hobby shops

Frank:

It's true, this hobby shop owner sounds like kind of a misfit.  I'm assuming that all hobby shop owners are misfits, actually, but this guy sounds like he's a misfit even among hobby shop owners.  What he needs is a few sessions with a hobby-shop-owner-therapist, which is a very small niche in the psychoanalytical profession, indeed.

It's been years since I've been in a hobby shop, and I guess I'm about due to visit one.  The "hobbies" involved with hobby shops are pretty much all about creating and being the boss of miniature worlds, right?  Miniature trains and their towns, miniature planes and helicopters, miniature cars and miniature trucks.  Little rockets and little boats, and little armies of men.  And the owners and workers are mostly bulky, large men, right?  It's a pretty funny thing, when you think about it.  Most girls get over their dollhouse phase... I guess it's because they successfully transition from moving tiny people and furniture around, to moving real furniture and people around. I wonder if the whole hobby shop business is kind of dying out across America, or is it still a vital, ongoing thing?  I imagine it's like stamp collecting, where the few remaining stamp collectors of the world get together to grumble and complain about the state of people today, and wonder why young people nowadays aren't interested in stamp collecting, and blah, blah, blah.  You get the same thing among book store owners, with their noses all out of joint because somebody invented a thing called a "kindle." Once in awhile, at auctions or something, I come across cool lots of little painted metal antique soldiers -- knights or British colonial soldiers in India, or whatever -- and I feel a brief tug, and think how fun and interesting it would be to collect something like that.  And then I get myself straightened out and think, no, I don't want to go there.  I would assume that for a lot of guys these days, the fantasies involved with fiddling around with little trains and cars, have been replaced by digital fantasies -- the thousands of mini--worlds that are available through video games, or whatever they are called these days.

I am thinking the key to Jain McClain's business success -- if she is successful ... is there really much of a market for "art advisors" in Lake Tahoe? -- is never to snort or scoff when her clients tell her what they have in mind, no matter what.  That might sound like a hard skill to manage, but it would be a lot easier if she actually didn't have a whole lot of artistic taste herself, which is probably the case.  I notice on her website resume that she has taught art appreciation courses at schools like Truckee Meadows Community College.  Which could be an important center of art world culture, for all I know, but still.  It makes me think that clown paintings might be right up her alley.

Speaking of websites,  it doesn't really matter any more if a person is "successful" or not.  What matters is that other people think you are successful.  And that's where having a website, and about 500 Facebook "friends," and who knows what else, comes into play.  Pretty much anyone can slap together a website that makes them appear successful, and once you do that, you just have to provide all sorts of links to your website, and give your website address to strangers in bars, and then presto, you have it made.

And that last paragraph makes me think about another lesson that I've only partially learned in about the last five years.   It relates to introverts vs. extroverts, and how screwed introverts are in this world we live in.  In a group meeting, for instance, some gathering that is supposed to make decisions for the whole group, the extroverts always blab out a bunch of stuff that sounds good on the surface.  As an introvert, I always instinctively assume that everyone is at least a little like I am, that they think before they speak, and actually have good reasons for saying something before blabbing it out to a whole group.  But no, it turns out that extroverts are not like that at all.  They just talk because that is what they do.  But before you know it, the whole group is careening off in the direction of whatever popped into the heads of the extroverts in the first few seconds.  Same thing at a social gathering, especially a cocktail party in New York.  A couple of extroverts are talking, with me rounding out the group.  They make some clever sounding statements to each other.  I stand there thinking about what they said.  About a minute later, I realize that it's basically bullshit, and I've come up with a clever response.  Then I tune in to what they are saying again, and it turns out they are now on a totally different topic, saying some clever sounding things.  And on and on like that.

