My Favorite Zombie Movie

“Return Of The Living Dead #3” isn’t just my favorite zombie movie, it is also one of my favorite films of all time.

This film was directed by Brian Yuzna and written by John Penney. The heroine is played by Melinda Clarke and the hero is J. Trevor Edmond. (Melinda Clarke, of course, later portrayed Lady Heather on “CSI.”)

George Romero’s genre-defining zombie films all have had a political subtext. Most clearly, “Dawn Of The Dead” was set in a shopping mall and we see repeated images of the zombies continuing to stagger through the motions of consumer life. “Day Of The Dead” presents military men at odds with scientists while ‘regular’ people just try to make it through the day. Direct-to-video, low-budget zombie films usually follow Romero’s example and at least pay lip service to using the genre to make some statement about zombies as externalizations of the political corruption defining society at large.

“Return Of The Living Dead #3” comes out of the blue and pushes aside genre conventions by delivering a coming of age, Romeo-and-Juliet story! All the typical elements of a zombie film are in place but the entire focus of the story is on a young man and young woman trying to find their places in life, making choices and dealing with the consequences of their choices.

It’s a classic tragedy, told within the trappings of government, business and social corruption and, of course, cannibalism.

It’s a great film that does all those things avant garde cinema is supposed to do. There are things to think about. There is counter-point imagery challenging any thought process at all. There’s emotional content that is sometimes underscored and sometimes undercut. There is tension and resolution without fakery, tragedy without pathos, a challenging viewing experience that repays the effort by delivering a unique assemblage of—to use words of the zombie lexicon—chills and thrills.

And the ending makes me cry every time I see it.

My favorite zombie movie: “Return Of The Living Dead #3”

“Return Of The Living Dead #3” Wiki Page

Rave To The Grave: Return Of The Living Dead #5

I’m talking about this movie today just because I watched it over the weekend and it was not nearly as bad as I anticipated.

“Necropolis: Return Of The Living Dead #4” was not just a bad movie—it was so bad it wasn’t even fun, totally without value. Apparently “Rave To The Grave” was made at the same time as “Necropolis” by the same director with much of the same cast but only recently released. That’s a bad sign.

However, “Rave To The Grave” is reasonably fun. It’s a bad movie, don’t get me wrong, but at least it’s a fun bad movie.

The heroine, Aimee-Lynn Chadwick, has a Tara Reid-like kind of pretty, inoffensive charm.

The DVD cover art is pretty cool. The Kari Byron-looking girl in the cover art, sadly, never appears in the movie. Too bad, because Kari Byron as an almost naked zombie would have made the film even more fun . . .

The special effects are generally adequate. There are a couple of terrible effects. Unlike many zombie films, however, “Rave To The Grave” builds to a large, outdoor conclusion, so at least there aren’t endless scenes of zombies staggering through corridors.

If you’re a fan of zombie films and if you enjoy fun bad films, “Rave To The Grave” takes this franchise back to the energy and fun of “Return Of The Living Dead #1.”



Tomorrow: My Favorite Zombie Film

Tiny Purple Fishes Swim Laughing

You thought the leaden winter
Would bring you down forever
So you rode upon a steamer
To the violence of the sun . . .

The colors of the sea
Blind your eyes like trembling mermaids
You touch those distant beaches
With their tales of brave Ulysses
How his naked ears were tortured
By Sirens sweetly singing
Now sparkling waves are calling you
To kiss their white-laced lips . . .

You see a girl’s brown body
Dancing through the turquoise
Her footsteps make you follow
Where the sky loves the sea
When your fingers find her
She drowns you in her body
Carving deep blue ripples
In the tissues of your mind . . .

Tiny purple fishes
Swim laughing through your fingers
She wants to take you with her
To the heartland of the winter . . .

Her name is Aphrodite
She rides a crimson shell
You fear you cannot leave her
For you touched those distant sands
With their tales of brave Ulysses
How his naked ears were tortured
By Sirens sweetly singing . . .

Tiny purple fishes
Swim laughing through your fingers
She wants to take you with her
To the heartland of the winter . . .

Sasquatch And Anime Girl, #4

Anime Girl

Oh, Sasquatch, a construction manager at the new Virgin suborbital tourist spaceport says that soon I must get used to hearing only wind in these trees, because his work crews will round up all the wildlife and relocate it to a nature preserve!

Sasquatch

Breath deeply and be at peace, Anime Girl! If any men or women in jumpsuits try to round up me and take me away from you their manager will need an orbital spaceship to collect the pieces of them that I don’t bother to eat.

Anime Girl

Oh, Sasquatch, your jaws can rip through flesh and bone like a person bites through toast, but when I touch your cheek you shiver like a kitten purring. I love you, Sasquatch.

Sasquatch

And I love you, Anime Girl. I love you.

Sasquatch And Anime Girl, #1

Sasquatch And Anime Girl, #2

Sasquatch And Anime Girl, #3

Triss

Enslaved by the evil ferret King Agarnu and his daughter Princess Kurda—slavers of shackled hundreds—the brave squirrelmaid Triss, along with Shogg the otter and Welfo the hedgehog, plans a daring escape by sea.

At the same time, far away in Salamandastron, three young companions, Scarum the hare, Sagax the badger and Kroova the otter, are driven to sail away from their mountain home, too, but for a different reason: they are seeking the adventures of their lives! Something far from family and home.

And in Mossflower Woods, a pair of wandering Dibbuns accidentally discovers the long-lost entrance to Brockhall, the most ancient hall of the Badger Lords.

The journeyers could not seem more remote from one another in pursuit or kind. Yet fate relentlessly draws them together when, in her flight from Kurda, Triss happens upon Redwall, and the abbey creatures discover a new hero in her. Someone brave enough to carry the sword of Martin and face the evil that threatens them.

Jacket copy from “Triss”
by Brian Jacques

I haven’t read all the Redwall novels. I read the first one, and one or two others. This is the fifteenth [!] book in the series.

The Redwall novels always make me think of the Tolkien novels and the American novel “Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH.” (“Mrs. Frisby And The Rats of NIMH” isn’t just my favorite talking animal novel, it’s one of my favorite books of all time.) But Brian Jacques writes without the heavy, portentous seriousness of those books. The Redwall novels are fun adventures. Bad things happen, but there seldom is the shadow of an all-encompassing doom looming over the story. I don’t like to compare books and films, but in this case I think the tone of the Redwall books can best be compared to the original release of the first ‘Star Wars’ film, before that saga got all complicated and dark with the ‘I am your father’ crap.

I’m reading “Triss” just because I liked the sound of, ‘the brave squirrelmaid Triss.’

I like brave squirrelmaids. But I haven’t met a brave squirrelmaid for a long time. Until a brave squirrelmaid comes my way again, this novel will have to do.

Redwall Wiki Page

Redwall Official Site

Redwall Wikia

Gloomy Bear

I understand that you began designing Gloomy Bear on postcards. Where did Gloomy Bear come from?

When I was a retained illustrator for a recruitment magazine, I was asked to draw a little girl holding a cute bear. I did it because it was my job, but I was thinking, “Bears aren’t really cute and cuddly...” and I doodled a small picture of a bear attacking a boy on the side. This eventually became Gloomy.


What is the story of Gloomy Bear? What is the message of this character?

If anyone really ran into a bear, they’d be terrified, right? If a real bear wandered into town, it would probably be shot. But in stuffed animal form, bears somehow become cute and cuddly. The same bear that we’d usually fear and kill. I convey the humor in this contradiction. There’s also the unfortunate fact that animals age faster than humans. I’ve always had pet dogs and cats, but they’ve all died. When the boy Pity finds Gloomy, he was still a baby bear. Another message I want to convey is that abusing animals is just as bad as abusing children who are unable to defend themselves. There are many messages within the Gloomy story and I can’t name them all, but each reader will probably understand it in his own way, which is the best way.

