Love, Sex, and Eroticism: Thoughts on John Foxx's Thought Experiment, Pt. 2

Yesterday I wrote about John Foxx's concept of "media ghosts" as discussed in his blog posting entitled "Thought Experiment: Unrecognised Effects of the Media". Today, I want to look at another topic he discusses--love, sex, and/or eroticism.

John points to the porno magazine as the height of deceptive irony. They are frequently purchased as a male sexual stimulant (i.e., to look at during masturbation, and God knows what else), and yet a colored piece of paper is no substitute for the touch, feel, voice, and responsiveness of a real woman. He accurately notes that an animal, relying on certain "tests", would reject such an object as untenable for sexual arousal. Additionally, if sex serves some reproductive function, a picture in a magazine can't serve that function.

I saw an article in Yahoo news the other day about a young man in Japan who married a video game character. If you get past the notion of publicity stunts and legalities (how do you "marry" a fictional character in any real sense)--even at the symbolic level this is pretty pathetic. Just how removed do you have to be from living life to fall in love with a simulation of a real woman? We're not talking a photo of a woman--we're talking an anime-type character--something that never even WAS a woman. The video game is called LoveSim, and is some kind of simulated dating game. Good Lord. That's like saying you've traveled the world when all you've done is watch Rick Steves videos.

But maybe I shouldn't judge this kid too harshly. While the notion of "marrying" a video game character may be extreme, certainly men have been aroused by images of women in all types of media. Women may also do this, but I think men in general are a little bit different here. Men tend to be more aroused by visual stimuli than women. While there are women who get off looking at naked men, I would suggest that the percentage of men who get off looking at naked women is significantly higher.

One theory about why this is comes from the Eastern chakra system. The chakras refer to seven major energy centers in the body that rotate like wheels. When they spin too fast, or are stuck, physical and emotional problems associated with the chakra can manifest. A lot of Eastern medical and meditative practices are based on the chakras. The male sex organs lie in the muladhara or base chakra. This is the chakra that is associated with primal instincts and basic survival. Women's sexual organs are located in the svadisthana, or solar plexus chakra, which is associated with security, confidence, settling down, "nesting". Following this theory, the result is that men's arousal tends to be more associated with a biological need or function, while women see it as a function of "nesting", or settling down. (Girls--how many of you want to clean and organize every fucking thing in the world during or just before your period? That's the hormonal "nesting" instinct.) So, it is not surprising that men may be more interested in a quick means of "getting off", or having a brief one-night hook-up, while women tend to view sex as an indication of a relationship--and why more women may want a commitment. Mind you, this is a theoretical generalization, and you will find cases where the reverse is true.

Of course, hormones are not the only thing that influence relationship behavior. Experience and environment are big ones--how many successful relationships you've had, how often you've been betrayed or rejected, what your parents' relationship was like, the attitudes in general of your friends and family, etc. One also must consider the fantasy factor--one's "perfect" image of the perfect man or woman is often projected onto a living man or woman. This is dangerous, because you may mistake the real human being for your fantasy figure. When the person doesn't match up in real life, you lose interest if there is no other basis for the relationship. And, just like the "media ghosts"--that's another image that one can never live up to, ever.

A couple of illustrations of the fantasy factor--first, I recall an exchange I had with a female friend about a man she had a crush on. "I hope he never asks me out," she said. I was surprised. "Why not?", I asked her. "Because my image of him will be ruined if he does," was her reply. While I disagree that one shouldn't attempt a relationship because of that risk, it's interesting to think about. The other has to do with my own relationships. From what I can gather, I project a "strong" image to men--I can take care of myself, and I don't act "needy". For all the complaints that men have about women who act like helpless appendages, you would think this is a good thing. Not necessarily. What has happened is that I meet intelligent, capable men who are, in some fashion, lazy. It's not that they're stupid or incapable--they just want to be carried through life with as little suffering and effort as possible. What they want in a woman is a perpetual mother, or a female "savior" figure--someone who will come in, clean up after them, put everything in order, and basically make them happy. So, they meet a woman like myself who they view as not needy and self-sufficient, and figure I'm a good candidate for fulfilling their wish. I refer to these men as "parasites", and there are an alarming number of them out there subscribing to this female mother/savior myth. In my own relationship life--if I may carry this through with a bad metaphor--I tend to stay out of the water because there are too many leeches.

At the end of his post, John asks-why are there only images of violence and suffering in the media, and none of relationships that are both loving and erotic? Well, violence has to do with tearing things apart, sex and love has to do with bringing them together. It seems that people identify more with the idea of being torn apart, and the media rallies around that. Portrayals of healthy, loving relationships don't generate as many ratings. But does anyone know what a real, healthy, loving, respectful and sexual relationship looks like? If you have one, how would you explain it or portray it to others? I imagine it's difficult at best--it's like trying to explain what "God" is.

The situation is not helped by society's treatment of sex. How can something be the "most sacred thing" (i.e., religious ideas of sex only within a sanctified marriage) and a filthy, base thing engaged in by "whores" at the same time? Sex, like any force, can be on one end of the spectrum or another, but children are raised with the idea that sex is one thing or the other. If you are taught that sex is purely functional, then it will make eroticism awkward. Eroticism is treated like a taboo. Try to remember your early puberty days--physically awkward, insecure, and drowning in a sea of hormones--and think about how you had to navigate the sexual/erotic landscape. In the book "Female Chauvinist Pigs", Ariel Levy gave what I consider one of the most succinct summaries of the portrayal of sex in the media and in education: Be sexy--show it as much as you can, be as raunchy as you can--but don't have sex. And somehow, attempts to portray loving, sexual relationships come across as embarrassing or silly.

We ought to go back to having secret society rituals for initiation into sexuality. Because let's face it--making it all work together is a great mystery, and no one is comfortable talking about it. You can't learn from your parents, because most people are grossed out at the idea of their parents having a sex life. If your parents are very open with you about their sex life and such from a young age, they risk being arrested for child endangerment. It's the forbidden thing you can't know about until you're some social definition of an adult, and by then it's too late. You've already been screwed up by the multiplicity of contradictory images, legends, and myths surrounding sexuality. Even if you figure it out, good luck finding a partner who's figured it out.

Sexual myths and misconceptions go a long way towards damaging healthy sex relations between men and women. For instance, take the myth of penis size. Men seem to be in agreement that the size of their wanker is critical not only to their status as a man, but to a woman's pleasure, and the bigger, the better. This is horseshit. Size has nothing to do with sexual pleasure unless a woman's vaginal opening is as wide as the Holland Tunnel (and if it is, I hope you guys are getting checked for STDs afterwards--that condition doesn't happen by itself with one or just a few partners, unless she's had a few babies). Women's pelvises are different sizes and shapes--sometimes everything is tilted, or shifted in one direction or another, and the man who is considered a great lover is one who can carefully and respectfully navigate that landscape, regardless of size. A big dick on a man who is inexperienced and/or showing disregard for the female anatomy is a bit like a 2-year-old running around with a flamethrower--it's not going to end well, and not without damage. A big dick on a man who is really good looking and knows it is deadly--I would run, not walk, away from such a man. Why? Because such men tend to have an ego that matches their dick size and opinion of their Adonis-like beauty. Which means they don't care about the woman at all--they just think by gracing her with their presence she should erupt into orgasm. In the meantime, the woman is grimacing in pain because her partner is taking that oversized joke of a member and stabbing her repeatedly in the bladder, or some other organ that lies in that part of her body. By the time he's finished, she's rushing to the bathroom to see how much blood comes out from being stabbed repeatedly in such a manner. (Sounds funny, but I'm not even joking about this). In short--that kind of sex is about as much fun as having a corkscrew shoved up your ass. (And if that sounds enjoyable to you--don't call me. Ever.). The man will either be basking in the delusion of satisfaction, thinking that the woman's screams were of ecstasy and not agony--or he will be puzzled at her post-coitus response and assume that she's a frigid bitch. And the cycle of deception goes on. especially if the woman is too afraid to say anything because she wants to hang on to the relationship. Why would she? Because she's a moron. Many women are morons when it comes to relationships. And I'm not exempting myself from that, though if you've had as many bad relationships as I've had, you tend to get jaded and distrustful, which is not good either. (And since you're wondering at this point--yes, I have had good sex before. ) Healthy relationships are possible, just not plentiful.

I'm sure there are many other examples, but I have to stop somewhere. John's points are well taken--and certainly, if there is no healthy image of loving and sexual relationships to look to, then what does one have to emulate? Even religions have images, and those images don't show you the reality of "God" or whatever--they're just ideas. But portrayals of sexual love are so schizophrenic, one wonders if they can be successfully put together, not just on an individual level, but on a collective one.

Smoke and Mirrors: Thoughts on John Foxx's "Thought Experiment", Part 1

Well, well well. It's Black Friday in the U.S., and, in keeping with tradition, I never go shopping. I have little patience for crowds, and I am not going to fight people over the purchase of stuff. My intention today was to stay home and catch up on my household and academic obligations.

Then, via the Metamatica site (thanks, Mark), I was pointed to a new posting by John Foxx at the Quiet Man blog. John's been quite active at blogging this week, rather unusual. After reading his post, my plans for the day were pretty much done, or at least severely postponed, as I cranked out about 10 pages of rapid-fire thoughts on the topics he addresses. One of the many reasons I just love Mr. Foxx is that he makes me think. I am going to share those thoughts with you in two, possibly three, subsequent blog posts. This is the first one.

First, John's post. It's entitled Thought Experiment: Unrecognised Effects of the Media, and has about 9 parts to it. I recommend reading the post rather than me trying to re-summarize it here--there's a lot to it.

The first thing John discusses is the trust we have in media. There are many things we accept as being real solely on the basis of seeing images in the media--images that can be faked. It's an interesting point, and a rather frightening one in the face of the fact that media is becoming less and less of a reliable source of facts. There may have been a time when the news might have reported actual news--facts were checked before airing, investigate reporting was done to look at all sides of an issue. This still goes on in some places, but it's buried under 24-hour news shows, talk shows promoting themselves as news when in fact they are purely entertainment and not journalism, and a host of scripted "reality" shows. The line between "real" and "fake" is so blurry these days, I'm not even sure there is a line.

