The Death of Satire

“American reality has been so extreme of late that satire is almost impossible. Anything you could imagine actually happens. It would stump Jonathan Swift.”

-- Fran Lebowitz

That such a remark could come from someone who was born of the conjugal product of satire and contrarianism has sent shudders throughout the satiric community, not to mention outrage that her self-satirizing trudging, whining, and cigarette smoking appears to be an attempt to corner a market she has pronounced moribund.

Of course, the rumored death of satire is laid, as is everything else, at the (small), Florsheimed feet of Donald Trump, whose persistent self-parody has left satirists mowing their lawns, watching Tiger King, and spending time with their children. And while the Trump Administration will one day end, as would a dentist’s drilling or your neighbor’s lawn mowing on Sunday morning, it has left as its legacy a confederation of climate deniers, racism deniers, election deniers, vaccine deniers, Parkland deniers, open trade deniers, gasoline price deniers, and armed pizza joint marauders. Is this chaotic bushel of wingnuts fair game for satirists, or are they so predictably abominable they will do away with humorists the way artificial intelligence does away with work?

Satire’s been counted out before. When Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for finally ending a senseless war he had pursued ardently and spread illegally, the eminent satirist Tom Lehrer pronounced “satire was dead.” More than a mere statement of disgust, Lehrer backed it up with conviction, and wrote only a handful of unimportant songs thereafter, the most memorable of which was “(I’m Spending) Hanukah in Santa Monica.” It should be unsurprising Adam Sandler’s best moment turns out to be derivative.

But Lehrer underestimated satire’s resilience. On the ropes after Kissinger’s Prize, satire bounced back, from Gerald Ford’ spontaneous liberation of Eastern Europe in a Presidential debate to Jimmy Carter being attacked by a “killer rabbit” to George (Daddy) Bush not knowing how a supermarket scanner worked to Bill Clinton’s assignee masturbating with a Cuban cigar (and Brett Kavanaugh’s and Ken Starr’s lurid fascinations with it) to George (the Kid) Bush’s impromptu invention of nouns, verbs and intelligence reports, not to mention Gwyneth Paltrow’s Vagina Candle. If satire is dead today, it might have died of an overdose.

But is satire really dead? Let’s ask the people on the front lines, the lampooners and the lampooned.

“Oh, it’s a very real thing,” said Milton Whirlybird, Executive Director of the Fire-Starting Space Laser Coalition, a fictitious industry group. “There was a time when the simple mention of my fabricated name or the ridiculous premise of my preposterous industry association would not only produce a titter but a laugh, even a guffaw, but would launch a premise good for 1,200 always-excellent words by Monica Hesse on the Washington Post features page. It all but writes itself: Do space-based lasers have to file environmental impact statements? Is their logo Mrs. O’Leary’s cow? Do they shut down for Shabbos? Did Elon Musk build it? But now it seems like either a vapid trope not worth the sentence or a hasty dismissal of the fact there once was a psychotic in Congress saying this shit.”

“it’s a very bad situation,” says Wolf J. Flywheel, a Colonel in the National Tin Foil Hat Militia. “I think a lot of satirists figured they’d lost Trump back in 2020 but during the January 6 incident it looked as if we had thrown satire a lifeline, if you overlook the throw-up-in-your-mouth aspect of it. But then they started killing cops, which drains a lot of the humor out it, no matter what the set-up. A joke like ‘What did one Capitol insurrectionist say to the other Capitol insurrectionist? Let’s go hang Mike Pence!’--too soon? On the other hand, you could try a subtler approach: for example, If they actually had hanged Mike Pence, would Mitch McConnell have voted to convict?”

And if Trump has killed satire, it’s only because he’s made it too easy. The Internet now abounds in people replaying Trump speaking incoherently, falling asleep in the Oval Office, making ridiculous stuff up off the top of his head (although Reagan afficionados may resent that their man does not get credit for this pioneering technique), being prodded to wake up by a female assistant with a buzzer switch in her clothing, and farting, each presenter expressing smarmy superciliousness as they read their copy, which inevitably says only, “Watch this.”

