American Fez

Buddha Call

So. It's way past midnight and I'm dozing in bed, just about to board the ferry into slumberland, when the phone rings. Hello, I say, who is it? And the voice on the other end goes: "As the bee collects nectar and fragrance, so let the sage dwell on earth and discover the path of wisdom."  ... Oh great, I thought, just what I really didn't need right now. Another late night Buddha call.
No you can't come over and sit cross-legged under the lotus tree in my living room, I told the Buddha, no matter how much enlightenment you claim you're bringing with you. Look what happened last time. You promised me a glimpse of Nirvana but all I got was a load of saffron seed clogging up the toilet.
And don't think you're going to get around me with all that super cheesy "If I said you had a beautiful bodhisattva would you hold it against me" phoney baloney that you think is so cool, either.
I know your sort. You've got a few good lines but in the end they only add up to one lousy Tripitaka and I'm not buying.... What? What's that? If I don't let you come over you're going to make sure I get reincarnated as a worm? Well listen here, pal, there's only one worm around here and it's a big fat one and it's you!

Do Androids Drink Oil?

This wonderful production still of Brigitte Helm and crew from the great film Metropolis reminded me that childhood games of Space War were always enhanced by pretending that my mother's hair dryer was a laser gun. The advantage of a hair dryer laser gun, of course, was that it made such a tremendous noise. But, on the other hand, you would have to unplug it if you wanted to boldly go where no small boys had ever gone before.

Can you imagine how much more peaceful the world would be if weapons had to be unplugged before soldiers marched off on their bloody campaigns of death and terror, and then plugged in again once they had reached the field of combat? As far as I know there would not have been enough electricity on the Somme to power all that heavy artillery. Well, there certainly wouldn't have been very many outlets or extension cords, that's for sure.
Brigitte Helm moved to Switzerland when Hitler took control of the German studios. She never made another film, which is a shame, because I believe she would have stolen the show as Dale Arden in Flash Gordon.

Compared with today's violently overstuffed futuristic films, doesn't science fiction seem so much more appealing when ithe genre was dressed in Art Deco costumes, sets and props? Bring back the Hair Dryer! Bring back imagination!

Eyewitness Report

My camera apparently requires urgent mechanical attention. Or perhaps I should simply purchase a more modern model. At any rate, below you will discover a photograph I took of the ocean from a vantage point high on the windswept cliffs overlooking Blood Axe Cove at Madman's Point on the Isle of Dangerous. It was here that the good ship Greasy Streak sank with all hands in that stormy winter of 1872. Beady-eyed local folk will tell you that the sinister, seaweed-clad specter of Captain Ahab O'Looney still haunts the rain-lashed rocks on especially windy nights. I saw him once. His shadowy form appeared through the gloom looking not unlike a small boy flying a kite. So I gave him a good, hard kick. Any psychic who claims that ghosts are not made of solid matter is a charlatan and a liar.

Anyway, when I was taking this picture I swear that there was much more happening upon the horizon than what the camera caught. My naked eye could plainly see a giant squid attacking a three-masted pirate ship, while just to the left of the doomed vessel a school of mermaids were practicing their siren songs and one of the Navy's nuclear submarines snooped around in the shallows searching for evidence of a secret Russian undersea spy station. What a picture, I thought! But of course, when I examined the exposed frame none of these interesting subjects were visible. You know, I think those purists who preach that digital cameras are not as good as the old instamatic film kind are absolutely correct. They aren't.
Whatever. If any reader who has suffered similar pictoral disappointments would wish to peruse my old photo albums adorned with fading snapshots of dinosaurs, aliens, bigfeet and other assorted naturalistic vacation scenes, please feel free to contact me. I can be reached at the Royal Society for the Preservation of Balderdash, 345 Madame Blavatsky Court, Wessex, United Thingdom.