Mori Chack
quoted in “I Am Plastic: The Designer Toy Explosion”


Mori Chack’s Wiki Page

Gloomy Bear Net

RIP Brad Delp (June 12, 1951 – March 9, 2007)

I woke up this morning and the sun was gone
Turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away ...

It's more than a feeling (More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song
    they used to play (More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming (More than a feeling)
Till I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walking away

So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by
Yet I still recall as I wander on
As clear as the sun in the summer sky ...

It's more than a feeling (More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song
    they used to play (More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming (More than a feeling)
Till I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walking away ...

When I'm tired and thinking cold
I hide in my music, forget the day
And dream of a girl I used to know
I closed my eyes
And she slipped away ... (She slipped away)

It's more than a feeling (More than a feeling)
When I hear that old song
    they used to play (More than a feeling)
I begin dreaming (More than a feeling)
Till I see Marianne walk away
I see my Marianne walking away ...

Brad Delp's Wiki Page

Tom Scholz Remembers Brad Delp

Brad Delp’s suicide note: I am a lonely soul



Tom Scholz Wiki Page

BOSTON Wiki Page

Surfacing Like Well The Loch Ness Monster

For the last few days thoughts of the Loch Ness monster

have been surfacing like well the Loch Ness monster

surfacing making an appearance then going

leaving nothing but the memory of a sighting

going without context and without evidence

except for this imperative to write these words

but it’s a deep imperative itself rising

from depths within me even deeper than Loch Ness

and were this imperative a Scottish monster

it would surface and it would look south toward Ireland

and it would say, “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Brenda!”

“A Most Excellent Philosophy”

There was a crash of splintering wood as the prow of the enemy rammed the Gregory galley amidships. Already listing crazily, she careened to the impact; and as the water poured over her port gunwale, she began to sink, leaving her passengers floundering in the river and her slaves screaming in their chains; then the other galleys moved in to pick up the survivors.

D’Arnot and Helen were dragged into the galley farthest up stream, which immediately set out for Ashair. The other members of the party had drifted down stream before they were finally picked up by a second galley. Tarzan had swum beside Magra, encouraging and supporting her, while Gregory, Lavac, and Ogabi remained nearby. Night was falling, and it would soon be dark in the narrow gorge. When they were in the craft, they saw that Thetan was already there, having been picked up before they were; but Helen and d’Arnot were not there; and the boat in which they were prisoners was out of sight around a bend in the river.

“Did you see anything of Helen?” asked Gregory, but no one had.

“I could almost wish that she drowned,” he added. “God! Why did I ever undertake this stupid venture?”

“It would have been better had we all drowned,” said Thetan. “There is no hope for those who fall into the hands of the Asharians.”

“All that has happened to us so far,” said Tarzan, “is that we have gotten wet. Wait until something really bad happens before you give up hope.”

“But look at what lies ahead of us!” exclaimed Lavac.

“I do not know what lies ahead of us, and neither do you,” the ape-man reminded him; “therefore we might as well anticipate the best as the worst.”

“A most excellent philosophy,” commented Gregory, “but a strain on one’s credulity.”

“I think it is good,” said Magra.

AquaBabies

I’m not a pet person (except for Sea Monkeys, as in “Science” and “Cryptobiosis”). But if I were to attempt to keep pets, I’d try an AquaBabies container.

Unlike a full aquarium, an AquaBabies container is small and requires no air pump to be plugged in and chugging away constantly. Although the container is small, it attempts to create a reasonably complete eco-system inside. There is active gravel, with microbes breaking down waste products. There is a plant adding some oxygen to the water. There is a snail eating away at some of the growth that will form on the inside walls. And, of course, there are a couple of little fish.

There is no filter to maintain. In fact, the only maintenance is to feed the fish every couple of days, change a portion of the water now and then, and once or twice a year clean the inside walls.

The only thing that troubles me is that it is a very small container. Even though the fish are small, too, I wonder what kind of life the fish experience never being able to cut loose and swim a long distance or swim very fast.

I’m giving AquaBabies some thought. If I take the plunge and invest in an AquaBabies container and pets, I’ll post further. I’m thinking of getting an AquaBabies container with a couple of Cherry Barbs or White Clouds.* If I do, they could become this blog’s mascots . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* As I said, I’m not a pet person. When I was in high school, I had a five or ten gallon aquarium with neon tetras and angel fish. One morning getting ready for school I accidentally bumped against the little heater that kept the water warm. (This was in Chicago. Even indoors gets cold in the winter.) So I went off to school without realizing the heater was cranked up and later I got a call to report to the dean’s office. My mom was calling from home. She told me she had to unplug the heater because the aquarium was actually boiling and all the fish were dead. It was a pretty horrible scene when I got home, all those poor fish. (At least with an AquaBabies container if I screw up I won’t be committing mass murder . . .)

Real Life Shapeshifting

The quest for the biological roots of violence—and there may be others besides serotonin and noradrenaline—draws on a wide variety of research, including studies of insects, monkeys, reproduction, and heart disease, in addition to brain chemistry.

None provides a more vivid example of the environmental-genetic link to violent aggression than the Grand Canyon Tiger Salamander, nature’s version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The salamanders live in ponds along an isolated rim of the Grand Canyon. When water and food are plentiful, the salamander is in its Dr. Jekyll form—a gregarious, peace-loving insect eater. But when the water begins to dry up, food becomes scarce and living conditions become unbearably cramped. Then some of the salamanders go through an amazing Mr. Hyde transformation.

Environmental pressures rapidly alter the function of some of their genes, creating changes in their physical shape and making them aggressive. Muscles enlarge to make their heads and mouths bigger and they grow a new set of huge teeth, adaptations that allow them to attack and eat other salamanders.

They become cannibals, but only for a short time. Once they’ve gobbled up enough salamanders to reduce crowding, they turn back into Dr. Jekylls. Their heads shrink to normal size, their cannibal teeth disappear, and they dine on insects again.

Ronald Kotulak
“Inside The Brain”


These paragraphs also are quoted
where I first saw them, in:

“Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, And Survival”
T. S. Wiley, with Bent Formby, Ph.D.

“Will Slime Molds Take Over Our Moon, Now?”

The last sphere having been planted he reflexively gathered up the empty carton and the small shovel, started toward the ship.

Following, Annette said, “Will slime molds take over our moon, now?” It occurred to her that perhaps this was part of Terra’s plan for conquest. But the idea did not ring right; this man had all the appearances of someone working in stealth alone. It was too much a Pare-like idea for her.

“You could do a lot worse,” Rittersdorf said laconically. He disappeared into the ship; after hesitating she went in after him, blinking in the bright overhead light.

There on a counter lay her lead-slug pistol; she had put it down when she was involved in filling the container with water.

Picking up the pistol Rittersdorf inspected it, then turned to her with a peculiar expression, almost a grin, on his face. “Yours?”

“Yep,” she said, humiliated. She held out her hand, hoping he would give it back. However he did not. “Oh please,” she said. “It’s mine and I laid it down because I was trying to help; you know that.”

He studied her a long, long time. And then handed her the pistol.

“Thank you.” She felt gratitude. “I’ll remember you did that.”

Philip K. Dick
“Clans Of The Alphane Moon”

Jack Chick

I don’t want to let a week about comics end without at least mentioning Jack Chick.

If you ask average comic book fans what company is the most influential comic book publisher in the world and what artist is the most influential comic book artist in the world, they’d probably say something like Marvel Comics or maybe Dark Horse, and they’d probably say somebody like Frank Miller or maybe Alex Ross. But measured against almost any criteria outside comic book fandom the correct answers would be Chick Publications and Jack Chick.

The special irony in this is that many comic book fans never even have heard of Jack Chick.

