“The big Mouseketeer has appeared….

…..Jimmie, a grown man who wears circular black ears. Rabbit watches him attentively; he respects him. He expects to learn something from him helpful in his own line of work, which is demonstrating a kitchen gadget in several five-and-dime stores around Brewer. He’s had the job for four weeks. “Proverbs, proverbs, they’re so true,” Jimmie sings, strumming his Mouseguitar, ” proverbs tell us what to do; proverbs help us all to bee-better-Mouse-ke-teers.”

Jimmie sets aside his smile and guitar and says straight out through the glass, “Know Thyself, a wise old Greek once said. Know Thyself. Now what does this mean boys and girls? It means, be what you are. Don’t try to be Sally or Johnny or Fred next door; be yourself. God doesn’t want a tree to be a waterfall or a flower to be a stone. God gives to each one of us a special talent.” Janice and Rabbit become unnaturally still; both are Christians. God’s name makes them feel guilty. “God wants some of us to become firemen and doctors and trapeze artists. And He gives to each of us the special talents to become these things, provided we work to develop them. We must work boys and girls. So: Know Thyself. Learn to understand your talents, and then work to develop them. That’s the way to be happy.” He pinches his mouth together and winks.

That was good. Rabbit tries it, pinching the mouth together and then the wink, getting the audience out front with you against some enemy behind, Walt Disney or the MagiPeel Peeler Company, admitting it’s all a fraud but, what the hell, making it likable. We’re all in it together. Fraud makes the world go round. The base of our economy. Vitaconomy, the modern housewife’s password, the one-word expression for economizing vitamins by the MagiPeel Method.

Janice gets up and turns off the set when the six-o’clock news tries to come on. The little hard star left by the current slowly dies. “

From John Updike’s Rabbit, Run

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A 12/14/08 Postsecret