Many years later, while drinking coffee with me in Starbucks, Max sleeping quietly at our feet, the Grinch told me of the day that his heart grew bigger by five sizes. He liked having a name like Cher or Madonna, but it was hard as a youngster because he scared everyone. Though he smiles a lot now, back in the day when he stilled lived in his cave, he suffered from depression and was a prisoner to much darker thoughts than he cared to discuss. Living alone, he said, was a terrible thing and no one should live in complete isolation, especially during the holidays when his solitary ways seemed so much more bitter and lonely than they did the rest of the year. He and Max moved into Whoville that year, after the “incident,” and he took a job fixing musical instruments. After his story broke, though, and the television show came out, he only did the job so he could interact with others. Secretly, he was thrilled that Boris Karloff did his voice. What the cartoon did not really go into was the depth of his depression, the breadth of his isolation, or the blackness of his despair. Up to that point Christmas and its joy had been torture. In those bad old days, he had wept openly in bitter despair upon hearing the music come up the valley to his cave. He was supposed to be happy, but he wasn’t, and he couldn’t figure out why. He sipped his triple-caramel large macchiato (with a triple shot of espresso) and got whipped cream on his lip. He laughed and smiled. Max stirred under the table. He told me about his therapy, his anti-social behavior, and his eventual road to recovery–Dr. Geisel is a genius, he said. His book about depression, and the black hole of despair to which it drove him, will be out in the spring. He is the current mayor of Whoville and hasn’t been back to the cave in years.
Category Archives: imaginary creatures
On the Grinch
Many years later, while drinking coffee with me in Starbucks, Max sleeping quietly at our feet, the Grinch told me of the day that his heart grew bigger by five sizes. He liked having a name like Cher or Madonna, but it was hard as a youngster because he scared everyone. Though he smiles a lot now, back in the day when he stilled lived in his cave, he suffered from depression and was a prisoner to much darker thoughts than he cared to discuss. Living alone, he said, was a terrible thing and no one should live in complete isolation, especially during the holidays when his solitary ways seemed so much more bitter and lonely than they did the rest of the year. He and Max moved into Whoville that year, after the “incident,” and he took a job fixing musical instruments. After his story broke, though, and the television show came out, he only did the job so he could interact with others. Secretly, he was thrilled that Boris Karloff did his voice. What the cartoon did not really go into was the depth of his depression, the breadth of his isolation, or the blackness of his despair. Up to that point Christmas and its joy had been torture. In those bad old days, he had wept openly in bitter despair upon hearing the music come up the valley to his cave. He was supposed to be happy, but he wasn’t, and he couldn’t figure out why. He sipped his triple-caramel large macchiato (with a triple shot of espresso) and got whipped cream on his lip. He laughed and smiled. Max stirred under the table. He told me about his therapy, his anti-social behavior, and his eventual road to recovery–Dr. Geisel is a genius, he said. His book about depression, and the black hole of despair to which it drove him, will be out in the spring. He is the current mayor of Whoville and hasn’t been back to the cave in years.
On parade floats
Does anyone other than myself think that parade floats are a very strange cultural phenomenon? As a five-year-old I was fascinated by the floats in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade or in the New Year’s Parade out in Pasadena with all those red roses. My first experience with a float, up close and personal, was a float built by a fraternity from the local college. I got to play with the gold and black crepe paper, which is very cool if you are five. I know that homecoming floats are about school spirit, or that a Thanksgiving Day float is all about Santa Claus, but other than putting some pretty girls or some little kids on a float, I have no idea what the social function of a float is. Are we celebrating something or commemorating something? And if we are, why? One fraternity I know of builds an anti-float, which is just a flatbed truck with a bunch of broken down sofas on it. Would that be the example of an iconoclastic float? Or an anarchy float? I have never built a float, nor do I understand float lore or craft. I suppose floats need to be thematic, have paper mache caricatures of self-important political figures, sport several winsome lasses, threaten the opposing team with some soporific metaphor concerning destruction and loss, and sport the conquering team’s mascot. Or children. Or Santa Claus. Or a strange dancing group. Today I’m even more concerned than ever that I still do not understand the cultural materialism involved in the grotesque manifestation of school, team, or city spirit. Floats are a very public spectacle designed to draw attention to something, but they are still a short-lived, transitory, if not temporary, simulacra of life designed of materials with a limited life-span, so in a real sense, they are ephemera.
