Pepper of the Earth – The Home Office Record & Mostly Daily Gazette

(Continued from Monday and the Red-Tape Bomb Scare)

After NYPD tells us to cut and run, we climb out of the subway into clumpy overcast. The sun is doing its best to burn through, but it’s still a long cold lonely winter for the most part. Except that it’s hot. It’s nearly as hot on top as it was down below, and up here it threatens rain. I’m trying to imagine the Board meeting where they thought up weather like this.

R&D Weather Angel: OK, we have a new one we think you’ll be very happy with.
Jealous Angry God: That “rain of frogs” deal was pretty cool.
Department Heads: (nodding) Yeah, Tz’fardaya was a good one.
Jealous Angry God: I’m going to use it in a movie, I think.
R&D Weather Angel: Well, this new one, it has Yahweh written all over it.
Putti: Except not quite so dramatic.
R&D Weather Angel: Right, not so dramatic.
Jealous Angry God: How does it go?
R&D Weather Angel: We’re thinking it’s a hot scenario. So you see, it’s hot.
Putti: Really hot.
R&D Weather Angel: Really really hot. And sticky and sweaty.
Jealous Angry God: OK, sounds good so far.
R&D Weather Angel: And then it’s even hotter, and wetter. And then — here’s the good part — it almost rains, which would be totally wet, but it doesn’t, it just stays hot –
Putti: And then it gets even hotter!
Department Heads: Niiiiiiice.
Jealous Angry God: I’m liking it. I’m feeling it.
R&D Weather Angel: Now let me show you our plans for the subway.

Up top there’s a lot of standing around. All of the nearby buildings are evacuating, except for the gym, which is my gym as irony would have it. I haven’t been lately. I could have packed a change of clothes and done some cardio. The firemen don’t look happy in the Jealous Angry weather, togged as they are in layers of water-resistant canvas and rubber. The cops are a little more sanguine and mostly shrug a lot. And then there’s a little boom, not much of a thing at all really, but it freezes us all. We can just about see the 2001 dust cloud over again, smell the burning concrete, remember the grim tear-streaked cheeks.

There’s no call for any of it, of course. What we have is some sort of little bag on Montague Street near Court, and after the Bomb Squad x-rays it they decide to teach it a lesson, which they do with a high-tech pressurized watergun device, a sort of Super Soaker, I gather, for possible bombs. That’s what makes our boom, and shoots a little debris around.

Depending on which paper you read, the root of the problem is either a canvas bag containing a sewing kit and dish detergent — that’s the Daily News version — or it’s a lunchbox, which the police say had more than one sandwich in it — the latter from Newsday. If you read the Times this basically didn’t happen at all.

In apparent retaliation for the lunchbox, police nearly slaughter five brown tourists riding a bus, and mobilize to make sure that photographers only take pictures of puppies, kitties, and fish. Otherwise, the terrorists will win. Seriously: point your camera at anything with pipes or masonry and you’re risking a police incident. They’ll shoot someone soon enough.

It’s demoralizing to be in an anti-terrorist dragnet. Just after 9/11 we had an anthrax scare down here, in a building across the way. There was never any anthrax, of course, just panicked people who couldn’t let go and couldn’t hold on. Why would there be anthrax in a mailroom across the street? It doesn’t make sense. But when they set up chemical showers and guys in Hazmat suits start wading around right across from your office, it’s hard to keep your head straight. I was rattled. I was rattled for days.

This time it turns funny pretty fast, when I’m the one who has to tell the cop on the lower R station platforms that the action is over. He is suspicious. “Are you sure?” he insists. “They took the tape down? The red tape?” (Note to self — it looks like the yellow tape is for traffic control and the red tape is the serious business.) Yes, I tell him. They took it all down, they said I could come in here, the fire trucks are gone and the machinery was pulling out when I left.

He shakes his head. It’s hot three levels down on the empty R platform, and a few intrepid suits are trickling down now. He takes his radio off his belt, clicks it, shrugs. “You’d think they’d tell a guy,” he says.

Life in New York post-9/11 is an asymptotic approach to What It Was Like Before. In this way, terrorism is like sad love broken — weeks can pass and you won’t think of her, and then something swims up to remind you, and you say to yourself, “Damn. I thought I was past this.”

For weeks and months I forget all about our Prime Target status until I run up against heavy weapons or deployed rapid response teams or subway bag searches (for the record, this is one of the worst ideas ever: not only inconvenient and certainly illegal, but also annoying, pointless and unlikely to either deter or preserve), and when I do I’m jostled back off center again.