And worse…AI, particularly the images, which can be described as mimicry, facetiousness, slime, self-righteousness, sanctimony, or smugness, but is it satire? Still, an image of Trump in a diaper is sort of amusing, even if it aims for the easy laugh. Like an Ann Telnaes cartoon.

The satirist must aim higher. “A satirist’s range is limited not by her imagination but by her stomach,” says Prof. Buck Bellson, Director of the Center for the Study of Very Angry People at the University of California, Cinders. “And while the January 6 rioters being described as tourists, or RFK, Jr. discrediting life-saving vaccines, or J. D. Vance accusing immigrants of eating dogs and cats, or America getting shamed by a bunch of bearded religious nuts in the Persian Gulf, excites the satiric imagination, they also turned a lot of stomachs, and now you have to be careful. It’s almost like telling Boko Haram jokes. Satire sees the truth and then exaggerates, and how do you exaggerate that? It would be like saying, “Holocaust toll revised to 7 million.” I think absurdity has some kind of Absolute Zero and we’re already there. Besides, let’s say it out loud--plenty of the satirists are scared shitless of the insurrectionists. After all, the mob has an arsenal of military-style weapons and…well, most of the satirists are Jewish.”

Satirists everywhere admit they are feeling the squeeze. “Let’s be truthful--we rode Trump like a share of GameStop and in 2020, we had to face the consequences,” said Cuthbert Twillie, an expert in on-line wit. “What the hell was funny about Biden, his age? His little microblackouts? His handing the Presidency back to Trump because his old lady didn’t want to leave the mansion? Biden’s biggest satiric vulnerability was once his hair plugs. Hair plugs are easy--you can set them up with a ‘two kinds of people’ joke, like ‘There are just two kinds of people--people who think hair plugs are ridiculous, and the douchebags who have them.’ Then maybe you can take the premise somewhere, like how Biden has been receiving strange radio messages through his hair plugs, instead of through the fillings in his teeth, right? But then you’ve got the punchline problem--what are the radio messages saying? Because all I can think of is ‘stop racist policing’ or ‘end family separation.’ It’s like driving for a couple of hours and ending up in a cul-de-sac.”

The current environment also strains the dominant theories of humor, which works to the advantage of fringe groups such as the Improvised Biology League, according to their spokesman, Joe Strawman. “James Thurber is said to have been walking down the street when he saw a woman walking her dog while carrying a bag of groceries in each arm, when the dog suddenly fell over dead and the poor woman could not figure out a way to carry both the two bags of groceries and the dead dog. Thurber broke out into laughter and realized laughter was the reaction you had when you could not bear any other reaction--that the underlying reality, whether it was a deranged puffin like Jack Donaghy exercising actual social and economic power on 30 Rock, or General Ripper blowing up the world because sex left him weak, was too terrible to contemplate. Or consider my organization. For example, we are against measles inoculation, so right away the reader is looking to a joke for relief from the discomfort that somebody could be as stupid as we are. Maybe we could have a funny slogan like “Don’t Let Antiquarian Quacks Like Edward Jenner Change Your Chromosomes!” or “Don’t Let Them Turn You Into Sheep.” But you’re going to have trouble there, because most of our readers think Edward Jenner won the Olympics and then had sexual reassignment. Or maybe something in our defense, like how we’re against inoculating for smallpox but our minds are open about big and medium size pox. But it all seems like pretty thin soup when compared to how batshit crazy we really are. And that’s before we get to the Hassids.”

Egbert Scarecrow, a spokesman for the Stop Body Cameras Now! coalition of ICE agents, prefers renowned drama critic Eric Bentley’s views on the origins of humor in his classic Life of the Drama, which built on Jonathan Swift. "Bentley saw comedy as structured around the interaction of knaves and fools,” he says. “Knaves attempt to victimize fools, but in the end are victimized themselves--e.g., the salesman is going to victimize the farmer’s daughter but is himself victimized, perhaps by a shotgun or a threshing machine or woodchipper or, in more contemporary tellings, the daughter being a Lesbian. In a drama, the “hero” is a fool who bests a knave but there’s nothing funny about it--at best, it’s a slasher movie, or with some luck, Promising Young Woman. But in satire, the knave’s comeuppance is played for laughs. For example, look at Trump. He was the classic knave, buffoonish in a sociopathic way, but now his knavery is being rewarded with his comeuppance as he sits, broke and in Allenwood as the Senate votes overwhelmingly to convict him, his supporters abandon him en masse, and his most radical supporters--Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and so on--are pursued to the ends of the earth and imprisoned by law enforcement and have all but disappeared. Oh, wait. None of that happened. You see? That’s not satire--that’s sarcasm.”

