RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

I heard the president trying to pass the blame off on North Korea’s nuclear status on the Clinton administration. I am only one man and I have little time for research. Therefore let me refer you to a fun and informative video. The people at Frontline are many and well resourced. Please watch this episode regarding both administrations approaches towards NK. It’s broken down into manageable shorter videos.  [link]

Yesterday, I mentioned that my girlfriend often asks why I’m so distrustful of ruralites. Today I come to you with a different question she often asks me, why do I care about the Toynbee tiles.

I don’t actually understand the question. How could I not care? First off, they’re a Philly mystery. Secondly, they’re laid in the dead of night, have a strange and esoteric message, are created and presented on a completely unique medium, and (having spread all over the country and even the hemisphere) are a tremendous success. The person behind them takes no credit for them, the idea being the only reason for their existence. Beyond even this, they’re conspiratorial, sci-fi inspired and beautiful pieces of art. Finally, the mystery is incredibly fun to research, with bizarre plot turns and magical coincidences occurring with such starting frequency that my very ideas regarding the fabric of the universe and of life itself are often solidified and sometimes even shaped by the process of this research.

That’s all what interests me about them.

But anyway, one of these ‘coincidences’ took place the other night on a trip back from Connecticut. The Resurrect Dead team successfully filmed the solitary new school tile beyond the Philadelphia area. For some reason it was glued at exit 55 off I-95 in Connecticut. But while finding out about that tile was a coincidence in itself, it’s not the magic thing I’m talking about.

On the way home, we stopped at a New Jersey rest area a little over an hour from Philadelphia. I was absolutely certain there was a tile there. Now maybe I saw this tile on one of my many trips up the Jersey Turnpike sometime in the last decade. Maybe the tile at Molly Pitcher rest area was buried somewhere deep in my subconscious. But my certainty felt more like intuition than subconscious knowledge. (assuming there’s a difference between the two…)

You can say that tile research requires you to tune into some bizarre frequency. (probably somewhere around 6.25 megacycles) At any rate, Molly Pitcher rest area felt very, very right. To quote Colin, I searched the place “like a drug-sniffing dog in Colombia” but found nothing. As we started to pull out, my eyes were trained on something that looked like a fast food bag crushed into the pavement. As we passed over it, I saw that it was actually a fractured old-school tile. Of course we had to stop and film the thing. Here are a few photos of that discovery.

Since I don’t feel like writing anything, please enjoy Edgar Allen Poe’s 1844 classic, Morning on the Wissahickon. (aka The Elk) It’s written about that beautiful section of Fairmount Park in the Northwest section of the city. I grew up near there and spent a lot of time in some of the very same places he writes about here.

THE NATURAL scenery of America has often been contrasted, in its general features as well as in detail, with the landscape of the Old World- more especially of Europe- and not deeper has been the enthusiasm, than wide the dissension, of the supporters of each region. The discussion is one not likely to be soon closed, for, although much has been said on both sides, a word more yet remains to be said.The most conspicuous of the British tourists who have attempted a comparison, seem to regard our northern and eastern seaboard, comparatively speaking, as all of America, at least, as all of the United States, worthy consideration. They say little, because they have seen less, of the gorgeous interior scenery of some of our western and southern districts- of the vast valley of Louisiana, for example,- a realization of the wildest dreams of paradise. For the most part, these travellers content themselves with a hasty inspection of the natural lions of the land- the Hudson, Niagara, the Catskills, Harper’s Ferry, the lakes of New York, the Ohio, the prairies, and the Mississippi. These, indeed, are objects well worthy the contemplation even of him who has just clambered by the castellated Rhine, or roamed

By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone; but these are not all of which we can boast; and, indeed, I will be so hardy as to assert that there are innumerable quiet, obscure, and scarcely explored nooks, within the limits of the United States, that, by the true artist, or cultivated lover of the grand and beautiful amid the works of God, will be preferred to each and to all of the chronicled and better accredited scenes to which I have referred.

