Languor Management

I have granted sunshine to the people of ME

Outside of my 10th-floor office window is a rather wide ledge that I've considered climbing out on more than once--but not just for the obvious reasons. On or about lunch time most days, it gets so much sun, that it seems like it would make the perfect spot for lunch or just for brooding upon City Hall and the Municipal Administration building and how the hell I got to this corner office. It's spacious enough out there that the window cleaners have no problem walking around with their buckets and squeegees, so why can't I just climb out there, eat my falafel sammy, and read my book, I'd like to know.

Today, I have so little interest in working that I'd rather just slip out there over Worth Street and tend to my post honeymoon tan, like Velimir Klebnikov:

Russia and Me

Russia has granted freedom to thousands and thousands.
It was really a terrific thing to do,
people will never forget it.
But what I did was take off my shirt
and all those tiny skyscrapers, the strands of my hair,
every pore
in the city of my body,
broke out their banners and flags.
All the citizens, all the men and women
of the government of ME,
rushed to the windows of my thousand-windowed hair,
all those Igors and Olgas
and nobody told them to do it,
they were ecstatic at the sunshine
and peeked through my skin.
The Bastille of my shirt has fallen!
And all I did was take it off.
I have granted sunshine to the people of ME!
I stood on a beach with no clothes on,
that's how I gave freedom to my people
and suntans to the masses.

(Velimir Khlebnikov, 1921)

Dynastic politics

I grew up in Newport, Rhode Island's  historic Fifth Ward, a neighborhood whose defining characteristics include: Catholic, Irish, Drunk, Hibernian, Labor, Democrat, Drunk, and the Kennedys. I still remember my grandmother's advice: "When in doubt, vote Democrat."

In 1980, a friend dared me to append an image of Mickey Mouse with his middle finger stuck obsenely in the air to a "Ted Kennedy for President" bumper sticker that was affixed to the back of Newport's Irish mayor's Chevy station wagon. The Mickey Mouse image came from another popular bumper sticker going around at the time that read: "Hey Ayatollah!" Presumably, the mouse was trying to catch Khomeini's attention, and once the Supreme Leader had turned his head to see who had hailed him, he would be rewarded with the the bird--much like he himself had just flipped to the person we knew then only as "The Shah."

So I scooted behind Mayor Harp Donnelly's car and adapted the Kennedy sticker to read "Hey Kennedy!" and stuck the cheeky mouse at the end. But when I had fulfilled the dare, I saw my Camelot-era grandmother staring down at me from the second floor window of our house. She just shook her head in disappointment and waved another kind of admonishing finger at me. In her mind, I was the reason Ronald Reagan soon became president, as well as for the historically high gasoline prices.

But I was 12 years old and sick of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the Kennedy's and, most of all, tired of being Irish.

Waiting

My love will come,
Will throw open her arms and fold me within them,
Will understand my fears, note my changes.
In from the pouring dark, from the pitch night
Without stopping to slam the taxi door
She’ll run upstairs, across the rotting porch,
Burning with love and love’s happiness,
She’ll run dripping upstairs, she won’t knock,
Will take my head in her hands,
And when she flings her coat on a chair,
It will slip to the floor in a blue heap.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (translated by me)

Corner office

Despite my corner office with two large windows facing East and South, respectively, I'm afraid I don't like my job much. But the windows do flood the room with enough light that I can legitimatley wear sunglasses in it, which would seem to make my job seem hipper. Wearing sunglasses with a sportcoat and office shirt, however, only makes one look more like a tool--think Tom Cavanaugh's character in NBC's old show Ed--especially in a bureaucratic environment like the one in which I toil. The sunglasses don't conceal the fact that I have a tie stashed in my desk draw "just in case" or that I have three mindnumbing meetings at 11:00,  2:00, and 4:00, respectively. Nor do the shades suggest that though I'm spending my day writing or developing pieces about rats, lead poisoning, and socially transmitted diseases, I'm actually writing a novel at home. Rather, they suggest that I don't like my job much and that what I had suspected were mere allergies may actually be symptoms of conjunctivitis, a subject I will no doubt have to write about next week, provided, that is, I can still open my eyes.

Oodles of Optimism

  These government sponsored (and approved) images (most are by Yury Markov) -- via Dark Roast Blend -- were published by Detskaya Literatura Publishing House from 1950s to 1970s - DETGIZ, geared toward Soviet Komsomol Youth - and were recently brought back from oblivion by M. Moshkov's online library.

[Spaceeba, Max!]

The Arrangement

A hedgehog wandered into our house!
We found it in the morning.
It sat in the corner near the stove
and sneezed because of all the dust.
We approached it, but it rolled up in a ball.
See how it's covered in overgrown needles?
But in about five minutes, it unrolled,
stuck out its paws, then its nose.
Why it came to us,
We don't have a clue:
Whether it was in a fight
or if it just wanted to live with people.
But it's not bad to live with us.
Here's the arrangement:
From now on you will be called
Thistle!
You must not fight with the cat
Or get into bed with us--
Because you're prickly
and you might scratch our skin...
Each day, you will receive
Three saucers of milk,
But on holidays its cheesecake
and four worms.
During the day, you must play with us,
At night, you must catch mice.
If you get sick, I'll tell mommy
To give you soup and iodine.
That's it. Now think it over.
Take all day if you need it...
If you like, stay--
But if not, leave now!

1909 (a children's poem by Sasha Chernyi, draft translation by me)