American Fez

A Bridge Between Worlds

There is a poor soul who barely subsists on the banks of the river beneath the Boston University Bridge, sharing his makeshift bivouac with wild geese and water rats like some picaresque village idiot, or a modern-day Saint Francis preaching to his feathered and sadly uncomprehending congregation. Maybe he's a method actor preparing for his role as Troll in a theatrical production of Three Billy Goats Gruff, or an obsessive author researching a dystopian rewrite of The Wind In The Willows: the Piper at the Gates of Dawn become a police siren in the middle of a freezing night.

But he is none of these things, of course; just another have-not sleeping in the mud a short walk away from where well-heeled students pay upwards of seventy thousand dollars per annum to learn about the liberal arts. Their derelict neighbor, this keeper of the collegiate geese, must be praying he won't flunk out of Survival 101.

Walking over the bridge, I always look down to check that his camp is still extant. It always is. Life repeatedly renews his lease on the riverbank. The geese come and go, those students graduate to be replaced by another flock of freshmen, that shopping cart crammed with who knows what may even get swapped out for a less rusty model, but the homeless man remains with us as surely as the river keeps flowing. Yet somehow I forget all about him once I reach the other side of the bridge where the busy rat race traffic suddenly demands my attention. 

St Patrick's Day

Walking past the entrance to the Centering Center on St Patrick's Day, I was forced to check my stride by a distinctly off-centered patron charging through the doors like a snake being expelled from the land with extreme prejudice. So lightning fast and violent was this departure that I was almost sent tumbling into the gutter. Clearly, the Centering Center's numerous meditation classes had failed to ground this particular client in any kind of spiritual connectivity or just plain old peace of mind. In fact, I was reminded of William ButlerYeats' famous lines "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." 

Yeats, of course, is a popular poet with New Age groups on account of his interest in esoteric mumbo jumbo; the kind where Egyptology and Celtic fairy lore rub shoulders with Pre-Raphaelite fancy dress; Horus traipsing around an English country garden in the rain while Tinkerbell flies face first into a Chinoise birdbath. Imagine the Masons letting their hair down and sneaking a puff from a hookah pipe when the other brothers are not looking.

Despite being the sort of person who refuses to sit on the floor in any circumstances, I have always felt naturally quite centered. I certainly don't need to take Centered Center classes to learn how not to lose my temper. For example, It didn't even occur to me to hurl abuse at the inner child of the multicolored mass of neuroses that nearly knocked me down. I merely suggested in a moderate tone that it demand its money back. Yeats, on the other hand, would probably have cracked the yahoo's oblivious skull with a shillelagh carved with magic symbols. So whatever misfortune befell them inside the Centering Center, the person concerned should consider themselves fortunate they encountered me outside and not the Irish bard when exiting the building at such velocity without due care and attention. 

Joy No Longer Brought

Idly rummaging through the second-rate contents of a local junk store, an astonishing assortment of dusty ephemera stacked on crooked bookshelves and top-heavy antique tables, I came across a plaster cast death mask of some long forgotten Edwardian personality. Could it be Augustus Plumb? Or possibly Sunderland F. Twaddleforth?  Hard to tell in the poorly-lit conditions at the back of the shop. Who is this? I enquired of the gnomic, pince-nezzed proprietor.

It's my great uncle Fortinbras, he replied. Fortinbras died of complications of the spleen, a painful conclusion to life as can clearly be seen from the final configuration of his mouth and eyes. That record of his passing is yours for only twenty-five dollars. I won't accept less or may I suffer the same end as he. I've reduced the price before and the guilt occasioned by that devaluation has haunted me ever since. Death masks exhibiting facial features racked by complications of the spleen are very rare. A collector's item, in fact. 

Really? It looks like he's winking.

Yes. According to family lore, at the moment of expiration, Fortinbras was informing a second cousin of the existence of a second will, hidden midway inside a narrow and very dirty chimney, detailing the second cousin's sole claim to his vast fortune. This information proved to be his idea of a joke. When the second cousin climbed up the chimney in question, at great discomfort to himself, there was nothing to be found except a small parchment scroll with the phrase "Ha Ha" written on the surface in purple ink. 

So who did inherit Fortinbras' fortune?

Nobody. There was no fortune left to claim. That was part of the joke, apparently. Fortinbras had spent it all on cheap baubles and other worthless fripperies, all of which can be found within this store, unwanted and unsold over the countless decades that have followed their original purchase. And I have to say, Fortinbras' shaggy dog story sense of humor and wastefully rampant consumerism are not remembered with any great affection, especially by your present interlocutor who is forced to make living by trying to flog the rotten fruits of such an eccentric lifestyle.

