Poker Face / Joker Face

You know the character, the one in the black and white movie.  Maybe it's a Western. Perhaps a gangster flick. He's the one at the poker table with the impassive, unreadable expression. Not that the others around the table don't have aspects of this trait, but this one player can't be deciphered. He* is silent, stoic, and sphinxlike. He studiously avoids betraying his cards — betraying himself! — by displaying any tells, any hints of his possession (a golden hand, or a pile of zilch) or intent. His impassioned, disinterested blank slate bestows power. It's not merely a matter of holding his cards close to his vest, as the saying goes. It goes way beyond the placement of hands. It is facial and physical. Posture and body language, as they call it, are of paramount value, arguably more than the cards in the hand. He's so good at it, you want to say: What cards? He has cards?

And so we have the quintessential poker face.

Poker Face.

Although it's a tired trope, the message and the metaphor remain legitimate: the power of mystery, of withholding; the notion of waiting, even teasing; the value of a mask, a persona; reserve as a resource.

And it's deeper than physical; it's infinitely more than a lack of tell-tale mannerisms or other giveaways. It's psychic, or whatever word we want to use to convey this inner disposition, this self-possession, or the appearance of such. (Does it matter whether it's real or a bluff? Why should it, as long as you can turn in a credible and winning performance?)

Successful sales people know this. The classic sales advice is: Ask the closing question and then shut up. The one who babbles on invariably unravels the deal just as it nears fruition.

Spies know this. So do negotiators, lawyers, detectives, referees, bureaucrats. How about spouses and parents?

As with most of life, knowing this and practicing it are two different realities, separated by an infinite chasm.

Is Poker Faceness learnable? Or is it "to the manner born." (This expression and its confusion and morphing with "to the manor born" is juicy stuff if you fancy etymology, as I do. Click on the link for that sideshow.) Can those who are not a Poker Face acquire the characteristic by diligence and discipline? Can it be practiced and honed? 

Should it?

I'm not a Poker Face.

Hardly.

Everyone who knows me knows it.

I trend opposite, a hybrid of impulsive, impatient, eager, passionate, even reckless, exuberance. 

Though I often wish otherwise, these are the cards I've been dealt, to twist the metaphor. The world needs, what shall we call them?, Joker Faces as much as Poker Faces, doesn't it? One hopes there's a cosmic ying and yang at work here. After all, who doesn't need a Joker Face at the party, the one who says "look here, over here, me, me, me, hahaha," laying it all out there, win, lose, or draw, who cares, take it or leave it? Is there an altogether different power in that: a disarming distraction, a feint, a charade of charm? A deft dodge? The flaw in this argument is that the Joker Face can't help it; it's not an act. Wait! Same for the Poker Face. Presumably.

Joker Face.

Hit me.

Whaddaya got?

A Royal Flush! 

Kiss my fool's cap.

*I've used a male pronoun throughout, mostly because that's my gender. But it's worth a discussion all on its own: Is this a male stereotype? Is it culturally biased against females? One would like to posit that a woman can be a Poker Face as well, or better, as the next guy. The song "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga attests to this. Incidentally, in doing minor research for this post, I learned some of the back story for the lyrics of this hit. Among other things, it reportedly makes reference to the singer's thinking and being elsewhere during sexual experience. Gee, no wonder the song was such a blockbuster.

Pardon Me

We exchanged formalities and banalities.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

Likewise.

Nothing about the weather, more along the lines of how was your trip, your accommodations, how are you enjoying the conference and our pastoral tourists-attracting environs.

From his side, very little, holding his cards close to the vest.

Are you from here originally?

Tell me your role again.

And then, I stopped parrying and went for the heart of the matter. His heart.

What do fellow bishops call you? How about fellow priests? How does your secretary address you? Your excellency? Father Theodore? Theodore? Is that as far as the informal reaches: first-name basis?

Then: What did they call you as a kid?

He halted. He sat back in the ancient two-armed paisley, upholstered chair. He closed his eyes, took in a long breath. I waited.

Teddy.

He opened his eyes. A curtain lifted. His face softened, its pallor lightened.

May I call you Teddy?

The ancient grandfather clock, its pendulum swaying. His dolorous eyes pleading, fixed on my eyes. Hands folded in his lap. 

You may.

We had opened a door and entered a room, a dark one with sagging purple velvet drapes and the fragrance of burning candles and stale wine.

Teddy.

May I call you Paul?

Of course.

