Every year for the holidays I make my wife eggs Benedict with a recipe for hollandaise sauce that I call culinary nitroglycerin because it’s so unstable. The stages between not quite ready, perfect, and starting to break down could be measured in nanoseconds.
You know how some ideas sound great in your head and really goofy once they hit the page? At least I assume it happens to all of us. Please tell me I’m not the only one. Anyway that’s what happened with “Members of The Algonquin Club Sign Your Beach House Guestbook”. Well, sometimes when life gives you lemons you just have to make hollandaise.
May 25, 1953
I peregrinated to this delightful bungalow poised like a petit-four on the gulf’s contour to escape Hollywood’s ravages. Having completed a marathon script for “Pickled & Canned”, a vignette for an illustrious but aging luminary and his latest paramour I felt a longing for a more secluded coast. Imagine my delight when during my forenoon disembogue I glanced through the pane to spy two sylphlike beings. Languorous on the alabaster silica they were clad in polygons of violet and indigo taffeta that wouldn’t suffice to enrobe a baseball. I was mildly triste to find they had decamped by the time I began my perambulation along the alabaster littoral, but mirages of them swam before my eyes before my midday rest.
-S.J. Perelman
July 2, 1953
Gideon Tilney was flying a heroic mission over France when his wife called to him from the deck. “Come in out of that sun before you burn!” Slowly he pulled himself up from his beach chair. He’d allowed her to slather him with protective lotion before he went out. That and his wide-brimmed hat and the beach umbrella should have been enough, but he was never in a mood to argue.
As he trudged to the stairs leading up a sharp sting to his right foot made him yelp; he looked down. A crab, the same tan color as the sand, had grabbed his small toe. He kicked upward. The crab sailed and thudded against one of the pilings of the deck. It fell to the sand and was still. Gideon picked it up. Its black eyes were still bright but the legs hung limply.
“What are you doing down there? I told you to come inside!” his wife shouted.
“It’s a crab,” he said, holding it up.
She grimaced. “Well don’t bring it in the house.”
He scooped out a small hole and lowered the crab into it, then pushed the mound of sand in to fill it. Before climbing the stairs he picked up a small bleached clam shell.
Gideon’s wife was in the kitchen when he entered. “What kept you?” He still had the shell clutched in his hand. “That’s not that crab is it?”
“No,” he mumbled. He left it on the bookshelf and went to have lunch.
That afternoon while his wife napped he found a marker. He returned to the hole where he’d left the crab and with the seashell made a small memorial. The simple Latin epitaph he wrote on the shell seemed fitting.
Last year I made a wish for a job writing copy for the Hammacher-Schlemmer catalog. This year it still provides a bounty of wonders but I decided to cast my net a little wider to create an annual holiday gift guide with a few last-minute items for that hard-to-buy person on your list.
Source: Hammacher-Schlemmer
What better way to keep potential intruders away from your campsite than making it look like the refuge of a bunch of filthy dirty hippies? That’s what the VW Bus Tent is for. It’s not really a vehicle but it will take you back to the sixties. Or set it up at home to get Rocky Mountain high right in your own backyard.
Source: Tipsy Elves
We all look back fondly on the days of getting our asses kicked by bullies because our moms made us wear something stupid, don’t we guys? Well now you can relive those glory days at the office with a wide variety of Christmas-themed suits. My personal favorite is the Mistletoe Money Maker Suit. The design is actually holly berries but you could always accessorize with mistletoe if you’re aiming for that special trifecta of getting your ass kicked, getting fired, and a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Know someone who’s a big gamer? Know someone who’s a really big gamer? And when I say “big” I mean someone who is approximately nine feet tall because I’m pretty sure that’s the minimum height you’d have to be to enjoy this video game console. Seriously, for $99,000 I think you could just have a Nintendo Wii installed in a movie theater.
Source: Wal Mart
The Triops Kit is the one item that is not a joke. If you’re old enough to remember ads for amazing sea monkeys you know how disappointing it was that they were only brine shrimp. They didn’t live in tiny castles or wear tiny crowns and, let’s face it, as far as underwater life goes they were only slightly less boring and annoying than The Snorks and at least you could kill brine shrimp.
