Complaints and Returns

This is the time of year I make my annual trip to the Returns and Complaints counter. I recognized the guy behind the service desk; it was the same one we’d had for the last six years. The Texan.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he said. He seemed weary, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Yes, I’d like to return this,” I said, and I put it up on the counter.

“Is that what I think it is?” said the Texan.

“Yes sir,” I said. “It’s a Shia Pet.”

He sighed. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“What’s wrong with it?” I said, irritated. “It’s a disaster, that’s what’s wrong with it.”

“Did you follow the directions?”

I nodded. I’d followed the directions all right. You take the Shia Pet out of the box, then paste the special “Seeds of Liberty” on its bald head. You water it with shock and awe, and the next thing you know, supposedly, you had an attractive, self-governing democracy.

“And what happened?”

“What happened?” I said. “Just look at it.”

I took the Shia Pet out of the box and laid it there on the counter for the man to see.

“It’s an insurgency,” I said.

The Texan looked at the head of the Shia Pet a little more carefully. “Are you sure that’s an insurgency?” he asked. “It could be it’s just a democracy that hasn’t fully grown out yet.”

“Am I sure?” I said. “Does that look like a democracy to you?”

The head of the Shia Pet was covered with twisted, intractable vines.

“You know what you need,” he said, pulling a red, white and blue box out from behind the counter. “Is the Advanced Seeds of Liberty Packet. It’s on special.”

“I’d just like my money back, please.”

“Back?” he said, as if I were a coward, a quitter. “What’s wrong with you?”

I sighed. “How much is the Advanced Packet?”

“Twenty-five thousand troops. Maybe forty. You kind of have to see how it goes.”

“But that’ll grow a democracy? Guaranteed?”

“There’s no guarantee!” he said, stunned at how stupid I was. “Did I say anything about a guarantee?”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t really care about a democracy on its head,” I said. “I mean, sure, it’d be nice. But I have other things that are more important to me.”

“More important than this? Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Health care? Decent schools? A trip to New Orleans, maybe?”

“I remember when you bought this,” he said. “You came in here, so excited.”

“Hey man,” I said. “YOU sold it to ME. I NEVER wanted it.”

He shook his head, sadly, put the Shia pet on a big pile of other failures he had back there.

“Anything else?” he said.

“Actually.” I got out the CD he’d sold me. The Best of Sunni and Cher. “I don’t like this either.”

The Texan smiled wistfully. “Some great tunes,” he said.

“I don’t want it. I just want my money back.”

“I already told you,” he said. “You can’t get your money back. All I can give you is this.”

He handed me a piece of paper.

“A tax cut?” I said. I mean, sure, it was nice. But was that what I needed right now?

“Hey,” he said. “It’s better than money!”

I left his store, headed home in the minivan. On the way out, I noticed that the place seemed a little scuffed-up. It didn’t seem so long ago that it was a place that brought me pride.

Sometimes I worry about the store the Texan runs. There must be a way to shine it up again. But I don’t know what it is.

When I got home, my spouse looked up. The house seemed cleaner without all that junk in it, but there was something empty about it too. A sense of loss.

“Did you return all that stuff?”

“I did,” I said. “Mission accomplished.”

snow day

Here is what happened this morning.

Woke up, sat up in bed. Deedie brought me a latte. It was later than it should be. Why?

School's delayed an hour, because of the snow.

Because of the what?

I put on my glasses and looked out the window. And THERE IT WAS. The whole world, overnight, had been covered with snow. It was still faintly falling as I sat there in bed looking at the morning. One boy off from school, the other enjoying an extra hour of goof-around time before the bus.

Each tree branch covered with soft white. Frost upon the windowpane. From outside, the soft scrape of the plow going down the street.

the dog was standing by the window looking out at the changed world.

It took about 20 minutes to find the boots and the snow-suits and the gloves and the hats for the various members of the family, including me, before everyone was suited up and ready. All those things stashed wherever they'd wound up last April when they were last used and we figured, we'd never see them again.

I found the scraper for the car, and got into my big big winter coat, so fluffy and huge, I feel like the fat lady from the circus. a big big scarf I got in rome, swirled around my face. My puffy blue gloves from L.L. Bean.

After boy number one was safely on his school bus, I put boy number two in the car, and we drove over to his friend's house. When we got there, there were three other ten years olds out in the street (this is really a dirt road) And when they saw us coming, they started to run toward our car. And they all slipped and fell on their asses, one two three. got back up again and started to run and slipped again. I stopped the car, and sean jumped out the door and he and his friends were slipping and sliding and throwing snow at each other. My friend Victoria, sean's friends' mom, came out and we stood there in the road talking for a while, watching the boys. they got down in the snow and started making snow angels: no kidding, actual snow angels. As the snow came down and gathered in our hair. Nobody else on Victoria's road. In the distance the frozen surface of the lake, now covered with snow, the green mountains all around us now covered with white. Snow on the phone wires, snow on the mailboxes, snow on the weather vane on top of the barn.

and victoria and I stood there and gave each other a big big hug, like we were the luckiest people in the world. she's a nurse, and at 9 AM she was just getting off the all-night shift. we looked at the boys and said something like, well. We live for this, don't we.

left sean there and drove to the Hyundai dealer, took a long time, because of course everything is in slow motion now. Everybody all goofy because the world is upside down. stopped in the general store for a coffee and the cashier said, ach the snow, I hate it, I hate it. I said, yeah, but it's pretty isn't it? she said, ach does it matter if it's pretty?

I know what she means. I know I will be sick to death of it by mid-january, and there are surely many ugly days ahead-- when it freezes, or rains, or slushes, when dirt from the road gets on the snow, when the limbs of the trees snap in two, when we lose power. Ach is right.

I like a warm beach as well as anybody. Honest I do. Some day I won't live here any more, and when that day comes I will spend many months of the year somewhere warm, like arizona, or somewhere.

But look: here comes the solstice. Up here it is getting dark now at 4 PM. There are poinsettias everywhere. Just yesterday bought a wreath from a neighbor with actual holly berries on it, berries she picked from her own holly, a wreath made from the trees in her own woods. I'd hung it on the door last night, and now there is cold white powder on each green needle.

And so I say this: yes it matters that it's pretty. Here we are in these dark days, and I am glad for the snow, and I am glad for this life. And very, very soon now, the days will begin to get longer again, and the light will return.

Merry Chirstmas everybody.

Who's afraid of Edward Albee?

It had been a long time since I had seen Edward Albee, my old teacher, and as I waited for him at the bottom of the escalator at the Portland Jetport, I hoped we would recognize each other.

