Category Archives: zombies

On contemporary culture

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It is hard to know what to think of contemporary culture. I know I am an old foggy, and that the current generation has left me behind, but am I really that much of a fifth wheel? The kids today can handle computers as easily as they handle breathing. They can’t write a full sentence without breaking thirty-three grammars rules, but the can text like the wind–150 words a minute, or at least they call them words. I won’t give them any points for originality, but they are persistent and fast. Creatively, they are stunted, and are often surprised when one their own comes up with a great idea, only to find that someone else already did it fifty years ago. Originality is not their strong suite. Today’s generation is pretty much addicted to cell phones, ignorant of Vietnam and Watergate, willing to spend megabucks on coffee and sandwiches, and are convinced of their own importance, which means they are just like we were thirty years ago. I have never lived under the illusion that I am either important or original. The sixties, Flower Power, ecology, Vietnam, the Domino Theory, the space race, hippies, the Manson murders, several assassinations, and Watergate burst my innocence bubble, and left me foundering in the fetid waters of the Disco era, Studio 54, platform shoes, bell bottoms and big hair. I think that contemporary society is stuck on itself, obsessed with consumerism, and buying everything, ignorant of most politics, addicted to digitally mediated communication, isolated and afraid, sleep deprived, malnourished, and impatient. I think that we live in a nation of gluttons who want their next super-sized meal now and are totally unprepared to either wait or compromise. They don’t want fast food; they want instant food, and they wouldn’t know how to cook it if they had to. There fix for instant communication has taught them to be impatient and nervous, like junkies waiting for their next fix. I think the current generation eats too much, and eats out too often, unwilling to learn to cook or to buy food that needs preparation, and the only exercise they get is walking from the car to the table in the restaurant. Yes, I am cynical about the current generation, and many of my generalizations are exaggeration that are untrue and unkind. Yet the rise of big box retailers, which put the little guys out of business because they cannot compete, is also another sign of the times, and although I see nothing ominous in the big box retailer per se, I do think those places have become a part of the national landscape and are now a part of our national past-time and our identity: we go to those places to have fun shopping. Contemporary culture shops to have fun, but I’m not sure that is either healthy or sustainable. Again, I pass judgment on an activity for which I don’t care. I would be nostalgic and say that the past was somehow better or more ideal, but I know that is also untrue, but I feel the current society drifting on a tide of consumerism that is directionless and pointless. All most people do is fill up their garage with a lot of junk they don’t need, but they aren’t happier, or richer, or better off than they were before. The current season, the Christmas season, always seems to drag out my worst thoughts about how superficial and facile our culture has become, unwilling to discuss its direction or the black hole it has become. Christmas carols have become horrible caricatures of the wonderful hymns and songs of my youth only because people want to sell more junk. Perhaps that is the key, our contemporary culture has become a desolate landscape of detritus, flotsam and jetsam, because it’s all junk. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I drinking too much coffee.

On blood pressure

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My blood pressure was normal this morning, which is what I want it to be. My grandfather, a lovely, kind-hearted generous man, died of a stroke at the young age of 62 years. I can’t help but think that he had uncontrolled high blood pressure and that it was also uncontrolled. There were probably other factors that contributed to his death at a young age, but the blood pressure thing haunts me to this day. So when I was going through a courtesy screening process for high blood pressure at my church a few years ago, I took heed when the nurse told me I should get my high blood pressure checked out. I needed medication. I had inherited high blood pressure, and I needed to do something about it. Beside medication, I have changed my eating habits, lost some weight, and made exercise a daily part of my life. I don’t smoke, and although I occasionally have a few non-standard beverages, drinking is not a part of my life. I was pleased that this morning, in spite of driving in crappy traffic conditions on I35, my blood pressure was well within the normal range. This is encouraging. Our modern life style of over-commitment, jammed schedules, poor sleep habits, questionable eating habits and choices, and stress does not lend itself to having naturally normal blood pressure. The heart, lungs, veins, and arteries all work in tandem to keep us upright and moving in a consistent manner, but even the slightest problem can cause the blood pressure to go up which increases everyone’s chances of having some other vital system fail: kidneys, liver, brain. I suffered from headaches as a child, and today I am headache free unless the headache is a synecdoche for something or someone else—especially if it involves putting furniture together. Sometimes I would like to blame our fast-paced consumer society that puts a huge emphasis on buying and consuming to the detriment of all of considerations and factors. Black Friday, a real blood pressure buster, is looming on the horizon and will whip people into a lathered frenzy of hysterical consumers and blind irrational spending. At other times I’d like to blame our bizarre addiction to digital communication—email, texts, social networks, blogs, television, movie services, and eight other things yet to be imagined. Desire, to be liked, to want, to covet, to envy, drives a lot of things that make us have high blood pressure. Schedules, bookings, travel, meetings, deadlines don’t help either. I’m not sure that the instant communication networks to which millions subscribe really help anyone at all. We like hectic lives, shrouded in quiet desperation as we wait for the weekend or the next vacation. And, of course, we suffer and our collective blood pressure goes up, and frankly, I don’t see any relief in site.