In fact, the real Edens of the land lie far away from the track of our own most deliberate tourists–how very far, then, beyond the reach of the foreigner, who, having made with his publisher at home arrangements for a certain amount of comment upon America, to be furnished in a stipulated period, can hope to fulfil his agreement in no other manner than by steaming it, memorandum–book in hand, through only the most beaten thoroughfares of the country!

I mentioned, just above, the valley of Louisiana. Of all extensive areas of natural loveliness, this is perhaps the most lovely. No fiction has approached it. The most gorgeous imagination might derive suggestions from its exuberant beauty. And beauty is, indeed, its sole character. It has little, or rather nothing, of the sublime. Gentle undulations of soil, interwreathed with fantastic crystallic streams, banked by flowery slopes, and backed by a forest vegetation, gigantic, glossy, multicoloured, sparkling with gay birds and burthened with perfume–these features make up, in the vale of Louisiana, the most voluptuous natural scenery upon earth.

But, even of this delicious region, the sweeter portions are reached only by the bypaths. Indeed, in America generally, the traveller who would behold the finest landscapes, must seek them not by the railroad, nor by the steamboat, not by the stage-coach, nor in his private carriage, not yet even on horseback–but on foot. He must walk, he must leap ravines, he must risk his neck among precipices, or he must leave unseen the truest, the richest, and most unspeakable glories of the land.

Now in the greater portion of Europe no such necessity exists. In England it exists not at all. The merest dandy of a tourist may there visit every nook worth visiting without detriment to his silk stockings; so thoroughly known are all points of interest, and so well-arranged are the means of attaining them. This consideration has never been allowed its due weight, in comparisons of the natural scenery of the Old and New Worlds. The entire loveliness of the former is collated with only the most noted, and with by no means the most eminent items in the general loveliness of the latter.

River scenery has, unquestionably, within itself, all the main elements of beauty, and, time out of mind, has been the favourite theme of the poet. But much of this fame is attributable to the predominance of travel in fluvial over that in mountainous districts. In the same way, large rivers, because usually highways, have, in all countries, absorbed an undue share of admiration. They are more observed, and, consequently, made more the subject of discourse, than less important, but often more interesting streams.

A singular exemplification of my remarks upon this head may be found in the Wissahiccon, a brook, (for more it can scarcely be called,) which empties itself into the Schuylkill, about six miles westward of Philadelphia. Now the Wissahiccon is of so remarkable a loveliness that, were it flowing in England, it would be the theme of every bard, and the common topic of every tongue, if, indeed, its banks were not parcelled off in lots, at an exorbitant price, as building-sites for the villas of the opulent. Yet it is only within a very few years that any one has more than heard of the Wissahiccon, while the broader and more navigable water into which it flows, has been long celebrated as one of the finest specimens of American river scenery. The Schuylkill, whose beauties have been much exaggerated, and whose banks, at least in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, are marshy like those of the Delaware, is not at all comparable, as an object of picturesque interest, with the more humble and less notorious rivulet of which we speak.

It was not until Fanny Kemble, in her droll book about the United States, pointed out to the Philadelphians the rare loveliness of a stream which lay at their own doors, that this loveliness was more than suspected by a few adventurous pedestrians of the vicinity. But, the “Journal” having opened all eyes, the Wissahiccon, to a certain extent, rolled at once into notoriety. I say “to a certain extent,” for, in fact, the true beauty of the stream lies far above the route of the Philadelphian picturesque-hunters, who rarely proceed farther than a mile or two above the mouth of the rivulet–for the very excellent reason that here the carriage-road stops. I would advise the adventurer who would behold its finest points to take the Ridge Road, running westwardly from the city, and, having reached the second lane beyond the sixth mile-stone, to follow this lane to its termination. He will thus strike the Wissahiccon, at one of its best reaches, and, in a skiff, or by clambering along its banks, he can go up or down the stream, as best suits his fancy, and in either direction will meet his reward.

