With last week’s post, I thought I had gotten Aphrodite and Eros and desserts and all out of my system, but that does not seem to be the case. I know this because I keep finding myself looking up pictures of the most elegant desserts I can find on the Internet. Of course, you cool kids know that when we speak of Aphrodite, we are speaking of more than romantic love. Aphrodite encompasses luxuries and indulgences of all types: fine wines, beauty, fashion, flowers, and, of course, desserts. If you’re not sure how this works, or what the goddess of love has to do with any of this, think of it this way: Aphrodite encompasses romance, and all of the above are considered enhancements or accompaniments to romance. And certainly, it is quite all right—healthy, actually—to fall in love with yourself and to treat yourself with appropriate indulgences as needed.
I know that my readers understand this because reductionism is a kind of sin in depth psychology, and if you follow this blog, that means you have some appreciation for the nuances of the soul. In mythology, too, it’s unusual for simple mathematics to rear its head: rarely does “this” equal “that” in any kind of neatly delineated way. Aphrodite and Eros reign over an entire class of experiences, not just sensual love, and that includes a group of things we might categorize as “the finer things in life.” Most people realize that life is made up of not just one or two but a variety of different types of experiences. “To everything, there is a season,” as Ecclesiastes tells us.
Nevertheless, just as people often have one or two qualities predominating in their makeup, so do places. L.A., for instance, is one of the most Aphrodite places I’ve ever seen, and Lexington, KY, (where I live now) is one of the least. There’s nothing unusual about a place or a person having a dominant cast to it, but it’s also true that whatever is undervalued or outside the comfort zone tends to go into the shadow. Thus many people have the perception that L.A. is an anti-intellectual place and that Kentucky is a very hearth, home, and family type of place. I’ve spent enough time in Kentucky to know that there’s a lot of truth in this perception and also to feel that people here have a suspicion of “Aphrodite.” It’s not that they don’t feel it, it’s that they’re not quite at home with it. It seems like frippery, perhaps, or something that might lead you astray, away from the things that really matter: hearth, home, family, and God. Of course, if it weren’t for Aphrodite, there wouldn’t be children or families, but somehow Aphrodite seems to get divorced from the rest of the process, as if she had nothing to do with it at all, and Demeter rules the roost.
My current preoccupation with Aphrodite springs, I’m certain, from my current experiences. If you ever find yourself living in your car and getting by from paycheck to paycheck, you may discover, as I have, that a healthy person eventually rebels against all that cheapism and tries to seek balance as best it can. You throw a chocolate bar into the grocery cart once in a while or check into a hotel to experience cool sheets, pillows, and air conditioning. A person who lives in his or her intellect much of the time (Athena/Apollo) will, at the best of times, seek out sensory enjoyment just to stay in balance, and if you’re living in very reduced circumstances, it doesn’t become less important but rather more. Certainly, it’s possible to have too much Aphrodite in one’s life, which amounts to overindulgence; it’s also quite possible to have too little, which amounts to poverty.
So it was that, being off work today and still thinking about dessert, no matter how hard I tried to find other “more important” things to read about, I decided to set myself a task: to discover an Internet photo of the most luxurious fall dessert not involving pumpkin that was out there to be found. This was how I made what was, to me, an interesting observation. The majority of fall desserts that don’t involve pumpkin contain apples, and no matter how long I looked, I couldn’t find an apple dessert that seemed luxurious in the same way a profiterole or chocolate mousse is. (An exception might be a galette, simply because the French have a deft way of putting Aphrodite into their food that does not seem to come as easily to most Americans.) Vast quantities of cinnamon, sugar, butter, and cream notwithstanding, all the apple desserts I saw, as delicious and appealing as they looked, seemed wholesome rather than gourmet, and I think this has to do with the apple itself. Introduce an apple into a dessert, and you’re suddenly speaking of harvest, Grandma’s kitchen, and the farm rather than of luxury.
So, here’s my contribution to world peace: 1. Aphrodite, so often either overvalued, maligned, or misunderstood, is probably most to be feared when overvalued, maligned, or misunderstood. 2. American culture has a Puritan cast to it that gives Aphrodite sort of a bad name here, but this possibly diminishes the further you get from New England. 3. If you require an indulgent dessert with apples in it, you might have to go as far as France. 4. Kentuckians are great at getting in the harvest but suck at experiencing (or creating) sensory delight. 5. People in L.A. fear being ugly or wearing their pants too loose as much as the rest of us would fear the plague. 6. It often costs more to make things beautiful, but the payoff in psychological well-being is probably vastly underrated.
Monday, October 7, 2019
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
The Eros of Planet Raphael
On Wordplay’s Facebook page, we have been visited lately by a rather persistent Aphrodite who keeps making her presence known via images of luscious desserts and sexy planets (yes, you read that right). Here at Wordplay, we take responsibility for noticing and commenting on these aphrodisiacal moments that keep appearing in our culture, but did we invent them? No, we did not. Aphrodite is much older than anybody here, including Wordplay, and Wordplay is practically Methusaleh (we remember Beatlemania: think of that). Perhaps we will take credit for letting our imagination run and associating one thing with another in ways that might not have occurred to someone else.
We admit to always having had an eye for beautiful desserts, but sexy planets? As you know from reading our blog, we have an interest in both astronomy and the mythology of the night sky. Many celestial objects are named for gods, goddesses, and other mythical creatures, and it’s not surprising that some of the attributes of these mythic beings cling here and there to their namesakes. We respect scientific objectivity and understand that the methods and objectives of science and mythology do not always coincide, but we suspect that scientists are just as human as anyone else and (at least some of the time) respond to the “romance” of the night sky as well as its “objective reality”: the seductive quality of moonlight, the impulse to wish on a falling star, the allure of celestial visions swimming far out in space and brought into focus only with the aid of high-powered telescopes.
