American Fez

Knee Deep in Red, White & Blue

I enjoy patriotic pageantry as much as any nephew of Uncle Sam, but I don't play our national anthem each morning. You won't find me standing to attention and saluting beside my recently vacated bed as the flag is raised and the curtains are flung open. Nor do I parade down to breakfast clad in Yankee Doodle pajamas. And when I return to my bed at night, I do not include America in my prayers. But many people in this country do practice such jingoistic daily rituals.

The anthem is played before girls' basketball games, amateur productions of Our Town, annual cook-outs of the Hiawatha canoe appreciation association, Davy Crockett look-a-like competitions and at zillions of other civic and private events. Too many events, if you ask me. From dawn's early light to night's to twilight's last gleam, there are marching bands and matching bunting in every corner of every state. Such bumptious displays seem almost neurotic or even, dare I whisper it, a sign of societal insecurity.

Fortunately, the only events I attend are the twenty-four hour, non-stop duck soup stir-athons at my local Freedonian-American club, which having no beginning or end have no appropriate time period in which to broadcast Hail Hail Freedonia. Consequently there can be no debate about duck soup stirrers failing to respect the national anthem. This is how we Freedonian-Americans keep out of trouble. And anyway, protestors "taking a knee" at duck soup stir-athons would likely bang their heads on the stove when they got up again.

Victory Garden

An abandoned birth bath, hidden now in knee deep nettles, its lichen-lined basin flooded with week old rain. It could be a pedestal for the invisible bust of some long dead gardener; a pillar of Hercules for the beetles, ants, and spiders. Here also is a rusting metal shovel with a splintered shaft and missing handle. The wheelless remains of a wheelbarrow still full of unidentifiable dirt and clods of grey earth. A skeletal greenhouse, every pane of glass shattered from the effort of trying not to cry. What was the plan for all those gormless heaps of tangled chicken wire?

Mind Over Matter

Were I unable to forage for myself in the wilderness, I would follow the example of St Francis who had food deliveries flown-in by the birds to whom he preached, rather like a beatific version of Blue Apron or Hello Fresh.

I'm not sure I would risk proselytizing to my feathered friends, however. My exegesis of the divine message is somewhat vague and prone to sophistical conflations with the fantasies of Hermes Trismegistus, concluding with a garbled description of Plato's cave filled with mid-century modern furniture. Such pontifications might satisfy simple sparrows but not the cynical ravens or streetwise pigeons. In fact, I'm slightly worried the more dogmatic birds might sacrifice me to some tree-top avian deity instead of feeding me. So perhaps I would be wise to pack a lunch before venturing into the middle of nowhere, instead of relying on magical thinking.

Of course, everyone lives by magical thinking to some extent these days, except most people call it "hope." So hopefully you've equipped yourself with a decent magic wand, the clearest of crystal balls, and an attractively billowing cape of stars and moons. You need to look the part and have the right tools,after all,  just as in any other area of daily life. In these dark times, you want to be an Renaissance sage surrounded by weighty alchemical tomes and marble statues of Sophia, not wild-haired primitive man painting his genitals yellow and dancing around a totem carved from the biggest gourd he can find. 

Alas, it seems most people dwell in the mud and straw huts of Papua New Guinea. Mind you, at least those aboriginal types know how to forage for their own food. I'll give them that. Which means they'll be eating dinner while I'm still starving in my tower trying to transmute base protein into filet mignon gold.

Afterword: gosh, this post did not go where I thought it would when I wrote that first line.

The Funny Pages

I remain incredulous that a reality TV celebrity was proclaimed president of the "United" States, but I'm still absolutely astounded "Great" Britain elected the Addams Family to its parliament. They call them the Conservative Party across the Atlantic, which is obviously some sort of Etonian euphemistic in-joke I don't understand. Nevertheless, the Conservative's creepiness and kookiness is plain for all to see. 

The hierarchy of 0001 Cemetery Lane is clearly an endless game of snakes and ladders, and there is a degree of gender role reversal, but family members are easily identified with their ministerial equivalents. Theresa May recalls the character of Uncle Fester, albeit wearing a grey wig. Gomez is Michael Gove. Pugsley is none other than our old friend Boris Johnson and Wednesday is Liam Fox. The preposterous Jacob Rees Mogg easily fills the role of Morticia Addams. Thing, Cousin It, and Grandma maybe distributed among the back benches at whim.

It is a given nowadays that governments attempt to rule rather than govern. I suppose it is better to be ruled by a gold-plated phallus in the White House than Westminster's motley collection of grotesque cartoon characters. And how significant is it that the Conservative cartoon's origin is American not British? If the Tories truly desired to preserve their national heritage they would have retrenched into a panel from Osbert Lancaster's Drayneflete instead.

Mysteries of the Sub-Atomic World

Even the smallest splash of spilled coffee instantly swells to become an epic tsunami. Its angry torrents crash into every nook and cranny, soaking all surfaces with the sticky residue of vengeful bean. And after the initial deluge, behold a bottomless and undrainable flood plain requiring an emergency supply of paper towels. 

Where does all this extra liquid come from? There is certainly more coffee pooling on my desk than was in the cup it escaped from. I call it "dark brown matter" because scientists are still unable to explain its existence. 

In fact, it's probably some new, unidentified form of self-perpetuating plasma, rather like "The Blob" of silver-screen infamy. And should the world's spilled coffee continue to expand at its current rate, we will all be swimming in the unforgiving substance before too long. 

Trust me, the world's engulfment by spilled coffee is a very real peril. It makes the prospect of climate change look like a moderately humid Sunday afternoon weather forecast. The only sane response at this late stage is to switch your preferred libation to a cup of green tea. Harmless stuff that simply evaporates in seconds without leaving a trace.