Man Martin's Blog, page 182

Who Will You Be?

Halloween, I believe, is a bigger deal for kids than Christmas itself.  Certainly Thanksgiving isn't even in the running. When you get down to it, what is Thanksgiving?  Eating.  Actually, it's not even about eating.  It's about saying grace and then eating.  This is not the sort of holiday a kid would come up with.  As for New Years, that's a holiday for grownups.  Fourth of July is okay as long as there's fireworks.  Easter is basically church, except later you get candy eggs.  This leaves Christmas and Thanksgiving.

If children judged pleasurable events as adults do, by the amount of anxiety and disappointment associated with them, then Christmas would stand head, shoulders, and elbows above every holiday in the calendar.  But kids are more capable of grasping unexpected delights and reveling in them, and for that, Halloween beats everything.  Nor is it just about the candy, because, let's face it, getting candy belongs to the same category of things as getting presents.  Beforehand, there is the itchy anxiety that you won't get enough, afterwards either the sinking understanding that life has let you down again, or - worse yet - that you've gotten as much as you could have hoped for or more, and you still don't feel any better off.

But the real thing about Halloween isn't what you get, it's who you'll get to be.

My first memory of Halloween is vague and fuzzy; I seem to recall my mother taking me to A&P to get a costume.  I hadn't been aware such a thing as Halloween was approaching, or what part I'd play in it, but as we entered the A&P, I became aware for the first time there were a number of plastic masks and costumes hanging from the ceiling. I still was not intrigued.  Grocery stores held little to enchant the young Man Martin.  Even when Mur fetched down the Bugs Bunny costume and held it to my chest, measuring it against me, I didn't get it.  The costume was for me, but I didn't especially want a costume.  I hadn't asked for a costume.

It was only later, after supper, when I put the costume on, that I began to get it.  The stiff plastic mask went down over my face like a visor.  An elastic band held it to my head.  The costume was gray felt rabbit fur with a white tummy.  I stood in front of the mirror.  Staring back at me was Bugs Bunny.  The mask was hot and growing damp against my face.  I removed the mask, and there stood familiar, ordinary Man Martin again, only dressed in a bunny suit of gray and white fur.

Mur took me and Chris out trick-or-treating.  I held forth my grocery bag, and neighbors dropped in fistfuls of candy.  But the best part was that it wasn't me doing it - it was Bugs Bunny!  I was Bugs Bunny.

I'm grown now, more or less, and happy, more or less, with my life and what I've made of it.  Adulthood is nothing I could have imagined as a child, in many ways it's infinitely better; I get to be exactly who I chose to become.  I am a creature of my own invention.  Except sometimes, the mask I've fashioned for myself grows warm and clammy against my face, I wish I could remove it for a little bit, and try being the wascally wise-cracking wabbit again in my gray and white felt bunny suit.

Micahelangelo's Lost Notebooks

Damn Cosimo de Medici still hasn't paid me for the statue he commissioned.  Says he doesn't like how "it came out."  Well, whose idea was it to carve him on pogo sticks is what I'd like to know.  How I hate him.  He is so evil and corrupt.  And he calls me Mikey.

Pope Julius II has offered me a commission to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  I say to him, "I'm a sculptor, not a painter, what's a matter you?"  And Two-Sticks (I always call him Two-Sticks, he hates that.  Ha-ha.) is all like, "Look, no big deal.  A couple of rollers, a couple of gallons of antique white, you'll have it knocked out in a weekend."  I say, "Why don't you get Leonardo, he's a painter, isn't he?"  "He's busy," Two-Sticks says, "can't spare the time."  Da Vinci has been working the last ten years on the same "masterpiece."  A picture of a woman sitting in a chair.  Says he can't get the expression right.  Sometimes he has her sticking out her tongue, sometimes she has buck teeth, once she had a mustache.  Still Leonardo is dissatisfied.   Loser.