I shouldn’t have worried about that, though. As he descended the escalator, his eyes fell upon me, and his face crinkled into a smile.

“Ah,” he said, embracing me. “There you are.” It was as if it had been fifteen minutes, instead of fifteen years.

I bundled him into the car and drove him north toward Waterville, where he was scheduled to speak to the students the next afternoon, on “Improvisation and the Creative Mind.”

He’d been my teacher, back in 1986, when he produced a play of mine called “Big Baby.” This was when I lived in Baltimore and I was a student at Johns Hopkins. He was a terribly tough teacher, but I loved him. He seemed to know just how to turn a phrase on stage that opened up a character’s heart.

My play wasn’t very good. It was about a baby who, somehow, grows to be really, really big. By big, I mean, the size of a Buick. On stage, the baby—concealed inside a huge bassinet—growls and screams and throws bowling pins at his parents.

After the first performance, Albee sat down with me and asked the question for which I had no answer. “But why,” he asked, as if the question pained him. “Why is the baby so large?”

In the years since then, I’ve asked questions like this of my own students, and they’ve given me the same look that I gave Albee back then, the look that says, Why are you demanding so much of me? Why is the thing I’ve written not good enough?

Albee gave his lecture to a packed house at Colby the next day, and got a standing ovation. As he signed books at the podium, a young man came up to me. “Excuse me,” he said. “Jenny? I don’t suppose you remember me?”

Of course I remembered him. It was Nick Malick, class of 2004, one of my better students. He’d been a writer of short stories when I knew him, a man of promise and imagination.

“What have you been doing, Nickles?” I asked.

He smiled. “I’m a teacher now,” he said, proudly. “In New Hampshire. I came here with my students.”

For a teacher, there are few pleasures like the knowledge that someone you have taught is himself becoming a teacher. There really is a sense that a torch is getting passed, from hand to hand, down the generations.

As one of my children observed, later that day, “So for your student, Edward Albee was kind of like, his grand-teacher.”

I felt self conscious, though, in my old student’s presence, and for a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. I glanced for a moment over at the podium, where Edward was surrounded by his fans.

When I looked back at Nickles, he was gone.

I took Edward back to the airport the next morning, dropped him off at the check in for United.

Just before he headed into the terminal, Edward took me by the shoulders and smiled that elusive smile of his.

“We have done well,” he said. “You and I.” Then he kissed me on the cheek, turned his back, and was gone.

I thought about that moment all the way home, so grateful for everything the man had taught me over the years. I thought about my Baltimore days, about trying to become a writer, about that question I’d asked, and been asked, again and again since then: Why are you demanding so much of me?

And I thought about my old student Nickles, a teacher himself now, working with his students.

I hoped that someday, Nickles will take one of his students by the shoulder, and say what I should have said to him the day before.

“We have done well. You and I.”

Moe, Larry, and Curly

Election Day Special! vote Early, vote often!

Beware of the Blob!

Each year at this time I fall off of a cliff. One minute I’m walking with my family through The Apple Farm, out in Fairfield, bathed in golden autumn light.
Then, a minute later, all the leaves have been blasted out of the tree by a Nor’easter, and it gets dark at four in the afternoon and there are guys in the woods with shotguns.
And there’s no more baseball.
The only thing that raises my spirits is the thought of the blessed holiday season ahead. Christmas, you think? Nope: Halloween.
Sometimes it seems as if Halloween and Christmas have swapped places.
I don’t mind the fact that Halloween is getting more Christmasy all the time; that’s fine with me. But the way in which Christmas is getting to feel more like Halloween? I’m less crazy about that.
I have one neighbor who puts more effort into his Halloween display than his Christmas one. He places a Grim Reaper in his front yard, complete with scythe.
At Christmas, he puts one austere yellow light in his two upper windows.
Last Saturday I went over to my friends Tom and Laura’s for the all-night jam in their barn. I wore a gorilla suit for the occasion, which was hotter than you’d think. We all sang songs together, and then we took “a cup of kindness, yet.” For Auld Lang Syne.
On Tuesday night, I was up at Colby, just as I have been each October 31st for the last 19 years, reading ghost stories for the students with my friend Charlie Bassett in Lorimer Chapel. This year, in addition to Charlie and me, there were a number of singing groups, who joined me in a group performance of the theme song from The Blob.
Beware of the Blob! It leaps and creeps
And glides and slides along the floor
Beneath the door, it’s over on the wall
A blotch, a splotch, Be Careful of the Blob!

By the morning of All Saints, the Boylan household was exhausted from a month of disguise and celebration and the ingestion of a mountain of Kit Kats and Mars Bars and Chunkies. We love Halloween.
Christmas, meanwhile, is a macabre holiday when the dead come back to haunt us.
It was Dickens, of course, who most famously observed that Christmas is the most haunted of holidays, and the older one gets, the more haunted it gets. It’s impossible for me to set up the tree in my mother’s house, for instance, without thinking of the Ghosts of Christmas Past—the father who isn’t there, the sister who doesn’t speak to me any more, all the memories of being a child, back in the prehistoric 1960s, when virtually all of my Christmases were Christmas Futures.
It’s become a cliché, now, for people to speak of their depression at Christmas, but it’s true. So many of us at this time of year, wind up haunted by the ghosts of our younger selves, laid low, as we approach the end of another year, by a sense of the speed with which time slips through our fingers.
The only thing missing from Christmas, sometimes, is a Grim Reaper in your front yard with a scythe.
I love Halloween, and I love how happy my children are at this time of year. Their wild energy makes me feel young again.
But is it too much to ask of this season, that Halloween return to October, and let Christmas be a season of light instead? Would it be so crazy if this year, Christmas was a time of joy, of looking forward, of people celebrating peace, and love, and singing songs together?
It’s a nice wish. But I have a funny feeling I already know what carol I’m going to hear, when I start, once more, to decorate the tree.

Beware of the Blob! It creeps and leaps
And glides and slides along the floor
Beneath the door, it’s over on the wall
A blotch, a splotch…

Be careful of the Blob.

Why did the Chicken Cross Party Lines?

