American Fez

Feature Presentation

'The Tired Man' by Graham Greene (no relation)

I never knew small, local commerce before globalization with its hard work, long hours and elevator music. Corporations suited me better.

I really got to know it in the period of the Internet. We'd sell anything if people wanted it enough, even if they didn't have the money to pay. Of course a situation like that does tempt Etsy entrepreneurs, but, well, you know, they can't stay the course like a professional.

Now local commerce is divided into four shopping malls, you know, each occupied by a power: the Walmart, the Target, the Costco and the Home Depot. But most of the business is serviced Online these days.

Oh, I was going to tell you, wait, I was going to tell you about Jimmy Crackcorn, an American. Came here to visit a friend of his. The name was Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed. Now Crackcorn was broke and Appleseed had offered him, some sort, I don't know, some sort of job ......

Merlin and the Banana Skin

Listening to archaeologists and historians, or even those shaggy-haired authors of Celtic mythopoetics, drone on and on about the motivation for building ancient temples and the meaning of so-called sacred sites, anyone might conclude that Neolithic peoples possessed absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever; that their fearful lives were entirely consumed worshipping nature Gods and ritual appeasement of the elements, taking no respite from the rigors of surviving in an unlit and treacherous world by, say, being willfully eccentric and silly every so often. 

It's quite possible (in fact, quite likely, if you ask me) that clay statuettes of bulbous women with pendulous breasts were actually objects of lubricious comedy rather than the perennial fertility goddesses experts claim. Similarly, perhaps the massive sarsens of Stonehenge and other circles mark the boundary of primitive circuses, and not the confines of arenas for performing Heliocentric religious ceremonies. What if the well-preserved bog-men of Ireland and Scandinavia simply fell into their marshy tombs because they were drunk, instead of being pushed in by po-faced priests for some weird sacrificial, National Geographic reason? 

A Night at the Hospital

If, as C. S. Lewis claims, we are souls that have bodies, then I have every reason to be disappointed with the fleshy carriage selected to transport me through life. Hairy in all the wrong places yet fragile and somewhat effete, prone to occassional collapse and the frequent production of noxious gases, pale and obviously wan: oh what a Ford Edsel of a body I've been given. But at least it still goes, dragging me from A to B when required, however so stop-start the organ engines run. 

 

Seasons Greetings

At this jovial, neighborly time of year, I still greet others with "Merry Christmas" rather than the more socially acceptable "Happy Holidays."

Such behavior has nothing to do with stubborn traditionalism. I just believe merriness to be easier for my fellows to attain than happiness. After all, one can enter a state of merriment, if only temporarily, by the simple act of drinking several pints of rum-enriched egg nog.

Happiness, however, as ever, is far more elusive. So why bother wishing someone "Happy Holidays" when it is extremely improbable they will experience such unmitigated rapture during the festive period? The sentiment rings a trifle hollow, don't you think?

"Merry Christmas," on the other hand, is both exact saluation and hedonistic authorisation: get drunk on December 25th, it exclaims, because you can and no-one should either mind or care.