I have already said, or should have said, that the brook is narrow. Its banks are generally, indeed almost universally, precipitous, and consist of high hills, clothed with noble shrubbery near the water, and crowned at a greater elevation, with some of the most magnificent forest trees of America, among which stands conspicuous the liriodendron tulipiferum. The immediate shores, however, are of granite, sharply defined or moss-covered, against which the pellucid water lolls in its gentle flow, as the blue waves of the Mediterranean upon the steps of her palaces of marble. Occasionally in front of the cliffs, extends a small definite plateau of richly herbaged land, affording the most picturesque position for a cottage and garden which the richest imagination could conceive. The windings of the stream are many and abrupt, as is usually the case where banks are precipitous, and thus the impression conveyed to the voyager’s eye, as he proceeds, is that of an endless succession of infinitely varied small lakes, or, more properly speaking, tarns. The Wissahiccon, however, should be visited, not like “fair Melrose,” by moonlight, or even in cloudy weather, but amid the brightest glare of a noonday sun; for the narrowness of the gorge through which it flows, the height of the hills on either hand, and the density of the foliage, conspire to produce a gloominess, if not an absolute dreariness of effect, which, unless relieved by a bright general light, detracts from the mere beauty of the scene.

Not long ago I visited the stream by the route described, and spent the better part of a sultry day in floating in a skiff upon its bosom. The heat gradually overcame me, and, resigning myself to the influence of the scenes and of the weather, and of the gentle moving current, I sank into a half slumber, during which my imagination revelled in visions of the Wissahiccon of ancient days–of the “good old days” when the Demon of the Engine was not, when picnics were undreamed of, when “water privileges” were neither bought nor sold, and when the red man trod alone, with the elk, upon the ridges that now towered above. And, while gradually these conceits took possession of my mind, the lazy brook had borne me, inch by inch, around one promontory and within full view of another that bounded the prospect at the distance of forty or fifty yards. It was a steep rocky cliff, abutting far into the stream, and presenting much more of the Salvator character than any portion of the shore hitherto passed. What I saw upon this cliff, although surely an object of very extraordinary nature, the place and season considered, at first neither startled nor amazed me–so thoroughly and appropriately did it chime in with the half-slumberous fancies that enwrapped me. I saw, or dreamed that I saw, standing upon the extreme verge of the precipice, with neck outstretched, with ears erect, and the whole attitude indicative of profound and melancholy inquisitiveness, one of the oldest and boldest of those identical elks which had been coupled with the red men of my vision.

I say that, for a few moments, this apparition neither startled nor amazed me. During this interval my whole soul was bound up in intense sympathy alone. I fancied the elk repining, not less than wondering, at the manifest alterations for the worse, wrought upon the brook and its vicinage, even within the last few years, by the stern hand of the utilitarian. But a slight movement of the animal’s head at once dispelled the dreaminess which invested me, and aroused me to a full sense of novelty of the adventure. I arose upon one knee within the skiff, and, while I hesitated whether to stop my career, or let myself float nearer to the object of my wonder, I heard the words “hist!” “hist!” ejaculated quickly but cautiously, from the shrubbery overhead. In an instant afterwards, a negro emerged from the thicket, putting aside the bushes with care, and treading stealthily. He bore in one hand a quantity of salt, and, holding it towards the elk, gently yet steadily approached. The noble animal, although a little fluttered, made no attempt at escape. The negro advanced; offered the salt; and spoke a few words of encouragement or conciliation. Presently, the elk bowed and stamped, and then lay quietly down and was secured with a halter.

Thus ended my romance of the elk. It was a pet of great age and very domestic habits, and belonged to an English family occupying a villa in the vicinity.

High above the Wissahickon Valley, in the Northwest of the city sits Mom Rinker’s Rock. On top of the rock is a statue of a dapper looking Quaker. Scrawled across the base of the statue is the word “toleration.”

Mom Rinker herself was either a spy who ratted out British troop movements from her high perch, or a revolutionary era witch who leapt to her death (or possibly flew away) from the rock. Edgar Allen Poe used to sit at the rock and write. (I’ve been known to do that too, but I’m not Edgar Allen Poe and no one gives a shit where I do or do not write.) Strange Philadelphian, Poe friend and Germantown resident George Lippard famously married “according to Indian rites” at the rock in the mid 19th century. It really is one of the prettiest and most relaxing places in the city.