Jack Chick is almost unknown to comic book fans because instead of using his skills and resources to spread the unrelentingly depressing existential nihilism that is entrenched as something like religion in the modern comics world, Chick is an Evangelical Christian and since 1970 has been creating comics which promote the Sola scriptura, ‘Born Again’ Christian approach to Jesus.

Jack Chick creates those pamphlets, tracts, people always see scattered about.


Millions of people all around the world have come to Jesus through their exposure to the Gospel in Chick’s tracts. Unlike many preachers, Chick doesn’t promote this or that committee’s understanding of religion. He preaches Christianity as he understands it. He almost always lets the Gospel speak for itself, using comics to create an appropriate context for the Word.

Sadly, Chick’s zealous passion for Evangelical Christianity has allowed him to fall prey to almost every bizarre anti-Catholic conspiracy theory that has ever existed in the Protestant world. Among many Catholics, Chick is known not for his great work at helping lost souls find Jesus, but for the comics he has created encouraging people to separate themselves from all things Catholic. In the Catholic world, Chick has been so influential at turning young people away from Catholicism that the Church has mobilized against him.

Chick has created, all by himself, a fuss almost as big in the religious world as the EC Comics scare was back in the Fredric Wertham days. In our day which idolizes rebels, one would think this alone might have made Chick famous. But pop culture almost never shines a spotlight on a Christian rebel. (Unless he’s a bona fide nut like David Koresh.)

But Jack Chick’s career is a great example of the power of comics. He is one guy working alone—or with one or two ghost artists—and he has created a movement that has influenced millions.

That’s pretty cool.

Captain America Has Been Cut Down By A Sniper

“In a telephone interview yesterday, Marvel Comics editor in chief Joe Quesada dismissed suggestions that Captain America’s demise was staged to boost sales.”

Superhero’s death stuns the faithful
Don Aucoin and Joseph P. Kahn, Globe Staff | March 8, 2007

Is Paris Hilton A Superhero?

Well, she has a cool pink uniform (and a sidekick, Tinkerbelle!). But having a signature outfit, a “look,” in and of itself certainly doesn’t make you a superhero. I don’t think many people would wonder if Tom Wolfe might be a superhero or not.

I am going to consider Paris Hilton as a possible superhero in one particular context.

Modern comics allow for supervillains who are complex, if tragically flawed, human beings. (I’m thinking here of “Lex Luthor: Man Of Steel” as the pinnacle of modern comics.) However, modern comics present superheroes as, typically, one dimensional and, often, not human at all. But superheroes exist not just in comic books. Superheroes got their start in literature with characters like Hercules and Beowulf in ancient texts and characters like Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel in more modern books.

I want to discuss Paris Hilton as a superhero in the context of the novel “Atlas Shrugged”.

“Atlas Shrugged,” in its own terms, is a grand-scale, operatic—that is, comic book-like—story of a smart, creative, energetic and good-hearted young man named John Galt who becomes disgusted with the oppression and corruption of the modern world. Instead of retreating into a Holden Caulfield-like funk, John Galt resolves to change the world. One by one, Galt identifies other people like himself—the smart, creative, energetic and good-hearted “movers and shakers” in the world—and talks philosophy with them. They come to see that by participating in the modern world they are enabling the oppression and corruption to continue and expand. So, one by one, the movers-and-shakers decide to withdraw, to stop participating, to go “on strike.” They go off by themselves and disappear from their normal lives in the world at large, leaving oppressive and corrupt people to fend for themselves, to turn against themselves and destroy each other. (There are also romantic entanglements and a convoluted religious sub-text but those are incidental to the larger events.)

John Galt’s best friend in the novel is a character named Francisco d’Anconia. Francisco has been described this way:

“The wealthy and accomplished Francisco is a profoundly intelligent and highly successful man whose whole life is a paradox. He was the first man to join Galt’s strike and serves as its recruiter, living in two worlds as he tries to bring others over to the strikers’ side. Although he is a brilliant businessman, he deliberately destroys d’Anconia Copper and brings down the fortunes of many others with it. And although he has only ever loved Dagny, he plays the part of a promiscuous playboy as a cover for his real activities. He is enthusiastic and benevolent, although much of his strike-related activities cause others, especially Dagny and Rearden, to feel he is mocking and untrustworthy. Francisco has a profound effect on Rearden, whom he genuinely loves, even while knowing Rearden is Dagny’s lover. He serves as Rearden’s protector, arming him with the moral certainty he needs to battle the looters. He seems to appear at Rearden’s side when he is needed most, and saves his life in the mill riots.

“Francisco’s commitment to the strike is absolute, but he suffers a great deal for it. First, he must give up Dagny and allow her to view him as depraved and worthless. Later, he must endure Rearden’s hatred as well, when he is forced to betray him in a copper deal. And he must continually work to destroy the company his family built for generations. But the suffering is worth the price for him, because he is sure that he is right. Eventually, Dagny and Rearden come to understand and admire him, and the strike he devotes his life to works as planned.”

Rather than just withdrawing from the world, Francisco allows himself to appear as exactly what the oppressive and corrupt people of the world want him to be—a tool, a fool to be exploited. However, Francisco uses his skills to manipulate the oppressive and corrupt people themselves so that their machinations repeatedly crush their own enterprises and lead them again and again into greater and greater ruin.

Now, I am certainly not saying Paris Hilton is making a career of undermining the Hilton empire to prevent looters from exploiting it. I am not saying Paris is Francisco. But I am saying the example of Francisco’s “creative destruction” provides an intriguing backdrop against which to view the absurd, pop culture wreckage around Paris Hilton.

Characters like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan began their public careers within the Disney empire. They were constructed and manipulated creations. They were designed and crafted to strip-mine money from children and adults foolish enough to believe in the Disney creations, or in such desperate denial about reality that they elected to believe in the Disney creations.

Paris put an end to that. Partying with Paris, characters like Britney and Lindsay revealed themselves to be all too human, revealed the Disney reality for the bogus sham it always has been. As sad as it may be seeing the real human beings behind the characters like Britney and Lindsay suffering personal tribulations, the destruction of the false images the pop culture industry had built around them was a genuine service to the world at large.

Shattering the Disney facade was a good deed. It was a good deed on a grand, operatic, comic-book-like scale. It was the kind of good deed a superhero would do.

Paris Hilton’s career, seen as repeated exercises in creative destruction after the fashion of Francisco d’Anconia, is consistent with what the career of a modern superhero might look like.

Is Paris Hilton A Supervillain?

Danny Bonaduce thinks so: “She's like Typhoid Mary. She carries the infection, but it doesn't affect her. Everybody she befriends ends up in rehab. Not her!”

Judged against yesterday’s seven characteristics of supervillains Paris Hilton’s public image certainly measures up to some of the requirements. As an heiress to the generations-old global Hilton business empire Paris has access to vast wealth and power. And anyone who reads newspapers or watches TV or surfs the web knows Paris’s desire for publicity and fame is unbounded.

But what about the mentality of a supervillain? The sense of victimhood. The “wound” from which there is no recovery. At first glance the public image of Paris Hilton is remarkably free of shadows and real or imagined pathos. But it is possible to look more closely. A closer look reveals some intriguing inconsistencies and contradictions within Paris’s public image.

I’m going to put up a few quotes from Paris Hilton’s book, “Confessions Of An Heiress,” written with Merle Ginsberg. Of course, it’s impossible to say how much of this book Paris wrote and how much is the work of her co-author. But I looked for little things—attitudes and expressions of character—rather than specific facts or specific opinions. These in-passing glimpses strike me as the kind of insertions Paris herself may have contributed to the book. And they strike me as quite revealing.

• For instance, on page 103, Paris discusses how much she enjoys having fun. “I like to have fun in almost any form. That is truly what being an heiress is all about. After all, hasn’t it been said that having fun is the best revenge?”
  
