Rush Hour by Anita Pulier Dressed for work, silk blouse, gold necklace, short pleated skirt, sheer black stockings, backless high heel summer sandals, she waits with hordes of subway commuters. As the doors open she raises her sandaled foot to step into the train, then watches as her shoe slips off and tumbles down the dark gap between train and platform. Doors about to close, she makes her decision to continue one-shoed, improvising a one-footed ballet on the grimy stage of a speeding express train. All eyes are now on her, her choreography, her en pointe shoelessness, her uneven grace and courage, an entire subway car watching this debut, questioning, how will she navigate the station, the stairs, this bumpy ride, the world above. She smiles, buoyed by their curiosity which feels very close to kindness, concentrates on squealing loudspeakers spewing unintelligible words about her shoe, her bare stockinged foot, her life, her talent for missteps, feels the cold grimy floor under pointed cramping toes, convinced kindness has now turned to ridicule, exposed and defeated before the day has barely begun. "Rush Hour" by Anita Pulier from Perfect Diet. Finishing Line Press, © 2011. Reprinted with permission. (buy now) It's the birthday of Emily Post (books by this author), born in Baltimore (1873), who wrote about etiquette. She said: "Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use." On this date in 1849, Edgar Allan Poe (books by this author) was found unconscious outside a pub in Baltimore — "in great distress and ... in need of immediate assistance," according to the man who found him. Poe had been en route from Richmond to Philadelphia on a business trip, and stopped off in Baltimore on September 28 for an unknown reason. He was found on Lombard Street, outside Ryan's Tavern, dressed in dirty and ill-fitting clothing. He was taken to Washington College Hospital, where he lapsed in and out of a coma until he died four days later. Naturally, because he'd been found outside a tavern, alcohol was the first scapegoat, and one the temperance movement was quick to use to their advantage in Poe's time. It's true that he had a complicated relationship with the bottle. He first took up drinking back in his college days at the University of Virginia, and though he had long periods of sobriety, his reputation as a drunk followed him. He was dramatically affected by alcohol, becoming insensible or ill after only a couple of drinks, but he was aware of the problem and fought it his whole life. Poe could have been the victim of "cooping." Political gangs would kidnap people, drug them, beat them, and force them to vote repeatedly at different ballot boxes all over the city, wearing an assortment of disguises. The cooping theory is supported by the fact that Ryan's Tavern was also a polling place, and Poe was found on election day; what's more, his clothes were dirty, threadbare, and didn't fit him. Poe always prided himself on his neat and stylish appearance, so this was not at all like him. Opponents of this theory argue that he was too well known a figure around Baltimore, and someone surely would have recognized him at one of the polling places. There's a relatively recent theory that says Poe might have died of rabies. Dr. R. Michael Benitez, a cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center, reviewed Poe's case. There's no way to prove anything without an autopsy, of course, but Benitez thinks that first-person accounts of the author's last days make a strong case for rabies. It's not unusual for people in the final stages of the infection to be combative and disoriented, with periods of lucidity. Poe also refused water — hydrophobia is another common symptom. In the absence of a thorough autopsy report, we will probably never know for sure. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® |