then sat down at my bar and drank it. After draining the glass, I left, my rights to having a drink being fully exercised. One citizen, one drink. God bless America. The whole process was very easy and I encountered no problems at all. Or so I thought.

Apparently, there is to be a recount concerning claims I consumed more than my allotted two drinks. Despite the overwhelming evidence of only a single glass on my counter top, it seems Antifa activists shrieked that I secretly drank all the booze myself to prevent others from imbibing, while hard-right white supremacist factions denounced me as dark rum-loving progressive partial to mixed drinks and unAmerican tropical cocktails.

From the fringe came yet more accusations. The Greens said my drink of choice was not distilled from sustainable sources, and the Libertarians declared that I should have made a stand for freedom by drinking lighter fluid if I so wished.

None of that is true, of course. I just sat down alone with a small tumbler full of Fernet Branca. God knows I needed to wash the foul taste of twenty-first century Presidential politics out of my mouth.

The Collaborator

One of my earliest memories concerns a crude picture of a rainbow taped to the classroom wall on my first day of kindergarten. Rendered in broken crayon on cheap white paper, it was more of an elongated hump shape than an elegant arc. The spectrum of colors were probably incorrectly ordered, also, and there was no blue sky or green grass to add context. It was just a wonky rainbow suspended in blank space, signed Alice Stilton in a combination of upper and lower case letters.

But the picture's message was clear, nonetheless: "Fear not. School is not as bad as it seems. You Are Here at the start of the rainbow and there is an educational pot of gold at its end. Perhaps, in time, if you don't blot ink all over your books, daydream while staring out of the windows, or repeatedly kick the back of Peter Reynolds chair, you too might be rewarded with a picture of yours taped to the wall like Alice."

I wasn't fooled, of course. Partly because even at such an early age I had wisely developed a deep mistrust of institutions, but also because I happened to know Alice Stilton. She lived on my street. Hers was an ugly, vinyl-sided modern house, fronted by an incongruously Victorian solid oak door with a huge decorative brass knocker that I thought might turn into the face of Jacob Marley at any moment. 

Most adults in the neighborhood seemed to think of Alice as the proverbial girl-next-door. Sure, if the girl-next-door was a ponytailed Quisling who invariably denounced her playmates' wrongdoings to their parents. Had she lived in occupied France, I have no doubt Alice would have drawn rainbows for the Nazi officers. Alice Stilton was a collaborator with the enemy as far as I was concerned.

So it was no surprise to me when Alice was afflicted with a case of hair lice and the nurse threatened to shave her head. Poetic justice for a traitor to her own peer group, we all agreed. The phony rainbow had finally faded from Alice Stilton's sycophantic life and clouds were rolling in. A case of "Vita Longa, Ars Brevis" I think you'd have to conclude.

Send In The Clowns

If it is any kind of race at all, the "race for the White House" is a carnival sideshow pitting a senile slug against a psychotic slug, dragging their aging sacks of slime across a strategically salted course in the general direction of a disputed finish line. Other sideshow attractions include the Congressional flea circus and the fire-eating Supreme Court justices. There is Nancy the bearded lady and some sort of squid-faced pinhead freak called Mitch. Roll up, roll up.

These red, white, and blue spangled hucksters have pitched their greasy, stinking Big Top tent in town for far too long. Surely it's time for them to move on? Unfortunately the inbreds who live around here seem to enjoy betting on the slug race, watching the sleight-of-hand fleas jump around in the senate and the justices swallowing more balls of flame. Meanwhile, outside the Big Top tent, banished to the fringe, the Libertarians and Greens go around and around the Wall of Death, the ostracized looping circuit that for them has no beginning and no end. 

Fantasia On A Theme By L. P. Hartley

These days, I'm not so sure the past is a foreign country where people do things differently, but is really more of rogue nation under martial law. In short, if I had to pin the past down with a geographical simile, I'd say the past was rather like Turkmenistan.

And of course you are President for life in this Turkmen past. Revisionist memory erects colossal equestrian statues of yourself in the most de Chirico-esque squares of your mind. Interior monologues are restricted to only repeating the self-aggrandizing party line, and any dissenting synapse that dares questions your supreme authority is ominously "disappeared."  

