American Fez

It's becoming increasingly clear that the Music of the Spheres was composed for the banjo; that angels play bongo drums instead of harps; that the sound of heavenly choirs is just the chintzy ringtone from an anonymous burner phone. I've always thought Orpheus was tone-deaf. It's just that ancient melodies were so plinkety-plonkety discordant that nobody back then ever suspected the truth. Virgil can say what he likes, but this is clearly the real reason why Eurydice returned to the underworld: she preferred the relative peace and quiet of Hades to her husband's endless cacophony.  Frankly, we'd all be better off sitting in silence than listening to the caterwaul of the world. There's always the song of the wind; the natural rhythm of the rain; the symphonic sweep of the sunrise and sunset's great aria; even an October day's mellow concerto for tuba and trombone.  Well, we could enjoy those consolations if the wind's song wasn't stifled by the so...

The first of October's leaves fall in a flurry of gold, forming a carpet of crisp Krugerrands; a pumpkin-lined path lit by a low sun leading towards Hallowe'en. Well, at least that's what the leaves do in an unemployed poet's mind. The putrefying truth is very different. Actually, their fall is more like the slow drip of dirty brown water from a rusty tap into a broken sink, its drain long since blocked by a shapeless mass of slimy human hair and soap scum. But we lyricists must keep the Autumnal myth alive in this so-called 'Spooky Season' of frauds and hollow fruitlessness. Alas, Johnny Appleseed now orders online from the comfort of his climate-controlled condominium. 'Made in China, our new indoor apple orchard provides enough apples to bake fifteen ersatz apple pies or ferment fifty gallons of apple cider vinegar. Your choice, it's a free country after all.' Johnny chooses to do the pies. Unfortunately only one is Instagram worthy so the rest go...

'Imagine you're an astronaut experiencing significant gravitational force during blast-off,' I told myself while almost horizontal in the dentist's chair, my poor face exhibiting a ridiculous rictus grin. 'Per ardua ad astra,' as they say in sky pilot circles. Being called from the waiting room certainly felt like exiting Earth's atmosphere; and entering this surgical room a good approximation of climbing into some NASA rocket's capsule.  Now, after the novocaine, I'm drifting in outer space between hitherto unknown nebulas and hazy stars. That overhead lamp has become double moons, quickly eclipsed by a Martian warlord wearing mint-green scrubs, who approaches with his science-fiction tools of tooth and gum torture.  But I am Captain Fez, trained to withstand any pain in the known Universe, even a root canal like the one that made Flash Gordon cry.  Meanwhile, in another stratosphere, strands of silvery dental floss are sucked into a Black Hole that...

Sometimes I feel like an old library book: a musty hardback that has lost its dust-cover, with yellowed pages and coffee stains, and a few confusing sentences underlined in ballpoint pen. There's an abandoned bookmark inserted at chapter twelve, as far as most readers get before giving up. After all, the hero is not that engaging, never mind actually heroic. The plot is pretty much non-existent and you know who is the murderer is when you're only about halfway through. So it's more of a Why Would Anyone Bother rather than Whodunnit type of mystery. Last borrowed in 1975 according to the librarian's stamp, apparently by mistake. Still, even though it's just a predictable novel about nothing in particular, at least it's a book. And it's better than feeling like the local supermarket circular, with which many citizens I see out on the street must secretly identify. Stare into their eyes and you will see 'on-sale' coupons for fruit flavored cans of soda....

As the leaves make their final farewells to the trees, I also bid adieu to Cedar Street. I was watching the world from my window when I made the decision to depart. There has to be a room with a better view than this, I told myself; a superior rectangle of world somewhere else that's more inspiring that this present portrait of quotidian ennui.  Perhaps it was just the net curtain irritating my face again, but I knew it was time to move on. Just take a look for yourself: Commuter traffic struggles over the speed bumps in the street. The mailman shuffles down the sidewalk with his burden of unwanted consumer catalogs and credit card bills. Screaming children are dragged to school by exhausted parents. A homeless man collapses on the curb wondering where it all went wrong. All the neighborhood front and back yards have been paved over, so the early bird can catch no worm, fluttering aimlessly from wire to wire instead. And in the nooks and crannies of the cul-de-sac, a stray dog that...

I never understood why the protagonist in 'Eat, Pray, Love' traveled to three different countries to sample food, transcendence, and romance. Elizabeth Gilbert could easily have experienced all three in Naples and saved on her airfare.  After all, Napoli, besides being the home of pizza, is also a city of many fascinating churches and Sophia Loren. Its centro storico is quite different than the lungomare or the affluent neighborhood of Chiaia, so Elizabeth could at least feel like she was visiting three different environments despite remaining within the confines of the capital of Campania. But I would never presume to find fault with the logic of an international bestseller (although such editorial changes would certainly have reduced the budget of the movie adaptation). In fact, with enough ITA Airways air miles, a smart person could Eat, Pray, Love for free in Napoli. Well, the pizza would be about ten euros or so. Entering the Duomo is free but you'd surely leave a do...