Now meet the elf overseer at Macy’s
world-famous store on 34th Street, where this former actor’s job is “to promote the annual rite of
good cheer.” No matter that he used to play “monsters, murderers, even Dracula.” Or that in his
office eight floors above Santaland, where he leafs through “The Elfin Manual,” he keeps “a
scowling photo of himself” looking “like a cross between Charles Manson and Rasputin.”
Which brings us to the truth of the season in verse:
REASON’S GREETING
Religious fervor’s taking off,
And half the land’s unstrung;
But superstition’s
nothing new —
This too shall pass, like dung.
— Leon Freilich
