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(This last one is a 2-for-1. It's a "post"-er with a lamp-"post.")

Nothing You Can See That Isn't Shown

Some of you may have already heard about this unusual little project, but I thought I would bring it to the attention of the four people who read this blog.

So I'm a huge Beatles fan. I know that there are many people who would claim the same, but I'm not kidding around about my fanaticism. I have the Anthology on DVD and have parts of it memorized. I even like the Magical Mystery Tour TV special so much that I bought an imported version of the DVD on eBay. I'm thinking of naming my first two children Paul and John, even if they aren't boys.

But this thing took me a little by surprise. Apparently, George Harrison was good friends with Guy Laliberte (the founder of Cirque), and this show is the result of their collaboration over several years before George died. Olivia Harrison endorses it. Paul McCartney endorses it. Ringo Starr endorses it. Heck, even Yoko Ono has spoken out in support of the project. Beatles producer Sir George Martin is an acting musical director for the danged thing! And yet, somehow, I just don't like it; It doesn't sit well with me at all. If John were still alive, I'm not sure he would give it the thumbs up either.

People pay outrageous sums of money to sit in a dark theater at the Mirage in Las Vegas and have those familiar, wonderful Beatles songs blasted into their bleeding ears from all sides in an attempt to recreate the "intimacy" of the recording studio. While they are being rendered deaf with intimacy, the audience is treated to random ethnic dances and silly but sparkly acrobatics supposedly inspired by the music. For example, Lady Madonna is now interpreted much like Stomp with galoshes and Here Comes the Sun is a tribute to the sun-god Ra and his tacky chandelier. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is just a girl with a shiny shirt being hurled through the air on a string.

Have we sold out the greatest rock band in the history of time for this? And why are all these people who should know better backing such a spectacle? The whole thing reminds me a little too much of Harold Zindler and his troup trying to sell their unwritten play to the Duke:

"It will be spectacular, spectacular! No words in the vernacular ... can describe this great event; you'll wonder where your money went!"

Am I too cynical? Have I lost the ability to enjoy anything new?

See the spectacle for yourself and decide: www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/love/intro/intro.htm

Sick As A ... Bird?

The eagle has landed ... and he's terminally ill!

It turns out that several "cluster" outbreaks of the avian flu have taken place in Indonesia within families, and scientists are not sure how or why it has happened. Next stop: pandemic!

I guess the ABC mini-series Fatal Contact wasn't so far off the mark after all! Good Lord! Kill all chickens! Lock up the ducks! Sequester the pigeons! And euthanize that sparrow; I think he just coughed!

AIEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee!

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12939359/wid/11915773

Whatever ...

Patient (obviously lethargic, as he is slouched back on the exam table like drained spaghetti): "So, I've got less than two months left in my current position before I move to another town and go back to school. The office seems more like a place to hang out during the day than an actual job. But there are still things that need to be done and I just can't bring myself to care. What's happening to me, doc?"

Doctor (leaning back in his swivel chair with arms behind head and chewing absently on a pencil): "Hnnhh ... ? Oh, yes, your apathy problem. Frankly, I don't see what it has to do with me."

Patient (lazily raising one eyebrow): "You're my doctor, aren't you? Shouldn't you care about my well-being?"

Doctor: "Well, I'm transferring to Hawaii later this month, and to be honest, I've kinda checked out."

Patient: "Dude, I hear you. I can barely bring myself to drive to work in the mornings. And after lunch, I usually just sit and count the numerous ways that I don't care anymore."

Doctor (now gazing out of the window at a passing squirrel): "Wha ... ? How's that?"

Patient: "Nevermind. I'm just gonna chill out here for a while and take a nap."

Doctor (nodding off in his chair): "That's normal. I'll have the nurse get you some anti-depressants ... zzzzzzzzzZZZ."

Don't let this happen to YOU!

Senioritis is a term used to describe the laziness displayed by students nearing the end of high school and college in the United States and Canada. Its symptoms can include slowness, procrastination, apathy regarding schoolwork, and a tendency toward truancy.

Background
"Senioritis" is a jocular term rather than a medical one. It is not recognized by the American Psychological Association as a distinct illness, but may generally be considered as a combination of attention-deficit disorder and amotivational syndrome. It could also be considered allied to affective psychological disorders, such as depression or anxiety.