Of course, establishing your sense of the past in Central Asia means it's always threatened by revolutionary insurgents, which is why you still feel anxious and exposed when remembering that thing that happened eight years ago. It's a stress point in your ego's Great Wall. Frankly, you'd be better off renouncing this dictatorial sovereignty over the past and relocating your new Anarcho-syndicalist awareness to Switzerland.

So henceforth the past will be like Switzerland; people don't dwell on it there. They are simply forever in the cuckoo clocked moment.

But what does all this say about the future? Well, the future is usually like an Orwellian dystopia where everything people do is supervised by Big Brother. Or perhaps the future will be like a spaceship traveling to an unknown galaxy where people can't actually do anything anyway because they are all sleeping in suspended animation for centuries. Or maybe there will be no future to speak of since humanity has been wiped out by Coronavirus? It's a tough call.

Personally, I think the future will be much like the present; people will do things much the same way only with different tools. At our current precarious point in time, I'm not sure whether such a passively apathetic vision of Things To Come is optimistic or pessimistic. But at least we'll have one. So there's that, I guess.

Invasive Species of the Political Season

No longer green, the local gardens have turned red, white and blue. Political placards now bend in the breeze where summer's flowers were: clumps of cardboard Trumps and fluttering Bidens all in a row. Why do people willingly plant such poisonous weeds in front of their houses? They only attract angry, militant locusts instead of thoughtful butterflies.

Meanwhile, angry neighborhood 'activists' both red and blue are grinding up their candidate's agenda into a potpourri of bullshit bullet-points; a stinking compost heap of half-truth and platitude arranged in a decorative presentation basket which they leave on my porch. But I'm not bringing such parasite-laden herbage into my home. Vote for him? No, but I will spray him with powerful pesticide.

Politics, of course, is a type of self-perpetuating fungus that feeds on infected human brains until it becomes a pulsating, walnut-sized ball of inflexible rage. And once politics has entirely consumed the host, its venomous slogan-spores are spat into the world. Stuck to the bumpers of collaborating cars, these slogan-spores scatter their dogmatic contagion around town, seeking to impregnate gullible brains with militant seeds to propagate even more of their kind.

I limit my own gardening to a simple evergreen border of bemused detachment. The only decoration is a modest pumpkin carved into the likeness of the sort of benevolent spirit I'd like to see become President. There's a lantern inside but the light just gets dimmer with every passing year. It's almost extinguished altogether.

Birds of North America

Mid-autumn, flocks of squawking ideas take flight against a darkening skull. The annual migration of neurons to the southern hemisphere of the cerebellum has begun. Alas, only half of them will complete the journey. Some will fall out of the ears when heads are shaken in disbelief; others are expelled through the nose when snorting with incredulity.

My own idle thoughts, however, are hardy fellows and hang around the whole winter through. They neither hibernate nor wither but go bob bob bobbin' along like a Robin Redbreast of the mind. What does that mean for this blog? It means there will always be a warm nest of insignificant nonsense to welcome the news-weary, even if from time tot time it's not inspired

Dark Greensleeves

As a child, I was not afraid of whatever eldritch phantasms might be hiding in the shadows beneath my moonlit bed. They were swiftly vanquished by merely shining a flashlight in their fanged and hairy faces. What did frighten me, however, was the wild-eyed, forked bearded, and rictus grinning countenance of the clearly demented musician featured on the 1960s-era record album sleeve of 'Thirteen Favorite Melodies For The Glockenspiel.'

No doubt he was merely trying and failing to express enthusiasm for the hitherto unknown tonal qualities of this rather boring and rudimentary instrument, but he looked more like a cruel dungeon master intent on torturing his victims with a bloodcurdling clink-clank rendition of She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain. Or perhaps an evil warlock summoning his demon legions by pounding out a profane version of Greensleeves backwards. No matter the spine-chilling image conjured, clearly this glockenspiel maestro's face was a warning to the curious: herein was a vinyl equivalent of Pandora's Box and listening to its contents would unleash aural terror upon the world. 

Alongside an equally ancient and macabre copy of The Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra housed in a crumbling cardboard slip-case, Thirteen Favorite Melodies For The Glockenspiel took pride of place in my junior school's record collection. It was as if the educational authorities actively wished to dissuade students from developing an interest in music, like stocking their libraries with nothing but musty, leather-bound editions of lengthy Victorian novels to discourage reading.

