My apologies, but I remain firmly in the grasp of an unbelievably bad dry spell, a dry spell made worse by the occasional good idea that pops up like a desert mirage, only to vanish the closer I get to turning the idea into actual words. Most of the usual remedies for dry spells—automatic writing, shoveling vast amounts of wet, heavy snow, and drinking large amounts of Diet Dr. Pepper with a side order of Nutri-Grain bars—are not working this time around and I fear that I must simply wait the thing out. Again, my apologies to everyone.

UPDATE 2/24/2010: Okay, there's something on the griddle and I will have it out and up here just as soon as time and the weather (damn, I hate this weather) permit.

NOTHING IN PARTICULAR: This is a nice little blog, isn't it? I should spend more time writing stuff for it...well, maybe not. Writing makes my brain hurt.

UPDATE: Have something; will be up tomorrow.

ONLY IN DREAMS, IN BEAUTIFUL DREAMS: Hi there. As you have no doubt noticed, especially if you are a constant reader of The Passing Parade, I am going through yet another in a long series of dry spells. I’ve often wondered how the constant readers put up with the less than constant writing here; it must be annoying to have to read the same old stuff over and over again, and I do feel guilty about it, but then I console myself with the thought that there are a lot of other blogs out there that do what I do here and are mercifully short on the writer’s block.

As for subject matter, I thought that the nation’s attempt to solve its economic problems with a good stiff application of the Peter Principle would provide no end of grist for the psychic mills, but the former junior Senator from Illinois has done nothing so far except propose a national diet of treyf, which, as a Democrat, is hardly newsworthy. Democrats, as if the populace needed any reminding, have not had an original idea since 1937 and even that one was wrong. At that time, John Maynard Keynes was still alive and already famous for telling people that they could spend their way out of a depression and that most politicians were in the ideological thrall of some dead economist. Now that Keynes is the dead economist of his bon mot, he would be happy to know that his ideas are enjoying a resurgence, thanks to the Democratic Party, who regard Keynes and his ideas as the perfect intellectual cover for their long-standing practice of bribing the electorate to vote for them with the electorate’s own money.

But I fear the current travails of the former junior Senator from Illinois or of the tax troubles of his minions or even the ongoing attempts of Minnesota’s Democratic establishment to foist a man only slightly more qualified than Incitatus upon the United States Senate is simply not opening the sluices here. So let us speak of something else. Specifically, let us speak of dreams. Not my dreams for this our Great Republic, which center largely on finding the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan, a task the GOP ought to outsource to the Dalai Lama and his compatriots, given their expertise in such matters, but rather a dream I had the other night, the meaning of which is eluding me.

I don’t usually remember my dreams; they slip away almost as soon as I awaken, leaving not a wrack of wribs behinds; but this dream has stayed with me. For one thing, the dream occurred in a church, which even in my sleep I know is a bad sign; it means a nightmare is on the way. Like a good many Irish Catholic boys who have drifted away from the strict observance of the Faith with time, I know that deep in my psyche there is a level where I know that I will have to pay for my sinful ways and that the Lord sends me these nightmares as a way of returning me to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. These nightmares, which look like the cinematographer who did The Godfather movies was moonlighting, all take place in extremely Baroque churches complete with hooded Spanish Inquisitors who have never heard of the comfy chair chanting Gregorically as they prepare to pop my arms and legs out of their sockets with what looks like a very complicated clothesline. At least, I think it was a clothesline; that would explain all the laundry hanging from the thing. So even in sleep mode, I knew I was in for trouble, a lot of trouble.

And yet. Yes, even as I prepared for the worst, I knew that something was different this time. First of all, the deeply Baroque cathedrals where I suffer for my waking mind’s casual disregard for the dogmas of the Church wasn’t. Instead of the Baroque, I got the parish church in the Bronx where I received my baptism, my first Communion, and my Confirmation. Now, this church was big and gloomy—at least I thought so when I was a kid—but Baroque it was not. And then there was the pizza.

Non-Catholics may not believe this, but Catholics do not, as a rule, eat a lot of pizza in church. Strange but true. Pizza plays no part in the Mass, which is not as strange as it sounds—chocolate ice cream, salt-free potato salad, and orange Jello with chunks of pineapple in it play no part in the Mass either; and so the sight of me and several of my classmates eating pizza while we stood in line near the confessionals hinted at an outcome somewhat different than the usual, and by now somewhat hackneyed floor opening up beneath my feet and me, like Faustus, repentant too late, hurled downwards flaming in adamantine chains and penal fire into the darkness visible of hell. I think that may have been the oregano talking.

