When Constabulary Duty's To Be Done

There were a gaggle of police carousing around 53rd street this afternoon. They were stationed on every corner, directing traffic and harassing pushcart vendors. There were clusters in a plaza practicing some sort of drill. Down in the subway entrances a squad stood around imposingly beside an aggressive sign warning that bags were liable to be searched. As suspicious as I must have looked, I somehow made it past without my rucksack being violated.

I've no idea what was going on that required so much security. The Ford Motor Company were having some sort of shindig at a nearby hotel. MoMA had more barriers out front than usual. But this looked like a pretty large scale event — as if the Archduke Ferdinand was passing though town and trouble was expected.

The other day there was a parade of what might have been Shiners bearing a mannequin pope on a litter along Houston Street. They were trailed by a full-out marching band in matching t-shirts. Bringing up the rear, much like a caboose, was one of those squat white police buggies.

Maybe the two incidents are related.

War Prigs

Being in the midst of a history binge right now, I'm gradually reminded of the fact that, until fairly recently, nations treated warfare as general entertainment. The armies of Napoleon? What was their motivation for repeatedly attacking Russia and England other than it was something to do? The Spanish-American War seems to have fulfilled for the United States the same function as a good football rally. It's as though conquering territory was just a way to pass an afternoon. Also there was a masculinity factor—you just weren't a man until you'd stuck a bayonet through someone's face.

The First World War is the first example of Americans responding with "eh, let's keep out of this, shall we?" How Wilson eventually suckered the country into it I don't know, since we didn't stand to gain much by entering the fray. Yes, Germany was habitually firing torpedoes at our ships, but there were other ways around that than committing soldiers. Isolationism was again the predominant outlook in the early days of the Second World War, which all changed when the Pearl Harbor attack gave the public a thirst for revenge.

Since then the general attitude has been, if not pacifism, then at least a strong reluctance towards military involvement. Not by warhawk leaders, of course, but by the commonfolk. The ones who actually have to do the fighting. Seems to me that the introduction of radio and later television sapped a lot of the energy that once was expelled via warfare. As a culture we demand our movies and teevee shows chock full of violence. And, honestly, who in America doesn't enjoy a good twofisted bar brawl? Watch any two drunken buffed-up meatheads bump torsos on a Saturday night. Face it, we're a violent people on an individual level. But for some reason when we get into an international skirmish, young redblooded males aren't rushing the recruiting offices with the same vigor as they did during the Civil War. I'd like to think this indicates some form of moral evolution, but the pessimist in me suspects elsewise.

Burma Shave

In the mid 1920s, the American Safety Razor Company began posting sequential road signs all along the pre-interstate two lane roads advertising their Burma Shave shaving cream. The distinctive signs were red with white lettering, spaced about a hundred feet apart. Each contained a line of a humorous verse, while the last sign sported the Burma Shave slogan as punctuation. By the sixties these signs were being devoured by the colossal billboards so familiar to roadgoers today. The last Burma Shave sign was taken down in 1963.

Spring has sprung
The grass has riz
Where last year's
Careless drivers is
Burma Shave

Cautious rider
To her reckless dear
Let's have less bull
And lots more steer
Burma Shave

Unless your face
Is stinger free
You'd better let
Your honey be
Burma Shave

Proper distance
To him was bunk
They pulled him out
Of some guy's trunk
Burma Shave

A beard that's rough
And overgrown
Is better than
A chaperone
Burma Shave

The hobo lets
His whiskers sprout
It's trains—not girls
That he takes out
Burma Shave

We can't provide you
With a date
But we do supply
The best darn bait
Burma Shave

Heaven's latest
Neophyte
Signaled left
Then turned right
Burma Shave

To steal a kiss
He had the knack
But lacked the cheek
To get one back
Burma Shave

Why is it when
You try to pass
The guy in front
Goes twice as fast?
Burma Shave

She put a bullet
Thru his hat
But he's had
Closer shaves than that
Burma Shave

We're widely read
And often quoted
But it's shaves not signs
For which we're noted
Burma Shave

Around the curve
Lickety-split
Beautiful car
Wasn't it?
Burma Shave

Our fortune is
Your shaven face
It's our best
Advertising space
Burma Shave

If Crusoe'd kept
His chin more tidy
He might have found
A lady Friday
Burma Shave

The bearded devil
Is forced to dwell
In the only place
Where they don't sell
Burma Shave

"No, no," she said
To her bristly beau
"I'd rather
Eat the mistletoe"
Burma Shave

These signs are not
For laughs alone
The face they save
May be your own
Burma Shave

The hero was brave
And strong and willin'
She felt his chin—
Then wed the villain
Burma Shave

At intersections
Look each way
A harp sounds nice
But it's hard to play
Burma Shave

Car in ditch
Driver in tree
The moon was full
And so was he
Burma Shave

Passing school zone
Take it slow
Let our little
Shavers grow
Burma Shave

A peach looks good
With lots of fuzz
But man's no peach
And never was
Burma Shave

Don't take a curve
At 60 per
We hate to lose
A customer
Burma Shave

Don't lose your head
To gain a minute
You need your head
Your brains are in it
Burma Shave

Violets are blue
Roses are pink
On graves of those
Who drive and drink
Burma Shave

My job is keeping
Faces clean
And nobody knows
De stubble I've seen
Burma Shave

He tried to cross
As fast train neared
Death didn't draft him
He volunteered
Burma Shave

Although insured
Remember, kiddo
They don't pay you
They pay your widow
Burma Shave

If you don't know
Whose signs these are
You haven't driven
Very far

The Man Who Was Thursday

"Are you the new recruit?" asked the invisible chief, who seemed to have heard all about it. "All right. You are engaged."

Syme, quite swept off his feet, made a feeble fight against this irrevocable phrase.

"I really have no experience," he began.

"No one has any experience," said the other, "of the battle of Armageddon."

"But I am really unfit —"

"You are willing, that is enough," said the unknown.

"Well, really," said Syme. "I don't know any profession of which mere willingness is the final test."

"I do," said the other — "martyrs. I am condemning you to death. Good day."

Honk

Whenever I find myself in midtown Madhattan, circumnavigating uncertain tourists on my way from the subway station to the library and back, the deadpan voice of Jim Jarmusch in Fishing With John repeatedly springs to mind: "Why am I here?"