For Dave Monroe, always for Dave, every Christmas Eve. Dave, someday i'll get to Milwaukee and sit in that seat. Keep resting in peace, heart eased.

[Ian Livingston]

I will look very hard today for unregulated joy. I do have experience with
the phenomenon, though never in a social setting, and certainly never in a
prescribed time or place, or within a given budget. Even so, joy beyond the
limits of human regulation is, well, beyond me, really.
I suppose that makes me a grinch?
Even so, should I find some, I shan't restrict it.
Peace on Earth, goodwill to all that lives.


On Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 1:00 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> >
> >
> > Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black levies, suede jacket,
> > sneakers and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia.
> > ......
> >
> > Every night is Christmas Eve on old East Main,
> > Sailors and their sweethearts all agree.
> > Neon signs of red and green
> > Shine upon the friendly scene,
> > Welcoming you in from off the sea.
> > Santa's bag is filled with all your dreams come true:
> > Nickel beers that sparkle like champagne,
> > Barmaids who all love to screw,
> > All of them reminding you
> > It's Christmas Eve on old East Main.
> >                                        ----V. Thomas Pynchon.
> >
> > A reminder of its anti-Puritanism: ...."too much unregulated joy"
> >
> > "What is Christmas, anyway? For those who don’t celebrate the birth of
> > Christ yet still trim a tree on December 25, it’s…well, complicated.
> > Christmas is, after all, a specifically Christian holiday, albeit one
> > briefly banned by the 17th-century Puritans (too much popery and public
> > drunkenness), and at which the neo-puritanically inclined and the
> > chronically grinchy persist in looking askance (too much unregulated
> > joy)."--Terry Teachout, WSJ yesterday, 4 years ago.
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>