"I am a puppet, Dr. Crankhandle. I'm telling you the truth; I have no doubt of it."

"You are a puppet. I got that. Yes, you perceive yourself to be a puppet. But why?"

"I don't know why. That's what I'm here for -- to find out why."

"Yes, of course you don't know why and that's what you have come here to find out. I'm your psychologist, Mr. Borgesmord, and we shall delve into the depths together."

"You're my psychologist. Gee, now you got me doing it. What I think you are, Dr. Crankhandle, is a parrot because you keep repeating everything I say. Why do you do that?"

"Why do I do that? You bring up a good point, Mr. Borgesmord. I'll definitely look into it and get back to you. Meanwhilst, however, we are faced with your problem. Feeling like a puppet is definitely not normal."

"That's certainly getting to the heart of the problem. Would it help any if I told you that I normally feel like a puppet?"

"It helps not in the least. You must be kidding, of course. May I make it abundantly clear, Mr. Borgesmord, that we have a serious situation here. Or, to be more precise, you do, and I wouldn't make light of it if I were you, which (thank God!) I'm not."

"You think you're really something, don't you? You with your highfalutin degree in the fancy frame up there staring down at us and wearing all them expensive clothes with a dapper vest and gold and silver cuff links."

"Remind me the next time you come to dress shabbily and put up a picture of Donald Duck where my degree is located so that you will feel more at home."

"Don't give me any of that duck stuff. You're all alike. You're part of the problem, you know, always telling me what to do and making me feel like a dummy."

"If you feel like a dummy, I'm not surprised. Puppets are notorious for being dummies and those who manipulate them are scarcely any better."

"That makes you a dummy, Dr. Crankhandle. I knew it all along. I swear I don't know why I come here week after week to see you."

"You do it for the reassurance, Mr. Borgesmord. I reassure you upon each visit."

"Is that what you do? And just what is it that you are reassuring me of? That I am a puppet and a dummy? That's the kind of reassurance my father gave me for most of my life. Yuk!"

"You loved your father, didn't you?"

"He was always there for me when he wasn't 'reassuring' me. You know, he missed a good bet. He could have charged big bucks for his reassurances like you do, but the guy did it for free."

"Was he a puppet and a dummy?"

"No, sir, and he would've whopped you sure if you called him one or the other. That's the kind of guy he was."

"I'm sure of it. I suggest, Mr. Borgesmord, that you are not really the puppet you came here saying you are, but you are just a little unsure of yourself. I ask you to go forth and conquer new territories. Do things you have never done before. Make bold and be yourself!"

"Sage advice in these times of uncertainty, Dr. Crankhandle. I shall do what I think you want me to do. But first I'll write a list and stick to it as I have never stuck to anything before. I feel newly alive and reinvigorated. Nothing can stop me!"

"I am impressed with the eagerness you seem to have to make your mark in the world. Let no man tell you what to do ... and take care."

Mr. Borgesmord boarded a large watercraft in a sincere quest to make his mark in the world, but apparently he didn't take care, as the good Dr. Crankhandle had sagely cautioned, for the vessel hit a reef and went down with Mr. Borgesmord in it. Bye bye, Mr. Borgesmord, and have a pleasant trip, whichever way you're headed! And give my regards to the sharks.

I saw her by chance at the opera one evening during my vacation in 1945. I had heard that the opera Carmen was being performed at the Royal Theatre. Two things drew me to it. One was that I had never been to the Royal Theatre. The other was that I had never seen Carmen. Being somewhat of an opera buff, I couldn't pass up the chance of a lifetime to experience both at the same time. So, not without a little difficulty I managed to obtain two tickets for the evening's performance.

My friend Janet and I often attended the theatre together. She was attractive, intelligent and a delightful companion. I telephoned her and apologizing for the last minute call, asked her to accompany me to see Carmen. As luck would have it she had no prior commitment.

Arriving at the theatre early I noticed the posters read that the leading lady was Magdalena Della Rosa. Her leading man was Antonio Mercanto. I read no further. We took our seats just as the orchestra started the overture. There was Magdalena. A beautiful blond. Her movements were as graceful as any model, her voice as pure as a bird's song. She immediately captured my heart. What a vixen she portrayed.

Exiting the theater after the performance, I glanced at the posters. They read,

PERFORMING TONIGHT ON LONDON RECORDING,
Magdalena Della Rosa featuring the famous Marionetti Del Mondo.

It went on to say that the theatre was a replica of the Royal Theatre in Denmark.