Monday in point: I’m on my way to work today, coming in early so I can polish a bit before springing my this-afternoon-off idea on them without warning. Down the Borough Hall station a train blats its horn as it trundles in, which is New York code for I’m-not-stopping-you’re-SOL. The next train through, this one bound the other direction into Brooklyn, does the same, and the one after that too.

Borough Hall is a major station; it’s under the Brooklyn court buildings, and it knots several major train lines (2 3 4 5 R M and occasionally N) into a long rambly set of tracks and platforms. It’s under what used to be the Brooklyn wing of government, back when Brooklyn was its own municipality (and the 4th largest city in America), and next to the main Brooklyn branch of the Post Office. When yet another train crawls through honking away without stopping, I am — how to put it — fucking livid. And I have not had coffee yet.

Eventually they make an announcement that there is a “situation” at Borough Hall. There sure is: the trains aren’t stopping. “I’ll situation you,” we think. I stomp up the 2 3 platform to try the R, fuming so hot I leave scorched brimstone footprint-shaped puddles in my wake. At the top of the connecting stairs a cop is shooing people out to the street. He looks a little like Ben Affleck, but that’s not his fault.

“Well can I get a transfer?” one reasonable gent asks, nonplussed. The cop pauses for a second, and for the first time in a long time we hear the real voice of authority, not the voice of niggly don’t-stand-there and stop-doing-that. “Look sir,” he says, firm. “I am trying to help you out here. You can not go back into this station. There are no transfers. There are no trains. This is an emergency. We are evacuating the area. Now please GET OUT OF THE SUBWAY and go up to the street.”

There’s really no arguing with that. (Continued in The Lunchbox that Roared)

The July 4th issue of the The New Yorker — of course I’m behind, it’s The New Yorker — runs a beautiful poem by Clive James. This is part of it; you can read the rest on Clive James’s web page, at the link below.

Portrait of Man Writing

While you paint me, I marvel at your skin.
The miracle of being twenty-four
Is there like a first blush as you touch in
The blemishes that make my face a war
I’m losing against time. So you begin,
By lending inwardness to an outline,
Your life in art as I am ending mine.

Try not to miss the story my mouth tells,
Even unmoving, of how once it had
The knack for spinning yarns and casting spells,
And had to make an effort to seem sad.
These eyes that look as crusty as dry wells
Despite the glue they seep, once keenly shone.
Give them at least a glimmer of what’s gone.

[ ... ]

But do we credit beauty even when
It’s there in front of us? It stops the heart.
The mortal clockwork has to start again,
Ticking towards the day we fall apart,
Before we see now all we won’t have then.

Exquisite. Read the whole thing here.

One year ago today, we ran our most popular Pepper post to date: a roasty parody of the Clive Owens and Keira Knightley costume drama film King Arthur. Here it is again, in its entirety, for new readers. The selling point of this movie was that it was supposed to be historically accurate, for certain small values of historical accuracy.

PG-13 Woad House

Being a Condensed Treatment of the New Moving Picture King Arthur, in Hopes that 115 or More Minutes of Your Life might be Devoted to More Fruitful Purfuits. Copyright © 2004 – 2005 Linus Gelber, All Rights Reserved.

The Steppes of Sarmatia. Fires, huts, mud.

Lookout: Look out!
Elders of Sarmatia: What’s wrong?
Lookout: The Romans are coming!
Elders: What about it?
Lookout: They are coming as they do every 15 years to reap their bounty under treaty, to take our children away to the cold north where they will train them as cavalry riders and force them to patrol dangerous lands near Hadrian’s Wall! Shall we rally to arms and stop them?
Elders: No.
Lookout: But why not?
Elders: For one thing, our tribe disappeared over 200 years ago.

The Romans seize young Lancelot.

Lancelot: But wait! You can’t do this!
Romans: Why not? We’re being mostly historically accurate.
Lancelot: Yes, but I’m a made-up character! Even if Arthur is real, it’s known that I never existed!
Romans: Shut up.

Hadrian’s Wall. Arthur’s knights escort Bishop Germanius to someplace that whatever it is, it’s definitely not Camelot, because that wouldn’t be historically accurate.

Soldier: Camelot!
Knights: Shut up.
Soldier: But look, you’re Arthur and this is England, and –
Knights: Shut up.
Soldier: Where are we going then?
Arthur: North.
Soldier: Fine, be that way.
Tristan: Whoa!
Arthur: Where?
Tristan: What?
Arthur: Where are they?
Tristan: Who?
Arthur: Woads. The Woads. You know, the blue warriors who attack without armor, screaming as they race toward our swords?
Tristan: I was just stopping my horse, is all.
Knights: You mean the Picts?
Arthur: WOADS!