During high school I used to hang out at Rinker’s Rock. One day, while sitting at the base of the toleration statue I realized that all the gnats buzzing about my head weren’t as annoying as they were necessary elements to the natural world. They were like the static field on which all life is hinged - or if not hinged - at least symbiotically dependent.

Earlier that same day, at the base of the rock, I realized that the gentle whispering I heard behind me was actually the spring breeze cutting through pine needles. That was the first and last time a tree spoke to me in a human voice.

Another night in the pitch-black woods, I summoned all skill and magic to accomplish the impossible. I was atop the rock with a small group of friends. It’s a bulbous, jagged thing that rises about 60 from the trail below. We had just finished what George Lippard might call an ancient Indian smoking rite. A friend was putting away his pipe when it skipped out of his hand and disappeared into the darkness below. I saw it leave his hand and heard it hit the rock twice before silence retook the space below. The small wooden pipe was given up for lost.

About half an hour later we made our way to the base of the rock and started back towards civilization. I looked up into the night and into the arc of the rock’s precipice. I visualized my friend, the pipe and the sound of it striking the rock, ricocheting and spinning wildly and then striking it a second time in a spot some ways below and to the right of the first hit. It was autumn and the ground was covered in brush and leaves. My friends told me to come on, asking what I was doing. I had stopped walking and had stepped off the trail. I said nothing, holding my hand up, asking with a gesture for a moment to finish what I was doing.

I closed my eyes and removed the lighter from my pocket. Taking 3 steps to my left and 2 forward I kneeled at the base of a scraggly bush. Leaning lower I struck the lighter and held it close to the ground. It illuminated about 1 square foot of space. Leaves and brush were all I saw. Still kneeling, I looked back up to the rock and turned to the right by 45 degrees. I relit the lighter, held it to the ground – and there it was – the pipe.

That’s all for now.

Today John Madden was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. Today is the Eagles first pre-season game of the 2006-2007 season. In honor of these two events, here’s a review I once wrote about John Madden’s Ultimate Tailgating Book. READ IT TO THE BITTER END!!!

————

Since I was a little kid, I’ve loved football. When I was about 9 years old, my dad started coming to me on Sunday afternoons, sitting me down in front of the TV, explaining to me the rules of the game. Before too long, I began going to my dad on Sundays. It was our day. Week in, week out, we would sit, watch and despair at the Eagles. Moods were raised and more often crushed by the Philadelphia Eagles constant and unyielding ineptitude. I learned a lot about life on those Sunday afternoons. I learned that ideals are foolish, impossible and unattainable, but never, ever, to give up hope. The Eagles have never let me down in that belief and to this day I defy them to prove me wrong.

Football was not just about futile dreams and dashed hopes. My father also initiated me in football culture on those Sunday afternoons. There would be beer, snacks and obscenely large martinis. My father would give me the gin soaked olives. During my childhood I thought olives were supposed to taste like chewy globules of turpentine. But I learned more about football one October day, than I had in all my father-son Sundays.

I was a little older. Me and some friends decided to go down and see the Eagles play the hated Cowboys. We arrived at Veterans stadium at 11am, 2 hours before kick-off. We had a couple hours to tailgate. We had to drink a lot before kickoff, seeing as alcohol had been banned inside the stadium due to several ‘incidents.’ Like the time the fans pelted Santa Claus with iceballs or the time(s) of the rioting in the upper decks.

A friend had gotten the John Madden tailgating book. It told us how to drink, grill up some meat and paint our bodies like true football maniacs. We had a great time. With John Madden as our companion, we were instant pros. The book also told us that tailgating after the game was an effective way to avoid the traffic jams and the post game mayhem.

The Eagles beat the Cowboys that day. Michael Irvin was critically injured in the process. The semi-sober fans cheered as he was carted off the field, strapped to a stretcher. It was a true Philly sports experience. After the game, we all hung out in the parking lot with our beer and our John Madden companion guide. The book told us not to start driving until we weren’t drunk, so we had some time. At about 6pm, we were among the last in the lot.

