Elf (2003)

Directed by Jon Favreau

Starring Will Ferrell, James Caan, Bob Newhart, Edward Asner

Critics: 85% positive; Audience: 79%

Critics Consensus: A movie full of Yuletide cheer, Elf is a spirited, good-natured family comedy, and it benefits greatly from Will Ferrell’s funny and charming performance as one of Santa’s biggest helpers.

 Synopsis: Buddy (Will Ferrell) was accidentally transported to the North Pole as a toddler and raised to adulthood among Santa’s elves. Unable to shake the feeling that he doesn’t fit in, the adult Buddy travels to New York, in full elf uniform, in search of his real father. As it happens, this is Walter Hobbs (James Caan), a cynical businessman. After a DNA test proves this, Walter reluctantly attempts to start a relationship with the childlike Buddy with increasingly chaotic results.

 Tangerine (2015)

Directed by Sean Baker

Starring Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian, Mickey O’Hagan

Critics: 96% positive; Audience: 76%

Critics Consensus: Tangerine shatters casting conventions and its filmmaking techniques are up-to-the-minute, but it’s an old-fashioned comedy at heart – and a pretty wonderful one at that.

 Synopsis: After hearing that her boyfriend/pimp cheated on her while she was in jail, a hooker and her best friend set out to find him and teach him and his new lover a lesson.

A Christmas Story (1983)

Directed by Bob Clark

Starring Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Jan Petrella

Critics: 89% positive; Audience: 88%

Critics Consensus: Both warmly nostalgic and darkly humorous, A Christmas Story deserves its status as a holiday perennial.

 Synopsis: Based on the humorous writings of author Jean Shepherd, this beloved holiday movie follows the wintry exploits of youngster Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley), who spends most of his time dodging a bully (Zack Ward) and dreaming of his ideal Christmas gift, a “Red Ryder air rifle.” Frequently at odds with his cranky dad (Darren McGavin) but comforted by his doting mother (Melinda Dillon), Ralphie struggles to make it to Christmas Day with his glasses and his hopes intact.

Klaus (2019)

Directed by Sergio Pablos

Starring Jason Schwartzman, J.K. Simmons, Rashida Jones, Will Sasso

Critics: 94% positive; Audience: 96%

Critics Consensus: Beautiful hand-drawn animation and a humorous, heartwarming narrative make Klaus an instant candidate for holiday classic status.

Synopsis: A desperate postman accidentally brings about the genesis of Santa Claus.

Bad Santa (2003)

Directed by Terry Zwigoff

Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Lauren Graham

Critics: 78% positive; Audience: 75%

Critics Consensus: A gloriously rude and gleefully offensive black comedy, Bad Santa isn’t for everyone, but grinches will find it uproariously funny.

Synopsis: In this dark comedy, the crotchety Willie T. Stokes (Billy Bob Thornton) and his partner (Tony Cox) reunite once a year for a holiday con. Posing as a mall Santa and his elf, they rip off shopping outlets on Christmas Eve. This year, however, Willie is falling apart. He’s depressed and alcoholic, and his erratic behavior draws the suspicion of mall security (Bernie Mac). But when befriending a small boy brings out his kinder side, Willie begins to wonder if there is still some hope for him.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

Directed by Bill Melendez, Phil Roman

Starring Peter Robbins, Christopher Shea, Tracy Stratford, Sally Dryer

Critics: 88% positive; Audience: 81%

Critics Consensus: Not available.

Synopsis: Christmastime is here. Happiness and cheer. And for Peanuts fans everywhere, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without this classic holiday delight. Christmas lights may be twinkling red and green, but Charlie Brown has the Yuletide blues. To get in the holiday spirit, he takes Lucy’s advice and directs the Christmas play. And what’s a Christmas play without a Christmas tree? But everyone makes fun of the short, spindly nevergreen Charlie Brown brings back – until the real meaning of Christmas works its magic once again.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Directed by Brian Henson

Starring Michael Caine, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmore, Jerry Nelson

Critics: 76% positive; Audience: 86%

Critics Consensus: It may not be the finest version of Charles Dickens’ tale to grace the screen, but The Muppet Christmas Carol is funny and heartwarming, and serves as a good introduction to the story for young viewers.

Synopsis: The Muppets perform the classic Dickens holiday tale, with Kermit the Frog playing Bob Cratchit, the put-upon clerk of stingy Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine). Other Muppets – Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, and Sam the Eagle – weave in and out of the story, while Scrooge receives visits from spirits of three Christmases – past, present, and future. They show him the error of his self-serving ways, but the miserable old man seems to be past any hope of redemption and happiness.

Frosty the Snowman (1969)

Directed by Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin Jr.

Starring Jimmy Durante, Billy De Wolfe, Jackie Vernon, Paul Frees

Critics: 73% positive; Audience: 72%

Critics Consensus: Frosty the Snowman is a jolly, happy sing-along that will delight children with its crisp animation and affable title character, who makes an indelible impression with his corncob pipe, button nose, and eyes made out of coal.

Synopsis: A discarded magic top hat brings to life the snowman that a group of children made, until a magician, Professor Hinkle, wants it back, and the temperature starts to rise. Frosty will melt or no longer be a jolly soul if the kids cannot get him away from Hinkle and warm weather, so he hops a train to the North Pole with young Karen.

Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983)

Directed by Burny Mattinson

Starring Alan Young, Wayne Allwine, Hal Smith, Will Ryan

Critics: 100% positive; Audience: 90%

Critics Consensus: Not available.

Synopsis: A retelling of the classic Dickens tale with Disney’s classic characters.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

Directed by Maury Laws, Larry Roemer

Starring Burl Ives, Larry D. Mann, Billie Mae Richards, Paul Soles

Critics: 95% positive; Audience: 80%

Critics Consensus: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a yuletide gem that bursts with eye-popping iconography, a spirited soundtrack, and a heart-warming celebration of difference.

Synopsis: This stop-motion animagic version of the classic Christmas tale adds a bit of a twist when Rudolph encounters an abominable snowman.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)

Directed by Chuck Jones

Starring Boris Karloff, June Foray, Thurl Ravenscroft, Eugene Poddany

Critics: 100% positive; Audience: 95%

Critics Consensus: How the Grinch Stole Christmas brings an impressive array of talent to bear on an adaptation that honors a classic holiday story – and has rightfully become a yuletide tradition of its own.

Synopsis: This made-for-TV Christmas special is a classic. Based on a Dr. Seuss book, it is about a Christmas-hating Grinch who wants to make everyone as miserable on Christmas as he is. The poor, small-hearted Scrooge learns the true meaning of Christmas through the loving Whos in Whoville.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Directed by Tim Burton

Starring Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey

Critics: 95% positive; Audience: 91%

Critics Consensus: The Nightmare Before Christmas is a stunningly original and visually delightful work of stop-motion animation.