--edward

helicopter jains

Frank:

Interesting about your interaction with the hobby shop owner.  Why do you think he latched onto you so single-mindedly?  Was it because you showed an interest in helicopters, and helicopters is the thing he's most interested in out of all the other stuff in his shop, and no one else wanted to talk about them?  Or were other people also wanting to talk about helicopters, but he detected in you some deeper helicopter obsession that he related to, or what?  Or is it just that you are a much nicer, more interesting and attractive person than you give yourself credit for?  I certainly saw evidence of that when we were hiking in the mountains behind your house in Salt Lake, where people would be all over you, like ants on a drop of honey, wanting to talk to you, listen to you, and generally just be with you, even if it meant delaying their hike for half an hour or more. You should go back to the hobby shop some time, to see if he instantly gravitates to you again, and starts right up again where he left off, or if the whole thing was just a one-time oddity and he doesn't even remember you.  Maybe he was on bath salts.  If you had stayed just a few minutes later, you would have found yourself tied up in the back room, while he hovered radio powered helicopters armed with razor blades, around your helpless, writhing body.

Helicopters, huh?  Reminds me of a student I taught once who had a touch of autism, or something.  He was fascinated by elevators, and was interested in pretty much nothing else.  He would make all kinds of drawings and diagrams showing different kinds of elevators, and was only interested in reading technical material about elevators.  I wish I could say he went on to become a great world-renowned authority on elevators, but he lost his elevator obsession somewhere in high school, and became interested in record players and speakers.  The last time I saw him -- he's probably 22 years old now --  he was trying to cobble together an income as some kind of audio technician, but it didn't seem to be going very well. 

I am thinking about your concern not to do violence to the mice that share the house with you, which I probably sound sarcastic about, but I actually do admire it.  But now I'm going to say some more stuff that sounds sarcastic, unfortunately..... Maybe you should become a Jain.  That is a person who practices an ancient Indian religion called Jainism.  I think it's already a sign that your sister is named Jane, which surely is no coincidence in the grand, eternal scheme of things.  The Jains believe a lot of stuff, but one fundamental belief is that all living beings, down to micro-organisms, I think, have a soul, and it is important not to do violence to any of them.  They are, of course, vegetarians.  When they walk in the streets, they have a little broom that they use to constantly sweep the ground where they are about to walk, to make sure they don't step on a bug or something.  That's what I've heard, anyway.  Just to be helpful, I just did a google seach for "Jainism Lake Tahoe," to see if there is a nearby Jainism temple you could attend.  Unfortunately, the closest hit was for a Lake Tahoe resident named Jain McClain.  She is a "fine art advisor," which apparently means you go to her and tell you a little about yourself and what kind of art you like, then she goes out and buys some art for your house, for a fee.  I guess it's primarily for people who just built a new macmansion, and they're looking at the thousands and thousands of square feet of blank wall space, decorated only by a few velvet paintings and a couple of Thomas Kincaide prints, and they say, "You know what?  We need some more god damned art around this place.  But we're too busy making money for that kind of shit.  What should we do?"  So they call Jain McClain.

At any rate, your mouse trap doesn't sound dumb, since it actually does catch mice.  But maybe it only catches the dumb ones.  If that's the case, then it's nice of you to feed those dumb mice to the animals that live a mile from your house, who are probably pretty hungry after a long winter.

--edward

mice, cannibals, zombies

Frank:

Yes, maybe Dick Cheney would look something like our sump pump set-up, if you opened him up and looked inside.  That's a good analogy.

Thanks for the informative update on cannibalism.  Actually, I think it's maybe better not to know about that stuff.  That kind of sordid information has a way of worming its way deep into the brain like a virus, and who knows where it leads?  Could be it be connected to the fact that I find myself wondering, what does human flesh actually taste like?  Chicken, probably.  That's what they say about all sorts of strange meats, from rattlesnake to alligator.... it all tastes like chicken.

I really do think it's a good idea to limit the amount of information, especially videos, that a person allows to stream into their consciousness.  For instance, during my research on Luka Rocca Whateverhisnameis, I came across what seemed to be an opportunity to watch his video where he kills his Chinese boyfriend with an ice pick and then....I'm not sure.  Has sex with the body parts?  Fortunately, the little angel voice part of me was able to win the argument with the little devil voice, and convince me that I really didn't need to see that.  But, for other reasons, I did end up watching a youtube offering of the Zapruder film, which basically shows Kennedy's head exploding.  Now that I've seen that, I'm thinking, it probably would have been better not to have inserted that image into my brain.

