Wednesday, December 16, 2009
A Channukah Poem, with new Grinch-Related Holiday Evils and a bonus chunk of my short story
Let’s start with a seasonal note: it’s the sixth night of Channukah tonight and I have yet to make a formal acknowledgment of the festival. We celebrated last Saturday with an extended family bake-off (extended family, extended baking) and then a major gathering of old and new friends (which featured - yes! - home-made shredded brisket mini pop-tarts with horseradish glaze - incredible and delicious!). The car has a newly-rebuilt transmission, for the channukah miracle of automatic gear-shifting. Zach ripped up his finger by sticking it where it didn’t belong - an important lesson for us all. And now it’s time to say something particularly channukoid, so here’s my meditation on this year’s festival of lights:
Wax Off
For a week I’ve put it off
but now no more. The time has come
to scrape the wax from my menorah.
Layers of color perhaps could remind me
of something uplifting -
Instead it’s just wax,
inconveniently dribbled.
I rustle a scraper and set in to work.
The job goes slowly. Patience ebbs,
scraping up more aggravation
every time I wield my skewer.
This whole thing is too much trouble
but of course it sooon won’t matter -
recalling now the bygone years,
menorah glinting, crowned with candles,
light eclipsing wax-scrape rage
I shan’t recall this tiresome chore
when setting flame to festive candles
But I don’t care, it’s irksome now,
digging dross from candlesockets
scraping clean the magen david
thirty-six angles of painstaking detail
it’s delicate work but it has its own rhythm
I do not realize at first
that I’ve stopped feeling quite so nettled
clearing out the long-cold wax
gold, red, blue, a violet blending
big chunks snapping cleanly off
I find the work has calmed me down
scrapings piling up to show me
all the progress I have made,
and all the flames that burned last year
return to me their bright potential.
Dunk it now in steaming water -
tiny specks of parrafin
float upwards to the placid surface;
down below, the naked metal
gleams in readiness again.
I am ready now as well:
Bring on the latkes, dreydels, gelt -
let’s light candles.
Flames are clean.
And now, a brief jaunt through the Chucklehut Liberry of Inappropriate Children’s Literature:
ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO GRINCH-RELATED HOLIDAY CRIMES
Why the Grinch Commits Channukah Atrocities
Who the Grinch Conspired With to Besmirch the Bacchanal
Which Druidic Circle was Streaked by the Grinch
When the Grinch TP’d Kwanzaa
Where the Grinch Desecrated Diwali
What the Grinch Did to Eid
Finally, because I would feel all scroogie if I didn’t dump a bucket of literary chum on your head, I’ve put another chunk of my chanukah story in the extended entry (special click-through required). You don’t have to read it. Don’t even encourage me. I’ll be done with it soon enough, anyway, and the weekly guilt trips can stop. In the meantime, don’t say I never gave you nothing, because this story is nothing if nothing else is. Enjoy and be well, my blogwise friends.
Dov’s Dreydel, part, what is this, IV?
The courses were stacked up against the back of the barn. First, stretched in a row on floorboards, were the eighteen tables of the first course, each identical in size, shape and design: they stood waist-high on spindly legs, their polished rectangular tops divided by a thin gold line into two courts, each just a handsbreadth square with a gold dot at the center. Behind these tables and just above them on successive risers stood sixteen others - the nine of the second course, the four of the third, the two of the fourth, and the one finals table standing alone on the highest riser, under a large mirror angled to make the tabletop visible from down on the floor. Riders were beginning to strut among the tables, steeling themselves, hoping to intimidate their opponents. Names were being chalked up on the black-painted wall and odds were being posted next to them. Ever more gamblers were making their way over to handicap the field. Dov saw himself up at 15-to-one, against a two-to-one crowd favorite and Sampson champion. It would be a short contest, Dov felt sure. But he would have to win it regardless.
The Emmetznik was circulating from table to table, verifying each one for the impending contest; any he found false were quickly adjusted with a twist or two of the millwork legs. As he concluded his painstaking confirmation of all eighteen tables, the chazzan recited the pairings and the competitors formally stepped forward, the besotted crowd ululating at each name. Dov watched carefully, assessing each man’s native capacity and public support. He had been assigned to table 7, a number he considered somehow propitious; he stood at the out end, turned like all the other riders to face the crowd. On the other side of this table stood his opponent, Moishe - a heavyset man with a thick beard and a large bald spot. From under a clenched brow he clenched his jaws at Dov in pointed acknowledgment, and then turned back to smile broadly to his chaverim down in the pits. Dov couldn’t make out the faces of those gathering before him but he that people were getting excited.
The roar of the crowd choked itself off as the riders readied themselves, each positioning his pony above the centerpoint of his assigned square of the Methuselah course, coiling his energy. “Hold!” Even the dust floating in the air seemed to pause. “Throw!” Thirty-six men simultaneously threw their dryedels, each whirling furiously in its appointed place. It occurred to Dov that anyone who thought a fully blazing chanukeah to be the festival’s most inspiring sight, had never witnessed a full Methuselah course by lantern light, thirty-four polished stone tables on five separate levels, each table glinting its own reflections of a barnful of candles and lamps, and thirty-six men among them pouring out their lives on the throw of a top… Even for a man with nothing riding, it was an impressive sight - and Dov had more riding tonight than he’d ever in his life imagined.
