The other day someone indicated that I was a “glass is half empty” kind of person - as if it was a BAD thing! Of course my glass is half empty! After decades of consumerism and self indulgence, I’m surprised to find that the level is only half way down!
A glass that is half full is suspicious. Maybe it was never filled all the way to the top. But a half empty glass? That most certainly started out full at one time. Between the full state and the half empty state, someone got to slurp down the delicious contents. When the glass gets to be half empty, it’s because the contents were good. So, despite misconceptions to the contrary, a half empty glass indicates a life well lived. A half full glass? That’s likely as good as it ever got!
I must admit that half of anything always sends up a red flag. Recently they began marketing half Christmas trees. These are neatly bisected from top to bottom, so you can mount them on the wall, in the Christmas version of the wallflower. That way the tree doesn’t intrude by taking up too much space. This smacks of rampant practicality. Christmas tree are supposed to be large and showy and in the way. They are supposed to drop needles in your coffee cup as you walk by and tempt even the most docile cat into an ornament-busting climbing expedition. And there should be plenty of room underneath for a small child to get lost in the wonder of the packages.
Before Christmas trees became mere facsimiles, they were actually organic and came out of the forest. You would go out swaggering like Paul Bunyan, scout around, and chop one down. Ultimately, every Christmas tree was pretty much just half a tree. Of course, the tree looked great – until you chopped it down. Then it looked… not so great. By the time a tree was hauled over hill and dale and arrived in the living room, you felt blessed to have a quarter of a tree left! There was always a less than perfect side, one with only a few thoughtlessly placed anemic branches. It wasn’t exactly a perfect half of a tree like the current renderings in plastic, but it definitely wasn’t a full tree either. A little bit of Martha Stewart style carpentry with a saw and a drill would be needed to correct the problem. It required only a little skill, plus a tolerance for sap on your floor, your pants, and your cat.
Now life is so much more complicated that it’s turned the corner back into simplicity. You can just buy a mere half of a tree. If you change your mind in the future, you can go back to the store and buy the other half and strap them together. Voila – you now have a whole tree. You have just bought a Christmas tree on the installment plant er, uh, plan.
The advantage of half a tree is that it requires only half the lights and half the decorations. The downside is that it yields only half the presents, all of which must conform to the theme of one half. For example, you may receive one sock out of a pair, a container of Half and Half, or half a loaf of bread (better than no loaf). If will only take you half the time to unwrap your gifts, and blissfully, you will have paid only half as much as you would have with a whole tree looming over your wallet. But, worryingly, half way through Christmas Day the lights will go out, since you never should have cut those strings in half. Hopefully you bought a bunch of them – at least six of one, half a dozen of another. But things will work out okay. I suspect that in the long run, it actually won’t even be half bad.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Marshmallow Men: The Memoir
Have you noticed that Christmas traditions come and go just like everything else? Even something as venerable as Christmas has trends. Our family once enjoyed a decade-long love affair with Marshmallow Men, the spawn of Kraft Mystery Theatre. This was one of our favorite TV programs back when we had a single TV channel. The low-tech advertising on this show was just as engaging as the episodes were. At times it was even better. Kraft furnished all of the advertising during that hour. Each commercial break was leisurely and homey, unlike today’s ads that slingshot you from product to product like a dizzy marble in a flaming pinball machine.
Kraft commercial breaks featured an attractive beehived and aproned homemaker. Without stooping to the soul destroying style of Martha Stewart, this motherly figure demonstrated recipes made with Kraft products. They always included our favorites - Cheez Whiz, or Miracle Whip, or Jell-O, or, best of all, Velveeta Cheese. After all, what would be the point of Kraft lovingly producing all those family fortifying food products if families didn’t know what to do with them? At least once during every episode of Kraft Mystery Theatre my mother would leap out of her chair claiming “Oooooohh!” and run for a notepad and a pencil. That is how we were introduced to the Marshmallow Men.
