THIRTY

Bill, in his Navy days - ~1946.

“My daddy’s been gone 30 years. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.”

Today is Bill’s thirtieth Yahrzeit - the anniversary of his passing according to the Hebrew calendar. (On the Gregorian calendar, purely by coincidence, that anniversary is tomorrow.)

I cannot add or change a single word that would make Dee’s words any more eloquent.

We miss you, Bill. Every day.


Bill, the barbecue maven, as photographed in the late 1970’s.

ADRIAN’S LIVER HEAVEN

Chicken liver paté with pickled shallots.

Our friend Sue recently told me about a prank she and her kids would play upon the unsuspecting. It involved a fictional restaurant - Adrian’s Liver Heaven - where all the dishes would incorporate some form of liver.

The idea of a fictional restaurant is right up my alley. Well over a decade ago, I created the House of Meat, a no-nonsense restaurant offering titanic slabs of red meat, a monument to Wretched Excess. (Interested in investing? Feel free to leave a comment.)

But Adrian’s Liver Heaven takes it to another level, with a menu based on an organ meat that, while beloved by many, is the stuff of horror movies to others. It’s one of those proteins that you either love or hate: There is no middle ground on the liver lover’s scale.

Think of Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company, only with liver...

Calf’s liver and onions.
Calf’s liver and bacon.
Calf’s liver with onions and bacon.
Rumaki (chicken livers and water chestnuts wrapped with bacon).
Chopped chicken liver.
Paté de foie gras.
Char-grilled foie gras skewers.
Chicken livers en brochette.
Southern fried chicken livers and gizzards.
Liver with fava beans (a good Chianti optional).
Strasburg Pie.

People would listen to Sue’s kids rattle off all of these bizarre dishes without batting an eye, but at some point they would get suspicious. “This isn’t a real place, is it?”

That would usually be right after the question, “Would you care to try the cream of liver soup?”

Hell, I’d eat at Adrian’s Liver Heaven if it were a real place. What liver-based dishes would you put on the menu?

MOTHER’S DAY MEMORIES

Dee and her mom, 2012.

Mother’s Day is one of those rare Greeting Card Holidays with a respectable pedigree. Its originator, one Anne Jarvis of Grafton, West Virginia, had initiated its observance 1908 as a way to memorialize her own mother... and in later years she was horrified at how commercialized the day had become, thanks to the incessant blandishments of the greeting card, florist, and restaurant industries.

But most of us walk this planet by the grace of being of mother born, and so it’s entirely appropriate to set aside one day of the year to glorify and honor All Things Maternal.

I’ve got three mothers that are the primary focus of my thoughts on this occasion: my own mother, now departed over twenty-eight years; Dee, the mother of our two daughterly children; and Dee’s mother.

Dee’s mom lives in Foat Wuth, where she still puts in a day a week working retail. She has had a lot on her plate this year, what with one son having undergone heart valve surgery and the other dealing with deep vein thrombosis... and her daughter still recovering from a broken hip and wrist. But she’s a tough bird, determined to do things her own way (even if it drives her children nuts).


 Bernice, the Momma d’Elisson (z''l) in her 1949 college graduation photo.

My mom lives in Olam ha-Ba - the World to Come, where she has been resident for close to three decades, as well as in the memories of those who knew and loved her. I think of her whenever I eat duck, whenever I drink Scotch or Campari (she was not much of a cocktail hound, but she did love an occasional Rob Roy or Campari and soda), whenever I play golf or tennis, whenever I read a science fiction novel, and whenever I do the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. In the best of all possible worlds, she would have had a few more decades to enjoy her sons, her daughter-in-law, and her granddaughters... but, alas, it was not to be.

And then there’s Dee, who became a mother almost thirty-seven years ago when Elder Daughter (then Only Daughter) appeared on the scene. Dee was, and continues to be, a wonderful mom to our girls... certainly not her only skill-set, and by no means her defining role, but the one that is relevant to the occasion being celebrated. Navigating the waters of motherhood as your children grow into fully-fledged adults isn’t the easiest task, but we have been blessed with sweet, bright daughters who love their Mom without reservations, qualifications, or limits... and I know that it’s mutual.

I’ll raise a glass to these three Moms. Now: what should be in the glass?

ADVENTURES IN ASTRONOMY

When he’s in a self-deprecating mood, Houston Steve likes to tell this story of his days in the United States Naval Academy, back when he was a naïve young middie.

It is a USNA tradition that upon returning from their summer cruise and sighting the Academy chapel dome, third-class midshipmen are elevated to the exalted status of “youngster,” with the various privileges pertaining thereto. Our story takes place during Houston Steve’s youngster cruise... on a dark, clear, moonless night somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

Picture, if you can, Midshipman 3c Houston Steve, who is standing on the signal bridge with a fellow whom we shall refer to here as Signalman 2c Smith. Smith is a grizzled veteran, someone who probably has been plugging away in the E-5 grade for at least ten and more likely twenty years. And yet Houston Steve, despite his being a mere snot-nosed middie, outranks Smith.

As noted above, it is a dark, clear, moonless night... and way out in the middle of the ocean, it is really dark. No cities are near enough to spoil the night sky with visual and atmospheric pollution, which means there is a spectacular view of the entire dome of the heavens from horizon to horizon.

This is when Houston Steve attempts to make conversation with his companion on the signal bridge.

Houston Steve: “You know, Smith - it’s pretty amazing. There’s no moon, but you can still see the clouds.”

Smith: “Jesus Christ, Sir - that’s the fucking Milky Way!”

Note that Smith’s riposte, despite conveying a heavy freight of amused contempt towards his youthful superior, is perfectly and appropriately polite.

It has been some forty-five years since this little adventure took place, and Houston Steve still takes pleasure in telling about it. He also acknowledges that Signalman Smith - assuming he is still walking the planet - probably enjoys telling the story as well. We both wonder how different it sounds from his vantage point.

THE YEAR THE MUSIC DIED

Ask not for whom the cowbell tolls
It tolls for music artists
Who shaped our culture and our lives
But now they must depart us

O, farewell Bowie, farewell Prince
Adieu, our sweet Merle Haggard
And yet, Keith Richards walks the Earth
That everlasting blackguard!

[2016 has been a rough year thus far for musical celebrities, with the Grim Reaper harvesting (among many others) David Bowie; Paul Kantner; Glenn Frey; Merle Haggard; Frank Sinatra, Jr.; and Prince.]

STAR WARS DAY

It’s Star Wars Day. May the Fourth be with you!

(An appropriately stupid occasion to immediately precede Drinko de Mayo.)

PESAHDIK POTABLES

One of the challenges even a moderately observant Jew must deal with during the eight-day Passover festival is that of What To Drink.

Soft drink fanciers will generally look for beverages that are sweetened with something other than the ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup, corn being a product that most Ashkenazic Jews traditionally avoid during the holiday. But those of us who favor higher-octane tipples face a more difficult quandary.

Most spirituous liquors, you see, are made from grain - and most are produced from one or more of the five grains that are verboten during Passover: wheat, spelt, rye, oats, and barley.

Single malt Scotch? No can do. Irish? Uh-uh. Bourbon? That’d be disturbin’. Gin? A sin.

That leaves us with a limited palette of brandies (which must be produced under strictly controlled conditions); eaux-de-vie; rums, and vodkas (which are OK if made from potatoes).

My traditional Pesach Potable is the dastardly Central European plum brandy known as slivovitz. It is not a drink for the faint of heart: Strong men have been known to become violently ill after ingesting a single shot. Lower quality versions have a bouquet that reminds one of Ronsonol... and yet a good slivovitz, while powerfully alcoholic, has the unmistakable fragrance and subtle sweetness of sunny, ripe plums.

It’ll just have to do until sundown Saturday.

