sub rosa

Under the rose. Above the dirt. Across the great divide. Beyond the pale. To hell and back. For better or worse. Beside me. Under the rainbow (somewhere). Below standard. From here to eternity. On the brink. To the front. In the back. After the fall. Against all odds. Through thick and thin. Before time immemorial. Despite all evidence to the contrary. Along the watchtower (all). Above the fray. With malice aforethought. Over the top. Without scruples. Among thieves (thick as). In the beginning. During this time. Toward the end. Around the bend. On behalf of. Since forever. At the mercy of. To have and to have not. Under the watchful eye of. From the storm (shelter). Down the rabbit hole. Between you and me. Except us. Within these walls. Upon second thought. Beneath contempt. Up the river. Under the table. Until then. 

soft touch

Each box of pens sported a dime-sized label declaring SOFT TOUCH. Anyone seeking the ying-yang symmetry of a HARD TOUCH label would be disappointed. Besides, who wants a hard-touch writing instrument? Presumably someone who desires a forced halting, an imposed reflection, speed bumps or humps or whatever they call them in your neck of the woods. A writer who wishes to be arrested goes for the hard touch. It need not be rough or clumsy. Think of it like a vehicle's electronic stability control (ESC) system that employs computer-controlled braking to foster safe driving. They used to call this a governor. Sometimes a writer craves that meditative slowdown. 

For post-post-modernists who shun handheld writing instruments, a keyboard's settings can accomplish much the same thing. Or pour mucilaginous maple syrup over the keys, but don't expect to use that keyboard the next morning, or ever, without a side of waffles.

A soft touch. That's when you want to glide, sail away, slide down the snow-covered hill with abandon. Let it ride. Don't stop for no one or nothing. No edits, rewrites, fixes, catches, second thoughts. Smooth as silk. Enjoy it while you can. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a stream.

They say: She's a soft touch, an easy mark. He's a soft touch, a softee, a marshmallow. Dupes. Targets. Victims. Gullible and gulpable jellyfish.

And yet: Soft touch mother to newborn, father to failing father, skin to skin, kin to kin. Romancing the stone, like water like time. Soft touch melting madness. Soft touch secret texture, facile tactile, silent language. Touch tone static-free, soft spark whisper flame.

May I borrow that pen?

name change / game change

In ancient times, it was said that the naming of a person, place, or thing conferred an identity. Ancient times? We still do it. All the time. Whether we are naming a child, a pet, a vehicle, or a street, we are conferring an identity, or trying to. (And look at the entanglement some sports teams have gotten into because of an offensive or disrespectful name.) Companies spend tons of money to create a name of a product that sends a subliminal message as well as a liminal and supraliminal enticement to buy, acquire, or possess. 

So, the inevitable question arises: why not simply rename the planet? Who says it has to be named Harm?

In other words, can we retrofit the identity-conferring naming process? Does it work inside out as well as outside in?

I say, it’s worth a try.

I expect risks and challenges. For one, reaching a consensus presents perhaps insurmountable challenges. Preceding consensus, how do Harmlings nominate new planet names? I can envision geographical districts voting upon alternatives, leading to a global referendum. But as I type these words, I am overwhelmed at how daunting this might be. Squabbles are bound to erupt over the renaming process, logistics, transparency, fairness, trust, objectivity, accuracy, et cetera ad finitum (infinitum is hyperbole). The whole enterprise seems like an invitation for adding layers of harm, new harm-laden permutations and configurations. 

For all we know, this is precisely how we got into this mess (mess is judgmental; after all, how do we know whether Harm’s status quo is any or worse or better than that on Earth, the moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn, or Proxima Centauri (allegedly the closest star)?

But as I said, it’s worth a try. That’s the subterranean optimist in me talking. What have we got to lose? (See above for potential loss scenarios.)

Just for kicks and giggles, what would be your new-planet-moniker nomination? Remember, this venture just might work. As they say, be careful for what you ask for. If renaming were to yield reframing, what would you suggest?

