10 Top Scariest Creatures of the Desert Southwest

INTRODUCTION

The Palms Springs Desert Museum recently took a survey identifying those creatures most feared by the public. In order of scariness from ten to one (one being the scariest), the Museum found:

10) black widows
9) scorpions
8) mountain lions
7) coyotes
6) tarantulas
5) wood rats and mice
4) Gila monsters
3) bats
2) bees
1) rattlesnakes

Some fears are misdirected; rattlesnakes kill only 12 or so people a year while others are dead-on. Bees kill more people (53 annually) than the remaining nine animals combined. Think fear of wood rats or mice is irrational? Think again. The deadly Coccididmyosis Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) is spread to humans through rodent urine and droppings. Of the 30 cases diagnosed annually, the fatality rate is 40%. And just because snakes kill infrequently, do not step on a Mojave rattlesnake; their hypodermic fangs inject both neuro and hemo toxins.

As a master desert naturalist, interpretive guide and docent at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, I live and work in the hottest, driest place in North America outside of Death Valley. I’m around most of these creatures on a regular basis, sometimes up close and personal. Let’s explore some of their scariest behaviors and see why people shouldn’t provoke wildlife. Come, join my world.

POSTSCRIPT (after you have read the profiles)

I hike over 1,000 miles annually in the California desert, never missing an opportunity to explore nature’s wonders. If you want to enjoy nature and stay safe – actually, none of us gets out of this alive, but your end won’t likely come from wild animals – simply arm yourself with a healthy respect for these amazing creatures. And never utter the famous last words, “Give me another beer and watch this.”

Alcohol

The Immortality Placebo

Safe Senate Seat

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Whose Last Supper? An Interview with Maus von Trapp, Ph.D.

[this is an MFA writing assignment asking for 500 words on how something works]



Zoophobia is the deathly fear of spiders, insects and dare I say it… rodents! I’ve conquered my zoophobia with confrontation therapy using, or trying to use, mousetraps. However, after sustaining numerous, albeit non-life-threatening, mousetrap-induced injuries caused by my klutzy “peanut-butterfingers,” I developed machinaphobia, Greek for fear of machines.

Phobia confrontation worked for me in the past, so to cure myself of machinaphobia, I tracked down and interviewed the man who invented the dreaded modern mousetrap, Professor Maus von Trapp. He’s of the famous von Trapps featured in the movie, Sound of Music.

The Interview (over veinerschnitzel supper at Bridgett’s German Restaurant, Yucca Valley, California)

Fuchs: Herr Doctor, what prompted you to invent the modern mousetrap?

von Trapp: Cats! Back in olden days, everyone used cats to eradicate mice and believe me, we had plenty of cats. You might as well have renamed Deutschland “Katzland.”

Fuchs: I don’t understand. What’s wrong with using cats?

von Trapp: I’m allergic to cats!

Fuchs: I see. So you kind of had to invent a “better mousetrap,” so to speak?

von Trapp: Scheisse! I hate that expression! How would you like it if everyone tried to improve your invention? You don’t hear millions of people trying to improve the wheel, do you? In fact, only a fool would reinvent the wheel.

Fuchs: Indeed. Well, we have only 294 words left, so could you please describe the parts of a mousetrap?

von Trapp: Yes, my invention consists of a:

1) platform/wooden base plate
2) holding/locking bar
3) bow/hammer (spring loaded)
4) spring (attached to the bow/hammer), and
5) bait plate with top-mounted clasp/latch

Fuchs: How do you set the trap?

von Trapp: Apply peanut butter (the “last supper”) to the bait plate. Move aside the holding/locking bar. Carefully pull back the spring-loaded bow/hammer until it touches the platform/wooden base. Hold it in place with your thumb. Pull the holding/locking bar over the bow/hammer until it reaches the bait plate. Then ever so gingerly engage the end of the holding/locking bar to the bait plate via the clasp/latch (located on top of the bait plate).

Fuchs: Oh my God, that sounds very, very scary.

von Trapp: The mouse isn’t scared at all, the trap doesn’t appear predatory to a mouse.

Fuchs: I meant to me.

von Trapp: Check please!

