Dazed and confused? Not me. I’m just Lost in the Cheese Aisle.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

2017 - AVE ATQUE VALE


Composite photograph of the solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 as it progressed from partial to total... one of the highlights of the year just past.

Today is the last day of 2017.

Today is also the forty-second anniversary of my meeting Dee for the first time, a story I still don’t tire of telling. (By now, however, Dee may very well be tired of hearing me tell it.) 

There have been Goings On a-plenty in the wider world, but I shall leave it to those who are more expert and better remunerated to tell of all of the tragedies, horrors, and joys of life in the public sphere. Mass shootings, police brutality, public demonstrations, narrischkeit on the part of elected officials: This crap has become a feature of our collective lives in ever newer and more exciting ways in 2017. Natural disasters, of course, happen all the time, yet I am constantly amazed at the way we create our own.

Nevertheless, there have been moments of transcendent joy.

I will never forget the sense of anticipation with which we greeted one of the rarest and most beautiful astronomical phenomena this past August - the total solar eclipse that a small group of us witnessed from Eric’s front lawn. Being able to experience it was the fulfillment of a decades-long desire.

This was the year I learned that wanting to do something was not the same as being able to do something... a lesson brought home to us after several weeks of painful, sweaty labor resurfacing our deck resulted in a not-especially-pretty start, along with a broken thumb for Dee. I am reminded of an old poem by Hilaire Belloc:

Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.

We’ve learned, at considerable pain and expense, to give employment to the artisan. But for all that, we now have a nice newly bedecked deck as well as freshly painted rooms throughout our house.

Ah, the house. We’ve lived in it for nigh unto two decades, and it’s looking like time for a change. Chez Elisson is all clean and decluttered (relatively speaking) now, the better for potential suitors to fall in love with it. As for us, we hope to relocate to something a bit more cozy, yet not too far away. Having a master bedroom at ground level would be a helpful change: We have learned that there are some living space features that can become very important very quickly, most often without any warning. Thus, preemptive action is the order of the day.

Elder Daughter continues to perform and to devise theatrical work in numerous venues, most commonly her home base of Philadelphia. The Mistress of Sarcasm, meanwhile, remains in Kingston, NY, where she and her boyfriend have - in addition to working on their usual individual artistic endeavors and the refurbishment of their building - opened an Airbnb. This could be considered a logical extension of her previous work in the hospitality industry.

Edith and Stella are (keyn ayin hora) still doing well, alternating between periods of mutual peevishness and slowly budding friendship. They provide huge amounts of amusement, deposit generous quantities of Cat-Dookie in the litter box, and yank hair-floofs off each other as they engage in their games of Snarl ’n’ Chase.

Some time ago, I realized that I have been writing online over thirteen years, having started my bloggy adventures over at the Old Place in July of 2004. That’s old enough to be a Bar Mitzvah, but I’m not sure what that status means as applied to an Online Journal. Does it mean I’ve got to act like a grownup? Fuck that. Nobody reads blogs anymore anyway. That’s a shame, because that is where you used to meet new people strictly by the strength of your ideas... or, failing that, by how you expressed yourself. You didn’t have the self-selected audience of Farcebook - you were, so to speak, on your own.

Alas, Farcebook ate most of the blogs, and Twitter nibbled the crumbs... but I don’t care. I may not write much over here, but I still tack up a post every so often to keep the place alive. It also helps me clear the ever-accumulating pile of Brain-Shit out of my noggin. So there’s that. Somebody has to write sonnets about unspeakable bodily functions; it may as well be me.

For Dee and me, 2017 ended on a thoroughly delightful note: a week-long (plus) visit from both Elder Daughter and the Mistress of Sarcasm, together here with us for the first time in probably four years. We had expected the former to show up late last Saturday night, and so she did - but what we had not expected was that she had the latter in tow. Shrieks of joy abounded.

Life is inevitably imperfect, but it’s the tough spots that allow us to appreciate the tender. May your 2018 bring those tough spots in minimal amounts while providing tenderness and joy in their fullest measure... along with health, happiness, and fulfillment, without limit to any good thing.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

HAVE YOU BEEN GIFTED?

In my Snot-Nose Days, when someone was gifted, it meant that that person was exceptionally talented or intelligent. Now it means that someone gave you something.

Gift appears, now, to have become a verb... at least during Gifting Season.

As Dee points out, the English language is constantly evolving. We shouldn’t necessarily get our panties in a twist when usages change. As a Grammar Twerp, I recognize this truth and simultaneously accept it and loathe it... at least a little bit.

So please let me gift you, Esteemed Reader, an observation: There are still a few shibboleths out there.

As Jimmy Fallon points out, people who call Atlanta “Hot Lanta” are telling everyone that they are not from Atlanta.

Likewise - and I’m willing to be corrected on this one - nobody from San Francisco refers to their city as “San Fran” or “’Frisco.”

The only people who use the word “golf” as a verb (I‘m gonna go golfing this afternoon with Charlie, e.g.) are people who do not play golf.

And the only people who use the term “Sci-Fi” to refer to science fiction are people who do not actually read science fiction. (People who do read science fiction call the genre SF.)