The moment of release seemed infinite to Dov. He noticed everything - the men in the crowd, his opponent’s overextension, the Emmesnik’s eyes bright and focused on the mahogany pony that only now was coming to a soft landing on the centermark before him, standing proud and tall as a tree standing in the earth.
Overextended, yes: Moishe had twisted with his throw, grunting softly, his thumb slipping on the spindle and his feet sliding on the floorboards. All this and more Dov saw, all at once, as a wave of energy rose up into the soles of his feet, ascended up his legs and through his trunk, picking up speed and torque as it channeled out his right arm, then down his wrist to the tips of his fingers, sending the dreydel spinning with a speed and serenity that almost contradicted each other.
His toss had not been so flamboyant s to have attracted much attention, but his virtuosity had not gone entirely unnoticed, either. The Emmesnick, for one, was staring raptly back and forth between Dov and his pony, barely sparing a glance for the other seventeen tables. Also, several of the spectators standing near Dov had registered something when he threw, and found their attention drawn to him retroactively.
All this was, of course, peripheral. Dov’s dreydel provided the true focus. Barely touching the glossy stone, it floated crux-to-crux over its reflected twin, an opposite entity that seemed reciprocal, freeing it from the limitations of the world which had originated it. The laws of this realm no longer bound it.
Down at the far end, a clatter and a roar: one match decided already, though it had never really been in doubt. An overgrown pink-faced manchild had blustered his way where he hadn’t belonged, and now his fey little dreydel had already spun off the table edge. The victor, taking his pony back up, did not deign to celebrate. Then, another roar, from nearby - a fat man’s dreydel had run out of steam and dropped to the tabletop. Two down, sixteen to go. Soon the sounds of tops falling over or off came more frequently, the cheers and wails blending in a rising wave, more eyes focusing now on fewer remaining contests, and more of those on Dov’s table.
Across from Dov, a strong man was growing weak before his eyes. Moishe was straining to forestall the inevitable, but the fruitlessness of those efforts was growing increasingly obvious. His dreydel had developed a precession and was slowly rolling its spindle in an increasingly wide gyre. In consequence, the crux had wandered from the centermark and was circling drunkenly toward the fore edge of the table. Dov wondered which of these faults would first prove fatal, when they both did at once - the heavy oaken pony lurched over to ground itself out, just as it overedged and tumbled twirling to the boards.
Moishe’s supporters groaned; Moishe himself bellowed and hurled an impotent fist at the heavens. Then he turned to Dov, face flushed, smiling. “You got me, chaver,” he growled through his grin even as Dov swept up his still-steady dreydel and held it aloft in victory. Dov tried to remain impassive, but as his dreydel returned to the palm of his hand he couldn’t help but smile back at his vanquished opponent, who threw a thick arm over his shoulder and shouted into his ear so as to be audible over the crowd, “What’s left of my money’s on you.” When they broke apart Dov noticed that Moishe’s smile was unchanged, but his eyes seemed to contain a splinter of ice drawn from Dov’s own pond. Moishe had lost one thousand zloty plus whatever he’d wagered on himself, and he’d now return home as nothing more than a local champion. Still, respect had been earned and was reciprocated - on both sides.
The winner’s take on the first round was 1,500 zloty; Dov let ride his share and made his way to the wagering tables where the original 15-to-1 odds against him had already been cut to 7-to-1 for the second course. Dov had bet heavily; the wagertakers dealt with him in a silence that seemed all the louder for the general hubbub around them. That was understandable. So long as he was credited with all his winnings, Dov did not begrudge them their petulance.
The second course beckoned. Dov took his assigned position at the second of nine tables, infacing position. He liked this set-up; he’d be able to watch all but four of his competitors without even turning his head. Forewarned was forearmed, as they said. But of course, before he could begin to think about planning for the future, he would need to succeed here.
His opponent, Saul, was a small, dark, physically dense-looking fellow. From the gleam in his wary eye, Dov presumed him to be extremely intelligent. His pony had a broad radius with an ingeniously fluted convergence, designed to shed weight and enhance rotational force but in turn demanding the utmost finesse to ensure stability. This was definitely not a beginner’s model. Saul and Dov exchanged a glance and the room seemed to cool perceptibly. This man was truly the competition, Dov realized. It might all be settled right here for him.
Saul was running two-to-one to win the finals. Dov was still back at 7-to-1 at this contest alone, though by now far from a dark horse - he’d already won a a tough contest with a strong performance, to say nothing of the rumors now spreading of his having made a clean sweep at the lesser games. Final places were called, the benches closed their books, and Dov returned his attention to the second table on the second riser. “Hold!”
