The Carillon

The Gospel

2005-07-09T00:09:00.000-04:00

JK Rowling has enough money- Pre-order this book.

Pornographers

2005-06-27T01:35:00.000-04:00

The New Pornographers- everyone's favorite Vancouver supergroup. I just got back from a show in Northampton of all godforsaken places... which of course reminds me of my only previous trip to Northampton... nah, I'll leave that to the lawyer to tell. Three hours of driving on a Sunday evening is well worth the opportunity to see the pornographers. Except for one little fact, Neko Case decided not to make the trip. Is this mentioned on their website? On the venue website? In their tour date announcement? No, apparently, the lack of their co-frontman was not deemed worthy of mentioning. In Neko's place was Carl AC Newman's young niece, Kathryn. While she had a worthy voice, she is not Neko. She lacks the strength and clarity of voice, the stage presence, personality, beauty, etc. that is unique to Neko. She apparently shares with Neko a disdain for wearing bras, but to a less gratifying effect. Without Neko's personality, the New Pornographers become Carl Newman's band, and while we all love his lispy licks, the balance, and to a certain extent, the magic is lost.

The truth is, that once I got over my disappointment and annoyance at the lack of Neko, the show rocked. But it left me wondering what the functional equivalent of touring without Neko would be. The Pixies without Kim Deal? U2 without the Edge? U2 without Bono? The Beatles replacing Paul with some random Ringo cousin? At what point does the band have a responsibility to let its prospective audience know about the absence of one it's members. No one wants to shell out money and time for a concert to be greeted by the public address announcer "Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce The Jackson 4, sorry Michael couldn't make it as he's shopping at K-Mart because he heard that boy's pants are half off." (please feel free to substitute "he was running a marathon and came in a little behind")

I will end this post here and hope that my collaborators are inspired to take up the pen. If only because it would not be fair to our readers to log in and find that The Carillon is lacking its Neko(s).

Topic 5: Triviality of Love, briefly...

2005-04-13T15:30:00.000-04:00

Howdy folks. Sorry to be so dilatory - I am still engaged in my grand tour of my natal shores before returning to the gray skies and windswept crags of the eastern Caledonian coast. Stuffing one's face with chips and salsa and frozen margaritas leaves little time for typing. And the keys get all sticky.

But as we're talking about the cinematic trivialization of love, which is worse: the inanity of the romantic comedy or the alienation of modern, plasticene pornography? It seems that we must choose between Jennifer Aniston's insipid simpering in The Good Girl 2 (The Sluttening) or Jenna Jameson's insipid whimpering in A Night In Gale. Can either but convince absolutely today's confused young males that nonmonoganormativity is the only viable option going forward? The lesson here seems to be that women dig either bad boys who can be daintily domesticated by the quick little hands of Sandy Bullock, or else men who exist only from mid-thigh to neck and whose acrobatic feats and endurance would be more appropriate to cirque du soleil than any normal human's bedroom. Can any relationship survive for long when the pole is greater than the sum of the hearts?

This is why I only learn life-lessons about love from cartoons. I'll take cross-dressing bunnies and unhealthily obsessed french polecats every day of the week and twice on sundays before three more minutes of Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Can't talk anymore. I hear the margarita machine talking to me again.

Topic 5: Trivial Love

2005-04-09T03:15:00.000-04:00

I take a brief respite from my PhD to comment on the "trivialization of love". Please do not consider this a defense of the cloyingly vapid Fever Pitch. In Fever Pitch, Jimmy Fallon's character is faced with the comical dilemma of choosing between a lifelong devotion to the Red Sox (a unilateral and unrequited love) and his affinity towards Drew Barrymore. The comedy derives from the commonality of experience when two people struggle to adapt to one another's priorities. Unfortunately, the Farrely brothers exploit this plot to oft-times ineffective comic extremes and insert their unnecessary and ubiquitous bathroom humor. But the daily experience of love seems to involve neither the smiting of enemies nor the close proximity to Monsieur Robespierre's guillotine. Love exists and flourishes in the trivial. Love is found in the symbolic gesture, the small consideration, and the privately shared foibles and triumphs of life. I will never suggest that love does not or should not evoke either heroism or dramatic moments of self-sacrifice, but these are not the daily currency of love. Regardless, is it sacrilege to suggest that one man's guillotine is another's season tickets?

Off Topic Post

2005-04-08T03:09:00.000-04:00

Would the poet please respond to the following goings-on at her institution:
University of Missouri professor has developed a computer program which he now uses to grade his sociology students' essays.

Topic 5: My weekend with Jessica Alba and Charles Dickens

2005-04-03T22:36:00.000-04:00

These past Friday and Saturday nights, I’ve had the privilege to enjoy two singular works of art, both graphically depicting acts of staggeringly bloodthirsty malevolence and superhuman martyrdom. The narratives both hinge on serial rape, widespread corruption, wrongful imprisonments, a poisoned family bloodline, multiple beheadings and dismemberments, and a gang of homicidal woman policing the black heart of an urban nightmare. The works of art in question are the film Sin City, directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (with Quentin Tarantino guest-directing), and Charles Dickens’ serialized novel about revolutionary France, A Tale of Two Cities.

For those of you who haven’t seen the film yet, I won’t be spoiling anything by saying that it is one of the most shamelessly, gleefully violent things I’ve ever seen. My mind reeled at the gratuitous sadism in every shot, scene, and stunt--but as horrified as I was, I had to regard the whole bloodbath with awed respect. The sheer commitment to portraying an utterly debased humanity showed a kind of work ethic rarely seen in filmmaking anymore. I mean, c’mon—when was the last time a romantic comedy actually made you feel romantic? Usually, the way Hollywood movies reduce the noblest of human emotions to a series of parlor games set in a Pottery Barn catalogue is enough to make you search Netflix for Sid & Nancy. But ironically enough, when you scratch the surface of Sin City, you find a deeply sentimental film. The plots of the film’s three vignettes all involve men sacrificing themselves for women they barely know, each hero mulling over his actions in voice-overs with lines like “It's time to prove to your friends that you're worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying, sometimes it means killing a whole lot of people,” and “An old man dies so a young girl can live—fair trade.” Once you look past the movie’s green-screened carnage, what you’ve got on your hands are some old-fashioned stories about chivalry and knighthood. Considering that Jimmy Fallon, in the upcoming Fever Pitch, will probably take 89 minutes to finally prove his love to Drew Barrymore by, I dunno, ripping up some Red Sox tickets or something, the Miller/Rodriguez/Tarantino opus seems downright idealistic.

