Uncle Eyeball Again

We were sitting outdoors, watching the evening darken into deepest blue. It had been seven months since I had seen Uncle Eyeball and was surprised when Norma leaped from her chair and plucked him from the sky. I thought she'd caught a fruit bat --a habit I've been meaning to speak to her about-- but she held an eyeball up and I was overjoyed at the prospect of his renewed company. I was, however, confused by his altered appearance.  

"Uncle!" I exclaimed, "you are much changed since last we met. What has happened?" To which he reminded me, in no uncertain tone, to adhere to the strict form and protocol that have ever-presided over our conversations. Oh, very well:

Dear Uncle Eyeball,
Why are you shaved and hatless? And what is the purpose of your pronged appendage? --Geo.

Dear Geo.,
Since last we met, I was drafted by National Security as a surveillance device, examined by their highest echelon of intelligence-gathering technicians who instructed their highest echelon of cosmetologists. I was shaved and stripped and instructed to spy on seditious insurrection unnoticed, disguised as an indoor moon. The purpose of my "appendage" is obvious. I was referred to top secret electricians who converted me from the sustenance of imagination and fitted me with prongs that fit any standard household 110 volt outlet. Kindly plug me into that one on the lamp post behind you.
--Thanks, Uncle Eyeball

Of course, we complied, but there was a complication. As Uncle recharged, he also glowed and projected a figure, an impressively uniformed figure, upon the bean tent. It was difficult to get in one take, having blindingly bright teeth, hair and gold-braid all over him. He said, in most mellifluous and commanding tones,

"Dear Uncle Eyeball,
I'm Captain Troy Handsome of The Metaphysical Emergency Force. Please state the nature of the unnatural!
Yours truly, Capt. Troy Handsome"

I was taken aback by Uncle's response.

Dear Geo.,
They've done it again! Every time I get even slightly free of them, they activate some crazy sub-routine that asks questions that would go right over my head if I had any head instead of just an eyeball. Then they lure me back into the dark work of their world. Unplug me now. I'm fully recharged, ready to fly away with their cause and fail magnificently where others would be merely successful. My blessings, nephew, and do speak to Norma about the dangers of bat-snatching!
All my love, Uncle Eyeball

I did as instructed and watched Uncle streak upward and out of sight. We then directed Captain Troy Handsome to some neighbors across the south field. Unnatural? Yes Captain, they play music that sounds like tennis shoes in the dryer. Good luck with them!

Uncle Eyeball Revisited

I decided to kick off this year with a repost --from 4 years back-- because it's late at night here and I was perusing old posts about hopes and progress --but found this and thought it came close. Please enjoy, and do your best to make this year wonderful too.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Ask Uncle Eyeball

Having received today this artful creation of eyemuscle muttonchops from Daughter in Chicago, I decided to test a format I have not attempted since writing for the Kerr Courier in 1964, an advice column. It is New Year's Eve and I am not entirely in possession of myself, so I don't know where these questions are coming from, but I shall in all my best respond.

Dear Uncle Eyeball,
I don't usually consider myself old but lately I have seen my grandfather's face in the mirror --if you know what I mean. What should I do? --Boomer

Dear Boomer,
No, I don't know what the hell you mean but my grampa was born in 1872 and I had the same problem. I kicked the old boy out of the bathroom and told him not to monopolize the mirror. If, however, you are speaking figuratively and your mirror makes you feel old, just move it farther away until it conforms to your youthful self-image. I have done this repeatedly and successfully. My bathroom mirror is now located somewhere in Japan.

Dear Uncle Eyeball,
We are thinking of buying our first home. Please advise!--Normal Guy

Dear Normal,
If you really are normal, you should watch out for things realtors never tell you --like hardly anybody in any neighborhood they move you into is anything close to normal. In fact, current sociological studies show that every fourth house on Earth is full of creeps. In densely populated tracts you'll have neighbors borrowing  tools to permanently remove mufflers from their cars and motorcycles. This initiates tingo*, an Easter Island word defined as borrowing things until nothing is left. You may wish to save up until you can buy two properties on either side of you, or move out of town. Even in the peaceful panorama of the bucolic countryside, the statistic holds, there's just more room. I opted for the latter and you can see how happy I am.

