American Fez

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The ancient agora became the medieval market square, and from the medieval market square grew the corner store, and the corner store was dwarfed by the shopping mall, and the shopping mall was demolished by Online retailing, so what, I wonder, will eventually supersede Online retailing? I'm no futurist, I'm barely even a presentist, but I have a few ideas.

Luxury goods, which will be the only goods worth buying, will be hand-delivered directly to the lunar estates of one-percenters by courier astronauts wearing zero gravity livery. The rest of us won't be able to afford such quality products and impeccable service, never mind the shipping costs from terrestrial warehouses to the moon.

We will still be residing back on Earth, herded into consumer-economy ghettos patrolled by an army of intrusive and persistent door-to-door robotic salesmen hawking nothing but cheap and disposable junk. An indestructible titanium foot wedged in our front doors will be much harder to dislodge than a human foot, and their pre-programmed digital sales patter much harder to resist. Buy one, get one, even if you don't want one, never mind two.

But on the bright side, when Online shopping is made obsolete by vending-bots and dealer-drones, perhaps the Internet might return to being a simple forum for exchanges of useful information and interesting ideas, and we can browse a web page about Heraclitus without being bombarded by advertisements for creature comforts. It's unlikely, I know, but I am an incurable optimist.

Pneumatic Drills

Everyone knows the ancient Greek word pneuma can mean both 'breath' and 'spirit.' Therefore a ghost of yourself appears whenever you exhale upon a mirror and write You Are Here in the mist created with your fingertip. As encounters with the numinous go, it's perhaps not the most revelatory or profound experience, but I don't claim to be any kind of metaphysician. In fact, the only time I tried dancing to the Music of the Spheres I trod on my partner's toes. But that's what you happens if you try to lead when waltzing with a discarnate entity.

But back to our concept of pneuma. Obviously there are mouth-breathers (Protestant) and nose-breathers (Catholic).Those who assume the lotus position even follow a highly structured breathing regimen. Agnostics, meanwhile, breath on cracked or frosted glass mirrors. And let's not forget about those who require iron-lung breathing apparatus (Materialist philosophers), and only breathe into empty frames from which the glass has been removed.

I like to think of my own breath as puffs of cherubic zephyrs, some armed with bows and arrows, some carrying curlicue scrolls announcing the thoughts of my subconscious, and one or two playing the trumpet, occasionally the bassoon or sousaphone. I can just about make them out when I exhale upon a mirror, if only as smudgy abstract forms, but they fade as quickly as they appear. They last barely long enough for me to write You Are Here, so sometimes I think perhaps I am not.

Sunday School Dropout

Joseph of Arimathea is my favorite New Testament character. In the gospels, after the death of Jesus, Joseph appears out of nowhere (literally, as Arimathea is not an actual place) to claim and subsequently bury the Messiah's body. 

And that's the first and last we hear of Joseph of Arimathea in the good book. Considering he performed such an important role in the Christian story, you might think Joseph would have his own gospel, but he doesn't, unless it's still hidden underground somewhere about ten miles north of Nag Hammadi.

But fortunately our knowledge of Joseph of Arimathea is not limited to Biblical sources. According to medieval legend, Joseph took the Holy Grail across the seas to England. Fellow wayfarers probably though Joseph strange to have brought his own cup on board ship, but I like to think he inspired some Roman entrepreneur to market the first travel mug.

Furthermore, if Joseph had not made that trip with the grail, the knights of Camelot would've wasted their days just slouching around the round table instead of embarking upon heroic quests to find the bloody thing. The world of romantic poetry would be bereft of one of its most fertile inspirations. A retrospective of Pre-Raphaelite painting would consist of far fewer canvases. And worse, there would be no Monty Python movie about King Arthur and his "kerniggits."

Joseph of Arimathea is also, by virtue of providing not only a tomb for Jesus but also his winding-sheet, directly responsible for that wonderful, primitive photographic mystery known as the Shroud of Turin. I'm not sure this ancient fabric does display the actual image of Christ, but it is clearly the face of someone who adept at telling parables.

Anyway, you'd think God-fearing nations like ours would make more of an effort to commemorate such an important Biblical figure. We could at least incorporate a new town in Illinois named Arimatheaville or a waterfront community in Florida called Arimatheaport. 

Theater of the Absurd

There is so much free theater on the streets right now. The Red Players, The Blue Company, and The Purple Ensemble are showcasing alfresco productions of their own Coronavirus opinions for anyone who cares to watch. Alas, it's all predictable, over-emoted melodrama. There is no dialogue, just a series of monotonous soliloquies yelled at the audience, the spotlight swinging wildly around the makeshift stage, searching for the actor with the loudest voice. Numerous Greek choruses wearing masks of tragedy wait in the wings. I think this might be Act Thirty-Seven, Scene Twelve, but I'm not sure. The prompter has apparently already lost his place in the script. 

