IF YOU SEE THIS GUY, TELL HIM TO CALL ME...I GOT THE 5 DOLLAR BILL HE DROPPED.




So….after spending a long weekend doing all the administrative stuff to reclaim all my identities and getting day to day necessities replaced and repaired—(AND A BIG SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHO GAVE ME MORE ATTENTION AND SYMPATHY THAN WAS WARRANTED--AND HELPED ME HAVE FUN WHEN I WASN'T SCRAMBLING WITH CHORES) I thought I had left no stone unturned. This morning I get on my bike (which is how I usually get to and from the train—except on days when I’m trying to make things easy for muggers) and when I get to the station I realize that I don’t have the key to the lock. Cause it’s in my bag. And the mugger has (or rather, had, as you’ll see later) my bag. So I arrange the bike and the lock in the bike rack to make it appear (to the non-criminal eye) that it’s locked up. I guess I’ll find out tonight how well I managed it. Would be a helluva funny epilogue to the whole story if the bike is gone when I get there tonight.

First stop today is MTA in midtown. Gotta get a new monthly train pass. Office in Manhattan is typical of most Govt. offices. Institutional colors (Which are what actually? Green, gray and dark gray?) The guy helping me is understanding. But he wants proof of purchase for my original train pass. The form I downloaded online had to get signed by the police (check) had to be notarized (check), but nowhere was there mention of this requirement. I tell him so. He says it’s a requirement anyway. I say “ How would I have known that?” He says I should have called. I said that I went online, where I was encouraged to do it all online myself—which I did. He said that I did all the right things—except for this one thing. I said I didn’t want to have to come back. He asked if I could access my credit card account and find a record of the purchase. I said I could, but “not now, and not here.” I needed my account info to do that. He expressed his sympathy for my predicament. I said if he could issue me a replacement card now, I would fax or e-mail him the receipt later in the day. He said he believed me but that’s against regulations and ah, well, it just went back and forth like this until I asked if there was a supervisor around who might be able to make an exception in this case…which there was, and for which she did, and I got my new monthly pass. Whole thing coulda taken ten minutes, but with the Alice in Wonderland routine, it took thirty.

Got a message at the office when I got in from the Police two towns north of mine. They found my bag. But, they didn’t know that I was the muggee. They thought it was just a case of lost and found. When I filled them in on the details, they told me that they now have to turn the bag over to the police in my town who will probably dust it for prints and keep it for evidence for a while. I’m curious to know what remains of the contents. Can’t imagine he left me the iPod, or the swiss army knife, or the small bottle of tequila. But I’m hoping he left my papers (especially the Jobim music transcriptions) and eyeglasses and the V.S. Pritchett book I was in the middle of …and MY BIKE LOCK KEY!

I promised a couple of posts back to bring you the guy who “started it all.” The All being Limericks. Actually he didn’t start it, but he popularized it and he was…

Born in May 12, 1812.
The 20th of 21 children.
When he was four, his father suffered a financial collapse and was sent to prison for fraud and debt.
Soon after he was abandoned by his mother.
He was raised by his older sister.
He suffered from asthma, bronchitis, depression and epilepsy.
At 15 he started to earn his own living as an illustrator.
He worked for ten years as an ornithological and natural history draughtsman.
In the early 1830s he wrote his first Limerick.
He was Edward Lear.


And since Dickens is getting all the bi-centennial attention , I thought I'd toot Lear's horn since he too was an 1812 Baby.



“Nonsense is the breath of my nostrils,” he once wrote, and his joy in absurdity reflected his whole approach to “this ludicrously whirligig life which one suffers first & laughs at afterwards.”

There's something about "Nonsense" writing that appeals to me. Like puns, or many forms of wordplay, it's not about meaning or even lack of meaning. It's about playfulness. Lear wasn't all that sophisticated with his limericks, and most of them began with a standard introduction of the subject and then ended with a repeat of the name with only a verb, adverb, or other modifier added to wrap up the tale.

There was an Old Man of Madras,
Who rode on a cream-coloured ass;
But the length of its ears,
So promoted his fears,
That it killed that Old Man of Madras.

this one is a rare exception to the rule:

There was an Old Man who supposed,
That the street door was partially closed;
But some very large rats,
Ate his coats and his hats,
While that futile old gentleman dozed.

The form has had more clever and imaginative practitioners since..but he was a pioneer and man oh man, he sure could draw.