Synopsis: The film follows the misadventures of Jack Skellington, Halloweentown’s beloved pumpkin king, who has become bored with the same annual routine of frightening people in the “real world.” When Jack accidentally stumbles on Christmastown, all bright colors and warm spirits, he gets a new lease on life: He plots to bring Christmas under his control by kidnapping Santa Claus and taking over the role. But Jack soon discovers even the best-laid plans of mice and skeleton men can go seriously awry.

Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

Directed by Satoshi Kon

Starring Yoshiaki Umegaki, Aya Okamoto, Toru Emori

Critics: 91% positive; Audience: 91%

Critics Consensus: Beautiful and substantive, Tokyo Godfathers adds a moving – and somewhat unconventional – entry to the animated Christmas canon.

Synopsis: Middle-aged alcoholic Gin (Toru Emori), teenage runaway Miyuki (Aya Okamoto) ,and former drag queen Hana (Yoshiaki Umegaki) are a trio of homeless people surviving as a makeshift family on the streets of Tokyo. While rummaging in the trash for food on Christmas Eve, they stumble upon an abandoned newborn baby in the bin. With only a handful of clues to the baby’s identity, the three misfits search the streets of Tokyo for help in returning the baby to its parents.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

Directed by Jalmari Helander

Starring Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila, Ilmari Järvenpää, Peeter Jakobi

Critics: 90% positive; Audience: 70%

Critics Consensus: Rare Exports is an unexpectedly delightful crossbreed of deadpan comedy and Christmas horror.

Synopsis: A young boy named Pietari (Onni Tommila) and his friend Juuso (Ilmari Järvenpää) think a secret mountain drilling project near their home in northern Finland has uncovered the tomb of Santa Claus. However, this is a monstrous, evil Santa, much unlike the cheery St. Nick of legend. When Pietari’s father (Jorma Tommila) captures a feral old man (Peeter Jakobi) in his wolf trap, the man may hold the key to why reindeer are being slaughtered and children are disappearing.

Better Watch Out (2016)

Directed by Chris Peckover

Starring Levi Miller, Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Dacre Montgomery

Critics: 89% positive; Audience: 65%

Critics Consensus: Carried by its charismatic young cast, Better Watch Out is an adorably sinister holiday horror film.

Synopsis: Ashley travels to the suburban home of the Lerners to baby-sit their 12-year-old son Luke at Christmastime. She must soon defend herself and the young boy when unwelcome intruders announce their arrival.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Directed by Tim Burton

Starring Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall

Critics: 90% positive; Audience: 91%

Critics Consensus: The first collaboration between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, Edward Scissorhands is a magical modern fairy tale with gothic overtones and a sweet center.

Synopsis: A scientist (Vincent Price) builds an animated human being – the gentle Edward (Johnny Depp). The scientist dies before he can finish assembling Edward, though, leaving the young man with a freakish appearance accentuated by the scissor blades he has instead of hands. Loving suburban saleswoman Peg (Dianne Wiest) discovers Edward and takes him home, where he falls for Peg’s teen daughter (Winona Ryder). However, despite his kindness and artistic talent, Edward’s hands make him an outcast.

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

Directed by John McPhail

Starring Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Sarah Swire, Christopher Leveaux

Critics: 77% positive; Audience: 62%

Critics Consensus: Anna and the Apocalypse finds fresh brains and a lot of heart in the crowded zombie genre – not to mention a fun genre mashup populated by rootable characters.

Synopsis: A zombie apocalypse threatens the sleepy town of Little Haven – at Christmas – forcing Anna and her friends to fight, slash, and sing their way to survival, facing the undead in a desperate race to reach their loved ones. But they soon discover that no one is safe in this new world, and with civilization falling apart around them, the only people they can truly rely on are each other.

Your Christmas Gift: two poems to enjoy and share… 

The Oxen

By Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

Thomas Hardy

(1840-1928)

Hardy’s long career spanned the Victorian and the modern eras. He described himself as a poet “who holds that if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst” and during his nearly 88 years he lived through too many upheavals – including World War I – to have become optimistic with age. Nor did he seem by nature to be cheerful: much of the criticism around his work concerns its existentially bleak outlook, and, especially during Hardy’s own time, sexual themes. (Source: The Poetry Foundation)

The Journey of the Magi

By T.S. Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

T.S. Eliot

(1888-1965)

T.S. Eliot, the 1948 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is one of the giants of modern literature, highly distinguished as a poet, literary critic, dramatist, and editor and publisher. In 1910 and 1911, while still a college student, he wrote four poems – “Portrait of a Lady,” “Preludes,” “Rhapsody on a Windy Night,” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – that introduce themes to which, with variation and development, Eliot returned time and again. One of the most significant is the problem of isolation, with attention to its causes and consequences in the contemporary world. (Source: The Poetry Foundation)

Bits and Pieces 

Remembering… Waiting for the Bus Back Home 

It was very exciting. My godmother, Jean Kerr, had gifted me a course in painting for my 14th birthday. The classes were given on Saturday mornings in Hempstead, about five miles north of my hometown of Rockville Centre.

Getting to and from the lessons by bus would cost 50 cents, 25 cents each way. For cleaning the bathroom once a week, my mother paid me 60 cents – enough to cover the bus fare with a dime to spare.

As far as I was concerned, it was a perfect situation. However, I didn’t anticipate two things.

1. The bus that would bring me home departed from the terminal about a half-hour after class, which meant I had to spend 25 minutes in the terminal, waiting for it.

2. There was a Pizza Parlor next to the waiting area.

I was, as most boys are at 14, always hungry. And the aroma wafting from the open windows of the pizza shop was irresistible. Having spent 25 cents on the morning bus, I had 35 cents left in my pocket. I could have a slice of pizza. Or I could take the bus home. I could not have both.

The first Saturday, I stayed strong – for almost 20 minutes – before yielding to temptation. My resolve weakened as each week passed. So, every Saturday, after wolfing down that slice of pizza, I was left with no choice but to pick up my bag of art supplies and head off on the 5-mile walk home.

My 90-minute walk included about 30 minutes of passing through a “bad part” of South Hempstead. I was eyed suspiciously and occasionally threatened by neighborhood kids, but never physically assaulted. Scaring me was probably enough “fun” for them. Still, I clutched my palette knife, which was about as dangerous as a plastic spoon, under my jacket sleeve until I reached Rockville Centre.

What I Believe About Stress, Self-Improvement, and Procrastination

A friend writes: “I didn’t really want to make that move. I was comfortable doing what I was doing, and it was working. But I had the sense that if I wanted to get to the next level, I had to make the leap. In retrospect, I’m glad I did.”

It’s a law of nature: Any effort to improve anything requires energy. This is especially true of self-improvement.

The energy needed to acquire knowledge and skill, to develop useful habits, and to strengthen the psyche has to be sufficient to overcome three ever-present hurdles: doubt, ignorance, and laziness.

The recognition of the energy required to overcome such hurdles is felt as stress. Stress is the inevitable emotional response between understanding what work is required to meet a goal and doing the work. The moment action is taken, stress diminishes.

