Here's the response to the film as given to the publicity agency representative following the press screening ... for the complete review, pick up a copy of the Dec. 18 Midtown Messenger, or visit here a week later for the complete review, and others ...
'Apocalypto': It's the sustainability, stupid. (Gibson does get it)
In "Apocalypto," Mel Gibson continues where he left off in both "Braveheart" and, in a minor way, "The Passion of the Christ."
Following one of "Braveheart's" themes, he continues to uphold the essential value and goodness of small-scale "sustainable" societies (i.e., Daniel Quinn's "Leavers") and documents their ultimately vain struggle against imperial, hierarchical civilizations (Quinn's "Takers").
Following an implication of his professed Catholicism, he points out that Mesoamerican civilizations were not some kind of paradise, but corrupt, decaying and evil--cultures of cruelty and death--as much a "Taker" type of civilization as any to be found--and which also depredated their nearby "Leaver" peoples.
This is historically accurate. So, in his view, it presumably should also rob us of much sympathy for the way the Mayan and other large Mesoamerican civilizations fell victim to the Western invaders. (I.e., consider the Will Durant epigraph at the opening of the film.)
Understood in these terms, the storyline is exactly what I'd hoped it would be. Acting, cinematography, production design, directing etc. all seemed masterful to me, though the casting was somewhat off, with the producers mistakenly thinking anyone of brown skin would fit as New World aboriginals, while some of the actors were clearly of Midde Eastern ethnicity (e.g., Jaguar Paw's wife).
The gore (and the hero's superhuman stoicism and resolve) were classic Gibson--as well as the gimmick of having people look distasteful in proportion as they are evil or corrupt. (E.g., the fat little Mayan princeling on the temple summit, the diseased little girl "prophet" with the facial boils, etc.)
I did enjoy the proud mantra: "I have hunted this forest with my father, as he did with his father," etc. As I recited to Wendy (the screening rep): "My name is Inigo Montoya. I have hunted this forest with my father. You killed my father. Prepare to die. ... My name is Inigo Montoya. I have hunted this forest with my father. You killed my father. Prepare to die. My name is Inigo Montoya. I have hunted this forest with my father. You killed my father. Prepare to die. ..." etc.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
New Garfield infill housing unveiled
Dana Johnson of the Garfield Organization’s Revitalization and Economic Development committee invited the public to an unveiling of new, single-family infill houses in the neighborhood.
An Open House around the unveiling was held Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 1025 E. Portland, Garfield Neighborhood, Phoenix. The following announcement describes the significance of the housing toasted at the event.
For over a decade, Garfield Organization (GO) has partnered with Neighborhood Housing Services of Phoenix and the City of Phoenix’s Neighborhood Services Department to develop infill houses. The goal: to fill vacant lots in Garfield neighborhood with single family homes, inviting new homeowners. Garfield Organization has a vision of what is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood, and has always insisted on infill housing that fits that vision.
After working to support two new historic district overlays in the neighborhood, Garfield residents further responded with a request for new house designs to express a more contextual esthetic in infill housing in their neighborhood. In response to GO’s request, an RFQ was issued and several architects were interviewed.
The winning proposer was Roberts Jones Associates, an award-winning architectural firm with a reputation for designing high-end custom houses from Carefree to Sedona. Their designs for Garfield’s infill houses demonstrate that affordable housing can fulfill the requirements of historically appropriate context, while also meeting financial and market constraints. Roberts Jones Associates accomplished this goal while also exhibiting attention to detail both in materials and in use of vernacular design elements.
An Open House around the unveiling was held Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 1025 E. Portland, Garfield Neighborhood, Phoenix. The following announcement describes the significance of the housing toasted at the event.
For over a decade, Garfield Organization (GO) has partnered with Neighborhood Housing Services of Phoenix and the City of Phoenix’s Neighborhood Services Department to develop infill houses. The goal: to fill vacant lots in Garfield neighborhood with single family homes, inviting new homeowners. Garfield Organization has a vision of what is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood, and has always insisted on infill housing that fits that vision.
After working to support two new historic district overlays in the neighborhood, Garfield residents further responded with a request for new house designs to express a more contextual esthetic in infill housing in their neighborhood. In response to GO’s request, an RFQ was issued and several architects were interviewed.
The winning proposer was Roberts Jones Associates, an award-winning architectural firm with a reputation for designing high-end custom houses from Carefree to Sedona. Their designs for Garfield’s infill houses demonstrate that affordable housing can fulfill the requirements of historically appropriate context, while also meeting financial and market constraints. Roberts Jones Associates accomplished this goal while also exhibiting attention to detail both in materials and in use of vernacular design elements.
Poor William's Almanack - 12/10/06
APHORISMS, or, notes for a stand-up routine
©2006
David "Poor William" Tell
The suffix of the word “misogynist” seems to imply that merely by adding a little focus, one can refine a general, perhaps casual hatred of mankind into something more a hobby or art.
If the valley in which Phoenix lies were meant for human habitation, the Hohokam would still be living there.
I’ll never forget the time my wife told me the difference between me and her is that she doesn’t dwell on the differences between people.
She also once admitted that once she gets breast implants, she’ll probably find other aspects of her body to be dissatisfied with. “Yes,” I said, “but at least then you’ll be able to take your mind off it by playing with your boobs.”
Filial love probably arises in early childhood from the sycophancy of being “in” or “tight” with the most important person you know.
I like product names. I noticed an RV with the model name “Intruder” emblazoned on it. I imagined the tagline or slogan to go along with this product: “And we’re parking in your neighborhood!”
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is “my wife’s and my movie.” It’s about a couple who get a second chance at their relationship because HOW MUCH THEY HATE EACH OTHER HAS BEEN BURNED OUT OF THEIR MEMORIES!
Or, to put it differently, paraphrasing Santayana: “Those who can’t remember the history of their relationship are doomed to repeat it.”
This is true: My toilet paper brand found an innovative place to put a coupon to buy more of their product. Actually, I didn’t notice it right away. But the clerk I hand it to probably will.
©2006
David "Poor William" Tell
The suffix of the word “misogynist” seems to imply that merely by adding a little focus, one can refine a general, perhaps casual hatred of mankind into something more a hobby or art.
If the valley in which Phoenix lies were meant for human habitation, the Hohokam would still be living there.
I’ll never forget the time my wife told me the difference between me and her is that she doesn’t dwell on the differences between people.
She also once admitted that once she gets breast implants, she’ll probably find other aspects of her body to be dissatisfied with. “Yes,” I said, “but at least then you’ll be able to take your mind off it by playing with your boobs.”
Filial love probably arises in early childhood from the sycophancy of being “in” or “tight” with the most important person you know.
I like product names. I noticed an RV with the model name “Intruder” emblazoned on it. I imagined the tagline or slogan to go along with this product: “And we’re parking in your neighborhood!”
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is “my wife’s and my movie.” It’s about a couple who get a second chance at their relationship because HOW MUCH THEY HATE EACH OTHER HAS BEEN BURNED OUT OF THEIR MEMORIES!
Or, to put it differently, paraphrasing Santayana: “Those who can’t remember the history of their relationship are doomed to repeat it.”
This is true: My toilet paper brand found an innovative place to put a coupon to buy more of their product. Actually, I didn’t notice it right away. But the clerk I hand it to probably will.
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Ode to a Civic Structure – With a Phoenician Turn
As the extensive expansion and revamping of Phoenix Civic Plaza grinds toward completion, it seems fitting to post here a poem written by Midtown resident Amy Taylor, submitted to The Midtown Messenger for publication in July of 2004. Amy said in a cover note that the poem was written before the existing Civic Plaza was completed in 1972, when she worked as a nighttime answering service operator near Central and Thomas. In that stint, she said, a Civic Center guard who would report in by phone from the site offered her a private tour at midnight one night. Amy was 47 at the time, and married, and her relationship with the guard--and their rendezvous for the tour--were strictly platonic, she said in her note. Amy added that she provided the poem to the Maricopa Recorder’s Office after writing it in 1972.
Editor's additional note: Attempts to call Amy at the number she gave in 2004 and one found online reached "number not in service" messages. If anyone who knew Amy knows her current whereabouts and health condition, please contact us. In any case, we hope her poem's publication here gives it exposure that Amy would find gratifying.
Phoenix Civic Plaza
Manifestation - Revelation
I asked “Is that [the] new civic plaza
Where you’re working as guard?”
He said “Why don’t you come see it,
I can show you, ’tisn’t hard.
First you find Fifth and Van Buren,
The turn south through the stop gate,
Then stand and wait,
Blow your horn, and I will listen
For the sound, I’ll be around.”
