I came so close to going to Cebu. Doctor Suess probably could of made thousands of rhymes with that name. "Bored? Don't know what to do? Go to Cebu, where the water is warm, and cerulean blue, and where you never wear no shoes. Mango, fandango, tango too! Don't need no wardrobe, your swimsuit will do! Feelin' sad and blue? Go get happy - move to Cebu!"
Now, if you are not familiar with Cebu, you might remember it from some cartoon show. It is where mangoes fall from trees year round. It is where you can still rent an apartment for just over $200. It is an island in the Philippines whose population are 80% Catholic. And I had the contract to go in my hot little hands. All I needed was cashola and daring-do.
To do what? To survive is what. I had applied to Bigfoot Entertainment, a bustling film production company that has yet to make a big-time blockbuster, and is engaged in producing Asian films, and aspires to be doing reality shows. They had two jobs open: One was for a writer producer intern, the other for a reality show writer. One day last week I got a phone call from the head honcho there, a man with an Arabic name. I pitched myself as someone looking to option or sell a screenplay, and as the writer of two reality show treatments.
The pay was horrible. The intern would get $800 a month, but most of that would be used up in paying money back to Bigfoot for lodging, cost of food, the fact that they required (per the contract) that I have a top of the line laptop, and an expensive cell phone with me at all times. It was the perfect job for a 22 year old, or maybe, at the outside - a 28 year old. But a guy in the neighborhood of age 50? Forget it. the Arab said, "No, I already have five people I'm considering for the realtiy show gig. They worked on "Survivor." But he wanted me for the intern job because, though he was 15 hours ahead of me, he could still smell a sucker on the line.
So he asked, in L.A. coolness, "So how old are you?" And I said, "You're not supposed to ask that." And he says, "I know, but how old are you, seriously?" "Around fifty," I replied. "Geesh!" he said. "What?" "Well, the oldest guy we've ever had was forty-two." I asked him how old he was and he said, "forty-two." I was the old man out, but a sucker is a sucker and he says, "Well, I still like you, (old man), so I'll give you a chance."
You can see why I turned him down, though I did say I'd come at first. I couldn't help it, I was desperate. The economy is in bad shape; there simply aren't jobs for guys like me. And if there are, 500 people are applying, and most are younger and smarter than I am. I'm just speaking the truth here, people.
I turned down the job in the modern method, and emailed it to him. He was cavalier, and said I should let him know if I changed my mind. And that, as they say, was that. Goodbye Cebu, hello bankruptcy.
I could have been like Pokemon, running amongst the tropical foilage, working 44 hours and more per week, earning next to nothing, eating mangoes because they would be the only thing I could afford, leading a puritanical life (per the no sex clause in the contract), attending mass ever Sunday I wasn't working (rediscovering my roots), and sweating like mad in the jungle. I would of died of a heart attack and they'd have dumped my body in the lagoon. C'est la vie.
Thank God I said no. It made me happy to say no, but also the lady I'd been dating. She is not an even tempered sort, and I am fairly sure she'd of planted a butcher knife in my back as I headed out the door. Maybe I was running away from her. Maybe I have a fear of intimacy with the wrong person. Maybe I am so sane I could see the handwriting on the wall from two miles off. Maybe I still like myself. And...it could be that Cebu was my personal Shangri La.
Maybe I need to say no to her too. But it's Easter, and the timing is all wrong. It is the season of martyrs and who am I not to carry my cross and suffer a bit? It is the Catholic way, though I am no longer a Catholic except in the eyes of the church. But, hey, if you are going to go to Cebu, you have to go without any attachments. You have to be free of debt, and of a girlfriend; you have to be independently wealthy. You have to pack shorts, a hat, sunscreen, and sunglasses. You have to be stark raving mad.
So farewell Cebu, hello recessionville. I am back applying to jobs, doing odd jobs to survive. And I can't afford the mangoes in the States.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Bugs in a big world.