I try to remember that every time I’m feeling stressed – and putting off – a challenging obligation. The second I begin to deal with it, I’ll start to feel better.

What I Believe: About Urban Violence in America 

12 major US cities have been seeing a significant rise in violent crime. In the lead is Chicago, with more than 800 homicides so far this year.

If Chicago is the leader in terms of gross numbers, Philadelphia takes the number one spot in terms of murders per capita. By the end of November, the city had racked up 525 murders. And with a population of 1.6 million, that’s a homicide rate of 33 murders per 100,000 people – more than four times higher than the 2020 US homicide rate of 7.8.

Other cities that broke their previous homicide records in 2021 include Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; St. Paul, Minnesota; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Columbus, Ohio; Tucson, Arizona; and Rochester, New York. And that’s to say nothing of other violent crimes that soared in 2021, including non-lethal shootings, rapes, robberies, and physical assaults.

If you rely on the NYT, The Washington Post, or prestige TV for your news, you have probably heard little to nothing about this. That’s because these are largely Black-on-Black crimes that are taking place in Democratic-run cities with high percentages of African-Americans in their mayors’ offices, their police departments, and their court and judicial systems. Facts that do not support the Woke’s favorite theory: that every social problem in America is due to systemic racism.

Ironically, those same news sources have recently begun to report on a lesser crime – the pandemic of smash-and-grab lootings that have become common in many of these same cities.

Why report on theft but not homicides?

First, because the lootings have gone viral on social media. They are undeniable. But second, and more importantly, because they are taking place in the suburbs, upscale neighborhoods, and luxury retail centers where the Woke live.

The Best TED Talk Ever? 

Last week, I came across a TED Talk that was given in 2008 by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a scientist specializing in the anatomy of the nervous system. It was the first TED Talk to ever go viral on the internet.

You can watch it here.

When I saw it in 2008, I thought it was amazing and revelatory. When I watched it again this time, it was just as good.

In it, Dr. Taylor recounts what she learned about the way the brain works from her own experience with a massive stroke.

What I thought was interesting: 

She explains that the brain has two hemispheres that look identical but have very different roles.

* The Right Brain experiences life in the present moment. It perceives the world around us in a very fundamental way – sensing colors and shapes and odors and sound, but in a sort of blur, without distinctions.

* The Left Brain is the part of the brain that has self-consciousness, that says “I am.” It thinks with language, linearly and methodically. It collects details, compares them to past details, and makes future projections.

The stroke left her with a fully functioning Right Brain and a Left Brain that was only active momentarily – and even then, only partially. It left her in the sort of state one might experience when taking hallucinogenic drugs.

What I loved especially: 

* She could not define the boundaries of her body because the atoms and molecules of her arm felt disconnected from the atoms and molecules of the space around and between them. Because she could not demonstrate the boundaries of her body, she felt expansive, and that felt beautiful.

* She was not frightened by the experience, but felt stress-free and peaceful. The experience was almost euphoric. “I’m having a stroke,” she thought. “This is so cool!”

* And I love this quote from her: “We are the lifeforce power of the universe with two cognitive minds.”

I loved all this because it dovetails with a book I’ve been writing for 20 years. Working title: A Unified Theory of Life.

No Justice for Jussie Smollett 

It was the story of the year. Hollywood was outraged. The ladies on The View went berserk. Even President Biden and VP Harris tweeted their outrage. A “modern-day lynching,” she called it.

Not everyone was taken in.

* Dave Chappelle

* Candice Owen

* Tracy Morgan

3 Words That People Are Always Getting Wrong 

* Bemused sounds like it means amused. It actually means confused or bewildered. Example from At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson: “Nothing, however, bemused the Indians more than the European habit of blowing their noses into a fine handkerchief, folding it carefully, and placing it back in their pockets as if it were a treasured memento.”

* Nonplussed sounds like it should be a synonym for stoic or stolid. It’s actually one step beyond “bemused” – so confused/bewildered that you’re unsure how to react. Example from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: “Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night.”

* Noisome sounds like it means noisy. Actually, it has nothing to do with sound. It refers to odor. Something that is noisome has an offensive smell. (It’s related to the word “annoy.”) Example from Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare: “Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.”

Worth Quoting 

* “Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and the more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.” – Aldous Huxley

* “Think about what you want today and you’ll spend your time. Think about what you want in 5 years and you’ll invest your time.” – James Clear

* “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin

EF and the Car 

EF says he needs a new car. The one he has now is getting old, and he’s afraid it will soon be breaking down.

EF is one of the four full-time people that maintain Paradise Palms, the botanical garden I’m developing in West Delray Beach. He’s a good, skilled worker and he is a valuable part of our team. He can operate all the equipment: the tractors, backhoes, ditch diggers, etc. He’s also reliable, punctual, etc. He is married with two young children. His after-tax pay is nearly $50,000 a year.

“What sort of car are you thinking of?” I ask.

“A jeep,” he says.

“Wouldn’t an SUV be better for you and your family?”

“No. The jeep I want will be good.”

“What kind of jeep is that?” I ask.

He shows me an image. It looks like a military vehicle.

“Wow!” I say. “How much is it?”

“$150,000.”

“Dollars? US dollars?”

He nods.

I smile.

“Are you joking?” I ask.

He smiles back. “No, I’m not,” he says.

I’m still skeptical. I look at him sideways. “I didn’t even know it was possible to spend that much on a jeep,” I say.

“I found one,” he says,

To be continued…

Bits and Pieces 

Nice! 

Here’s the most recent review of our book, Central American Modernism. It’s from Dr. David Greene, retired head of the art department at North Carolina State University:

The publication of this book has huge implications for the place of Central American art on the world stage. It… makes the case that this art is not just a miscellany of interesting artists, but is a place, a movement, a style – like Paris between the wars, like New York in the 1950s.

I didn’t know this:

We were emailing about writing. He said: “Did you know that there’s a ridge at the bottom of the F key and the J key on the keyboard to help you set up your fingers in the right position to type without looking?”

I was doubtful. I looked down. Sure enough, there they were.

“Cripes,” I replied. “I’ve spent 40-plus years hitting keyboards. How did I not ever notice that?”

I did some research. According to Deskthority, “most keyboards carry tactile indicators to help your fingers find the home position. On most keyboards, there is a raised ‘homing bar’ near the bottom edge on the F and J keys.”

That is true of my MacBook Air. But instead of bars, some keyboards have “homing dots.” (In some vintage Macintoshes, for example, those dots are on the D and K keys.) There are also keyboards with “dished” homing keys, which are deeper in the middle.

This has happened to me at least a dozen times in the last 10 or 15 years. By “this,” I mean I learned something I wish I had learned when I was much younger.

The very next day after this “homing key” discovery, I learned how to fill in those annoying holes you occasionally find when you open up a newly purchased Christmas tree. (The solution is as brilliant as it is easy.)

I’m going to write a post about such lessons learned late in life. If you have some of your own, please send them to me.