I think zombies should be kept clean and fun.  The link you sent me about cannibal zombies violates the clean, fun zombie standard.  If any news about zombies doesn't make you laugh, then it's inappropriate.  Here in Portland they have an annual event called Zombie Kickball, where people dress up like zombies and play kickball.  I've never seen it, but I imagine there is a lot of healthy laughter and silliness, with no bad aftertaste.  That is what zombies should be all about.

Yes, I've heard about these bath salts.  It doesn't sound like something you'd want to fool around with, unless you don't mind suddenly finding yourself with some guy's face in your mouth, and blood dribbling down your chin, and you're wondering, "What the heck?!"  Bath salts have been a problem in northern Maine, which is sort of an isolated Appalachian-mountain-type area full of unemployed, uneducated, desperate people with an affinity for  crystal meth, prescription pain killers, and now bath salts.

Okay, so now you've found two mice.  That means more.  I'm guessing at least six or eight.  Tell me again how this plastic bucket/empty jar of peanut butter trap works.  I don't quite get it.  At any rate, it makes me wonder what happens to a mouse after you release it in unknown territory a mile away from its home.  Does it quickly find a nice new unoccupied place to live and settle happily into a welcoming nature community, or does it spend a few hours or minutes of terror, before being killed and eaten by the animal residents of the area -- including other mice, which are pretty territorial, I think --  who grew up there are are already familiar with all the safe hiding places, the food sources, and so on?  Or perhaps the evicted mouse is a real survivor, a fighter, in which case I guess it stands a chance of killing or terrorizing the weaker resident mice who had previously been living there in hard-won harmony.  Who knows?  No one can say you're not at least giving them a chance.  This is why people keep cats, which is the perfect solution....  a sociopathic small animal serial killer masquerading as a cute, lovable ball of pettable fluff.  In cases of mouse proliferation I  the solution of the old fashioned snap trap acceptable,  except -- and this is a BIG except --  that about one out of every ten times it seems to not kill the mouse instantly but to injure or incapacitate it somehow, which is truly horrible. 

--edward

Luka Rocco Magnotta?

Frank:

Keep me posted on the mouse thing.  It's interesting.

We have been having non-stop rain for three days now, and by non-stop, I mean non-stop, without ever stopping.  You go outside at any time, day or night, and it's raining, sometimes lightly, sometimes hard.  How can there be so much water up there in the air? Under conditions like that, water comes into our basement... our basement is suddenly a very low place in the way of great underground rivers.  When we first moved into this house, it would happen that the water would come up a couple of feet high down there.  Incredibly cold water that made you gasp if you waded down into it, which I did a few times.  It was like sloshing around down in steerage on the Titanic.  It's dangerous to do that, thanks to the possibility of getting electrocuted, since the furnace, washing machine and other large electrical appliances are also down there in the water, but I didn't know that at the time, being a California boy with no experience of such things.  Eventually, we had work done where they dug a sort of gravel filled covered trench all around the inside walls of the basement, that drains the water into a pit in the basement floor with a couple of sump pumps in it.  Right now, those pumps are running almost constantly.  If for some reason they stopped working, the basement would once again be under a couple of feet of water within a couple of hours.  The water pumps up and outside and goes onto the lawn.  You'd think it would create a huge lake out there, but it all seems to soak into the soil.  The grass around that area grows particularly lush and green, like a field of cattails.  I took a photo of this basement sump pump place, but it doesn't really convey the spirit of constantly inflowing and outflowing rush of water.  There's a constant sound of pouring water, it it feels like being hooked up to a life support machine.

Yes, politics seem to be completely about money these days.  If some billionaire decided to spend a really sizable chunk of his fortune, he could probably singlehandedly decide who the next president would be.  For all I know, maybe that's happening right now.  As voters, we're just a bunch of rodents, having our destiny decided for us by whoever has the most money to appear to buy food pellets for the majority of other rodents. 

We're back into burrito mode around here.  I bought a big roast and cooked it for hours in the crock pot until it basically became pulled beef, then added caramelized onions and all sort of other good things, and now it's Mexico-in-Maine for a few days.