Getting back to John's points--he refers to an appearance he had on BBC's Top of the Pops in 1980. The appearance was only 3 minutes long, but when he thought about how many people were reached by that medium, it would have amounted to about 20 years of live performing without TV. What such appearances on TV, in film, and in photographs do is create a multiplicity of images frozen in time that don't go away, even after the person they represent is long gone--John refers to them as "media ghosts". When the artist, musician, or actor looks back at the image, which no doubt has been glossed over and perfected, it starts to make them insecure, and they may compete with it. There is a fear, a "humiliating" experience of going out in public and worrying that you are a disappointment, that you don't measure up to the ghost image someone has of you. Of course, that image never was "you". But if someone forgets that, they may struggle against time with plastic surgery, makeup, and other such things to make themselves look more like that image. At best, they become a caricature.

John actually hits on one of the reasons I like to meet "celebrities", or people I admire that feature in the media--I don't want to see the faked image, I want to see the real person. If John is talking about himself when he compares the "ghost image" to what he sees in the mirror, he needn't worry--he is astonishingly more beautiful in person than in any photograph or film I've ever seen of him. In fact, with few exceptions, I dislike most professional photos of John. They look like images of actors trying to portray John, not John himself.

But the discourse got me thinking about distortions. In reflecting on the idea of a "media ghost" versus the real live person, it occurs to me that there are 3 levels of distortion and potential deception here, just within individuals:

1. The media image versus the real person: This is what John discusses, so there's no need for me to repeat it. The person singing a song or acting onstage is portraying a certain role or character. Never is the person you see on the TV, Internet, or magazine the "real" person.

2. The persona of the real person: Since John wrote this, and I've met him, I'll use him as an example here. When I was in Hudson a couple of weeks ago, I'd spoken to some American fans who were nervous about meeting him. Part of John's media persona, at least in the past, is something that was pretty accurately described by a friend as that of "icy electronica god". There was a certain look and style to John's photos and videos that suggested that he was cool and unapproachable. American fans, who had not seen him in many many years, still had that image of him in their minds. They were very pleasantly surprised to find that John is just the opposite--very amiable and pleasant, and interested in talking to his fans.

Now, I have been fortunate to spend quite a bit of time talking with John over the last year. I may "know" him a little better than some of his other fans because of this--or not. All I know is the persona John shows to me when we're chatting during an event, or having a drink after the event. Even if John were not John Foxx--even if he were just someone I met who had no kind of celebrity at all--there would still be a mask that is presented, an "enhancement" during which we show off our best qualities, or look at others and try to show them what we think they would consider our best qualities. Since I tend to be hyper-observant of people generally, I can say I've seen at least 3 different sides of Foxx--angry/stressed but trying not to show it, over-energized and with a touch of bravado, and friendly/relaxed in an almost paternal way. The one common trait that threads through all of them is a polite and gentlemanly composure. Even if he's ready to pop with stress, he'll give a terse smile and say, "Please excuse me", and walk away--he'll never tell you to fuck off. Are any of those the real "John Foxx" or "Dennis Leigh"? Probably some parts, but I could not say which ones, in all honesty. You can say that he's learned his social graces, but they don't necessarily reveal the true person underneath.

3. The unconscious person: To a certain degree, we all deceive ourselves about who we are. This gets really difficult, because just as you can't see your own physical image except via a mirror or perhaps a photograph, you don't know how you really are in interactions except via the responses of others. It's like sonar--you can't see it, you only know its size and shape via the sound waves bounced off the "object" that come back to you. Our own images of ourselves tend to be much more critical than those of others--the old "You're your own worst enemy" bit. But when we solicit feedback from others, that feedback is always tainted by that person's projections and worldviews, and their relationship to us.

Which brings me to something on a much broader scale--truth and objectivity. I teach a liberal arts religion course that deals with the academic study of religion. One of my students told me that it's of no benefit to study religion this way because religion is "subjective"--there is no "objective" truth that one can obtain. My response to that is that real "objectivity" is a myth-- there is no way anyone can escape their frame of reference. No matter how detached and objective you try to be, your own point of view and experiences will always get in the way.

Moving out farther to a universal scale--the January 17, 2009 issue of New Scientist has an article by Marcus Chown about the idea of a holographic universe. (I'd post the link, but it's by subscription only). He starts with a discussion of the GEO600 experiment in Germany, which involves a detector that is looking for gravitational waves. The detector has not found any gravitational waves, but has been plagued by a strange noise that researchers couldn't explain. Then researcher Craig Hogan came up with an explanation--in fact, he said he'd predicted the noise. Its presence showed a limitation in space-time--

"where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into “grains”, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. “It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time,” says Hogan. If this doesn’t blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: 'If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.'" (Chown, pg. 24).

This is only the beginning of the article, but the idea is starting to become test-able. If this is true, then everything we experience as physical reality is just a hologram projected off a 2D surface somewhere way out in the universe. No one is entirely sure how this works, but it fits in with a lot of contemporary theory, particularly with the paradoxes of black holes.

What's staggering about this to me (other than that the Hindus are obviously right about the whole "maya" thing) is that it truly makes everything "unreal". What is there to really "know" about ourselves and others? What does "truth" become? What about "reality"? A lot of this ties in with ideas about the "multiverse"--the idea that every possible universe exists and is occurring at the same time. While that is still very theoretical, one thing is known from physics--the frame of reference for understanding the universe is not on Earth or somewhere out in space--it is within each person's frame of reference. In some complicated way, we create the universe.

Media may create ghosts, but are they any more true or false than our daily experiences and perceptions? Perhaps technology just adds another layer of complexity to something that is essentially a "ghost image" already--the whole Universe?

Tomorrow, I'll talk about John's thoughts on love, sex, and eroticism.



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The Traditional Pre-Christmas Post

I was on the phone with a friend tonight, and she reminded me about my usual pre-Christmas blog posting. It's the day before Thanksgiving here in the U.S., not that this is any kind of starting point for Christmas gift buying anymore. I've been hearing Christmas music since Halloween, and Christmas trees and lights are already going up around the neighborhood houses and businesses. If the trend continues, we're going to start hearing about Christmas in September.

This year, unlike last year, I have been caught up in the pre-Christmas bustle. I am no less busy this year than last year, but I had a couple of weekends where I had some time to do Christmas shopping, so I did it--and finished it. All that remains this year is putting up the Christmas decorations and baking like a fiend. It's a good thing, too, because my schedule is such that I won't have time to do anything in December until the 12th at the earliest. Christmas cards are getting written over Thanksgiving vacation (God bless university shut-down days for holidays), so by the time November is over, I hope to be in good shape for the holidays.

And why not? As I noted in an earlier posting about holidays, most of the fun comes in the weeks leading up to the holiday, not the holiday itself. Christmas Day itself won't be much to talk about--the usual visit to family, opening presents--it will all be over in about 15 minutes. Then winter will come, and it will suck until Spring comes. I have a short tolerance for winter--I like some snow on Christmas, maybe the week after Christmas. By January 1st, I'm ready for Spring. By the end of the first week in January, I want the Christmas decorations taken down, and to be done with the holiday stuff.

The one oddity I've noticed year after year on Christmas Day is the behavior of my animals. Yes, I am one of those whack-jobs that buys presents for my cats. You're thinking, "Why bother? Cats don't care about Christmas." Ah, well, that's the oddity. They DO care about Christmas, or at least about Christmas presents.

Here is the scenario: I wrap Christmas presents about 2 weeks in advance, and put them under the tree. Last year, when I didn't have a tree, I still wrapped presents and left them near the spot where I would usually have a tree. This includes presents for the cats. Naturally, the cats showed a curiosity about these packages when I initially put them downstairs, and may have tried to play with them a bit, but then they usually ignored them. On Christmas morning--and this has been every Christmas morning, regardless of the cat, regardless of the externals--the cats know that something is different. I don't do anything that's different. I get up and make my breakfast as usual. On a regular morning, the cats will pester me until I get up, and then run for their food bowls. But on Christmas morning--and I am not making this up--they run over to the tree and stand by the presents. They look at the presents, and then they look at me expectantly. Even the cats in my basement seem to know--I bring them their food, and they won't eat until they see if I've brought them anything. Normally they will start scarfing down food before I've scarcely had a chance to put the bowl down. It's really weird.

I really don't know what to make of my cats' Christmas behavior. Why they would have any awareness of the holiday, especially when I don't change behavior on the day, makes no rational sense. Maybe it's purely coincidental. I tend to think it's because cats are smarter than we think, and have a greater awareness of the English language than we think (or whatever language they are raised hearing). In any case, it's a mystery.

My cat Shiva is alone in the house this year, so we'll see if he repeats the weird Christmas behavior. In the meantime, I am just hoping that my trip to Bath next weekend goes well (going to see John Foxx--what else?), and that my presentation at the Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute goes well on the 8th. And it can't snow. Not til after the 14th, when I give my final exam in Religion. Thank you, Nature, for listening.

Feline Education

I had some good news recently. My neighbor and his pit bulls moved out, and I was looking forward to being able to spend some peaceful time at home. However, my neighbors at the end of the street, who are usually very quiet, have recognized this void in the chaos, and have willingly stepped up to the plate of obnoxiousness. I'm all for kids playing outside, but when you hear nothing but a steady, non-stop stream of screaming for over an hour, it starts to wear on your nerves just a tad. I think I felt a little dip in my intelligence quotient. It may be a plot to make me totally stupid. So far it's working. Right now I'm trying to drown out the noise by watching old episodes of Ghost Hunters. I'll bet Jason and Grant had no idea they were fighting stupidity as well as investigating the paranormal.