It was then that we saw a luxury bus pull up a hundred feet from where we stood. Grease from my burger dripped from my lips as I spotted John Madden just outside the bus. I washed down the burger with a few gulps of Yuengling, wiped my mouth with my sleeve and shouted:

“Hey, that’s John Madden over there. Why don’t you go try to get your book signed Greg?”

My friend, Greg, grabbed his book and stumbled towards John Madden. We followed behind, eager to meet the God of football announcers. As we approached, we realized that sure enough, it was none other than John Madden. Up close he is a magnificent beast. His odor is a powerful musk. The wind whipped through his thin strands of white hair. He used no gel, this was the real thing. Stepping into his formidable shadow, Greg held his hand out to him as a greeting. A smile stretched across Maddens face, his yellowed teeth flashing in the sunset, just behind his thin, cracked lips. We introduced ourselves and struck up a conversation about FOOTBALL. We hit it off from the start. In fact we hit it off so well that Madden invited us out for a night on the town. Pointing to his book, he told us that we were obviously too drunk to drive home anyway.

What I remember of that night was great. We went out to a sports bar, drank and watched FOOTBALL with John Madden. When the days games were complete, Madden took us all to a Jersey strip club. I remember very little after that. Bits and pieces of Maddenisms I heard that night still come to me periodically. Madden is the Shakespeare of football. He is a football idealist. He believes in the essence of the game, the abstract and intangible elements of it. Madden balances reason and metaphor, always, always in the context of FOOTBALL. It was no Sunday with my drunken father. It was Sunday with a drunken John Madden at some sleazy Jersey strip club.

The next morning I woke in a dirty motel room. I was alone and could not find my clothes. I stank of cigarettes and liquor. My head throbbed, my eyes felt as if they were filled with lead and my throat was scratched and bleeding. What I saw next was pure terror and will forever be engrained in my mind. As an image, it has been stamped into my very soul, a memory to be carried with me until the end of time.

I stumbled into the motel living room and flicked on the light. Sitting on the torn up brown polyester sofa was Madden. Drenched in sweat, surrounded by empty beer bottles and completely naked. His massive gut covered his genitals although I could smell them. The odor stung my bleeding throat and I gagged a bit, my eyes still fixed on the beast. His wheezing became louder as he became cognizant of my presence. His head, previously slouched into his wet-hairy-man-breasts, moved. Grunts and snorts came from him as gas roared from his massive buttocks. A low groan, rife with the gurgling of saliva and phlem escaped his throat as his massive head turned slowly in my direction. His ice blue eyes pierced into my very being and a single bead of sweat dropped from his lower lip. The ceiling fan spun unsteadily, throwing rippled shadows of the morning sun in slow motion across the room in a steady, unbalanced rhythm. It was too much. My trance was snapped by that drop of sweat and I realized that my Madden was sitting on my clothing.

I ran naked form the motel. I stood somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike screaming for help. Again I blacked out. I don’t know how I got home that Monday afternoon and I don’t care. I learned more about football that weekend than I may have otherwise learned in a lifetime of Sundays. John Madden takes tailgating to a whole other level. In a way, even with the fragmented memory, it all makes perfect sense. I recommend this book to any football fan. John Madden truly is the essence of FOOTBALL.

Never give up hope.

Many years ago, I wrote for epinions.com. Epinions was a site wherein consumers wrote reviews of the products that they consumed. It still exists, although it’s now a little different. Before the dot com bust, reviewers earned cash. The better the review, the more clicks and the more cash earned. There was a comment system, web of trust and pretty much all the other essential pieces of today’s popular blogs and networking sites. The only difference was that it was centered around product review, not  narcissism, gossip or semi-anonymous sexual encounters.