Fortunately, there is also a lot of free mime to enjoy. For instance, I was walking my dog the other day when an elaborately masked mime appeared about ten feet behind us on the sidewalk. Whenever I stopped at a tree to let my dog sniff neighborhood smells, the mime stopped also, like a living statue, artfully maintaining his ten-foot distance as if separated from me by an invisible bargepole. Then, when sniffing was complete and the dog and I resumed our walk, the mime suddenly sprang back into motion and resumed his perambulations also, always ten feet behind. Highly entertaining if you're a fan of Samuel Beckett.

The other mime who puts on a good show is the in-your-face, confrontational non-mask wearer. I saw his production, entitled 'Bull In A China Shop,' at my local grocery store. It featured the starkly maskless mime shunting a shopping cart containing nothing but frozen TV dinners down the narrow aisles, in the wrong direction, daring anyone to challenge him for ignoring the store's Coronavirus policies. At fifteen minute intervals, a recorded voice on the store's PA system reminded shoppers to wear a mask, keep their distance, and follow directional arrows in the aisles, and each time this announcement was made the maskless mime presented a conspicuous and repudiatory finger to wherever he thought the voice was coming from. A bravura performance.

My play is of little interest, essentially being a comedy of manners which is so out of fashion these days. I stroll about the stage making my own risk assessments of the situations I encounter, trying to be respectful of the risk assessments of others. There is only a single prop: a blue neckerchief I pull over my nose and mouth when I'm around people who care and pull slip below my chin when there's nobody in the immediate vicinity. It won't win any Oscars for Costume Design but I find it to be easy, effective, and relatively non-controversial.

The Emperor's New Palace

Built on what the agent claimed to be "one of the area's most prestigious residential developments," Alfred's new house nevertheless reminded me of an over-sized garden shed. Architecture suitable for California but unlikely to withstand many New England winters. Yet software engineer Alfred pines for a Palo Alto lifestyle so rarely considers north of Boston practicalities.

Inside, the house is no temple of the arts. Alfred likes to bring his work home with him, including the office fixtures and fittings, so his decorating style is best described as contemporary philistine: discount warehouse furniture sets made of synthetic fabrics and materials, designed to be durable rather than attractive. His carpet is stain-resistant, which is fortunate because none of the surfaces are level, especially the floor. 

But it's the cracks already appearing in the wafer-thin walls that worry me. I don't believe they can support the weight of Alfred's cheaply-framed pictures, never mind the ceiling and roof. I've visited portable toilets with sturdier foundations. Never has there been a better example of a house not being a home. If La Courbusier's definition of a houses as "machines for living" is correct, then Alfred's house is a low-tech, hand-cranked contraption barely sustaining the most basic form of life. 

Alfred is most proud of his "prestigious" new address: 12 Newton Court. In fact, all the streets in the development were named after famous scientists. Einstein Avenue, Darwin Way, Edison Terrace, Fermi Lane (cul-de-sac), and so on. "My place is on a corner in the Court," Alfred said. "Top of the range. Great investment, too. I'll sell in five or six years for twice what I paid."

I wondered if the house will still be standing then, but unlike the boy in the story of Emperor's New Clothes I kept my thoughts to myself. Instead, I walked over to the picture windows in the dining room and gazed out at the three giant wind turbines in the distance. "Nice view," I said, tapping the glass with my finger. "But you might want to think about double-glazing." 

To Be A Pilgrim

I passed a monk on the sidewalk who was staring into space; gazing, perhaps, into that numinous infinity only the called can see; or maybe, like Saint Francis, scanning the skies for the preached-to bird bringing lunch from a distant restaurant open for pick-up only. But could he possibly be some Seventh Seal medieval revenant from my imagination, conjured into being by subconscious concerns during this time of plague and pestilence? No, he'd probably just been visiting the nursing home nearby.

Of course, on those rare occasions I do come across a monk, especially a jovial Friar Tuck type, I can't help profanely hoping they reside in a monastery where beer and cheese is made. No doubt there is a particular circle of Dantean Hell waiting for me, forming a Venn diagram with the circles containing gluttons and drunkards and other types of facetious wastrels. Purgatory, meanwhile, would be a monk offering beer and cheese tastings who had taken a vow of silence and was consequently was unable to let me know about his wares. Paradise, a Trappist beer and cheese weekly subscription service with free delivery. by Beatrice Express.

At any rate, it is an unusual experience to encounter a monk strolling around my neighborhood, whether laden with food and drink or not. Although interestingly enough, I had also seen a man dressed in a suit of armor the week before. Judging by his hipster's handlebar mustache, he was actually a refugee from a socially distanced Dungeons and Dragons game. Nevertheless, for all intents and purposes, the image of a perfect, gentle knight was clanking his way down the city streets.

I realize we are a long way past April showers, but, taking these monk and knight sightings into consideration, I do wonder if I will meet every character from The Canterbury Tales by the end of June. There is a definitely a candidate for the Wife of Bath who fails to pick-up after her little pekinese dog when she takes it for a walk. In fact, there are at least three or four Wives locally, several swanky Squires, and far too many cantankerous Reeves. Obviously there are numerous Physicians about at the moment, too, but according to their tales I don't think they're making as much money from the current plague as Chaucer's physician did from his plague.