I opened the door and found one Abby Holman, Candidate for State Representative, standing on my porch.
She was about my age, blonde, an intelligent face. Abby gave me one of her campaign brochures. “I hope you’ll be voting in November,” she said.
“I always vote,” I said. “Are you a Democrat or a Republican? You look like a Democrat.”
I can’t tell you exactly what I meant by that, but surely it’s not a very nice thing to say to someone you’ve only just met.
“Republican, actually,” she said.
“Oh, what a shame,” I said. “Okay, well so long!” I began to swing the door closed.
“Wait,” she said. “You’d never vote for a Republican? Ever?”
“Of course I’d vote for a Republican,” I said. “I used to BE a Republican. But you know how it is.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How is it?”
“Well,” I said. “Let me ask you some questions. Your position on abortion?”
“I’m pro-choice.”
“Civil rights and legal protections for gay, lesbian, and transgendered people?”
“I’m for civil rights for everybody.”
“The war in Iraq?”
“A disaster.”
I took another hard look at Abby Holman, Candidate for State Representative.
“Dude,” I said. “You’re a Democrat. Didn’t you, like, get the memo?”
“I’m a Republican,” she said, “because I want to improve the business climate in Maine. Because I want us to be more responsible with the taxpayers’ money.”
I rubbed my temples. “You heard about the budget deficit, right? You know that when Clinton left office, we had a surplus? And now we have the biggest deficit in history? Cause they just HAD to give Bill Gates a tax cut?”
She nodded. “I’m running for the Augusta State House. Not Washington.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You still sound like a Democrat to me.”
“I used to be a Democrat,” she said, in kind of the same voice a woman might say, I used to drink a lotta tequila. “But then I left the party in the 1980s. You can be pro-business and still take socially progressive positions.”
I thought about this. “Ya think?” I said.
“What do you think of Olympia Snowe?”
Well, to be honest, there are times I am kind of fond of Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins too. It’s discouraging for me, as a dyed-in-my-pajamas Democrat, to know that they contribute to the Republican majority in the Senate, but then there are other times I’m delighted that my home state has two moderate, female Republican Senators. There have been plenty of times that Snowe and Collins have been all that has stood between their own party and something I disapprove of, like that time, for instance that the Republicans thought it might be clever to actually impeach a sitting President on account of him having yanked on somebody’s thong underwear.
Not that I’m for that, actually. I just didn’t think he should have been impeached for it. I also wasn’t crazy about having to listen to everyone talk about the man’s kielbasa for a year and a half, considering that there were, like, other things going on in the world that were just possibly more important.
“I like Olympia Snowe all right,” I said.
“I was her press secretary,” she said.
I was getting pretty tired of not disagreeing with her. There were Democrats I had less in common with than this Abby Holman. I’d VOTED for Democrats I had less in common with than the woman on my porch.
“Okay, fine,” I said, a broken woman.
“Thanks,” said Holman, and headed back to her car.
I don’t know who I’m voting for in November. I’m kind of hoping the Democrat turns out to be a single mom who has all of Abby Holman’s positions.
Did I mention she’s a single mom?
But as I stood there, I wondered this: What’s more ridiculous, a woman with all of Holman’s positions, running as a Republican?
Or a woman like me, who wouldn’t consider crossing party lines, even to vote for what she believes in?

Washing a Tuba as Metaphor for Summer's End, Sort of

As my son and I wrestled the tuba into the bathtub, I had occasion to consider how far we’d come in just a few weeks.

At the end of August we’d closed up the camp, and slowly drove up the dirt road from the banks of Long Pond and back to our “normal” house, the one where we live the other ten months of the year.

In no time at all the endless summer had become a vague, happy memory. The boys came back from Messalonskee Middle School and Belgrade Central with backpacks full of urgent missives: broadsides announcing the dates for Picture Day and Curriculum Night, requests to sell t-shirts for the annual fundraiser.

And along with all this start-of-year stuff, there was a note from Mr. Califano, the middle school band instructor, concerning my son’s future as a tuba player.

If he was going to practice at home, he said, we were going to need to find Zach a tuba. The “district” tuba could stay at school, for lessons and concerts. But we’d need a second one for the house.

We’d already learned you can’t take a tuba on the school bus. As it turns out, it’s easier to take a fully grown Angus beef on the bus than a tuba.

Unfortunately, a good tuba is hard to find.

You can’t rent them, like you can almost every other instrument, including glockenspiel, wood block, and oboe. So we made a quick call down to Al Corey’s to find out how much a new tuba might cost.

The answer: over five thousand dollars. D’oh!

Briefly, I checked ebay. A man in Bejing was selling a “Chinese tuba” for three thousand dollars.

I don’t know how to say “D’oh” in Chinese, but if I did, I’d have said it then.

Then—a miracle! Mr. Califano found another tuba, at Messalonskee High School.

I stopped by the school on the way back from work, and brought it home, and Zach and I opened up the case, and there it was.

The Haunted Tuba.

This tuba clearly had not been played for a hundred years. It was covered with an odd red tarnish that I soon determined to be “tuba rust.” Zach looked on in horror. “It looked like the last person who played this died,” he said. “While playing.”

Refusing to be beaten down by a tuba, we got out the brass polish, and set about scrubbing and rubbing. How long does it take to polish an antique tuba, you wonder?

Longer than you’d think.

At long last, we began to rinse off the polish. But as we did this, the toxic foam sloshed onto the floor, burning a hole in the rug. So instead, Zach took his shirt off, and hauled his tuba into the bathtub. Where he gave the tuba a bath.

Soon, we were drying the instrument with bath towels.

The only problem was that now there was water in it. Everytime Zach played it, it sounded like the tuba was gargling.

So my son carried the tuba onto the front porch. Where he gave it one vast, majestic blast.

At this exact moment, my spouse returned in the mini-van with our other son, Sean, just in time to see a gallon of grey water blasting into the air.

Deedie and Sean looked at Zach and me, covered with water and brass polish and foam. “Are you two all right?” said Deedie It was clear enough, she feared we’d lost our minds.

The next morning, I was woken by the call of a barred owl in the woods. “Who cooks for you?” it said.

Later, after the boys had headed off to school, I drove down the dirt road, back to the camp, and looked at the lake.

I was sad summer was over, but then we’d made a good start. Sean was selling t-shirts. Deedie was coaching soccer. And Zach was playing tuba again.

It was haunted when we started. But in less than a week, we’d made that tuba shine.

My Boyfriend, Iraq

Okay, so I’ve been seeing this guy Iraq? For a couple years now? What a disaster. When Iraq and I first started going out, it was special. It was like, every day he gave up another city to me. Now? The moment I get home, he starts up with the insurgency. Quite frankly, sometimes when we’re together? I shut my eyes and fantasize about Iran.

I’ll admit that going out with Iraq was my idea. He’d been with Saddam for-ever. Everybody knew Saddam was bad news. So three years ago, this one crazy night, it was like, okay, I’m invading. Next thing you know, Iraq had thrown Saddam’s stuff out the window onto the front lawn.

Iraq was like: too bad, Saddam! You are not the dictator of me!

And so for a few months it was just this wild carousel ride. Everything was enchanted: me and Iraq, running through the desert together, the sirocco in our hair.

