Newsletter #4

Poet’s Corner

About a month ago I went to my favorite Japanese restaurant, one of the few in Atlanta that’s owned and operated by Japanese people. I ordered my usual, along with a mug of beer. I also asked for grilled sanma, a dish connected to the Japanese idea of “Appetite Autumn,” but the waitress regretfully informed me that they weren’t offering it this year (it wasn’t a popular item).

I was pretty sad to hear it. I have fond memories associated with that fish, and its absence from the menu made those memories feel further away.

Well, as I sat there and ate, something about the atmosphere, the nostalgia, and the ice-cold Asahi got to me. Upon leaving, on the receipt (Merchant’s Copy), I gave my best effort at writing a haiku. In my child-like Japanese, I wrote a poem that almost certainly sounded like caveman talk, but in my head it read like this:

Autumn has arrived

The season of appetite

There is no sanma

        Satisfied, I set down the pen and left.

Now a month later, I returned to the restaurant. I figured a month was long enough not to appear needy, and was also long enough for the staff to fully digest my work.

I’ll admit I expected a hero’s welcome: “Hey, there’s the guy who wrote the haiku on his bill! It was pretty good, where’d you learn Japanese? (Here I would say Basho, the famous Japanese haiku-ist, and I imagined an explosion of laughter in reaction, as long as it didn’t go over their heads). Actually, I want to introduce you to my daughter. She’s a professional poet, and I think she could learn a thing or two from you.”

        Instead of the above scene, there was no response. Not even a pained, polite acknowledgement. Even the waitress who I presumed to have collected my haiku seemed to forget who I was completely, despite us being on friendly terms previously. I realized I might have insulted the staff with a perceived complaint about the menu.

        These things can’t be helped. I plan to steadily rebuild my reputation with a tri-pronged strategy of over-tipping and two other things I haven’t thought of yet.

Traveller’s Corner

I’ve never been one to complain about crying babies on a flight. I mostly feel sorry for the poor things as they enter the lower stratosphere and their inner-ears are painfully contorted by the pressure change. Their only job is to cry, so it’s natural; nothing to get upset about.

        However this conviction was put to test on my flight last week when I sat in front of two absolute wailers on a two-hour flight from Atlanta to Chicago. As soon as we took off, these two started screaming their lungs out.

Based on their advanced shrieking techniques, they were on the cusp between infant and toddler: a younger infant wouldn’t have that power, and an older toddler would be too human to produce the pure, unfiltered evil present in the cries. Positioned on either side of me, I was getting the show in full stereo. It was clear they were synchronizing frequencies in a vain attempt to shatter the Plexiglass windows and take the plane down.

Twenty minutes later, they were still going at it, full of vigor with no sign of calming down. If anything, they had gotten louder and were experimenting with various dissonant harmonies. At one point, one of the mothers picked up her screaming baby, walked into the aisle, and stood there as if she was about to announce that the plane was now under her control, and that if anyone made a move Banshee Jr. would explode their head with a directed sonic blast. Luckily she was just taking the kid on tour around the whole plane, quickly walking up and down the aisle to create a doppler effect, which everyone enjoyed as a fun change of pace.

There was a brief lull for a couple of minutes around Lexington, but someone must have splashed those imps with holy water because it started right back up again. By now I had a full-blown headache and my ears were physically hurting. One older woman, an empty-nester type, assured her neighbors that the fits would be over by the time we were over Gary, Indiana.

As we approached Steel City, those little bastards were still screeching and gurgling their hellish song and I was beginning to doubt the empty-nester’s prediction. But as soon as we flew over Gary’s magical Town Square, the crying stopped. The demons had transformed into sleeping cherubs, and we were all able to relax for the final ten minutes of the flight.