THOUGHTS ON THE TWELFTH OF NISAN

Our mom Bernice, z''l (1927-1988).

It’s been twenty-eight years since she has shared this world with us, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of her.

The photograph above is one of my favorites, having captured just the smallest whiff of her vivaciousness. If you knew her, you’d know what I mean... and if you didn’t get to know her, alas for you.

Sometimes I wonder how much of my personality came from her and how much from Dad. My sense of humor is probably 99.8% Eli. The other day, Dee saw me react to something or other and immediately said, “What you just did? That’s Eli.”

But when I pick up a book? That’s Mom. I like to think that she’s there, invisible, looking over my shoulder whenever I read.

FIFTY WAYS

“The problem is all inside your head” she said one night
“The menu’s simple if just look at it right
I’d like to help you in your struggle for a bite
There must be fifty ways to love your liver”

She said “I really don’t want to get up into your grill
Furthermore, I hope you won’t think I’m an asshole or a pill
But I’ll repeat myself: If you wish to eat your fill
There must be fifty ways to love your liver
Fifty ways to love your liver”

You can have it sautéed, Sinéad
Throw it on the grill, Phil
Don’t drown it in soy, Roy
Just cook it gently
Serve it on toasted bread, Fred
Sear it ’til you don’t see red
Some fried onions are key, Lee
Please listen to me

Oooh, you can have it sautéed, Sinéad
Throw it on the grill, Phil
Don’t drown it in soy, Roy
Just cook it gently
Serve it on toasted bread, Fred
Sear it ’til you don’t see red
Some fried onions are key, Lee
Please listen to me

She said “It saddens me to see you in such grief
I wish there was something I could cook – perhaps roast beef”
I said “I appreciate that – now please tell me your belief
About the fifty ways”

She said “Why don’t we sleep on it tonight – I really care
And I believe a love like yours is more than very rare”
And then she smelled the pong of onions in my hair
There must be fifty ways to love your liver
Fifty ways to love your liver

You can have it sautéed, Sinéad
Throw it on the grill, Phil
Don’t drown it in soy, Roy
Just cook it gently
Serve it on toasted bread, Fred
Sear it ’til you don’t see red
Some fried onions are key, Lee
Please listen to me

You can have it sautéed, Sinéad
Throw it on the grill, Phil
Don’t drown it in soy, Roy
Just cook it gently
Serve it on toasted bread, Fred
Sear it ’til you don’t see red
Some fried onions are key, Lee
Please listen to me

[Apologies to Paul Simon]

THE CHEESE AISLE DICTIONARY, Vol. 23

I could not help but be intrigued by my friend Eric’s recent Facebook post:

“...you know that you need your reading glasses when you click on a link to “Paleo Sandwich” on the internet and it turns out to be an article on a baseball player named Pablo Sandoval...”

Hmmm. Paleo Sandwich, Pablo Sandoval.

That post elicited a comment that went as follows:

“This made me laugh out loud. Beeecause... the other day, I saw an ad that I could’ve SWORE said something about a sphincter. I looked again and it said “specialized.”

I’ve experienced similar misreads... and as I get older, I find that this phenomenon occurs more frequently. One example: as we were stopped at a red light yesterday evening, I saw a license tag that said (I thought) “Okeechobeee” below the tag number. But when I realized that it was a Georgia plate, I also realized that Okeechobee - which may refer to either a lake or a county in Florida - made no sense. Closer examination showed the word to be “Oglethorpe.” Aha.

That, Esteemed Readers, is a mondeseen - the newest coinage in the Cheese-Aisle Dictionary.

mondeseen [mon-de-sin] (n): a word or phrase that is initially misread due to faulty eyesight, glitchy brain function, or a combination of both.

Mondeseen is a spin on the term “mondegreen,” meaning a mishearing of song lyrics or spoken words. The difference is that the focus is visual, not aural: misreading rather than mishearing.

Another example: While in the pet store a few days ago, Dee saw a sign that she initially read as “Cow List.” After the inevitable double-take, she realized that it said “Low Cost.”

I experience mondeseens frequently, and the number seems to be accelerating. I attribute this to my declining distance vision, coupled with changes in my mental acuity that I hope are the result of normal aging processes and not a rapid freefall into drooling senescence.

Time will tool, I suffuse.

[Other entries in the Cheese Aisle Dictionary may be found here.]

A CENTURY-OLD TURNING POINT

Calendar Year 2016 is already one-fourth over, and it took this long for me to realize how significant a year it is... at least for those of us who collect coins.

Yes, Esteemed Readers - Elisson is a coin collector. It’s hard to imagine a more nerdly hobby aside from stamp collecting, a pastime that makes the Dork-O-Meter go all the way to 11. My saving grace is that I’ve never gotten into it too seriously, owing to the fact that I usually spend my money on more mundane things like food, clothing, liquor, and The Interminable Mortgage. For that, I am thankful... though not as thankful as Dee, who cringes whenever I start talking about coinstuff.

Nothing, save music, can roll the years back like looking at the coins you used to see when you were young. And we had some real beauties when I was a young Snot-Nose. 

This year is not such a big deal per se, but it’s important because it is the 100th anniversary of one of the great turning points in American numismatics: when American coinage finished crossing the great artistic divide into the twentieth century.

Up until then, the dime, the quarter, and the half-dollar all had sported similar Liberty Head designs by Chief Engraver Charles Barber (the quarter and half were almost identical in appearance). Barber’s coins were boring and stodgy, generating negative reviews almost from the first day they were produced in 1892. Without an act of Congress, however, his designs could not be replaced until 1916... by which time everything else coming out of the Mint had been modernized.

It was worth the wait.

The new designs were dramatically different from Barber’s simple Roman-style profiles of Lady Liberty. The dime, by Adolph Weinman, featured Liberty wearing a winged cap, symbolizing freedom of thought - and on the reverse, the fasces - the bundle of sticks that has represented strength in unity since Roman days.

Adolph Weinman’s Liberty Head dime, popularly (but incorrectly) called the Mercury dime. [Image: Coin Community]

Weinman’s half-dollar showed Liberty in full stride towards the sun, an American flag behind her and branches of laurel and oak in her arms. The reverse featured a mighty eagle, wings partially unfolded, perched atop a mountain crag.

Weinman’s Walking Liberty half-dollar. [Image: USA Coin Book]

For the quarter, Hermon MacNeil created an image of a standing Liberty in flowing robes, holding a shield in one hand and an olive branch in the other.

Hermon MacNeil’s Standing Liberty Quarter. This version, produced in 1916, was subsequently modified to conform more closely to MacNeil’s original design. Only 52,000 of the 1916 specimens were struck, making it a rarity. [Image: CoinHELP!]

All of these coins were (you should excuse the pun) strikingly different from their predecessors. More than just utilitarian factory output, they were works of art in miniature, products of the sculptor’s imagination rather than the engraver’s. You would look at them and see America’s growing self-confidence and presence practically leaping from their shiny faces. They were not without their flaws - the quarter was difficult to strike properly and its date was notoriously prone to wear, for example - but they were beautiful.

In my Snot-Nose Days, all three of these coins were easily found in pocket change, despite the fact that they were all obsolete by then. The Standing Liberty quarter had only lasted until 1930 - an exceptionally short-lived series - yet well-worn specimens, often without readable dates, would show up daily. The so-called Mercury dimes and “Walker” halves were by no means uncommon. But when the Coinage Act of 1965 introduced dimes, quarters, and halves with a copper-nickel clad composition, silver coins vanished from circulation almost overnight.

Today, the beloved Walking Liberty design has been resurrected for use in silver bullion coins... but somehow, those lack the charm - the everyday beauty - of actual circulating coinage. As for today’s (faux) silver, the Roosevelt dime has been unchanged for seventy - count ’em! - years; the Washington quarter has essentially the same ugly obverse it has had since 1932, despite having five new (mostly forgettable) reverse designs every year since 1999; and the iconic Kennedy half, now fifty-two years old, no longer circulates at all. Où sont les dessins d’antan?