Fuchs: I was, uh, only kidding. Do continue. We have 105 words remaining.

von Trapp: The mouse nibbles at the peanut butter on the bait plate. Its movement disengages the holding/locking bar from the clasp/latch atop the bait plate, thus releasing the spring-loaded bow/hammer. Traveling at nearly 500 miles per hour, it slams shut in 1/18000th of a second; even the fastest mouse hasn’t a chance. To put it in human terms, say a missile followed your car. By the time you glanced at your rear view mirror, you’d be dead.

Fuchs: That’s reassuring. Well doctor, Dankeschön.

Von Trap: Auf Wiedersehen! And young man, get some help.

Driving home from Yucca Valley

That seemed to work; I’m now machinaphobia-free and enjoyed a wonderful supper... What? What’s that? A flash of light in my rear view mirr....

Fuchswörterbuch

The Fuchswörterbuch defines "Aerlingus" as:
Oral sex between two airplanes.

Gucci "Hysteria"

Gucci HYSTERIA COLLECTION, hysteria bag in python (actual snake) $4,590

I noticed the price, $4,590 for something to hold money. Personally, I'd spend $90 and stuff the bag with my $4,500 savings. But there's no explaining i) the female brain (buying a product named after "hystera," Greek for uterus) or ii) people with more money than brains.


Based on the following definition of "hysteria," the name makes perfect sense:

1. Behavior exhibiting excessive or
uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.

2. A mental disorder characterized by
emotional excitability and sometimes by amnesia
or a physical deficit, such as paralysis,
or a sensory deficit, without an organic cause.


I'm introducing my own line of handbags, the "Dementia Collection," a cheap plastic or paper knockoff with prices starting at $10,000. Customers will most likely forget their purchase, thus necessitating additional purchases.

The only question is: paper or plastic?

The Walnuts

A good friend of mine, Ron Zastre, asked me to review his new novel, The Walnuts. Ron is the Rube Goldberg of bizarre situations, creating for his characters a series of non-stop escapades.

The novel begins when an alien spaceship dumps its cargo, a human-appearing "man." He befriends a group of earthlings who behave in a singularly human manner; they are a bunch of screw ups. In a subtle shift in POV, human hijinx is seen through alien eyes. We travel from inside to outside the human "fishbowl," then settle inside the fishbowl's glass where human and alien perception intertwine and become one.

The non-stop hilarity would make the worst misanthrope laugh out loud!

Ron would be disappointed if I didn't add the following:
Available at Amazon.com

The Nutcracker – Mouse Queen’s Revenge

SYNOPSIS

St. Petersburg, Russia, December 18, 1892
(Action takes place on this one day and in real time with the events of that evening).

ACT I
Ivan, age 15, studies violin at conservatory. He seeks camaraderie with his care-free friends, but his overbearing father, concertmaster at the Maryinski Ballet, thinks Ivan should be more disciplined. Ivan spies from afar the lovely ballerina Catherina, also 15. Father, however, drags Ivan to the final dress rehearsal before opening night. Ivan sits in the musicians' pit next to father, turning his pages. Father wants Ivan to become a professional violinist. Tchaikovsky conducts.

We meet the strange Drosselmeier and his balletic pet mice. To the opening night ballet audience he is a cast member, an old man with a black eye patch and mystical powers. In reality, he possesses supernatural powers, but is easily manipulated. His only love is not for Natasha, his evil, wanna-be ballerina grand daughter, but for his pet mice.

Love-smitten Ivan watches Catherine outclass Natasha at the final audition. But Natasha is not finished; she will stop at nothing, including murder, to secure the role of “Clara,” the girl whose dream is the Nutcracker ballet. Ivan inadvertently manages to lock horns with macho-Boris, the arrogant 18 year old bully who plays the Nutcracker.

Natasha plots to kill Catherina on-stage, opening night. As originally choreographed, the mouse king almost "kills" Clara, but she is saved by the Nutcracker who "kills" the mouse king. According to Natasha's plan, and at her behest, Drosselmeier will grow his two favorite mice into 8 foot monsters, the “king” mouse will don the seven-headed mouse king costume and he will actually try to kill Catherina/Clara, but there is one complication. . .