Velvet dark the Phoenix sky,
Stars twinkling Andromeda,
Noise of traffic moving near,
Sounds of city,
Sounds of fear,
Midnight, waiting for the guard, Locket,
He will show me round the civic plaza.
I have found, the best way to see the sights,
Is ask the people working nights.
Airplanes gliding overhead,
Electricians in their beds,
The building looms a solid mass,
Wire gates for the trucks to pass,
Chain link fencing circles round,
Construction trailers on the ground.
All visitors must check in at
The Del Webb building, think of that.
Police cruisers on the prowl,
Three hippies pass, their night to howl,
Sit and wait,
At the gate,
Lights are flashing, getting late,
Listen to the radio,
Solid rock, full of life,
People’s problems,
Songs of strife,
Noisy love songs, loud and clear,
Are playing while I’m sitting here.
There’s a car along the street,
Here comes Locket looking neat,
Cowboy hat, pants as tight as skin,
Victory sign, it must be him,
He looks as cute as cute can be,
Smiling as he looks at me.
Overhead doors in a row,
Vast empty rooms, light fixtures glow,
Massive chambers, dark and quiet,
Box offices await the crowd,
Planned for people by the thousand,
Our footsteps on the bare floor pound
And echo as we cross the space,
Transformers hum,
Architects’ schemes,
To make a background for his dreams.
In visions I can see the place,
Filled with all the human race.
Conventions here from every state,
The entrance at the going rate,
For trailer shows, boat, car and coin,
All people here in Phoenix join
The kids crowding through the gates,
To many various shows, a spate.
Stairways leading from the ground,
General offices abound,
The ghostly figures pass,
In dreams behind the blackened glass.
Walkway taken over Third Street,
Third Street dipping underneath,
Square on square of patterned concrete,
Squares of velvet for our feet,
Round reservoir, which is in truth
Mythological fountain of youth.
Main entrance to the concert hall,
Solid glass three-eighths inch thick
Rising up to fifty feet.
Silicate of tinted glass
Defying the bright sun to pass.
Concrete shell to catch the sound,
Smooth, elliptical and round.
In a little room the phone is.
Locket made a call to Burns,
To record the fact that he was working.
Then he turns.
Amy do you see the drawings
That they follow as they work.
See the rolls and rolls of blueprints,
Book of plans is inches thick.
See the rolls and rolls of dreams
Transformed into reality,
Then rolled up and tucked away.
Dry leaves curled on an autumn day,
Victims of autumnal blast,
When their usefulness is past.
Moving through the empty spaces,
See the vast and darkened places,
Hydraulic orchestra pit lift,
Musicians offered up, a gift.
Power lifted elevator for unloading scenery,
Exit signs are glowing red,
I can see way overhead.
Light is on the second floor
Shining on an open door,
Dressing rooms are all around,
But the keys cannot be found.
Walking on the concrete bare,
Carpeting will soon be there.
Hear applause, the actors bow,
See the visions then and now.
When all assembled and complete,
Two thousand and more it will seat.
Dark - a flashlight - on the stage,
Scaffolding’s intricate maze
Reaching heavenward so high,
Seeming that they touch the sky.
In one corner of the stage,
To reach the gridiron overhead,
A Jacob’s ladder, round and round,
Black spiral staircase is found,
From ground to gridiron, eighty five feet,
Metal, black, and very neat,
Like smoke rising to the sky,
Curling to the heavens high.
Or a black dust devil dancing,
Swirling in the desert bare
While the stormclouds are advancing,
Ominous the desert air.
Manila ropes connect to cables,
Cables connect to the pipes,
Pipes to hang the scenery,
Single purchase counterweights,
Added weights to compensate,
Ropes for curtains by the score
Actually sixty five or more.
Caverns underneath the buildings
Waiting for a thousand cars,
Supporting pillars, full of grace
Like atlas hold the world in place.
Think of the hole they dug before
The concrete mixers start to pour.
From Monroe south to Washington,
That’s two blocks wide, and three blocks long
A vision, yes, a lovely dream
Is rising in this Phoenix scene.
Beneath the overpass we walked
On empty Third Street, and we talked
Of Phoenix, how we felt about her,
The lack of night life in the center,
How Tucson has much more to offer,
Las Vegas is more to our choice
Where day and night blend into one,
No clocks to tell the time of day,
To drift along bohemian way,
And never have to say,
“That’s closed, we must go home.”
It would be nice, if, in this scheme
They'd plan a nightlife for the scene
So when conventioners arrive
The nightclubs would grow and thrive
When people came they'd have no fear
Of what they're going to here.
We found the door, the metal stair,
And climbed to catwalk waiting there,
I looked below, beyond the lights
And was amazed to find my knees
Which usually would shake with fright,
And with sheer terror I would freeze,
They didn't shake when looking down.
We climbed aloft, until we reached the roof,
Then walked beyond and viewed the fairy city,
How fabulous and truly pretty,
The sky a shade of gentian blue,
Even of the darkest hue,
The lights were twinkling all around,
As far as we could see,
And we thought what a pity,
The smog obscured mountains beyond,
There were no edges to the pond,
The water lay as though below,
With stars reflected in the glow,
The sky above, the air was chill,
The view gave me such a thrill.
We slowly walked down to the ground,
To powdery dust that's all around,
And walked and talked of life and such,
Of many things, yet not of much.
I said goodbye, he locked the gate,
The very strangest thing is fate,
That I should meet a guard like him,
And on a momentary whim,
Be privileged alone to view
The Civic Plaza - all brand new.
Editor's additional note: Attempts to call Amy at the number she gave in 2004 and one found online reached "number not in service" messages. If anyone who knew Amy knows her current whereabouts and health condition, please contact us. In any case, we hope her poem's publication here gives it exposure that Amy would find gratifying.
Phoenix Civic Plaza
Manifestation - Revelation
I asked “Is that [the] new civic plaza
Where you’re working as guard?”
He said “Why don’t you come see it,
I can show you, ’tisn’t hard.
First you find Fifth and Van Buren,
The turn south through the stop gate,
Then stand and wait,
Blow your horn, and I will listen
For the sound, I’ll be around.”
Velvet dark the Phoenix sky,
Stars twinkling Andromeda,
Noise of traffic moving near,
Sounds of city,
Sounds of fear,
Midnight, waiting for the guard, Locket,
He will show me round the civic plaza.
I have found, the best way to see the sights,
Is ask the people working nights.
Airplanes gliding overhead,
Electricians in their beds,
The building looms a solid mass,
Wire gates for the trucks to pass,
Chain link fencing circles round,
Construction trailers on the ground.
All visitors must check in at
The Del Webb building, think of that.
Police cruisers on the prowl,
Three hippies pass, their night to howl,
Sit and wait,
At the gate,
Lights are flashing, getting late,
Listen to the radio,
Solid rock, full of life,
People’s problems,
Songs of strife,
Noisy love songs, loud and clear,
Are playing while I’m sitting here.
There’s a car along the street,
Here comes Locket looking neat,
Cowboy hat, pants as tight as skin,
Victory sign, it must be him,
He looks as cute as cute can be,
Smiling as he looks at me.
Overhead doors in a row,
Vast empty rooms, light fixtures glow,
Massive chambers, dark and quiet,
Box offices await the crowd,
Planned for people by the thousand,
Our footsteps on the bare floor pound
And echo as we cross the space,
Transformers hum,
Architects’ schemes,
To make a background for his dreams.
In visions I can see the place,
Filled with all the human race.
Conventions here from every state,
The entrance at the going rate,
For trailer shows, boat, car and coin,
All people here in Phoenix join
The kids crowding through the gates,
To many various shows, a spate.
Stairways leading from the ground,
General offices abound,
The ghostly figures pass,
In dreams behind the blackened glass.
Walkway taken over Third Street,
Third Street dipping underneath,
Square on square of patterned concrete,
Squares of velvet for our feet,
Round reservoir, which is in truth
Mythological fountain of youth.
Main entrance to the concert hall,
Solid glass three-eighths inch thick
Rising up to fifty feet.
Silicate of tinted glass
Defying the bright sun to pass.
Concrete shell to catch the sound,
Smooth, elliptical and round.
In a little room the phone is.
Locket made a call to Burns,
To record the fact that he was working.
Then he turns.
Amy do you see the drawings
That they follow as they work.
See the rolls and rolls of blueprints,
Book of plans is inches thick.
See the rolls and rolls of dreams
Transformed into reality,
Then rolled up and tucked away.
Dry leaves curled on an autumn day,
Victims of autumnal blast,
When their usefulness is past.
