Glamour at Rush $.99

There's a Sufi tale about blind men and an elephant. Blind men feel different parts of an elephant and from that small sampling determine what the animal they can't see is like. One feels the trunk and says "Oh, an elephant is long and flexible." Another feels the leg, etc... Having different impressions of course they argue about what an elephant is. The meaning of the tale is that even though we can see we are like those blind men. Our minds aren't built to take in the infinite, so why argue?

The other day I went to the Rush 99 cent store in my neighborhood on Prospect Park West. I needed some of the Easter grass for the children's baskets and was hoping they'd have a paper kind. Even though we observe many Jewish holidays we also observe many Christian, but in a secular way so as not to confuse our kids. I know, it's a mess. I didn't want to buy the grass, which is also a mess, that cheap plastic stuff that winds up all over the house. I was pleasantly surprised to find they had Easter grass made with sisal. Sisal. What the heck is sisal? Isn't used in upholstery? I think it comes from a plant.

As I shopped a man spoke on the radio. He was talking about the archaic meaning of the word glamour, saying that it meant to charm or cast a spell by which one can appear different than one really is. It was John Hodgman, a Brooklyn celebrity on This American Life, discussing his...celebrity. He said that most bloggers refer to him in terms not so flattering, many implying some degree of pudginess, although one called him "cutie." It reminded me of the Sufi story. If I were blind and allowed to feel John Hodgman's wrist, I would say he was very bony. If I were allowed to touch his head, I would say he was soft and fluffy. Out of decency I will stop this train of thought here. You get the point.

I didn't know what I would find at Rush that day but so far I was doing well, sisal Easter grass and Hodgman in Idries Shah mode. There was an old woman on the line behind me who commented to her companion "Why that sounds like something good on the radio." The laughter in the segment sounded like a laugh track, or people as pleased with Hodgman's observations as he was. Always nice when that happens. Does he have any more Sufi wine up his sleeve?

How about miracle fruit, like the one I had for the first time on Good Friday? I bet he's had that. That's the kind of thing journalists like him are drawn to. We came by ours via a chain of writers, an editor who works with my husband has a small business selling them, and a few weren't claimed. Since they don't last long at all, he kindly gave them to us. So Good Friday became the festival of the miracle fruit, a small berry from West Africa that changes one's sense of taste so that sour and bitter things become deliciously palatable. Like a petty version of Christ the divine redeemer, miracle berries redeem lemons and limes making them taste as if they've been soaking in sugar water for a day. But they cost $5 bucks a pop so you won't find them at Rush.