Reality is the Fantasy of the Majority

The release of (and now multiple viewings of) the new Star Trek movie has awakened what many would call (and I will refer reluctantly to as) my inner geek. My inner geek – that part of me that is aware of and completely welcoming of the old sentiment that life truly is but a dream – has tuned me into the fortuitousness of a couple of events that have recently transpired in my life. It has also reminded me of a related note that I jotted down several months ago -- reality is the fantasy of the majority.
I googled these words within quotations before starting this blog. Aware that many before me have danced a tune or two around the sentiment (or in the case of Kerouac or Robbins have whirled about it long into the morning) I was concerned that it might not be an original turn of phrase (my turns of phrase generally resembling the wild twists and turns of a child’s imagined treasure map than the straight line constructed by the sentence in question). Only a couple of hits turned up and as a writer (that’s right Kundera, I said “as a writer”) I was relieved to see that they were all presented on my computer in that never-before-clicked Google blue.
The first was a blog by a guy named Dwight Sullivan that goes by the title of “I Always Play the Thief: Reality is the Fantasy of the Majority”. At a quick skim it seemed not unlike my own endeavors and included a link to his movie review page, which is something I myself am entertaining starting. The second link turned out to be part of Dwight’s e-signature in a forum for Marvel comics (I think). Though I didn’t get the attached comment (which read, “Thanks Wytefang and netherspirit for the work getting that up. Man that water in the Heroscape ad looks really nice. Has it been altered graphically?”) I was happy to find myself in good and articulate company. Such is the nature of great ideas. And as far as that goes I always admired Alfred Russel Wallace as much as I did Charles Darwin and am more than happy to play his part here.
But lets gets to my whies and hows and better yet a few stories.
I’ll start with the night after I saw the new Star Trek for the first time. I had turned on the TV in the hopes that I would find some station playing Star Trek II, IV, or V. The closest thing I could find was the Denise Crosby narrated Trekkies 2. Now I could go on about the good and bad of Star Trek fans but I am only going to focus here on a single comment (or group of comments) in the documentary. Crosby had basically posed the question of how far is too far to take fantasy. One of the women interviewed responded with the question of whether or not women who altered their bodies permanently for the sake of ephemeral images of beauty are that different or even worse than die-hard Star Trek fans. The concept related directly to a conversation I had with my old friend Wesley who pointed out that there is no negative term relating to fans of “Sex and the City”. “Sex and the City” (aside from showing the positives of empowered womanhood (something Star Trek was among the first to do in the history of television)) does nothing but depict the fantastical lives of a few super elite insanely beautiful New York women through plots that revolve around buying shoes and not understanding the men in their lives. The results of indulgence in this almost completely superficial fantasy can be seen in the grotesque woman that are often the subject of documentaries about plastic surgery who have been tragically deformed in its pursuit. Now compare that to a little removable Klingon make-up a Star Trek fan might don at a convention or a movie premier.
Oddly (or coincidently or serendipitously) enough I had walked by a geek convention of another sort earlier this week while strolling down Boylston. Colorfully speckled about the street were people, mostly younger, dressed in samurai and ninja like costumes often with really really spiky hair. The closer I came to the Hynes Convention Center the denser these groups became until I was walking amongst pokemon ball juggling anime fans talking about (I presume) DragonballZ. I don’t care for anime myself but I certainly don’t care that others do especially considering the light-hearted atmosphere that surrounded them.
As I was passing through I heard some grumbling and giggling out of place with the jovial atmosphere. Looking to my left I saw three sets of plentiful bosoms bouncing against the support of their black lightweight (recon?) armor as they clip-clopped on the spindly legs of their high-heeled steeds with their faces painted tones of baby blue and pink ready for yet another Friday night Battle of the Barbies. For a moment I found myself wishing I had a plastic sword to trip their spoke thin legs. Yet after they passed I found myself unconsciously glancing back to check out their behinds (the reality of behinds being that they are a lovely part of a woman still subject to more natural methods of beautification). Then, as expected, I forgot that they and their bums existed. Had the event not been connected in my head to Trekkies 2 or had I not gone to see Star Trek for the second time I would have likely forgot the giggling bimbos for all time.