And on a related note, two things struck me about Dickens novel that are almost anachronistic in their brilliance. The first is that Dickens had such keen psychological insight into his characters—BEFORE anyone even knew what psychology was! The subtlety and deftness with which he depicts the effects of trauma displays a kind of understanding about the human mind that is usually afforded only by either a pricey PhD or several years on a chaise lounge on the Upper East Side (and this from a guy whose formal schooling ended when he was fifteen!). Second, Dickens’ prose renders the novel’s scenes cinematically. The narrative actually moves the reader’s point of view through the Paris and London streets as though one were watching the tracking shots of a camera. And the format of the penultimate chapter is surprisingly like that of a screenplay, with part of the action cutting swiftly back and forth between separate scenes like a restless editor, and subtitles strongly suggested throughout.

But it would seem that I had better swerve further into the general topicality of this blog, so: which is worse—a movie that trivializes violence, or a movie that trivializes love?

Medical Update

2005-03-31T22:04:00.000-05:00

As the physician I thought I should provide an important medical update:

As of 10:00pm on March 31st:

Pope: Still Alive at age 84

Millions of Africans to whom the Catholic church has preached against condom use: Dead or orphaned by AIDS

Isn't it time for the Catholic Church to ask itself: What would Jesus do?

Topic 4: Blind Pouch

2005-03-30T03:03:00.000-05:00

I would be remiss if I did not update my last post with some additional information. As many of our gentle readers are likely familiar, Propecia advertisements close with a voiced-over ominous warning: "Pregnant women, or women who might become pregnant should not handle broken pills" or something to that effect.

Now for the science:
Propecia, as mentioned earlier, was originally developed as a treatment for Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy. This condition which affects older men causes a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate. The mechanism for prostatic enlargement appears in part reliant upon Dihydroxy Testosterone (DHT). Propecia/Proscar inhibits the enzyme that converts Testosterone into DHT.

In the adult male, blocking DHT production has the wonderful benefit of protecting hair follicles and shrinking the prostate. The same can not be said for the embryonic male.

The default developmental pathway is for an embryo to develop a female reproductive tract. Lacking a signal to indicate otherwise an embryo will develop female external genitals, a uterus, and fallopian tubes. To become a male embryo two signals are needed, both initiated in the developing testicles. The first, MIS, causes the breakdown of the developing uterus and fallopian tubes. The second signal is DHT. Testosterone produced by the testicles is converted to DHT which then binds to the DHT receptor in the developing external genitalia. DHT binding causes the development of male genitals. MIS blocks the development of the inner 2/3 of the vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes. DHT blocks the development of the outer 1/3 of the vagina and the female external genitalia.

There is a developmental disorder called Testicular Feminization in which the DHT receptor is not functional in a male embryo. As a result, internally the testes devleop normally and secrete MIS which blocks uterus and fallopian tube development. However, externally, female genitals form by default because they fail to receive the DHT signal. The baby that is born will be identified as female, and normally raised until puberty as female (the testes remain undescended). Typically the condition is diagnosed by lack of menstruation and at the first gynecological exam when the vagina is noted to end in a "blind pouch". Surgery is performed to remove the undescended testicles (which otherwise have a higher risk of developing cancer) and the patient is initiated on hormone replacement therapy to stimulate puberty and the development of female secondary sex characteristics.

If a pregnant mother carrying a male embryo is exposed to Propecia, it could result in a pharmacologic mimic of testicular feminization by blocking the production of DHT in the embryo. If the embryo is a female, there should be no effect due to exposure to Propecia. (But please do not view this as approval to play with or wade in giant piles of broken Propecia pills)

There is an oft-cited rumor (with unknown veracity) that Jamie Lee Curtis has a form of testicular feminization. The disorder occurs in about 1 in 20,000 live births.

Now that I think of it, I could have used this post to drum up hits to our website by people using google for common search terms. I just need to replace all of the clinical terms with their lay equivalents. "On the outside she has a cunt and a clit, but inside she's got balls. But she doesn't know this until she gets older and doesn't grow pubes or get tits, and the doctor looks and finds out she's got a really tight box" or something to that effect.

Topic 4: Advertising

2005-03-29T02:23:00.000-05:00

It seems that we are all rather worked up about advertising and marketing these days. Over at Salve, our favorite mother has herself in a tizzy over the marketing practices of various bathroom sundries. Meanwhile, our lawyer bemoans a lifetime of underappreciated toothpaste etiquette.

First I would like to respond to the points made over at Salve:

"...I noticed the other morning that my Pantene shampoo now sports the words: "New! With Amino Proteins!" on the bottle. As far as I'm aware, proteins are made up of amino acids, but the phrase "Amino Proteins" is complete garbage."

Fixing hair by supplying amino acids is the functional equivalent of fixing a damaged book with random letters.

And how is it that Pantene can sell an extra-special weekly-moisturizing conditioner made up of the exact same ingredients as their regular conditioner? All they did was make the mixture thicker by adding less water, and then packaged it in a special-looking tube.

