The Melancholy of Age;
the Power of Memory
—David Remnick
MuseLetter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, addressed to a person or organization, 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 a poet, or one who envisions oneself as such, in which he or she “muses” on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy, usually in some ironic or absurd way.
Rapping with the Stews at 30,000 Feet
An unedited journal entry by a flawed Yuppie protagonist, on an August day of yore. With an implicit nod to Salinger?
August 10,1988
Wednesday 5:36 PM PCT
Enroute
Not that I start the conversations mind you. I’m not given to talking to people on planes. Though I will respond if addressed. And at the back of the plane while stretching my legs, I find myself in conversational exchange with a bevy of stews. I’m interested in these encounters strictly to gain a sociological perspective of a group of people that I rarely come across in everyday life. Namely, stews.
One stew won’t let me pay for my drink. She inquires about how I like my new seating arrangement. She helped me upgrade from a seat next to a big guy and a broken overhead light, to a seat by a window next to a petit woman, and a proper light, (which enables me to write this piece while the shades are drawn, and an Alan Alda movie silently plays).
This stew has red hair, is pretty, and congenial in a relatively real sort of way. Stews can be notoriously phony. And reflecting this age of poor manners in which we live, sometimes downright bitchy and rude.
Stew number two is black, also pretty and married with a 20 month old daughter. Guess what we talk about? The Sexual Mores of the Modern Day Stew in this Age of Safe Sex? Not on your life. It’s all baby and family talk. You know the conversation. “At what age did your daughter begin to walk?” “Aren’t those early months something?” “We were lucky. We got pregnant right away.” Anyway, she lives in Westchester, NY.
The third stew is blonde. She seems to epitomize the stereotypical stew that was the source of much comical reference in “Prisoner of Second Avenue,” another factory-made Neal Simon blockbuster of about 15 years vintage.
This stew lives on the Upper East Side. A more expanded “Upper” evidently as 95th and 3rd is a new boundary for apartment living. She is single, young, shares the apt. with a roommate, and at $1,400 for one bedroom, considers her flat to be a steal. “There’s a doorman and a sauna.” Where does she hang out you ask? “Mostly in bars in the neighborhood.” Yes, precisely. She hails from places like Dallas and North Carolina and just loves New York. You knew it.
Now, these rap sessions could get me reflecting about times past. I could think of my old days in The Upper East Side League, playing for the thrill of encounter or conquest, call it what you will. But I only spent a brief time in The Show (to borrow an expression from “Bull Durham”). Frankly, I don’t recall ever dating a stew. So there are no really good old days. What I do come away with is that:
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The stews seem to be getting young; conversely maybe I'm just getting older.
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They reflect a crosshatch of experience. They are not the stereotypical nymphs as often portrayed in pop culture and one's imagination; the blonde aside.
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I like my situation just fine.
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It's nice to have people come up and talk to me. It makes me feel mature, approachable and attractive; three traits I never used to ascribe to myself not all that long ago. Say about one decade ago.
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I probably have become a better dresser over the years.
Going Beyond the Numbers
Though a condition that I could not find upon Googling, I am aware it is something I have. I’ll call it, a Numerical Pattern Recognition Condition. Though as far as psychological “conditions” go, this isn't something that would cause one to suffer from it.
The closest thing to what I’m going to try to describe, is Apophenia. Which is said to be a common human experience where people will see patterns in random events and assign meaning to it. Regarding numbers, that could take on the classic form of say, where “7’s” are good luck; “13’s” are bad or ominous. That’s not really it. Though I do have a favorite number. 42. Tied into being an ardent baseball fan.
It's certainly not Arithmomania (from Greek arithmós), which is a form of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Whereby one may have an urge to count objects and actions. Such as steps while going up or down stairs, tiles on a floor, or to be constantly making mathematical calculations. Though I have given into counting steps on rare occasions, such as when walking up to the crown inside the Statue of Liberty. (There are 377 steps from the lobby to the crown, should this ever come up. Pun intended).
Nor is it Numerology. Which is, “The belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in words and names.” (Wikipedia)
What I do have, I've come to realize, is something many people share. And some go further in exploring or celebrating it in some exaggerated manner. I'm more given to photographing it or recording it in a journal, and enjoying the irony or improbability of its making an appearance. Becoming somewhat fixated with it for a while, but not pinning significance to it as a numerologist might.
The most popular example in recent times, is “Twosday.” The unofficial name given to Tuesday, February 22, 2022. All the major media outlets, and late night comedy hosts picked up on it. As noted on CNN:
The date is February 22, 2022. When you write it, 2/22/22, it’s a palindrome, meaning it reads the same forward and backward. It also falls on a Tuesday, which is now referred to as Twosday.
It’s the most exceptional date in over a decade, according to palindrome enthusiast Aziz Inan. He’s a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Portland in Oregon, and he has been studying palindrome dates for over 14 years.
The last time there was a ubiquitous six-digit palindrome date was November 11, 2011, Inan noted. It’s written 11/11/11.
That a professor actually “studies” palindromic dates? The piece goes on to note that...
In Sacramento, California, 222 couples will participate in a wedding at the State Capitol. The ceremony starts at 2 p.m. PT and will conclude at precisely 2:22 p.m PT.
A sort of OCD on steroids.
My notice of numerical patterns goes beyond just date recognition. And when they occur, I might be given to reaching for my cell phone or pen to capture it.
Living in a high-rise of twenty floors with two elevators, I’d often have to wait in the lobby for a while, looking above the doors to get a sense of when the next elevator would be arriving. Within the seven years I'd lived there, I’d never seen this till one day not long before I moved out of the building. And it especially caught my eye what with that highly anticipated, alliterative, year up ahead. And it also representing the standard for good vision. Click!