Speaking of intelligence, thanks to Mental Floss, I discovered a list of animals with university degrees. Well, they don't REALLY have degrees. They were often test cases for schools that were suspected diploma mills. Someone would sign Toonses up for an MBA, and they would grant it, and claim he had an A average. They would then take the school to court, claiming they were giving fraudulent degrees, because Lord knows Toonses is too busy sleeping to actually show up for classes, online or otherwise. Though come to think of it, Toonses may not be much different from the average undergraduate in many ways.
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But it got me thinking that I could get online Ph.D.s for all of my cats. I'm never going to get mine--I have two Masters, and that's it--I have no energy for anything else. The Ph.D. that I actually want would require me to sell my house and enslave myself to an academic department for several years. In the end, I probably will totally overqualify myself for any real job, and will not get a job in academia because I've adjuncted for too long in my career. But my cats could get them, and I could brag about them the way everyone else does about their kids. ("Yes, Whiskers got her doctorate, and graduated top of her class for her dissertation on squirrel migration patterns.")




If I wanted it to be legit, I could look at those programs that give you credit for life experience. Based on their experience, I think my cats could get degrees in the following:

Shiva: Political Science, based on his extensive experience in blatant manipulation.
Joplin: Anatomy and Physiology, based on her experience in dissecting small rodents and leaving their body parts on my front porch.
Whiskers: Communication, based on her ability to specifically communicate such needs as, "I need immediate medical attention. My organs are falling out."

So, I'm going to look into degrees for my cats, or at least fake diplomas, which will still make them more educated than a lot of folks in my neighborhood (no offense to those folks--education isn't everyone's "thing", though I think some critical thinking skills do help.) Whether or not it will help them get real jobs and starting contributing to my income stream remains to be seen. They may be overqualified, and be stuck continuing to get rid of flies, mice, and cave crickets in my house to earn their keep. And alerting me to spiders. That's a big one.

Emotions, Awareness, and Creativity

I've been thinking a lot these days about the role of emotions in creative work--writing, in my case. When I am in a no-nonsense, practical frame of mind, it is very difficult for me to write fiction. I can force myself to write in such a state of mind, but when I re-read what I've written later, it seems very inauthentic. I have to be able to empathize, or at least sympathize, with my characters in order for them to come across as believable. And many of my characters present extreme emotional states or disturbed states of mind.

Emotions are tricky. It is the emotional downs--and ups--that lead us to unhappiness. People have often wondered over and over again whether or not it's better to withdraw, and to avoid emotional conflict. But to do so is to avoid playing the game (i.e. life. And I mean your real life, not the board game Life). You never can really avoid emotions anyway, unless you are a master of meditation, and those are few and far between. Many of us can successfully repress our feelings, but that's not the same as not having them. We tend to gravitate towards pleasurable feelings and avoid painful ones. I've noticed that there's a thin line between pleasure and pain, and the price of having a pleasurable experience is dealing with the pain afterwards. I imagine it's like drug addiction--there is that ecstatic high followed by a severe drop into depression. We want to encounter the highs over and over again, but life is cyclical--what goes up must come down. This is why Eastern religions promote the idea of "detachment". This is not the same as repression--detachment acknowledges the highs and lows, but observes them without getting caught up in them. To follow the cyclical metaphor--you sit in the still place in the middle of the wheel, you don't ride on it.

While extensive meditative practice can lead to this ideal detachment, many of us just don't have time for extensive meditation. My own practices are inconsistent, as I have so much going on, and the best meditations I know require at least 45 minutes of quiet time with no eating, drinking, or talking. Before work is the ideal time for this, but if I've gotten in from my evening job at 11:00 in the evening, and have to get up at 4:00 in the morning, I'm not likely to meditate when I get up, and I'm too tired and hungry by the time I get home.

So, we struggle imperfectly with our feelings. But like all things, it's not that things happen to us, it's how we respond to those things. I am a very deeply emotional person, though you might not know it from the surface presentation. I can't avoid the fact that I'm emotional. I can get angry, depressed, and anxious, and at those times I don't think very clearly or I tend to see things in a very negative light. What I've learned to do is take those irrational feelings and put them into writing. If I have an idea for a character that is experiencing an emotional disturbance of some sort, being in an irrational mood helps me to think the way the character might think. If I'm not in that frame of mind, it's more difficult to have any identification with the character. If I can do this, it becomes an opportunity rather than a liability.

There is some evidence in general that depression is not something we have to beat down with drugs, legal or illegal. A recent study by an Australian psychologist suggests that depression enables people to think clearly, communicate more effectively, and make fewer mistakes. In short, it increases awareness. I've often heard the expression, mainly from Buddhists, that sorrow is transformative. If depression leads to awareness, then it's easy to see how this could be true. But humans by their very survival instinct try to avoid pain, though the stronger ones have a higher pain threshold. We live in a culture that has no tolerance for pain, and consequently strives to avoid the challenges of life. Beyond the basic avoidance of pain, I'm not sure why this is. I could attribute it to the whole "self-esteem" movement that was big about 15-20 years ago, though that wouldn't account for all of it. The consequences of trying to make people constantly "feel good" has been the avoidance of responsibility, unfortunately. You hear a lot about entitlement and lack of accountability, and this comes out of a lack of self-awareness or self-examination. Lord knows we might not be perfect, and that's a depressing thought. And we certainly don't want to be depressed. And so it goes. I know a lot of people who suffer from perpetual victim syndrome, and my usual tactic with these people is to challenge their victimhood. Some people think I'm unfeeling or cruel for doing that, but I don't think so--to be 50 years old and still pouting because someone mistreated you in the 3rd grade--really now, time to get over it. You might make some of those friends you've wanted all these years if you did. Everyone suffers--not everyone is crippled by it. As I've mentioned in an earlier posting--the highest cure rates for mental diseases that involve a lack of an "emotional skin" like Borderline Personality Disorder came from treatments that involved forcing the person to deal with life situations and not blot them out with drugs.

As if reading my mind this morning, the Onion has come out with a brilliant article on awareness. Tongue-in-cheek perhaps, but right on the money.

Perfection

In my blog posting on John Foxx's visit to Hudson, New York, I mentioned a particular question that someone asked him, and his answer, that got me thinking once again about the “goal” of religion, and the idea of “perfection”.

In case you didn't read the posting or don't remember the question—someone asked John about the “religious imagery” (particularly angels) in his artwork. John insisted that he does not use religious imagery, as he considers religion to be dangerous. The angel concept is one of perfection or perfecting, as humans are always striving to do. While this can be admirable, it can also be dangerous—if a powerful person or group gets the idea of creating a “master race” and oppressing or slaughtering those who don't measure up.

The first thing that immediately comes to my mind is something that was said by the late, great Joseph Campbell. In the West, and in Western religion, Nature is corrupt. There is the book of Genesis, there is the “Fall” in the Garden of Eden—nature is corrupted by the Fall, and separated from God. Therefore, it is a Western idea that we are born imperfect, and have to be “perfected” again. In the Christian worldview, this would be through Baptism, and/or all attendant sacraments (if you are Catholic). There are similar ideas in the other great monotheistic religions. It was this idea of corruption that prompted Erik Erikson to discuss the idea of “pseudospeciation”--the idea that a particular group of human beings could be better than another, or greater than another. The idea that some human beings are fundamentally superior to others cannot lead to a positive end. Group psychology almost condemns those involved in such a situation to have one person dominate the others—and if that person does not have the qualities that make a good leader, there will inevitably be persecution or ostracization of someone in the group.

By contrast, the East does not have the same view of Nature. We are part of Nature, and should strive to live in harmony with it. Eastern religion suggests that we are already perfect—the only problem is that we've forgotten. The role of the Guru or Master is to wake you up and make you remember your perfect nature, at which point your suffering will end and you will act in accordance with the best thing in you. In an Egyptian magical text, there was an appropriate phrase--”The Aspirant takes his (or her) seat among the Gods, only to find that he (or she) never left.” As Spinoza pointed out, viewing each other as “gods” in this sense is not a blasphemy, but in recognizing the core perfection or “godliness” of another person, and treating them with the appropriate respect. When you are all imperfect and “sinful” by nature, it is easy to start creating hierarchies and to look down on those who are “lesser”.

But all this begs the question—what is perfection? How do you measure or define that? Is it by how successful you are in a worldly sense? Is it about how kind you are to others? Is it about doing everything exactly right? The word “perfect” comes from the Latin “perficere”, meaning “to cease” or “to finish”. For something to be perfect, it has to be finished. There is nothing else to be done—the person has nothing else to learn, nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. Think about moments in your life where you've finally finished something successfully that you've been doing for a long time. After you have the satisfaction of a job well done, what's the next natural thought? “What's next?”, of course.

Humans like to feel useful or to feel that they have a purpose in life, a reason for being here. If we were perfect, what would be the point in being alive? The whole idea of perfection is a sham—it's an El Dorado that can never be reached. With apologies for sounding cliche—life is a journey, not a destination. We are never “finished” until we die, and even the idea that we're finished then is debatable. But finishing necessarily implies annihilation, at least of our worldly identities.

Interestingly, John pointed to the image of the angel as the concept of perfection. But angels by definition are not perfect—in fact, they are supposed to be envious of humans. In this way they are similar to deities in Hinduism—to be a deity in Heaven is not the ultimate perfected state. But the perfected state in Eastern religions requires a merging with the Paramatman, or Primal Soul. Merging with the Paramatman is liberation, but it also means you no longer exist in an identifiable way. According to Hinduism, only humans are capable of reaching this perfected state—a god would have to be reborn as a human to attain it. Back to Campbell—he points to the idea of a Unified existence, where everything is One. In order for life to occur, there has to be a separation into Two, and then further separations. To be alive is to be separated, broken apart. Religion is supposed to serve the function of making you “One” again, but much has to be given up to do that. Alan Watts used the wonderful expression “dismemberment and rememberment”--which goes back to the idea of “remembering” our perfect, Divine being.