Backstage, Ivan figures it out, but none of the adults believes him, nor does Catherine who thinks he's nuts. So Ivan must save his beloved Catherine against her will. He overpowers Boris, steals his costume, finds a real sword, and goes on stage to battle the rodential beast. The ballet audience is unaware of the drama unfolding on stage. Ivan appears to kill the monster mouse per original choreography, but in saving Catherina, he creates another mortal enemy, the 8-foot Mouse Queen. Catherina still thinks Ivan is crazy, she's unaware that he saved her life.

INTERMISSION AND ACT II
On and off stage during intermission and Act II, the vengeful Mouse Queen pursues Ivan and Catherina. Again, the ballet audience is unaware of the on-stage drama. The pursuit is choreographed to a popular version of the Nutcracker. It’s not until the very end, when the young couple is lifted on a sled above the stage, that Catherine realizes that Ivan was right, but it’s almost too late. The Mouse Queen and a wounded, but still alive Mouse King, are in hot pursuit. The Queen jumps into the sled to kill them both, but the Queen falls to her “death.” Catherina kisses Ivan, they are safe and in love. The ballet audience never knew what happened.

FINALE
Catherine and Ivan take their bows to thunderous applause. Along the footlights, the two "dead" monster mice have been transformed back to cute normal sized mice; they kiss and take their bows. In the musician's pit Ivan's dad gives Ivan a standing ovation.

COMPLETE SCREENPLAY

I’m not Skinny, You’re Fat! The Politically Incorrect Diet Book

................................. Man Pointing by Alberto Giacometti

[This an excerpt from a draft of a book I wrote in 1998]


Introduction

Call me Ectomorph. My Popu used to say that I was “Tin. Tin like a tootpick.” He serenaded me at meals, “Eat totala, eat!” The other three grandparents weren’t much better. Each engaged in the same battle cry of their ancestors, “EAT!” These 19h Century Europeans knew the value of fat. They were intolerant of me, a skinny kid who, transported to the Russia of their youth, might not survive the winter. “If only he were chubbier, he’d be alive today.” Of course the Bronx of the 1950’s was a harbinger of the 1960’s urban strife and poverty, but famine was never a real issue. So I grew up with guilt imposed by ancestral fears. Sounds more like Catholicism than my native Judaism.

Now at age 44 I’m still a mutant, at least by our cultural norms. Traveling through America, I sometimes feel like Gulliver in the land of giants. Last summer my daughter (she’s skinny too) and I visited Augusta, Maine. The local population is, well, how should I say it? Obese. The back of a pick up truck is a perfect fit for the average woman, 4x4. Now unlike us skinny people, these folks aren’t malevolent or misanthropic. So I know they meant no harm when they lifted their faces out of bacon cheeseburgers to think, “Two Jews out of the concentration camps.” But this was genuine concern, not anti-Semitism. I’m sure they honestly believe that a six-foot man weighing 145 pounds needs hospitalization. In fact, it’s a frequently held belief that being overweight is healthy because if you go to the hospital and lose weight, you’ll survive. Of course, being overweight guarantees your trip to the hospital, if you’re lucky.

The self-help industry focuses attention on making fat people feel good about them selves. Where does that leave me? Well, the Surgeon General’s height and weight charts now offer some solace, some justification for my existence. Back in the 1960’s I was off the charts. But since then, the charts have been adjusted several times so I now have the government’s blessing of normalcy. Paradoxically, while everyone grew fatter, the charts grew slender so more of the population is now off the charts. Continued at blogowitz-unabridged

Buying the rope to hang us with

Karl (not Groucho)Marx famously said that the capitalist will "sell the rope that hangs him." I think Karl didn't fully plumb the depths of the capitalist heart.

He didn't really understand American consumer capitalism where the capitalist will BUY the rope that hangs him.

Manifest Destiny

The manifest destiny of the white man is to rape the earth and leave it for dead.

American Airlines Announces Pay Toilets

Dallas/Ft. Worth. American Airlines announced today that it will install pay toilets on all domestic flights in an effort to recapture the costs associated with flying shit. Tokens will be available at $1.50 each, one can be used for number one and two for number two. Asked about the impact on the traveling public, American's spokeman for defecatory initiatives, John Commodious, said "it's perfectly fair as full bladders and intestines of 300 pound Americans often weigh over 30 pounds per person." Adding that "With 160 passengers, that's a lot of shit!"