Triops are everything you wanted brine shrimp to be that they weren’t. Okay, they may not wear tiny crowns or live in tiny castles but they’re approximately a hundred times bigger and have been scientifically determined to be a million times cooler.
The Mosconi Cup gets underway in London today. It’s one of pool’s biggest events with the United States and Europe facing off against each other in team matches. I got hooked on pool in college. The school I went to had a pool room in the basement of the student union run by a guy named Tom whom I’ve written about before. Tom was a great guy with a real interest in pool and had met a lot of famous players and talking to him I became just as interested in the players as the game. When he learned I was from Nashville he started calling me “Minnesota Fats” because Rudolph Wanderone, AKA Minnesota Fats, lived in Nashville’s Hermitage Hotel for several years. A pool table was set up in the lobby and anyone who wandered in could play a game with him for a dollar.
Tom described Minnesota Fats as “a real gentleman”, somehow unaware that Wanderone was really a notorious hustler and gambler who gained national fame mainly through his rivalry with Willie Mosconi, the man for whom the Mosconi Cup is named.
I’m not big on national pride but I have high hopes for the U.S. team this year. It’s not just that they’re the outsiders, playing on Europe’s home turf. The U.S. is also the underdog: Team Europe has won the Mosconi Cup six years in a row. Will Team United States break the streak or will Europe get a lucky seven?
There is something deeply American about the Mosconi Cup, now in its 24th year, and deeply European about it too. After all Willie Mosconi was the son of European immigrants, but it was America’s melting pot that produced a child who was half-Italian, half-Irish. Mosconi’s father was a former boxing champion who opened a pool hall, and turned to his pool-prodigy son to provide for the family, pushing the boy into so many exhibition games by the age of eleven Willie Mosconi–arguably the greatest pool player who’s ever lived, who’d go on to win fifteen world championships and who still holds the world straight pool record–526 balls pocketed without a single miss–hated the game.
Willie Mosconi was a strange contradiction: he made money, especially in his early years, by gambling, probably hustling too, but he would downplay this or deny it entirely in his later years. He devoted his life to pool even though several times he called it “a stupid game”. He believed strongly that pool should be a gentleman’s game, conducted with decorum. It was important to him to make pool respectable and change its association with crime and alcoholism. In 1978 when he went up against Rudolph Wanderone on ABC’s Wide Wide World Of Sports Mosconi insisted that both men should wear tuxedos and act with dignity and reserve. Wanderone wanted to wear short sleeves and played to the crowd. This was partly just his personality but, as a hustler, he also knew it was the perfect way to throw Mosconi off his game.
Ironically most players wear short sleeves now or dress casually, but the Mosconi Cup is still serious business. The outfits may be informal but the style of play is Mosconi’s: the game, and the competitors, are treated with respect.
So I hope Team United States does well, but, out of respect for Willie Mosconi, I have to say: may the best players win.
Phlegm is funny to me. There. I’ve said it. That’s a terrible confession but I’ve been battling a cold recently and I keep thinking about the joke about the guy who shows a doctor what he’s blown into a handkerchief and the doctor says, “This is normal. Did you think you’d blown your brains out?”
It’s not a great joke but I’ve found phlegm and mucous funny ever since I was a kid and first heard “You might think it’s a booger but it’s snot!” and laughed so hard I hurt myself.
Of course as I went into adulthood my humor became much more sophisticated. For instance there was the time I read something by Dave Barry in which he said the Flemish never had their own country because no one would live in a place called Flem and I laughed so hard I hurt myself.
In between was the time I was in a Mexican restaurant with some friends and I ordered flan and my friend Trav misheard me and started saying, “Did you just say phlegm? Are you ordering phlegm? Oh waiter, I’d like some phlegm!” Then he started making choking noises and added, “That’ll be $4.99, sir.” And I was laughing so hard I had to go out in the parking lot for several minutes. Then I came back in and had flan because I love any kind of custard even though it’s slimy and kind of mucousy, and if I’ve now turned you off crème brulee for life you can just pass it over to me, thank you very much.