Moving through the empty spaces,
See the vast and darkened places,
Hydraulic orchestra pit lift,
Musicians offered up, a gift.
Power lifted elevator for unloading scenery,
Exit signs are glowing red,
I can see way overhead.
Light is on the second floor
Shining on an open door,
Dressing rooms are all around,
But the keys cannot be found.
Walking on the concrete bare,
Carpeting will soon be there.
Hear applause, the actors bow,
See the visions then and now.
When all assembled and complete,
Two thousand and more it will seat.
Dark - a flashlight - on the stage,
Scaffolding’s intricate maze
Reaching heavenward so high,
Seeming that they touch the sky.
In one corner of the stage,
To reach the gridiron overhead,
A Jacob’s ladder, round and round,
Black spiral staircase is found,
From ground to gridiron, eighty five feet,
Metal, black, and very neat,
Like smoke rising to the sky,
Curling to the heavens high.
Or a black dust devil dancing,
Swirling in the desert bare
While the stormclouds are advancing,
Ominous the desert air.
Manila ropes connect to cables,
Cables connect to the pipes,
Pipes to hang the scenery,
Single purchase counterweights,
Added weights to compensate,
Ropes for curtains by the score
Actually sixty five or more.
Caverns underneath the buildings
Waiting for a thousand cars,
Supporting pillars, full of grace
Like atlas hold the world in place.
Think of the hole they dug before
The concrete mixers start to pour.
From Monroe south to Washington,
That’s two blocks wide, and three blocks long
A vision, yes, a lovely dream
Is rising in this Phoenix scene.
Beneath the overpass we walked
On empty Third Street, and we talked
Of Phoenix, how we felt about her,
The lack of night life in the center,
How Tucson has much more to offer,
Las Vegas is more to our choice
Where day and night blend into one,
No clocks to tell the time of day,
To drift along bohemian way,
And never have to say,
“That’s closed, we must go home.”
It would be nice, if, in this scheme
They'd plan a nightlife for the scene
So when conventioners arrive
The nightclubs would grow and thrive
When people came they'd have no fear
Of what they're going to here.
We found the door, the metal stair,
And climbed to catwalk waiting there,
I looked below, beyond the lights
And was amazed to find my knees
Which usually would shake with fright,
And with sheer terror I would freeze,
They didn't shake when looking down.
We climbed aloft, until we reached the roof,
Then walked beyond and viewed the fairy city,
How fabulous and truly pretty,
The sky a shade of gentian blue,
Even of the darkest hue,
The lights were twinkling all around,
As far as we could see,
And we thought what a pity,
The smog obscured mountains beyond,
There were no edges to the pond,
The water lay as though below,
With stars reflected in the glow,
The sky above, the air was chill,
The view gave me such a thrill.
We slowly walked down to the ground,
To powdery dust that's all around,
And walked and talked of life and such,
Of many things, yet not of much.
I said goodbye, he locked the gate,
The very strangest thing is fate,
That I should meet a guard like him,
And on a momentary whim,
Be privileged alone to view
The Civic Plaza - all brand new.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Coronado neighborhood announces its first Visual Award, to a 1925 home
Award winner open, exhibiting art on First Fridays
Coronado resident and activist Wayne Murray announces the first-time award and explains the process, event.
The Coronado Awards Panel has chosen the home of Thomas Blee-Carlyle and Aaron Carter as the first recipient of the “Coronado Visual Award.” It was on the 2006 Coronado Home Tour and since then, the outward improvements speak for themselves. This award was brought to this point by Katie O’Neal and panel members Jody Clute, Brian Enas, Richard Freshley, Mary Henningsen, Wayne Murray and Brian Vance, and was discussed with many more neighbors at the Day of the Dead event.
Aaron and Tom work constantly to improve and rejuvenate the East Side of Coronado. Each First Friday the doors of their home are open to neighbors to talk as they host an art gallery showing. Please come meet Aaron and Tom some First Friday soon and see why this home was selected.
They have gone above and beyond in the renovation of this rare Phoenix home to grant our community with a treasure now to be honored with the Coronado Visual Award. In gratitude for their efforts, Monica at MacAlpine’s has generously donated dinner or lunch for two as part of this award. Congratulations and thank you Monica!
Click here, SCOTSCRAIG AWARD, for a link to slideshow of the home. (Wait a moment for buffering of the Windows Media video.)
Below is a description of the home written by Aaron Carter. The award panel offers the homeowners an opportunity to write their own words about their home.
Built in 1925, the Tudor Bungalow is affectionately named “Scotscraig” after the name of the original development. An important design tenant was to integrate the desert and period colors with the visual and physical elements of the home. The 18-month custom period renovation restored historic details both inside and out while being sensitive to the environment and modernization. Tom and I tried to visualize then harmonize these visceral aspects: color, light, sound and texture.
The front landscape uses desert plantings. The bright reds, oranges and yellows resonate with the red pavestone, red rocks, cement entryway, decorative painting on the portico, and large boulders. In this way, the warm colors are brushed across the fragile salvia blooms, the enduring pavestone, and hand-painted portico. The 1940’s barn is cloaked in marigold orange, agave green, and geranium red. The color palette expands to include the antique copper mineral tone of the landscape lighting, announcing the homes location in Arizona. The mountains around are symbolized by the granite grey of the pea gravel, river rocks, stones and fountain. The period olivine greens and browns of the half-timbering and trim, as well as the painted red wood fence, represent the wooded forest one might find a Tudor Bungalow.
Black and white striped fabric awnings further enhance the graphic qualities and present a framing for the entire scene. The post lights offer their fire at night, and the fountain captures the essence of life while bringing a calming sound. An integration of location, environment, history and flora results in a friendly visual award-winning appeal.
Coronado resident and activist Wayne Murray announces the first-time award and explains the process, event.
The Coronado Awards Panel has chosen the home of Thomas Blee-Carlyle and Aaron Carter as the first recipient of the “Coronado Visual Award.” It was on the 2006 Coronado Home Tour and since then, the outward improvements speak for themselves. This award was brought to this point by Katie O’Neal and panel members Jody Clute, Brian Enas, Richard Freshley, Mary Henningsen, Wayne Murray and Brian Vance, and was discussed with many more neighbors at the Day of the Dead event.
Aaron and Tom work constantly to improve and rejuvenate the East Side of Coronado. Each First Friday the doors of their home are open to neighbors to talk as they host an art gallery showing. Please come meet Aaron and Tom some First Friday soon and see why this home was selected.
They have gone above and beyond in the renovation of this rare Phoenix home to grant our community with a treasure now to be honored with the Coronado Visual Award. In gratitude for their efforts, Monica at MacAlpine’s has generously donated dinner or lunch for two as part of this award. Congratulations and thank you Monica!
Click here, SCOTSCRAIG AWARD, for a link to slideshow of the home. (Wait a moment for buffering of the Windows Media video.)
Below is a description of the home written by Aaron Carter. The award panel offers the homeowners an opportunity to write their own words about their home.
Built in 1925, the Tudor Bungalow is affectionately named “Scotscraig” after the name of the original development. An important design tenant was to integrate the desert and period colors with the visual and physical elements of the home. The 18-month custom period renovation restored historic details both inside and out while being sensitive to the environment and modernization. Tom and I tried to visualize then harmonize these visceral aspects: color, light, sound and texture.
The front landscape uses desert plantings. The bright reds, oranges and yellows resonate with the red pavestone, red rocks, cement entryway, decorative painting on the portico, and large boulders. In this way, the warm colors are brushed across the fragile salvia blooms, the enduring pavestone, and hand-painted portico. The 1940’s barn is cloaked in marigold orange, agave green, and geranium red. The color palette expands to include the antique copper mineral tone of the landscape lighting, announcing the homes location in Arizona. The mountains around are symbolized by the granite grey of the pea gravel, river rocks, stones and fountain. The period olivine greens and browns of the half-timbering and trim, as well as the painted red wood fence, represent the wooded forest one might find a Tudor Bungalow.
Black and white striped fabric awnings further enhance the graphic qualities and present a framing for the entire scene. The post lights offer their fire at night, and the fountain captures the essence of life while bringing a calming sound. An integration of location, environment, history and flora results in a friendly visual award-winning appeal.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Read this preview chapter of a new memoir, promised in the review of "Running With Scissors" in our Nov. 20 print issue
Here is Chapter Four of the memoir-in-progress, My Life and High Times, which loosely emulates James Thurber's My Life and Hard Times, in covering about the same period of my life as his memoir did his--my life also serendipitously suggesting chapter titles that, again, echo Thurber's. I wish I could also say the writing is similar and, especially, that the humorous touch is as light as his. I tried, but alas, my style is my own, such as it is. And it's my life, anyway. Welcome to it ...
