Number Limerick

A dozen, a gross and a score

plus three times the square root of four

divided by seven

plus nine times eleven

is five cubed plus zero, no more.

Unchain Letter

Unchain Letter

            THIS LETTER was sent to protect you from luck, both good and bad. Receipt of this letter confers immunity to ALL FORMS of chain-letter bribery and extortion. You are now free to break any letter chain, without consequence. This works even if you are superstitious.

            You may hold onto this Unchain letter indefinitely, along with the next chain letter that finds its way to you. You may send copies of this letter to friends; and you may also refuse to send copies. It makes no difference.

            This Unchain letter admits freely that it is, in fact, a joke; yet it is no less credible than any Chain letter now in circulation. The following claims are completely baseless and absurd. Take them or leave them:

            An R.A.F. officer received this letter in the mail; many years later he also received a chain letter. It promised him riches if he duplicated it, and poverty if he broke the chain. Foolishly he made 20 copies and sent them to his friends. Four days later he got a phone call claiming that he had just inherited $23,000,000. However, this proved to be a wrong number, and the caller hung up.

            Naresh Singh of Bombay got a chain letter threatening him and his loved ones with death if he broke the chain. But this Unchain letter had gotten to him first; so he wisely decided to use the chain letter as a substitute for scarce toilet paper. That afternoon, while he and his family were visiting the marketplace, a crazed fanatic brandished an AK-47 and attempted to mow down the crowd; but the lunatic had neglected to load his weapon, so he was quickly taken into custody.

            Pablo Fuentes of Lima was under this Unchain letter's protection when he got a chain letter promising him luck in the lottery. He sent out copies, and won nothing. Wen Xiao of Taipei received this letter, along with a chain letter; he took no action, and soon got a new job at equal pay.

            In 2001, a badly faded chain letter reached a young woman in Ontario. She promised that she would re-type the letter and send it on; but she delayed doing so. She was plagued by expensive car repairs until she received this Unchain letter. That very day she bought a new car, and her repair bills ceased.

            YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS LETTER BY RANDOM CHANCE, NOT FATE.

            REMEMBER: YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY FREE TO IGNORE ALL CHAIN LETTERS FROM NOW ON.

            Signed,            Miss Liberty

Inadequate Kaddish

The following poem is for my mother's 7th yartzeit.


***

Inadequate Kaddish

            Dedicated to the memory of

            Marjorie Hope Schecter Hellerstein

                        Dec. 9, 1924  - Jan. 5, 2005

It was only afterwards, coming home, that it hit me.

A week later, long long after that phone call;

After the shock and confusion;

After conference calls and plans and tickets;

After packing and driving and curb-checking and boarding;

After the long, long plane ride;

After the all-day reception at home;

            - with family and friends, neighbors and colleagues

            a huge noisy crowd from all over the country

            so many people loved her so much -

After the memorial service;

            - the rabbi was smooth and poetic, he didn’t know her,

            my wife spoke for me, I was too stunned to speak,

            my father wept difficult tears -

After the burial;

            - my best friend and I stood at her grave,

            “A great lady,” I stoically intoned,

            he agreed, then embraced me with a lover’s caress,

            I am so grateful -

After the sleepless night;

After the repacking and the long talks and the awkward goodbyes;

After driving and curb-checking and boarding;

After taxiing and waiting and taxiing and waiting;

After finally, finally the engines powered up

            and the plane hurtled forward and lept up

            and blasted out of icy Boston at 400 miles per hour;

Then and only then, with all work done

            with nothing left to do but sit and hurt

            swaddled in the privacy of turbine’s scream

Then and only then was I able to wail.

*          *          *          *          *          *

Oh Mom, Mom, what are you doing there?

What business have you in that hole in the ground?

You were only eighty years old!

What keeps you down there that’s better than us?

Your five children, your five grandchildren

that huge crowd of friends and colleagues

your house full of art and music

your two published books, your electric typewriter

that box full of half-finished manuscripts

and above all your verbal sparring partner

your beloved and your equal

that brilliant, difficult and passionate man

who now feels so lonely and so cheated;

what has death to offer you that he has not?