That particular Kraft commercial detailed how to build your own army of white puffy pseudo snowmen. Two large marshmallows were used for the head and body, and four miniature marshmallows were drafted into play for arms and legs. The whole Man was assembled with toothpicks carefully broken in half so as to not stick out and reveal the secret of their assembly. Additional toothpicks were dipped into food coloring and used to paint on the eyes, noses and grinning mouths. I had a particular fondness for using yellow food coloring to draw in blond curls, revealing my secret desire to be blond and curly. We never made any Marshmallow Women – the recipe simply hadn’t given any instructions for that! The Men remained alone in their sugary celibacy.
Then there was the question of just what to do with the Marshmallow Men. You certainly couldn’t eat them – they were too handsome, and there were those sharp toothpicks to consider. The only option left was to display them. Sometimes the Men took up residence in the Christmas tree, and at other times they graced the coveted top of the TV set, deposing the ceramic Santa. Once, in a bizarre but somehow satisfying exhibit, they were featured in a Nativity scene. After a few days, they were mostly forgotten as they silently morphed into dusty white cement.
TV commercials aren’t nearly as benevolent these days. They don’t generate Christmas traditions. They only want us to buy stuff - mostly stuff we can’t afford, or don’t truly want, or stuff that we will tire of before we get the wrappings out to the trash. There are no elegant instructions on how to craft Marshmallow Men or make a casserole laced with Velveeta Cheese. For that, you would probably have to turn to the internet. And there you would probably just get distracted by instructions on how to build weapons of mass consumption. I don’t recommend it.
Kraft commercial breaks featured an attractive beehived and aproned homemaker. Without stooping to the soul destroying style of Martha Stewart, this motherly figure demonstrated recipes made with Kraft products. They always included our favorites - Cheez Whiz, or Miracle Whip, or Jell-O, or, best of all, Velveeta Cheese. After all, what would be the point of Kraft lovingly producing all those family fortifying food products if families didn’t know what to do with them? At least once during every episode of Kraft Mystery Theatre my mother would leap out of her chair claiming “Oooooohh!” and run for a notepad and a pencil. That is how we were introduced to the Marshmallow Men.
That particular Kraft commercial detailed how to build your own army of white puffy pseudo snowmen. Two large marshmallows were used for the head and body, and four miniature marshmallows were drafted into play for arms and legs. The whole Man was assembled with toothpicks carefully broken in half so as to not stick out and reveal the secret of their assembly. Additional toothpicks were dipped into food coloring and used to paint on the eyes, noses and grinning mouths. I had a particular fondness for using yellow food coloring to draw in blond curls, revealing my secret desire to be blond and curly. We never made any Marshmallow Women – the recipe simply hadn’t given any instructions for that! The Men remained alone in their sugary celibacy.
Then there was the question of just what to do with the Marshmallow Men. You certainly couldn’t eat them – they were too handsome, and there were those sharp toothpicks to consider. The only option left was to display them. Sometimes the Men took up residence in the Christmas tree, and at other times they graced the coveted top of the TV set, deposing the ceramic Santa. Once, in a bizarre but somehow satisfying exhibit, they were featured in a Nativity scene. After a few days, they were mostly forgotten as they silently morphed into dusty white cement.
TV commercials aren’t nearly as benevolent these days. They don’t generate Christmas traditions. They only want us to buy stuff - mostly stuff we can’t afford, or don’t truly want, or stuff that we will tire of before we get the wrappings out to the trash. There are no elegant instructions on how to craft Marshmallow Men or make a casserole laced with Velveeta Cheese. For that, you would probably have to turn to the internet. And there you would probably just get distracted by instructions on how to build weapons of mass consumption. I don’t recommend it.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Sign Here, Please
I can’t believe it. Ringo no longer signing autographs? After October 20, 2008, Ringo Starr will no longer sign autographs. His stated reason: he simply can’t keep up with all the demand. But… I can’t help but wonder… could it possibly be just the opposite? Maybe as the bags of fan mail have dwindled to a trickle, and girls both teen and middle-aged have finally moved on to other idols, maybe this is just sour grapes. Is there anyone left on the planet without a Ringo Starr autograph? It seems like I can’t open a sock drawer or fish through an old coat pocket without a Ringo autograph surfacing. I’ve used them to write grocery lists on, to start camp fires with, and to line the bird cage with, and still they keep showing up.
