Notes from the Petting Zoo

“Why is it that putting things into quotes somehow makes them seem more profound, more true, or more relevant? Most of the folks who are quoted are just as fucked up as the rest of us, only more so, what with being dead and all. Hell, I could pretend to be quoting someone and just because it’s a real name and somewhat famous, people will actually believe it.”
- Edward Martin III

“The best quotes offer succinct, pithy observations. People prefer succinct and pithy because they don’t have time to invest in anything more complicated. It’s like comparing Fear Factor to the Kama Sutra. The book, I mean.”
- Oscar Wilde

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There’s no denying it — movies have shaped our lives in so many ways. Most of what I hear about is how people blame movies for the bad things they do, but perhaps I read the wrong sort of news.

The thing I feel like mentioning (and would love to hear from you on) is what important good things I’ve learned from movies that were particularly inspirational. There are more than these six, but these are the first six that come to mind. In no particular order:

Silent Running
Saw it as a child, and never lost my love of trees and growing things, never lost the willingness to accept that mankind cannot help but destroy and only creatures he can make can save him from his own foolishness. He can’t go on, but he tells them to take care of the forests. The last forests of Earth. Every time I see it, I want to go outside for a long while. I want to put my fingers in the dirt. And I want to talk with robots. Soft robots and their susurrations and their gentle mute work, single-mindedly digging and planting and caring for things that us meat-creatures don’t have the time or patience to care for.

Dune
Yep, everybody hated it and there are things about it that bugged me, too, but I read it as a 15-year old boy wrestling with a lot of issues, including fear and overwhelming emotions. The main character, Paul, was also a 15-year old boy, struggling with his own problems, overcoming his fears and the things that seemingly stacked up forever against him. I lived in Arizona at the time and spent a lot of that time out wandering around the undeveloped deserty areas of Scottsdale, Mesa, Phoenix, etc. Desert. If Paul could overcome things, if Paul could control himself enough to solve his problems, then so could I. Sure, there were things that changed in Lynch’s film, but there was enough. I watched it and I enjoyed it and many pieces of it still inspire me. I still have the Litany Against Fear taped to my computer. And it still works.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension
This was a shifter. When it came out, my girlfriend and I were undergoing an unpleasant breakup and for the longest time, I kept avoiding it because of this. But at the same time, I was drawn to it. Eventually, it long lost the distaste of association and reminded me of an even older fantasy. Ever since I can remember, science has attracted me. I always figured I would be a scientist as I grew up, always expected I would be some kind of crazy mad scientist fellow. But eventually, I realized I loved people. So that shifted to being a group of crazy mad scientists. And then Buckaroo Banzai comes along. A group of crazy mad scientists, all living together in a big house with sections and science experiments and heavy equipment and a rocket car. I want that! Rocket car optional.

The Abyss
Ordinary folks in an extraordinary situation. Yeah, that was cool. My father and wife are both divers and I’ve spent a lot of time in the water myself, as well as wanting to build a personal submarine and ROV for years now, probably since grade school and my first Tom Swift book. So, it had that going for it. A family of people, all cranking on amazing things deep in the ocean. Also good. But the thing that sends it over for me, the thing that I cannot miss, is the relationship between Bud and Lindsey. If James Cameron spends the rest of his life making exploitive snuff films, he will always have a place at my table for this movie. I hold my breath when Lindsey drowns, I plead with Bud back on Deepcore, and I die alone in the dark each time I see the words “love you wife” glowing on the screen.

The Hobbit
Interestingly, although I loved the movie, of course, it was the opening song by Glen Yarbrough that haunted me. Over and over I heard that song (I had made an audio tape of the movie to listen to at work) and eventually, I started understanding the lyrics better and applying them to myself. I could take those steps, I could change my life, I could go on great journeys. Maybe I would come back, maybe not. There are two major influences that pushed me hard enough to leave my day job and go to college full time. This was one of them. The other was “Real Genius”.

Real Genius
Pure inspiration. These are the kinds of people I wanted to hang around! Brilliant, fun, clever, all living in the dorm and all doing different experiments and outrageous things. All cracking books and learning when they had to, and creating Amazing Things. Brilliance, cleverness, fun. I wanted that. Aside from “The Hobbit”, “Real Genius” was one of the primary factors that pushed me to get out of my seductive day job and go to school. I wanted to meet people like this, to do things with people like this. Er, and the character Jordan seemed very much like the sort of gal I could spend my time with. She didn’t hook onto anyone — she made her own things and did her own things and never, never, ever slept. This movie got me into programming. This movie got me into programming for interfacing. This movie got me into building things that moved and measured, all connected to computers. This movie made me want to teach other people and encourage them to build and invent and construct as well.