One of the problems with religion in the modern world is that it acts as a filter. Carl Jung said that one's religion and image of God is the final obstruction to a religious experience. Religion has not served the function of bringing you back to Unity—instead, it has adopted a social function that fragments things to an absurd extreme, at its worst. To be fair, not everyone is psychologically prepared to try to attain that unified state, nor is it always desirable to try. But religion should not pretend to be something it's not—at best, it should be a road map, a set of guidelines for negotiating the great mystery of Life. Dr. Michael Kogan once suggested that God is infinite potential, and evil comes out of trying to limit that potential. There is no one way to go through life, and no religion should claim to have it. The Buddhists have this idea of learning and unlearning—in the face of that Mystery, there are no words, and none of your learning helps you. Everything just is, and it's “good”. One of the most profound experiences I had was a meditative stillness that carried into my working day. I stood in front of a woman who was screaming, pouting and carrying on about something I no longer remember—and I just looked at her and marveled that she was here, how wonderful it all was that any of this was happening at all. There wasn't any anger, just amazement at the presence of the Mystery in everyone, even her at that moment. Life is an elaborate game, and all you can hope to do is to play along, and play fairly—just don't forget that you are playing.

Carl Jung's "Liber Novus" (The Red Book)

My recent trip to Hudson was only a couple of days, but you’d think I’d been gone for a couple of months. I’ve had so much to catch up on at home and at work, and I hate it when writing has to take a back seat to everything else. Now I’ve caught up with the essentials, so I’m hoping to be more consistent with my posts.

While in Hudson, both John Foxx and Arthur Price mentioned an exhibition going on in New York City that featured Carl Jung’s Liber Novus, or “The Red Book.” The exhibition is at the Rubin Museum of Art on 17th Street, and it runs until early January. I took some time on Wednesday after work to head into Manhattan to see the exhibition.

Some background on the Red Book—it contains some 35 accounts of experiments in “active imagination” undertaken by Jung while he was developing his psychological theory. After fulfilling many of the ambitions of his youth, Jung had a disturbing dream that led him to feel that he had lost touch with his own soul. These experiments in active imagination were an attempt to reconnect with his soul. The active imagination work is not dream work—Jung undertook this work in his quiet time, fully awake, using his fantasies as a means of uncovering the rich imagery of the Soul. Much of his own psychoanalytic technique developed from this private work. Dr. Sonu Shamdasani, who is the general editor of the new W.W. Norton edition of the Red Book and guest curator of the exhibition, said that this particular book is a critical key to all of Jung’s other work. It provides a context for Jungian theory.

The book itself is beautiful, created like an illuminated manuscript. It is huge—probably 40-48 centimeters in height, and from what I understand, almost 1,000 pages. Jung’s highly symbolic mandalas and other drawings illustrate the book, and it is written in calligraphic script, mostly in German and Latin. The Norton edition provides a translation after the facsimile. Jung created the pages on parchment, one at a time, and eventually had them bound together. He had the manuscript typed up and sent to colleagues for review. It appears that he had every intention of publishing it before he died, but it didn’t happen until now. The exhibition also features some of Jung’s original notes and drawings for the book. There is also a recorded interview with Dr. Shamdasani that is about 8 minutes long, and he offers some background about the book. The gallery is having two other types of events in conjunction with this exhibition—one is an “interpretation” of different pages of the Red Book by famous musicians, writers, and authors paired with a psychoanalyst, and a series of films inspired by Jung’s theories. There is more information about these events at the link given above. I haven’t been to either, but I am hoping to make it to at least one of the interpretation series, and one of the films before the exhibition closes.

I’ve made no secret about the fact that my writing is hugely influenced by Jung—all of the stories I’ve been getting published as of late are part of an interpretative collection of stories based on Jungian archetypes. And while my graduate school days were dominated by Erikson’s thinking (and I’m also very influenced by that), Jung is still quite central to my own worldview. I am looking forward to getting a copy of the Red Book in the near future, at which point I will be able to comment on it further. In the meantime, I highly recommend the Jung exhibit, especially if you have an interest in depth psychology—it’s a fascinating peek at Jung’s interpretation of collective imagery.

Hudson, New York and John Foxx

Yesterday I returned from Hudson, New York after seeing John Foxx at the BCB Gallery. This past April was my first visit to the gallery, which I blogged about here. The gallery proprietor, Bruce Bergmann, had featured some of John's artwork in his April exhibition, "The Peaceable Kingdom". I bought one of Foxx's pieces from him, and we've been corresponding ever since. At that time he mentioned to me that they were tossing around tentative dates in early November for Foxx to show a film at his gallery, but I'd kept that to myself as nothing had been finalized yet. The Hudson event was made official in July, and I immediately made my reservations at the Inn at the Hudson. Lodging is tough to come by that's within walking distance of the gallery, and it's still the best place to stay in the area.

The last several weekends in New Jersey have been crappy weather-wise, so it was nice to have a beautiful, sunny weekend for a change. I drove up to Hudson on Friday, and looked forward to an evening relaxing before the event on Saturday. On Saturday morning I went down to breakfast, and met a very nice man from Birmingham, Alabama called Arthur Price. Arthur is a painter, and had an exhibition at Hudson's Basilica Industria that he was planning to take down that day. I drove over to the Basilica with Arthur and his friend Angela to see it before they disassembled it. Arthur also invited his friend Rowland to come along who was staying across the street. Turns out that Rowland is rock photographer Rowland Scherman. You just never know who's hanging around in Hudson.

Arthur's work is magnificent--beautiful floor-to-ceiling canvases that need a large public space to be displayed. They are probably at least 8 feet tall each, and are painted on canvas cloth. (Pretty clever in terms of portability--he can just roll them up and take them to the next place). The images were very appealing, as his work has a Jungian, dreamlike quality--much like William Blake. My favorite piece was called "The Daughter of the Local Sorcerer", which shows a beautiful nude of a woman in the middle, surrounded by many emblems of knowledge--and secret knowledge. It was like looking at a dream image. A lot of his work represents figures from folklore and mythology. You can see a slideshow of Arthur's work at his website.

After saying goodbye to Arthur and Angela, I went back to the B&B for a short time, then headed to Bruce's gallery at noon. I got there just at noon. Bruce opened the door, looked at me, and said, "You're punctual, aren't you?" I looked around at the exhibition of John's work, which was beautifully framed and presented. Two or three American fans came in early--Tom, Eileen, and Maryann (and my apologies if I'm misspelling their names). John Foxx and Steve Malins showed up a little after 12:30, and they spent some time setting up the DVD, and John needed some time to rehearse his narrative cues for the film. Interestingly, John was testing the DVD output with his copy of Tiny Colour Movies. This was kind of funny, given that the film he was showing, "A Man Made of Shadows", was entirely in black and white. There was some initial difficulty with the output--the image from the PAL DVD was shaky, and John and Bruce spent a lot of time pushing buttons, saying "I wonder what will happen if I do this?" Eventually it was decided that color output was problematic, so they switched over entirely to black and white. John pushed some button that suddenly cleared up the image beautifully, so eventually it was set. I told Steve I'd never seen Tiny Colour Movies, and he asked John about showing it. John said, "No, I'm not showing that one today." He pointed out that the monitor was now black and white and this was Tiny "Colour" Movies. Steve suggested it could be a re-interpretation of Tiny Colour Movies in line with the Quiet Man. John laughed, but it was still a no go. One of these years I'll get to see John perform Tiny Colour Movies.

John was looking at his artwork, and we were discussing the resolution of the images. Many of them have obscenely high resolutions (he couldn't give me a number), and the process of combining the images can create files that are as big as 700 MB, which the computer just can't handle. Given the complexity of the images, the sharpness and clarity of them was magnificent. I asked how his computer handles the storage of all of this--he has a standard Mac with external drives appended to it. While that is the obvious solution, I imagine the downside would be trying to figure out where you put stuff (is that on Drive Z?).

John did not play any music for this event--he only showed "A Man Made of Shadows" and provided the narration. He gave a brief introduction to the film which I recorded--you can see it on YouTube here. Afterwards, he had a question and answer session, part of which you can see here. Bruce Bergmann was also recording--but my camera was running out of disk space, and Bruce's camera also shut off at one point. Sadly, neither Bruce nor I caught the best question and answer on tape (at least it was the best in my opinion...). Someone asked John about the religious imagery in his work. They were referring to the statues of angels and such that appear in his artwork. John said he never uses religious imagery, and in fact stays away from religion and anything smacking of spirituality in his work. The reason? He was born and raised Catholic, and decided to leave Catholicism after discovering masturbation. Whatever his own spirituality may or may not be, he thinks religious ideas can be dangerous. With regard to images of angels and such--he said angels were an idea of perfection, and humans are always trying to perfect themselves. Religion is one way that people do this, and while the dedication to self-perfection can be admirable, it can also lead to negative things--the idea of creating a "master race" and oppressing other people, for instance.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly already knows that my wheels are turning on this subject. I generally agree with John, though I think I see religion's function a little differently (though the "perfecting" idea is absolutely prevalent in the West). But I will save that for another blog post.

John spent a lot of time afterwards talking to fans, who were pleasantly surprised at his approachability. There is nothing of the "rock star" mentality in John, which is much to his credit. After a short break, we all came back for the exhibition opening. John was running a bit late for that, and showed up at about a quarter to seven. I spent a lot of time talking to Steve Malins, and another Foxx fan who went by "Mo", who had flown in from Los Angeles. John came over and joined us, and Mo had a lot of interesting questions for John about his musical and creative background. Mo works a lot with mathematics, and was trying to understand creativity and the creative process, in a left brain/right brain context. John suggested that music and mathematics are quite close, and that working with mathematics has a creativity of its own. It was a great discussion, just the sort of conversation I love to get involved with.

By the time the opening was over, we were all a bit punchy. A lot of photos were taken, and for some reason we all started wandering around testing the floorboards in Bruce's gallery to see which ones were the squeakiest. Bruce made dinner reservations at a nearby restaurant, and we talked a lot over dinner about a wide variety of things, mostly art-related. John mentioned an exhibition he wanted to see of Carl Jung's artwork, that is apparently going on in New York right now. That is certainly an exhibition I want to see as well. We all parted company at around 10:00, and John and Steve apparently left very early in the morning to head back to Manhattan. (For those of you unfamiliar with New York--New York City is probably 2 to 2 1/2 hours away from Hudson, in good traffic, 2 hours by train--almost 200 miles). Sunday was a gloriously beautiful Indian summer day, 73 degrees, so it was a wonderful day for the long drive home. I didn't sleep much Saturday night, so I spent time uploading the videos and photos I took at the event. You can see the photos of the event here.