The ingredient list provides a list of ingredients in order of their concentration by weight within the product. Therefore, one could provide two products of substantially different value with identical ingredient lists. For example, let's say your conditioner contained only gold and water. I could sell two different versions, one with 10% gold and the other with 30% gold, and both would be listed as "Ingredients: Water, Gold". (Obviously, if I made a version with 60% gold the order would be inverted "Ingredients: Gold, Water". Now this goes back to a favorite story of mine that first appeared on the back cover of Consumer Reports. As my co-authors are likely aware, Cheetos (the tiger endorsed cheese-flavored snack) bears the copy "Contains oodles of Real Cheese" on the front of the bag. Well, how much is an oodle? Is this a unit of mass, is this metric? Well, looking at the ingredients list: "Ingredients: ...Flour...(various chemicals)...Salt,cheese..." Ah, so there is less cheese than salt in a cheeto. That is useful as salt is Sodium Chloride, and all nutritional information labels contain the sodium content of a serving, in this case 150mg. As there is less real cheese than salt, and oodle is plural (requiring the presence of at least two individual oodle's), this places an upper-limit on an oodle at 75mg.

And why can Excedrin get away with selling Excedrin Migraine in addition to their regular product, when they both contain the exact same amounts of aspirin, acetaminophen and caffeine?

Perhaps my favorite form of marketing is shelf-space maximization. A customer walks up to the pain relief section of his local pharmacy. Which box he grabs appears to be based upon several criteria.
1. Random choice- in a random choice model, the likelihood of a customer choosing your brand is at its simplest proportional to the amount of shelf space that your brand occupies. Other factors, such as whether your products are placed at eye level or by one's feet play important but lesser roles. So the more variants of the same drug you can provide the more shelf space one occupies and the greater the likelihood of a sale.
2. Ideal Fit- The misconception by the consumer that the variants offered by the pain relief company differ in their efficacy and/or appropriateness for the consumer's symptoms. In this case, the greater the number of variants provided the greater the impression that amongst the variants offered lies an "ideal fit". The consumer is then more likely to limit his eventual choice to within that company's product family.
3. Placebo Effect- Early research into the placebo effect demonstrated that the size of the effect was proportional to the size (or pain) associated with administering the placebo. In short, a sugar pill the size of Texas has greater effect than a diminutive one. So, the fancier the packaging, the more elaborate the delivery method (LiquiCaps or possibly the most egregious- TheraFlu), the greater the likelihood the drug will work.
4. Going back to delivery method. This is what raises my ire. Aside from the aforementioned placebo effect there is no difference between a Liquicap, capsule, tablet, powder, hot beverage, and an enema (ok, I can't vouch for the last one). While there may be some trivial difference in the rate of drug absorption due to the physical form in which it is provided, that difference is likely trivial.

In short- Assuming equal amounts of active ingredient there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON NOT TO BUY GENERIC TABLETS!!!

And were you aware that Unisom is marketed as a sleep aid while Benadryl is marketed as an antihistamine but they're both Diphenhydramine Hydrochloride?

Diphenhydramine is also the active ingredient in most OTC motion-sickness medications.

But my favorite:
Trade Name: Propecia
Company: Merck
Use: Hair growth in balding men
Active Ingredient: Finasteride
Dose: 1mg Tablets
Cost per tablet: $1.67 (drugstore.com)
Cost per mg: $1.67

Trade Name: Proscar
Company: Merck
Use: Treatment of Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy (BPH) in older men
Active Ingredient: Finasteride
Dose: 5mg Tablets
Cost per tablet: $2.56
Cost per mg: $0.51

By the way, it was during the original trials of Proscar for the treatment of BPH that clinicians noticed a significant number of patients who reported hair re-growth. Hence, the birth of Propecia. Now, how that justifies selling the same drug for 3x the cost is beyond me. In reading the prescribing information, I was disappointed to see that neither was hair growth listed as a potential side effect of Proscar, nor was prostate shrinkage mentioned within Propecia's.

Well, this post has gone on far too long. I have a thesis to write. For those scoring at home, I defend my thesis on May 31st. Then watch out sick people, I'm off to the hospitals.

Topic 4: Behold the Power of Advertising...

2005-03-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

When I was an impressionable young thing, winsome and carefree, unsullied by the blood-red talons of my harsh mistress the law, I was an avid and discerning consumer of our weekly Sports Illustrated. Back in the grand old days before this new-fangled interweb, when ESPN only existed on cable television, and electronic mail was only a gleam in a military server’s glowing red eye (“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t let you type in all-caps. You are endangering the mission.”), well, let’s just say that ten year-old boys didn’t get a lot of mail. And so I always looked gleefully forward to Thursday. Thursday! Because every Thursday came the new SI, which I would immediately purloin and carry back to my lair to ascertain whether it had once again lived up to my high standards for satisfactory coverage of the Detroit Tigers and University of Alabama Crimson Tide.
Anyways, some time during the glory days of the middle-late eighties, the boys down on Madison Avenue ran a print campaign for Johnnie Walker Red Label brand Scotch whisky which ran for a couple of weeks successively somewhere between Around The Horn and some fluff piece on steeplechase or hockey or some other godforsaken sport. It was a full-page ad consisting of either a black-and-white or sepia-toned photograph of two women palavering over espresso, clearly deep in dissection about their latest conquests. The accompanying text breathlessly read: “He squeezes his toothpaste from the bottom, and he drinks Johnnie Walker Red!”
What a catch!
But I’ll tell you something – from those days on, I was a changed man. I – who as a young boy could not usually be bothered to lift the cover of the toilet before peeing, much less the lid, who would rather have licked the underside of a dead fish than held the hand of a living human girl, who would only bathe under threat of exile from my long-suffering parents – have always squeezed my toothpaste from the bottom.
Happily, religiously, even with a little hint of self-satisfaction, every morning I squeeze my toothpaste from the bottom. Can’t stand Johnnie Walker Red. Never touch the stuff. Refuse to drink it unless there’s truly no other option, including fermented peach solvent (n.b., please do not confuse Johnnie Walker Red, which is vile and upsetting, with Johnnie Walker Black, which is lovely and subtly inoffensive and I drank to distraction during college).
And, you know, I have never, not once in my entire romantic life, ever had any paramour so much as comment on my hunky, toothpaste-squeezing ways. For all I know, not one has even noticed for half of a second the state of appearance of my chosen dentifrice. Whereas they sure as hell notice if I’ve been drinking Scotch. (And usually not with the enthusiasm of the young women in the advertisement, I can tell you). And yet, to this day, I still think fondly back on that ad, revealing confidentially to me in the privacy of my bedroom what I must have been convinced was the true secret to securing true love.
Behold the power of advertising: fifteen years later, with not one whit of real world experience to corroborate its truth or accuracy, I’m still squeezing my toothpaste from the bottom. But I’m sure as hell not drinking Johnnie Walker Red.
Damn. Now I’m all thirsty.