When I reported this in the context of some MuseLetter piece I was doing at the time, I heard from many people recounting their own experiences with improbable numerical alignments in their lives. Nothing was too trivial to mention either.
In a situation years before, while driving my car, I noticed that I was approaching an odd (literally and figuratively) alignment on my odometer. One I’d never seen before or will ever again. I pulled over to not only capture it, but as it was suggestive to me of a line from a classic Robert Frost poem, I later added it to the photo.
This next, falls into the proverbial “What are the odds !?" As I recorded it in my journal in part...
2/2/2
In this, a palindromic year...on this Groundhog Day... on a day with
deuces wild... I came back from the mailbox with a check written out
to me, for $2.22!
“Dear Cardmember:
Enclosed is a refund check for a credit balance on your account.”
I still have it.
Which brings me to the arrival of August, the 8th month of the year.
My birthday is on the 20th. My father’s (he passed away almost 50 years ago), is on the 24th. So in this year of 2024, both of these dates are numerically intertwined. As if carved in stone, this is why I
identify the date in this manner at the top of this month's MuseLetter. A sequence in chronology that can only occur once for all time. Though in effect for 31 days.
Again, I don’t see any absolute meaning in numbers as do those in the three categories I’ve outlined. But rather a sense of something that you can’t quite put into words. It jumping out at me, as if to ask rhetorically, "how about that."
I will now think about him in a way that I never quite do, even on those special days that come and go each year. Father’s Day, his birthday, the anniversary of his death. And it seems to tie back as well to the time that has passed; the distance travelled.
But of course, in going beyond the numbers, your “mileage” will vary. And I'm all eyes if you would like to share. I think it fascinating and fun stuff. Obviously.
Quote of the Month
As taken from a piece in The New Yorker and used as a theme for this MuseLetter, as shown in the "masthead".
In Search of The Fountain (Pen) of Youth
According to myth, in 1513, Ponce de Leon went to what is now Florida, in search of the Fountain of Youth. In accordance with reality in 2024, I went to New Orleans in search of the fountain pen of my youth. And not coincidently of course, I also happened to be in town for Mardi Gras.
I didn’t find it exactly. The pen. But did do better than señor de Leon. At a place called Papier Plume. A name, not only the French could love.
For one thing, they don’t make fountain pens any longer that have a side-lever refill mechanism. They come with ink cartridges. Although you can buy a “converter” so as to be able to fill it by hand from a bottle of ink. Which at times, can be a bit messy. Though ritualistically satisfying, as I have rediscovered. For another, a retro-looking pen, in say, a tortoise shell design— that my father had passed on to me (even a bartender had a great looking fountain pen back in the day...alas long lost; pen and father)— well, as an old uncle would say when something was expensive: “You go for your lungs in that place.” Thus, I settled on something modestly priced. And rather plain. A “Pilot,” made in Japan (of course).
As I've noted here before, I learned to write in cursive at a tender age. And by the third grade, at nine years old, I was quite proficient at it. And perhaps, pathetically, I still have the paperwork to prove it.
The nuns who taught us, would only allow the use of fountain pens. And only filled with blue/black ink. Not black. Not blue. But blue/black, mister. At a time when the ballpoint pen had taken the nation by storm with the mass-marketed BIC which was introduced in 1950. But the good sisters thought that its usage would create bad writing habits. And so ballpoints were forbidden. (Perhaps even sinful?)
As for penmanship, a year ago, I waxed rhapsodic on the Declaration of Independence. In the beauty of the creation of the words as much, as for their meaning. Then going on as to the many benefits that have been attributed to writing by hand. As once again advanced this year by a Jonathan Lambert, a science journalist.
“A study published in January found that when students write by hand, brain areas involved in motor and visual information processing "sync up" with areas crucial to memory formation, firing at frequencies associated with learning.”
But this time for me, I'm particularly taken with the writing implement itself. Which adds so much to the writing experience, which I have missed all these years by trafficking in gel pens. A step up from ball points for sure, but not the real deal.
“Writing with a fountain pen is a sensory delight and a nostalgic connection to the art of penmanship. The joy of using a fountain pen lies in the experience itself, from the first stroke of ink to the final flourish.”(woodfountainpens.com)
Publications on and off-line are dedicated not only to the joys of writing but to the artistry in fountain pens themselves; vintage and new. More than a hobby, for many, it is an obsession. There are a surprising number of “stilophiles” out there as I became aware, while purchasing another pen a few months later, at the Fountain Pen Hospital in Lower Manhattan. A place that has specialized in the selling of pens and ink almost exclusively, since 1946.
This time, and at more than double the price... I bought a . A brand name that goes directly to my youth. But actually, more in terms of its iconic Tip-Fill design bottle of ink. Which I had found in its original box on- line following that aforementioned Louisiana purchase. With its definitive geometrical prominence, it strikes me in its presence as being on a par with that of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I can almost hear the
swelling refrain of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" playing in the background.
But for all of the joys I’ve read about and experienced now regarding the fountain pen, beyond all of that, the use of one takes me back to a sense of my beginnings. And in so doing, am amazed that given the responsibility that is required in the care and maintenance of a fountain pen, I can’t imagine one in the hands of a nine-year old today, when you consider our snowflake, helicopter-parenting culture. (“Watch out for that nib; you’ll stab yourself!”).
But of little concern to me, for I have found my fountain of youth! And in so doing, harken back to the words of Wordsworth I've posted often over the years on these “pages,” that so resonate. With now, with literally a new point to make of it.
Quote of the Month
"
"
The akrasia of New York Yankee great Mickey Mantle, can best
be summed up in his own words, in which he once said, that if he knew he was going to live so long, he would have taken better care of himself.
graphic design by Ron Vazzano
—Ron Vazzano
