Ayn Rand must be turning over in her grave. A long time ago, she proclaimed that A equals A. Now people everywhere are saying “It is what it is,” and not giving Ayn any credit. (Nor, to my knowledge, did John Prine tip his hat to Rand when he put “You are what you are, and you ain’t what you ain’t” in his lyrics to “Dear Abby.”)

“It is what it is” is a semantically empty phrase that usually (in this neck of the woods, anyway) connotes that something not-great but unchangeable exists. As Robert Heinlein was wont to say, “You can’t argue with the weather.”

So why use it for an acrostic? Well, ten years from now it will remind me of the way people were talking ten years ago. (Fifty years ago, kids my age were calling Cool stuff Boss. Cool survived; Boss died.) Also, the end-letters work out fairly well for acrosticization, and enabled a reference to Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, heroic mongoose of the Kipling oeuvre, as well as the Robert Mondavi vineyards, which I was privileged to visit in the mid-80s, enjoying their five-course meal accompanied by five different wines.

Here are the words to the triple acrostic:

It pays a Cobra to BEWARE of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
The savage Truth would humble the most cock-eyed optimist
It’s like an alcoholic at a vineyard of Mondavi
So many vampires want to taste the blood of whom they kiss