On parade floats
Does anyone other than myself think that parade floats are a very strange cultural phenomenon? As a five-year-old I was fascinated by the floats in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade or in the New Year’s Parade out in Pasadena with all those red roses. My first experience with a float, up close and personal, was a float built by a fraternity from the local college. I got to play with the gold and black crepe paper, which is very cool if you are five. I know that homecoming floats are about school spirit, or that a Thanksgiving Day float is all about Santa Claus, but other than putting some pretty girls or some little kids on a float, I have no idea what the social function of a float is. Are we celebrating something or commemorating something? And if we are, why? One fraternity I know of builds an anti-float, which is just a flatbed truck with a bunch of broken down sofas on it. Would that be the example of an iconoclastic float? Or an anarchy float? I have never built a float, nor do I understand float lore or craft. I suppose floats need to be thematic, have paper mache caricatures of self-important political figures, sport several winsome lasses, threaten the opposing team with some soporific metaphor concerning destruction and loss, and sport the conquering team’s mascot. Or children. Or Santa Claus. Or a strange dancing group. Today I’m even more concerned than ever that I still do not understand the cultural materialism involved in the grotesque manifestation of school, team, or city spirit. Floats are a very public spectacle designed to draw attention to something, but they are still a short-lived, transitory, if not temporary, simulacra of life designed of materials with a limited life-span, so in a real sense, they are ephemera.
On the haunted house
Let’s just get a couple of things clear, I don’t believe in ghosts or haunted houses, although I’ve had experiences with both. As an objective empiricist, I reject outright most supernatural phenomenon, especially clairvoyance, fortune-telling, and extra-sensory perception. Since nobody can successfully pick six numbers in a lottery, ever, I rest assured that all of that is unmitigated hooey and nonsense. Haunted houses are, however, another matter entirely. I live in a new house, currently, that is completely antiseptic and clean, no creepy anything going on anywhere in the place. Older houses, however, are another matter entirely. The theme of the haunted house is ubiquitous in Hollywood and popular literature—King, Straub, Lovecraft, Poe, which has even taken this motif to the extremes of haunted spaceships, haunted cars, and haunted planets. A motif which is so powerful and emotional can only be so if it coincides in some real way with the experience of the movie going public. I’m dead sure that most people would publicly say that they have no experience with spirits or at least they wouldn’t admit to having experience with spirits or ghosts. I have no doubt that most “ghost” shows on reality television are fraudulent and melodramatic and have no relationship with any kind of reality or naturally occurring phenomenon. I myself will often dismiss the claims by those who swear that they had experiences with ghosts or other-worldly apparitions. We all get creeped out by dark, empty houses that are filled with strange shadows, creaky structures, odd drafts, dark corners, lonely spaces, dusty attics, and creepy basements. We let our imaginations run wild, the skin on the back of our necks gets goose bumps, and we start to imagine all sorts of things that are not there, were never there, that only exist as figments of our imagination. We are nervous, emotional creatures, fearful of our own shadows, afraid of being alone, perhaps unaccustomed to being alone. Our imaginations run wild. I say all of that to say this: are there experiences that go beyond our earthly senses, that exist as real physical phenomena, that as of now, given our science such as it is, we do not understand. Maybe words such as ghosts and spirits and apparitions and poltergeists are not exactly appropriate for describing actual physical that as yet we do not understand. If someone from the Classical period were to experience our contemporary civilization of computers, cell phones, planes, television, wi-fi and all the rest, I’m sure they would think it all supernatural, when, in reality, it is all only too real, based on our science and technology. How foolish and undeveloped our civilization will appear to anthropologists of the fortieth century. My own anecdotes are irrelevant and inconsequential, but I have experienced things that go beyond irrational fears and an overactive imagination. I suspect that someday we will find an explanation for all these odd experiences which we would characterize as hauntings. In the meantime, however, it might be a good idea to keep an open-mind, to listen when others speak, to open up our feelings to a larger world that may not be solely confined to the physical, tangible mundane world of our day-to-day routine. I also don’t think that it hurts to remain skeptical and cynical when someone’s claims to have had a “haunting” experience because I am sure that most of those “experiences” are really nothing more than emotion tied into an over-active imagination, excessive adrenaline, sleep deprivation, too much spicy food, an overdose of slasher movies, and the need to feel loved and needed. All I can say is that I’ve been in houses where something is going on, and I also work in such a place (built 1886), but I really haven’t the slightest idea of what might be really going on. Sleep tight and take this little “note” with a grain of salt.
