January 8: Planet In the Vicinity of Betelgeuse, Mission Space, Fitting In

Mr. Prosser (Genghis Kahn descendant) is still trying to get Arthur Dent to move and allow the bulldozer to demolish Arthur's house.  Prosser is not providing a convincing argument . . .

"Mr. Dent," he said.

"Hello?  Yes?" said Arthur.

"Some factual information for you.  Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?"

"How much?" said Arthur.

"None at all," said Mr. Prosser, and stormed off wondering why his brain was filled with a thousand hairy horsemen all shouting at him.


By a curious coincidence, "None at all" is exactly how much suspicion the ape-descendant Arthur Dent had that one of his closest friends was not descended from an ape, but was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he usually claimed.

Arthur Dent had never, ever suspected this.

This friend of his had first arrived on the planet some fifteen Earth years previously, and he had worked hard to blend himself into Earth society--with, it must be said, some success.  For instance, he had spent those fifteen years pretending to be an out of work actor, which was plausible enough.

He had made one careless blunder though, because he had skimped a bit on his preparatory research.  The information he had gathered had led him to choose the name "Ford Prefect" as being nicely inconspicuous.  

He was not conspicuously tall, his features were striking but not conspicuously handsome.  His hair was wiry and gingerish and brushed backwards from the temples.  His skin seemed to be pulled backwards from the nose.  There was something very slightly odd about him, but it was difficult to say what it was.  Perhaps it was that his eyes didn't blink often enough and when you talked to him for any length of time your eyes began involuntarily to water on his behalf.  Perhaps it was that he smiled slightly too broadly and gave people the unnerving impression that he was about to go for their neck.  

He struck most of the friends he had made on Earth as an eccentric, but a harmless one--an unruly boozer with some oddish habits.  For instance he would often gatecrash university parties, get badly drunk and start making fun of any astrophysicist he could find till he got thrown out.

You do see a lot of Ford Prefects down here in Orlando.  People who simply look like they're from another planet.  Well, at least to this Midwesterner.  I do like to people watch, listen to odd conversations.  At Walt Disney World, you find yourself sharing rides, buses, and seats with all kinds of ape descendants.  (I make that statement as an ape descendant from the Upper Peninsula.  Therefore, I'm probably closely related to the Yeti.)

Yesterday started out leisurely.  Pool and hot tub time with my wife, daughter, and son.  Then it was off to EPCOT Center for some Fast Passes.  (For those ape descendants reading this who've never been to Disney, Fast Passes are virtual reserved tickets that allow a party to skip the 90-minute lines and get on the ride immediately.  Or almost immediately.)  So, we started with a lovely boat ride called Living With the Land, which is a meandering float through botanical and fishing gardens.  After that, we went on a little ride called Soarin'.  It's a virtual plane ride around the world, and it's beautiful. 

Then, it was Mission Space.

Let me tell you about Mission Space.  It is a ride that simulates a space flight with the use of a centrifuge.  That's right.  They put you in a centrifuge and spin you to simulate the g-force of a rocket launch.  It was a serious mistake on my part to go on this ride.  As soon as the launch began, I was in a cold sweat.  I won't get into the gory details, but let's just say that, by the time we landed on Mars, I was probably looking like a sweaty green space man with a blood sugar of about 57.  Long story short, I will not be volunteering for any space missions in the future.

After that fiasco, we headed over to Journey Into Imagination, which was exactly what the doctor ordered.  A slow ride with cartoons and animatronics.  I was feeling much better about myself after that ride.  And then came Test Track--a high-speed ride in a "futuristic" car.  I was still a little green from being launched toward Mars, so this ride didn't help things much.

Thank God everyone was hungry after that.  We headed to the World Showcase and ate in Italy.  Delicious pasta and meats and breads, served by a lovely young woman from Italy.  My son loved it, and my daughter was able to order her favorite--chicken fettuccine Alfredo.  We rounded out the night watching the American Adventure and then Illuminations, EPCOT's fireworks/laser show.

You know, as a kid, I often dreamed that I was an alien, dropped off on this planet by mistake.  I never really fit in with the other boys and girls.  Wanted to read instead of play kickball.  Write and draw in notebooks instead of go to dances or football games.  Down here, in this tropical January weather, I'm surrounded by other people from outer space who aren't ashamed of wearing weird shirts and hats with mouse ears on them.  I fit right in.

Maybe Saint Mary is from a planet near Betelgeuse. 

July 15: Being a Dad, Jericho Brown, "Prayer of the Backhanded"

Being a dad is not an easy job.  I always worry that I'm not doing enough.  Not earning enough money to give my family the things they need.  There's still a hole in my kitchen ceiling.  My 15-year-old daughter is still sharing a bedroom with her seven-year-old brother.  My wife needs a new pair of shoes.  The list goes on and on.

I can't afford to take my kids on vacations to Disney World or Harry Potter World.  I would love to take my wife on a trip to Italy, visit Rome, see the tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi.  I have not made life choices that make these things possible, and it bothers me sometimes.  I think of it as father guilt.