The title of this chapter alludes to Thurber's "The Day the Dam Broke." I dedicate it to my two wonderful, more or less drug-free children, now that they are adults and the question of obtaining custody is entirely moot.
Chapter Three
The Day All Hell Broke Loose
© 2006. All rights reserved.
In “those years,” my friends and I, like all subcultures, had our own little set of code words and specialized slang. In addition to articulated grunts, squeaks, clicks, whistles, whoops and burps, we also used a number of made-up words (or regular words with special meanings), the general import of all of which was that we were really cool. (We didn’t do too much with secret hand gestures or handshakes, though Colby Pressley and I did get in trouble once in 7th grade for what Mrs. Koontz oddly assumed were some kind of sexually suggestive finger motions. Actually, here’s what was going on: There was some odd bit of wispy lint or fuzz that I had noticed floating across the room toward me among the thousands of more minute motes and dust specks visible in a broad shaft of sunlight stabbing though our English classroom one slow afternoon. Now distracted from the blackboard exercises in grammar trees, I snatched the lazily wafting piece of fuzz, and, by rubbing my thumb and forefinger together, managed to re-release it, in Colby’s direction. We played “catch” for a few slo-mo back-and-forths with the amazing wisp of fuzz, but meanwhile, all Mrs. Koontz could see was that we were intermittently rubbing our thumb and finger together across the room at each other. After we failed to take the import of her deadly glare, she called us to her desk, where we cleared up the misunderstanding. I suppose we produced the fuzz-bit as evidence, though in my view, her guess that we were making some kind of dirty gesture was more outlandish than the real story. Jeez.)
Some of our druggie-era slang included “berry-face”: an allusion to someone having a beaming, perhaps even flushed face, though the beatific grin was the real clincher. This term was drawn from our fascination, when tripping, with the ripe dogwood berries ubiquitous around our landscape. These autumn adornments are a shiny bright scarlet as ordinarily beheld--and incandescent little drops of immanent godhead when you’re hallucinating. Another, more made-up term was “neckle-nozle peacock-eyes,” which referred to the eyes of someone having an LSD experience--luminous, shiny, and with telltale dilated pupils. Stan, one of the more creative, and correspondingly unstable, members of our little clique, came up with this one, among others.
So, just as smoking pot itself is kind of child’s play, the slang that comes from that part of stoner culture is clearly infantile compared to mature expressions such as this highly abbreviated version of our LSD-related lexicon. As for getting initiated into that subcultural niche, there’s a first time for everyone.
Mine came on an otherwise inauspicious Saturday, during the year when I was already seeing a counselor as part of a small group with some other “troubled but salvageable” kids. I suppose I was sent there as the outcome of a series of misadventures beginning with the time I didn’t come home till 3 a.m., which was about two days past curfew when I was 14. You see, as the youth theater’s “Fiddler on the Roof” opening night party wound down (I played one of kids betrothed to the younger girls, a non-speaking part--and worked behind the scenes on sets and lighting), Gordon, the lighting designer, and Wayne, another really cool older guy, asked if I wanted to go to some girl’s house where we would “get laid,” they promised. (It was a big gyp, of course; and moreover, the night’s featured coquette, Karen Hyde, was, years later, a thorn in my side in a Philosophy of Religion class at the local U., where I was an East-leaning atheist, and she was at that juncture a born-again Baptist. Gordon, who lived in William Jennings Bryan’s old home, actually somehow ended up coming over to my house to go to bat for me against the more dire punishments my parents had in mind. As a ressult, I ended up grounded for a month, sans the eight hours of rock-bustin’ on non-school days.)
I think the event immediately triggering the counseling, though, was when Stan, Drew, Steve Ward and I ended up having to be picked up at the police station at 1 a.m. by our parents, who were a little peeved about it. Drew and I had been spending the night at Stan’s and we snuck out and met Steve, and all went over to Robin Young’s, and we were throwing pebbles at her bedroom window, to get her to come out too, except we actually had no idea which was her window. Perhaps her parents thought it was a light shower of very small meteorites--although if I thought that, I would probably turn on the radio for a civil defense message, rather than calling the police. Jeez.
One of the other counseling participants was a girl with trichtilomania, which means she pulled her own hair out in handfuls. I think it was was whispering offensive come-ons in her right ear. She would have been kind of cute, too, except ... you know those dolls that little girls play with, with the synthetic hair, and after a few years, you can see the pattern of holes in their pink rubber scalp that the hair no longer hides?
There was another kid in the counseling, too, whose misdeeds I was never clear on. I hung out at his house a few times, and I think it reassured both sets of parents that our activity together never went beyond “listlessness.”
Our counselor was Don Boone, M.S.W., an early “tough-love” advocate who looked kind of like Dr. Phil except his shaved head and ears were shaped more like Henry’s, the silent kid from the comics. He comes into this story again later, in peanut-headed cameo.
So, this one Saturday, I was to meet this black kid named Daniel at Montford Park, in the once stately but now seedier part of town that my sister now lives in now that it’s getting gentrified all over again. I waited forever ... the kind of forever that, the longer you wait, the more sure you are you’ll just have missed the guy, and after all that time invested, too! He did eventually show up. From my own commerce, I later understood how little it may have been worth it to him to meet some suburban nerd just to sell a $3 pill.
The pill was, I think, Purple Barrel acid, which is just like the name sounds. I took it then and there, and that was the fatal mistake.
I already knew academically that LSD trips could last twelve to sixteen hours or more. I knew this from reading Dr. Joel Fort’s books about treating wacked-out druggies in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in the ’60s. That’s where also I learned Valium could keep me from going over the bright orange edge into the rabbit-hole of irreversible madness, if I had taken anything labeled “Eat Me.” I also checked the overdose level and “contraindications” of various fun pharmaceuticals such as Obedrin LA (a form of prescribed amphetamine--a white pill infused with flecks of red fun-crystals, and called “Strawberry Shortcake” by the depraved) and oxycodone (Percodan, or synthetic morphine), in my girlfriend Jennifer’s decased father’s Physician’s Desk Reference before lightly and casually abusing them.
I was a rebel, a bad kid--but also a Nice Jewish Boy. OK, I was a nerd.
Anyway, I took the acid, then started walking toward the east side of downtown from Montford, where I would be able to more directly hitch-hike my way to Jennifer’s house. This was about 3 in the afternoon.
Jennifer’s mom was one of those “pal” kind of parents who make their home a hospitable hangout for her daughters’ friends--in the spaces between shrieking at one or both of her female offspring, driving them to tears (and booze, drugs and the comforting embrace of horny young boys). Tina drank Champales all day with no evident effect except that it made her oblivious to our oblique derision. By the time she switched to vodka tonics in the evening, teasing her became a complete waste of breath, but she took up the slack by berating her friend Edward, who could also often be found hanging around the Vernon house. The tragedy of his having been a lobotomy patient made teasing him a little too guilt-ridden an exercise for outsiders, but at least we could watch the Vernons, including elementary-school-age Betsy and Billy, mess with his head.
Edward wasn’t there that day, but Don Boone, who also had a therapeutic relationship, separately, with the Vernons, dropped by. I smugly, breezily said “Hi” to Don, who himself kind of breezed in and out, and that was about the last breezy thing to take place that day, as my trip then moved from the phase of fascinating and peculiar physical sensations to one of total, tongue-tying, jaw-dropping mystical awe. So, had we run into one another a few minutes later, Don would have had the advantage. Even Edward.
The physical effects: First, “electric teeth.” Speed, I later learned, tends to make you clench your jaw and grind your teeth with an involuntary, pit-bull-like resolve. Acid has a similar effect, except your teeth tingle tantalizingly even before you, if instead under the influence of amphetamines, would have loosened them from the jawbone. So, you commence to clack them lightly together, and on contact, they seem to conduct the tingly electric current emanating from the big brain starting to wiggle and writhe nearby, elsewhere in your skull. And, as you slowly separate your choppers, or bring them nearly back together, uppers seem to repel lowers, as if like poles of a magnet. (I bet that happens even if you have ceramic, not metallic, fillings. It would be interesting to see what would happen if old people did acid: What about when they take their dentures out at night? Remember that old novelty toy, the wind-up clattering teeth? The idea must have come from somewhere ...)