Overall, it was an excellent and tiring day--thanks again to Bruce and Sam for their hospitality, and to John and Steve for making the trek across the pond. BCB Art will be showing John's work from the Quiet Man until late December, if you want to see it, and I recommend that you do--you can find the details about the exhibit here.

John Foxx in Hudson, NY on Saturday November 7

I'm currently in my room at the Inn at the Hudson in Hudson, New York. Tomorrow at 3:00, John Foxx will be at the BCB Gallery on 116 Warren St. in Hudson, showing the film/reading from the Quiet Man, his ongoing novel that has been interpreted in film and a lot of his music. BCB Gallery is also having an exhibition of John's work from the Quiet Man, and there will be an opening from 6-8pm tomorrow evening. Admission is free, so if you're around, please do come! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I saw John do the Quiet Man in London, and it's absolutely worth coming for the experience.

More information about the film and the opening can be found at the BCB Website

I'll be blogging about the event tomorrow or Sunday.

Shoe Genetics

I feel like Cracked.com should get some special award on my blog this week, as they seem to be the inspiration for many of my posts as of late. The latest one that has gotten my thoughts all twisted up is their post on buying shoes.

When we think of genetics, we tend to think about inheriting things like eye color, hair color, body type, diseases, etc. I have also wondered on occasion if certain habits that we consider a result of environment/upbringing aren't also genetic. Shoe-buying is one of them.

Like the Cracked post, it's easy to label shoe-buying as a woman-centric phenomenon. But consider the following example. My paternal grandmother was obsessed with shoes. When we cleaned out her closet at the time she entered a nursing home, she had a shoe collection that rivaled Imelda Marcos's. My sister has a similar passion for shoes. When I fly out to visit her, we'll jump in the car, and hit the mall. She'll always say, "C'mon, Bridge, let's go look at some SHOES."

Eh, not so weird you say. Typical female shoe-buying behavior. But consider that the other obsessive shoe buyer in my family is my father. Yes, that's right. My Dad--a working class, mechanically inclined, Korean war veteran, ditch digging, conservative Republican male--likes to buy shoes. I'm not sure why, and I don't think he knows, either. But he definitely owns more shoes than my mother. It makes me wonder if he didn't inherit this behavior from my grandmother.

As for me, if this is genetic, I didn't inherit it. I'm not a fan of buying shoes. I buy the cheapest pair I can find that looks halfway decent, and wear them until they break in half, or at least until they look like they've been attacked by rabid dogs. My favorite pair of knee-high suede boots cost me a dollar at a rummage sale, and are "still going." The last really nice pair of boots that I bought was purchased at a 75% off sale, and I was lucky enough to find my size. I'm just a real cheapskate with shoes.

But my cheapness is not without rationale. Years ago, I was told by doctors that I have "flawed" feet. This can be defined as "feet like my mother's". My mother is a beautiful woman, but has dreadful feet. One foot continually turns over on its side, all of the veins are broken and bruised, and she has a huge bone spur on the foot that turns over. She needs extra-wide shoes in two different sizes. My feet are not that bad, but they are threatening to head in that direction. My left foot does have a tendency to "turn" on its side, though so far, that's the worst that's happened. (I was born pigeon-toed and had special shoes to straighten that out, but that's a different matter). Nonetheless, my doctor suggested that I only wear certain types of sturdy shoes to keep my foot from getting any worse. She recommended Easy Spirits, as these were supposed to be excellent shoes for problem feet. Well. I bought a pair of Easy Spirits for $70. Within a month they were shot and had to be thrown away. In the meantime--the pair of shoes I'd picked up in a bargain bin 10 years earlier for $5 and still looked okay (and felt better on my feet) were still going strong. We tend to equate dollar amount with actual quality, but I think that shoes are the exception to this rule.

Best of Halloween (According to Me)

So, today is Halloween. Like most holidays, the build-up to it is usually bigger than the holiday itself. The most horrifying thing I'm dealing with today is grading mid-term exams, but I'm still watching some seasonally-appropriate video. Here is a list of some of my favorites in the "supernatural"/scary category:


Ghost Hunters: Season 2, Part 2, and Season 3, Part 1: The show has its ups and downs, but these episodes are seriously the best ever. They include the St. Augustine Lighthouse episode, the Stanley Hotel episode (first one), the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, the Stone Lion Inn, the Crescent Hotel, Leap Castle, and the Lisheen Ruins. Every one of these episodes has stuff happen that could make your hair stand on end. My father always complains that he doesn't like Ghost Hunters because most of the time, "nothing happens". A lot of things definitely happened in these episodes--full body apparitions on tape at St. Augustine and the Crescent Hotel, Dustin getting knocked flat by an unseen thing at Leap Castle, and the weird figures on the thermal imaging at Lisheen. Good to watch over and over again.


Paranormal State: Season 1: A lot of people have voted Paranormal State's "I am Six" episode as the scariest, but I think that the first season has some of the creepiest episodes. "The Dark Man, " "The Name", and "The Devil in Syracuse" are some of my favorites. (Did Elfie really do an LBRP in the "Dark Man" episode without invoking the names of God? Or did they just edit her piece?) I always get excited when psychic-medium Chip Coffey is on. While the other psychics are fine, Chip tends to amaze me consistently. Michelle Belanger is also very good, though I have to admit I find the whole "psychic vampire" thing a little weird.


The Haunting: This is the original movie made in the Sixties with Julie Harris and Clare Bloom. I had a chance to see this movie on the side of a mausoleum in Los Angeles, at the Forgotten Hollywood cemetery. Great fundraising idea--charge ten bucks to see a scary movie in a cemetery at night. They use the money to maintain and restore monuments in the cemetery. But back to the movie--it has all of the great elements of a scary movie: there are a lot of unexpected happenings after its dead quiet, and the thing that's haunting is very much unseen. It particularly affects Eleanor, Julie Harris's character. Given her history, you get the sense that it's a psychological as well as a physical phenomenon. Psychological horror is the best, in my opinion.


The Amityville Horror: I don't really know whether this was truly a hoax or not. The movie is a bit over the top (and the sequels were a waste of film), but I did see some of the time lapse footage from the real investigation of the place, and that made my skin crawl. If it wasn't faked, I don't know what the heck was going on--all I know is that this mysterious child with the creepiest eyes suddenly appears in an empty house at around 3:00 in the morning. I hear that the house had no more activity after that time, so it's hard to say just what, if anything, was going on. Still, real-life events, or ones that seem like they really could be real-life, are often the scariest. The music in the movie is really disturbing. For an interesting blurb on how music can affect the atmosphere of a movie, click here.

The Others: This was the movie with Nicole Kidman, living in a house on the Isle of Jersey that appears to be haunted. The twist ending on this was great.

Sleepy Hollow: The Johnny Depp film that features Christopher Walken as the Headless Horseman. I'm a huge fan of the real Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown area, and while this interpretation takes quite a bit of license with Irving's original story, it's still a cool movie nonetheless. I've seen versions of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow that are very true to the book, and honestly--they're annoying. Ichabod Crane is a truly irritating character. You want him to get his head knocked off.

Bram Stoker's Dracula: This Coppola film is my favorite Dracula interpretation. Yes, it's partly love-story, but it's just so very well done. I still cringe when they cut from the scene where the vampire Lucy's head is cut off to the roasted pig at the dinner table.

Blair Witch Project: Yes, I know. You either love or hate this movie. I know that when I saw it, I didn't sleep well for several nights. The wayward cameras are annoying, but it is sufficiently suspenseful--and once again, you don't see the "monster", so it's great.

Paranormal Activity: This one is still in theaters, so if you haven't seen it and like scary movies, do so. I slept with the lights on for a week after seeing this. Check out my blog posting from last week to see my take on Paranormal Activity. Great psychological horror.

Ah well, back to the horror of grading, some Sam Adams Octoberfest, and poetry writing. Happy Halloween! Oiche Samhain!

Interactions (Or the Lack Thereof)

Recently I read Cracked.com’s post on “7 Great Occupations for Horribly Stupid People”. The number one item on this list was “Best Buy employee”. Interestingly, the reason they were listed as the stupidest is that they constantly interrupted your shopping with the phrase, “Are you finding everything OK?”

I want to know where such Best Buys exist. There is a Best Buy that is a relatively convenient distance from where I live, and I used to go there to purchase electronics. Not anymore. For whatever reason, New Jersey Best Buys are staffed by hibernating bears. I will inevitably see some of them lumbering around, awake from their naps, when I enter the store. There is someone to greet me when I come through the door. I will find what I am looking for, which will be inside a case created for one of Houdini’s original escapes, and requires approximately 4,750 keys to open. My only hope of getting at the product I need is to locate a salesperson. At this point, the salespeople can detect that I need help. I can imagine an alarm going off in the employee lounge, that says “Alert! Customer needs assistance! LEAVE THE PREMISES IMMEDIATELY!” The whole store suddenly goes quiet except for whatever inane music they are playing, and the staff suddenly vanish. The ones who are not so quick to leave avoid eye contact and try to scurry out on their hands and knees to the nearest exit. You think I’m kidding.

I’ve discussed my “Best Buy” experience with other Jersey folk, and they have encountered a similar phenomenon. You might blame the drinking water or the mafia, but I suspect this is an East Coast thing. Best Buy employees that seek to help you are clearly working in the Midwest, or perhaps down South. It’s been years since I’ve been out to either part of the country, but from what I recall, everyone who worked in retail in Missouri or in Alabama was so nice that it made you suspicious if you weren’t from there. (They’re also really slow, but that’s another matter). When my brother moved to Austin, Texas from New York City, he was alarmed by his first grocery store experience, where they not only packed your groceries, but took them to your car for you. And they actually made pleasant conversation and thanked you for coming in. When I was traveling through Ohio and Indiana, every time I stopped at a store, restaurant or hotel, they acted like customer service was actually of personal interest to them, in spite of the fact that they were being paid 5 bucks an hour. You’d think you’d landed in Disney World or something.