On the haunted house
Let’s just get a couple of things clear, I don’t believe in ghosts or haunted houses, although I’ve had experiences with both. As an objective empiricist, I reject outright most supernatural phenomenon, especially clairvoyance, fortune-telling, and extra-sensory perception. Since nobody can successfully pick six numbers in a lottery, ever, I rest assured that all of that is unmitigated hooey and nonsense. Haunted houses are, however, another matter entirely. I live in a new house, currently, that is completely antiseptic and clean, no creepy anything going on anywhere in the place. Older houses, however, are another matter entirely. The theme of the haunted house is ubiquitous in Hollywood and popular literature—King, Straub, Lovecraft, Poe, which has even taken this motif to the extremes of haunted spaceships, haunted cars, and haunted planets. A motif which is so powerful and emotional can only be so if it coincides in some real way with the experience of the movie going public. I’m dead sure that most people would publicly say that they have no experience with spirits or at least they wouldn’t admit to having experience with spirits or ghosts. I have no doubt that most “ghost” shows on reality television are fraudulent and melodramatic and have no relationship with any kind of reality or naturally occurring phenomenon. I myself will often dismiss the claims by those who swear that they had experiences with ghosts or other-worldly apparitions. We all get creeped out by dark, empty houses that are filled with strange shadows, creaky structures, odd drafts, dark corners, lonely spaces, dusty attics, and creepy basements. We let our imaginations run wild, the skin on the back of our necks gets goose bumps, and we start to imagine all sorts of things that are not there, were never there, that only exist as figments of our imagination. We are nervous, emotional creatures, fearful of our own shadows, afraid of being alone, perhaps unaccustomed to being alone. Our imaginations run wild. I say all of that to say this: are there experiences that go beyond our earthly senses, that exist as real physical phenomena, that as of now, given our science such as it is, we do not understand. Maybe words such as ghosts and spirits and apparitions and poltergeists are not exactly appropriate for describing actual physical that as yet we do not understand. If someone from the Classical period were to experience our contemporary civilization of computers, cell phones, planes, television, wi-fi and all the rest, I’m sure they would think it all supernatural, when, in reality, it is all only too real, based on our science and technology. How foolish and undeveloped our civilization will appear to anthropologists of the fortieth century. My own anecdotes are irrelevant and inconsequential, but I have experienced things that go beyond irrational fears and an overactive imagination. I suspect that someday we will find an explanation for all these odd experiences which we would characterize as hauntings. In the meantime, however, it might be a good idea to keep an open-mind, to listen when others speak, to open up our feelings to a larger world that may not be solely confined to the physical, tangible mundane world of our day-to-day routine. I also don’t think that it hurts to remain skeptical and cynical when someone’s claims to have had a “haunting” experience because I am sure that most of those “experiences” are really nothing more than emotion tied into an over-active imagination, excessive adrenaline, sleep deprivation, too much spicy food, an overdose of slasher movies, and the need to feel loved and needed. All I can say is that I’ve been in houses where something is going on, and I also work in such a place (built 1886), but I really haven’t the slightest idea of what might be really going on. Sleep tight and take this little “note” with a grain of salt.