  Having fun as “revenge” is an interesting justification. It’s all the more interesting because Paris never elaborates on who she is getting revenge on, or what she is getting revenge for. Righteous revenge is simply implicit to Paris’s thinking. Is that an expression of a “wound” from which she’ll never recover?
  
  
• On page 5, Paris discusses sin and something worse. “There is no sin worse in life than being boring—and nothing worse than letting other people tell you what to do.”
  
  First, Paris doesn’t say the worst sin is being “bored,” she says the worst sin is being “boring.” But she doesn’t say what group or type of person she is afraid of appearing boring to, or why their opinion not only drives her but shapes her very being. Second, Paris says that even worse than that—worse than the worst sin—is letting people tell you what to do. But here, as throughout the book, Paris provides no examples of anyone even trying to tell her what to do. What could have happened to her, and when, to have shaped her character this way, defined her by fear of ever taking direction from others coupled to the imperative to always appear “not boring” to others?
  
  
• On page 24, Paris discusses her childhood with her younger sister Nicky. “When we were little, we’d fight over silly stuff—like if I would swear, she’d tell my mom. That made me so mad. I had to teach her not to tell. I would pull her aside and explain that it was us against them, that we two girls were a team.”
  
  I note that Paris says “my mom” and not “our mom,” but what really strikes me here is that even as a child Paris was thinking of her life as “us against them.” Not her and Nicky against their mother. Paris uses the plural, “us against them.” And, like her desire for undefined revenge or the undefined “others” she wants to appease without obeying, Paris never tells us who the “them” refers to.
  

Contradictions reveal that people are either lying to us or to themselves. Or both. And blunt, bald-faced lying reveals a lot about a person’s charcter.

• On page 20, Paris begins her discussion of her sister Nicky. “I was never jealous of Nicky after she was born. I was happy to have someone close.” But then, on page 29, Paris recounts, “Nicky’s godfather, Parviz, was my dad’s best friend. He would always give her a hundred dollars on her birthday. (Where was my hundred dollars?) I soon realized that if I got a toy Nicky wanted, I could sell it to her for the hundred dollars! She was sooo young and looked up to me, so she went along with it. Then I’d buy another toy for myself and keep her money.”
  
  Paris wasn’t jealous of Nicky, except when she was. And they were “a team” except when Paris wanted Nicky’s money.
  
  
• On page 137, Paris discusses the ethics of lying to men. “Try to be as honest as you can because you’ll always end up getting caught if you lie. They can tell when you’re lying. It’s been said that women have a sixth sense, but men have excellent intuition when it comes to girls lying to them. (I’ve learned my lesson the hard way on that one.) If they think you’ve lied, chances are they won’t trust you again.” But then, on page 140, Paris writes, “Always have a list of good backup guys in your head, and when you spot one of them—even if you’re with your boyfriend—smile at him with the look of “Who knows? You could be next.” He’ll get it. Just don’t get caught. And if you do, deny it. Heiresses are very good liars when they have to be.”
  
  First, Paris recommends not lying not because it’s wrong but simply because “you’ll always end up getting caught.” Second, she recommends lying anyway.
  

But possibly the most interesting contradiction in “Confessions Of An Heiress” turns a spotlight directly on Danny Bonaduce’s issue with the people around Paris wrecking their lives.

• On page 87, Paris discusses partying. “When I see people in embarrassing situations, I never laugh at them, because I always feel really bad for them. I know how they feel.” But on page 86, Paris had just written, “At parties, everyone always thinks I’m drinking—but actually I rarely drink. I live on energy drinks, basically. I LOVE Vitamin Water. I have cases in my house. I drink energy drinks and Vitamin Water all night. That’s how I manage to stay up late and never smudge my makeup or mess up my hair. ... But it doesn’t bother me when my friends drink. I think it’s fun to watch people who are wasted. It’s weird, to watch it all. You really read people a lot better. It’s funny to watch people and realize how dumb they look.”
  
  Paris doesn’t “laugh at” people wrecking their lives. But she has “weird” “fun” “reading” people as they wreck their lives.
  

*

The purpose of these excerpts isn’t to prove Paris Hilton is a supervillain. Rather they are indications of a depth to her psyche, shadows not normally seen in her public image. And they are consistent with the mental characteristics of a supervillain, the mentality of victimhood along with the solipsistic selfishness of the supervillain against the world.

*

Tomorrow I will look at an altogether more complicated question. Having considered the supervillain role, I will consider the opposite. Tomorrow I will discuss, Is Paris Hilton A Superhero?

Seven Characteristics Of A Supervillain

1. The supervillain has a selfish, antisocial mission. The supervillain seeks something—typically wealth or power, but often fame or infamy in addition—that will serve his interests and not those of others or the larger culture.
   
   
2. Supervillains are superior to the ordinary authorities. They have cunning, genius, resources, powers or extraordinary abilities that render the ordinary agents of the social order helpless to stop them, or at least put the authorities at a distinct disadvantage.
   
   
3. The supervillain’s dream reaches far beyond the acquisitive scheme of the ordinary crook. The supervillain is an artist whose medium is crime.
   
   
4. The supervillain’s mania is what raises him above the common person and above the common criminal. It is this mania that permits the supervillain to view the epic criminal acts as art or as analogous to great accomplishments in other fields and also to accomplish (or nearly accomplish, as he is almost always stopped by the hero) his great scheme.
   
   
5. The supervillain’s selfishness is absolute, solipsistic. He sees himself as the center of existence.
   
   
6. This self-aggrandizement arises from a sense of victimhood, from a wound that the supervillain never recovers from.
   
   
7. The supervillain’s wound prompts him to monologue, to sit the hero down—whether to dinner or in a death trap—and tell his story.
   

“The Supervillain Book”
Edited by Gina Misiroglu and Michael Eury

Tomorrow: Is Paris Hilton A Supervillain?

Happy Birthday Theodor Geisel!

Today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss! (Theodor Seuss Geisel, March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) Also, this year “The Cat In The Hat” is celebrating it’s fiftieth birthday.

I learned to read with Dr. Seuss. I’d sit in my Mom’s lap and she’d read the stories and point at the words. We’d do the same stories over and over and, soon enough, I’d be able to say the words by myself. I was one of those kids who could read before he even got to school, and I owe it all to Dr. Seuss. (And, I guess, my Mom.)

The coolest learning-to-read story I know is Richard Brautigan. His mother would take him shopping with her and he would look at the labels on packages of food. He learned to read by matching the kinds of food in the pictures to the lettering on the packages.

Mandelbrot Flirt

“Stop looking at me that way,” she said.

He’d heard it before. He said, “What way?”

She said, “Don’t tell me it’s all just play.
Undressing me with your eyes instead
of ripping fabric and tearing thread
still’s violence if I don’t say you may.”

Conversation’s a fractal display
with deep patterns inside to be read.

He said, “Sorry for my deception.
I’m not going to make up some lies.
Maybe we both can work out a plan.”

He phrased his desire as a question.
“May I take off your clothes with my eyes?”

She giggled. And she said, “Yeah, you can.”

Anna Nicole Smith’s Dead Body, Jokes 1, 2 and 3

- - - - - - - - - - 1 - - - - - - - - - -

Why did the chicken cross the road?

It wanted to see how badly decomposed the body of Anna Nicole Smith has become waiting to get buried.

- - - - - - - - - - 2 - - - - - - - - - -

How many dead bodies of Anna Nicole Smith does it take to change a light bulb?

Don’t even worry about light bulbs, the camera crews bring their own spotlights.

- - - - - - - - - - 3 - - - - - - - - - -

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

The dead, decomposing body of Anna Nicole Smith.

The-dead-decomposing-body-of-Anna-Nicole-Smith who?

— If I may interject here, my client, the-dead-decomposing-body-of-Anna-Nicole-Smith, cannot comment on that at this time because it is the subject of pending litigation in three courts in two countries, thank you.