I mentioned to Janet how attractive Magdalena was. She replied, rather sharply, "I noticed, you couldn't take your eyes away from her ... even during the intermission you talked of nothing but her."

"My dear Janet, you sound a little jealous."

"Not jealous, perhaps a little envious. Mostly because I cannot compete with her."

"I am surprised; it isn't like you to be envious of a puppet."

She poked me in the ribs and answered, "Not just a puppet, but a real doll."

All service ranks the same --
Whose puppets are we anyway? she asked.

The lines quoted above have been changed to protect the ignorant. They have been wrenched from Robert Browning's PIPPA PASSES. The lines are actually an expression of his protagonist Pippa's innocent and trusting character, as she blithely goes her way through the little village where she lives, past dwellings where murder and mayhem are taking place. The name of the town which harbors a silk mill that employs Pippa is Asolo, a small place like most in Italy where humans prey upon one another to the strains of an opera playing off-stage. Like CARMEN with its cigarette factory and dancing maidens. This drama is divided into four parts -- "Morning," "Noon," "Evening," and "Night." Pippa awakens the morning of her annual holiday with the intent to pass by the dwellings of Asolo's four happiest ones in order that she may contrast what she imagines their lives to be with her own humdrum existence. She is unaware of the lives the four happiest ones are actually living behind closed doors. She sings a song as she goes that has a startling effect on her sinful and murderous listeners. Remember that this tale as told by Browning borders on the fantastic, so take it with a grain of salt!

The four happiest ones constitute an ascending scale of value beginning with the base carnal lust of adulterers and murderers, a down and dirty couple named Sebald and Ottima. They have just killed Ottima's spouse and are at each other's throats when Pippa goes piping by, trilling her little ditty. Presto! A miracle occurs! The pair are all lovey-dovey suddenly. Married love is represented by an unhappy couple, Jules and his unnamed wife who are trapped in a loveless marriage. Jules realizes after the fact that he has wed an ignorant slut that he took to be an elegant patrician woman with good bloodlines. Meantime next door in a little cottage Luigi and his mother are quarreling about his plan to assassinate a local politician for whatever high and mighty reasons young men his age take as sufficient cause to kill another human being. The final member of the happiest four is the bishop of the diocese who is negotiating with a corrupt official about the destruction of Pippa herself, who is really the bishop's own lost niece, heiress to a fortune he might otherwise appropriate. From the carnal love of Sebald and Ottima through the married love of Jules and his wife to the filial love of mother and son and the final betrayal of a consecrated bishop of his oath to the God of his faith and to the least of God's puppets. All is right with the soap opera that Pippa passes, singing and tripping the light fantastic!

Indeed, a goodly number of Browning's "dramatic monologues" would make for excellent TV fare. A dramatic monologue is a lyric poem which reveals "a soul in action" through the conversation of one character in a dramatic situation. The reader is often the silent listener who "hears" one side of the conversation. The speaker in the poem makes clear by implication his side of an issue. Let's take a look at one of Browning's best known monologues, one found in most high school anthologies until very recently. The speaker is Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara in Italy in the mid-16th century, who is negotiating with an agent of the Count of Tyrol in Austria. The duke's first wife -- whom he had married when she was 14 -- died under suspicious circumstances at 17.

MY LAST DUCHESS
That's my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

The duke points out the portrait that Fra Pandolf has painted. He has captured the very essence of the duchess. The duke wants to send a message to his prospective bride that he means business and that he will not tolerate any willful behavior on her part. He makes his point clearly and emphatically that he is a man proud of his name and heritage. His new young bride must become aware of his code and perform her duties as a duchess in the most discreet manner. No more gushing or blushing in public because a lowly artist compliments her for her beauty. Fra Pandolf is a mature man who knows the ways of a court as elegant as the duke's. Fra Pandolf is not flirting with her when he says in passing, "Paint must never hope to reproduce the faint half-flush that dies along her throat" or says "a spot of joy" appears when she blushes. He's merely commenting on her appearance as any artist might, given similar circumstances. He's a man, true, but a neutered one who knows his place in the scheme of things.

She thanked men, -- good! But thanked
Somehow -- I know not how --as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling?

The duke makes crystal clear to the emissary from the Count just how his last duchess offended his dignity by disrespecting his nine-hundred-year-old name! She should have known better! She didn't, alas, and had to suffer the consequences. The duke says, "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together. There she stands as if alive."