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When I was younger than I am now, I was riding around in my Dad’s van, looking at things. I loved looking at things. Ever since having my vision corrected by glasses at the age of about ten, I found the world endlessly fascinating in all its weird-ass details.

One of the things I particularly relished was reading signs, bumper stickers, license plates, etc. This was because, of course, a week prior, I had not been able to do that.

Sitting next to my Dad, I’m reading things.

I see a license plate. It has a very obvious wheelchair motif on it. I instantly know what it means; even though this is the very first time I have ever seen a license plate like this.

On the plate are obvious initials: “DP”.

Now, I’m a smart cookie, I figure those initials mean something. So, “D” almost certainly stands for “disabled”. Okay, I’m cool with that. Subsets of disability include mental and physical, so of course, I assume the “P” stands for “Physically”.

Then I start thinking about it a bit. If they specify that this is a physically disabled driver, then it stands to reason that there must be license plates out there for mentally disabled drivers.

Holy shit!

I’m stunned. They let mentally disabled people drive? But cars are heavy and fast and can kill you even in the hands of experienced people!

Suddenly driving became this much-more-exotic thing, a skill that went beyond a typical adult skill, a transcendent ability to weave tons of steel around other tons of steel driven by people who are mentally disabled.

I was consumed by this thought process for minutes. My father, you see, was a professional long-haul truck driver and although my respect for him was as polished and limitless as the respect most ten-year olds have for their father, it leaped up another order of magnitude. My father was that good a driver!

I had to ask. I turned to him and (as best my memory recalls) asked “Dad, how can you know what a mentally disabled driver’s going to do? How can that be possible?”

He gave me a series of odd looks, trying (I imagine) to figure out how I got to where I was. “People can’t drive if they’re mentally ill,” he told me (ah, how innocent we were back then). “They’re not allowed to have licenses.”

I pondered this a few seconds, trying to track down my misunderstanding. Then I pointed at the license plate (which was still visible): “Do you see that?” I asked.

He nodded.

“DP,” I said, “That stands for Disabled Physically. That means there has to be a Disabled mentally car out there. Lots!”

He blinked and said “It means Disabled person,” he said. Grinning, he turned back to the road.

Okay, I thought, so they have to specify if it was a disabled person driving.

Then I thought about it some more.

I turned to him.

“Only people drive cars, right?”

“Yes, only people drive.”

“Then why specify ‘person‘? Nothing else would be driving a car. Couldn’t they just put a “D” there?”

He thought about it for a moment. Or perhaps he thought about how I was much quieter when I had a book. Or perhaps he wondered if I was as much a pain to Mom. Or perhaps he thought “I could handle this better after a beer, I’m sure of it.” I’ll never know. The conversation ended the way many of my conversations ended with adults. Even now.

“Well,” he said “I really don’t know.”

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I understand that people and humanity at large is capable of terrible, terrible things. I accept this. It’s part of what we come from and who we are. But the fact that we don’t always do so when we can is what I find our most endearing and charming quality.

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I have two empty frames.

One frame is for my degree in Prophecy. I don’t have a degree in Prophecy, therefore this frame is empty. I need to keep the frame around, however, to remind myself not to practice Prophecy without the proper credentials. I am at best a lucky amateur. Or maybe I dabble in the prophecies that are easy, such as the apple-will-fall-when-I-let-go-of-it sort. Those are very simple prophecies. I’m okay with those and I think I’ll probably not be held too much at fault when they go wrong, as they’re rather common-sense sorts of prophecies.

The other frame is for my degree in Mind-Reading. I don’t have a degree in Mind-Reading, either. Don’t want one. Refuse to school for it. Refuse to accept it if offered. Just not gonna work. I think one of the worst things a person can do is engage in mind reading, except for the possible exception of forcing people who are otherwise unqualified to do so. That’s just wrong.

Normally, this makes sense, but I keep the frames around anyway.

Because (always at the worst times) I forget.