(It's actually a picture of the nice sea at Martha's Vineyard, where I spent Thanksgiving)

If You Have To Go

It says much about contemporary attitudes towards hygiene that those horribly ubiquitous germ-ridden rows of portable plastic toilet cabins - always so disturbingly evident at public events - are almost never equipped with portable basins in which the patron may wash his hands. Who can say that he has not stood in such a miserable cube staring into its murky, lumpy chemical depths and not felt the icy grip of Despair clutching at his vitals? If cleanliness is truly next to Godliness, then all of these disgusting latrine contraptions were surely kicked out of Heaven into the blackest pits of Hell along with Lucifer and all his cheap toilet tissue toting minions all those many years ago. Their appearance on Earth must undoubtedly herald the beginning of The End Times, even if nothing else does.

Meanwhile, while waiting in line recently, I was forced to overhear a large group of earnestly bearded young men equating the current situation in Iraq with the old situation in Vietnam. So I suppose we shall have to start calling this ancient desert country just plain old 'Raq from now on.

Cold, Frankenstein and Raymond Burr

Christmas is back and department stores are already full of that manic, chintzy music that is so redolent of this season of giving. So it is rather a shame that the department stores are not also full of anything anyone would actually want to buy. I wandered through Macy's yesterday feeling not unlike an especially depressed Hindu at some Islamic Bazaar.

Christmas gifts are given, of course, in memory of the Three Wise Men who brought a trio of expensive parcels to the lowly cattle shed all those years ago. Today they would be called the Three Gullible Men. After all, besides being ripped off for the price of airfare to Bethlehem, even your jar of Myrrh is probably going to be overpriced with a picture of Paris Hilton stamped on the front of it ... which brings me to the one question that has always puzzled me about the nativity story: What exactly did the holy family do with all that gold they received?

New England Nudists

Hardcore New England nudists often, on closer inspection, actually turn out to be fairweather nudists. You will find very few nudists playing nude volleyball on the beach in the middle of November, that's for sure ... which brings me neatly to my Thanksgiving holiday plans.
Tonight we depart for Martha's Vineyard, staying about a balled-up underpants throw away from the nude beach at Gay Head. And since we are going to be in such close proximity to all these nudists, I told the youngsters that they could make some extra pocket money by selling hot, homemade apple cider to the naked people they came across shivering on the sands. After all, if I spent the whole day with no clothes on with my dangly bits getting beaten red raw by the harsh Atlantic winds, then I'd be more than happy to pay $8.50 for a warm drink in a plastic cup. And besides, beggars can't be choosers. Especially nude ones.
It probably won't be pretty, I told the kids, but it will be easy money. Like taking candy from a baby. Except, of course, that these particular babys won't be wearing any diapers. In fact, kids, they won't be wearing anything at all. But life is like that. Sometimes you have to do some unpleasant things to earn an honest crust in this world. But mostly when there are ugly naked people in it cavorting around outside the house who are prepared to get ripped-off for the price of a hot, homemade apple cider in a plastic cup.
We don't care, they replied. We want to buy brand new iPods with all the cash will rake in off those wrinkly bare-bummed suckers!
Very well, I said. That's the spirit. Start mashing those apples then. We leave with the tide.
So. Imagine my surprise, and the grave disappointment on the faces of the youngsters, when I'm informed that the nudists don't usually patronize the beach during the winter months, and that, like the swallow, they only return in the summer. Fairweather nudists! I don't know. It seems to me that either you're a nudists or you're not; and if you are, then you ought be out on the nude beach no matter what the weather. Frankly, I have no time for the nudism of dilettantes, and neither do those kids whose holiday has now been ruined by such fickle flaunters. I hope they are ashamed of themselves.

If The Butler Did It

Plans to release a controversial book by celebrity manservant Jeeves have been scrapped by the book's publisher. The book, "Might I Hasten To Suggest, Sir, That You Dispose Of Your Aunt Agatha In The Following Manner" has drawn a great deal of criticism from media outlets such 'Milady's Boudoir' and 'Newt Fancier's Weekly.'   When reached for comment, a Jeeves spokesgentleman said "I say. Dash it all. What did that old Macbeth chappie say about dagger handles pointing at hands and all that?"