The Gift of the Goddess (Why Hunters Never Leave Their Mamas)

Summary
Man is both gift and goddess, both life and matter. (“Men” and “man” are used here to denote the male gender and not “mankind” generally). Birth, weaning, ritualizing the hunt, questing for father, and finally dying, men are part of the womb, the genderless Upanishads goddess incarnate. No matter the journey, men can’t stray far from the source, the goddess. “Myth,” according to Campbell, is the “sublimation of mother nature” (205). Does this mean goddess myths are archetypal of all myth? Full text at blogowitz-unabridged

The Hero’s Adventure (Journey into the Soul)

Summary

Just how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? The mythic self explorer must recognize the rabbit hole, leave behind Adriande’s thread, and sojourn deeply. However, the rabbit hole is obscured by a thicket of modernity, theology, and even primitive culture. Worse still, the rabbit hole masquerades as something else. Scythe the thicket, unmask religion’s holy disguise, and mine the holey depths. Full text at blogowitz-unabridged

The Journey Inward

Summary
The “mystery” is the internalization of the exterior – the self actualization of the world and its myths – but Western religion, says Campbell, corrupts the “journey inward” by destroying metaphor with “facts,” and creating an artificial dualism that “un-deifies” humanity and vilifies nature. God looses transcendence; man, his innocence. Full text at blogowitz-unabridged

Sacrifice and Bliss

Summary

Throughout The Power of Myth the stuff of myth is cross-cultural, universal, and archetypical (biologically based), but in “Sacrifice and Bliss” Campbell first introduces “environmental determinism,” the notion that local “landscape” sculpts that “stuff.” Underlying the landscape imagery is a far deeper scientific truth – we are a living fresco inseparable from our plaster landscape. However, biblical dualism wrenches life from its own gut destroying both fresco and wall. Full text at blogowitz-unabridged

Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus)

Fun Facts--Unusual Behavior: The only song bird that is also a bird of prey, “Vlad the impaler” will shish kabob prey on sharp objects or wedge it between tree branches. Unlike the human female wooed by ostentations displays of wealth and waste, the female shrike is more like “Clara” (“where’s the beef!”) in the old Burger King commercial. [Full article at blogowitz-unabridged]

Datura wrightii (Western Jimson-weed)

Datura is a member of the Northern Mexico hallucinogenic triumvirate: mescalito (mescaline/cactus), yerba del Diablo (Datura/Jimson weed), and humito (Psilocybe/mushroom) described in The Teachings of Don Juan. Of the three, Don Juan felt Datura was the most dangerous and “[he] realized she was not for me....” Nevertheless, this first-hand “cookbook” gives detailed instructions for DIY gathering, preparation, ingestion, tripping, and “cool down.” [Full article at blogowitz-unabridged]

Form, Function and Symbolism—Exposing the False Tricodomy and Exploring Universal Progression

[Written for an architectural history class in 2007; click on sections for full text]

Form, function and symbolism are as inextricable as mind and body, Cartesian dualism, notwithstanding. This paper explores the phenomenological aspects of how these superficially disparate elements are experientially identical, and how, throughout history, they inevitably progress from simplicity, to mastery and ultimately to decadence.

PART I: A UNIFIED FIELD OR “TRINITY” THEORY

Exploring form, function, and especially symbolism from the observer’s POV rather than the architect’s, unlocks myriad existential possibilities; the architect just one existence in billions caught in freeze-frame infinite time. Serious criticism requires observer-facing analysis as people “...can never…experience form without deriving meaning from it” (Scully 123).

PART II: PROGRESSION THROUGH UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS

Civilizations’ timelines are captured in the architecture of universal progression: embryonic simplicity, inchoate mastery, “high” mastery, sometimes a Mannerist revolt against cliché, and inevitably “late” Rococo decadence which, given sufficient time, suffers a backlash, e.g., the modernist backlash against Rococo articulated in Adolf Loos’ article, Ornamentation and Crime. Part II of this paper demonstrates cross-cultural examples of universal progression and even proposes a genetic framework for their understanding.

PART III: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, BIBLIOGRAPHY

Where Do We Come From? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? (Paul Gauguin)

The unity of form, function and symbolism appears self evident as does the progression theory. But how will modernity’s “progression” appear in hindsight: early, middle, high, or most likely, late? History may record the “New American Century” as our last. However, such characterization is generally unsupported by architectural indicia of earlier progressions. Nevertheless, we can learn from the Romans whose experience most closely parallels our own. With its numerous massive constructions made possible by the invention of concrete and standardization, Roman decadence, like ours, flaunts Greek notions of natural balance and proportion with sheer volume and numbers.