The horses stop.

Tristan: Nice one.

Woads attack from the forest. They wear no armor, and scream as they race toward the armored knights.

Woads: Woooooo!
Arthur: Woads!
Knights: What?
Soldiers: Whoa!
Guy Dressed Like Bishop Germanius: Ow!

The Knights slaughter the Picts Woads. Arthur interrogates a survivor at swordpoint.

Woad Survivor: …and really it’s a complete misnomer. Everyone believes the Picts painted themselves blue and tattooed themselves with hallucinogenic dye from the woad plant, but there’s very little evidence in the historical record. Woad isn’t psychotropic, for one thing, and it doesn’t work as a tattoo dye. The only eyewitness account of naked blue warriors is in Caesar’s The Conquest of Gaul, and that justifies both Caesar’s losses in battle and the further commitment of forces to the Gallic campaign, so he needed to make the Picts sound terrifying and fearsome, which makes the text highly suspect.
Arthur: Sort of a Weapons of Mass Destruction thing.
Woad: Exactly.
Arthur: So that kind of messes up Braveheart too, doesn’t it?
Woad: Look, did you see The Passion of Christ? That man wouldn’t know history if it sat on his –
Sir Bors: Arthur, the guy dressed like Bishop Germanius is dead.
Arthur: Oh no. And Bishop Germanius was supposed to free us of our servitude tomorrow. What will we do now?
Bishop Germanius: Snag! Here I am, dressed as a common footsoldier.
Knights: Whoa!
Arthur: Where?

Inside a big stone building with curtain walls that is not Camelot.

Bishop Germanius: Nice place, for England.
Arthur: You can sleep in my room.
Bishop Germanius: Hmm. I hardly know you. But when out of Rome, do the pagans.

The Round Table.

Aide to Bishop Germanius: A round table! What kind of evil is this?
Sir Lancelot: It’s Modernist.
Sir Gawain: Sets off the carpet as well.
Sir Galahad: And look at the inlay.
Sir Dagonet: Arthur says that all men are created equal, and the round table signifies —
Bishop Germanius: Dagonet? Sir Dagonet? Never heard of you.
Sir Dagonet: Yeah, like you’d heard of Bors.
Bishop Germanius: But he’s really good. I like him already. Anyway, I have good news and bad news for your leader.
Arthur: What’s the good news?
Bishop Germanius: My men and I survive this movie.
Arthur: And the bad … oh, I see.
Bishop Germanius: Yep.

In the pub.

Knights: Look! We’re jovial and cheeky. This makes us sympathetic to the audience, since we have no scripted personal lives.
Sir Bors: I have a personal life. I have lots of little children and a big penis. See? They love me already.
Sir Lancelot: I carry three big pointy swords and am very pretty. Does that count?
The Other Knights: We are so not going there.

In the spooky Woad encampment.

Merlin: I am Merlin. I just wanted to say that.
Woads: Cool. Do you have any more scenes?
Merlin: Not really. Let’s go ambush Arthur. He hates that.

The Knights travel to the Roman Villa at Hamburgerus Hillum.

Sir Lancelot: And if I fall in battle, do not bury me in this foreign land, but burn my body and scatter my ashes on a strong east wind, so I may return to the place of my birth.
Sir Tristan: No way am I standing next to you in the big battle scene.
Sir Gawain: Knights, which one am I?
Arthur: You’re one of the “G” ones, you and Galahad.
Sir Galahad: Which one of us has the cool beard? I forget.
Arthur: Anyway, look. We’re north of Hadrian’s Wall in enemy territory. The Woads are all around us, the Saxons are invading with a staggering army, and Rome is preparing to withdraw from England. We need to rescue the wealthy Roman family from the northern wastes, evade the armies in our path, and make it safely home. Piece of cake.
Sir Bors: How many enemy men are there?
Arthur: About 60,000, including the CG armies.
Sir Bors: And how many are we?
Arthur: Including retainers, I count 11.
Sir Lancelot: I’ll just call you “Aragorn” then.
Sir Tristan: What’s a wealthy Roman family doing up here in the northern wastes? That doesn’t make any sense.
Arthur: Shut up. Everyone just shut up.

At the site of the Saxon invasion.

Cerdic: Brother, that is so not how you rape a wench. Someone kill some extras, while I admire my private parts.
Cynric: You’re so awesome, father. Can I kill some of the extras too?
Cerdic: Zip it and fetch my Harley. Oh, and go ambush Arthur, he hates that.

At the gates of the Roman villa.