Having seen Star Trek sober the first time around I decided to get a little stoned for the second viewing. As a result I purchased myself a treat, a pack of three Lindt dark chocolates, to enjoy in the theatre. Looking forward to indulging in fantasy and chocolate I took a seat in the back to the theatre leaned back, grinned and thought happy thoughts. After the opening action sequence the slower moving geek stuff began tracing Spock’s childhood explaining why he was the unique Vulcan that he was. It was then that a group of three hooligans, drunk and stoned (I assumed accurately), enjoying their Memorial Day weekend, decided to interject their anti-Star Trek comments. The first couple got a laugh out of me but then they went overboard to the point that nobody in the theatre could pay attention to the film. Not wanting to waste my chocolate indulgence on something so un-entertaining I got ready to say fuck it and walk out to go see one of the many other movies playing at the giant many-theatered cinema in Revere (which, completely unrelated, I had worked in the food court of years ago). Just before I got up though a couple of gruff voices were cast back from the front row. The hooligans bit quickly. After a few more moments of terse comments the two groups were facing off on the stairs. The hooligans were a group of three black guys, which is something I mention only because the other group was two white guys with crew cuts so straight they could have been cut by a phaser who were adding some racial non-sense to the fray that I don’t care to repeat. The hooligans shot back with their own racial comments and the tension rose exponentially. Next, the stockiest of the hooligans spread his arms apart welcoming a punch. Even in the shadows of a theatre you could make out the bulges of his shoulder muscles that pinched together the middle of his t-shirt.
Seeing things escalate the smallest of the hooligans stepped between the two groups. With one arm he tried to hold back his friends while his other arm was against a baseball jersey stretched like Mark McGuire’s over the thick chest of one of the GI Joe’s. The aggressors ignored him and punches were soon thrown. Their heavy dull thuds could be heard easily over Spock’s logical musings. As the struggle continued a sixth man got up from the front row to join the fray while the rest of the theatre whispered and grumbled.
The latecomer was older an older guy probably in his late sixties. He shared the same build (plus a gut) as the two crew cuts and it was pretty clear that he was their father. Along with the peace-keeping hooligan he threw himself in between the fight and with his help they managed to break it up and a couple of them even shook hands before leaving the theatre. A short while later only the three white guys came back.
Ignoring the racial nonsense I was thankful. Soon I was able to forget about the drama and how I did nothing about it and even how the movie fucks up the entire Star Trek universe. It turned out to be even more enjoyable than my first viewing. To show my appreciation of the end result of their actions I found them after the movie and shook their battered hands.
But that does not mean that I condone their actions, only their actions results. Sitting back not completely aware that I was wearing a grin full of chocolate I had watched the drama unfold. The thoughts that all that violence and hate was occurring because of a Star Trek movie or that these guys were defending Star Trek fans had comically crossed my mind. But the real humor went beyond that knowing that the motivation for these fellows was not anything even remotely that altruistic (as I imagined them later when they would be telling the story to their mothers, their wives, their girlfriends and their buddies). No, their motivations were boyish and simple.
And it’s not that I don’t get that. Shit, under the right circumstances I completely indorse it. There have been times in my life when I was rugby fit or drinking lots of whiskey that I too have certainly had the same impulses. In fact, they are the same fighting impulses that underlie one of my favorite fantasy characters. Who but one with the balls and macho grit of Captain Kirk could be stranded on a planet unarmed to fight a seven foot tall warrior crocodile armed with a knife and defeat it by fashioning a cannon out of sulfur, diamonds and a fucking log. With a character like that one might think that there would be more brawls in movie theaters except there is the difference between those goons and the average Star Trek fan. Whether consciously or unconsciously they know that the glory of battle is more of a cerebral concept than a cold hard reality. Even though Kirk epitomizes that boyish bravery his character - reader of Shakespeare, climber of mountains - shows overtime that he is motivated by much more than glory.
So what was my solution to the hooligans in the theatre? Well, as I mentioned I would have eventually left and went into another movie. Now, had I been watching Star Trek for the first time I would have probably reacted in a different manner but certainly my solution would not have been as directly effective (or as hateful) as beating them up. Probably I would have just found someone in the theatre to ask the fuckers to leave. And if I couldn’t do that, well, to quote a sentiment of Kirk’s, “there are always possibilities.” One only needs the intelligence and flexibility of the mind to come up with them. Sometimes, of course, even for Kirk the solution must be violence (which as I mentioned does have the virtue of effectiveness). But in the face of such decisions Kirk’s most admirable quality, fantasy or not, was his ability to judge when it was necessary and when it wasn’t.
As any fool knows, hate begets hate and like fantasy it is a construct of the mind. Good fantasy, that is fantasy like Star Trek that deals with issues like race and gender and beyond, has the potential for great good. Bad fantasy, that is the fantasy of beauty and glory where the ends don’t simply justify the means rather render the means irrelevant, has the potential for great evil. And any good geek knows that.