Sometimes, people would say, wow, you two are starting to look alike! Which, quite frankly, was fine with me. Iraq shaved off his beard, started wearing Dockers. Think: a young Broderick Crawford. With oil money.

To be honest, I’d gone out with Iraq before, in 1991. It was a wild relationship, but we were young. When we broke up, we both thought it was the right thing. We said we’d stay in touch.

But then, like less than a year later, I found out he was going out with Saddam again. I mean, Hel-lo? What does that say about me, that the second I’m out of there, he’s back with his ex?

Personally, I thought Saddam was terrible for Iraq, but what are you going to do? Sometimes I’d see them together, and there’d be Saddam with his zipper all the way down, and I’d think, Oh for heaven’s sakes. Talk about a no-fly zone. Somebody needs a little inspection.

So what can I tell you, we’re together again. But now, he’s just so immature. I mean I know Saddam made him this way; I keep thinking, there’s a little democracy inside him, trying to get out! But then I have to wonder: how long am I going to wait for him? Forever? What about my thermonuclear clock?

Was it so egotistical for me to think I could improve him? I mean, Iraq struck me as very good material. And okay, so he was rich, but that wasn’t all I was interested in. Although, as my mother always says, “it’s just as easy to invade a rich one.”

Some people say this is one of my big problems. My ex-friend France is always like, “America, whenever you see anyone, it’s like all you want to do is turn them into a little version of you. You’re smothering and controlling!”

I’m like, France? Remember how you just gave it up to Germany that time? Like she’s some big expert.

I had this same fight with Iraq last week. He was all, “I need my space! I need to be my own country!”

This from a guy who can’t even turn his own lights on. Oh, and he’s growing the beard back, too.

So now what? Quite honestly, if Iraq was a little more mature, I wouldn’t worry about dumping him. We’d have a little talk, and I’d explain, listen, I’m not happy with this invasion any more. We’ve grown in such different directions. I mean it’s like: me, I want national health care and better schools, and you, it’s like, jihad this and jihad that. You’re like a broken record sometimes!

The thing is, though. I can’t leave him. He needs me too much.

It’s like we’re trapped in this hopeless cycle of codependency. I wish we’d never started seeing each other.

It’s like that Rod Stewart song. “Wake up, Iraq, I think I got something to say to you!”

It’s not that I don’t love Iraq. It’s just that I’m not “in” love with him any more.

I just want us to be good friends.

By the way—and I’m just asking—but is Iran seeing anybody?

The Land of Shadow

MINAS TIRITH (A.P.) August 12-- United States Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice today announced a plan for the partition of Mordor.

The U.S. led invasion, which led to the toppling of the Dark Lord, Sauron, several years ago, has been bogged down since the liberation of the Land of Shadow, as insurgent orcs, Balrogs, and Fighting Uruk-Hai continue to battle American forces, and drink each others’ blood out of soup tureens.

Sauron, the one-time supreme leader of Mordor, has been awaiting trial since his capture by U.S. forces last year. While at one time the ruler of the One Ring that was designed to “in the darkness bind them,” at the time of his capture, the Dark Lord was found crouching in a hidey-hole eating “Cool Ranch” Cheetos, and reading a Harry Potter book with his Great Eye.

The plan which the Secretary of State announced this week calls for dividing Mordor into three “realms.” The northernmost land, stretching from the Dead Marshes to the far-off Sea of Nurn, to be renamed “Freedomville,” would be administered by the majority orc population, and backed by troops from the European Union; the land in the south, renamed “Libertytown,” would be run mostly by cave-trolls, wicked Southron men, and a special “all drunken” brigade of the Russian Army.

The middle realm, “Evilstan,” which includes the former site of the Dark Tower, Barad-dur, as well as fiery Mount Doom, would be turned into one giant Wal-mart, run by surly teenagers who have to “change the tape” whenever you approach the register.

At the time of the U.S. victory in Mordor, it was hoped that the freed hobgoblins and giant spiders would “welcome U.S. troops as liberators.” Several years into the conflict, however, hope seems to be dimming for the transformation in Mordor that neoconservatives had hoped for, particularly along the firey plains of Gorgoroth, where the roads still have potholes filled with molten lava.

The problem was well summarized by a Mordor insurgent named Ugluk: “We don’t want democracy. What we really want is to drink blood from a giant soup tureen.”

The Bush foreign policy team seems caught off guard somewhat by the reluctance of the population of Mordor to embrace democracy.

“We figured once Sauron had been overthrown, the orcs and trolls would pretty much be ready for the American way of life,” said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “Instead all they want to do is hit each other over the head with clubs and ride around on giant elephants. Quite frankly we’re a little baffled. We’re like: hello? Don’t you want to eat at an Arby’s instead? Become a contestant on ‘Mordorian Idol?’”

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., President Bush announced today that the “war on Mordor was going really, really well.”

“These giant spiders and cave troll guys, they hate our freedom,” said the President. “They hate our country music and line dancing.”

Elf Queen Galadriel dismissed this thought angrily. “It’s not about line dancing. It’s about orcs and trolls.”

The U.S. led alliance, “Operation Mordor Freedom” has been precarious since the start.

In Gondor, King Elessar, Aragorn son of Arathorn was reported to have thrown up his hands at the whole mess. “Mordor, Mordor, Mordor,” said the King. “That’s all I ever hear about. What about my new health care plan? ”

King Eomer, over in Rohan, was said to be reconsidering his commitment of two thousand armed men on horseback to the fighting in Mordor, in response to criticism of the alliance with Gondor. “What,” said Eomer. “The Riders of Rohan are supposed to just keep riding around in a circle until a bunch of cave-trolls embrace democracy? Does that sound like a good idea?”

In Lothlorien, Elf-Queen Galadriel denounced both Sauron as well as the Bush policy. “Nobody hates the Dark Lord more than we do,” said the Queen. “But those who seek to control a place like Mordor will, in time, be turned to evil themselves. “ The Elf-Queen sighed. “Like Johnny Damon.”

Meanwhile, in the Land of Shadow, the war drags on.

In the news: the "World Overpowerment" church in Memphis, Tennessee, unveiled this statue on July 4th.

The Lunker

Sweney gave us a good push off from the dock and we moved forward into Long Pond. Sweney, now retired, used to be one of the best teachers at Colby, a scholar of Melville. My boy Zach was in the bow. He’s a scholar of pizza.

I was at the helm. It was a perfect summer morning in Maine, and we were off to do a little fishing.

