A Stone

There was this young farmer, Jacob, who married his sweetheart, Amanda. They lived in happy poverty living hand to mouth, one season to the next. The land was poor and they could barely feed themselves. But they subsisted.

Until one day Amanda felt ill. Days went by, then weeks and she felt no better. Jacob sacrificed one of his precious hens to pay the doctor to come. It was congestion of the lungs said the doctor. Get some of this medicine in town. But they had no money to buy the drug. Amanda grew weaker and one night died in her sleep.

He buried her out in the meadow beyond the orchard. He sold all her clothes and the things she had owned and finally managed to scrape together enough money to have a headstone made.

Jacob grew bitter. For want of money he had lost that which was most precious to him. He made no vow. He did not shake his fist at God. But he changed. Scrimping took over his life. He spent little on himself and saved what money he could in stashing it in hidey holes throughout the house. He made the farm pay through hard work, but any profit went into the secret caches.

Many years later, Jacob found himself attracted to a local widow. He cleaned himself up and went courting. He was tired of living alone with nothing but fields, animals and an empty house.

Elizabeth was near his age, her children were old enough to be helpful in the farm work. Did she find him attractive? Did they fall in love? Perhaps. Back then marriage was not always as romantic as we imagine.

They did seem to be comfortable with each other, but there was a problem. She knew of his miserliness. He persuaded her that he could change. After some thought, she decided that it would do no harm to look at the house that she might choose to live in.

Jacob had scrubbed and cleaned the place inside and out. It may have been bare, but it was clean. Elizabeth arrived with her father and the two of them looked the place over.

"Very well, said she, next week I shall bring the rest of my family here and I shall prepare them a meal in your kitchen. Here is the list of things I shall need.

Jacob looked at the list. Most of the provisions could be had in his own pantry and cellar. The few he did not have would not be too expensive.

"I will make biscuits," she said. Jacob blanched. To make biscuits she would need a baking stone in the oven. During the cleaning the old one, unused for many years, had shattered. When he went to town the next day, he gathered the other provisions he needed, but the baking stone was so expensive. How much did he want this? Which was dearer to his heart ... love or love of money?

The following week Elizabeth arrived early in the morning. Jacob had the wood stove going. She cooked as he set the table. After everything was almost complete, she rolled out the biscuit dough scored it with a knife and put it in the oven on the stone.

People started arriving. Jacob seated them and helped carry out the feast. The last to be brought out was the large unbroken sheet of biscuits.The family tucked in. Then one of Elizabeth's young sons noticed something.

There's a pretty pattern on the bottom of the biscuits, he said. He reached over and flipped the sheet of biscuits over. It took a moment for them to puzzle it out since the writing was backwards. It said

To the
Blessed Memory
of
Amanda
Wife of Jacob

Some thoughts on belief

Belief is a curious thing. Essentially it is a codified set of prejudices about the world.

I don't use the term prejudice as a negative here. What I mean is a set of assumptions that a person does not want to challenge. And I am not getting all "holier than thou" either (if you'll excuse the use of the phrase), I am quite aware of the masses of material that I take on faith.

Everyone has prejudices ... everyone. Whether they are true or false, whether deity centric or logic centric, there are large portions of our life individually and communally that we do not challenge with analysis.

We look at a glass and think, "it's empty", not "it's full of air". The best science teachers struggle constantly to break the preconception that air is nothing. The Annenberg Project has an excellent documentary on the continuing failure to actually get students to understand photosynthesis and the students' belief, even past graduation from MIT, that a plant gets its building materials from the water and nutrients in the soil. (Okay, everybody who had to rethink or look up photosynthesis raise your hands ... oh right ... I'm talking to a bunch of geniuses am I?)

We accept black boxes, cars we cannot build, cell phones we cannot diagram the electronics for. We accept their operation on faith. How many people are reading this note of mine who could read and understand the diagram of a computer chip. We are told that the circuits are logical ... and we believe it. We believe because it works and because we don't want to spend the time that it would require to find out for ourselves.

Sometimes that leap of faith pushes logic. Think of the faith in technology (or perhaps in humanity or even a deity) that would let some one strap themselves to a block of metal weighing several tons in the expectation that it will soar thousands of feet above the earth and land thousands of miles away. An aeronautics engineer will know the science. But most others have to use shared experience not knowledge.

I remember reporting aboard an aircraft carrier and hesitating on the pier knowing that the damn thing weighed 95,000 tons. My gut told me that it shouldn't float but my brain (and fear of prison) persuaded me that it did.

Belief, in and of itself, is not bad. It lets us concentrate on what's important to us and leave the rest to people who are interested in it. I don't want to know about the engineering of the aircraft, I merely want to get on it in Boston with the expectation of getting off it in Seattle. I don't need to know the cavitation of the screws of the ship to realize that I'm on the equivalent of a very large office building that is traveling at more than 50 mph.

So if someone who knows nothing about chaos theory wants to describe Hurricane Katrina as an "Act of God" rather than an "Act of Butterfly" I don't see that it makes much difference. Whether your belief is couched in technical terms or religious terms it is still belief.

... AND THAT'S NOT A BAD THING DAMMIT!!!

What is bad, is when you let your belief in stuff that you don't want to understand take over your life. The perversity of people continues to amaze me. The fact that they will turn around and say. Gosh I don't know anything about this so I'll do anything that anyone who claims to know about it says.

I'm not just talking about religion guys. You can make that connection yourselves. I'm talking about cell phone and MP3 players and computers and cars. I find it touching, for example, to see the simple yet transcendent joy in a teenager's face when gazing upon the glory that is iPod. It is the one true iPod and thou shalt have no others before it. All their friends have iPods, so it must be the right, the true, the only way. "Suffer the little children to MP3." All other forms of music are anathema.

Look at advertising. Talk about faith-based initiatives. An auto ad touts the speed. Can you drive that fast? No. But wouldn't it be nice to know that you could! We'll just wear the speed limits like the chains of martyrdom around our necks. Ooooh this detergent gets things whiter than white ... that beer will help me get friends ... 

But the total rejection of belief is as unbalanced as the total acceptance of it.

Our minds, all of them, are hybrids of what we believe and what we know. Often, belief and knowledge exist in dynamic opposition, providing us with two interpretations of the same thing.

We can believe that a hole is empty, and know that it is full of air. We can believe that the stars twinkle, know that it is just an effect of the atmosphere, then be bemused to find out that the light of some stars varies as its planets block its light. I believe that my car works properly, because I don't know how it works and I can't prove that everything is functioning as it should.

This balance always exists. It has to. Belief is at the basis of discovery just as it is often at the basis of the rejection of discovery. Knowledge comes from the successive proving of a chain of beliefs. A scientist believes something to be true and sets out to prove it. If he does, then it becomes knowledge, if he proves it untrue, it does not. Scientists are just people who can believe more creatively and extravagantly than other people.

But, in a way, scientists have it easy. They have a kind of call and response way of dealing with the world. The difficulty comes when you are dealing with the unprovable, those beliefs that are not subject to evidence.

Gods were created as a catch-all explanation for the unexplainable, for things that our ancestors could not understand. George Gamow in his book "1-2-3 Infinity" derives the title from the counting used by a tribe of hunter-gatherers who felt that it was unnecessary to count higher than three. Their numbers were 1, 2, 3, Many. To them, many was infinity, a number which stood for all those other numbers for which they had no names, and for them it was sufficient.

God is infinite. God is our "many". The concept that stands for everything we know is there and yet cannot be proved because we don't have the capacity or the tools. Does that mean that those things aren't there or cannot be proved? I'm sorry, I don't have the capacity or tools to answer that, but I do know that there is more to know, and I don't care what you call it.

Okay, I'm rambling a bit, so let me wander back on to the topic. The problem is not belief but, as I mentioned before, "blind faith".

Blind faith is such a wonderfully appropriate term. I see it as an atrophying of the ability to perceive anything but what is pointed to, as if you were an old carthorse wearing blinders. (A particularly potent image for those of us gifted with Hunter Mind ... ADD to the rest of you.)

If it were not so pervasive throughout history, I would suggest that it is a reaction to the stress of the info age, a way to let someone else take the burden of understanding. People who suffer from this form of mental atrophy seem tired of having to think, extrapolate, make decisions, and discover. They want to be led.

Is it any wonder the degree of vitriol they can spew when an article of faith is challenged. To argue logically seems beyond their capacity. Their vehemence born of the fear that all might not be as they have been told. Most people don't subscribe to "blind faith". Unfortunately, some of the loud people do.

Those of blind faith believe that "every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill laid low" without considering what it would do to the ecosystem and the economics of ski resorts. The sameness, the lack of surprises, comforts them and they "like sheep" desire only an immense sameness of flat pasture.

What a drab and boring place it would be if everyone on earth were just like us, believed like us, knew like us, acted like us, etc. It sounds an awful lot like a kind of Hell. Give me people who think I'm a pinko commie scumbag, or need the services of a mental health professional and are willing to argue. Give me diversity. Diversity is fun.

Environment

It's odd to become aware of one's own inconsistencies. 

I'm sitting here avoiding cleaning my desk and the sheer oddity of the paraphenalia scattered across it strikes me as worthy of a line or two.

