Michael Arlen Ode to Thanksgiving Essay Example for Free

Michael Arlen Ode to thanksgiving EssayConsider the discussion sectionicipants, the merrymakers men and women (also children) who nurse survived passably well end-to-end the twelvemonths, mainly as a result of living at considerable distances from their dear pargonnts and beloved siblings, who on this feast of feasts must apparently forgather (as if beck mavin and only(a)d by an aberrant fairy godmother), usu altogethery by roundabout routes, through heavy traffic, at a common meeting place, where the precise moods, distempers, and obtrusive personal habits that have kept them each happily apart since adulthood are then and there encouraged to lento ferment to a lower place the corn husks, and gradually rise with the aid of the terrible wine, and finally burst onwards out of control under the stimulus of the cranberry jelly No, it is a mockery of spend. For instance Thank you, O Lord, for what we are about to receive. This is surely not a gala concept. There are no p resents, unless peerless counts Aunt Berthas sweet rolls a present, which no one does. There is precious little in the way of costumery miniature plastic turkeys and those witless Pilgrim hats. There is no sex.Indeed, Thanksgiving is the one day of the year (a fact known to everybody) when all thoughts of sex completely vanish, evaporating from apartments, houses, condominiums, and mobile homes like steam from a derriere mirror. Consider also the nowhereness of the time of year the last week or so in November. It is plain not yet winter winter, with its death-dealing blizzards and its girls in tiny skirts pirouetting on the ice. On the other hand, it is certainly not much use to some(prenominal)one as fall no golden leaves or Oktoberfests, and so forth. Instead, it is a no-mans land between the seasons. In the cold and sobersides northern half of the country, it is a vaguely unsettling interregnum of long, mournful take the airs beneath leafless trees the long, mournful walks fo llowing the midday repast with the dread nevitability of pie following turkey, and the leafless trees looming or stand about like eyeballores, and the ground either as hard as iron or slenderly mushy, and the light snow always beginning to fall when one is halfway to the old green accessionflecks of cold, watery stuff plopping between neck and collar, for the reason that, it creation not yet winter, one has disregarded or not chosen to bring along a muffler. It is a corollary to the long, mournful Thanksgiving walk that the absence of this muffler is quickly noticed and that four weeks or so later, at Christmastime, instead of the Sony Betamax one had secretly hoped the children might have chipped in to purchase, one receives another muffler by then the thirty-third. thirty-three mufflers Some walk Of course, things are more fun in the warm and loony southern part of the country . No snow there of any kind. No need of mufflers. Also, no long, mournful walks, because in the war m and loony southern part of the country everybody drives. So everybody drives over to Uncle Jaspers house to dwell the Cougars play the Gators, a not entirely unimportant conflict which will determine whether the Gators get a Bowl bid or must take another postseason exhibition tour of North Korea. only when no sooner do the Cougars kick off (an astonishing end-over-end squiggly thing that floats lazily in a higher place the arena before plummeting down toward K. C.McCoy and catching him on the helmet) than Auntie Em starts hustling turkey. Soon Cousin may is slamming around the bowls and platters, and Cousin Bernice is oohing and ahing about all the fixins, and Uncle Bob is making low, insincere sounds of appreciation Yummy, tastyAuntie Em, Ill have me some more of these delicious yams Delicious yams? Uncle Bobs eyes roll wildly in his head, Billy Joe Quaglino throws his long bomb in the middle of Grandpa Morris maxim grace, Grandpa Morris speaking so low nobody female geni talia hear him, which is just as well, since he is reciting what he can remember of his last union contract. And then, just as J. B. Speedy) Snood begins his ninety-two-yard punt return, Auntie Em starts dealing everyone second helpings of her famous stuffing, as if she were pushing a controlled plaza, which is well might be, since there are no easily recognizable ingredients visible to the naked eye. Consider for a moment the Thanksgiving repast itself. It has become a sort of refuge for endangered species of starch cauli emanateer, turnips, pumpkin, mince (whatever mince is), those blessed yams. wheel of luridly colored yams, with no taste at all, lying torpid under a lava flow of marshmallow And then the sacred turkey. One might as well try to construct a holiday repast around a fishsay, a nice element of haddock. After all, turkey tastes very similar to haddock same consistency, same quite remarkable absence of flavor. alone then, if the Thanksgiving piece de resistance were a nice piece of boiled haddock instead of turkey, there wouldnt be all that fun for Dad when Mom hands him the sterling-silver , bone-handled carving set (a wedding present from her parents and not change since) and then everyone sits around pretending not to watch while he saws and tears away at the bird as if he were trying to burrow his way into or out of some grotesque, fowllike prison. What of the well-grounded side to Thanksgiving, you ask. There is always a good side to everything. Not to Thanksgiving. There is only a bad side and then a worse side. For instance, Grandmothers best linen tablecloth is a bad side the fact that it is produced each year, in the manner of a red flag being produced before a bull, and then is always spilled upon by whichever child is doing poorest at school that term and so is in need of greatest reassurance. Thus, Oh, my God, Veronica, you just spilled grape juice or plum wine or tar on Grandmothers best linen tablecloth But now comes worse.For at this point Cousin Bill, the one who lost all Cousin Edwinas money on the car dealership three long time ago and has apparently been drinking steadily since Halloween, bizarrely chooses to say Seems to me those old glasses are always go over. To which Auntie Meg is heard to add Somehow I dont remember receivin any of those old glasses. To which Uncle Fred replies Thats because you and George decided to go on vacation to Hawaii the summer Grandpa surface-to-air missile was dying. Now Grandmother is sobbing, though not so uncontrollably that she can refrain from murmuring I think that volcano painting I threw away by mistake got sent me from Hawaii, heaven knows why. But the gods are merciful, even the Pilgrim-hatted god of corn husks and soggy stuffing, and there is an end to everything, even to Thanksgiving. Indeed, there is a grandeur to the feelings of finality and doom which usually settle on a house after the Thanksgiving celebration is over, for with the completion of Tha nksgiving Day the year itself has been properly terminated shot through the braincase with a high-velocity candied yam. At this calendrical nadir, all energy on the planet has gone, all fun has fled, all the terrible wine has been drunk. But then, overnight, life once again begins to stir, emerging, even by the next morning, in the form of Japanese window displays and Taiwanese Christmas lighting, from the primeval ooze of the nations department stores.Thus, a new year dawns, bringing with it immediate and cheering possibilities of extended consumer debt, office-party flirtations, goodor, at least, mediocrewine, and visions of Supersaver excursion fares to Montego Bay. It is worth noting, perhaps, that this true new years always starts with the same mute, powerful mythologic ceremony the surreptitious tossing out, in the early morning, of all those horrid aluminum-foil packages of yams and cauliflowers nd stuffing and red, gummy cranberry substance which have been squeezed into the refrigerator as if a reenactment of the siege of Paris were shortly expected. Soon afterward, the phoenix of Christmas can be observed as it slowly rises, beating its drumsticks, once again goggle-eyed with hope and surreal expectations.