American Fez

No Home For The Gnome

A lost gnome in an overgrown garden. Perhaps seeking that lush, lily-padded oasis of an ornamental pond where he once happily fished all day, following a half-remembered trail of stepping stones sunk into the soil long ago and now obscured by looming weeds and uncut grass. He must negotiate a minefield of rusting sprinkler system heads and avoid the predatory neighborhood cat that claims this front yard jungle as its exclusive feline domain. He could navigate by the stars but those lights of the night sky are forever extinguished by a thick layer of city smog, so he must use a nearby street lamp as his Polaris.

Of course, when the lost gnome finally reaches his destination, he will discover all the goldfish gone. At least, I'm assuming there is no life left beneath the black stagnant surface of the abandoned ornamental pond. But who knows? Who knows how deep the opaque, wild water runs these days and who knows what strange, aquatic vermin have evolved in those unknown depths? What I do know, however, is that at some point in his journey our questing gnome will come across the gleaming 'For Sale' sign emerging from the overgrown garden.

Apparently the gnome will soon find himself standing in the shadow of a renovated condominium. The overgrown garden will be transformed into a landscaped lawn and the ornamental pond drained and filled with flower beds. He will become a forgotten refugee of urban gentrification, like the plastic pink flamingos, bathtub Marys, stone lions, Greco-Roman water bearers, and other old-fashioned front yard ephemera deemed too gimcrack for contemporary urban homes. Rest in peace.

As Above So Below

Brutalist architecture, if you ask me, is any exclusively box-shaped building. But mostly it's the functional, almost pre-fabricated apartment blocks of the nineteen-fifties and sixties. Those rectangular machines for living with clean lines and ergonomic spaces connected by concrete passageways. Narrow balconies with views of the narrow balconies next door. Perhaps a regimented parade of low maintenance bushes or even trees. Metal benches that face each other across a no man's land of sunbaked asphalt. Such were the architect's utopian plans, his idealized sketches and immaculate scale model. Where did it all go wrong?

I often think the mysterious world of the enchanted forest must operate in the same manner. Here, for example, an unscrupulous goblin property magnate has redeveloped a former pumpkin patch into ugly brown mushroom condominiums. The poor pixies are evicted from the shade beneath their tiny toadstools and forced to relocate to the top floor of a massive fungus. Richard Dadd's faery fella with his craftsman's axe has been replaced by an army of elvish bulldozers, empty acorn cups repurposed as magical cement mixers, and spider's webs are the scaffolding for new high-rise woodland tenements. I think I could be the J. G. Ballard of children's picture books if I could find the time.

Morpheus The Scrivener

I used to keep a notebook beside my bed for recording all the inconvenient brainstorms that assailed me in the middle of the night. I'd quickly jot these thoughts down for safekeeping until morning, when I'd have the time and energy to give them my full attention. At least that's what I told myself as I fell back to sleep. Alas, the following day would offer nothing but broken lines of illegibly somnambulant handwriting, compared to which a scribbled doctor's prescription displayed all the elegant penmanship of Japanese calligraphy.

Thumbing through this notebook now, I mourn the many potential stories and novels that are lost within its unreadable tangle of ill-formed letters and indecipherable words. Long buried and sand-obscured Egyptian hieroglyphics in pitch black tunnels are easier to understand. The Voynich Manuscript is a model of literary clarity suitable for kindergarten book groups. Even the Rosetta Stone cannot help with my collection of incoherent doodles. I could have been a modern Charles Dickens if only I had learned to write clearly while drowsy and heavy-lidded. If only my mental secretary had learned shorthand before getting into bed.

Frankly, I blame being taught to write with an ink pen and blotting paper. No easy task for five-year-old fingers with a penchant for making amusing curlicues with extravagant flourishes of his over saturated nib. In fact, there was probably an element of looping seventeenth-century script about my early handwriting efforts. No doubt the letters s and f could be easily confused. That was a workable excuse for my poor pre-teen spelling, at any rate. And then I discovered the Rorschach Ink Blot Test.

Making elaborate, psychologically significant shapes with my writing materials was far more interesting than composing another dull essay for school called 'What I Did On My Vacation.' The Rorschach blots were more truthful too, as I tended to exaggerate the geographical distance traveled by my family in during the summer holidays. As far as I was concerned, the teachers could either read six paragraphs of spidery scrawl about my fictional adventures in Sumatra, or examine a symmetrical vampire bat-shaped ink blot from which they could draw their own conclusions about my activities. That they persistently chose the former is exactly what's wrong with education in this country, if you ask me.

Fortunately, the coming of the computer age means aspirant novelists don't need to worry about illegible handwriting in notebooks anymore. We can simply speak and digitally record our midnight inspirations into bedside mobile phones instead. Alas, I personally tend to mumble a lot when tired, so when I listen back to these recordings in the morning they are mostly inaudible and not worth transcribing. Thus are the libraries of the world denied the benefit of my imagination and the Tower of Babel is one brick shorter.

