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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Nighttime Photography

We were done taking the pictures we needed when the cops showed up, turning the world into red and blue.



The first officer was reasonably cool, and didn't try to blind us.  "Hey.  What are you guys doing?  Sir," and here he addressed my son, "Would you step over here please, and take your hands out of your pockets?   thank you."

I explained to him that we were working on a school project.  He blinked.

"At one in the morning?"

I assured him that yes, if that was what time it was, then that's when we were working on it.  Honestly, why do people ask these things?  "Are you wearing dark glasses at night?"  "Is that a tattoo?"  "Are you really doing this thing you're doing right now?"

Yes, good people.  This is now.  This is now now.  And I have been with me all day, so I should know.



In any case, the Laughing Mouse had, indeed, had a project he needed to work on.  And naturally it was due the next day (technically, I suppose, due later that day).  He'd had  a particular effect in mind, something urban and gritty.  We'd gone to that particular underpass at night to capture the desired effect. Alas, some well-meaning fascist swine had plastered over all the lovely graffiti that had been there just a week before.

"That's odd," I'd said as we pulled up, "I could have sworn this was just the kind of scene you needed . . ."

Gone were the gang tags, the artistic misspellings, the multi-coloured howls of pent-up minds.  Gone were the spray paint screams, the declarations of war, love, lust and fear.  Gone was the exorcism of nightmare, frozen, preserved on a faux stone canvas.  Now it was all a dreary grey, uniform and dull.  Still, the concrete was peeling a little, and with the proper lighting that would do.  After a few false starts we'd gotten the demon-possessed-computer-system-disguised-as-a-camera to work properly, and I captured his soul onto digital memory in a variety of poses.

Then the cops had shown up.  If I'd been thinking faster, I would have asked to photograph them as well.  But I was distracted by the opportunity to add to the Laughing Mouse's education.  While the first cop ran my citizenship papers, (call it a licence if you like), I went over cop etiquette with him.  Chill, stay calm, be as polite as you can.  Bring the tension level down if you're able - sometimes they forget to.  And always, always, keep your voice down and your hands in plain sight.  Because a police badge is also a target, and nobody wants to deal with a tense cop unless he has to.  Trust me.

By the time we were done there were three cop cars, all because of little old us.  Seems someone called them in, convinced we were tagging or something.  Well, we'd been there for an hour, so next time I want to make graffiti, I guess I'll take less than an hour to do it.  But there was a lot of tension around that area because there had been that Devil Graffiti about, and anything that might threaten the Grey, and therefore all of society, was making people nervous.

"Yeah, they just cleaned this place up last week," one cop said, "covered everything up real good . . ."



Dammit.

By the time we were done, there were three police cars.  But everyone was relaxed, and we laughed a little before going our separate ways.  Then the cops parked around each other to hang out and celebrate a non-eventful encounter, and The Laughing Mouse and I went home and crashed in our nice warm beds like the screaming anarchists we were.



Sometime again,

--Coyote.


(Police lights courtesy of deeranddeerhunting.com; Spaceballs is (c) Mel Brooks; pigbird image courtesy of associatedpress.com; sleeping kitten pic courtesy of piccat.com.  All rights reserved by their rightful holders and all that.)

Monday, November 19, 2012

Chapeau Errors and Musical Fidelity


Thanksgiving Break is here at last.  The traditional feasts don't hold too much interest for me, I admit.  But I’ll have class today and tomorrow, and the rest of the week is my own, to do with as I will.  PiƱa Coladas, road rage, trips to the moon . . . nothing is impossible.  With so much freedom of time slots, so much possibility, what shall I do?  Besides actually see my friends for a little, I mean.  Hmmm.

I think I’ll work on my Psychology project.




Actually, I've been looking forward to this all semester.  I’m doing a book review on a lovely little piece of unusual neurology cases called The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks.  You've probably heard of it.  Fascinating stuff, actually.  Not a lot of technical terms or dehumanizing poking and prodding about in other peoples’ skulls.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Oliver Sacks' prose reveals a very caring and philosophical person.  He is a highly educated man with an open mind and a spiritual outlook, and that most prized of all resources, an inquisitive mind.

The first case is also one of the longest, both fascinating and tragic.  It is the tale for which the book was named.  A music professor, a painter, a brilliant mind slowly losing over the years the ability to decode abstract symbols into a meaningful thought pattern.  He thought there was something wrong with his eyes.  But he could see perfectly.  He just had trouble decoding what he saw.