Topic 3: Honoring Love

2005-03-19T13:35:00.000-05:00

I am afraid I cannot concur that honor is, to quote our barrister, “the preservation of one’s self-image.” Upon reflection of the worthy subject posted, I am inclined to argue that honor and love are recto and verso of the same open manuscript. Indeed, I believe that we have thrived as a species not only because we are clever enough to invent or discover life-lengthening things like antibiotics, 911, and Tupperware, but also because our minds are always working to preserve the human life that aspires towards that which is unreachable, of which Love and Honor alike are the expression. What I am speaking of is the Ideal.

What separates humans from animals is our embrace of Ideals; in practical terms, these are irrational, disposable concepts. We don’t actually need ideas of Love or God survive, either as individuals or as a species. But how the soul reaches out to these intangible abstractions all the same! More specifically, it reaches out through art. The earliest cave friezes depict human figures alongside animals that are on an exaggerated scale, which suggests that these early artists sought not to render the animal, but to honor the intangible spirit of the hunter’s foe. The bower-bird builds an ornate shelter for a prospective mate, but its aesthetic embellishments are purely for the reproductive end. The scout bee dances elaborately for its hive-mates, but each flourish exists for the sole purpose of creating a map to a food source. But humanity, in virtually every cultural variation it has, has consistently demonstrated that it derives wonder and pleasure from reaching out into the infinite, the abstract, the abyss.

Though it would seem as though I have strayed far from the topic of Love and Honor, my purpose is to show that they are essentially the same in kind. Honor is the belief that there are abstract ideas worth valuing over one’s self-interest; through Honor, one does not simply believe that one must be good, or brave, or kind because one lives in a society that values these qualities, and that one risks expulsion from said society if these values are not preserved. Honor is one’s one personal conviction that the Ideals of Goodness, Kindness, Courage, etc., have intrinsic worth greater than one’s own self-interest (of course, postmodern theorists of all stripes will howl that I am deluded, and that these Ideals, even when seemingly intrinsic, are still just social constructions, but said critics are invariably an obnoxious, arrogant lot inclined to banal perversion and moochery, which just proves my point). Love is the grateful (rather than obligatory) consideration of another’s needs above one’s own; one might see it as the tempering force to our innate biological sense of self-preservation. So it would seem that Lovelace’s verse argues that Love is a more specific version of Honor; one must first embrace the abstraction of Honor (the collection of Ideals embodied by many different things, but not necessarily particular to any one) before one may embrace Love (an Ideal particular to one person or thing or marsupial).

Now it is the duty of our Resident Scientist to take me to task for tossing around the terms “biological,” “variation,” and “the” with such abandon . . .

Topic 3: True or False

2005-03-15T18:17:00.000-05:00

I could not love thee, deare, so much, lov’d I not honour more.
- Richard Lovelace

I walked home under the damp rose of an early spring evening. Wandering somewhere between the cobblestones on one side and the first few flowers beneath the old city wall on the other, my young man’s fancy turned to love. And, unbidden, from some far off place, the declaration of the good Colonel Lovelace on the eve of his departure “to Warre and Armes” began to run through my thoughts, the rhythm keeping nice time with my footsteps.

“I could not love thee, deare, Lov’d I not honour more. I could not love thee, deare, Lov’d I not honour more. I could not… &c.” You get the picture. It has a nice ring to it, and a nice cadence. But after about half a mile, I was brought up short when I let myself actually start to think about the sentiment expressed therein.

Now, as many will tell, and you two know full well, the leather soles of my love-life have been a bit worn thin of late, and the polish and stitching scuffed about from casual neglect. And so I don’t like to sit and profess about a subject of which I have only hazy (if lovely) personal memories when here we have those far better acquainted with that pleasurable folly. Why, our own poet has already logged two years under the protection of Hera, while the good doctor himself merely marks time in the soft hands of Aphrodite; before long he, too, will set himself upon the marriage hearth.

So here is the question. Leaving aside the question of pro patria mori dulce et decorum est and the defense of home, is it more dangerous to love one’s sweet baboo or one’s honour more? Can love be true when it runs second-place to honour? Can love be true without the underpinning of honour to hold its shape? Is a passion for honour so strong that it occludes the passion of one’s heart anything more than a mere cloak for the ultimate self-love?

It is possible to get lost in a bramble-garden of conflicting platitudes. To love another, you must first love yourself. What more is honour, than the preservation of one’s self-image? Is sacrificing one’s “honour” the great ignominy of forfeiting one’s greatest asset for the common favors of a pretty face? Or is it the final glorious subsummation of self necessary for a proper union of the souls? Obviously ideally we would cram our little fists full of healthy portions of both – but the verse sets it as an all-or-nothing proposition. I could not love thee, dear…

Does placing honour above heart’s own desire preserve the best of oneself? Or is it an arrogant demand that seeks “Not universal love, but to be loved alone?”

And, more importantly, when will somebody teach the Scots to make a decent margarita?