This “electric teeth” phenomenon could occupy you for hours if not for the other things that begin to happen. These “other things” represent the transformation of perceptual distortions limited to one’s own body, into ones that start to involve the outside world. (Though these also start to raise the old question, left unanswered by most people back in infancy, and forgotten, as seemingly obvious: Where does my “self” end and the “outside world” begin? On acid, perceptually, the question regains some fascination, if not urgency ...)
One of these effects is “trails”--stubbornly persistent after-images of things in motion. Such as your arms--looking like they’re still where they were at the same time they appear to be where they now are (and at all points in between)--which you may begin constantly waving across your field of vision, watching the “trails.” If otherwise supple, you may be able to trick sober observers into thinking you’re practicing belly-dancing, with its accompanying, meaningful hand movements, while you’re actually watching “trails.” And even if you’re not too supple, and don’t fool anyone, this still might be good exercise.
(See Appendix A for a discussion of the phamacological basis of “trails” and other perceptual distortions caused by LSD, which occupies the receptor sites of the inhibitory neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain’s synapses. See Appendix B for what this implies about modern-day SSRI-type antidepressants, and how the confident social functioning they promote in many patients represents the opposite pole from profound insight into the nature of the Self and a mystical attunement with the Tao. In so many words, Prozac is firmly at odds with dedicated navel-gazing.)
As for this story, you may be worrying that not much hell has broken loose yet, and it is already almost, oh ... about 7 p.m. on The Day All Hell Broke Loose. That’s all right, it’s about to.
What happened was that my dinnertime absence triggered some implacable calling around to my friends’ houses by my Mom. She finally called Jennifer’s, where Tina informed her that I was there. This betrayal is distressing; given my condition, she could at least have informed her that I was not all there. Actually, I think the news was that I had been there; then I had walked over to Stan’s, and was picked up by my Mom en route back to Jennifer’s--this made all the easier by the fact that walking the black asphalt road had begun to seem like slogging though wet but shifting sand, the way the novel, geometrically shifting composition of the paved surface seemed to be trying to convert the substance of my tennis shoes likewise, to absorb them into itself. So, when my mom drove up, I couldn’t get away very fast, and she got me into the car.
(The “crystalline, geometric” thing is another characteristic perceptual effect that, fortunately, is there to take over when the novelty of “trails” may begin to wear off. That “crystalline, geometric” appearance that all surfaces begin to take on, at the same time renders everything as seemingly alive, organically interconnected, so that boundaries between things seem less significant. And, ordinarily nondescript things can become intricately beautiful. At Jennifer’s for instance, the wall-to-wall blue carpeting with yellow stains of dog pee here and there appeared like a splendid Oriental carpet--and their dog wasn’t even a Pekingese (much less a Shar-Pei or Shih-Tsu), but rather a regular old American Standard poodle.
With everything also pulsing, shimmering, undulating and so on, this is when things--such as your face in the mirror--can seem to the ill-prepared to be melting or morphing into Yourself As an Old Man, or a decaying corpse, or your cousin Joey who everybody used to say you looked so much like, while pinching both your cheeks. This is a good time to try NOT to freak out. It’s not OK to punch a feeble old aunt just because she’s pinching your cheek, no matter how much a painful pinch interferes with your cheek’s organic oneness with the All. (A warning, though: In this condition, when you may begin to feel “one” with Joey, or that you really can’t tell where you end and Outer Reality begins--neither of these realizations is conducive to acing midterm exams.)
Upon arriving home, I was ushered into my parents’ bedroom, where my Dad was waiting, kind of irritated, I suppose. His blood pressure, barely controlled at the best of times, was pounding in my supersenses. His face appeared to me livid, bloated with blood, like a rotting tomato filled with noxious gases and about to burst. “Nice berry-face, Dad!” I thought. At least, I think I only thought it, though he then lashed out at me, knocking off my glasses. I picked them back up and put them on, inarticulately indicating I had something of great importance to say. This at least forestalled further blows. I don’t think my Dad really wanted to hit me; he was just acting out the pre-programmed robot-like motions of a straight, unevolved mortal, so my Buddha-nature showered him invisibly with my compassion.
Thus, we all became aware of the futility of the interview, and I was allowed to go to the kitchen for the supper they had saved for me, oh boy! I was transfixed for a while, gazing at the awesomeness of the last few bits of soap suds valiantly hanging in there against the ravages of grease in the hamburger griddle, soaking in the sink. Then I sat down to contemplate the hamburger. Every sensation--biting, salivating, chewing and swallowing--was greatly magnified. Occasionally, even flavor wormed its way into my consciousness amid all the other, preoccupying sensations, like an orgasm achieved in haste, and accomplished despite an uncomfortable position.
That hamburger seemed to last forever. Not that I wanted it to.
I went and started running a bath, whereupon my Mom called me back into their bedroom. She handed me a book for parents about drug abuse and pointed to a paragraph about LSD and suicide. Somehow, though, I must have conveyed the incorrigible joy I took in being alive and that my “lightness of being” was entirely bearable, so they let me take my bath while they went on preparing for a party they were going out to.
In the bath, I again exulted and mourned the desperate travails of the suds against the grime, seeing in it a metaphor for all wordly, Darwinian struggles, and happy to be transcendent over all such petty, temporal concerns even as my trip was hitting the downhill slide. So it didn’t matter to me how water-puckered my hands and feet were by the time I got out of the bath; if it meant I was actually, physically regressing into Salamander Man or Toad Boy, then that was just my karmic fate. Was it not?
I think my little brother Sam wisely avoided me the rest of the evening, and my sister was out having her own thrills somewhere, having earned them by participating in the family dinner at the appointed hour. But my grandmother, who was living with us at the time, cornered me in the hall. “Why can’t you be a good boy?” she wailed, crying. “I will be, Gram,” I said, hugging her reassuringly--yet with the emotional remoteness of my amphibious nature.
A little later, I felt human enough to hop across the street to Nobby’s. Even though the LSD was now quickly wearing off, I was able to enjoy observing the trails, the persistent parabolas left by the ping-pong ball, as Nobby and his dad, Nobby Senior, played a couple of games.
I stepped up to play against Mr. Riedy, but my confidence that literally being able to visualize the ball’s trajectory would give me an insuperable competitive edge was sorely misplaced.
The title of this chapter alludes to Thurber's "The Day the Dam Broke." I dedicate it to my two wonderful, more or less drug-free children, now that they are adults and the question of obtaining custody is entirely moot.
Chapter Three
The Day All Hell Broke Loose
© 2006. All rights reserved.
In “those years,” my friends and I, like all subcultures, had our own little set of code words and specialized slang. In addition to articulated grunts, squeaks, clicks, whistles, whoops and burps, we also used a number of made-up words (or regular words with special meanings), the general import of all of which was that we were really cool. (We didn’t do too much with secret hand gestures or handshakes, though Colby Pressley and I did get in trouble once in 7th grade for what Mrs. Koontz oddly assumed were some kind of sexually suggestive finger motions. Actually, here’s what was going on: There was some odd bit of wispy lint or fuzz that I had noticed floating across the room toward me among the thousands of more minute motes and dust specks visible in a broad shaft of sunlight stabbing though our English classroom one slow afternoon. Now distracted from the blackboard exercises in grammar trees, I snatched the lazily wafting piece of fuzz, and, by rubbing my thumb and forefinger together, managed to re-release it, in Colby’s direction. We played “catch” for a few slo-mo back-and-forths with the amazing wisp of fuzz, but meanwhile, all Mrs. Koontz could see was that we were intermittently rubbing our thumb and finger together across the room at each other. After we failed to take the import of her deadly glare, she called us to her desk, where we cleared up the misunderstanding. I suppose we produced the fuzz-bit as evidence, though in my view, her guess that we were making some kind of dirty gesture was more outlandish than the real story. Jeez.)
Some of our druggie-era slang included “berry-face”: an allusion to someone having a beaming, perhaps even flushed face, though the beatific grin was the real clincher. This term was drawn from our fascination, when tripping, with the ripe dogwood berries ubiquitous around our landscape. These autumn adornments are a shiny bright scarlet as ordinarily beheld--and incandescent little drops of immanent godhead when you’re hallucinating. Another, more made-up term was “neckle-nozle peacock-eyes,” which referred to the eyes of someone having an LSD experience--luminous, shiny, and with telltale dilated pupils. Stan, one of the more creative, and correspondingly unstable, members of our little clique, came up with this one, among others.
So, just as smoking pot itself is kind of child’s play, the slang that comes from that part of stoner culture is clearly infantile compared to mature expressions such as this highly abbreviated version of our LSD-related lexicon. As for getting initiated into that subcultural niche, there’s a first time for everyone.