The bulky stuff is, these days, probably common to most writers. From left to right it consists of: 

• A printer
• The left speaker of a pair
• A black riser that my laptop lurks under and that supports ...
• A monitor and
• A desk light
• The right speaker of a pair (Pandora Radio is playing Brubeck through them)
• A table lamp

Pretty consistent so far, right? But wait. Going back to  the left:

• A staple gun
• A short stack of books consisting of Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit and Roger Tory Peterson's A Field Guide to the Birds
• A stack of CD-Rs in jewel cases containing backed-up data topped by one of the pair of disks of Janis Ian's concert album Working Without a Net
• Two packages of origami paper
• A small spiral-bound notebook
• A stack of music CDs consisting of:

• Fretwork - Purcell: The Fantazias and In Nomines
• Dave Brubeck Trio and Gerry Mulligan - Live at the Berlin Philharmonie
• Michaela Petri and Keith Jarrett - Handel: Recorder Sonatas -
• Louis Prima - Let's Swing It
• The Love Dogs - Heavy Petting
• Nickel Creek - Nickel Creek
• Wendy Carlos - The Well-Tempered Synthesizer
• Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy - The Other Side

• An almost empty pack of Djarum Lights
• A large and bulky computer headset
• A disposable cell-phone
• A stapler
• A netsuke of rats on a bag of grain
• A small semi-functioning digital camera
• Another short stack of books consisting of: a 1966 Indian cookbook and O'Reilly's HTML Pocket Reference
• A small stone ashtray sits on top of the books with the last cigarette from the now empty pack fuming in it.
• A disposable lighter
• A pack of small post-its used for bookmarks
• A coaster advertising the last high-tech firm I worked for full-time with the remains of an iced four-shot Americano on it
• An brown ceramic jar that once held preserved Tien-tsin vegetables that now is overstuffed with an assortment of pens and pencils
• Two stray pens
• A Petersen System full bent tobacco pipe
• A can of Frogmorton tobacco
• A Leatherman pocket tool
• A full pack of Djarum lights
• A stack of random papers that I WILL get to eventually held in place by a Japanese cast-iron turtle paperweight.
• A pair of broken reading glasses

Dandelions

It's a beautiful day today.

I spent the early morning on the back porch, sipping a cupful of lichee tea, the black cat sleeping like a puddle of shadow in the corner, the dog, Penny, is curled at my feet.

The backyard is a delight at this time of year. More so now since the lawnmower is in for repair and the lawn, which is usually a desert of crewcut, homogeneous green, has turned into a small meadow replete with clover, buttercups, hawkweed, daisies, and dandelions. I'll talk more about dandelions in a minute.

It's a small backyard, but it is full of delights. A high bush blueberry lost its blossoms a few weeks ago and is covered with green precursors to the feast that we'll share with the birds. A huge white pine blossomed this year and covered the porch and roof with a thick coat of dusty pollen. A rhubarb plant sits unharvested in the corner of a flower garden near the iris patch. California poppies with blossoms of white, pink and a particularly intense fluorescent orange that, in bright sunlight, hurts the eyes, sway in the light breeze dropping an occasional petal.

The violets have bloomed and gone by, so have the tiny white blossoms of the lungwort. Over by the fence are the sine-wave loops of the Egyptian onions. The clothesline stretches out across the yard and one of the white shirts I wear to work is waving contemptuously at my indolence. Nestled in the long grass beneath a partially deflated basketball, Penny's favorite plaything, lurks like an old joke (Oh, look at the orange Momma laid).

As I said ... it's a beautiful day.

It's Father's Day.

And it's as a father that I'd like to talk about dandelions.

I love dandelions! It makes me an outcast here in suburbia ... but I'll repeat it. I love dandelions.

I always have.

When I was a child, I enjoyed splitting the stems and threading them together to create golden crowns and garlands. I marveled at their ability to regenerate within a few days, at their transformation from golden blossoms to ethereal clocks of seeds that could be dispersed by a breeze or a puff of breath.

When I was older, I read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury and lusted for a taste. When it finally came I was not disappointed. I ate dandelion greens in salad and boiled. I learned to roast the roots to make a kind of herbal coffee ... thereby also learning of the diuretic properties.

The dandelion seemed to be a perfect plant. When I first heard Michael Flanders and Donald Swann sing the praises of the "Wompom"

You can do such a lot with a Wompom,
You can use every part of it too.
For work or for pleasure,
It's a triumph, it's a treasure,
Oh there's nothing that a Wompom cannot do.

I immediately thought of dandelions.

Eventually I read the autobiography of G.K. Chesterton and laughed in recognition of his chapter-long paean to my favorite flower, and smiled at Henry Ward Beecher's comment that ...

“It gives one a sudden start in going down a barren, stony street, to see upon a narrow strip of grass, just within the iron fence, the radiant dandelion, shining in the grass, like a spark dropped from the sun”

More recently I was happy to find that the Japanese word "tampopo", which is also the name of an excellently funny movie, means dandelion.

But there is another reason that I like this flower. It resists. It persists. It prevails. It is a gift that we have been given, that, try as one might, cannot be returned or destroyed. Mow it down ... it will regrow almost overnight. Rip it up by the roots ... it will resurrect from the tiniest fragment left behind. Banish it from your lawn with chemicals ... it will find a crack in your driveway. 

This tenacious blessing makes me think that it would be a far better symbol of democracy than the, comparatively, fragile bald eagle. Look how much work it is to bring back that delicate raptor from the brink of extinction. Has anyone ever suggested that the dandelion might become an endangered species? 

And doesn't the dandelion grow just the way we would like to see democracy grow, springing up randomly, refusing to be eradicated, sending its roots deep and providing food, drink, beauty and happiness to even the poorest among us?

Why is it then, that as a culture, we hate the dandelion with a fervor that borders on madness? We dose our lawns with chemicals that we know can harm our children, we expend enormous energy and money to kill this beneficial blossom rather than rejoicing in its strength.

I think the answer lies in the fact that dandelions are out of our control. They will not be told where to go and where not to go. They pop their heads up inconveniently, spoiling the long dreary sameness of vast expanses of fallow land, and say "Here I am all different and ready to delight your eye." But we turn away in horror as we do from teenagers with purple hair and multiple piercings, and call for security to toss the interlopers out.

These horrid little yellow things are destroying our sense of sameness, our comfortable pablum-like existence. We want our green and useless lawn to be just that.

And I have to ask ... just as we try to kill off dandelions, aren't we doing the same to our children? Marginalizing the "troublemakers" the "artists" those that ask the difficult questions and refuse to accept rote answers. Why have we made such a religion of blandness, consistency, homogeneity and standardization?

From a society that was based on and valued the individual, the iconoclast, the rebel, the free-thinker, the genius, we have seemingly devolved into a bunch of obedient automatons who aspire to nothing more than to live in little boxes made of ticky-tacky that all look just the same. We view any ambition that cannot be measured by money with suspicion. We shrink from departures from the norm.

If we want flowers. we say, we'll plant them in rows and beds, in neatly spaced arrays to demonstrate our control. We want nothing to do with those damned self-reliant, self-sustaining, invasive weeds no matter how useful or beautiful they may be. They are an offense against us.

We say the same to our children. Stand there. Join a team. Be a member. Don't be different. Don't think for yourself. Memorize this. Don't ask questions. Fit in. Don't talk to those weeds over there or people will think you're one of them. 

I started this rant because it's Father's Day ... and I'm a father. I'd like to think that I'm a good one. My kids are grown and on their own for the most part, but they know I love them and I know they love me. 

I am proud of each of them, for each in his or her own way has found a path, their own path, not one dictated by society, and they have done well. They are beautiful, witty, interesting, and they think for themselves. They are competent, intelligent, strong and flexible.

I know them for what they are.

Dandelions!

I have been sloppy

I have been sloppy about maintaining this site, and my two other blog sites have not been updated in so long that I'm considering deleting them altogether.

I have lots of excuses ... but none of them hold any weight.

But I have been writing. I have continued to post in Salon's TableTalk, of which I have been a member for many years, I have abandoned a nearly complete novel, and a partially complete book of history in favor of a new novel, which seems, at least to me, to hold great promise ... and I continue to write scurrilous poetic pastiches and limericks. 

But there is something in me that seems to avoid putting my work out for all to see.

Yes, I know that sounds odd considering my posting on a message board, but there seems to be a difference between posting a response or reaction, sort of a bastard child created in online conversation, and tossing something absolutely new into the world to be fodder for the virtual masses.

The unfortunate thing is that whatever is festering inside me is affecting not only my creativity but my life in general. I have distanced myself from friends and family. I avoid making important decisions. I am too easily dissuaded from action. It's as if there is a black hole inside me and everything tumbles in to be consumed and to disappear.

Maybe it's a lack of self-confidence ... 

In any case, the essays below were written last summer. This explanation is being written to avoid re-immersing myself in the world that I am creating in my new attempt at fiction.

It's amazing, isn't it, the lengths to which one will go to avoid the pleasures of creation?

More on blueberries

More from last summer ...

This morning I harvested blueberries. For lunch I had a tomato sandwich.

The tomato sandwich was made of two thick slices of tomato from a neighbor's garden (ours aren't ripe and she offered some of her surplus), two slices of whole grain bread and a bit of salt on the tomato.

It occurred to me that one of the deprivations in UniStatian society is the lack of true sensuality. I'll tell you what I mean.

A blueberry, to many people, seems to be a small blue nugget of flavored sugar. That is how it presents itself in pies, muffins and other manufactured products. There is a certain tickle of delight at the tinge of flavored fructose on the tongue if it can be sensed beneath the flood of glucose that surrounds it.

To me a blueberry is something quite different. It is a flutter of wings among the green leaves, the droop of the branches, their tips dragged down by the ripe globes. It is the feel of the fruit, warmed by the sunshine, the squelch between the fingers of a berry that's overripe or left unfinished by the birds.

