. In Harvest Time I surveyed my ravaged garden th…

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In Harvest Time

I surveyed my ravaged garden this afternoon. I thought it was beautiful. Stunted green peppers with black-rimmed worm holes dangled on withered stems. Blasted tomatoes dripped into the dirt from bare stalks inside cages that held tangles of greenery back in July. The basil was a patch of brown sticks and thistles. I picked the last harvestable habaneras.

Later, we had a little dinner party for my 49th birthday. My friends Roger and Tomo came over, as did my mom and my daughter Emily’s boyfriend. Roger and I, guitar-strummin’ high school friends still hanging out in our dotage, quizzed boyfriend about his band, which gigged at the high school on Friday night. We approved of their playing all original material, and we were quite impressed with their one cover song being a Stevie Wonder song. Interesting. We plugged in daughter Marguerite’s Fender Squire electric guitar, and Roger flatted a few ninths to let the boyfriend know that an old man means business. I chimed in on the little red acoustic (made in Spain) that I brought home from Istanbul. Then I handed it to boyfriend who showed chops. We had a nice fire going in the living room and a little dish of Daddy’s Loosiannie Firehouse Dippin’ Sauce with chips on the coffee table. Yow!

Little Lydia was in charge of the cake. She asked me what kind I wanted on Friday night as we drove to see an ex-neighbor boy from the last town we lived in play the pickpocket in Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. The boy, now a young man of 18, was great, as were the rest of the young men and women on that high school stage. I would say, however, that Shakespeare had a few bills to pay the week he wrote that play—it’s a little heavy on the exposition…at the end. Lydia was not only good, she was enthralled.

On Saturday, Emily and I visited a college in Eastern Pennsylvania, after which we bought Lydia a cardboard kaleidoscope. The card on the gift was addressed “To the Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes”–one of her favorite bedtime songs is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Inside, the card explained that the gift was a reward for general good behavior at the play and for taking an early interest in the Bard.

After buying the kaleidoscope, Em and I dropped in on a friend of mine whose wife is a mathematics professor at the college. They were having a couple of students over for dinner, and when I called to say we were in town, they invited us to join them. It was a nice way for Emily to get a feel for the ethereal nature of dinner conversation among academics. We discussed, among other things, the impact of the movie Animal House on college life and the revival of the toga party at the college under the direction of our math professor host. She stood at the table to demonstrate the correct way to wear a sheet, using an imaginary sheet. My friend amused us with tales of the city-sponsored Ben Franklin imitator who works Independence Square in Philadelphia near where he works:

“He’s gotten enormously heavy since he’s been on the History Channel. Now that he’s famous, people are feeding him and he’s going nuts,” said my friend.

“Same thing happened to Elvis,” I observed.

He and I: “Bwaah ha ha!”

“And there is a psychological aspect as well,” my friend added. “Lately, when he tells people about what Franklin did, he lapses from the third into the first person.”

“Again,” I said, “just like Elvis.”

All: “Bwaah ha ha!”

At my birthday dinner tonight, Roger amused Lydia–and me, I must admit—by hanging a spoon on his nose. Lydia delivered on the devil’s food cake with an assist from Maureen, who prepared a wonderful meal. Roger then treated my mother to a little bit of his recent stand-up routine : “My parents wanted me to be a doctor. When we were kids, my sister used to get toys like Malibu Barbie for Christmas. I wanted GI Joe Talking Commando. I got GI Melvin, Talking Gastro-Intestinal Examination Practice Doll. Sure. Go ahead, pull his string: ‘HEY! Vaht’s go-ink on bek thayuh!’” Mom remembers Roger from back in the day and expects nothing less.

And so, my friends, we see that we are not getting older. We’re getting louder.

Like Elvis,
Vanx
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All photos Vanx 11/19. Pepper, Roger and Tomo, Tomato, R&T, Mom

. Important Dates in November:. The Seventeenth . …

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Important Dates in November:.
The Seventeenth
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Politico-Religious Sportile Stomp
“..and it don’t stop”

1558—Elizabethan era begins: Queen Mary I of England dies and is succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth I of England.
1720—Pirate captain Calico Jack Rackam and his entire crew, except Anne Bonny and Mary Read, are hanged.
1777—Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union submitted to the states for ratification.
1800—The United States Capital Building in Washington, DC, holds its first session of the U.S. Congress.
1820—Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica (the Palmer Peninsula was later named after him).
1869—In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.
1903—The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits into two groups; the Bolsheviks (Russian for “majority”) and Mensheviks (Russian for “minority”).
1950—Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, enthroned as Tibet’s head of state at the age of fifteen.
1957—Vanxnativity, Morristown, N.J.
1968—NBC preempts the final 1:05 minutes of a very close NFL football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders with Heidi, prompting an outrange amongst sports fans. Also, Alexandros Panagoulis condemned to death by the Greek Colonels’ Junta.
1969—The SALT I negotiations between the USSR and US begin in Helsinki.
1973—Student uprising against the regime in Greece spawns “November 17,” Greece’s answer to the Bader Meinhof gang. Also, in Orlando, Florida, President Richard M. tells Associated Press editors, “I am not a crook.”
1983—Zapatista Army of National Liberation founded in Chiapas, one of the poorest states in Mexico.
1989—Velvet Revolution begins in Czechoslovakia—Student demonstration in Prague is quelled by the police, sparking an uprising aimed at overthrowing the government.
2000—Alberto Fujimori removed from office as president of Peru.
2003—Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as Governor of California.
2006—Ségolèn Royal wins the Socialist Party’s nomination for president in France–crushes male rivals to become the first woman to represent a major party in a presidential election there. Meanwhile, Sony launches Playstation 3 in the U.S.