I have this thing for bugs; it's a love-hate thing. It goes back to my childhood in the Columbia Gorge. I was a grasshopper aficionado; I knew of at least four different types of grasshoppers in the fields around my home. There were small, narrow bodied ones, with clear wings and black markings, that lived in fields. The fields were also home to colored body type grasshoppers that were several inches long, and adept fliers. They ranged in colors from pale yellow to brown, and had yellow and black striped wings beneath their opaque cover wings. The wings resembled fans, which I had seen at the home of one of my Japanese friends. A smaller type of colored grasshopper, usually dark brown, had red wings and made a snapping sound when it flew. In the taller grasses lived short-winged grasshoppers that were black, white, and yellow. This type were stout and strong, and resembled gladiators in their body armor. When placed in a jar with dissimilar grasshoppers, this type would often attack the others. They also were the best grasshopper variety to use for fishing because they could endure a long time underwater without drowning.
But the bugs that were the most adapted to the world of human beings were fleas, spiders, moths, and beetles. I used to look at our dog's fleas under my cheap microscope. They were alien looking creatures; evil blood-suckers that left small itchy bumps on my body for most of my childhood. The beetles came in a myriad of forms. Junebugs and long-horned beetles made our backyard a landing strip. The most common indoor beetle were weevils. My siblings, and my mother, would find them in our drawers and closets, where they had gorged themselves on our wool and cotton clothes. Occasionally, a bug would be seen in broad daylight, skittering aross the floor. My father smashed them with his big paint splattered boots, and swatted them with newspapers. Spiders were everywhere, and busy eating the other bugs, whom they stalked at night. Moths came from closets at certain times of the year. They were plain, and dull in color, gray-brown, and usually small. They died within a week, fluttering madly against our window panes hoping to find mates. In third grade I found my first scorpion under a rock near my school. It became a prized specimen in my bug collection, a pin thrust through its back.
When I was married, we owned a large tulip tree. Each year it became sticky due to aphids. We tried ladybugs, but that didn't work. So we decided to give preying mantis a try. We bought the mantis at a greenhouse; it consisted of a one-inch-long egg pouch that looked like it was made of pale brown construction paper. The instructions said to put the pouch in a jar and set it in a warm area of the house. The mantis would hatch within three weeks.
We put the jar containing the mantis in the kitchen, and because it had no breathing holes, I opened the flip-top plastic lid. On a sunny summer day, we decided to go to the beach. When we returned that afternoon, I noticed there were little patches of something on the ceiling of the kitchen. When I got up on a chair to see what it was, I realized that at least five hundred miniature mantis were hanging upside down ready to jab my eyes out. They were perfect replicas of full grown mantis, and seemed acutely aware of me and their role in the natural world. After I gathered them into the jar, I learned why they are such good predators. They cleaned up that tulip tree like vacuum cleaners, eating not just the aphids but the few ladybugs that lingered there.
For years afterwards I would find one or two resting on sides of our house and my son's school. They were usually about four inches long, green, and ferocious. It was this experience with mantis that made us more willing to house some African stick bugs when my son's teacher gave them to her students for the summer. These thorny monsters were so well camouflaged that once they settled into their reposes on the branches of blackberry vines (their favorite meal) a casual observer would be hard pressed to see them.
Of all the insect world, there are none that I hate more than mosquitoes. I am Type O, and apparently, mosquitoes love my blood type. Wearing garlic around my neck doesn't help. Once I went camping with my daughter to an isolated area in southeastern Oregon. We had spent half the day looking for sunstones, and went back to our campsite on top of Hart Mountain. It had been a good day; we had gone fishing and she had caught five little native trout. After dinner we retired to our tent and I got out a picture book to tell her a bedtime story. I used a flashlight to see the pages. I kept hearing a buzzing sound and realized I'd let a mosquito into the tent. Suddenly I felt something on my temple and slapped it. A few moments later there was something wet running into my left eye. It was making it hard to read so I shone the light at my face and asked my daughter if she saw anything. She gave a little cry and shouted, 'You're bleeding, poppa!" The mosquito had tapped into a vein and though I'd killed it when I slapped it, I'd helped it inject its anti-coagulant.
I cannot imagine a world without bugs. I have seen swarms of neon blue butterflies dining on damp soil by a river in Tennessee, thousands of ladybugs flowing from an upstairs window of a house, a garden spider, big as a quarter, resting in the center of an ornately constructed web in a rose garden, and a legion of ants busily marching in and out of a foot tall ant hill. I don't know what kind of Creator would make such creatures, but surely everything has a purpose, and I am sure that also pertains to the animal kingdom and human beings.