We had a thermos of coffee, some sunscreen, a dozen suckers in a mayonaisse jar, and a very large net. I had a big floppy hat. Sweney and Zach had well worn tackle boxes, filled with things like snelled hooks and plastic frogs and “Dr. Juice’s Fish Pheromones.”

We had all that we would ever need.

We headed south, passed below the Castle Island bridge. For ten minutes or so, the three of us just looked at the horizon, at the Kennebec Highlands, covered with white pines, at the early morning sun reflecting off the water.

At last we eased our way into Frenchman’s Cove, what some people call “The Graveyard,” since the large number of rocks provides plenty of opportunities to send your propeller to the afterworld. But we managed to avoid these, and soon enough the engine was cut and we drifted in total silence through the tannic water.

Zach managed to get a sucker on his hook without any adult supervision, which struck me as a mark of progress. I was concerned about Zach’s lack of patience, a fairly typical personality trait for a middle schooler, but not of much help in fishing.

He’d announced last summer that he no longer had any interest in bluegills or perch—that these were the pursuits of men much younger than his twelve year old self-- and that from here on out it was bass, or pike, or nothing.

Sweney sat at the other end of the boat, casting out with his never ending trove of ridiculous lures, his hulapoppers and smelly jellies and rapalas. He doesn’t talk much when we fish, which suits me fine. I know what he’s thinking. Every once in a while, as he’s changing lures, Sweney will look around at the sparkling water and say something like, “This is pretty good.”

And I agree.

Zach stood up in the bow and threw out his first cast. Line unspooled from the baler and for a while my boy stood there watching the water, with an expression not so unlike that of John Sweney.

And then it happened. The end of his line bowed, and I thought, oh what a shame, he’s snagged his line on the very first cast.

But it wasn’t a snag. It was a sixteen inch largemouth, nearly three pounds, and it leaped out of the water with a sound, in that quiet early morning, that seemed like the crashing of cymbals.

Zach fought with it for a while, and then got it near enough the boat for me to reach in with that ridiculous, giant net, and haul it out.

The beautiful fish wriggled there in the morning light. We could see the red feathering of the gills, the mottled green scales, the fins moving wildly.

And my son looked at me with amazement and pride.”I caught it,” he said. “A monster.”

Sweney nodded and said, “That’s a good one.”

When we got back to the dock, nearly three hours later, Sweney had caught, and released, a half a dozen nice bass. It was the day before my birthday, and I couldn’t imagine a greater gift than being out there with my good friend and my son, the sun on our faces.

Zach looked out at the water, an expression of pride on his face, and for a moment I had a vision of him fishing this same lake, many years from now, after I’m long gone. Maybe he’ll watch some day as his own son--or grandson--casts out his line.

As for me, I hadn’t caught a thing, which was fine. I’m not really in it for the fish.

Little Wooden Head

The trouble began when my friend Marybeth said she had a present for me. What kind of present? “Oh,” she said. “That’ll be the surprise.”

The surprise, I am sorry to say, was a ventriloquist’s dummy. Formerly, it had belonged to one of Marybeths’ children, and now, instead of giving it to Good Will, she’d got the clever idea of handing it over to me, while I was staying at her house in Washington D.C.

The dummy was half of the classic comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy. Unfortunately, it was Hardy, not Laurel: the fat one with the mustache whose catchphrase was, “Well, Stanley. It’s another fine mess you’ve got us in.”

My critical error that night—it seemed harmless enough at the time—was bringing the puppet to dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill, a classic DC watering hole down by the mall. I thought my friends would think he was funny.

They didn’t. More than anything else they seemed deeply disturbed.

So after a few awkward moments, I propped my little friend on a chair, where for the most part he sat unremarked upon, except for one moment when a waiter came over, and unexpectedly said what for the life of me sounded like Heil Hitler!
But no, I thought. That would be impossible.

After dinner, we walked over to the Lincoln Memorial. I was truly wishing I didn’t have the dummy with me as we walked up the marble steps. People were giving me looks, as if I were trying to make some point.

Lincoln, as always, sat exhausted in his big throne, giving me that look. “I’m not angry,” he always seems to be thinking, as he considers the state of the Union. “I’m just terribly, terribly, disappointed.”

“Excuse me ma’am,” said the park ranger. “You’ll have to take that out of here.”

I didn’t think she was talking to me. “Ma’am?” she said again.

“What?” I said. “Why?” I was pretty sure my First Ammendment rights covered the right to stand in the Lincoln Memorial with a ventriloquist’s dummy.

“Please,” said the ranger. “This is no place for Nazi propaganda.”

I felt as if I’d been struck by lightening. “For—what?”

“Ma’am,” she said. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

Suddenly, it occurred to me. The park ranger. They waiter at dinner. They thought Hardy was Hitler.

You could see people might get it confused. The little schnurrbart mustache. The mop of black hair.

“But it’s Oliver Hardy,” I said. “You know, from Laurel and Hardy? It’s not Hitler! Seriously! Look how fat he is!”

She picked up her walkie-talkie. “I need backup,” she said.

“Oh for god’s sakes,” I said, and walked out. There, sitting on the steps, were my friends.

“Hitler,” I said to my friends. “She thinks he’s Hitler!”

My friend Chris, a NASA physicist, looked concerned. He was one of a group of former Marines who’d spent part of the day protesting the war. We’d had a big discussion about this over dinner, whether it was the right thing for a Marine to do.

“It’s not Hilter?” he said.

“It’s Oliver Hardy!” I said, wondering how many more times in my life I was going to have to explain this. “From Laurel and Hardy! Look at him! Look how much fatter he is than Hitler!”

Chris’ girlfriend, Amy, looked at me in confusion. “Who was Oliver Hardy?” she asked.

On the wall behind us, were the words from the second inaugural:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

I looked out at the capital, all the marble, at all the bright lights of the country.

“Well,” I said to no one in particular. “It’s another fine mess you’ve got us in.”

It's the story.... of a man named Jesus...

In the news this week: protestors urge a boycott of the movie the DaVinci Code, and with good reason. The film, which stars Tom Hank’s hair, is based upon the best-selling book by Dan Brown about the secret conspiracy to hide the facts of Jesus’ supposed marriage to Mary Magdalene.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better, of course. In production now, is the sequel, which actually gives us the lowdown about the marriage itself. You want something to protest? Check out the proposed story for DaVinci Code II: The Jesus Bunch.
We start off with a big tic-tac-toe board, with Jesus in the top center square, Mary Magdelene on the bottom, the other squares occupied by Peter and Greg and Marica and Judas. In the center: their housekeeper, Alice.

It’s the story
Of a man named Jesus
Who was preaching to twelve apostolic boys
All of them had hair of gold
Like their father
The youngest one in goys!