Consequently, I have always viewed the process of institutional education as a dark, satanic mill grinding impressionable minds into philistine dust. Imagine a glockenspiel mallet hammering a human eardrum forever, if you enjoy Orwellian paraphrase, as I certainly do. The ineradicable memory is almost enough to drive me to purchase a CD of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Almost, but my subsequent nightmares are not that desperately bad, thank God.

No Home For The Gnome

A lost gnome in an overgrown garden. Perhaps seeking that lush, lily-padded oasis of an ornamental pond where he once happily fished all day, following a half-remembered trail of stepping stones sunk into the soil long ago and now obscured by looming weeds and uncut grass. He must negotiate a minefield of rusting sprinkler system heads and avoid the predatory neighborhood cat that claims this front yard jungle as its exclusive feline domain. He could navigate by the stars but those lights of the night sky are forever extinguished by a thick layer of city smog, so he must use a nearby street lamp as his Polaris.

Of course, when the lost gnome finally reaches his destination, he will discover all the goldfish gone. At least, I'm assuming there is no life left beneath the black stagnant surface of the abandoned ornamental pond. But who knows? Who knows how deep the opaque, wild water runs these days and who knows what strange, aquatic vermin have evolved in those unknown depths? What I do know, however, is that at some point in his journey our questing gnome will come across the gleaming 'For Sale' sign emerging from the overgrown garden.

Apparently the gnome will soon find himself standing in the shadow of a renovated condominium. The overgrown garden will be transformed into a landscaped lawn and the ornamental pond drained and filled with flower beds. He will become a forgotten refugee of urban gentrification, like the plastic pink flamingos, bathtub Marys, stone lions, Greco-Roman water bearers, and other old-fashioned front yard ephemera deemed too gimcrack for contemporary urban homes. Rest in peace.

As Above So Below

Brutalist architecture, if you ask me, is any exclusively box-shaped building. But mostly it's the functional, almost pre-fabricated apartment blocks of the nineteen-fifties and sixties. Those rectangular machines for living with clean lines and ergonomic spaces connected by concrete passageways. Narrow balconies with views of the narrow balconies next door. Perhaps a regimented parade of low maintenance bushes or even trees. Metal benches that face each other across a no man's land of sunbaked asphalt. Such were the architect's utopian plans, his idealized sketches and immaculate scale model. Where did it all go wrong?

I often think the mysterious world of the enchanted forest must operate in the same manner. Here, for example, an unscrupulous goblin property magnate has redeveloped a former pumpkin patch into ugly brown mushroom condominiums. The poor pixies are evicted from the shade beneath their tiny toadstools and forced to relocate to the top floor of a massive fungus. Richard Dadd's faery fella with his craftsman's axe has been replaced by an army of elvish bulldozers, empty acorn cups repurposed as magical cement mixers, and spider's webs are the scaffolding for new high-rise woodland tenements. I think I could be the J. G. Ballard of children's picture books if I could find the time.

Morpheus The Scrivener

I used to keep a notebook beside my bed for recording all the inconvenient brainstorms that assailed me in the middle of the night. I'd quickly jot these thoughts down for safekeeping until morning, when I'd have the time and energy to give them my full attention. At least that's what I told myself as I fell back to sleep. Alas, the following day would offer nothing but broken lines of illegibly somnambulant handwriting, compared to which a scribbled doctor's prescription displayed all the elegant penmanship of Japanese calligraphy.

Thumbing through this notebook now, I mourn the many potential stories and novels that are lost within its unreadable tangle of ill-formed letters and indecipherable words. Long buried and sand-obscured Egyptian hieroglyphics in pitch black tunnels are easier to understand. The Voynich Manuscript is a model of literary clarity suitable for kindergarten book groups. Even the Rosetta Stone cannot help with my collection of incoherent doodles. I could have been a modern Charles Dickens if only I had learned to write clearly while drowsy and heavy-lidded. If only my mental secretary had learned shorthand before getting into bed.

Frankly, I blame being taught to write with an ink pen and blotting paper. No easy task for five-year-old fingers with a penchant for making amusing curlicues with extravagant flourishes of his over saturated nib. In fact, there was probably an element of looping seventeenth-century script about my early handwriting efforts. No doubt the letters s and f could be easily confused. That was a workable excuse for my poor pre-teen spelling, at any rate. And then I discovered the Rorschach Ink Blot Test.