Let me take you down . . .

Green, Central Park is green.
After three days of partying, concerts, and wandering gap-mouthed about New York City we walked over that relatively thin strip of concrete into that grass and tree surrounded area called Strawberry Fields. All I could feel or think was green as I watched a multitude of tree fleshes wriggling out their subtle happy dance to a light spring breeze beneath a startlingly open sky and a sun that without smiley curve still beamed out an infectious grin.
This happened during another vacation from my problems only this time I was in the company of two good friends of mine who where visiting on a real vacation. So after a couple of quick somber pictures around the Imagine memorial we (myself skipping) wandered into the park to find a place to smoke a joint. We settled on a cove of trees concealed conveniently on one side by a large rock. The spot overlooked, through the flicker of more green leaves, a corner of one of several Central Park ponds. After we crushed out a joint and emptied our pipe we moved to the water’s edge in full view of a busy restaurant and a boathouse. The bustling human activity coming from both these places was not nearly as interesting to me as the animal life in the park. Stoned enough to ignore the implications of an artificial pond stocked with non-native fish I was able to enjoy the company of turtle, grackle and cormorant contained in a place somewhere between zoo and wilderness.
Sully and Ed were around for two very fun weeks. We split the time between New York, Boston and New Hampshire. We saw Franz Ferdinand, Ben Harper (opened for by the surprisingly entertaining Henry Clay People) and the Tragically Hip (twice). We fished in the White Mountains. We made and ate some quality weed brownies and watched zombie movies. We listened to incredible jazz at legendary Wally’s Café. The whole thing was a great and memorable vacation from my but the afternoon in Central Park is the memory most vivid in my mind. The juxtaposition of city to nature has always intrigued me and stepping into Central Park out of the prison of New York with its city block sized cell bars was as striking to me as when I fell asleep on a flight leaving the vast silence of Alaska to wake up (save a quick trance like transfer in Chicago) just before landing in Boston where I stepped out into a cacophony of car horns and grinding construction.
Bored and distracted, last night I walked through the graveyard where Sully, Ed and I went to smoke joints. Once the winter had broke and the hawk at the other park did not return I changed pot smoking locations to an old cemetery instead of the park trading hawk and statue for the company of bat and headstone (and whatever is left of the hundred or so corpses rotting for almost three hundred years down in that peace and silence so elusive in our living world). The ancient oaks that overlook the small square of green as well as a few lumps of tombs provide adequate shelter from cops looking for a couple of guys smoking up or dog walking people who would find hanging out in a graveyard weird. It’s no Central Park but what it lacks in green space it makes up for in soul. The chipped and cracked headstones lined up uneven always makes me think of the grinning teeth of a wise old Indian.
As I walked I was faced with the tedious process of sorting out the scheduling of my upcoming medical tests and surgery. Pleasant thoughts were not on my mind. The weight of it all dragged on me. “Back to real life” Ed had said before I left them at Logan. “Yeah and my real life really sucks” I tried to joke except as soon as I said it I no longer found it funny.
Just before I walked out of the graveyard the evening breeze whispered through the sturdy oak leaves. I looked up into the closest tree. A robin was perched there and it gushed out its evening song. My gaze followed the tree back down from the leaves to the roots where I saw one thick and tenacious extension engaged in the slow and steady process of gently pushing aside a very old and unreadable headstone. I imagined the roots of the tree reaching deep into the ground wrapped about a skull with a mouth full of nutritive dirt and a cracked but toothy grin. Though I had barely thought of John Lennon when we wandered past Strawberry Fields I suddenly remembered hearing that he had been cremated. This might not be true (and I don’t care if it is or if it isn’t) but as I stood there I began to feel a sadness for him and for anyone else whose body’s energy had not been given back to the earth. And then the unmarked grave and what it implied of the body beneath it made me smile - oak food and shelter for singing robin it having become.
I strolled on out of the shelter of the cemetery and found myself singing a line from “Strawberry Fields” that I had never really gotten. “Always no sometimes think its me, but you know I know when it’s a dream, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. That is I think I disagree”. Other than the title the song and that line probably have little to do with Central Park, death or green space but there’s something about it I know I like even though in general I’m not a Beatles or John Lennon fan.
And I don’t like New York much either but whatever Central Park might be with its altered ecosystem and concrete frame I liked it too.

