Prose Poem: A Visit from Kathryn Dill.

 

I prefer not to work.

At anything.

My philosophy has always been:

let it come to me, 

whether it be wealth, love, power,

or Bismarck herring.

 

This mindset produces

consequences,

including poverty, boredom, jail,

and hunger. Especially hunger.

But no regret. Never regret.

And some interesting people have

come to me out of the blue.

 

Like Kathryn Dill, who writes about

careers and workforce issues for the

Wall Street Journal. I often read her

stuff. At the library.

I was at home, minding my own business,

when she came in through the patio doors

to address me sternly.

"You need a career" she began

without preamble.

"You need to be part of the workforce"

she continued.

"Quiet quitting is killing American initiative"

she finished, arms akimbo, glaring at me.

I took it all in without batting an eye.

Because I hadn't had anything to eat

in two days and was feeling faint.

"Would you like a glass of water?"

I asked her politely.

At that, she wheeled around abruptly to

leave a large sack of money on my

coffee table. Euros and yen and twenty dollar

bills spilled out of the bag onto the carpet. 

Then she ran back out the patio door

without another word.

 

I haven't touched the money.

It's still on the coffee table.

I'd like someone to come take it

to the Red Cross.

And maybe bring me a ham sandwich.

Prose Poem: Jed Boal and the great restaurants

 

Great restaurants give me indigestion.

Not so Mr. Jed Boal, who reports on things

for KSL TV. 

Take, for instance, the noted Wasatch

Pioneer Chop House in Vernal, Utah.

I happened to be there one evening,

picking at a dispirited cobb salad,

when in strode Jed Boal with his

entourage.

He comandeered a table right

in front of the massive stone fireplace

and began firing orders to the flock

of wait persons that surrounded him

like obsequious totem poles.

"Mushrooms sauteed in Irish butter!"

he barked.

"Dinner rolls so light and fluffy 

they could double for cottonwood

fluff!" he shouted.

"And a round of birch beer for

everyone in the place!" he finished,

flourishing his cape like a stage

magician.

The wait staff automatically brought

him a large platter of smoking

prime rib. He tucked into it

with Falstaffian gusto. 

Meanwhile, I had given up on

my cobb salad. 

It was thin and timid.

Between gargantuan bites of meat

Mr. Boal looked over at me,

saw my weary dyspeptic expression,

and bounded over to me.

"What's wrong, man?" he demanded,

slapping me on the back in that

hail-fellow-well-met manner that 

has won him so many awards from

the Utah Broadcasters Association.

"The salad's not to my liking" I told him.

I swear I heard trumpets blare as Mr. Boal

reached into his red velvet weskit to

produce a small green vial.

"Here, my boy" he told me grandly.

"Put a drop or two of this cuisine revitalizer

onto your food -- any dish at all -- and 

your taste buds will swoon!"

His manner was imperious.

So I took the proffered vial,

shook two drops on my salad,

and forked in a mouthful.

By golly, he was right! Suddenly

I was enjoying the best meal of my life.

I gobbled up the rest of my salad in a trice.

But when I turned to thank Mr. Boal

he was gone. Leaving behind nothing

but a trail of twenty-dollar tips.

That was two years ago. Since then

I've tried to see Mr. Boal to get some

more of his wonderful cuisine revitalizer

or get him to reveal the recipe But

every time I show up at the KSL studios 

with my story they toss me out on my ear.

I've written to him, emailed him, tried to 

phone him. With no luck.

So I've decided that the next time

he's on-air in the studio I will be

directly above him on the roof and

tear off pieces of it until there's a 

hole big enough for me to be lowered

down to him.

It's not as crazy as it sounds;

it worked once before long ago

in Capernaum.

 

 

Prose Poem: James R. Hagerty and Red Skelton.

 

Why is James R. Hagerty called Bob?

I never understood the reason for that,

ever since I started reading him 

forty years ago. 

 

He doesn't write like a Bob.

He doesn't look like a Bob.

Hell, he doesn't even talk like a Bob.

And I should know --

because I have been investigating

him for the past ten years.

And that includes listening to him

on radio and TV.  Taking notes.

 

James R. Hagerty, I have concluded,

is a Fred.

Talks the Fred talk. Walks the Fred walk.

And has the Fred look.

If you look closely at the neckties

he wears, you will notice a small

embroidered "F" on every single one.

 

Oh, I know he'll deny it up and down.

He'll show you affidavits testifying

to his being known as Bob 

everywhere from Brussels to Hong Kong.

His library card from the

Chagrin Falls Public Library 

lists him as James R. (Bob) Hagerty.

 

But in his heart he knows he's Fred.

Because inside every Bob there is a 

Fred yearning to get out.

And because he has often stated

that his favorite Red Skelton character

has always been . . . 

Freddy the Freeloader.  

 

 

 

 

Prose Poem: Lois M.Collins steps out of an airplane

 

The city never stops ticking.

Like a cheap clock.

People leap into their cars

to speed away to work.