Ten Gallons Each: Red, Blue, Yellow, Black, White @ 20 lire a gallon......................................100 lire
One Half-Gallon Fuscia............................................................................................................10 lire
Brushes....................................................................................................................................40 lire
Drop cloths...............................................................................................................................30 lire
Mineral Spirits...........................................................................................................................20 lire
Painters Tape..............................................................................................................................5 lire
Beef Jerky...................................................................................................................................1 lire

Total.......................................................................................................................................211   206 lire

Leonardo came to inspect my progress today.  He is so wise.  A wise-ass that is, ha-ha!  He was all like, "Don't forget to dot the eyes, Mikey."  And "You missed a spot, Mikey."  He knows I hate that name.  So I said, "That's what your mama said last night."  It didn't even make sense, but I had to say something.  He makes me so mad.  He said, "I'd like to stick around and watch you finish, but I've got to design a flying machine and paint a couple dozen or so more masterpieces.  I'm nearly done with my Mona Lisa.  She's going to be blowing out her lips like this, blb-blb-blb-blb," and he made a noise strumming his finger over his lips.  I visualized it and knew it would be a masterpiece.  Meanwhile I'm stuck here painting someone's ceiling.  Tears filled my eyes, I was so jealous.

I told Two-Sticks it would take four years to finish this ceiling.  Really it will only take three years, eleven months, thirty days, and twenty-two hours.  This way, I still get paid for the whole thing and get some time off at the end to make a sandwich.

Life is no longer worth living.  My one great work, and I have botched it.  The centerpiece was to be "The Creation of Adam," God reaching down from the sky to shake hands with Adam.  But I miscalculated the distance, and their hands don't even touch.  Almost but not quite.  Missed it by inches.  Now the whole thing is ruined.  I should have opened a pizzeria like Mama said.

So What's With All This Darn Punctuation?!?

The other day, I received a most disturbing note from my neighbor.  It ran,

If you don't stop your damn chickens from cackling at four in the morning I'm coming over there and wringing a few necks

Obviously I was concerned.  The writer completely left off the comma after morning, which signals the end of a subordinate clause used to introduce a sentence.  This is bad enough but there isn't even a period.  Without this, how can I even tell the sentence is finished?  Keep reading, the letter seems to say, there's more to come.  But there isn't.  Frustrating.  Underlining "damn chickens" adds emphasis, but I feel this could be better done with a simple exclamation mark.

Here then, for the benefit of those who need a refresher, are a few quick rules of punctuation.

1. Apostrophes are used for contractions and possessive nouns, but not possessive pronouns.  This is important.  It's the difference between showing you're nuts and showing your nuts.  You can also use apostrophes when an -s at the end of a word looks funny just sitting there, and you figure a little extra punctuation might help, as in "Customer's Served While U Wait."

2. Commas.  "A cat has claws at the ends of her paws, and a comma's a pause at the end of a clause."  This
is worth remembering if you're the sort of person who can't tell a cat from a comma.  Commas are a lot like periods only not so much.  They signal a pause, but a briefer one than a period.  If a period is like (    ), a comma is ( ).  There are five easy-to-remember comma rules which I've forgotten and can't be bothered to look up.  Maybe there are six easy-to-remember rules.  I forget.  Anyway, just remember a comma is a pause and leave it at that.  In a sentence like, "No, dear, that dress doesn't make you look, fat," the comma before "fat" implies you had to think before answering which will only get you in trouble.  You're better off without the comma, or better still, just change the subject when people ask certain questions.

3. Semicolons and Dashes.  Some people want to know when they should use a semicolon and when they should use a dash.  These people are butt-holes.

4.  Slashes.  There's a very good reason why violent killers are called "slashers."  Some people go around writing things like "he/she" or worse yet "s/he" or "and/or."  See note at end of 3.

5.  Ellipsis.  Three periods in a row make an ellipsis.  Fowler says there should be no spaces between these periods, but if you type it that way, Microsoft will go ahead and add the spaces anyway.  Take that, Fowler!  Ellipsis are traditionally used to show missing or deleted portions of a text (notice I didn't write missing/deleted, you butt-holes) as in, "My fellow Americans... economic growth... foreign and domestic... renewable... tar sands... fat whomping campaign contributions... my opponent... lies...baby seals for breakfast... sex scandal... says nuke-you-lar instead of nuclear... incompetent... bozo... God bless America."  Lately, however, and by lately I mean the entire Twentieth Century and thus far into the Twenty-First, the ellipsis has been employed anytime a writer just trails off because he couldn't think of anything else to say and...

How to Spell

The personal computer and related devices, for all the undoubted benefits they confer upon society, have made us abysmal spellers.  As a professional writer - last year alone, I earned a whopping $7.45 for my prose: ka-ching! - I am approached daily by people who want to know, is "happy face" spelled :-) or (-: and how do you spell "kiss," which admittedly is tricky because the circumflex in ":^ *" is silent.
Here then, is a quick review of basic spelling rules.