Yes, of course I’m being unfair, it wasn’t your idea.

None of this was according to your plan.

Judging by the scowl on your corpse’s face

you didn’t approve of the bright orange paint

that the mortician smeared on your lips

and you didn’t approve of the coffin

and you didn’t approve of death

and neither do I.

But what right have either of us to complain?

Your life was good, and so was your death.

One moment quietly taking dinner with Dad

calmly chatting of music and art

and the next moment gone, just like that.

Pulse irretrievable despite medical heroics.

O enviable exit!

Death was supremely easy on you, it was only hard on us.

Therefore I do not mourn for you, the dead;

I mourn for us, the living.

You were always 100% genuine, 0% nonsense

so let me be no-nonsense too

and say that I am selfish enough to want you back.

I want you in time, not eternity; suffering, not at peace

and I want you to endure these dreadful things

for the worst possible reason;

because I love you and I miss you

and I’ll never see you again

and I want my mommy back.

You left behind a hole in the air

and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

I miss my mommy,

I miss my mommy,

I MISS MY -

*          *          *          *          *          *

Stop it, Nat, stop it.

Control, control. Chin up, soldier on.

These good people listening to you;

they don’t want agony, they want poetry.

They want rhyme and rhythm, not sobs and sighs.

And if you must inflict free verse on them

then at least amuse them with a story or two.

Show, don’t tell.

Don’t just say she was beautiful, brilliant, generous and brave;

Prove it!

Expound upon a memory revealing all!

Recall and proclaim some definitive incident!

But that’s just what I cannot do.

I strain my brain but draw a blank.

My mind finds nothing in particular to reveal.

Ask a fish about water, ask a bird about air;

they cannot tell you, they know nothing in particular;

they only know everything.

Now ask me about my mother.

*          *          *          *          *          *

And so, kindly listeners, I cannot entertain you.

I offer you no tragic drama, no wry wit, no mystic insight.

There is no culture here for you.

O you distant witnesses, you calm counsellors, so safe and serene;

You do not understand.

You cannot understand, and neither can I.

It happened, but I still don’t believe it.

I still want to send her this poem

this inadequate Kaddish saying nothing but nothing.

So seek my mother within the ecstasy of emptiness.

Show’s over, folks.

Move along, move along.

1  /  12-14  /  2005

Working Joe: Super-Retort

Super-Retort

Captain Blue was flying towards Big Boss's mansion, to attend a big dinner-party. He looked down and he saw Working Joe, standing in a muddy ditch, using his heat-vision to fix a sewer line; for Working Joe needed the money.

Captain Blue called from the sky, "Poor Working Joe! If only he knew how to flatter Big Boss, then he wouldn't have to fix sewer lines!"

Working Joe replied to the sky, "Poor Captain Blue! If only he knew how to fix sewer lines, then he wouldn't have to flatter Big Boss!"

***

Note: This story is a copy of a medieval tale starring Plato and Diogenes.

Working Joe: The Price

The Price.

Big Boss frowned. Hands on hips, he glared upwards at the inert bulk of Turboencabulator #7. He sucked on his stogie. He blew out a cloud of smoke. He grumbled, "I got no choice. Call Working Joe!"

Big Boss's minion Lackey texted Working Joe, and Working Joe flew right over. When he landed, Big Boss said, "Turboencabulator #7 broke in the super-fight last Tuesday. Can you fix it?"

Working Joe inspected Turboencabulator #7. He used his vision, his X-ray vision, and his sonar. He scratched his head. Then he opened a flap on his utility belt and took out a hammer no bigger than his thumb. He got onto his knees, he crawled to the lower left rear corner of the huge machine, and he tapped it once with the tiny hammer.

Instantly Turboencabulator #7 roared back into full operation. Working Joe stood up, put away the hammer and said, "It'll work fine now."

Big Boss said, "Thank you, Working Joe. How can I ever repay you?"

