duck duck geese

I paused at the light, ready to turn right on red. I spotted a gaggle of geese attempting to cross the three lanes of Bridge Street, a street so named that fails to bring to mind any sort of bridge whatsoever, except a patch of roadway over a tiny stream. A gaggle of geese. The collective noun derives from the linguistic attempt to imitate the sound the geese make. Just so you know: the geese are not called a gaggle if they are flying. They become a skein if they take flight. These geese were jaunty and persistent in their effort to cross the busy road on a sunny afternoon in July. It seemed they had a leader, perhaps a few leaders. Presumably, the leaders would be the first to perish if the crossing proved fatal. It would remain to be seen whether such tragedy would thwart the efforts of the remaining gaggle. I turned right. In my rear-view mirror, I noticed the geese were making progress. They were getting cars to stop or slow down as they waddled across, more or less a few steps forward, a few in retreat, then another sally forth. The geese were causing risk to the drivers bearing down upon them. A sudden slowdown heightens the chance of a chain-reaction collision. As for my own driving risk, I had to avert my eyes and proceed forward on my own passage. 

We wholesomely respect such matters as "animal rights" in our society. Some places post roadside warnings: GEESE CROSSING or DUCK CROSSING. We do it for deer, too, though such warnings are more a matter of alerting drivers to be cautious with respect to deer gamboling across the road. In our public square, we champion and protect the rights of animals such as geese or ducks. We do so even at the risk to ourselves. After all, most drivers don't see geese or ducks in the road only to step on the accelerator and plow into the gaggle, exploding it into feathers, flesh, and blood. We're not like that. They are poor, innocent creatures. They have no say in their own safety, they had to cross the road for some reason, perhaps for food or water, maybe to go home to a nest. 

Humans? Forget it. We beep the horn. We get angry at a person or persons for being in the road, impeding our progress, especially in the midst of a travel portion, outside of a defined crosswalk. We might give the finger to the "gaggle" (horde? gang? clutch? group? crowd? tribe? remnant? family?) of humans. Add factors such as migration, race, mobility, behavior, size, attire, et al., and you alter the atmosphere and the attitude of some drivers, possibly increasing personal anger or vehicular speed. 

O, to be a skein in human skin!
 

can I have one for free?

At first, I thought the sign said MUG SALE. Then I figured: RUG SALE. Two simple rows of letters were crudely and sloppily painted on some beat-up plywood, on a sandwich board, off to the side of the roadway. It could only have applied to one of the few stores on the other side of the heavily traveled road. I was driving by, so these were fleeting thoughts my brain was rapidly processing. MUGS SALE? Plural? Who'd give a shit about that? "Hey, let me grind to a stop, put my left-turn signal on, and get on over there and buy a car full of mugs!" I don't think so. Rugs? Possibly, but how many do you need, and how often? And you would need a store larger than the ones I saw, to make room for the rugs, unless they were bath mats or welcome carpets. The mind tries to fill in the blanks in order to make a familiar and expected word. 

Aha! That first letter is an H! The topmost first three letters, all caps, sans serif, and SALE below it were in white paint over a yellow background, which partially explained the readability challenges. HUG SALE? Wrong again. The sign painter or painters splashed on an E after HUG, a dark gray-black E, as if the E were an afterthought, or a correction.

Now I get it! 

HUGE SALE.

Incidentally, I noticed after a subsequent drive-by that the E was painted over a white background, which seemed to indicate that the E indeed was a correction. Omigod, what could the earlier version possibly have been? HUGG? How many ways can you misspell HUGE anyway?

So, they're having a huge sale over there. We don't know if the hugeness refers to the size of the items for sale (bulldozers? semi-tractor-trailers? railroad freight cars? aircraft carriers?) or the quantity of items, be they large or tiny, or the amount of alleged discount. 

Either way, it did not interest me in the least, not enough to swerve left.

HUG SALE would interest me. Wouldn't it interest you? Maybe not. Some people shy away from direct physical contact. They want their private space. They just happen to be like that. No law against it. Such individuals would keep driving. But some people undoubtedly would turn left for a HUG SALE, especially if the store had tawdry and gaudy neon lights, evoking an aura of illicit activity. On the other hand, the hug emporium could just as easily be family-friendly, in fact radically friendly, welcoming one and all, no matter your race, ethnicity, gender, social status, education, age, history, talent, background, mental state, physical condition, health, political persuasion, religious or secular beliefs, marital status, mobility, legality, sobriety, cordiality or hostility. (Did I leave anything out?)

HUG SALE.