... You know, even such an absurd notion as even the merest hint of something as ghastly as a death occurring within the pages of a P.G. Wodehouse novel pale in comparison to the idea of O. J Simpson's preposterously tasteless and ghoulish book about how he would have committed those famous murders. Surely this is currently the lowest of an apparently bottomless series of low points in the emotional plague-ridden world of celebrity culture.

The Dowry of Peace

Perhaps George W. "Burning" Bush should marry off his daughters to Bin Laden, thereby forming a grand alliance with Osama instead of persisting with this senseless course of tit-for-tat bombing and death. I am certain that the Al Queda kingpin would be very keen indeed to add the little Texan vixens to his desert harem. In ages past international disputes were always settled by intermarriages between the most illustrious sons and daughters of the feuding nations. For example, the British monarchy is currently composed of a Greco-German mogrelization of noble DNA; the Hapsburgs were an Austro-Hungarian goulash of blood, eggs and sperm; and the Italian royal family are actually descended from the original chairman of Savoy Hotels Group PLC.
Anyway, if the President and his Secretary of Defence decide to follow my sage marital advice, eminent celebrities such as Condoleeza "Wild" Rice will be able to deliver wonderful public statements like "We're all going to round to the Bush-Laden's tent for Thanksgiving dinner."

Art Now (And Then)

"Classical Realism" seems to be the current buzz technique of the conventional art world. Personally I fail to see what is classical about the style. Possibly something to do with the way in which light strikes the subject and the application of paint? Who knows. Surely realism is realism, classical or not, and there's an end to it. Anyway, as far as I can tell, all the examples of so-called Classical Realism that I have seen so far all display the one quality absolutely essential for defining whether or not a work of art is fit for exhibition in a gallery: the eyes follow you around the room in a creepy way.
(In the case of abstract art where no eyes are involved at all, a positive evaluation can only be made if Charles Saatchi's bank balance follows you around the room in a creepy way)
But why should the pompous viewer feel the need to judge the quality of a painting, anyway? It seems extremely unfair on the painting. Especially if the painting isn't very good through no fault of its own because the artist wasn't very talented. Perhaps paintings should be placed on monorails moving around the galleries at high speed so that the viewer has to follow the eyes of the art work instead? Maybe that would even things up a bit.
I don't know. As the distinguished art critic Stilton Creamer once remarked, "I have seen enough, and the best thing I have seen by far is the door marked Exit."

Strange Bird

The sun bows low, whispers goodnight, and then slips quietly away as the sky darkens to a shade of burnt toast half-heartedly buttered by a cold, hard slab of moon. Rusty gates creak and close. Evening breezes vault over the wall and a brown leaf scuttles across the cobbles like a frightened crab. A match is struck. Some freakishly scented example of the chandler's art flicker to life in a window of the basement where she lives, fittingly, in the place where they used to store coal years ago. I wonder if she still has that inscribed copy of 'The Dot And The Line' that I gave her back in nineteen-ninety whenever it was.

Go Fish

Hugo is my pet goldfish: sleek, cosmopolitan, debonair, yet a little bit gloomy and down-at-the-mouth too. So each week I flood his gleaming bowl with bottled water from a different country: Evian, Fiji, Acqua Minerale, Monadnock, Volvic and so on. It's like a little vacation for him, traveling solo around the spring waters of the world. I'm thinking of pouring some sparkling water in there one day, so he can experience that Mexican fiesta thrill.

Blue-Grisaille

Staring at the city through atmospheric mist from the so-called "Salt and Pepper Bridge," I could just make out the Citgo sign blinking like a beacon to a solitary duck boat on the Charles. To be a tourist in this weather, I thought, must take some degree of desperation and perseverance. What could anyone possibly sight see in such conditions except souvenirs of rain and fog? Rather like wandering around a dreary art gallery hung with monochromatic watercolors only.