I am sure there are scientific reasons why astronomers and astrophysicists would apply filters that cause images of the planets to become saturated with certain colors, but the eye of imagination responds to the color’s allure, not the technical rationale for using it. When an artist’s rendering of a celestial object lovingly emphasizes its beauty, I assume that the artist is bringing Eros to bear on his or her work. This would explain why I look at an image of the planet Jupiter depicted in swirls of brown and cream by the Mabuchi Design Office/Astrobiology Center of Japan and see a cream puff or tiramisu, and why a rendering of a blue planet with the irresistible name of GJ 3512b seems to beckon like a love god.
In thinking about planet GJ 3512b (which I would probably name “Raphael”), I realized I’d been presented with a challenge. Some of the other planets were photographed or drawn with warm colors more associated with food and appetite, while GJ 3512b was enticingly swathed in bands of blue. Since blue is a “cool” color, more associated with spirit than with carnality, I wondered at the source of the allure. In looking at images of the color blue (and that was how I started my search), I realized almost immediately that while blue is indeed cool, it is somehow hot at the same time. This is perhaps not as strange as it seems if you think about the sensation in your fingers after you’ve been holding an ice cube: the intense cold almost feels like heat, in some contradictory-but-true sense. There’s a yin and yang to heat and cold, and they blend into one another. Robin’s egg blue may seem like an innocent color, one you might use in a child’s room, but there’s also the smoky blue of jazz.
I remember once being inspired to write a poem about the color blue, trying to interpret it through each of the senses (what it sounds like, what it tastes like, etc.), through a sort of applied synesthesia. (I did it on my lunch hour; yes, I suppose you have a lot of pent-up creativity when you’re surrounded by dusty law books all day.) I thought about that when putting together my photo essay on the erotic qualities of the color blue. To me, it’s as if, instead of throwing down an apple, Paris threw down three planets and asked, “Which is the fairest?” In the end, I’m not quite sure blue didn’t win out over some of the warmer colors, the blush pinks and the cafe au lait browns, because I kept finding more and more images of blue, all steeped with an intense allure, many more than I could use.
Here, then, is a supreme paradox in nature: how cool is, in reality, underneath it all, warm. (But props to blush pink and cafe au lait brown, too, for giving blue a run for its money.) It would be interesting to go through all of the colors like this and run a similar experiment. I suspect they all have the potential to be cool or hot; perceptions that assign this or that quality to certain colors are, to some extent, arbitrary. Eros is in the eye of the beholder.
We admit to always having had an eye for beautiful desserts, but sexy planets? As you know from reading our blog, we have an interest in both astronomy and the mythology of the night sky. Many celestial objects are named for gods, goddesses, and other mythical creatures, and it’s not surprising that some of the attributes of these mythic beings cling here and there to their namesakes. We respect scientific objectivity and understand that the methods and objectives of science and mythology do not always coincide, but we suspect that scientists are just as human as anyone else and (at least some of the time) respond to the “romance” of the night sky as well as its “objective reality”: the seductive quality of moonlight, the impulse to wish on a falling star, the allure of celestial visions swimming far out in space and brought into focus only with the aid of high-powered telescopes.
I am sure there are scientific reasons why astronomers and astrophysicists would apply filters that cause images of the planets to become saturated with certain colors, but the eye of imagination responds to the color’s allure, not the technical rationale for using it. When an artist’s rendering of a celestial object lovingly emphasizes its beauty, I assume that the artist is bringing Eros to bear on his or her work. This would explain why I look at an image of the planet Jupiter depicted in swirls of brown and cream by the Mabuchi Design Office/Astrobiology Center of Japan and see a cream puff or tiramisu, and why a rendering of a blue planet with the irresistible name of GJ 3512b seems to beckon like a love god.
In thinking about planet GJ 3512b (which I would probably name “Raphael”), I realized I’d been presented with a challenge. Some of the other planets were photographed or drawn with warm colors more associated with food and appetite, while GJ 3512b was enticingly swathed in bands of blue. Since blue is a “cool” color, more associated with spirit than with carnality, I wondered at the source of the allure. In looking at images of the color blue (and that was how I started my search), I realized almost immediately that while blue is indeed cool, it is somehow hot at the same time. This is perhaps not as strange as it seems if you think about the sensation in your fingers after you’ve been holding an ice cube: the intense cold almost feels like heat, in some contradictory-but-true sense. There’s a yin and yang to heat and cold, and they blend into one another. Robin’s egg blue may seem like an innocent color, one you might use in a child’s room, but there’s also the smoky blue of jazz.
I remember once being inspired to write a poem about the color blue, trying to interpret it through each of the senses (what it sounds like, what it tastes like, etc.), through a sort of applied synesthesia. (I did it on my lunch hour; yes, I suppose you have a lot of pent-up creativity when you’re surrounded by dusty law books all day.) I thought about that when putting together my photo essay on the erotic qualities of the color blue. To me, it’s as if, instead of throwing down an apple, Paris threw down three planets and asked, “Which is the fairest?” In the end, I’m not quite sure blue didn’t win out over some of the warmer colors, the blush pinks and the cafe au lait browns, because I kept finding more and more images of blue, all steeped with an intense allure, many more than I could use.