Some time after that Trav and I sat next to each other in Latin class. And one day when we were supposed to be working quietly he whispered to me, “Chris, what’s the Latin word for ‘river’?”
Now I should have seen his coming. Trav was more than just a class clown. It’s no surprise that he now works as a professional actor with Dad’s Garage Theater. He had a joke for everything. In an earlier Latin class our teacher was telling us about Aeneas and his men fleeing Troy after their defeat and being attacked by birdlike creatures and Trav yelled out, “They weren’t wearing their Trojans so that’s why they got harpies!” And everybody, including the teacher, was laughing so hard that ended school for the day, but that’s another story.
Back to “Chris, what’s the Latin word for ‘river’?”
Now if you ever studied Latin you probably know it’s flumen and if you’ve been following the story you probably know what Trav said next.
“Flumen? FLUMEN?” He was shouting now and then he started making choking sounds. “Oh, I’m sorry! I have some flumen in my throat.”
It’s awful and disgusting and it still makes me laugh.
And I know I’m not the only one who has something like this. What completely inappropriate, disgusting thing makes you laugh?
All blogging software collects search terms. At least I assume this is the case because a lot of bloggers have written posts about odd and funny search terms they see when they’re working behind the scenes. I believe this was started by The Bloggess and others picked it up and it became very popular, I don’t know, back in the 1970’s or some time around then and I’m doing it now because I always like to follow the crowd but at a safe distance.
These are not the most recent search terms but a few of the more interesting ones I’ve pulled from the total history of this blog.
nashville mta routes map
Of the known search terms this one is the most popular. It’s also the one that I’m sure causes the most disappointment. Anyone who comes here looking for any route maps or, for that matter, instructions on how to get anywhere or do anything is going to be extremely disappointed.
vending machine room
I understand why this search term brings people here but, again, I’m very sorry that anyone looking for directions to the vending machine room won’t find them here. Given the subject of my post about the vending machine I’m disappointed that searches for “Tarzan” don’t seem to bring anyone here.
eavesdropping rude
Yes, I agree that it is, but it’s also inevitable sometimes, especially now that everyone carries their own personal phones everywhere. The other day I heard someone behind me say “Hello handsome!” I didn’t turn around because I knew whoever it was couldn’t possibly be talking to me but when you speak that loudly on a public sidewalk people are going to overhear you even if you follow the crowd at a safe distance.
needing adult diapers because of diuretic
This is a good reminder that I have absolutely no idea how the internet works. Why someone who typed this query into a search engine would be directed here is beyond me, although it does fit with the ongoing theme that I feel guilty for anyone who comes here expecting to find useful information.
wearing skirt stairs
I have no idea what skirt stairs are but they sound extremely uncomfortable. Okay, I admit that I’m not that naïve and in this case at least I’m glad that if this is one area in which anyone who comes here is going to be disappointed.
cary grant does not like elevators
This is proof that other peoples’ search terms are as educational as they are entertaining. I had no idea that Cary Grant didn’t like elevators. And I guess he kept those rugged good looks by using the stairs. Maybe if I take the stairs more often the next time someone says “Hello handsome!” they really will be talking to me.
smear peanut butter on tied naked person let dog loose
I write about a wide variety of subjects but this is one I don’t think I’ve ever considered, so, again, anyone who comes here looking for that sort of thing is going to be disappointed, but if the person and the dog both enjoy it and nobody gets hurt I’m not going to judge.
i hate peeps
So do I, anonymous stranger. Thank you for reassuring me I am not alone.
“idi amin” “late for dinner”
These two come up as a “single” search “term” but at least I know why it’s directing “people” here. There’s an apocryphal story that Idi Amin responded to charges of cannibalism by saying, “I would never eat human flesh. That’s barbaric. Besides it’s much too salty.” I find that funny, so you’d be justified in calling me sick, demented, twisted, and dark–but please don’t call me “late for dinner”.
read the story what is black and white and red all over
This was a final Jeopardy! clue. The correct response was, “What is a zebra in a blender?”
