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Twas the (200th) Night Before Christmas

            ...when A Visit from St. Nicholas was first published. Anonymously and in a local newspaper.

                

 

It would take nearly twenty years before Clement Clark Moore would come forward to acknowledge authorship of that poem, now more commonly known as The Night Before Christmas. It is arguably the best known of American verses of all time. Yet he had written it, not for publication, but for the delight of his children (shades of a Lewis Carroll who was yet to celebrate even an un-birthday). A family member had submitted it to the newspaper unbeknownst to him.

With Christmas once again rapidly approaching, and with my having recently passed by Clement Clark Moore Park in the Chelsea area of Manhattan, it got me to thinking, just who was this guy with this tripod of a name that falls so trippingly on the tongue? And what about that poem?

 

Googling him later that night, I would read that he might not even be the real author. Heresy! It has been suggested by some, including an expert on textual content analysis, that Henry Livingston Jr. really wrote it. Whoever that was. Though there has never been any physical evidence to prove this theory.

 

Yet even if that turned out to be true, Mr. Moore’s name would still not be taken off that playground in Chelsea. Turns out he was a "1%-er" who owned a humongous amount of real estate in the neighborhood, including an estate that the city had to cut through when it started laying out its street grid in the area. Moore fought it tooth and nail, but then having lost, did ok dividing up land lots and selling them to well-heeled New Yorkers.

 

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He was a professor of classics at the General Theological Seminary, a staunch Episcopalian, and a writer whose works included, of all things, a tome entitled A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew Language. This might all further explain his reluctance to originally claim authorship of a poem that spoke of “a right jolly old elf,” and then throwing in a belly/jelly rhyme for good measure.

 

Yet whoever did write A Visit from St. Nicholas—and I’d bet my antlers it was Moore…

Moore's re-imagined story, is one that had its roots in the Fourth Century based on an early Christian bishop of Greek descent who would give gifts to children at Christmas time. 

 “… is largely responsible for the conception of Santa Claus from the mid-nineteenth century to today, including his physical appearance, the night of his visit, his mode of transportation, the  number and names of his reindeer and the tradition that he brings toys to children. Prior to the poem, American ideas about St. Nicholas and other Christmastide visitors varied considerably.”

                                                      —The New York Times, December 25, 1930        

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An inspired sprightly poem by a wealthy dour academian, is as unlikely a story as a sleigh ride through a winter night’s sky. A ride that Rudolph wouldn't come along to guide, until 116 years later in 1939. But that my children is a story for another Christmas. Nighty night.  

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Quote of the Month

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A Senior Descending into Starbucks

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 “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”

 

                              —Dante                                                                                      Inferno; Canto III

When silence was golden in the mid-century days

        of coffee

 

in the American right and might

        to coffee

 

in the hospitality of dropping by

       for coffee

            

to that percolation in syncopation…

         

       Maxwell House:

       Good to the last drop…

 

we guzzled in privacy absent the buzz

        of a beehive of strangers;

 

the pulsation of those taking meetings

discussing long shot proposals

        in a make-believe office

      

and those interviews at adjacent tables

        whereupon

an eavesdropping wizened one wants to interject:

              

      “Ah jeez, don’t say that,

        you just blew the job.”

 

The restroom open

to those with the code

is cracked by the homeless

who drop by to crap.

Daily.

 

A school is in session

with a tutor force-feeding    

irregular verbs to tattooed teens

        so bare in their cluelessness,

they’re, “I’m like, wow.”

 

In the cacophony among the coffee

the extraterrestrials are still agog

        with the New Age ring tones    

                the orgasmic tase on Vibrate

                        Apple apps harvested this fall

 

they keep phoning home

amidst the alleged music

        a few decibels beyond

 

the permutations and combinations

       of repeated concoctions

built on shallow syrups and false foams

announced in Rocket J. Squirrel voices...

 

          “A venti Caramel Macchiatoskim;

           sugar free/extra shot/extra hot/extra foam.”

 

You can't handle extra foam!

 

Laptops continue sucking the life

         out of space and time

their place at the table of eternity

 

as the lines like the universe

        keep expanding

as the customers like distant relatives

keep coming and staying—

                                            meanwhile

 

off somewhere in the lap of Mother Earth

growers keep planting and planting

pickers keep picking and picking

from which marketers keep spewing out

       

        NEW PRODUCT EXPERIENCES

 

while closing down some circles

        in which

the fires had dwindled beneath

their monolithic urns.

                          

Upon further sipping

before slipping further

into a realm of past tense

in these said to be the golden years

 

someone is still in the goddamn restroom. 

 

                              —Ron Vazzano

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Word of the Month

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A Reprise of a Reprise of a Christmas Past

Thirteen years ago, I had what I called at the time, an existential eBay moment. It was triggered  by the appearance on my screen of a plaything from last mid-century. When a so-called vintage toy is in working condition, with no parts missing and in its original box, it can get a bit pricey in bidding  situations. Which turned out to be the case here.

 

But what would you pay for an object that even the mere sight of, is enough to transport you to a Christmas day almost fifty years ago? Or whatever day in your life that holds a special place? Not to mention the chance to own said object …hold it in hand... see if some muscle memory kicks in?

 

I’ve often said, if you’re going to take a trip back in time, bring back some evidence of the journey. Emerging as if from out of the twilight zone, here it was:

"HASBRO ATOMIC SUBMARINE TORPEDO TOY

IN ORIGINAL BOX!!!!