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves... and your thoughts on the matter, whether you agree or not, are welcome in the comments.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

ON EXCUSES, or
HEARING THE CALL


Le Penseur (“The Thinker”), thinking about how he has to go poop - what else?

I summited Ev’rest with my bold, hardy group
But I couldn’t stay long, because I had to poop.

Dining at Taillevent - had the white truffle soup
But I couldn’t stay long, because I had to poop.

I drove through LeMans in my lightning-fast coupe
But I couldn’t stay long, because I had to poop.

I sailed off New Zealand in my one-masted sloop
But I couldn’t stay long, because I had to poop.

As a seasoned reporter, I nailed down a scoop
But I couldn’t stay long, because I had to poop.

I was deep in a battle with my brave-hearted troop
But I couldn’t stay long, because I had to poop.

When I have to leave early, I’m ne’er thrown for a loop -
My incessant excuse is: I gotta go poop!

Monday, December 11, 2017

A CHANUKAH EDITORIAL



[If Dear Abby can get away with recycling the same Holiday Columns every stinking year, why not Elisson? We are therefore pleased to offer this thirteen-year-old Editorial Response previously published here and at Blog d’Elisson, one that is both timely and appropriate to the season. Chanukah begins at sundown Tuesday evening, December 12 this year.]

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the electronic-mail communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of Lost in the Cheese Aisle:
“I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there was no Judah Maccabee and that Chanukah is a load of crap. Papa says, ‘If you see it in Lost in the Cheese Aisle, it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth, was there a Judah Maccabee?” - Patty O’Furniture
Patty, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All they care about is that fat red-suited guy who schleps presents to Yenemvelt and back. All minds, Patty, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, goornisht, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Patty, there was a Judah Maccabee.

He existed as certainly as dedication and courage and devotion exist. He kicked some serious ass back in the day, Judah did, throwing the Greco-Syrians out of Judea and reclaiming the holy Temple. His struggle was a struggle against assimilation, against those who would be seduced by the pop culture of the day. He fought his battles so that we Jews would retain our cultural identity and not be swallowed up in the prevailing pagan mainstream. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there had been no Judah Maccabee! It would be as dreary as if there were no Pattys. (Or furniture.) There would be no candle-lighting then, no singing Ma-oz Tzur (or even those stupid dreidel songs), no commemoration of the miraculous rededication of the Temple. No Judah? We would even today be schmearing ourselves with olive oil and burning pig hearts as sacrifices to Zeus. And our Christian friends would have no Christmas - for the culture that gave rise to Jesus would have been wiped out. The eternal light - the ner tamid - with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Judah? You might as well not believe in fairies. Or the Matzohball That Does Not Sink. Or Eliyahu ha-Navi. You might get your papa to hire men to watch all the seder tables of the world to catch a glimpse of Eliyahu, but even if you did not see him, what would that prove? Nobody ever sees Eliyahu ha-Navi drink his wine at the Seder table, but that is no sign that there is no Eliyahu ha-Navi. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. (Although those footprints in the grass were more likely made by your Papa as he tried to sneak back into the house with a snootful of booze after the office Xmas party.) Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You can tear apart the knish and see the tasty filling inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Patty, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Judah Maccabee? Thank G-d he lived - and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Patty, nay, 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to chase the Greco-Syrians out of Judea and combat the forces of cultural assimilation, making glad the heart of childhood.

Happy Chanukah!

[Originally posted on December 25, 2004.]

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

BIRTHDAY IN ABSENTIA

Earlier today, Dee and I were going through a small corner of the massive Archive d’Elisson, trying to decide what to hang on to and what to pitch. That’s especially challenging for us, given that every single household move we’ve made for the last thirty-nine years has been a corporate affair... which means that we’ve carted around Stupendous Amounts o’Crap simply because we could. Occasional decluttering notwithstanding, we are overdue for a massive inventory reduction.

Books are just one corner of the Archive, and getting them moved to the basement - a stage in their eventual onward travels - is an exercise in Letting Go. And some things, we’re just not ready to let go.

Case in point: a book of nursery rhymes that Mom gave the Mistress of Sarcasm for her fourth birthday. When we opened the book and found the inscription on the flyleaf - an inscription in my mother’s distinctive handwriting - I just about came unglued. It was just one tiny reminder of a hole in our lives. A Missing Person.

We all - most of us, anyway - have those Missing Persons. As we get older, their numbers increase, until eventually (but not too soon!) we join their ranks. And my mom went missing almost thirty years ago. You get used to that feeling of loss, because you have no other choice... but it’s always there. And once in a while, in addition to formal occasions of remembrance (for us Red Sea Pedestrians, five times a year), you get reminded informally.

A scrap of handwriting. A photo album. Perhaps an old video or even a home movie.

Or an inscription in a book. It’s so appropriate. She and my Dad devoured books like most people snarf up salty peanuts. I owe my love of books - especially SF books - to her. She could (and did) discuss Childhood’s End with a seven-year-old Elisson who had read it and was blown away by the ideas contained therein.

Damn, I miss her.

Today is her ninetieth birthday. It’s a perfect day to toast her memory with a Rob Roy - her favorite cocktail for Special Occasions.


Mom celebrates at Cousin Stef’s wedding, October 1987. This is how we remember her: an irrepressible spirit.