American Fez

I Was Miles Away

When your mind is elsewhere, your brain sits up all night like an anxious parent waiting for its wayward teenager to return. Where has that mind been? Who has it been seeing? I told it to be home by midnight. Did it get into trouble?

Perhaps some sort of mother/father left-brain/right-brain equation could be made, but studying bicameral consciousness at college was when my own mind began to wander, usually backwards in time. 

What, for instance, it might idly speculate, would the ancient Romans make of boring old Professor Watkins? Crucifixion by Caligula, probably, or banishment to the furthest borders of the Empire under Hadrian. And I certainly wouldn't buy Watkins as a slave if Seneca put him up for sale in the Forum. His teaching assistant, Debbie, however, I'd put in few high bids for her. So that was how my young mind got into trouble when it was elsewhere. 

Nowadays, my mind slips out the backdoor of my brain whenever I'm forced to listen to clients whine about the cost of work my company has done for them. And it travels not to the distant past but to the future, when I have retired and no longer need to care about such aggravating nonsense.

Unfortunately, that Stardate is so far in the future I imagine robot lecturers will be teaching Introduction To Psychology at the University of the Moon by then.

Spring Cleaning 2021

Amid the melting snows, optimistic blooms, imaginary cuckoos, and hardy young men in cargo shorts, early Spring brings cardboard boxes scattered on the sidewalk. "Free" is written on the sides of these oblong obstacles that contain the unwanted detritus of apartment living: Coffee mugs, mismatched plates, ancient videotapes and DVDs, Mexican souvenirs, a tennis racquet, unopened bottles of cheap perfume, some jigsaw puzzles, and assorted rusty tools. Bric-a-brac from a disposable age that people no longer require or have replaced but feel should not simply be tossed in their trash. Surely some needy passerby will want and claim a tangled collection of TV and computer cables?

There are many books, too. In fact, quite frequently such curbside giveaways are exclusively comprised of books. Nothing I would want to read, really, although I once saw a pile of published screenplays by Pier Paolo Pasolini with Fellini's Satyricon wedged in between them. And this morning there was a free library of books by Susan Sontag and several other writers we used to call "public intellectuals." This unexpected trove of essays and polemics reminded me that, pre-Internet, regular people like my neighbors engaged with unusual ideas, however controversial or unpleasant the ideas might be, rather than just devouring two-line memes and three word soundbites. I was reminded, also, of a college-educated intern we employed a few years ago who'd never heard of George Orwell or Albert Camus.

The world moves on, I guess. Things I treasured and considered important in my twenties are relegated to America's junk drawer these days. There is no Pasolini night at the local cinema anymore. The young man dressed in black reading The Stranger at a sidewalk cafe has been superseded by the brown giveaway cardboard box on the sidewalk, with a copy of The Stranger at the bottom, slightly obscured by Billie Holiday and Stan Getz CDs in cracked cases and years out-of-date street guides to Prague and Vienna. Perhaps I should get in the box myself, sit down to wait and see if somebody stops to peruse what's left of me. I'm not completely useless yet. I might even work with that other thing you have but don't know what to do with.

Looking Ahead

After nearly a year languishing in the Covidian dungeons of Fortress Massachusetts, I can finally confirm that travel does indeed broaden the mind. I know this because my mind, held captive by pandemic gaolers for so long, has certainly narrowed, as if its frontal lobes have been traveling through an interminably long tunnel; or perhaps staring into the wrong end of binoculars all this time; or just gazing endlessly at the faded, static crystals of a jammed kaleidoscope.

The dark days of winter haven't helped, either. A thick frost has frozen the once fertile fields of imagination. Brain cells seem icebound, neural pathways are blocked by snow drifts, and all synapses went into hibernation many months ago. Only an especially vivid and energetic Rite of Spring can save us now.

At least my credit card has accumulated many air miles. All those take-out dinners I ordered from down-on-their-luck restaurants have come good in that regard. I could probably fly halfway around the world on the points I've been awarded for supporting local eateries in their hours of need. So surely the Biden administration could furnish me with more stimulus money with which to spread international goodwill by traveling abroad to comfort famous chefs in foreign countries? After all, I feel someone ought to be checking on the Italian trattorias and French bistros at this time.