A Mischa Barton Loose End

Mischa Barton is one of my two favorite pop icons.

Anna Kournikova is my favorite pop icon for magical prettiness. Mischa Barton is my favorite pop icon for magical beauty.

I’ve written about Mischa a couple of times. I wrote about her directly in Mischa Barton, Mischa Barton. And, as I wrote there, I used to know a young woman who looked very much like Mischa Barton and that amazing, high-fashion kind of magical beauty was on my mind when I wrote the Loch Ness monster story, Ashley And The Green Sweater (Part One), Ashley And The Green Sweater (Part Two) and Ashley And The Green Sweater (Part Three).

Last month, January 24th, was Mischa Barton’s birthday. She’s now twenty years old. It bothers me that I missed it, but better late than never.

Belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mischa Barton!

(Of course, I won’t forget next year, because next year Mischa will be able to buy me a drink . . .)

In The Realms Of The Unreal Right Here

This morning I walked to a local grocery store to buy the daily paper and a lottery ticket. Susan, the woman from the service desk at the grocery store, took my dollar fifty and handed me a lottery ticket. “Everything rolled over again,” Susan said. “The small lottery is five hundred thousand and the big one is two hundred and sixteen million.”

“Wow,” I said, “if I win one of those I can retire to Evanston.” I was making a little joke. Evanston, Illinois, is not normally thought of as a retirement destination.

But it wasn’t much of a joke, even for a little joke, and Susan asked me if I was talking about the big lottery or the small one.

Walking home, I wondered to myself why I’d picked Evanston as an ‘ironic’ retirement destination. Actually, I think I’d enjoy retiring to Evanston. It’s a college town. Lots of young people. Northwestern isn’t exactly a party school—there isn’t a lot of that kind of energy—but there are midnight movies and clubs and people with enough energy to stay up all night to watch the sun rising above Lake Michigan.

I’m not terrified of growing old. I’m not terrified of age per se. Everyone gets old. I’m not even afraid of dying. Everyone dies. I am terrified, however—terrified beyond words—of becoming out-of-touch and irrelevant. (Even as I type that I’m correcting myself in my mind to say I terrified of becoming more out-of-touch and more irrelevant.)

But, then, even as I think that I remember the case of Henry Darger.

It’s difficult to imagine anybody more out-of-touch and irrelevant that Henry Darger. Yet the images and writings Darger created are a kind of magic that now inspires millions of people all around the world. And, in fact, if Darger had been more in-touch and relevant the things he created might have been bogged down by reality—transformed into things not magical but, well, crazy in a bad sort of way.

So, maybe I shouldn’t be terrified of becoming out-of-touch and irrelevant. (Or more out-of-touch and more irrelevant.) I think the only real danger in life is letting anything—the presence of the world or its absence—mess up your work.

That having been said, however, of course it’s much easier being afraid of aging badly. You can see that happening. It’s much harder to look at stuff you create and try to figure out if it’s good or bad, idiosyncratic or pedestrian, magically weird or just sadly insane . . .

Henry Darger’s Wiki Page

No Zen Here

I’ve never been a Dharma Bum.

Back in the days when somebody looking at me or listening to me might have mistaken me for one, I was actually of a more Tibetan frame of mind. I didn’t read Kerouac or worry about mountains or motorcycles. I read “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism,” meditated with pleasant people in a loft above a bar and listened to and discussed cassette tapes of lectures by a man named Rinpoche.

After a great deal of time devoted to this, after listening to and discussing many lectures, we listened to one particularly long lecture about the nature of existence. When the lecture concluded and someone switched off the cassette player, someone else looked over at me and asked, “Mark, do you understand that?”

I took a breath, slowly, and thought about it. Not just the question, but also the people looking at me and waiting for an answer, the previous lectures and discussions we all shared, the notion that for thousands of years people just like us had engaged in similar behavior and thought about similar things.

Nobody rushed me. Nobody hurried to fill the silence with their own voice while I considered my response.

Then I selected my words very carefully and said, “I understand it exactly as well as I understand everything else we’ve listened to and discussed.”

And everyone burst out laughing. Everybody laughed, everyone nodded and a couple of people tapped their knuckles on the tabletop. The guy who had been working the cassette player leaned over and rubbed my shoulder.

A Dharma Bum might not have spoken the word satori to describe the moment we all shared, but a Dharma Bum would have been thinking it was a satori moment.

Those of us of a more Tibetan mindset regarded it simply as a good moment to boil some water and take a tea break.

Why I Almost Never Use Rhyme

This has been almost one of my favorite poems ever since I first read it when I was twelve or thirteen. This poem, along with Frost’s “The Bonfire,” shaped how I write and how I think about content and narrative. But even when I was just a kid dreaming of a life in letters, I understood that how you say something often is as important as what you say. And even as a kid I tripped over the construction at the end of line fifty of this poem (that’s the one that ends the stanza that starts with the woman far away in “black alder”). Now, thirty years later, even though I know about something academic writers might describe as “meta purpose” I still trip over the construction at the end of line fifty.

LONELINESS
(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;

Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing

As we are too sad for the other here—
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.


HOUSE FEAR

Always—I tell you this they learned—
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away,
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
They learned to leave the house-door wide
Until they had lit the lamp inside.


THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM

She had no saying dark enough
For the dark pine that kept
Forever trying the window-latch
Of the room where they slept.

The tireless but ineffectual hands
That with every futile pass
Made the great tree seem as a little bird
Before the mystery of glass!

It never had been inside the room,
And only one of the two
Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream
Of what the tree might do.


THE IMPULSE

It was too lonely for her there,
And too wild,
And since there were but two of them,
And no child,

And work was little in the house,
She was free,
And followed where he furrowed field,
Or felled tree.

She rested on a log and tossed
The fresh chips,
With a song only to herself
On her lips.

And once she went to break a bough
Of black alder.
She strayed so far she scarcely heard
When he called her—

And didn’t answer—didn’t speak—
Or return.
She stood, and then she ran and hid
In the fern.

He never found her, though he looked
Everywhere,
And he asked at her mother’s house
Was she there.

Sudden and swift and light as that
The ties gave,
And he learned of finalities
Besides the grave.

Robert Frost
The Hill Wife

Winona Ryder Redux

"I was producing a movie called Square Dance in Texas. It was a starring part for Winona Ryder, who was fourteen or fifteen.

She said, "Aren't the Monkees gonna play in Arlington?" which was just up the road from where we were filming. I said, "Yeah." And she said, "Do you think you could get me tickets?" And I said, "Well, yeah, I probably could." And she said, "I'd really like to go -- would you take me?" And I said "No, I won't take you. I can't possibly do that." She said, "Why not?" I said, "Nonie, I am one of the Monkees. I can't show up in the crowd with you going to a Monkees concert." She said, "Well, I really want you to take me. That would be really fun for me."

I was madly in love with her -- she was such a wonderful, young girl. There's a certain age at which young women blossom; they have a puppy quality about them, very fetching. She was right at that age. I just couldn't say no to her.

I said, "Let me see what I can do."

I wrangled a couple of tickets, and they were real ordinary tickets. I didn't want box seats or anything. From the costume department I got a fat pad, and I grayed my hair and my beard. I put on a pair of old man's glasses and a baseball hat, and I took her to the show.

We sat there with 25,000 people, after a ball game. They came out, and I was in the middle of the crowd, watching a Monkees concert. ... I think Nonie liked it."

Mike Nesmith
Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees

My Britney Shaves Her Head Theory

I think it was just a publicity ploy spurred on by the weird media shills in Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire.

Before Britney split with KFed, he appeared quite a few times on McMahon’s televised wrestling shows. So we know the Britney Spears “people” have contacts with McMahon’s.

