LBJs:

*Last night I saw all five of the ancient planets at once, lined up along the ecliptic from horizon to zenith: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter. Very arresting. I can only imagine what an ancient astronomer would have thought of that, but I'm betting at least part of his reaction, whether in Chaldean, Egyptian or Greek, would have best been translated as "Cool."

*There's something about Our Town that I continue to find enormously moving, even though I can fault it on a variety of levels. It's too scattershot, the New England dialect comes and goes in an irritating fashion, and characters can be both too self-revealing and too closed-mouthed within a couple of lines. At the same time, though, it touches on things that have meaning, and touches on them in a way that evokes emotions deep in the reader's heart, even if it sometimes frustrates his ear or his head. As the Stage Manager says, "Now there are some things we all know, but we don't take'm out and look at'm very often." Wilder's great strength in this play, I think, was knowing what to take out and look at.

*The goldfinches have returned to Virginia, so it's officially spring at last. At the same time, in the past two weeks we've had several days where the high temperature was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and we had a freeze just a couple of nights ago. I don't know what the hell season it is anymore.

*Bobblehead dolls: another sign that our national pastime isn't baseball or football, but rather preying the obsessive-compulsive.

*I was a big fan of Quaker Oats cereals in my youth. My favorites were Quisp and Quake. Quisp was essentially Cap'n Crunch molded into small saucer-like shapes; it had the same slightly buttery texture and the intense sugar rush, but there was something satisfying about the way the milk collected in the concave side of the saucer, and I liked the cereal's little propeller-headed alien namesake. Quake was crunchier, less buttery, and came molded in slightly ragged rings, kind of like small grommets or nuts. Its namesake was originally a beefy guy in a red t-shirt and a hard hat, but not for long. When I was five or six, I was horrified to see a commercial where Quake himself fell into a machine that was turning the old cereal into New and Improved Quake, and he himself came out New and Improved--suddenly he was a trim, freckled redhead wearing a cape and a cowboy hat with one brim turned smartly up. It was grotesque--he'd fallen into a meat grinder and come out mockery of himself.

I knew that was the beginning of the end for poor Quake. Even when Quaker Oats used him to spin off my favorite cereal ever--Orange Quangaroos--I could look into his face and see a glimpse of despair behind the chiseled features. He had become something inhuman, something plastic and false, with its soul lashed to the bottom line like Prometheus to the side of the mountain. And god help me, I gnawed on that poor degraded bastard's liver myself.

When the end came, and they quit making the cereal, it was far too late.

Some say American innocence died at the Watergate hotel one night in 1972. I say it never died. It just metamorphosized into something inhuman, glossy and disgusting--a Saturday morning version of Gregor Samsa.


1:16 PM

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Some of my best friends are--

There's just no way that sentence can end except in trouble, is there?

--as I was saying, some of my best friends are permanently decorated in various ways. Some have topological enhancements, usually new holes added to their ears, or sometimes nose, or sometimes something else that isn't always on public display. Others are topologically no different than they were at birth, but bear two-dimensional adornments of some kind, usually on the skin.

It's a fascinating subject for consideration, no question, and yet I can safely say that I have no interest whatsoever in being pierced or dyed. When I was growing up, it was a Statement for a guy to get his ear pierced, though I'll confess I was never entirely sure what the statement was. "I'm no conformist!" or something perhaps, a message that necessarily became more and more muted every time another guy got his ear pierced. Eventually I felt as though I could demonstrate my nonconformity merely by baring my untreated, unadorned lobes to the world, and better still, I saved some money in the process. Actually, I just spend all my earring money on my wife, who has ears that are good and pierced, and who seems perfectly content with that.

Tattoos are a slightly different thing. Some tattoos look cool, I'll admit--there's something balanced and appealing about a ring around an ankle or biceps. At the same time, I feel an aversion to tattoos that isn't really rational. Maybe it's cultural; my mom's family is Jewish, and for Jews, tattoos carry a lot of baggage, at least since World War II. I think a big part of my aversion, though, is simply the permanence of the tattoo; piercings may heal, and jewelry can always be removed, but you can't take a tattoo out before bed, or shop for a new one with which to replace the old one. You're counting on your aesthetic tastes to remain the same for all time, and that's something of a gamble, as Homer Simpson realized when he discovered his forgotten tattoo: "'Starland Vocal Band'? But they suck!" Kelly insists she's going to get a tattoo when she turns 50; maybe by then her tastes will be a little more settled, but personally I feel 20 years is plenty of time to change my mind about something, which is why I no longer drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, eat cheese from a spray can, believe in leprechauns, or think Styx was a better band than the Ramones.

Am I rationalizing? Quite possibly. Maybe I just don't want holes poked in me, or ink sprayed under sensitive parts of my anatomy because it will hurt. But somehow, I don't think I'm a good candidate for permanent body art. I can't even decide what I want to do with my chin hair, after all, and that grows back.

1:30 PM

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