Penitent Penguins of the Falkland Islands

There comes a time in every man’s life when, despite one’s better instincts, one embarks upon an adventure one had, for good reason, avoided over the course of a lifetime. Truly this is such an instance, as I trust will soon become apparent.

Perhaps it was in June 1847, if recollection serves, that whilst conducting my researches anent quite a different issue, I chanced upon a dusty tome in the British Museum bearing the very title of the essay now before you. I daren’t be sidetracked, said I to myself (dutifully attempting to remain unheard by my nearest neighbors in the reading room in question), and yet I grasped the volume with quivering hands and barely began to read its contents; my lips were buttoned so as to avoid further glances of annoyance from my neighbors.

The frontispiece bore the date 9 December 1763 as well as a melodic line with lyrics suggesting some manner of penitential hymn apparently addressed to the Virgin. Though I dreaded perusing yet another theological tract, its aviary connotations continued to pique my curiosity even after I had re-shelved the volume out of sight.

As you may well imagine, I slept only fitfully that night, though I briefly dreamt of a procession, the likes of which I dare not describe whilst maintaining my balance of mind. But I also knew, right there and then, that I must hold that book in my hands once again, though it be my last act in this life.

****** ****** *****

As Fate had it, it was snowing bitterly the next morning (thus one suspects it cannot have been the June of 1847); yet my determination remained firm and I set out upon what was soon to become my life’s new mission (but I daresay I am getting ahead of myself in this tale). I trudged my usual route, one whose features were being covered by the falling snow that day.

Up ahead, lingering at the window of the tobacconist’s shop, I espied Wilfrid Dirfliw, an old acquaintance from our Oxford University days. As usual he was smoking his pipe (and spitting madly upon the walk, as was his custom). His mangy old bloodhound, Pippin, was straining against the leash in a vain effort to access the hindquarters of a loose bitch running by, as one faintly recalls. “Hallo, Doctor,” called out Wilfrid, glancing expectantly in my direction.. For my part, I was exceedingly hesitant to blurt out my momentary preoccupations, and I returned his salutations in as civilized a manner as I could.

“Chilly, eh?” I must have mumbled dismissively, hoping for the best. How startled I was when he replied, with what I took to be a derisive laugh, “Right you are, Doctor. Only a bloody school of Penguins would be happy cavorting about in this weather.” I pretended amusement, whilst fainting from within my own soul, and proceeded onwards as the snow grew deeper. (I heard Wilfrid expectorate behind me and was determined not to take personal offence.) Pippin barked pitifully, or should I perhaps say howled painfully, into the strong wind, as I recall. What might this portend, I wondered? (No, June is definitely out of the question here.)

You cannot imagine my relief when I finally regained entry into my reading room, beyond the somnolent guards. I retraced all my steps of the previous evening, and at length felt my way to the open shelf where the spine of my aforementioned tome fortunately protruded just enough to beckon to my hands. And I began to read of matters both arcane and unimaginable.

***** ****** *******

NYC Chinatown Days of Yore

3/29/08

“Baby Elephant” strikes me as an elegant phrase with which to inaugurate my return to an illustrious writing career that had become sidetracked by other pressing matters many months ago. On second thought, the phrase “Pressed Duck” might provide a more appropriate beginning, and lo, images of Pell and Canal Streets in the Chinatown district of New York City readily come to mind.

Dare I admit in print, as I have often done privately, that quite a bit of my New York State Regents Scholarship of 1955-1959 went towards dining in George Goon’s atmospheric Canton Restaurant on 6 Mott Street? I can still savor the aroma of lobster with shrimp sauce, as well as the shrimp with lobster sauce, amongst other delicacies I enjoyed there during my undergraduate days of totally free education at CCNY, an education that appears to have been chiefly gastronomic, to judge by what I remember best from my college career of so long ago.

In hindsight it seems that the aforementioned elephant might well have blocked the doors of creativity had I let it do so. Nearby there lay a small arcade featuring a fortune-telling captive rooster. Feeling compassion towards this unfortunate soul, I inserted my quarter as instructed, thereby feeding our rooster a measly food pellet, in an act that also pulled a lever that released a small card bearing my daily fortune. I clearly had a fortune to be told, unlike that poor creature trapped in its cage till the end of its days. Ah, existentialism!

Walking a bit further along Mott Street, I often noticed a gift shop with an overhead sign that said “Yick On Lung.” Today, while in the throes of pneumonia, I clearly see that sign again, down across the years. For further solace, I can backtrack and turn the corner onto Pell Street, where there was a mysterious door to my right bearing the message: “Stop! If you haven’t a friend in the world, enter!” What was inside, and is it still there today?

Is my old acquaintance P.D. still squatting outside in the cold, nearby on Canal Street, as I once saw him after he was evicted from our tenement? He had initiated me into the secrets of boiling white rice in a large cauldron: the rice was ready to serve after the steam surrounded the lid and drifted towards the center. The remaining hot water was good for the stomach and could also be used in the preparation of a thick peasant soup variously known as “dzhuk” or “congee.” P. sliced tasty bits of Chinese sausage into the pot, and we had a nice dinner. As I recall, he was hoping we could pool our resources and open a casino together, with “bad girls” as temptresses, and with me in the role of fluent English-speaking manager. And then he was gone.

