And What of the Ukulele?

Why is it that you can go to concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic or Philadelphia Orchestra for 100 years and never encounter a guitar concerto, but you can't go 100 minutes on a classical radio station without one?

On Movie-Watching and Television

I'm house-sitting once again this weekend, sharing my days and nights with a television that gets hundreds of channels. (For those not tuned into my life, I have no TV reception at all at my house.) For years now my TV watching has been limited almost exclusively to sports and old movies. This weekend, I've seen lots of sports, ranging from soccer (Uruguay vs. Columbia) to college football (Ohio State vs. USC) to the LPGA (P&G Beauty Northwest Arkansas Championship). But the sporting events, at least those that interest me, have concluded, and I'm idly surfing the channels looking for a movie to watch.

Now, here's the rub. This TV is a 42" LCD that has a Blu-ray player hooked up to it, which means that the viewing experience is far, far better than on my little 20" set up the road. I have all of my (dozen or so) BDs with me, plus a couple of DVDs from the top of my need-to-watch pile. So why am I surfing? Why don't I just put in a disc? I passed by The Bourne Ultimatum on the program guide, and caught myself thinking "yeah, that's an okay movie, I could watch that." But I own that movie, and if it were sitting here next to Fallen Angels, which I brought with me, I wouldn't think twice about which one to watch. Furthermore, if I'd come across Fallen Angels on the program guide, I'd have thought "oooh, great, I'm dying to see that" and immediately switched it on. But I didn't, and rather than turn on the DVD player and starting the Wong film, I find myself watching the last half hour of The Return of the King.

Why?

Why is it so much more appealing (to me) for a film to show up on broadcast tv than in home video format? Is this some vestige from growing up in a three-channel, pre-home-video era, where the few movies that came on were either from Disney or torn apart by The Ghoul, making a really good movie on tv such a rare treat?

So why would I even remotely consider watching The Bourne Ultimatum, probably with cuts and commercial breaks, rather than Fallen Angels? I wouldn't, and I won't. I'm going to pop in the Wong and enjoy it.

I've just gotta make sure Frodo gets on that boat. And then I'll just check the program guide one more time, to make sure I'm not missing something really special...

Living in the Moment

People often say that one should "live in the moment," that this is a healthy and appropriate way to approach life. I presume what they mean is that one should neither dwell on the past nor obsess about the future, and to this degree they are correct. But as I find myself living more and more in the present, I'm not sure it's entirely for the best.

I find the future, even the near future, to be confusing and terrifying. I can't see any inviting path from the present to the future, and have no clear idea what my future looks like. That's frightening. As for the past, I've committed so many sins, and had so many sins visited upon me by others, that even a cursory backwards glance fills me with a mixture or regret and rage and leaves me profoundly sad. I'm sure that if I could come to terms with my past, it would help me face my future, and I hope to be able to do that soon. But in the meantime, my pain avoidance technique is to stay firmly fixed on the here and now.

Maybe that explains why I cherish my movie time each evening. Watching a DVD is completely an "in the moment" experience; if the film is any good, I get absorbed in it and consequently forget about my own life for the duration. What is more, getting wrapped up in a good story lets me move freely into the pasts and futures of the characters on the screen, something I can't do for myself. Because the sadness, anxiety, or rage I encounter on these trips belongs to the characters and not to me, I don't internalize them and instead can view them from a detatched, rational perspective. I frequently find myself advising the characters--"can't you see that's not going to work?" "You should do this and stop doing that"--and when I suddenly realize that I'm advising myself as much as them, I immediately shut down that line of thinking and re-focus on the movie.

I'm taking other small steps beyond movie-watching to make my "now" a place of comfort and confidence; my trips to Harbin add to this, I'm trying to get taken on as a volunteer with the local symphony, and will start taking T'ai Chi lessons next week. Even having Reggie T. around makes me feel a little better right now. I figure that if I can make "today" a reliably positive experience, I can work on expanding "today" little by little into yesterday and tomorrow and thus rehabilitate my whole lifeline.

Submitted Without Comment

...except to point out that all four of the profilees have a partner who provides some measure of financial and emotional support.

Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On (Michael Luo, The New York Times, Sept. 7 2009, page A1)

A Nice Day

On Thursday, I decided to treat myself to two of my favorite activities (among those I can do alone, at least.)