Once in a while, I’ll take some of those old coins out and look at them, rolling back the years. Damn, those were beautiful times. At least, that’s what the coins tell me.

REMEMBERING ELI

The irrepressible Eli (1925-2014), photographed in 1990.

As the sun sets this evening, I will light a candle in my father’s memory to mark the second year since he passed on to the Undiscovered Country... that great and foreboding land to which we all must eventually journey.

Two years - at least, by the arcane reckonings of the Hebrew calendar.

They say Time heals all wounds. (They also say Time wounds all heels.) And it’s true. The ache of loss diminishes as the days and years pass - else how could we go on with the business of living, weighted down by accumulated grief? And yet there is an empty space that never goes away.

In the photograph above, Dad was sixty-five - only two years older than I am now.  But my deepest memories were of Eli as a young man, spreading out newspaper on the floor to catch the drippings from his trumpet’s spit valve... sitting down to play the piano... taking me and my brother to Coney Island Steeplechase amusement park... navigating from Bensonhurst to our home in suburban Massapequa after a day with his parents, my sleepy head resting on his leg as he drove.

Those, ahh, those were sweet days.

VILLAGE OF FOOLS

Memorial marker at Beth David Cemetery, Elmont, NY. [Photograph by The Other Elisson.]

Chelm is a small city - with about 67,000 inhabitants, you could really call it a good-sized village - in eastern Poland. Back in the early 1920’s it really was more of a village, its population at the time not much more than 23,000... more than half of them Jews, the remainder Christians consisting of Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and a sprinkling of Lutherans.

Occupying a unique place in Jewish folklore, this small, otherwise unremarkable city is the legendary home of the Wise Men of Chelm, an ironic compliment typical of Yiddish. You could say that Chelm was celebrated for being an entire village of Village Idiots... the kind of people that, when asked why the sea was salty, attributed its salinity to the large number of herring living in it. You’d have to go to Washington, D.C. to find a more concentrated source of High Doltage.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the noted Yiddish author, wrote about the well-meaning fools of Chelm (The Fools of Chelm and Their History), and it’s easy enough to find similar collections of tales by others. A quick search on Amazon.com will suffice.

Were the Jewish residents of Chelm really fools? It’s hard to say, because they’ve vanished. Most were exterminated by the Nazis in a single, brutal operation in early December, 1939, and the remaining stragglers were picked off as the war ground on.

But at least one escaped, back in 1922 when escape was possible. That would be my grandfather Jacob of blessèd memory, father of Eli (hizzownself)... a Chelmite who was smart enough to get out while the getting was good.

What better day to remember the Wise Men of Chelm - and the real-life victims of the Holocaust who lived there - than on April Fools’ Day?

WAITING FOR PENTECOST: A 100-WORD BIBLE STORY

They carried his broken, bleeding body to the cave, weeping with every step.

They laid him down, bade their farewells, and sealed the cave entrance with a massive rock.

Three days later, he arose, clad in pure white raiment. He leaped to the mouth of the cave, rolled the rock away, and stepped into the blinding sunlight. Almost as quickly, he retreated into the depths of the cave, shaken and fearful.

That terrible dark shape on the ground! He shivered in horror. Could it have been the Devil himself?

No matter. After six more weeks, Punxsutawney Jesus would try again.

[Originally published April 24, 2006 at the old place... and resurrected just for you.]

EATAPETA: THE DAY TO EAT MEAT-A

Grilled butterflied leg of tender spring lamb... an excellent menu choice.

March 15 - the Ides of March - is international EATAPETA Day, the day on which we eat animal protein morning, noon and night for the sole purpose of sticking a thumb in the eye of PETA. (Well, that, plus animal protein tastes good.)

EATAPETA (Eat a Tasty Animal for PETA) Day is the brainchild of Meryl Yourish, who explains its historic origins in this post.

I’ve been celebrating EATAPETA Day for eleven years now, and the only issue is how to cram as much animal protein as possible into a 24-hour day. That’s the kind of problem I enjoy sinking my teeth into. In fact, shortly after midnight, I sank my teeth into some grilled Coffee and Cardamom-Crusted Skirt Steak I had prepared earlier on our Big Green Egg, searing it at 700°F to build a fragrant layer of char on the outside.

Breakfast consisted of Steak and Eggs: some of that selfsame skirt steak, served alongside a couple of over-easy eggs sautéed in ghee. Gotta exploit them chickens and cows to the max.

For lunch, I took my inspiration from the sea by consuming a tuna salad. Tuna, of course, is what the PETA folks like to call sea-kittens. And I’ll admit, I love to pet those sea-kittens... with my stomach lining.

When suppertime came, I augmented the remaining supply of skirt steak with some chicken soup. (You didn’t think we’d stop at just chicken eggs, didja?) By way of dessert, a few bites off a Toblerone bar... a bar made with milk chocolate. Yet more cow exploitation.

A few years ago, our friend Houston Steve suggested oysters, foie gras, and veal as the ideal EATAPETA Day meal. “I understand the foie gras and the veal,” I replied at the time. “But what’s up with the oysters?” “They’re still alive when you eat ’em,” said he.]

Alex Bensky’s Rule should guide you in your menu selections on this sacred day: If it didn’t have a mother, it’s not on the menu.


Your mommy can’t help you now, Mr. Carp.

ROUND NUMBER

Summer berry pie... an appropriate way to celebrate Pi Day even if it isn’t even spring yet.

Today is Pi Day, March 14, often rendered as 3.14 in American English. Coincidentally, it’s also the day on which Albert Einstein’s birthday is celebrated in his adopted home of Princeton, New Jersey. It’s not quite a holiday, but it’s certainly a day that it worthy of note... at least, by the same nerds who celebrate Star Wars Day on May 4 (“May the Fourth Be With You”).

This year, Pi Day falls on 3.14.16, which is the result you get by rounding pi (3.14159) to four decimal places. Thus, some have taken to calling this year’s version Rounded Pi Day. Since pies are so often round - Pythagoras be damned! - it’s just one more reason to have a pie today.

By way of a reminder, tomorrow is EATAPETA (Eat A Tasty Animal for PETA) Day. Therefore, a meat pie would definitely be in order.

In order to celebrate this most auspicious occasion I shall trot out (what, again?) one of my favorite 100-word stories: Pie-Eyed Jeremy, originally posted in June 2006.  Enjoy.

PIE-EYED JEREMY: A 100-WORD STORY

Jeremy loved pie.

Jeremy loved pie with a white-hot passion.

No birthday cake for him. It had to be pie, only pie.

Dutch Apple. Mince. Blueberry. Rhubarb. Pumpkin. Coconut Custard. Steak and Kidney. Chicken Pot. If it was a pie, Jeremy would seek it out and devour it.

But pies were expensive. Fillings and crust cost money, which Jeremy had in short supply. Eventually, to support his pie habit, Jeremy turned to crime.

During a botched heist at Entenmann’s, two hostages died in a hail of bullets. Jeremy was arrested and convicted.

His last meal? Pie, of course. Cyanide pie.

AMERICA’S RENAISSANCE MAN

Ben attempts to take one of the earliest known selfies, circa 1792. [Photographed at Palmer Hall, Princeton University.]

Benjamin Franklin was not only one of this country’s Founding Fathers, he was also an accomplished scientist with numerous inventions to his credit - a true Renaissance Man.