Dear Uncle Eyeball,
What is New Year's really? --Janus
Dear Janus,
I thought you had this settled long ago. New Year's is an heroic annual attempt made by the Cosmos to bridge the awful gap between you, me and fabulous wealth. Each year brings promise and hope, hope for peace, prosperity, tolerance and understanding --but mainly for compassion and love. These may sound like magical qualities with little chance of success and proliferation, but I assure you it is at least more than what every fourth person in the world wants. Perhaps you could get with the other gods and narrow that down.

And so to business. Let's all treat each other decently and have a Happy New Year!
Best wishes,
              Uncle Eyeball

* I don't usually do footnotes but must give credit to my copy of  Adam Jacot de Boinod's excellent book, The Meaning Of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words From Around The World (Penguin Press, New York, 2006) for this Pascuense word.

Posted by Geo. at 8:34 PM

Uncle Eyeball Returns!

"Good heavens, it's Uncle Eyeball, and he's grown a rocket butt!"

(You wouldn't know about Uncle Eyeball unless you've read a couple posts from two years back. Click on his name in the previous sentence and they'll bring you up to date.)

"Remember yourself, nephew, and calm down. I know you've had trouble with that lately."

"Dear Uncle..." I began.

"No, no, this is an election year. Let's relieve ourselves from formality and pleonastic rhetoric."

"Agreed, Uncle! Now how'd you get a jet-propelled butt?"

"Oh, the usual way, wrong bottle in a border town."

"You've been traveling, then..."

"Yes, Geo., conducting a survey of politics and religion."

"And doubtless found each lining up with the other."

"I saw some churches boiling over with heat and hatred but true religion doesn't debulliate so readily. Some churches skill themselves in arresting human thought long enough to make a fortune and move on to broader markets, but they're the lesser temples. The real temples, the important ones, are much more compact,  protected by cranial vaults and number above seven billion now."

"You mean human heads, Uncle?"

"Mmm...yes those. You see, the holiest temples are occupied with the propagation of reason and compassion, a future with love in it. But there's resistance to that future, too."

"So what's the future like, Uncle Eyeball?"

"It's a lot like the past only less predictable, which is why memories come true oftener than dreams. Each of these billions of temples subtly affects billions of others and, in combination, can produce a paradise --a future full of energy and kindness, minds engaged in pursuit of knowledge, inquiry, harmony and the belief that misery is not desirable--- otherwise..."

"What otherwise?"

"Otherwise you just get exhaust from a burning butt. Be careful, nephew, what bottle you drink from."

There was a flash, a sonic boom and he was gone,  continuing his survey, but I love Uncle Eyeball and he loves me. He'll be back.  

 

Uncle Eyeball Yet Again

I was sitting at the kitchen table with Uncle Eyeball, visiting. We don't let him fly inside the house because of presbyopia (click here), an age-related rigidity of the lens caused by upbringing in poorly lit Presbyterian churches.

For those readers unfamiliar with Uncle Eyeball, please click onto this blue area and catch up on my dear relative's adventures.
No, I don't remember them all either, but can attest he is consistent with my delight in amusements that, in my advancing maturity, approximate the chewy consistency of doggy toys. 

I began the interview with a question that had always been on my mind but I'd never asked: "Dear Uncle Eyeball, from what am I, and all earthly life descended?"

"That's easy,"he said. "You come from my generation of Stromatolites --collected on precambrian rocks in lagoons."

"Good heavens!" I gasped. "You mean we're descended from bacteria?"  I dropped him.

"OOPS!" I said.