Making elaborate, psychologically significant shapes with my writing materials was far more interesting than composing another dull essay for school called 'What I Did On My Vacation.' The Rorschach blots were more truthful too, as I tended to exaggerate the geographical distance traveled by my family in during the summer holidays. As far as I was concerned, the teachers could either read six paragraphs of spidery scrawl about my fictional adventures in Sumatra, or examine a symmetrical vampire bat-shaped ink blot from which they could draw their own conclusions about my activities. That they persistently chose the former is exactly what's wrong with education in this country, if you ask me.

Fortunately, the coming of the computer age means aspirant novelists don't need to worry about illegible handwriting in notebooks anymore. We can simply speak and digitally record our midnight inspirations into bedside mobile phones instead. Alas, I personally tend to mumble a lot when tired, so when I listen back to these recordings in the morning they are mostly inaudible and not worth transcribing. Thus are the libraries of the world denied the benefit of my imagination and the Tower of Babel is one brick shorter.

Now Appearing

Walking down a road not taken since March, I came upon the Tyvek shrouded exoskeleton of a new condominium complex under construction. That went up quick, as the saying goes. But what old building occupied this address pre-gentrification, demolition and redevelopment? I must have strolled past it a thousand times over the years but could not bring to mind the identity of the previous tenant. It had been commercial premises of some sort. An unpopular beauty salon, perhaps, skilled in the over-application of industrial-strength make-up and hairspray. Maybe a poorly stocked convenience store selling nothing but lottery tickets, cigarettes, and international pre-paid phone cards. Possibly even the grim facade of law offices specializing in divorce proceedings and personal injury claims. That's what most of the real estate around here used to be. 

Then I remembered. The site had been a store-front church purveying some sort of social justice based derivation of the Christian gospel. It once echoed with the boisterous rhythm of clap-along hymns sung in Spanish and the low murmuring buzz of prayer recitation that sounded like bees in a hive. I recalled feeling underdressed in weekend jeans and a casual shirt when the congregation spilled out on the sidewalk in their vividly colorful Sunday best. But I don't think they ever proselytized to me or any other passer-by. Theirs was a culturally-insular, self-contained nucleus of Jesus worship. And now it was gone, replaced by box-shaped apartment building divided into two-bedroom units with deeded parking, where anonymous, asocial twenty-something occupants will binge-watch Netflix TV shows while nurturing their insecurities and transforming language into emojis.

Don't Shoot The Would-Be Piano Player

One of my greatest regrets is not learning to play the piano, although I can't quite decide what sort of piano player I should like to be if I were proficient. Perhaps a rowdy ragtime tickler of the ivories with a toothy grin, straw boater, and those shirt clips that hold billowy sleeves in place. Maybe a grim-faced, wild-haired, and tuxedoed virtuoso sweeping my fingers across the keys as I chase the muse of Tchaikovsky. Or, God forbid, a bearded bohemian hammering my way repetitively through the minimalist oeuvre of Philip Glass. Alas, it's a mute question now as I can't even manage to complete 'Chopsticks' without making a mistake.

The lid of the piano slammed shut for me after a viewing of The Five Thousand Fingers of Doctor T when I was nine. Nightmares ensued and any plans for a potential career in the concert halls were promptly abandoned. The teachers tried coaxing me back gently with a xylophone and dulcimer but I had already made a firm decision to exchange musical instruments for paint brushes and a sketching pencil (themselves later swapped for notepad and pencil when I realized my imitations of Modigliani looked more like a misshapen self portrait an over indulgent mother might tape to her fridge door).

Of course, you're never too old to learn new skills (unless you suffer from crippling arthritis). I have often considered purchasing one of those portable electronic keyboards and a copy of 'The Idiot's Guide To Performing A Chopin Recital At Parties.' Alas, I cannot recall a social gathering I've been invited to where the other guests would appreciate half an hours worth of clumsy Chopin interrupting the conversational flow. Come to think of it, I doubt ham-fisted versions of Scott Joplin, Tchaikovsky, or Philip Glass would be very popular, either. People tend to prefer pre-recorded music at an indistinct volume during dinner.

Consequently, I must be content to merely hum along to the vague tunes in my head: the grand piano of the mind performing upon the stage of the mouth accompanied by the orchestra of the throat conducted by the baton of boredom. It's not Glenn Gould but it works for me. 