From the FTC: How to Protect Yourself From Telephone Scammers 

You get a call from someone claiming to be from a government agency like the Social Security Administration or the IRS. They say that you owe them money, and scare you into thinking something bad will happen to you if you don’t pay up immediately.

It’s a scam! Don’t fall for it!

* Never wire money, send cash, or use gift cards or cryptocurrency to pay someone who says they’re with the government. Scammers want you to pay in those ways because it’s hard to track and almost impossible to get the money back.

* Never give your financial or other personal information to anyone who says they’re with the government. If you think there’s a chance that the problem they say they’re calling about is legitimate, deal with it by contacting the agency directly.

* Don’t trust your caller ID. Your caller ID might show a government agency’s name, but that can be faked. The call could be from anyone, anywhere in the world.

* Never click on links in emails or texts from anyone you don’t know.  Simply delete the message.

“I ought to back hand you right in the teeth!” 

Many parents are justifiably worried about what their children are being taught in school. Intersectionality, gender fluidity, and critical race theory, these parents argue, are not appropriate subjects for minor children.

Ideological indoctrination (especially lunatic ideas like the above) is a serious threat and deserves the pushback its getting from concerned parents. But there are other threats that those parents should be aware of, such as what this mom discovered…

Click here.

The Wormhole – from Shakespeare to Astrophysics 

If you associate “wormhole” with quantum physics and sci-fi, you’ll probably be surprised to learn that the word has been around since Shakespeare’s day.

To astrophysicists, a wormhole is a theoretical tunnel between two black holes or other points in space-time, providing a shortcut between its end points. To Shakespeare, it was simply a hole made by a worm.

Of course, the bard did not restrict his use of the word to the literal. Here’s how he tied it to the passage of time in his poem “The Rape of Lucrece”:

Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,

To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,

To stamp the seal of time in aged things,

To wake the morn and sentinel the night,

To wrong the wronger till he render right,

To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours

And smear with dust their glitt’ring golden towers,

To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,

To feed oblivion with decay of things,

To blot old books and alter their contents,

To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings,

To dry the old oak’s sap and cherish springs,

To spoil antiquities of hammered steel

And turn the giddy round of Fortune’s wheel…

YouTubing… 

 Janet Yellen is scary!

Maliya Kabs, my favorite YouTube celebrity…Here

Bugs Bunny’s got game…

Worth Quoting 

You know who Judy Garland was. Superstar. Award-winning actress. Singer extraordinaire. Gay icon. But did you know that she was also an amateur poet?

In 1939, she published a collection of her poems. This is a couplet from one of them:

For ‘twas not into my ear you whispered but into my heart.

‘Twas not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

I thought that was pretty good. Not just the construction, but the thought. So I went to Dr. Mardy’s website to find some other good quotes about kissing:

* “Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.” – Joey Adams

* “Lips that taste of tears, they say, are the best for kissing.” – Dorothy Parker

* “The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile,
implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

3 Words I’m Trying to Work Into My Conversations 

* Habiliment (huh-BIL-uh-munt) – from an Old French word for “clothing” (“habillement”) – refers to the dress or equipment characteristic of a profession. A full set of armor, for example, can be considered the habiliment of a knight.

* A tarradiddle is a trivial or childish lie. Its origin is uncertain, but some etymologists think it was derived from “diddle” (an English word for “to cheat or swindle”).  If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you may remember Cornelius Fudge dismissing the possibility that Voldemort was still alive by saying to Dumbledore, “We haven’t got time to listen to more tarradiddles.”

* Nepenthe (nuh-PEN-thee) is a fictional drug mentioned in Greek mythology – a cure for sorrow. It is used to refer to a pleasurable feeling of forgetfulness, especially the relief of pain. Example from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe: “Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!” / Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Readers Write… 

Re what I said in the Nov. 11 “Bits and Pieces” issue about enhancing my image on Zoom calls:

“Where you see an uncomplimentary glimpse of yourself on Zoom, your reaction is based on a conviction of your handsomeness and a failure on the technology and thus you find the solution of spending thousands of dollars in technology to solve this unjust version of you, my natural reaction is further conviction of my less than excellent looks and a thought to consider some thousands of dollars in plastic surgery. Hilarious difference and probably why you are 10,000 times more successful than me.” – CF

Re the story of My African Wedding: 

“From reading your books on business and wealth building, I had an image of you that did not jibe with that story you told about your African wedding. You should show more of that self in your blog posts.” – LP

“What a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing!” – HL

“I was intrigued. What an adventure!” – PG

Re my sarcastic essay on shoplifting in California in the Dec. 5 “Bits & Pieces” issue: 

 “You Dog! This is why I can never trust you. I am reading this, and 2or 3 sentences in when you started sounding like a SJW and a 2nd year undergrad student from Berkeley had me wondering if you were being real. But when your performance art piece went off the rails and started using ALL the pushbutton phrases without any modesty and culminated in wondering about Biden’s Justice Dept. ignoring the fascist CEO of Best Buy, I knew you were F-ing with your audience!” – FC

My African Wedding

On April 9, 1976, K and I were married. It wasn’t the wedding we had planned. Ours was to be a bucolic event in the French countryside. Instead, we were married – along with 13 other couples – in a hot and dingy municipal building in the capital city of one of the poorest countries in the world.

It was civil ceremony. In French. We were the only foreigners in the group. And – to our surprise and unexpected shame – K was the only bride without a dowry.

Here’s how it happened…

Separation and Reunion 

About a year earlier, I had received a phone call from the Peace Corps, telling me that I had been accepted into their program as a volunteer. I was working as a bartender, and was looking for work as a teacher. The Peace Corps gig would have me working as an assistant professor of English Literature and Philosophy at the University of Chad. Getting accepted into the Peace Corps was a big thing at the time, and being able to go from slinging beers to parsing poetry was an opportunity I could not ignore.

K and I had been dating for a while. It felt like it was time for us to get married or break up. We decided that I should seize the day, she would stay behind, and we would see how the separation felt.

Flash-forward eight months… I wrote to K, telling her that I missed her terribly and asking if she would consider leaving the comfort of her hometown and family to fly across the ocean to France and then fly again to Chad to spend the next 15 months with me.

She said yes.

A Plan and a Budget 

Our plan was to meet and get married in Paris, have a honeymoon in Normandy, and then fly back to Chad to begin our life together. To cover the travel and honeymoon expenses, we would each save every penny we could possible save.

I was making just $200 a month, which covered my rent and food quite nicely, but didn’t leave much for anything else. But I was determined to make this happen. So over the next six months, I reduced my spending to the bare necessities. I limited myself to two very small meals per day and managed to save about half of what we needed, while losing about 15 pounds that I didn’t need to lose.

My wife-to-be was apparently not so motivated. Although her earnings were several times greater than mine, at the end of that six months she had managed to save… nothing!

It looked like we’d have to wait at least another six months and I’d have to lose another 15 pounds. But K’s father – perhaps thinking it was time for her to leave the nest – came up with the other half of the money.