My dad is a hard guy.  Not very emotionally available.  I've always known that he is proud of my accomplishments, but I've never felt like I could go to him for advice about anything beyond a leaky faucet or backed-up sewer.  That's just the way he's always been.  I can't ask an eighty-something-year-old man to change.  (He never spared the rod, either.  That's the way he was brought up.  His dad, my grandpa, once got mad at a cow on his farm and grabbed its horn, twisting it until it bent sideways.  The cow shuddered and moaned for days.)

Yes, fatherhood is a tough occupation.  (So is motherhood.  I'm in no way trying to diminish mothers with this post.)  Jericho Brown knows a thing or two about tough fathers.

However, Saint Marty is not a tough dad.  He's more of a teenage girl.

Prayer of the Backhanded

by:  Jericho Brown

Not the palm, not the pear tree
Switch, not the broomstick,
Nor the closet extension
Cord, not his braided belt, but God,
Bless the back of my daddy’s hand
Which, holding nothing tightly
Against me and not wrapped
In leather, eliminated the air
Between itself and my cheek.
Make full this dimpled cheek
Unworthy of its unfisted print
And forgive my forgetting
The love of a hand
Hungry for reflex, a hand that took
No thought of its target
Like hail from a blind sky,
Involuntary, fast, but brutal
In its bruising. Father, I bear the bridge
Of what might have been
A broken nose. I lift to you
What was a busted lip. Bless
The boy who believes
His best beatings lack
Intention, the mark of the beast.
Bring back to life the son
Who glories in the sin
Of immediacy, calling it love.
God, save the man whose arm
Like an angel’s invisible wing
May fly backward in fury
Whether or not his son stands near.
Help me hold in place my blazing jaw
As I think to say, excuse me.

April 6: Funny Girl, Elizabeth Gilbert, "Eat, Pray, Love," New Cartoon

She was a funny girl, old Jane.  I wouldn't exactly describe her as strictly beautiful.  She knocked me out, though.  She was sort of muckle-mouthed.  I mean when she was talking and she got excited about something, her mouth sort of went in about fifty different directions, her lips and all.  That killed me.  And she never really closed it all the way, her mouth.  It was always just a little bit open, especially when she got in her golf stance, or when she was reading a book.  She was always reading, and she read very good books.  She read a lot of poetry and all.  She was the only one, outside my family, that I ever showed Allie's baseball mitt to, with all the poems written on it.  She'd never met Allie or anything, because that was her first summer in Maine--before that, she went to Cape Cod--but I told her quite a lot about him.  She was interested in that kind of stuff.

Holden and Jane are the only two characters in The Catcher in the Rye who are identified as readers of really good books.  Holden reads books by authors like Isak Dinesen and his brother, D.B.; Jane reads poetry.  Holden has certain ideas about what makes good literature.  As I've said earlier, the mark or a good writer is that, "when you're done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."

A few years ago, everybody was reading a book by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Oprah did a show on it.  Julia Roberts starred in the film adaptation of it.  It was one of the best-loved and most-hated books of the time.  Even now, when this book is mentioned in conversation by "literary" folks, it's usually in pejorative terms.  For some reason, Elizabeth Gilbert's book has become the stereotype of the self-absorbed memoir.  Gilbert is a spoiled, privileged whiner, according to popular opinion.

Of course, the book is Eat, Pray, Love, and I'm writing this post to reclaim it.  I read it when it was first released, and I loved it.  The writing is vibrant and funny.  Gilbert's story is transformative and wise.  I think the reason the book got such a bad rap is that Gilbert seems to have such good luck.  I mean, she gives up the American dream--husband, home in the country, great career--and spends a year living in Italy, India, and Bali.  She eats a lot of good food, prays and meditates, and falls in love.  Basically, it's a book about blessings.

Putting all that aside, Elizabeth Gilbert is a hell of a writer.  Here is her description of eating the "best pizza in the world" in Naples:

...They have only two varieties of pizza here--regular and extra cheese.  None of this new age southern California olives-and-sun-dried-tomato wannabe pizza twaddle.  The dough, it takes me half my meal to figure out, tastes more like Indian nan than like any pizza dough I ever tried.  It's soft and chewy and yielding, but incredibly thin.  I always thought we only had two choices in our lives when it came to pizza crust--thin and crispy, or thick and doughy.  How was I to have known there could be a crust in this world that was thin and doughy?  Holy of holies!  Thin, doughy, strong, gummy, yummy, chewy, salty pizza paradise...

Gilbert turns everything into a spiritual experience--food, prayer, and love.  If you haven't read Eat, Pray, Love yet, if you've avoided it because of all the negative hype, you need to give it a chance.  If you've read it before and fell into the trap of popular Gilbert hatred, tear the cover off the book and imagine you're reading something by an up-and-coming essayist.  You won't be disappointed.

Elizabeth Gilbert passes the Holden Caulfield author test.  She makes Saint Marty want to abandon his life and travel.  Maybe he'll go to Green Bay next weekend.

Confessions of Saint Marty