Before Britney shaved her head, McMahon had started a convoluted storyline on his wrestling shows involving Donald Trump. This story line was building to a climax—announced before Britney shaved her head—in which either Trump or McMahon would have to shave their head on a wrestling pay-per-view as the result of losing a bet.

On last night’s Raw—02/19—McMahon even used photos of Britney to illustrate how bizarre people look with a shaved head.

My belief, now, is that Britney shaved her head just to pump up the buzz about shaved heads in general and contribute to setting the stage for McMahon’s bet with Trump. All these people have extensive contacts in the media, and all these people are experts at getting publicity and exploiting it.

*

I first began doubting “news” stories back when Winona Ryder was put on trial for stealing from Saks Fifth Avenue. It occurred to me that Saks got more publicity from the trial then they could have purchased with commercials. And the fact that a star as well-loved and lusted after as Ryder would want to steal from Saks really pumped up the Saks buzz. I believe the whole shoplifting incident was pre-planned—more carefully scripted than many modern movies—and played itself out perfectly. Saks got publicity and nothing bad of any substance happened to Ryder. Everyone’s happy.

And I think the Winona Ryder “trial” really set the stage for subsequent news “management”—where media types script “real life” events so that the events can become part of the cultural buzz around some on-going campaign.

Call me cynical.

Why Catching A Cold Makes Some People Cuter

I have a cold.

I don’t catch colds often. Having this cold now has reminded me of an old theory of mine about how colds change the way people behave. I’m not a doctor or biologist so this theory has no authority behind it. However, the final piece of my thinking was contributed by a fancy, East Coast type biology professor when I reviewed my theory with him on CompuServe.

Many people have noticed that if we see a cute stranger who has a cold—red nose, sniffling, puffy eyes—we often think, Oh, poor sweat baby, let me help you with that! On the other hand, if someone close to us—a family member or boyfriend or girlfriend—has a cold and they ask for a favor we often react with a shrug, thinking something like, Hey, tough it out, you just have a cold.

Similarly, many people notice that if they have a cold strangers treat them differently than close associates. Strangers will smile and get all solicitous. On the other hand if a person with a cold asks a girlfriend or boyfriend to fix lunch, the girlfriend or boyfriend might say something like, “Hey, the last time you sneezed did you break a leg or something? Fix it yourself.”

I saw this so often that I wondered if there was some physical, biological mechanism at work. It turns there might be. Although I didn’t understand how the mechanism could account for strangers acting differently than close associates, a biologist I talked to immediately pointed out why that would be so.

The mechanism I have in mind is pheromones.

Pheromones are chemicals that organisms emit to modify the behavior of other organisms. All organisms are thought to use pheromones—plants, insects, animals and humans. There hasn’t been a confirmed, peer-reviewed study of human pheromones yet, but many doctors and biologists assume such studies will appear over time. The fact that a cold makes strangers respond differently than close associates is intriguing indirect evidence that pheromones are at work.

A person with a cold would emit pheromones. Pheromones are chemical triggers which interact with nearby people. In nearby people, the pheromones would settle on receptor sites. The action of the pheromone settling on the receptor site would trigger a chemical reaction—the release of hormones, for instance, which affect a person’s thinking and/or mood—and that person may then become solicitous toward the sick person. It’s a survival mechanism which helps sick people work through their illness.

But why would close associates respond differently?

Many chemical reactions in the human body function by this process of chemicals interacting with receptor sites. Receptor sites are molecular structures shaped to respond to only a particular molecule. Sometimes receptor sites are compared to locks and the particular molecules that join on to them are compared to keys. One complication seen often in human metabolism is called receptor site saturation. For any particular reaction there are a finite number of receptor sites. When the molecules they are geared for settle onto them, that triggers further chemical reactions within the body. But after a receptor site has been filled and responded, that particular site will become inactive until the molecular key has fallen away. When all receptor sites for a particular function have been filled, the body will completely stop reacting to whatever molecule is associated with those particular receptor sites.

The most well known example of receptor site saturation is insulin resistance. Insulin is a chemical released within the body which lands on receptor sites which then trigger the processing of nutrients in the blood stream. If a person eats too many carbohydrates, especially sugars, a body can generate so much insulin that all receptor sites will become full and the body will stop processing nutrients in the blood. Nutrients, especially sugars, will then stay in the blood and not transfer into the tissues which need the nutrients to function and all manner of bad things can result.

I believe pheromone interaction with receptor sites is what’s happening when a person catches a cold and interacts with other people.

The sick person is emitting pheromones. Strangers with ready receptor sites react to the pheromones with an internal cascade of various hormones leading to something like, Poor sweet baby, let me help you with that! But close associates have their receptor sites saturated by the pheromones and the pheromone density prohibits the molecules at the receptor sites from dropping away so close associates are unaffected by the pheromones, experience no internal hormonal cascade, and react with, Hey, get real, it’s just a cold, do it yourself.

The next time you catch a cold, or notice somebody around you with a cold, introspect on your feelings. There may be evolutionary rainstorms going on around you and inside you buffeting your thinking.

Pheromone Wiki Page

Mycelium And Aurora Borealis

It has been raining for several days now, and it can surely rain in the Highlands in the autumn. For one or two days it was windy as well, bringing boiling black storm clouds from the Atlantic Ocean to rush eastwards across the Highlands. Today, however, a gentle rain splashes intently on the surface of the loch, the woods are damp and sodden and a smell of moist earth pervades the lochside. But everywhere there is a riot of new colours. Fungi of all sizes, shapes and colours have suddenly appeared around the loch and in the woodland. There are red ones with white spots, small yellow ones, sticky brown ones, tall graceful inkcaps, round puffballs and large mushroom-shaped boletus. The names are also lovely: blushers and blewits, inkcaps and deathcaps, lawyers’ wigs and stinkhorns, and very many more the Latin names. Some years are better than others for fungi and the relative proponderance of different species also fluctuates from year to year. Where has this fairytale landscape erupted from, if not by the magic wand of the raingods? Of course, the real body, or mycelium, of the fungi has been growing away all year in the soil or in rotted branches of fallen trees and many other places; but now the fruiting bodies appear as familiar toadstools and mushrooms, throwing out millions of spores to ensure future generations of fungal beauty.

*

Last night, 1 February, there was the most spectacular display of northern lights or aurora borealis. On these nights, the whole northern sky can be lit up by flashing, changing bands of green or blue or white or red lights in the sky. The northern lights this time started at about 7 p.m. It was a quiet night, quite cold, crystal clear, with sounds carrying for miles. Looking upwards, there were patterns of shadowy curtains moving across the sky, greenish, glowing and eerie. They sort of crackled, or at least you felt they crackled, as they changed direction, rather like searchlights in the night sky. As I watched, a red glow started to appear above me; in fact, as the evening progressed, it was like being inside a great dome of the deepest red or magenta, illuminated with green bands in the northern sky. These displays at times are absolutely stunning; little wonder that they are also called the ‘Merry Dancers.’

Sadly, nowadays most people miss them, because they live in towns and cities where the all-pervading orange glow of streetlights makes it impossible even to see the stars, let alone the ghostly dancers of the northern lights. These last couple of winters have been particularly good for them, but only on a few nights are they really spectacular. I am told this has to do with sun-spot activity and that the best displays occur at regular intervals of every eleven years or so. On a few occasions in the last two winters I have witnessed and enjoyed this spectacular celestial phenomenon.

Two winters ago, we had a heifer who was due to calf. In the evening she looked as though she was very close, so at 9 p.m. I went out with a torch to check progress; it was obvious that she was about to give birth to her first calf. My wife and I stood in the field and, as the newborn calf struggled to its feet for the first time, above us was the most fantastic display of the white and green shadowy curtains of the northern lights. We will always remember that special night, for we named the calf Aurora and she is still with us as part of our herd on the farm.

