Dream Pedlary

If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy? Thomas Lovell Beddoes would be as forgotten as me had he not asked this question. Of course, I was never remembered in the first place, as I only shopped for dreams in Life's bargain bins, always searching for cut-price reveries in Ambition's clearance aisle. And I got what I paid for, oh yes, just look upon my works and despair. I'd ask for my money back but there's always a 'no refunds' policy for cheap dreams and customer service is non-existent.

Alas, most everyone's dreams are Made In China these days; knock-offs of the real thing; fake fur concealed inside a cubic zirconia. I suppose that's enough for most people: the illusion of good living, the chain-clanking phantom of happiness that's the same as a real ghost except it can only walk into walls and not through them. This is the endgame of a world in which we've all become well aware that we can't have nice things anymore, so why even bother trying?

When I started this blog, in the Golden Age before the flood of social media, I naively thought Online communication would always be an exchange of art and humor and whimsy. Back then, wise writers knew never to discuss politics, religion, and sex in public. These days, however, those formerly taboo topics are all anyone talks about, hence the rage and abuse and misery that characterizes today's internet experience. So, in a way, I'm relieved this dream of mine called American Fez is concealed in obscurity in an old-fashioned web format called blogging where whimsy can flourish in unread anonymity.

Perihelion And On

The sun rises like a well-rehearsed after-dinner speaker, clearing its throat of clouds before reciting the events of the day in a bright but sententious beam of a voice, making sure its rays project all the way to those slumped at the ends of the Earth. Acknowledgement and appreciation of the previous night's PowerPoint presentation of shooting stars is made, followed by polite jokes to put the atmosphere at ease, then many warm words of wisdom are spoken and the audience is baked with light.

I usually find a seat back in Row Y because I'll burn if I get to close to the stage. Sometimes I listen to what the sun says but all too often I'm just checking my phone or hoping we'll take a break to find some shade. After all, the sun will loudly pontificate all day and its shadows can be very long indeed, especially when you're not in the mood for hot air. Let's not forget, my pale skin and moon face mean I'm an SPF 80 kind of guy. Only happy when it rains, as they say. 

But the sun just goes on and on, offering us with cautionary tales of too much exposure causing dehydration, tempered by amusing anecdotes about excessive perspiration occurring at embarrassing moments. The same old phoned-in speech that we hear day after day and year after year. By noon, I'm absolutely frazzled and only half-sentient, sinking deeper and deeper into my seat as if I were a chocolate truffle melting in its wrapper. But even in such a drowsy state it's still essential to hang on to the sun's every word. I wouldn't want to miss any unexpected opportunities for beneficial photosynthesis.

Faith Based Gambling

I have a lot of time for Pascal's Wager, time I spend at the roulette wheel of life, shouting "everything on lucky seven." I've never broken the celestial bank but I've never lost my hair shirt either. I simply make a few bucks, enjoy a complimentary cocktail and the buffet, then quit while I'm ahead. Hallelujah. Faith, after all, is basically just another form of confidence and we all need to be confident that we backed a winner, otherwise why are we even at the table. Luck be a deity tonight, you might say.

My cardinal rule is: never bet against the house, especially when it's the House of God, and the odds will always be in your favor. For God moves in mysterious ways, like a croupier in a casino of the clouds whose unseen hand distributes gaming chips according to your prayers: 'Oh Lord, may the spinning ball come to rest upon number seven, and in thy mercy deliver to thy humble high-roller another scotch and soda. I knoweth it shalt not be top shelf stuff but that's okay because I am humble, as I said. Amen'

Cynics often claim that Pascal's Wager is little different than the Power of Positive Thinking, insofar as you may as well think positively about life since negativity will get you nowhere. However, positive thinking is merely a meditation on Keno numbers when compared to the glory of God's benevolent Monte Carlo on high. For there you sit in tuxedoed serenity, calmly watching the roulette wheel rotate as two glamorous angels with sequined wings drape themselves across your strong shoulders. How can you lose?

Paternity Suite

The child is father to the man, according to William Wordsworth. But I'm not so sure. In fact, if you ask me, the child is more like the stepfather of the man, or perhaps the eccentric uncle of the man, who the child scarcely sees once or twice a year. After all, the lives of most men amount to little more than a shadow of their infant plans, so somewhere along the path to maturity the auto-parenting went wrong. Apparently, the negligent child spent more time at the playground and the soda fountain than to providing adequate guidance for his successful transition to adulthood. Lucky, then, the man whose younger self even manages to remembers his own birthday. 