Here, then, is a supreme paradox in nature: how cool is, in reality, underneath it all, warm. (But props to blush pink and cafe au lait brown, too, for giving blue a run for its money.) It would be interesting to go through all of the colors like this and run a similar experiment. I suspect they all have the potential to be cool or hot; perceptions that assign this or that quality to certain colors are, to some extent, arbitrary. Eros is in the eye of the beholder.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Just No, That’s All
Dear Amtrak,
I read about your plans to create a more modern dining experience for your passengers. (See The Washington Post article, “The End of an American Tradition: The Amtrak Dining Car,” by Luz Lazo.) While I understand your efforts to control costs, I think what you’re actually doing is changing the Amtrak experience in a fundamental way. There are few things as old-fashioned as sitting down to dinner in an honest-to-goodness dining car on a train and few quicker ways to feel yourself almost magically transported to a more elegant era—or maybe what I really mean is what seemed like a more civilized era.
I realize that some people are down on elegance, preferring utilitarianism, but I say they are wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m all for practicality, but—seriously—when you decide to travel long-distance by train, you’re probably already over the let’s-get-there-as-fast-as-we-can-and-hope-the-airline-doesn’t-kill-us mentality that normally takes you to an airport. You’re traveling by train because it offers a different kind of experience, a seeing-things-at-the-ground-level type of journey. I know there are people who also ride trains simply to get from Point A to Point B, but even so—why not do it with a little flair?
In some ways, I sympathize with the Millennials who seem to be the intended recipients of these changes. Especially since life became Cubist, I don’t always feel like sitting down with God-knows-who and having to make conversation, either. Perhaps it’s the times that have turned people more in on themselves, and it really is the current Zeitgeist I’m addressing and not Amtrak. I do, however, remember my first experience in riding Amtrak years ago—my first trip out west—with great fondness, and a lot of the reason for that was the dining car. I was alone on that trip and was frequently seated with older, retired people who were traveling for fun.
As shy as I was then, I still recognized how special it was to get to converse with these (almost invariably) kind strangers and learn a little bit about their lives and reasons for traveling, all while watching the continent roll by outside and enjoying an actual three-course meal. I am NOT in favor of Amtrak doing away with traditional dining, and although I don’t want to sound like someone’s mom, there is a flip side to the dining alone conundrum: it probably wouldn’t hurt for some of the youngsters to put down their cell phones and spend a few minutes practicing their social skills. Lots of room for improvement on that score (for some of their elders, too).
I would guess the attendants have a pretty good eye for making appropriate seating arrangements, so your chances of getting seated with Uriah Heep are small, or at least, they used to be. The Amtrak staff back in the day appeared to have the entire dining service down to a science. I still remember the dining car attendant who, at 50 miles an hour, dropped the glass of iced tea he was preparing to serve me and than caught it again without either missing a beat or spilling a drop. When I goggled at him, he just shrugged. Years of experience, he said. It was one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
I don’t do much traveling these days, but if I’m ever planning another cross-country vacation, I’ll have to reconsider going by rail if there won’t be a dining car. I’m not saying we all have to make like Lord and Lady Grantham and dress for dinner decked out to the nines, but those thrice-daily trips to the dining car add some structure to the little community you become a part of for the duration of a train trip and are a good way to break up the day. As spectacular as the Colorado Rockies and the High Sierras are, one does like to stand up, move around, and have something to look forward to in the form of a nice meal, a big picture window, and professional service. It seems a shame to see the dining car go the way of the dodo, just sayin’.
P.S. While you’re at it, bring back the china, cloth napkins, silverware, fresh flowers, and silver teapot the article speaks of. Maybe people’s behavior would rise to the occasion if you served the dinner with some flourishes. Life is too short for all these cheap experiences we keep having thrown at us. Amtrak, you are by no means the only people doing these types of things, but I had hoped to someday repeat the first experience I had with Amtrak travel, and it sounds as if it might be something quite different if the time ever comes for me to do that. It would be nice to see somebody somewhere hold the line on all of this.
I read about your plans to create a more modern dining experience for your passengers. (See The Washington Post article, “The End of an American Tradition: The Amtrak Dining Car,” by Luz Lazo.) While I understand your efforts to control costs, I think what you’re actually doing is changing the Amtrak experience in a fundamental way. There are few things as old-fashioned as sitting down to dinner in an honest-to-goodness dining car on a train and few quicker ways to feel yourself almost magically transported to a more elegant era—or maybe what I really mean is what seemed like a more civilized era.
I realize that some people are down on elegance, preferring utilitarianism, but I say they are wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m all for practicality, but—seriously—when you decide to travel long-distance by train, you’re probably already over the let’s-get-there-as-fast-as-we-can-and-hope-the-airline-doesn’t-kill-us mentality that normally takes you to an airport. You’re traveling by train because it offers a different kind of experience, a seeing-things-at-the-ground-level type of journey. I know there are people who also ride trains simply to get from Point A to Point B, but even so—why not do it with a little flair?
In some ways, I sympathize with the Millennials who seem to be the intended recipients of these changes. Especially since life became Cubist, I don’t always feel like sitting down with God-knows-who and having to make conversation, either. Perhaps it’s the times that have turned people more in on themselves, and it really is the current Zeitgeist I’m addressing and not Amtrak. I do, however, remember my first experience in riding Amtrak years ago—my first trip out west—with great fondness, and a lot of the reason for that was the dining car. I was alone on that trip and was frequently seated with older, retired people who were traveling for fun.