I got up early and drove to San Francisco, where I spent a good hour browsing the DVD section of Amoeba Music, actually finding some good deals on hard-to-find titles, which I purchased for almost nothing after trading in some dogs I no longer wanted. Although the San Francisco Amoeba pales in comparison to the Hollywood store, it is still a blissful place to while away an hour or more. The fact that it's perched on the edge of Golden Gate Park makes it even nicer. Plus of course the drive through the redwood forest and Coast Ranges is beautiful as well.

Then I headed up to Harbin Hot Springs, which has been mentioned before in this blog, and which I find myself visiting about every two or three weeks, despite it being just under four hours from home. If heaven turns out to be just like Harbin, I will not be disappointed. I spent the rest of the day lounging and unwinding in the hot (115º) and cold (60º) pools, in the sauna and on the sundeck, au naturel, and then retired to my tent by the creek to enjoy the starry night--and one of the movies I bought at Amoeba. It was as close to a perfect day as I am able to get on my solo voyage.

And it was not until the evening that it occurred to me that, in an alternate universe, it was the 25th anniversary of my FedEx hire date, an irony that Keith and Clare (at least) might appreciate. (If the rest of you are wondering how I could recall such a thing, it is because your hire date is relentlessly hammered into your consciousness, along with your employee number--mine was 39620.) I don't know what my day might have been like had I been in Memphis (shudder), but I can say absolutely, positively that it would not have been as idyllic.

Whose Cat is it Anyway?

Backstory: back on Aug. 7, Reggie the Cat's father paid a visit, claiming him and explaining that his cancer-stricken wife was beside herself with worry over this missing cat who was her sole source of comfort and so on and so forth. Since then, a little urchin from that house (evidently a grandchild) has also come looking for Reggie. I've gotten into the habit of walking Reggie down to his house when I decide he's been up here too long and is probably missed by his "real" family (even though he's here about 80% of the time.) So:

I just got a visit from his mother, the cancer-stricken one, who had just observed me bringing Reggie home again. She drove up here ("I tried to catch you, but I can't run anymore, I can't even get down the driveway") to tell me not to do that anymore. It seems that they have three kittens that Reggie can't stand, and consequently he's something of a terror when he's trapped inside their house. She says she wants him to be happy, and anyway you can't keep a cat where he doesn't want to be (oh, really?) and Reggie's gotta be Reggie and if he's happier here, then that's fine with her. It was all a little confusing, as well as a little pathetic. I told her that I thought Reggie was a great cat and that he certainly loves being here, and her response was essentially "so be it; I have other cats anyway."

And I was actually going to the Humane Society this afternoon to get another cat. Now I'm not sure what to think, especially if Reggie/Trouble has issues getting along with other cats.

There's Good Advice for Me in Here Somewhere

Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop, by Natalie Angier, New York Times, 8/17/2009, Page D2 of New York ed.

The Times has been reading my diary again:

chronic stress has been shown to raise blood pressure, stiffen arteries, suppress the immune system, heighten the risk of diabetes, depression and Alzheimer’s disease and make one a very undesirable dinner companion.

The article reports on new research that indicates that natural stress-fighting techniques can be habit-forming, even when they are no longer needed and actually may inhibit positive outcomes. In other words, chronic stress can become a self-sustaining feedback loop. No duh.

There's hope, though. It seems that rats subjected to Gitmo-like torture regimens that subsequently lost their ability to see any situation as non-stressful and turned into little automatons were able to regain their natural brain function by going on an extended stress-free vacation. That seems like a good prescription (doesn't it?), until you recognize one crucial difference between rats and humans:

In humans, though, the brain can think too much, extracting phantom threats from every staff meeting or high school dance.

I've been able to find small stress-free islands of calm and luxury, but maintaining that state is difficult. It takes a lot of focus to keep the nagging worries at bay, especially when one is engaging in a completely self-indulgent manner (such as soaking in a hot spring, my current favorite stress therapy) that holds no promise of providing a real-world way out of the rat maze.

Still, it is a little comforting to know that, when I feel better during and immediately after another 24 hours at my spa, it may be because I am better; a little bit of brain healing may have taken place.