It is the perfect combination of resistance and release provided by a ripe berry that lets you gently tug at a mixed cluster and open your hand to find only ripe ones.

It is the faintest tinge of bitterness on the dusty skin, the sun-warm feel of the berry in the mouth, the resistance of the skin as you gently bite down and the sweet explosion of taste as the skin ruptures and the center of your nervous system becomes your tongue.

To many people a tomato is a slightly fruity component of a salad, or a container for some other food.

But there is a special smell to the leaves of a tomato plant. It is a pungent, pleasant smell that dissipates quickly. It is part of the taste of a tomato fresh from the garden that is missing from those that are shipped from distant farms. The flavor is too evanaescent to survive and no amount of seasoning can replace it.

So many people these days have as their only experience of tomatoes, the trip to the chill supermarket and the stacks of red balls falsely dewed by a fog system to appeal to our instincts and make us believe, against all evidence to the contrary, that these foods are fresh.

They have missed the game of hide and seek among the leaves, the atavistic fear of a sudden hornworm, the waiting for ripening, the smell of the earth.

What is the sensual life today ... deodorized, chemically ripened vegetables displayed in a cold warehouse overwhelmed with the odor of rotting things and the tang of metal and chlorine.

Blueberries

From last summer ...

A series of curious thoughts ripened today along with the blueberries.

Actually the blueberries have been ripe for a while but the espresso drought has retarded the development of  my thoughts.

In a daze this morning, I loaded my macchinetta with espresso powder and water and set it to work. At last I heard it spew the neuronic stimulant from the depths like lava from a long dormant Vesuvius.

I poured the black drug into a mug and walked out onto the back porch to drink it in the early morning sun. As I stepped out. several birds rose from a nearby bush and flitted off. Damn! Birds in the blueberries.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" I asked the dog. "You bark at the mailman, the oil truck, the garbage truck ... but a group of marauding blueberri thieves get a free pass." She looked up at me complacently.

I shooed the birds away took a couple of sips of coffee and got a container. As I harvested the large dusty-blue orbs, I muttered a few expletives at the feathered thieves. Suddenly, the word thief linked to the old communist/socialist statement that "all property is theft," and I started to wonder what gave me the pre-eminent right to these berries.

Now bear in mind that the logic embedded in my mind has caused me to forswear 'isms', 'acies', and 'archies'. I am suspicious of all politicians, political thought and political commentators (the last two, of course, being mutually exclusive). But plucking blueberries requires little thought, my brain was bored and decided to take the problem and play with it.

So ... why do I get to shoo the birds away and take the blueberries for myself?

Although I did not plant the bush, I do, from time to time, nurture it and feed it. Is that enough to make the proceeds of the bush mine, and mine alone?

Does the bush belong to me because I care for it?

I 'own' the dirt in which the bush is rooted. I 'own' it because I paid someone else some money for the exclusive right to use it.

Does the bush belong to me because I own the land?

I am bigger (and scarier) than most of the animals that would feed on the berries.

Does the bush belong to me because I am stronger?

My wife makes excellent use of the berries in various ways to keep us nourished in body and spirit. She has many recipes in which blueberries are a component.

Does the bush belong to me because I can make the best use of its bounty?

I took the bucket of blueberries that I had gathered and went over to the porch for another sip of coffee. As I watched, the birds came flitting back over, bouncing on the branches and twittering to each other as they stuffed themselves.

I could shoo them away, and gather all the rest for myself. Then I would have more than enough for us ... but why do I need MORE than enough. I had enough.

The feathered indigents had no way of understanding any of the questions I had posed, nor did they care. I had enough, they had enough, there would be blueberry pancakes for dinner and birdsong outside the window.

The only thing missing was more caffeine.

I took the bucket and my cup and went into the house, the dog laughing quietly at me as she followed.

Mea culpa

I have not updated in far too long. A destructive conjunction of problems has kept me from being able to concentrate on communication. ... but I'm feeling much better now! To hold my place for a bit, please enjoy this photo of me with my granddaughter Amelia.

Self-examination

I am a self-contradiction, an optimistic curmudgeon. Try as I will to nurture the bitter herb of misanthropy, I always manage to find some dandelions of goodwill infesting the fields of my thought. As I say to the coffee jerks at the local palais de caffeine, as they make my signature drug (four shots of espresso over ice), I like my coffee to match my soul ... cold, black and bitter. But those dandelions. (Roasted dandelion root used to be used as a coffee substitute. See, my metaphors aren't drifting as far as you thought are they?!) I must lack the true bitterness that would let me despise globally and unstintingly. Instead, I have an eye for the ridiculous, a sense of the commonality and humor of man. What a state to be in ... whoever heard of a laughing curmudgeon? a cheerful misanthrope, a giggling grump. Ah well, I disdain categories anyway, so I guess I'll revel in my own uniquity.

Seder, you with the stars in your eyes

I mention in my bio that my wife is an artist. Some of her design work is available from a company called Droll Designs. Her latest effort is in their current catalog which has only been out a few days, but her work is proving to be the highlight. She designed a nice Seder plate with individual dishes to hold the symbolic foods. I'm so proud of her. As the old saying goes, "they tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat!"

To Paul S1mone

Some of us are addicted to conversation. It just occurred to me that: Phosphoresence my old friend I've come to talk to you again. While JPGs are slowly loading The urge to chat is just exploding And the bitmap, implanted in my brain Just can't explain Conversing in the sounds of silence. One restless night I typed alone. I didn't use the telephone. The angle brackets would make sure that, What I wrote retained its format. When my ego's pierced by someone else's mordant wit, I felt like shit, Tapping keys in the sounds of silence. And in the flat screen's light I saw Ten million people, maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never shared And no one cared To break the sound of silence. "Fools" I thought, "You do not know The Web just like a cancer grows. Read my email that I might teach you, VOIP that I might reach you." But my words like spam was filtered out, IN CAPS I SHOUT A discard in the null of silence. And on Table Talk we try To believe that time won't fly. What does an hour really matter Compared to witty useless chatter And to writers whose desire to satirize Still clouds their eyes. Leaving novels on the shelves of silence.

More Amelia

There's no such thing as too much Amelia.

Awe

Awe, according to the great rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, is a sense of the ineffable, a feeling that what one is feeling can not be adequately encompassed by words. Like him, some people associate the word with God, although I suspect that they use the word without understanding its depths and heights as he does. For some, awe is a catch-all for things they don't want to bother describing. Some people associate awe with the stunning effects of height, depth, massiveness or vastness. For me, awe is the sensation of seeing a dandelion in full bloom in the middle of an asphalt parking lot.

The chaos of order

I have been reading one of my favorite authors, Henry Petroski, and one of his essays in 'The Evolution of Useful Things' seems to speak to my vision of modern life. Petroski talks about tableware and specifically about forks. He refers to the fact that in 1898 one company produced a single silverware pattern that consisted of 131 discrete specialized pieces for serving or eating. There were separate forks for oysters, berries, terrapin, lettuce, salad, lobster, mango, pastry, fish, pie, and that didn't even include the dinner fork. Additionally some of the utensils were developed specifically for right handed use only. With so much attention needed to match the silverware to the appropriate use, who would have time to enjoy the meal. We've reduced this complexity over time but it persists in places. For me, when I reach in to the silverware drawer to pull out a fork, it doesn't matter to me if it is a salad fork or a dinner fork. The complexity has moved from the dinner table to the kitchen. At one point I remember having found more than 20 different devices for peeling, crushing, and mincing garlic. In the time it takes someone to find their garlic preparer in the doohickey drawer, I will have done the entire operation with the same Chinese cleaver that I use for the meat the vegetables and the herbs. It's tempting to ask why we are so in love with complexity and simultaneously so fearful of it that we build walls and borders to protect ourselves from it. But that's misinterpreting the situation. The complexity that so many love is the complexity of order. It is the farmer brain rampant; memorizing uses and abuses, developing specialized tools for specialized jobs, creating categories and rules. We hunters squat by the woods on the outskirts of town and gaze in wonder at all the bright shiny things. We squat there and trim branches for arrows with our knives, we cut feathers for fletching with our knives, we cut our food with our knives, we stick it in our mouths with our knives. Then we go out into the chaos that is forest and watch for interesting disturbances. As a hunter I worry that the complete imposition of order, no matter how complex, will eventually destroy us. Our objective should not be the subjugation of chaos or the destruction of order it should be to achieve 'life in balance'. To have hunters and farmers not just co-existing but valuing and understanding others' capabilities and needs to the point of mutual respect.

Amelia

In a previous post I talked of Amelia Earhart. For those who are interested ... and even those who aren't, here is her namesake, my granddaughter

Salt in the wound

I'm thinking of writing an epic trilogy to be set in the period of the Old Testament. It's the story of an ordinary woman trying to make the best of life in extraordinary times. Vol. 1 (Her youthful adventures and joys before marriage) 'Not A Lot!' Vol. 2 (Her challenging married years. Her life torn between her husband's virtue and her friends' decadent lifestyle.) 'Don't Look Back' Vol. 3 (Her stoic, silent acceptance of her irresolution, verging on catatonia, frozen in the wasteland between family and friends) 'Salt Of The Earth'

Rational violence

Two of my heroes were sharp observers and commentators on the human condition/comedy, Robert Burton who wrote the Anatomy of Melancholy, and G.K. Chesterton. Some quotes from GKC should explain my infatuation:

'The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.' 'Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.' 'Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.' 'Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.'