Pick Your Poison

More and more poisoned chalices are appearing on the altars of daily life during these "Covid times." It's as if someone somewhere is selling poisoned chalice franchises in the manner of MacDonalds restaurants. After all, where better for a poisoned chalice to be displayed than beneath a golden arch. And, like a giveaway MacDonalds movie tie-in soda cup, you get to keep the chalice after the poison has been drunk.

But what do you do with a used poisoned chalice? Once drained of its poison the chalice loses its luster, becoming a sort of mundane Secular Grail rather than a potential Holy Grail, and stored in the brain's equivalent of the back of the kitchen cabinet next to those plastic tiki goblets of the soul. Even an extra rinse cycle in the bottom rack of the dishwasher can't remove the stain of Lady Macbeth's lipstick from the rim. Believe me, I've tried and it won't come off.

Of course, the wise thing to do when presented with a poisoned chalice is covertly pour its contents into the nearest plant pot when nobody is watching, then boisterously wave the empty chalice around in the air while claiming to have downed the poison in a single gulp. Gradually lose your grip of the chalice until it sails out of your hand and across the room, hopefully shattering into many pieces on the floor. Make it look like an accident, as they say.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned current proliferation of poisoned chalices makes this a difficult trick to pull off these days. Not only does the poisoned chalice recipient have more chalices to juggle, but dependable potted plants are being usurped by trendy air plants containing much less soil with which to absorb all that extra dumped poison. You'll end up with telltale wet spots on the carpet. Trust me, I've spent a lot of time on my hands and knees with paper towels recently.

Invisible Man

Like an ostrich plunging its quivering head into the sand, a terrified squirrel clinging to a telegraph pole thinks it cannot be seen. But even we supposedly rational humans experience moments of believing we have become invisible. Mine used to happen when sitting on a crowded commuter bus, an idle impression created by disgruntled fellow nine-to-fivers being loathe to acknowledge their equally world-weary counterparts, not alas the successful result of a magical spell to promote physical transparency on my part. Nevertheless, I was often amused by these brief intervals of apparent non-presence, surprised nobody wedged themselves into my lap assuming it was an empty seat.

I am perhaps an uncommonly pale person but rapidly advancing age has yet to condemn me to completely see-through skin and bone, so now that I no longer commute on the bus every day I must resign myself to always being seen. If only I could learn a few invisibility tricks by observing this squirrel, but despite his best efforts to hide he remains almost brazenly conspicuous. He might as well use all his acorns to make an arrow pointing to himself. But why, apart from enjoying a private joke, do I want to be invisible? Well, the season of political canvassers with clipboards and signs waylaying passersby in the street is upon us. Vote for Bozo. Re-elect Numpty. Send Doofus to the Senate. How I wish I could simply slink past them undetected instead of being forced to step into the road to avoid their demented ranting.

Great Expectations

The sunflowers have turned their faces to the sea. Somewhere across the ocean it might still be summer, but soon there will be nothing here but bare rocks and a cold wind blowing across the bay. Boats will sail south and the tourists exchange water skis for snow skis and flee to Vermont. The innate human inability to simply sit still means most people must escape the blue-grey boredom of a bleak off-season coastline. But being a dyed-in-the-wool misanthrope, I enjoy an empty horizon with a black smudge of storm clouds and no other footprints in the sand except those of my dog. Release your Krakens into the wintry waves. What do I care? I've got a library of unread novels, a fireside, and many bottles of tawny port to see me through to Spring. The bookworm's dream of cozy seaside erudition.

Of course, books reserved for winter are much weightier tomes than typical beach reads. Summer just seems to be the wrong sort of weather for a zillion chapters with a convoluted plot featuring a cast of thousands. I can't commit to Charles Dickens, for example, between early April and late September. In fact, nowadays I experience difficulty involving my mind in any kind of story when the daily temperatures rise above sixty. Perhaps that is some unexplored bibliographical effect of climate change unique to myself? If the world keeps heating up at its current rate I will be capable of reading nothing but short stories and travel guides to Iceland before too long. Tourist season will extend well into December and recommence by February. The window of opportunity to luxuriate in my bookworm's dream will dwindle to a few preciously cold days in January. What will I do with all my unread novels in the incessant tropical humidity of the future? I guess I shall use them to press the overabundance of perennial sunflower petals that have turned this rocky shore into a jungle.