Topic 2: They Brachiate Among Us

2005-03-12T18:22:00.000-05:00

As the good Franciscan William of Ockham was often given to say, pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate – or, to translate rather loosely, the simplest explanation is often the best. And so, when one finds oneself lost in an obfuscating cloud of pluralities hypothesied without necessity, it is good to take a deep breath, have a bit of chocolate, and try to whistle a little tune about the beauty of simplicity.

While it is certainly possible that “pod people” have descended from the heavens, and are currently wandering about in our midst for reasons beyond our ken, the sheer number of supporting facts which must be cut out of whole cloth confounds the mind. Problems of physics (the feasibility of efficiently fueling intergalactic – or at the very least intersolar – space travel), bioengineering (constructing near-perfect simulacra of the human form), and culture (why in God’s name would they need to come all the way down here to study us? It is my understanding that syndicated episodes of Gilligan’s Island are even now winging their way past Pluto) must all be cast aside or explained away before we can even arrive at a base camp from which to scale the problem itself of the extra-terrestrially humming-impaired.

No, in all likelihood, there is a simpler explanation. Following the keen edge of Occam’s razor, the true solution becomes readily apparent. We are not surrounded by other-worldly observers; we are instead almost up to our necks in highly-intelligent, well-trained monkeys.

Somewhere along the line, there has been another great evolutionary step. Blink, and we missed it. And now that means that some near-relative of ours, some hairless species of great ape, has made the physical leap and can now walk among us almost unnoticed. And yet, the mental leap either has not happened or at the very least is still catching up.

Think about it: there can’t possibly be that many humans sufficient to engage in today’s unprecedentedly high levels of jackassery and asshattery.

Last year, over 340 million votes were received for American Idol. 340 million. That is forty-four and a half MILLION more votes than citizens who even live in these United States. And if we throw out all the tykes who can’t even mash phone numbers yet, our vast incarcerated population, and the legions of insufferable condescending snobs who would rather chew glass than admit to watching the show (although we do read the recaps on Television Without Pity)… well, all I can tell you is: highly-intelligent, well-trained monkeys.

It is reported that the 2004 NASCAR Daytona 500 was seen by 33.5 million viewers. 33.5 million. That is more than every single human man, woman, and child in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, and New Hampshire. I refuse to believe it. Highly-intelli… well, well-trained monkeys, at least.

How many pictures of naked women have you seen on the internet? Be honest, now. Even the most conservative estimates would be far in excess of the 3.5 billion human women supposedly on this planet. The explanation? Highly-intelligent, well-trained (and well-shaved) monkeys. (Probably bonobos.)

And let’s not even talk about the sixty-two million who voted for their new leader in our most recent election.

No, folks, I’m here to tell you: it’s not aliens – we’re up to our asses in monkeys. Now where did I leave my pina colada?

Topic 2: They Walk Among Us

2005-03-11T00:44:00.000-05:00

In a fit of creative anergy I have chosen to revisit a hypothesis originally proposed and developed a nearly a decade ago in collaboration with my inimitable former roommate CH. Of note, CH is currently pursuing a career as a psychiatrist under the guise of genuine interest in mental illness, but more likely to continue his research into this theory.

Excelling in our workplaces, leading our church groups, scamming in our gay bars, and chanting in our Ashrams; pod people are everywhere. Sent to our planet by a highly advanced (unnecessary and clichéd epithet) alien culture, pod people are enmeshed in our daily lives- observing us, studying our biology and culture. For what purpose? That, I have not yet determined. I also have not determined if pod people are aware of their pod nature.

The key thing to know about pod people, is that while highly programmed, pod people reflect the, at times, limited knowledge-set of the alien race regarding our culture. Therefore, these pod people, while superficially normal, at closer inspection and greater intimacy display behavior(s) that to the trained eye make manifest their alien derivation.

Before continuing let me caution my reader not to jump to any conclusions about their collegeues. The pod person is not the overly gregarious neighbor, not the schizophrenic at the bus stop (sadly, far too human), not the cult leader accruing guns and cyanide in preparation for the ascendence. One's first inclination is to identify the individuals at the fringes of our society's bell curves for behavior and appearance. This misconception is what has allowed pod people to escape our detection. Surprisingly, none of the members of the current Bush administration is likely a pod person (I have not ruled out either Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice nor Secretary Mike Johanns of the Department of Agriculture).

So how does one identify a pod person? The pod person is if anything hypernormal in manner and in appearance. Often the traits that belie their normal appearance appear only upon closer inspection over an extended period of time (please note that some of these behaviors are present in non-pod-people, but the diagnostic criterion for positive pod i.d. requires at least 75% of the following criterion to be met):

1. Hyposusceptible to illnesses. The occasionally mild cold has been programmed into their pod bodies. But the disease course is excessively mild, the pattern of symptoms non-sensical, and their behavior during the illness abnormal. A suspected pod person will wake with a fever of 100.2, green-tinged mucus, and a headache which can only be relieved by the elimination of all white noise. The next day they will be completely recovered save a lingering limp.

2. Inability to hum or whistle. Despite their "advanced" technology, the alien culture has not determined how to program either humming or whistling behaviors into a pod person. Difficult to detect, as pod people will beg off with a witticism if asked to perform solo and mock whistle or hum by pursing their lips or make a "humming face" in a group performance.

3. Smile talking- The loathsome habit of actively smiling while in a conversation regardless of topic. (It is estimated that this characteristic has led to as high as 80% of all Harvard MBAs being pod people)

4. Minor physical aberrations that cannot or should not be encoded genetically- large erectile nipples on a man, excessive eyelash growth, one or more digits lack a knuckle or are otherwise mildly misshapen yet functional.

5. Trichotillomania- A highly non-specific symptom, trichotillomania is a mental illness believed to affect 4-11 million Americans. However, it also represents a pod programming flaw. Here's the definition from the National Mental Health Association: Recurrent pulling out of ones hair resulting in noticeable hair loss. An increasing sense of tension immediately before pulling out the hair or when resisting the behavior. Pleasure, gratification, or relief when pulling out the hair.

