American Fez

The Tyranny of Aches and Pains

In late March 1757, in Paris, the failed regicide Robert-François Damiens was executed by the bloodthirsty method of drawing and quartering. His grisly death is recounted in the memoirs of Casanova: "I was several times obliged to turn away my face and to stop my ears as I heard his piercing shrieks, half of his body having been torn from him."
Poor old Damiens and his sufferings always leap to mind whenever I am lectured about stretching every morning. After all, is straining to touch your toes any less painful than having your arms and legs ripped off by four shire horses harnessed to each limb, meanwhile, with surgical precision, your torso is being tweaked with red hot pincers and razor sharp daggers? Beneficial exercise is often described with the torturous euphemism "feeling the burn" for good reason, let's not forget. Indeed, I think Casanova would be equally appalled by my grimaces and screams of agonies in the gym as he was by witnessing Damiens' ordeal. At least Damiens wasn't forced to wear polyester gym shorts and a sweaty tank top, a small mercy for which he should have been most grateful.
Supposedly, as we get older, daily stretching regimens improve the flexibility in our bones and joints, thereby reducing the risk of incurring activity-based injuries: a cracked tibia, perchance, from tripping over a partner's foot while waltzing to the golden sounds of yesteryear; or maybe just a pulled muscle from trying to reach that bottle of aspirin which some shopkeeping idiot stores on the top shelf in his pharmacy aisle. I myself often fall victim to a pinched nerve in my neck: the unhappy consequence of not sitting up properly while typing blog posts in bed. Ouch. There it goes again.
Yet even the sorts of amateur athletes who relentlessly stretch their spandex and fleece clad bodies throughout the day, those lunch break joggers and their kind, reek of powerful analgesic ointments and Cortizone cream. You have to wonder why they bother with the cult of stretching since it obviously doesn't diminish their discomfort. If you ask me, ill-considered stretching beforehand probably contributes a not inconsiderable amount of wince-worthy extra ache to their exercise-propagated pains. Stretching is another modern myth, in other words, no less preposterous than the old wives' tale that you should starve a fever and feed a cold. Following that wretched advice only results in hungry people drenched with sweat and fat folk who sneeze and cough a great deal.
The torn rotator cuff, the inflamed knee, the outraged elbow and the dislocated hip are simply afflictions we must bear with as much fortitude and dignity as we can muster, which unfortunately turns out to be very little in my case.
I wouldn't denounce myself as a baby, exactly, but my response to joint and muscle pain certainly doesn't wear long trousers or wipe its own chin and nose; it is, perhaps, best described as the tantrum of a spoiled brat: spoiled because I've rarely experienced much corporal distress until my recent heart problems; I had no permanent bruises, disfigurements or scars before. These days I often feel like a Vitruvian man who's been scrunched up into a ball of waste paper. It's a short road from muscle ache to bellyache, which is probably why I go on about my bypass so incessantly.
Meanwhile, the only statement Damiens made on the morning of his execution was a taciturn verdict that "The day will be tough." Very stoic of him, I'm sure, but he wouldn't have been an especially good blogger with grandiose reticence like that, however impressive it may appear in history books.

Adam 2

Despite the best efforts of certain scientists and philosophers over the years to develop a breed of superior humanoids, the most common human hybrid at large in the world today is the human-baboon. There seem to be more and more of them every year, loping around the city streets in their basketball shorts and misshapen sneakers. This is why, together with the parlour game Exquisite Corpse, certain exotic aspects of pre-modern era West Indian cuisine, and playing with my extensive collection of Mr Potato Head dolls, the controversial field of Bioethics as always held a great deal of fascination for me. In fact, I think I would have done quite well if I'd chosen the Transhumanist career path in college; hanging around in the lab in my white coat, rolling DNA around in my palm like a ball of Silly Putty; throwing it up to the ceiling to see how long it would stick there. That's a job for life.
But Bioethics isn't always as simple as meeting with your colleagues over coffee to discuss growing a row of human fingers next to the toe patch. As the name implies, practicing this branch of biology inevitably engenders many ethical if impertinent questions from unscientific sections of the community; from those pious souls who still believe in God's creation, for example, and from concerned parents who don't want their steam-punk child getting silicon Devil horns implanted in his skull when he joins an alternative rock band.
But most of us are moral relativists, content to merely cross the street whenever we see some misbegotten lovechild of freakdom and cosmetic surgery walking towards us, secure in the knowledge that there is either a comic book convention around the corner or a rock concert up the road, rather than the profanity made flesh that the appearance of such a creature might have suggested in previous centuries.
In my most idle moments, which occur about eight or nine times a day, I often wonder whether my cardiac bypass counts as Transhuman engineering. It was a rather dramatic restructuring of the natural order, after all. Not that I expect to find myself pursued by angry villagers waving flaming torches anytime soon, of course. My operation was certainly no feat of Promethean medical genius to rival Frankenstein's, just a low-level starter kit operation suitable for Igor or the Baron's nephew. But still, my internal organs were altered by radical scientific intervention, however mundane that intervention may seem when compared to splitting a transgressive artist's tongue into a forked and serpentine fashion accessory.