The Bible as Warrior-Herder Mythology: Impact of “Edible Landscape”

[My spin on the origins of the Hebrew Bible, written in June, 2007 for the class "Myths and Legends"]

Summary

Herding was a novel concept that forged its own unique mythology, the Bible. This paper investigates how prehistoric hunting myth co-evolved, first with plant, then with animal domestication resulting in two great mythologies: agrarian goddess and Hebrew God. Biblical dualism is symbolic of the dualism suffered by a nomadic herding people caught between their hunter-gatherer ancestors and their agrarian neighbors. A new mythology, the Bible, served to make sense of their place in the world.

Historical Background

Tens of thousands of years before Abraham, the sub-Saharan ancestors of the Semites were early hunter-gatherers who hunted gazelle and presumably celebrated hunter mythologies. Things changed. Jared Diamond estimates that plants were first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent by 8500 B.C. and animals by 8000 B.C. (362). The hunter mythology lost relevance as new agrarian societies (e.g. 4000 B.C. Egypt) slowly developed earth-goddess based mythology. Eventually, the remaining hunters became herders, outside agrarian mythology. There was simply no established mythology for herders, just as there’s no established mythology for modern man; these things take time.

Let’s view the Hebrews through their pre-Egypt herder “landscape.” Imagine a tribe of mythic hunters who overexploited gazelle, (Diamond 142) forced to make a career choice: herding or farming. Farming was already established, widespread and required legal land ownership or lease, concepts foreign to hunter-gatherers. However, hunters knew animals, so they became the domesticators, raising animals for meat, diary, and wool.

Hebrews lorded over, and were mired in, an ever-moving mammalian mass of sheep and goats that were noisy, aggressive, wandering, cud-chewing, regurgitating, ruminating, festering, flatulating, burping, baaing, bleating, copulating, menstruating, gestating, birthing, lactating, dying, defecating, urinating, and perhaps most significantly, insatiably consuming strangers’ grass and farmland. Cont'd at unabridged-blogowitz

Roadrunner

GREATER ROADRUNNER (Geococcyx californianus)

Fun Facts--Mating: Male courts female with cooing and serves her dinner sans wine. He conducts a loud, boisterous mating dance with foot stomping, tail-wagging, and deep bowing. They mate upon completion of his “dervish.” They also mate for life; during their 4-5 year lifespan divorce is not an option. Perhaps instructive for human fidelity: food may be exchanged during copulation.

Cont'd
[Link to unabridged-blogowitz]

Happiness is a Warm Gun

As a former member of the NRA and the ACLU (I resigned from the NRA when they endorsed cop-killer bullets, over-the-counter machine guns, and guns without child safety locks when children were present, and I resigned from the ACLU when they represented too many Nazis while ignoring more meritorious causes), I was glad to see the Supreme Court put meat on Second Amendment bones. The opinion itself was as intellectually dishonest as many watershed decisions, e.g., Roe v. Wade, but no matter, individual rights were expanded. Shocked I would drag Roe through the mud? Just because I'm a progressive doesn't mean I have to be a hypocrite! Liberals take notice, examine your own hypocrisies:



Political and social conservatives have railed against unelected judges legislating from the bench, substituting their judgment for the legislative process. While conservatives would narrowly construe the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments, somehow their "pet" Second Amendment escapes strict constructionist scrutiny. Their silence is no less deafening than the indoor report of a 44 magnum.

"Talking" Money is Protected Speech

The Supreme Court recently overturned the so-called millionaire campaign finance law which placed dollar limits on candidates' contribution to their own campaigns. While Bill O'Reilly and conservative pundits don't seem to object to this decision, Mr. Bill (Desert Sun, June 29)thinks it unfair that Obama, who has millions of $10 donors, will have more campaign cash than McCain.



It seems the First Amendment protects, as "speech," anti-social, undemocratic spending; fat cat cash is speech. The court must have 1) eaten some kind of mushroom, 2) asked Alice when she's ten feet tall, 3) shared the same audio hallucination, and 4) heard money talk. Does money talk backwards like the white knight?