So, is sarcasm the new satire? Instead of wit, have we descended to smarm and unction? “Absolutely,” says Melville Poptopowitz, Professor at Yeshiva University’s School of Creative Writing. “Believe me, we get it. Joseph Smith said he found a pair of golden Egyptian plates buried somewhere with strange writing he translated with the help of the Holy Spirit and a smooth, egg-shaped stone, which makes as much sense as trying to figure out what’s going on in Interstellar with a pair of salad tongs. And then he gave the plates to the Angel Moroni for safe keeping, which has a few good jokes in it--Oh no, Moroni, my buried, golden plates were written in Egyptian, these are in Cuneiform. Or will angels give you back your buried, golden, Egyptian plates if you’ve lost your claim ticket? Good jokes, but are they genuine satire or a literary beating of a dead horse?”

“There is a difference,” offers Dudley Righthead of the Institute for Correct Thinking, an entity that appears towards the end of essays to deliver the point. “Kant felt human dignity was innate, that it could not be earned or forfeited. That’s the dividing line. Sarcasm dispenses with human dignity, satire makes its point because it rises to its defense.” And how is the reader supposed to know the difference? “Oh, it’s easy. The best satire leads the reader to a wistful, almost prayerful, how true! reaction that feels like intellectual endorphins. Sarcasm leads the reader to want to hit somebody.”

Or, as the satirists you meet each day at Starbucks, or doctor’s offices, or on smartphone help lines after an hour’s wait tell you, “Have a great one.” In the face of everything we’ve discussed in this essay, that might be the greatest satiric remark of all.

Candy From a Baby

It’s as easy as taking candy from a baby: Just repeat it to yourself and listen to what you’re saying.

Really? That easy? So…that makes it…OK?

The first time I heard it -- this idea that taking candy from a baby (such as myself) was somehow easy or simple, or perhaps without consequence -- I was horrified. It was so mean-spirited, so cruel. But then – well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m about ten months old now, and most afternoons the au pair takes me to the park and gives me a lollipop to keep me quiet while she gabs on her phone. If Mommy knew the au pair was giving me a lollipop she’d go batshit (which I’m not allowed to say for reasons I don’t get), but she doesn’t – she just gives me to the au pair in the morning and disappears. “Mommy’s going to go make law,” she says, and then I don’t see her until she comes home with cartons of take-out at suppertime.

I like lollipops, except the red ones, which taste like Tylenol. But one day, I’m in the stroller and these two older boys, seven or eight years old I’d guess, come over and give me a little of the koochie-koo thing under my neck, and while the au pair is on the phone and not watching, one of them suddenly lunges and grabs my lollipop! The two of them take off, laughing and shouting, taking turns licking it, and one of them says to the other, “See? I told you it was easy! As easy as taking candy from a baby!”

What? Taking candy from a baby, really? Is that a thing? Is it supposed to be OK because it’s easy? Why not just put a sign on my back that says, “take candy away from this little bitch, no problem.” So, I was sitting there, confused and a little devastated, when suddenly another kid stoops down next to me, and before I can flinch, he says “Hey! I feel you, brother.”

The kid is about the same age as those other boys, but he seems much nicer and he’s got this flaming red hair. “I know what you’re going through,” he says. “Did you ever hear the expression ‘beaten like a red-headed step-child?’”

Well, no I hadn’t, but I was appalled! Was it really OK to beat red-headed step-kids, like it was OK to steal candy from babies? I wanted to ask, but I can’t talk yet. Still, the red-headed kid seemed to understand what I was thinking and whispered to me, “Your au pair is gabbing on the phone. Come with me, she won’t notice,” and before I knew it, he was wheeling me away.