<i>leave grocery cart unattended in line</i>
Yes, this is a great idea. Please leave your grocery cart unattended in the checkout line. Hey, I forgot to get lettuce while I was shopping. I’ll just take yours.
imagine your daisy answer
Another great tip. All my answers are now going to be “daisy”. No matter what the question is I’m going to answer “daisy”. Or “dandelion”. Yeah, I think I’ll go with “dandelion”. I like them more than daisies.
Writing is a solitary activity. Or is it? A few months ago I joined a writers’ group at work. It’s mainly aimed at academic writing which isn’t really my cup of tea–I prefer mine iced and in a tall glass–but I’m happy to offer my support and experience and if needed for research I’ll subject myself to being a subject, but that’s another story.
It got me thinking about the process of writing, how it’s a mistake to think it’s a solitary process. Coleridge blames a “person from Porlock” for interrupting his composition of Kubla Khan but maybe they made him shake off his rose-colored glasses at just the right time. Writing a first draft, or even a third or a twentieth, may be done alone, but unless you’re writing exclusively for yourself you’re going to share it with others eventually. I do most of my writing alone but there are a couple of local coffee shops where I like to go and work occasionally, especially when they’re crowded. There’s something about being around people, even if they don’t know what I’m doing and aren’t interested, that fires me up. I take breaks to chat with people, to thank the barista for playing one of my favorite Kinks albums–twice. In spite of my focus being so scattered I feel like what I write usually comes out better. It takes surprising turns from the interruptions. I need the cacophony as much as I need the caffeine. And I think I get a kind of contact high from being in those places, an assurance that ideas will flow because they always have before.
What’s your writing process? Do you always work alone? Do you have a special space where things just happen?
There is a sixth dimension of both shadow and substance. You enter it with the key of imagination and it lies between the summit of our knowledge and the signpost up ahead. Your next stop—
Source: The Nerdist
Time Enough At Last
Original story written by Rod Serling, adapted from a short story by Lynn Venable, first air date November 20, 1959
“It’s not fair!” Henry Bemis cried, holding up his broken glasses. Squinting he could just make out how badly broken they were, the heavy lenses cracked from the fall. He put them back on. He could see small spaces of clarity, cotton-edged fragments of the desolation around him.
“It will have to do,” he murmured. There would be no reading now but at least he could pick his way out into the world. He’d found food and shelter. Soon he would look for clothes too, but first he would allow himself some time for self-pity. There was, now, time enough even for that.
The third day he found a cluster of city blocks untouched by the blast, protected by a broad skyscraper that had served as a barrier then, its front smashed, pitched forward. Turning his head all around he tried to read the street signs but couldn’t. The area was familiar to him, but why? Then he remembered. There was the tailor’s shop, there was the druggist’s, and there was his optometrist’s shop. The door was unlocked. Rows and rows of glasses glinted back at him. Even without the small help of his own broken lenses he could see them. Excitedly he began rifling through the shelves and drawers, trying on pair after pair. With each one he’d turn to the eye chart on the far wall. First the large letter E came into focus, then the others too.
He found two extra pairs and a repair kit and put them in his pocket. “Time and sight enough at last!” he cried, clapping his hands together.
For several days he did nothing but sit on the library steps and read all day. The sun was bright enough to pierce the layer of smog that hung over the city but the nights were long and dark. At first he thought he was alone but one night he heard rustling and moans in the distance. He saw nothing during the day and that frightened him. Who, or what, had survived that would only come out at night?
The next night whatever they were came into the library. He barricaded himself in an office and spent half the night with his revolver pointed at the door. The racket was unbearable. In the morning he found stacks knocked over, books scattered everywhere, and streaks of blood on the tile floor.
He found a Packard and a key. He filled gas cans and put those in the trunk and stuffed the back and passenger seats with food, water, and books. Books! He hoped he would have enough to last.
Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?