Bottom line for Bill and his fellow conservatives: big money is protected speech, fair and square, but grass roots, $10 donors somehow cheat the system. Oh! I've got to run, George Washington's miffed that he's worth $99 less than Ben Franklin.

Democracy Fetish Strips Constitutional Rights

California social conservatives unleashed their new weapon against same-sex relationships, democracy. They take issue with "undemocratic" judges who afford constitutional protections to same-sex relationships, and want to democratically amend the constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage; basically, democratic usurpation.

Should the constitution, designed to protect liberty, now be used to limit individual rights in the name of democracy? A short history lesson: the later-repealed Eighteenth Amendment which subverted the federal constitution into a criminal statute outlawing alcohol, exemplifies democratic excess. Interestingly, the only other amendment used to restrict the body politic relates to election law; the Twenty Second Amendment creates a two-term limit on the presidency.

Furthermore, an independent judiciary is inherently undemocratic; federal judges are appointed for life and California Supreme Court judges are first appointed by an independent commission then elected to 12-year terms. Freedom is not a popularity contest.

"Democratic" social conservatives embrace both undemocratic, autocratic leadership in Washington, and the very "undemocratic" judges who protect their gun rights and private property from an overzealous body politic. They should rejoice in any undemocratic expansion of freedom. Lynch mob "justice" is singularly democratic, but manifestly unjust.

Here is a gay Iranian couple at democracy's "alter."  

Obesity "Peaks" (at the Invisible Hand)

Obesity rates have recently plateaued according to today's newspaper. Let's take a closer peek at this peak. As I've pointed out, the last decade brought us both unprecedentedly cheap eats and related obesity, but the correlation is widely unnoticed or ignored. Everyone in a capitalist economy knows the relationship between price and consumption, oil being a good example.

Health officials are taking credit for this rontundos reversalus, believing their nutrition labeling, public educational programs, and removing junk food from public schools are the reason. But that's like conservationists crediting themselves for motivating the public to buy more fuel efficient vehicles when gas reaches $4.00 per gallon.

Consumption is limited only by the ability to pay, the cheaper (thus more plentiful) a commodity, the more likely it will be over-consumed as with the "all your can eat" buffet vs. the al a carte menu. So all you public health professionals, don't give yourself too much credit. The invisible hand that once overfed us, now moderates our consumption.

Published in the Desert Sun, 6 June, 2008

Did you hear about....

the lawyer who was a failed novelist?

He refused to put anything in writing!

Panderer or War Monger

We all know that Clinton and Obama both believe the Iraqi War is over oil. Now John McCann joined the fray saying that under his energy policy we would never again have to fight a war over oil. He later said he was referring to Iraq I, not the current war, but with his advanced senility, I suspect he said what he meant... he's getting too old to lie effectively.

Great! They are all on the same page. But Clinton and McCann both want to temporarily repeal the federal gas tax during the summer months when prices and demand peak. They literally want to add fuel to the fire encouraging overconsumption of a blood-soaked commodity. Shame on them for pandering to an American public. We need to change our ways; any delay will cost more lives and further degrade the planet.

Outdoor Smoking Ban

I applaud the City of Palm Desert for moving toward an outdoor smoking ban (April 29). But secondhand smoke from cigarettes is dwarfed by the volume of exhaust emitted by parked vehicles. Don't believe me? Try parking your car in the garage with your engine running for say 30 seconds. If you live to tell about it, compare that amount of pollution with thirty seconds worth of second hand cigarette smoke.

Palm Desert has several outdoor and curbside eateries. Inevitably, someone parks a running car just close enough so I'd prefer second hand smoke over car exhaust. I'm not sure why we are congenitally incapable of shutting off our engines; gas is nearly $4.00 a gallon, we say we don't want to depend on foreign oil and inevitable conflicts, and we all know air pollution hurts children and adults alike.


Wake up Palm Desert and the rest of California, the real ban should be on idling cars and SUVs.
[Note that this piece was published in the Desert Sun, May 4, 2008

Past Performance

How are mutual funds like relationships?
Past performance is no guaranty of future results.

Religious Nature

Man studies animals to learn about himself, then creates religion to deny the obvious.