I suspect that the truth may no longer be skulking under heaving bags of fan mail. A day-in-the-life of the great man probably goes something like this. Ringo wakes up in his country mansion, and dons his Gucci smoking jacket. He slips past all the dusty Beatles memorabilia frowning out from the walls, passes through his TV room where someone has left A Hard Day’s Night playing in an endless loop on the DVD player. He picks up a pack of smokes from the hallway table so that his wife will think he’s just nipping out for a puff. All the dogs are still sleeping, so he goes down to the mail box at the end of his private laneway, alone. Even though he had the groundskeeper oil the hinges yesterday, they still squeak a little as he slowly pulls the door open, the door with his own face painted on it.
The mail box is empty. He sucks in his breath and quickly looks around to see if anyone has noticed. It’s only six a.m., but you never know if Eric Clapton might be looking out the window of his study. This time of the morning he’s nearly always sitting there, downing his third cup of Earl Grey, and grimly working his way through the mountain of fan mail. It just wouldn’t do for him to notice that this is the third day in a row that Ringo’s mail box has been empty. Clappie would never understand how it is with drummers, and how they tend to fade into obscurity more quickly than show-off guitarists. At least Ringo doesn’t need to worry about stares from the neighbors on the other side. Ozzy is back in California at this time of the year, and the trucks usually just dump his fan mail right into the empty swimming pool anyway.
It’s so much better to pull the plug yourself than to have your plug yanked by lack of interest. Ringo knows that the public wants what they can’t have more than what they can have. All those days of signing slobbered-on cocktail napkins, and plates, and toilet seats, and baby bottles, and questionable underpants are best forgotten. Better to be proactive, pick a date, and just stop autographing. That way, whenever Ringo gets short of cash, he can release a signature or two on eBay, since all his John Lennon memorabilia is pretty much gone now. And the best part? He won’t have to face the mailbox every day, and stupid Clapton and Ozzy will have nothing to sneer about!
I suspect that the truth may no longer be skulking under heaving bags of fan mail. A day-in-the-life of the great man probably goes something like this. Ringo wakes up in his country mansion, and dons his Gucci smoking jacket. He slips past all the dusty Beatles memorabilia frowning out from the walls, passes through his TV room where someone has left A Hard Day’s Night playing in an endless loop on the DVD player. He picks up a pack of smokes from the hallway table so that his wife will think he’s just nipping out for a puff. All the dogs are still sleeping, so he goes down to the mail box at the end of his private laneway, alone. Even though he had the groundskeeper oil the hinges yesterday, they still squeak a little as he slowly pulls the door open, the door with his own face painted on it.
The mail box is empty. He sucks in his breath and quickly looks around to see if anyone has noticed. It’s only six a.m., but you never know if Eric Clapton might be looking out the window of his study. This time of the morning he’s nearly always sitting there, downing his third cup of Earl Grey, and grimly working his way through the mountain of fan mail. It just wouldn’t do for him to notice that this is the third day in a row that Ringo’s mail box has been empty. Clappie would never understand how it is with drummers, and how they tend to fade into obscurity more quickly than show-off guitarists. At least Ringo doesn’t need to worry about stares from the neighbors on the other side. Ozzy is back in California at this time of the year, and the trucks usually just dump his fan mail right into the empty swimming pool anyway.
It’s so much better to pull the plug yourself than to have your plug yanked by lack of interest. Ringo knows that the public wants what they can’t have more than what they can have. All those days of signing slobbered-on cocktail napkins, and plates, and toilet seats, and baby bottles, and questionable underpants are best forgotten. Better to be proactive, pick a date, and just stop autographing. That way, whenever Ringo gets short of cash, he can release a signature or two on eBay, since all his John Lennon memorabilia is pretty much gone now. And the best part? He won’t have to face the mailbox every day, and stupid Clapton and Ozzy will have nothing to sneer about!
Profile This!