Working Joe said, "Easily," and he handed over a bill.

Big Boss read the bill and his face turned red. "A hundred thousand and one dollars?" he bellowed. "But you just tapped it once with a tiny hammer! A hundred thousand dollars for that?!"

Working Joe said, "No. Only one dollar for tapping it with a tiny hammer.  A hundred thousand dollars for knowing where to tap it."

Working Joe: Civic Fixture

Civic Fixture

Menace, one of the stupider supervillains, threatened Working Joe's family. Working Joe went first to Captain Blue for help, but Captain Blue said "Give up your day job, and come with me to fight crime."

But Working Joe said, "I'm no trust-fund baby like you, I got a wife and kids, I gotta work for a living."

So Working Joe then went to Big Boss. He said, "I'm not asking you for anything, I'm just telling you I can't work under these conditions, and I'm thinking of leaving town."

Big Boss said, "No, stay. Don't worry about that moron. I'll take care of him."

Working Joe said, "So what do I owe you?"

"Nuthin'. You worth plenty as is."

And what do you know, the very next day it was Menace who suddenly left town.

Happy New Year, Working Joe!

A happy New Year to all. To start this year's blogging:


First, note that all material posted on this site is copyrighted Nathaniel Hellerstein, 2012.


This week's blogs start today with four days about "Working Joe"; then on the 5th I'll post an "Inadequate Kaddish" in honor of my mother for her 7th yartzeit; then I'll end the week on Friday with an Unchain Letter.

****

Working Joe

My daughter Hannah and I have, between us, invented an alternate comic-book superbeing; "Working Joe". He's not a superhero, nor a supervillain; more like a super-worker. He has the usual superpowers, but he uses them strictly for heavy construction work. He's the guy who cleans up the mess after the superheros and supervillains stop battling. Unlike superheros, he's in it for the money; unlike supervillains, he wants only honest jobs.

Working Joe neither fights crime nor commits it; he just works, very very hard. Don't call him a superworker, he doesn't like being set apart. He's a Union man, of course. His contract with the Metroville Reconstruction Authority states that after a superfight, he does the heavy lifting and the dangerous labor, and the other Union people do detailing. What with all the superfights, all the time, it's steady work.

I envision an episode consisting of nothing but him cleaning up after an action-packed sequence, all off-stage; we see him pick up the pieces afterwards, commenting all the while on the super-fighter's super-carelessness. After restoring the city to its pre-fight glory, Working Joe says, "Another job well done!" and flies home.

No secret identity for him; but he has a wife and kids (all of them super) so he can't afford to antagonize anyone. He'll do honest work if the pay is good. So Working Joe moonlights as an independent contractor, building fortresses for both superheros and supervillains! The superheros look down on him for his mercenary streak; the supervillains despise him for his habitual honesty; he consoles himself that they need him more than he needs them.

Wife and kids also have superpowers. The wife is Home-Maker. She has super-endurance, she can read minds, and she can see out of the back of her head. The boy is Hyper; he has superspeed and ADHD; the girl is Goth; a moody teen with the power of invisibility. Raising superkids is super-expensive - so many home repairs! - so that's why Working Joe has that mercenary streak. Part of the hidden joke of the comic is that he always needs money. He has wealth-creating superpowers, yet the system is rigged so that he constantly has to keep hustling.

And how did he get those superpowers? His origin story is that his maternal grandmother was not only an alien, she was an illegal alien!

Other characters in Working Joe's Metroville: GoodCop/BadCop, Bankster, superlawyer Suxel, and supersalesman "Bob".

 

I visualize Working Joe as wearing denim overalls and a helmet, and drawn in angular buff Socialist Realist style. Something like Spain's "Trashman".

Over the next few days I will blog some Working Joe stories, like this:

***

Once Working Joe met a boyhood hero of his; Fireman. Working Joe stammers his admiration, Fireman graciously returns the compliment. "Who built all the firetraps I rescue people from? Guys like you! Who do I rescue from those firetraps? Guys like you! Who pays my pension? Guys like you!"