Jewish Oedipus Complex

Mother kills the father and marries the son.

Penis to Body Mass Index

PBMI, that's right PBMI (Penis to Body Mass Index). This is the ratio of body weight divided by penile weight. American men seem to come up short. While I haven't made a scientific study of locker rooms, gay baths and nudist resorts, it just seems logical. As Americans pack on the pounds, American penises don't grow commensurately; in fact, there's evidence of shrinkage, especially relating to the testicles.

Let's take a look at what men drive based on their PBMI.
(Oops, this little fella obviously doesn't need to drive anything).

Let's say a 150 pound man has a four ounce penis (my approximation), about the average weight of a 5 to 6 inch member. The ratio is 600, or his body weighs 600 times the weight of his penis and is likely to drive something that looks like this:

A 300 pound man, even without a deduction for shrinkage, has a ratio of 1200 and drives any one of these babies.

Cheap Food Obesity

The media continues its coverage of both rising food prices and obesity in America. Clearly, we can't have both simultaneously. I'd like to point out that as of a couple of years ago American food prices were the cheapest in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD! And obesity rates were and continue to be the highest in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

For the ten years ending in 2006, the federal minimum wage was $5.15 (many states have higher rates). It's fair to assume that folks earning this wage are at the bottom end of our economic strata. During this time a Denny's "Grand Slam" was $1.99 (that's 1000 calories of food cooked and served) and that's just the tip of the iceberg (not including other fast food deals and supermarket bargains). Bottom line: Americans on the lowest rung of the employment ladder earn enough money in one hour to sustain their obesity.

As of last year, the rate went to $5.85, or a 14% increase. Clearly, food is up more than 14%. It now may take a low earner 1.5 hours for their daily caloric intake, still cheap when you consider people used to work most of the day just to put food on the table.

Poe “The Raven” by David Eppelheimer

Walter N. Marks Center for the Arts

Student Exhibition: April 9, 2008

1. Description

This vertical framed portrait of Edgar Allen Poe (22.5” X 30.5” oil/acrylic) includes a taxidermied black bird perched on the frame. Two life-sized modeled and clothed arms extend from the portrait; one arm is vertical, hand up toward the chin, index finger extended just under the mouth, and the other arm extends horizontally, hand extended holding a book.

The work is mostly black and white with some grey tones. The paint was applied thickly, almost sculpting the image in places.

2. Analysis

In the original poem, the protagonist reads a book to overcome the loss of his beloved Lenore. A raven alights on a statue; it quaffs “Nevermore.” Poe’s imagination runs wild. The painting reflects Poe(etic) macabre iconology with its “Raven” (actually, this specimen is an artistically licensed crow) and dark colors. Poe appears to “shush” the Raven, or perhaps he self consciously doesn’t want the observer to reveal his “secret.” It’s not clear why Poe holds a book of his own writings, perhaps he’s acting out his poem. And the painting’s asking price of $763 defies my analysis, except that Poe wrote about madness in The Tell Tale Heart containing 763 words. Other possibilities: 1) Minnesota area code, 2) number of acts in the South by Southwest Music Festival, and 3) the Boeing 763.

3. Interpretation

Clever and self-referential, this conceptual work teases lingua arte with arte lingua; both share the same title and themes. Art imitating art. It captures mood, motion, and artistic juxtaposition. But the mystery remains: where does Poe end and Eppelheimer begin and where does Eppelheimer end and Poe begin?

Global Warming Hoax?

I've advocated environmental causes for years with little impact.
My advice to other environmentalists: don't waste your time discussing global warming, it will undermine your cause. First, let's follow the "logical" syllogism of non-believers:

1) global warming doesn't exist (most radical right wingers now disavow this),
2) if it exists, 6.7 billion humans don't contribute (a common US Christian belief, although non-US Christians think otherwise),
3) if it is man's fault, God wants it--our manifest destiny (God encouraging good Christians to rape North America) or perhaps to encourage the second coming.

Within this astute "scientific" community, global warming and evolution are hoaxes, virgin births and physical resurrections are scientific fact. But these folks experience the same sights and smells as environmentalists; they have inhaled vehicular exhaust, seen polluted cities, and noticed fouled waters. They might even be aware of the connection between pollution and human illness.

