| What I learned about George Carlin | 12:20 AM |
So I'm sure you all know that George Carlin passed away this week. I'm not a big follower of comedians, but I have seen some of his stuff and found him funny. One of the first videos I watched after his death was his classic Seven Dirty Words routine. And being someone who swears a lot, loves language, and enjoys people who defy convention, I immediately loved it. I have an image in my head of Carlin as a white bearded, bald guy. But in this clip he's young and handsome and seems more jovial than I ever remember seeing him -- like the world hasn't quite worn him down and jaded him yet.
Add to it the fact that this routine got him arrested and got the radio station that broadcast his uncensored routine sued in a first amendment stir and it makes it all the more charming.
A friend of mine was saying how when he was a kid his parents had vinyl records of Carlin's routines -- vinyl! I think it's not uncommon to see someone differently after his / her death. I always thought of George Carlin as a funny grumpy old man, and now I've got a different, more interesting image of him in my head. Though it's too bad it takes death for me to soften my heart and open up my mind.
Some links to more informative articles:
- Carlin: comic who buzz-sawed hypocrisy
- The Station That Dared to Defend Carlin's '7 Words' Looks Back
- George Carlin mourned as counterculture hero
| Every time we lose a single girl... | 12:14 AM |
Every time someone I know gets married it kicks off marriage related topics in my little head. I was just thinking about how a year and a half ago there were four of us engaged women at Ed & Ineke's wedding and none of us wanted to catch the bouquet. Clearly that speaks for itself. In the end, the bouquet got tossed twice and I only ended up with it out of pity for everyone involved in the whole affair -- the poor scared girls that didn't want to touch the thing (including me) and the poor bride who had to toss the thing twice.
So why didn't any of us want the bouquet? One of us was just gun shy about marriage -- she ended up happily married (just recently). One of us is unhappily married. Two of us quickly disentangled ourselves from our pending commitment errors -- one of us at the very wedding where the unenthusiastic bouquet toss took place.
Every time I hang out with my friends lately, I find myself wondering how much of their relationship status affects mine. I'll bet that if they were all single, I would probably be more inclined to stay so. Not to say that I'm in a relationship just because my friends are, but that their lives, given our closeness, can't but affect me to some degree. I see their intimacy and happiness, and their flaws and strains, and my gut no longer recoils from it -- the thought of spending forever with one person (or at least the foreseeable future) -- in fact it seems potentially worth giving up my freedom for.
| The New and the Old | 11:17 PM |
Two of our closest friends got married this weekend. It was a beautiful and touching ceremony -- they had a close friend marry them, they had close friends read at the wedding, then of course, the traditional best man and father of the bride speeches. I guess none of that would be interesting if you didn't know them, but since I do and know them well, I found it wonderful and sweet.
Another close friend lost someone close to her this weekend, too. I never know what to say to people when they're going through something that raw. And I never really knew what to say to people who would say nice things to me when my mother's death was still new. My heart breaks for her.
On the shuttle ride home while I was thinking about all this turmoil and change this past weekend, I couldn't help but think how often the start of something is tied to the end of something else and warm memories blend in with heartbreak and maybe that's a good thing. My mom died the day after my sister's birthday so forever those two things are tied together. Our friend will remember her grandma's passing on every one of our friends' anniversaries. I think each year it gets easier to focus a little more on the birthday, but the death will always be there.
| Consuming our morbid thoughts away | 12:48 AM |
This doesn't seem like new research because it seems to me that it's a given that eating and shopping are relatively common coping mechanisms. It's not unusual to hear stories about women addicted to shopping or food. I suppose men share these same problems but perhaps 1) less numerously, 2) less excessively, or 3) less conspicuously (but I haven't researched this so I'm just stabbing blindly).
There was a recent New Scientist article about how thinking about death or dying can spur buying or consuming behavior. Students wrote essays about either their own death or a trip to the dentist (I think it's funny that the options were death or dentist). After these kids wrote these essays, they found that people who had written about their death ate more cookies when given the opportunity, and also hypothetically purchased more items than those who wrote about the dentist.
But they also evaluated the students' self esteem. The ones that had low self esteem and had to write about death were more excessive in their behaviors -- ate more cookies, bought more things -- as a way of "subconsciously escaping self awareness, which is heightened by thoughts of dying". Those with high self esteem weren't really affected by the thoughts of death.
For those affected, it wasn't just the thought of their own death, but watching clips of death related news also stimulated this consumption. I love the quote at the end the piece which has one of the research professors (who, btw, has a PhD in psychology and is a professor of Marketing at his university) saying, gosh, I hope marketing folks don't exploit this by placing food ads right after the news. Really? But isn't that your job -- to teach people how to best market their goods?
Thoughts of death make us eat more cookies full article at New Scientist
| My favorite drug | 1:37 AM |
My favorite hormone is back in the news! And this time it might cure some mental illnesses. Oxytocin stimulates pair bonding, affection, and breast milk. It helps you associate good feelings with social interactions and to be able to empathize with others. Mothers who have their oxytocin production interfered with stop nursing and caring for their young; children who are neglected in their youth grow up with stunted oxytocin receptors. Researchers now think that oxytocin could help those with mental illnesses that affect sociability or empathy (like autism).
It's coincidental that I just read Above the Thunder and was thinking that I must have a lack of oxytocin in my system -- my mothering and nurturing instincts are low.
It's also coincidental that I was just talking to a friend of mine about how some really intelligent tech geeks are sort of autistic in that they aren't very good socially -- they can't read signals, they don't know how to interract with people, or sometimes even don't know why they should bother.
Perhaps we could all use a little extra oxytocin: I love you, you love me; let's take care of our family.