“Ah!”  he might exclaim when you handed him an object.  “A leather pouch, a container.  And with the larger cavity branching off into five smaller ones, it must be very useful.”

“Indeed,” you could say.  “What might it contain?”

“Why, I have no idea.  Money, perhaps, with coins in the smaller cavities, and folded currency in the larger . . .”




The object, of course, was a glove.  

On his way out of the office after their first meeting, the professor looked around for his hat.  Seeing his wife standing there, he gently grasped he head and lifted, seeking to wear her head on his own.  He realized his mistake fairly quickly, and she smiled, accustomed to such errors.  But yes: he mistook his wife for a hat.

His brain had slowly lost its ability to communicate, somehow, with the concrete aspects of his experiences and environment.  Prosopagnosia, it is called.  He was brilliant in music, and had been a superb painter.  But over the years, his painting had been disintegrating along with his ability to identify.  His wife applauded his changing style, seeing her husband expand and fly out of the confines of form and substance in the visual world.




But he wasn't flying.  He was falling.  And there was no way to stop.

Yet even in this tragedy there was inspiration.  In order to eat properly, or dress, he had a kind of song he would sing to himself, that was his adaptation. If his melody was interrupted, he would become completely lost, true.  But he had found a way to use his music to find his way around the ideas, the thought patterns, that he had lost.

Even in the darkest maze of neurological damage, he had found light.  And he had found it not in therapy or drugs or institutionalization, but in his music.




As I understand it, he continued teaching until he died.  And since Dr. Sacks has recently put out a new book, apparently he is as well.  That sits well with me.  I heard part of an interview with him on NPR, and I think he would be a fascinating person to talk to.  But until I get the opportunity to do so – assuming he lives long enough – I will content myself with his books.  And from what I have read thus far, I highly recommend them.

--Coyote.

(Formless Purgation is by OneLifeOneArt and is available for viewing along with other works at deviantart.com; illuminated labrynth photo by Deborah Munro at inthecourtyard.com; Wile E. Coyote is still (c) Warner Broters.  All rights reserved by the rightful owners unless they decide not to.)

Sunday, November 11, 2012

And Now For Something Completely Different


I’ve missed a few posts in recent times, and no doubt you are wondering what could drag me away, kicking and screaming, from my Adventures Underground.  And I am here to tell you, it has been a serious drag . . .




Ah, maybe not that serious.  Perhaps I should start from the beginning.

Months and months ago when I first began my trek though the trackless wilderness known as academia, I was in search of a career.  Something that I could get into relatively quickly, that I would be good at, and ideally would feed my soul as I did it.  Something that would fill a need within me for self-mastery, hopefully but not necessarily in dealing with the martial art, something that would allow me to explore the body-mind link and perhaps even allow me to help others learn how to make themselves stronger and healthier in the process.

So when becoming a Physical Therapy Assistant was suggested, it seemed a perfect choice.




I would learn the ways of the human body, and how to help it heal itself.  I would teach aspects of this understanding to others, train them in how to not only heal themselves, but how to avoid injury in the future.  This would allow me to become a more effective martial artist as well, and when the time came, a more effective martial arts trainer.  I have waxed poetic about how ridiculous I think it is that martial artists and athletes start to feel their bodies breaking down before they’re thirty.  I would use knowledge from PTA to help change that.  I could revolutionize the world.


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I would take advantage of a cooperative program between Wossamotta U and Happy Valley, a fine campus just across the state line, to get my training at a price I could afford.  And so with this in mind, I have taken two semesters now of science-heavy classes and brain-scraping med-oriented curricula.

However comma this was before I was informed that I was categorically ineligible for the cooperative program because of my address.  Specifically, that I must live in a completely different (and more upscale) county than I do.  And I must prove that I have lived there for at least the last six months.

That sound you hear is not the sound of a large automobile screeching its tires and slamming into a brick wall.  That sound is my brain.




Like any campus, Wossamotta reserves the right to change the requirements of any of its programs without notice.  I had copied all the documentation when I was first preparing for the classes, and I double checked them now.  Nothing was mentioned about this then.  Based on the lack of this little detail in the information available Way Back When, and the hurry that the woman running the program was in to dismiss me and get me to stop wasting her time, it seems likely that yes indeed, the rules have changed.  I’m told that there was one, out-of-the way place it was mentioned, but that hardly matters now.  No one in either campus I’d talked to, including three councilors, had expected this.