Mine came on an otherwise inauspicious Saturday, during the year when I was already seeing a counselor as part of a small group with some other “troubled but salvageable” kids. I suppose I was sent there as the outcome of a series of misadventures beginning with the time I didn’t come home till 3 a.m., which was about two days past curfew when I was 14. You see, as the youth theater’s “Fiddler on the Roof” opening night party wound down (I played one of kids betrothed to the younger girls, a non-speaking part--and worked behind the scenes on sets and lighting), Gordon, the lighting designer, and Wayne, another really cool older guy, asked if I wanted to go to some girl’s house where we would “get laid,” they promised. (It was a big gyp, of course; and moreover, the night’s featured coquette, Karen Hyde, was, years later, a thorn in my side in a Philosophy of Religion class at the local U., where I was an East-leaning atheist, and she was at that juncture a born-again Baptist. Gordon, who lived in William Jennings Bryan’s old home, actually somehow ended up coming over to my house to go to bat for me against the more dire punishments my parents had in mind. As a ressult, I ended up grounded for a month, sans the eight hours of rock-bustin’ on non-school days.)
I think the event immediately triggering the counseling, though, was when Stan, Drew, Steve Ward and I ended up having to be picked up at the police station at 1 a.m. by our parents, who were a little peeved about it. Drew and I had been spending the night at Stan’s and we snuck out and met Steve, and all went over to Robin Young’s, and we were throwing pebbles at her bedroom window, to get her to come out too, except we actually had no idea which was her window. Perhaps her parents thought it was a light shower of very small meteorites--although if I thought that, I would probably turn on the radio for a civil defense message, rather than calling the police. Jeez.
One of the other counseling participants was a girl with trichtilomania, which means she pulled her own hair out in handfuls. I think it was was whispering offensive come-ons in her right ear. She would have been kind of cute, too, except ... you know those dolls that little girls play with, with the synthetic hair, and after a few years, you can see the pattern of holes in their pink rubber scalp that the hair no longer hides?
There was another kid in the counseling, too, whose misdeeds I was never clear on. I hung out at his house a few times, and I think it reassured both sets of parents that our activity together never went beyond “listlessness.”
Our counselor was Don Boone, M.S.W., an early “tough-love” advocate who looked kind of like Dr. Phil except his shaved head and ears were shaped more like Henry’s, the silent kid from the comics. He comes into this story again later, in peanut-headed cameo.
So, this one Saturday, I was to meet this black kid named Daniel at Montford Park, in the once stately but now seedier part of town that my sister now lives in now that it’s getting gentrified all over again. I waited forever ... the kind of forever that, the longer you wait, the more sure you are you’ll just have missed the guy, and after all that time invested, too! He did eventually show up. From my own commerce, I later understood how little it may have been worth it to him to meet some suburban nerd just to sell a $3 pill.
The pill was, I think, Purple Barrel acid, which is just like the name sounds. I took it then and there, and that was the fatal mistake.
I already knew academically that LSD trips could last twelve to sixteen hours or more. I knew this from reading Dr. Joel Fort’s books about treating wacked-out druggies in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in the ’60s. That’s where also I learned Valium could keep me from going over the bright orange edge into the rabbit-hole of irreversible madness, if I had taken anything labeled “Eat Me.” I also checked the overdose level and “contraindications” of various fun pharmaceuticals such as Obedrin LA (a form of prescribed amphetamine--a white pill infused with flecks of red fun-crystals, and called “Strawberry Shortcake” by the depraved) and oxycodone (Percodan, or synthetic morphine), in my girlfriend Jennifer’s decased father’s Physician’s Desk Reference before lightly and casually abusing them.
I was a rebel, a bad kid--but also a Nice Jewish Boy. OK, I was a nerd.
Anyway, I took the acid, then started walking toward the east side of downtown from Montford, where I would be able to more directly hitch-hike my way to Jennifer’s house. This was about 3 in the afternoon.
Jennifer’s mom was one of those “pal” kind of parents who make their home a hospitable hangout for her daughters’ friends--in the spaces between shrieking at one or both of her female offspring, driving them to tears (and booze, drugs and the comforting embrace of horny young boys). Tina drank Champales all day with no evident effect except that it made her oblivious to our oblique derision. By the time she switched to vodka tonics in the evening, teasing her became a complete waste of breath, but she took up the slack by berating her friend Edward, who could also often be found hanging around the Vernon house. The tragedy of his having been a lobotomy patient made teasing him a little too guilt-ridden an exercise for outsiders, but at least we could watch the Vernons, including elementary-school-age Betsy and Billy, mess with his head.
Edward wasn’t there that day, but Don Boone, who also had a therapeutic relationship, separately, with the Vernons, dropped by. I smugly, breezily said “Hi” to Don, who himself kind of breezed in and out, and that was about the last breezy thing to take place that day, as my trip then moved from the phase of fascinating and peculiar physical sensations to one of total, tongue-tying, jaw-dropping mystical awe. So, had we run into one another a few minutes later, Don would have had the advantage. Even Edward.
The physical effects: First, “electric teeth.” Speed, I later learned, tends to make you clench your jaw and grind your teeth with an involuntary, pit-bull-like resolve. Acid has a similar effect, except your teeth tingle tantalizingly even before you, if instead under the influence of amphetamines, would have loosened them from the jawbone. So, you commence to clack them lightly together, and on contact, they seem to conduct the tingly electric current emanating from the big brain starting to wiggle and writhe nearby, elsewhere in your skull. And, as you slowly separate your choppers, or bring them nearly back together, uppers seem to repel lowers, as if like poles of a magnet. (I bet that happens even if you have ceramic, not metallic, fillings. It would be interesting to see what would happen if old people did acid: What about when they take their dentures out at night? Remember that old novelty toy, the wind-up clattering teeth? The idea must have come from somewhere ...)
This “electric teeth” phenomenon could occupy you for hours if not for the other things that begin to happen. These “other things” represent the transformation of perceptual distortions limited to one’s own body, into ones that start to involve the outside world. (Though these also start to raise the old question, left unanswered by most people back in infancy, and forgotten, as seemingly obvious: Where does my “self” end and the “outside world” begin? On acid, perceptually, the question regains some fascination, if not urgency ...)
One of these effects is “trails”--stubbornly persistent after-images of things in motion. Such as your arms--looking like they’re still where they were at the same time they appear to be where they now are (and at all points in between)--which you may begin constantly waving across your field of vision, watching the “trails.” If otherwise supple, you may be able to trick sober observers into thinking you’re practicing belly-dancing, with its accompanying, meaningful hand movements, while you’re actually watching “trails.” And even if you’re not too supple, and don’t fool anyone, this still might be good exercise.
(See Appendix A for a discussion of the phamacological basis of “trails” and other perceptual distortions caused by LSD, which occupies the receptor sites of the inhibitory neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain’s synapses. See Appendix B for what this implies about modern-day SSRI-type antidepressants, and how the confident social functioning they promote in many patients represents the opposite pole from profound insight into the nature of the Self and a mystical attunement with the Tao. In so many words, Prozac is firmly at odds with dedicated navel-gazing.)
As for this story, you may be worrying that not much hell has broken loose yet, and it is already almost, oh ... about 7 p.m. on The Day All Hell Broke Loose. That’s all right, it’s about to.
What happened was that my dinnertime absence triggered some implacable calling around to my friends’ houses by my Mom. She finally called Jennifer’s, where Tina informed her that I was there. This betrayal is distressing; given my condition, she could at least have informed her that I was not all there. Actually, I think the news was that I had been there; then I had walked over to Stan’s, and was picked up by my Mom en route back to Jennifer’s--this made all the easier by the fact that walking the black asphalt road had begun to seem like slogging though wet but shifting sand, the way the novel, geometrically shifting composition of the paved surface seemed to be trying to convert the substance of my tennis shoes likewise, to absorb them into itself. So, when my mom drove up, I couldn’t get away very fast, and she got me into the car.
(The “crystalline, geometric” thing is another characteristic perceptual effect that, fortunately, is there to take over when the novelty of “trails” may begin to wear off. That “crystalline, geometric” appearance that all surfaces begin to take on, at the same time renders everything as seemingly alive, organically interconnected, so that boundaries between things seem less significant. And, ordinarily nondescript things can become intricately beautiful. At Jennifer’s for instance, the wall-to-wall blue carpeting with yellow stains of dog pee here and there appeared like a splendid Oriental carpet--and their dog wasn’t even a Pekingese (much less a Shar-Pei or Shih-Tsu), but rather a regular old American Standard poodle.
