Haiku and Counting
Af ter the rain fall
snails clut ter up the walk way.
We tip toe through them.
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Has Anyone Seen Our Moral Compass?
With this year’s election coming upon us, January 6, 2021 looms like Banquo’s ghost at the banquet table of my discontent. As I munch on the stale bread of right vs. wrong. Once so fresh, so warm and tasty, for all to savor.
Of course, in matters of moral, ethical and what is considered illicit behavior, there are invariably nuances. Grey area. Doubt. Certainly not bad aspects in themselves. Which will shape a point of view on what is considered right or wrong. What is good... what is bad. Although the Golden Rule has always emerged from the often thorny vines of that thicket: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or has it been supplanted by...Do unto others before they do it to you? Clearly, we have lost our way.
Ron Vazzano
But in the abandonment of metaphors for a moment—which one tends to reach for when trying to explain the unexplainable—imagine over the expanse of say, six past generations on through the previous century, encompassing the terms of presidents of various temperaments and political persuasions at the helm...
asking the American people these three questions:
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Is storming the Capital of the United States of America with intent to wreak havoc, injure and even kill, (and through which deaths have resulted), because you don’t agree with the outcome of a legal election—one upheld repeatedly by the courts—right or wrong?
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Should those who did so be punished?
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And if it were demonstrated unequivocally, that the sitting president did much to precipitate that action, and/or did little to stop it once it was underway (as documented by video, audio and under-oath testimony by that president’s own closest aides), should that person ever be considered again to be the President; sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States?
What do you think their answers would be?
We are a democracy. Arguably the greatest the world has ever known. Dare one say, that all but a small minority would answer to the above... “WRONG” ...“YES,” (and certainly not to be seen as heroes as the former president did), and “NO.” (Maybe even emphatically, “Never!”)
Yet, polls as recent as this past January, taken by responsible pollsters, noted that while “55 percent of respondents said 'the Capitol riot was an ‘attack on democracy that should never be forgotten,’ 43 percent said, ‘too much is being made’ of the riot. And that it is ‘time to move on.’” And further, with only 14% of Republicans assigning Trump, a great or good amount of culpability in the attack. About half of the 27% who said so in 2021.
In light of January 6th, Watergate now seems like a parking violation.
All that we were ever taught about the difference between right and wrong by parents, family, teachers, religious and secular institutions, no longer applies. And there is now, and perhaps evermore, "something rotten in the state of Denmark." And we all know how that went down.
Dueling Quotes of the Month
In the department of in the eye of the beholder...
Word of the Month
Flaco!
It’s a story I tried to ignore. I am not one with nature. Not one who's overly fascinated with animals and creatures in the wild. Do not think they transcend human frailties and misjudgments (Squirrels Making Bad Decisions, March 2015 MuseLetter). Nor do I think are inherently beautiful by virtue of their very existence. Save perhaps for the Monarch butterfly. And give me a paper-trained chihuahua puppy any day. All for another day.
Today, my thoughts turn to an owl who was inexplicably named Flaco. A cool sort of moniker that has a Marvel-comics ring to it. And almost begging for an exclamation point! And don’t be surprised if a movie is not made of this one day starring Danny Davito as Flaco.
For those who have been living under a rock somewhere, though not one in Central Park for sure, Flaco had escaped from the Central Park Zoo after some a-hole cut the protective netting of his enclosure. (Police are still actively trying to hunt down the person that committed that crime). And he, the owl, not the a-hole (as far as we know), had managed to survive in the wilds of New York City for over a year. Despite being born in captivity and having never had to fend for himself. Which is more than can be said for some of our generations with capital-lettered identification.
Though, for the most part in his early days of freedom, Flaco tended to hang out in Central Park. Where he was said to have been spotted frequently in his favorite tree.
In time he was more likely to be seen wandering from building to building. Not only in the park’s vicinity, but also in Lower Manhattan. Even at ground level, as he went about his day. Dispelling a misconception that owls are exclusively nocturnal.
He became an instant folk hero. Murals in homage sprang up at various locales in the city, as Flaco adapted to his freedom and was able to hunt for his own food. Dining on rats and pigeons and the like; poisonous though such street fare might be. And undoubtedly contributed to his demise, according to what the autopsy would show. So, We the Species...are at fault. If even indirectly.
In his one-year adventure, he served as a surrogate for those with dreams of a life free of entanglements. That metaphoric zoo, that daily life can too often seem to be. What with its endless commitments to people and jobs one would flee in a moment if they could. “60% percent of people report being emotionally detached at work... 19% as being miserable... only 33% reported feeling engaged." As per a recent Gallop poll. And the multitudes of dysfunctional families are so common as to become a cliché.