About me. I’m not fooled by this demanding little phrase that lurks around on blogs and other websites. This is really just a profile – and “profile” is simply a euphemism for “autobiography.” Such a thoroughly abhorrent realm.
Why such a reluctance to chronicle my life? Like everything else, it has its little black roots back in the tedium of my childhood. There was always one thing you could count on during the first week of school each September. The teacher placed the Gun of Obedience to your head and compelled you to write “What I Did on My Summer Vacation”. Unless you had spent the summer trekking in the Himalayas, or had been lucky enough to have wrestled with a rabid bear and two cubs underneath your back porch, this assignment was fraught with peril. You could come up looking duller than dust and I routinely propelled myself right to the top of the dust heap.
My composition invariably read something like, “We went to our cottage. My Dad caught a fish.” After that I was pretty much stumped. Even then I could recognize this autobiographical gusher was a bit of a literary embarrassment. The real meat of the summer wasn’t suitable material for school compositions: my uncle had discovered that he could keep beer cold in the well and stayed drunk for fourteen days proving it; my mother had murdered a snake with an with an axe so dull that the snake committed suicide to ends its own suffering; a sibling drank too much Purple Jesus and passed it off as food poisoning; the boy next door kissed me; I began to suspect that boys were not nearly half so disgusting as I had thought… You can see how things could get totally out of control if you ever started indulging yourself biographically.
More than a few years have intervened since anyone has had enough power over me to make me crank out a weary memoir. I haven’t been inclined to explore the profile-driven social networking services like Facebook. But now, after years of autobiography-free bliss, I have succumbed to the lure of blogging. And with that comes the wanton cries of the “about me” section. Suddenly, I am propelled all the way back to my seat at school, chewing on a tasty sodden pencil, mired in a blank haze. And when I think about it, things haven’t really changed all that much. I still go to the cottage in the summer. My Dad is no longer there to catch a fish. Me? I’m quite happy to leave the fish right where they are. And, for the most part, this seems to make the fish happy too. And it still happens – I still get sweaty palms and a film of fur on my tongue every time I start trolling for that ever elusive fodder - something, anything, to put in the “about me” section!
Why such a reluctance to chronicle my life? Like everything else, it has its little black roots back in the tedium of my childhood. There was always one thing you could count on during the first week of school each September. The teacher placed the Gun of Obedience to your head and compelled you to write “What I Did on My Summer Vacation”. Unless you had spent the summer trekking in the Himalayas, or had been lucky enough to have wrestled with a rabid bear and two cubs underneath your back porch, this assignment was fraught with peril. You could come up looking duller than dust and I routinely propelled myself right to the top of the dust heap.
My composition invariably read something like, “We went to our cottage. My Dad caught a fish.” After that I was pretty much stumped. Even then I could recognize this autobiographical gusher was a bit of a literary embarrassment. The real meat of the summer wasn’t suitable material for school compositions: my uncle had discovered that he could keep beer cold in the well and stayed drunk for fourteen days proving it; my mother had murdered a snake with an with an axe so dull that the snake committed suicide to ends its own suffering; a sibling drank too much Purple Jesus and passed it off as food poisoning; the boy next door kissed me; I began to suspect that boys were not nearly half so disgusting as I had thought… You can see how things could get totally out of control if you ever started indulging yourself biographically.
More than a few years have intervened since anyone has had enough power over me to make me crank out a weary memoir. I haven’t been inclined to explore the profile-driven social networking services like Facebook. But now, after years of autobiography-free bliss, I have succumbed to the lure of blogging. And with that comes the wanton cries of the “about me” section. Suddenly, I am propelled all the way back to my seat at school, chewing on a tasty sodden pencil, mired in a blank haze. And when I think about it, things haven’t really changed all that much. I still go to the cottage in the summer. My Dad is no longer there to catch a fish. Me? I’m quite happy to leave the fish right where they are. And, for the most part, this seems to make the fish happy too. And it still happens – I still get sweaty palms and a film of fur on my tongue every time I start trolling for that ever elusive fodder - something, anything, to put in the “about me” section!
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