What Chesterton is talking about in this last quote is that true violence occurs in the fanatic adherence to rationalizing everything, that reason itself is a blunt instrument, that the force of imposing ideas is more violent than mere physical subjugation. In the full quote, which follows, he explains that the more significant violence of the Puritanical movement in England was not physical.

... it is seldom remembered that the Puritans were in their day emphatically intellectual bullies, that they relied swaggeringly on the logical necessity of Calvinism, that they bound omnipotence itself in the chains of syllogism. The Puritans fell, through the damning fact that they had a complete theory of life, through the eternal paradox that a satisfactory explanation can never satisfy. Like Brutus and the logical Romans, like the logical French Jacobins, like the logical English utilitarians, they taught the lesson that men's wants have always been right and their arguments always wrong. Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it. The tyranny of the Puritans over the bodies of men was comparatively a trifle; pikes, bullets, and conflagrations are comparatively a trifle. Their real tyranny was the tyranny of aggressive reason over the cowed and demoralised human spirit. Their brooding and raving can be forgiven, can in truth be loved and reverenced, for it is humanity on fire; hatred can be genial, madness can be homely. The Puritans fell, not because they were fanatics, but because they were rationalists.

I read that paragraph and I think about the articles of faith that we have today. Standardized testing, types of learning, categorization, naming every quirk so that it can be diminished or eradicated. Rationalism today is the most insidious and vile form of tyranny. How easy it is to medicate people into a bland porridge of humanity. We have pills to lift us up if we're low, pills to bring us down when we're high, pills to make us act just like everyone else. It reminds me of one of the most horrifying visions in the text of Handel's Messiah. It was drawn from Isaiah 40:4

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain.

Imagine a world that really looked like that. Flat, level, featureless, a world that only a corporate farmer could love. Yet that's what I see as the goal of those people who aggressively medicate or discipline or shame our kids out of developing their uniqueness. ... and that is what Chesterton is describing. It is a tyranny of mind that is epidemic. We can see it in the fires of Islamic and in the fury of Christian fundamentalism. We see it in politicians and governments. Worst of all we see it in our schools. "It is not rational that what is a challenge for the rest of the kids is easy for this one," they say, followed by:

• "He's not bored, he's innattentive."
• "I can't understand what he's doing so it is wrong."
• "It is not rational to enjoy being ADD, take this Ritalin."
• "Don't be different."

Where, dear God, did this passion for homogenization come from? Who or what decided that it was wrong to be an individual, to be irrational. The Puritans, like the Taliban, like the Christian right, (yes dammit I know I'm generalizing) wanted a predictable logical society based on their own logic. Any idea counter to that world-view had to be suppressed. Think of it as a Whack-a-Mole game where ideas are pounded down to keep the board smooth. I need some coffee.

A song about cell phones

Okay, before I start I need to make a disclaimer. I have nothing against Samsung as opposed to other wireless phone manufacturers. It's just that their name fits so neatly. Samsung phone Everybody needs one Samsung phone Marketing's the seed son Me and you are subject to the advertisers' push So when you take your money out to buy You make yourself a tush Don't beat around the bush. Samsung phone Got it in your pocket For that phone If you had a soul you'd hock it. Funny thing, but every ring tone costs you lotsa bucks Your bank account is empty, mortgage overdue And your credit sucks Samsung phone Everybody needs one Samsung phone Now we know that greed's won

Envy

My neighbor's backyard is hidden from others by a tall weathered palisade fence. The slats are tight together. They let no hint of what is behind them escape. But, from my window I can see over the fence. Just above the top I can see a mound against the opposite fence, a mound of incandescent orange poppies. From here they are a mass of outrageous color, an insane brilliant boundary splashed between and against the grey weathered fence and the green turf. My poppies have not bloomed yet. When they do they will explode in luscious pinks and purples and deep rich reds. The petals unfolding to reveal the fat black stamen waving their pistil legs at the sky like overturned spiders. But for now, I must be content to peek over the fence At the glorious color in my neighbor's yard.

Discussion

This morning I sat on the back porch with a cup of coffee and a dog. I listened to a religious discussion between two mockingbirds. "Chikchikwarblewarblechirppwarble," said the one on top of the pine. "Chikwarblechikwarbledhirpchirpchirp," said the other from deep in the spruce. They repeated their arguments often, to uderscore the importance and veracity of their positions. "Oooo," said a mourning dove. "You tell 'em," said a flicker. But it was unclear which side they supported, A flash of red cut across the grass and dandelions, to land on the fence. "You're both full of ... " And with a flick of his tail the cardinal was gone. From a nearby rooftop, a small mob of crows laughed derisively, and went back to aerobatics practice. "How very dogmatic," I muttered, then apologized to my companion for any perceived slur. She looked at me with pity and acceptance of my failures. In the distance the hum of cars and trains urged me to hurry, "It's time to move, time to merge, time to ... quick, quick." I ignored it preferring the buddhist "ommmmm" of the bumblebees. My coffee gone, I rose from my seat. The dog rose beside me. I got more coffee, she got more water. "The bird in the pine," I said to her, "Was aggressive and too vehement. Which tends to make me doubt his position." She gave a short yip of affirmation, predictably preferring agreement to discussion. The cat, curled under the lilacs, abstained.

Amelia Earhart's Last Flight

By Dave McEnery A ship out on the ocean, just a speck against the sky, Amelia Earhart flying that sad day; With her partner, Captain Noonan, on the second of July Her plane fell in the ocean, far away. Chorus: There's a beautiful, beautiful field Far away in a land that is fair. Happy landings to you, Amelia Earhart Farewell, first lady of the air. She radioed position and she said that all was well, Although the fuel within the tanks was low. But they'd land on Howland Island to refuel her monoplane, Then on their trip around the world they'd go. Well, a half an hour later an SOS was heard, The signal weak, but still her voice was brave. Oh, in shark-infested waters her plane went down that night In the blue Pacific to a watery grave. Well, now you have heard my story of that awful tragedy, We pray that she might fly home safe again. Oh, in years to come though others blaze a trail across the sea, We'll ne'er forget Amelia and her plane. Chorus: There's a beautiful, beautiful field Far away in a land that is fair. Happy landings to you, Amelia Earhart Farewell, first lady of the air.

Two Amelias

Today is Amelia Earhart Day. A brave and adventurous woman, she said: "Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense." "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward." “Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.” "Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace, The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things." "The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship." “The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay with courage to behold restless day and count it fair.” "Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn't be done." "No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves." "Adventure is worthwhile in itself." "Never do things others can do and will do, if there are things others cannot do or will not do." "The most effective way to do it, is to do it." All of which are words that I hope my new grand-daughter Amelia will grow to understand and live by.

Junk poem

There's a certain ethereal quality to the subject lines of spam. Sometimes I just browse the Thunderbird Junk folder to enjoy the random juxtapositions of words. Perhaps there is a secret hidden there, a kabbalistic meaning that exists on a deeper level. Be that as it may, here is the latest crop in chronological order. Is it just me or does it seem as if the universe is quivering at the door whimpering to be let in? you should read this josh sniff That reply in hautbois Contact the Agent Urgently!!! You have won Or talk so groat Important Account Notice! Be cancel he sly To sign no refer wan My make as dawdle robin

Sky

The sky is the color of a page of an unpublished novel, typed on corrasable bond, that slipped out of the stack and lay on the ground in the rain all night, until it is discovered, smudged and illegible, frozen in the mud.

An antidote

Here's one of my favorite passages from Tom Holt

In the beginning was the Word. Nobody knows what it actually was, although it would be nice to think it was 'Sorry.' After a while the Word began to feel bored. It checked its spelling, but that was all right. It tried rhyming with itself, but it had an idea that that made you go blind. It put itself into italics, but they hurt. There was nothing for it but to create some other words and see what happened. To begin with, the Words just bounced about, like a lot of random particles; and when they bumped into each other, small bits and corners were chipped off, fell through space, acquired momentum and became Matter. Then most of the original Words decided to form a gang, dress up in white sheets and beat the pulp out of the adjectives, who they felt were getting above themselves, and so engrossed did they become in this that they failed to notice that a rival group of sentient beings had materialised out of nowhere. By the time they realised they were not alone, the Words had been scooped up, parsed senseless and imprisoned in the first ever word processor.

The Eve of the Blizzard

Yes, I know that I promised to keep writing, but the black humours overcame me and I sank into the depths again. Having given up drinking, oblivion was denied me. Having given up smoking, the solace of slow suicide was also unreachable. Which leaves me no recourse except to accept the slow progress of life. I have struggled to the surface in time for the snow. It occurs to me that snow is much like an antidepressant medication. It covers the the world in a blanket of fresh crispness like a bed made with freshly ironed sheets (a metaphor I will promptly discard). Winter's appearance of brilliant purity may be nature's way of making up for the dark cold depths of the longer nights. Would that it could. For the chronic melancholic it is merely a facade. Beneath the pristeen surface, the detritus lies in frozen suspension. Only temporarily hidden are the results of emptied dog dishes, the rubble of the wrappers of fast food and fast sex resisting decomposition and waiting to rise from their fastness in Spring. Should I write a book to be called "A la recherche du temps rapide"? The chemicals keep winter always. I feel like Oscar Wilde's selfish giant without even the mirage of faith. My winter is psychopharmaco with out the logic. The balance is maintained. No thaw can be permitted to allow growth for it would also let the garbage bubble muddily to the surface. I am wrapped in winter as a mummy is wrapped in bandages, as a monk is rapt in meditation immobile in opposition to the lust of the enraptured raptor dipping its hooked beak in the steam of its prey. I am snowbound. Where's that goat-footed balloon man?