Therefore, I propose a temporary moratorium on trying to convince anyone about global warming and refocus efforts on what people see and smell. Let's show them a picture of a pretty white girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, suffering from pollution.

Tit for Tat Prayer

Last year Pope Benedict sought to reinstate a prayer for Jewish souls. It reads, in part:

Let us also pray for the Jews that God our Lord should illuminate their hearts, so that they will recognize Jesus Christ, the Savior of all men.

How kind of the new Pope to care about Jew’s unilluminated “heart,” but the recipients of this papal largess were outraged. Several rabbinical ingrates protested to Benedict who eventually rescinded his infallible order.

The rabbis should have created a Hebrew prayer reflecting Jewish concern for Catholic hearts. I last spoke Hebrew the morning of February 18, 1967 at my Bar Mitzvah, but can still recall the gruesome yarn about God randomly killing 3,000 Hebrews because a mere handful worshiped a golden calf (a prohibited, but nevertheless common practice at the time). Wasn’t it Stalin who said “better to kill a thousand innocent men than allow one guilty man to go free?”

Let us pray:

Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe,

Let us also pray for the Christians that God our Lord should illuminate their hearts, so that they will recognize false idolatry, the Fall of all men.

El Paseo Gallery Crawl, First Thursday of November, 2007

I visited several galleries, three of which are worthy of mention.

Edenhurst Gallery defines hospitality and defies the imagination: did you know a full sized harp (all 47 strings) could fit in a hatchback? With angelic music, dark walls accentuating the vibrant 20^th Century Impressionist-style pastorals (including obligatory lilly pads),contrasting blond wood floors, ample Broke Back Mountain western motif, and full bar (the mid-range merlot tolerably serviceable), this venue leads the pack for festive ambiance. Two works are standouts: The Timber Line (1918) with its heavy pallet-knife strokes (it’s still sitting on the floor despite the whopping $600,000 price tag and my parents wouldn’t allow a 10 cent toy left out… go figure), and Poppy Field with its amazing yellows.

Desert Art Gallery, the epitome of desert architecture, wins the best-real estate in-show award. The sculpture collection stands out, both the outside (Steve Reitman, etc.) and the African work inside. When I smugly commented that some of the African stuff seemed derivative of Picasso, it was pointed out that these sculptors were keeping a long tradition and as such, Picasso was derivative of them. My daddy always said to keep my mouth shut so people will think I’m stupid. If I open it, he said, they’ll know it!

Eleonore Austerer Gallery, sublime! [Your former student] For “show and tell” I’ve selected the following work. Note that the questions relating to the formal analysis were taken from the internet as described below (yes, I wrote the answers). Afterwards I answer the non-formal questions in the assignment.

“Spiral and Circles” ca. 1970

Original color lithograph

25 5/8 x 37 ¾ inches

FORMAL ANALYSIS

Original Color Lithograph: 25 5/8 x 37 ¾ inches [remainder of analysis removed to save space]

COMMENTARY:

What appeals is the color and symmetry, two pieces of eye candy divided between the two eyes. Also, I like the humorous story (see above). The forms seem to have evolved from an obvious progression: 1) Symbolists (Gauguin in particular) who filled volume with somewhat monolithic unmodeled representational volume with fully abstracted colorful, unmodeled, but un-monolithic volume. The next step was Calder’s: abstracted, unmodeled, colorful monolithic volumes. Of course Mondrian did the same thing years before, but in an even more abstracted, non-allegorical manner. color, 2) Fauvists (Matisse in particular) who filled monolithic color, and finally 3) The Blue Rider (actually, only Kandinsky) who abstracted colorful, unmodeled, but un-monolithic volume. The next step was Calder’s: abstracted, unmodeled, colorful monolithic volumes. Of course Mondrian did the same thing years before, but in an even more abstracted, non-allegorical manner.

Manet's Olympia

Let’s listen to Manet’s interior monologue while he presents Olympia along side the Academy’s “catwalk.”

Olympia dons her resplendent birthday suit together with de rigueur footwear, a must-have for every working girl…available only at Maison Geppetto. Smartly accessorized with jaunty ribbon and risqué chat noir this stunning ensemble is accented by a ravishing bouquet.

Olympia…

more than just a flattened hooker.

Only 2,000 Francs,

Haddie McDaniel, extra.