IT DOESN’T HAVE ENOUGH OF THE MENACE.

The Two Lovers of the A-peck-o-lips

I’m playing the new hand game, “Rock, Mingus, Emoticon,” where Rock rolls down cliff on top of Mingus, Mingus punches Emoticon in winking eye, and Emoticon makes Rock weep enough miracle water for all the parched wandering tribes. No, Exodus is not part of the X-Games, Silly, although Exodus will be a demonstration sport in the next Olympics. It’ll be just like the Discus Throw—people running around screaming, chased by charioteers. The song “Go Down, Moses” now inspires people all over the world, whereas it was first sung by Moses’ wife, after the couple repaired to their tent, for the night. By contrast, the Alan Lomax Field Escalator Recordings have captured a variety of obscure American escalators, discovered, as it were, creaking and groaning, only through word-of-mouth, out behind the tool shed, often delivering nobody anywhere, often delivering anyone nowhere, creaking and groaning, out behind the tool shed, only through word-of-mouth. When broadcast over the Ocean, the Alan Lomax Field Escalator Recordings led to a dramatic increase in Whale Jumpings. By that, we mean loop-de-loops, not gangs of rogue orcas setting upon sponges and kayaks and sushi. The saying “Love Thine Anemones” comes to mind, but it doesn’t have enough of the menace. I wonder, sometimes, if I’ve been secretly hypnotized, as I wind up running the darnedest errands—standing in a rooftop swimming pool for hours or taking a cab to the opera—does that kind of crap happen to you? I came-to, this latest time, clutching several copies of a dubious screenplay, Moses & The Burning Bush, smack in the middle of a casino. So, I did what any secretly-hypnotized citizen would do: I played the slots. At first, I was getting “Lemon / Mingus / Orange” and “Cherry / Mingus / Grape” but then I started getting closer, “7 / 7 / Mingus” and “Mingus / Mingus / Bar.” When, up and down the aisles, all the machines bore the same combination, and it was like they’d gotten hit (in the jackpot) in their souls, and it was Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus.