Vie de palme?

Je viens de passer une petite semaine en Californie du Sud, là où j'ai si longtemps vécu et travaillé.  Et, selon certains, perdu mon temps à enseigner le français.  Très gentillement accueilli chez mes amis, les Jones, j'ai profité du séjour (et de la voiture de location) pour revoir et photographier (de l'extérieur) presque toutes mes anciennes résidences et toutes les écoles où, au bon vieux temps, j'ai joué les clowns.

Car l'enseignement du français était, parait-il, une farce.  Une singerie.  Un jeu de miroirs déformants.  Une lamentable perte de temps .

Du moins, c'est l'opinion de la plupart des milieux bien informés qui prétendent qu'il est aussi absurde qu'ínutile d'enseigner une langue qui ne se parle ailleurs qu'en France (pays de deuxième zone), qu'en certaines parties de la Belgique et de la Suisse (pays de troisième zone), qu'en quelques régions de l' Afrique (pays pourris et échoués) et qu'au Québec (même pas un pays).  Ce sont des milieux américains, bien sûr.

Comme, par exemple, le conseil d'administration de St. Mary's University--ainsi que le président de Winona State University--qui ont tous deux décrété cette année la suppression du français dans leurs facultés respectives.  La raison de cette déchéance?  Un manque presque universel d'intérêt de la part des étudiants qui, vu leur penchant pour la praticabilité et l'utilité, ne choisissent que l'espagnol comme langue moderne. Interrogés par la gent universitaire (ces connaisseurs de connaissances inutiles), les responsables haussent les épaules.  Tout ce qui n'est pas rentable n'est pas enseignable!  (Et qu'adviendra-t-il des matières scientifiques esotériques--qui manquent aussi d'inscriptions tout en gardant le prestige d'être en quelque sorte "valables"--du moins intellectuellement?  Oh, disent les administrateurs, "There you go again, comparing apples and oranges.")

Bon.  L'opinion générale veut, donc, que j'ai perdu mon temps et gaspillé ma vie en essayant de faire comprendre, à des gens qui n'en ont nul besoin et qui n'en "profiteront" aucunement, la distinction entre le passé composé et l'imparfait.  Une vie foutue en l'air, quoi!  Un temps perdu que même Proust lui-même, muni de toutes les madeleines trempées du monde, ne pourrait jamais retrouver.

Cette réflexion a provoqué pas mal de discussion chez les Jones.  Car Melinda Jones a été, pendant des années presque incalculables, ma chère amie et ma fidèle collègue dans l'enseignement du français à Diamond Bar High School.  Ensemble, nous nous sommes engagés corps et âme au service de la langue française.  Nous avons lancé un programme d'études rarement égalé en Californie.  Nous avons mené un combat acharné contre ceux qui disaient que le français n'avait aucune valeur intrinsèque--en lui donnant une valeur extrinsèque, en fournissant aux élèves la possibilité de VIVRE à la française--des week-ends entiers à la montagne, des semaines entières à Paris. Nous leur avons fait lire Molière et Voltaire et Baudelaire et Camus.  Et en travaillant comme des forcenés, nous avons fini par réaliser l'ambition que nous nous étions proposée au début:  nous avons réussi à transmettre à un tas de jeunes Américains une appréciation d'une culture différente, d'un point de vue alternatif.

Il faut comprendre:  nous avons eu notre juste récompense.  Car nous avons nous-mêmes vécu pleinement et heureusement ces années de succès, entourés de collègues (qui admiraient notre prouesse, même s'ils se moquaient de la France) et d'élèves (qui, ultérieurement, ont sans doute oublié pas mal de français, mais qui continuent à aimer la France, la civilisation française, la littérature française et, et, et...nous, Mme Jones et M. Kirkeby).

Voilà donc la vie que j'ai foutue en l'air.  Et avec du recul, je vois que, somme toute, ce n'était pas si mal.  (Vous pardonnerez peut-être ce brin de fatuité.) Bien que l'importance global du français ait incontestablement diminué avec le déclin de l'influence et du pouvoir français, cette diminution n'efface nullement la joie, l'amour, la connaissance plus vive et les sentiments plus élevés que j'ai encouragés et éprouvés pendant ma carrière de professeur et de francophile.

A la longue, nous perdons tous la vie, ce qui rend, en quelque sorte, beaucoup de "services" inutiles-- le service du français (langue de plus en plus insignifiante) aussi bien que celui, par exemple, de la Palestine (pays encore inexistant).  Ce qui importe, au fond, c'est la qualité du service rendu, n'est-ce pas?  Et, sans fausse modestie, je crois pouvoir constater que j'ai "bien" servi.

Et mes palmes académiques, alors?

Graceland

The traditional Catholic definition of a sacrament is "an outward sign of inward grace, instituted by God [though more likely, I think, by god-seeking men] for our sanctification."  As ever-wordy Thomas Aquinas explains more fully:  "It is the nature of man to be led by things corporeal and sense-perceptible to things spiritual and intelligible."  


In other words, rites, rituals, ceremonies involving symbolic actions, liturgical language, beautiful music, bells and smells--such hocus pocus, when conducted solemnly and reverently by and for "believers", can confer upon participants a kind of edification--both spiritual and psychological--that connects them with a transcendent (and not really explainable) power.


Hence, the Mass--Western man's most admirable and magnificent congeries of sacramental mumbo-jumbo.  Vatican II fussed about trying to make the Mass "accessible" by translating it into vernacular languages.  Truthfully though, there was no real need.  Indeed, the very foreignness of Latin probably contributed to the overall theatrical and mystical effect.  Remember:  sacraments are not "how to" instruction manuals--each corporeal "appeal to the senses" does not need to be intellectually analyzed.  Rather, it is the overall metaphor that must be perceived, embraced and, ultimately, assimilated into the believer's very being.  At the Mass, the devout are swept up in the majesty of the EXPERIENCE--knowing that such and such a prayer (who cares if you understand the words?) points to such and such a meaning, knowing that such and such a stylized gesture signifies such and such a transcendent truth, knowing that such and such a sight, sound or smell directs us to ponder such and such a communal commitment or social contract.


And thus, when the whole story of Jesus' passion has been symbolically reenacted and made "sense-perceptible," the believer reaches the climax of his experience:  he unites himself with the story he has experienced--he eats and drinks his god and in so doing becomes godlike himself.  This union with the god is also a union with all other communicants.  And it is, above all, a reaffirmation and celebration of the very selfhood/godhood of the participant.  It is "grace."


Now, in discussing the Mass, I have used terms that might be considered pejorative:  hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo, theater, choreography.  I have done so because, to an outsider--even to a Protestant--such an elaborate ceremony, full of complicated maneuvers and mysterious language, may seem like nothing more than a ridiculous vaudeville routine or an absurd Ionesco farce.  


Still, don't get me wrong.  Though I have little love for asinine and inhumane Catholic dogma, and though I can muster almost no respect for the Pope and the hierarchy, I DO care deeply about the Mass.  Because I am an initiate:  I "get it" and, whenever I participate, I "get something out of it."  Call it grace.  As far as I'm concerned, doctrines and specious definitions of what actually "happens" (you know, all the transubstantiation prattle) matter not a whit and have no bearing whatsoever on the experience.

Oh, don't start nagging about my cognitive dissonance and my intellectual  inconsistencies.  I realize that trying to discuss mythological stuff in logical terms just doesn't work.  In truth, my rational brain can make no sense at all of my emotional attachment to the Mass.  And, as I've said elsewhere in this blog, I am convinced that it's pointless to try to understand, in human language, those necessarily fuzzy concepts we label "god" or "gods" or "ultimate reality."  But so what! So what if the Mass IS just a vaudevillian delusion; at the very least, it is MY delusion and, as long as it continues to afford some small measure of grace to my rather haphazard life, I will cling to it.  Sursum corda.  And, to be sure, "Deo gratias."








  

Bicephalic Memories

You've all heard about "recovered" memories of occurrences that, for whatever reason, we have repressed or forgotten (perhaps after the trauma of some vicious parental abuse, such as extreme chocolate cookie deprivation) but which, miraculously, we one day, while dunking an Oreo in milk, spontaneously retrieve from the recesses of our mushy gray matter.  Undoubtedly, of course, a certain percentage of such felicitous rememberings are of events that have never happened at all (the McMartin Pre-School Case comes to mind).  Still, I maintain, along with Dan Quayle, that the mind is a terrible thing to lose and that, therefore, we ought to heed and give credence to even those memories that seem the most spurious, trusting them to be "sufficiently" reliable to provide us with a vague sense of psychological autonomy.  Absolute objective truth might indeed be desirable, but it is definitely of secondary importance.  We are what we believe (and remember) we are.

That's why I'm writing this blog post.  Because just the other day I remembered something rather important:  I am the rightful Tsar of Russia!

I don't think I had so much "repressed" this memory as I had simply failed to piece together all the overwhelming evidence pointing to the "sufficient reason" of this story. Indeed,  since intellectual slothfulness is itself a time-honored Romanov trait, the very tardiness of my discovery constitutes additional proof of my imperial origins.

But finally, I DID connect all the dots (or the "dachas", haha).  It was an exceptionally hot and muggy night in late April.  The frogs in the mudhole (er, "biopond") behind the house were croaking at full volume, the air-conditioner was rumbling away like a tumbril on cobblestones, the nocturnal dogs were yowling at distant police sirens.  Decidedly understimulated by these tedious tunes, I had poured myself a vodka tonic and settled down to listen to the 1812 Overture (figuring that the bells and cannon would shake me from my lethargy).  Suddenly, just as the orchestra burst into the joyous strains of "God Save the Tsar" (or, as I was wont to sing in my undergraduate days, "Dear Old Macalester"), I was overcome by emotion.  Tears gushed from my eyes. Lights popped in my head.  Reeling and trembling, I stumbled once again toward the liquor cabinet, only to discover, in my distress, that since the stock of Schweppes was depleted, I would have to drink the remaining vodka neat, in one great gulp, a la russe.

That was all it took.  Everything then came back to me.  Everything then became clear.

And, as if the bottom of my vodka glass contained a set a matryoshka nesting dolls, I "recovered" memories within memories within memories...

--My grandmother was Anastasia Romanov, who HAD, after all, survived that evil royal slaughter, thanks to a sympathetic guard who spirited her away and stowed her in the hold of a ship bound for America.
--My father was the child of Anastasia (now known as "Anna") and her American husband, Marvin Gompers of Jacksonville, Illinois.
--My father was adopted by Olaf and Hulda Kirkeby after the Gompers fled to Waukon, Iowa, in a futile attempt to escape assassination by Bolshevik thugs.  With her dying breath, Anna told her secret to my "Grandfather" Kirkeby, who was the only policeman on duty in Waukon on the night the Bolsheviks shot the Gompers, set their house afire and searched, unsuccessfully, for their baby, who was asleep in the trunk of Olaf Kirkeby's squad car.
--My "grandfather" told the secret to my "grandmother," but pledged her to silence.  So my father grew up playing basketball for Waukon High School and thinking he was merely the third son of a ne'er-do-well slacker who could never manage to hold a job for more than two years running.
--But in her declining years, after she began to drink a bit too much Bourbon and 7 and hallucinate about being attacked by wild dogs, Grandma Kirkeby broke her promise and told my father the truth.
--Having no desire to be a tsar, my dad, like his ancestor Alexander I (who faked his death so he could live out his life in solitude in a tiny town), isolated himself in the provinces, teaching high school biology and coaching football  in Lewiston, Minnesota (population 759).
--Though he sometimes grew nostalgic about Russia, reciting (on long car trips) the poem "Abdullah Bulbul Emir"--regarding the extraordinary exploits of Ivan Skavinsky Skvar--my father kept silent about his origins, choosing, in fact, to avoid almost all conversation about anything but golf.
--However, after he suffered a stroke which left him unable to talk, he apparently had a change of heart.  In his last year of life, he repeatedly drew pictures of two-headed eagles on napkins in the nursing home's dining room.  (He also drew pictures of two-headed dogs and two-headed people, which led the nurses to conclude that he simply saw everything double, but I think that's an unwarranted conclusion.)  Clearly, the bicephalic eagles were his attempt to make a Romanov Revelation to us, his imperial children.

And, since I am Dad's eldest son, I am--by direct succession--the heir to the Russian throne.  I sense, therefore, that my real name is not Kenneth, but--as Grandmama Anastasia would have wanted--Alexei, in honor of her beloved brother.  And that makes me, Yes I remember it now!, Tsar Alexei II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias.

Obviously, my recovered memory distresses me enormously since I am, after all, 66 years old and, like Prince Charles of Windsor (a distant cousin), I have yet to RULE.  Unlike Charles, though, I do not even have a decent palace to call home.  And some miserable republican rabble are in control of Holy Russia.  What a mess!

But YOU can help.  All I ask is that each of you send a small contribution to my Romanov Restoration Campaign--a mere $35 per faithful subject would more than suffice.  In return, Mother Russia will be restored to the Romanovs and the miscreant usurpers exiled to Queens, Brooklyn and the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  To quote Sarah Palin, I intend to take back my country!  Including Alaska!

Needless to say, the God of Orthodoxy will bless you richly for your support.  As the descendant of saints--great grandparents Nicolas and Alexandra, notably-- I can assure you of divine favor (and, even as I write this, I am making the sign of the cross backwards).  Contributions can be made online at godsavealexei2@pectopah.com.

Haagen Dazs Rapture

I read a blog post the other day in which the blogger expressed his sincere desire that Sarah Palin be quickly "raptured" away, hopefully before she could bring Jesus and/or Juneau Jingoism to the 2012 presidential election.

That made me reflect a bit about rapture--and, specifically, about what Evangelicals call "THE Rapture."

I had always thought that rapture was, well, intense joy of some sort--like orgasm or Rum Raisin Haagen Dazs ice cream, softened by 15 seconds in the microwave.

Silly me.  Though etymologically the word derives from the Latin for "seize, abduct, kidnap, carry off, rob," I guess the term has also come to mean something like "flying off into heaven in order to witness the End of the World from a better vantage point."

You can't get tickets for this trip, though.  Well, not exactly anyway.  I consulted a couple of websites, but there seems to be considerable disagreement about who, exactly, is what one source called "rapture-ready."  In any event, it seems pretty clear that tickets for this flight are hard to come by.  You have to stand in line a long time.  And even if you make it to the gate, you might be detained at the last minute by some celestial TSA agent who doesn't like your "profile" or discovers a copy of The Onion in your luggage. You get bumped!!! And now you have to hang around with 144,000 Jews and 10 virgins.  (Maybe I got some of that mixed up.)

In any event, I'm reasonably sure that I wouldn't even be admitted to the line.  Surely, I'm on the "no fly" list.  Oh, don't ask me WHY.  Most of you already know more of my sordid past and perverted thinking than even I care to recall.  And to make matters worse, I don't like praying--unless I can read the prayers out of the Book of Common Prayer, in beautiful and incomprehensible 16th/17th Century prose.

I insist upon the "incomprehensible" part.  Understanding would ruin the experience.

So, since I'm definitely not "rapture-ready," what IS in store for me?  Well, according to the learned God Squad (i.e., those gifted with some sort of super sentience that allows them to "comprehend" the seeming gibberish of Revelation, Daniel, and the Left Behind series), I guess I'll get some kind of second chance to wash out my sins in a river of lamb's blood.  Sounds icky, though.

And if I mess up, I will be branded with a 666 tattoo and then seized, abducted, kidnapped and carried off to a very unpleasant place where there is NO Haagen Dazs and no orgasm.

That sounds so NOT rapturous.  Why does Palin get the good rapture while I get this crappy one?  Seems unAmerican to me.

It's Really Not Worth Mentioning...

I had to look this up in my Dictionary of Literary Terms:  paralipsis.  It's the rhetorical strategy whereby a speaker/writer feigns to ignore or pass over a matter (as unworthy of consideration) and, thereby, calls attention to the matter and suggests that it IS worthy of attention.  Usually a form of innuendo or ad hominem criticism, this technique is particularly favored by the Fox "News" team, though I've noticed that (on the other side), Keith Olbermann is not above indulging in similar sneak attacks.

Yesterday, I was particularly upset with Bill O'Reilly, sanctimonious as ever, who observed, oh ever so casually and "objectively", something to this effect:  "Of course, I would never suggest that Elena Kagan is gay, and I certainly don't believe in discrimination based on sexual orientation, but don't you find it rather interesting that Ms. Kagan is 50 years old and not yet married?"

Oh, Billo!  Of COURSE you're not prejudiced, and OF COURSE you don't even want to bring up the gayness issue.  You are so FAIR and BALANCED and genuinely good.  Bless your noble Christian heart.