During the Chinese New Year celebrations, there were always paper dragons and colorful lanterns in the store windows of Chinatown, and with luck I could witness a lovely procession going down the street. For ethnic contrast a few blocks away, one could also partake of the Festival of Saint Gennaro in the Italian neighborhood.

And I walked onwards into other cities and into different times.

Who Is This Guy, Anyway???

“I am so happy to find you are still at home, shatzi. Don’t you go out any more?”
“Yes, of course I do. But why are you calling me up now, at this ungodly hour?”
“Yes, again I am doing everything wrong, as I always have.”
“No, mom, this is not what I meant at all.”
“Does it occur to you how long I have been trying to reach you by telephone?”
“Oh, my God, you have been dead for over 28 years now — whose stupid idea of a joke is this, anyway?”
“Oh, putzi, you have never taken your old mother seriously, your long-suffering mother who does everything for you, all day and all night, while all you ever do is to complain about everything.”
“Who the hell is pulling this terrible joke on me? — I’ve had more than enough already.”
“When will you finally learn to respect your hard-working parents, and I think it is now time for a few words from your father, who you can imagine is now very angry about your terrible behavior towards your only mother, who loves you so much while you are still ungrateful after all these years, shatzi.”


[Martin hangs up violently.]

What did I do to deserve this? Everything seemed to be going so nicely, so normally, till I got up again to answer the damn telephone. I wonder if the mail has arrived yet, outside. Oh my god, the weather is totally different from yesterday. Where is the house across the street? And that sign over there, why can’t I read what it says in that weird alphabet? Time to close the door and collect myself.

What was I doing last, before things began to make less sense? The dentist yesterday did not look quite the same as usual, but that seemed okay, and I vividly recall how impressed I was with his entirely new equipment with which he was examining me so closely. He seemed rightly impressed with himself, especially with that new bulb he said he himself invented that creates darkness where there was light before. I still cannot understand how that let him see anything that was happening in my widely open mouth, but I guess that this is his own professional problem, and certainly not mine.

And what was I about to do today, before all this nonsense happened? Oh yes, let us see what happens when I finally remove the bottom panel of my upright piano. I want to see if I left that damned missing genealogical document down in there before making that long move from there to here nine years ago. Here’s hoping.

Rayro's Review of "The Cult of Kashaknishra"

I have reread this book countless times in utter awe and astonishment that a total stranger can be so in tune with the inner workings of my own mind and soul. At long last, here is an author who really understands my own human condition. I believe that you are very likely to share in this uncanny feeling of having been recognized in full by someone you have never personally met and probably will never meet.

The revealed truths of Kashaknishra, as recounted by the author Harry Kirschner, will cause you to laugh in self-recognition, even though his odd stories may appear a bit abstract and seem to be about people quite unlike yourself at first, and then suddenly that mystical moment of seeing your own reflection in the mirror catches up with you: Eureka! Aha! Son-of-a-gun! Gottenyu!

What an amazing little book! It just sneaks up on you, and pow! Who is this author I have never heard of? You will surely agree after reading this wonderful book.

A Future Pharmaceutical Meeting

Gentlemen, I begin our meeting with a haiku of my own invention: “Pills roll down the hill into eagerly awaiting hands of our populace.”

As is today common knowledge, only a decade ago the worldwide food shortage reached levels of danger that finally moved our President to order our pharmaceutical industry to increase its output of CFF, Concentrated Food Factors. This revolutionary technology has thus far saved untold billions of lives, and I am proud of our accomplishment here in America. [Applause.]

You will recall that all of our tests showed beyond any doubt that CFF provides all the nutrition of a full meal, unlike the antiquated vitamin pills of old. All that was still lacking was a reliable means whereby to create a sensation of substance or bulk in this new diet, and even a traditional feeling of taste with any verisimilitude.

We are today at a point, I am happy to remind you, of being able to go to a vending machine of your choice, insert the appropriate coinage, and having a small packet labeled, say, “Kosher Veal Parmesan Dinner,” drop into our outstretched palm. That amounts to three pellets whose taste seems reasonably accurate, especially now that we have had little basis for comparison over this past decade.

And yet our inborn need to masticate, to feel our saliva pour forth, and to swallow something that feels truly substantial, and yes, our need to deposit a hefty and solid fecal load, if I may put it that way, none of this has yet been perfected to my own satisfaction at least. There still remains some serious work for us to do.

The liquid situation is somewhat better, it is true, what with the ease of synthesizing water to start with. Those who prefer to dissolve their pills in this water in Sweden appear to be on the right track after all. Perhaps the taste really is enhanced thereby and is in any event more interesting than that of pure synthesized water.

We have tried all manner of thickening agents in the resultant mix, to be sure. Our seas provided some natural ingredients towards this end, but our toxins of manufacture soon overcame this venue, and today we find ourselves constrained to synthesize a product to make normal digestion possible for everyone. We continue in our belief that Science will come to our rescue, as it always has done in the past.