On a minimally (OK, barely) related note, Facebook has changed their interface yet again, presumably in the name of improving our “experience”. I’m not as angry about the changes as some folks (I’ve stopped caring, truthfully), but some of the changes have had rather comical results. For instance—they’ve always had those annoying “friend suggestions”. They’re always helpfully suggesting that I friend people who are ex-boyfriends, stalkers, and other folks that I have, at some point, tended to spend some energy avoiding in my day-to-day interactions. Below the friend suggestions they now have this “new” thing to get you to “reconnect” with Facebook friends you haven’t interacted with in awhile, or to suggest friends for people who don’t have many friends. Some people who don’t have many friends do so by choice; others I look at and say, “Really? They actually HAVE 10 friends? In real life and not just Facebook land?” I can’t really help those people. I allowed them to friend me, even though I probably have little to do with them in day-to-day life, but perhaps they were a colleague, or someone I knew years ago. While I don’t hate these people, I do recognize there is a reason why they don’t have friends. (Sorry if that sounds mean, but it’s just a sad fact sometimes).

Paranormal Activity

I had the day off today, so on a whim I decided to go to the theater and see the new and hyped "Paranormal Activity" movie. Touted as the "scariest movie ever", I was more curious about the plot and its potential to be a great film without idiotic, expensive special effects. I make a point of avoiding Hollywood-made horror movies, because they leave so little to the imagination, and often overdo the blood and gore.

While I wouldn't call it "the scariest movie ever", it was still pretty scary, and lived up to my expectations. Here are some of my thoughts on the film. Bear in mind that the movie is a work of FICTION; there has been a lot of Internet hype suggesting that it's a real documentary, or based on a real story. It's not. However, from what I've heard from specialists who work on demonic cases, it's a reasonably accurate depiction of a demonic haunting (though I don't think the ending is particularly accurate).

The story centers around Micah and his girlfriend Katie, who live together in his house in San Diego. Micah is a day trader, and Katie is still at university, where she majors in English literature. The characters are played quite well; Katie is your typically sweet college girl, and rather naive. Micah is probably a fairly average guy himself, but he is also controlling, selfish and arrogant, three qualities that are trouble in this film. Katie will argue with him, but rarely has the will to stand up to him. We learn that Katie is plagued by some kind of weird activity, and has been since she was young (either 8 or 11 years old, I can't exactly remember). When she moves in with Micah, weird activity starts to occur, and he decides he is going to be an amateur ghostbuster and try to capture audio and video of the disturbances. He claims to be doing so to help her, but he's really doing it because he gets a charge out of seeing "cool" stuff on camera. He tells Katie to do things to provoke whatever it is (which she refuses to do), and he tries to provoke it himself. More than likely, he is afraid of what he doesn't understand, and tries to respond by bullying it or making light of it. But he makes things worse.

Katie asks a man who she refers to as a "psychic" to come in to give his opinion. This struck me as the most unbelievable part. First, the man is supposed to be a respected paranormal investigator, but he starts the whole thing by interviewing Katie, something a psychic would not do. They would get their impressions first, tell the client what they are, and then interview them for more info, not the other way around. This psychic identifies the entity as demonic, and says he's not qualified to deal with it, but gives her the name of a colleague who is a demonologist. Micah, who has spent the whole visit taunting and making fun of the psychic, tells her she should not call the demonologist, that he would figure out a solution. He suggests using a Ouija board, which the psychic flatly tells him is a bad idea, as he will be giving this thing an open door. Katie is dead set against the Ouija board, but Micah ends up bringing one in anyway. He doesn't actually use it, but its presence is enough to cause trouble. When the same psychic returns later, he won't even walk in the door, and tells her she will have to "wait" until the other expert comes back in a few days. Anyone called upon in an emergency situation who walks out like that without helping--especially someone who supposedly has a big network of paranormal investigators--well, it seems as incredulous as the idea of an EMT who won't help a dying person because they're not sure they properly remember a particular aspect of first aid. But I suppose the eventual lack of help is part of the story. I noticed that you could tell when something was about to happen by the sound--it sounded like a subway car coming, from the perspective of someone at the street level.

I don't want to give away any more of the film, especially the ending. As someone who is somewhat familiar with the subject of demonology and evocation, I found myself cringing at Micah's cretinous behavior. Clearly he doesn't believe in the phenomena, or thinks he can control it. If he had left well enough alone, and left it to the experts, all probably would have ended well. I can't help thinking of shows like Fear Factor and Extreme Paranormal, which basically dare people to try spirit communication or demonic rituals. I've already stated my opinion that most demonic activity is psychological in nature. That doesn't mean it can be controlled--it's actually harder to control. Just look at a simple example--the old "don't think of pink elephants" and you can't help but to think of pink elephants. It also doesn't mean that you're not dealing with something physical, or that can affect the physical. If you're not prepared for such things--and most people are not--then you're just asking for bad trouble. If you want to suspend disbelief and pretend this is a real case, Micah is really behaving evilly because his macho, arrogant behavior isn't just hurting him, it's destroying his girlfriend, who he professes to love. Of course, part of the whole thing may be the demon affecting his actions as well. It's hard to know.


In any case, I thought it was pretty well done for a low budget film, and I appreciated the fact that it was low on fancy special effects and left more to the imagination. That makes it much scarier to me--the scariest monsters are the unseen ones. The actors were very believable in their roles, and didn't overdo anything. There was a great buildup of suspense, especially when the camera was on the couple at night--you just knew something was going to happen, and you were never quite prepared for what. The ending was a bit shocking, though not entirely surprising, and not the least bit unjustified. If you like good horror flicks that are not gory, I highly recommend this one.

Positive Thinking

I was alerted to the publication of a new book this week entitled “Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. I have yet to read the book; it seems that the author’s premise is that the concept of “positive thinking” (something you wouldn’t need if you trusted in a good outcome anyway) has often made us put faith in ideas that are dubious, harmful, and/or just plain wrong. Thinking positively is a very American trait, and tends to make us think we’re the greatest even when we’re doing something very stupid.

I don’t want to comment further on the book until I’ve actually read it. But the idea is intriguing, and it addresses something I’ve believed for a long time. When the book “The Secret” came out a couple of years ago, I cringed at its message regarding the Law of Attraction. It may be a generally reasonable guideline to assume that a positive outlook attracts good fortune. But the idea that your puny rationalizations can overcome the psyche are naïve—often the mind controls us, rather than the other way around. Trying to use the mind to control the mind just doesn’t work. The mind is much bigger than you think it is.

Let me give an example. A couple of days ago, I had a post entitled “A Week in the Life”. In that post, I discussed all of the things that occurred during the preceding week of my life. If you read the post, you’d realize that nothing happened that was so awful or cataclysmic. I realized that too—I realized it all week. Yet, that entire week, I was anxious, drained and edgy, as though I was fighting some major battle or dealing with some overwhelming catastrophe. I kept telling myself, “Get a grip—none of this is a big deal.” Did that help one iota? No. Feelings can take you over like a tidal wave, and all you can do is swim frantically and hope that you don’t drown.

Eventually I did get myself on an even keel again; not through positive thinking, but through meditation. The point of going back to regular meditation after falling off schedule was to re-center myself. The re-centering allows you to deal with ups and downs as they occur, not to pretend that there are no downs.

If positive thinking worked, then diets would be successful long-term, all of our endeavors would have the outcome we wish for, no one would want for anything—just as long as they had the right attitude. But it’s a little like the rationalization for prayer (and by prayer, I mean petitionary prayer).If I pray to God, and don’t get what I want, then God either doesn’t love me or doesn’t exist. It’s the same idiotic nonsense. Life isn’t about getting everything you want. In fact, life—to paraphrase Joseph Campbell—is primarily killing and eating, on its most basic level. Life itself is suffering. We don’t suffer because we have bad attitudes. We suffer because that’s the way life is. But, as it was once said, “be sure you are not suffering over your suffering”. It’s our response that makes the difference. Frequently we can’t change our state of mind regarding something, but we can change, or at least limit, our actions. You could be angry enough at someone to want to pummel them, but unless you like getting arrested, you probably will restrain yourself from doing it.

Today I was re-watching the episode on myth from Joseph Campbell’s “Power of Myth” series. Campbell suggests that the basic myths of the Orient versus the Occident really affect how a culture develops. The primary myth he discusses is the idea of God being part of creation/nature, or being separate from it. In the West, we tend to believe we are separate, that nature is somehow “corrupt” (the idea that one must be baptized to get rid of original sin reflects this idea). Once you have that separation, you now have “right” and “wrong”—one must strive to do what’s right, and avoid what’s wrong. But that’s less of an issue in the Eastern worldview. Everything simply is, and it is “good” in and of itself—even the “bad” things. Life is a game, and you play it, whether you’re dealt a good hand or a poor hand—you just try to play fair.

Pointless Debate

A lot of recent events in the news, most of them political, have me thinking about the virtue of debate. Debates begin with the assumption that there are at least two opposing sides to an issue (with a variety of viewpoints in between), and the idea is to look at the facts supporting the opposing sides. Putting formal debate-team work aside, the intended goal of a debate is to reach some kind of conclusion about the most fair and correct response to the issue in question.

The news is full of discussions about health care, the war in the Middle East, Obama’s Nobel Prize, gay rights, and the economy. All of these are potential subjects for a healthy debate. However, I would submit that a healthy debate (i.e., one that actually accomplishes the goal of reaching a conclusion regarding fair action) would require the following prerequisites:

• The parties involved in the debate would to some degree have a tolerant and open mind.
• The parties involved would have to be “reasonable”—i.e., the debate must center around facts and logic. While one may feel emotional about a topic, that should be secondary to determining a solution.
• The parties involved in the debate will have done some authoritative research on the facts surrounding their viewpoint on the issue.
• The parties must accept that “winning” the debate on either side may never happen; frequently it’s the case that a debated issue has valid points on both sides, and a compromise may need to be reached. This would call for some humility.

In most “debates” on contemporary events, none of this happens, or not enough of it. Debate on an important issue more closely resembles WWE wrestling match than reasoned arguing between reasonable people. Quotes are taken out of context and facts are skewed just so one side or the other can claim a victory. There are no ground rules; it’s a dirty fight, and sometimes actual force is used against opponents.