Hmm. Twenty-five bucks for the mask, you say? Let me think about it and maybe I'll be back later. 

Of course, I never did return. In fact, that month's junk budget was spent on a 45rpm vinyl recording of My Favorite Things performed by The Pack Rats, an artifact that no longer brings me joy and which I recently advertised for sale in the classified pages of 'Novelty Song' magazine. Eight dollars including shipping is a bargain for such a slab musical of musical history, even if the sound quality is poor. No takers so far but it's only been in there for a single issue. Someone will want it, I'm sure.

The Clocks Go Forward

After Thursday night's storm, the Tumnus Street sidewalk was reduced to a narrow, icy path between two banks of freshly shoveled snow. Pedestrians were advised to navigate this frozen, rough-hewn avenue at their own risk. Some of them tiptoed along with exaggerated care, arms flung out wide for balance, like nervous children stepping onto an ice rink for the first time in borrowed skates. Others, clad in knee-high, clown-sized winter boots, stomped determinedly across the hazardous terrain, either late for an audience with the White Witch or maybe just wishing to express their contempt for her attendant weather.

Whatever the approach, progress, limited to single-file perambulation, was difficult. At one point, I became stuck behind an especially slow-moving, shapeless mass of hooded puffa coat and pantaloonish ski pants. It waddled down the street, head bowed and shoulders hunched, obviously staring at its stupid phone instead of looking where it was going. How rude. What an annoyance. Summoning my inner Baryshnikov, I scissor leaped past this phone-engrossed obstruction as soon as such a daredevil move was feasible, fortunately managing to land upright with one foot on the sidewalk and the other in a mound of snow.

Once safely ahead, I shook the snow from my shoe and turned around to deliver a withering and accusatory glance to the source of my irritation, only to discover it wasn't staring at its phone after all. The shapeless mass, identity still hidden by a massive hood, was actually obsessively shaking and gazing at a Magic 8 Ball toy, apparently demanding a specific response to a question that the plastic soothsayer repeatedly refused to provide. Whatever clairvoyant mechanism resided within the Magic 8 Ball probably felt the frigid cold as much as the human who consulted it. The runways of the Astral Plane being frozen over, surely celestial wisdom summoned from Beyond is equally as prone to bad weather delays as any Earthly courier service? In fact, the shapeless mass might just as well have resorted to its phone apps instead, requesting a Paypal fortune cookie text from some scam artist psychic hotline based in Las Vegas or Salem, MA.

The ancient Romans famously made their prognostications by studying the flight of birds. Alas, the sky is empty in early March as those telltale birds have not yet returned from the South, so that's no help. The only object that disturbs the clouds above is a passenger jet heading towards the Atlantic, which prompts me to predict I'll be flying to Italy in May: a prediction I know will come true because I've already booked the tickets. Fortune telling is easy if you take matters into your own hands. You don't need a Magic 8 Ball, a crystal one, or even a wizened crone with a deck of Tarot cards. Just declare your intentions loudly and purposefully into the void and you will hear the echoes of tomorrow. Meanwhile, and I use the word advisedly, the Future will immediately be here when we put the clocks forward on Saturday night, time-traveling towards the promised Spring with a simple adjustment of cogs and dials. Hurrah for green shoots, gamboling lambs, and freedom of movement along the sidewalk so that one can walk at one's own pace.

And the shapeless mass will have an answer to its question when the thaw comes also. I know this to be true because I actually stopped to ask what response the Magic 8 Ball displayed that required constant questioning. Its head still hooded and bowed, the shapeless mass silently held the ball out for my inspection like a sullen monk surrendering a sheet of illuminated manuscript ruined by numerous ink blots. Better not tell you now, I read in the black, opaque surface. 'It's waiting for the right moment, which is coming soon.' I told the shapeless mass. 'So put it away for now and concentrate on what's happening in the present. Have faith that truth will be revealed in time.'  Then feeling re-energized by my own wise inscrutability, I hopped over a snow bank and crossed the road to where there was less annoying foot traffic. 

Sonny Twistleton And Me

Sonny Twistleton sounds like he might be a second-rank alto-saxophonist from the fifties, perhaps best remembered for an especially wistful version of Blackberry Winter, or a witty, slightly self-mocking take on They All Laughed, somehow looking out of place anywhere except in mid-century monochrome on a Blue Note album cover.

Alas, the Sonny Twistleton I know cuts a very different figure. He's more of an out-of-tune and out-of-step sousaphone player in the country's most disorganized marching band, except this Sonny is so unfit and overweight he couldn't march very far without gasping for air and needing to stop. You are what you eat, they say, and Sonny's face betrays a sallow, greasy pallor not dissimilar to the appearance of packaged cheese.