A Cup of Coffee

Gratuitous Haiku Thoughts grind to powder in my skull Like seeds in a cracked suribachi.

There is a square glass jar in the cupboard to the right of the stove. It used to contain a store-bought black olive tapenade. Its new label is worn and stained with oil. It reads "Green Cardamom. I open it and tip two of the pods into my old, cracked and chipped suribachi and lay the surikogi next to it. I twist open the vesuviana espresso pot. and dump the grounds from the metal filter into the trash. I rinse the filter and dump the dribble of water left in the bottom of the pot. Fresh spring water goes in. Then the filter. I grind the cardamom seeds to powder with the tip of the surikogi, leaving the husks in. Then pour the contents into the filter. Three heaping tablespoons of Italian roast, ground to the powder that makes the best espresso, is placed lovingly on top of the spice. Then I screw the top of the pot on. (Why do I always miss lining up the threads the first time?) Onto the burner it goes. As I rinse my mug and wonder, not for the first time today, Why I have so much trouble writing. The thoughts grind around inside my head like ... like cardamom in my cracked suribachi. It used to ring when tapped with the surikogi, Ring like a bell, but now it's just a dull thud. Unlike the cardamom, my thoughts and dreams pour from the cracked suribachi of my skull devoid of scent, devoid of flavor, meaningless.

Ah ... The steam is spitting from the pot. The coffee's ready. I pour a mugfull of the brew, bitter and black as my mood, and go back to my work to try again.

I Am A Terrorist

Here is an incident, all too believable, which points out that an education devoid of humor is not much of a benefit.

Out of the depths

Sorry all about the long hiatus. For the last few months I have been overcome with melancholy ... or depression. A strange conspiracy of fates created an intersection of multiple deaths, births, poverty, computer failure, automobile failure, which combined with my natural melancholia to essentially cork my whines. In order to cure myself, or at least retrieve my ability to communicate, I have straightened my study, and surgically removed about 30% of my books. Included in this liberectomy are nearly all of my supporting library for technical writing. This is probably a good thing since it indicates my acceptance of the probability that I will not be re-employed in that field ... certainly not at the level that I was. It seems to me that it is time to write more durable prose. It is odd to realize that I have written over 100 books in the last 20 years and not a single one of them remains in print, having died with the software it explained. I have a novel that needs a bit of work before being launched on the whimsical sea of publisher's taste.

I heard a disturbing comment from an executive at Borders recently. Apparently he feels that he should be able to tell authors how to change their plots and characters to make the book acceptable to the chain!

I also have a history of Farmington, ME that needs some work. I should try to get that done soon since I have a hankering to win the National Novel Writing Month contest again.

moblog

My family communicates, albeit in curious and high tech ways. Witness moblog a blog perpetrated by my eldest son. Ahhh acorn ... it is not that far from the tree that you fall. And your father is talking like Yoda again.

The conscience of a pharmacist

I'm glad that we have some pharmacists who have the guts to follow their consciences. It's just too bad that all the attention is on those who will not dispense birth control. (I hope they're also being diligent about all of the medications that cause birth defects.) I'm sure that these pharmacists of conscience have purged their businesses of hair coloring compounds that contain lead, shampoos and conditioners that contain placenta, hair growth products that pregnant women are warned not to touch. It goes without saying that condoms, douches and anything else that could interfere conception are verboten. Perhaps the next step is to require wheelchair curb service for any female within the range of child-bearing years, after all we don't want any spontaneous miscarriages. And wouldn't it be good if we required all women to take "Antabuse" to keep them from drinking alcohol in the probability that they are pregnant I just don't think that it goes far enough. We need to highlight pharmacists of conscience whose scruples go beyond those of merely removing reproductive freedom. How about the PETA and vegan pharmacists who refuse to dispense any medications (or for that matter cosmetics) that were developed using animal testing. Don't expect to get any innoculations from them. Their bravery is immense. Just think how empowered they'll feel if we are attacked with bio-weapons. How thankful the anthrax will be to know that it is safe. It's time for NAAFA pharmacists to ban diet aids from their business. Vitamins have to go too, after all they just enable people to eat less for the same nutrition. And Moslem pharmacists who refuse to have photo-processin in the store. Damn! It's good to have people of conscience around to think these things out for us and tell us what to do. "Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." --G.K. Chesterton

An Omelette Recipe

Today's breakfast omelette: 1. Make some coffee. 2. Go out to the garden. 3. Gather two Bulbs and shoots of Egyptian onion, a sprig of basil, and a sprig of oregano. 4. Go to the kitchen. 5. Peel and coarsely chop five cloves of garlic. 6. Do the same to the onions. 7. Chop the herbs finely. 8. Slice some sharp cheddar. 9. Put a skillet on a burner. 10. Set to medium heat. 11. Toss in a lump of butter. 12. When the butter starts to turn color, add the garlic and onions. 13. Beat two eggs in a bowl with a fork. 14. Toss the garlic and onions to ensure even cooking. 15. Add the herbs to the eggs. 16. Beat the eggs some more. 17. Toss the garlic and onions again. 18. Pour in the egg mix. 19. Rinse bowl and fork. 20. Cook until nearly firm. 21. Add the cheese and fold. 22. Sing: You can get anything you want ... at Alice's Restaurant. You can get anything you want ... at Alice's Restaurant. Walk right in it's around the back. Just a half a mile from the railroad track. You can get anything you want ... at Alice's Restaurant. 23. Slide omelette onto a plate. 24. Add a pinch of salt and a grind or two of pepper. 25. Pour a mug of coffee. 26. Get the rinsed fork and pick up the plate and the mug. 27. Walk out to back porch. 28. Sit and eat while watching the hummingbirds in the bee balm and ignoring the imploring looks of the dog at your feet. 29. Take your time. 30. When done put the plate on the floor by your chair for the dog to lick clean. 31. Take your time finishing the coffee. 32. Pick up plate, mug, and fork and take them to the kitchen. 33. Wash everything except the mug thoroughly. 34. Pour another mug of coffee. 35. Go to your study. 36. Avoid starting work by writing recipe.

Mad URL

Just thought I'd mention that, while no one was looking, I revived an old blog of mine called Mad URL. This is the place that I drop the strange, interesting or amusing sites that I find in my web wanderings. This brings the number of my blogs to three and that's where it will stay ... I think.

Condi

(To the tune of that insipid pop song 'Brandy'.) There's a jerk on a western range, And he thinks that we need to change. So we let'im, don't you think that's strange? 'Cause we're losing all we've gained. And there's a girl in this guy's employ, She thinks diplomacy's a toy. They say "Condi's got another ploy To piss our allies off." They say "Condi, you're a fine girl "What an odd life you will lead "Now that you've replaced your ethics with your greed" (dooda-dit-dooda, dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit) Condi wears a business suit To disguise her secret inner brute. For us she doesn't give a hoot. She's workin' for her George. He came on election day, Bringin' oil from far away, And he made it clear that he would stay, No matter what the vote. He said "Condi, you're a fine girl "In my cab'net you will be (such a fine girl) "But the Saudi's are my true love doncha see." (dooda-dit-dooda, dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit) Yeah, Condi used to watch his eyes As he told the nation stories. She could feel her gorge rise As he waved around 'Old Glory'. But he offered her the loot and power to sit at his right hand, And Condi does her best to understand. (dooda-dit-dooda, dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit) In Iraq, when we've had our way, Condi talks, excusing death away, Ensures the pipes are heading just our way Are they pumping red and black. George says, "Condi, you're a fine girl, "You've done a good job for me, (such a fine girl) "But now the money's flowin doncha see." (dooda-dit-dooda, dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit) Condi, you're a fine girl (you're a fine girl) What a bad mess you leave (such a fine girl) But the rich don't the time to sit and grieve. (dooda-dit-dooda, dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit) Sit and grieve Sit and grieve

To Mrs. Professor in Defense of My Cat's Honor and Not Only

A triple treat for you to make up for my absence. First - The title links to an excellent poem by Czeslaw Milosz. I could say more, but the notes below the poem will suffice. Second - Here are a lot more of his poems. Third - Let me tell you how I learned about him. A few months ago, someone wrote to tell me about "The Wondering Minstrels," a poetry email service that sends a poem nearly every day. The poems are accompanied by personal commentaries, critical analyses etc. The archive website lets readers comment. You can also subscribe from there.

A New Favorite Quote or Two

Okakura Kakuzo in The Book of Tea speaks of the mutual ignorance of the other's culture between Asia and the U.S. "You have been loaded with virtues too refined to be envied and accused of crimes too picturesque to be condemned." Ahh what a smooth talker! "I'll tell you right out-I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk." -- Kasper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet) in The Maltese Falcon "The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." --G.K. Chesterton (with a point of view that the religious right should pay more attention to) "Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." --G.K. Chesterton again "Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it." --G.K. Chesterton (Can you tell that I am an admirer?) "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true." --James Branch Cabell

I can no longer remember the name of the book (it belonged to the school library), but it was about some aspect of programming. I was on deadline and racing through the book when one paragraph stopped me in my tracks. I read it again more slowly and suddenly realized that it was a sonnet in paragraph form. The rhyme and meter were very good. It was Petrarchan rather than Shakesperean. It wasn't great, but it was competently executed.

I had this sudden vision of a scholar facing a life full of jargon and active voice, reaching out with a word processor, that he wished were a quill, hoping to make contact. When I went back to find the book a few days later, I could no longer remember which one it was.

Ah well ... time to diminish some more sonnets.