Harder than you thought, right?

As an example, take “love,” a natural choice. Planet Love. Idyllic, eh? Hold on. You can see the dissent already: love in its multitude of manifestations or masquerades: familial, parental, paternal, maternal, fraternal, sororal, platonic, erotic, romantic, asexual, collegial, sacrificial, communal, eternal, self-directed, patriotic, divine, satanic, psychotic, monogamous, polyamorous love.

Who knew we’d be pining for good ol’ Harm?

And don't forget: what is the guarantee that a planetary name change will result in a game change? We can't say with certainty that customs, practices, and actions on Harm will actually change.  

hippocrats

"First, do no harm." 

That's the phrase on all our coins, paper currency, flag, coat of arms, the national anthem (those same words over and over and over), license plates, and government buildings.

People attribute those four words to the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors. It's not in there, not in those exact words. (Go ahead; look it up.) And Hippocrates himself did not likely write those precise words. No matter.

First, imagine how ironic, even hypocritical, it is to find this phrase omnipresent on planet Harm.

"First, do no harm"?

What happened? We don't know. The Institute of Archeohistoricalpsychosociology has been tasked to find answers. They've been at it 234 years with nothing to show for it. If you ask me, they're still trying to figure out what the name of their institute means.

Like many on the planet, I have some hunches, some theories, as to how we got here, and by "here" I mean this landscape-seascape-skyscape of haunting and harrowing harm. Here are theories floating in my head:

• "First, do no harm" became our ubiquitous catch phrase by mistake. Either its provenance was misunderstood or it was mistranslated. Translated from what language or communication system? No one knows. Mistranslated how? Again, we don't know. Allow me to posit: "Last, do no harm," "Alas, do no harm," "Do no more harm." Naturally, all of those suggested mistranslations carry the weight of vastly different meanings; each hints at a different story, an altogether different narrative. Would our history have turned out differently? Where would we be today? (Obviously, we're not talking about our position in the lunar system; we're talking about the here of how things are.)

• The saying evolved over the years, corrupted and altered by new dialects, dictators' dicta, strange tongues of invaders, linguistic earthquakes, and populist decrees.

• Somebody's been playing a mean joke on us since forever. It's simply a mysterious example of merciless sarcasm and satire. It continues "because that's the way we do things, it's always been that way, it's our tradition."         Thoughts invited.

beyond the harmed circle

Who doesn't want to escape a circle of harm? For that matter, who is not from a circle of harm? Freudians, perhaps Jungians, too, as well as anthropologists, sociologists, historians, biologists, theologians, philosophers, pornographers, and poets would note that the circle of harm we all experience is birth, the trauma of passage through the dark and narrow avenue of the womb to the rude light of day in the fresh and brutal but necessary air. (Some theologians would hearken farther back, all the way to the birth of the human race and its rupture from Paradise.) 

Harm might be the wrong word. How "harmful" could it be if we're all in the same boat (or ark)?

And why a harmed circle? Why not a harmed square, rectangle, oval, or triangle? That's easy. I hardly need to type it. Who hasn't at one moment or another (maybe many or most moments) felt like a hamster on a wheel of frustration, pain, or madness, in an inescapable loop? The circular treadmill might even be jubilant, pleasurable, or poignant. Good or bad, it's hard (impossible? barely possible?) to extract oneself from that furiously spinning circle.

It might not be harm at all! You might be in a circle of charm. You might be hamster-running under a spell, on an intravenous-magical-mystery drenching of espresso, sex, drugs, religion, righteousness, reason, anger, angst, success, failure, danger, or drama. 

Can the circle be unbroken?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Aha! I got it. Eureka. I have found out how to wed harm and charm (lucky or not), quirk and quark (charm, it turns out, is an elemental particle; don't ask me why they chose that word; channel Stephen Hawking). The enchantment of charm can dispel harm, singing an aria (that's right, charm circles back to song, incantation, chant, verse) of freedom and release.  