I passed a pre-school daycare center on my way to work this morning. There was a familiarity about the architecture of the building or maybe just a pattern in the cloudy weather that instantly recalled my own experience of such institutions: an unformed identity confronted by a table of crayons and blank paper, not really knowing where he was or what he was supposed to do, but nevertheless trusting implicitly in the fact that he was placed there at that exact time for some specific reason that made sense to somebody. Four years old, what potential this child has. Who will he turn out to be? What kind of fledgling hero stands here in embryo? How will he learn to make a worthwhile difference in the world? This recollection of pubescent potency only lasted a second before I remembered how I preferred to hide in the toy cupboard rather than make friends with the other kids or draw pictures to stick on a fridge.

Nowadays, of course, in the Age of Transgenderism, may indeed not be the father of the man. It's also possible that the female child turns out to be the father of the man, and the male child becomes the mother of the woman, and any other progenitorial combination you can assign to any individual identity. It's a very confusing situation for any person trying to figure out who was father to him or herself. Just imagine the philosophical paternity suits that unscrupulous lawyers could file if they were smart enough to take advantage. Fortunately, the unimaginative and mediocre law student is usually father to the typical attorney. 

Relocating In Time

This morning, strolling somnambulantly along as usual, I suddenly woke up and took that left turn onto the shady, pedestrian path connecting Rat Alley with Easy Street. I'd been wandering up and down Rat Alley for years, gingerly sidestepping the menacing drains, tense and weary from a lifetime of constant vigilance. The path's green canopy of elm and cedar trees provided a pleasant change of scenery, and I could see Easy Street ahead like the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel; a sort of 'New Dawn' if you don't mind another cliches. And why would you? This is easy street, after all. So let's relax and kick back with our grammar and phraseology. 

The residents of Easy Street were already making the most of their day: mowing luxuriant lawns and watering flowerbeds buzzing with butterflies and honey bees; clipping curbside topiaries into an entire Noah's Ark of animal shapes; shining the gleaming chrome of vintage cars or pumping up electric bicycle tires; and some residents were simply camped out on their stoops sipping lemonade and iced tea. I imagine others were even sunbathing nude beside ornamental fishponds in their inner-sanctum backyards. It seemed like that kind of place. Everything was dappled on Easy Street. It was all very fragrant. Except for this interloper from Rat Alley, a greasy black smudge on a white picket fence. I felt as though I didn't exactly fit in here; like common courtesy demanded I ask one of Easy Street's many gardeners to hose me down should I linger any longer.

Which was when I noticed the small stucco house at number fifty-nine, its front door slightly ajar and my face reflected in a downstairs window, as if I was actually inside staring back out at myself. 'Go take a look,' someone suggested from a stoop across the way. 'It's been empty for a while.' Nobody seemed to care that I might be trespassing, so I stepped over the threshold and into the hallway, switching on the lights and closing the door behind me. 'Welcome to Easy Street,' a vaguely recognizable voice in my head whispered. 'Sit down, take a weight off and relax.'

It's afternoon now, and I've been lounging around in the backyard of number fifty-nine all day. I'm not sunbathing in the nude but I doubt anyone would mind if I did. I've put out the patio furniture, set-up a bird feeder and removed some unwanted weeds from the fishpond. I'll probably mow the lawn before dinner then take my electric bike for a spin on the riverbank trail. Could do a spot of fishing or borrow a kayak and head downstream to the old stone bridge. Or maybe I'll do all that tomorrow. I'd say I've got time to kill now, but there's no such thing as time on Easy Street. 

The Unquiet American

 

Imagine a foreign correspondent grimly staring at his broken typewriter, sweltering in the relentless humidity of the antique land where he is stationed, weary of writing report that nobody reads and receive no response, homesick for a country that no longer understands him, that has probably forgotten that he exists. Welcome to the world of American Fez, for such is the situation here.

Dog-eared notebook, five o'clock shadow, half empty bottle of whisky, anonymous sources, unverified reports, paragraphs of purple prose narrating the news from nowhere about invisible characters haunting unknowable cities. It is thin gruel for a public that demands intravenous ice cream sundae. 

One of these days I might write my memoirs, not in twelve elegantly composed volumes like Casanova, but in Rorschach inkblot flip-book form. Then the reader can make up their own story by interpreting the patterns. Perhaps I'll leave some chapters blank so commentary can be added via the venerable media of coffee stain and greasy fingerprint: an interactive scrapbook of life.

But whatever I do, my hope is it will be tactile and not digital. After all, nowadays even the most inchoate bathroom graffito is preferable to robot poetry presented on a screen. Give me zero intelligence rather than Artificial Intelligence, because stupidity is believable at least. 

And so ends this latest dispatch from the far-flung jungles of Bloggerdom. Dateline: whenever and wherever. Byline: nobody you know anymore. So don't bother to hold the front page since it's not much of a scoop. It's probably not even an accurate account of what I was thinking when I started writing. 

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