Everything, Etc.

This is going to be one of two consecutive holiday columns that has to be written 4 days earlier than usual so our Managing Editor can go on two separate 4 day spiked-eggnog binges. That means neither this column nor the next can be remotely topical. It occurred to me that there were two big non-topical topics I could cover, namely, Everything, and Nothing. Since Nothing is promising, I thought I'd save it for next week.

It may have been Ovid who first discovered the advantages of writing about Everything, who wrote the thing about "endives, radishes, and succory" and then continued on with stuff about curds, cream, liquor, plums, apples, nuts, wine, a goose, the desert, plains, a temple, marriage, altars, sepulchers -- oops, I left out dry figs, and dates, and wrinkled grapes. And lard. The point is, if you are prepared to talk about Everything you never run out of stuff to write. This is essentially what I was driving at a few years ago when I recommended to drunk or distracted writers that if they could think of nothing else to write about, they should write about egg salad sandwiches.

The egg salad sandwich constitutes a metaphor for everything. The bready things of the world, like the slices between which the egg salad sits, constitute metaphors for metaphorical-ness itself. We also are sure, by the way, that wine, beer, and hard liquor all constitute a metaphor, but I need a moment to get to it.

Getting back to the metaphor at hand, the thing that really says Everything to me about the egg salad sandwich is the egg salad. And the thing that screams Everything at me about the egg salad is the unspoken question, "What, a salad made out of egg?" If you can make a salad out of egg, you can make a salad out of anything. Hence Everything. Today, salads made from eggs. Tomorrow, salads made of refried beans and cheese raviolis. In a sandwich.

This is where the beer, wine and hard liquor come in. You got your metaphor for Everything in the egg salad sandwich. You got your metaphor for Everything Else in your spirit-based beverages.

Everything Else is logically part of Everything. Everything leaves Nothing out, so Everything Else is by definition included in it. But in practice, when most people try to think of Everything, they always leave Everything Else out.

Ovid's poem mentioned a goose. It did not mention a moose. This is partly because Ovid had never even seen or heard of a moose. If he'd mentioned moose in his poem everyone would have known for sure he was high when he wrote it.

Another way to put it is, Everything Else constitutes the possibilities you haven't encountered or thought of yet. They may be the answers to questions you have been asking for years, or they may be answers to questions you haven't dreamed of asking yet.

[Above Right: A hamburger "with Everything" which does not include radishes, endives, moose or marriage! Those would be among Everything Else!]]

If you're still reading, you are probably wondering how I am going to manage the obligatory connection to homelessness. It's easy! Homelessness is part of Everything, last I checked. The solution to homelessness is to create housing for everyone. The solution to the solution is the crux of the matter.

What do I have to say out of all the Everything Elses other than what I've already said, to get people to take the solution seriously? What combination of words, never before uttered by any human being, will unlock the locked neurons of members of Congress and the Administration, and the general public, and get them to see what is so plainly clear, that homelessness is ended by supplying places to live?

One of my favorite games to play when faced with dumb guys in college was to strike a match as if to light a cigarette while the guy was talking, and just hold it until it burned out in my fingers. Then I'd strike another, and another. Until the bonehead would notice.