During my ‘career’ at epinions, I became associated with a small group of dissident reviewers. Largely ignoring actual product review, we’d use the platform for creative, satirical and darkly humorous writing. Eventually I lost interest and at some point after that, epinions decided to block all reviews penned by my handle, liberator76. Because these little gems have been lost to the world, I’ve decided to republish some of them here. The other day, after seeing Cirque du Soleil (free tickets) I remembered my review of the video “Be a Clown.” I went back and read it and then decided to share:

Everyone loves a Clown

Back from break and into my chair at work. I was in no mood for the boss. Alcohol makes me surly. Everyday I cap off my lunch with a couple of shots of vodka from the flask I hide in my right-hand desk drawer. Today I had three times as much. It was a bad day. The boss had been grilling me hard about some reports or something.

I hid in the bathroom stall huddled by the toilet drinking. I was damn tired of pushing paper for “the man,” my boss, Howard Elsner. Hands shaking, I crushed two tablets of my prescription valium on the back of the toilet, scooped it up with a fingernail and snorted it straight. Some of the powder stuck to my sweaty hands. I wiped it off on my stomach hair and left the bathroom.

So, there I was back in my chair. Over my shoulder, I heard the boss.

“Liberator!” He yelled. “Where the hell are those reports?”

“I’ll have them ready tomorrow.” I mumbled. The pencil I held snapped for some reason. Bits of wood flew all over my desk. I must have continued squeezing the jagged shard of pencil, because when I looked down, blood was dripping from my hand and all over my desk. I took a few deep breaths and wiped my hand with a towel from my left-hand desk drawer.

“Are you all right?” Asked one of my co-workers. She wasn’t really concerned. I could tell by the tone of her voice. She didn’t really care. They were all phonies. Damn phonies.

“Fine.”

Life Change

That night at the shooting range I decided to quit my job. After leaving, I stuffed my handgun in my jeans, threw my larger guns in my plain black duffel-bag and went straight to happy hour. After a few drinks I continued on to my neighborhood video store. If I was going to quit, I was going to rent movies and watch them all night. Life was going to be good. And there, at the video store I saw it. The movie that changed my life. The Ringley Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus production: Be A Clown

Nobody Hate’s a Clown

I rented the movie and never returned it. The beast wasn’t getting this little gem back. Be a Clown taught me all the basics of clowning. What to wear, what to say, what gags to pull, how to act, how to react and how to entertain.

I’ve always loved clowns and I’ve always loved children. So small, so innocent, uncorrupted and pure, children are God’s gift to the earth. From his hands to our own, God lays into each child an untainted soul. As a clown, I hoped to recapture some of that innocence. To use it to entertain. To convert my anger to innocent joviality. To capture my breath in a long cylinder of rubber and reshape it into a funny animal. It would be my art, my life. What joy I would bring. What hope. What innocence I would seize hold of, never to let it escape. Never.

The next day I bought my clowning gear. Making up my face was very important. Would I be a smiling clown or a frowning clown? I decided to be a dual personality clown. I painted on my face a wide and happy smile. It stretched from ear to ear. Above my eyes though, I painted my eyebrows at an angle downwards in a scowl. The face most captured my own personality. From then on I wore the clown suit everywhere. At home and in the supermarket. At the bar and on the street, I spread joy everywhere. Nobody hates a clown.

A Joyless World

I found little employment as a clown. No one would hire me. I ended up spending most of my time in the bar. From morning to night, I would drink in that place, my clown-suit sagging, my smile hiding my true emotion. Eventually I was evicted from my apartment. Being unemployed, I couldn’t afford my old life.

With nothing but my clown-suit and my duffel-bag full of guns, I found myself on the street. Wandering alone, a desperate drunken clown, I was lost. When I would see a child I would follow them, sometimes for hours. Eventually I would run to them, dancing and singing picking them up and throwing them into the air. I would spray them with water from my plastic flower and pretend to fall down. Usually the children would cry and scream like nothing I’ve ever heard. How could I scare them? Everybody loves a clown.

One day while hanging around the local playground, I was arrested for loitering. It seems that in this joyless world, there’s no place for a clown.