As shy as I was then, I still recognized how special it was to get to converse with these (almost invariably) kind strangers and learn a little bit about their lives and reasons for traveling, all while watching the continent roll by outside and enjoying an actual three-course meal. I am NOT in favor of Amtrak doing away with traditional dining, and although I don’t want to sound like someone’s mom, there is a flip side to the dining alone conundrum: it probably wouldn’t hurt for some of the youngsters to put down their cell phones and spend a few minutes practicing their social skills. Lots of room for improvement on that score (for some of their elders, too).
I would guess the attendants have a pretty good eye for making appropriate seating arrangements, so your chances of getting seated with Uriah Heep are small, or at least, they used to be. The Amtrak staff back in the day appeared to have the entire dining service down to a science. I still remember the dining car attendant who, at 50 miles an hour, dropped the glass of iced tea he was preparing to serve me and than caught it again without either missing a beat or spilling a drop. When I goggled at him, he just shrugged. Years of experience, he said. It was one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
I don’t do much traveling these days, but if I’m ever planning another cross-country vacation, I’ll have to reconsider going by rail if there won’t be a dining car. I’m not saying we all have to make like Lord and Lady Grantham and dress for dinner decked out to the nines, but those thrice-daily trips to the dining car add some structure to the little community you become a part of for the duration of a train trip and are a good way to break up the day. As spectacular as the Colorado Rockies and the High Sierras are, one does like to stand up, move around, and have something to look forward to in the form of a nice meal, a big picture window, and professional service. It seems a shame to see the dining car go the way of the dodo, just sayin’.
P.S. While you’re at it, bring back the china, cloth napkins, silverware, fresh flowers, and silver teapot the article speaks of. Maybe people’s behavior would rise to the occasion if you served the dinner with some flourishes. Life is too short for all these cheap experiences we keep having thrown at us. Amtrak, you are by no means the only people doing these types of things, but I had hoped to someday repeat the first experience I had with Amtrak travel, and it sounds as if it might be something quite different if the time ever comes for me to do that. It would be nice to see somebody somewhere hold the line on all of this.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Would You Buy a Ticket to Isla Nublar?
Over the last couple of years, due to more exposure to cable TV, I’ve found myself pondering a particular question: why is there almost always a Jurassic Park movie playing on one channel or another at any given time? It may not sound like a compelling issue, but it’s one of those idle questions that a cultural mythologist might actually be able to answer. We’ll start by assuming that the explanation has to do with the appeal of the movie and not some dull reason like the fact that broadcast costs were set lower for the franchise due to a relationship between the movie studio and the network. Those are the types of mundane but reality-based reasons that make a mockery out of a well-meaning attempt to explain something in terms of zeitgeist or the collective unconscious or some other depth psychological explanation. For all I know, there could be a mundane reason—but let’s assume not.
I find that unless one of my favorite programs is on, I tend to be drawn toward any Jurassic Park movie that may be on, no matter which one it is, and no matter how many times I’ve seen it. I admit to a special fondness for the earlier movies in the franchise, but that’s probably because the new cast of characters simply hasn’t had enough time to grow on me yet. It’s tough to compete with beloved characters like Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcolm, and John Hammond, and I might have preferred park operations manager Claire Dearing to be a little more of a match for ethologist Owen Grady in Jurassic World—but aside from that, I obviously find the movies entertaining enough to watch over and over.
First and foremost, it’s the dinosaurs, of course. Almost every kid catches the dinosaur bug at one time or another (big kids, too), and it has to do with the fact that these fantastic beasts, which would seem the stuff of legend if we didn’t know they were real, roamed the earth in a far-distant epoch of the past. There are probably vestiges of “paradise lost” in the appeal of these creatures, despite their ferocity, simply because of the fact that they’re lost to us and represent a past to which there is no returning. They're also compelling in the way any top predator, or any overwhelming force of nature, usually is—whether it be a grizzly bear, hurricane, volcano, great white shark, or supernova. It’s evidence of how big the universe is and of how small we are.
Jurassic Park puts forth a vision of what it would look like to recover the past. The people in the films (as well as viewers) are always awed by their first view of the dinosaurs, and the park itself is presented as a kind of tropical Eden. Were it not for the predators—the T-rex, the raptors, and the rest—Jurassic Park would still be awe-inspiring, but the films would lose the engine that drives them, the Man vs. Nature conflict that is ever-present but sometimes glossed over in our contemporary world of computers, manufactured goods, high-tech inventions, and modern cities. Jurassic Park makes the power of nature a central, inescapable fact in the lives of the characters. Whether they live or die depends on their ability to adapt and respond when the park’s carefully planned defenses fail and the dinosaurs overrun the limits humans have tried to place on them.
There is always a message in these movies about the dangers of hubris, a warning about placing too much faith in human control and technology—at the same time, there’s a childlike wonder in the fact of achieving so ambitious a goal and of recovering the distant past. There’s always a character warning others about their presumptuousness and overreach, there’s always someone just looking to make a profit and not really seeing the big picture, and there’s always someone who thinks they can put down any dinosaur insurrection whatsoever if you give them enough firepower. Jurassic Park is a little like A Wizard of Earthsea in its depiction of a dangerous force set loose in the world that resists any and all attempts to bring it under control once it’s out. There’s also a heavy dose of those old literary conflicts Man vs. Himself and Man vs. Man.
Should we reign in our natural curiosity and our growing sophistication in the use of technology because there could be unintended consequences if we persist in using what we’ve learned? Is it hubris or simply a commendable wish to explore the world around us that leads us to experiment with nature? How do we resolve differing attitudes toward nature, our place in it, and the best way to pursue and use knowledge? All of these questions are raised in the films, and to their credit, the films do not try to force an answer on you.
