the news from the Canadas

(ivica)

:   the stupid side of the street

 

While waiting for my 10 o'clock appointment in busy downtown Fat City, I noticed how there's a smart side to the street and there's a stupid side to the street. (Just like to a donkey or a politician.) You can walk on the sidewalk that faces traffic or on the sidewalk that faces away from the traffic. You can walk on the sunny side (stupid on hot days...smart on cool days) of the street or not.

"Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits
are objects of scorn to smart Americans who
blow horns to break up traffic jams."
(Mary Ellen Kelly)

You can walk against the wind or with the wind. You can walk where the cute women are walking. You can walk where the gunmen might be eyeing a bank. You can walk on the bar side. You can walk on the side of the street with no sidewalk or with men working way high up above....

The war had to start somewhere. But exactly where and why and who throw the first Anglo-Saxon, well, that remains lost in the past.... (And maybe rightfully so.) It was a nebulous kind of war. We first met over a coffee. Then, accidentally, here and there.

Everybody called him Shadrack. I noticed the war every now and then. We'd be walking somewhere and he would walk AWAY from the dripping eaves or away from the overhead ledges where the pigeons love to rest. Or he'd wheel me (subtly) between him and that recent puddle on the street where the fast (uncaring) cars fly by.

I'd notice it sometimes and manoeuvre myself back to the smart side of the street or sidewalk or table. We'd be sitting in a bar, and he'd quickly grab the chair facing the band, while I had to sit with my back to them. We used to chat up the French students at school and he'd move in quickly on the blonde one. And I'm sure that you (the careful reader) have experienced similar family, friends, and strangers.

And when I would complain (once in a while) he'd plead ignorance. He'd sit intentionally on the traffic side of the table, just to prove it! And I'd believe him. I'd think to myself: "Some people are like that: they're so full of living that they even can't see the war themselves."
 

There was even a phenomenon named after him. The Shadrack Shift. You know (sometimes) when a pen you put down...just seems to disappear. Or the light switch that you turned on by flipping down...now turns on by flipping up. Or when you're talking about someone (or something) and the next second...the name escapes you...JUST out of reach somewhere....

Well that's the Shadrack Shift. All the blue pens in the universe shift over. Most shift into another blue pen's spot but some get lost in the shuffle. All the light switches shift, but some are confused.  All the words with "dog" in them shift across the universe. Like Shadrack used to notice: "All the sweet pretty wives across the universe seem to shift on a very special day...and you're left wondering about this stranger in front of you...."

"We learn from experience.
A man never wakes up his second baby just to see it smile."
(Grace Williams)

Shadrack was last seen in the company of Sandy. You didn't ever mess with Sandy. (They didn't call her “The Iceberg” because of her cool personality.) (That was a bonus.) Some girls follow fashion and some girls set fashion. Sandy (like most) was a great juggler of both. Shadrack had invented a cracked-paint technique and then flooded the antiques market with genuine imitation antiques. I suppose they lived happily ever after....
 
 

 

keep multiplying, ivica-juggling-his-maracas

P.S. I hope you had a safe and happy National Window-Cleaning Day on May 24th. Across the Canadas, happy families get together and party: windows, TVs, computers, eyeglasses, drinking glasses, cars, mirrors, skylights....

"I had a lover's quarrel with the world."
(Robert Frost)

 

[NORTON.TU ES INEPTUS.]

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