Anything Can Happen : Notes on My Inadequate Life and Yours

The author of the deft Rules for Aging returns with thirty hilarious and engaging tales about the everyday human comedy, forcing the reader to laugh out loud at the silliness of the world.Funny, ironic, and penetrating, Anything Can Happen is another rich and rewarding collection that demonstrates the agile wit that has endeared Roger Rosenblatt to readers everywhere.

ROGER ROSENBLATT is the winner of a Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize, a Peabody Award, an Emmy, and two George Polk awards. He writes essays for Time magazine and for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He lives in Manhattan and Quogue, Long Island.

CONTENTS

Take Two

My Bear

Lecture to One Suffering Yet Another Identity Crisis

On Aristocracy

What Bothers Me

Advice to Those About to Acquire a Rembrandt

Tyranny for Beginners

Don't Take Your Soul to New England

Stopping by Words on a Snowy Evening

On Your Conduct at the Dinner Party

My Stump Speech

On Class Distinctions

Shorter Than Bacon's

A Song for Jessica

New Year's at Luchow's

Yo, Weatherman

The Men's Room Wall: A Fantasy

Beautiful Houses

Lines Written Nowhere Near Tintern Abbey

Twenty Things One Would Like to See in Movies

Odes for a Rainy Afternoon

The Albatross That Brought Everyone Good Luck

Bring a Wildebeest Home to Mother

Jaws's Side of Things

Dogstoevsky

Love Song

Go Where You Are Loved

Essays. I, Too, Dislike Them

If in My Sleep

Instructions to the Housekeeper

"Neglect"

With Narcissus in the Aquarium

Kilroy Was Here

The Puppet Theater of Your Irrational Fears

Teach the Free Man How to Praise

The Day I Turned into the Westin

Cliff's Other Notes

Environmentalists

Hearing Test

Everywhere a Hit Person

Lessons for Grades 1 to 6

If You Had Given It a Moment's Thought

The Bathroom for You

13 Ways of Looking at a Blackboard

Something's Wrong

Shorter than Bacon's (More)

The Giant Rat of Sumatra

In the Madhouse in Beirut

Should Your Name Appear

Things I Can Take, Things I Can't

Relax

Cliff's Other Notes (More)

The Inventor of Time

Explanation to an Unprincipled Employer

Signs of Accomplishment as Depicted in the Rear Window of a Volvo

A Valediction for All Occasions

A Brief History of Idiocy

The Intervention of Facts

You Think I'm Kidding

Ashley Montana Goes Ashore in the Caicos

How to Live in the World

Aubade

Instructions to the Pallbearers

On the Other Hand

The Grateful Living

Take TwoI'd like to do that again, if I could, Mr. DeMille.We haven't got all day.I know, I'm sorry. But I think I could make it work so much better this time. One more take?The first was fine. Time is money.Yes, yes. Time is money. But there is so much more I could bring to the lines with a second try. I've been thinking about the part a lot. Me as a child, for instance. I was much happier than I played it. You know? And the cruelty of my folks? Their blunders? Their neglect? That wasn't exactly right, either. They were just people, you know? I probably haven't done much better as a parent.Or worse.Or worse! Exactly! That's what I mean, Mr. DeMille. If I could just do it over, I would make a few corrections. The marriage scenes, the scenes at work. And I wouldn't thrash around as if I regretted every move I'd ever made, either. You know? That's just acting. I didn't come close to regretting much in my life. I really liked my life. I was just wallowing in a mood.Like the rest of us.You said it, Mr. DeMille. Like the rest of us. And as for the lonely times-the times I dwelt on?-well, they were also the most useful. You know? Like those Sunday afternoons in winter when I wandered the city like a ghost. I played those scenes as if I'd been abandoned forever when the truth was that the time by myself made me self-confident, kind of brave. So, you see, if I could...Do you realize what you're talking about? You're talking about reshooting the whole picture! You must be nuts!I just don't want to leave the wrong impression.Everybody leaves the wrong impression, kiddo. Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Oh, wow. The story was better than you played it. Happier, kinder, sweeter. Big deal.That's it, Mr. DeMille. That's what I mean.And if we rolled again, you'd play it happier, kinder, sweeter.I would! I would!And get it right this time.Absolutely!Know what your trouble is, kid?What, Mr. DeMille? What's my trouble?You don't know bupkis about movies.My BearMy bear is of the polar variety. He squats at the other end of my kitchen table every morning, and he stares at me with his black, black eyes. He does not move, but I hear his even snorting. Gnnn, gnnn, gnnn. Like that, in a low guttural snort that is neither threatening nor amiable. If my kitchen window is open, the breeze will flutter the tips of his white fur. He is seven or eight feet tall (I haven't measured). There is nothing immediately alarming about him; yet, once I sit down, I am afraid to move.He has something to do with my innermost fears-anyone can see that. Or with my mood swings. Once I suggested to him that he might be a bipolar bear, but he showed no amusement. I offered him Frosted Flakes one morning, too. I do not think that bears have a sense of humor.I cannot recall when he first appeared-some years ago, certainly. It was not in the morning that I first saw him but rather one midnight, when, for lack of sleep, I came downstair

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