For every lecture Owen Grady or Ian Malcolm gives entrepreneur John Hammond or park manager Claire Dearing, there is a reply in the existence of the dinosaurs themselves in all their grandeur. Would it be better if Jurassic Park had never been created at all? No matter how much havoc ensues, the answer is never an unqualified “no.”
Would it have been better if we had never explored space or invented the Internet? Most people would probably say “no,” but would the answer change if we began to experience more negative consequences: some devastating bacteria brought back from a distant world or a global Internet breakdown affecting banking, communications, security, and other sectors? Jurassic Park evokes the wonder and magic of recovering a bit of lost Eden while also asking us to consider the implications of manipulating nature. Like a Greek tragedy, it warns of the dangers of hubris but then moves beyond tragedy to present scientific endeavor as something glorious. In our post-Edenic world, the movies seem to say, what we do is up to us—as long as we are willing to live with the consequences.
I find that unless one of my favorite programs is on, I tend to be drawn toward any Jurassic Park movie that may be on, no matter which one it is, and no matter how many times I’ve seen it. I admit to a special fondness for the earlier movies in the franchise, but that’s probably because the new cast of characters simply hasn’t had enough time to grow on me yet. It’s tough to compete with beloved characters like Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcolm, and John Hammond, and I might have preferred park operations manager Claire Dearing to be a little more of a match for ethologist Owen Grady in Jurassic World—but aside from that, I obviously find the movies entertaining enough to watch over and over.
First and foremost, it’s the dinosaurs, of course. Almost every kid catches the dinosaur bug at one time or another (big kids, too), and it has to do with the fact that these fantastic beasts, which would seem the stuff of legend if we didn’t know they were real, roamed the earth in a far-distant epoch of the past. There are probably vestiges of “paradise lost” in the appeal of these creatures, despite their ferocity, simply because of the fact that they’re lost to us and represent a past to which there is no returning. They're also compelling in the way any top predator, or any overwhelming force of nature, usually is—whether it be a grizzly bear, hurricane, volcano, great white shark, or supernova. It’s evidence of how big the universe is and of how small we are.
Jurassic Park puts forth a vision of what it would look like to recover the past. The people in the films (as well as viewers) are always awed by their first view of the dinosaurs, and the park itself is presented as a kind of tropical Eden. Were it not for the predators—the T-rex, the raptors, and the rest—Jurassic Park would still be awe-inspiring, but the films would lose the engine that drives them, the Man vs. Nature conflict that is ever-present but sometimes glossed over in our contemporary world of computers, manufactured goods, high-tech inventions, and modern cities. Jurassic Park makes the power of nature a central, inescapable fact in the lives of the characters. Whether they live or die depends on their ability to adapt and respond when the park’s carefully planned defenses fail and the dinosaurs overrun the limits humans have tried to place on them.
There is always a message in these movies about the dangers of hubris, a warning about placing too much faith in human control and technology—at the same time, there’s a childlike wonder in the fact of achieving so ambitious a goal and of recovering the distant past. There’s always a character warning others about their presumptuousness and overreach, there’s always someone just looking to make a profit and not really seeing the big picture, and there’s always someone who thinks they can put down any dinosaur insurrection whatsoever if you give them enough firepower. Jurassic Park is a little like A Wizard of Earthsea in its depiction of a dangerous force set loose in the world that resists any and all attempts to bring it under control once it’s out. There’s also a heavy dose of those old literary conflicts Man vs. Himself and Man vs. Man.
Should we reign in our natural curiosity and our growing sophistication in the use of technology because there could be unintended consequences if we persist in using what we’ve learned? Is it hubris or simply a commendable wish to explore the world around us that leads us to experiment with nature? How do we resolve differing attitudes toward nature, our place in it, and the best way to pursue and use knowledge? All of these questions are raised in the films, and to their credit, the films do not try to force an answer on you.
For every lecture Owen Grady or Ian Malcolm gives entrepreneur John Hammond or park manager Claire Dearing, there is a reply in the existence of the dinosaurs themselves in all their grandeur. Would it be better if Jurassic Park had never been created at all? No matter how much havoc ensues, the answer is never an unqualified “no.”
Would it have been better if we had never explored space or invented the Internet? Most people would probably say “no,” but would the answer change if we began to experience more negative consequences: some devastating bacteria brought back from a distant world or a global Internet breakdown affecting banking, communications, security, and other sectors? Jurassic Park evokes the wonder and magic of recovering a bit of lost Eden while also asking us to consider the implications of manipulating nature. Like a Greek tragedy, it warns of the dangers of hubris but then moves beyond tragedy to present scientific endeavor as something glorious. In our post-Edenic world, the movies seem to say, what we do is up to us—as long as we are willing to live with the consequences.
Sunday, September 8, 2019
Wordplay’s Lost Marble, Explained
Q. Wordplay, you recently had a photo of what looked like a blue marble on your Facebook page and jokes about the “Lost Marble of Wordplay,” or something like that. Could you tell me what that was about? Was it supposed to be funny?
A. Sure, I can answer that. The lost marble of wordplay is a small blue marble about a quarter-inch in diameter that escaped from my “Lost Marbles” jar one night when I was trying to move something in the car.
Q. You mean, it’s an actual marble?
A. Yes. A blue one. It has some friends, too, and they all live in the Lost Marbles jar when they aren’t escaping and rolling inconveniently under seats and into inaccessible corners. I probably said a few bad words the night it happened.
Q. You actually have a “Lost Marbles” jar, or is that a joke, too?
A. Well, it may be a joke, but it’s an actual jar, too.
Q. Can’t you explain it any better than that? I don’t see why you’d waste time and space on something like that. It’s not even really that funny.
