* A VERY MELLOW DRAMA: One way to keep the world fresh is to watch it through the eyes of your kids. When I first taught my son Ian to play baseball, it was as if Abner Doubleday had concocted the game the night before.
The same thing happened when I taught my daughter Felicia how to take a photograph. I saw the camera through new eyes.And it happened again last week when I took Ian to see his first melodrama. We caught the last performance of "Dracula: Or He Loved in Vein" at the Desert Star Playhouse. And it was all new. Ian couldn't believe the "over-the-top" acting. He'd seen human beings become "cartoons" in movies like "Batman," but on stage? Never.
And sitting with him, everything old became new again. I even took notes like a critic.
And for the first time I realized the high-minded actors and director had found heaven. They were putting on a popular, moneymaking show, but by spoofing it on stage they made it a piece of "post-modern theater." There was no sellout - except in the box office.
Next comes Desert Star's "Christmas Carol II," which promises to be another slick, slapstick, sentimental, self-referential oeuvre.
* THE PLUMBER'S HEARTFELT HELPER: When Lloyd Murray of Salt Lake City heard that people were using toilet plungers to administer CPR, his heart skipped a beat. Luckily, his knack for light verse didn't:
TAKING THE PLUNGE
A plunger used for CPR?
You'd have to wear a dickey,
With a suction of that caliber
You'll get an elephant hickey.
* ODD THOUGHT: Watching all the spin doctors slant the news about NAFTA, I think of the way "old" fairy tales featured people spinning flax, while in these modern fairy tales the "flacks" do all the spinning.
* NO TRUER WORDS: One of my son's friends has been studying Zen Buddhism. But the other day he gave it up. "I'm going to stay a Christian," he said. "It's easier than memorizing all those new words."
* CHRISTMAS IN THE AIR MAIL: I know Christmas is just around the corner. Not because it's getting blustery outside but because I'm beginning to get dozens of small, expensive, quick-read books in the mail from publishers who hope the public will use them as stocking stuffers.
I get one a day.
Today's stuffer is "You Know You're a Workaholic When . . . ," from Workman Publishing.
Here are a few entries:
You know you're a workaholic when:
1. You rent movies you've already seen so you can work without watching.
2. You've never figured out the point of drying dishes.
3. You hate waiting for your toddler to button his coat, the computer to save and the waiter to finish reciting the specials.
4. You never go to restaurants that have music because it's too hard to hold a conversation on your cellular phone.
5. You think a little less of God for resting on the seventh day.