In a very short while the red-headed kid had wheeled me away to some kind of a small shed – a clubhouse really – with a bunch of folks inside. “Hey people, here’s the candy baby,” he announced, and there were smiles and warm welcomes for me from everyone there – it seemed they had expected me!

“We’re delighted to ha’ you with us, li’l’ fella,” said a fellow in a pea coat and a little white hat, whose speech was slurred like Daddy’s is when he has too much “booze.”

“Candy Baby, allow me to introduce the drunken sailor,” the red-headed kid said.

“An’ I can ma’age my money jus’ fine!” the sailor exclaimed, then shook his head to clear it.

“Where am I?” he said, then burped loudly. “Drinks are on me!”

“Pardon our friend,” said a fellow with a broad smile whom Fate had deprived of one of his arms and was holding a pot of glue with the other. He wore a painter’s hat and had a large brush tucked into his apron.

“And this is the one-armed paperhanger,” the red-headed kid said by way of introduction. “How’s it going, Mel?”

“Not too busy,” the one-armed paperhanger said with a pleasant smile. “Have you met Clarence yet?”

I looked around to see who “Clarence” might be, when I noticed the head of a fish poking out of a barrel. “I’m Clarence,” said the fish.

“He’s the fish in a barrel,” the red-headed kid said, although he was sort of grown-up-splaining, if you ask me.

“And I feel for you, kid,” the fish in the barrel said, “but frankly, if I had some candy, I’d give it to whomever wanted it if they would just stop shooting at me.”

The fish had a troubled expression you don’t see often in a fish. “Before they put me in this barrel, I was the fish out of water. Man, that was a drag! You know, a person’s uncomfortable somewhere and they say they’re a ‘fish out of water.’ And it’s supposed to be like oh! that explains it -- it’s OK that they’re uncomfortable, because there’s an explanation, so you don’t have to do anything about it. No one ever asks how they got out of water, or how to get them back into the water. Now, in my case, one day some guy came along, picked me up, and splash, he throws me into a barrel. Sweet relief!, I thought, finally! But then, bang bang bang, and it struck me -- as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

“My first concern was for my safety, of course, but then I realized-- how stupid is this? First, shooting a fish in a barrel isn’t that easy, unless you’re short-rodding with a Winchester, but otherwise, the fish swims around in the barrel, and if it’s the standard 42 gallon barrel, and if it’s not a very big fish, like a spot or a crappie or a bluegill, then it might be harder than…well, harder than stealing candy from a baby,” he said, nodding to me sympathetically. “And not only is shooting fish in a barrel not that easy, but it ruins the barrel, shoots the damn thing full of holes. I suppose the people who were shooting fish in a barrel saw the light and started taking candy from babies instead.”

The assemblage nodded in agreement and a woman stepped forward to introduce herself. She wore a long, tattered black dress with black shoes, her hair was an unkempt mess of black and gray, and she was decidedly unattractive, with a green tint to her complexion, and a variety of wart-like growths on her face. “So, dearie, do you think I’m ugly?” she asked me.

What a question! I was glad I don’t know how to talk! Luckily, the red-headed step-child interrupted. “Come on, now, Heloise,” he said. “He’s a baby! How’s he supposed to answer a question like that?”

The witch took the correction in stride. “Well, that’s what they all say – someone’s ugly as a witch, as if Joan of Arc of some of those Salem girls weren’t hotties!”

“Yeah, but they weren’t really witches, were they?” Mel, the one-armed paperhanger noted.

He had a point, but it didn’t slow the witch down. “Well…no matter. Because no sooner did they start in talking about how witches were ugly, it got worse -- cold as a witch’s tit! Frankly, when did my tits become a topic for public discussion, a point of thermal reference for the masses? And frankly, how do you know? It’s not like anybody’s checked my mammaries, or is ever going to, unless they want to go through life sitting on a lily pad and eating flies! Besides, every creature with breasts in all of Creation is a mammal, and they’re all warm-blooded, so you have to wonder where the idiots who say this stuff were during high school biology! Next thing you know they’ll be denying evolution.”

“Thank you, Heloise,” the red-headed step-child said as the witch sat down. “I now want turn to Oswald, who has a brief presentation I asked him to prepare.”