And I entered a confessional with the same velvet curtain, a kneeler, and a sliding screened door in the window.

How many times, son?

I lost count, Father.

How many times, Paul?

Self-abuse? I tried to count. Mortal sins. I didn't want to commit a sacrilege of the sacrament by leaving out a mortal sin. 

I don't know. It's only been two weeks, Father. Fourteen. Give or take.

Fourteen?

Maybe fifteen. Let's say seventeen, just to be safe. (Safe from what? Eternal flames.)

I'm not coming back, Teddy. How many times for you, Teddy?

I lost count.

But more than fourteen, give or take, right, Teddy?

I lost count.

Teddy.

Paul.

May I call you Paulie?

I prefer not.

Teddy, what are we talking about here?

I prefer not to say.

Is it safe to say it ain't the same as my fourteen-year-old's transgressions, the ones they labeled mortal sins, the Inquisition's torture chamber of shame and remorse for the normal tides of testosterone, Teddy?

You're quite the poet, Paul.

And you're quite evasive, Theodore.

The screen closed.

I parted the curtains. I walked out, to the pews. Or was it the communion railing? It was an odd feeling. I had been give no absolution and therefore no penance.

The silence shrouded me. I longed for the cloudy fragrance of incense. All I got was unlit candles.

Assumption Day

The food delivery app cowbell sounded, meaning here's an offer to accept or reject. The pickup was at the Brooklyn Pickle. I live close enough to walk there. I often have, even in driving snow. I arrived. I clicked on the "arrived" button on my phone screen. The app didn't respond. A series of prompts in effect said proceed anyway. Then the young woman behind the counter said, "We don't have an order under that name; are you sure it isn't the other Brooklyn Pickle?" Slap of the forehead. Doh moment. Sure enough, looking more closely at my phone screen, it was the sandwich shop on the other side of town.

I assumed it was the Brooklyn Pickle where I had picked up food half a dozen times. I never considered the possibility that it could be the other one.

So much for assumptions.

Good thing it wasn't in Brooklyn.

I had made a realistic and reasonable assumption, given the data available, given the weight of my personal history, my proximity, and the app's fine-tuned propensity to cherrypick close places. They know where I am!

A realistic and reasonable assumption but wrong just the same.

It didn't especially rattle me. It was my first assignment of the day, and I wasn't going to let this assumptive hiccup throw me off stride.

While en route to deliver the next order, small enough to pass up, the app informed be "$0.00 tip." WTF? Cheapskate! As I was driving, I formulated potential responses:

Lose some of the food.

Squash it.

Eat it.

No. None of that.

Try some finesse.

Tell the person: "You better check your app."

Oh yeah, why is that?

"The tip feature must be frozen."

Could I go against my grain and deliver the malfunctioning app line without rancor, with an unctuous and ingratiating smile like Eddie Haskell on "Leave It to Beaver"? Not likely. But worth a try, to make a point

I entered the customer's residential complex, a sprawling mini-campus of four buildings, all with locked sliding intercom-controlled gates.

I called the guy, politely telling him to come on out and meet me by the gate. Since he didn't give me a tip, I wasn't about to ask him to open the gates so I could then conveniently proceed to the front door at the top of the hill. Make him work a little, make him pay for his stinginess.

He sauntered down.

We exchanged cordial greetings.

Just before I was about to hand him the food, he handed me three folded bills, American currency.

We delivered mutual hearty thank yous. They sounded sincere, his and mine.

So much for assumptions, the sequel.

I was relieved I had not impetuously launched into my gift-wrapped rebuke. Plus, I felt kind of stupid, and small.

I readily say that now, in hindsight, but I know what I was capable of, on the negative and on the false-positive side. And it all rode on the train of a false assumption.

Human Assumption Encounters (HAEs) populate my day, every day. I assume:

• they got the text
• they read the text, or understood it they way I intended
• they got and listened to the voicemail
• the driver in the other vehicle saw me or saw my signal
• you heard what I said and got the meaning I was trying to deliver
• you understood my motive and tone
• what the other's silence meant
• what the facial expression signified
• what the tone of voice signified  
• why someone did this or that
• why someone didn't do this or that
• why I got no reply
• why the service was slow, incomplete, or in error
• the reason for the long line or the delay 

I assume you face the same or similar HAEs in your day, too. 