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER
Gr-r-r--there go, my heart's abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? Your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims --
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

A "soliloquy" is a solo speech by a character in a stage play. It is calculated to inform the audience or reader of what is passing in the character's mind. In this case, the speaker is a fellow monk who is mocking Brother Lawrence's prissy ways and manner of speaking. The speaker makes clear how much he hates everything about Brother Lawrence, completely unaware that his bitterness comes through loud and clear. He attributes his own shortcomings as man and monk, a hypocrite and libertine, to an innocent man.

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
-- Can't I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?
(That is, if he'd let it show!)
Oh, there's Satan! -- one might venture
Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he'd miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine...
'st there's Vespers!
Aye, Virgo. Gr-r-r--you swine!

The young girl unwrapped the biggest of her birthday packages. The pink bow and ribbon were removed and then the colorful paper was taken off with great care. The young girl opened the lid of the box and inside a little ballerina sat dressed in a pink tutu with white leotard and tights and pink ballerina toe-shoes laced with pretty pink ribbons. Strings were attached to her arms, her legs, her head and her torso. The young girl looked with curiosity in her eyes. "What's this?" she said.

"It's a marionette -- a puppet," came the reply. The young girl started to unwind the little ballerina from all the strings and boards, but it took too long and the young girl was impatient to open her other presents. The little ballerina in the box was pushed aside.

After the party was over, the cake and ice cream eaten, and the presents opened and strewn around the room, the young girl went off to bed.

Around midnight, the little ballerina lifted her right arm and it was pulled back down. She raised her left knee and it fell back, too. Sitting up, she parted all the strings that had covered her, and then draped herself against the side of the box from the effort. She lifted her right arm again and saw the twisted strings, holding her. Fingers unwound them. Her feet and knees were bound with strings that were also twisted and were unwound as well. She stood on her feet, and a weakness overtook her and she crumbled back down. Struggling, she again got up and this time, picking up her right foot she stepped over the side of the box. The left foot raised and followed. She took a step with her right foot and then one with her left and then another with her right and another with her left. She raised her right arm, pulling back her hand as if to wave. She raised her left arm and lowered it. Her mouth opened, but no words came. Her mouth closed. She bent over at her waist and bowed her head. Before she knew what had happened, she found herself nestled back in the box and surrounded in total darkness.

And, then she heard the small footsteps running quickly away.

I can well remember the very first television. It was in my aunt and uncle's study. The screen was about 12 x 9 inches. I must have decided right there and then, no television in my home. This used to be talk or game time. As the family would get together and the dining room table was cleared. Some of us would go and sit in front of the big fireplace. Just sit there, have our desert and watch the flames as they went up, up into the chimney. Sometime Aunt Eva would put on a favorite 78 record and we would sing or dance to it. Aunt Eva and Uncle Ted were very special to me as I grew up. Uncle Ted was my mother's brother. Uncle Ted's family, Uncle Nick, (who was about twelve years younger than my mother was born here in the USA.) and Grandpa John all lived in this big, three story house on a street lined up with elm trees. Having said all of that, let's go back to the TV novelty.

I got married in 1948. Televisions were scars. We were married nine years before we got our first television. I was not too happy to see it enter my home. We would no longer draw our own pictures as we would when we listened to the radio. Now with the T V, the pictures were drawn for us and I believe our imaginations went out the window.

At last our children could watch all of the children's programs. As I look back, I now realize that the children's programs had real people entertaining them. I do not watch children's programs today. However, I have become aware that mostly everything they see today is cartoons. The human, loving touch is no longer there.

I got to know Bozo, the Clown very well. He was a very soft spoken, gentle, and kind man. He was one of my son's clients. My son, George, used to make clown shoes for clowns all over the world. Bozo had George on his TV show a number of times. George would show the children how the clown shoes were made. Then there was a very wonderful man. I do not remember his name. He would enter and take off his jacket and put on a sweater. He than ran a railroad. He had all kinds of people working all along this railroad. (Real people). Of course no one can forget, Kukla, Fran and Olie. Now they worked with puppets. They were very, very popular.

As for me, when one speaks of puppets, I instantly get one picture in my mind. A very nice one-lady show with a puppet and nothing else! Her name was Shari Lewis. She was a ventriloquist. In her right hand she held Lambchop, a puppet. She had a sweet voice and at times convinced me that Lambchop was for real. She was 67 when she passed away. The Tribune had a big picture of her in the almanac section. How strange that she should be remembered at this time when I had to write about puppets! She was remembered on August 2, 2011.