It leaves me with two questions: What happened to our country that it no longer can function like it has some level of sanity?, and If this is the future of debate, is there any value in it anymore? As I’ve discussed previously, journalism is mostly dead. There is an article in Atlantic magazine by Mark Bowden that looks at “journalism in action” with regard to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. It’s a good example of how sound bites and quotes heard third-hand spread false information—and how those spreading it don’t care, as long as they gain a point “for their side”.

At a time in history when many barriers to communication between groups has disappeared, it becomes important for people with different backgrounds and viewpoints to live together peacefully. There is no need to take on every person with a differing viewpoint—it can be draining, disrespectful, and arrogant. Before I owned a house and a washing machine, I had to go to the laundromat regularly. There was always a Jehovah’s Witness lady there who kept trying to start debates with me about my beliefs. Of course, it wasn’t real honest debate—it never is with those convinced of the absolute rightness of their viewpoints. In the end, I told her to go f**k herself and leave me alone. Sound harsh for someone who is a professor of religion? Perhaps, but it is a case of the pointlessness of that kind of debate. Nothing I say or do will make this woman think beyond what she’s already decided, and there is no way I will ever believe what she believes. Not to mention the fact that when I’m trying to do my laundry, I don’t want to be bothered by strangers. Which brings up another point—our views are private and personal. We don’t necessarily want to debate them with everyone.

De Tocqueville once said that democracy requires eternal vigilance. Frankly, it seems that we have an overload of stupid lately, and those with intelligent reasoning are getting too exhausted to respond anymore. What is the point of fighting people who won’t engage in intelligent, honest debate—who aren’t even PREPARED to do so, or would rather use force that facts? The great irony of Obama’s vision of America and his inclusive politics is that the barbaric and ignorant attitudes of many Americans are now exposed. Turns out they didn’t go away when Bush left office.

So tell me—is there a value in debating these issues? Has an ugly reality eclipsed the ideal of reasoned debate? And if it has—then what are the alternatives? When the door-to-door missionaries show up, I can tell them to go away. When it comes to national issues, neither the President nor Congress can tell everyone to go away. But what do you do when civilized debate fails? “Decisive” leadership is seen as tyranny (and sometimes it is). The only other alternative seems to be backing down from hot-button issues and doing nothing, or doing something that will amount to nothing in the long run. Am I right about this? Please say no.

The Irrational and the Undead (or, Halloween Hermeneutics)

Halloween will be here in about 3 weeks. I love Halloween. October is when I have outdoor fires, bake lots of goods with cinnamon, apples, nutmeg, cloves--all of the Fall spices, drink lots of Irish coffee and hot chocolate, and read ghost stories. I used to watch a lot of television around Halloween time; there used to be lots of specials about ghost stories, "true" hauntings (presented in such a way as to make you question their veracity, but fun nonetheless), and other programs about the supernatural and such. Over the last ten years or so, I've given up that tradition, and restricted myself to specials I'd bought or recorded years earlier.

You may wonder why. There is no shortage of Halloween programs on certain channels at this time of year--SciFi (now SyFy--can you hear my eyes rolling?), USA, Fox Family, all of the major network channels, all of the movie channels--they are all Halloween geared during October. So why don't I watch them?

The main reason I shy away from mainstream television at this time of year is that the subject matter of Halloween-ish films has changed. I can't say for sure if this change came about because of movies like "Halloween" (all iterations), "Friday the 13th" (all iterations), "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and/or "Dawn of the Dead". But it seems to me that all Halloween-related movies are now about serial killers and zombies. The more blood and gore, the better. Scary stuff, I suppose. But is Halloween really all about being "scared" in such ways?

You could argue about the origins of Halloween, but I would suggest that Halloween as we know it comes from the Celtic New Year celebration of Samhain. Samhain was the end of the harvest season, the beginning of winter--and the time when the veil between the worlds was thin. One could contact their ancestors at this time of year. Indeed, many traditions like dressing up (usually gender-reversals in the ancient Celtic tradition) and bobbing for apples came from the old ceremonies celebrating the opening of the gates of the spirit world. Boundaries were thin, so the apparent roles and routines of the community were up-ended as well. It was part of the regular cycle of things, and the ancient Celts celebrated accordingly, and tried to reap the greatest benefit from the holiday by appealing to their ancestors.

You may or may not believe the bit about contacting one's ancestors and the "veil between the worlds" being thin. But that was the point of Halloween (a Christian naming of Samhain, meaning All Hallows Eve, as it's the day before All Saints Day), whether you do or not. It seems appropriate that one would contemplate life after death, would listen to ghost stories, and prepare for the coming winter. What I'm wondering is where the heck zombies and serial killers fit in to all of this. Okay, so they have to do with death, or states of un-death. Certainly vampires have become part of this "Halloweenish" lore as well. But mass media images tend to be a reflection on the culture, and so I say: Why these images?

Zombies are hugely fascinating to modern culture. Note the proliferation of zombie movies, the best-selling status of the Jane Austen knockoff called "Pride and Prejudice With Zombies"--even Cracked.com had a post on "Why you secretly hope for a zombie apocalypse." Out of all types of ghoul, why this kind?

One could never say for sure, but I think the zombies and serial killers have something in common--they represent solid flesh and blood (as opposed to a ghost one can't see), and at least one (the serial killers) could realistically be a threat. The odds are probably against it, but deranged, psychopathic people certainly do exist. It's less impossible than some of the alternatives.

In our culture that values science and scoffs at religion, that values reason and what can be seen and touched over what is pure speculation or perhaps fantasy--or with the paranoid religious that believe anything that smacks of the otherworld is "satanic" and should be avoided--I think we are gravitating towards the ghouls that can still scare us, and are a reflection of the current collective psyche. No one is unaffected by secular culture, even those who rebel against it. It seems to me that such frightening creatures are symbolic terrors of a secular society. One represents the deranged person that cannot be controlled by reason. The other represents a state of animation, but with no life--a frightening commentary on humans who are either controlled by their myths or have none at all. Movie zombies aside, how many people walk through life and never really are alive, never "live"? I would suggest that there are more people like this rather than less.

I am not suggesting that secularism is bad. But it's an indication that having nothing but reason in the face of uncertainty and death is not sufficient. Everyone has a question about the bigger picture. Neither religion nor science is providing a good answer for people, at least in Western society. That leaves the vast majority afloat in a sea of uncertainty, when the only things that are supposed to be of value are their bank accounts, their jobs, and their social status. A lot of people suspect there is more than this, but what can they do? What passes for religion these days (i.e., literalism--we're talking mass media here) is so absurd that anyone who thinks can't accept it. Yet the mystery still remains, but without any context, the speculation is scary. So, many people choose not to speculate at all--they live the lives others tell them to live, and shut out anything they don't understand. In short, they are zombies themselves. Hence, the attraction to the undead and the irrational at a time when speculation about uncertainty and death is at its yearly height.

A Week In The Life

It's a beautiful Fall Sunday, the kind that makes me want to go outside and do a million things and stay in bed at the same time. Fall is a gorgeous double-edged sword; beautiful weather, but more dust, mold, and allergens to give me a perpetual headache or sniffle. And that's with allergy shots, though I haven't had any in a couple of weeks. Even worse than headaches is the sensation that your head has the density of a bowling ball, and you can barely stand up or keep your eyes open. If it's happened to you, that's also allergies. It's exactly like taking Benadryl without taking Benadryl.

So, I am going to be more optimistic than I have been all week, and get myself outside today. Not that I haven't been out all week--you have not heard from me on this blog because my schedule has been screwed up more times than you can imagine. Here is a brief run-down:

Monday: Worked two jobs--taught my evening class in Religion, where my students seemed slightly more interested in the material than the week before. What irks me about my religion students (and I'm not picking on this group--it's true of EVERY group I've taught) is how uninterested they are in the Campbell/Moyers discussions. I usually show one or two episodes from the nine-part series in class--each episode is only forty-five to fifty minutes. They are absolutely frigging FASCINATING--even if you don't think much about religion, there's just so much to the discussions. My students always have the same reaction: "What do I need to pay attention to for the exam?" To be fair, I'm sure I was like that in some courses as an undergraduate. But it would make me feel vindicated if just one person showed an iota of intellectual curiosity about the subject. I know, I know--I expect too much from a gen-ed course.
But at least they could PRETEND. I'll settle for faking it.

Tuesday: Went to a class on prosody in Manhattan. This is an eight-week course on prosody that I have chosen to take even though I don't primarily write poetry. Believe it or not, I do write some poetry, but I think most of it is not very good, even for free verse. When I read about the poets who write good poetry, even the Moderns, they all had training in the discipline of prosody. I think that writing in meter and making use of literary techniques and devices can improve any kind of writing. The course is taught by David Yezzi, the former director of the Unterberg Poetry Center, who has his own body of published work, and has edited The New Criterion as well as other poetry collections. So far, I like the class, and the assignments are not daunting. We seem to have a mixture of people who are comfortable with disciplined meter writing off the cuff, and those who aren't. David is very good at working with the various skill levels in the class, so I think it will be an enjoyable eight weeks.

Wednesday: After a very productive day at work, I was looking forward to going home and relaxing. However, I came home to find a note from United Parcel Service on my door--they needed to deliver a package that required my signature. Long story short--the vet decided to have my cat's ashes mailed directly to my home rather than to them. I realize the vets are very busy and pressed for time these days, but this upset me. I would rather go there to pick up the remains than get them from the UPS guy. (Would you prefer to have the undertaker mail the remains of your loved one? Think about it). After a fruitless trip to the UPS facility (one used to be able to pick up packages when the trucks returned--no longer), I made arrangements to pick up the box the next day rather than have them deliver it. But it had effectively destroyed my plans for a quiet evening.

Thursday: Was on the run with work and errands (including picking up cat remains) until about 6:30 in the evening. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? No, except that I have to go to bed early during the week--I have to get up by 4:30 am for work each day. And I had to cook when I got home--I'd reached the point where the pantry has gotten low enough that I had to make a mess of dishes and cook something, rather than just throw together something simple. This would not be a problem on the weekend, but when I'm starving after a long day on the road...