I can’t really do these things. And if I ever try to do these things, I have to realize I’m not skilled at it, not professional at it, not schooled in it. Nothing.

The only thing about this that feels good, however, is knowing that I’m no worse off than anyone else. Plus, it’s harder to lie to myself.

About those two things, anyway.

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According to
www.guardian.co.uk/israel/S…7,00.html

“The Israeli government is planning to give up a large slice of land to American Christian evangelicals to build a biblical theme park by the Sea of Galilee…”

Rock on!

What sort of attractions can we expect to see at Disneychrist?

• The Pirates of the Galilee
• It is Christ’s World Afterrrr Allll! The rest of that ride could probably stay the same. (shudder)
• Honey, I Converted the Audience
• “Blood of my Blood” Teacups ride
• Big Thunder from Heaven Mountain

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Collect up:

• 3 lbs pork roast, chopped into 1/2″ cubes
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup black ground pepper
• 27 oz. can of diced green chilies (although if you only find whole ones, then dice ‘em yourself)
• 7 oz. can of salsa verde
• 2 jalapeño peppers, diced fine (more if you’re feelin’ brave)
• 1/2 diameter bundle of cilantro, chopped fine
• 1/2 lime, chopped fine
• salt

Mix everything up except for the pork and bring it to a boil. Add the pork and drop the temperature down to low and simmer for two or three hours. If it’s too thin for your tastes, about 15 minutes before serving, add a paste of 50/50 flour/butter. Serve with warm tortilla and chips.

This tastes way better the second day.

If you want to cook with a crockpot, then brown the pork first, and then toss everything in the crockpot, put it on low and spend the afternoon decorating for a fiesta.

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What we fear and avoid often becomes our own fences.

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Sometimes, I think of the things that happen to me as a room full of stuff. Sculptures, maybe. And I never dust.

So, little by little, dust falls in the room and settles on all these things. Some are beautiful and some are ugly and some are whatever they need to be. But every day, each gets covered a little bit more.

And new things get brought in all the time (it’s a big room), and they always seem newer and shinier than the things that are already there (’cause I don’t dust).

If I want to, I can take any experience in my life, dust and polish it, and experience it all the same way as it happened a year ago, a decade ago, etc. Assuming I would want to. I mean, lots of new experiences are coming in all the time. If I spend too much time on the old things, the new things get lost.

All these things in this room make up the landscape of my life. They happened when and how they happened and now, when I look at them, they all have a similar look to them, a sort of vague grayish fluffiness that allows me to know they exist without having to re-experience their “richness” again.

If you’re a compulsive duster, than use daily sheer veils and the metaphor still works.

My point is that as time goes on, these things remain powerful, but are placed by our minds in the proper context of our lives, unless we choose to drag them out and keep them all polished and shiny. That takes special effort and that special effort is at the expense of the other things coming into our lives. Sometimes, the only thing we can do is recognize that these are parts of our landscape, accept them, and allow them to fade into shapes from the past.

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First, there’s transparent aluminum: Glass breakthrough.

Then there’s warp drive: Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip.

Scottish warp drive, mind you.

We’re getting closer…

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The year is 2006. According to many folks, by now we should already be doing lots of exploring space, we should have already invented the warp drive, phasers, personal robots, aircars, and hell, why not, teleporters.

2006 is a futuristic year. I mean, c’mon, didn’t most of us figure by 2006 we would at least have solved some of humanity’s basic problems? We’re smart and scientific and we have space probes that have hit the solar system’s bowshock, so we should have most of the local junk figured out.

Take food.

Food’s good. I love food and I love the variety of food available on Earth. So don’t misunderstand me, here. I love cooking and I love making complicated meals. But sometimes…

Where’s our Supermeals? Where’s that meal that’s super-ideal?

