Night-Blooming Jasmine

Every morning, after stretching and shaking off evening cobwebs, I can generally judge the state of the world by weighing my morning newspaper. Today's edition was very light, even given the inflated Thursday entertainment section. This indicates two things to me--nothing much is happening and nobody is advertising on Thursday. This is unsurprising, since we are in the second week of February, traditionally the most stagnant period of the year.

It's odd, though, to see every facet of the news in doldrum mode. The sports scene is in the trough between football season and the beginning of spring training; the financial markets are returning to steadiness after a January sell-off; the local news is following a snooze-inducing mayoral election pitting five Democrats distinguishable only by their ethnicity; and even the international theater is in quiet retrenchment, with Condy trying to mend fences with Europe and the Israeli/Palestinians proclaiming that they're not all that thrilled about the endless violence. Well, there is one dark cloud looming, which is North Korea's admission that they have a bomb (a bad one). Leave it to the folks who lunch on lhasa apsos.

Since most of humanity (not including the Southern Hemisphere, which doesn't count) is spending most of its time scraping ice off its collective windshields there's little energy for much else. Maybe this is why February has been so artificially festooned with second-tier holidays. We are a week past that most peculiar pagan relic Groundhog Day, and a few days shy of the overhyped and cruel Valentine's Day, whose religious subtext has long been abandoned for the greater societal purpose of making single people feel like shit. It's interesting that the former holiday provided the basis for an excellent humane comedy (Bill Murray's "Groundhog Day') while the latter has only spawned a horror flick (not to mention those Jazz-era evocations of the St. Valentine's Day massacre). Yesterday saw the observation of two quite disparate events, Chinese New Year (the Rooster, supposedly bad luck) and Ash Wednesday, or Coming Out Catholic Day for those poor celebrants who have to annually explain the smudge on their foreheads to dimwits at work. And on February 21 we get President's Day, another reconstructed holiday celebrated mostly with traffic jams and backed-up runways.

The TV networks usually jump in with gobs of February specials for Sweeps but this pattern has subsided, and most of what we are getting are the grand finales and super premieres of the most popular reality shows. PBS is airing a slew of documentaries about the African American experience, denoting Black History Month. Apparently this time of year is so barren of interest that we're willing to review and reconsider our historic National Shame.

At least one human (two to be fair) have figured out a way to perk up Feeble February. They are Christo (whose first name is probably not Monte, though I wish it were), and his partner Jeanne-Claude (whose last name is not Killy). They have chosen the bleakest stretch of the Northeastern winter to drape the serpentine paths of New York's Central Park with orange-cloaked gates. This was smart, since the flowing sheets would be somewhat redundant during the verdant period of Central Park's blossoming. Now they stand out against the barren backdrop of denuded trunks and icy pathways. Like most people, I find Christo's Dada-esque projects always delightful--a humorous but thoughtful admix of natural and manmade, of color and starkness. I was fortunate enough to visit his "Umbrellas" project of 1988 on the Grapevine, a stretch of highway north of Los Angeles. Giant, two-story yellow bumpershoots lined the usually sterile artery as locals who would never literally set foot in the area capered about taking snapshots and eating churros from makeshift kiosks. New Yorkers are in for the same kind of treat.

What Christo helpfully reminds us is that occasionally it's a fine idea to pocket away troubling thoughts and go outside and smell the roses. Although roses are not in season here in Los Angeles, we do have a flower called "night-blooming jasmine," which suffuses the February air with a delightful cinnamon-like scent, particularly late at night when I'm on my evening dog walk and could use some pleasant aromas. The blooming of the jasmines is the first of L.A.'s two horticultural highlights. The other is the emergence of the stunning lilac-colored jacaranda trees in June. I make certain not to allow either event to pass without an appreciation. With Korean nukes and the Michael Jackson trial both on the horizon, I need what tranquil distraction I can get. Thoreau would certainly approve.