Snake Snake Snake
Happy February. This is the twenty-sixth issue of Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit — it’s just like all those other email newsletters, except nyah nyah nyah, I can’t hear you!
I have an annoying cold. Outside is freezing rain. And the news filtering in through my (pitifully porous) protective media bubble is not good (we’re not going to talk about any of it here, bubble intact). So I’m half-assing this newsletter — fewer words, more pictures — then crawling back into bed, and calling it a month.
Year of the Snake
My skull is filled with sinus pressure, my brainz feel like they’re being squeezed to death, and my eyeballs feel like they’re about to pop out of their sockets. Not an auspicious start to the Year of the Snake for me.
I don’t think I know any snakes in real life. I wonder if it’s the least flattering sign in the Chinese zodiac, owing to the fact that snakes are, you know, creepy. Ox, rooster, even rat — all still better than snake, amiright?
According to Wikipedia, people who are born under the snake sign “are regarded as intelligent, with a tendency to lack scruples.” And then further down the page, in a section titled “Cultural Notes,” it says: “A Snake Year is sometimes referred to as a Little Dragon Year to assuage possible feelings of inadequacy among people born during a Snake Year.” So I guess that explains that. Keep your scaly chins up, Little Dragons!
Anyway, here are some more snakes.
So, I guess snakes can be pretty cool sometimes, too.
The Decline of Western Civilization, Part I
A friend bought me a membership to The Met as a Christmas gift. Even though admission for New York residents is “pay what you wish,” flashing a little red card is way better than sheepishly handing over a grubby fiver, especially at this age, where it feels a little shameful to cheap out on such a big-time cultural institution, even if it’s one that owes more to the patronage of robber barons and opioid pushers for support, and doesn’t really need any help from the likes of me.
But I still like having the membership. It’s maybe the most pointless, status-y–feeling thing I’ve ever subscribed to.
I’m also hoping that having a membership will encourage me to visit the museum more often. Here are a few pics from my most recent trip, from the gallery of Greek and Roman Art — or as it might also be called, the Hall of the Armless, Headless, and Noseless.
No symbolism implied at all to current affairs and the state of our own fragile little civilization. (Like I said before: we’re not talking about it.) When this current age passes, who among us will be so lucky to have kept our noses intact.
Other rabbit holes
Laser Show. Dustin Pedroia received 11.9 percent of the votes in his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot — not nearly enough to get in, but enough to remain on the ballot for next year. In honor of the little scrapper, an oldie-but-goodie profile of one of the most fun Red Sox to ever play the game: “Dustin Pedroia’s best asset? His mouth.”
Yahoo! You’re all clear, kid. “An audio recording of the audience’s reaction to Star Wars in 1977, synced to the action of the movie.”
“Good Bones.” By Maggie Smith, 2016:
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
And that’s it for this month’s edition. Stay safe out there.
jf