But the bugs that were the most adapted to the world of human beings were fleas, spiders, moths, and beetles. I used to look at our dog's fleas under my cheap microscope. They were alien looking creatures; evil blood-suckers that left small itchy bumps on my body for most of my childhood. The beetles came in a myriad of forms. Junebugs and long-horned beetles made our backyard a landing strip. The most common indoor beetle were weevils. My siblings, and my mother, would find them in our drawers and closets, where they had gorged themselves on our wool and cotton clothes. Occasionally, a bug would be seen in broad daylight, skittering aross the floor. My father smashed them with his big paint splattered boots, and swatted them with newspapers. Spiders were everywhere, and busy eating the other bugs, whom they stalked at night. Moths came from closets at certain times of the year. They were plain, and dull in color, gray-brown, and usually small. They died within a week, fluttering madly against our window panes hoping to find mates. In third grade I found my first scorpion under a rock near my school. It became a prized specimen in my bug collection, a pin thrust through its back.
When I was married, we owned a large tulip tree. Each year it became sticky due to aphids. We tried ladybugs, but that didn't work. So we decided to give preying mantis a try. We bought the mantis at a greenhouse; it consisted of a one-inch-long egg pouch that looked like it was made of pale brown construction paper. The instructions said to put the pouch in a jar and set it in a warm area of the house. The mantis would hatch within three weeks.
We put the jar containing the mantis in the kitchen, and because it had no breathing holes, I opened the flip-top plastic lid. On a sunny summer day, we decided to go to the beach. When we returned that afternoon, I noticed there were little patches of something on the ceiling of the kitchen. When I got up on a chair to see what it was, I realized that at least five hundred miniature mantis were hanging upside down ready to jab my eyes out. They were perfect replicas of full grown mantis, and seemed acutely aware of me and their role in the natural world. After I gathered them into the jar, I learned why they are such good predators. They cleaned up that tulip tree like vacuum cleaners, eating not just the aphids but the few ladybugs that lingered there.
For years afterwards I would find one or two resting on sides of our house and my son's school. They were usually about four inches long, green, and ferocious. It was this experience with mantis that made us more willing to house some African stick bugs when my son's teacher gave them to her students for the summer. These thorny monsters were so well camouflaged that once they settled into their reposes on the branches of blackberry vines (their favorite meal) a casual observer would be hard pressed to see them.
Of all the insect world, there are none that I hate more than mosquitoes. I am Type O, and apparently, mosquitoes love my blood type. Wearing garlic around my neck doesn't help. Once I went camping with my daughter to an isolated area in southeastern Oregon. We had spent half the day looking for sunstones, and went back to our campsite on top of Hart Mountain. It had been a good day; we had gone fishing and she had caught five little native trout. After dinner we retired to our tent and I got out a picture book to tell her a bedtime story. I used a flashlight to see the pages. I kept hearing a buzzing sound and realized I'd let a mosquito into the tent. Suddenly I felt something on my temple and slapped it. A few moments later there was something wet running into my left eye. It was making it hard to read so I shone the light at my face and asked my daughter if she saw anything. She gave a little cry and shouted, 'You're bleeding, poppa!" The mosquito had tapped into a vein and though I'd killed it when I slapped it, I'd helped it inject its anti-coagulant.
I cannot imagine a world without bugs. I have seen swarms of neon blue butterflies dining on damp soil by a river in Tennessee, thousands of ladybugs flowing from an upstairs window of a house, a garden spider, big as a quarter, resting in the center of an ornately constructed web in a rose garden, and a legion of ants busily marching in and out of a foot tall ant hill. I don't know what kind of Creator would make such creatures, but surely everything has a purpose, and I am sure that also pertains to the animal kingdom and human beings.
Korben Dallas fans are welcome.
Lately, I have been obsessed with learning about Dark Matter and Dark Energy. I have a file on my computer about it. It is the greatest mystery in the universe, (just a smidgeon greater than how they make pop rock candy).