Now I roam the streets at night, under the cover of darkness. I am taunted and spit on by drunken men. I’ve been beaten by mobs of drug-crazed teenagers. I’ve gotten foot-rot under my giant shoes. Clowns are shunned at the free-clinic. Taunted on the mean streets. Robbed by the heartless masses. I feel that my own heart, once full of the hope and joy of being a clown is clouding over with darkness. My heart is now black as the caverns of h*ll. I’ve learned that there’s no room in this bitter world for a happy clown. I am no longer a happy clown.

The Pew doesn’t fuck around. Although open and in operation for months, their Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage had its kickoff reception yesterday evening. For a series of sterol offices he space is really pretty amazing. Actually to be more accurate, it was really, really expensive. Glass walls everywhere, state of the art tech and conference room equipment and a confounding, yet strangely impressive architectural design. The 270 degree, 18th floor skyline view didn’t hurt either.

For those interested, the center combines the Pew’s Arts and Culture projects here in the Delaware Valley. Google it if you’re interested in the details. It’s really a great place that does good things and all that… but it doesn’t make for an interesting story.

My favorite moment was personal. It also demonstrated the maturity I’ve developed since early adolescence. Apparently the things that used to fuel my youthful insecurities now just amuse me immensely.

*

The reason I was at the Pew’s PCAH in the first place was my girlfriend, Liza. She works for one of the Pew’s 7 tentacles of the Arts here in Philly. With the promise of fine catered hors d’ouevres, interesting company and fine wine I decided to head on over after work.

After an hour or so, I wandered off on my own to take in the sights, sounds and tastes of the gathered elite. After making a large and meandering loop of the party I spotted Liza at the end of the hall talking to an enthuastic looking young man. Judging by body language, he was trying to impress her. She looked comfortable and the catering staff had just broken out the Pinot Noir, so I decided to make my way around the party one more time.

Twenty minutes later, I checked back to see how Liza was doing. I found her in the same spot as before, the man in the same pose, speaking animatedly. A glint of hope shone in his eye. After a moment’s deliberation, I decided to approach. As I walked the long hallway towards the two of them, I felt an uncomfortable scene coming on. Whoever this guy was, my presence was going to thoroughly disrupt his plans. The consequences were unpredictable.

I decided to ride it like a wave. In a second I was next to Liza, having injected myself into this poor bastard’s pick-up attempt with the grace of a sack of sand to the back of the head.

The man, processing my sudden appearance with a strangely exaggerated sense of befuddlement, went awkwardly silent. His eyes started darting back and forth, sweat materializing on his brow. I smiled a friendly and genuine smile and said absolutely nothing. Liza said to me, “He’s a writer for Harpers.”

Impressive indeed!

“Oh” said Harpers. (you could hear his voice deflate) He swept a finger pointed from the hip, back and forth between Liza and myself, “this must be your boyfriend.” (I found out later that Liza had told Harpers of my admiration for his magazine)

“Um hmm.” Said Liza cheerily, “This is Steve.” Being largely oblivious to the nature of male posturing, she sensed a change, but couldn’t place its raison d’être.

“Hello.” Said Harpers, his confusion quickly turning to pure fear. He laughed nervously and for no reason. The color had fallen out of his face. He was going all blotchy. A lump in his throat began pulsing up and down his neck. He was starting to make me uncomfortable.

I tried my best to be friendly and told him that I loved Harpers Magazine and that I’ve kept a subscription to it for several years. I asked what he had last written.

But my attempt to lighten the mood didn’t work. As Harpers struggled to explain the thesis of his last published article for one of America’s oldest and most esteemed intellectual periodicals, I started to feel a little sorry for him. His light-hearted conversation with Liza had precipitously ended and here he was having a far more uncomfortable conversation with me. But I was honestly fascinated. I do love Harpers Magazine. I listened intently and with authentic interest. It turned out he wasn’t a writer for Harper’s like he told Liza, but instead, just a freelancer who was lucky enough to have several articles published by the magazine. Although (or possibly because) I’ve never had an article published by Harpers myself, I was disappointed he wasn’t an editor or something more exciting.