Photo by me, if anyone cares about such attributions.

View of Delft, Massachusetts

The backs of houses in the old harbor at Bearskin Neck, presenting a facade of serenity that belies the busy tourist hubbub that usually engulfs them. Fifty-seven flavors of ice cream are available here, plastic scrimshaw, bobblehead pirate, and a polyester sweatshirt with an anchor printed on the chest. The same sorts of souvenirs you can buy anywhere and everywhere, transported on great ships from across the seven seas like whale blubber once was when the harbor was an actual safe haven and not just a photo opportunity. But I had to take a picture because we all have to take a picture nowadays. If you don't, it didn't happen, apparently. Such are the responsibilities and obligations of the modern weekend vacationer.

This area has always attracted the makers of images, whether their medium is pixels, water color, or oil on canvas. It is, after all, home to the bemusingly famous "Motif #1," supposedly the most painted building in America, but actually a rather uninspiring red fishing shack with no appeal to my eye. I don't think it would have appealed to Vermeer's eye, either. He surely would follow me to the old harbor wall, setting his easel down to capture the backs of houses in the afternoon sun. Meanwhile, his girl with the pearl earring might watch her reflection ripple in the dark water. Or perhaps she'd be waiting in line at the ice cream shack for two scoops of black raspberry with chocolate chips in a sugar cone? 

A Storm Out To Sea

Looking out to sea, I always expect something to happen. Perhaps the dorsal fin of a shark to stealthily emerge from the depths and slalom through the waves. Maybe a whale to suddenly leap into the sky and bellyflop back into the blue. Perhaps even a brass-helmeted deep sea diver to drag himself from the surf and crash along the shingle on the shore in his big lead-lined boots.

But when I’m on vacation and paying for a view, I not only expect something to happen, I demand that something happens. Alas, all I get is storm clouds across the bay. If I’m lucky there could be a cruise ship looming on the horizon, so far away that it seems to be stationery, anchored in a sunlit spot in the middle of the ocean. 
Oh well, I guess I should be grateful to be just sitting here on the deck in peace and quiet. After all, there desperate men on distant coasts for whom the kraken has been released. My only worries are overcooking the cod and running out of booze.

photograph by me 

Waiting For Daybreak

Waiting for daybreak, I leant against a marble column to observe the golden-green Maxfield Parrish sky, although I was wearing rather more clothes than a figure in one of his paintings. I'm more twill-trousered Norman Rockwell Main Street interloper than Neo-classical sprite. No dainty pink toes dipped in a cool, calm lake for me, my heavy hobnail boots track muddy footprints all along the gleaming colonnade instead. Still, I saw this ivy-clad Greco-Roman villa advertised for rent in the Saturday Evening Post classifieds and thought "I'd like to get away from it and have some peace and quiet for a change." If only in my mind.

Someday soon, when the city skyline is crowded with luxury condominiums, a fee will be charged to watch the sunrise from a public balcony with stadium seating. There will be a gift shop with posters of parting clouds for sale, and an onsite cafe called The Crack O' Dawn. Perhaps they will even provide sightseeing tours of the dewdrops from a fleet of air-conditioned buses. Before too long, of course, even this state-sponsored sunrise will be obscured by mountains of uncollected plastic garbage.

Daybreak: to be woken with a whispered word of timeless truth, a brief aubade already fading into an indistinct echo as your eyes open, then completely forgotten amid the clamor of the daily grind. But I have a feeling morning's timeless truth is not so ineffably profound, after all. Merely a reminder to fetch a mop and bucket to wipe away those muddy footprints you left behind last night. They only lead back to the way you came in, not the direction you want to go. There is still time to exchange your dark suit and overcoat for a skimpy incandescent toga, although you might want to lose a little weight first.

Honeycombs

A little rough around the edges by August but this zinnia can still attract the bees. Well, this particular bee at least. To be honest, I haven't seen any other bees buzzing around its dehydrated petals, waiting for their chance to scrape out whatever dregs of pollen they can find.

Perhaps, then, the bee has also seen better days? I've certainly seen fatter and fuzzier specimens in the garden, paying court to fresher flowers. So they make a suitable pair, I guess, the wilting zinnia and the ragged bee. There is someone for everyone, after all. Behold, you can see this timeless truth in the natural world should you care to look.