With everything also pulsing, shimmering, undulating and so on, this is when things--such as your face in the mirror--can seem to the ill-prepared to be melting or morphing into Yourself As an Old Man, or a decaying corpse, or your cousin Joey who everybody used to say you looked so much like, while pinching both your cheeks. This is a good time to try NOT to freak out. It’s not OK to punch a feeble old aunt just because she’s pinching your cheek, no matter how much a painful pinch interferes with your cheek’s organic oneness with the All. (A warning, though: In this condition, when you may begin to feel “one” with Joey, or that you really can’t tell where you end and Outer Reality begins--neither of these realizations is conducive to acing midterm exams.)
Upon arriving home, I was ushered into my parents’ bedroom, where my Dad was waiting, kind of irritated, I suppose. His blood pressure, barely controlled at the best of times, was pounding in my supersenses. His face appeared to me livid, bloated with blood, like a rotting tomato filled with noxious gases and about to burst. “Nice berry-face, Dad!” I thought. At least, I think I only thought it, though he then lashed out at me, knocking off my glasses. I picked them back up and put them on, inarticulately indicating I had something of great importance to say. This at least forestalled further blows. I don’t think my Dad really wanted to hit me; he was just acting out the pre-programmed robot-like motions of a straight, unevolved mortal, so my Buddha-nature showered him invisibly with my compassion.
Thus, we all became aware of the futility of the interview, and I was allowed to go to the kitchen for the supper they had saved for me, oh boy! I was transfixed for a while, gazing at the awesomeness of the last few bits of soap suds valiantly hanging in there against the ravages of grease in the hamburger griddle, soaking in the sink. Then I sat down to contemplate the hamburger. Every sensation--biting, salivating, chewing and swallowing--was greatly magnified. Occasionally, even flavor wormed its way into my consciousness amid all the other, preoccupying sensations, like an orgasm achieved in haste, and accomplished despite an uncomfortable position.
That hamburger seemed to last forever. Not that I wanted it to.
I went and started running a bath, whereupon my Mom called me back into their bedroom. She handed me a book for parents about drug abuse and pointed to a paragraph about LSD and suicide. Somehow, though, I must have conveyed the incorrigible joy I took in being alive and that my “lightness of being” was entirely bearable, so they let me take my bath while they went on preparing for a party they were going out to.
In the bath, I again exulted and mourned the desperate travails of the suds against the grime, seeing in it a metaphor for all wordly, Darwinian struggles, and happy to be transcendent over all such petty, temporal concerns even as my trip was hitting the downhill slide. So it didn’t matter to me how water-puckered my hands and feet were by the time I got out of the bath; if it meant I was actually, physically regressing into Salamander Man or Toad Boy, then that was just my karmic fate. Was it not?
I think my little brother Sam wisely avoided me the rest of the evening, and my sister was out having her own thrills somewhere, having earned them by participating in the family dinner at the appointed hour. But my grandmother, who was living with us at the time, cornered me in the hall. “Why can’t you be a good boy?” she wailed, crying. “I will be, Gram,” I said, hugging her reassuringly--yet with the emotional remoteness of my amphibious nature.
A little later, I felt human enough to hop across the street to Nobby’s. Even though the LSD was now quickly wearing off, I was able to enjoy observing the trails, the persistent parabolas left by the ping-pong ball, as Nobby and his dad, Nobby Senior, played a couple of games.
I stepped up to play against Mr. Riedy, but my confidence that literally being able to visualize the ball’s trajectory would give me an insuperable competitive edge was sorely misplaced.
Editorial that got me fired from managing the city of Maricopa's weekly paper (Aug-Sept '06, 60-hour-a-week job, while also producing The Messenger)
I go there in my mind
I just read a column in another local publication, titled “There’s no way that just happened!” This was a religion column, and — beyond a number of the doctrinal and hortatory points it made — one of the notable things about it was the number of words printed in all capital letters. (Now, I’m sure this was completely intentional. We sometimes hear the advice as to e-mail etiquette, “Don’t type in all caps, it looks like you’re yelling.” Here, I’m sure that was the intended effect: This pastor was writing as if delivering a sermon, and at various points in that sermon, I know he would be rather worked up and joyously enthusiastic, and he wanted you to feel that, even while reading quietly to yourself. And I did feel it.)
The other thing notable about his column, though, is that, starting with its title, it takes the opposite view from the one in an essay I recently wrote for my evangelical Jewish friend, who lives in Washington. D.C. Yes, you heard me, this is a right-wing, evangelical Jew (no, not a “messianic Jew,” not one of those so-called “Jews for Jesus”). He’s an avid supporter of “intelligent design,” and of President Bush, along with all of his policies (except his refusing to veto excessive spending). He’s also virulently anti-“choice,” considers Jack Abramoff an upstanding fellow, says liberals and the New York Times are all a bunch of liars promoting a radically secular agenda, etc., etc.
He and I have been arguing over a number of these issues, especially evolution, ID and scientific vs. Biblical explanations for things, via e-mail for about 5 years now.
Side note: Interestingly, this friend and I go back to the 7th grade, and in that era, there was no particular clue he would turn out to be a right-wing wacko. Within certain margins, he seemed quite normal, including being normally rebellious. He introduced me to some good rock albums when I first joined a record club. He also sold me his electric guitar. In the 8th grade, we got sent to the principal’s office for gambling on the school bus. (We were just playing gin and Ohell, for a half-cent a point. Is that gambling?! I ask you.) We tried growing pot out at his once-reprobate-bachelor Dad’s old babe-lair cabin in the woods … just to name a few mutual, harmless adolescent exploits. (Actually, speaking of pastors, visiting him at college once, a preacher’s daughter seduced me at a frat party. Dating her later, I took her out to said cabin one weekend. “David, is this wrong?” she drawled, apparently in shock at the now non-drunken, premeditated brazenness of our trysting.)
Back to bizness. Well, I had a brainstorm recently and figured I might finally be able to explain the correctness of evolution to my old friend — to everyone, in fact — in simple, easy-to-understand terms. Like the reverend’s column I just read, it has to do with what’s more likely: improbable things happening by blind, random chance, or, alternatively, “on purpose”? The idea is so easy, so universally comprehensible, I even sent it to Newsweek as a “My Turn” column. Still waiting to hear back on that. In the meantime, I offer it here, where lesser renown and notoriety, or even pillorying may await me:
The proof is now available. Kind of like with profound mathematical and physics theories, I can now prove the veracity of evolution and the falsity of intelligent design “theory” by way of a thought experiment.
In doing this, I think I am emulating the ID proponents. They construct thought experiments that “prove” ID by showing it defies common sense to think certain things in nature could happen by chance; therefore they must have come about due to an underlying, purposeful mind--probably God, but who knows? It could be those aliens who left the monoliths around littering the solar system, in order to further our evolution from dumb, doomed australopithecines to aggressive, therefore thriving, hominids (and beyond!).
Now, in response, scientists tend to come up with points that get around the IDers’ objections to evolution. I’m not going to go into those back-and-forths. I will instead comment on how philosophers of science--and without having to know much actual science either--can also identify the fallacies in IDers’ thinking, at a more fundamental level.
For instance, a few months ago, one of those liberal-secular New York Times contributors pointed out that one reason ID seems appealing as an explanation is because people basically have trouble truly grasping the immensity of time and space--and, I would add, the amazingly fertile hubbub in the realm of the very small and fast. In other words, if people other than cosmologists, subatomic physicists, geologists, microbiologists and so on could really get their heads around how zillions of events (most of them leading to nothing much interesting), over huge spans of time, at a minuscule, frantic scale and pace could and have led and do lead to all observable natural phenomena (even the most complex and autonomous, such as most “higher” animals, and many people), they would have much less problem allowing the explanatory power of evolution.
By contrast, since many people have very little imagination concerning scientific concepts, and limited ability to hold several abstractions in mind long enough to connect them into an intellectual framework, they think a number of what I consider superstitious, pseudo-explanations for things are more likely, and simpler. But pushing the question of complexity back one step to a Mind capable of coming up with nature’s forms and processes doesn’t really explain anything, even if it might perchance be true. That’s probably why the Founding Fathers were Deists, if by it they meant that a God may be the “First Mover,” but the way in which it then all works out over the eons is a fascinating subject for scientific inquiry, not faith-based nostrums. (Nate also disputes what he calls the “propaganda” that says the Founders were Deists and promoted “separation of church and state.” Oy vey, vas ist dis mishugahss?)
