American Fez

Snow Globe

Huge banks of snow plowed from the road have transformed the sidewalk into an urban bobsled course; ideal conditions for a small boy who tows his toys along on a small plastic toboggan. 'We're going to the North Pole,' he tells me, as I step aside to let the tiny caravan pass by. 

Further down the street, huddled around a bus stop, commuters stamp their feet and flap their arms, either to ward off the cold or as a protest against the haphazard timetable, I'm not sure which.

One woman, wearing furry purple boots, mini-skirt and what appears to be an inflatable parka, gazes into her iPhone like a gypsy fortune-teller scrutinizing the contents of a crystal ball: 'I can see it on Sycamore,' this seeress informs the bus stop congregation. 'It's about ten minutes away.'

I assume she means the bus, but she could be talking about another storm-front for all I know.

Melmoth the Pitchman

Since Hollywood has shown zero interest in my screenplay adaptation of Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Maturin's gothic horror novel of 1820, I have decided to rework the story as a children's TV show called Melmoth the Wanderer and Friends.

Each episode begins with Melmoth scouring the world for an inflatable skeleton that he must bring to a birthday party. Unfortunately, this balloon has already been popped by a hideously deformed monk named the Pin Man, so Melmoth shows up at the party empty handed and receives no chocolate cake. 

What about Melmoth's friends, you ask. Well, that's the clever part: he hasn't got any. He's a miserable, bedraggled loner who isn't included in the other kid's games. He is told to leave the party and goes and sits by himself on a soaking wet tuft on a blasted heath. At the end of the show, a talking rabbit called Francisco hops past the blasted heath, calls Melmoth a loser, then gives him a black eye. 

Surely children of all ages will be able to relate to such a classic, heart-rending tale? My literary agent at the laundromat says it's just the sort of thing Disney execs are looking for. 

Why I Don't Play The Tuba

Madame Varycoze, she of the perpetually pained expression, only ever exhibited three responses to the musical performances of her pupils: total silence; a nostril quivering sniff of unequivocal disdain; or a grudging "is not bad" hissed from between clenched teeth.

They said you could hear a pin drop as I huffed and puffed the final notes of Claudio Angina's 'Fantasia for SolitaryTuba (bruscamente).' The pin was not the only thing to drop, either. Madame's face also fell, along with the temperature in the room and my self-confidence. 

I had practiced for several weeks beforehand: my tiny hands become claw-like from grappling with the unwieldy instrument; my face resembling that of a disgruntled whale sucking on a particularly sour shoal of plankton.

All for nought, as it turned out, since Madame turned on her heel and, without a word, stalked out of the room. A balled up piece of paper hit me on the side of the head. "That sounded like a bunch of farts" was written on it in red pen. Its authorship remains a mystery to me to this day.

The fallen pin finally settled into a crack in the floorboards. Eventually the temperature in the room returned to normalt. And at some point Madame's face probably regained its facade of icy composure. But confidence in my abilities to charm the ears of an audience with harmonic blasts on a brass instrument never recovered. Such is my reason for not playing the tuba.

Domestic Coleridge

Plagued by an apparently incurable case of idiot's whimsy, yesterday I decided to perform all my household chores as though I were creating a work of art. Perhaps, I mused foolishly, approaching my labors afresh with an enchanted and passionate eye will unclog formerly stagnant reservoirs of energy so elbow grease flows freely. Such, at any rate, was the tenor of my morning's fancy as I poured the milk of Paradise on my bowl of Honey Dew Flakes.

Whistling a merry tune while I worked, Flight of the Bumble Bee, if I recall, all the tools necessary for my varied tasks were assembled on the kitchen table. Paper towels of the purest whiteness and most formidable absorbency. An ingenious device for spraying blossom scented cleaning fluids. Toilet bowl disinfectant tinted the bluest ocean blue. A scrubbing brush that Kubla Khan would consider highly suitable for scrubbing in his royal back. A mop braided with Abyssinian hemp and a bucket that, well, a bucket that I'm sure possessed many excellent qualities not readily visible to the naked eye. Whatever. This bucket thing - let's just call it a magic pail for now - is filled with clear, crystalline water that has traveled from the springs of Mount Abora, along the sacred river Aleph and into  ...

"Have you finished cleaning the bathroom yet?" Mrs Polock called, interrupting my reverie. "That shower tile grout isn't going to bleach itself you know."

Indeed. Our chrome and ceramic Xanadu, to paraphrase Samuel Taylor, had become a savage place, as moldy and as mildewed as e'er beneath a waning light-bulb was haunted by a bather wailing for his demon loofah.

"What are you doing for Heaven's sake? You've been standing by the sink with that bucket for the last forty minutes. Why don't you just get on with it."

Following Mrs Porlock's decree, with an elephantine effort, I managed to turn the tap on. But at this point, as the sacred water began to run, inspiration finally failed me. The muse slipped out the back door while I wasn't looking, taking my magic pail with her. I don't blame the Muse. After all, how can any respectable chore-artist be expected to produce great and innovative works in such a philistine environment as the domestic home?