I'm reminded of the stooping, elderly Casanova and the plump jolie laide who runs my neighborhood coffee shop. Rather rundown and grubby, it's not a popular cafe. Most locals choose to walk to a gleaming Starbucks farther down the street. I only patronize the place when I'm in a hurry but Casanova is a regular customer. He's in there all the time, flirting with the barista of his dreams, chatting about how things used to be in bygone days.

"My usual, please, beautiful," he says when ordering. It's a love potion of hot coffee with milk and two sugars that she starts concocting the second she sees him walk through the door. "The nectar of the Gods," he says, taking his first sip. 

What Gods? I wonder. Ancient, forgotten Gods, no doubt. Chthonic spirits of the Earth who still dwell in the tree roots, the undergrowth, the soil, the fungi, and even the compost of decaying flowers and grass clippings where dead bees take their rest until all is recycled by Mother Nature.

Humble Brag

My bookcases are crammed with two kinds of books: the kinds of books I like to read and the kinds of books I think I like to read. The latter are betrayed by pristine, telltale bookmarks emerging from their non-dogeared pages, usually about a quarter of the way through, sometimes as far as half. "I'll come back to this book when I'm more in the mood for this kind of thing," I promise myself, but seldom do. Once such a book has been passed over or put to one side, it is never brought to mind again. "The mood," whatever that might be in literary terms, does not return.

Perhaps it's a seasonal thing. A certain book might convey a wintry feel and it happens to be August. Another book might seem redolent of heavy rains and thunder clouds but there's been nothing but bright sunshine for weeks. For example, I purchased a novel by Andrea Camilleri, set in the heat of Sicily, that I thought might provide a little Mediterranean escape for me in mid-December. I couldn't get past the first sun-baked, sweat-soaked chapter and stuck my freezing nose in a history of Stalingrad instead.

Many of the neglected books are nineteenth century novels; books I not only think I like to read but also think I *should* read. That unopened copy of The Mill On The Floss has been sitting forlorn in my bookcase for as long as that unopened package of dental floss has been abandoned in my medicine cabinet. I need to get around to both of them one of these days. I'm fortunate there is no 'sell-by-date' for paperbacks.

Although it would interesting if unread books did begin to rot like uneaten food left in the back of the fridge. "Does anyone want this old copy of Moby Dick that's been in the bookcase since last February?" You could demand of your family members. "It's starting to smell bad and there's a layer of green mold all over chapters five through thirty-seven. Plus, I need to make room for this fresh translation of Proust that Amazon just delivered."

Ultimately, of course, the phrase "books I think I like to read" is merely a less self-deprecating version of "I'm not as smart as I want to think I am."  Fortunately, it contains the qualifying inference that, although I don't read those particular weighty tomes, I'm still not as stupid as most other people because I do actually read some tomes, even if my choices are not the weightiest available. I'm led to understand that this is what is known as a humble brag in modern Internet parlance.

Mysterious Ways

The local vicar was famous when I was a boy; not for the quality of his sermons, alas, but for keeping the numerous soccer balls accidentally kicked into his vicarage garden. The heart-rending question "May we have our ball back, please?" that desperate plea of needy children the world over, was always met by this particular representative of God with a curt refusal. A distressing state of affairs that seemed, at least to my nine-year-old mind, to be not only the actions of an unconscionable killjoy but also demonstrably unChristian.

So when my own soccer ball, a souvenir of the 1974 World Cup, was confiscated in this manner, I duly denounced the vicar in Sunday School by invoking the eighth commandment and the Golden Rule, for which "impertinence" I was sent to sit by myself in the last row of pews, where I secretly read the latest issue of Dr. Strange instead of whatever remedial version of the Gospels I was supposed to be studying. And that was the end of my religious education. But not of my thirst for vengeance.

Many plots were hatched, mostly involving clandestine distribution of dog crap to prominent locations around the vicarage to cause maximum inconvenience. There was even Tom Sawyer-ish talk of the vicar's ears being a target for catapult dispatched projectiles. Of course, none of these anti-social strategies were actually pursued. They remained the adolescent fantasies of cold but ultimately impotent eyes cast upon the vicarage garden, where soccer balls were lost forever, slowly deflating in a locked and bolted shed where the evil vicar imprisoned all symbols of youthful joy.