crickets

How many times had you passed this way? How many nights, long past vespers and veering toward matins, did you slowly stride the sidewalk leading from the parking lot to the apartment entrance? The numerical answer is irrelevant. More to the point, did you listen? Yes, you listened. But it was background music. Not static, not a distraction; but not in the aural foreground. On this night, south of midnight (you once had a friendly debate with your beloved about whether that means before or after midnight; you postulated post-midnight, she pre-; you settled, cordially, on the notion that one can argue either case with conviction and persuasion), you were arrested. No -- wait -- not so; you did not halt; you did not pause. Your steps continued whatever the antonym of apace is. A barely discernible hitch. Or that was all in your head, because in your head, you mused: I know I have heard the chirping of the crickets many times this summer. Ah, just listen to those crickets on this sultry otherwise quiet night. Of course, you don't discourse or self-narrate in parsed, grammatically correct sentences. Nevertheless, on this one night, as you returned home, the nocturnal chorus of males caught the frayed edge of your attention-surplus interior self. You do not know why this night. The crickets were chirping at a good clip; it was still hot, hovering in the humid 80s (unlike a week later, when at the low of 54 degrees forecast, the chirps would slow to a slur). It's impossible to describe the sermonette you delivered to your self. Something along the lines of what a privilege to hear these creatures, a blessing not so much of hearing but of alertness, attention, the gift of observation, not the absurdity that they were performing their mating songs for anyone but their females and competing males, more the suchness of getting it, the gratitude of appreciating them, giving them their due, their natural homage. People like to say "crickets chirping" to denote human silence, when a question is returned with stony blankness. This moment of this night underscores the raucous hilarity and fecund frolic of their stridulated symphony. Seize on this in February. 

And after having written the foregoing, as August calender-paged into September and then October, on the nights (as well as the days; despite our being informed that crickets make their chirps nocturnally) I walked into my building, the crickets' songs steadied me, salved my soul, and mellowed my loneliness, hunger, restlessness, or any other malaise, for which I was and am grateful.

   

The Alphabet of U and I

Consider the notion of making sense of things. The notion of making sense of objects, events, places, actions, people, even notions. Et cetera. And others. 

Humans found it necessary to create order. We came up with numbers and letters and other symbols. In the case of letters, we sequenced them, not infinitely like numbers, but finitely. Numbers are only infinite in how you use them, how you use the mathematical "alphabet," such as the digits 0 through 9. An alphabet theoretically could be infinite, if one's imagination were infinite. If the sequence of letters were not repeated, you would have to stop somewhere, or else it wouldn't be an alphabet. It would be something else. If the letters weren't culled, used as an original building block, the whole purpose would be lost. You'd be back to where you started: an inexhaustible ocean of random letters floating and bobbing, or sinking, or coming at you as waves, receding as waves, forever, ad infinitum -- crying out to be ordered and sequenced into an alphabet.

Where would we be without alphabets? Would there be world peace and harmony if one universal alphabet existed, and was adopted universally? In the post-digital world, will alphabets go the way of telegraph wires?

Forget, if you will, about the grand, universal notion of an alphabet. What about me? What about you? How do we order the capillaried, flickering drama of endlessly repeating nows?

I can only speak for myself, of course.

What is my alpha + beta and eventually + omega?

It's such a searingly personal question, even invasive.

Where should I begin? 

This is hard. I don't understand the question, or the topic, if there is one.

I imagined this would make for a whimsically profound, or profoundly whimsical, exercise.

Now I'm lost.

I might say my alphabet starts with watching, reading, and writing. But that sounds boring. I don't even know what it means.

You might say your alphabet starts with sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. But that sounds clichéd. You don't even know what it means, you decide, with an LOL, or a nearly silent chuckle (NSC).

Money, food, comfort, fame, fortune.

Again, I'm not getting a picture, certainly not a clear one.

Decades ago, I discovered a wonderful book title: The Alphabet of Grace, by Frederick Buechner. I never read the book. Perhaps it's time. (Or maybe I read it long ago and have forgotten.)

Love, mercy, rejection, acceptance, pain, surrender, truth, lies, arrogance, acceptance. 

At least our "alphabet" seems to be gaining some traction, heft, momentum. 

Sex, sin, oblivion, ecstasy, sobriety, silence, solitude, union, obsession, compulsion, love, mercy, rejection, acceptance, pain, surrender, truth, lies, arrogance, acceptance. 

Alphabet soup.

How many alphabet noodles (what else can you call them?)?

Who holds the spoon?

What kind of broth?

What kind of bowl?

What if, as you are almost finished, you find one U and one I at the bottom of the bowl?