Roy Dennis
“The Loch: A Year In The Life Of A Scottish Loch”

Crannogs

There are two people fishing today on the loch in a small boat and the ducks are keeping a good distance from them. The wildfowl like people arriving with food and will come very close to the bank, but people in boats waving fishing rods are another matter and they keep well clear. They will spend an hour or two trying to catch trout, although at times the rain showers are so heavy that I believe they will give up unless the fishing is good. In summer the lochs are well visited by fishermen; in fact, a day at the trout in a remote loch, miles from the road, is the very best of sport. People have always been associated with water; in the past it was more often used for transport and further back still people lived in close harmony with Highland lochs. Islands in some lochs have been shown to be artificial and made of wood and rock. They are called ‘crannogs’ and were used for habitation in times when life was far more hazardous and a water barrier was important for safety.

Roy Dennis
“The Loch: A Year In The Life Of A Scottish Loch”

Toadspawn Is Quite Unlike Frogspawn

The frogs are quite difficult to see in the loch, because it is mostly dark and deep, but in one of the shallower bays is a whole group leaping and splashing about. You have to be very quiet as you walk towards them because they are surprisingly alert and if they are alarmed then all you see are ripples on the water as they dive to hide in the mud and vegetation below the surface. But if I walk very quietly and sit gently on the bank above this particular place, I soon see the frogs swimming in the cloudy water. Slowly they return and carry on with the business of display. Some are giving their mating calls, their throats blowing up to produce beautiful croaking calls which carry a long distance. I remember once hiking in the mountains when I heard frogs calling at an altitude of nearly 3,000 feet. I tracked them to a small hill loch nearly a mile away. They were in full mating frenzy in the shallows while the other end of the loch was still imprisoned in ice.

Back in the warmer water of our loch the successful males are holding tightly on to their mates, the forelegs clasped across the female’s back. Some females have already laid their eggs, with masses of frogspawn floating in the water. This is a particularly good place for the frogs to spawn because soon there will be plenty of algae in the water for the young tadpoles to eat. There are also plenty of places for them to hide and room in the whole loch for them to grow up until they become real frogs and leave the water in the summertime. I often think that frogs are either incredibly careless or very skilled at taking advantage of every opportunity, for on my walks through forests and fields I sometimes come across frogspawn in tiny pools of water which have formed in the tracks of a large vehicle that passed during the winter. It is wet and well flooded in March, but later in spring I find it dried up and the frogspawn dead. There are advantages for the frogs in using shallow pools, because the water is warmed more quickly by the sun and the young frogs hatch earlier.

Toads breed in the loch, but they tend to keep to themselves in a different part of the water. They also seem to be more careful, because I never see toadspawn lying around in temporary pools, although in general they prefer to lay their eggs in cooler water. Toadspawn is quite unlike frogspawn: it is laid in long chains hanging in the underwater vegetation rather than in great big masses.

Roy Dennis
“The Loch: A Year In The Life Of A Scottish Loch”

A Woodland Path Encircles The Loch

A woodland path encircles the loch. In some places it is close to the water’s edge and in others it meanders into the woodland. From a wildlife point of view, I’m not keen on paths which go right around lochs, for this gives no hiding places for sensitive birds and mammals to live and breed. Fortunately, our loch has secure bushy islands as a sanctuary. In several places alders and willows grow densely beside the water, so in the summer the loch is screened from the path. There’s a choice of either walking to the right along the north side of the loch by way of a young pine wood or to the left along a wooded bank overlooking the loch. It’s funny, but I nearly always go left and walk round the loch in a clockwise direction, or rather in the same direction as the sun. I wonder if that tendency is inherent in my genes from far-distant ancestors, to whom such things mattered. Two years ago, I was trekking in a remote region of Mongolia and I was struck that our guides walked diligently in a clockwise direction round the various religious sites that we passed on horseback. I was told it was unlucky to travel against the sun.

Roy Dennis
“The Loch: A Year In The Life Of A Scottish Loch”

There Is Only One Lake In Scotland

There is only one lake in Scotland: The Lake of Menteith north of Glasgow; the rest are lochs, with smaller ones being called lochans or dubh lochs. Around the coast, some marine inlets are called sea lochs; in fact, some of them are like small Norwegian fjords. This book, however, is about freshwater lochs. Scottish lochs vary tremendously in character, from the great, deep, foreboding waters, like Loch Ness and Loch Morar with their huge depths and stories of monsters, through open, fertile lochs set among rolling farmland, to the tiny hill lochans of remote peatlands and the high mountains. The variation is so great from west to east, from north to south, that our story is centered on the lochs of the eastern part of the Highland region, in particular those that are in the catchment of the Moray Firth and especially the lochs that are on the coastal plain or close to it.

Our loch is just an ordinary loch in many ways. The birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, insects and plants found there are to be seen on many lochs throughout the Highlands. Some of the wildlife found on other lochs is never seen here because the conditions are not right, while some creatures I see here will not be observed on other lochs in the district. This is a rich, busy loch, surrounded by lush vegetation and sheltered by fringing woodland of birches and pines. It has marshy islands covered with lichen-encrusted willow bushes and surrounded by sedges and bulrushes; this makes a great difference to wildlife.

There are similar lochs dotted throughout the lowlands surrounding Moray Firth, often set in hollows left by the action of the ice-age glaciers and fringed by woodland and farms. They are usually productive lochs with a rich growth of reeds, sedges, bulrushes and flowering plants such as water lilies and bogbean. Often farm fields may run to the water’s edge and human presence is frequent through fishing, walking and sometimes through water sports. The wildlife is often centered around wildfowl and waders, but nowadays these lochs are also frequented by hunting ospreys as well as ranging otters.

There are two large lochs in this district. Loch Ness is a dramatic loch set between the mountains of the Great Glen. It is steep sided and was formed by the movement of the earth’s tectonic plates. It is 24 miles long and plunges nearly 900 feet in depth. This loch never freezes because of its depth; in fact, the inherent heat of the loch also provides a microclimate around the lochside and often the roads close to the loch remain ice free when most other roads are icy. Because of its steep sides it is rather poor for wildlife, with the exception of its alleged most famous inhabitant. The other large loch is much, much smaller and is very shallow compared to Loch Ness. It is only 1 1/2 miles long and half a mile wide, but Loch Eye is a haven for wildlife, especially in winter, when thousands of ducks, geese and swans use its water for feeding and roosting.

In the lower hills and glens, often set among forests of pines and birch woodlands, are a range of medium to small lochs; some are the most beautiful, picturesque lochs in majestic surroundings. The lochs nearest to my home nestle in the ancient Caledonian pine forest. They were created during the ice age by lumps of ice that slowly melted in situ during the glacial drift; they are called kettle-hole lochs. These lochs are not as productive as the low-ground lochs on the richer soils, as they tend to be more acid and peaty coloured, often with water the color of whisky. But they are favoured haunts of some rare species, such as black-throated divers, Slavonian grebes and goldeneye ducks. In winter, they are often choice roosts for wildfowl and gulls during the night, affording the birds security and safety from scavenging foxes.

Finally, there are the high-level lochs and lochans nestling in the wide, bare moorlands and in the high mountains looking down on the Moray plain. Some are peaty pools fringed with red and green sphagnum mosses, with water so black that you can hardly see your hand through the freezing water. These pools are the nesting sites for red-throated divers and washing places for the plaintive golden plover of the heathery moors. The high mountain lochs are often crystal clear on a granite bed, almost devoid of plantlife. They are not wildlife lochs, but they add considerably to the beauty of wild places.

Roy Dennis
“The Loch: A Year In The Life Of A Scottish Loch”

Jeanne Hébuterne — Art As A Grail

This is a photograph of Jeanne Hébuterne. It was taken around 1918 when she was twenty years old. A friend described her then as, “gentle, shy, quiet and delicate.”