Until that day of final victory comes, my favorite poem, of unknown origins, to be sure, remains:

Little bird, little bird,
Help me shit a solid turd.

Thank you, gentlemen. [Applause.]

Rayro's Account of Katz's Venture

Mel Katz fancied himself the best businessman on all of Manhattan Island. He spent long hours doing research before embarking upon his capitalist ventures. He was a familiar face in the Reading Room of The New York Public Library on 42nd Street. During his infrequent breaks he would eat his pastrami sandwich at the feet of one of the famous library lions for inspiration. Unlike another acquaintance of mine named Leopold, who took his breaks outside the library with the end of his necktie stuffed into his mouth, Mel was determined to get ahead in this world, to make his mark on America.

One day, Mel stumbled upon research that made excellent sense to him and inspired an extra helping of pastrami outside. One of its major premises that struck Mel was that “When children are old enough to have a general diet, allow them to have pickles.” One rarely meets such inspirational greatness, you must admit. You know that feeling you get when you feel that at last success lies within your very reach? That was what he felt. Most of this exciting research was centered around the work of a Doctor Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., MD.

Among other things this creative doctor suggested for a healthy diet were the following: a) “Use glandular or variety meats as one-third the necessary protein,” and b) “Use the following meats rare: steaks, lamb chops, leg of lamb, rib and sirloin tip roasts, fresh ground beef for patties.” Mel was in heaven, from a culinary standpoint.

What fascinated Mel the most was Pottenger’s experiments with cats, demonstrated to be at their healthiest when fed on “a diet of 2/3 raw meat, 1/3 raw milk and cod liver oil,” and the brilliant way in which this researcher was able to generalize his findings to human beings too. Truly, Pottenger’s cats held the key to Mel’s future, once he figured out how.

Well, why not open up a food market based upon all the new things Mel was learning daily? This would be no ordinary establishment like the nearby Essex Street Market, good as that place also was. He could feature not only the best pickles that money could buy, and the best pastrami, and the best meats, poultry, eggs, grains, and other foodstuffs that a busy man could bring home to his proud family after a day’s work, but also shelves of health literature like all of Pottenger’s studies to benefit his grateful customers. And even the right cooking utensils based on his same research.

And yet more. For example, Mel pored through every dictionary in every possible language at the New York Public Library to find out more about the meaning of the name Pottenger. This led him also to stock vessels of metal, earthenware, and wood for holding soups, broths, and other liquid or semi-liquid foods, including porridge. And because that name was also associated with being an apothecary, Mel set about looking for popular medications to stock in his market, maybe for indigestion, for example. Such a market as this was bound to be highly successful.

What was he going to call his new establishment on the face of the earth? Now the name came naturally to him: Katz’s Pottengers, in memory of Pottenger’s cats.

Concert In Memoriam: Odid McPherson

An Almost Forgotten Composer: Odid McPherson. January 13, 2007


Odid McPherson (1936-1989) composed voluminously during a short and relatively uneventful life. He grew up in a tenement on Vermilea Avenue in New York City during the war-ridden 1940s exhibiting but little musical talent in his youth. During his sophomore year at Columbia University, however, he reportedly heard steel drummers while en route to a class in electrical engineering, and his life’s path was thereupon set “as if by a miracle, or something like that.”

McPherson dropped his technological major forthwith and enrolled in a composition class taught by the esteemed professor Vladimir Ussachevsky combining Odid’s old interest in electronics with his new penchant for music. At the then revolutionary Moog Synthesizer, he set about trying to replicate “those wondrous sounds” of the steel drums playing Christmas favorites and “just about had the whole thing down” when it struck him that the instruments he was so expensively emulating could be purchased at but a fraction of what he had already spent. This initiated what we now consider the second crisis of McPherson’s career.

McPherson fortunately had little difficulty selling his hardly used electronic gear to an eager classmate. Using the fortune thus gained, he succeeded in purchasing an entire battery of steel drums, and indeed had plenty left for pursuit of his other major interest, that of consuming generous portions of Chinese food at George Goon’s Canton Restaurant on Mott Street in Chinatown. McPherson often claimed that he found the egg drop soup “quite conducive to composing on the spot.” The chromatic tunings made available by the finest steel drums that money could buy opened all manner of compositional vistas, though he reportedly often regretted being unable to bring them with him to the dinner table on Mott St. to further stimulate his composing.

Tonight’s composition presents our composer’s work at his highest level of maturity. We hope you will enjoy listening to this triple concerto titled "Star-Crossed Buns for Steel Drums, Aluminum Piccolo, Corrugated Iron Contrabassoon, and Plasterboard Orchestra," which is now posthumously receiving its world premiere. How proud would Odid McPherson feel to be present on this historic occasion and hearing his perhaps best work finally being performed tonight by such bright musicians!

Our guest speaker and reviewer Felix Carminum is a Professor Emeritus at Kinetic State College in New Hampshire, as chronicled in Harry Kirschner's study, "The Cult of Kashaknishra," published by Xlibris, 2000 (ISBN#0-7388-4213-3).