Glenn Kubish

To the list of cliched consolations built according to a similar sentence pattern—the one good thing about the pandemic is...the only silver lining in the pandemic is...if we've learned one thing from the pandemic, it's that...—I will add mine: the only true comfort in the pandemic has been Edgar Allan Poe.  Poe has been a companion since I dropped the needle on Dylan's latest album and heard the singer in I Contain Multitudes confess that he has "a tell-tale heart like Mr. Poe." I am back to Mr. Poe and reading the short stories and, as strange as it sounds, find in the horror something up to the ordeal we find ourselves in. Yes, I can try to balance out the grimness and the bleakness with good news stories, and I do. But Poe does the trick. The stories are little injections of dread that somehow work to stabilize my fears. Like to like. Literary vaccine.  The Premature Burial tells a story from the point of view of a young man terrified by the prospect of being ...

I can't shake the feeling that whatever play we thought we were in before isn't the play we're in now. The old set has been blown away...we have different lines...about obligation to each other. We're not so familiar with that script.  There's no shortage of lines. There are the basic messages. Distance, wash your hands, wear a mask, avoid social gatherings. There are the lines written by the humorists. Maintain physical distance, or 1 Joey Ramone. There's the threatening voice of authority. If we don't turn this around now, there will be tighter controls ahead. Clever wordplay, too. Spread the word, not the virus. Bend the curve, not the rules. Wearing a mask? Best time to get braces. The big picture: we are in this together, apart. The appeal to the heart: protect your loved ones.  Versions of the last line about protecting loved ones are curious. It's long been thought that protecting loved ones goes without saying. The human impulse to protect loved ...

I am thinking more about pylons these days. I knew the word first as slang, a demeaning term applied to someone without natural athletic ability on skates. Used this way on the typical hockey bench: "Did you see him blow past the defenceman? What a $%&# pylon that guy is! Hahhahaha, moron. Throw me the water." Like that. If someone calls you a pylon, they are not complimenting you on your strength or solidity or reliability of character. They are not likening you to a bridge pylon or to an electricity line pylon or to any other huge piece of technology that can be counted on to just stand there and mutely do its work of support. No, if you're called a pylon, it's because someone has decided that you exhibit the dumb part of the pylon's being. Like the way Lemieux reduced Chambers to a piece of material in 1991. Nobody wants to be the pylon. Except, as John Milton said in a different context, those who only stand and wait also serve. Mil...