We set about making to-do lists and researching hotels and wedding venues in Paris. Alas, we soon came up against French bureaucracy, famous for its haughtiness, arbitrariness, and inefficiency. As foreigners in Paris, we discovered, it would be impossible for us to be married there in so short a time.

Thus, Plan B emerged: Meet up in Paris. Honeymoon in Normandy. Fly to Chad. Get married  there.

So that’s what we did.

We spent several days in Paris, in a tiny room on the fourth floor of a small hotel on Rue Saint-André des Arts. The room was barely large enough to contain a twin-sized bed and a miniature armoire. No TV. No AC. And the bathroom was a cubbyhole beside the stairwell that we shared with the other hotel guests on our floor. But the cost was $25, and we had a window that overlooked the French Quarter. It was perfect.

We spent the rest of our “honeymoon” touring Normandy, staying at little inns, visiting churches, monuments, and graveyards, eating croissants for breakfast, baguettes avec jamon et fromage for lunch, and dinner in the local bistros.

Then off we went to N’djamena, the capital of Chad…

K’s First Night in Africa 

I can only imagine K’s culture shock – what it must like been like for her, after a week in the French countryside, to find herself in Chad.

As I said, Chad was, and is, one of the poorest countries in the world. It was also, at the time, being rattled by tribal antagonism, rebellion in the northern states, and an economy that was absolutely medieval.

I had been shocked myself when I first arrived. But Homo sapiens, as we know, are adaptive animals. Our primary evolutionary skill is to adjust to our circumstances. When you are older, such adjustments can be difficult. When you are young, as we were, it is fairly easy.

By the time I brought K to N’djamena, I had been there for nine months. I was inured to the ubiquity of poverty. I no longer noticed the unpaved roads, the tin huts and wooden shacks. I no longer smelled the stench of the open sewers. I no longer heard the droning in the fly-infested food markets. I no longer saw the cripples hobbling along on their elbows or the ribs of the shirtless beggars as they lifted their cups towards us as we passed by.

In contrast to everything K saw on the streets, my apartment (which was the size and had the furnishings of a freshmen dorm room) was a refuge from the outside world. It was located on the fourth floor of a six-floor building that resembled the sort of buildings you might see in a bare-bones housing project in America. But each unit had a small balcony with a view of the Chari. The Chari was the living artery of N’djamena, a river whose shores were littered, but whose water was clear and beautiful and glinted at night, reflecting a blanket of stars that was thicker and brighter than any we’d ever seen before.

This was to be our home for a while – and despite its limitations, K seemed happy with it. At least for the first week or so.

Until…

Cocktails and Fireworks 

It was a quiet evening. K was in our apartment reading. I was in the parking lot talking to Sergei, a Russian friend who was also a teacher (of history) at the university. He was proudly showing me his new motorbike.

“Even in Moscow, you can’t get a motorbike like this,” he boasted.

“I’ve been asking for a moped since I got here,” I admitted with a twinge of jealousy. “The Peace Corps said I’d get one, but it won’t be new and fancy like this.”

“I guess your Capitalism isn’t so great,” he teased.

And then, suddenly, an explosion! Then, moments later, another one. And then the sound of something flying through the air. And then machine gun fire.

Sergei covered his bike with a tarp and we rushed upstairs to our apartments. When I opened the door, I saw K standing on the balcony.

“What are you doing out there?” I shouted.

“What’s going on?” she shouted back.

I had no idea, but the noise was very close and very loud and very scary. It felt like our building was being attacked. I flashed back to an experience my parents had, early in their marriage, when they were living in Guatemala. One night, they found themselves in the middle of a civil war. Their building was bombed. A shell casing actually flew into their apartment. (I remember my father telling the story of how he baptized my eldest sister that night under the kitchen table.)

I turned off the lights and urged K to take cover under the bed. I stayed there with her for a while, and then, keeping as close to the ground as possible, crawled onto the balcony to see what was happening.

It was, indeed, a military assault. But our building was not the target. The target was the Chadian president’s compound, which was about 200 yards down the street.

I could see tracers lighting up the sky and then, in flashes, armed vehicles with soldiers behind them, firing their weapons and being fired upon.

I stood up, went back into the apartment, and was assuring K that we weren’t in any danger when the doorbell rang. It was Sergei, with a bottle of Johnny Walker in his hand. Beside him was François, holding a bottle of Pernod.

“We have come to enjoy the fireworks with you,” Sergei announced. I introduced them to K, who smiled at them and then looked at me quizzically.

For several hours, we stood there on the balcony, enjoying our drinks and speculating on the origins of the conflagration. We suspected (correctly, it turned out) that it was some sort of attack by the Muslim rebels that had been active until then only in the north.

Finally, the explosions ceased and then the gunfire stopped. And since our bottles were now empty, I bid my friends goodnight.

When they were gone, K turned to me and asked, “Has this happened before?”

The Church and the Agnostic 

I was born a Catholic. And though I had lost my faith when I was 14 or 15, I knew that a “proper” Catholic wedding would make our families happy.

As it happened, there was a beautiful Catholic church in Ndjamena – a stately cathedral in the center of town. But when I went there to arrange for our service, I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t as easy as it was in the States.

No. To be wed in the cathedral of N’djamena, Father Jean Pierre explained, we needed to do more than write a check and fill out a form. We were required to pronounce ourselves to be true believers and observant members of the faith.

“I’m pretty sure my fiancée believes in God,” I told the priest. And I did my best to convince him that, although I had lost my faith, I was sure I could find it again. “And don’t forget,” I added, “both of us come from families that are very serious about their Catholicism.”

Father Jean Pierre was not impressed. He could not help us, he said. Unless I was willing to atone for the very mortal sin of leaving the church and spend several weeks relearning the catechism under his supervision, we could not be married in the cathedral.

Shuffling Towards I Do

And so we found ourselves several weeks later in a large, austere room on the second floor of a concrete structure that served as the city hall. At one end of the room was a table, where the “officials” sat. Facing that table were rows and rows of chairs.

We had been instructed to arrive with four witnesses. Two of our witnesses were a couple. (The husband was my colleague in the English Department at the university.) The third one was a fellow volunteer that I’d befriended during our early weeks in Chad. The fourth was an unfriendly American that worked at the embassy. He was rumored to be a CIA agent, perhaps because of his fluency in French and gruff manners. He made it clear that he didn’t want to be there, but he was obliged to witness the marriage and sign some documents so our marriage could be recognized in the US.

I wore my best pair of khaki pants and a blue dashiki (which I still have). K wore a simple cotton dress. She looked, as she was, beautiful and innocent.

There were, as I said, 14 couples. And since each couple had four witnesses, that meant a total of 84 people, with each couple and their witnesses sitting in their own row. First, there was a longish speech by the mayor. That was followed by 14 rapid-fire marriages that consisted of the couple answering a few questions, signing a document, and then leaving the room.