The box has super graphics and is in good condition (it has a small stain on one end where the $3.98 price has been written).The toy is in good condition. The toy is complete including boats and torpedoes in the original sealed plastic bag. The instructions are also included. This is a very NICE RARE TOY!!!"

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Upon being out-bid, I responded with a counteroffer.

 

And another.

 

And still another.

 

And a plague on the house of the unknown bastard driving up the price. I now had to have this at all costs. What probably cost Hasbro, not more than pocket change when it first made this thing in 1959.

 

At this point, I suppose a back story is in order.

 

1965… Grandma's house… a second home... Christmas day.

 

The family is gathered. All those we love are still alive. An uncle, assuming the role of Santa Claus,  gives presents to the kids. I don't remember what I got, but my ten-year-old cousin received that “atomic submarine.”  

 

To put it gently, this cousin was, and still is, a delicate sort—not that there's anything wrong with that. And not exactly the type given to firing steel-ball torpedoes at plastic boats in cardboard water. I on the other hand—reaching the upper teens—was. And though perhaps too old to still be playing with toys, spent a part of the afternoon on the day of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, sinking yellow enemy ships—"Take that you 'bleeping bleeps'!" 

 

After that day, I never played with, nor even saw that toy again. After all, it was never mine to begin with. That is, until the futuristic year of 2010.

 

And as to what I paid for it?  I’ll never tell ("Loose lips sink ships!"). But it was exceeded, exponentially, in emotional value. And it even held up on the entertainment end as well. Long since on Medicare, and with the aid of glasses, I could peer through the periscope and score some direct hits. After a few tries, of course.

 

Hardly on a par with Proust's Madeleine cookie, yet how to explain how something like a plaything out of a tiny piece of time, can stay so long at the fair. Maybe it’s the Peter Pan syndrome? Maybe it’s just me? A fair question when meandering this far out of the present tense.

 

It is now almost sixty years since that Christmas day, brought home thirteen years ago by way of the internet. A go-to place in which we can indulge in this sort of time travel; play games with time. Which is only fair, since time always seems to be playing games with us.

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On Little Cat Feet

 

         after Carl Sandburg

 

In a Tijuana church,
its hand-painted windows

 

doing their best
to resemble stained glass,
fading and chipping,
let in more light.

                                   Ron Vazzano

finito

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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.  

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pre 2019

La Baguette

 

1.

 

Narrow streets converge at a corner

where food merchants are plying their trade;

a hubbub in the stillness of a postcard depiction.

A woman had then sashayed on by

on Rue Dauphine

as only French women can.

Who has directed her diagonal cut

across this Parisian street? Buñuel?

 

Hip thrust forward, la vie d’amour

implicit in the every step,

her dress on this sultry day clinging;

her hand encircling an unbagged baguette

long and lean and lancing the air

a master stroke in alliteration.

A man stands transfixed in speculation.

With whom would she share it?

Taste it? Tear it?

Leaving specks of crust on pouty lips

the soft dough filling her mouth?

2.

 

He crosses Pont Neuf,  a bridge built in halves

becoming enjoined after twenty six years.

Not long a span of time for stone

but a good-size chunk of a marital life.

That cliched better half lies languid in a room

of long-stemmed walls and painted roses

time having passed in beige.

 

She notes as he enters,

his trench coat twistingly belted;

a would-be Bogart in that parting scene.

Autumn winds on this ashen day,

have had their way with his desperate hair

resulting in enchanting disarray.

Eyes turn to the baguette he has brought unexpected.

She gives him a smile as long as the Seine.

Subtitles follow in the space beneath them.

Existential Triptych

2. My Dinner With Stanislavski

He speaks of a theater that could go under.

As he mulls an existence without costumes nor props.

Thank Godot for the vodka to come.

But what's to become of our inner life?

The regurgitation of pea-soup monologues?

Where would we stage-strutters go

In that allotted hour? He remains silent.

I now sense a memory of reason

Why so much sweat upon the pages;

 

So many pages in a play with no plot.

Therein might lie the madness to the method.

As shown in the tedium of Chekhov's Vanya

That final scene shattered by gunshots,

"Take me away! Take me away! Kill me.

I can't stay here, I can't!"

3. The Barn

The barn doors not left open

thus nothing has run off

 

​not the steeds of misdeeds

that should have been released

 

​along with the demons we meant to unleash

and maudlin memories still sitting baled

 

from the winters of discontent

the squandered summers that came and went

 

​the beast within that should have

long been unburdened

 

​chewing on unsown oats

behind closed doors.

1. Side Table

 

Ingrained in old furniture
is where the true stories lie.

That bureau that sits in storage in Jersey

from the last cross-country move,
outlasted the starter marriage
and the one the length

of War and Peace that would follow.

 

But most of all, I await the return
of that little side table now being repainted
by a handyman to match

the new décor in this,

the latest of multiple lives.

 

It has heard the arguments
absorbed the resentments
weathered the storms.
Coming back in a semi-gloss black,
I’ve lost count of the coats of colors

it previously has worn.

 

First bequeathed in its natural grain

by a wrinkled woman from Eastern Europe 

who never got over the drowning of a son
who looked like a young Cary Grant. 
This after losing kin in the holocaust.

 

This latest reincarnation,

will now hold a Crate & Barrel vase
and will remain standing

long after we’ve departed.

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