His fear was changing into something else entirely now. It looked a little like guilt, or anger. A caterer came by with a silver tray of bite-size crab cakes. We all eagerly plucked one from the tray’s fancy doily. The caterer offered napkins. Harpers joked anxiously, “I already have one” presenting a thin, moist ball of pressure worn tissue paper from an unclenched palm. “Trying to conserve” he said as the caterer went on her way down the hall with her tray of miniature crab cakes.

And then it was the 3 of us again. Over the next few minutes, we forged our way through half an hour of so of conversation before Harpers realized – apparently quite suddenly – that he was free to leave whenever he pleased. Once this realization was born, he was gone in an instant. I saw him one other time that evening. I was making my way towards a cheese tray; he was listening to a tall young man in tweed talk about Shakespeare. He glanced sidelong at me before averting his attention from my friendly hello.

*

Later that night, Liza was genuinely shocked when I suggested that Harpers was trying to pick her up. “I don’t think so” she said.

“No.” I said. “His intentions were about as subtle as a train wreck.”

“Really…? No.”

*

At another time, I might have felt the irrationality of jealousy, or the fear of professional inadequacy in the face of a competitive male of greater credentials. Actually, in the past, in similar situations, I’ve felt exactly those things. What a shame! Bald amusement is infinitely more satisfying. That’s all for now.

This evening while cleaning out email, I ran across something very strange. It took me a minute to remember, but then I realized it was the first in a series of self assigned writing assignments. In these assignments, I’d think up a topic in a second and write a page about it. This masterpiece was created a week before I started my current job. Its title and its concept: Clown Trapped in A Burning Car:

———

It happened in a flash. Literally a flash, as the trucks headlights swung across 2 lanes of traffic and into my path. In the blinding brilliance of halogen beams cutting through the windshield like some wild spirit, I saw the certainty of death in the eyes of that truck driver. I also saw in that split second - a suspension of belief - as he realized his truck was hurtling towards a clown car.

I was the clown. Usually hired for jobs at kid’s birthdays and traveling carnivals, I was on my way home from a gig at one hell of a strange bachelorette party. In what turned out to be a cataclysmic error, I decided to take the local route. Traffic was too thick and I had a little too much to drink to drive on the Garden State Parkway. That shitty meth deprived driver whose eyes I met in that instant, took the turn too fast and overcompensated after he cut into the shoulder. Now there I was, with a second, maybe 2 to prepare for the inexorable impact.

People say the seconds stretch out long enough for your entire life to flash before your eyes, and yes they do. But what they never tell you is that even in that space of mysteriously convex time, there aren’t enough real moments in which to feel fear. Following instinct and pulsing with adrenaline, I jarred the steering wheel so hard to the right I thought I’d rip it out of the dashboard. The car cut hard enough into the blind darkness of the New Jersey countryside, to send my big red nose flying right off my face.

The impact, which came at the rear driver’s side of my tiny Corolla sent the car end over end into the cool Jersey air. I remember a moment of peculiar silence between the time I left the ground and the time the roof hit the first of a series of pine trees. A giant shoe, sent flying from its place on the passenger seat smacked me in the face, temporarily blinding me. Then came impact… and the rolling.

Tumbling was more like it, as glass and metal flew without mercy through the cabin of my little Toyota, cutting my face hands and fluffy, oversize clothing. The passenger side roof collapsed, hemming me into a rapidly narrowing cocoon of gnarled steel. A hissing and loud pop accompanied the car’s grinding halt. A few seconds after the sinister pop, the sweet and smell of an electric fire filled the car. I was pinned upside-down, white make-up stinging my eyes and choking on the sharp and putrid smoke.

I found both arms trapped, pinned between the former elements of my vehicle. I felt the fire spreading, not in my senses, but in my minds eye. I saw it catching a dab of engine oil and spreading through the interior components on its unstoppable march to the gas tank. In a slow, burning internal panic, I tore free my left arm and undid my seat belt. By some miracle, it unlatched and let me fall the a few inches to the roof. A wisp of flame caught the polyester of the clown suit…

And that’s as far as I got.