Moment later, heralded by a single flash of lightning, an orange Old Towne trolley came creaking along transporting a trio of sour-faced old women from gloomy Cambridge to somber Boston. Considering the stormy weather, they might have been the Three Witches from Macbeth hunting down the soon-to-be Thane of the Cawdor. Fortunately they didn't stop for me.

American Kafkaesque

Kafka: The Complete Nursery Rhymes

Well, when I say "complete" I mean the ones I have managed to complete

Kafka, Kafka famous hereafter 
How does your literature grow 
With parables of the law and hunger artists 
And Josef Ks all in a row 

Franz, Franz, the Kafka's son
Wrote a letter to his Father
And away did run
The letter was read
When Franz was dead
And Franz's writings went to everybody's head.

Old Franz Kafka wrote a book
Ee aye ee aye O
And in this book he had a Trial
Ee aye ee aye O
With a "What am I accused of?" here.
And a "What am I accused of?" there.
Here a "What am I accused of?"
There a "What am I accused of?"
Everywhere a "What am I accused of?"
Old Franz Kafka wrote a book
Ee aye ee aye O

Hey diddle diddle The Trial and the Castle
Franz Kafka wanted to burn all his books
Which would have happened if it wasn't for Max Brod,
The Kafka family, and someone called Fuchs.

Political FAQ

Q: What is Kongress?

A: Kongress is when all the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate gather in Washington DC and transform themselves into an enormous hairy ape-like being.
Left to his own unevolved devices, Mighty Kongress will always kidnap the US Constitution, wipe his mucky nose on the document, and clamber to the top of the Capitol building with it, snarling and beating his chest with his oafish fists. Every so often Kongress will climb back down again to say that he is sorry for all the trouble he has caused. But then he does it all over again, of course.

Q: What is Uncle Spam?

A: Uncle Spam is all those unwanted reminders to vote that the Government mails out.

Backstage News

Aficionados of amateur theater will be overjoyed to hear that Donald "Duck" Rumsfeld has finally quit the White House Players. Did he jump or was he pushed or did the stuffing fall out of his codpiece? We shall probably never know. But all lovers of the dramatic arts can take comfort from the fact that his ungainly figure will never again darken the stage door at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I first saw Rumsfeld creep across the boards as the clown Stoogio in a rather indifferent performance of William Speechwriter's "You'll Like It This Way Because I Said So." His whiny, nasally delivery of the lines only underscoring the depressing fact that this was one of the Political Bard's more pathetic attempts at writing the so-called "stirring stuff."
Lately Rumsfeld had become a distant and isolated presence in the wings. Mocked by stagehands and fellow thespians, he was reduced to reciting absurdist Samuel Beckettesque monologues while propped up behind an old lectern. Krapp's Last Tape? No thanks. I've already heard it.

The Republican Administration is currently appearing as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard at the Capitol Theater, Washington DC.

Your Civic Responsibility

So. It is Chooseday in America, which means ingress into congress for several insincere and slimy smiles with politicians attached to them and ignominious egress for others.
Your election selection is extremely important, because if you don't vote then all those wealthy candidates will have wasted all those millions of campaign dollars they spent on their negative advertising. And we wouldn't want that to happen.
Oh what a fabulous Econocracy we celebrate this day!
And, of course, don't forget to vote "No" on Question Yes and also to vote "Why" on Question Who.
You may then answer four questions from section eight, five questions from section two,  or write an essay on the theme of "George Washington Is Rolling In His Grave." Apply to the speaker of the house if you require more paper.