On blood pressure

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My blood pressure was normal this morning, which is what I want it to be. My grandfather, a lovely, kind-hearted generous man, died of a stroke at the young age of 62 years. I can’t help but think that he had uncontrolled high blood pressure and that it was also uncontrolled. There were probably other factors that contributed to his death at a young age, but the blood pressure thing haunts me to this day. So when I was going through a courtesy screening process for high blood pressure at my church a few years ago, I took heed when the nurse told me I should get my high blood pressure checked out. I needed medication. I had inherited high blood pressure, and I needed to do something about it. Beside medication, I have changed my eating habits, lost some weight, and made exercise a daily part of my life. I don’t smoke, and although I occasionally have a few non-standard beverages, drinking is not a part of my life. I was pleased that this morning, in spite of driving in crappy traffic conditions on I35, my blood pressure was well within the normal range. This is encouraging. Our modern life style of over-commitment, jammed schedules, poor sleep habits, questionable eating habits and choices, and stress does not lend itself to having naturally normal blood pressure. The heart, lungs, veins, and arteries all work in tandem to keep us upright and moving in a consistent manner, but even the slightest problem can cause the blood pressure to go up which increases everyone’s chances of having some other vital system fail: kidneys, liver, brain. I suffered from headaches as a child, and today I am headache free unless the headache is a synecdoche for something or someone else—especially if it involves putting furniture together. Sometimes I would like to blame our fast-paced consumer society that puts a huge emphasis on buying and consuming to the detriment of all of considerations and factors. Black Friday, a real blood pressure buster, is looming on the horizon and will whip people into a lathered frenzy of hysterical consumers and blind irrational spending. At other times I’d like to blame our bizarre addiction to digital communication—email, texts, social networks, blogs, television, movie services, and eight other things yet to be imagined. Desire, to be liked, to want, to covet, to envy, drives a lot of things that make us have high blood pressure. Schedules, bookings, travel, meetings, deadlines don’t help either. I’m not sure that the instant communication networks to which millions subscribe really help anyone at all. We like hectic lives, shrouded in quiet desperation as we wait for the weekend or the next vacation. And, of course, we suffer and our collective blood pressure goes up, and frankly, I don’t see any relief in site.