Before we get too excited about the charm bracelet of etymology, before we decide it always works like a charm, bear in mind that a charm can be a curse or a blessing. No less than Jakob Grimm, of the Brothers Grimm and their grim fairy tales, reminds us of this in 1883. To be effective, Grimm says, a charm "must be a choice." He claims it can't be a blessing and a curse. It's got to be one or the other, "either/or" (which is the title of a work by the philosopher-theologian Sören Kierkegaard). 

Take your pick.

Or flip a coin.

Charm or harm.

Give or take a letter.

Who said "spelling" wasn't important? 

 

fire tornado

They called it a fire tornado. Or was it tornado fire? Either way, it adds up to hellish fire hellishly swirling and fulminating. Whatever you call it, it's an indescribable inferno windsweeping into new words and definitions, invading lightning-quick into endtimes. Out of nowhere. Just like that: gone. Blink of an eye. Burnt to an unholy crisp. Still smoldering. As the heavens and earth scream out pleading for rain, give us rain, or anything resembling rain or performing like rain, drown this misery, quench the unquenchable. Its deafening roar. Its machinelike hunger and thirst. Its searing vocabulary with new flaming syllables. Rain, begging for rain. Or whatever (human, divine, natural, mechano-chemical) intervention can intercede with torrents of mercy. Whatever it takes to simmer down, to de-parch, to oceanize this fiery avalanche.

curbside pickup

In the old days, in the days before the epidemic became a pandemic, when they innocently strolled boulevards, shook hands, hugged, and sneezed or coughed with abandon, curbside pickups were reserved for nefarious exchanges on streets with no lights, beyond the surveillance cameras, beyond the arms of the law and conventional decency. Unlike during the coronavirus age, curbside pickups were not advertised with lawn signs. Retail merchants were discreet; they mumbled. They didn't advertise curbside pickups by boasts and neon. The demimonde was a subterranean circus in the old days, secret and raucous. It's private culture made its entreaties all the more alluring. But when curbside pickups went mainstream the sizzle fizzled. What fun is a curbside pickup that is all aboveground, on the up and up, family-oriented, and sanctioned by all authorities, federal, state, and local? Curbside pickups became so legit as to garner praise from politicos for feeding the economic engine. Where was the praise when the economic engine was steaming ahead at full throttle on Demimonde Drive, no speed limit, no red lights? Why was the civic championing muted despite a rampaging-rapids revenue stream? They know why: pride, respect, decency. They wanted to keep the curbside pickups discreet, charming, and wink-winkable. Those days are gone, perhaps forever. The signs said Call Ahead. Curbside Pickups Only. Stay in Your Car. The cars lined up. A parade. A festive flotilla. What took so long?

St. Inquisitive

I could have, couldn’t I? I wish I had. Why didn’t I? What was I thinking? (Before you go there, neuroscientists long ago demonstrated no difference between thinking and feeling.) Having gone that far, having done such doings, said such words, I could have hit the brakes, paused, slowed down, or — gasp! — come to a stop, sure, a rolling stop, the kind cops give tickets for, but a stop nevertheless, even if the word and the action were adorned in demurring, qualifying quotation marks, in Helvetica bold ital. Or a complete stop. Stop right there. On the other hand, in the other brain hemisphere, what if I couldn’t have? Given who I was then, the accumulated detritus and virtue coursing through my blood making me who I was in that time and place, who is to say those parameters allowed any choice whatsoever? With that notion percolating, go back, rewind the tape, as in the days of reel-to-reel tape recorders, and record again, record over the first take, what we now call overwrite or reboot in computer parlance, and say, “I couldn’t have, couldn’t I?” And the absurdly laughable Samuel Beckettish logic-and-illogic shotgun marriage of it all says, What’s the difference? Tell me, tell them, tell us the difference between could and couldn’t, between did and didn’t. I fail to fathom, plumb or plunder, any real or imagined difference. You vehemently shout: Of course, it makes a difference, it makes all the difference in the world, your world. Says you. I’m not playing with belly-button lint here. I’m not semantically self-abusing here (to use the lusciously lubricious term the Roman Catholic pre-Confession Examen of Conscience employed in the days of my seminary youth, etymological pun intended. Is there anything more oxymoronic than “self-abuse” as a term applied to self-administered pleasure? Can any two fused words say more about a generation? It is LOVL [laugh out very loud] now but not then, when we needed a St. Portnoy to save us). But I digress, and not because of perfume from a dress, Mr. Prufrock. Or do I digress? This metaphysical monologue, this diction-ated debate, on could vs. couldn’t is no dodge, no escape from responsibility. It’s an honest question twinned in pain and peril: Could I have gone another way? Could I not have gone another way? With or without the “not,” it’s the same question. Alas, after all this, after every self-administered midnight polygraph exam, after infinite Torquemada auto-interrogations on rack and ruin, I am finally brave enough to cry, Tighten the screws, have at it, boiling oil and all, ask it from every angle and in every tone of voice! 