Some birthdays

1937—Peter Cook
1942—Martin Scorsese
1943–Lauren Hutton
1944—Rem Koolhaas, Danny DeVito, Lorne Michaels, Tom Seaver
1957—Vanx
1966—Daisy Fuentes

Death

1720—Calico Jack

. The Voices in My Head… …are voices from my past…

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The Voices in My Head…

…are voices from my past. They have phone numbers and e-mail addresses. They are channeled to me from the home office in DC. They reach me from across the ocean in my backyard where it’s raining like a broken record. They’re talking to each other behind my back. Snubbing me at the cocktail party in my mind, they send Spyboys out for my prospectus. Red flags. Calling on cell phones from the street in New York, they play me off against The Man. A false, crackling glimmer in a pile of wet leaves. Hardened oil on a vintage hunting coat and an elusive clog in the plumbing. I smell a crow. You talk, and I’ll listen. But, dammit, I don’t do windows.

Be in touch,
Vanx

. Important Dates in November . On November 13, …

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Important Dates in November
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On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence; that request came from his wife. Deep down, he knew she was right, but he also knew that some day he would return to her. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his friend, Oscar Madison. Several years earlier, Madison’s wife had thrown HIM out, requesting that HE never return. Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?

Oddly,
Vanx

Richter plays Chopin Etude Op. 10 No. 12

. Peace Through Entropy We’ve had a week of pleas…

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Peace Through Entropy

We’ve had a week of pleasant surprises. In addition to the changing of the guard in Washington, 15th -ranked Rutgers booted 3rd-ranked Louisville from the national college football championship with a last minute field goal Thursday night. This is arguably the first good news for the Scarlet Knights since they beat the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton) 6-4 in the first intercollegiate football game in 1869. Party in Piscataway.

Closer to home, Emily got an acceptance notice yesterday from a school that, until recently, topped her list of collegiate ambitions. So, she’s one-for-one, which is a good shot of positive vibe, and nicely timed. This particular school also happens to be my financial worst-case-scenario. But like most other high school seniors, she is applying to about ten schools, so it’s early days. At this point her two favorites are my alma mater, and my colleague L’s alma mater.

So it’s been a very good week. But who knows where we’ll be in a month, a year, two years? Who’s to say with this war, with these colleges, with the footballs. The one thing we do know is that the primary engine of history since about World War II is entropy. All good news goes into the hopper.

Two Saturdays ago, Maureen and I went to a wedding in Long Island. At one point during the drive through a deserted midtown Manhattan at 10:00 AM, it occurred to me that my backlot-consciousness, working in default mode, had me going to a funeral. I was wearing a suit, and I knew I would be seeing old friends and acquaintances. That hasn’t meant “wedding” since some time in the late-disco ’80s. Nowadays, it almost always means funeral–one of which I subconsciously assumed I was going to. I snapped out of it, which was good, because I was driving.

Then I was driving through Queens on the Long Island Expressway. Then Maureen weighed in: “What’s that?”

That is the skeleton of the 1964 World’s Fair, my dear. A big bonework globe hard by bizarre spindle-top towers. The towers are what remain of the New York State Pavilion, which I vaguely remember as a centerpiece to the fair when I went there at the age of seven. The big attraction for my Catholic family, especially because my grandmother was with us, was Michelangelo’s Pieta. I remember it vividly, displayed on a glassed-in stage in a Virgin Mary-blue theater. There was also the Pepsi Pavilion, which was moved after the fair to Disneyland—Yes, It’s a Small World After All was first foisted upon us by Pepsi. There was the GM Pavilion, which displayed the technological wonders of a future now past. And in the center of it all, the mosaic tile map and banner-hung towers of the New York State Pavilion, the theme of which was “Peace Through Understanding.” This all took place one year after the Kennedy assassination, and four years before the Tet Offensive. A month after it was over, the City of New York forgot it was there. The towers spring up now, baffling egg beaters perilously close to air traffic from LaGuardia, a rusting apparition very near the miserable funnel of highways in and out of Long Island. Behind it, the bones of the world. Entropy Through Neglect.

Meanwhile, at Lydia’s grade school, they are dismantling our beloved wooden playground apparatus and replacing it with a typical pre-fab polymer monstrosity. Somewhere inside the last remaining monkey bar fort house, a sage child (Baba Pat N.?) lays on us graffito thus: Love it while it lasts. .