On gluttony

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We are probably only kidding ourselves if we don’t think that we eat too much. I have come very close to writing this note on several occasions, but I have always stopped because for most people, not all, the decision to overeat is theirs. Living in a land of plenty, we have an opportunity at every meal to eat too much. The food is plentiful, nutritious, and tasty. Modern science has solved most of the issues surrounding safe food conservation, and between refrigeration and chemical food additives, food does not spoil before we eat it. The result of all this success and plenty are supermarkets, restaurants, and big box retailers that are loaded to the brim with lots of food. During the medieval period, food was less safe and less plentiful, and gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins. Staying trim was less an effort because there was less food and lots of work. Obesity was not common and most people did not have weight problems. Sugar was a very scarce commodity and uncommon in the diets of most normal people. Today, sugar is everywhere, and even the mayor of New York City is concerned about people buying 64 ounce soft drinks to suck on all day. I do not think it is the governments job to legislate eating habits, which does not work anyway. Most people suffer from gluttony because they are really quite unaware that they don’t need about half of the food they are eating at any given sitting. Most adults can probably get by with two small meals a day unless they are involved in heavy physical labor such as construction or farming. Sitting at a desk and looking at a computer screen all day does not qualify as physical work. We all eat too much because it’s very pleasurable, it’s very plentiful, and we exercise no self-control. Eating turns into a nervous habit that we do for fun, not for nutrition. The result is obesity, and (no puns intended) it’s a growing problem. Ask yourself this: have you had to buy larger and larger clothes to contain your expanding girth? Have you supersized anything in the past month? The simple truth is that most people are eating about twice what they really need. Gluttony is almost an accidental byproduct of a society wallowing in its own success. Our economy is driven by the food industry which spends billions on advertising, product development, packaging, transportation, and labor, and millions of hard-working men and women depend on the food industry for their daily bread. It is very hard to tell people to eat less when eating is a status symbol of financial success. Other generations do us no favors by encouraging us to clean our plates or eat as much as we can. “If you don’t eat, you’re going to dry up and blow away!” The sad truth is that we can eat a whole lot, and if we do those things on a consistent basis we are going to be as big a blimp, victims of our own excess. Every person has the right to choose how much they don’t eat, but almost no one has the ability to recognize themselves as a glutton and put down their forks and push away from the table. The sad truth about gluttony is that we no longer see it as a sin, and since we exercise no self-control concern food and eating habits, we are slowly, but surely, killing ourselves.

On gluttony

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We are probably only kidding ourselves if we don’t think that we eat too much. I have come very close to writing this note on several occasions, but I have always stopped because for most people, not all, the decision to overeat is theirs. Living in a land of plenty, we have an opportunity at every meal to eat too much. The food is plentiful, nutritious, and tasty. Modern science has solved most of the issues surrounding safe food conservation, and between refrigeration and chemical food additives, food does not spoil before we eat it. The result of all this success and plenty are supermarkets, restaurants, and big box retailers that are loaded to the brim with lots of food. During the medieval period, food was less safe and less plentiful, and gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins. Staying trim was less an effort because there was less food and lots of work. Obesity was not common and most people did not have weight problems. Sugar was a very scarce commodity and uncommon in the diets of most normal people. Today, sugar is everywhere, and even the mayor of New York City is concerned about people buying 64 ounce soft drinks to suck on all day. I do not think it is the governments job to legislate eating habits, which does not work anyway. Most people suffer from gluttony because they are really quite unaware that they don’t need about half of the food they are eating at any given sitting. Most adults can probably get by with two small meals a day unless they are involved in heavy physical labor such as construction or farming. Sitting at a desk and looking at a computer screen all day does not qualify as physical work. We all eat too much because it’s very pleasurable, it’s very plentiful, and we exercise no self-control. Eating turns into a nervous habit that we do for fun, not for nutrition. The result is obesity, and (no puns intended) it’s a growing problem. Ask yourself this: have you had to buy larger and larger clothes to contain your expanding girth? Have you supersized anything in the past month? The simple truth is that most people are eating about twice what they really need. Gluttony is almost an accidental byproduct of a society wallowing in its own success. Our economy is driven by the food industry which spends billions on advertising, product development, packaging, transportation, and labor, and millions of hard-working men and women depend on the food industry for their daily bread. It is very hard to tell people to eat less when eating is a status symbol of financial success. Other generations do us no favors by encouraging us to clean our plates or eat as much as we can. “If you don’t eat, you’re going to dry up and blow away!” The sad truth is that we can eat a whole lot, and if we do those things on a consistent basis we are going to be as big a blimp, victims of our own excess. Every person has the right to choose how much they don’t eat, but almost no one has the ability to recognize themselves as a glutton and put down their forks and push away from the table. The sad truth about gluttony is that we no longer see it as a sin, and since we exercise no self-control concern food and eating habits, we are slowly, but surely, killing ourselves.