I Before E.  This is the classic that everyone knows.  It's easy to apply and will never steer you wrong, except in a few cases like neighbor and weigh.  And weird.  And their.  And Keith.  And Weiners, as in Nu-Way Weiners in Macon, Georgia.  (Parenthetically, everyone makes a big deal about the misspelling of "weiner," but the far more egregious error is "nu.")

Red Sky at Night, Sailor's Delight.  Red Sky at Morning, Sailors Take Warning.  This is not technically a spelling rule, but it's good advice for anyone who hangs around sailors.  I'm not sure which would make more me more apprehensive, a sailor in the morning who'd recently been warned, or a sailor at night who was delighted.  Both of them seem risky, if you ask me.

When Pluralizing Words Ending in -Y, drop the Y and change to -IES, except in the case of words where the Y is preceded by a vowel such as -EY unless it's -QUY in Which Case It Does Change to -IES.  Honestly, this is so simple you wonder how anyone could get it mixed up.

You can remember the spelling of Mississippi, by Reciting, "Em, Eye, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Eye, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Eye, Pee, Pee, Eye.  This isn't that much of a rule, and it won't help you spell Massachussetts, Massachussets Massachusets Missouri, but we used it in third grade to get Mrs. Turner to say "pee-pee" in class.  That was hilarious in those days.

Anyway, by mastering these few simple rules, you can write a sentence like, "Shakespeare wrote soliloquies eating Nu-Way Weiners in Mississippi," with perfect confidence.  I wish I had time to share more, but a man just strode in the door.  He has a wooden leg, a hook for one hand, an eye patch, and a parrot on his shoulder.  He also has a tricorn hat, and if I'm not mistaken, he just said, "Arrr."  I have to go out and check the sky.

Honey Do

In case you're looking for something to do this weekend, here's a quick fun guide.

The ceiling fan has started rattling recently, so bad you can't use it at night.  Take a look at it and see if you can't fix it.  Take off the blades and try spinning the rotor by hand.  No noise.  Notice how wobbly it is in its mounting.  See if you can tighten it.  You can't.  Worry that one night it will crash down on you and your wife as you sleep.  Replace the blades.  Spin it by hand.  No noise.  Now turn it on.  At first it is silent, then it starts to rattle again.  The hell with it.
The chickens have been pooping all week long in their coop because you can't let them out any more after a hawk attacked one of them.  It is amazing how much poop two chickens make in just one week.  Especially after you give them watermelon rind.  Wearing work gloves, clear out the poop and throw it in the garden.  This will be the best part of the weekend.
The red tips out front need trimming.  Trim off the tall branches that stick out like antennae.  Your wife will say you need to trim it back more.  Trim it more.  Still not enough, she says, it will get spindly if you don't trim it enough.  Trim it more.  Still not enough, here let me show you.  Tell her you can do it.  Give her the clippers when she insists.  Go inside and get a beer. One of the shelves in the kitchen broke last week owing to its being supported by ludicrous plastic brackets supplied by the manufacturer.  These periodically give way, sending glassware and whatnot shattering into the shelf below.  Who the hell would equip kitchen cabinets with plastic brackets?
You thought you had replaced all the plastic brackets with metal ones, but last week you discovered one you missed.  Pry the broken plastic stems out of the holes with needle-nose pliers.
Cuss.  Your wife will ask if you need any help.  Tell her you got it.  She says she thinks there's some metal brackets in the basement.  Tell her, no, you used the last of the brackets on the last shelf that broke in the middle of the night, waking you from a sound sleep and sending glassware and whatnot crashing into the shelf below.  Go to the hardware store and spend forty-five minutes searching for the right size brackets which you could swear used to be in the cabinet aisle but are not any more.  Corner an associate who grudgingly tells you they are in the hardware section.  Think about the fact that having a "hardware section" in a hardware store makes as little sense as having a "grocery section" in a grocery store.  Pick up a plastic bag of brackets only to discover you have the only item in the entire store that lacks a bar code.  Stand at the register for twenty minutes as an associate goes to track down the price of the brackets, first mistakenly going to the cabinet section.  Get home with the brackets.  They are the wrong size.  In the basement discover the right size brackets which were there all along just like your wife told you.  Do not tell your wife this.  Install shelf and put unbroken glassware and whatnot back on it.  It is slightly off level, and everything slides slowly to one side.  Do not mention this to your wife either.
God, but won't it be nice to go to work on Monday?