How much would a hug cost? After all, no hug is truly free. Both the giver and the receiver invest immeasurable doses of time, vulnerability, physical exertion, emotional risk, social capital, and spiritual energy in the act of hugging. Oh. You were thinking in monetary terms. I suppose you can let the market determine that. (Is hug even the right word? Is a hug the same as an embrace? The sign had no room for that longer word, which invites its own misreadings.)  

Who would be the huggers and who would be the huggees? Couldn't the roles be reversed?

What would be the optimum duration of each hug?

I would limit it to one hug per visit, then get back in line if you're that hug-hungry.

What would be the appropriate firmness of the hug? Both arms? Slapping on back?  

No words exchanged?

Hug Monitors (HMs) would be able to sort out these practical matters, right?

open sesame

You approach the doorway. It is a public thoroughfare for walkers, the entrance to a department store in an age when no one knows exactly what a department store is or should be. Nevertheless, you walk through the portal. Actually, you intend to walk through the entranceway (or exitway, if you are proceeding out of the building), and to do so, you must first open the door, since you cannot proceed through the glass as if by osmosis or by sci-fi, special-effects walkthrough. But wait. Someone is ahead of you, pioneering their way into the building. The person in front of you breezily opens the door. You are a few steps behind the person, maybe a step or a half step in back of the person who just opened the door. You expect the forerunner to hold the door ajar for a moment so that you can hold the door open for yourself. You anticipate a mumbled "thank you" from your own lips and perhaps, though not likely, a "you're welcome" from the other. "You're welcome" is a dying phrase, even more so than "thanks" or "thank you." But the door is not held open, so those are moot points. The person in front of you, the one who countered your blithe expectations by not holding the door open, proceeds briskly into the store, the door left ajar, left to do what it must: close in your face unless you and your hand intervene. They don't look back. You wonder: did they know that you were a mere step or two in their pedestrian wake? Couldn't they hear your footsteps? Didn't they see your reflection in the glass of the door? Didn't they catch a whiff of your expensive, recently purchased fragrance? Should you have cleared your throat or coughed to alert them to your presence? This line of conjecture riles you. You tell yourself you are blaming yourself for another's rudeness. You are making an excuse for someone's incivility. True, you argue, you can't conclusively discern nor prove the motives of the person who walked before you and failed to hold the door open. You fully admit that the other person may not have even been aware of your presence in the aftermath of their footsteps. But that does not let them off the hook so easily. Were they unaware of you as a result of self-absorption? Or were they unaware of you because they were in a hurry, a mad dash, under a deadline or in need of a restroom? Possible, though not likely based on their speed of walking and the expression on their face as you caught a glimpse of it, a side glance, as the person turned, pivoted, after opening the door and letting it close by itself. You even generously allow the notion that the person who was in front of you was lost in a reverie, a dream of sorts. You consider the chance that a loved one was gravely ill or had just passed away; maybe a pet had shuffled off its mortal furry coil. You say this to yourself, but, no, you don't really believe it, not for a second. Who knows, you imagine, maybe the Recalcitrant Door Person (RDP) was mentally rehashing, or preparing, an argument with a friend, foe, spouse, lover, politician, driver, colleague, boss, subordinate, or stranger. But you doubt this as well because the person was not gesticulating nor were their lips moving in silent rehearsal or silent reenactment, a phenomenon you used to witness when you worked in Manhattan, as employees de-stressed on the sidewalk as they walked to Grand Central or the Port Authority. You resign yourself to the fact that you will never know the answers to these questions, not unless you see that person as you walk through the store, or as you exit, fearing a repetition of dour doorness. Besides, you doubt you would raise the issue with the stranger, even if you were certain it was the same person. Where and how would you begin? "They say that when one door closes another one opens up." If you were to utter that platitude, could you do it without irony at best and sarcasm at worst? And then what, you imagine, as you walk toward the exit on your way out the door. 

sultry summer #haiku

not a leaf turning

birds chirping in slow motion

pavement steam rising

forwards and backwards and backwards and forwards and . . .

Palindromes. 

They are amusing, clever, and challenging. Spelled the same forwards and backwards, palindromes have a rich history. It is said that Ben Jonson coined the term in the 17th century. The two most famous examples that pop (there's a palindrome!) into my mind are: "Able was I ere I saw Elba" (referring to Napoleon's exile to an island in the Mediterranean) and "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama." Palindromes also refer to numerical sequences. Palindromelist.net is an extraordinary, active, live resource for this phenomenon. Stunningly, it presents a "longest palindrome" that takes up thousands of words! I would imagine that either a computer crafted it or some version of crowd sourcing collaborated to create it. 