Source: Twilight Zone Wiki
Original story written by Rod Serling, first air date May 26, 1961
“I think you’ll see,” Mr. Hayley said, smiling, “how we differ.” He lifted off his cap revealing a third eye. “And I agree with you about what they call music. Why don’t you play some?” He laughed raucously.
Mr. Ross took another sip of his coffee. “You think you Venusians are so clever? We Martians have, as they say here, another trick up our sleeve.” A fourth hand emerged from under his coat.
Mr. Hayley’s three eyes narrowed. “Clever. Let me take a better look.” He raised his left palm, then his right, revealing a fourth and fifth eye in each.
“I think I have a good grasp of things,” Mr. Ross said as a fifth arm extended upward from his shoulder.
“I see that you do,” Mr. Hayley replied, turning around. There was a sixth eye in the back of his head.
Mr. Ross slipped off his coat. “You should know we Martians have been coming here a long time, long enough to enter into the mythology of some places.” He flexed out his arms, four on each side of his body.
Mr. Hayley was unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a cluster of eyes in his chest when the door jingled. They both looked. Avery, the cock-eyed old man, stood there.
“I thought I smelled Mars and Venus in here!” he cackled. “Thought you’d get us all, crashing the bus into the river like that, eh? Well you’ve got to get up pretty early to fool a Neptunian, yessiree!”
He opened his coat revealing a torso covered with dozens of tiny replicas of himself. One of them looked at the duo at the counter and waved.
“Hey guys.”
Source: LA Times
The Eye Of The Beholder
Original story written by Rod Serling, first air date November 11, 1960
“No change! No change at all!”
Janet Tyler watched the dark countryside slipped by outside the bus. Walter Smith, the young man she’d met at the hospital, kept assuring her that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. She tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter that her nose wasn’t upturned, that her lip didn’t curl, that her eyes weren’t ringed with dark circles. But she kept hearing Doctor Bernardi’s words, along with the screams of that little girl from so long ago, that little girl who’d been horrified at her appearance.
She and the other “nons”, short for “nonconformists”, lived well enough in the colony, aside from the occasional harassment by “norms”, usually young men looking for trouble. Some years were better than others, depending on who was in office, but Janet resented living on the government’s dime. Less than two years after arriving she moved out of the colony, went to one of the large cities, and found an apartment in a building that accepted people like her. She found a job working in the basement of an accounting firm. She found she had a knack for finance so she was tolerated as long as no one had to look at her.
She began following the news. When there was a riot in a “Beholder Town”, as they were called, she and most of her neighbors held a candlelight march. The next day her boss came down to the basement. He wouldn’t look at her directly but he told her that he was just giving her a warning this time. If she forgot her place, if she refused to conform, she would be let go. She walked out.
The years that followed were hard but she found herself gradually more accepting of assistance—she preferred not to think of it as charity—as she worked to organize, to lobby for rights for anyone who didn’t fit the accepted standard. She got in touch with Doctor Bernardi who was sympathetic to the cause. He became a fierce ally and testified with her before the Council.
More than fifty years after the night her bandages had been removed for the last time Janet Tyler stood before the Chancellor as he awarded her The Peoples’ Gratitude Medal, the highest honor that could be given a civilian.
At the ceremony she stood next to a famous writer, a man who had the permanent sneer of all norms. He didn’t flinch when she stood next to him, didn’t look away. He smiled at her.
“Kind of a gaudy medal, isn’t it?” he said quietly.
She held hers up, saw how it sparkled.
“It’s beautiful.”
These simple tales have been submitted for your approval as both a reminder and a warning: no story ever really ends. It’s a simple fact that’s true everywhere, both in and out of The Twilight Zone.
For a while I grew carnivorous plants. It’s funny to me that they’re sometimes described as violating the rules of nature when really a plant that eats animals is quite natural. Once we shuffle off our mortal coil we’ll become fertilizer. The expression “pushing up daisies” has it wrong. We’re really feeding the daisies, but that’s another story. Carnivorous plants just take a more active role in the process when they trap and digest prey.