Scientists don't know what Dark Matter and Dark Energy are; all they know is, based on their calculations, it makes up 96% of everything. That leaves just 4% for everything else. And what is "everything else?" Everything we can see or sense with our equipment. It boggles the mind. Scientists in the know are aware that a trip to Stockholm awaits them if they come up with the answer.
They have been very clever in coming up with theories that fit in nice, neat, little boxes. Categorizing things helps them bend their brains around it. Two of their categories are WIMPS and MACHOS. WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), are the subatomic particles which are not made up of ordinary matter. They are "weakly interacting" because they can pass through ordinary matter without any effects. They are "massive" in the sense of having mass (whether they are light or heavy depends on the particle). The prime candidates include neutrinos, axions, and neutralinos. (You can order extra neutralinos with your fish taco and you won't taste them but they are in there somewhere). MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects) are objects ranging in size from small stars to super massive black holes, and made of ordinary matter (like protons, neutrons and electrons). They may be black holes, neutron stars, or brown dwarfs. But neither of these explains the amount of matter that is affecting the motions of things in the universe. Dare we say, "God?"
I am okay with the theory that we are simply residing on a very big cheeseburger that is on its way to being digested by a very big something that lives in an even bigger dimension. These scientists have no imagination or sense of humor! They are going mad about this Dark Matter and Dark Energy. It goes against all logic, and this irrationality has no place in their math oriented hemispheres. As far as we know, the Milky Way is a very large nerve fiber in a giant brain. Everything is like the nested boxes made in the Ukraine.
Ah well, let's not hurt our brains thinking about it. Let's just accept it as what it is: unknowable, like understanding what happened before the Big Bang. But thinking about it on a superficial level reminds me of one of my favorite sci-films, "The Fifth Element," where there is a thing similar to Dark Matter. It is evil, and cannot be understood, like we all were as two year olds, and like teachers we've had, or one of our siblings.
Actors are made up of more Dark Matter and Dark Energy than you and me. The best ones are ninety-proof Black Holes (like Johnny Depp). Look at their eyes too long and you'll be sucked right in. Bruce Willis is made up of 99% Dark Matter and 1% human DNA. Listen, I am not necessarily a big fan of Bruce Willis. (My son's host family in Japan was enamored with Willis). Granted, the "Die Hard" films without Willis would be nothing. He is the quintessential New Yorker; tough, with a heart of gold. I am of the opinion that he got the shaft from Demi Moore. Ashton Kurcher is no Bruce Willis. I love "The Fifth Element," for the same reason I love "Bladerunner." Harrison Ford is certainly on a par with Willis.
This entertaining and forward-thinking film, by acclaimed director Luc Besson, is the epitome of what every sci-fi film aspires to be, without much hyperbole. Like most sci-fi films, we are asked to suspend our disbelief about the technology of the future. This is not THX 1138, this is an action film with the trademark one-liners we expect with Willis films (and Clint Eastwood films for that matter). It is not "Gattaca" or a Woody Allen spoof, ("Sleeper"), but it is special. I never grow weary of watching it.
For those who haven't seen "The Fifth Element" the logline/plot goes as follows: An ancient evil threatens to destroy the universe and is bested by the forces of good, and true love.
The film opens with a view of Earth from space. A friendly alien ship has arrived. It cuts to a view of an ancient red rock temple in the desert, at an archaelogical site in Egypt in 1914. A white haired archaelogy professor, in a white weather worn suit, is translating a panel of hieroglyphics carved into the interior wall of the ancient temple. His assistant, (Luke Perry) is bored silly, and keeps tabs on how many times the professor tells a young boy, Aziz, to keep a reflector aimed at the wall; ("Aziz! More light!"). He has discerned that there are five elements to defend the world from evil: water, earth, fire, and air, with the fifth element being the embodiment of goodness and perfection.
He has learned that every 5,000 years, these elements are called upon to protect life from evil. Just as he has solved the meaning, an enormous alien spaceship arrives, and enormous bug faced aliens in metallic suits enter the temple to unlock the wall the professor is working on. They have come to retrieve four sacred stones and the fifth element from the hidden chamber. The stones sit on pedestals that encircle a platform where a human-like metallic female icon stands, which contains the fifth element. They have come to protect these elements from evil, and promise the guardian of the elements, a temple priest, that they will return in 300 hundred years to save the Earth from evil.