The Bird Rescue

It’s difficult to recall that dynamic instant of silence that the bird I exchanged in our stares right before it lost its nerve. This is because I am sitting in a Boston Starbucks next to three Korean girls who have painted their faces on (disarmingly angled eyes accentuated by dark hyperbolic lines like the immortal eyes of ancient sarcophagi) and who all share the same impulse to chincha each others statements out of existence (chincha being a word roughly equivalent to that annoying conceptless unanswerable English question, “really?”) Only if I slyly cover my ears by leaning my face forward to rest it on my hands can I hear that dull thump of tiny bird skull against glass. When I remove my hands engine, voice, and Beatle’s cover rush in. The images that I had begun to form of an immature pine warbler with its beak opened nervously fade quickly; images connected maybe to that paleomammalian level of my brain; images that might make up the syntax of animal speak; images that for many people and for me in the cacophonous city can only exist as words.
I have been asking myself why exactly I panicked the little bird so much and why exactly I, as a person who has spent much time watching birds, had no knowledge of how to communicate to the bird my intentions to help it. City folk (and TV gobbling country folk who I theorize have identically working brains) might scoff at such a notion of communicating with animals but I feel this is an oversight created perhaps by a lack of non-domesticated (or abstractified domestic) animal interaction. Unlike many of these people there are images in my head that prove such communications are possible. I just don’t have the right words.
In one of those happy coincidences I happened to listen to a Quirks and Quarks podcast while driving back from one my hikes in New Hampshire. It was an interview with Dr. Temple Grandin, the author of several books and dozens of papers on animals. Two of her books mentioned in the interview caught my attention. The first was entitled Thinking in Pictures and the second, the one I picked up as soon as I got back to Boston in light of my bird rescue, was entitled Animals in Translation. What held my attention about her interview was the likeness between how I feel about animals and how Dr. Grandin understands them.
To give a brief example of this in the first hundred pages or so I have come across a large section devoted to animal curiosity entitled “Curiosity Doesn’t Kill Cats or Any Other Animal”. Throughout this section she argues very strongly for the benefits of curiosity to animal life. It was a little less poetic (or so I fancied) and much more scientifically sound than my own take on curiosity’s importance to life yet was still, in many ways, quite similar.
It has always been my opinion that it takes a keenly observational mind to understand animals. Dr. Grandin embodies this idea. Not only is she an exceptional scholar she is also autistic. In agricultural circles across the continent she is known as the cow whisperer for her ability to see and understand the details of a cow’s environment from the cow’s perspective, an ability she links directly to her autistic mind (something she explains with intriguing detail in her book).
I am neither autistic nor a scholar (obvious, I know). I might not even be that much of a keen observer of animals (though I fancy this true too). My hope is that in seeing the world through Dr. Grandin’s eyes I will understand a little better, even if it is just in words, that world of animals I feel so strongly about.
The following is something I’ve extracted from my notes. I hope it shows that my impulses about animals at least come from a genuine place.

She flew into the middle of the three kitchen windows lined up over the sink. It was the one that could not open. It was also the only one without a screen. I approached slowly but from behind her which I think panicked her as she had to alternate between her attempts to fly through the invisible barrier and keeping an eye on what to her must have been a very large presence. When she perched still her beak remained opened. This looked unusual. I had never seen a bird with their beaks opened without making a sound. She was silent. The whole cabin was silent. I wondered if she had any idea that she was perched between two small wooden ducks that decorated the sill. I think probably not though my human brain certainly acknowledged the humor of it.
I tried speaking in a calm voice. This panicked her further and she began to thump against the glass again and again. I knew that I had her cornered but I did not know any other way to help. I opened one of the side windows and removed the screen. My plan had been to step back and leave her alone but after I opened the window she only tried harder to fly through the invisible barrier. The sound of little bird skull against glass was the only one in my head and I began to fear that she would damage herself. I decided to act.
Stepping close again I cupped my hands and tried to put them around her gently. As her wings fluttered against my fingers I felt the soft down of bird feather but also the more rigid presence of bone. Immediately aware of the fragility of bird bone against the dense fist-forming weapon wielding bone of human hand I drew back in fear that I would damage her most important evolutionary structure. She toppled backwards into a plateful of soapy cheese water. I scooped her out quickly moving her to the right of the center window. She flitted off my hands and out through the opening dodging the wood of the open window with astounding aerial agility. She landed on the sheltering branches of the closest conifer.
I watched her for some time as she sat very still on the branch. I tried to imagine her relief or if she felt any. I believe she must have though I couldn’t be certain. Looking at her all I could clearly see was the information my bird watching brain could process; small bird, light brown maybe olive color, largish beak, no prominent coloring underneath (no yellow). Even as a very amateur bird watcher I was fairly certain that it was an immature female pine warbler. Yet when she had fluttered about so intimately close to me I was at a complete loss as how to communicate to her that I meant it no harm. And yet there remained a part of me that felt that such a communication was impossible, a part of me I would link to the perplexity I once felt watching a Korean family happily swallowing a dinner of live squirming sea snails.

As I finish writing I find myself looking at the heels of two of these three Korean girls. The reason I am focusing on their heels is because they are sockless and covered with band-aids where the back of their pink hard plastic shoes meet the skin. The plastic does not look pliable. It gives their shoes an appearance of rigid newness. To me, who considers comfort and practicality to be ancient qualities of excellence in footwear, they might as well be wearing empty tissue boxes. I don’t get it at all. All I can think is that after ten or fifteen minuets in the White Mountains they would likely want to chincha their shoes out of existence. And so, with typically mixed human feelings, I realize that as far as animals are concerned I might at least understand them a little better than Koreans, women, and cities.