I can’t for the life of me answer Yes or No.

And I blithely shout, It doesn’t matter.

taking a knee

A genuflection of reflection. Take one for the team (in this case, the nation, the e pluribus unum). Forgive us our trespasses, chokeholds, tramplings, blindnesses, deafnesses. So we genuflect. On bended knee. Wounded Knee. Forgive us our silences, forgive us our words. Forgive us our comforts. Genuflect symbolically, metaphorically, physically. Bow. Shots fired across the bow. Bow and arrow. Bury my heart. Genuine flection. Yield and you need not break. Flex your muscles. An inflection of speech. The fire next time. A perilous predilection. An election. The elect. Take a knee. On the chin. Break-neck speed. Life and limb. Out on a limb. Leap of faith.

PC: post-coronavirus

Me: Hey, Alfredo, you know what? Things just aren't going to be the same after this. They're really not going to be the same.

Alfredo: They never are.

And here I was the one pretending to be a Buddhist.
 

The Unkenneling

My favorite word in all of Shakespeare is "unkennel."

"If his occulted guilt / Do not itself unkennel in one speech, / It is a damned ghost that we have seen . . . "  

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2 

A Le Moyne College professor noted that word more than fifty years ago. I remembered. 

Unkennel. You can picture it. Angry, growling dogs. Barking, drooling, panting with ravenous rage.

We used to use the term "go viral." That video went viral on YouTube. The tweet went viral in minutes. Their Facebook post went viral.

Viral? 

Coronavirus killed that. Or should.

The unkenneled coronavirus.

an abundance of caution

 Signs in the Age of Coronavirus.

An "abundance of caution" is invoked. On decrees, doorways, doors of banks, laundromats, churches, temples, mosques, malls, ballparks, restaurants, schools, universities, coffee shops, barbershops, city halls, meeting halls, union halls, walls, apartment buildings, movie theaters, toll booths, brothels, insurance companies, brokerages, pharmacies, gambling joints, opium dens, cruise ships.

"Out of an abundance of caution . . . "

"If you have enough, you have abundance," goes the maxim for maximum effect.

And what is enough?

Abundance, such a fulsome and lavish word, billowing its bountiful message. Says the OED, an overflowing, to flow in waves.

Lap it up.

Caution. The OED: bond, surety, a taking heed.

Signs of our times.

And speaking of signs, try my tiny book: http://amzn.to/1Mz8RkY

flattening the curve

One might argue that flattening the curve started with Twiggy (Lesley Hornby) with the Mod look in the Sixties. But one might further, and more strenuously, posit that curve flattening was conceived, pushed, and marketed by men in power desirous of a certain look (can that look be termed androgynous any more?). If the sinewy, slender, skinny (all subjective adjectives) appearance being modeled did not promote anorexia, did it nevertheless subconsciously mumble (or blare in the public square) a message about shape and body, a message about shame and acceptance, desire and hunger?

And what about the hollowed-out waif look?

Has such flattening of the curve ever ceased? Pick up a fashion magazine and tell us.

