Never Play Leapfrog with a Unicorn

Walking along the not-so-mean streets of the Bronx—in the tony Fieldston neighborhood—I encountered a unicorn looming high above the roadway in somebody’s front yard. Not the genuine article, but the unusual visual nonetheless resurrected thoughts of a 1970s detective show called Banacek, one among several in the rotating NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie wheel. The show’s lead, the always-suave Thomas Banacek—played by the always-suave George Peppard—recited Polish proverbs at the drop of a hat. While they more often than not left those in earshot befuddled, they typically supplied all concerned with food for thought. “A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn,” Banacek said almost a half century ago. True dat!

I wonder what Banacek would think of contemporary society? His proverbs for any and all occasions would no doubt assume new and more urgent meanings in the zany new millennium. For instance, I just read a news story concerning tomorrow’s lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. The piece detailed the enormous security measures now taken—by necessity—in the world we know, not the world we knew. In the latter, Depression-era workmen once upon a time raised a twenty-foot Balsam fir—and decorated it with paper garlands, strings of cranberries, and a smattering of tin cans—unintentionally inaugurating a renowned yuletide tradition.

But that was then, 1931, and this is now. The Rockefeller Center website describes the annual ritual, hallowed location, and—its centerpiece—tree as “a gathering place and reflection of what was happening in the world around it.” I suspect that reflections on that consecrated soil in 2018 will be worlds apart from those who reflected in that considerably smaller tree’s luminous shadow in 1931. “When an owl comes to a mouse picnic, it’s not there for the sack races,” Banacek opined in a decidedly different time. Traveling around New York City nowadays, we are regularly reminded to be ever vigilant—for that owl in sheep’s clothing.

Security checks notwithstanding, Christmas has yet again been unleashed in the City that Never Sleeps. The Grinch movie is not only playing in various theaters around town but being advertised everywhere from underground subway stations to tacky floating billboards. One such promo featured the Mean One with the words: “Rude. Loud. Angry. New Yorkers are my kinda people.” I know there are some individuals on Facebook—New York natives—who take genuine pride in being “rude, loud, and angry.” My free advice to these Big Apple neighbors of mine is this: Exhibiting those aforementioned traits, as a rule, is hardly a badge of honor. Seek therapy, perhaps, or, at the very least, recite, “Pins and needles…needles and pins…it’s a happy man that grins.” Of course, feel free to change man to woman to suit the moment. Remember, too, what Banacek said, “A wise man never tries to warm himself in front of a painting of a fire.” 

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)