The film then cuts to the 23rd Century, to deep space, where an Earth spaceship is investigating a strange anomaly: a dark planet that is travelling at a high rate of speed toward Earth. The ship's commander, unaware of the makeup of the object, and under orders from the President, opens fire with all he has, causing the molten black planet to harden and then grow exponentially, engulfing the ship.
The President (perhaps the weakest acting in the film) convenes a cabinet meeting, and the current leader of the line of priests, Cornelius, warns that nothing can destroy the object, nor can anything be known about it, because it does not want to be known. Use of force will only make it stronger, for evil begets evil. There is only one thing that can destroy it, a perfect weapon of goodness, a fifth element, that will preserve life.
Word comes that a friendly alien spaceship is nearing Earth with the fifth element, and the sacred stones, onboard. But before it can land, grotesque amphibian-like aliens, the Mangalores, piloting jet fighters, and in league with the evil entity and an art dealer on Earth, shoot it down. Earth scientists retrieve the remains from the ship: a small fused blob of organic material loaded with an unusual amount of duplicate DNA. At their Nucleolab, they reconstitute the material in a large lucite enclosed tube, and it forms Leeloo, (Milla Jovovich), a dayglow orange-haired vixen who immediately begins babbling a divine ancient language no one but the priests understand. Aware of her mission, though she is only freshly constituted, Leeloo breaks out of the chamber and flees down the air vents to a ledge of the building. Terrorized by the security officers behind her, the height of the building, a hovering police car, and being recaptured, she leaps and crashes through the roof of a cab, driven by Korben Dallas, (Bruce Willis). Dallas is a retired space fighter pilot with an attitude, and too few points left on his cab license. The accident has used up all but one of points, but he is smitten by Leeloo and her appealing babbling, ("Big badda-boom!"). He decides to help her escape and speeds away, pursued by squads of police hover cars.
Leeloo is injured from the crash, and Dallas's wild driving to elude police. She mumbles about a priest named Cornelius before passing out, so Dallas locates Cornelius, and lays her on a sofa, while Cornelius and his male assistant dress in more formal priestly attire. Dallas cannot help himself, and kisses the unconscious Leeloo. She awakens and holds a phaser to his temple and babbles words that Cornelius latter explains means, "Not without my permission!" Then Cornelius ushers Dallas out of the apartment.
An unscruptulous art dealer, Emmanuel Baptiste Zorg (Gary Oldham), seeks to acquire the stones for his client, Mr. Shadow, the evil entity within the dark planet. He summons the priest, Vitto Cornelius, to his corporate office and tries to extract where the stones are. During his interrogation Cornelius saves Zorg from choking on a cherry, so Zorg lets him go free.
Leeloo regains her health, with the help of enormous amounts of food (chicken), and a speedy education on Earth knowledge via Cornelius's computer. She tells Cornelius that the stones are not lost, they are being held by a tall blue alien woman, a pop opera singer named Diva Plavalaguna, who is performing on a resort planet named Fhlosten's Paradise.
Several military officers visit Dallas to let him know he is being called back to service to help them fight the evil entity. Korben hides Leeloo in a shower stall. The commander presents him with an all expense paid trip pair of tickets to Fhlosten Paradise, where he will be interviewed by Ruby, the flamboyant effeminate host of a live television broadcast. Once he arrives, Leeloo and he are to get the stones. The door buzzer rings and Korben hides the three commanders in a cooler.
Cornelius goes to Dallas's apartment, knocks out Korben with a candle holder, and steals his tickets to Fhlosten Paradise. When Korben wakes he gets everyone out of hiding and Leeloo and he go to the spaceport, where he catches up with Cornelius and David (Cornelius' assistant). Leeloo and Korben, in the guise of being newlyweds, fly to Fhlosten to retrieve the stones. Once they arrive, they are accompanied by the annoying, (and over the top) Ruby, (Chris Tucker), his film crew, and entourage of yes men.