An ox waddled into the center of the room and spoke. “I appreciate our red-headed friend asking me to do this research,” the ox said. “Partly, of course, because of the dumb as an ox business, which every ox – and every farmer -- knows is simply used to justify putting a yoke on us and making us drag heavy stuff through paddies. It’s the same old stuff cruel people always fall back on – blame the victim. I’d like to see them try that on a carnivore,” the ox snorted contemptuously, then put on a pair of reading glasses and extracted some notes.

“There’s this thing on the Internet called Google N-grams – they tell you how often words are used in English-language published works. So, for example, it will tell you how often the words ‘taking candy from a baby’ appear,” he said, looking at me quite pointedly. “And by 2011, the expression ‘taking candy from a baby’ had become four times more frequent in written English than it had been in 1985, just a quarter of a century before. The same for ‘fish in a barrel,’ too, four times more frequent,” the ox said, shaking his massive head as he took off his glasses and put his papers down.

“There is a societal outbreak around us, an outbreak of meanness, of cruelty, of callousness." thje ox said. "And it victimizes all of us – not just the candy-less babies, the fish in barrels, the red-headed step-children, but the people who reduce themselves by using these expressions, as if they have no faults of their own. People don’t respect other people any longer – they just laugh at their fellow creatures as they try to feel better about themselves. It’s part and parcel of a more unequal, devil-take-the-hindmost society. We treat things – wealth, investments, possessions – better than a beating heart.” The ox stopped and ran his foreleg and hoof under a sniffly nose – he was close to tears. The red-headed step-child consoled him with a gentle pat on his hump, but the ox was upset. “Where does it stop?” the ox cried unhappily. “When do we start treating each other with dignity and respect?”

There was a round of silent nodding in response to the ox’s plaintive complaint, when the red-headed step-child told me he needed to get me back before I was missed, so we made our apologies and he rolled me back to where the au pair was sitting, still gabbing on her phone. He whispered to me he’d be checking up on me and not to worry, and just like that, he disappeared.

I felt happy I’d made some friends, but more importantly, now I knew when other people were mean, the target of their malice – whether me, or the witch, or the ox, or the paperhanger – didn’t merit the callousness with which they were treated. It was a liberating revelation. But at the same time, I was unhappy folks like the step-child or the witch or the fish had to go through life that way. I wouldn’t be a baby for very long. But they would be as they were forever.

As I thought about it, sitting in my stroller, I guess I started making that face babies make. You know the one I mean – our eyes open up wide and get moist but no tears run, our nostrils flare wider than you thought they could, our lips turn from pink to purple and start to quiver, and we generally look like it’s about to be a bad day in Pompeii. Suddenly the au pair notices me and gets all attentive. “Look at you!” she says. “Is something wrong? Would you like some milk?” And she takes out a sippy cup filled with milk and hands it to me. I regarded it for a moment and then an inspiration hit me, and I threw it down on the ground.

“Now look what you’ve done!” the au pair said exasperatedly.

I looked down at the spilled milk and was about to cry over it, when I had a change of heart. Don’t cry over the spilled milk, I told myself! Don’t play into their hands! Don’t give them the satisfaction!

So I proceeded, instead, to take the loudest, smelliest, messiest poop I had ever taken. “Oh, Jesus!” the au pair shouted, and put away her phone to start wheeling me home for a diaper change. “I can’t believe the mess you’ve made!” she bleated.

I smiled discreetly as she did. If you want to change the world, you start with the weapons you have.

Plaanning This Season's Garden

With Earth Day upon us and Spring in the air, it’s time to plant this year’s garden. Gardening gained many new adherents last year as a COVID-appropriate activity. But gardening rookies and regulars alike are often unaware of the key nutrients gardens deliver, and therefore fail to take them into account when planning their annual planting. Here are some for your review. Happy Earth Day, and happy gardening!

VITAMIN S

Bountiful bowls of crisp, leafy salad greens deliver key nutrients, among them Vitamin C, vitamin K, and beta carotene. But they also help the body to produce its own, often-overlooked, Vitamin S, commonly referred to as Sanctimony.