Conversation in the pit hushed down to whispers, the riders grounded themselves.
“Throw!”
Dov spun his dreydel with a snap of his wrist that began far down in the earth, an powerful but economical gesture in contrast to the throws of most of the other riders he could see down the course. Opposite him, Saul had taken a more flamboyant approach, trying to boost his pony’s performance with a wide sweep of his arm on the follow-through. His dreydel dropped right on the centerpoint, as had Dov’s, and both tops spun till their edges dissolved and only their central core remained in this plane of reality. Dov stole a glimpse at Saul and saw him glaring intently at the tabletop between them, sparing no attention for anything else. Both men had thrown well. The victor here was no foregone conclusion.
As this chilling thought insinuated itself in Dov’s mind, two things simultaneously shocked him from dark reverie: clatters fore and aft - two ponies falling simultaneously to the floor, and the culling truly begun; and then, something else he didn’t quite understand - a rekindling of his perfecting spark, aroused by a hard look back at his glimmering, almost ethereal dreydel, oscillating with a profound and replenishing vitality. More than its beauty, its power seemed to fill the room. It certainly filled Dov, who straightened his back a little and leveled his gaze at Saul.
Saul remained within himself with an imploding intensity that made him appear even denser. He barely moved, breathing with slow control. He was willing stillness, invoking selective entropy, calling in his spiritual chits. His eyes, however, at the heart of all that stillness, were spinning just as quickly as his extraordinary dreydel did. He was taking this contest as seriously as Dov was. The tension between these two unspectacular men in that grimy, smoky barn felt curiously redoubled; heads turned to watch the vortices of their respective rotations resonating against each other in sub-audible harmony.
A third pony fell, to the table; a fourth, to the floor again. Each time one fell, the victor snatched up his surviving pony in a ritualized gesture of triumph - one, moreover, that foreclosed speculation about how decisive the victory really had been. This was the second course, after all - the Moyel’s Course. The winners of the first six tables automatically qualified for the third course. Four of those had already been decided; two more remained to be divulged, and then only three more tables would be left in play. From those six riders, only the two longest-surviving would continue. Another dreydel tumbled and clattered down; another rider advanced. Finally, at the table right next to Dov, the far pony stumbled over the center line. “Fault!” shouted the attendant, and the failing rider gnashed his teeth and growled. He had had a good run but it was over. His opponent - and the five previous table-winners - were leaving him behind.
Meantime, Dov and Saul still faced off across their little table at each other, as did two other pairs of riders - tables seven and eight, down at the far end. Dov could watch them easily; Saul did not permit himself the luxury of breaking his focus and turning around to peek. Table eight was fading fast - both ponies were precessing and falling rapidly out of plumb. One fell off the edge; very shortly thereafter the other one broke the dividing line. Two more ponies down; two more men out of the running.
The remaining four riders were all acutely aware of each other. One was a dandy in tall collar and gleaming cuffs, but by now the Hippodrome and its denizens were all looking rather grubby and the dandies increasingly appeared out of their element. This gent in particular was perspiring excessively and the gentility of his habiliments served an ironic counterpoint to his own obvious nervousness. His pony appeared to be made of some exotic wood and was painted with gold filigree with a slightly different image of a horse on each side that blurred when spun so that the horse actually looked to be galloping; as they watched the gallping stallion fell into a canter as its rotational energy ebbed, the dreydel slowly sputtering to ground. It seemed to take forever for that horse to stop walking but really it only lasted a few moments. With a shrug of exhausted acceptance, the new loser retrieved his pony and returned to take solace in the generosity of his many friends in the pits.
Dov and Saul both looked down the line now at their sole remaining opponent. He stood infacing at table eight, a gaunt man in nondescript clothes with sallow skin and slack features. Before him spun a large dark pony, not quite on center but spinning gamely. His eyes seemed to reach out to it, as if to keep it in place - but the pony seemed to have a mind of its own, slowly, so slowly, moving off course. It edged to the outside as if it were seeking out its rider, who was murmuring, “no, no,” as it crept toward him, ever nearer the edge.
Suddenly Saul’s pony dipped precipitously. Its exotic design was showing its weakness - as soon as it lost rectitude it became fatally unstable. Now it was nearly rolling off the table, headed for the edge in a wide but not lazy arc - when, as it charged the very verge of the precipice, a roar went up over at eight. The slack man’s pony had finally jumped, just a piece of an instant before Saul’s took the plunge. Dov snatched up his pony with alacrity upon being acclaimed a survivor of the Mohels’ round. Saul had to root around on the risers to find his top, and he looked grim as he belatedly held it up. He’d survived, but only by the slimmest of margins. He had something to prove now, to the Hippodrome and to himself. Dov wondered if that made him more or less dangerous a competitor.
Odds against the slack man had been high; no wellwishers greeted him as he left the risers. In the crowd he quickly faded away altogether, spectators closing in around him and pushing him out like the loser he undoubtedly was. Dreydels don’t lie, after all.