How real is our imagination? What of its value in the reality of human life? Christmas time seems to tempt my puppet pal, Brooklyn Birch for some reason to not believe in himself, to doubt his self worth. A sad state of affairs for anyone I think. There is, I tell him, a certain visionary power when we believe in the reason we exist, but with that mystery comes the caution not to be tempted to crash on the rocks of disenchantment. Ulysses, I told him, bound himself to the mast to resist what he was made to believe would please him. By not allowing himself to be tempted he saved his ship from being broken to pieces on the soulless rocks along the shore. Brooklyn Birch wants me to buy him, Miss Ecstacy, a porcelain doll, that lives on a shelf at Toys R Us. “She is not real” I said to him. Sadly he says to me “Well then, neither am I” I said to him, “There’s a few good reasons why I can't believe that."