What O'Reilly was indirectly asserting, obviously, is that the sexual orientation of a Supreme Court nominee IS a legitimate matter of concern.  And he was slyly inviting his right-wing viewers to rise up in opposition to a potential justice who, if confirmed, might, oh, who knows?, vote to dissolve heterosexual marriage and/or legalize unions between consenting adults and sheep.

In other words, the old Republican tactic:  be afraid, be very afraid.  The progressives are trying to destroy America and usher in the reign of the Antichrist.  The sky is falling, the sky is falling.

It's all so tiresome--and, alas, effective.  I guess I'll just go back to my Dictionary of Literary Terms and attempt to memorize a few more useless facts.  Such as, for instance, the origin of the term "red herring."



 

Green Cheese

I've always loved history--was even going to major in it for a while--and my favorite kind of reading remains "historical fiction"--a term which has always amused me for its oxymoronical overtones.  Still, I understand that writers of this genre are "more or less" devoted to adhering to facts when they address actual events that can be documented and proved--i.e., the broad historical outlines and context in which the work is set.  But they allow themselves considerable latitude in imagining the words, thoughts and mundane daily activities of the characters they choose to create or "flesh out" in this context.  I recently finished reading Wolf Hall, just such a fictionalized account of the rise to power of Henry VIII's chancellor, Thomas Cromwell.  No verifiable historical facts have been altered.  But since we can never know la petite histoire--i.e., exactly what Cromwell thought of his cat or exactly what  he said to either Cardinal Wolsey or Archbishop Cranmer, this novel entertains without straining credulity.

The same, alas, cannot be said for the History Channel and History International, which I fear are not much more devoted to history than is Fox News to "fair and balanced" reporting.

The History Channels, like Fox, seem to think that viewers are primarily interested in rumor, scandal-mongering, titillation and cheap thrills.  Hence, their penchant for sensationalist series entitled "Ancient Aliens," or "Armageddon" or "Nostradamus Effect" or "MonsterQuest" or "The Real Face of Jesus" or "How Bruce Lee Changed the World."

Shoot, most of these programs could have been chalk talks by Glenn Beck.  Innuendo, opinion, superstition, runestones, folk traditions, incoherent quatrains, ravings from angels and (who knows?  ouija board messages?) are all presented as equally valid "evidence" for asininity and melodramatic hyperbole.

Since when are any and all opinions equally meritorious?  Is truth really subjective?  Just pick whatever truth you find most appealing?  That's not just historical fiction--it's fiction pure and simple.

Anyway, here are some "truths" I've learned from watching various "history" channels:

1)  Hell is located in the center of the earth because the "bible says so."
2)  The world will end in 2012 because that's the end of the Mayan calendar.
3)  Jesus had a long, hooked nose, because the Shroud of Turin can be computer enhanced.
4)  The pyramids at Giza and at Teotihuacan were both built by extraterrestrials, because both have bases of approximately the same size.
5)  Ancient Egyptians knew how to fly, because they couldn't have done the geometry otherwise.
6)  Aliens have been experimenting with human genetics for millennia, probably dumbing us down.
7)  There is good evidence that we are living in the end times, because we have hurricanes and volcanic eruptions.
8)  The god Moses met on Mt. Sinai was probably an alien (you know, from another planet, not from Mexico).
9)  The Ark of the Covenant is hidden away in a little mud chapel in Ethiopia, because that's what people say.
10)  The "wheel" that Ezekiel saw in the sky was a flying saucer.
11)  The Great Sphinx is what certain ancient aliens looked like.
12)  Manna was actually algae, distributed by extraterrestrials flying about in a pillar of fire.

Algae is green isn't it?  And extraterrestrials are "little green men," aren't they?  And the moon is "green cheese," isn't it?

So what about Bruce Lee?

Machiavelli Good Pizza

I just reread The Prince.  I had forgotten how short it is--and how readable.  What a refreshing change from all the pseudo-expertise of the Cable News Commentators.  Sure, the world has changed a lot since the 16th Century.  But we still have "princes," even if we call them prime ministers or presidents.  So I suspect that quite a number of Machiavelli's precepts for effective governance still apply.