So I have been busy dismissing thoughts of bell towers and high-powered rifles and focusing on changing gears in my academic career.  I have two semesters of classes and something over twenty thousand dollars in debt.  Not only do I still want a degree and a career option or two, I want to not waste what I’ve already done.

One of the draws for that particular PTA program had been guaranteed job placement upon graduation.  With that out of the way, all other options should be reconsidered.  And so, studying the system carefully, I think I will ultimately go into psychology. 




Now, to some of you that may seem like quite a change in paradigm.  So I'll ask you all to remember your Marcus Aurelius, and please consider the following:

Psychology is a study that has always fascinated me.  I am enough of a geek that I do in fact read papers written by friends taking psych courses, and I read old textbooks for fun.  Ultimately, I hope to get into research on the states of consciousness, find out more about the body-mind connection from the mind angle.  This is not to say that I would never do counseling, but I'm more interested in the experimentation angle.  Psychology by definition is a tool one can use to improve one’s understanding of one’s self, and I would also use it to improve my meditation techniques.  And, of course, better self-knowledge – and therefore self-mastery – can eventually mean being a better sensei.  Because at the end of the day, everything is training.

So, you see?  From physical therapy to psychology research, all as a martial art discipline.  Not that big a step, really.  It's all in how you look at it.




In the short run, I think I can apply some of the medical classes I’ve taken into science requirements, and the rest of them will go into electives.  With so many science courses, and life being as uncertain as it is, I will probably get an Associates’ of General Science Degree, choosing classes that will overlap into an Associates’ of Arts shortly thereafter.  From there I should be able to advance as I like.  It may be slow going, since after a while I’ll be working as well, but I have a new scheme in place and a forward to be going, so I am content.

Life continues to be a grand adventure.  And for all that there continue to be some rough times ahead, I’m still glad through it all to be spared a boring life.

Sometime again,

--Coyote.






(The character may be (c) some vast octopus-like company or other like 20th Century Fox, but Tim Curry will always be Frankie and no one can take that away; Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are still (c) Warner Brothers last I heard; Revolutionary Girl Utena was written and created by Chiho Saito; Calvin was created by Bill Watterson; Carl Jung essentially created himself and more power to him.)

Monday, November 5, 2012

A Brief Gazette



Somebody please help me knock this thing out

I don’t have any heroes
Valiant and bold
I’m not riddled with self-loathing
And hostility is old
I’m not wired for self destruction
I’ve never been to jail
I’m not in love with innocence
I’m not convinced I’ll fail

I’m not recovering from addiction
Assault, illness, or abuse
I’m not depressed or hating life
I’ve never paid my dues
I’m not obsessed with pain
Or from the tough part of town
No one’s died near me lately
And I’ve never yet found God

Somebody please help me knock this thing out

As you probably noticed, there was no post last week.  I was otherwise occupied with the intricate details of my school life.


Well, all right, it wasn't that bad.  But ye gods it wasn't good.

A few weeks ago I ended up taking ill enough that I missed most of my studying time for my Body Parts and Functions Class.  For those of you who have never taken such a class, allow me to summarize: this is Hot Death.

I showed up for the exam, though I felt like a three-week-old tuna sandwich, figuring that any points were better than no points.  The Prof was cool, surprisingly cool.  He took me into his office and made me an offer: take the exams a week late (one week to study, plus the few days I'd already spent), and then take the next one on time (one week to study, no saving throw).  After that, I'd have two weeks per exam for study as usual.  Not having a brain made completely of tapioca, I said yes.


I got good grades on everything except the lab exams, which allows me to keep my "B" in BP&F.  But that was a two-week cram that I can assure you I am not keen on repeating.  Then I got all the rest of my classes caught up, took my Head Shrinking 101 exam (100%, say thank ye), got home, and collapsed in a smoking ruin.


I've been at the books, and trying to unsnarl the SNAFU of my degree-seeking aspirations, ever since.  More on that later.  For now I must withdraw: there is work to do and throats to cut.  Even if it turns out, as it seems currently, that the classes I am taking now will benefit me none at all - anything worth doing is worth doing beautifully.

See you next week.

--Coyote.



(Migraine pic courtesy of myhousecallmd.com; Bullwinkle is owned by Viacom these days, I think; tapioca bowl pic courtesy of 2footalligator.blogspot.com; smoking ruin pic courtesy of smh.com.  All rights reserved by those who reserve them.)