Many of us know that Franklin invented bifocal spectacles, the lightning rod, and (obviously enough) the Franklin stove, yet few are aware that he was also a pioneer in social media and its attendant technologies. Poor Richard’s Almanack was originally conceived as an Application (popularly abbreviated Appⁿ) for the STeam-powered Universal Portable Interpersonal Device that Franklin invented. It was, alas, an impractical technology at the time, owing to the fact that wireless communications had yet to be invented. The almost invisible copper threads that were used to connect Franklin’s STUPIDs created an impenetrable network that impeded people’s ability to move about in old Philadelphia, and so the invention never caught on. The Almanack, happily, survived, and the pearls of wisdom therein have become part of American popular culture.  

In Poor Richard’s, Franklin warned of the dangers of distracted ambulation: “He that texts and takes a Stroll, May find himself in a Graveyard-Hole.” How ironic that the sculpture pictured above portrays him in the act of ignoring his own advice.

JUST SUPER

No, it’s not about you, Supes.

Today is March 1, AKA Super Tuesday.

It’s “super” because this is the day that primary voters choose 595 out of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination, and 859 of the 2,383 delegates needed to lock up the Democratic nomination. That’s 48% and 36% respectively.

Georgia is one of the states holding primaries today. These days, the franchise seems to be less about selecting the best candidate for the job and more about choosing the least amongst a host of evils... but both Dee and I held our noses and voted.

We won’t know who will actually be running in the Presidential race until the respective party conventions take place, but we will have a pretty good idea after today’s results are tabulated.

It’s going to be a long, unpleasant election season... but at least it won’t be boring. Of course, natural disasters aren’t boring either, but nobody wants to be caught up in them or their aftermath.

SADIE HAWKINS

Higgledy piggledy,
Emperor Julius
Looked at the calendar,
Saying, “Oh, my!

“If we add one Dies
Intercalarius,
We won’t have winter
Show up in July!”

Today is the civil calendar’s rara avis: Leap Day, the intercalary day inserted once every four years. There is an exception: Centennial years not evenly divisible by 400 do not include an extra day, thanks to Pope Gregory. That exceptional year next occurs in 2100, extremely unlikely to be in the lifetime of anyone reading this.)

By coincidence, this year in the Hebrew calendar (5776, which is also the square of 76) is also a leap year. Hebrew leap years take place seven out of every nineteen years, which makes their occurrence somewhat more frequent than Gregorian leap years (36.84% versus 24.25%), and they’re more dramatic: A whole month is added, not just a single day.

We’re about two-thirds of the way through that extra month now, which means that the Jewish holidays for the balance of the year will seem late according to their Gregorian dates. It’s why Passover will begin in late April - four weeks after Easter, rather than at roughly the same time.

In American popular culture, Leap Day is sometimes conflated with Sadie Hawkins Day, the day on which unattached women in Dogpatch would try to outrun the town’s bachelors in a footrace, the (male) losers of which would have to marry the (female) winners. Sadie Hawkins Day was the creation of Al Capp, who drew the popular Li’l Abner comic strip in which the event first appeared in November 1937. In a testament to the pop culture influence of the funny pages, the fictional “holiday” actually caught on in many places across the country.


From Li’l Abner, the eponymous Sadie Hawkins wrestles with spinsterhood at the advanced age of thirty-five.

Laughably sexist notion that it is these days, there are still plenty of locales (high schools?) that still actually celebrate Sadie Hawkins Day, usually without the finality of the original(!) While some do so on November 15, many people consider February 29 to be Sadie Hawkins Day in view of an old British and Irish tradition that held that women were permitted to make marriage proposals only on Leap Day.

Al Capp, incidentally, was Jewish - which makes one wonder whether we Red Sea Pedestrians should observe a whole Sadie Hawkins month. Yeef.

WOMAN OF VALOR

Valentine, circa 1938, from collection of Dee’s late Dad.

A woman of valor, who can find?
Well, I sure found one, never you mind.
- The Bard of Affliction

My Valentine is a Woman of Valor.

She has had to be brave this year, dealing with unexpected adversity - the kind that hits you in painful places both physical and spiritual. She who values independence and self-reliance so highly has had to allow others to care for her. But she is recovering - slowly, painfully, and yet inexorably - and my heart sings with every step she takes.

SIA, WOULDN’T WANNA BIA, or SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

Having recently remarked upon the astonishing resemblance between Ted Cruz and Hungry Chuck Biscuits, I couldn’t help but notice that there was another Face in the News that reminded me of a similar one from back in the day.

Sia, the pop star who famously likes to avoid showing her face while performing (perhaps she should redub herself “Nope, Can’t Sia”), has appeared on shows as diverse as SNL, the Tonight Show, and the Ellen Degeneres Show in the past few weeks. Up until her performance on SNL, I couldn’t have told you who Sia was even if she had bitten me on the ass, but now she seems to be everywhere. She is prodigiously talented, but I cannot bear to watch her perform, given that she is usually accompanied by some sort of performance artist cum dancer who writhes around on the stage while Sia sings. Even our own Elder Daughter, herself a performance artist, considers Sia’s stage act gagworthy. Just listen and don’t look, and she’s actually quite good.

The enormous black-and-white wig she has been sporting lately reminded me of an old Star Trek episode that featured Frank Gorshin, well known at the time for playing the Riddler on the Batman TV series. Lookee:


Sia (image ©2016 World Entertainment News Network) and Frank Gorshin (image ©1969 CBS Pictures/Photofest).

The ridiculous black-and-white makeup was for an episode entitled “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield,” which featured two aliens at each other’s throats in what could be considered a mash-up between the Javert-Valjean conflict from Les Miserables and a good old-fashioned race riot. Each alien, you see, was half black and half white... but one was black on the left, the other on the right.

If you think the writers of the episode were trying to convey a message of racial tolerance and opposition to bigotry in the most stupidly obvious and heavy-handed way possible, you’d be right. Not even Rod Serling at his most preachy was this bad. (Of course, it was the third and final season of the original Star Trek series, by which time any of the reasonable good SF ideas that made it to the screen in the first season were a distant memory.)

The difference between this “Separated at Birth” exercise and the one involving Ted Cruz and Hungry Chuck Biscuits? Here, it’s obvious that Sia and Frank Gorshin are not twins separated at birth. They just have the B&W theme going on. But I’m beginning to be convinced that Senator Cruz and Hungry Chuck Biscuits are not merely twins separated at birth - I think there’s a good chance they’re the same person.

AHA!

Ever since Ted Cruz achieved national prominence, there has been something gnawing at the back of my brain. He looked... all too familiar, as if I had seen him before. But where?

Could it have been at Princeton? After all, he is a fellow alumnus. Might we have run into him at Reunions? Highly unlikely: it’s doubtful we would show up at Reunions the same year, since our graduating classes (1974 and 1992) are eighteen years apart. (It would be a different story had he been in the ’89 or ’94 classes, since our major reunion years would coincide.)

So, not at Princeton. But where had I seen that face before?

Just a few minutes ago, I had that “Aha!” moment. The moment where the pieces of the puzzle all lock into place. When the tumblers of the safe go click, clickety click and the door swings open. When that little imaginary light bulb above your head - the one you see in all the cartoons - sets itself to shining with the glare of a thousand suns.

And that was the key: cartoons.

Years ago, there was a distinctive-looking character in the underground comix. A feckless idiot in a western shirt who sported an oily pompadour... and, coincidentally, who made his first appearance in 1970, the year Ted Cruz was born.

Coincidence? You decide...


Ted Cruz and Hungry Chuck Biscuits: Separated at birth? [Hungry Chuck Biscuits ©1971 Dan Clyne]

The real question is whether they were separated at birth or whether Ted Cruz is actually Hungry Chuck Biscuits. I really can’t decide.

REMEMBERING THE HIGH PRIEST

Reading table cover made by Paula Coplon in memory of “Gravel-Voice” Larry Travis.

Today we observed Gravel-Voice Larry’s tenth Yahrzeit.

It’s hard to believe that it has been ten years. A whole decade.