A. Well, it may not be that funny, but it was more just a matter of seeing a photo of something very unlike the marble and then just making a joke out of the size disparity.
Q. But why is it funny?
A. Well, think of it this way. Wallace Stevens wrote a poem called “Anecdote of the Jar”: “I placed a jar in Tennessee/And round it was, upon a hill.” It’s an object that’s somewhat out of place, insignificant, and slightly ridiculous in a way, but everything in the landscape seems to rearrange itself around it so that it assumes an outsized importance. It’s sort of like someone just saying, “OK, everybody look at this,” and all of a sudden, that jar is the center of the universe. It’s kind of like that.
Q. Who’s Wallace Stevens?
A. Well, now, did you pay tuition to Wordplay so that we are now responsible for teaching you about modern poetry? The check must have gotten lost in the mail.
Q. Geez, it was a civil question.
A. And a civil answer, considering. Just type “Anecdote of the Jar” into Google.
Q. So it was a literal jar?
A. Probably metaphorical, actually. Unlike my “Lost Marbles” jar.
Q. So, how exactly did you lose the marbles again?
A. A unicorn jumped on the hood of the car, dislodging a sleeping and entirely innocent bison, and in the ensuing fray (which I failed to get a photo of), the jar fell over.
Q. But . . . Were the unicorn and bison in the car with you, or were they on the hood? I thought you said . . .
A. I’ll tell it to you straight: there’s no room in my car for either a unicorn or a bison. But don’t you think the sudden appearance of a unicorn would startle you enough to make you drop something?
Q. There’s no such thing as unicorns; you’re making that up.
A. Well, yes, but they did somehow become the national animal of Scotland.
Q. So you were in Scotland when it happened? How did you get your car over there?
A. It grew the wings of Pegasus and flew over the Atlantic at breakneck speed, landing in a patch of heather.
Q. But what caused it to grow wings? Cars can’t grow wings.
A. Not under normal circumstances.
A. Sure, I can answer that. The lost marble of wordplay is a small blue marble about a quarter-inch in diameter that escaped from my “Lost Marbles” jar one night when I was trying to move something in the car.
Q. You mean, it’s an actual marble?
A. Yes. A blue one. It has some friends, too, and they all live in the Lost Marbles jar when they aren’t escaping and rolling inconveniently under seats and into inaccessible corners. I probably said a few bad words the night it happened.
Q. You actually have a “Lost Marbles” jar, or is that a joke, too?
A. Well, it may be a joke, but it’s an actual jar, too.
Q. Can’t you explain it any better than that? I don’t see why you’d waste time and space on something like that. It’s not even really that funny.
A. Well, it may not be that funny, but it was more just a matter of seeing a photo of something very unlike the marble and then just making a joke out of the size disparity.
Q. But why is it funny?
A. Well, think of it this way. Wallace Stevens wrote a poem called “Anecdote of the Jar”: “I placed a jar in Tennessee/And round it was, upon a hill.” It’s an object that’s somewhat out of place, insignificant, and slightly ridiculous in a way, but everything in the landscape seems to rearrange itself around it so that it assumes an outsized importance. It’s sort of like someone just saying, “OK, everybody look at this,” and all of a sudden, that jar is the center of the universe. It’s kind of like that.
Q. Who’s Wallace Stevens?
A. Well, now, did you pay tuition to Wordplay so that we are now responsible for teaching you about modern poetry? The check must have gotten lost in the mail.
Q. Geez, it was a civil question.
A. And a civil answer, considering. Just type “Anecdote of the Jar” into Google.
Q. So it was a literal jar?
A. Probably metaphorical, actually. Unlike my “Lost Marbles” jar.
Q. So, how exactly did you lose the marbles again?
A. A unicorn jumped on the hood of the car, dislodging a sleeping and entirely innocent bison, and in the ensuing fray (which I failed to get a photo of), the jar fell over.
Q. But . . . Were the unicorn and bison in the car with you, or were they on the hood? I thought you said . . .
A. I’ll tell it to you straight: there’s no room in my car for either a unicorn or a bison. But don’t you think the sudden appearance of a unicorn would startle you enough to make you drop something?
Q. There’s no such thing as unicorns; you’re making that up.
A. Well, yes, but they did somehow become the national animal of Scotland.
Q. So you were in Scotland when it happened? How did you get your car over there?
A. It grew the wings of Pegasus and flew over the Atlantic at breakneck speed, landing in a patch of heather.
Q. But what caused it to grow wings? Cars can’t grow wings.
A. Not under normal circumstances.
Monday, September 2, 2019
The Wordplay One-Room Schoolhouse
With school being back in session here and in other places around the country, Wordplay is feeling its teacher-y side coming out. You may be of the opinion that one college degree (or two if you really must) should be enough for anyone. Here on this blog, we realize that not everyone has our propensity for running around studying everything that interests us. If we were going to design a curriculum for a basic understanding of Western Culture that would be accessible to anyone without the time or money to sink into four years on a well-appointed campus, we’d base it on what’s essentially a twelve-course curriculum.
You should realize that, while we’re in general agreement with the basic outlines of a humanities education, Wordplay might lend more weight to certain subjects than others would do. This is based on our own experience of what’s useful, and by the way, we mean practically useful as well as just sort of “good for you in a general sort of way.” It’s practically useful because knowledge in certain areas helps you understand references that pop up over and over again in conversation, the sciences, the arts, and the media. Never again would you have to wonder, for instance, why in the hell someone would name a moon Chiron or what the Oracle of Delphi was if you had had a course in Greek mythology.