In my book, to qualify as a Supermeal, this item must (unless otherwise indicated) have all of the following characteristics:

1. It must be tasty. Seriously. Life’s too short for shitty-tasting food.
2. It must be cheap. I don’t mean a buck-a-pop, but stuff that costs forty bucks for a tube is just outrageous.
3. It must be nutritionally equivalent to good meal. It doesn’t have to fill you up, but a person must be able to live on the stuff for, say, two weeks. It might not be an exciting diet, but they shouldn’t die or get kwashiorkor or anything like that.
4. It must be easy-to-eat. Ideally, by hand. One tool (such as a fork) is okay. Two or more tools is a potential deal-breaker.
5. It must be easy-to-prepare. Ideally, it comes out of the carton ready-to-eat, room temperature, cold, whatever. I’ll be happy if it’s something that needs to me microwaved for a few minutes, but once you get to complex microwaving instructions (nuke for three minutes, uncover peas, nuke for two minutes, recover peas and uncover toast, nuke for six minutes, stir beef heart, cover everything, nuke for two minutes, unfold crisper flap, nuke one minute…, etc.), it starts to lose its appeal.

For example, Pop-Tarts fail criterion 3.

The food pills from the Gernsback publications and other futuristic books would probably fail criterion 1.

So, where’s the Supermeal? Why haven’t we invented this Supermeal and solved friggin’ world hunger yet? Why isn’t it available in vending machines for programmers and truck drivers?

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(Apparently, I can’t resist a challenge)

Please don’t you pilfer
My Momma’s new silver
(‘Cause that would just kill ‘er)
And we can’t have that!

Instead just take her pill
The red one (not purple)
And don’t tell the priest (he’ll
Meow like a cat)!
(2-28-2001)

Our house colors drove you to drink
(At least that’s what most of us think)
We painted the door hinge
A mottled dark orange
And all of the rest a bright pink. (2-27-2001)

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Pictures are like poetry for the illiterate — producing an emotional response regardless of inability to communicate meaningfully.

This is, I think, why pictures will always be censored before text.

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Ever since I was a wee lad, this question has vexed me. No adults I asked could answer it. My conversations went like this:

“If you’re out in public not wearing clothes, are you nekkid?”

Typical adult answer: “Yep.”

“If you’re out wearing clothes that are transparent, but cover your bits, are you nekkid?”

Typical adult answer: “Yep.”

“If you’re out wearing clothes that are opaque and completely cover your bits, are you nekkid?”

Typical adult answer “Nope.”

“If you’re out wearing clothes that are opaque and completely cover your bits, but have a really good drawing on them of your bits, are you nekkid?”

Typical adult answer: “Um…”

It would be nice to clear this up some day.

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You really are a very nice cat. I wish you could understand how difficult your banishment has been, because you are, in fact, quite nice. The things you do seem very affectionate and loving although I understand, of course, that you are a cat. If you have any understanding of affection and love, (which I suspect you do), it is almost certainly an understanding that is completely alien to me, as I am an entirely different species. For example, I cannot lick my own genitals. But I digress.

We all live in this house together. It’s important that we realize this and that we understand this and that we do our best to not urinate on each other’s things. This is common courtesy.

When the other cat was here, the surly cat, yeah, I can understand how things became problematic and how that probably upset you. And I understand also that, because you don’t have any sort of blog or letter-writing capabilities, you expressed your displeasure the same way I would probably express my displeasure, assuming it wasn’t illegal. But that cat’s gone now. He’s been gone for a long time. The only cat that’s here is you and the cat we all moved in with together. The two of you got on quite well. What’s wrong now?

You certainly didn’t seem happy when we decided to give you your own private space (our bedroom) and your own unlimited food supply and your own litterbox and your own snuggles all night. You still peed on stuff. In fact, at least one occasion had you sprint out of the bedroom, rush across the house and immediately pee on something. What the hell are you thinking?

Does your brain function on the level that shows you the cause-and-effect? I mean, even a puppy learns to pee outside, or at least to pee on the paper. You just either aren’t getting it or you don’t want to get it.

This is why you’re outside. This is why you’re banished outside for as long as you remain alive. If only there was a way for me to tell you that you can be inside where it’s warm and happy and coyote-free, but you just gotta pee in the litterbox. That’s the only condition, really. But on several occasions, the other people in the house (who, ironically, don’t see you as quite the peeing-on-things machine as I do) have let you in, supposedly supervised. Yet, even supervised, urine seems to have sprung invisibly from your hole and doused any number of objects in the house, including things that were near and dear to us.

I don’t know why you’re not as smart as a puppy. I don’t know why you can’t pee only in the litterbox, but until you figure this out and figure out a way to clearly explain your commitment to me (sorry, but as much as I care for you, your soft brown eyes will always lose against expensive urine-stained musical instruments), then you will remain forever banished outside.

So stop clawing on the glass already.

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