Bill S. had a way with a sonnet, He always had one in his bonnet. I feel kinship with Bill, For his verse (if you will) Only has a few extra feet on it. Sonnet 2
When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held: Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise. How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use, If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,' Proving his beauty by succession thine! This were to be new made when thou art old, And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold. Limerick 2 When your skin is like old corduroy, And your youth Father Time did destroy, She says, "You're no beauty!" You tell her, "Hey cutie, To see me, just you look at my boy.

Blog quirks

I'm a little surprised at some of the quirks that my blog has been experiencing. Perhaps the formatting I used is creating problems. ... A little later ... It seems to have been a problem with the template I selected. Once again I have been forced to change the look. My apologies to the confused.

Anatomy of Melancholy

What a wonder the web is. Today I received a message from a gentleman named Thomas, who writes a blog "Anatomy of Melancholy" from Athens, Greece. He discovered my blog in the course of a search. Google and its ilk have the potential to create the most fascinating virtual neighborhoods based on thought rather than mere geography. It was a delight to find that he tends to ramble, much as I do about the things about him and the hazes of meaning and ambiguity. It was also amusing (but, on reflection, not much of a stretch) to find that we also share an interest in Leonard Cohen, about whom Thomas has an extended ramble which includes the following: Anatomy of Melancholy "I think I can say that I'm not a philistine, but I do have a deep-seated distrust of and impatience with what I perceive as extra-literary theory, or even literary theory, when it is prescriptive. I prefer to be descriptive and not to stray from common sense. My distrust of theory probably comes from the observation that rather than help broaden our understanding, in most hands it is used to censure, and even to censor. I heard the words 'offended' and 'offensive' a lot in university. I don't think an open, inquisitive mind should or can be easily offended. Whoever is easily and vociferously offended is trying to cut down the world around them to their own measure, rather trying to understand and to adapt." It makes me think about the famous interchange when Oscar Wilde admitted to James McNeill Whistler, “I wish I’d said that, Jamey,” and Whistler replied, “Don’t worry, Oscar, you will.” I wish I'd said that, Thomas. Wait ... maybe I did ... Wander over there to enjoy some thoughtful and interesting writing. As an aid to navigation, I will just say that Thomas is the one who looks like a moody intellectual ... I, on the other hand, am the burly ruffian.

LimeRickey

I have started another blog. It is a petty thing. Its reasons for being are to give me a small, self-imposed challenge to create limericks based on the day or week's news and to amuse me. It is called (in my typically pungent manner) LimeRickey or for the paronomastically impaired LimeRickey. (If you do suffer from Ambiguity Deficit Disorder you may want to forgo a visit to the new blog since it will only confuse, sadden and anger you.) These limericks will be written quickly, and thus may not be up to the standards of the Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form (OEDILF). I will have the advantage over Philipp Goedicke of NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (the strictures under which he composes must have an effect), since I get to choose my own news stories and don't have to worry about Carl Kassel's cold-reading skills.

A brief word about editorial privilege

Because in this blog, I am both mighty and all powerful, it is my privilege to go back and revise from time to time. Since I have just added pictorial capability, I have gone back to give you the joy of looking at some of the photos on the walls of my study. I have also taken the occasion to revise and reformat some earlier pieces.

Launching a thousand ships?

Some people may want to put a face to 'The New Anatomy of Melancholy'. This character study for a portrait of Diego Martelli by Degas suggests that perhaps I am older than you thought.

A Single Shell Organism

Imagine a shell, egg-shaped & so clear you cannot see it. Be inside it. Be sealed off from all contact. It works so well that it bounces around you like a bubble yet you walk straight & stable. You are so used to it you no longer notice as it pushes people to either side as you pass. You are so used to it you are aware only of its failures. The compression in the subway stops your breath. The wind whips a scarf into your face & you recoil, not hurt but shocked by the touch. You can reach out, but no body reaches in. It has been so long that you do not remember whether you made the shell or others put it around you. It doesn’t seem to matter. No body reaches in ...

Where there's a Will there's a limerick

Occasionally when I ponder the works of Shakespeare, it seems that he can be a bit verbose. Sonnet #29 for example goes like this:

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least, Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Which is all well and good, but it's verbose and in sonnet form. Sonnets are merely limericks that need to go on a diet. Limerick #29

When alone I can get sort of blue, And jealous of those with a clue, I might wish I were smart Or had some kind of art, Then I think that I'm rich to have you.

Laundry day

Remove the silk, the satin and drop them to the floor. I will not enter, nor try to steal a glimpse of your body with the sharp straight lines of elastic cut into your flesh. Stretch your arms above your head and I will imagine you, body free, marks fading, in the sunlight through the dusty window. Put on the faded bluejeans and cotton shirt ... sandals if you want. Here is a washboard and a bar of soap, a galvanized tub with cold water. We’ll carry it out to the back of the house where a pile of clothes waits for your rough justice. Here is a pile of wood and the axe that I will use to split it, dangerously stealing glimpses at you out of the corner of my eye. Scrub the coarse cloth against the washboard. Your breasts move freely within the shirt, straining the buttons, and you start to sweat. Your hands are rough and red in the cold water. I split the logs to kindling, watching you move in your damp soapy clothes, the movements of your body perfect. The axe is silent the wood is done. I lean on the axe, filling my eyes with you and finally you look up, and catch me looking. You smile and take the last of the laundry and twist it over the tub, and toss it into the finished pile, and stand up, and walk to me, and take my work-reddened hand in yours, and lead me to our bed.

Change in the look

For those who are returning to this blog, you will notice a change in its appearance. Although I liked the simple elegance of the previous template, the grey text was irritating. In typically lazy fashion, I scrapped the template instead of modifying it. For new visitors ... never mind!

My Study

My room is lined with books. Six large bookcases hold my 'in use' library. Shelves of hardcovers and paperbacks loosely sorted into categories. The two volume 'Oxford English Dictionary' lies on the floor near my feet. It takes up too much space on the oak library table that is my desk. I need it too often to shelve it. With a small pillow on top it makes a nice low footrest. Other dictionaries and thesauruses are on a shelf that I can reach from my chair. 'Bartlett's Quotations', Partridge's dictionary of slang, 'Walker's Rhyming Dictionary', some etymological dictionaries, a biblical concordance, Brander Matthew's 'Study of Versification' sit next to a handful of style guides, the printer's 'Pocket Pal' and an assortment of XML and HTML references. On the shelf above you'll find books on information design and usability. The distinctive yellow spine of 'A Pattern Language' holds the center spot. Other reference shelves contain a complete set of Frazier's 'Golden Bough', a complete set of Sir Richard Burton's 'One Thousand Nights and a Night' with all the supplementary volumes. There is a shelf of books on New England folklore and references on farming for the novel that I'm writing, another shelf of books on linguistics, symbols and semiotics. The two shelves of poetry are overstuffed. I'll have to winnow them soon. Deacon, Pinker, Gould, Thomas, Dennett and Calvin all appear in the science and philosophy section. Three volumes of Euclid are also there beside Darwin and Warren McCulloch's 'Embodiments of Mind'. Paperback fiction is stored on its side in stacks the stacks arranged two or three deep depending on the size. From where I sit I can see a stack of Robertson Davies, another of Tom Holt, some Charles DeLint and Christopher Moore. But Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung books, Matthew Lewis' 'The Monk', and a stack of Tom Sharpe's insane novels are tucked in there somewhere. My library insulates me from the cold and from the intellectual Siberia that is suburbia. The smell of paper soothes me and the tactile input of the page whether bright white, smooth pages of O'Reilly technical books or the yellowed foxed pages of my Pomey's Pantheon published in 1709 warms my soul. My closet is stuffed with my inactive library in neatly labeled boxes. In them are books that I may not need, but am unwilling to part with yet. At the bottom are boxes containing most of the 100+ software manuals that I have written, talismans of once and future (but not present) employment. Books are not the only things I have around me. Drawings and lithographs hang on what little wall space is left. Pinned to the bulletin board by my table are maps and timelines for my novel. A photo of Tom Baker as Dr. Who, and the following photos:
Jerry Lettvin and Walter Pitts talking with their collaborator Rana Pipiens.
Concert pianist and legendary teacher Theodore Lettvin gazes moodily down at the corner of a badly scanned photograph.
G.K. Chesterton accepting the gift of a dandelion from a young admirer.

I'm my own ...

I apologize for the lack of PC in the following piece. I've always been amused by Guy Lombardo's little ditty about family relations and one day it occurred to me that things could get far more complicated these days. So ... I made it more complicated. (Apologies to Guy Lombardo) Now many, many years I was a man you see, I was married to a widow who was pretty as can be. This widow had a daughter who liked older men she said. My father fell in love with her and soon they too were wed. This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life. My daughter was my mother 'cause she was my father's wife. To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy, I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy. My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad, And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad, For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother, Of the widow's grown-up daughter who was also my stepmother. Father's wife then had a son who kept them on the run. And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter's son. My wife is now my mother's mother, and it makes me blue, Because although she is my wife, she's my grandmother too. Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I'm her grandchild, And every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild, For now I have become the strangest case I ever saw, As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa. Thanks Guy! I'll take it from here. But the lie that I've been living throughout these many years Has kept my soul in misery and salted all my tears. The gal I have inside of me insists she must be free, And so I went to Sweden and arranged for surgery. So now the widow has a wife, her daughter's second Ma, My son has got two sisters, though still he calls one 'Pa.' This makes my grandson dizzy so he calls me 'Granny Sis.' And my poor wife has told me that she can't go on like this. She told me that she hated that my tits don't sag like hers, That I use up all her lipstick and have a nicer purse. She says she's not a lesbian, I no longer turn her on. So now she's gone to Sweden too and says to call her John. She didn't give up men though (she says she's nouveau gay). I opened up a letter that she sent the other day. She said that she's divorcing me to marry Jim my cousin. But she's the groom and he's the bride and my poor head is buzzin'. 'Cause she wants me to be the best man and bridesmaid all in one. Of course I said I'd do it, and I think it will be fun. But today's the day and in the mirror I think a see a pimple. Oh why must this afflict me now? Why can't my life be simple. Oh I'm my own transgen I'm my own transgen It sounds funny I know, But it really is so Oh I'm my own transgen.

