Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Merry Christmas, Mr. McNabby!

This year, the restaurant where I work will be open on Christmas Day. I just so happen to have near-perfect recall of "The Muppet Christmas Carol," and recently when I was imagining myself heading off to work at 9:30 on Christmas morning in my coat and booties while nearly everyone else leans back with a Bloody Mary and stretches a woolened toe towards the television to switch on the Yule Log, this bit of dialog sprang into my mind. The place: the firm of Scrooge and Marley (or, for muppet purposes, Scrooge and Marley and Marley). The players: Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge, rat rabble as book-keepers. The time: late on Christmas Eve.

Scrooge: Be here at eight o' clock tomorrow morning.

(muttering from book-keepers)

Cratchit: (hesitantly) But...tomorrow's Christmas, sir.

Scrooge: Eight-thirty, then.

(insistent muttering from book-keepers)

Cratchit: If you please, Mr. Scrooge, half an hour off hardly seems customary for Christmas Day.

Scrooge: How much time off is customary, Mr. Cratchit?

Cratchit: Well--the whole day.

(mutterings of approval)

Scrooge: (shocked) The entire day?

(mutterings of consternation, disapproval: the frog's crazy, it was the frog's idea)

Cratchit: If you please, Mr. Scrooge, other businesses will be closed. You'll have no one to do business with!

Scrooge: It's a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every December the 25th. (Heavy pause--little rat hearts sinking) But as I seem to be the only person round here who knows that, take the day off.


I'm not saying anything remotely negative or actionable about the proprietor of this fine eating establishment. I'm merely saying that, when a person ruins Christmas through his own greed, that person is sometimes called "Scrooge." So what to call someone when they're, um, worse than Scrooge? It's a Christmas riddle.

There's still hope though--maybe a spiritual visitation? Or maybe Saint Nick, who I have to believe loves all children (even those who are twenty-five and single and living in Brooklyn far from their parents) will bring us a blizzard and no one will go out to eat. My Christmas wish is for the world to grind to a slow and gentle halt, like it's supposed to. Wars: pause! Businesses: shutter! People: stay in. Me, I think I'll get through the day by humming this little ditty. Merry Christmas, and God bless us every one.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Recursion, and also how fun it is to destroy the meaning of a word by repeating it.

On my bike a few days ago (surely the last time I'll ride in this cold) I was thinking about thought,* and then thinking about how I was thinking about thinking, and then I thought: you can only get about two iterations out (thinking about thinking about thinking) before you're not really thinking about anything, because all you're thinking is, "I'm thinking about thinking about thinking." Unless you have the thought that you're not really thinking anything when you think about thinking about thinking, which is actually a thought about thinking about thinking about thinking.

I think.

*thinking about thinking happens naturally. For example when Hamlet says, "Haste me to know't that I with wings as swift/ as meditation or the thoughts of love/ may sweep to my revenge," he expresses a thought about thinking, i.e. it's pretty swift.