For instance, his observation that--if the prince must choose between being loved and being feared--it is advisable to choose to be feared.  Human beings don't respect or obey those whom they love--and they change their affections to suit their own selfish interests.  On the other hand, it is almost always in one's self-interest to obey / respect someone whose power is feared.  Obama take note.  Being nice and seeking to be loved will get you nowhere.  Those who hate you will continue to do so and those who like you will stop respecting you.

The most dangerous and untenable state, according to Machiavelli, is to be hated but NOT feared.  Such a prince will be easily deposed by a populace that feels free to give full reign to its baser instincts (Tea Party types?).

Another useful precept:  choose to be miserly rather than generous.  Giving money, entitlements, "pork" to the people (or to the "nobility"--i.e., the rich and powerful plutocracy) will earn the prince very little gratitude.  Why?  Because the recipients will see the rewards as merely their "due," and they will grow resentful if (as is likely) their taxes are increased in order to pay for the prince's generosity.  If the prince is seen as a miser, however, he will be thanked for any small financial concession.  And he will be praised for not increasing taxes.

(Machiavelli makes few judgments about whether these precepts are objectively/ morally  "good" or "bad"; fair or unfair.  He simply observes that people are "not as they should be" and that, therefore, a prince who hopes to rule such people must have vices that match and counter theirs.)

I wonder what Signore M. would think about our new health care plan.  Obama has attempted to portray it as a "miserly" bill that will, in the end, SAVE the people money and NOT raise their taxes.  But is that so?  Personally, I'm willing to give it a try--since the current system is so fearfully UNmiserly.  But frankly, I doubt that most people will see things that way.  I worry, therefore, that the average voters--who do not look beyond their own bank accounts--will not be swift to equate Obamanomics with thriftiness.

A final precept that I, an avid consumer of TV news, find both edifying and sobering:  an effective prince must frequently be a liar and a hypocrite while, at the same time, portraying himself ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE as a paragon of virtue.  Because "men are a sad lot," rulers must be willing to break their word and and deceive their adversaries (or allies) when such faithlessness is necessary for the common good.  But the prince must at the same time take great pains to appear "all compassion, all honor, all humanity, all integrity, all religion."  In other words, "perception" is what matters.  Style, not sincerity.  And it follows, therefore, that every modern prince needs a VERY EFFECTIVE PROPAGANDA MACHINE.  Lincoln, perhaps rightly, observed that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.  But the important thing, for cynical but realistic Machiavelli, is that you can fool most of the people most of the time--and, indeed, you must fool them.  For their own good.  And for yours.

Obama may need to think about remaking his PR team.  The Republicans already have an excellent bunch of liars and hypocrites assailing the airwaves:  politicians such as Palin, McConnell, DeMint, Kyl, Boehner; commentators such as Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly; journalists such as Cal Thomas, George Will, etc.  But most of the Democratic players are wusses, actually trying to be rational and fair (OK, I doubt that Keith Olbermann worries too much about fairness; nor, probably, does Ed Schultz).  But Machiavelli might well assert that Team Obama is too low-key, too confident in the masses' ability to sift fact from fiction, too sanguine in trusting the "people" to both discern and commit to actual truth.  M. says that the "masses are always impressed by the superficial appearance of things, and by the outcome of an enterprise" (i.e., by the ends and not the means).

Frankly, I agree.  But doing so makes me uncomfortable.  Because Machiavelli seems to be saying that the "good" ruler needs a team of liars and deceivers just as much as a "bad" ruler needs such manipulators.  Indeed, M. makes no real distinction here between what might be considered "good" for the commonwealth or "bad" for the commonwealth.  No real distinction between, say, FDR and Stalin--both of whom had pretty good propaganda machines.

Is, therefore, a "good" ruler for Machiavelli merely an "effective" ruler--someone who keeps control, regardless of what impact he/she has on the overall welfare of the citizenry?  Many passages in The Prince suggest that a ruler should always be concerned about the quality of life of his subjects.  But why?  Just because?  What is to ensure that a leader who succeeds in being "feared" (precept 1), "miserly" (precept 2) and "hypocritical if necessary" (precept 3) will have any inclination whatsoever to concern himself/herself about actually bettering the lives of the people in general?

It's too hard to figure it all out. So much thinking about Italian politics has made me hungry. To hell with tea.  Let's have a PIZZA PARTY!