American Fez

Pushing The Envelope

The envelope arrived this morning, unceremoniously dumped in my mailbox with the usual collection of store catalogs and circulars. It was smaller than most envelopes and if my address hadn't been written in tiny, almost unreadable script there wouldn't have been room for the stamp. But the envelope was made with luxurious paper. The kind of thick, textured paper only available from a fashionable Parisian stationer. And was that a hint of perfume? Interesting.

Perhaps it was an invitation to a masquerade ball or a weekend getaway to some billionaire's private island. At the very least it was a 'save-the-date' for a destination wedding. I hoped the billing department of my utility company hadn't suddenly decided to get all fancy. Surely not? That was just my usual anxiety raising its ugly head. After all, the expensive paper clearly indicated the contents were something special. So what was the fancy occasion I was cordially invited to attend? Unable to resist the urge any longer, I ripped the envelope open.

"This is official pre-sale notification of your advance opportunity to purchase VIP seating for celebrated lifestyle coach Cynthia Sage's two-day Take It To The Bank seminar." Of course. Forget about dry cleaning my tuxedo and polishing my dancing shoes, it was just another manicured grifter wanting money to teach me how to recoup that money by swindling somebody else out of their money. Still, as pyramid scheme solicitations go, Madame Sage's boudoir-scented presentation deserved kudos for her seductive envelope. Far superior to the mimeographed scam auctioning off acres of moonscape Nevadan real estate lurking in my mailbox last week; that came courtesy of Lebensraum Properties and smelled of stale cigarettes. 

I took one last admiring appraisal of the envelope then dropped it in the trash, where it nestled against a Bible-thick Viking Cruise Lines brochure whose glossy cover photography was only slightly marred by a huge black post office stamp; an example of extravagant direct marketing materials destined for the trash can instead of the bucket list. Viking probably bought my address from Air France's mailing list without knowing I get sea sick in a row boat on the local pond. They would be better served employing Cynthia Sage to sell her gullible clients on a week-long Take It To The Bank cruise down the river of no return. Learn how to defraud your neighbor while guzzling rum and coke at the Captain's table. 

If, however, an enterprising tour operator were to send me a brochure featuring trans-European trips on the Orient Express, that particular piece of direct marketing might not be doomed as landfill. And dare I suggest the brochure offer a selection of murder-mystery excursions. Cynthia Sage is found dead in her first-class compartment after unwittingly licking a poison-laced envelope flap. The words "Act Now To Avoid Disappointment" are scrawled across the mirror in yellow highlighter pen. But all the suspects own such a pen. They are included in every Take It To The Bank seminar toolkit and workbook package. 

Perhaps I should pitch this idea to the Orient Express people? It could prove to be a lucrative proposition. I just need to visit the stationery store to pick-up some serious-looking watermarked paper, carefully type out my idea in Times New Roman, fold the paper neatly into thirds, then slip it into one of those business envelopes with a window on the front for the address. Perhaps even a light spritz of sandalwood eau de cologne as a finishing touch. I guess I did learn one or two things from Cynthia Sage's junk mail, after all, and never paid her penny.

Steel Drums In The Distance

The Tropical Market was the only storefront on a street of windowless warehouses, like a pineapple wedged into a brick wall. For sun-starved New Englanders, wandering around its colorful aisles in winter provided a brief equatorial respite from snow and ice outside. By mid January the owners could have charged admission merely to cross their creaky wooden floorboards, as just walking through the door felt like entering C. S. Lewis' wardrobe, except with a lush paradise on the other side rather than frozen, windswept Narnia.

Customers came from far and wide to buy pillow-cases of rice and beans by the bucketful, assuming they could fight their way through the enchanted cilantro rainforest growing from the ceiling. I would go there searching for plantains, but they were usually sold out so I'd leave with a consolation mangosteen, which would slowly rot in my fruit bowl because I didn't know what to do with the weird looking thing. Should have played it safe and bought a stupid papaya instead. At least I knew how to eat one of those.

There was a sensuous yet motherly woman behind the counter, who might have been a Caribbean Queen in another life; or perhaps a voodoo priestess, watching me shuffle like a zombie from empty plantain crate to overflowing box of mangosteens. 'And what are you planning to do with that?' she would ask, narrowing her eyes, when I approached with my mangosteen. 'It's not ripe, you know.' I was, as she suspected, completely clueless on both counts but rang up my purchase anyway. We had an understanding, after all: I was supporting local business and she indulged my West Indian island fantasy. It was a win-win.