Friday: I was really, really tired by Friday, so tired that I felt almost like I was on drugs. You force yourself to be very energetic and up, but it doesn't take much to make you totally crash. On Friday it was announced that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I intended to blog about this, but it never happened. The war over the Nobel Peace Prize took the rest of the energy that I had for the week--it absolutely raged on Facebook. My friend Chris has pointed out with regard to the debate that "every rose has its prick." I wanted to reply that I'd had enough pricks for the week, but someone would have doubtlessly interpreted my weekly activities differently if I'd said that. So, on that subject, I will say: Good for Obama. Yes, he hasn't done much of anything. Yes, I know the argument that one shouldn't give prizes based on potential accomplishment. Really, I saw the whole thing as a middle finger from Europe to the Bush Administration, but also as a statement to Obama. It's as though they're saying, "Okay, Obama, we're standing behind you and your promises of peace and cooperation. Now make it happen." The Cosmic Variance blog has a posting by Daniel that sums up his take on the prize, and I find that I agree with him. Rather than me restate what thirty thousand other bloggers have already discussed, I'll just point you to his excellent post here.

So, that's a week in my life. A typical week? Not necessarily. Some weeks have more things going on than others, some are more interesting, some are more boring. In the final analysis, I don't think it's what actually transpired that makes any difference, it's how I respond to it. This week has not been a great response week for me, and I tend to be hard on myself if I let things get to me. Which makes the problem worse, now that I think about it. Sounds like I need time out for some serious meditation or something.

Speaking of anxiety, I'll leave you with this interesting New York Times article on the "anxious mind". When I read the description, I realize it fits me and most of the people I know. Welcome to excessive stress hormone production by an overactive amygdala! No wonder we're all so drained.

Doppelgängers

This weekend I started and finished the book, "Seeking Spirits : the Lost Cases of The Atlantic Paranormal Society" by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson. If you've read my previous posts about the Syfy show Ghost Hunters (or if you are just a fan of the show), you will know that Jason and Grant are the lead investigators of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), whose cases are the focus of Ghost Hunters. The book is a fairly light read, so I easily finished it in a few hours. I highly recommend it--I couldn't put it down once I started it. Jason and Grant describe all sorts of cases, from demonic encounters to living ghosts replaying past events, to an old woman with dementia who forgot that she called them and threatened them with a frying pan after inviting them into her living room. They describe "human" hauntings, inhuman hauntings, and residual hauntings. But the one case that still has me scratching my head after reading the book was the one about the doppelgänger.

Doppelgängers are described by Wikipedia as a "sinister type of bilocation". One literally sees their double, or others who know them see their double. Traditionally, these are associated with bad luck or death. Supposedly, if friends or relatives see the doppelgänger, it means sickness or danger to the living person. If a person sees their own doppelgänger, it's supposed to mean their death. In neuropsychology, the doppelgänger phenomenon is supposedly explained by a failure of the left temporoparietal junction of the brain. In experiments, the failure of this part of the brain has led to the hallucination that there is a "copy" of the sufferer nearby. But none of this explains what happens in the story.

In the story told by Jason and Grant, they are called to a case by a man who thinks his wife is losing her mind--every time he tells her something, she swears he's never told her. He begins writing down exactly what he tells her, and the date and time. Every time she denies he's told her any of it, and gets miffed at the idea that she needs psychological help. Something occurs that makes him wonder if something paranormal isn't going on, so he calls TAPS. Jason and Grant quickly discover that there are 2 identical "women" in the house, even though both the husband and wife have a hard time accepting this. They try to bring the women together, but when they are just about to, the doppelgänger gets antsy, and takes off for another room, where she totally vanishes. After TAPS's visit and investigation, the doppelgänger stops bothering them, and is never seen again. The spirit could be spoken to just like a regular human being, and would answer, but never interacted with anything--it would never touch anything in the house.

The first and most obvious thought is that it's a hoax and the woman has a twin. But the woman is only seen for about 30 seconds at a time, and when Grant "corners" her in a room--thinking he can finally bring the real and fake woman together--the woman gets shaky, and turns and opens a door in the room to leave. But the "room" she enters is a clothes closet--there's nowhere for her to go. And upon immediate investigation, no one is in the clothes closet. Given how shaken up the couple was at discovering the doppelgänger (the "real" woman refused to believe anything was going on at all at first, and the husband was skeptical when told), it seems unlikely that it was a hoax--especially since the case was never intended to be publicized.

If we can assume it's not a hoax--then what the hell is it? Clearly this is not a failure of the temporoparietal junction--unless it failed in all 4 people involved. That would be logical if only one person was seeing the doppelgänger. If you look at the superstitions, the woman was not sick, or in danger--nor did she die. So, if you're a believer in that idea, that doesn't wash either. Why in the world--or how in the world--would a perfect double of someone appear in their house? Jason and Grant don't have the answer; neither do I. Anyone else have any thoughts or theories about this?

Small Towns

I am sitting at home today, taking care of some things before heading to Manhattan this afternoon. As a follow-up to last weekend's post, Andromeda the cat is now, as my undergrad metaphysics professor once referred to it, "a former cat". All of that pissing was due to diabetes--and very complicated diabetes. Faced with the prospect of a $12,000 hospital bill to flush her system, plus having to come home at the same time every day to give shots to a cat that would rip my arm off before she would let me give her shots, I opted for putting her down. It's weird not to have her here, but the stress level in the house has gone down considerably now that I don't have to worry about stepping in cat piss every morning.

I was perusing my usual RSS feeds and Fark.com, when I came across this article:

Ongoing Highway 11/64 Mattress Controversy

The Fark tagline for this was: "How do you know you live in a small town? When the "growing controversy" in the news that is driving talk radio debate is about a mattress left on the side of the road." Yes, people are protesting the fact that public works has not yet picked up this mattress discarded at the side of the road. It's been a hot topic on the radio for several days now.

Those of you who live in large, interesting cities will doubtlessly be in disbelief that someone would waste air time on something so utterly, banally inane. But I've lived in a small town for 6 years now, and I can tell you that this is no surprise. About three years ago, we had a heated political debate in our town about--get ready for this--the fact that speed bumps were placed along Main Street. People angrily strode into town meetings, complaining about not being consulted, treating it like a corrupt political decision. During the mayoral election that followed, the new mayor was elected (like Dave Barry, I swear I am not making any of this up) on the platform of being "the guy who will get rid of the speed bumps."

I rarely go into the local general store--only if it's snowing, and I can't get out of the neighborhood to go anywhere else and I'm desperate to pick up milk or something like that. The few times I've gone in there, it's like a scene from the movie "Deliverance". I would swear that I even hear people speaking with Southern accents. And we're in New Jersey--halfway between New York City and Philadelphia. They always look at you suspiciously, as though they suspect you are one of those hippie renters in town that they hate.

The other sign that you live in a pathetically small town is the prominence of the fire department. I realize the fire department is very important, and I'm not criticizing them. But the firemen are not out every day putting out fires, they're usually at some local legion hall drinking shitty beer. One's social status in town is connected with whether or not you are a member of the fire department or the ladies' auxiliary. I have had men in this town try to pick me up based on the fact that "they hang out with the fire department." And you people wonder why I don't date.

The main social event is a small town is the fire department's sponsored dinner or breakfast. I have never been to one of these, though I imagine they're every bit as exciting as they sound. I am grateful for my neighbor, who knows the gossip about everyone and everything going on in town, and likes to share the news with me while I'm out raking leaves or mowing the lawn. Her inclination to share local information saves me from ever having to attend some public event to find out just what's going on. Though honestly, I don't really care much about what's going on in the rest of the neighborhood. I only want to know about things that affect me, like changes to my water bill or garbage collection.

Recently, a friend of mine who lives in London posted info about a party he was giving at his flat for someone's birthday. Another friend of his posted video from this party. After seeing it, I had 2 questions: 1. Just how big IS your flat?, and 2. Do your neighbors hate you? If that were to happen in my neighborhood, not only would the neighbors hate you, it would probably spawn urban legends in a matter of days. On the plus side, the only thing the neighbors would actually do about it is make snide comments about you, probably at the local fireman's dinner, which you wouldn't attend anyway. No one has the gumption to actually talk to anyone about anything controversial here, especially if they're your neighbors. To be fair, some of the neighbors are rather strange, so it's hard to blame anyone for not wanting to talk to them, especially if they seem to have a violent streak. Murders and suicides do occasionally occur in this little town, and they're probably the only excitement.

Another characteristic of a small town is the lack of emphasis on education. Sure, most of our tax dollars go into schools, but most kids here do not go on to college, or at least not past community college. Most just want to go into a trade, which is fine. That's one of the perks, actually--if you want something done on your house, just call up your neighbor who does plumbing, or roofing, or whatever. And be sure to tell your other neighbors. This sets up a peer pressure situation; if the said contractor doesn't show up, he will be vilified by the community as doing bad business and lose money as a result. So, they always show up and the price is always half of what a big company would charge.

But getting back to education--there are only a smattering of intellectuals in my town, usually college professors who can't afford to live anywhere else. My neighbor once told me that when we talk, she can't understand half of what I'm saying because I "use all them big words". This is a failing of my own, actually. When I was 6 years old and in the first grade, I was in a fourth grade reading class. I took Latin for seven years, and French. You know those quizzes where you can donate 10 grains of rice to a poor village for every vocabulary word you define correctly? I think I fed an entire starving African nation with my score on that one. I nearly swooned with lust when John Foxx used the word "palimpsest" in a sentence at the London Apple Store event this summer. I love words. I'm something of a dork in that way. I apologize.

So--I'm dealing with a group of basically nice but rather isolated folks. The social scene doesn't do it for me here, but it's nice when I want to relax and be alone. There are lots of places to go hiking and such, and lots of places that make their own beer--really good beer. So, it's not all bad. But right now, I'm off to New York. Look for me in the audience on the Colbert Report tonight.