Bizarro world is upon us! Get with the repenting, already.

Apparently we are heading into some final apocalyptic phase around here. Here's what's been going on. First, we somehow mysteriously "gained" an hour over the weekend. I know this happens every year, but as any good apocalyptic crackpot...er, sayer of sooth will tell you, it's when you have a correlation of these things that one must worry. So even though I have yet in all my years to hear a sufficient explanation as to why we fart around with the clock twice annually (unless you live in Bloomington Indiana, where they don't change their clocks except after the power goes out) I consider this to be the first sign of impending doom.

Second sign: all of the bugs that have peopled my office since monday. Bugged my office, I guess makes more sense. Kind of bugs? Not sure -- I thought maybe it was a message from Rebecca at sweat flavored gummi because as you know she has command over the beetles. They do her bidding, more or less. But they didn't seem to want anything. And if they were doing some tricky beetle dance, to communicate the way honeybees do, they were not doing a very good job of it. Or perhaps I wasn't paying the right kind of attention. But more to the point, they weren't beetles. In fact I've never seen this kind of bug before except at my office, where they tend to infest us in the spring. Our landlord offers no explanation. So maybe Fort Washington is the Hellmouth. They kind of look like fireflies, except their butts weren't glowing. So there you are.

Third sign: the little balls of ice (sleet? hail? don't really know the difference) that were falling yesterday afternoon. This isn't Buffalo. Why are we getting frozen condensation in October?? And right before Halloween. Hmmm...seems powerful strange to me.

I am teaching a marketing research seminar the last two days. Today is the final day -- I am anticipating more strangeness to ensue. Perhaps the students will all pay attention, or come back from lunch on time. Don't know if that heralds the end of days by itself, but again, all these things together make one ponder. I haven't had time to read the news, so there could be other signs out there as well. I'll keep you updated.


posted by MT at 6:38 AM |

The loveless man who invented the science of love...

So, I'm on vacation today. Yes, took a day off. Heralds great things. We continue in the balance theme.

I expect the activity on this site to pick up next week because I'm not traveling at all, and that's a very good thing.

In the meantime, I leave you with this. On the way back from NC yesterday, I picked up the latest copy of Scientific American and found a review about a new book about Harry Harlowe (the man who invented the cloth mother paradigm).

Some points are worth highlighting. First, I had no idea how controversial the guy was personally, or what the more extreme variants on the original study design turned out to be:

These were brutal studies, animals shattered by isolation. They made Harlow a pariah in many circles. Useful science was produced (though not nearly enough to justify the extent of what was done, in my opinion). Animals suffered unspeakably. And Blum documents Harlow's personal demons during this period: alcoholism, estrangement from his children, depression requiring hospitalization and electroconvulsive therapy.

Of course, the cruelty is evident if you ever watch the films, or even the stills (like the one at the top of this page) because, let's face it, primate faces are enormously emotionally communicative. But the reviewer raises this interesting point, the idea being that the harshness was exactly the point:

Harlow's pioneering work was required to demonstrate the unethical nature of that work. But wasn't it obvious before? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you socially isolate us as infants, do we not suffer? Few in the know thought so. The main point of Harlow's work was not teaching what we might now assume incorrectly to have been obvious then--that if you isolate an infant monkey, she saddens and suffers for long after. It was the utterly novel fact that if you do the same to a human infant, the same occurs.

Those of you who know the Stanley Milgram obedience studies will realize that the same was true there. He was seen as a monster by encouraging people to shock complete strangers -- and he found that obedience to authority was easily obtained even in the face of overwhelming evidence that following that authority was causing critical injury to an innocent person. But Milgram, and perhaps Harlowe, never realized how far it would go, or how bad it could get. Milgram never expected his subjects to become so cruel. And he was labeled the de facto monster by putting them in that situation in the first place.

We have fun here, don't we? Good times.

Off to Rancho Relaxo. And you know, you can't spell "Relaxo" without "relax"....





posted by MT at 7:15 AM |

Lots of love in the cockpit

Oh stop it. You know what I mean.

Took an alarmingly early flight out of Detroit (seeya!) this morning, four hours plus some to get to San Diego. I have been lied to by virtually everyone who lives here (that I met last time) because contrary to what I believe is law around here, it's been a cold and dreary beyotch of a day. (Not like in, say, Camelot..."The rain may never fall til after sundown, by eight pm the moonlight must appear, in short there's simply not a more congenial spot for happily-ever-aftering than heeere in Caaaaamelot." You know, that one).