On creativity
My muse has been absent during the month of February. Muses are like that, disappearing when you most need them. Being creative is the hardest part of creativity. When writing I am often assailed by the thought that other writers have already plowed this ground and that my time would be better employed as either a dog catcher or sign painter. Poets, writers, philosophers have often fought the idea that they have arrived late to the dance, that other writers and thinkers have already recorded their original ideas, and that their efforts are going for nothing. My muse has always been a little cranky and cynical, as if she got up on the wrong side of the inspiration, but most of the time she has some great ideas about remodeling or menu suggestions or a new paint color for the bathroom. I would like to write about transcendental ideals that guide the human psyche to do good, to be less egotistical, to work for world peace, and to resolve the persistent human problems of hunger, violence, and isolation, but I don’t get any good vibes about any of that. Being creative is hard. My muse is always bugging me about being derivative, about stealing my ideas from other writers, about not being open to new ideas. She says I’m always playing it safe with subjects, verbs, and compliments, writing complete sentences, observing the rules of proper grammar and syntax. She says I’m conventional to the core and no fun at all, a typical liberal tree-hugging granola eater who fears death and global warming, wears comfortable shoes, knows enough to come in from the rain, eats sensibly, and doesn’t speed. Boring, she says. You need to learn how to juggle chainsaws. You know, you’re not Picasso. Yes, I know I’m not Picasso, but then again, does the world really want or need another crabby Spaniard cubing the world into an unrecognizable mess of disassociated lines and disembodied body parts? You call that creativity? Some people do, I guess. To be a creative failure, one must sink below the creative horizon into a tired mire of overused metaphors, trite phrases, and tired symbols, and believe that the junk you write should be original, as if that last word had any real meaning at all, and that thinking for yourself is the real road to creating avant-guard trends in new film noir with a sort of neo-negative potential in epistemological endeavors. You are too sober, she says, as if I need any help in making myself look stupid. The riddle that is creativity is an insolvable conundrum enclosed in a mystery. We “get” creativity when we see it, and we know when someone is ripping on someone else’s mojo, covering someone else’s creativity. From the time we are taught to cut out our first circle from a square by trimming off the corners of a square, we are reminded that nothing is original, that creativity is an illusion, and that everyone has arrived late to the creative party. Perhaps creativity is more about being surprising, and less about being original, which is impossible anyway. So stop being interested in being creative, my muse coos between sips of coffee. Since there is nothing new under the sun, forget about creativity and do what you want. All circles are the same, except for size, color, texture, and imperfections, so in cutting out a circle, we re-invent the wheel and follow the yellow brick road. I just got a text message from my muse: don’t write about creativity. It’s make you maudlin and God knows you don’t need any help with that. No such thing as creativity anyway.
On creativity
My muse has been absent during the month of February. Muses are like that, disappearing when you most need them. Being creative is the hardest part of creativity. When writing I am often assailed by the thought that other writers have already plowed this ground and that my time would be better employed as either a dog catcher or sign painter. Poets, writers, philosophers have often fought the idea that they have arrived late to the dance, that other writers and thinkers have already recorded their original ideas, and that their efforts are going for nothing. My muse has always been a little cranky and cynical, as if she got up on the wrong side of the inspiration, but most of the time she has some great ideas about remodeling or menu suggestions or a new paint color for the bathroom. I would like to write about transcendental ideals that guide the human psyche to do good, to be less egotistical, to work for world peace, and to resolve the persistent human problems of hunger, violence, and isolation, but I don’t get any good vibes about any of that. Being creative is hard. My muse is always bugging me about being derivative, about stealing my ideas from other writers, about not being open to new ideas. She says I’m always playing it safe with subjects, verbs, and compliments, writing complete sentences, observing the rules of proper grammar and syntax. She says I’m conventional to the core and no fun at all, a typical liberal tree-hugging granola eater who fears death and global warming, wears comfortable shoes, knows enough to come in from the rain, eats sensibly, and doesn’t speed. Boring, she says. You need to learn how to juggle chainsaws. You know, you’re not Picasso. Yes, I know I’m not Picasso, but then again, does the world really want or need another crabby Spaniard cubing the world into an unrecognizable mess of disassociated lines and disembodied body parts? You call that creativity? Some people do, I guess. To be a creative failure, one must sink below the creative horizon into a tired mire of overused metaphors, trite phrases, and tired symbols, and believe that the junk you write should be original, as if that last word had any real meaning at all, and that thinking for yourself is the real road to creating avant-guard trends in new film noir with a sort of neo-negative potential in epistemological endeavors. You are too sober, she says, as if I need any help in making myself look stupid. The riddle that is creativity is an insolvable conundrum enclosed in a mystery. We “get” creativity when we see it, and we know when someone is ripping on someone else’s mojo, covering someone else’s creativity. From the time we are taught to cut out our first circle from a square by trimming off the corners of a square, we are reminded that nothing is original, that creativity is an illusion, and that everyone has arrived late to the creative party. Perhaps creativity is more about being surprising, and less about being original, which is impossible anyway. So stop being interested in being creative, my muse coos between sips of coffee. Since there is nothing new under the sun, forget about creativity and do what you want. All circles are the same, except for size, color, texture, and imperfections, so in cutting out a circle, we re-invent the wheel and follow the yellow brick road. I just got a text message from my muse: don’t write about creativity. It’s make you maudlin and God knows you don’t need any help with that. No such thing as creativity anyway.
