Calling all P&T May mailbag questions!

For much of the world, May is a sensorial miracle, that time of year when the poetry of of better days ahead starts feeling like something you can trust. Thomas Dekker (no relation to actor/singer/heartthrob Thomas Dekker, nor L.A. Clipper Sam) wrote of May:

O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen.

Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
The sweetest singer in all the forest quire,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love’s tale:
Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.

But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;
See where she sitteth; come away, my joy:
Come away, I prithee, I do not like the cuckoo
Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.

O, the month of May, the merry month of May,
So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green;
And then did I unto my true love say,
Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen.

Sounds like this Tommy D chap (no relation) knew how to live. Speaking of cuckoos and entreating, it’s time for a new P&T Mailsack! Plenty to talk about with the Knicks these days: a new coach, the upcoming gut punch from God draft lottery, an apparently new policy of “When the season’s over we should touch base with our franchise player rather than letting him go incommunicado all summer long,” etc.

If the present doesn’t excite you and you’ve too many scars to ever trust the future, we can discuss back-in-the-day happenings and hypotheses, too. Did you know on this date 34 years ago, Bernard King was owning the Celtics?

King’s 43 points that night tied the series 2-2. The Knicks pushed the eventual world champs to seven games in that year’s Eastern Conference semis. King was the only Knick to play 20+ minutes per game that series and finish with a positive ratings difference. New York’s minutes leaders after King that series? Bill Cartwright, Rory Sparrow and Truck Robinson. If the Knicks have any cultural qualities that have persisted over time, it’s surrounding one great player with anything but.

Last weekend I had to read 200 essays. One thing I learned: “parasocial relationships are defined as one-sided interactions in which a person becomes attached to a persona that is entirely unaware of the person’s feelings. This is typically used to describe the relationship between a person and their favorite sports team.” Come get your parasocial on, fam! Share your questions — narrative, analytic, speculative; all our welcome — in the comments below, or go to our Facebook or Twitter pages. Then kick back. Relax. Absorb the miracles all around, yourself included. Learn to stop worrying and love the balm of May.