Friday, December 18, 2015

Tesseract

It’s a good thing that the number one fans of Sugarplum Elves, unlike the charming troupe themselves, are not made of sugar (and spice and everything nice), because were that the case, we’d all have been reduced to a sticky pool of sweetness well before we’d even left Westlake.

As it was, however, the full transition to syrupy concoction didn’t occur until we arrived at the Baranoff where the holiday festivities were in full swing—not to mention rock, hip-hop, disco, and many other genres to dance and sing to.

A bevy of holiday cheer abounded throughout, clearing the place of the dreariness that often characterizes it; there were smiles as wide as candy cane palaces and laughter lay the bass line to holiday favorites sung by everyone’s favorite holiday singers.

In Clement Clark Moore’s classic poem, which I just learned is actually titled “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” it is merely visions of sugar-plums which dance in one’s head; the fortunate many in attendance at this sweet dream of an event got to have real-live three—(no, make that four)—dimensional warm-blooded Sugarplums dancing in the flesh right before and with them all night long.

Prior to that, in real honest-to-goodness old-fashioned hobo bike gang style, we hung out under an overpass avoiding the deluge and courting public intoxication; William James himself would have been proud of how we sought out those momentary glimpses of the absolute.

“Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes,” wrote James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, and as far as I know, he never had the pleasure of making that affirmation while riding a bike to such a wonderfully life-affirming experience as a singing and dancing elf party.

It’s easy to get cynical about Christmas what with all the crass commercialism and forced frivolity; a solid dose of Sugarplum Elves, though, is all it takes to affirm the true holiday spirit of expansion, unity, and joy.

Yes!

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Holidaze

Another fine Disaster come and gone, although remnants of it remain in my hair, nostrils, and neurons many an hour afterwards.

All the necessary components were on display: cookie-eating, beer-drinking, trail-riding, fire-standing, reindeer-gaming, gift-giving, clappie-awarding, and, I seem to recall, song-singing as well.  I got to parade along behind a remarkably patient Fred to all of the checkpoints that were still checkpoints and even a few that were no longer.  The rain stopped being rain pretty much right on schedule so that most of the wet for most of the time was from the inside, although by then, it was all “how dry I am,” in the old-fashioned cartoon drinkee-bird way.

I try to live my life in the present, but it’s hard not to anticipate these sort of shenanigans for so long it makes the weeks before drag on, just like when you were a kid as Christmas approached at its glacial pace.  But unlike that holiday, which—due to its lack of air rifles, skateboards, or go-go boots, was inevitably something of a disappointment, the 2015 version of Point83’s gift to itself exceeded its promise, bestowing upon not only the nice, but also the naughty, everything a little girl or boy (not to mention old men of a certain age)  could wish for and plenty they wouldn’t for anything.

My favorite part of the evening was all of it but I especially enjoyed the uphills through one of the fancier sections of our fair city.  That’s a price you pay for being rich: there’s no getting out of your driveway without heading steeply up or down.  Everyone was all lit up for Christmas and plenty of houses had illuminated Christmas displays, too, ba-dum-bump.

The enduring image of the night for me was of the Angry Hippy standing on a bench barking commands at scores of holiday revelers; Derrick, too, tabletop, handing out packages; I somehow made it home without a present, Disaster itself my gift.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Enough


Imagine a world in which you get to combine two of your favorite things to do for two hours and fifteen minutes before you come to have your route confirmed by a bonfire you can see from the farthest away intersection nearby; then not only are you reminded that this is the one, you’re also reminded that it is this one.

Or consider that it is this world; then, this world that is is the world that is this one.

I was so happy to see so many people I was happy to see around an outdoor fire that could not possibly have benefited from more oxygen, although that was the joke I tried a couple of times to workshop.

It doesn’t always have to be more than enough was one of the lessons I took from the experience: I got to get stoned and ride my bike on a perfectly dry night for hours; and that was just the beginning: I also talked to people, admired the sky, spun slowly around the flames to keep myself warm, learned how hard it is to throw the shuffleboard puck just so, and also, mainly, admired many an admirable quality.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the rain has resumed or whether the storm-soaked trees are just dripping on you; I think that’s the kind of ambiguity we crave.  And when I say “we” here, I mean me.

An endless variety of factors prevents us from having what we could otherwise have.  Winners never lose; that’s part of what makes them winners.

But here’s the thing: we stood on the edge of the heart, (or more to the point, the lungs) of the city and couldn’t help but be reminded of why it’s all here.  Inhaling fumes from smoldering mattresses is a small price to pay,

More importantly, it is what it is, except when it isn’t, although it predictably is, even when it isn’t, out on two wheels.