Cut to: a kitchen, with Alice making macaroni and cheese on the big range. Mary Magdalene, at her side, is listening to the Beatles on the oldies station, “The Ballad of John and Yoko:”

Christ you know it ain’t easy!
You know how hard it can be!
The way things are gooooing—

The door opens, and in comes the Messiah, briefcase in hand.
“Hi honey! I’m home!”
“Hi pumpkin!” says Mary.
“Hi, Mr. C,” says Alice.
Mary Magdelene him a little peck on the cheek. “How was work?”
“Oh you know,” says Jesus, discouraged. “Another day, another shekel.”
“The devil again?”
Jesus sighs. “You know what he’s started now? A line of chocolate donut franchises!”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” says Mary Magdelene. “First Starbucks, now this.”
“Go on, Mr. C,” says Alice. “Take your shoes off. You want me to anoint your feet?”
“Oh, I’m all right. You know me. I always bounce back!” He pours himself a glass of water from a pitcher. “You want some wine?”
“Sure pumpkin.”
Jesus pours some water into another glass, waves his hand over the stemware, hands a goblet to Mary Magadelene.
“Mm,” says the Magdelene. “What’s this, Merlot?”
“Shiraz,” says the Lord. “Is it too peppery?”
“No, it’s great.”
“Hi Daddy!” cry the children, who come running into the room, their arms outstretched.
“Hi Peter! Hi Marcia!” said Jesus. “Hi Judas!”
The lord’s children hug His knees. “You guys done your homework?”
Peter looks a little sheepish. “I was hoping you could help me.”
“Now now,” says Jesus. “We talked about this.”
“But it’s algebra,” said Peter. “I hate it!”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t just bless the math homework,” said Mary Magdalene. “Just this once.
“Jesus,” whines Judas, “I want a GameBoy?”
“Let’s see how your grades are, young man, then we’ll talk about a GameBoy.”
“But Marica has a GameBoy!”
“Marcia got straight A’s! Marcia earned a GameBoy!”
“Marcia Marcia Marcia!” shouts Judas.
“You keep your voice down.”
“But she’s such a dufus!” he says, trying to kiss her.
“Don’t start with the kissing,” says Mary Magdelene.
“You don’t say dufus in this house, young man, and I mean it.”
“Darn it,” says Alice. “I didn’t make enough dinner! There’s not going to be enough to feed the multitude!”
“Oh for Pete’s sakes,” says the Lord. “I’ll handle it. You get the plates.”
Somehow the whole family is fed with the single pot of macaroni and cheese. Marcia pushes her dinner around with a fork. “Eeeww! What is this stuff?”
“Try it, honey,” says Jesus. “You’d be surprised.”
Marcia takes a bite. “Wow!” she says. “It tastes like chocolate frosted doughnuts!”
Mary Magdalene looks at her husband reproachfully. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to?” she says. “You’re wrong.”
From the stereo comes the sound of the Youngbloods on the oldies station.

Come on people now,
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another, right now.

“I’m sorry I called him a dufus,” says Judas.
“I forgive you,” says Jesus.
The Lord sits back, unbuttons the top button on his pants, and sighs, happily. “I always liked this song,” he says.

On the Moon

This is a quickie: but I wanted to say that the funniest thing I have ever heard in my life on the web was found at the address below:

http://www.blogjam.com/neil_armstrong/

In the news this week: the problem of illegal aliens. Some of you may even have heard the new “all-Martian” version of the national anthem, which was buzzed into people’s minds on Friday using some sort of horrible Martian mental death ray.

Oh say can you—zzzzzrrrp!
By the glaxnix zoid rezza zeerp!
What so eep! Eep! Eep! Eep! we hailed
By the twilight’s last zzzrrvev-rep! Zap!

My father’s people came here from Mars—at least that’s what my mother always said—so I have to admit I take these issues rather personally. I still remember my grandmother sitting out by the pool on a summer day, retracting and extending her scary metallic antennae.
“Don’t ever be ashamed of your people, Jenny,” she used to say. “Remember, Martians are just like anybody else, except we can use telepathy to make people’s minds explode.”
She was a sweet old thing. All the kids called her “Gampy,” although her real name, of course was Telecaster-Nine-Warp-ZAXXOZZ. To be fair, my Irish grandfather sometimes got tired of being married to the only woman in our neighborhood with a giant pulsating brain. “But remember Jenny,” he’d say to me. “It’s better to be married to someone with a giant pulsating brain than the opposite.”
I still wonder what he meant by this.
Martians, of course, aren’t the only aliens waiting for their shot at the American dream. You don’t hear so much about them, but the Venusians have an ancient culture as well, based on free love and communal ownership of property and worshipping the deep spirituality of nature. Oh, wait, that’s Hallowell! Well, anyway, I’m sure Venus is a very nice place as well, excepting for its atmosphere which is a constant hailstorm of deadly methane, ammonia, Top Job and Spam. You want to know what Venus is like? Think Los Angeles, without George Hamilton.
Yes, yes, I can hear Lou Dobbs saying, that’s all well and good, but once these characters get here they start demanding access to the fruits of American civilization, like, for instance, three-dollar-a-gallon gas. Is that why we’re paying taxes? So a bunch of women (as I understand Venus is populated entirely by women) with tentacles, gills, and hideous prehensile tongues can take away our jobs, our menfolk, and the national anthem?
You’ve probably heard the “Venusian” version of the national anthem by now, recorded by a chorus of horny Venusian gals and slowed down by the Internal Revenue Service to a pitch audible by humans:

Oh say can you—oh never mind
What I really want to do
Is to mmmm—pour fruit juice
On your pecs from this shoe.
Your broad stripes and bright stars
And the rest make me pine
For your big Yankee fists
On my gills, you wild swine!

The Congress has been wrestling this last week with the aliens issue, and thank god the the Republicans and Democrats have finally set their bipartisan differences aside, and are working toward a compromise solution that will benefit all Americans. Ha! Ha! Ha!
No, just kidding. What actually happened was that Senator Kennedy said that Senator Brownback was a “fundamentalist nut-job” and Senator Brownback, for his part, said that Senator Kennedy looked like a “big swole-up potato.”
Shortly after this, they started calling each other names.
It made me think, not for the first time, that maybe Mars or Venus wouldn’t be such a bad place to live sometimes, at least compared to Washington. There are worse things to breathe than Top Job, as it turns out.
In the meantime, aliens continue to cross through the radiation belt, day after day, slowly but surely becoming part of our culture, ready or not.
Who knows? Maybe one day soon we’ll elect the first president who isn’t even human. Can you imagine it, the country run by some inarticulate buffoon who can barely speak English, some crazy nut who’d divide the country, and launch wars against planets that haven’t even attacked us?
Oh what am I thinking? Something like that? Happening here? That’d be out of this world.

the Alien problem

In the news this week: the problem of illegal aliens. Some of you may even have heard the new “all-Martian” version of the national anthem, which was buzzed into people’s minds on Friday using some sort of horrible Martian mental death ray.

