Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Friday, January 22, 2016

Buttonholes and Other Trivia


It’s a dark day here on the island. Profundity is still asleep. So, here’s an exciting discourse on the importance of insignificant minutiae, a salute to the unremarkable that makes life work.

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I’m reading a poem by Naomi Nye, “Famous.” She wants to be famous, like pulleys, boots and buttonholes. It’s an ode to things seemingly unimportant. Buttonholes are included.

It strikes me as curious that what seems so common never gets the proper praise it deserves. Instead, like many of us, it remains overlooked. Milton’s words, written in Sonnet 16, sum it up: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” My closet, and yours, is full of buttonholes, just waiting for their hour in the sun.

But unlike many of us, buttonholes and their buddies---belt loops and zippers, the closet trio---live lackluster lives in relative obscurity. They suffer indignity without complaint and function without fussing. Such a brotherhood of boring essentials gets little respect.

Take the tiny buttonholes that anchor shirt collars to achieve decorum. They’re the constant curse of every arthritic-gnarled finger that ever tried to conquer the task. They’re famous for the wrong reason.

Buttonholes are not created equal. Some are more equal than others. The top buttonholes, like politicians, have the rare privilege of occupying the spotlight. Unfortunately, it often leads to an arrogance of position. It prompts the African proverb, “Even a flea on the neck of a giraffe thinks it’s immortal.” Insolence won’t guarantee electability as she hopes.

Somewhere out there lurks the philosophy of the ‘gradation principal,’ or something like that. It conspires with Darwin to affirm the tenets of his Evolution Theory. It’s a sort of hierarchy chart like you’d find in a corporate organization that puts the janitor in the same closet with the mop.

Buttonholes and its pals suffer similar obscurity and are found at the bottom of everybody’s org chart. Sorta like being shoved into the same closet with mops, brooms and toilet brushes. But then again, this is life. And life is full of contradictions.

Moreover, life’s not fair, either. Suppose you were a buttonhole on a shirt sleeve that gets an Obama-style rollup. Would you be depressed because the frontal buttonholes got all the glory by accentuating vibrant-colored buttons? Basking in the light of another’s reflected glory is a coveted cultural event.

Listen, buttonholes didn’t crawl ashore with some amoeba. They originated in a cave. Paleontologists theorize that some Troglodyte’s wife concluded that buttonholes would augment his bear-hide jacket and showcase the dinosaur teeth buttons. Everything begins somewhere.

Buttonholes have come a long way since those days. They’ve survived attempts by Velcro strips to subvert grace they enjoy. True, Velcro has its place, but never on a runway in Milan. Even Italians are not that crude.

Belt loops get no respect either. Have you ever examined one closely? Right. Why would you? They have a simple job of just keeping the belt in its lane, so to speak. There’s a half-baked theory going around that belt loops were the original idea of stay-in-your-box political correctness.

Neither are zippers on anyone’s idea of a fashion statement. Little can be done with a zipper to elevate its position as the guardian of secrets. Instead, zippers should be revered by all for their ability to keep the secrets to themselves. After all, they can be exposed to a multitude of compromising situations. Zippers offer valuable lessons…do your job and keep your mouth shut.

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So thanks, Naomi, for your insights on insignificance today. It’s a good reminder to acknowledge the unspectacular among us that makes life work.

Whatever else buttonholes, belt loops and zippers may be, at least they can be counted on to always do what they were designed for. I wonder if we could say the same about ourselves.


Bud Hearn
January 22, 2016




Friday, January 8, 2016

What’s Next?


It (Life) is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights illuminate, but you can make the whole trip that way.” D. L. Doctorow

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According to the Gregorian calendar, we’ve entered into a new solar year. We cross that blindfolded into that threshold. What dark alley are we in? Something’s gonna happen. Not if, but when. But what? The buffet menu of possibilities is endless.

Fearful by nature, we distrust the Fates and often are fed up with prayer. We wonder about the world’s Garden of Evil. Any rational view of world conditions, not to mention the Universe of Self, would conclude this. We live with the constant question: “What’s next?”

We are hopeful to have a Jubilee Year, right? That special year when everything’s reset, debts forgiven, property is restored, scales of justice balanced, the national debt cancelled, feuding grievances are forgiven and brotherly love oozes from every pore.

Is this happening in your world? No. Old grievances remain, debt still stalks and the process of aging keeps on keeping on. Where are we going from here? We fling the question ‘up there.’ The Universal Voice is silent.

China on the east, Russia on the west. Us in the middle. Do you feel the vice? Pyongyang explodes. Obama cries. Congress fiddles. Putin pushes. Stalin’s words ring: “One death is a tragedy; 20 million is a statistic.” What brink are we on? What’s next?

Our President is quietly packing up to leave, trying to ease out the back door undisclosed. Tarot cards reveal his formation of a yogic ashram at Harvard where he sits in a loin cloth in lotus, chanting om’s and reciting Lao-Tsu poetry while painting his toe nails.

His library is loaded with TV screens flashing live images of himself, night and day. They remind him of his greatness. But he’s history now, forgotten. Trump has taken over the Oval and has banned all political correctness by executive fiat.

Meanwhile, the gender and identity politics movement has crawled from its cocoon, espousing ‘conversion therapy’ for children to help them discover their rightful gender. LGBT schools for K-12 for gender dysphoric children are on the horizon. It’s anybody’s guess what that will morph into. The New Rome, maybe. What’s next?

Oh, there’s plenty, but why go there? What we need are some miracles scattered about to rekindle our faith, to restore our equilibrium. Instead, we buy lotto tickets while waiting on the shores of the mythical Isle of Serendip for our ship to sail in.

Miracles are difficult to discover these days. Where’s the burning bush, the sea that parts, the ax that floats, the ladder from heaven? Such phenomena have been pretty scarce lately.

There’s a reason. The ambient air for miracles to appear is poisoned. Imagine walking down the street and there, right before your eyes, is a bush that burns. You stop, look. The bush flames up without being consumed. It speaks, “Hey, I am a miracle.” Fear grips you.

You grab your cell, dial 911 and declare an emergency. Your Instagrams, texts and emails go viral. The fire department rushes in, the police investigate. The press shows up. Meanwhile, millions see you on Facebook, YouTube, CNN. You’re famous now. Hollywood offers a movie deal.

But wait. There’ll be investigations. Someone’s to blame. You might be railroaded, hauled in, interrogated, made to confess. You will protest. A public defender will take your case. The trial will be speedy. You will lose. Who would want to discover a miracle? So you quit looking for it. Blending into the crowd of cynics is safer.

So what’s next? Do we stand silently at a distance and watch as history plays out its inexorable conclusion? Let’s hope not. Serendipity is still out there. Serendipity? Ah, even the sound of the word is soothing. It’s where miracles are conceived.

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Our metaphoric car, filled with hopes and dreams, hurls through the darkness of the future. WE are that burning bush, that living miracle. What’s next is what we make it to be.

Irrespective of the numerical prefixes in front our years, we should strive to make things better with “What’s next?” So, forget the headlines, just buy the ticket, take the ride.


Bud Hearn
January 8, 2016