But the Tropical Market is gone now, of course, along with everything else useful and unique around here. The trade winds have ceased to blow and the tallyman has left the building. I guess being my mangosteen supplier did not pay the rent. It's been replaced amid the windowless warehouses by an unpopular pizza joint, like an oil slick seeping across a brick wall. But I've seen the Caribbean Queen again since then. She was selling steaming plates of homemade mofongo at a neighborhood street carnival, a soft golden glow on the hard grey pavement. So that's where all those plantains went, I thought, adding my name to the mailing list for her meal subscription service, which has kept me sitting comfortably beneath an imaginary palm tree whatever the weather. 

Malvolio Today

Nobody, thank the Lord, is actually equipped with a 'moral compass.' Such a facile device would turn us all into those toga-clad, preternaturally serene automatons from science-fiction films who live in post-apocalyptic, bucolic harmony on terraformed future worlds. The systematic sententious tedium would be enough to drive anyone possessed of their own mind quite mad.

What we do have, for our sins, are moral bowls of spaghetti with a choice of prepared sauces that makes a big mess when being eaten. You're a simple Cacio e Pepe person; I prefer meaty Bolognese; they like all that rich, creamy gloop. Nevertheless, we all get to sit at the table and enjoy our meals in relative peace and quiet.

At least we did until despotic, ladle-wielding baboons in the kitchen came up with excuses to curtail the menu. We ordered our right and wrongs served with nuanced, subtle flavors and aromas, but now the sauces on offer are either completely tomato-based or submerged in thick Bechamel cream, one dollop each, no exceptions. From an all-you-can-eat buffet of roasted dialectics to a restricted diet of microwaved sounds bites, our food for thought is neither nourishing nor nutritious nowadays.

And to cap it all, the filthy philosophical pots and pans are still piled high in the sink. After all, who in their right mind would volunteer to be scullery maid for that impossibly thankless task? We could, I suppose, invest in an automatic moral dishwasher featuring express rinse cycle and open-door air dry. A convenient contraption, no doubt, but really no different than the aforementioned facile moral compass. Besides, there would be too many arguments about how to load the racks that we'd never get around to turning the damned thing on, so what's the point?

Ah, so many gadgets, so little humanity. There is some transhumanity, obviously, and rather too much subhumanity for my liking, but not much is left of the conventional humanity I was told about in school. Clearly it starved to death while navigating the moral maze with that facile moral compass that does not exist. If only it had fortified itself with a backpack full of righteous cakes and ale instead, then we might finally be getting somewhere.

Rolled Dahl

I'm not exactly sure when I began to lose interest in modern culture. Possibly this malaise dates back to Remembrance of Things Past being unpoetically and tediously retitled as In Search of Lost Time; a truer translation of Proust's original, no doubt, but clearly lacking that certain je ne sais quoi.

As world-shattering events go, it's hardly the publication of Tyndale's Bible, but it bothered me considerably. Since then, my eyes have grown tired of rolling at every inescapable reinterpretation, reimagining or reworking of whatever defenseless canvas or book today's artisans can claim for their own. I'm waiting for some self-important, brush-wielding vandal to paint a dessert course into da Vinci's Last Supper. "Well, I think after the bread and wine the disciples shared a Halawa cheesecake but the church suppressed that because they didn't want to employ a pastry chef at every Mass."

Soon there will be a Divine Comedy without an Inferno (too triggering) or Paradiso (unfair privilege). Virgil will be replaced by Sappho and Dante himself will be forced to spend eternity in Purgatorio being chastised by Beatrice for the crime of 'mansplaining' his midlife crisis. Abandon hope all ye who enter here, indeed.

Writers have always re-edited and updated their own works, of course; painters have always painted over scenes they've come to consider surplus to the tableau. But at least they did it themselves to their own creations. Nowadays, any old hack can rewrite the most treasured of texts so they conform to contemporary values, however ruinous such revisions prove to be. Why not remove the face from Franz Hals' The Laughing Cavalier and thrust your own moronically grinning visage through the hole? Hey presto, you are now the new Marcel Duchamp.

But don't expect me to give a Cubist turd for such a zero-sum zeitgeist. I prefer to remember things past in all their imperfect splendor.