First Book of Thermodynamics

Convections of heat sing through the pipes like a heavenly choir in full voice. Radiators breathe and screech, tuning up, as if about to combust into song in harmony with the rest of the plumbing.  Hallelujah! The new furnace is born today.
(But, of course, it just so happens that the weather is gnostically warmer than usual at this time of year, and consequently I can't appreciate the heat's grace and benevolence yet)

All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Seeking fresh reading matter I embarked upon a foraging expedition to my local bookstore. The going was tough, but fortunately I carried an extra sharp machete with which I could hack a path through the dense thickets of unsold Rush Limbaugh paperbacks, lesbian erotica and sporting memoirs. Often were the times when I lost my way, disorientated by the unnatural colors and primitive lettering of the covers in the romance novels section. Luckily the store stocks a fine selection of atlases and maps otherwise I'd probably still be trapped there now, starving to death amid the endless shelves of cookery books. At one point I took a shortcut across the Self Help aisle, only to find my progress impeded by the elephantine posterior of what, as far as I could discover from her choice of literature and the evidence of my own eyes, was a triple-chinned young woman plagued by a penchant for chronic over-eating. I tried to double back, only to realize that my own rear was now blocked by a mismatched couple seeking solace and guidance from the Encyclopedia of Sexual Health ... I tell you,  the voyage of the Argonauts was a pleasure cruise compared to five minutes in Borders Books.

Vlad the Imbiber

After consulting the ancient and sacred works of that mysterious Byzantine Monk named Frater Solomondias the Wise, after staring in the mirror for hours upon end, and after several trips to the bathroom, I think I can confidently confide that I am suffering from the disease of kings and Dracula. I am talking about, of course, the dread porphyria.

The most significant symptom of porphyria is, as you probably know, what the elders of olden times euphemistically used to call "passing purple water"  .... Well, okay, perhaps a colorimetry expert might not describe my urine as being exactly purple - in fact it's pretty much only a slightly darker shade of the normal color, I admit - but I'm absolutely certain that subtle hints of mauve can be seen in the stream from time to time: so obviously the evil porphyria has me and my "water" in its vampiric grip.

Another feature of the cursed porphyric curse is that the victim can never walk abroad during the hours of daylight. Consequently, I remained firmly fixed to my bed like a limpet to a rock until dusk. Cynical Lucy claimed that such anemic inertia was not a symptom of the porphyria at all, but merely a result tap dancing on the tiles last night with the Boston Hellfire Club until 4am.

I don't know about that. All I know is that I am stricken with the disease of kings and Dracula. Having said that, there is one important point to make about my medical condition that any girls reading this should really take notice of: most authorities conclude that kings and Dracula are much, much sexier personalities than average mortals.

I am currently available between the hours of sunset and sunrise.

Cabbages and Things

There is a genre of male who smugly proclaims that he enjoys cooking and, indeed, is actually good at it. I am not part of this dubious subset of masculinity. I am not the sort of overweight woofter who twirls a soup ladle with one hand and the ends of his waxed mustache with the other while wearing a ludicrous paper hat. No sir. Therefore my cupboard is much, much barer than Old Mother Hubbard's; I make that old dog-owner look like a gluttonous hoarder. Nevertheless, sometimes I run out of chocolate covered almonds, and so must venture forth upon brief excursions to my local supermarket, shoulder barging my way through the revolving doors before carefully removing a plastic shopping basket from precarious, top-heavy towers of plastic shopping baskets as nimbly as if I were the champion of a Jenga competition (which, incidentally, I happen to be). Anyway, such was the case last night.
For some reason, not content with assaulting the eyes of their customers with yellowy-green fluorescent lighting, the supermarket management have decided that our ears should also be assailed with the ironically named 'easy listening' music.
There is one song in particular, concerning a certain confabulation of angels who, on the day that the vocalist's inamorata was born, apparently sprinkled her foetus with the magical features of a "dream-come-true." Frankly, I always find this song especially adds insult to injury because judging by the physiognomical appearance of my fellow shoppers, these interfering angels created far more absolute cold-sweat awakening nightmares than they did dreams-come-true.

Yin Yang People

Scattered across the Public Gardens in the early morning, silently folding and unfolding their limbs as if rehearsing sequences for some stop-motion animated film, the Tai Chi masters practice their art. As you might expect, they are mostly elderly Asian men, twirling their arms and curling their legs with supreme precision, oblivious to the unconcious bums bundled up on the benches around them; the graceful and the graceless; the quick and the dead; Yin and Yang people, I suppose.
And what of me? I was merely a somnabulant on his way to work.