Oxymandias

My name is OzymandiasOzymandias Pharaoh Rameses II (reigned 1279-1213 BCE). According to the OED, the statue was once 57 feet tall., King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.” Percy Shelley (1818)

A column by playwright David Mamet about our present crisis mentions his Jewish grandparents and uncle who emigrated to America a century ago and overcame numerous calamities.  Mamet references Percy Shelley’s “Oxymandias,” about the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II, whose statue was taken from a temple in Thebes and the torso and head eventually brought to London. The column refers to rock pecked by daws, and I found out that a daw, short for jackdaw, is a bird similar to a crow.  “Oxymandias” was also the title of a “Breaking Bad” episode during which Bryan Cranston recited the entire poem to make the point about collapse following greatness, hopefully not the fate of America burdened by a total incompetent at the helm during the present pandemic.

Ray Smock has characterized the Trump presidency as the Era of Pandemonium and his most recent daily briefing as a defining moment. In a wacky, dangerous, and all too typical display, DT “wondered out loud if maybe disinfectants could be a cure. Maybe we could get UV light inside of people. Maybe injecting the right kind of disinfectant might kill this thing. Maybe we should look into these things. He wondered if anybody ever thought of this before. It was as if he just discovered the answer to the pandemic.”  Smock added facetiously: “I certainly hope that no one goes out and tries to drink bleach or inject some household disinfectant into their veins. But maybe we will see a run on UV lighting. And people on beaches this summer may get sunburned tongues trying to follow the leadership of our president.”

With 50,000 Americans having died from Covid-19 in little more than a month – more than perished during the Vietnam war – I’m more aware of obits than ever before.  Claudia Wright, 79, of Valparaiso passed away, and as usual there was no clarification as to the cause of death.  Her relatives enjoyed her wacky expressions, such as “Do you want me to stand on my head and spit golden nickels?”  Or, “Your ass sucks buttermilk through a straw.”  The obit stated that one of Claudia’s last requests was “for the sake of mankind, to make sure that the ‘idiot’ is not re-elected as U.S. president.  For those who knew her, you could probably hear her voice saying this.”

 Anthony Mallozzi

Upper Dublin classmate Anthony Mallozzi passed away, John Jacobsen informed me.  I had to think briefly which Mallozzi that was because Bill Mallozzi, another cool dude, was also in our class.  Anthony was a tall, handsome Italian-American born in Ambler and in retirement lived in Sellersville, PA, not far from where we spent our formidable years, just down Bethlehem Pike a ways. We were casual friends with buddies in common – Bob Elliott, Pat Zollo, Dick Garretson, John Magyar – but didn’t have any classes together since he was in Industrial Arts and I in College Prep.  He signed my yearbook: “Jimmy, to a real nice guy.  Don’t forget intramurals. Best of everything in what you do.  Ant.”  I have no recollection of intramurals but it must have been basketball a sport I was quite good at despite my diminutive size.  The yearbook gives Ant’s nickname as Lazard and contains these notes: “Let’s go down to Gert’s – always seen with his ’54 Mercury – prefers a certain blond – heading West first chance he gets – tries to be serious when it’s impossible.” His friends Carol and Joe Paulino wrote, “Barbara and his family meant the world to him, and he talked about his grandchildren all the time.”  I hope he made it out West before he settled down.

John Updike’s “Rabbit at Rest” ended similarly to how “Rabbit Run” opened, with Harry playing hoops with someone younger, in this case a one-on-one game of 21 with a black guy he nicknames Tiger. He had observed playground games in the slum neighborhood during walks and, despite a bad heart, had worn shorts and sneakers in case he got into a game. As the contest intensified, Harry was aware “of a watery weariness entering into his knees, but adrenaline and nostalgia overrule.”  At 18 apiece Tiger says, “You puffin’ pretty bad.  How about coolin’ it? No big deal.”  Harry declines, they trade buckets, and needing a basket for the win, the 58-year-old, Updike writes, “takes one slam of a dribble, carrying his foe on his side like a bumping sack of coal, and leaps up for the peeper.  The hoop fills his circle of vision, it descends to kiss his lips, he can’t miss.  Up he goes, way up toward the torn clouds.  His torso is ripped by a terrific pain.  He bursts from within; he feels something immense persistently fumble at him, and he falls unconscious to the dirt.”  In the hospital Rabbit’s last words to son Nelson: “All I can tell you, it isn’t so bad.”