On narcissism
(How narcissistic is this: write one’s own note on the subject–sweet!) I have always thought that narcissism was a very strange malady from which to suffer, but the older I get, the more I think that it might be the most common national past-time in America. Far be it from me to judge, but our “me first” society, where we give participation trophies for breathing, seems ready to plunge head-first into its own image in a nihilistic search for eternal youth, breaking new records every day in what it spends on make-up, hair products, Botox, gyms, and plastic surgery. Our obsessions, however, don’t stop with the purely physical, but extends to all of the things our consumer society deems necessary for a happy and successful life–cell phones, flat screen televisions, fast cars, Caribbean vacations, tablets and other personal computing devices, large homes–the list is probably endless. Our narcissism extends to our obsession with digitally mediated communications and our involvement in social networks and the adulation we demand from our “friends,” who are probably anything but friends. We are constantly craving more and more interaction with our friends when they “like” a status, or a post, or a picture. The more we let others stroke our egos, the happier we are, plunging us further into the watery reflection at which we stare, hopelessly in love with the changing image floating in front of us, leaving real family and friends wondering where we are. Of course, a certain amount of narcissism is healthy when mixed with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor. When you start believing your own press clippings, you really need to be dragged back into reality. The truth is, narcissism is a debilitating and unhealthy belief that one is too smart or too beautiful or too talented to mix with the regular rank and file. The Lake Wobegon syndrome, “that all the children are above average” only leads us all to the unhealthy belief that we are special, that we walk above the masses, that we are exceptional. that we are not a part of the hoi-polloi. I would suggest that the contrary is true: that average is average, and most of us are just that, average. The myth of Narcissus exists primarily as a cautionary in which the foolish exemplar dies, alone and unloved because he believes that his personal beauty is exceptional and above all others, yet his self-obsession drives him to madness, isolating him from Echo, the woman who would save him. The story of Narcissus is both tragic and ironic because he rejects the nymph who would love him, causing her great unhappiness, but the love of the forest nymph could have saved him if he could only get outside of himself. Consumed by his own image, Narcissus becomes isolated and still more self-absorbed, which I would suggest is a metaphor for the excessive egotism which assails our obsessive consumer society. We see the narcissism everywhere–on the road, at the supermarket, speeding through a school zone. The weird side of this problem is that it defies solutions–Narcissus never came around, there was no solutions to his obsession. He was incapable of self-awareness, a self-awareness of himself as just one small part of a much larger whole. Consumed by the superficiality of his own good looks, he was incapable of loving anyone else. In the end, it was his ego which robbed him of any kind of humility which might have averted his death.
On windmills
The windmill is a serendiptous invention, which seems both obvious and frivolous at once. The wind may or may not blow, but because it is a function of the weather, the result can only be chaotic (and predictable) or predictable (and unpredictable). I admire the Dutch engineers who decided to harness the constant winds that blow off of the North Sea. For the Dutch the applications were variable, but pumping sea water off of the their below-sea-level lands was a priority. Grinding grain or cutting wood also come to mind as do a half-dozen other industrial applications. In Spain, where the windmill has achieved iconic status as the arch-enemy of Don Quijote, the windmill is making a comeback, and it now dots the countryside of La Mancha, whether they were there four hundred years ago or not. The windmill is, of course, an iconic reminder that Don Quijote, that dreamer of impossible dreams, was fighting modernization and industrialization, contemporary villians that were quickly consuming what was left of medieval Spain when he and Sancho sallied forth to right wrongs and save damsels in distress. The windmill is a symbol of industrial development, technology, human ingenuity, and entrepreneurism. All of those elements present in the windmill are all enemies of the medieval period which had already turned to dust when Cervantes wrote his masterpiece of the human comedy. In fact, Don Quijote was a laughable figure who didn’t understand that the age of knights and their ladies had been over for more than a hundred years by the time he was born in some anonymous town in La Mancha. The windmills is an icon of modernity that cannot be stopped by high ideals, unresolved dreams, or unrequited love. The windmill, an industrial device of gears and wheels, is blind and unconscious, unfeeling and inert, but it arms spin, the gears move, and the wheat is ground into flour, which, in turn, will be baked into bread, distributed to stores, bought by soccer moms, consumed by families for breakfast (with grape jelley). Capitalism trumps all ideals, all beliefs, all ideologies, for all times. It preys on our pride, creates envy, promotes fear, drives us all insane so that we always buy the next thing. Today, new windmills dot the countryside, but today they are found worldwide, and they generate electricity, pump water, and drive machinery. The high ideals that drove Don Quijote to ride out one day in search of adventure are gone like a puff of smoke in the wind, a wind which has long since been harnessed, domesticated by the windmills. Quijote saw them as evil giants; perhaps his vision of them was more correct than any of us ever guessed.