On horror stories

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Human beings are fascinated by horror stories–obsessed, one might say. From our earliest times we have created narratives filled with monsters, ghouls, trolls, ghosts, and creatures whose only purpose seems to be threatening or killing people in out of the way places, dark houses, empty castles, lonely highways, cold mountain passes, haunted spaceships, lonely planets, and creepy little towns. The very space created within the horror narrative is menacing, ghastly, deserted, dusty, filled with cobwebs, forgotten spaces. Both attics and basements are particularly hazardous spaces, but empty jungles, strange swamps, and wind-swept mountains can also be problematic, especially if you are a scientist in an out of the way place such as Antarctica, a space ship on its way to Mars, an old freighter navigating a long way from its home port, at the bottom of the sea. All of these spaces are a long distance from a safe port and speak to the inherent danger of far away places, places that are unknown and unsafe. Strange beings–half man, half reptile–inhabit these places waiting for their next meal to come along. Most of these narratives begin innocently enough with calm seas and smooth sailing, blue skies and light winds, before things start to go wrong. A crisis ensues, a problem arises, a computer goes haywire, a storm blows up, somebody ignores a warning, and the bottom falls out–a ship sinks, a monster gets loose, communications break down, an earthquake occurs, a volcano erupts, a typhoon strikes, and the characters start to die in horrible and miserable ways. In the middle of these narratives, a hero arises who must fight to overcome the obstacles, monsters, and spaces that lie between him/her and safety. We consume these stories as if there were no tomorrow. They seem to reflect some of our darkest fears of abandonment, of the unknown, of the dark, of technology, of power, of the future, of change. We fear that we are poisoning our world, that technology is moving ahead too fast, that space is a dangerous place, that there are unexplainable supernatural things that are not dreamt of in our philosophy. The archetypal ghost stories seems to be a paradigm inherent in any serious discussion of the genre–a strange place, a vengeful ghost, isolation, mayhem. Perhaps horror stories haunt our collective psyche because the raise existential questions of the highest order: who are we, what is our purpose in life, what does all of this (life) mean? So we let the vampires, werewolves, and mummies run through our nightmares, hoping against hope that they will stay there.

On horror stories

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Human beings are fascinated by horror stories–obsessed, one might say. From our earliest times we have created narratives filled with monsters, ghouls, trolls, ghosts, and creatures whose only purpose seems to be threatening or killing people in out of the way places, dark houses, empty castles, lonely highways, cold mountain passes, haunted spaceships, lonely planets, and creepy little towns. The very space created within the horror narrative is menacing, ghastly, deserted, dusty, filled with cobwebs, forgotten spaces. Both attics and basements are particularly hazardous spaces, but empty jungles, strange swamps, and wind-swept mountains can also be problematic, especially if you are a scientist in an out of the way place such as Antarctica, a space ship on its way to Mars, an old freighter navigating a long way from its home port, at the bottom of the sea. All of these spaces are a long distance from a safe port and speak to the inherent danger of far away places, places that are unknown and unsafe. Strange beings–half man, half reptile–inhabit these places waiting for their next meal to come along. Most of these narratives begin innocently enough with calm seas and smooth sailing, blue skies and light winds, before things start to go wrong. A crisis ensues, a problem arises, a computer goes haywire, a storm blows up, somebody ignores a warning, and the bottom falls out–a ship sinks, a monster gets loose, communications break down, an earthquake occurs, a volcano erupts, a typhoon strikes, and the characters start to die in horrible and miserable ways. In the middle of these narratives, a hero arises who must fight to overcome the obstacles, monsters, and spaces that lie between him/her and safety. We consume these stories as if there were no tomorrow. They seem to reflect some of our darkest fears of abandonment, of the unknown, of the dark, of technology, of power, of the future, of change. We fear that we are poisoning our world, that technology is moving ahead too fast, that space is a dangerous place, that there are unexplainable supernatural things that are not dreamt of in our philosophy. The archetypal ghost stories seems to be a paradigm inherent in any serious discussion of the genre–a strange place, a vengeful ghost, isolation, mayhem. Perhaps horror stories haunt our collective psyche because the raise existential questions of the highest order: who are we, what is our purpose in life, what does all of this (life) mean? So we let the vampires, werewolves, and mummies run through our nightmares, hoping against hope that they will stay there.