Then there was the wedding. This, strange as it may seem, was not at all out of the ordinary. I can remember any number of times when my classmates and me lined up at the confessionals along the church’s walls while a wedding went on in the middle of the church. Our presence always seemed to confuse the ushers, who usually wanted to know if we were with the bride or the groom’s family, and when we told them neither one, that we were here to go to Confession, would then try to shoo us out of the church. This never worked; there was always a nun nearby ready to disabuse any power-drunk usher of the notion that the life of the Church was going to come to a halt just because someone they knew was getting married that day.

And finally, there was the congregation. They were black. I realize that some people might regard my bringing up the racial composition of the congregation as something shocking these days; African Americans have as much right to pray in a Roman Catholic church in one of my dreams as anyone else. I bring up the matter up because at that time I attended this particular church that church was still a bastion of Irish Catholicism. There were many Italians and some Poles and even the occasional Puerto Rican or two, but the church did not accommodate itself to them. This church was of, for, and by the Irish, who turned out in droves every Sunday in their best clothes and often nursing (ethnic cheap shot alert!) their best hangovers to praise God and damn the English and all their nefarious deeds. It’s not like black people couldn’t pray at our church, but as most African Americans are Protestants, why would they want to? But in my dream, there they were. Even in my slumbering state, a phrase that sounds like it ought to be the state nickname of North Dakota, I could tell that this was a bit out of the ordinary.

The groom arrived in full male marriage rig, including the top hat and morning dress, I think it’s called. He went down the aisle slowly, shaking hands and saying hello to everyone like he was running for office. He took his time getting to the front of the church, and when he did, his pockets looked like the congregation had stuffed them with ballots and campaign contributions. I don’t remember much about him; he looked like the plastic groom on the top of a wedding cake, to plagiarize Alice Roosevelt Longworth, which is something I haven’t done in a while and neither have you, I’ll wager, and because I don’t think he had a face, but that may be my memory playing tricks on me.

Everyone stood up then, and the bride and her father came arm in arm down the center aisle as the organist played Mendelssohn’s Scherzo from A Midsummer’s Night Dream; not a piece I would have chosen, of course, but then there’s no accounting for tastes. The bride looked as happy as any bride can look in a wedding dress made from white heavy duty plastic garbage bags, but the dress did fit her very nicely, even to my admittedly inexpert eye. They reached the altar, where the bride kissed her father and then stood next to the groom. The minister came out of the sacristy, something you don’t see every day in a Catholic church, and then began the service with those well-known words, ‘dearly beloved,’ as mandated in the Book of Common Prayer, the prayer book of the Church of England, something no good Catholic schoolboy expects to hear in his parish church.

I was deeply confused at this turn of events and I looked all around, trying to reassure myself that I was in the right place. I was: along the walls were the Stations of the Cross exactly where they’d always been, the stained glass windows were the same as I remembered them, and, above the altar, suspended by chains, was a cross bearing the crucified body of Our Lord and Savior. As I stood there, trying my utmost to trudge through the soggy dreamtime swamplands of cognitive dissonance while stuffing my face with my fifth slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza, something happened at the altar. There was a collective intake of breath from the shocked congregation. I stopped chewing—I knew something out of the ordinary had just happened—and started to pay attention to the proceedings. The bride had, in what can only be called an unexpected turn of events, just said no. I could see that the minister seemed a bit flustered by this somewhat unorthodox response, so he repeated the vows about having and holding and so on and so forth, and the bride said she’d heard him the first time and the answer was still no, not now, not ever with this chump.

That was the last I heard from the bride; the church exploded in a sudden roar of shouts, insults, threats, recriminations, crying, and a couple of ushers beating each other senseless with the collection plates. The parents of the unhappy couple sat immobile in the front seat as the chaos swirled around them and the organist played “This is the end,’ by the Doors. The cacophony grew louder and louder and the church shook with the roar until I feared that the stained glass windows would come tumbling down on the shrieking crowd below and the walls would crack with the vibration. The roar reached a hurricane-like crescendo and only ceased when Jesus shouted down from the Cross, “would you people shut up down there, dammit? I’m trying to get some sleep here!”

At that moment, I woke up, the dream having reached a completely unsustainable level of bizarrerie, even for an unconscious mind. This was annoying to the nth degree, I think; I really wanted to know what was going to happen next and the pizza was good, even if the sausages could have used a little more fennel. I was hoping to get another slice.

Okay, it’s official: I’m working on something at last. Granted, I’ve only got the first two sentences down on paper, but that’s two sentences more than I had at this time yesterday morning, and that’s a fact. God willing and the river don’t rise, I might be coming to the end of this dry spell and posting will pick up a bit. Thanks for your patience; I appreciate it.

DRY SPELL: Yes, I am stuck in the middle of a particularly nasty dry spell. These things happen every so often to every wordslinger, of course, but I wonder why they keep happening to me. After a while, it does make you feel more than a little bit like Wile E. Coyote, and why doesn’t he just skip the Roadrunner altogether, cancel his Acme catalog, and just go to McDonald’s for a Big Mac, a large order of fries, and a large frosty vanilla shake?

