The Wizard of Ozy: Gene vs. people who are ‘Unclear on the Concept’

WASHINGTON, DC: My friend Joe Martin, who draws the comic strip “Mr. Boffo,” uses a recurring theme about people who are “Unclear on the Concept.” In one strip, for example, a woman is looking at a police lineup, and one of the guys in the lineup is pointing at her excitedly, saying, “That’s her! That’s her! I’d recognize that purse anywhere!”

Sometimes, I feel that I’m in one of those toons. For instance, one of my favorite poems is Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” which tells the story of a man walking through the desert who encounters the ruins of a huge statue of a “king of kings.” The inscription on the pedestal invites visitors to look around and see all the great works that ancient ruler had wrought, and to feel despair at their own comparative insignificance. But nothing has survived: “Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.” The poem is, of course, about the folly of arrogance and the impermanence of Earthly power.