Oh say can you—zzzzzrrrp!
By the glaxnix zoid rezza zeerp!
What so eep! Eep! Eep! Eep! we hailed
By the twilight’s last zzzrrvev-rep! Zap!

My father’s people came here from Mars—at least that’s what my mother always said—so I have to admit I take these issues rather personally. I still remember my grandmother sitting out by the pool on a summer day, retracting and extending her scary metallic antennae.
“Don’t ever be ashamed of your people, Jenny,” she used to say. “Remember, Martians are just like anybody else, except we can use telepathy to make people’s minds explode.”
She was a sweet old thing. All the kids called her “Gampy,” although her real name, of course was Telecaster-Nine-Warp-ZAXXOZZ. To be fair, my Irish grandfather sometimes got tired of being married to the only woman in our neighborhood with a giant pulsating brain. “But remember Jenny,” he’d say to me. “It’s better to be married to someone with a giant pulsating brain than the opposite.”
I still wonder what he meant by this.
Martians, of course, aren’t the only aliens waiting for their shot at the American dream. You don’t hear so much about them, but the Venusians have an ancient culture as well, based on free love and communal ownership of property and worshipping the deep spirituality of nature. Oh, wait, that’s Hallowell! Well, anyway, I’m sure Venus is a very nice place as well, excepting for its atmosphere which is a constant hailstorm of deadly methane, ammonia, Top Job and Spam. You want to know what Venus is like? Think Los Angeles, without George Hamilton.
Yes, yes, I can hear Lou Dobbs saying, that’s all well and good, but once these characters get here they start demanding access to the fruits of American civilization, like, for instance, three-dollar-a-gallon gas. Is that why we’re paying taxes? So a bunch of women (as I understand Venus is populated entirely by women) with tentacles, gills, and hideous prehensile tongues can take away our jobs, our menfolk, and the national anthem?
You’ve probably heard the “Venusian” version of the national anthem by now, recorded by a chorus of horny Venusian gals and slowed down by the Internal Revenue Service to a pitch audible by humans:

Oh say can you—oh never mind
What I really want to do
Is to mmmm—pour fruit juice
On your pecs from this shoe.
Your broad stripes and bright stars
And the rest make me pine
For your big Yankee fists
On my gills, you wild swine!

The Congress has been wrestling this last week with the aliens issue, and thank god the the Republicans and Democrats have finally set their bipartisan differences aside, and are working toward a compromise solution that will benefit all Americans. Ha! Ha! Ha!
No, just kidding. What actually happened was that Senator Kennedy said that Senator Brownback was a “fundamentalist nut-job” and Senator Brownback, for his part, said that Senator Kennedy looked like a “big swole-up potato.”
Shortly after this, they started calling each other names.
It made me think, not for the first time, that maybe Mars or Venus wouldn’t be such a bad place to live sometimes, at least compared to Washington. There are worse things to breathe than Top Job, as it turns out.
In the meantime, aliens continue to cross through the radiation belt, day after day, slowly but surely becoming part of our culture, ready or not.
Who knows? Maybe one day soon we’ll elect the first president who isn’t even human. Can you imagine it, the country run by some inarticulate buffoon who can barely speak English, some crazy nut who’d divide the country, and launch wars against planets that haven’t even attacked us?
Oh what am I thinking? Something like that? Happening here? That’d be out of this world.

Lessons from the Judist Colony

There was a lot of excitement last week when the National Geographic published the Book of Judas, the long-lost “Gnostic gospel” of the Lord’s very own Johnny Damon. Of course plenty of other apochryphal books of the Bible have floated around for centuries, including my favorite, the Lost Gospel of Oprah. ( “Goest, thou, girlfriend!”)
None of these, according to most Christian scholars particularly changes the nature of the faith.
Still, some of the “rejected” books of the Bible are worth perusing. The Book of Methuselah, for instance, tells the story of the oldest man in Genesis, who finally expired at the age of 969 years. “And lo,” sayeth woeful Me-thu-she-lah unto his great-great-great-great-grandson. “Thou didst not even call me, although thou were’st in town.”
Then there’s the Second Book of Ruth, which tells the little known story of Ruth’s husband, Boaz, nicknamed “Babe” by her beloved. In the end, the Babe gets traded to the Yankees, and Ruth’s people enter a period of mourning that is not broken for eighty-four years.
“But then their suffering wast rewarded, and the Lord sayeth unto Derek Lowe. Thou hast been chosen to Shut Out the Cardinals. And Damon the Hirsute shalt homer in the first, and lo, Trot Nixon too shalt hit a two run double in the third.” And there was much rejoicing in the City of Beans.
But only those with faith of adamant should undertake the challenge of the long-lost book of Middle School Jesus.
The text, found in a papyrus backpack in a cave near Egypt, sheds new light upon the Lord’s “tween” years:
“Turn offeth that thing,” sayeth Joseph to the Lord. “And helpeth me in the Shop of Carpentry.” For he was sore with labor, and the Belt Sander was unclean.
“Let me saveth my game,’ sayeth the Lord. “For the Play-station has great memory, like that unto the heart of God. Just giveth me a second.”
“I said now and I meaneth now,” sayeth Joseph. “Don’t maketh me ground thee.”
And Joseph sayeth some words unkind, and soon his heart was filled with sore regret.
“I am sorry I losteth my temper,” sayeth Joseph. “But you kids spendeth way too much time online.”
“I forgive you,” sayeth the Lord.
The Book of Middle School Jesus also contains a number of hitherto unreported miracles. Most compelling, in my opinion, is the Miracle of The Book Report
Completed in Seconds.
“And there was at that time an edict from the Lord’s instructor, Mrs. LeChance, that all the children in the land were to be taxed with the creation of a Book Report. The Lord put his project off until the last minute, and Mary was sorrowful at heart.
“And then the day before the due date, Mary said, Art thou not going to work on the report thou hast been assigned? For it is due tomorrow and I shallst not be doing it for’st thee.
“And the Lord pointed toward his backpack and there was a host of angels, and lo! he removeth from his notebook a manuscript illuminated with gold, showing the main characters and describing the plot, where before the page had been blank!
“But Mary remained sorrowful.
“I don’t like you reading those Harry Potter books,” sayeth Mary. And her heart remained uneasy.”
Finally there is the sobering account of Career Day at the Gallilee Middle School (mascot: The Fightin’ Rabbis!”)
“And in camest the farmer who spake of his vocation, and also in camest the exchanger of coins. But the Lord showeth no interest. And then camest the trainer of camels, and likewise the vendor of falafel. But the Lord showeth no interest, and makest much to fidget at His desk.
“And at last Mrs. LeChance sayeth unto the Lord: Jesus dost thou have no interest in thine career? Wast will thou do when thou graduatest from high school?”
And the Lord smiled, for he hadst been asked a question for which he hadst been long prepared
“What dost thou think?” sayeth the Lord. “I’m working for my Dad.”