Societal levels of Vitamin S have historically been stable and modest, but in the past four years a virtual explosion of Vitamin S has been observed throughout the general population. Outbreaks were first noted in the first week of November, 2016, in places such as San Francisco, Boston, Brooklyn, Portland, and other progressive urban centers, leading nutritionists to wonder whether Vitamin S could be obtained in such foods as brie, sea bass, kale, quinoa, kombucha, and soy-based meat substitutes. But in recent years, Vitamin S levels in the general public have burgeoned far beyond those initial readings.

Unfortunately, nutritionists warn that, like cholesterol, Vitamin S can come in both “good” and “bad” forms. “Good” Vitamin S comes from the satisfaction derived from activities with ethical or other normative worth -- gardening ranks high among these sources. And while these activities are often characterized as “their own reward,” some accretion of Vitamin S is inevitable when participating not just in gardening, but also such activities as feeding the hungry, providing water to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, tending to the sick, and visiting the imprisoned, an observation first made by a Roman-era practitioner named Matthew (although Eastern practitioners in the Buddhist tradition often stand-by the “own reward” diagnosis and see Vitamin S accrual as a serious problem). Moreover, a surge in “bad” Vitamin S has recently occurred alongside rising levels of social media use and the ensuing higher levels of disinformation, and preliminary evidence suggests “bad” Vitamin S levels can be found, alongside with the COVID virus, in non-mask-wearers around the country.

“Vitamin S is a little like chocolate -- both are guilty pleasures in moderation, but both become destructive as a way of life,” said Abner Lint, a USDA nutritionist. To demonstrate his point, Lint points to the Vitamin S superspreader event at the U.S. Capitol this January, where many rioters appeared to have overdosed on Vitamin S and as a result lapsed into borderline-psychotic episodes. The result has been a subsequent calamitous rise of “bad” Vitamin S in the general population. “If the ‘good’ Vitamin S obtained from activities such as gardening supplanted the ‘bad’ Vitamin S found on social media,” nutritionist Lint notes, “we’d all be a lot healthier.”

VITAMIN P

Vitamin P, widely available as Patience, is an essential nutrient that can be obtained from the home garden. Gardeners who see the fuzzy nubs of cucumbers emerging from their yellow blossoms or the green underbellies of unripe tomatoes on the vine obtain hard-to-synthesize Vitamin P in ample quantities as these vegetables ripen in the garden, although recipes such as fried green tomatoes or sauteed baby carrots, which incorporate garden produce before it is fully ripe, convey no Vitamin P benefit whatsoever to those who consume them. Conversely, there are isolated instances of Vitamin P overdose in the garden. Lettuces, spinaches, herbs, and other crops that will “go to seed” in situations in which there is too much Vitamin P, and too little Vitamin W (see below), applied. A good example is okra, which must be harvested while new, lest it grow to lengths at which its only productive use is as barbed wire for penal systems in totalitarian societies.

Vitamin P is widely unappreciated in popular health discussions, but its benefits make it an essential component of any diet. “We know that people with higher levels of Vitamin P have lower blood pressure, enjoy sexual activity more pronouncedly, have greater longevity, and clearer skin,” said one garden nutritionist. “It’s not surprising Vitamin P is universally recognized as a virtue.”

Scientists, however, note an unanticipated incongruity in the distribution of Vitamin P among the general population. Despite their shorter remaining life expectancies, the elderly as a group demonstrate higher levels of Vitamin P than do the young, who should have far longer time horizons. “Youth may be served,” says physiologist Howie Doux, “but youth appears to demand to be served right now.” Scientists now believe aging improves the body’s ability to produce and store Vitamin P. Some gardening enthusiasts, therefore, encourage sharing the pursuit with children early in life, in order to avoid Vitamin P deficiencies that often plague the teenage and young adult years.

VITAMIN W

Vitamin W, commonly known by its street name, Work, is closely associated with gardening and garden-grown produce. A row of productive, disease-free, mulched, pruned, and staked tomato plants are a clear indication large amounts of Vitamin W have been absorbed by the gardener.