Even from my earliest days I also loved weird monster movies so I was thrilled when I first discovered Little Shop Of Horrors. And, appropriately enough, I started with the original Roger Corman classic and a few years later was able to see the musical version directed by Frank Oz in the theaters. And that might make you ask, which do I think is better? Honestly I can’t say. I think they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and while the original was hastily thrown together—the legend is someone bet Roger Corman he couldn’t shoot an entire film in twenty-four hours and Little Shop was the result—it still has some great moments. I’d argue its greatest strength is its subtlety even though it hardly seems subtle, but, really, compared to the musical, it is. And there are enough differences between the two films that comparing them is like comparing apples and pineapples. The 1986 film would also be popular enough to inspire a Saturday morning cartoon that turned Seymour and Audrey into schoolchildren, the plant into a rapper, and for the sake of mercy I’m going to stop there. It had a cute opening theme song and that’s about it.
The most obvious difference is the 1986 film is a musical while the 1960 film isn’t, although that’s kind of like pointing out that one is in color and one’s in black and white. The 1986 film is also not really a remake of the 1960 film but an adaptation of the stage musical by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, a couple who also did a few notable things for Disney. The musical takes the bare bones of the plot and makes some major changes—most of which I think are improvements. Seymour is made an orphan which makes him more interesting and writes out his mother who, in the 1962 film, is completely superfluous. It also adds impact to Seymour’s murder of Mr. Mushnik—the closest thing to a father he’s ever had. In the original Mushnik survives in spite of knowing the plant’s secret. The musical ramps up the intensity of Audrey and Seymour’s romance and complicates it with Audrey’s relationship with Skid Row’s dentist.
In the 1960 film the dentist was named Dr. Phoebus Farb—a name I wish they’d kept for the musical instead of renaming him Orin Scrivello—and it’s questionable as to whether he’s a sadist or whether inflicting pain is just part of the job description. The musical makes his sadism unbelievably explicit and in the 1986 film he’s played with over-the-top brilliance by Steve Martin. The fact that his whole introductory sequence is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen suggests that I’m not the nice guy people seem to think I am but a dangerous sociopath who should be locked away and subject to rigorous psychological testing, but that’s another story.
There are also smaller changes. The detectives investigating the series of mysterious disappearances in the 1960 film are dropped—they’re as superfluous as Seymour’s mother. A few things shouldn’t have been cut: Mr. Mushnik’s hilarious malapropisms unfortunately get lost in adapation. Dick Miller as a guy who eats flowers in the original is replaced with Christopher Guest in the 1986 film as a customer who just wants to buy some roses. This is a real wasted opportunity: Guest is a comic genius who doesn’t get a chance to say anything funny, and if Miller had appeared in the 1986 film it would have been a nice tribute to his status as king of cameos, as well as linking the two films. The 1960 also has a very young Jack Nicholson as Wilbur Force, a masochistic dental patient. Having already murdered the dentist Seymour is forced to drill Wilbur’s teeth, providing a great sight gag. The 1986 film replaces Wilbur with Arthur Denton, played by Bill Murray, who’s always brilliant. His screaming “I’m gonna get a candy bar!” is hilarious but since he’s operated on by Orin it’s not clear why he’s even there.
Oh yeah, Levi Stubbs as the voice of Audrey II is brilliant. The biggest weakness of the original is the plant just lacks personality.
In the original Seymour’s plant is a crossbreed of a butterwort and Venus flytrap which he names Audrey Jr. In the musical and 1986 film the plant is from outer space–a smarter move–and Seymour names it Audrey II.
The biggest plus of the adaptations is the trio of singers–Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon–who provide backstory and commentary and are everything a chorus in a Greek tragedy should be. And Little Shop Of Horrors, as funny as it is, is a tragedy–or at least the 1960 film and stage musical are.
When I first saw the 1986 film I was disappointed that they’d changed the ending. I didn’t mind that they cut the final body count down from five to two–a robber, a drunk, and a prostitute from the original are eliminated–but instead of Seymour sacrificing his own life he electrocutes the plant and he and Audrey live happily ever after, escaping to the ideal someplace that’s green Audrey has fantasized about.
