the playboy calendar and the rubÁiyat of omar khayyÁm.year i graduated from high school, my father gave me a playboy calendar and the rubÁiyat of omar khayyÁm. on the calendar, he wrote, "enjoy the scenery." in the book of poems, he wrote, "i introduce you to an old friend." the beast was my only friend in high school, a wrestler who crushed the coach's nose with his elbow, fractured the fingers of all his teammates, could drink half a dozen vanilla milkshakes, and signed up with the marines because his father was a marine. i showed the playboy calendar to the beast, and he howled like a silverback gorilla trying to impress an expedition of anthropologists. i howled too, smitten with the blonde called miss january, held high in my simian hand. yet, alone at night, i memorized the poet-astronomer of persia, his saints and sages bickering about eternity, his angel looming in the tavern door with a jug of wine, his battered caravanserai of sultans fading into the dark. at 17, the laws of privacy have been revoked by the authorities, and the