6. Pathologically nice- The sort of person that at first meeting you think "wow, what a nice guy." With further interaction, "wow, I can't believe what a nice guy that is." However, with any additional interaction, you have a powerful visceral response associated with a desire to kill. This is your body's natural 6th sense alerting you to a pod person. (Side note, I have only recently come to terms with the fact that I loathe extraordinarily nice people. I neither trust them nor understand them. And let me also note in the spirit of misanthropy, that I especially don't like the people who befriend and defend the pathologically nice. And just to be clear, I have only encountered 4 people over the course of my life that I would consider pathologically nice.)

7. Accent dissonance- The individual speaks with an accent that does not jibe with their geographical background. Often difficult to determine, because the individual is aware of the dissonance and hence evasive regarding his/her upbringing. It may require careful note-taking to piece together that your friend with an Australian accent actually lived in Australia for a total of 6 months from age 12.5 to their 13th birthday.

I realize that the diagnostic criteria need work. But if we are to identify and expunge the pod people, we must move beyond the "you'll know one when you see one" and produce a scientifically rigorous testing system to identify the pods that walk among us. Perhaps among their mild aberrations lies an Achilles Heel shared among the pop peoples?

Perhaps...

Topic 2: Office Closed Due to Staff Illness

2005-03-09T08:46:00.000-05:00

Physician: Heal Thyself!!!!!!

Topic 2: Delayed

2005-03-09T00:48:00.000-05:00

The doctor's head cold will delay this week's discussion for one more day.

Topic I: On TexaScotland

2005-03-04T11:43:00.000-05:00

One has only to peruse Ovid’s Metamorphoses to ascertain that the union of two things so radically different in kind never turns out well. Witness the hideous, bloodthirsty Minotaur, the progeny of the wife of Minos, king of Crete, and a charmingly metrosexual bull (which prompts one to wonder if these reality dating shows need to explore other directions . . . it’s Bestiality Blind Date! “Uh, yeah—Lulubelle was a total hottie, but she’s a little high-maintenance, and I just can’t believe those udders are real, y’know . . .?”). Or the eye-gougingly Tarantino-esque scenes of violence when the Centaurs get loaded and spear-happy at Perseus and Andromeda’s nuptials (though I understand this is not that far a cry from the usual drunken fisticuffs of a Highland wedding). And don’t even get me started on the Harpies, those vile bird-women who swoop down and devour the laid tables of unsuspecting mortals, braying invectives all the while as they gorge themselves, not unlike some of the more matronly guests at my Cousin Sadie’s bat mitzvah . . .

Though we may have the best intentions in advocating this alliance, such schemes are best left in the hands of the Almighty alone. Consider the noble intentions of Victor Frankenstein, seduced by science’s promise to turn man into an immortal god, and the unhappy, unholy creature that was borne of his folly! Consider also, after the world had reeled and fled in horror from the proposed Koozy-toting, tartan-bedecked monstrosity, how the pitiful, blighted thing would turn upon its repentant maker and demand a Bride! What freakish permutations would follow suit? A Franco-Californian fusion, where smoking in a bar would be simultaneously mandatory AND illegal? Or FlorIndia, where a six-armed, third-eyed Mickey Mouse would be worshipped as a god?

Finally, I think the mottoes of the two territories in question speak for themselves: “Don’t Mess with Texas” and “Fuck Off, Ya Shite Cunt.”

Topic I: How you say, our country is wicked awesome, oui?

2005-03-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

And we, the loyal lieges of Franceachusetts eagerly anticipate Texas' withdrawal from the defunct United States of America. For you will meet your comeuppance at the Glasgalamo.

-Joint Statement by Jacques Chirac and Ted Kennedy

Topic I: A Kinder, Gentler Empire

2005-03-01T10:01:00.000-05:00

We have all heard the rumors, the whispered grumbles of a discontented nation - low and ominous like the rumble before a storm. And yet, despite the sly allusions of a biased media and the impending heraldry of a new populism, the words have hovered, unasked, behind each and every one of our lips.

Well, no more. This week we will dare to ask the question that has been simmering beneath the surface for these many months: Has the time finally come for Texas to become a protectorate of a new Scottish Empire?

Now, wait. Before you start in with your questions about the legacy of Glaswegian tobacco merchants under the reign of Victoria or your hand-wringing about the massacre of Amritsar in 1919, trust me when I tell you that the time for an Empire of the Scots is ripe. Never before has a world plunged in darkness so cried out for the torch of enlightenment. From the incalculable riches of the godless blue state heathen to the fertile valleys and methamphetamine reserves of the high plains red state natives, from the vast forests and salmon-rich rivers of Canada to the heavily-mortgaged Argentinian pampas, teetering on the brink of destruction after the disastrous 2002 decision to dissolve its currency board and float the peso on the international foreign exchange, never before have the territories of the New World been so ripe for a wee plucking.

And if this new dawn is to be realized, Edinburgh needs to plant a foothold across the Atlantic – something more stable than the disastrous Darien Venture of 1698, less irrelevant than the (apparently?) successful colonization of Nova Scotia (has anybody checked up there lately?). The time has finally come, my friends, for the long-prophesied marriage of the Lion and the Armadillo.

1. The “Auld Alliance” - concluded in 1295 during the Scots’ Wars of Independence - has provided Scotland with historically valuable military assistance from the French. The key word there is “historically” which, in this case, may be substituted with the phrase “no longer”. As many key bumper stickers have observed of late, Texas is bigger than France and better armed. It is no coincidence that no high school ever chooses the mascot “The Fighting Frenchman.”

2. The combined oil reserves of the North Sea and the Texas plains will allow the Scottish Empire to operate free from fettered reliance on foreign monopolies of non-renewable resources. (Excepting, of course, the famed bacon mines of Santa Lucia de los Cochinillos.)