This is a painting of Jeanne Hébuterne. It was painted also around 1918 by Amedeo Modigliani when Hébuterne was Modigliani’s model and muse. Two years later, when Modigliani died, Hébuterne was so grief-stricken at the loss of her lover she committed suicide.

A contemporary British artist named Quentin Blake gives this advice to aspiring artists: “When you’re drawing from life—from something sitting right there in front of you—there’s a problem with too much information. You are seeing more than you can ever possibly get down on paper. Putting pen to paper feels a bit like trying to catch a waterfall in a cup. A small sense of hopelessness sets in. But don’t despair. Drawings get better with time. Even yours. Afterwards, when the thing itself is gone from view, that little drawing will suddenly bloom; and you’ll discover for yourself how much of a waterfall actually does fit into a cup.”

Jeanne Hébuterne’s Wiki page

Amedeo Modigliani’s Wiki page


Quentin Blake’s web site

Rocks In His Head

I think I’ve had some interesting experiences because I’ve ‘over-trained,’ in a sense, for some of these long, easy climbs that I do over and over again. I have these routes wired to such a degree that I don’t have to think about the climbing on a conscious level. I become so involved with the flow and the pattern of the climb that I lose touch with who I am and what I am and become part of the rock—I’ve actually felt at times as though I was weaving in and out of the rock.

John Gill
quoted in, “Eiger Dreams,” by Jon Krakauer


John Gill’s website

The Goblin Universe Sexuality Gedankenexperiment

Imagine yourself driving along a quiet, suburban street. It is a warm, sunny afternoon.

Up ahead, to the right, you see a beautiful young woman in cut-off jeans and a thin tee shirt washing her car. She is a curvaceous teenager getting all wet as she suds up and rinses off her car.

Up ahead, to the left, you see a handsome young man in tennis shorts and a thin tee shirt washing his car. He is a firmly-muscled teenager getting all wet as he suds up and rinses off his car.

Introspect on your reactions to this suburban scene.

We will now evaluate the experiment and derive our results. There are three possible conclusions.

One: If you find yourself looking to the right and thinking about the young woman, then you are probably attracted to women.

Two: If you find yourself looking to the left and thinking about the young man, then you are probably attracted to men.

Three: If you find yourself looking right and left and thinking to yourself, “Wow! A ’65 Shelby Mustang and a ’65 Corvette Stingray! Cool cars!” then you are probably Jay Leno.

The Other Reason To Burn Witches

Anthropologists have observed that in societies that lack formal political processes, sorcery accusations are often an indication of other social and economic tensions and conflicts. They have analyzed the killing of accused sorcerers as a form of control through which antisocial people are eliminated and social cohesion is reinforced.

Witchcraft

at HighBeam Encyclopedia

Talking To People Who Can’t Talk To You

For the nonspeaking children in Toronto, learning to communicate with symbols meant a whole new way of thinking and feeling. New ideas, new possibilities stirred in their minds. It was like waking up from a long dim daydream. Children who had felt like nonpersons, sitting like lumps in wheelchairs, discovered that they were somebody after all.

One little girl, when she had learned to use the symbols, “asked” her parents, “Why are you not speaking to me?”

The father, who loved his little girl, suddenly realized that, because she could not respond, he hardly ever did speak to her. Now he could see that she was lonely and needed people to talk to her even if she could not talk back.

Elizabeth S. Helfman
“Blissymbolics: Speaking Without Speech”

Blissymbolics Website

Micro Freudian Imperatives

So, one day Linda and I had a picnic lunch on the grass by the school of the Art Institute of Chicago.

This isn’t the same Linda I wrote about in Victoria’s Secret. But I did know this Linda at the same time as that Linda. I don’t know what it means, but the names “Linda” and “Joanne” play through my life, attached to different women, like melodic themes emerging and re-emerging in some complicated orchestral work.

Anyway, back at the lunch, Linda brought two chicken salad sandwiches she’d made that morning and wrapped in wax paper. I brought two bottles of ice tea that I’d picked up on the way to work.

It was a warm, sunny day. I don’t remember what we talked about. Probably, back then, I’d have talked about my theory that many of Vermeer’s mature paintings shouldn’t be viewed as stand-alone images, but rather as excerpts from a larger, now lost cycle of images that can best be interpreted as alchemical allegories.

What I do remember is that when lunch was over Linda wrapped her wax paper around her empty tea bottle. I crumpled up my wax paper and stuck it inside my empty tea bottle. Then I stood up and reached down to take Linda’s hand and help her up. As Linda stood up, I looked down at her other hand and my whole vision zoomed like a bizarre special effect in a music video.

Holding Linda’s hand, suddenly all I saw was her other hand with the wax paper wrapped around the empty tea bottle. My vision jerked over to my other hand with the wax paper crumpled inside the empty tea bottle.

“Wow!” I said. “Did you see what just happened?”

Linda let go of my hand and brushed off some grass from her skirt. “Yeah,” she said. “We stood up. Why, were we sitting in ants? Do I have bugs on me?”

“No, no, no,” I said. I pointed at her other hand. “Look,” I said. I held up my other hand. “And look at this.”

Linda took a breath. Her eyes narrowed. She knew me pretty well, and I could tell that she was bracing herself for a roller coaster ride. “Yeah,” she said, hesitantly. “It’s our garbage.”

“No,” I said, again. “Look at it.”

Smiling, Linda looked from her hand to my hand. “Yeah, so?”

“Look what we did” I said. “You wrapped your wax paper around your empty bottle. I crumpled up my wax paper and stuck it into my empty bottle.”

Linda’s lips were compressed into a tight smile. She knew I was going to say something and I knew she was going to think it was crazy, but it was one of those moments like a roller coaster just cresting the top of the first hill . . .

“You wrapped your wax paper around your empty bottle,” I said again. “I stuck my wax paper inside my empty bottle.” I struggled to think of acceptable words and phrases for what I was thinking. I failed, but since Linda was still smiling, I continued. “Look, pardon my French here, but think about it. Women have vaginas. Vaginas wrap around penises. Men have penises. Penises insert into vaginas. You—a woman—wrapped your wax paper around your bottle, I—a man—stuck my wax paper into my bottle. See?”

“Yeah,” Linda said, laughing, “I see you’ve completely lost your mind.”

“No, no, no,” I said. “Think about it. We’re sitting here—a man and a woman—having lunch. Neither one of us is talking about sex. Presumably neither one of us is even thinking about sex. Yet we both experience these . . . these micro Freudian imperatives in our minds that manifest themselves in macro behavior in the physical world. You wrap your wax paper around your empty bottle. I stick my wax paper into my empty bottle. See? Isn’t that weird?”

Linda struggled to get out words with her laughter. “Yeah, you know what’s weird? What’s weird is that I spend time with you without insisting you wear one of those white leather jackets that ties your arms behind your back!”

“Oh, Linda,” I said, “I didn’t make up this stuff! It’s emergent behavior. I just observed it.”

Linda took my hand again. “Yeah, and I observe that lunch is over. Come on.” She tugged me toward the sidewalk. “Lunch is over. Time to get back to the real world . . .”

De Humani Corporis Fabrica

Historical evidence has it that when Andreas Vesalius began his monumental work on anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica, some four hundreds years ago, he approached the great Venetian master Titian to produce the large number of plates required for the volume. The unrivaled artistry of these anatomical descriptions, executed by Titian and some of his students, has never been equaled in similar works. Now an intriguing problem comes up. Vesalius obviously knew a great deal more than Titian about internal medical anatomy. Vesalius, hailed as the Reformer of Anatomy, was in the process of making new discoveries in anatomical structure that Titian could not have learned beforehand. How did it happen that Titian, a master in art, knew better than Vesalius the visual description and correct delineation of anatomical human form?

Burne Hogarth
Dynamic Anatomy