Category Archives: monsters

On mystery

Posted on by

Human beings are intrigued by the unknown and strive endlessly to know more, to clear up the mystery. Yet, we are also plagued by the unknown, the inexplicable, the mysterious. Modern manifestations of pop culture delve deeply in the mystery genre, and weird pop culture delves into cryptozoology and make-believe monsters, trading in ancient astronauts and Bermuda Triangles. Many mysteries are not mysteries at all when seen against the background of real science and rational empiricism. A person disappears, a bank is robbed, someone lies dead in their own living room, a painting is stolen, the power goes out, a window get broken, the car won’t start, your stomach hurts, and you don’t have an explanation for any of it. A letter is lost in the mail, the washing machine breaks, the roof leaks. We have a hundred mysteries around us all of the time: a strange noise in the night, a familiar looking face at the mall that you haven’t seen in twenty years, a ringing phone but no one answers. We are constantly trying to solve one mystery or another. One of the greatest fictional detectives of all times, Sherlock Holmes, is the modern model and poster boy for mystery solving and rational empiricism. Holmes’ success drove his creator, Conan Doyle, to distraction because he had no idea his detective would turn into one of the wildly successful characters of all time. The mystery genre publishes thousands of new titles every year–the reading public can’t get enough. Mysteries are probably popular because the mirror the chaos of daily life, and since we can’t bring order to real life, we live vicariously through the detectives that bring order to their fictional world. We feel better about our own chaos as order is restored when the detective lets us know that the butler did it.

On mystery

Posted on by

Human beings are intrigued by the unknown and strive endlessly to know more, to clear up the mystery. Yet, we are also plagued by the unknown, the inexplicable, the mysterious. Modern manifestations of pop culture delve deeply in the mystery genre, and weird pop culture delves into cryptozoology and make-believe monsters, trading in ancient astronauts and Bermuda Triangles. Many mysteries are not mysteries at all when seen against the background of real science and rational empiricism. A person disappears, a bank is robbed, someone lies dead in their own living room, a painting is stolen, the power goes out, a window get broken, the car won’t start, your stomach hurts, and you don’t have an explanation for any of it. A letter is lost in the mail, the washing machine breaks, the roof leaks. We have a hundred mysteries around us all of the time: a strange noise in the night, a familiar looking face at the mall that you haven’t seen in twenty years, a ringing phone but no one answers. We are constantly trying to solve one mystery or another. One of the greatest fictional detectives of all times, Sherlock Holmes, is the modern model and poster boy for mystery solving and rational empiricism. Holmes’ success drove his creator, Conan Doyle, to distraction because he had no idea his detective would turn into one of the wildly successful characters of all time. The mystery genre publishes thousands of new titles every year–the reading public can’t get enough. Mysteries are probably popular because the mirror the chaos of daily life, and since we can’t bring order to real life, we live vicariously through the detectives that bring order to their fictional world. We feel better about our own chaos as order is restored when the detective lets us know that the butler did it.

On Van Helsing

Posted on by

Professor Van Helsing is a tribute to rational empiricism that has met the supernatural and had to back off because the experience did not square with reality. I like Van Helsing because he is so grounded in his science and empiricism that he is the true paradigm of rational thinking and practice. Yet, Van Helsing is faced with a situation that does not fit within the neat theories and hypothesis of his enlightened scientific experience. Through observation and experimentation, Van Helsing has cast his lot in life far from emotion, superstition, irrationality, and the supernatural. He writes books, carries out experiments, teaches his classes, is a paradigm of the enlightened scientist, the rock on which we build our reality. Yet, his situation, though a completely imaginary one, is problematic in the sense that he is faced with the larger problem of a reality–an undead, dead person–that cannot exist in his world. The philosophical implications of facing the existence of Dracula are vast and troubling. You are either a rational empiricist who cannot “believe” in such things, or you abandon your empiricism and throw in with the holy water, garlic, cross, and stake. Our empiricism protects us from foolish pseudo-science such as astrology, palmistry, quiromancy, numerology, tarot, Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, werewolves, vampires, and necromancy, but is that all there is in this world? I have always sided with Hamlet: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. – Hamlet (1.5.167-8). Still, the philosophical problem persists even if only in our imaginations, hoping against hope that we never have to face this situation in the real world.

On panic

Posted on by

Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.

On panic

Posted on by

Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.

On driving in Houston

Posted on by

First, let me say that the title of worst traffic in the USA (a designation given by AAA) is rightly deserved. I had to spend a few hours near the Galeria in Houston yesterday, and that traffic was brutal. To say that Houston drivers are aggressive is to really not understand the situation at all. Though it may be a cliche to say that Houston drivers approach driving as if it were a gladiator sport, I don’t think it’s too far from the truth. Too many cars in too little space with too little time to get anywhere equals gridlock almost twenty-four seven. The problem is too much individualism and not enough civic cooperation. Everybody wants to have their car and nobody wants to share, so traffic jams are full of angry and aggressive drivers who are all going nowhere all at the same time. Why they call it rush hour is a mystery to me because nobody is rushing anywhere. I understand the problem, but I can’t figure out how the people deal with this on a daily basis without going out of their minds. Or maybe they don’t? All roads are jammed, streets, feeders, and highways. You often have to wait two, three, or four cycles of the stoplight to get where you are going. Merging traffic brings flowing traffic to a complete standstill, and random construction zones throw a weird curveball into the entire chaotic mess. Sorry, Houston, I know you have lots to offer in terms of culture, food, sports, work, and shopping, but I’m not entirely sure it’s worth braving the traffic to get to any of it.

On The Mole People (1956)

Posted on by

Filmed and released in 1956 as a B movie, The Mole People, is one of the Saturday night camp films starring John Agar that is both good and bad at the same time. Production standards were card board cutouts and paper mâché boulders. As a movie goer you were required to suspend all of your disbelief regarding a plot line with more holes in it than a Swiss cheese. Even as a twelve year-old I thought this movie was awful, but perhaps even in its extreme awfulness one needs to contemplate the enslavement of the mole people. The plot is irrelevant, but the story is an old one, one group enslaves another, using force and violence to get another group to do all of their dirty work. The “mole” people are grotesque monsters, brutes and savages, and they are enslaved by more normal-looking humanoids, light-sensitive Sumerians as it turns out. The film is drenched is various levels of gratuitous violence and inexplicable adventures. The improbability of the storyline is only matched by the horrendous special effects, which turn out to be a flashlight. As a kid, we called this genre of film a “monster” movie in our own naive and simplistic way. Monsters were everywhere back in the 50’s and 60’s when this movie was made–middle of the Cold War, actually. We couldn’t defeat our monsters in real life, so we created troubling rubber-masked non-human monsters to populate the twilight zone of our subconscious. The weird light-fearing albinos and their slaves are thwarted, and the modern world of science and reason are re-established before the crowd walks back out into the real world of mutually ensured self-destruction of the nuclear age–slavery of another kind.