Arthur: I am Arthur, King of the Britons. I mean, a Knight of Rome.
Guards: How do we know you’re Arthur?
Peasants: Because he hasn’t got any shit on him.
Guards: WRONG MOVIE.
Peasants: We know, but we’ve been dying to say that for an hour.
Arthur: In fact, I am very clean.
Marcus Honorius: Hello, I’m fat, cruel, piggish, and stubborn, welcome to my home.
Arthur: We only want your son. He’s a favorite of the Pope.
Marcus Honorius: Some things never change, do they?

Arthur prepares to rescue the peasants, and good deeds are done.

Arthur: You’re all free, you know.
Peasants: Get a grip.
Arthur: My friend in Rome, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Pelagius, teaches that — wait, what’s behind that wall?
Guards: Umm … nothing.
Arthur: Citizen Honorius, tear down this wall!
Monks: Hello. We’re creepy Christians. This way to the mummified bodies.
Arthur: Look! A delirious child! And look, a beautiful Woad girl in chains! You fiends, what have you done to her?
Monk #1: Nothing! We haven’t touched her! Come on, we’re Christians! She’s a girl!
Monk #2: Ewwww!

The Knights, with the peasants and young Alecto, leave by the Eastern route.

Sir Tristan: The armies have cut us off from the South. We must go East, through the mountains.
Arthur: How do you know all this?
Sir Tristan: I have a hawk.
Arthur: And you what, speak Bird?
Sir Tristan: We have a special relationship.
Keira Knightley: Hello, I can say “Guinevere” in one syllable. Set me loose and I will paint myself blue. You may run a picture of me now.

Arthur: What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like –
Keira Knightley: This.
Arthur: Oh. I see. Do that again.

Night, forest.

Merlin: Hello Arthur.
Arthur: I thought you didn’t have any other scenes.
Merlin: Just this one.

Snow along the trail; the Saxons approach.

Sir Tristan: Bad news, Arthur. There is a frozen lake ahead.
Arthur: Well that’s lucky.
Sir Tristan: No, it’s dangerous.
Arthur: Look. If it weren’t frozen, we wouldn’t have any chance of getting across it, would we? What would we do, swim across in armor, with wagons? Why is this road plunging into a lake anyway? For that matter, what is a huge road doing here at all? This is supposed to be a disused path through the mountains.
Sir Tristan: The Saxons are right behind us, too. And look what I found.

Tristan tosses a crossbow to the ground.

Sir Tristan: It’s Saxon. Armor-piercing.
Arthur: You do realize that the crossbow won’t be introduced into Europe for another 600 years.
Sir Tristan: Must be a prototype.
Arthur: Tristan, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for some time now.
Sir Tristan: Yes?
Arthur: Are you sure you’re in the right movie?

The caravan begins crossing the frozen lake. The Saxon army rides up behind; they are equipped with fearsome bad beards.

Knights: How can seven of us stand against this horde?
Keira Knightley: Eight!
Knights: LEGOLAS! You’ve come!
Arthur: Wrong movie!

The ice begins to crack.

Arthur: Patronus Patronum!
Knights: Arthur, totally wrong movie!

The Saxons plunge into the lake and the Knights are victorious.

Back in Camelot the walled stone fortress.

Arthur: We lost one of the “G” ones.
Bishop Germanius: The rest of you are now free. Hey, is that big army over there yours?

Before the gates, the Saxon leader meets with Arthur.

Cerdic: So you’re Arthur. Funny, I thought you’d be taller.
Arthur: Nice ride.
Cerdic: Thanks, it’s a Harley four-cylinder Indian. I rebuilt it myself.
Arthur: Sir Bors has a bigger one than yours.
Cerdic: No way.
Arthur: Like a baby’s arm. Wrapped around a moose.
Cerdic: It’s war then.

The Saxon army charges. Woads, now allied with Arthur, pour out of the woods and engage the invaders. From far back, a bank of trebuchets flings flaming masses of flaming mass at the battlefield.

Arthur: Nice work. You do understand that the trebuchet won’t be introduced for another 800 years. Let me guess – prototype?
Merlin: Just a little something I’ve been working up on the side.
Arthur: I thought that other scene was your last one.
Merlin: Sort of like magic, isn’t it?
Keira Knightley: Woooooo!
Arthur: Whoa!
Keira Knightley: Yes.
Arthur: What’s that you’re wearing?
Keira Knightley: I found some string.
Arthur: That’s what I thought.
Keira Knightley: So this is the big battle scene.
Arthur: Yes. And I must find Cerdic and fight him alone.
Keira Knightley: Why are all your knights running away from Lancelot?

The battle is joined, and is heavily edited to preserve a PG-13 rating. Cynric kills Lancelot. Arthur defeats Cerdic. Sir Bors has another child. There is mourning and rejoicing.