The Mangalores arrive on Fhlosten, and go to Diva Plavalaguna's suite to look for the stones. Leeloo sees them and thoroughly thrashes them. The Mangalores, thinking they've been set up, go ballistic and take over the ship. They burst into the auditorium where Diva Plavalaguna has just finished singing. She is mortally wounded by their bullets and collapses. Korben kneels by her side and she tells him that the stones are inside her body. She dies and Korben plunges his hand into her blue bloody belly and retrieves them.
Zorg arrives, sure that the Mangalores will bungle their mission. He takes the wrong box from Leeloo and tries to shoot her, but she escapes into a ceiling vent. Frustrated, and running out of time, he departs aboard his ship, leaving behind a bomb with a timer. Meanwhile, Korben finds Leeloo, and he, Cornelius, David, and Ruby, get aboard a spacecraft. Realizing he has been duped again, Zorg returns to the ship to defuse the bomb. It is to no avail, as a dying Mangalore sets off a secondary bomb.
Korben and his crew narrowly escape the blast, and return to the temple on Earth to activate the stones. With seconds to spare before the arrival of the evil sphere, they get the stones activated by applying handfuls of water, fire, dust, and wind. Only one thing remains: Korben must declare his love for Leeloo to activate her power. He must admit he has feelings for her, and tell her what she needs to hear - that he loves her. Once he declares his love for her, a beam of light shoots from her open mouth into space, destroying the evil planet seconds before it impacts Earth.
The film cuts to the Nucleolab, where Korben and Leeloo are recovering from their ordeal in a metal cylindrical tube. The President and his entourage have arrived to reward the pair, but they will have to wait because Koren and Leeloo are making love and need a lot more time.
Mueck's Manipulations.
I am familiar with Chuck Close; he was the painter who did meticulously hyper-real portraits. But Chuck must be perpetually rolling over in his grave, because there is a guy from Australia who has been outdoing him, in 3D, for some time.
Now living in England, Ron Mueck's stunningly real sculptures have been showing in galleries around the world for several years. Using silicone, acrylic, and fiberglass, Mueck crafts oversized and undersized figures of ordinary people. He prefers to make them bigger or smaller than life size because, in his words, 'You see people you own size everyday." The detail is astounding; his figures have realistic body hair, and their skin has a lifelike patina. Each part is anatomically correct.
What does one do when one has achieved such a monumentally hyper-real technical level? I predict he will move on to the animal kingdom. Soon he will be doing two-story tall frogs, reptiles, or insects. He probably will lean towards using creatures lacking body hair, or those that have less than, say, most of the mammals, due to the time needed to stitch each hair on with special punches and needles.
Humanity is consumed by representations of humankind. We will never get enough of gawking at our fellow humans in malls, offices, parks, political debates, fashion shows, the evening news, and sporting events. We like to study the folds and nuances of fellow humans. What will we do when they invent companions, such as those in sci-fi films, who mimic us in every way? Why would a man want a regular woman when he can have a Stepford wife adorned in slinky nighwear waiting for him whenever he needs her, and who would never scold him for being a slob or bad lover? Why would a woman need a man when there are sperm banks for babies, and a well-endowed silicone skinned man who will talk about recipes, dance the tango, drive her around, is able to please all her romantic fantasies, and treat her like a lady twenty-four hours a day?
It will be a blow to the breast augmentation, and erectile disfunction (and penile extention) industries. Surgeons will have to live on a hundred grand a year, poor things.
Mueck may pay the price of working with fiberglass. It is not the best thing to get in your lungs. But he probably knows this. Maybe he will parlay his skill into a line of manikins for store windows. Perhaps we will see his figures in malls that are suffering through this depression. Empty malls are a problem, why not stock them with real looking people?
I will order a Mueck if I don't find a real woman. I will put her in my living room and play her songs on my guitar. I will be like "Lars and the Real Girl" except my gal will be more real looking than me.
But I am joking of course. We need companions who are flawed, because however beautiful we may appear, none of us have perfect bodies, at least in our views. And there is that thing called love that binds people together. And when one is in love, the imperfections are rarely noted, and if they are, they only endear us to the one we love. Quirkiness and witty conversation go a long ways to making a person loveable. Kindness, forgiveness, fidelity, and being commited to someone will take you the rest of the way.