Senioritis does not affect all people in the same way. While some show apathy, others show mania. In this way, the syndrome can prevent students from performing routine tasks because of the heightened stress associated with preparing for graduation. When taking excessive course loads to fulfill scholastic requirements, many seniors show an inability to find work, control emotional swings, consummate relationships, maintain personal hygiene, etc. Unsuprisingly, seniors who find the twin pressures of soul-crushing stress and mind-numbing apathy too much to handle often turn to alternate, usually illicit methods of relieving the emptiness that fills them. These pursuits include the classic "sex, drugs, rock n' roll".

While senioritis is generally viewed as an imaginary disease, its effects are well known to most experienced educators. This imagined affliction is a symptom of students' complacency once they have all but guaranteed their place in college. After college admission letters arrive in early spring, high school seniors feel even less pressure to push themselves academically. In an effort to combat senioritis, many colleges require that an updated transcript be sent from the high school after the end of the school year, and will revoke admission if a student's grades drop. The attitude of many students is that they "deserve a break", and may well have other commitments outside school, but the effect is blamed on the amount of remedial study needed when starting college. Another theory voiced by students blames senioritis on the decreasingly stable job market, i.e. "Who wants to work if I know I'll be flipping burgers anyway?". Alternately, the prevalence of corporations as the dominant social entity can cause some seniors to do a cost/benefit analysis that leaves them questioning whether their contribution will enhance them as an individual, or simply be lost amid the hustle and bustle of modern life under a globalized economy.

Prevention
General preventative measures, frequently taken by school administrators, can include research papers, senior projects, and other academic assignments of significant weight. Some schools even try to offer students programs to encourage attendance, while other schools buckle down and enforce their rules regarding attendance. Medical orthodoxy suggests that the dangers of preventative medication generally outweigh the benefits and thus, the majority of doctors do not prescribe drugs to "treat" senioritis. Common contemporary opinion regarding the disease is also illustrated in slogans such as "Senioritis: We'd fight for a cure, but we're just too damn lazy."

If you suffer from this debilitating disorder, you are not alone. Operators are probably standing by (unless they're on break) to speak with you about how to seek help.

CALL OUR TOLL-FREE NUMBER

1-800- ... um ... I think it has a 4 in it ... oh, forget it.

Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow

Yeah, that's the way it's supposed to work. Sometimes, however, the yoo-stay-she-un tube gets fused shut like a blocked shower drain and the resultant semi-blocked sound waves coming through that ear make everything sound like a tiny jazz band trapped inside a sardine can.

A certain blogger experienced this phenomenon this morning as he woke up. Apparently, he had slept on his right side for the entire night, and the ear on that side was crushed into a hideously deformed mutant ear with only faint and filtered sound capabilities. Does anyone out there know any crazy, homespun remedies for unclogging a stuck eustachian tube? I'll do anything: consult a witch, light my ear on fire, listen to country music ... anything!

Happy Birthday, Sir Arthur!

Happy 147th Birthday,
Old Bean!
Sure, we know him best for giving birth to that infuriatingly brilliant detective Holmes (and for inadvertently providing us with the colorful and satisfying phrase "No sh#*, Sherlock"), but there are many other facets to this complicated literary man-about-town.

For example, did you know that Doyle initially studied to be a doctor? He wrote his thesis on the effects of syphilis! Arty also once served as Ship's Surgeon aboard an Arctic whaling boat! According to most sources, he didn't really practice much medicine, but rather broke up fights between members of the crew.

Though raised as a Jesuit, Coney became a self-avowed "Spritualist" and preached about the existence of fairies, the usefulness of family seances, and other such silly tenets for most of his life. (Be sure to read about the Cottingley Fairy Hoax at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies, or just rent the movie Fairy Tale: A True Story or Photographing Fairies if you're lazy and you love Peter O'Toole or Ben Kingsley.)

Art Doyle was also good buddies with Harry Houdini for a while, and they even held a couple of seances together (the first to contact Doyle's dead son and the second to reach Houdini's dead mother), but Houdini ultimately could not believe in such cheesy, lame quackery and the friendship dissolved in a series of nasty letters published in 1923 in the New York Times.

I learned an even more interesting tidbit today: ol' Doyley once co-wrote a comedic, Gilbert-&-Sullivan style operetta with none other than Peter Pan author J. M. Barrie! The show was entitled Jane Annie, and it was universally declared to be a horrific, boorish flop!

