Malaise

Another month, another drop in sales.Joppa-based Merry-Go-Round Enterprises Inc. reported that September sales, drained by the closing of unprofitable stores, fell 23 percent to $56.5 million, compared with $73.2 million over the same period last year.Back-to-school revenue did little to boost sales in stores open at least a year, an important measure of performance, which fell 10 percent.Company officials could not be reached for comment, but analysts detected some potential upside in the latest figures for Merry-Go-Round, an apparel chain of 955 stores selling contemporary fashions for young men and women.

IN THE third year of his presidency, Jimmy Carter went up the mountain to Camp David and for an extraordinary ten days had himself lectured to and analyzed by gurus and plain citizens about what was described in those days as the "national malaise."With the benefit of hindsight, it can now be seen that the "malaise" was mainly the result of long gas lines -- that the nation's spirit would lift once the gas lines went away and sunny Ronald Reagan invoked American optimism.Now, in the third year of his presidency, Bill Clinton has also gone introspective.

As we all learned many years ago in school, those who ignore history are doomed to, well, bring up the subject of funk. Not funky chicken and not funky Broadway. But actual, down-in-the-dumps funk.We're talking of our president, of course. Except he's not just your president anymore. He's Bill "Sir Funk-A-Lot" Clinton. (Watch for him in Part 8 of the PBS Rock and Roll retrospective.)In an interview on Air Force One the other day, Clinton said - and I'm not sure whether he had backup singers - that among his many duties as president, he was "trying to get people out of their funk."

Basketball player Michael Jordan quit the Chicago Bulls at his peak because the thrill was gone. Gary Larson, "The Far Side" cartoonist, just retired at 44 because he feared his work would slide into mediocrity. Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of the New York Times, recently stepped off the fast track to write novels and stay home with her kids. Harvard University president Neil Rudenstine is on leave because he's "worn to a frazzle."What's going on here? If those with some of the most glamorous jobs in America are dissatisfied -- people who get six-figure salaries, limousines and thunderous ovations -- what about the rest of us?

Twentysomethings had barely recovered from the "Generation X" backlash inflicted by Douglas Coupland's novel when along comes "The Official Slacker Handbook" and its own special set of generational generalizations.Being published next month, the satirical primer provides lists and how-to essays on slacking '90s style: how to forestall utility -- termination, how to wear a proper goatee, how to mooch off your parents, friends and the government with the least amount of effort.First, a working definition.

WASHINGTON -- To hear the political prophets of doom tell it, the country is headed for the fourth one-term presidency out of the last five. Gerald Ford in 1976, who served only part of one term, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George Bush in 1992 all were defeated for a second term, and the crepe-hangers seem ready to add Bill Clinton to the list.Only Ronald Reagan survived a second-term challenge in the 16 years from 1976 through 1992.It is true that Clinton's polling numbers are discouraging to those who want to see him re-elected in 1996.

Like "A Christmas Carol" or "Romeo and Juliet," "Body Snatchers" almost defies ruination, even by the most enthusiastic of hacks.Jack Finney's original novella is so exactingly structured both as story telling and morphic resonance that it has now become a movie for the third time. First, it was a '50s meditation on the numbing horrors of conformism, as directed by the gifted, underrated Don Siegel; it had an echo of political meaning to it, a possible metaphoric connection to McCarthyism.

All nations envy Canada. It is what most want to be. Canada has the resources, vastness and diversity of a great nation without the responsibilities. It has North American living standards without the opprobrium attached.It has great cities with all the attractions and none of the crushing problems of the great U.S. cities.Whenever the U.S. is hated for its latest transgression as a great power -- which is usually -- Americans envy Canadians. Quite a few, when allowed, become Canadians.Canadians, though beset by identity problems, accept the world's envy.

WASHINGTON -- It was the kind of gut-wrenching cable that came across Jon Western's State Department desk every day for virtually a whole year: a 9-year-old Muslim girl raped by Serbian fighters, then left in a pool of blood while her parents watched helplessly from behind a fence for two days before she died.It was the kind of cable that led Mr. Western earlier this month to quit his job as an Eastern Europe analyst out of frustration with what he considered America's lack of resolve in solving the Bosnian crisis.

The Queen's Household Cavalry exercising their horses on the fringes of Hyde Park. Christmas decorations in the shop windows of Vienna. Choking smog at 5 a.m. on the streets of Bangkok. Icy, pre-dawn wind blowing off Lake Ontario one February in Toronto. The great blue heron that makes its home on Upper Hollow Road in Dorset, Vt.These are a dollop of the experiences I've had, looking back on four years (almost to the day, as you read this) of systematic exercising.Is it legit to devote a management column to wishing my personal exercise program happy birthday?