Private England

To the tune of 'Officer Krupke' from West Side Story (as always, apologies to Bernstein and Sondheim) ALI Dear Private Lynndie England, You gotta understand, Our faith will not be shattered Nor vanish on command. Our mothers all are wailing, Our fathers all are dead. Golly Allah, shot right through the head! Gee whiz, Private England, we're very upset; Your country blocked the food and meds we needed to get. We ain't no Al Qaeda, We're misunderstood. But still on our head there is a hood. There's a hood! ALL PRISONERS There's a hood, there's a hood, There's a big black hood. We did no crime but still we wear a hood. MUSTAFA (speaking as Private England) That's a touchin' good story. ALI (spoken) Lemme tell it to the world! MUSTAFA as England (spoken) Just tell it to the Intelligence Officer. ALI Dear kindly Colonel Pappas, Don't let those dogs bite me. I have no information. Why won't you set me free. I know you think I'm evil. For begging for baksheesh, But why must I wear a collar and a leash! SALEEM as Colonel Pappas My dear Private England put a hood upon his head; If he don't want to help, then let's just shock him instead. Clip wires to his balls and make him stand on a box. And give him the juice until he talks. ALI Til I talk. ALL Til he talks, til he talks, Til he damn well talks, And then we'll let him pound some rocks. SALEEM (speaking as Pappas) This man is an Arab, so he can't be telling the truth. ALI (spoken) Hey, I'm a liar for Allah! SALEEM as Pappas (spoken) So take him to interrogation. ALI Why have you stripped me naked And put me in a pile The Koran says that's sinful. Women's panties ain't my style. The private likes my privates. And never lets me dress. Goodness gracious, that's why I'm a mess! RASHID (as interrogator) Go away Private England and take him along. He has some vital facts for us and I'm never wrong. Go ask Mister Rumsfeld just what he wants to do, This plan that he hatched has not come through. ALI I am through! ALL We are through, we are through, Though what we say is true, And talk until our face is blue. RASHID (speaking as the interrogator) In my opinion, this man does not respond to standard interrogation techniques. We'll have to use torture. Make him listen to Rumsfeld justify American foreign policy. That should soften him up. ALI (spoken) Hey, I got a soft spot on my head where I got clubbed! RASHID as interrogator (spoken) So take him to the Pentagon. ALI Oh Mister Secretary, They say that I am bad, They say that I have info, I swear I never had. I do not hate your country, I only hate George Bush So take my statement And shove it up your tush. IBRAHIM as Rumsfeld Oh my, Private England, you've done it again. This man don't want to talk, so you must hit him and then You'll have to take the rap because you're poorer than me, Maybe in ten years you'll be free. ALI What of me? ALL What of me, what of me? Won't you set us free We're innocent so set us free. SALEEM as Pappas The trouble is he's Shiite. RASHID as the interrogator The trouble is he's poor. IBRAHIM as Rumsfeld The trouble is he's pissed-off. SALEEM as Pappas If he walks out the door. RASHID as the interrogator He might just join Al Qaeda. IBRAHIM as Rumsfeld 'Cause that's what we would do. ALL England, we can't cover your ass too! Gee whiz, Private England, We're down on our knee, ALI And no one wants a fella who just wants to be free. ALL Salaam, Private England, What are we to do? We got fucked over You too!

When you're a Fed

To the tune of 'When You're a Jet' from West Side Story (apologies to Bernstein and Sondheim) When you're a Fed, You're a Fed all the way From your first wiretap Til you put 'em away. When you're a Fed, Let 'em do what they can. You got Bush on your side, If you follow his plan! You're never alone, You're never disconnected! Just put 'em in jail: No civil right's protected, For the disaffected! Then you are set With a mandate to play, Fast and loose with the law The American way. When you're a Fed, You stay a Fed. When you're a Fed, You can do what you please, You're in charge of it all All those assets to seize. When you're a Fed, A tool of the right wing: Why not just have a coup; And make Bush the king. The Feds are in gear, Their guns are all a poppin'. They're instilling fear 'Cause Ashcroft they are proppin' And they're not stoppin'. Here come the Feds Like a bat out of hell. They'll beat us to death, With the Liberty Bell. Here come the Feds: Arab world, step aside! Better go underground, Better run, better hide. We're drawin' the line, So keep your noses hidden! We're hangin' a sign, Says "Visitors forbidden" And we ain't kiddin'! Here come the Feds, Yeah! An' they're gonna beat Ev'ry liberal lefty Every Arab they meet. On the whole ever-mother-lovin' street!

West Side Story

I wonder what it is about the Bush Administration that makes me think of West Side Story. Scalia To the tune of 'Maria' from West Side Story (apologies to Bernstein and Sondheim) Scalia ... I just met a judge named Scalia. And suddenly I find The Bill of Rights' not signed For me. Scalia Say it loud and it sounds like braying, Say it soft and you'd better be praying. Scalia He'll keep me from straying Scaliaaaaaah ... Oooops, gotta go. Ashcroft's at the door.

Bill Clinton in Slumberland

I was wandering through some old files and found this little ditty that I had composed for Bill Clinton.

Are you tucked into your bed? The battle fought, the country led, For all good boys should be asleep Your fantasies in dreams to keep. Don't let them out to take the air For everyone will want to share. The fun they'll poke, the games they'll play, (They'll want to play them every day). Your inner needs will be a joke, Your plans and power up in smoke. Your work supplanted by the sleaze Of a woman on her knees. Too late. Those dreams are running free Providing grist for mills like me. So dream away the old dream's tar With what you wish upon a Starr.

Singular Statements

Some think it difficult to write paragraphs containing one hundred words without repetition, but composing examples seems trivial. Others may stumble over profligate use of passive voice, which, though a common academic practice, usually produces dense, pointless or confusing drivel. Keeping prose active, choosing verbs that move things along, reduces redundancy, avoids verbosity, increases clarity and simplifies communication. Short sentences also help allowing more flexibility in your vocabulary. Can such strangely constructed content retain meaning? Yes! Good discipline combined with thoughtful grammar creates an elegant, lucid style. Political discourse could benefit if we limited demagogues similarly. Imagine briefer speeches. However, thesaurus sales would rise.

Genocide

He stretches his legs, waking from a doze in the warm afternoon sun. Life is good. There's not much to do today but eat and sleep. He stretches again. His joints crackle slightly. He wipes his face and picks up another tasty snack. Then he hears the noise. It's like thunder but it's more sustained. "Will it rain?" he wonders. The sound fades then gets louder as if it is moving further away and then returning. Each cycle it sounds a little closer. He takes another bite. The noise increases, shaking the ground. "What could it be?" he thinks. Then the leading edge of a disk shape starts to block the sun. He scrambles to get out of the way but it is too late. Beneath the disk, four huge metal bars are attached to a central hub. They are spinning ... fast. The updraft is powerful. He grabs onto something and tries to keep from being sucked upward. He sees others flying up to get crushed by the blades their body parts swirl in a bloody cyclone. His grip loosens and he flies upward to meet the invader. A blade catches him in the midsection but he grabs on, only to watch the lower half of his body, crushed and severed, fly into the whirlwind and disappear. For an instant more he keeps his grip on the blade, and then he too is gone. The disk shape moves on. The sun shines down on a scene of utter devastation. Body parts lie strewn in the grass. The blood puddles before soaking into the soil. There is his top half. A flicker of life remains. He twitches and sees the green carapace of his front legs move. His compound eyes view one last mosaic of the world, and then he dies. And that my dear is why I am philosophically opposed to mowing lawns.

Thirst

I have watched her for days through the intermittent flutter of her curtains. She wears a white cotton nightgown with lace at the neck, buttoned up tight to her throat. One hundred strokes every night without fail. Her dark hair unbound takes the brush like a lover takes a caress. She turns out her light, leaving me with the moon. I feel its pull. The fluid in my veins rising in a red tide, humming in my ears. Tonight I shall visit her. As dry as a leaf I flutter in the wind ... and in the window ... and wait in the corner of the room. I am the shadow of a branch, the movement of a cloud across the moon. I wait. Her breath is quiet. She is still. A flutter of the curtains and I move skittering across the floor. I am the shadow under her bed. She moves gently on the bed above. I smell her rich and warm. I am the shadow of a cloud between her face and the moon. I inhale her sweet exhalation. I exhale her next inhalation. She sleeps deeply now. She sleeps until I leave. Still I am gentle as I pull back the covers. Still I am gentle as I lift the nightgown. Still I do not touch her as I lean close to smell all the secret odor, to feel the warmth radiating from the special places where her fluid, like mine, rises to the moon's pull. I part her legs and leaning closer listen to the pulse in the femoral. and follow it up to the heart. Enough. I am taking too much pleasure. I close her legs and cover her. I turn her face away from me, brusquely, but wait ... That sweet gentle venous pulse. So dear, so sweet. I stop and kneeling lay my cheek against the gentle throb. It beats against my skin like a lullaby. For a moment I sink almost to sleep. Then the pang hits. Sharp. Oh if touch were enough . . . But, I lean in, and gently pierce, drawing one drop, and rolling on my tongue the taste of life in one precious globule, that is not red to me, but black forever under the moon.

