I'm burning a candle as a metaphor for how short our human lives are, us all being poor actors strutting and fretting. But this one here is a three-wick spiced cardamom candle not something extruded from pig fat or gathered from hives. I won't be lighting a lamp courtesy of some whale's song cut short by hard men on three year voyages out of Nantucket - though I may catch the ferry there this summer for a day of rubbing elbows with the tourist elite none of whom smell like fish or have salt plastered to their sun burned faces. Indeed, human life is a bit longer and a lot less cruel. And the candles are plentiful if you need one to be reminded.