The Perfect Crime

I'm plotting a story about a perfect crime; the killer sneaks in, leaves no fingerprint, no stray hair, no particle of dirt, no DNA, nothing.  It's hard to get very far into the story without Nancy's interrupting me.

It seems I've been leaving greasy hand prints on the shower curtain.  Nancy points out the soiled areas of the curtain to me.  I'm not certain what she wants from me.  By the very purpose of a shower, I only get into it when I'm dirty.  Does she wish me to take a shower before I get into the shower?  She does not see the clear logic of this, but instead tells me to take the curtain down and put it in the washer.

I do this and then return to working on my story, first getting myself a good fistful of nourishing popcorn from a pot on the stove.  The trick to this crime as I see it, is the remarkable care the killer must take to prevent any sign of his presence.  Silent, camouflaged,  imperceptible.  He enters and exits like a ghost, or a shadow, or the shadow of a ghost.

Again, Nancy interrupts.

It seems in getting myself popcorn, I did not get all of it into my mouth but distributed a certain amount on the floor. There is not mistaking that I am the culprit because the trail of spilled popcorn leads from the stove directly to the chair where I am sitting.

I give Zoe the skunk-eye because in my mind it's the clear duty of the family dog to eat up all spilled food matter.  Zoe certainly acts fast enough when it comes to spilled chicken, I can tell you, but it can't all be chicken, Zoe, sometimes it's just popcorn, and I still expect you to eat it up and be quick about it before Nancy sees.  But I don't berate the dog; it's my way when a member of the household falls down on the job to take up the slack without comment.  We're all pulling together in the same boat, is the way I look at it.
So I get the broom and sweep up the popcorn, which Zoe comes and eats some of before I get to it.  So now you're eating the popcorn.  Little Miss Doggie-Come-Lately.  Thanks loads.

Back to work.  Nancy asks what I'm writing and I tell her: I'm getting into the head of a mastermind who commits the perfect crime, leaving no trace, no sign, no evidence whatsoever behind.

She stares at me a while and says, "So this is fiction."

What a silly remark.  Honestly, Nancy says the strangest things sometimes.

Classics with Zoe

Proof that I have way too much time on my hands.

Outtakes from Aesop's Fables

Once the tortoise and the hare decided to have a race.  At the beginning of the race, the hare ran very fast and soon left the tortoise far behind.  When he looked back and saw the tortoise had barely left the starting line, the hare said to himself, "Ho-hum, that silly tortoise will never beat me!" and he lay down and took a nap.  While the hare slept, the tortoise kept on going, slowly, steadily, slowly, steadily, towards the finish line.  When the hare woke up, he discovered that the tortoise was still far behind him, so he got up and finished the race in a walk.  The tortoise wasn't even close.
Moral: Hares are a hell of a lot faster than tortoises.

Once there was a carefree grasshopper and a hard-working ant.  The grasshopper fiddled and played all day during the summer, while the ant laboriously gathered food and put it in his cellar.  "Why are you working so hard, Brother Ant?" asked the grasshopper.  "It's a beautiful day, and there's plenty to eat."  "I'm storing food for the winter," the ant explained, not pausing in his labors.  "When the leaves fall from the trees, and food is scarce, you'll wish you'd been more industrious."  But the carefree grasshopper paid him no heed, and continued to play and sing the summer away.  But when summer ended, and the leaves fell from the trees, the weather began to turn colder.  The first frosty morning, the grasshopper died so it didn't matter that he'd been lazy all summer, because food wasn't an issue anyway.
Moral: Grasshoppers almost never starve to death.  They freeze.

Once there was a hungry fox who saw some grapes growing high on the wall.  He jumped and tried to get the grapes, but failed.  So he tried again.  He failed again.  He jumped and jumped, but the grapes were always out of his reach.  Finally when he was tired and panting, he said to himself, "Ah, I don't want those grapes anyway.  They're sour!"  Just then, though, a crow flew down to eat the grapes and a few fell on the ground where the fox could get them.  He tasted one, and you know what?  It really was sour.
Moral: Foxes don't like grapes.  Crows do.