3. The accession of Dallas and Houston to the treaties of NFL Europe pretty much guarantee both ground and air dominance by the Cowboys and Texans for the foreseeable future. Although in the early 1990s I might have been a little worried about sending Michael Irvin for an away game against the Amsterdam Admirals, I feel sure that given today’s atmosphere neither team would have any trouble dispatching, for example, the Cologne Centurions or the Hamburg Sea Devils (really) in this year’s World Bowl XIII.

4. Considering the criminal amount of fun that can already be had stumbling back and forth between the Authentic Bier Garten and the Mindbender Roller Coaster at Six Flags, dare we even dream the possibilities of a redesigned SEVEN Flags?

5. Scones and gravy. Chicken-fried haggis. Need I say more? It is impossible to overstate the projected benefits of single-malt tequila and Shiner Bock for everyone. Although some might question the viability of the frozen margarita in Caledonia’s colder climes, my only true worry would be the effect of the introduction of the Mexican Martini on the Scots. It could prove almost as devastating as the introduction of smallpox to the native Americans. Then again, never has the sweet, sweet taste of revenge been so insidiously refreshing…

6. Cross-breeding of the Texas longhorn and the long-haired Highland cattle should finally produce the world’s first totally lethal (and edible) koosh ball.

7. The combination of Glasgow twee (Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura) and Austin twang (Willie Nelson, Dale Watson, Rob Albertson) should create one of the least accessible music genres ever created. But it will be the most fun to say. Say it with me now: tweeeee-aang!

8. Should finally teach Texan men the dangers of chasing anything in a skirt.

So there you have it. I, for one, welcome our new kilted and coyboy-hatted overlords. Tune in next time for the staggering legal implications involved in annulling the Republic of Texas’ accession to the United States and its realliance with Scotland and its impact on the competition policy of the European Union.

- Hopalong McMhuirich, esq.

Introduction: There is Nothing Trivial about Fabric Softener.

2005-02-26T04:38:00.000-05:00

I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda...

When I was a young, fresh-faced lad - bright-eyed and uncorrupted by the subtle machinations of the powerful laundry-accoutrement industry - I, too, could sit happily in the shuttered shade of a late afternoon, staring peaceably at easy-pour spouts through half-lidded eyes. Few things would give as much pleasure as relaxing on the porch with a mint julep, underneath a slowly-turning fan, ruminating on the idealistic world so tantalizingly promised by the detergent merchants.

But those days are gone, ripped asunder by the ravages of an insidious mendacity. I have been to the mountain of product packaging, my friends, and I have had the shades torn from my eyes. Fabric softener. First and foremost, I should add that I don't have all that firm an idea on what fabric softener even is, exactly. I mean, I feel like I'm on pretty good territory with detergent. Bleach is self-revelatory. Dryer sheets delivered noticeable benefits upon experimental use. But the purpose and promise of fabric softener has always eluded me.

American television commercials never really gave much information that couldn't be gleaned from the name. Yes, you use it on fabric. Yes, it makes that fabric soft. But folks, we're talking about fabric. My clothes are already pretty damned soft. I have always found it to be a key factor in the purchase-process; something with enough give to allow regular movement of my various beclothed limbs. This is, I understand, why initial design prototypes such as iron mail, the wooden clog, and the granite brassiere were all quickly rejected.

And I believe, in their black little hearts, that the world's purveyors of fabric softener are aware of this basic uselessness of their product. But instead of wising up and shaking it off and going out and inventing something useful, like waiting-room-bench tenderizer or day-old-french-bread softener, they have decided instead to skirt the path of fraud. Arm in arm with the jackals of Madison Avenue, they have decided to cloak their snake oil in pretty, wholly uninformative packaging and produce beguiling, content-free advertisements.

Now ordinarily, I wouldn't pay too much attention to this travesty, even in these heady days of vigilant consumer protection. However, I have learned through painful experience not once but TWICE that their evil extends to a deeper level hitherto uncontemplated by those outside the industry. Which is, it has become common practice to not even put the helpful words "fabric softener" on the packaging itself. Like so many cuckoo's eggs, they nestle these bottles - bearing, it scarcely even needs to be said, wholly nondesciptive names like "luxor" and "manelle" - in amongst the stalwart detergent yeomanry; a brussel sprout in chocolate pudding clothing.

And when one drastically changes jurisdictions - from Texas to Michigan, say, or New York to Edinburgh - then it becomes actually impossible to differentiate between these products pre-purchase. I have spent literally hours in the aisle of my local Sainsbury pouring over the bottles, trying to ascertain which is the real product and which the twisted phantasm of evil minds and - let me tell you - I am only batting around .500 these days.

Not two days ago, I ended up home with some product named "umpostor" or something and not until I went to pour it into the laundry machine did it become obvious from its thin, dissipated consistency that it could in no way pass for proper detergent. And yet, nowhere on the label did it say anything to disabuse a potential purchaser of the fact that it MIGHT NOT BE DETERGENT. The words "fabric softener"? Wholly absent. Directions to pour in a capful for each load were carefully noted (or a cap and a half for particularly heavy loads), and this was not a wee, mincy little cap but a big robust cap of the sort that were it holding an equivalent amount of actual detergent would faithfully clean and enscenten one's clothes with a surety.

Incensed, I noted that, for more information, one could go to www.umposter.co.uk, which I promptly did. After seven minutes of careful scrutiny, I finally found, buried on some obscure back page hidden behind several dusty cardboard boxes, the only sentence on the entire site that gave any indication that the product was a total and utter fraud: "This product works with any detergent." Oh, really? If I add this to any product that cleans and freshens my clothes in my washing machine, then they will come out clean and fresh?

Bastards.