This produced a weirdly comical effect. As each couple left the room, the rest of us were required to get up and seat ourselves in the row in front of us. It seemed like an absurdly unnecessary procedure, but the mayor insisted upon it. So, we did it, obediently, as instructed.

The ceremony was done in French, the official language of Chad. This put K, a monolinguist at the time, at a disadvantage. Oddly however, notwithstanding the fact that she could not understand a word that was being spoken, she somehow picked up on some things that I was hoping she wouldn’t notice.

The most problematic was the little speech that the mayor gave before each marriage. It began like this: L’homme il es chef de la famille; ce que il dit, la femme doit suivre. (The man, he is head of the family; what he says, the woman must adhere to.) The moment those words came out of his mouth for the first time, K turned to me and said, “What did he just say?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I whispered. “Just say oui when he says it to us.”

The Grand Finale 

Being a university teacher gave me privileged status with the embassy that the other Peace Corps volunteers did not enjoy. On top of the list of privileges was that my fellow university prof and I were often invited to embassy functions. The embassy crew generally looked down upon Peace Corps volunteers, but it was diplomatic to invite one or two to such events, and the ambassador’s wife seemed to believe that university teachers were the least reprehensible. So, we eventually became friendly with several embassy personnel.

One couple in particular adopted us socially. And when they found out about our dismal wedding, they offered to throw us a party. It was a full-blown affair, with music and food and several dozen invited guests. There was even a two-tiered wedding cake, with a miniature plastic bride and groom on top.

And so, despite setbacks and unanticipated surprises, we had everything we could ever have hoped for… just in different places and in a different order.

Bits and Pieces 

Networking at Art Basel 

Art Basel is probably the most important art event in the world these days. If you are even marginally involved in the contemporary art game, getting to one of their several shows each year is the cultural equivalent of traveling to Mecca.

On Tuesday, Number 3 Son MCF and I spent the late afternoon and evening at the Miami show with TR and LC, two amazing people recommended to me by ABO, my main client’s PR director.

A few months ago, TR and LC had spent an evening with me and my partner in the art business, talking about how they could help us promote my Central American Modernist collection, as well as Central American art generally.

Before I met them, I wrongly assumed they were from Baltimore, where my main client is located. I thought they had a small PR shop there. Note to future self: Before meeting a new business contact, do some research!. It turns out they are very successful movers and shakers among the hippest of the hip in NYC. And, along with Paris, NYC is the world’s capital of contemporary and modern art.

TR and LC are each remarkable in their own ways. LC has an amazing story of clawing her way to the top through curiosity, humility, and unflagging determination. TR, a black man, had a privileged background as the child of a very accomplished father and equally accomplished stepmom, and a childhood immersed in intellectual and cultural opportunities. I quickly developed a man crush on TR (as ABO had predicted) because we share many of the same interests, and because his personality – huge and magnanimous and magnetic – compliments my reticent grumpiness in some surprisingly congruous way.

TR and LC gave MCF and me a three-hour, VIP-guided tour of the show. LC answered my many questions about how the Art Basel sector of the art market works, while TR was breaking from us every two or three minutes to hug it out with a range of Art Basel influencers and celebrities, including artists and dealers and models and famous and wealthy collectors.

Afterwards, we went to Red Rooster, which is one of three such restaurants under the banner of celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, who (of course) hugged it out with TR before giving us a personal tour of what turned out to be a very cool restaurant. A must-see the next time you are in Miami.

I am not accustomed to the sort of constant celebrity interactions that are apparently normal in TR’s quotidian life. I’ve had my share of interactions with wealthy and successful people, and occasionally with sports and Hollywood superstars, but I’ve never seen anyone so connected to celebrities as TR.

And here’s the thing: These rich and powerful people seemed genuinely thrilled to be able to hug it out with TR. And he seemed equally happy to be hugging it out with them.

I’m telling you this story because it corroborates something I learned 30 years ago: There is more than one way to skin the cat of success. Genius is one. Relentless hard work is another. And then there is a third way that TR personifies: Pure charisma.

For someone like me, (a relentless hard worker), meeting someone in any field of endeavor that has achieved much through hard work and persistence is both agreeable and also comforting. But having the chance to meet someone that can obviate much of the work and stress through charisma and good will is… well, it’s downright inspiring!

The “Languishing” Cure 

Most of what self-help gurus tell us about living a productive and fulfilling life is delusional. That’s so because they define “productive and fulfilling” in terms of achieving career success or making lots of money or becoming “all that you can be” or by finding the perfect “soulmate,” etc.

Such notions are not new. Yet they persist despite the fact that they are proven wrong every day. The true elements of a good life are not secrets. They are there for us to learn every time we take a moment to contemplate the question.

And the answers are not new either. They were discovered and explained thousands of years ago in virtually every literate civilization since the advent of human thinking. But Homo sapiens, however capable in other ways, learn the important things only through experience. And so, we need to be reminded of those things constantly and continually.

In the days of Confucius and Aristotle, that was the work of poets and philosophers. Today, psychologists and sociologists claim this fertile ground.

In a TED Talk I watched last week, Adam Grant presents his view on how to live well and fully in modern terms. Discussing how he escaped a pandemic-induced slump into ennui by playing video games with his family, he identifies the problem as “languishing.”

Before you watch it, a warning: His understanding of this problem is superficial. But don’t let that dismay you. What can you expect from a person in his 30s?

What he gets right – or almost right – is his formula for having meaningful experiences. He says it is a matter of mastering, mindfulness, and mattering.

Click here.

Lucian Freud Fraudulently Asserts His Painting Is a Fraud 

Almost 25 years ago, a Swiss art collector bought a Lucian Freud painting – a full-length male nude – at auction. Soon thereafter, he received a call from the artist, asking to buy it from him. The collector politely refused.

Freud called him again. “I’ll give you more than you paid, I’ll double it,” Freud said (according to the collector). Once again, the collector demurred.

Freud became irate. “In that case,” he shouted, “I will never authenticate that painting. You will never be able to sell it!”

And to the collector’s dismay, Freud kept his word.

After Freud’s death, the collector did not give up. He requested and received three independent evaluations that all concluded the painting was genuine.

“Standing Male Nude” by Lucian Freud

Photograph: Courtesy of Thierry Navarro 

It seems that Freud’s desperation to acquire the painting had been sparked by

embarrassment, because the male nude appears to be a self-portrait. He was famous for his female nudes and for philandering with his models. But he painted this one, according to the story, during a period of time when he was experimenting with homosexuality. He gave the painting to the great artist Francis Bacon, with whom he had an affair followed by a falling out. Bacon apparently abandoned it.

You can read more about it here.

Shoplifting Mania Continues in California 

You’ve heard about all the shoplifting going on in California, and in San Francisco in particular.

A recent example: 80 people drove their cars up to Nordstrom’s Walnut Creek store, blockaded the entry, and ransacked the place, getting away with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of luxury goods before returning to their idling cars and driving away.