To rush pell mell to all sorts

of services and meetings.

The trains and buses hurtle

along like mad creatures.

Then Lois M. Collins 

steps out of an airplane.

 

She is a writer who can stop time

from running away unscathed

and unrecorded.

By stepping out of an airplane.

After all, anybody can step IN

to an airplane; but how many

people, let alone scribes,

can step OUT of an airplane?

In midair.  

 

She does this with an 

anti-gravity pencil.

Given to her by 

Rudolph Binswanger.

The famous business 

columnist for the

Tooele Transcript-Bulletin.

 

It allows her to suspend the

laws of gravity.

As long as her heart is pure

and she uses active verbs.

 

Lois has written that when

viewed from midair

the city no longer seems

in a hurry.

Instead, everything slows down

to the speed of snowflakes 

calmly descending on a ledge

until they cause an avalanche. 

 

How sad that Lois has lost

her magic pencil . . . 

She left it at Trader Joe's

and a clerk used it 

to open a portal to Schenectady

to visit a cousin.

And never returned.

 

 Now Lois M. Collins

steps out of dollar stores.

In mid-sentence.

As she writes about shipwrecked

youth. And canned spinach.

Which gives us hope 

in a better mousetrap. 

 

Prose Poem: Farhad Manjoo and a bowl of vegetable steam.

 

They kept jogging

even after stepping on

 the rare Lotis blue,

leaving a powdery smear

on the sidewalk.

 

They were running 

to improve their health

and to generate new

provocative ideas for their

newspaper column.

 

They are Farhad Manjoo,

and nobody else.

Whose impetus impelled

them to run blithely

past a weeping fire hydrant

and park benches morphing

into cows.

 

On, on, they ran;

over hill, over dale,

faster than a typhoon

gale.

 

Leaping over caissons.

Straddling incoherent rhetoric.

Neatly side-stepping chalk artists.

They sped like cheap beer

through the bladder.

 

And then they ran some more.

Up the stairs, into their office

at the mighty New York Times,

and around the editorial board,

blindsiding Paul Krugman, 

Ross Douthat, and

Michelle Goldberg.

 

Down the stairs, out the door,

up Park Avenue -- 

then slowing

slowing

slowing

until they cantered

into Delmonico's

for a bowl of vegetable steam.

Prose Poem: Emily Heil in the Forbidden Kitchen.

 

A door slammed. The bell rang.

A shot was fired.

Emily Heil entered the 

Forbidden Kitchen.

 

She came looking for

a vial of salt distilled

from peacock tears.

It was foolhardy.

 

But food reporters

for the Washington Post

are often temerarious.

Not to mention wortcunning.

 

(Had Emily been writing

this particular squib

she would not use 

such words as 'temerarious'

or wortcunning  --

rightly believing they 

are pretentious.)

 

A gargoyle guarded

the salt cellar.

Our heroine boldly

approached it.

 

"You must answer

my question 

in order to enter"

said the ugly creature.

 

"Did Mama Cass die from

choking on a ham sandwich?"

it asked.

"She died in her sleep"

replied Emily.

 

"Pass!" cried the crestfallen

gargoyle.

And the rest of the story

appears in our Sunday

Supplement.

Prose Poem: Julia Carpenter checks in.

 

 The finest hotel in the city

is the Grand Bonanza Inn.

Room service is never ending.

The desk bell is huge. Made

of silver. It reverberates for 

hours after it is tapped.

The lobby has a fountain

where butterflies gather.

And the bell boys hand out

free Pez dispensers at 

all hours.

When Julia Carpenter checks in

for a weekend of work on her

book

the desk clerk does cartwheels.

Ms. Carpenter is given so many

thick and fluffy white towels

that it takes a gurney to wheel

them all up to her room.

Because the Grand Bonanza Inn

honors and respects journalists.

No matter what newspaper

they work for.

Even if it's the local

Nickel Shopper. 

 

This particular weekend

Ms. Carpenter tells the fawning

desk clerk: "I've had an epiphany

with my book."

The clerk chuckles richly and 

deeply (for he is very obese

and sings bass in the Sangerbund.)

"That's wonderful!" he exclaims.

The desk clerk gathers all the 

hotel staff to hear Ms. Carpenter's

epiphany.

They perch on the thickly padded

leather lobby chairs, all agog.

"I'm writing it in Sanskrit!" 

she announces triumphantly.

Several chambermaids faint

during the ensuing uproar. 

And a man who looks like

Fritz Feld turns to the camera

to say "That's all folks!"

Prose Poem: Betsy McKay is Edited

 

We arrived an hour late to the Editor's Dinner,

due to an early fall of cottage cheese.

My date decided not to come in

and went swimming in the koi

pond instead.

Senior writer Betsy McKay was at the podium,

giving the newspaper editors a piece of her 

mind.

She used a lot of big words,

maybe Celtic,

so I won't quote her.

But after her speech the room stayed

silent.

So silent you could hear a face fall.