A whole decade in which Larry has not presided over post-Minyan breakfast, selecting the smoked fish of the day with the care and expertise of a sommelier selecting a fine wine.

A whole decade of not hearing Larry’s throat-rattling voice knocking the morning liturgy around like so many tenpins.

A whole decade of not having Larry sit beside me in the front row of the chapel.

Things just haven’t been the same without our Kohen Gadol - our High Priest - walking the planet with us. And Larry, indeed, was descended from the High Priests of old. When it came to the Law, that gravelly voice of his conveyed authority and knowledge. It didn’t hurt that he had also served as a Miami cop in his younger days.

We remembered Larry this morning, reciting the Eil Malei Rachamim (“Father of Compassion”) prayer for the departed as well as the Mourner’s Kaddish. And I had a vision of our beloved Kohen Gadol sitting at breakfast in the World to Come, helping the Most High to pick out the tastiest sable and whitefish...

’TIS THE SEASON

©2006 King Features Syndicate.

Today is Groundhog Day. The excitement on people’s faces is almost palpable.

I don’t know about you, but I’m almost relieved when it’s finally over.

First of all, the relentless hype has really killed a lot of the joy for me. It used to be, you didn’t hear Groundhog Day music in every frickin’ retail establishment in the world - at least, not until right after New Year’s Day, when the holiday season “officially” begins. Not any more. Now, Groundhog Carols are the order of the day, 24/7, starting right after Thanksgiving. It’s relentless.

The malls are packed with people doing their last-minute shopping for Groundhog Day gifts, and post offices burn the midnight oil to keep up with the volume of packages and Groundhog Greeting cards. And it’s almost a given in the retail business that 60% of their business is done in the weeks leading up to Christmas; most of the remaining 40% comes from Groundhog Day. A successful ’Hog Season often means the difference between success and failure for small businesses.

That, of course, means hype. Advertising. A constant barrage of TV ads. Postal workers straining under mailbags laden with massive Groundhog Day catalogs.

And then there are the decorations. It seems that everybody is constantly trying to outdo the Joneses, putting up ever-more-elaborate displays. Lights by the megawatt, inflatable groundhog lairs... sometimes it makes me yearn for a simpler time, a time when every family dug a simple hole in the front yard, and Dad was content with a handmade cardboard top hat.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m hardly a Groundhog-Scrooge. I love this time of year as much as anybody. Holiday parties, the special seasonal foods, Hog Nog - it’s all good. But sometimes I worry that the real meaning of the day has gotten lost amidst all the hoopla.

After all, isn’t the holiday supposed to be about Phil?

Not Phil as we see him today, surrounded by handlers and media flacks. Just Phil, the simple woodland creature, on a mission from God to predict the weather. His message is one of peace and dignity, one that is immune from the cares of the everyday world. Politics? Global warming? Kyoto? Photo ops? News reporters? Pfaugh. Punxsutawney Phil cares not for these things.

They are merely temporal - and temporary. But the light of Phil’s love is eternal.

Put the Ground back in Groundhog Day! And may your Groundhog Day be sweet.

[Adapted from a post originally published at Blog d’Elisson on January 31, 2008.]

BASKET CASE

“What the hell are you looking at?”

MACBETH AND ME

“Out, damned spot!” - Lady Macbeth (Macbeth, Act V, Scene 1)

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.” - Macbeth (Macbeth, Act II, Scene 2)

* * *
Every once in a while, I indulge my love of the Beet-Root.

Whole Paycheck Foods generally offers a fine selection of beets - red, golden, and, occasionally, the pink-and-white chioggia - and it is there that I will pick up a few softball-sized specimens when the Beet-Urge strikes. A softball-sized beet, we should note, is reasonably humongous.

Most often, I will rinse said beet to remove surface dirt, wrap it in aluminum foil, and then roast it at 350ºF for 75-90 minutes. Once it cools enough to be handled, I remove the skin by rubbing it off with paper towels - way easier than using a potato peeler on a raw beet. Then it is a simple matter of hacking the root into large dice and seasoning to taste. (I like to douse beets in sherry vinegar, give them a liberal sprinkle of orange zest and tarragon, a pinch or two of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, and then a drizzle of olive oil. Add some goat cheese and/or a few orange segments if you want to get fancy.)


Beets with suprêmes of blood orange, AKA “Murder in the Produce Section.”

As I was skinning one especially large root the other day, I could not help but notice the incredible amount of reddish-purple juice that was schpritzing all over the kitchen. Good Gawd, it resembled nothing so much as a vegan murder scene... and that made me think of The Scottish Play, for it takes a certain amount of obsessive hand-scrubbing à la Lady Macbeth to remove the persistent Beet-Root Stain.

Ahhh, the things I endure to enjoy my tasty treats.

Postscriptum: The following evening, I was reminded about yet another property of the Ruby Root, having been momentarily horrified at the reddish color appearing in the porcelain bowl. “Holy crap!” I thought. “Am I passing another kidney stone?” And then I remembered the beets.

DETAILS

You must pay attention
To your micturition
If a proper life you’d choose:
Everything will be great
If you keep your lines straight
Thus minding your pees and queues.

ZIGGY, NOW STARDUST

David Bowie, 1947-2016... a man of many talents. (Note the dilated left eye, a condition with which I have become very familiar in the last five years. Mine is intermittent; his was permanent.)

We were shocked and saddened to hear of David Bowie’s passing yesterday after a protracted struggle with liver cancer. He had just celebrated his sixty-ninth birthday.

Bowie first came to our attention in 1969 with “Space Oddity,” released just prior to the Apollo 11 launch... but it was in his glam-rock persona Ziggy Stardust that he catapulted himself to international pop stardom in the early 1970’s. Over and over again, he would, chameleonlike, reinvent and reinvigorate his music as the decades wore on, simultaneously expanding his career to include outlets for his prodigious acting talents.

Bowie’s output included that rara avis - dance music that I not only could tolerate, but actually liked. It was the soundtrack for the early 1980’s for Dee and me.
 
His first major hit serves as a fitting epitaph for a unique man.

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (Five, Four, Three)
Check ignition and may God’s love be with you (Two, One, Liftoff)

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You’ve really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare
This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do

Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles
I’m feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much - She knows
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you...
Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do.

Ave atque vale, David. You will be sorely missed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROY

Screen grab from Blade Runner (1982).

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain.” - Roy Batty

If you walk the planet long enough, temporal milestones that were once enshrined in various bits and pieces of pop culture ephemera start showing up in our rear-view mirror.

When I was a young Snot-Nose, a Looney Tunes cartoon short entitled The Old Grey Hare envisioned Bugs Bunny as a grizzled oldster in the year 2000. That seemed awfully far off back then - even 1950 was six years in the future when that film was made - but now it’s a sweet sixteen years in the past.

The Twilight Zone, in its brief fourth-season flirtation with an hour-long format, had an episode that starred Jack Klugman, who parenthetically shared with Burgess Meredith the record for most appearances on that classic anthology show (four). “Death Ship” took place in the far future year of 1997, by which time (the episode’s creators assumed) humans would be exploring distant stars in flying saucer-like spaceships. Oopsie.

2001: A Space Odyssey took place well in the future, at least when it was released in 1968. Now it looks just a bit quaint. No, we’re not building permanent bases on the Moon, and we’re not quite ready to send ships off to the orbits of Jupiter or Saturn, but we have better videophone technology. (Also, no more Pan American and precious little in the way of Howard Johnson’s).

You don’t have to go off trolling in the 1960’s and prior for these sorts of anachronisms. To me, it’s perfectly bizarre that the entire Back to the Future film trilogy now takes place entirely in our past.

Today, however, we’re starting to bump up against some really serious dystopian futurprediktnis. Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s 1982 film based on Philip K. Dick’s classic novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? takes place in 2019... just around the temporal corner.

And today is Roy Batty’s birthday.