Fox News considers this to be criminal behavior. But those of us that are more enlightened understand it for what is really is: legitimate, non-violent social action by oppressed and victimized minorities.

And when we watch the footage on TV, these mass shoplifting events become even more admirable: a form of performance art, where dozens of actors and artists put on a beautifully choreographed display of correcting wealth equality in one of America’s wealthiest cities.

 I’m sorry to report that the grinch that runs Best Buy doesn’t see it that way. In a call with Wall Street analysts last week to discuss earnings, he accused the social justice warriors/performance artists with “aggressive” behavior and claimed, falsely, that they were “traumatizing” company employees.

He said that they “often carry in weapons like guns or crowbars” and they “threaten employees and customers.” So Best Buy has begun locking up products and hiring more security.

When questioned on this fascist tactic, the CEO admitted that locking up “creates a delay in the customer experience as an employee is required to open up an enclosure each time for the customer.”

He went on to say that San Francisco and other parts of California were “hot spots for criminal activity,” but there were problematic areas in other parts of the country as well.

So far, despite the CEO’s false statements and inflammatory language, Biden has not ordered the Justice Department to investigate him.

New Study Confirms: Natural Immunity Is Better 

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that people that have recovered from COVID-19 have very little risk of contracting the disease again.

Researchers in Qatar examined a cohort of over 353,000 people between Feb. 28, 2020 and April 28, 2021. After excluding approximately 87,500 people with a vaccination record, they identified 1,304 reinfections.

What that means: Less than one-half of 1% (0.4%) of people with natural immunity got the disease a second time.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases expert at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote on Twitter that the “study adds to the growing body of research that indicates that people who have recovered from COVID-19 enjoy high levels of immunity against reinfection, and even higher protection against severe disease and death.”

What the Media Didn’t Tell You About the Waukesha Parade Tragedy 

The headlines announced the terrible news: A red Ford SUV crashed into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on November 21., killing 6 people and injuring 62 others.

A video shot by someone shows the speeding vehicle coming behind the parade and then ramming into and running over the victims.

If you followed up on the story, hoping to find out who did it, and why, you would have been disappointed. Most of the early stories didn’t mention the driver’s name or identify him in any way. But it was reported that he might have been pursued by the police, trying to get away after a traffic accident or some such thing. You might have even thought, “Why did the police force him into that crowd of people?”

But then if you continued to follow the story by looking at alternative media sites, you would have gradually pieced together the facts.

1. The driver was not running away from anything. He was on a murderous mission. His intent was to mow down innocent people.
2. He was not deranged or clinically insane. He was a violent criminal with a long rap sheet.
3. In fact, he had recently been bailed out of jail for (allegedly) trying to run down the mother of his child under one of the new easy-bail-out policies that have been touted as social justice by the mainstream media.
4. He was a politically active person with a history of media posts expressing his racially biased views.
5. But, no, he wasn’t a White Supremacist.

Worth Quoting 

* “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” – Mother Teresa

* “The greatest wealth is to live contently with little.” – Plato

* “A great man is always willing to be little.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

3 Words I’m Trying to Work Into My Conversations 

* Gubbins comes from an old French word for scraps or bits and pieces of something. When it crossed over into the English language, it became British slang for an object of little value; a useless person. (“You silly gubbins!”)

* To pronk – from the Dutch for to strut or show off – is to leap high into the air. The word is usually used to describe the way animals like gazelles do it by lifting all four feet off the ground simultaneously with an arched back and stiff legs.

* A yooper is a nickname for a native of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – i.e., a U.P.er.

“A Better High-School Reading List” 

JM sent me this article from the National Review… and I thought it was great.

“In their enthusiasm for children to read the classics,” say the editors, “school curricula often kill love of literature in students by requiring them to read difficult books without considering readability or purpose.” The article then goes on to make 9 suggestions “to better prepare students for a life of great books.”

The suggestions include:

* The Sun Also Rises instead of The Great Gatsby

* All the King’s Men instead of Ethan Frome

* Salem’s Lot instead of Dracula

* Benito Cereno instead of Moby Dick

* A Tale of Two Cities instead of David Copperfield

Click here to read the entire list, and the very good arguments for making these changes.

Bits and Pieces 

Inflation: What the latest numbers mean to you 

You have probably heard the Republicans criticizing the Biden administration for goosing up inflation. And you may not know if it’s true. Or, if it is true, how it happened – and, most importantly, what it means to you.

It actually means many things, and we’ll be talking about some of them in future blog posts. But for now, you should understand one very simple thing. America’s benchmark inflation index grew by about 6.2% for the 12-month period ending in October. And, unfortunately for savers, bank accounts paid practically zero interest this year. So though you may have the same number of dollars in your account as you had last year, the purchasing power of those dollars – i.e., what you can buy with them – has diminished at that same 6.2% rate.

But… the art market is surging! 

However, if you own fine art, you’ve been the beneficiary of inflation. Not just monetary inflation, but a surge of demand among the ultra-wealthy that has sent the fine art market soaring. Click here.

Interesting Fact 

I was surprised to learn that many of my favorite Christmas songs – pop standards from the 1920s to the mid-1960s that are included in what is now known as “The Great American Songbook” – were written by Jewish songwriters.

Some examples:

* “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and “A Holly, Jolly Christmas” by Johnny Marks

* “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” by Mel Torme

* “Let It Snow” by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne

* “Silver Bells” by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston

And, of course…

* “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin

When Customer Complaints Were Taken Less Seriously 

America’s sue-everyone-for-anything culture was in its infancy in 1974, when a sports fan wrote the management of the Cleveland Stadium to complain about a dangerous new audience “pastime.”

Gentlemen:

I am one of your season ticket holders who attends or tries to attend every game. It appears that one of the pastimes of several fans has become the sailing of paper airplanes generally made out of the game program. As you know, there is the risk of serious eye injury and perhaps an ear injury as a result of such airplanes. I am sure that this has been called to your attention and that several of your ushers and policemen witnessed the same.

Please be advised that since you are in a position to control or terminate such action on the part of fans, I will hold you responsible for any injury sustained by any person in my party attending one of your sporting events. It is hoped that this disrespectful and possibly dangerous activity will be terminated.

Very truly yours,

Dale O. Cox

Days later, Mr. Cox received the following letter in response:

(Source: Letters of Note)

Good (but Not Great) News

On October 7, I wrote about Julius Jones, an innocent man on Oklahoma’s death row. Jones was scheduled to be executed on November 18. But last week, thanks to the intervention of The Innocence Project, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt commuted Jones’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

I’m very happy that Oklahoma will not be executing Julius – but I also know that life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit is not a satisfactory solution.

If you’d like to pass along this news, you can do so here Twitter and here Instagram.

Meanwhile, South Korea is jumping on the “metaverse” bandwagon 

The South Korean capital city is promoting itself as a digital city. The working title: “Metaverse Seoul.”

The goal is to “enable seamless interaction of citizens with the state.”