We have no way of knowing whether Flaco liked his day job at the zoo. That of providing us with a glimpse of odd avifauna. What with all those kids pointing at you while asking their parents unanswerable questions like why does he have such big eyes? “Well son...uh, because he’s an owl.” And so once Flaco had the chance, he was out of there.
He seemed to embody the “newyorkieness,” we New Yorkers tend to take a perverse pride in. A certain arrogance that we have, in being able to live in a place that is too expensive, too gritty, and always demanding a certain toughness as we go about our days (“I’m walking here!”). Where else but in this city could you have a story quite like this? Surely this is not Mayberry. And thankfully, not Kansas either, Toto. In time you’d expect Flaco to be hooting in New Yorkese. Seen here thinking...
Then suddenly and tragically, it was all over. This confirmation was issued by the zoo.
“We are saddened to report that Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl discovered missing from the Central Park Zoo after his exhibit was vandalized just over a year ago, is dead after an apparent collision with a building on West 89th Street in Manhattan.”
Then again, Balto worked in the wild. He didn't live there. He lived most of his life in Cleveland. Of all places. On the other hand, Flaco became one of us. Give him his statue already. We could use something to celebrate around here in these trying times.
But the story hasn't quite ended just yet. Immediately upon news of his death, people flocked to the park to lay flowers at the base of the tree where he was known to roost. This was soon followed by a movement among New Yorkers to erect “a pedestal with a branch protruding and a life size Flaco statue” in Central Park. A Change.org petition posted on February 24th has since gathered almost 5,000 signatures.
I don't want to ruffle any feathers here, but in the context of this dog's heroics, does this owl merit such an honor? To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen (worth a "Googling")...
While this is highly unlikely to happen, such an honor would not be a first. That would go to Balto (1919 – 1933). An Alaskan husky, who achieved fame when he led a team of sled dogs on the final leg of the 1925 run from Anchorage Alaska to Nome—in minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit— transporting an antitoxin needed to combat an outbreak of diphtheria.
"Flaco, I served with Balto. I knew Balto. Balto was a friend of mine. Flaco, you're no Balto."
muse-letter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, in the course of which, the sender becomes absorbed in thought, especially turning something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively.
2: a letter from one who envisions oneself as a poet as such, "musing" on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy, usually in some ironic or absurd way.
pre 2019
Baseball and Spring and Literary Things
Baseball has not been our "national pastime" for some time now. Football in the form of the NFL, has long since usurped that role.
Even at its peak, Baseball never experienced the collective gluttonous celebrations that we see on display each year in homes and sports bars across the country on Super Bowl Sunday. It has become de facto, a national holiday. This past Super Bowl (LVIII), with its 123.4 million viewers "across all viewer platforms," was the most-watched telecast in history.
The average viewership of the World Series last fall, was 9 million people. And even in its said golden age of the 50’s, Baseball never achieved that sort of NFL cultural imprint. Though Bobby Tompson’s home run in ’51 was said to be “The shot heard round the world.” Often considered as a moment in American history, it serves as a prologue in Don DeLillo’s 1997 expansive bestselling novel Underworld.
George Carlin offered a comparison between the sports in a classic comedy bit that also hit on an underlying truth in our psyche, as to why perhaps football has become our preferred sport (JUNE, 2013 Muse-letter A Riff on the Zeitgeist of Modernism: George Carlin Remembered).
“In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use a shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! —I hope I'll be safe at home!”
Or, of a more poetic distinction, I see football as The Iliad… baseball as The Odyssey.
Baseball lends itself to poetry in a way no other sport does. Perhaps because, in addition to its Odyssean journey (a 162-game season), it lends itself to quirky nuance, and most of all, anticipation. Or to many, another way of saying, the game is too slow.
I got a sense of that firsthand when a haiku of mine was published in an anthology Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems many years ago. In the book’s introduction, the editors spent 400 words offering possible meanings buried within my thirteen word haiku which read…
Nine men stand waiting
under storm clouds that gather.
Someone asks for time.
Can you imagine a book of 100 poems dedicated to football? Basketball? Hockey? Soccer? Curling? Not to mention having ongoing literary publications exclusive to those sports, as has been the case for baseball, with the likes of Spitball, Elysian Fields and Fan. In which some of my work has also appeared.
And finally, Baseball means another spring. Even sports atheists are aware each year of the advent of Spring Training and the rebirth to follow, what with the throwing out of the first ball on Opening Day; an almost sacramental rite.
Play Ball, 1982; Michael Langenstein; Diamonds Are Forever: Artists and Writers on Baseball 1987
Enter another spring… a return to Yankee Stadium. Wherein I once waxed poetic...
And I sat there rocking to the gentle rhythm
of the you and the me and the bat and the ball.
I’ll be back there next week. Batter up!
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* (sic)
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