His parents must have been overly optimistic when they named him Sonny. Windy or Podgy would be more appropriate. Even that surname, Twistleton, seems too lightweight and sprightly for the clumsy and obese being whom it identifies. It is a blue sky weather forecast sort of name that belies the disappointing gray clouds and oppressive humidity the day actually brings. At least that was my experience of meeting Sonny for the first time at my sister's wedding.

One of my social anxieties is a deep-rooted fear of being marooned for hours amongst a group of people I'd normally regard as a particularly contagious colony of lepers. So I was relieved when I saw "Sonny Twistlerton" printed in flowing script on the place setting that established his presence at our table. 'I'm going to get along with someone called Sonny Twistleton,' I said to my wife. Then he sat down and I immediately heard the ringing bells and began to imagine chunks of my flesh falling off.

For the sake of accuracy and fair warning, Sonny's name card should really have been printed in Comic Sans instead of a flowing script. Maybe even one of those unlettered, symbolic fonts that are composed of bold-face rhomboids and pineapple shapes. As the night progressed he proceeded to spill a glass of red wine all over the white linen tablecloth, demolish a tier of wedding cake with the elbow of his ill-fitting suit, and belch explosively during a sentimental and tender moment in my father's speech. I'm not going to mention his soul-crushing conversation, most of which concerned his many personal problems described in grotesque, too-much-information detail.

I thought I'd never see him again after the wedding but I was wrong. There is a large photograph of me making a toast to the happy couple prominently displayed on my parent's mantelpiece. Just to the left of my dapper frame, the unmistakable face of Sonny Twistleton emerges from the background, bleached by a flashbulb, resembling more the dulled off-white color of a dead fish belly than the packaged cheese of actuality.

Of course, it turned out that "Sonny" printed on his place setting was an egregious typo. It should have been "Sammy," a name that although carrying no unfavorable connotations for me is obviously not as ultra-cool sounding as Sonny. In fact, it is a name that could go either way if you ask me: oaf or fine fellow depending on geographical origin and upbringing. Whatever, suffice it to say, I would not be as surprised by a Sammy Twistleton with the personality of a flatulent baboon as I was by a Sonny Twistleton exhibiting the same alarming mannerisms. 

You might be thinking it a trifle ironic that a Stephen should be such a snob about names. It is, I must admit, quite a common name in all meanings of the word "common." The proximity of anyone happy to be called Steve must surely be considered a viable threat to the stability of Western civilization, as all sane people will agree, no matter what their names are. So I am thankful for the 'ph' in my spelling of Stephen. It adds that touch of class, the hint of quality that the 'v' spelling obliterates. And you know you'd much rather be reading the thoughts of Stephenesque than the ramblings of Stevenesque.

 

Transcendental Medication

Since the ever-increasing price of cholesterol medication nearly gives me a heart attack every time I visit my local pharmacy to pick up the wretched prescription, I've decided to switch to a cheaper pill. It's called Placebo and is manufactured by myself; a drug company I can trust.

I'm not sure what the Placebo's active ingredient will be yet, but I'm thinking it's probably going to be cheese. If so, it's going to be a very large pill indeed, best taken every evening with a glass of wine and a cracker.

Despite its high saturated fat content, regular cheese consumption, roughly an ounce of aged gouda per night, has zero effect on my cholesterol levels. Lots of sugar and carbohydrates do push the needle into the red, but not fat. In fact, I'd almost go as far as to say that my LDL and triglycerides and whatnot have dropped significantly since I started eating cheese again. That is the opposite of what is supposed to happen according to my cardiologist.

Perhaps if I ate even more cheese these results would further improve? But I'm not greedy and I don't want to turn my kitchen into a laboratory. And I've seen Dream Of A Rarebit Fiend and I'm not excited about experiencing that sort of melodramatic night's sleep.

Of course, I'm not advocating that other sufferers from heart disease should embark upon a pseudo-homeopathic cheese regimen like mine. What works for me may not work for them. It might even be a fatal mistake. We are all different, after all, and no doubt Big Dairy is just as insidious as Big Pharma. But we do know that Placebos are effective. Indeed, placebos are probably the most successful medical treatments of all time if clinical test results are anything to go by.

Which is good news because pretty soon Placebos will be the only pills the average person can afford. So start thinking about what yours will be and choose a substance that you enjoy and that lifts your spirits. A healthy body means a healthy mind, as the saying goes, and vice-versa, which is the part they usually forget to mention. Mind over matter will one day be the only alternative to over-the-counter extortion. 

Important note because there are many stupid people in the world. Obviously, I don't take a cheese placebo. I'm being facetious, as is the nature of this blog. I'd advise you to listen to your doctors, no matter how predictable and underwhelming their prognoses often are.