Caffeine powered blogging, you ask? How did you know? I can feel my hair growing. And it makes a faint squeaking noise as the little hairs push on through.

But that wasn't what I came to talk to you about. I have been in that funny place again. You know the one. Where Lerner and Lowe lyrics come unbidden to my brain, and are actually appropriate to the story. Too busy to be believed. On all fronts. And it has led me to stop and smell the funny. (my new MO, see my post from a couple of days ago). All the usual haunts on the links page (no time to revisit them now! Okay, just one...also apropos of this little moebius-like posting: go find Mimi Smartypants, she has some very interesting things to say about the role of hypertext links as footnotes and how they have changed [or have the potential to change] the way we subreference material online, and therefore, how we read it. She also has something hysterical and quick to note about the use of the umlaut, which had I more smarts and more time, I would use to correctly spell "moebius").

But that's not why I'm here either, except that I got all jazzed skimming over all the other bloggy haunts and found myself suddenly wanting to bubble around here. In between work. Let's keep a close eye on the work.

Like I was telling NG this morning. On the plane, there are like four thousand children. Two boys to my left with their mom, kids about two or so. (Lots of diapers in mom's handbag). The overheard conversation was precious. Nothing that bears repeating, just wide-eyed kid commentary that makes you wonder how you ever got to be so old. Full flight, but smart boy that I am, I changed my seat at the last minute to the 25th row to get an aisle seat and be first on the plane. Smart boy. But it filled up anyway. To my right, a middle aged couple that took turns sharing that little blow-up neck pillow that looks (to me) to be surprisingly comfortable. Probably married for like ever. Holding hands most of the way. During the course of the flight, various babies with parents in tow wandering up and down the aisle to stretch legs and find interesting things near the back of the plane.

And the one grumbly bear in front of me, kept casting annoyed sidelong glances at the kids, for no reason than she expected to have the plane all to herself. Had to be. Why else would you get annoyed at these things? Aren't other people inevitable when you take any form of public transportation? And aren't some of those other people little and young and not schooled enough in the social graces to know that not everyone finds their stuffed orange tabby as entertaining as they do? So you deal. Or you work to find the good. But grumbly woman stood out noticeably because we seemed to all be enjoying the warm feeling so much. Maybe because we were on our way to Eden (not knowing ahead of time what a gyp it was going to turn out to be).

But the balcony door is open, and there's a pleasant fall breeze coming in, and it's making the work less taxing and here I am finding the good. Don't worry, the cynicism will return momentarily. For now let's just enjoy the breeze. And that little twitch in my leg courtesy of the good people at Starbucks...



posted by MT at 8:18 PM |

My first real celebrity sighting!

Well, all this exhausting travel is finally paying off. Big perks. Standing in the airport, minding my own business, and who goes sailing by? None other than Richard Simmons! He of Deal-a-Meal and Sweating to the Oldies fame. Even with his big hair, he's shorter than me (and that's saying something). Clutching what looked to be a big pillow and a small travel bag. Wearing those alarmingly small gym shorts of his. Eep...


Kind of makes the fact that I've spent the last two days in Detroit all worthwhile...
Detroit, people. It's as bad as all that.


posted by MT at 8:11 PM |

"Balance, Daniel-san. Always find balance."
Mr. Miyagi, "The Karate Kid"

I have been away from this site for exactly a week. I haven't been able to roam or surf or scale the web walls in search of new fun. I have email piling up on three accounts. As someone scary once said, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." I believe he was just getting ready to hack some folks to death in a deserted hotel in Colorado when he said it, but still....it's the message, not the messenger.

And as Homer Simpson once said, "No TV and no beer make Homer go crazy." (Incidentally, he was about to do the same thing, but it's a cartoon so never fear).

I think all of these thoughtful aphorisms point us in the same direction, don't you?

It is perhaps a telling window onto my psychology that I am willing to sacrifice the things that make me happiest. Like coming here after finding funny or quirky or interesting things round and about, polishing them up, tilting them this way or that and showing them to you. That's why I started this in the first place. Likewise, I have spent the last two or three years living in an isolated world of work work and oh yes travel (related to work). And even in traveling around the country, and to points abroad, I still find that I am willing to forego the intriguing parts in favor of alleviating work anxiety by just working harder.