Then there's curvy. As a pendulum-swinging alternative, curvy embraces the contours, the sensuous curves celebrated by, say, Caravaggio. Fatten the curve, one might say to a Twiggy-era model. (Though, to drill down lexicographically, "fatten" is a semantic choice that would put one in hot water, ripe for boiling, or into a penitential sauna sure to drip off sweat and ounces.)

Take a look at Marilyn Monroe. No one dared suggest she flatten the curve.

Times change.

Times even change to the point where such an analysis as this, such a curvilinear discourse, is not limited to one sex or gender or identity. The curves are up for grabs, flat or otherwise. As are the angular lines, the straight edges.

Not "up for grabs." Wrong phrase. Delete that. Up for discussion, yes. But anything else must be consensual.

social distancing vs. social proximating

I have been known to have social distanced. It is not the same as socially distanced. I have known social distancing. I have known social distancing, in its comings and its goings. Have you? Haven't you? The social distancing of snubs and snafus and near-misses. Or near Missus. The social distancing of forays and fumbles, dalliances and disasters. I have known them all. As T.S. Eliot penned it:

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

               So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase

I have known social distancing by any other name. Filed under the names of loneliness, alienation, indifference, rebuff, and buffering. Under the banners of taboo, time, and space. The labels of contagion or conjugation. Felt as intimacy or aridity.

I have socially distanced by one word, one sentence, a single faux pas. 

Haven't you? Have you?

Social distancing.

How about you?

How about us?

I have sung hymns to social distancing.

No one heard them.

Or no one replied.

Social distancing in the key of me, the key of you, the chords of coldness.

We sought the bridge.

They paid the toll.

They crossed the border.

I bridged the gap.

You narrowed the way . . . of distancing's definition, its social cues, its molecular matrix.

And while we're at it, at this safe distance, socially speaking, tell me, what is its opposite?

Social proximating?

As in: "I want to hold your hand . . . if you wash it." Or: "I want to touch your elbow (with my elbow) ..."

Social proximating, as in "Baby, socially proximate with me, babe."

It's a new brave new landscape, a brand-new vernacular.

Hold on.

But keep your distance.

For your good and mine.

For our good. And for the good of others.

trespasses

forgive us our traipsing, mine and yours, yours and mine; who said we could go there; he she it they them; who had the right, the passport, the visa, to enter such a forbidden land; to transgress; to go beyond; to cross the border; unmapped territory; uncharted waters mostly icebergs; what right; and to expect no consequences beyond the pale, beyond the pale skin; disregard the boundaries, the warnings, the posted signs; to violate; to cross over; beyond the beyond; forgive us ours as we forgive theirs; to leave one zone and enter another; your papers, please; your documents; the fingerprint; facial recognition scan; whatever made us think we could go there; what ever made me think I could escape unscathed

3 hardest words

I was wrong
you were right
we were wrong
they were right
I guessed wrong
thought I knew
had it figured
assumed it was
love or hate
hate or love
won't you try
try I did
we found out
maybe next time
no next time
time passes quickly
long story short
short story shorter
you and me
you and I
we three kings
you three queens
paper or plastic
not like that
is it real
is it over
I feel fine
stop right here

merry merry merry

If I say "merry" and ask you what immediately comes to mind, I'd bet good money that "Christmas" would be your reply. Right? I can't think of many other constructions in English that are so consistently paired. (Paired. There's a term used ad nauseam.) Yeah, "happy" followed by "birthday." No others come to mind. Help me out. Is it the same with "joyeux noel" in French?

Why "merry"? It could have gone myriad other ways: happy, joyous, pleasing, blessed, fine, cheerful, glad, sweet, exciting, holy. Okay, not quite myriad. But you get the point.

"Merry" itself has a fascinating history and evolution. The wonderful ("wonderful" instead of "merry"; there's another one) Online Etymology Dictionary traces merry to "short duration," as in "time passes quickly; enjoy it now while it lasts." I like that Zen element thrown in there. Impermanence. Transitory. Have you ever heard a Christmas sermon focus on that angle? Neither have I. It'd be a rewarding hybrid of notions and traditions. (No, not me. I'll spare you my attempt at such a homily.)