I hope Mueck has found someone who loves him, wrinkles and all.
Now living in England, Ron Mueck's stunningly real sculptures have been showing in galleries around the world for several years. Using silicone, acrylic, and fiberglass, Mueck crafts oversized and undersized figures of ordinary people. He prefers to make them bigger or smaller than life size because, in his words, 'You see people you own size everyday." The detail is astounding; his figures have realistic body hair, and their skin has a lifelike patina. Each part is anatomically correct.
What does one do when one has achieved such a monumentally hyper-real technical level? I predict he will move on to the animal kingdom. Soon he will be doing two-story tall frogs, reptiles, or insects. He probably will lean towards using creatures lacking body hair, or those that have less than, say, most of the mammals, due to the time needed to stitch each hair on with special punches and needles.
Humanity is consumed by representations of humankind. We will never get enough of gawking at our fellow humans in malls, offices, parks, political debates, fashion shows, the evening news, and sporting events. We like to study the folds and nuances of fellow humans. What will we do when they invent companions, such as those in sci-fi films, who mimic us in every way? Why would a man want a regular woman when he can have a Stepford wife adorned in slinky nighwear waiting for him whenever he needs her, and who would never scold him for being a slob or bad lover? Why would a woman need a man when there are sperm banks for babies, and a well-endowed silicone skinned man who will talk about recipes, dance the tango, drive her around, is able to please all her romantic fantasies, and treat her like a lady twenty-four hours a day?
It will be a blow to the breast augmentation, and erectile disfunction (and penile extention) industries. Surgeons will have to live on a hundred grand a year, poor things.
Mueck may pay the price of working with fiberglass. It is not the best thing to get in your lungs. But he probably knows this. Maybe he will parlay his skill into a line of manikins for store windows. Perhaps we will see his figures in malls that are suffering through this depression. Empty malls are a problem, why not stock them with real looking people?
I will order a Mueck if I don't find a real woman. I will put her in my living room and play her songs on my guitar. I will be like "Lars and the Real Girl" except my gal will be more real looking than me.
But I am joking of course. We need companions who are flawed, because however beautiful we may appear, none of us have perfect bodies, at least in our views. And there is that thing called love that binds people together. And when one is in love, the imperfections are rarely noted, and if they are, they only endear us to the one we love. Quirkiness and witty conversation go a long ways to making a person loveable. Kindness, forgiveness, fidelity, and being commited to someone will take you the rest of the way.
I hope Mueck has found someone who loves him, wrinkles and all.
Moments of wonder and tenderness.
Despite the astounding mysteries in the universe awaiting explanation, (black holes, dark matter, culinary secret sauces), I have lately found more pleasure in appreciating the wonders in my own backyard. Maybe it is a natural process of realizing how short life is, and that my most profound thoughts have come from observing the smaller things in life.
I was in a local library recently and heard the faint sounds of piano coming through a wall. I followed it to a room where a group of mostly Asian children were giving recitals. There were about fifty parents in the room, and their children, who sat waiting their turn to play. The children in the room were between the ages of six and ten years old. Their teacher, a tall thirty-something Chinese woman with a strong Asian accent, introduced each of them, her hands gently placed on the children’s shoulders.
If demeanor belies talent, then it was not altogether true that day. A shy, demure little girl played like Mozart. An extroverted, beaming boy played as if his fingers were coated with epoxy. There were moments where I felt as if I was experiencing something so rare and fine that I could not imagine that the universe itself wasn't listening in awe. Two little girls not only played wonderfully, then immediately stood to sing patriotic songs with angelic overtones. "Of Thee I Sing" was never sung with more virtue. It is a strange and wondrous thing to be moved to tears by the sheer innocence of youth. I felt honored and blessed.
After a half hour I left the room, satiated by my experience. I sat by a bank of windows that overlooked the back of the library. The recent rain had subsided, and many people were walking paths in a park. I had yet to explore this area, so I went outside and began walking a broad asphalt path that wound through the large and orderly grounds.