I see that the arrest of this kitten-killing Canadian psycho, "Luka Rocco Magnotta" in Berlin is so noteworthy that even the New York Times covered it.  Well, that's the wonderful thing about the age we live in, that a humble porn star psychopath can be a fascinating celebrity, and maintain a website where he keeps the world updated on his views about life, politics and the media, with a constant stream of photographs of himself in glamorous places.  Too bad for him that he slipped up by mailing body parts to different political offices, while not removing the torso from his own apartment.... kind of careless, if you ask me.  I didn't see anything about cannibalism, but it seems perfectly natural and believable, given the other stuff this guy was into.  It's too bad about the kittens, but he certainly showed initiative.  He looks a lot like Tom Cruise, which doesn't hurt, I guess.

--edward

Columbus Mouse

Frank:

Hundreds of shabby Martians walking the street?  Gee, I think that would be pretty startling, no matter what you say.

If there was just one mouse, he must have been a very special mouse, an explorer mouse, like a mouse version of Christopher Columbus.  A mouse of vision and purpose.  You should have kept it and worked with it, and started a mouse circus.  Maybe it would have granted you three wishes, if you had only asked.

I haven't heard about a rise in the incidence of  people eating each other.  That just shows we get our information about the world from different places.  The New York Times has not mentioned a plague of cannibalism. 

Yes, it is kind of strange to be more upset about the killing of a kitten than the killing of a person, but I totally get it.  Kittens are cute and innocent.  People are not.  It is much more disturbing to me when a dog or horse gets mistreated in a movie, than a person.  Animals have those big, trusting eyes, while people have evil little eyes, full of selfishness and greed.  Yes, I am very touched when I see a dog injured in some way on TV, or even a dog that is feeling lonely or abandoned.  Meanwhile,  I am happily eating a plate of spaghetti slathered with a delicious sauce made from ground up cow bodies, cows that once had big inquisitive pink noses, and large brown eyes, with long eyelashes.

By the way, I was thinking about what I said about prices in France and Italy being about the same as in the States.  Maybe it was because the Euro was down in comparison with the dollar.  Must have something to do with the fact the Europe is about to go down the drain.  Though we didn't see any particular signs of distress where we were.  No crowds of famished people roving the streets, or starving dogs feeding on decaying corpses.  Actually, I was kind of prepared to see lots of litter and dirt in Italy, sort of a European version of Mexico, since I had the impression that's what Italy is like.  But everything was clean and organized and tidy.  Maybe it's worse in southern Italy.  It's kind of amazing, actually, seeing all the remnants of Roman civilization -- roads and aqueducts and remains of theaters and gates and so on, all over Italy, and up through France, and everywhere they went, which was a lot of places.  They had roads going all the way from Rome to Paris, and things like that.  A lot of their stuff has lasted for 2000 years, while here a road or building starts falling apart after about fifty years.  From what I understand, slave labor had a lot to do with their fine building accomplishments.  When they came to new tribes and cities and such, the basic message was, submit to total domination and slavery, or be annihilated.  They used to keep little slave children in cages, to be brought out as playthings for the Roman children, until they grew up enough to be put to real work.

--edward

The Misfits

Frank:

So, did you enjoy Bonnie and Clyde as much this time around, or was it a disappointment?  It was a pretty ground-breaking and emotional movie when it first came out, that's for sure.  I remember we saw it at the theater in Crestline. That's the only movie I remember ever seeing in that Crestline theater.  But I could imagine seeing it again now and thinking it was lame and boring.  Actually, I think I did see it several years ago, and I did think it was kind of lame and boring.  Same with Little Big Man, which I thought was great the first time around.  Oh well.  Sometimes, I think it's a matter of a person's state of mind when they watch a movie.  Just like a person enjoys food a lot more when they are really hungry,  there are certain situations and emotional conditions that might make a person enjoy a movie more or less than they normally would.  For instance, that time we watched most of the movie, The Misfits, when we were sick in Mexico.  Not that it's a bad movie, it's a good movie,  but for some reason, under those specific conditions, it seemed like the most amazing, magical movie. I have seldom enjoyed a movie more.  It all seemed to strange and wonderful, under the semi-delirious circumstances. Particularly that bizarre sequence where they focused on Marilyn Monroe's butt bouncing up and down as she rode her horse, and it seemed to go on for five minutes. And there was another time a few months ago when I was riding on a bus from Boston to Portland.  I was extremely tired, and they were playing a ridiculous and dumb comedy called Galaxy Quest.  But it was so silly and intellectually non-demanding and perfect for my mental condition that I totally enjoyed every minute of it.  When I got off the bus, I told the bus driver "That was a great movie!" I'm sure he thought I was being sarcastic, but I was totally sincere.