Barrie had written himself into a corner early on in production and was having breakdown after breakdown, so he called on his good pal Art to save his butt before it was too late. Unfortunately for them both, it was too late for any butt-saving. The show very nearly ruined D'Oyly Carte's season at the Savoy; Arthur Sullivan himself decided to pass on collaborating with Barrie on the project. Now there was a man who could smell a stinker!

The synopsis is listed below, and if you want more info on this strange little play, be sure to visit
math.boisestate.edu/gas/other_savoy/jane_annie/jane_annie_home.html

{Set in a girls' boarding school and the golf green attached to it. Bab, described by the authors as a "bad girl," plans to elope, but cannot decide whether to marry Jack the lancer or Tom the press student. Jane Annie, the school's "good girl," schemes to take one of them (Jack) off her hands, and calls on her powers of hypnotism to accomplish it.}

Who knew Coney was such an interesting chap? Here's to obscure information about people long since dead! Huzzahs all around!

Victor / Victoria

Much has been made in recent books/movies about the supposed inclusion of the figure of Mary Magdalene, seated in the place of honor on Jesus' right, in The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. Even though most art scholars concur that the figure is in fact that of the disciple John, crazed fans of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Load swear that it must be Jesus' secret wife, relying on their years of non-experience in art history to make that claim.

Shown above are two details of the figure of John from Da Vinci's Last Supper, representing the appearance of the figure both before and after extensive (and rather invasive) "restoration and cleaning work" was done on the fragile fresco. One can clearly see how much more feminine the figure appears after the restoration. The restorer has changed the shape of the face, removed the shadowed eyebrows and what appears to be facial hair, and even changed the color of the figure's clothes! John has been effectively eradicated and replaced by some girlish fop in pastels, but that does not reinforce any of the ridiculous theories put forth by populist fictioneers in their haphazard, irresponsibly researched "books."

Seek the truth, my brothers and sisters, for it is seeking you.

The Da Vinci Load

The following excerpts are reproduced without alteration from Dan Brown's web site www.danbrown.com.

{HOW MUCH OF THIS NOVEL IS TRUE?
The Da Vinci Code is a novel and therefore a work of fiction. While the book's characters and their actions are obviously not real, the artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals depicted in this novel all exist (for example, Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings, the Gnostic Gospels, Hieros Gamos, etc.). These real elements are interpreted and debated by fictional characters. While it is my belief that some of the theories discussed by these characters may have merit, each individual reader must explore these characters' viewpoints and come to his or her own interpretations. My hope in writing this novel was that the story would serve as a catalyst and a springboard for people to discuss the important topics of faith, religion, and history.

BUT DOESN'T THE NOVEL'S "FACT" PAGE CLAIM THAT EVERY SINGLE WORD IN THIS NOVEL IS HISTORICAL FACT?
If you read the "FACT" page, you will see it clearly states that the documents, rituals, organization, artwork, and architecture in the novel all exist. The "FACT" page makes no statement whatsoever about any of the ancient theories discussed by fictional characters. Interpreting those ideas is left to the reader.}

The "FACT" page in question is here reproduced as it appears on the "Excerpt" page of danbrown.com.

{FACT:
The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization. In 1975, Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.

The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic group that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brain-washing, coercion, and a practice known as "corporal mortification." Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million National Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City. All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.} (italics added)

Now, bearing these assertions in mind, take a look at what every major authority has to say about Dan's mysterious Priory of Sion at any of the following reliable sites:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_Sion
www.alpheus.org/html/articles/esoteric_history/richardson1.html
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/main1552009.shtml

Turns out the Priory of Sion was a lame club comprised of three or four bored French dudes who wanted to see if they could prove that one of them was descended from the line of Merovingian kings. It was not founded in 1099, but rather in 1956. It petered out of existence after a few short years. And as for the mysterious Dossiers Secrets documents, they were not-very-elaborate forgeries created by Plantard and his cronies to add credibility to his claims to be of royal descent. One of the documents actually has a hand-written confession to its forgery in the margin!

So, before you sell yourself heart and soul to the Da Vinci mania this weekend, do a little research of your own first (which the author himself decided not to do), and find out what is "FACT" and what is "CRAP".