So, back to my thought experiment:
I have a concept called, “Couldn’t have done that if you tried.” [Editor’s note: See, there’s the contrast with the pastor’s title, “There’s no way that just happened.”] You know, like when you toss a piece of trash at the wastebasket and it happens to perch precariously on the edge, just barely teetering there (maybe with the help of the wall--but it’s still pretty cool, and highly unlikely). Or something else, say a slightly crumpled envelope, playing card or piece of a box, or a dollar bill (or, for the less flush, a quarter): you toss it or drop it, and it lands--and stands or leans--on its side or in the slot in a way that you could never have achieved in a million years if you were trying. I’m sure everyone can come up with their own examples. (Many of mine have to do with throwing something and it balancing improbably somehow--must be my inferiority complex about how I’ve never been able to get a basketball anywhere near the basket, let alone propped on the rim, against the backboard. By contrast, my old friend was pretty good with a ball, and still has a nickname associated with some player named Hal _____, number 15 …)
But I digress (again). The bottom line is, my thought experiment (really more just a notion, actually) proves that evolution is correct. The most amazing things happen by chance, more amazing than what tends to happen by design, and the more amazing, the more likely it is that it couldn’t have happened “on purpose.” (OK, so it’s just a variation on the old saw, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”)
Same for evolution: Only chance could account for all the amazing occurrences that have led to all the complex and bizarre forms we know in nature. Such as Michael Jackson. (Ta-dum.) No way anyone--even a God, or a super-brainy and unaccountably benevolent alien--could have done it all on purpose. That would defy the odds, for sure.
So, now you’ve been given some exposure to simple, common-sense based, easy-to-understand formulas for the opposing viewpoints on a major issue of our time. Which side do you come down on? Let us know.
— Or, maybe, you happen to have landed kind of on edge, improbably balanced on an ear, shoulder and hip-bone, not even immediately apt to fall over one way or the other. But if you write to tell me about it, I have only one request: Avoid all-capital-letters.
THANKS!!!
--David Tell
© 2006 Quicksilver Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
I just read a column in another local publication, titled “There’s no way that just happened!” This was a religion column, and — beyond a number of the doctrinal and hortatory points it made — one of the notable things about it was the number of words printed in all capital letters. (Now, I’m sure this was completely intentional. We sometimes hear the advice as to e-mail etiquette, “Don’t type in all caps, it looks like you’re yelling.” Here, I’m sure that was the intended effect: This pastor was writing as if delivering a sermon, and at various points in that sermon, I know he would be rather worked up and joyously enthusiastic, and he wanted you to feel that, even while reading quietly to yourself. And I did feel it.)
The other thing notable about his column, though, is that, starting with its title, it takes the opposite view from the one in an essay I recently wrote for my evangelical Jewish friend, who lives in Washington. D.C. Yes, you heard me, this is a right-wing, evangelical Jew (no, not a “messianic Jew,” not one of those so-called “Jews for Jesus”). He’s an avid supporter of “intelligent design,” and of President Bush, along with all of his policies (except his refusing to veto excessive spending). He’s also virulently anti-“choice,” considers Jack Abramoff an upstanding fellow, says liberals and the New York Times are all a bunch of liars promoting a radically secular agenda, etc., etc.
He and I have been arguing over a number of these issues, especially evolution, ID and scientific vs. Biblical explanations for things, via e-mail for about 5 years now.
Side note: Interestingly, this friend and I go back to the 7th grade, and in that era, there was no particular clue he would turn out to be a right-wing wacko. Within certain margins, he seemed quite normal, including being normally rebellious. He introduced me to some good rock albums when I first joined a record club. He also sold me his electric guitar. In the 8th grade, we got sent to the principal’s office for gambling on the school bus. (We were just playing gin and Ohell, for a half-cent a point. Is that gambling?! I ask you.) We tried growing pot out at his once-reprobate-bachelor Dad’s old babe-lair cabin in the woods … just to name a few mutual, harmless adolescent exploits. (Actually, speaking of pastors, visiting him at college once, a preacher’s daughter seduced me at a frat party. Dating her later, I took her out to said cabin one weekend. “David, is this wrong?” she drawled, apparently in shock at the now non-drunken, premeditated brazenness of our trysting.)
Back to bizness. Well, I had a brainstorm recently and figured I might finally be able to explain the correctness of evolution to my old friend — to everyone, in fact — in simple, easy-to-understand terms. Like the reverend’s column I just read, it has to do with what’s more likely: improbable things happening by blind, random chance, or, alternatively, “on purpose”? The idea is so easy, so universally comprehensible, I even sent it to Newsweek as a “My Turn” column. Still waiting to hear back on that. In the meantime, I offer it here, where lesser renown and notoriety, or even pillorying may await me:
The proof is now available. Kind of like with profound mathematical and physics theories, I can now prove the veracity of evolution and the falsity of intelligent design “theory” by way of a thought experiment.
In doing this, I think I am emulating the ID proponents. They construct thought experiments that “prove” ID by showing it defies common sense to think certain things in nature could happen by chance; therefore they must have come about due to an underlying, purposeful mind--probably God, but who knows? It could be those aliens who left the monoliths around littering the solar system, in order to further our evolution from dumb, doomed australopithecines to aggressive, therefore thriving, hominids (and beyond!).
Now, in response, scientists tend to come up with points that get around the IDers’ objections to evolution. I’m not going to go into those back-and-forths. I will instead comment on how philosophers of science--and without having to know much actual science either--can also identify the fallacies in IDers’ thinking, at a more fundamental level.
For instance, a few months ago, one of those liberal-secular New York Times contributors pointed out that one reason ID seems appealing as an explanation is because people basically have trouble truly grasping the immensity of time and space--and, I would add, the amazingly fertile hubbub in the realm of the very small and fast. In other words, if people other than cosmologists, subatomic physicists, geologists, microbiologists and so on could really get their heads around how zillions of events (most of them leading to nothing much interesting), over huge spans of time, at a minuscule, frantic scale and pace could and have led and do lead to all observable natural phenomena (even the most complex and autonomous, such as most “higher” animals, and many people), they would have much less problem allowing the explanatory power of evolution.
By contrast, since many people have very little imagination concerning scientific concepts, and limited ability to hold several abstractions in mind long enough to connect them into an intellectual framework, they think a number of what I consider superstitious, pseudo-explanations for things are more likely, and simpler. But pushing the question of complexity back one step to a Mind capable of coming up with nature’s forms and processes doesn’t really explain anything, even if it might perchance be true. That’s probably why the Founding Fathers were Deists, if by it they meant that a God may be the “First Mover,” but the way in which it then all works out over the eons is a fascinating subject for scientific inquiry, not faith-based nostrums. (Nate also disputes what he calls the “propaganda” that says the Founders were Deists and promoted “separation of church and state.” Oy vey, vas ist dis mishugahss?)
So, back to my thought experiment:
I have a concept called, “Couldn’t have done that if you tried.” [Editor’s note: See, there’s the contrast with the pastor’s title, “There’s no way that just happened.”] You know, like when you toss a piece of trash at the wastebasket and it happens to perch precariously on the edge, just barely teetering there (maybe with the help of the wall--but it’s still pretty cool, and highly unlikely). Or something else, say a slightly crumpled envelope, playing card or piece of a box, or a dollar bill (or, for the less flush, a quarter): you toss it or drop it, and it lands--and stands or leans--on its side or in the slot in a way that you could never have achieved in a million years if you were trying. I’m sure everyone can come up with their own examples. (Many of mine have to do with throwing something and it balancing improbably somehow--must be my inferiority complex about how I’ve never been able to get a basketball anywhere near the basket, let alone propped on the rim, against the backboard. By contrast, my old friend was pretty good with a ball, and still has a nickname associated with some player named Hal _____, number 15 …)
But I digress (again). The bottom line is, my thought experiment (really more just a notion, actually) proves that evolution is correct. The most amazing things happen by chance, more amazing than what tends to happen by design, and the more amazing, the more likely it is that it couldn’t have happened “on purpose.” (OK, so it’s just a variation on the old saw, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”)
Same for evolution: Only chance could account for all the amazing occurrences that have led to all the complex and bizarre forms we know in nature. Such as Michael Jackson. (Ta-dum.) No way anyone--even a God, or a super-brainy and unaccountably benevolent alien--could have done it all on purpose. That would defy the odds, for sure.
So, now you’ve been given some exposure to simple, common-sense based, easy-to-understand formulas for the opposing viewpoints on a major issue of our time. Which side do you come down on? Let us know.
— Or, maybe, you happen to have landed kind of on edge, improbably balanced on an ear, shoulder and hip-bone, not even immediately apt to fall over one way or the other. But if you write to tell me about it, I have only one request: Avoid all-capital-letters.
THANKS!!!
--David Tell
© 2006 Quicksilver Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
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