That’s about right.

I danced at the wedding with Maureen and all my friends from the last magazine I worked at—all of whom I miss very much and see regularly because their magazine competes with the magazine I currently work for. Too much drama about how that happened, believe me. Interestingly, given today’s topic, there has been somewhat shocking churn at the top of both magazines’ mastheads in recent weeks. Mine also happens to have been redesigned recently to look like a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning engineers association publication from the 1970s.

Entropy Through Futzing. It happens. And…

It’s all good,
Vanx

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Fairground photos: Fred R. Conrad, The New York Times. Garden State Parkway Road Sign Photo: Suzy Allman, The New York Times. Bottom Photo: M.

. Maplehood … As I ran out of the house l…

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Maplehood

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..

As I ran out of the house last night, I was startled by the beauty of these red maple leaves on the hood of the Caravan. A bio-invasion, I thought. A harbinger of change. A surprise in the familiar cycle of natural occurences? I stopped running, went back in the house, and got the camera.

I really love this time of year, when the wet leaves drop and Scorpio is in the third house…on the left…with the minivan.

Vanx

. Are You Listening, Mobsters? (J. Edwards/D. Ray)…

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Are You Listening, Mobsters?
(J. Edwards/D. Ray)

Revolution rock, it is a brand new rock
So bad, bad rock, this here revolution rock
Careful how you move, Mac, you dig me in me back
An’ I’m so pilled-up that I rattle
I have got the sharpest knife, so I cut the biggest slice
But I have no time to do battle!

Hey!
Everybody smash up your seats
and rock to this brand new beat!
This here music mash up the nation
This here music cause a sensation
Tell your ma, tell your pa everything’s gonna be all right
Can’t you feel it? Don’t ignore it
Gonna be All-ri-i-ight!

Revolution rock, I am in a state of shock
So bad, bad rock, this here revolution rock

Careful how you slide, Clyde, all you did was glide
And you poured your beer in me hat
Keep my good eye on the beat, living on fixation street
And I ain’t got no time for that!

Hey!
Everybody smash up your seats
and rock to this brand new beat !
This here music mash up the nation
This here music cause a sensation
Tell your ma-ma, tell your pa everything’s gonna be all right
Can’t you feel it? Don’t ignore it
Gonna be All-ri-i-ight!

Revolution rock
Hey so get that cheese grater going
against the grain
Wearing me down
Pressure increase!

Everybody!
Everybody smash up your seats
and rock to this brand new beat!
This here music mash up nations
This here music cause a sensation
Tell your ma-ma, tell your pa-pa
yes everything’s gonna be all right
Can’t you feel it? Don’t ignore it
Gonna be All-ri-i-ight!

Revolution rock
To the coolest Mobsters in Kingstown
With the hardest eyes
And the coolest tongue!
Is your heart so made of rock
That the blood must flow ‘round the clock?

Are you listening mobsters?

All people crawl, gonna die
While cargo food goes rolling by–
It’s food for thought mobsters!
Young people shoot their days away
I’ve seen talent thrown away!
Are you loan shark?

The organ plays!
And they’re dancing ot the brand new beat
This here music mash up the nation
This here music cause a sensation
Tell your ma-ma-ma, tell your pa-pa-pa
Everything’s gonna be all right
Can’t you feel it? Don’t ignore it
Everything’s gonna be all-ri-i-ight

I say revolution rock
There’s that old cheese grater
Rubbing me down.
This must be the way out!
Here’s the cheap bit–
Oola-oola-oola
Any song you want
(oola-oola-oola)
Playing requests now on the bandstand
(oola-oola-oola)
El Clash combo
(oola-oola-oola)
Pays fifteen dollars a day
Weddings, parties, anything
And Bongo Jams a speciality!

. Spinning Spiel Good morning. I am one for two. …

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Spinning Spiel

Good morning. I am one for two.

As for Joe Lieberman—What a surprise, huh? But wouldn’t it be nice if Lieberman were going back as a Democrat? Especially given that control of the U.S. Senate now comes down to something like 10,000 votes in Virginia? Hmmm, now…..what was that guy’s name? Oh, yeah. Ned Lamont. I remember him.

In Hillary Clinton’s victory speech, she said the party is returning to the vibrant center. Now she’s talkin’ sense. Perhaps she was looking over her right shoulder at Bubba-Hubby behind her when she came up with that insight. Su hombre es mi hombre.

As for the Republican Party prevailing in a rush of church busses at the polls—well, you realize, of course, that I floated that prediction merely to motivate the Democrats and shake them from their smug, NPRish complacency. We believe we have done our job in this regard. But, as promised, I am currently eating my hat on this prediction. It’s delicious!

Meanwhile, we see that there are other voters in the world. And they, too, lean left.

E Pluribus Verb-Ops,

Vanx

Editor’s final spin: Gee, I’ll miss Rick Santorum.