Everything I just said in that paragraph, I feel like I've said before in previous e-mails at different times, but so what.  That's the great thing about getting older.  You get a free pass to repeat yourself over and over.  It's like having a lifetime pass to Disneyland, only not as much fun.

I will be interested to hear if you come across any more mice.  Usually one mouse means many mice.

Your recent ebay experience selling the stereoview cards sounds extremely frustrating, like some kind of mild form of torture.  You should just sell all of them in a single lot and be done with it.  Selling those cards one at a time for 99 cents each is crazy.  Of course, I understand, the hope is that some of them will go for much more than 99 cents.   What is the most you ever got for one of these cards, and what did the picture show?

I see you have lots of bright sunshine in Lake Tahoe these days, which must make you feel like a grub that has been unearthed from its comfortable place under the dirt, and now it's lying in the light, ready to be found by robins or crows.  I think of the grub image because I have been digging in the garden lately, and coming across some of these grubs now and then.  I squish them with my fingers.  Right now we've got a driving rain, with rain, clouds and fog forecast for the next three days.  Maine is like that a lot in the spring.

--edward

The Alps

Frank:

Yes, no wine at the picnics.  It was mostly lukewarm water out of battered metal water bottles.  For French people, they weren't much into drinking.  We'd have a single bottle of wine for dinner, split among four people.

We were mostly in the Italian Alps, and also in the French Alps for some of the time.  We stayed at little inns and hotels along the way, places that they had already stayed at before, and liked.  We'd generally stay in each place anywhere from two to four nights.  We also spent a couple of nights at their house in a village outside Grenoble, France.  It's a 250 year old farm house, with a large, incredible garden, with mountains all around.  There is a huge stone barn with very large 250 year old beams and timbers inside, held together with hand made joints and wooden pegs, each timber looking like some kind of sculpture.  Yes, it's true that they were well dressed when they went hiking.  The guy was wearing a short sleeve button-down shirt and nice slacks, but they were made of high tech wicking material.  I told him he should get a necktie to wear when he hikes, made of wicking material.  I couldn't quite tell if he thought that comment was funny or irritating.

Supposedly we had the right adaptor for the ipad, but on the first night we used that adaptor on a little electric alarm clock, and the clock stopped working after a few minutes, so we figured something was wrong and that it would be pretty risky to try it with the ipad.  Plus, a lot of the places didn't have wireless connection, or they didn't have very good connections. Peggy took the adaptor in to the store today to find out what was wrong, and it turns out we were also supposed to have a "converter" hooked up to the thing.  Good thing we didn't plug in the ipad. Europeans seem a lot less interested in using electronic gadgets... we saw very few people using iphones or computers.  And yes, we used Euros everywhere.  It was pretty convenient.  In the places where we were, things seemed comparably priced to what we would pay here, maybe even a little less.  Except for gas, which is about $6.50 a gallon.

Too bad the hiking trip never came off.  I was looking forward to hearing how Chris would get beaten up.  I was figuring it would probably  you that would do it, that the two of you would get drunk, and he'd start in with all kinds of nasty, belittling remarks, and on and on with that, until... POW!  I know that you have a certain line of tolerance for that sort of thing.

Yes, mice are amazing for the way they can squeeze through incredibly thin spaces.  It's like they are able to temporarily liquify their bones or something.  That's really something that you have gone to such lengths to try to protect your house and gear from the mouse, without hurting it.  Most people would just go out and get a  99 cent Victor mousetrap.

I will be interested to hear what you're thinking about the book, Self Therapy.  I got a lot of good out of it, though I have to say I bailed out at the very end, when it started to seem like there are endless complications of "exiles" and "protectors" engaging in such diverse ways that I got a little discouraged.  It was starting to sound like I had to become like the mayor of New York in order to manage the chaos of various personalities interacting inside me.  The author would probably say that it was just another "exile" -- the Discourager -- that got me down, and that I'm a wimp, but that's okay.  I learned a lot of useful stuff from the part I read and took to heart.

--edward