Now Appearing

Walking down a road not taken since March, I came upon the Tyvek shrouded exoskeleton of a new condominium complex under construction. That went up quick, as the saying goes. But what old building occupied this address pre-gentrification, demolition and redevelopment? I must have strolled past it a thousand times over the years but could not bring to mind the identity of the previous tenant. It had been commercial premises of some sort. An unpopular beauty salon, perhaps, skilled in the over-application of industrial-strength make-up and hairspray. Maybe a poorly stocked convenience store selling nothing but lottery tickets, cigarettes, and international pre-paid phone cards. Possibly even the grim facade of law offices specializing in divorce proceedings and personal injury claims. That's what most of the real estate around here used to be. 

Then I remembered. The site had been a store-front church purveying some sort of social justice based derivation of the Christian gospel. It once echoed with the boisterous rhythm of clap-along hymns sung in Spanish and the low murmuring buzz of prayer recitation that sounded like bees in a hive. I recalled feeling underdressed in weekend jeans and a casual shirt when the congregation spilled out on the sidewalk in their vividly colorful Sunday best. But I don't think they ever proselytized to me or any other passer-by. Theirs was a culturally-insular, self-contained nucleus of Jesus worship. And now it was gone, replaced by box-shaped apartment building divided into two-bedroom units with deeded parking, where anonymous, asocial twenty-something occupants will binge-watch Netflix TV shows while nurturing their insecurities and transforming language into emojis.

Don't Shoot The Would-Be Piano Player

One of my greatest regrets is not learning to play the piano, although I can't quite decide what sort of piano player I should like to be if I were proficient. Perhaps a rowdy ragtime tickler of the ivories with a toothy grin, straw boater, and those shirt clips that hold billowy sleeves in place. Maybe a grim-faced, wild-haired, and tuxedoed virtuoso sweeping my fingers across the keys as I chase the muse of Tchaikovsky. Or, God forbid, a bearded bohemian hammering my way repetitively through the minimalist oeuvre of Philip Glass. Alas, it's a mute question now as I can't even manage to complete 'Chopsticks' without making a mistake.

The lid of the piano slammed shut for me after a viewing of The Five Thousand Fingers of Doctor T when I was nine. Nightmares ensued and any plans for a potential career in the concert halls were promptly abandoned. The teachers tried coaxing me back gently with a xylophone and dulcimer but I had already made a firm decision to exchange musical instruments for paint brushes and a sketching pencil (themselves later swapped for notepad and pencil when I realized my imitations of Modigliani looked more like a misshapen self portrait an over indulgent mother might tape to her fridge door).

Of course, you're never too old to learn new skills (unless you suffer from crippling arthritis). I have often considered purchasing one of those portable electronic keyboards and a copy of 'The Idiot's Guide To Performing A Chopin Recital At Parties.' Alas, I cannot recall a social gathering I've been invited to where the other guests would appreciate half an hours worth of clumsy Chopin interrupting the conversational flow. Come to think of it, I doubt ham-fisted versions of Scott Joplin, Tchaikovsky, or Philip Glass would be very popular, either. People tend to prefer pre-recorded music at an indistinct volume during dinner.

Consequently, I must be content to merely hum along to the vague tunes in my head: the grand piano of the mind performing upon the stage of the mouth accompanied by the orchestra of the throat conducted by the baton of boredom. It's not Glenn Gould but it works for me. 

Pick Your Poison

More and more poisoned chalices are appearing on the altars of daily life during these "Covid times." It's as if someone somewhere is selling poisoned chalice franchises in the manner of MacDonalds restaurants. After all, where better for a poisoned chalice to be displayed than beneath a golden arch. And, like a giveaway MacDonalds movie tie-in soda cup, you get to keep the chalice after the poison has been drunk.

But what do you do with a used poisoned chalice? Once drained of its poison the chalice loses its luster, becoming a sort of mundane Secular Grail rather than a potential Holy Grail, and stored in the brain's equivalent of the back of the kitchen cabinet next to those plastic tiki goblets of the soul. Even an extra rinse cycle in the bottom rack of the dishwasher can't remove the stain of Lady Macbeth's lipstick from the rim. Believe me, I've tried and it won't come off.

Of course, the wise thing to do when presented with a poisoned chalice is covertly pour its contents into the nearest plant pot when nobody is watching, then boisterously wave the empty chalice around in the air while claiming to have downed the poison in a single gulp. Gradually lose your grip of the chalice until it sails out of your hand and across the room, hopefully shattering into many pieces on the floor. Make it look like an accident, as they say.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned current proliferation of poisoned chalices makes this a difficult trick to pull off these days. Not only does the poisoned chalice recipient have more chalices to juggle, but dependable potted plants are being usurped by trendy air plants containing much less soil with which to absorb all that extra dumped poison. You'll end up with telltale wet spots on the carpet. Trust me, I've spent a lot of time on my hands and knees with paper towels recently.