Dealing With Difficult People

In the hustle and bustle of Twenty-First Century life, people sometimes forget their manners.  They push and shove in line, they curse in public, they shoot at random strangers with nail guns.  In short, they are just plain rude.  As much as we might wish these people would just go away to an island somewhere where they would annoy each other, this just isn't feasible, so we have to learn to cope with difficult people and defuse situations before they get out of hand.  Here are some guidelines.

1. Know the Signs.  Tempers don't just flare up out of nowhere.  There's almost always a build-up, and if you know what to look for, you can head off trouble before it starts.  A person who frowns and refuses to make eye contact may be in a bad mood.  It's even worse if they frown and make eye contact.  Nervous fidgeting and pushing things around is another sign.  They may push around small objects such as pen caps, razor-sharp switchblades, you.  Another giveaway are tattoos such as, "I will kill you if you look at me funny," or "Die, you damn yuppie scum."  The wise person picks up on such little clues and steers away.

2. Remain Calm.  This is really the key to the whole thing.  If you respond to aggression with more aggression, it only exacerbates the problem.  For example, if someone comes after you with a baseball bat, you may be tempted to come back at them with a sledge hammer.  This, however, is a mistake.  Instead, keep your cool.  Try taking deep breaths.  This can be difficult to do when someone has his hands around your throat throttling you, but you will find it worth the effort.  Should you survive long enough, your calm breathing will also have a calming effect on your assailant.  Everybody wins.

3. Be Pleasant and Reassuring.  The Bible says "a soft answer turneth away wrath."  Of course, the Bible also says somewhere near the headwaters of the Tigris an Euphrates there's an angel with a flaming sword making sure no one sneaks back into Eden.  Nevertheless, in the midst of a confrontation, a friendly remark can do wonders.  Instead of "getting an attitude," try paying a compliment, such as, "That's a very nice gun you have pointed at me.  Do you mind telling me where you got it?"

4. Respect Personal Space.  People feel threatened when their space is violated, and this is especially true when they're upset.  Maintain a good three feet between you and a person who seems on the verge of "losing it."  In some cases, three feet may not be enough.  You may want to leave the room entirely, if possible.  In the case of especially persistent and violent stalkers, or if you've borrowed money from Vinnie the Crud, you may find it useful to go all the way to another state and change your name.

Amaze and Impress Your Friends by Getting More Spiritual

Spiritual people spend a lot of time thinking about
the cosmos and stuffThese days you can't throw a brick - and believe me, there's times I'd like to - without konking somebody on the head who goes around saying how "spiritual" he is.  The great thing about Spirituality is - well, everything.  I'm surprised mankind even bothered with religion at all when spirituality was sitting there handy on the shelf, just waiting to be used.  You never see mobs of fanatics firing-bombing KFC's because someone mocked their sense of spirituality.  No one ever used "spirituality" as a pretext to expunge scientific facts from textbooks.

Best of all, with Spirituality no one ever has to do anything but precisely what he wants.  Spirituality isn't about changing who you are, but embracing it.  People who are spiritual don't have to go to church and sit next to some boring old fart who wants to shake your hand and tell you all about her gallstones because God knows, she doesn't have anyone else to talk to.  Spiritual people don't have to listen to some priest lecture them about a bunch of nonsense no one believes anyway, like "forgiving those who curse you," and "turning the other cheek."  Spiritual people don't have to confess their sins, because - as far as I can make out - Spiritual people don't have them.  How wonderful that must be!

Nevertheless, Spirituality isn't for everyone.  There are some highly complex concepts that must be mastered.  It can take hours of thought, even days, before one can call oneself truly Spiritual.  Here are some of the key terms:

Inner Path, Essence, Cosmos, Transcendent, Divine, Greater Being, Celebrating, Being, Embracing, In the Moment, Inner Self, Inner Child

Here is how these concepts might play out in practice,

"I am embracing the essence of this chocolate donut in the moment."
"My Inner Child is having a tantrum right now.  Celebrate it."
"Thank you for inviting me to your lame party, but my Inner Path is telling me I have something better."
"In all the Cosmos there is my Lexus, your Camry, and this intersection where the two have met.  Who's your insurance company?"
"I'm sorry I forgot to water your geraniums.  I was In the Moment."

As you can see, Spirituality addresses the fundamental questions of existence and answers them with a firm, "I'll get back to you on that."