Since I hadn't gotten there in time

for my salmon dinner, which I had

paid for, I began gobbling bread

sticks. They made a loud crunching

noise.

Ms. McKay looked at me in annoyance.

But I was hungry, so I kept munching.

I'm not afraid of journalists.

I've got nothing to hide.

I pay my taxes and never stay

out late. 

But then again, why antagonize

someone with juice?

So I stuffed a handful of bread sticks

into my coat pocket and left quietly.

The next day the Russian financial

crisis began.

You couldn't even give away a Russian.

Ms. McKay covered the whole thing

magnificently in the Wall Street Journal.

And I finished off the bread sticks

with a fine bottle of Citronella. 

So I figure we're even.

Tristram Shandy. Chapter One.

 

In his foreword to the Modern Library Book edition of Tristram Shandy, Bergen Evans writes "The best of Sterne's humor -- and it is very great -- lies in the antithesis of his characters, in the absurdity of their preoccupations, the ludicrousness of their incongruity, and the pathos of their inability to communicate with each other.  Each illuminates the other's loneliness, the 'salt, unplumbed, estranging sea' that isolates us all."

"He has no superior in the art of presenting the minutiae of daily intercourse, of dramatizing the passing moment, and capturing the nuances of feeling that lend depth and shadow to our small talk."

I have always seen the world as ludicrous and incongruous. As ripe for drollery. And I have read Laurence Sterne's great comic novel twice already. Once on a long bus ride from Arkansas to North Dakota after being red-lighted from the Tarzan Zerbini Shrine Circus. The second time when I was a house husband in Wichita Kansas while Amy taught school -- it was something to do during those long sweltering summer afternoons while Madelaine and Adam were napping.

It seems that I am fated, no matter how hard I try to shanghai the limelight, to remain caught in the web of the 'minutiae of daily intercourse' for the remaining duration of my restless existence. I am in no danger of being hounded by the paparazzi.

 Amy will be working long hours at H & R Block as a tax preparer until the end of April, and so I am left to my own devices. And I prefer those devices to be the humorous written word.

My plan, if you can call such a nebulous conception a plan, is to read one chapter of Tristram Shandy each day, and then put down my thoughts about what I've read and what memories and whimsies it brings to the surface (like pond scum mayhap.) 

So this will be my daily journal, diary, confessional, soapbox . . . what have you.  At least until Amy is done for the 2023 tax season.  And then I foresee a trip and a very long stay at a farm in Idaho.

I will be sending only the link to my daily dispatches, so the recipient may remain blithely unaware of my deep (but narrow) thoughts if they so wish.

As Ben Johnson says in the 1973 John Wayne movie "The Train Robbers," 'Well, it's something to do . . . '

 

Chapter One.

Begins with the begetting of Tristram. Although just how he knows the exact details of the episode is left obscure. He tells the reader he wishes his conception had been under better circumstances. Because he believes how and when and why a man is conceived stamps him with an iron and irrevocable horoscope for the rest of his life.

As the son of a bartender, born into the lower middle class, it seems only natural to me that I was fated to become an itinerant gypsy and drunkard, as well as a subpar father and husband. Even though the Gospel pulled me up beyond myself, it took a long time before I could sustain myself in that airy purview. And the struggle still continues today.

"Pray, my dear, have you not forgot to wind up the clock?" 

This inopportune question by Tristram's mother during his conception is what blights our hero's prospects forever. 

I wonder if my mother asked my father if he had gotten new batteries for the clock radio? 

Prose Poem: Tim Carman and the Relish.

 

So I invented this relish, see?

I mean that I put together

certain ingredients in a certain

way that makes them stay

fresh in the fridge for a long time.

And it's a cheap food, but very

nutritious. And easy to make.

So I wanted to tell someone

about it.

Because I think it's just as

important as the invention of

mumbo sauce or the rise in

shrimp chips consumption

in the United States.

But the only food reporter

I could get to respond to my

emails was Tim Carman of

the Washington Post.

He was polite

but noncommittal.

"Please send me the complete

list of ingredients" he wrote,

"and I may be able to do something."

I hesitated, because what if he

simply stole the recipe for

my universal relish --

I could prove nothing in court.

But then I decided that perfect trust

casteth out all guile.

A week later he emailed:

"I tried your so-called universal

relish recipe. You have simply

re-invented chow-chow."

Crushed, I went to the fridge

and dumped all my universal

relish down the sink. 

Then went out to shovel snow

onto my neighbors driveway. 

Afterwards a thought hit me,

so I emailed Carman back:

"Did you remember to grate

the cucumber?"

Two days later he responded:

"Apologies. I remade your universal

relish with grated cucumber and

it is a world-beater. Congratulations."

Don't you love a guy who keeps an

open mind?

I felt so good I immediately went

out to sprinkle ground glass on

my neighbor's sidewalk.

 

**********************************

Tim Carman's Twitter response:

This is a first. The great Tim Torkildson, the man who brings joy to journalists everywhere, has turned me into a hard-nosed chow-chow reporter.