I never considered myself a type-A. I procrastinate like crazy. But I've been very successful, especially in recent years. And yet the things that are most valuable to me, like having a family and so on, are being undermined by the very activity that I thought would facilitate them i.e., being successful, having some scratch and a flashy family sedan (woo Hoo! nothing says "hey baby" like a navy blue Camry...). And yet I fail where my happiness is concerned.

So I find myself at a crossroads of sorts. Well before the New Year, which ensures that I can beat the holiday rush. Have to decide whether I can find that critical balance with the situation I have, or dramatically change the situation. I am a quirky developmentalist in that I am rather uncomfortable with change. Big change (not like, you know, changing underwear or the Brita filter... Those I can handle). But like moving, changing jobs, things like that.

I know, this is terrifically boring navel gazing and exactly the kind of thing that discourages future readership. (Where's all the sex talk we've come to expect [well, all the folks who link here through Google, anyway]? Tell us more about the bonobo and their erotic joie de vivre!! With all the pop-up ads on this bitch, how's about some entertainment already?) I think what I'm doing here is challenging myself in full view of the reading public, those that are left anyway, and I think it might be a Stephen Covey principle that says "write it down and do it already" or something equally pithy. So I'm doing that.

And in this spirit, I took a mighty but wee first step on Friday night, when after a grueling day of interviews in Fort Lauderdale I broke the chains of conformity to past behavior and instead of retiring to my hotel for a solo dinner and some channel surfing and early bed, I went to dinner with a lady I met at the research. Not a client or a colleague, exactly, but someone involved in the process in a local way. Yes I'm being deliberately vague. But it was a revelation for about five hundred reasons, not the least of which I was that I finally took time to smell the roses and man oh MAN what I have been missing. I may have more stories to tell about that in the coming days, but that will do for now.

Of course, in an Alanis Morrisette meets O Henry kind of irony, I wouldn't have been there if it weren't for the work-related travel, and certainly would not have met NG if not for all of the work I've done for this particular client over the last two years. So I will now go and chew on that for a while...


posted by MT at 4:23 PM |

Ways that nature reminds us to "keep away"


If you want to emulate scary or dangerous things in nature, you could adopt a particular color or pattern that will frighten away predators or other lifeforms that may invade your space. Or you could:
1. Be a scary clown

(I know she's just making a crazy balloon animal with that contraption there, but the whole thing just makes me feel funny. Run away, little boy. Run far and fast.)


Or

2. Be a scary construction worker dressed in sequins, dancing in the middle of the street.

This one requires a little more explanation for those of you who are not from the Philly area, or if you are, like me, disgusted with all parades and the people who organize them (and so you avoid them in all forms, live or televised or even mentioned in passing). Parades are designed to encourage public displays, obstruct traffic, and generally give freaks a chance to ... well, parade. And I'm all for freaks having an outlet for their freakiness. So long as it doesn't keep me from getting downtown in a timely way. And I've yet to see a parade that didn't do this. So they should be outlawed.

But I digress. I began by saying that the Philadelphia freaks known as "String Bands" are popular at New Years, and other times of the year. They feature marching-band quality music complete with outlandish folks like our young friend here, who are apparently happy about appearing this way. There are contests for this sort of thing. Outrageous dress and so on. I find the whole thing rather frightening.

These were taken last week at a parade in the Port Richmond section of town, where V was dancing with the rest of her Irish Dance school. I have some photos of that as well, definitely less frightening (to me) but I will probably assemble them in the Photos section of the blog. But I wanted to share these others, lest you wonder why I spend so much time indoors.



posted by MT at 3:48 PM |

And in monkey news...

Not that I envision this becoming a regular feature or anything. But found this little bit of bizarre news via Demented and sad, but social: Monkey tears off soccer coach's ear. What the...? Do we now need monkey insurance at soccer matches? I love how this is so dramatically told...

Samir Chatterjee as usual came to the field in the morning yesterday to train his boys at Sodepur Sporting Stadium in North 24 Parganas but the monkey intervened. Sensing danger, Chatterjee known for his love for animals, collected some potatoes to lure away the monkey, but it instead pounced on him tearing off his ear.


The coach was taken to the Medical College and Hospital where the doctors later fixed his ear.


