The Bio-Mechanics of Loneliness


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The composer Ken Clinger wrote a song based upon this vignette of mine about the parrot mimicing the microwave.  Here are the lyrics that Ken came up with:


[Here's a link to an mp3 of Ken's recording.]

I saw the documentary "Winged Migration" on DVD, and it got me to thinking a lot about magic and how breathtaking, uplifting miracles can become so disappointing (and worse than that -- actually negative, or an experience of spiritual diminishment) when one discovers the secret of how the trick works.  If you've seen the film, you know what truly magical moments were caught on camera.  Most of the scenes seem "impossible," so extraordinary are they.  I wasn't so much asking "how did they do it?" (because I knew they must have been in airplanes and holding cameras!), but more "how could they possibly have captured so many rare, once-in-a-lifetime occurrences?")  It was one of the most striking movie experiences of my life, and I have seen a lot of films (well-over three thousand films over the last decade alone).  Alas, I began watching the "making of" featurette on the DVD, and I was totally devastated.  The "secret" of the filmmakers was far more diabolical than I could have possibly imagined.  All of the magic drained away, and I was left feeling tricked (the bad kind of tricked -- as in swindled by con-men).  When a magician does something miraculous on stage, you've paid to be entertained and you delight in being fooled.  When a documentary filmmaker dupes you, it's a whole different story.  I found myself feeling outraged over and over again as I learned about the astonishingly elaborate methods the filmmakers employed to secure their footage (though they didn't put strings on the birds' claws and fly them like kites, such a method wasn't beneath them).  I actually had to shut off the DVD player after the worst revelation -- they crated up the pelicans and flew them in an airplane to Africa so as to record that leg of the birds' migratory "journey."  I would have far more enjoyed watching a cartoon about birds, or a LucasArts digital rendering of birds, because neither would have pretended to be a legitimate documentary.  Of course, it all boils down to packaging, doesn't it?  Had the sham-documentary filmmakers stated upfront that this film was an artistic depiction of how birds fly, and explained that all the birds in the film were actors (which is actually quite true, as the birds had been raised and imprinted by the filmmakers from eggs, then trained to fly on cue alongside the aircraft and to follow the sound of the squeeze horn), then I probably would have been quite amazed and delighted by so elaborate an endeavor!  As it was, they presented a fantastic illusion, then turned around and showed how they did it, leaving the viewer feeling gullible.  Had they been real wonder-workers instead of con-artists, they would have left the viewer feeling amazed, not duped.

Husbands and Knives:
Twenty Shocking Parallels in the Lives of
Yukio Mishima and Woody Allen

1. Residents of Westernized islands.
2. Short male persons.
3. Directors shunned by Hollywood.
4. Existentialists.
5. Commited public "suicide."
6. Expressed nostalgic yearning.
7. Avidly absorbed the culture of the East (or the Upper East Side).
8. Withstood vulgar curiosity about biographical anecdotes.
9. Obsessed with social disgrace.
10. Strong feelings about raw fish.
11. Involved with Asian women.
12. Interested in masks and disguises to express facets of their personality.
13. Fascinated by their own celebrity.
14. Recounted traumatic episodes from youth.
15. Attended tea ceremonies (or at least the Russian Tea Room).
16. Brandished phallic symbol representative of their art (sword/clarinet).
17. Forged in the smithy of their souls the uncreated conscience of their race.
18. Resisted fulfilling the role of son, husband, and father, yet desired to preserve ancestral tradition.
19. Wore costumes of period which they believed themselves to personify (Samurai robe/trenchcoat).
20. Died in their thoughts every morning.

The heart doesn't simply open.  It continuously opens, like a fractal bloom.

One of my favoriite comedy duos goes by the name "The Lampshades," and their spoof-lounge act is so funny that it's almost dangerous.  Dame Edna once had a gag where she kept a nurse onstage in case anyone collapsed from too much happiness, and that might be something for The Lampshades to consider.  Kate Flannery and Scot Robinson perform as The Lampshades in Hollywood.  (Though their long-running act is currently on hiatus while Kate is busy with her role in the television comedy "The Office," The Lampshades can still be heard on their CD and seen on their DVD: see TheLampshades.com for sample video clips and mp3s).  When I last saw them perform live, the guy sitting to my left kept looking over at me throughout the show, presumably because I was laughing so hard.  Maybe he thought I was a heckler or something.  Or maybe he just didn't recognize how much talent he was witnessing on stage.  What was cool about being in the front row was that I could see the wonderful subtleties of Kate's and Scot's facial expressions.  It seemed that Kate made about 8,000 different faces throughout the show, and every one of them had me in stitches.  I marvel at how much artistry goes into every moment of the show.

When I was 9, my 5-year-old kid brother convinced me that the craters of the moon formed the face of Abe Lincoln.  I didn't believe him at first, but he seemed so sure.  To children, Lincoln certainly comes across as a demigod, beardedly sitting on that throne and austerely bestowing freedom.  That night my kid brother summed up just how much "cents" I had.  He probably could've had a field day pointing out all sorts of imaginary constellations, such as the heavenly chariot of the divine Abraham (I would have fallen for that one right away, because I always thought the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the penny was a trolley car).  But I couldn't for the life of me follow the line of my brother's finger all the way to the heavens.  I didn't realize then that all constellations are made-up, formed by those who can picture the puzzles of life and convince others to connect the dots.

Reader Comments:

Jonathan wrote,