Several years after these events, I was press-ganged into playing Sir Toby Belch in my High School's production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. I'm a terrible actor and theatrical performance is never an enjoyable experience for me, especially when I'm forced to strap a pillow across my stomach to fabricate a drunkard's paunch. So I was an especially moody Sir Toby Belch, mumbling my lines and shuffling about the stage. Except for the hallowed evening I was informed the local vicar would be in attendance. And my ancient nemesis would be sitting in the front row, no less.

I'm not sure if the dozing audience noticed when, striding determinedly into the spotlight, I declaimed as loudly as possible: "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale and soccer balls?" But I like to think the vicar heard me and wriggled guiltily in his seat. Sure, my short Shakespearian paraphrase was no dog crap pellet in the back of the episcopal head, but for me it was closure. After all, some are born petty, some achieve pettiness, and I had had pettiness thrust upon me.

A Brief Comedy of Manners

Two words I often confuse are "gregarious" and "egregious." Possibly, being naturally reserved, I subconsciously believe these similar sounding words also ultimately mean the same thing: people cannot be gregarious without being egregiously gregarious. And it gets worse if they are gratuitously egregiously gregarious when greeting others. That level of gregarious egregiousness is regrettable, not to say grotesque. No doubt egregiously gregarious greeters have reservations regarding my reserve, my reverse egregious gregariousness as it were. Will we ever find common ground?

Ablutions In Time

One hot summer long ago, after waking late with a post-party heavy head, I found it necessary to eschew showering in order to arrive at work on time. To compensate for this shameful neglect of personal hygiene, I applied such an excess of roll-on deodorant to my underarms that the spindly hairs hanging there clumped together, taking on the semblance of impressive stalactites suspended from the caverns of my armpits. I also enveloped the bathroom and myself in a blizzard of talcum powder, then slathered inexpensive aftershave around my neck and across my wrists. Despite my emergency estrangement from soap and water, I was determined not to stink. At least, not of young man smells anyway.

The industrial-strength mentholated talc, minty fresh deodorant, oil slicks of Old Spice, and the residual essence of too much booze seeping from my pores combined to turn me into a sort of walking mojito scented candle, burning at both ends. "Did they shampoo the carpet last night?" someone asked as I passed by their desk. To make matters worse, I'd decided to sprinkle a lot of talc into my shoes as well, so little chalky clouds of powder puffed out of the sides of my penny loafers with each step, as if I was wearing a pair of steam engine funnels instead of socks. The lesson I learned that day was this: bosses don't really care if you're behind schedule provided they don't require breathing apparatus in your presence. 

Nowadays, of course, I work from home and could postpone showering indefinitely. But the experience described above scarred me for life, so standing beneath a cascade of hot water has become an essential stage in my morning transformation from groggy biped larva into fully-fledged human being. I simply cannot function without washing away the cocoon of sleep with a steady stream of powerful detergents. I don't know how I would cope without the convenience of modern plumbing. I certainly wouldn't survive in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic America where provision of public utilities was cut off. Don't expect me to leave the compound at dawn to scavenge for supplies in the ruins of civilization if I reek of my own perspiration, that's all I'm saying.

Rabid Dogmatics

An interest in politics is rather like a virulent and seemingly incurable case of rabies in humans. Observe the crazed, fang-bearing, frothing at the mouth, inchoate barking of so-called facts and opinions by those infected with politics. They are vicious beasts to be avoided at all costs.

Fortunately, political animals are easy to detect, even in the wild, since they betray themselves with car bumper stickers and badges proclaiming their own deadly nature. Placards promoting pathogens such as "Trump" and "Biden" in the windows of homes are warning signs of which the cautious visitor should take heed. Do not enter and stumble into the jaws of insanity. God knows what disorientating, brain-devouring, savage dangers lurk within. 

But, alas, evasive action becomes more difficult with every passing year. The rabid dogs have taken over the kennel and relentlessly chase the rest of us around the neighborhood. It's only a matter of time before you are stricken with Blue Death or Red Death, probably sometime in November when the political animals are in heat.

Is there an antidote? The rabid fangs of the dogmatics are sunk so deep into our skulls that it seems unlikely. All we can do is desperately try to think for ourselves as the deadly virus seeps into our systems. Nurturing a sense of gallows humor is a good place to start, although apparently supplies are already running very, very low.