Roy Batty is the leader of a squad of artificial humans - replicants, in the film’s lingo - who have illegally infiltrated the earth. As such, they are marked for execution (so-called “retirement”), despite their having a built-in shortened lifespan. Batty is played by a young Rutger Hauer, in what is possibly the finest performance of his career.

Blade Runner takes place in a fictional world, but the idea that some of its characters might even now coexist with us is positively chilling. And fascinating.

CAESURA

Julius Caesar. [Image: “César (13667960455)” by Gautier Poupeau from Paris, France - César. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Commons.]

They prophesied to Caesar thus: “In March, beware the Ides,
When Senators you thought were Friends will perforate your Sides.”

And sure enough, that fateful Day, right in the Roman Senate,
They poked Holes in Caesar’s Body until not much Blood was in it.

He looked less like a Dictator and much more like a Sieve,
And Caesar came to realize he’d not much Time to live.

He saw that Brutus was among the Members of the Plot,
And whispered softly, “Et tu, Brute? I think you missed a Spot.”

Then as Brutus thrust his Dagger with a sharp and sudden Thwack,
He smiled and said, “No Worries, Mate - because I’ve got your Back.”

2015 - AVE ATQUE VALE

A good year is like a good cocktail - containing the right balance of sweet, sour, and bitter. Pictured: the Aviation.

Today is the last day of 2015.

Forty years ago, on this very day, I met Dee - and less than two years later, we would be husband and wife. The story of our first meeting is entertaining enough in its own right that it merits its own post, but that it took place has led to our mutual histories being what they are today. Despite - or perhaps because of - all the water that has gone under the bridge since then, I cannot imagine not having met her. Our two daughters would probably agree.  

Every year leaves a slightly different impression when one looks at it in the rear-view mirror - rolls it around on the tongue, so to speak - and as each calendar year surges to its inexorable close I always pause to savor its aftertaste, its peculiar blend of tastes and aromas. Years are like cocktails, I suppose: The best ones always have multiple layers of flavor. Months of sweetness are punctuated by dark, sour times, and once in a while an intense attention-grabbing moment of bitter grief comes along.

Leave it to Mister Debonair to work through his year-end maudlin moments by using bartending analogies. But, hey, it works. Let’s go with it...

We sit at the Great Cosmic Bar every year, and we order up our Tipple o’Life. Give us a sweet year, we say... but we don’t really mean it. (Would you order a simple syrup and soda on the rocks at a real-world cocktail bar?) It doesn’t matter what we ask for, though, because what we are served is what we’d get if we said, “Ohhh, the hell with it. Surprise me.” It’s always a surprise.

So let’s pick apart the waning year’s recipe, shall we? A warm base liquor of family and friends to provide a mellow and yet mildly intoxicating backdrop. Happy moments for sweetness. Throw in a disappointment here and a miscommunication there to provide acid notes: Unalloyed sweetness can be cloying. Then there are the bitters, the ingredient without which no cocktail is truly complete. Illness. Death. Pain. Loss. Without them, the sweetness becomes sameness. It loses its savor.

Most of us think we would be perfectly happy doing without all of that grief and suffering. Just give me a Kool-Aid, please! (Without the extra Jonestown touch.) So what if it’s a kid’s drink?

Cocktails, though - drinks for grown-ups - have bitters.

Proportions matter. You use a jigger for most cocktail ingredients. You use a dropper for bitters.

That’s because bitters are tricky. Strong. Too much, and what should be subtlety becomes intolerably in-your-face. And yet, without them, a cocktail is lifeless. Dull.

May your 2016 be the perfect draught for you, Esteemed Reader - the ideal proportion of base, sweetener, acid, and bitter. And may the Big Guy who mixeth your Cosmic Cocktail refrain from squeezing that bitters dropper too hard.

Happy New Year!

A SHOUT-OUT FOR THE SPROUT

Balsamic Brussels sprouts with onions and bacon... courtesy of Houston Steve. 

Brussels sprouts for breakfast
Brussels sprouts for lunch
I like ’em when they’re soggy
I love ’em when they crunch

I roast ’em and sautée ’em
And I shove ’em in my belly
But the Missus doesn’t like ’em
’Cause they make my toots all smelly

Brussels sprouts for supper
Eat ’em every night
Those wizened little cabbages
They are a real delight

DOES THIS HURT?

“Pain is weakness leaving the body.” - USMC

Does this hurt?

How would you describe your pain on a scale from one to ten?

That’s a routine hospital question used to assess the need for analgesic medicaments. Since pain is nature’s way of telling you something’s wrong, you don’t want to tamp it down completely... and you don’t want to get too comfortable with pain meds, the most effective of which are notoriously addictive (and constipating). But you crave relief. You would sell your soul for the balm of Gilead that taketh away thine discomfiture.

So you are asked to rate your pain on a scale from one to ten, from minor annoyance to full-on shit-your-liver-out screamfest. It's not an easy exercise.

I think of pain as a point on a two-dimensional surface, a sheet mapped on coordinates of quality and intensity. There are dull, throbbing aches and there are intense ice-pick-like stabs. There’s the sudden zetz of a dentist hitting a sensitive spot, and there’s the intense burn of a hard-working muscle... all different pins on the Map o’ Agony.

Put a simple scalar number to it if you must. Does it make you grumble and grimace? Does it cause you to involuntarily squeeze out a string of fuckbombs? Or is it that shock so sharp that it causes a sudden intake of breath? I give those a 3, 6, and 8. You don’t want a ten. That’s Hurty Hurterson country, and you do not wish to be resident therein.

I call those scary twinges The Bear, and I hate his occasional visits. I fear that Dee will be getting to know The Bear all too well as she recovers from her wrist and hip fractures... and I am hoping that when he does come, he is a meek two or three, not a ferocious nine.

STARWARSBUCKS

Chewbaccaccino. [Photo: Jenna Robinson.]

With his coffiee
Would a Wookiee
Want some toffiee
Or a cookiee?

A LITTLE BIT OF SEASONAL PERSPECTIVE

[Originally posted as “A Matter of Perspective” at Blog d’Elisson, January 25, 2005.]

Religion.

Balm for the afflicted. Opiate of the masses. Fairy tales. Myth. The deepest truths.

Religion is a lot of things.

In today’s various wars - the War on Terrorism, the Culture Wars, the Jihad Against the Great Satan and the Little Satan, religion is a key element, if not the key element. Religion inspires us to do and be our best - but through so much of history, religion also has inspired us to kill and hate one another.

The Crusades were just one example. Western Christians think of knights in shining armor on a holy mission, but Muslims and Jews remember that slice of history differently: women and children raped, disemboweled; whole families, whole villages murdered. Not that the Muslims were that much more pleasant to live with, if you were not a believer.

And it’s no different today. Islamic fundamentalism. Suicide bombers. The 9/11 atrocities. Madrid. Bali. Executing teenage rape victims for “indecency” in Iran.

Not that the Christian fundies have given up. You have right-wing religious zealots bombing abortion clinics, shooting doctors. They even have us hatin’ on SpongeBob! The bastards!

The Jews have their own issues. Some Jews throw rocks at other Jews because they do outrageous things...like reading Torah. Outrageous, that is, if you’re a woman - at least, so the ultra right-wing Haredim say, even if you are in a women-only prayer group.

Sometimes, a little perspective is in order.

Twenty-seven years ago, I was working on a project with several technologists from one of our affiliated companies in Japan. These guys got to spend a month in Texas, learning about an alien culture and eating bizarre food. Barbecue! Chicken-fried steak!

The work required round-the-clock coverage, and so it was that one cold Sunday morning in mid-December I found myself wandering around the process area with Yamada-san, one of the Japanese technology guys. And he turned to me and asked, “Elisson-san, what will your family be doing for Christmas?”