That was also not the ending director Frank Oz wanted. Home releases, starting with the DVD, include the original, significantly darker ending: the plant kills Audrey. Seymour, seeing no future for himself, steps into the plant’s mouth. What follows is an extended sequence of Audrey II’s multiplying and spreading across the world. The fact that I find this so funny suggests that I’m not the nice guy people seem to think I am but a dangerous sociopath who should be locked away and subject to rigorous psychological testing, but that’s another story.
This is taken from the stage version which ends with the rousing musical number “Don’t Feed The Plants”, and is, I think, an improvement on the 1960 film. In the original Seymour grabs a knife and dives into the plant’s mouth but the ending is so abrupt it’s not clear what happens afterward, although presumably Audrey Jr. is destroyed.
Studio executives and test audiences found Frank Oz’s elaborate–and extremely expensive–ending too dark so they ordered a new happier ending. And rewatching the 1986 film I think they got it right. Audrey’s death is damned depressing and even though Seymour is a murderer it’s hard not to root–er, feel for the guy. A major difference between stage and screen is a film can give us closeups, creating an emotional closeness to the characters. Films also don’t end with the cast coming out to take a bow.
The 1986 film really has the perfect ending: Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon, dressed as bridesmaids and smiling knowingly, stroll past Seymour and Audrey’s garden where a tiny Audrey II looks up and smiles. It’s a clever and subtle way of saying evil can never entirely be rooted out. Both endings are below so you can judge for yourself.
Because of my lifelong fascination with carnivorous plants I also like it that the plant survives. And since that I’m about to be locked up and subjected to rigorous psychological testing I’ll just leave you with this: which ending do you think is better?
Having passed the two-year mark as a cancer survivor is something I should be happy about. And I am, but it’s complicated. I really celebrated the first year as the first of many milestones to come. At the time I still had things to overcome and I felt like I really hadn’t fully recovered my health, like I hadn’t completely bounced back. And I wasn’t sure I would fully recover. That was, oddly, something to celebrate. I felt there was a clear demarcation between me before cancer and me after cancer and that it was something I would deal with for the rest of my life.
It’s still something I’ll deal with for the rest of my life, but, in spite of all the changes, in spite of the fact that I have scars, both internal and external, in spite of having to wear bracelets with health information in case I’m left unconscious in an accident, in spite of still having a plastic bulb in my chest even though I no longer need to be pumped full of poison, in spite of taking a handful of medications twice a day-okay, not a literal handful or even a metaphorical handful really, but more than I ever took on a regular basis before-I still feel like the same person I was before. The before-cancer and after-cancer line is blurred, and I’m left wondering where to go from here. I’m left wondering where I will go from
here. During that first year, and even during the second, I went into every doctor visit with a sense of dread. What if the chemo didn’t work? What if it comes back?
I don’t think I’ll ever be entirely free of that feeling but at least it’s diminished. Before cancer I hadn’t seen my regular doctor in so long I couldn’t have picked him out in a lineup even if he were the only one wearing a white coat and maybe one of those head mirrors that you’d think should have a special name but, no, apparently it’s just called a “head mirror” which makes me wonder why stethoscopes aren’t called heart-listeny-tubes but that’s another story.
Before cancer I could joke about my health because I never got sick. The only reason I ever went into a hospital was to visit other people. It felt like cancer broke a winning streak. At the time that was strangely reassuring. I didn’t want cancer, or any disease, but as long as I never got sick there was always a dark cloud in the back of my mind that sooner or later the odds were going to catch up with me. When I was diagnosed I thought, well, I wish the odds could have caught up with me gradually instead of dumping a heap of tumor on me, but at least I can keep playing
even if I am losing a bunch of chips now. Why I put all of this in gambling
metaphors since I’ve never been in a casino in my life is a mystery. Besides I could always keep that cloud at the back of my mind with the reassurance that luck is an illusion, not something that builds up but has to be paid back eventually. Or to put it more succinctly, shit happens. So does cancer.