Local residents said hordes of monkeys from Dakshineshwar Temple often invaded the stadium and disturbed the players by holding their legs.

The bit about the "local residents" tattling on the monkey hordes made it seem like an Onion parody.


But the best part: "Sensing danger..." His monkey sense was tingling, but was too faint to save him...





posted by MT at 9:32 AM |

Much ado about the emperor's clothes

I have just finished watching Mulholland Drive. Grrr...

Here's my beef. Perhaps as the opening salvo to director David Lynch:

"Dear Sir:


Have some respect for your audience. Quit indulging yourself like an NYU film student and give us some narrative flow to work with. We're with you, dude. Some of us still like your work in spite of ourselves. Remember Twin Peaks? I remember one evening at a division party in grad school. It may have been the first year we did away with the "Halloween party" tradition and just got together. Still obligatory, but no dopey costumes to worry about. It was held on whatever evening that show ran (who remembers...Friday nights, maybe?) We were all standing around feeling obligated to be there (naturally, since we were) but getting sauced all the same, one and all. Hell, the host was so knotted he staggering where he stood. Good times. And then a group of us peeled off from the main party, found a den or entertainment room or something off the living room and turned on the TV. To watch that show.


"So it isn't like we don't love the bizarro-world you create. But I submit that show failed for similar reasons that Mulholland Dr. is suboptimal -- the perverse pleasure you seem to take in tangential symbolic side-roads just when it feels like we all know what's going on. Twin Peaks during its last season kept introducing new absurd mysteries, one on top of the other, with no resolution and no sense of how the latest tied back to the narrative. It's frustrating. It reminds me of playing those old text-based computer puzzle games, like Zork, where a good portion of your time was spent trying to figure out what the programmer was up to. Sometimes the logical choice worked, but other times, it wouldn't. I can pick this thing up, but not this other thing. If I twist the orange thusly, I get the following response, but not when I tweak the onion. So to speak.


"I felt that way all through this movie. Now, I'm not opposed to a little work if there's payoff at the end. Like, with Memento. Excellent film, completely non-linear and intricate, but there's a thread to follow and the questions you are left with are central to the story itself -- how much faith do you place in a story told by a man with brain damage? So it works. But not here -- here the loose ends are often narrative cul-de-sacs scattered about like the shells from sunflower seeds. Looks like a thing, but it's really the shell of a thing."

I'm not sure why I spent this much time ranting about this. I think it's because cinematically it is a lush and lovely film, and Naomi Watts is a staggeringly brilliant actress, if her performance in this film is any indication of her talent. So it's hard to dismiss the whole production, but dammit, it's about the story ultimately, and I couldn't get behind it. After reading the Salon analysis, I feel a little better, but only a little. I'm all about a film that requires lots of post-game analysis to get it all together, because that's always part of the fun in seeing a movie. And I suppose it says something that I went online to satisfy the magnificent cognitive itch this thing created for me. But dude. Too much.



And speaking of...

Nobody is a bigger fan of The Sopranos than me. But what the hell is going on this season? Am I the only one who wonders why it is being hailed as equivalent to the second coming just because it's on TV at all? What the hell was up with last week's episode? All that nonsense about Columbus Day...like a big PSA about dissing Italian Americans or something. Oy. Get it together guys. Oz has spoken.


posted by MT at 8:04 AM |

Missing my blog lemurs

Half an hour away from another six hours of research. Remind me to tell you more about this one. I ordinarily don't get specific about work stuff (mostly cause it's got to be boring to the rest of the world...the only thing more tedious than marketing has to be marketing research, after all) but I've been having extended discussions with HIV-positive patients over the last two weeks, and this has to be one of the more rewarding things I do with my time. Talk about helping to put your life into perspective. Last week, I met a woman who has been positive for over ten years, describing the regimen she was on (about 15-20 pills per day, every day, without fail) and she was saying she felt blessed because this new regimen had dropped her viral load to undetectable and the nausea wasn't so bad anymore. Blessed. Spending time with these folks tends to change the meaning of lots of words in my vocabulary. And helps add new ones. More later.


Hurricane Lille has had no impact on my southerly travels, which I was half expecting (and half looking forward to), but it is cooler and breezier than I remember here in Hotlanta. Something whirl-windy this way comes, I can feel it. My tail is twitching...



posted by MT at 1:43 PM |