On dodge ball

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I think I hated this game. I could never decide if it was an actual skill to throw a large red ball at other people or if it was sadistic exercise in pain and humiliation. The tough guys always grouped up together so they could throw at the skinny wimpy nerds like me. I weighed about forty-five pounds dripping wet in the fourth grade, and a well-thrown ball could pretty much knock me off of my feet. I think I received a neck injury once when I got hit in the back of the head. My only talent in dodge ball, if you could call it that, was my ability to catch one of these cannon shots, especially if thrown at my mid-section. I was horrible at actually throwing the ball, having wiry, but spaghetti-style arms with no muscles of which to speak. Dodge ball accentuated my weakling status to such an extent that I didn’t mind being eliminated early and often. The game is based on chaos and sadism, and there are just about no rules: you get hit, you’re out, you catch a ball on the fly, the thrower is out. All other rules are superfluous, which is good because most of the brutes playing the game couldn’t understand complicated rules anyway. If inflated properly, the red balls were as hard as concrete, and I witnessed more than one bloody nose from dodge ball. Good dodge ball players hung around the back, avoiding direct confrontations up front where you could take a real beaning if you weren’t careful. I got the air knocked out of me once when I took an unexpected shot to the stomach: that was both a strategy and a danger–throw at an unsuspecting soul who isn’t looking because they won’t catch your ball. My glasses got smashed out of shape on several occasions. More than one child left the floor crying after a particularly close encounter with a well-thrown dodge ball. I know we were getting exercise, and that our adrenaline was really pumping, but we moved out of abject fear, running for our very lives. I cannot say that I ever enjoyed the game, if it was a game at all. The bullies clearly enjoyed it too much, but ironically they were usually very bad at the game. You never won by simply employing brute force. You won by being wily and using every bit of misdirection and guile your body could muster. The brutes often took themselves out by getting hit or not understanding that no matter how hard you threw that ball, it lost almost all of its energy after traveling thirty feet and was eminently catchable. Taking one off of the old noggin was always the worst, especially if you weren’t looking. I’m sure the physical education teacher must have thought we were animals, and he would have been correct–we were. The only possible benefit was that we were so worn out from physical activity and completely drained of emotional reserves that we were like lambs when we finally went back to class–little smelly, sweaty, bruised, lambs. Those that view their dodge ball years with nostalgia as a golden epoch of high achievement and fun times probably got hit in the head one too many times because that was not fun. We played dodge ball, some of us got hurt, but we all learned some valuable lessons about which hill is worth dying over, and which hill can be abandoned. Dodge ball was the most intranscendent and useless activity of my entire childhood.

