The Luna Park Gazette

“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” – Napoleon Bonaparte When Alexander the Great encountered the Gordian knot in 333 B.C., rather than untying the mass of tightly entangled ropes, the young king drew his sword. “It makes no difference how they are loosed,” he declared, slicing the knot with a single stroke. That’s often my style when I’m faced with tough problems—for better and usually for worse. But on Christmas Day I decided to give the Alexander technique a rest in exchange for a little patience. My sister, auntie and I had gotten together for our holiday dinner where we ate, laughed, and tried to forget about Covid-19 for a little while. After watching The Mousehole Cat , one of my favorite holiday movies—yeah, smartass, I cried, okay?—we returned to the kitchen for dessert, which included a stack of Italian Christmas cookies, wrapped in plastic and held together with a brightly colored ribbon. Any other time, I would’ve grabbed ...

It’s Christmas and what better way to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year than by watching one of the scariest movies in creation? My sister and I did that very thing recently when we viewed The Haunting , Robert Wise’s stunning 1963 adaption of Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House . This film has been scaring the screaming bejeezus out of my family for a generation and I am happy to report that it delivered the ghoulish goods once again. We had gotten together for one of our Saturday sanity sessions, where we emerge from our respective Covid cocoons for dinner, TV, and some much-needed social interaction. Netflix was on the fritz on this particular evening, so after rummaging through my sister's DVR collection, we settled upon our favorite fright flick. I was thinking that this was an odd choice given the time of year, but then I remember that A Christmas Carol , the mother of all holiday stories—is packed to the rafters with all manner...

It’s the holidays, that time of year where I spend much of my time hurling swear words at my widescreen in response to all the shameless advertising. There are few things I hate more than some money-grubbing corporation telling me that it won’t really be Christmas unless I buy whatever overpriced crap they’re peddling. Most of these ads are about as subtle as one of those door-busting holiday sales that department stores insist on staging--and about as pleasant. These spots blatanly hijack beloved carols and regurgitate them as pathetic jingles. They dragoon Santa Claus and Ebenezer Scrooge to serve as pitchmen, encouraging us all to have a Merry Christmas as we run our credit card bills into the stratosphere. One car company is particularly outrageous. I refuse to mention the name, but the ads depict smiling simpletons giving each other brand new cars—complete with oversized bows—as gifts. Oh, yeah, everybody I know gives out cars at Christmas. I have this reoccur...

Okay, so where did this one come from? I had another one of my 20-megaton, head-banging nightmares last week and I’m still wandering what the hell brought it on. This was one of those horrific hallucinations where, when I finally do wake up, I look straight up to the heavens and thank God that it was only a dream. I haven’t one of these beauties in years, so I guess I was overdue. And my mind made sure to make up for all that lost time. Okay, so this freak show starts off with real bang—right below the belt. I had …shall we say…an acciden t where I had to pull off my jeans and throw them into the trash. Yeah, that kind of an accident. Now that little disaster alone would seem like plenty of material for a Grade A nightmare. Demolishing your drawers in public is certainly my idea of a really bad dream. But, no, it turned out my sadistic subconscious was just starting up this spook house ride. For some reason, I had a meeting in downtown Manhattan with a guy I kn...

“Be the type of person you want to meet.”--Unknown I love the smell of cinnamon in the morning. It smells like…gratitude. Like everything else going on this year, Thanksgiving 2020 bore absolutely no resemblance to normal, but there were still plenty of things for which I am truly thankful. My family had to postpone our holiday dinner this year after our beloved auntie was exposed to the vile coronavirus and forced to self-quarantine. Every morning I prayed to God that she would be okay and then I’d call her to ask her how she was feeling and if she could still detect scents, as a loss of smell is an early warning sign of the dreaded disease. My auntie told me that she would start the day by going to the kitchen and sniffing a bottle of cinnamon. As long as she got a whiff of this most special spice, we knew she was Covid-free. I’m happy to report that the quarantine period has passed with no symptoms and we are all very relieved and grateful indeed. For Thursday, my si...

I spent some time in the dark last night and it had nothing to do with moon or the stars. This was an emotional blackout, where I had a temper tantrum because a car service driver had committed the unpardonable sin of keeping me waiting. I was off last week and I was wrapping up a Covid-19 staycation that coincided, in part, with Diwali, a festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs. I had only recently become acquainted with Diwali, which symbolizes the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and—most importantly to me—“knowledge over ignorance." I had heard the term before, but I had never made the effort to find out what it was about until a friend posted a Happy Diwali message on Facebook. Diwali, I learned, comes from the Sanskrit word deepavali, meaning "rows of lighted lamps". What a fabulous theme for my time off, I thought. I can clean up my apartment and clean out the hostility in my head. This will be great. ...

I was stumbling home in the dark Tuesday night when six words streaked through my brain. “I’ve got to make this right!” It had been one hell of an evening. This particular scream-fest began when I decided to do my workout in nearby Bliss Park rather than at my local gym. The temperature was pushing 70 degrees that day, pretty much unheard of in New York in November, so I thought I’d take advantage of the nice weather while we still have it. I loaded up my fanny pack—-God, I hate that term—-with my wallet, phone, and house keys. There’s a nice little courtyard in the park where I like to do a shadow boxing workout from my I-phone. Several families were in the park and my first reaction was to get all grumpy about these people hanging around while I’m doing my thing. But this time I told myself to cease and desist this foolish and unhealthy attitude. These people have as much right to be here as you do, I thought. I’m convinced that by cutting down on the cranky, I was ab...