Not surprisingly, "merry" also has seedier (see below for the innuendo) senses. The Online Etymology Dictionary cites "merry-bout -- an incident of sexual intercourse." Fun! Following the same line of carnal logic, or passion, "merry-begot" was a way of describing "illegitimate" or "bastard."

Merry, merry, merry Christmas, or anything else.

fiery words

With large loft windows facing west, the afternoon-into-evening sun, wintry rare in these climes, blares. All but shouts. A clarion charge of lambent light, never failing to lift the indoor temps a degree or two. Healthy for the orchid, bonsai ficus, and cacti on the kitchen-dining room peninsular counter, beside the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, volume 1 of 2, open to the C's, the handy reader's magnifying glass resting on the cleavage of open pages. Sprawled on the couch, I am reading The New Yorker, on the cusp of a nap, hindered by the lambent intrusion; too drowsy to get up and pull the blinds down. Eyelids fluttering, flickering: the first frames of a silent movie. Sparrows, crows across the street, distantly bickering. Alone in the hull of a huge ship, flooding, like the Titanic but battleship steel, and yet the aristocratic balustrades and chandeliers of opulence. That dream again. No one but me. The Atlantic cascading down the stairs. My shouts, my cries. To whom? To what? My chattering teeth. The molten ice enveloping my veins. Please. Can you hear me? Can someone hear me? I can't swim. Too late. Sinking. No one. What is that? What. Where. What. Wisp of warmth. Dust. Rescue? Smoke? Attempt to scroll eyelids up. Turn head left, right. Scroll up. Eyes cloudy. Force open, wide-eyed. Wisps of white floating from the open OED. Vatican puffs of papal decision. Jolt. I jump. Dart to the counter. First tongues of flame. Memories of tissue paper, August heat, Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass in the backyard. Presto, no matches. Boyish danger. The word, you ask. Which word? Chagrin. The noun. Then the verb. Chagrin.  

dis-ease

Consider: disease

dis-, as in lack of, not, opposite of, apart, away, asunder, in a different direction, as in two, twice, two different ways, twain, between.

ease, as in mitigate, alleviate, relieve from pain or care, render less difficult, relax one's efforts (including 1863 to 1907, a more specific sense in sailing), to content a woman sexually (slang, 1861), physical comfort, undisturbed state of the body, tranquility, peace of mind, pleasure, well-being, opportunity. Compare adagio. Cf. at ease as a military order denoting freedom from stiffness or formality.

These from the Online Etymology Dictionary. 

Put the two together.

Dis-ease.

Read the above all over again. 

No, I'm not going to walk you through it. I'm not going to sermonize on what breaking down the two word parts means separately or together, or what marrying them conjures up and gives birth to. You can do that yourself.

It's revealing, isn't it?

But, still, add to the mix not at home in the world, nor in your skin, your psyche, nor in your bones.

The etymological and existential tension (infinitely tender and fragile; unspeakably personal) between cling and let go, grasp and avert, indulge and refrain, partake and repel, pause and pirouette, explore and perish.

Why is that?

So much depends. (William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow")

So if you have only a thin wire,
God does not mind.
He will enter your hands
as easily as ten cents used to
bring forth a Coke. (Anne Sexton, "Small Wire") 

texting one two three

the text text texts Scripture scripture stuttering writing the writing the word words wording string of semantic syllables passage extract narrative pretext context line lines nonverbal unspoken legible utterance utterances legible illegible indefinable posit of posing etymological energy of imprecise embedded thought would be thought inked inkling of linked intuition articulation you say text synonymous anonymous musing musings musingification beyond deeper than hermeneutics semiotics sunny cloudy composition in the infinite cloud unlouded texture texting fabricated text the text tyranny of term terminal terminology text textual silence nothing no-thing