Mojo Hand

Going around and around in circles, Trying to break free ... but no direction insight. Sitting typing words into glowing embers of phosphorus, instead of singing my stories across a fire, into the rising smoke. I need a mojo hand I need a power that has slipped away from me again. I need an analogy that will let me describe why I am lost. I am trying to sing the blues in a sensory deprivation chamber. I am trying to write an epic in sound bites. I am trying to capture emotion in magnetic pulses. It feels wrong. Have my synapses been eroded by chemicals? Or have they never really been there? I seem to remember being close, but I can only remember the sensation with longing. I remember cultivating dithyrambs like wildflowers, but now I can’t get past the serried rows of tulips ... all alike, all alike.

Circles of Hell

A grid of colored blocks floats behind the screen. The movement of my hand on a block of plastic sends a small black arrow skittering a trail of green. I try to divorce the thought that this is too drastic a separation between mind and hand. Where is the block of ink, the bamboo brush? Digital ink spills, smears across the glowing medium, yet not a drop on my fingers to remind me of a thoughtless moment, a soundless sound. Where is Giotto's skill when perfect circles spread with the ease of pebbles dropping in a pond? Perfection and perfection and perfection . . . The tool is not the problem, it is the eye which no longer cares for content but for repetition, infinite generations of perfect circles, in their unyielding sameness.

Adversity

Someone once challenged me to write a poem in which no words were repeated. This was the result: Words are bread, some poet said, We butter them with rhyme. Ideas live though his body's dead, An orphaned soul of time. A dictionary he once used Now open on this table Dirty, dog-eared, ripped abused These lyrics to enable. Jingling verse, vile critics curse, As nutritively nil. But, they won’t fill an empty purse. I’ll take their bitter pill If doggerel’s a loaf of wry And heavy in your belly Please sacrifice, just eat it dry. My brain has turned to jelly. Other poems in the churn May smoother spread but when Jingles can three pennies earn That makes me push a pen.

The Frog Pond

That's the wading pool In Boston Commons. The benches are green and hot Under the midday sun. The pool has been drained. Waves of heat rise from it, Making the tree trunks wriggle As if made of gelatine. From out of the shadows A man appears. He is in his thirties, clean-shaven, Wearing a grey pinstripe business suit, And a power tie, carrying a brown leather briefcase. He puts the briefcase on a bench, on its side, Takes off his jacket. Carefully he folds it inside out. He is wearing yellow suspenders, Bright against the blue of his shirt. He lays the jacket on the briefcase, Unbuttons his collar, And pulls at the knot of his tie Loosening it a half an inch Or so. He stares at the jacket For a moment as if receiving Final instructions. He turns and walks briskly into the middle Of the dry cement pond. He turns again facing his approach. Hooking his thumbs under the yellow suspenders He begins to sing loadly. “He rocks in the treetops all day long, Hopping and bopping and singing this song . . . “ He sings 'Rocking Robin' all the way through. He messes up a lot of the words. He walks back to his briefcase, Puts on his jacket, And quietly walks back into the city

Cold Spring

Written April 23, 1998 Boston is chilly today. A dark overcast hangs low over the city. Some less hardy souls have re-established their relationship to their topcoats, but I, having shucked the things of winter, refuse to backslide. Let it flurry, let it blizzard. I am in shirtsleeves until October. My double espresso firmly in hand, I stroll into the Common. The corner at Tremont and Park Streets is busy with vendors setting up their stands, leafletters replacing the litter still being picked up by the groundskeepers, and petitioners carrying clipboards like bucklers into their political holy wars. The pale green of freshly opened leaves flutter against the sky, the contrast is a natural op-art effect achingly bright against the retina. People bustle by rushing to work. I'm in no hurry. I sit on a bench to drink my coffee. Squirrels dash across the grass between trees and across the paths between pedestrians. The pigeons look depressed. They know the cold weather means less crumbs for them this morning. Nobody stops to sit, except me. I toss the empty paper cup in a trashcan, and stroll toward the Public Gardens. A film crew is setting up lights on the knoll. Charles Street is empty so I cross against the light and wait for three bicyclists to exit through the narrow gate with its sign enjoining visitors from using bicycles and roller skates within. Each cherry tree seems to march to a different drummer this year. The large tree just inside the gate has bloomed and gone by, a smaller one nearby has lost half of its blossoms, but the tree across the lagoon is glowing pink against the granite sky. The lagoon has been drained cleaned and refilled for Spring. The dock is empty, the Swan Boats still in storage. Around a turn in the path there is a park bench which faces away from me. It is packed end to end with small bodies, short legs gaily swinging under the bench. The gray hair above bright quilted jackets tells me that it's the Chinese grandmothers, five old ladies who sit in the park every morning talking and laughing at passers-by. I run the gauntlet of their comments, wishing once again that I knew Chinese. (What is it about me that they find so freshly amusing every morning?) The automatic sprinklers are on in the daffodil beds. A golden retriever stops and sticks his head into the spray. Some green fluorescent silly string clings to the base of the statue of Sumner implying some strange late night hilarity was had by someone. I cross Arlington Street, then Boylston, stroll another block, put on my work face and open the door.

Make Way

In Spring, before they put the swan boats out, The lagoon in the Public Gardens is drained. Miniature bulldozers scrape up The detritus of the previous summer. It is early morning, so early that A triple espresso seems barely enough To last the hour. A yellow haze around the willow trees Across the lagoon, is a halo of rebirth. The trees are budding. Within days the yellow will darken to green. My life rhymes with green Caffeine Nicotine Dexedrine But I digress. A movement attracts the eye. Slogging through the mud and garbage At the bottom of the lagoon is a fat, old lady. She is Chinese. She waves a plastic shopping bag like a flag. Brandishes it like a war banner. She is chasing a duck across the bottom of the lagoon. The duck moves just fast enough to stay out of her grasp, It doesn’t seem worried At the prospect of being dinner. I look over my shoulder at the bronze statues Of the duck and ducklings From 'Make Way ...' One is missing.

An Unfulfilled Passion

Long ago and far away (oh, my best beloved) there was a student of limited resource and capacity. He lived in the vale of Washington University, set about by phallic symbols made of the teeth of elephant children. These towers protected the land from the intellectual desert of St. Louis.

At night, he huddled in a small cave hung with posters and mobiles, and eye-catching items of more than oriental splendor. But when the sun rose, he placed upon his back the coat of morning and ventured forth in his guise of "The Elementary Penguin", to tell stories and soothe the hallucinatory dreams of those who had eaten of the mushroom or tasted the blotter.

One day the Penguin was seated in the cool shade of the student union (a coming together which was devoutly to be hoped for), contemplating navels other than his own, when he noticed a creature that resembled a long hairy ... ummm ... let us say 'sausage' (best beloved). The creator of all things had seen fit to place short stubby legs upon this animated sausage, two before and two behind. Above the forelegs rose a head that seemed too big for the rest of the creature.

The Penguin regarded the creature with 'satiable curiosity, wagering with himself as to the moment that the head would overbalance the body and, pivoting on its forelegs, the wiener dog Max (for indeed it was that very animal) would tip forward and flip end over end down the slope which led down from the student union to the swamp known as 'the residential halls'.

But as he studied Max he realized that there was indeed a counter-balance dangling from the rear of the creature. A counter-balance which even in repose seemed to clear the ground by only the faintest fraction of the smallest fragment of an inch. Sipping from the potent caffeinated beveraqe which was his usual if not sole sustenance. He watched the animated sausage at play in the field, and pondered the irritation and pain that would be the lot of an extruded member so proximal to the ground.

As the sun rose higher, the Penguin recorded the approach of a long-haired female, more of Max's persuasion than of the Penguin's, yet extraordinarily different. The Penguin muttered "is Timmy in the well?" under his breath.

Max had become aware of the presence of the female and turgidly produced a pink sausage that seemed to cling remora-like to its supporter. It did, as the Penguin winced to recognize, drag along the ground, scraping through stones, sand and grass clippings leaving a shallow ditch. The Penguin, as was his wont, took a simple-minded delight that the word ditch appeared in relation to the female, and immediately started casting about for other rhymes.

She, in the meantime, had found some shade beneath a dying maple and lay there panting, overheated in a multiplicity of ways. Max, with his enormous pink plow, furrowed the field as he slipped up behind.

He attempted. The lass looked over her shoulder with disdain and dislodged the intruder through the simple expedient of standing up. She moved to another patch of shade, but Max came grooving through the fields to try again ... and again ... and again. After thirty minutes the field looked like a trigonometrician's blackboard. Max's excitement was intense and he had been leaving trails of genetic material in the furrows. The penguin pondered this, realizing that to the vector belong the spills.

At last more in furrow with his hanger, Max watched as the object of his affections trotted away to find a more private place to repose. The Penguin watched as Max's spirits wilted. Sadly, that was all that wilted, and for some time the animated weiner wandered forlornly, leaving a map of his sorrow.

The Penguin ordered an iced drink poured it into a bowl, placed it on the ground and called Max over. He wondered which end would be in the bowl. Max lapped at it gratefully and the Penguin enjoyed a Cat Stevens moment for he had provided 'tea for the tillerdog'.