- the lawyer

Introduction: Household Trivialities II

2005-02-25T01:04:00.000-05:00

Upon reading my last post, a nefarious worker from within Proctor and Gamble supplied this chart from the Toothpaste Tube research testing conducted in 1987

Introduction: Household Trivialities

2005-02-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

The Doctor is (in):

While a more detailed analysis of triviality will have to wait; I feel compelled to reference a favorite anecdote on the design and marketing of toothpaste.

Legend has it that a young engineer contacted Proctor & Gamble® suggesting that in exchange for an ungodly sum of money he would increase their toothpaste sales by 20%. After much haranguing over the terms, a deal was struck and Proctor & Gamble® eagerly anticipated what must surely be a remarkable innovation in the field of toothpaste design (flavor, addictive substances?). The engineer simply told the corporate executives to increase the size of the opening at the end of the toothpaste tube by 10%. Taking advantage of a combination of simple geometry and the behavioral norm to squeeze toothpaste from one end of the bristles to the other, this achieves a 20% increase in toothpaste used per brushing. Here’s the silly math: The volume of toothpaste is approximated by the surface area of the opening of the tube multiplied by the length of toothpaste excreted from the tube. As mentioned above, the length is determined by the length of the brush head.

A brief aside- notice recent “advances” in brush design have increased the brush head length and width tempting the consumer to consume greater amounts of toothpaste. There is an ingrained tendency to completely cover the brush head with toothpaste. Perhaps one could bring a charge of a horizontal monopoly against the small cohort of companies manufacturing both toothpaste and toothbrushes. The design of the latter being less intended to increase brushing efficacy than it is to increase consumption of the former. I will leave this to our lawyer.

Returning to our math, the surface area of the tube opening is calculated as (πr2), where r is the radius of the opening. Because the radius is squared, increasing the radius by 10% causes a 21% increase in the surface area. And because the increased volume is nearly imperceptible to the consumer, there is no adaptation in his/her pattern of use.

I would love to see the design/testing meetings to determine just how large an orifice would be tolerated by the consumer. I imagine a mock bathroom with a seemingly standard vanity housing a two-way mirror connecting with a room of suited researchers. As the test continues, the orifice on the tube increases with each participant.

The upper limit of the test determined by the viscosity of the toothpaste. There exists a limit of orifice diameter beyond which the toothpaste will dispense of its own accord- no squeezing necessary.

As the test continues, the suited researchers carefully observe the participants for any visible sign of stress from their toothpaste experience. They will also note whether the participants tended to disobey the "complete toothbrush head coverage" maxim to compensate for the increase in tube orifice diameter. After departing the bathroom, the participant will fill out a 100-question survey of their toothbrushing experience. Hidden amongst the 100-questions (probably around #27) that deal with all aspects of the toothpaste and brush, will be the all-important question about how the participant felt about the amount of toothpaste that they had used.

So in response to our poet: I appreciate the spout on your bottle of All, but I do not trust it.

Introduction: On the Trivial (from the Poet)

2005-02-23T12:06:00.000-05:00

The trivial is a much feasted-over territory of 20th century culture. The great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda has a series of celebrated odes to arguably trivial subjects, such as an artichoke, his socks, a lemon, a tomato, etc. The novelist and essayist Nicholson Baker has made a career of celebrating the material and conceptual detritus of our daily lives, eulogizing everything from stapler design to the ritual of coping with a broken shoelace. One of Miles Davis’ most famous tunes on the groundbreaking Kinda Blue album is entitled with the verbal shrug “So What?” And the undisputed master of the trivial, Jerry Seinfeld, revised the history of stand-up comedy and the sitcom alike with the popularization of the simple rhetorical question, “Ya ever notice how . . .?” One might even argue that the mass culture of the 20th century invented the trivial itself.

*

But what is the trivial? Is it “nothing”? Is it “everything”? Can it be defined? Or does it depend entirely on context? To a person rushing to work in the morning, accidentally dropping one’s McGriddle sandwich may be a trivial annoyance. To the homeless person rescuing the wayward breakfast from a trashcan, this may be first food he or she has eaten in two days. In his poem “Mr. Cogito Reads the Newspaper,” the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert writes of “a report on the killing of 120 soldiers” in which “too great a distance / covers them like a jungle / they don’t speak to the imagination / there are too many of them / the numeral zero at the end / changes them to an abstraction.” Is the trivial simply the profound which is too far removed from our immediate experience? Or is the trivial simply the comfort that surrounds us in our everyday lives, comfort that seems too common to praise?

*

Right now I am admiring, from across the room, the shape of a container of All detergent. The white of the plastic is shining out purely from the dimness of the laundry closet. The pour spout is recessed in the center of the bottle, so that surplus detergent does not spill over the sides of the container and pool around it, creating a tacky teal frieze which would crust its bottom to the shelf on which it rests. I remember a time when the pour-spout was flush with cap, and pouring detergent was a precarious balancing act which left one’s hands soapy and led to quarters adhering to one another, which muffled the otherwise jaunty sound they would make in whatever container one used to convey them to the laundromat. How many letters did it take to the detergent companies before the hypothetical squads of white-coated engineers began to prod the inviolate detergent container with their calipers, ruminating over how to combat the incessant spillage? Did it take only one engineer, flush from a particularly triumphant orgasm with his wife, to lie back in bliss and, in that moment of post-coital clarity, alter detergent bottle design forever? Lurking under my kitchen and bathroom sinks, there must be the collective career apexes of dozens of consumer packaging designers. And this modest progeny of human invention, these little vehicles of utility, must guard over my life like household gods.

All. The bottle sings its hymn in a trio of saffron letters against a resurgence of blue. All.

Introduction: A Doctor, A Lawyer, and A Poet Walked Into a Bar...

2005-02-21T19:32:00.000-05:00

Let us begin, then, with an introduction by means of our chosen professions.

"Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you, and kill you too." - Anton Chekhov
"But, Heaven deliver us, what's a poet? Something that can't go to bed without making a song about it." - Dorothy Sayers

A doctor, a lawyer, and a poet walked into a bar...