When he recovered his composure, Uncle Eyeball kindly said, "Don't worry, nephew. My generation is extremely elastic and durable.When I was a schoolboy, there were no history classes because there wasn't any history yet. Language was no less simple --'oops!' comprised the whole of human vocabulary. 

"Thanks Uncle, your heart's in the right place."

"Well, the avuncular cardiac chamber is among the longest surviving --wherever it is. Its influence is permanent."

Ask Uncle Eyeball

Having received today this artful creation of eyemuscle muttonchops from Daughter in Chicago, I decided to test a format I have not attempted since writing for the Kerr Courier in 1964, an advice column. It is New Year's Eve and I am not entirely in possession of myself, so I don't know where these questions are coming from, but I shall in all my best respond.

Dear Uncle Eyeball,
I don't usually consider myself old but lately I have seen my grandfather's face in the mirror --if you know what I mean. What should I do? --Boomer

Dear Boomer,
No, I don't know what the hell you mean but my grampa was born in 1872 and I had the same problem. I kicked the old boy out of the bathroom and told him not to monopolize the mirror. If, however, you are speaking figuratively and your mirror makes you feel old, just move it farther away until it conforms to your youthful self-image. I have done this repeatedly and successfully. My bathroom mirror is now located somewhere in Japan.

Dear Uncle Eyeball,
We are thinking of buying our first home. Please advise!--Normal Guy

Dear Normal,
If you really are normal, you should watch out for things realtors never tell you --like hardly anybody in any neighborhood they move you into is anything close to normal. In fact, current sociological studies show that every fourth house on Earth is full of creeps. In densely populated tracts you'll have neighbors borrowing  tools to permanently remove mufflers from their cars and motorcycles. This initiates tingo, an Easter Island word defined as borrowing things until nothing is left. You may wish to save up until you can buy two properties on either side of you, or move out of town. Even in the peaceful panorama of the bucolic countryside, the statistic holds, there's just more room. I opted for the latter and you can see how happy I am.

Dear Uncle Eyeball,
What is New Year's really? --Janus

Dear Janus,
I thought you had this settled long ago. New Year's is an heroic annual attempt made by the Cosmos to bridge the awful gap between you, me and fabulous wealth. Each year brings promise and hope, hope for peace, prosperity, tolerance and understanding --but mainly for compassion and love. These may sound like magical qualities with little chance of success and proliferation, but I assure you it is at least more than what every fourth person in the world wants. Perhaps you could get with the other gods and narrow that down.

And so to business. Let's all treat each other decently and have a Happy New Year!
Best wishes,
              Uncle Eyeball

Dear Aunt Acid

Because my Uncle Eyeball developed Rocket Butt  and jetted up on a protracted intergalactic survey, I have lately been compelled to ask another relative for advice, my dear Acerbic Aunt Acid.

Dear Aunt Acid,
I clicked onto my blog today and noticed something alarming...

Dear "Alarming...",
That's what you get when your ancestors immigrate to The New World instead of a nice settled country like Acerbia, as I did. Yes, I know, we've argued about it before but they wanted a fortune to cross the Atlantic --even more if I was furnished a boat-- so I came to this lovely, vitriolic country and acculturated myself and made a good living with an advice column. Now, "Alarming", who should have a proctologist examine his brain, what is your problem?

Dear Aunt Acid,
You know it is I, Geo.  I have a question...

Dear Geo.,
I knew it was you, which is why I'm being nice. Shoot.

Dear Aunt Acid,
The GFC Followers list, at the head of my blog, suddenly shows only one line of 20 subscriber icons (and requires key-prompts to show the rest) where it used to show 4 lines and things were simpler. The count is still at 88, but it takes longer to get through them and the dashboard is rearranged in that area too.  It did this by itself. I have visited Google forum to find similar problems and solutions to them but it yields nothing. What's going on? 

Dear addled Geo.,
Send a plea out to your subscribers to find out if they see the same thing at your GFC gallery.  The rest is up to you. Now, excuse me, I must go sweep teeth off the dance-hall floor.

Dear Readers,
Input?