Just Desserts

According to gastronomic legend, Winston Churchill once rejected a proffered dessert with the stern rebuke "Take it away. This pudding has no theme." An unnecessarily irascible judgment, perhaps, on what was probably an inoffensive blancmange or sherry trifle. The great man's moods, after all, were famously unpredictable. Yet I can readily sympathize with Churchill's gruff response because I also fall into a slough of despond when confronted by themeless puddings.
Indeed, my prejudice against such culinary crimes perhaps runs even deeper, since I will reject any pudding that does not exhibit a single, unified theme based on a series of leitmotifs evident in the preceding soup, salad and fish. In other words, my pudding must bind all courses of the entire meal together as a fully realized concept, rather like Wagner's Götterdämmerung concludes and completes his epic Ring of the Nibelung cycle, or else I will fling my spoon to the furthest recesses of the dining hall and storm away from the table, flapping my napkin violently in the astonished faces of any nearby waiters.
Wagner's ultimate theme, of course, was the death of the ancient heroes and Gods of the Northern people. A noble if frequently misunderstood subject, I'm sure you will agree. But the unifying theme I look for in my puddings, in fact the only theme that I consider acceptable, is even more momentous and Nietzchean than the destruction of Valhalla: it is the Elimination of Trans and Saturated Fats.
Admittedly, this is an almost impossible undertaking, at least in the realm of conventional puddings; a Herculean feat of sweetmeat preparation, if I may borrow allusions from southern European mythology, that makes Theseus' battle with the Minotaur seem nothing but an exchange of playful slaps. Any pudding, for example, whose ingredients include milk, eggs or butter is absolutely verboten; a dietary untouchable; an Ishmael made out of cholesterol and calories. Restaurant cake trays have become my equivalent of leper colonies in Calcutta, and there is no Mother Theresa in the kitchen.
So, on the whole, this leaves me with an unappetizing choice between the plate of sliced, seasonal fruit or a handful of walnuts. At least both selections have a strong and easily recognizable theme.
Alas, history does not record the exact nature of the themelessness that Churchill found objectionable in his pudding. Perhaps its components did not conform to his strict idea of puddings historically consumed by the English speaking peoples? More likely, as I suggested earlier, it was a simple blancmange that some whimsical chef had unwisely augmented with elements of crème brûlée; or maybe an experimental form of trifle, foolishly flavored with cointreau instead of sherry. But we shall never know, and nobody with an ounce of common sense and a healthy constitution should ever really care.

Into the Mystic

My arthritic aunt Herbertha always gives me a gift certificate for clairvoyant services at Christmas: a Romanian gypsy storefront operation, usually, but sometimes a Priestess of Isis in a proper temple if she's feeling especially benevolent. This year, the economy being what it is, the gift certificate was from Studio Madame Ceaucescu, the place with a neon moon sign in the window above the closed Chinese restaurant in Gormenghast Street.
"Clairvoyant gift certificates are much more fun than one of those boring Amazon things," my aunt said, as I opened the envelope and forced another smile of gratitude. Perhaps, although they are also far less useful, if you ask me. My confidence in gypsy fortune tellers was completely eviscerated by Madame Svevo's miserable failure to predict my hospitalization for bypass surgery the previous February: "You may experience some slight browning of your soul in early June" being the only vaguely pertinent remark that the old Carpathian fraud made concerning my health in 2011. She did also receive a psychic communication from a long deceased relative of mine, apparently a nineteenth-century surgeon called Aloysius Baldwin, but his channeled voice merely announced that he was with Great Aunt Ermentrude and that everyone was very happy on the other side; conversational subjects of negligible interest to me.
So it was with a weary step, guided by the neon moon with gift certificate in hand, that I climbed the stairs to Studio Madame Ceaucescu one morning last week. Her rooms smelled strongly of joss sticks, musty fabrics, body odor and ineffective blasts of lemon-scented Lysol that hung around to revel in their own failure. There was a rickety table upon which a crystal ball balanced precariously; two chairs fitted with threadbare cushions; a doorless portal to a back room that was strung with colorful beads; and a small cabinet in the corner supporting the bust of a mouse-headed deity of indeterminate gender. The only pictures were a dog-eared tourist map of Cairo haphazardly pinned to the wall, and an elaborately framed aquatint of a tiny shepherd standing amid oblong rocks, unconvincingly titled Stonehenge in the Olden Time.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting much: some mumbled nonsense about ill-omens for my non-existent business interests; a suggestion of back pain at some unspecified point in the future; a possible trip across water in the summer; you know, the usual, obvious drivel.
The appearance of Madame Ceaucescu herself only reinforced this poor impression. She was dressed like a Pre-Raphaelite vision of one of the Three Kings of Orient, most probably the king bringing the gift of myrrh, if I was forced to specify.
"You come seeking knowledge," she stated flatly in an ersatz Bela Lugosi accent, as if the upstairs of a Chinese restaurant was a perfectly normal place to find the secrets of the universe revealed.
"Yes. I come seeking knowledge," I explained. "And I can cross your palm with a gift certificate for forty dollars."
"Ah. You must be nephew of woman called Herbertha. The messengers of the stars said you would come soon. Please, take seat."
And so I sat down at the rickety table, resigned to hearing Madame Ceaucescu pretend that everything my aunt had told her about me was actually clairvoyant wisdom from the astral plane.
"The five of lozenges reversed," she exclaimed, turning over the first Tarot card. "It signifies health problems in the past. Maybe an operation on heart. Health is better now but care must still be taken."
"I had a double bypass," I confirmed wearily.
"Yes. The ten of hoops says this. And the ace of hoops next to the ten means less of the fats must be consumed in your foods every day."
It was nearly noon, and the pungent stench of Kung Pao Chicken lunch specials began seeping through the floorboards of Studio Madame Ceaucescu as she continued interpreting the cards.
"Do they say anything about who will read about this experience on my blog?" I inquired, trying hard to prevent any note of derision from creeping into my voice.
She exhaled noisily and gave me a significant glance, holding my gaze for what seemed like an eternity before flipping over the last card: The Fool, reversed.
"I knew that was going to happen." I said. "It always does."
Madame Ceaucescu nodded: "Yes. It means you should tell your aunt to just give you the cash next Christmas like everybody else does."