When I look back over my education, I realize that even in elementary school, I had some very formative experiences. I’m not even going into the old-fashioned way I learned how to spell through phonics class (and it’s nice to not have to worry about spelling and punctuation: it frees your mind for other things). There was the teacher who often read to us from a world folktales book after lunch, and the geography class that made me realize what an interesting place the world, with all its varied cultures, really is. There was the Shakespeare class in high school. (Everyone needs one. I’m sorry to tell you this if you don’t like Shakespeare, but maybe you’ll thank me for it some day.) There was the World History class that opened a window to the past, and the many English classes that gave me a wide introduction to reading in what is called the “Western Canon.”
I don’t think I regret a single literature class I ever took, but aside from that, here are the courses I would recommend.
1. Greek and Roman mythology. Not surprisingly.
2. Renaissance Art.
3. Introduction to Shakespeare.
4. Music Appreciation. (You can also get a long way just by listening to a lot of music. I once had a crush on a violinist, and you wouldn’t believe how helpful that was in introducing me to a lot of classical music I wouldn’t have heard otherwise.)
5. Middle English. (This means any course in which you study the literature in Middle English, not in translation. The day you start to hear the music that underlies the English language—which is most apparent when you start to separate the rhythms from the meaning—is the day you’ll agree with me about this, and not a minute sooner, I predict.)
6. Introduction to Poetry. You really ought to have a separate class on the English Romantic poets, I think. Understanding why female English majors tend to develop crushes on Keats probably doesn’t hurt the boys that are interested in the female English majors—but make responsible use of your knowledge.
7. Any course that combines literature and depth psychology.
8. Introduction to Philosophy. (And Logic, too, if you can get it.)
9. Introduction to Film.
10. World Religions.
11. A foreign language of your choice. Or more than one, if possible. Then you’ll know just enough to be dangerous, like I am.
12. World History.
Of course, everyone needs to understand science and mathematics, too; they should be part of a good education. I personally disliked Algebra II and Trigonometry and went no further than that in math, and I have trouble wrapping my mind around certain concepts in Physics, but I recommend going as far as you can. My list is more for an understanding of culture than of science—but of course, science is a part of culture, too. I really don’t believe you have to cover everything; sometimes an introduction to a subject is all you need to open up not only that topic but to lead you into connections between various areas of knowledge. That’s when things really start to get fun.
You should realize that, while we’re in general agreement with the basic outlines of a humanities education, Wordplay might lend more weight to certain subjects than others would do. This is based on our own experience of what’s useful, and by the way, we mean practically useful as well as just sort of “good for you in a general sort of way.” It’s practically useful because knowledge in certain areas helps you understand references that pop up over and over again in conversation, the sciences, the arts, and the media. Never again would you have to wonder, for instance, why in the hell someone would name a moon Chiron or what the Oracle of Delphi was if you had had a course in Greek mythology.
When I look back over my education, I realize that even in elementary school, I had some very formative experiences. I’m not even going into the old-fashioned way I learned how to spell through phonics class (and it’s nice to not have to worry about spelling and punctuation: it frees your mind for other things). There was the teacher who often read to us from a world folktales book after lunch, and the geography class that made me realize what an interesting place the world, with all its varied cultures, really is. There was the Shakespeare class in high school. (Everyone needs one. I’m sorry to tell you this if you don’t like Shakespeare, but maybe you’ll thank me for it some day.) There was the World History class that opened a window to the past, and the many English classes that gave me a wide introduction to reading in what is called the “Western Canon.”
I don’t think I regret a single literature class I ever took, but aside from that, here are the courses I would recommend.
1. Greek and Roman mythology. Not surprisingly.
2. Renaissance Art.
3. Introduction to Shakespeare.
4. Music Appreciation. (You can also get a long way just by listening to a lot of music. I once had a crush on a violinist, and you wouldn’t believe how helpful that was in introducing me to a lot of classical music I wouldn’t have heard otherwise.)
5. Middle English. (This means any course in which you study the literature in Middle English, not in translation. The day you start to hear the music that underlies the English language—which is most apparent when you start to separate the rhythms from the meaning—is the day you’ll agree with me about this, and not a minute sooner, I predict.)
6. Introduction to Poetry. You really ought to have a separate class on the English Romantic poets, I think. Understanding why female English majors tend to develop crushes on Keats probably doesn’t hurt the boys that are interested in the female English majors—but make responsible use of your knowledge.
7. Any course that combines literature and depth psychology.
8. Introduction to Philosophy. (And Logic, too, if you can get it.)
9. Introduction to Film.
10. World Religions.
11. A foreign language of your choice. Or more than one, if possible. Then you’ll know just enough to be dangerous, like I am.
12. World History.
Of course, everyone needs to understand science and mathematics, too; they should be part of a good education. I personally disliked Algebra II and Trigonometry and went no further than that in math, and I have trouble wrapping my mind around certain concepts in Physics, but I recommend going as far as you can. My list is more for an understanding of culture than of science—but of course, science is a part of culture, too. I really don’t believe you have to cover everything; sometimes an introduction to a subject is all you need to open up not only that topic but to lead you into connections between various areas of knowledge. That’s when things really start to get fun.
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Dragons Above and Other Wonders
There are certain things in life that really can’t be explained. I’m sure you could give a few examples of your own, but here’s one of mine—and I admit that I was reticent, actually reticent, about posting this when it happened because it seemed too fantastic to be believed, and I thought people might think I was making it up. I didn’t get a photo, you see, and thought I might be accused of exaggerating. I was having trouble believing it, and I was there.