Soon I left the library behind and crossed small teak and metal bridges. The sun had warmed the wood and it smelled sweet. I came to sections where the designers had let nature take its course, and grasses grew tall and abundant. I paused by the thigh-high grass and gently ran my hand over its blue-green velvety stalks. At a distance the grass had seemed uniform, but upon closer inspection there was variety in its forms, and many smaller flowering plants growing closer to the ground. Blue dragonflies hung amongst the stalks, bees flitted from flower to flower. The impression was one of activity and serenity at the same time.
Further on, I stopped on another bridge that skirted a large lily pad covered pond. I peered into the water expecting to see fish, but saw nothing but water striders. As with the grass, the first impression was of inactivity, and calmness, but then I saw the bird. In the midst of the lily pads came a song from a red-winged blackbird. It paused to listen to the response of another blackbird, and then continued lifting pads with its beak to find insects. A pair of Mallards stopped by the blackbird; one plugged its head into the water, its tail feathers in the air. The blackbird hopped on, using the pads to walk on water.
A child, no older than four-years-old suddenly came next to me and said something in what sounded like Hindi. Her mother, swathed in traditional dress, came alongside her. We stood for a few moments on the arched bridge, curved like the surface of the Earth, our attention held by the red-winged blackbird.
The mother and her daughter continued on and I stayed to watch a bit longer. I thought of the bird and its life, and of my life. I thought of my children in their last piano recitals. The moments had passed from seconds to years and only memories remained. I had the thought that this was the essence of life, these little moments of wonder and tenderness.
I was in a local library recently and heard the faint sounds of piano coming through a wall. I followed it to a room where a group of mostly Asian children were giving recitals. There were about fifty parents in the room, and their children, who sat waiting their turn to play. The children in the room were between the ages of six and ten years old. Their teacher, a tall thirty-something Chinese woman with a strong Asian accent, introduced each of them, her hands gently placed on the children’s shoulders.
If demeanor belies talent, then it was not altogether true that day. A shy, demure little girl played like Mozart. An extroverted, beaming boy played as if his fingers were coated with epoxy. There were moments where I felt as if I was experiencing something so rare and fine that I could not imagine that the universe itself wasn't listening in awe. Two little girls not only played wonderfully, then immediately stood to sing patriotic songs with angelic overtones. "Of Thee I Sing" was never sung with more virtue. It is a strange and wondrous thing to be moved to tears by the sheer innocence of youth. I felt honored and blessed.
After a half hour I left the room, satiated by my experience. I sat by a bank of windows that overlooked the back of the library. The recent rain had subsided, and many people were walking paths in a park. I had yet to explore this area, so I went outside and began walking a broad asphalt path that wound through the large and orderly grounds.
Soon I left the library behind and crossed small teak and metal bridges. The sun had warmed the wood and it smelled sweet. I came to sections where the designers had let nature take its course, and grasses grew tall and abundant. I paused by the thigh-high grass and gently ran my hand over its blue-green velvety stalks. At a distance the grass had seemed uniform, but upon closer inspection there was variety in its forms, and many smaller flowering plants growing closer to the ground. Blue dragonflies hung amongst the stalks, bees flitted from flower to flower. The impression was one of activity and serenity at the same time.
Further on, I stopped on another bridge that skirted a large lily pad covered pond. I peered into the water expecting to see fish, but saw nothing but water striders. As with the grass, the first impression was of inactivity, and calmness, but then I saw the bird. In the midst of the lily pads came a song from a red-winged blackbird. It paused to listen to the response of another blackbird, and then continued lifting pads with its beak to find insects. A pair of Mallards stopped by the blackbird; one plugged its head into the water, its tail feathers in the air. The blackbird hopped on, using the pads to walk on water.
A child, no older than four-years-old suddenly came next to me and said something in what sounded like Hindi. Her mother, swathed in traditional dress, came alongside her. We stood for a few moments on the arched bridge, curved like the surface of the Earth, our attention held by the red-winged blackbird.
The mother and her daughter continued on and I stayed to watch a bit longer. I thought of the bird and its life, and of my life. I thought of my children in their last piano recitals. The moments had passed from seconds to years and only memories remained. I had the thought that this was the essence of life, these little moments of wonder and tenderness.
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