[Actually, this sounded more like “Erisson-san, what wirr your famiry be doing for Kurisumasu?” But the meaning was plenty clear enough.]

And I answered, “Not a whole lot, Yamada-san. We are Jewish, and we do not celebrate Christmas.”

Yamada-san considered this for a moment. Then he said, “Oh, that’s OK. All you Western religions are the same to us.”

* * *
Christian or Muslim, Muslim or Jew -
The difference depends upon your point of view.
Step far enough back, and that alien “other”
Starts in to lookin’ more like your brother.
When the little green men come from outer space,
They won’t ask to whom you pray or note the color of your face.
To them we’ll just be Humans - prey to be destroyed,
By the Bug-Eyed Monsters from the Outer Void.
And will God shed a tear? Will He say “Boo-Hoo”?
Well, the bug-eyed dudes are His children, too.
So we’d better stick together in our Earthly stew,
’Cause the difference depends upon your point of view.

ALVIN, WE HARDLY KNEW YE

Alvin C. Bagdasarian (1958-2015). Requiescat in pace.

The entertainment world is in shock and mourning today after news of the untimely passing of Alvin Chipmunk Bagdasarian at the age of fifty-seven. Perversely, Alvin’s death took place on the release date of the Chipmunks’ latest film, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip.

Alvin, with the help of his adoptive father and manager Ross (“David Seville”) Bagdasarian, parlayed a series of novelty recordings into a career that spanned television and movies. He was known for his quick, lively wit and penchant for practical jokes. Fiercely proud of his Armenian upbringing, he officially changed his surname from Seville to Bagdasarian in 1997.

AC (as he was often called) was famous for his stage routine in which he would drive David to the point of exasperation, usually through seeming inattention. Dave’s reaction - shrieking “Allllllviiiiiiiiin!” at the top of his lungs - would elicit Alvin’s signature response: “O-Kayyyy!” The bit inevitably brought down the house. It was later discovered that the chipmunk suffered from a mild form of ADHD as well as being partially deaf.

Alvin was found dead two days ago in Houston Steve’s garage, apparently asphyxiated. He had crawled into a sock, and it is speculated that he became disoriented while trying to extricate himself. Drug involvement is not suspected at this time.

The funeral was a private affair in which Alvin’s remains were, in accordance with chipmunk tradition, returned to the forest by Houston Steve flinging the decedent into the woods, using the sock in which he was enshrouded as a slingshot.

Brothers Simon and Theodore were in seclusion and unavailable for comment.

THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

“...In the days of Mattathias son of Yochanan the High Priest, the Hasmoneans and their sons, there arose a cruel power against Your nation Israel, demanding that they abandon Your Law and violate Your commandments. And You, in Your great mercy, stood up for them in the time of their trouble, defending them, vindicating them, and avenging the wrong done to them. You delivered the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the spiritually unclean into the hands of the pure, the evil into the hands of the righteous, the arrogant into the hands of those who were faithful to Your Law. And You wrought great victories and miraculous deliverance for Your people Israel unto this day, revealing Your glory and Your holiness to the world. Then Your children came into Your Temple, purified Your sanctuary, and kindled lights in Your sacred courts. They set aside these eight days as a season for giving thanks and reciting praises to Your holy Name.”  - from the daily Chanukah liturgy

Many of our non-Jewish friends - and many of us Red Sea Pedestrians ourselves - are under the mistaken impression that the central story of Chanukah has to do with the so-called miracle of the oil: a single day’s supply of the consecrated oil used to light the candelabrum in the Temple having lasted a full eight days, long enough for additional supplies to be prepared.

But that story, miraculous as it may be, is nothing but a fable... a tall tale for the children, and an excuse to eat fried foods all week. The real miracle is the victory of a small band of warriors - the Hasmoneans - over a vastly superior power, the Seleucid Greco-Syrian rulers of Judea, who wanted to force the Jews to assimilate into their pagan culture. That is where the hand of the Eternal One was truly revealed.

To say that Chanukah is all about the oil is like saying Christmas is all about Santa Claus. It misses the point.

A DAY IN THE KINGDOM

The iconic Spaceship Earth, AKA the World’s Most Humongous Buckyball, greets visitors entering Disney’s Epcot park.

“A man enters with his children, his money and his wits, and leaves with his children only, sandbagged by a thousand catch-penny engines.” - Cyril Kornbluth, from The Advent on Channel Twelve

* * *
My visit to Orlando, Florida last week was a mini-Family Reunion of sorts. My cousin Di had rented a house in Orlando, Florida that was more than big enough to accommodate any family members who cared to join her for several days of relaxation and attraction-hopping. Dee, alas, had a full calendar, but I was able to pry myself loose from my usual weekday activities to make the trip.

One of the Must-See attractions in Orlando, of course, is Walt Disney World and its multifaceted complex of amusement parks. Since Cousin Vern, who was visiting from his home in Jerusalem along with his younger daughter, had never been to a Disney park, they made sure that that was part of the agenda. Specifically, they wanted to see Epcot, which is as close to a permanent World’s Fair as anything else on the planet.

I was perfectly happy to tag along: even though I had been to Disney World before, it had been a long time since the last time Dee and I had visited. Since then, I figured there were a few new things to see. Plus, I had an ace up my sleeve.

The last time we had been to Disney World had been in April, 1987 - more than twenty-eight years ago. At the time, Disney had been celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the park’s opening... and I was the lucky random recipient of a free park pass. That pass had sat quietly in our basement for close to three decades, growing steadily in value as the cost of park admissions crept northward over the years. It was now worth over $150... and it was high time I cashed it in.

One thing I noticed right away was that the ancient paper ticketing system had given way to a high-tech magnetic card that you would simply tap against a reader when you needed to use it. On entry into the park, you simply tap the card, put your index finger on a fingerprint scanner, and presto! You’ve been Mickified. It’s only a matter of time before iris-scanning and automatic stool-sampling technology is added to the admission process.

Your bags are also searched before you enter, presumably for contraband food, drink, and weapons of mouse destruction. It’s not as thorough as a full-on TSA security scan - or, for that matter, the way they check you before allowing you in to see The Masters Tournament - but it’s still something that was unnecessary three decades ago, alas.


My brother (the Other Elisson), Cousin Vern (a pseudonym), and Yours Truly. 

Epcot is a peculiar sort of place. The name is a lowercase version of its original moniker, EPCOT: the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. As originally envisioned, it would have been a living, active city, with actual residents doing whatever people were going to be doing in the future - pushing buttons at Spacely Sprockets, perhaps. But the job of being an actual residential community ended up in the lap of nearby Celebration, a town that Disney built in the unusable crappy swamp and scrub land on the other side of Interstate 4. Epcot, meanwhile, would be a full-time theme park.

As noted above, part of it is a sort of permanent World’s Fair, with several countries represented by their appropriate pavilions, shows, restaurants, and gift shops... with each country’s area staffed by natives of that country. The other section is a mishmash of attractions having to do with the Earth, space, the land and seas, and energy. It’s a bit like those retrofuturistic projections of life in the 1960’s from the 1939 New York World’s Fair, with the flying cars and the twelve-lane superhighways - in this case, the 1990’s as envisioned by the people of the 1960’s. That faint aroma you smell everywhere is the vague pong of anachronism. Even the typefaces have a vaguely “I bet this looked really ultramodern in 1973” look to them.


Spaceballs? No, just the Mission: SPACE® ride.

So much of Epcot seemed unchanged from the last time we’d seen it, except perhaps for the price tags: Most of the really new stuff is in parts of the Disney empire that we would not see on this visit. Perhaps the biggest change - and it may be subtler at Epcot than at other outposts in Walt’s empire - is that Disney has supplemented their own traditional stable of animated characters with major acquisitions: Pixar, Marvel, and even the Star Wars pantheon. Seeing someone wearing a Darth Vader helmet with built-in Mickey Mouse ears is a jarring reminder of how much larger the world of Disney has become.