But as the two year mark got closer I started feeling I was on another winning streak, and this time that cloud was not only bigger but it was, and is, harder to push it to the back of my mind. Shortly after my diagnosis one doctor told me, “If you’re gonna get cancer this is the one to get.” Testicular cancer is in the easily treatable category, and, although my memory has been left a little fuzzy, I believe that same doctor was the one who told me I had a good chance of being cured. I’d never heard the word “cured” associated with cancer before. For a while I used it too but I won’t say it again. Saying I’m “cured” carries too much temptation to live as though nothing happened. And it feels unlucky.
This anniversary carries other, weirder, even more complicated feelings with it. I don’t want to go through cancer again but I do wish I could relive it and do it better. I survived so I must have done something right. Or did I? My wife took on too much responsibility, did too much that I should have done. If I could do it again I’d make decisions and be more conscious instead of just drifting through treatment.
There’s another feeling, one that doesn’t have a name. It’s not survivor’s guilt even though I know people who lost their fight with cancer. I have friends who didn’t make it. I know others who also survived, who laugh now about how easy their treatment was, that it was only a year or eighteen months. For me it was a just a little over three months. It’s not a competition, and it’s not one I’d want to win even if it were, and it wasn’t easy. I had health issues along the way. My white cell count crashed, leaving me vulnerable to infections which, luckily, I never got.
And yet I was able to keep going. Why was it so much easier for me than it was for others?
When I was first diagnosed, and for a long time afterward, I felt a connection to others who had or who’d fought cancer. It was reassuring. We were part of a club. As the experience recedes I feel less connected. I think maybe there was some mistake. Maybe I didn’t really have cancer, that I’m guilty of some weird fraud.
I also think about all the people who supported me: my wife, the doctors, and just friends and family who offered their sympathy and support. I feel unworthy of all that they did, and feeling anything but happy to be alive and healthy now feels like a betrayal.
My rounds of chemo came in threes: one week I would have five days in a row of treatment, then the next two weeks I’d just go in for a shot on Monday. Even though I say luck is an illusion three still feels like a lucky number to me. Two straight lines connected will leave one side open while three will form a triangle. The rule of three is one of the three secrets of all great comedy-the other is timing-and while two’s company three is a party. So even though I’m currently simmering in a complex stew of strange and even contradictory emotions there is hope.
Last week I shared a few pictures of a pottery piece I was working on, a fish bowl, and quite a few of you expressed an interest in seeing the finished product. You can skip to the bottom to see the result but in the meantime the project caused me to wax lyrical. So here’s a poem I composed to go along with it, but first here’s a reminder of the work in progress.
Ode On A Piscene Bowl*
What is beauty, and how is it defined?
And why do we see it everywhere we look, including the sky?
Surely it’s innate, not limited to those whose tastes are refined,
Since, as Shakespeare said, it’s in the beholder’s eye.
Is it really that simple? Take the Mona Lisa and her mysterious smile.
Her appeal has transcended ages
And prompted all sorts of wild speculations.
According to Freud, patron saint of psychiatric sages,
It’s her ample bosom that draws us in. B.F. Skinner, meanwhile,
Says we’re conditioned like rats to respond to her temptations.
Now I’m getting off the subject, but it’s difficult, as you can see.
If you try to take the Mona Lisa you’ll be arrested as soon as you touch it,
So instead just take my advice, which I promise you is free,
But you get what you pay for so don’t blame me if it breaks your budget.
Let’s get back to the issue of beauty now
And whether what it is can be answered simply.
Is beauty truth, truth beauty, and is it eternal or is it transitory?
And do we answer that question differently when we’re old than we do when young and pimply?
It’s an inescapable truth that what we once loved we might later disavow,
But that is another story.
*Apologies to John Keats, Ogden Nash, any other literati, glitterati, the Illuminati, and anyone stumped by this Gordian knotty
And here’s the finished product. It didn’t turn out quite like I’d hoped but that’s the way these things go.
That really is all of it. It seems like there should be more.