Among the planned features: digital cultural events, digital tourist sites, and digital avatars to handle (real or digital) official municipal complaints.

The city has invested 3.9 billion South Korean won (about 3.3 million US dollars) in the 10-year project.

Click here.

What’s with Beeple? 

Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist better known as Beeple, was on Jimmy Fallon recently, talking about how he went from selling work for $100 to becoming one of the richest living artists in less than one year by selling his NFTs.

Watch the clip here.

Russell Brand talks about his purple belt 

I know Russell Brand first as a comedian with a cool and quirky sense of humor, then as a surprisingly good actor, and recently as a social commentator – a dangerous thing to do, considering his other professions.

But I was surprised to learn that he is also a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), something I’ve been doing as a sport and exercise for the past 25 years.

 What distinguished BJJ from many other martial arts was, until recently, the ranking system. You could not buy or practice your way into a belt promotion. You received one only after proving yourself in competition with others in your rank.

Here’s Brand, explaining, quite movingly, what his purple belt means to him.

Speaking of wrestling… 

Steve Ludwin, rocker, influencer, and world-famous expert in rejuvenation through snake venom injections, sent me this note:

Mark – I know you like wrestling. This was yesterday after my 55th birthday and I am very sore today.

Here he is, “wrestling” with one of his snakes to Shane MacGowan’s “The Snake With the Eyes of Garnet”…

3 Words I’m Trying to Work Into My Conversations 

* Ineffable – from the Latin for “unutterable” – means incapable of being expressed in words. Example: “The beauty of a sunset is ineffable.” The word can also refer to something too taboo to be mentioned. (At one time, “ineffables” was a jocular euphemism for “trousers.”)

* A batten is a strip of wood nailed across parallel boards to hold them together. Thus, the nautical term “batten down the hatches” means to cover the hatches with a tarp and nail it down with battens to make it secure.

* Untoward (“not” + “toward”) means not having the inclination to or for something; unruly; difficult to manage. Example: “His untoward behavior forced the professor to banish him from her class.”

Two Poems About War… and Death 

 Ah! Here’s something!

A response to the November 13 issue, where I talked about how much I liked Alan Ginsberg’s poem Howl, and how it had a powerful effect on me when I first read it in my late teens.

The email is from AS, a fellow writer:

I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never read Ginsberg. But from the small sample in your blog today, I think one would need to take Prozac prior to reading his works. In my darkest days, the things I wrote would be seen as comedy compared to him.

Hmm. I know AS. In his lightest days, his view of the world is 10 shades darker than Howl.

I read Howl as a poem of celebration – even exaltation.

I don’t mean to sound like a total ass here, but this is what is so great about art. The same expression – whether it’s a film or a painting or a poem – can elicit such different responses.

What better way to spur a real conversation? I love it when this happens!

At the end of his email, AS then “recommends” two poems that he says I “would never read”:

* On the Wire by Robert Service

* I Have a Rendezvous With Death by Alan Seeger

In fact, I’ve already read or heard them read at least a dozen times. They were written long before I was born, but were very popular in the 1950s and throughout the Vietnam War years.

They share some similarities:

* They were both written during WWI.

* They are both about death – the death of the speaker.

* They both became part of the common culture, at the level of Rudyard Kipling’s If…

But one is much better than the other. And, no, it’s not a matter of opinion. I have it straight from… well, let’s just say, “I’m right.”

So that’s what today’s assignment will be. Read these two poems and let me know what you think.

I Have a Rendezvous With Death

By Alan Seeger 

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air –
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath –
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Alan Seeger 

Alan Seeger was born in New York City in 1888 and died in 1916. He was killed in action in World War I during the Battle of the Somme, while serving in the French Foreign Legion. A statue representing him is on the monument in Paris that honors fallen Americans who volunteered for France during the war. Poems, a collection of his works, was published posthumously by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

On the Wire

By Robert William Service 

O God, take the sun from the sky!
It’s burning me, scorching me up.
God, can’t You hear my cry?
Water! A poor, little cup!
It’s laughing, the cursed sun!
See how it swells and swells
Fierce as a hundred hells!
God, will it never have done?
It’s searing the flesh on my bones;
It’s beating with hammers red
My eyeballs into my head;
It’s parching my very moans.
See! It’s the size of the sky,
And the sky is a torrent of fire,
Foaming on me as I lie

Here on the wire… the wire….

Of the thousands that wheeze and hum
Heedlessly over my head,
Why can’t a bullet come,
Pierce to my brain instead,
Blacken forever my brain,
Finish forever my pain?
Here in the hellish glare
Why must I suffer so?
Is it God doesn’t care?
Is it God doesn’t know?
Oh, to be killed outright,
Clean in the clash of the fight!
That is a golden death,
That is a boon; but this…
Drawing an anguished breath
Under a hot abyss,
Under a stooping sky
Of seething, sulphurous fire,

Scorching me up as I lie
Here on the wire… the wire….

Hasten, O God, Thy night!
Hide from my eyes the sight
Of the body I stare and see
Shattered so hideously.
I can’t believe that it’s mine.
My body was white and sweet,
Flawless and fair and fine,
Shapely from head to feet;
Oh no, I can never be
The thing of horror I see
Under the rifle fire,
Trussed on the wire… the wire….

Of night and of death I dream;
Night that will bring me peace,
Coolness and starry gleam,
Stillness and death’s release:
Ages and ages have passed,
Lo! it is night at last.
Night! but the guns roar out.
Night! but the hosts attack.
Red and yellow and black
Geysers of doom upspout.
Silver and green and red
Star-shells hover and spread.
Yonder off to the right
Fiercely kindles the fight;
Roaring near and more near,
Thundering now in my ear;
Close to me, close… Oh, hark!
Someone moans in the dark.
I hear, but I cannot see,
I hear as the rest retire,
Someone is caught like me,
Caught on the wire… the wire….

Again the shuddering dawn,
Weird and wicked and wan;
Again, and I’ve not yet gone.
The man whom I heard is dead.
Now I can understand:
A bullet hole in his head,
A pistol gripped in his hand.
Well, he knew what to do, –
Yes, and now I know too….

Hark the resentful guns!
Oh , how thankful am I
To think my beloved ones
Will never know how I die!
I’ve suffered more than my share;
I’m shattered beyond repair;
I’ve fought like a man the fight,
And now I demand the right
(God! how his fingers cling!)
To do without shame this thing.
Good! there’s a bullet still;
Now I’m ready to fire;
Blame me, God, if You will,
Here on the wire… the wire….

Robert William Service 

Robert Service, a British-Canadian of Scottish descent, was 40 when World War I broke out. He attempted to enlist, but was turned down. He briefly covered the war for the Toronto Star. He then worked as a stretcher bearer and ambulance driver with the American Red Cross “until his health broke.” Convalescing in Paris, he wrote a new book of mainly war poetry, Rhymes of a Red Cross Man. The book was dedicated to the memory of his brother, who had been killed in action in France. Service received three medals for his war service: the 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.