What I Would Not/Would Miss: Two Lists*

“I would not miss: most of human history (The Inquisition, The War in Vietnam, The Endless War in Afpakiraq, the Israelis vs. The Palestinians, The Northern Irish vs. The Southern Irish, The Bosnians vs. The Serbs vs. The Croats, General Sherman’s March to the Sea, Stalin, The Khmer Rouge, Mao, George W. Bush, being one of Hannibal’s elephants, China’s ethnic cleansing of Tibet, the entire concept of ethnic cleansing—oh, you get the picture).” Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

Ruminant With A View

by Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

TEANECK New Jersey—(Weekly Hubris)—9/10/2012—This column was written with a wry, grateful nod to Nora Ephron, author of I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections (http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/06/what-i-wont-and-will-miss.html), who gave me the idea for these lists.

I would not miss:

1) Scallops, lobster, animal dander and doxycycline (all of which affect me in the same way).

2) New Jersey, including Gov. Chris Christie, Snooki and The NJ Turnpike (See No. 1 above).

3) Marx, Freud and Foucault: aka The Three Stooges. (Oh, and Derrida, The Fourth Stooge.)

4) Chicken pox (and whoever invented it).

5) Adho Mukha Vrksasana.

6) In baseball: chewing tobacco and spitting (related activities); cup adjustment, on-camera; and Pedro Martinez (http://www.celebrateboston.com/red-sox/pedro-vs-zimmer.htm).

7) “The Star Spangled Banner” (because it celebrates bombs in mid-air, contains both a middle B-flat and a high F, and is a ^%$# waltz: see the excellent http://dalemcgowan.com/samples/starspangled.html for further reasons, if required).

8) Human hair (all; everywhere).

9) Overcompensation in men (Cheney, Rumsfeld and Eastwood spring to mind).

10) The Republican Party, and its feral pet, The Tea Party. Every last one of them (See No. 9 above).

11) Religion(s). All of them.

12) Most of human history (The Inquisition, The War in Vietnam, The Endless War in Afpakiraq, the Israelis vs. The Palestinians, The Northern Irish vs. The Southern Irish, The Bosnians vs. The Serbs vs. The Croats, General Sherman’s March to the Sea, Stalin, The Khmer Rouge, Mao, George W. Bush, being one of Hannibal’s elephants, China’s ethnic cleansing of Tibet, the entire concept of ethnic cleansing—oh, you get the picture).

13) Car alarms, smart phones, Kindles, Nooks, texting, Twitter . . . and Fred without Ginger.

14) The sit-com.

15) Teeth (and whoever invented them), dentists (all, thus far), and flossing.

16) Disco, Hip Hop and Auto-Tune.

17) Climate Change Deniers, Fundamentalists (all) and Magical Thinkers (See Nos. 10 and 11 above).

18) The Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch: The Four Jackasses of The Apocalypse.

19) The longevity (not) of pets.

20) Cancer, MS, Unipolar Depression, AIDs (the list goes on; and whoever invented them).

I would miss:

1) The light in Greece.

2) Auden (well, lots of Auden), Rilke (everything), and Rumi (in good translations).

3) Bach and Beethoven. (What? Not Mozart? Nope: just B & B.)

4) Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice-cream, eaten by the pint, neat.

5) Homo sapiens: but only infants, toddlers and (most) ten-year-olds.

6) Swimming in the Aegean in autumn.

7) Figs (both fresh off the tree and dried-in-sugar, with a half-walnut tucked inside).

8) My PowerBook 170, and no computer thereafter. (In fact, I miss this one already.)

9) Swearing (but especially in Greek and Turkish).

10) The scent of brewing coffee (the actual taste of which, like many things in life, never lives up to its olfactory promise).

11) “Pogo,” “Peanuts” and “The Far Side.”

12) Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Lewis Black (I do realize this contradicts No. 5 above, but I am large and contain multitudes).

13) Keith Olbermann (ditto note to No. 12 above).

14) The concept of Mrs. Calabash.

15) The word “blimp.”

16) Anyone who gets my jokes, allusions and admittedly off-kilter wit.

17) Karnapidasana.

18) Certain untranslatable words in Greek: kefi, philotimo and xenitia, just for starters.

19) Shakespeare (whoever he was); all of him.

20) Breathing.