However, as you know, Wordplay strives ever to tell the truth, and if we left this out, it would be a dereliction of duty, I think. What happened was this: I’d spent some time one afternoon putting together a photo essay about dragons trending in the culture. As I recall, it was right after that, as I was leaving the coffeehouse, that I walked out into a brewing storm. I drove over to the grocery store, marveling at the big mess of clouds swirling overhead.
While I was on the way over there, I started to notice that one cloud in particular had a shape to it. It was a long, black coil, like a snake, or, actually, a dragon, with a dragon head, a long, long body stretching and twisting across half the sky, and a mouth open as if ready to spew fire. I have never seen a cloud shaped like that and am sure it has something to do with one big air mass meeting another along a fairly uniform line. I know there had to be a scientific reason for that gigantic, rolled-up carpet shape, but it was still jaw-dropping, like other sights in nature you come across once in a great while. I wish I had taken a photograph, but lightning was striking in both the far and middle distance, and for safety’s sake, I stayed in the car until it all passed.
Besides thinking people wouldn’t believe me, I admit that I was so amazed by the appearance and timing of this cloud dragon that I started to wonder if it was some kind of a trick. Now, I know I once posted a blog about wild weather events I’d been caught up in and my speculations about whether someone (AKA the government) might be experimenting with cloud-seeding, etc. Even if someone is working on that, in some obscure bureau or other, I can’t imagine that anyone’s weather experiments have advanced to the level of cloud-sculpting on that scale, even if they know how to make precipitation fall.
I suppose I was trying to put the whole thing out of my mind, but I saw a program on The Weather Channel about “The World’s Wildest Weather Events” in which various phenomena like this were documented and discussed. One of the meteorologists was discussing the very rare phenomenon of straight-edge clouds, something she herself had witnessed, and she said that she had a difficult time believing the evidence of her own eyes even though she could explain the science behind it. It was, truly, an incredible sight, but no more so than what I had seen. I have to thank the meteorologist for sharing her story, which gave me the impetus to think over what I had seen and decide that, no matter how fantastic the event, not sharing it because it seemed unbelievable was precisely the wrong tack. After all, this blog exists as a forum for exploring the presence of mythology in everyday life, and if a cloud dragon appearing over your head is not an irruption of mythology into everyday life, I don’t know what would be.
When something like this happens, I’m tempted, as possibly you are, to try to come up with an explanation. I’m not sure there is one. Of course, Jung called this type of thing synchronicity and believed that it was evidence of a sort of dialogue between the human psyche and nature. Even if this is true, how it all works is still a mystery. I consider myself a capable writer, but I’m not at the level of conjuring up castles and dragons in the air, no matter how in tune my brain waves may be with the atmospheric vibe on a given day. Maybe it’s just a matter of having your eyes open and noticing things. The more active your imagination is, the more there is to see. And then, of course, you have to remember to look up.
However, as you know, Wordplay strives ever to tell the truth, and if we left this out, it would be a dereliction of duty, I think. What happened was this: I’d spent some time one afternoon putting together a photo essay about dragons trending in the culture. As I recall, it was right after that, as I was leaving the coffeehouse, that I walked out into a brewing storm. I drove over to the grocery store, marveling at the big mess of clouds swirling overhead.
While I was on the way over there, I started to notice that one cloud in particular had a shape to it. It was a long, black coil, like a snake, or, actually, a dragon, with a dragon head, a long, long body stretching and twisting across half the sky, and a mouth open as if ready to spew fire. I have never seen a cloud shaped like that and am sure it has something to do with one big air mass meeting another along a fairly uniform line. I know there had to be a scientific reason for that gigantic, rolled-up carpet shape, but it was still jaw-dropping, like other sights in nature you come across once in a great while. I wish I had taken a photograph, but lightning was striking in both the far and middle distance, and for safety’s sake, I stayed in the car until it all passed.
Besides thinking people wouldn’t believe me, I admit that I was so amazed by the appearance and timing of this cloud dragon that I started to wonder if it was some kind of a trick. Now, I know I once posted a blog about wild weather events I’d been caught up in and my speculations about whether someone (AKA the government) might be experimenting with cloud-seeding, etc. Even if someone is working on that, in some obscure bureau or other, I can’t imagine that anyone’s weather experiments have advanced to the level of cloud-sculpting on that scale, even if they know how to make precipitation fall.
I suppose I was trying to put the whole thing out of my mind, but I saw a program on The Weather Channel about “The World’s Wildest Weather Events” in which various phenomena like this were documented and discussed. One of the meteorologists was discussing the very rare phenomenon of straight-edge clouds, something she herself had witnessed, and she said that she had a difficult time believing the evidence of her own eyes even though she could explain the science behind it. It was, truly, an incredible sight, but no more so than what I had seen. I have to thank the meteorologist for sharing her story, which gave me the impetus to think over what I had seen and decide that, no matter how fantastic the event, not sharing it because it seemed unbelievable was precisely the wrong tack. After all, this blog exists as a forum for exploring the presence of mythology in everyday life, and if a cloud dragon appearing over your head is not an irruption of mythology into everyday life, I don’t know what would be.
When something like this happens, I’m tempted, as possibly you are, to try to come up with an explanation. I’m not sure there is one. Of course, Jung called this type of thing synchronicity and believed that it was evidence of a sort of dialogue between the human psyche and nature. Even if this is true, how it all works is still a mystery. I consider myself a capable writer, but I’m not at the level of conjuring up castles and dragons in the air, no matter how in tune my brain waves may be with the atmospheric vibe on a given day. Maybe it’s just a matter of having your eyes open and noticing things. The more active your imagination is, the more there is to see. And then, of course, you have to remember to look up.
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