The Mysterious Forest.

Keira Knightley: Kiss me here among the standing stones and the free Woads will welcome you as King of the Britons.
Arthur: That’s not really going to work in this version. I’m Christian all right, but the Round Table has fallen and my knights are scattered. Lancelot is already dead, which eliminates the love triangle bit unless someone does some serious work on the backstory. This “Woad” business is never going to make it through another picture. There’s no Lady of the Lake, and we debunked the Excalibur legend when I drew the sword as a child from my father’s burial mound. Merlin’s a shaman, not a magician. We don’t need to leave the sequel door open; there’s not going to be one. People won’t stand for it.
Keira Knightley: That’s what they said about Highlander.
Arthur: Um … good point. But really, Excalibur was much better.
Keira Knightley: Was I even born when that came out?
Arthur: Er, no. Good point.
Keira Knightley: Kiss me.

Don’t. Yes, you, really, trust me. Don’t.

I know, there’s this burning itch to act edgy like a real New Yorker, and to jaywalk across 5th Avenue. First off, it’s probably just a heat rash anyway; but in any case you don’t cross against the light in front of one of those double-length MTA busses while it’s in the middle of making a wide turn and is hiding everything that’s coming along. And you know how they drive in New York, right? Especially the taxis? And you look the wrong way?

Just don’t. D o n apostrophe t.

Thank you.

Concerned in NY

When it comes to overheard riffs, I could never come up with half of this stuff on my own. It’s kind of a proof of truth.

While tanking up on coffee over lunchtime today, though, I heard this. This one I could have made up, and if it hadn’t happened by itself I almost certainly would have one day. So call this a bonus point: the universe is keeping me honest. Or, if you prefer, God is listening, and she’s got a wicked sense of humor. And she wants me to behave while she writes the straight lines.

Thoughtful Speaker: I went to Cold Stone Creamery this weekend. I love that place. It’s awesome.
Not Really Listening: I love that place too.
Thoughtful Speaker: They just opened near me. I couldn’t decide what to get.
Not Really Listening: I never can either.
Thoughtful Speaker: I finally just got apple pie à la commode.
Not Really Listening: That’s great stuff.

My friend Piano Man, an older gent, chased after a wacky young thing last month, and she clearly enjoyed being landed by a man who both owns a tux and looks good in it. He was expounding one night. “This is just one of those crazy times,” he said. “It’s everywhere. It’s not going to last, but people are just crazy right now. So we might as well enjoy it.”

Judging from a spate of hard landings recently, the June of Love has tractored into the July of Dubious Enchantment.

A blogger whose blog has been All About the Boy, broke up with the boy. A friend whose ex has been a plague is being plagued, again, by the ex. A spectacular friend just got a pink slip from her boyfriend who never half deserved her in the first place. Half? Don’t get me started. My Smitten did not read me the Riot Act, but she did leave the book on the table with a bookmark to the Riot Act, so I can go read it for myself any time I get too excited.

Riot act – you can read me the Riot Act
You can make me a matter of fact
Or a villain in a million
A slip of the tongue is gonna keep me civilian

No one writes walking papers like Elvis does. No one. And I guess this is the Other Side of Summer, then.

More to say on the subject, of course, but since it’s raining I’m off to meet Jess to see Dark Water, which should be dreadful fun. We’re celebrating her getting fired.

Yep, there’s something in the air, and it’s not just the downfall stench of Karl the Mouth, Dick the Dick, and George the Tool. It’s more personal than that.

Sometimes getting from here to there takes an absurd amount of effort. Sometimes I get a bit tired of it. Sometimes I think we should spend less time on climbing over each other, and more time finding the elevator.

And may I just say that a society that goes out of its way to make exercise machines that are actually staircases that don’t go anywhere is probably a society that needs to spend a little Quiet Time. When I was a kid at school in the middle of the day we unrolled the mats and got little boxes of juice and then we said “Shhhh” a lot and some of us actually napped? Like that.

Future archaeologists are going to have a good laugh over us some day.

Digger: It’s another Stairmaster, Stan.
Pit Boss: Another one? Hey, Lem, it’s in good shape, too. Still plugged in.
Digger: They didn’t have a very enlightened sense of irony, did they?
Pit Boss: Not much. But they did elect George Bush, don’t forget that.
Digger: Yep. That was pretty funny all right.
Pit Boss: Or something.

And that’s not even counting Tom Cruise. Now he’s going to be hard to explain, down the line. Ah, don’t mind me, I’m just thinking in circles and circles today.

Happy Bastille Day! Off with their heads!