Nutritionists note that Vitamin W is prevalent throughout the population – like Vitamin D conveyed by sunshine, most people must all but consciously avoid it in order to fail to get an adequate dose. But the age distribution of Vitamin W levels is often skewed. Young people often avoid Vitamin W-creating opportunities, preferring indoor activities, such as gaming or collecting NFTs, which lead to chronic Vitamin W deficiency, and muscular atrophy and ossification of key neurons needed in later life. Scientists point to previous cohorts of young people who obtained both Vitamin D and Vitamin W through Little league Baseball, lawn mowing, dog walking, such employments as warehouse-sweeping, snow shoveling, stockroom and shelf cleaning, and delivering kosher meat on bicycles, or, less frequently, running away from home. These activities are less prevalent in today’s population of young people, and many of their preferred pastimes such as Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto CCLXIV, and Super Mario Brothers are often thought to convey “false” Vitamin W that delivers none of its long-term benefits, so-called “empty ergs.”

Conversely, the elderly appear to have a declining tolerance for Vitamin W. Large doses of it among seniors sometimes produce symptoms such as backache, dizziness, corns and callouses, and whining. Others among the elderly appear to be Vitamin W-dependent, unable to stop building their Vitamin W levels even after a lifetime of accumulation. On the other hand, most of the elderly have built up adequate reserves of Vitamin W through their lifetimes and are perfectly pleased to stop their exposure to it.

Finally, economists note that some people are never exposed to Vitamin W in any form. These people are sometimes referred to as “coupon clippers,” “passive investors,” “rentiers,” and “the idle rich.” Nutritionists point to the absence of Vitamin W among these groups as the source of their skewed social outlook and their fundamental dissociation from reality, including such beliefs that the poor are lazy, regulation is kneecapping society, and All Lives Matter. Such well-known personalities as Betsy DuVos and Wilbur Ross are thought to have be stricken with these maladies – it is believed to have killed Sheldon Adelson. “If you know someone like that,” says physician Carol Salt, “the best thing you can do for them is to give them a hoe and a shovel and point them to some dirt. They might complain, but you’d be saving a life.”

VITAMIN M

Many would-be gardeners confuse the relationship between gardening vegetables and the provision of Vitamin M, money. Besotted would-be gardeners walk the produce aisles at their supermarkets in February and see waxy, gas-ripened tomatoes and scrawny summer squashes selling for three or four dollars a pound, and dream of growing bell peppers come July bigger than their fists and eggplants the size of rabbits. They proceed to plant in anticipation of large doses of Vitamin M, but when it is time to harvest, they see fruits and vegetables at their local farmers markets that put their own to shame at prices that do not justify their efforts.

That is not to say gardening provides no Vitamin M to the gardener. Under the right conditions – for example, wartime “victory” gardens or the plots managed by private citizens in Soviet-style command-and-control economies – gardens can produce Vitamin M in copious amounts. But for the average gardener, significant amounts of Vitamin M must be expended before any return is realized. In this regard, Vitamin M and Vitamin W have a complex interaction. Moreover, many aspects of the annual gardening cycle require significant expenditures of Vitamin M, from tools and implements to seed and fertilizer to liniment and braces for backs, knees, wrists, and hands. The average person is more likely to realize higher Vitamin M levels on the job than in the garden.

VITAMIN H

The most fundamental, but also most controversial and often elusive, nutrient obtained from the garden is Vitamin H, Happiness. Its fundamental character is widely understood, but long-standing problems plague identifying how the body obtains and processes it. One view is gardeners find satisfaction and fulfillment when tending a successful garden, over and above their accretion of Vitamins S, P, and W. (The relationship between Vitamins H and M, on the other hand, is even more contentious, although most agree that Vitamin M cannot secure Vitamin H, but at the same time, it doesn’t hurt.)

A contrasting view is that the body’s levels of Vitamin H are entirely endogenous, that with the proper training and perspective, the body can produce its own, perhaps unlimited, endowments of Vitamin H, a condition known to practitioners as “mellow.” In fact, one school of thought maintains that people with a predisposition to higher levels of Vitamin H are more prone to choose to garden, and the correlation between the two reflects selection bias in the data. Perhaps the best test is for the individual to note their Vitamin H before and after a few hours of planting, weeding, composting, and other activities that lead to the foremost clinical symptom of Vitamin H obtained from the garden - dirty hands.