DRY SPELL: In case you haven't already guessed, I've been trapped in a prolonged dry spell for the past week or so. You wouldn't think I would have a problem with this sort of thing; there's a presidential election next year and all the hopefuls are out like so many hungry fleas on a fresh dog, but while the times do not admit of satire, as the saying goes, I have been so bereft of things to write about I even spelled my name wrong on my electric bill just to see if that would provoke a reaction. It didn't, but I am happy to report that there is now something in the pipeline and with any degree of luck, there's be something new here by tomorrow or the next day. And the Yankees won, 8-4, last night, so you know that there is joy here in our happy little burg.

DRY SPELL ALERT: My apologies for the lack of posting this week, but I am yet again in the midst of a vast dry spell in which my every attempt to think of something to write about dies a quick and violent death. These spells occur with more and more often, I’ve noticed, and they tend to last longer now than they used to when I was younger, which, as you might imagine, I find pretty damn annoying. I thought I might do something about the presidential race, but the election is still a year and a half away and, to cite Will Rogers, I don’t waste no oratory on prospects. So, so much for that subject.

Then I thought about the plight of the definite article in Albanian. This is a terrible story, filled with heartache and shame. Albanian does have a definite article, but this sorry article does not stand in front of the noun, as such articles do in many other languages. No indeed, Albanians routinely force their definite article to take up positions behind the noun, slapping it across the face if the poor article even thinks of moving to a better seat. Albanians will abuse the poor definite article even to the point where the poor thing becomes part of the noun. This is just the sort of thing that will crush the self-esteem of any young definite article and limit its life chances. Why should the young definite article go to school at all if all that they can look forward to there is relegation to a second-class status while the nouns rule the school roost? Is it any wonder then that the high school graduation rates for Albanian definite articles are as low as they are? Other languages do not treat their definite articles in this way; some languages have as many as five or six definite articles, depending on gender and case, and those articles always go first, clearing the way for the noun. Definite articles are happy in those languages, knowing, as they do, that they are making a real contribution to society. Even English, which has only one definite article, treats that word with all the attention and consideration an only child gets from overly solicitous parents. And yet Albanian, a language that says it wants to join the European Union, to be part and parcel of the new Europe, still publicly treats its definite articles as though they were second class citizens unworthy of further notice. It seems to me that one of the great violations of linguistic human rights is going on right before our eyes in the Mediterranean basin, and yet no one seems to want to do anything about it.

And then there is the shepherd question. You would not know this without the Wall Street Journal telling you this, but apparently lost in the details of the recent immigration deal is a provision that would allow thousands of foreign shepherds to remain here and deprive hard-working American shepherds of their jobs. This, it seems to me, is the lowest sort of crass pandering to the immigration lobby. There are tens of millions of unemployed native-born shepherds in this country who can’t get work because Big Wool is importing Peruvians to do the work at half the wages, and now the Congress wants to put its imprimatur on this gross exploitation by letting the sheep companies keep their foreign shepherds despite the American people’s demand that someone, somewhere exercise some kind of control over the nation’s borders. It is bad enough when American workers lose their jobs because they cannot compete with cheap foreign labor, but when some American companies decide that they want to import that same cheap foreign labor and still pay them starvation wages, well, that’s just way too much for any educated populace to bear, I think.

Since none of these ideas really panned out in any meaningful way, I thought I might do something about the egregious mold pit wherein I labor for my mostly moldy daily bread. The 135th anniversary of the institution’s founding is coming up rapidly and we will be having festivities to mark the event. We should have had them ten years ago to mark the quasquicentennial anniversary, but at the time we were looking for a new director and so had other things on our minds. The reporter for the local journal of record came rushing in the other day to interview the current director. This reporter is an attractive young lady, full of enthusiasm for her job, unlike the fellow they used to send here to do stories about the library. The man was half-crocked all the time and was fond of telling everyone how his wife and the Associated Press didn’t understand him. When he was really drunk, he’d insist on pulling up his shirt and showing you his qwert mark. Apparently, way back in 1968, when men were men, women were women, and Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar was only a few months away from his fateful meeting with a beach chair, the man had thrown himself on a Viet Cong typewriter thrown into the bar of the old Hotel Continental in Saigon, saving his drinking companions from the pernicious threat of the Red Menace and impressing the aforementioned letters into his flesh for as long he lives. He wept for the good old days, when the news he covered was important and bewailed the fate that led him to covering the news here in our happy little burg for a readership that had very little interest in the subject matter. Even the people who live here don’t care all that much; it’s just the way we are sometimes. You have to feel sorry for such people, I think, you really do. Ordinary life can be a terrible comedown.

Well, I’ll think of something eventually; it’s just a matter of waiting for the dry season to pass and the rain will come. It always does, eventually.