American Fez

Ovid's Office

"I have the Midas touch," announces Ken, nodding approvingly to himself while parading around the office. "Oh yeah!" he adds suggestively, snapping his fingers and switching his hips in some sort of macabre, mid-life crisis travesty of a disco dance move. 

Please don't touch the copying machine, I think as he passes my desk, we only got it working again last week. 

Ken has either forgotten the moral of the Midas story or, more likely, was never aware of it in the first place. Then again, perhaps he does know and just doesn't care; immediate gain being his only criterion for success and to Hell with the consequences. Such is the belief of most short-sighted businessmen, after all.

Then there's old Al in the cubicle nearest to the washroom. It's been a long time since anything old Al touched turned to gold, although even the briefest examination of his shambolic ineffectuality will dissuade the appraiser that he ever could have, even if gifted the magical assistance of Dionysus.

Old Al reminds me of a waterlogged earthworm marooned on a damp sidewalk after heavy rain, stepped on and crushed by the heedless boots of those in a hurry in get elsewhere.

It certainly explains his spinelessness; his meek acquiescence in being moved to the least attractive part of the office after all his years of service; being shunted closer and closer to the exit with every passing year.

Listen to old Al making a sales call. "Hi this Al Drone with Disintegrating Systems. I was wondering if I could interest you in ..."

You can hear the line go dead and its echoing, despairing dial tone from across the room. But failure does not deter old Al. He clicks on his next prospect's contact information and unenthusiastically recites his tedious pitch once again. A robocall has more personality than old Al's monotone perpetually mumbling nothingness into the void. 

Of course, when Ken's Midas touch of monetizing the water supply has rendered that resource undrinkable or unaffordable, and when farm produce is inedible thanks to similar economic priorities, we will probably look back on old Al's lack of productivity somewhat wistfully. 

Until then we are all wearing the donkey ears that Apollo cursed King Midas with, tone deaf to our own nagging concerns about putting the very ground we stand on up for sale.

Matinee Idle

I've long wondered why no witch burning historical reenactment societies exist.

There is the Salem Witch Museum and whatever tediously educational role-playing dramas it presents, sure. But as far as I'm aware no just-for-the-Hell-of-it recreational organizations devote their weekends to dressing up in Puritan costumes and putting lonely old women to the test.

The simple period outfits and distinctive conical headgear would not be too expensive to tailor. There are no expensive muskets or swords to buy. All you'd need is about twenty members to club together to fund the construction of a ducking stool. And that would be a one-time purchase only. 

Perhaps such a group would experience difficulties attracting women desirous of spending their Saturdays being tortured and screamed at before eventually being fed to the all-consuming flames. In that case, surely some male attendee would be glad to assume seventeenth-century female drag and submit himself to the weekend witchfinders so the show can go on? The more gnarly, wrinkled and wizened the accused looks the better if you ask me. 

Of course, these days, traditional historical reenactment societies are in decline. It's all Japanese animation and Star Wars now. Personally, I think the character of Darth Vader would be far more interesting if he and his Stormtroopers indulged in a little witch burning in their faraway galaxy every so often; and a rebel planet where life is similar to Puritan New England would be a highly entertaining addition to that movie franchise.

The Crucible meets The Empire Strikes Back. How's that for a pitch?

Healthy Mind, Etc

Lower back pain: the great leveler, literally, since I am currently as horizontal as the x-axis on a graph measuring absolute zero verticality. 

Recumbent in my bed, I am laid out like that patient etherized upon a table Eliot likened to an evening spread out against the sky.

But I don't feel very evening sky-ish. My condition is more a sort of aggressively plowed field experiencing tectonic plate tremors in the hollow near the old stone wall. It's a frigid morning and I'm concerned the farmer will be planting a painfully large crop of sciatica in my sensitive furrows.

Ouch. And ouch again.

So much for extending the metaphors of the modernist poet. I suppose I really should be scheduling extensive stretching exercises instead of paraphrasing Prufrock. After all, physical therapy is the muse of the incapacitated. That strict hexameter of my aching spine needs to become the free verse of a lissome, spasm-free torso.

Or I could just take an aspirin and stop obsessing. 

Easter Meets Wester

I once did business with a Chinese national who only knew the Kumbaya aspects of Christianity. He'd never heard of Hell or fire and brimstone. I'm not even sure he was aware that Jesus was crucified. It was all "Michael row the boat ashore" and buttered hot-crossed buns as far as he was concerned. In fact, he might have thought that chocolate eggs and cream-filled bunnies are featured in the Bible. 

Still, that's more than I know about Taoism or Buddhism. My knowledge of the great Asian religions amounts to about half an I Ching hexagram thrown into a puddle of spilled sake. In other words, I don't get the whole picture and what I do get is somewhat blurred. For me, Eastern religion is mostly exotic festivals, sandalwood incense, and dumpy idols with more limbs than is absolutely necessary. 

I've never met a right-wing Westerner who professes an Eastern faith. There must be some, obviously, but most American adherents of the Eastern way tend to hold liberal views. An interesting state of affairs because in social terms Asian religious dogma must be equally as conservative as Western religious dogma, if not more so.

What, for instance, did Confucius think of gay rights? What were the Buddha's views on abortion? I don't know. If asked, I imagine they would fix your eyes with theirs and mumble something enigmatic. The great advantage of profound inscrutability, of course, is that practitioners can always change their minds with the prevailing cultural winds by pretending that what they said was clearly not what they meant, as any truly enlightened person would surely comprehend. 

But that might just be my rather limited and cynical Western idea of serene guru Q&A, which, I must admit, was largely formed by single panel cartoons in Punch magazine wherein cross-legged and heavily bearded sages dispense snarky wisecracks instead of spiritual succor.  

Anyway, as Easter approaches, I often think of my old Chinese friend and his happy-clappy concept of Christianity. And then I ruminate on my smelly-belly notion of Eastern theology and wonder what the Taoist equivalent of a buttered hot-crossed bun is because I might enjoy it. 

Brain Weather

Brain weather is unpredictable. High pressure in the cerebellum means it's often overcast with periods of heavy rain in the morning. Some sunlight will possibly break through towards late afternoon. Then again, a dense fog might drift in without warning. And lightning can even strike every now and then. 

Alas, human faces are not equipped with built-in barometers to indicate what atmospheric conditions will be encountered when dealing with another person's mind. There are no weathervanes protruding from human skulls to let you know which way the wind is blowing in a particular individual's head. If only we had some sort of radar to track the storms brewing behind the eyes of those with whom we are forced to interact on a daily basis.

Of course, my own brain weather is fairly temperate. Mid-seventies, a few clouds here and there, but mostly bright and clear. Spring is sprung in my brain pretty much all year round. My colleague Frank, however. Well, it's tropical monsoon season in his head and he just can't cope. And Sarah at the desk just down the hall? Complete arctic freeze. I blame man-made global warming in our workflow operations. Too much hot air in the building, especially in the conference room. 

But I keep to my own Kyoto protocols. My attitude has gone green ever since I gave up burning the fossil fuels of professional ambition. I'm just going to sit here, basking in the warm glow of the sunlight from my unaspiring brain until our office is finally submerged beneath the rapidly rising sea levels of redundancy.