From the World Headquarters of Big Heads

On my next to last night on Easter Island, I went back to the rim of the Rano Kau volcano with Tito. You think I’m making this up? Last week I was on assignment for Conde Nast Traveller magazine, on what is literally the most remote island on earth, over 2000 miles off the coast of Chile.
I’d spent the week tracking down the story, racing around Easter Island, more properly known by its true name, Rapa Nui. Now, as I prepared to take my leave, I wanted to come back to this sacred place for reasons of my own.
As Tito set off to view the petroglyphs with a couple named Tom and Joan from Denver, I sat down and looked at the Oceano Pacifico, taking a moment just to stay still. “Is a good place,” Tito had said to me. “To talk to your ancestors.”
So I set about doing just that. I lay back in the long grass, feeling the tropical sun on my face, and thought about the road that had led me here.
Suddenly, I felt a stab of pain in my back. Whatever this was, it burned like fire. I’d been told there were scorpions on the island, but I until now I hadn’t thought they’d view me as an adversary. Anyway, everyone said the scorpions were no big deal—they were only “little ones.” A bigger threat, supposedly, were the black widow spiders.
Tito heard me cry out, and he came back and checked me out. “Bee sting,” he announced, and a moment later removed a stinger from my neck. “You okay?”
“I’m okay,” I said, and Tito headed on to Orongo with the Coloradoans.
As I sat there, I thought about my father, who had been massively allergic to bees, after once running over a yellowjackets nest with the riding mower, and with a sudden thunderclap it struck me: my father had died twenty years ago this very day, on Easter Sunday. In all the exploring of ruins and moai and the traveling halfway around the world, the anniversary had managed to slip my mind.
So I closed my eyes and thought about my father, who had died of melanoma, and I tried to reach out to him in my heart. And as I lay in the hot tropical sunshine, I suddenly felt his voice speaking to me.
“Jenny,” he said. “Put on some sunscreen!”
Which I did, and I pulled my hat down over my forehead, and I thought about the old man for a while. He was a good man: sweet and kind and funny. Then his spirit told me something else.
Later, when I got back to the van, Tito asked me what I’d been thinking about, and I told him I’d had a conversation with my father, who’d died twenty years ago to the day.
“Yes?” said Tito. “And what did he say to you?”
And at that moment the big fat tears rolled down my face. “He said---“ I began, but I couldn’t finish the sentence, as I began to weep among strangers, on top of a volcano. Tito looked embarrassed. “You no say, you no want to say,” he said, but I pressed onward.
“But I want to say,” I told my guide.
“Okay,” said Tito, “Tell me.”
“He said—he is alive,” I said, and the tears poured down.
Tito nodded. “Is good, if you think is good.”
We all got back in the van. Tom and Joan, who’d looked on horrified as this conversation proceeded, were silent as we drove down from the volcano’s rim, tears still spilling down my face. Finally Joan said, “And what did your father die of, so young, Jenny?”
I sighed. How could I tell them what was in my heart, tell the story in a way that would make sense?
“He died,” I said. “Of a bee sting.”
“Oh, Jenny,” said Joan. “I’m sorry you lost him.”
As we bumped down the road, I also realized another thing. He’d died, in 1986, on Easter Sunday. And where was I now, twenty years later to the day? Easter Island.
“He is not lost,” I said. “But risen.”
Is good, if you think is good.

The Poem of the Lincoln Robot

Dear friends:

I have been toying with Google Translate, the online translation program.

What I did was, I took the Gettysburg Address, translated it into Korean, then back into English. Then I took that text, translated it into German, from German to French, and from French back into English.

The result is as follows-- with line breaks added, and a few edits. (I'd like to say I edited "for sense", but I don't think that's the right word.) We call it "The Poem of the LIncoln Robot." It goes like this:


THE POEM OF THE LINCOLN ROBOT
by Jennifer Finney Boylan


Then all the males who are equal
transform the heel of the dog.

For seven years our fathers
understood the continent.
Under the inauguration
it developed the inner freedom.

Us with the gold have the parts from inside
of the great north and the making war
on the south and we go, like this.

The sense of the battlefield where we are large
it relieves us, it works. It is over
respecting the meat
that is given to the peel here,
for the writing from the field that is firm.

Under the new percentage of the star
-- we are not the possibility. Here
the males who fought good have asked
that he remove the defective energy. The
nose about the wave is forgotten but, is here not all?

It was gorgeous to be left over like this.

For being leaves this nation
a new providence. The person who
governs a boring army song
shall bay with a lump and
it is not to be useless any more, any more,
and orders ticket like acid.

But to the inner method
this devotion is sufficient.
We shall augment the small flag lion
that gives honor, within, without,
and from,
it repairs here before the rest.

Enough we have it from here.

Honest Abe says, "HEY YOU! YOU'RE FIRED!"

Four score and seven years ago, Big Foot Chester set out upon Red Sox Nation to create a new Blog, conceived in drunkenness, and dedicated to the proposition that all babes should be buns-up kneelin'! Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that Big Foot Chester, or ANY Chester so conceived and drunken, can survive. We are met upon a great barfield of that war. They will not long remember what we blog here. But they will long remember what He drank here. Rather it is for us to be drunken, to rededicate ourselves to the proposition that all Heads are created Large, and that Drunkenness, Mendacity, and Lustiness -- of the Chester, for the Chester, and by the Chester, shall not perish from the earth.

And so on.

LISTEN:
Surviving fans of the band "Strange Brew" may find wistful recollections of playing with the band in the "There from Here" column on the front page of the C section of today's (Sunday, March 12) Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal. There is in this tear-jerking piece, in fact, a fleeting reference to one "Big Head Jack" who resembles Big Head Chester in all things except name.

If you are very good I will try to remember to post the very column in this very space in upcoming moments.

For now, a big tip of the STOVEPIPE to Honest Chester, who is SEVEN YEARS OLD TODAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LITTLE FELLA!

with love,

Jenny the Giant