On dodge ball

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I think I hated this game. I could never decide if it was an actual skill to throw a large red ball at other people or if it was sadistic exercise in pain and humiliation. The tough guys always grouped up together so they could throw at the skinny wimpy nerds like me. I weighed about forty-five pounds dripping wet in the fourth grade, and a well-thrown ball could pretty much knock me off of my feet. I think I received a neck injury once when I got hit in the back of the head. My only talent in dodge ball, if you could call it that, was my ability to catch one of these cannon shots, especially if thrown at my mid-section. I was horrible at actually throwing the ball, having wiry, but spaghetti-style arms with no muscles of which to speak. Dodge ball accentuated my weakling status to such an extent that I didn’t mind being eliminated early and often. The game is based on chaos and sadism, and there are just about no rules: you get hit, you’re out, you catch a ball on the fly, the thrower is out. All other rules are superfluous, which is good because most of the brutes playing the game couldn’t understand complicated rules anyway. If inflated properly, the red balls were as hard as concrete, and I witnessed more than one bloody nose from dodge ball. Good dodge ball players hung around the back, avoiding direct confrontations up front where you could take a real beaning if you weren’t careful. I got the air knocked out of me once when I took an unexpected shot to the stomach: that was both a strategy and a danger–throw at an unsuspecting soul who isn’t looking because they won’t catch your ball. My glasses got smashed out of shape on several occasions. More than one child left the floor crying after a particularly close encounter with a well-thrown dodge ball. I know we were getting exercise, and that our adrenaline was really pumping, but we moved out of abject fear, running for our very lives. I cannot say that I ever enjoyed the game, if it was a game at all. The bullies clearly enjoyed it too much, but ironically they were usually very bad at the game. You never won by simply employing brute force. You won by being wily and using every bit of misdirection and guile your body could muster. The brutes often took themselves out by getting hit or not understanding that no matter how hard you threw that ball, it lost almost all of its energy after traveling thirty feet and was eminently catchable. Taking one off of the old noggin was always the worst, especially if you weren’t looking. I’m sure the physical education teacher must have thought we were animals, and he would have been correct–we were. The only possible benefit was that we were so worn out from physical activity and completely drained of emotional reserves that we were like lambs when we finally went back to class–little smelly, sweaty, bruised, lambs. Those that view their dodge ball years with nostalgia as a golden epoch of high achievement and fun times probably got hit in the head one too many times because that was not fun. We played dodge ball, some of us got hurt, but we all learned some valuable lessons about which hill is worth dying over, and which hill can be abandoned. Dodge ball was the most intranscendent and useless activity of my entire childhood.

On caprice

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It is summer, time for vacations and excursions, time for new experiences, getting away from home, meeting new people, trying new foods, exploring new landscapes, escaping the normal, the everyday, the humdrum, letting caprice carry you away. Yes, for all you rational empiricists, caprice is a naughty word associated with irrational and illogical behavior bordering on insanity. Caprice is about wanting things you shouldn’t want, doing things on the spur of the moment, letting go of the controlled life. For many people, caprice is childish and foolish. One should be able to live their whole life without being either spontaneous or unpredictable. All of life should be planned, logical, thought out, reasonable, predictable, and unsurprising. I know lots of people like this, and they are wonderful, if not a little boring. Caprice, on the other hand, can lead to all sorts of trouble: one might eat too much chocolate or ice cream, or heaven forbid, to much chocolate ice cream. No one needs chocolate ice cream for any reason whatsoever, so it is a caprice. Caprice might mean staying up too late to watch an old movie about good guys and bad guys, beautiful dangerous women, whiskey, big cars and palatial estates where some old guy grows orchids he hates. Nobody needs any of that. Caprice might mean eating that lobster as opposed to watching it swim in its aquarium. Nobody needs lobster, and besides, eating lobster usually leads to drinking white wine with someone you love, and of course, love only leads to rack and ruin, so lobster is a caprice. Life’s caprices will ruin your heavily structured, well-toned life of predictable and good behavior. Caprice is almost always about being bad, wanting something that is not good for you, getting something that is bad for you. Jetting off to Paris is a caprice because no one really needs to go to Paris when they have everything they really need in the United States, probably at the mall just down the street, or maybe even closer in that big box retailer on the corner near your house. And heaven forbid you should go to Madrid, which is full of caprices: lobster, flamenco, bull-fighting, the Prado, tapas, red wine, terraces, handsome people, wild night life, and chocolate ice cream. You might as well throw in the towel if you go there because you will be assaulted on all sides by unwelcome caprice of all kinds. You might lose control of your well-tailored life, of your managed respectability, of your over-sculpted identity. Caprice is a bad thing, no question about it. Stay at home and eat rice cakes. Drive a four-door, respectable, good-mileage sedan with an automatic transmission. Caprice can have nothing to do with your well-run life. Please stay away from other people, roses, fast cars, jazz, art museums (all sorts), bars, restaurants that offer lobster and/or chocolate ice cream, and airports, which only leads to flying and before you know it, you’re eating lobster on some beach where half-nude people are sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them. Don’t be tempted. Stay away from caprice and live your life.