For cynical old me, one dose visit every thirty years or so is about right. Yet, surprisingly, there are people who never tire of the place. While grabbing a beer with Cousin Vern, I struck up a conversation with a gaggle of women at the Rose and Crown (the English-style pub), who happily informed me that they visit the park every year. They’re not locals, either - they have to get in a plane and stay in a hotel room. This, Esteemed Readers, made my head explode a little.

Every. Fucking. Year.

And that, I suppose, is the peculiar appeal the Disney parks have. People love this place, to the point of pathology. Why go to nasty real Morocco or stinky real Paris when you can go to fake ones right here, get food that vaguely sounds like it might come from those places, avoid passport hassles, and spend just as much money or more?

Lest you think I’m just a cynical old bastard, let me reassure you that I am not immune to the Disney magic. Hell, we even saw Mickey Mouse himself just outside Les Chefs de France, the (vaguely) French restaurant. Check it out:


Mickey Mouse? Or Ratatouille? You decide.

Perhaps he’s a bit large to be Mickey Mouse. (Also, he’s out of uniform!) Maybe this was Ratatouille instead.

COUSIN VERN AND THE INFAMOUS MIAMI INCIDENT

The Doors, circa 1969. From left: John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison. [Elektra Records - Joel Brodsky, licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.]

They say these things happen in threes.

First it was Jimi Hendrix, who died in September 1970. Mere weeks later, Janis Joplin was dead as well. The following summer, Jim Morrison, the demented genius behind the musical group The Doors, joined them, completing the trifecta. Three legendary musical talents snuffed out within a nine month period, all at the tender age of twenty-seven - a bizarre coincidence. Less coincidental was the fact that drugs and alcohol played a role in all three deaths.

My cousin Vern (an obvious pseudonym) feels personally responsible for Morrison’s death. He may very well be right. And after you know the story, Esteemed Reader, perhaps you can decide for yourself.

Vern grew up in North Miami Beach, not quite old enough to be in the vanguard of the Generation o’ Hippie Freaks, but old enough to have worn a Nehru jacket back in the day. One summer, after spending a few weeks with us in New York, he returned home with an armload of LP’s in which was represented groups as diverse as the Grateful Dead, Vanilla Fudge, and Dr. John. That was when he introduced me to the music of The Doors.

Of course, anyone who listened to Top 40 AM radio in early 1967 was already acquainted with The Doors, thanks largely to their hit “Light My Fire,” which for the purposes of the format had been chopped down to about three minutes. (To hear the full seven-minute version of the song you had to listen to FM radio, where album-oriented rock music stations with deep-voiced DJ’s and high fidelity stereo sound were beginning to get popular - or you had to buy the LP.) Vern had all of The Doors’ albums and delighted in reproducing Jim Morrison’s trademark scowls.

Vern saw Jim Morrison’s scowl - and a whole lot more - at what has since been dubbed “The Miami Incident,” the infamous concert in Coconut Grove on March 1, 1969 in which Morrison reportedly exposed himself. That show was going to be trouble no matter how you sliced it: There was standing room only, the seats having been removed; there was no air conditioning; the band was an hour late showing up; and Morrison was both pissed and pissed-off - three sheets to the wind and angry. That there would be a whipout of the Lizard King’s Ding was not foreordained under these circumstances, but given Morrison’s increasingly erratic behavior, it’s hardly surprising. What is surprising is that there wasn’t a full-blown riot.

Morrison was subsequently arrested and convicted on several charges including indecent exposure, but died before his appeal was resolved. He was pardoned posthumously in 2010; unto this day his bandmates continue to deny that he exposed himself at that concert. But Vern knows the truth... because he saw it with his own eyes.

Asked by the Miami police to testify at Morrison’s trial, Vern had been horrified at the prospect of having to help convict one of his musical idols. Because he was a minor at the time, he could not be compelled to appear at the trial - and his mother, my redoubtable Aunt Marge, rendered the matter moot by exercising her veto power. Morrison was convicted, but it was not an ironclad case without Vern’s eyewitness account. An appeal would likely have been successful.

On such little matters do the heavy wheels of History turn. For Vern is convinced that had he testified, Morrison would have not only been convicted, he would have seen no point in an appeal. Which would have meant serving six months at hard labor in Florida’s notorious prison system.

Jail time. Hard time. Who knows but that that might have been the catalyst for Morrison’s repentance of his evil, dick-exposing ways? He might have turned his life around, given up alcohol and drugs, and eventually gone on tour with Anita Bryant, Jackie Gleason, and the Lettermen (all of whom performed at a “Down with Obscenity” rally shortly after the Incident). Why, he might be alive today, going on Doors reunion tours and generating hit after gospel-rock hit, had Vern done the Right Thing.

But probably not.

A CHANUKAH EDITORIAL

[If Dear Abby can get away with reprinting the same frickin’ Holiday Columns every stinking year, why not Elisson? We are therefore pleased to offer this eleven-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 on Sunday, December 6 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.]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MA

Mom, displaying her usual million-watt smile in a photo taken about thirty years ago.

Today is Mom’s birthday. She’d be eighty-eight years old now if she were still walking the planet with the rest of us... but, alas, she is not. She must celebrate her Special Day by eating ambrosia and quaffing nectar in the World to Come, with the stars of heaven serving as candles for her cake.

We will observe the occasion in our own way, as we have done for over a quarter-century. On the first night of Chanukah - tomorrow - we will serve a Memorial Dinner consisting of Chinese take-out and Dee’s most excellent potato latkes. We’ll kindle the first candle on the chanukiyah (the special nine-branched candelabrum used on this holiday)... and we will remember a special lady whose smile would light up a room like all the candles in the world.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO AN OLD SOUL

Rubber Soul album cover art [Wikipedia].

Rubber Soul, the album that marked the beginning of the Beatles’ transition from adorable moptops to psychedelic rock music icons, was released fifty years ago today.

If you wanted to pick the album that best demarcates the “old Beatles” sound from that of the “new Beatles,” this would be the one. The discs that bookended it - Help! and Revolver - could not have been more different.

Over the years, I’ve had my favorites amongst their many albums, but with the passage of time I grow stronger in my personal conviction that Rubber Soul is the best Beatles album of all. Rolling Stone has referred to it as their “accidental masterpiece,” and perhaps it was. Even after a half-century it doesn’t seem dated, and pretty much every tune is not merely good, but excellent. Check out the menu:

Drive My Car
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
You Won’t See Me
Nowhere Man
Think for Yourself
The Word
Michelle
What Goes On
Girl
I’m Looking Through You
In My Life
Wait
If I Needed Someone
Run for Your Life

Not a dud in the deck.

Back in April, 1993, Dee and I had the good fortune to see Paul McCartney play at the Astrodome in Houston... and, yes, we took the girls along as well. The first song he played was “Drive My Car,” and I cannot begin to tell you, Esteemed Reader, what emotions boiled up in me as we heard that voice singing that song. It was as though almost three decades had peeled away almost instantaneously... incredible. It sounded new... and it still does.

THE GOLDEN DOOR, UNHINGED

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates once stood
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Was the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glowed world-wide welcome. And still her eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

“But should that ‘refuse’ be of darker skin,
Or Asiatic features, think again.
Our welcome is not limitless, you see.
If we’re selective, none dare call it sin -
Those that flee tyrants, we fear to take them in
At least until it’s safe - and that is who knows when?

“So keep your homeless, keep your tempest-tost.
Who knows what welcoming that lot could cost?
(Those Hindus, Buddhists, Mussulmen, and Jews
Possessed with all their strange beliefs and hues)
And do not try to send them all to me. 
The eagle flies each Friday, but freedom isn’t free.”

[Apologies to Emma Lazarus]