Imagine a "Twilight Zone" or "Black Mirror" episode featuring characters who speak only in palindromes. What a challenge for the screenwriters! Just browsing through examples under "A" at Palindrome.net, one sees ratings-inducing, albeit inappropriate, bits of dialogue such as: "A car, a man, a maraca," "A slut nixes sex in Tulsa," "Ah, Satan sees Natasha!" and "Acrobats stab orca." (Don't get steamed at me; I didn't make these up; just quoting here.) Picture (aurally) the characters conversing palindromically, yet it takes a while for them to discover that is their only manner of discourse. And when they have to think about it, instead of letting it happen naturally, the characters find it impossible to speak fluently. Furthermore, viewers watching this episode are at first unaware of the palindrome dialogue. Would viewers using closed-caption subtitles catch on sooner?

In observing my mother, who is 100 + 1 years old, I see a painful-to-witness version of life's palindrome. Her regression to a simple, childlike state is not precisely a palindrome, but it has parallels. Life's video is spooling backwards, until it reaches the zero we begin with. Since the pattern is rougher and less formally precise than a palindrome, consider it a squinting palindrome, a parapalindrome. (This is not the least original on my part. It's another version of the Riddle of the Sphinx.)

Is the parapalindrome the organic sequence that humans typically experience?

In other words, is this what happens not only to our lives but also to our relationships, our jobs, our promises, our mind and body? 

Is progression-regression-progression-regression the "normal" march of time?

I think not.

That's too tidy a reckoning, not zigzag enough.

Agree?

hear ye, hear ye

Did town criers really say "hear ye, hear ye"?

And did they ever weep, or did "cry" always refer to voice volume?

As for me?

Read all about it; or rather read all of it.

My latest book.

My ninth: Journey to the End of Love: In Search of Leonard Cohen -- and My Self.

bumps in the road

You drive along a city street, east or west, north or south; it doesn't matter. It might even be a suburban roadway, though not a country road or highway. The vehicle in front of you suddenly swerves to the right, or left, a reactionary maneuver. Is it to avoid hitting a pedestrian in the roadway? A squirrel daring to risk its squirrelly life by threading in, around, or through the moving onslaught of tires that would crush it and extinguish its life? Perhaps the driver in front of you and subsequently you are dodging a sharp object in the road, an object potentially injurious to your tires, and to you and your occupants. Maybe it's a squirrel or woodchuck or bird or rat or raccoon that did not make it to the other side of the roadway, entrails still steaming, flies not yet settling to feast on the corpse. Let's not omit the possibility that it's a human, injured or having reached his or her expiration date, in the busy roadway.

No.

It is none of these.

It's a bump in the road. More accurately, it's the opposite of a bump in the road, whatever that would be called.

The current trend is to dodge, swerve, steer, veer, zigzag, weave, or pivot a vehicle away from the depression of a utility or maintenance hole cover, also known as a manhole. Sometimes, though not as frequently, the cover is raised slightly above the surface. More often, it's below grade, causing unswerved tires to drive over a depression of, what?, 2 or 3 inches max.

Fortunately, the vehicle in front of you merely swerves, like an Olympic skater, rather than slams on the breaks and stops.

You wonder why this trend exists. You consider that each vehicle exercising this transportation mode might be transporting a sleeping child or two in a car seat, and that said child or children might awake, screaming, owing to the less-than-earthquake-intense disturbance. You also consider the notion that a teenager or teenagers riding in the vehicle, earbuds or headphones in place, might, as a result of driving over an indented maintenance hole cover exclaim, "Whatthefuck, Mom. I'm trying to do my English homework here!" 

Or you may not be remotely aware of The Veer at all.

You find it puzzling. It baffles you.

Is this vehicular maneuver limited to vehicles with tires apt to burst, thereby making it imperative for the driver to dodge the utility hole cover?

No, you find that cars sporting expensive, sturdy, resilient, top-of-the-line tires perform this aversion tactic as much as any vehicle with no-tread tires, with tires on their last rubbery legs. 

Is it limited to older cars with lousy shock absorbers?

Au contraire.

Vehicles featuring the latest shock-absorbing, quietening technologies known to humankind are as apt to perform the maneuver as anyone else.

You stop and think: how long has this been a common habit of drivers?

Is it limited to specific geographical regions, drivers with certain income levels, age, education, upbringing, class, religion, lack of religion, occupation, gender, or other defining characteristic?

None that you can discern.

Really: why does that driver in front of you execute The Swerve?

No one seems to know.

Vehicularis interruptus.

It could be a contagion, a broadened application of pothole avoidance.

It might be some vast conspiracy aimed at the local DPW.

Can any conclusion whatsoever be drawn from this ubiquitous (at least in my environs) custom?

Is there any broader lesson, metaphor, or moral that we can draw from this practice?

Is it a far cry, an absurd stretch, to suggest some sort of aversion to jostling, displeasure, or inconvenience?

Or does it posit no meaning whatsoever?

Inquiring minds want to know.