Crap

Well I just realized I haven't blogged in two days but I have absolutely no ideas about what to write. But I only have ten minutes left of work and nothing else to do so it seems like I should write something. I really need to pick a theme for this blog and stick to it, it would narrow the field of options considerably. But that seems so limiting... Hm...

I've been surfing the interwebs all day looking at random things in between bouts of frantic copy-writing for one of the magazines I freelance for, and I've realized something. The internet, in most of its blog and list and funny pictures areas at least, is a vast wasteland populated almost entirely by people like me. People who are gainfully employed in a manner that puts them in front of a computer for at least eight hours a day, but who still have absolutely nothing to do. It's amazing. How much manpower is being wasted in this world by losers who have learned the entire LOLdictionary by heart? They make Photoshop masterpieces and post them on all sorts of sites, and then write comments about them, sometimes inventing whole new personas from which to create debate, which creates interest, which brings in more hits to their site, which... is... self-aggrandizement at its finest.

I watched the music video for Rammstein's song "Amerika," which was sent to me by a friend, and which is hilarious. Of course I'm sure they meant it as a very serious political statement about how American stupidity is taking over the world, but Rammstein as a band takes itself so seriously that one can't help but laugh at it or risk brain-explodey. But the comments! Oh, the comments! These are the people who have no creative talent with which to make things to post and then comment upon. They write things like: "whatever. britan i dont think is the best cause thats the whole reason why america exists. the whole world isnt perfect."

...

And Rammstein's point is proved!

...That really had no point to it, but it's interesting food for thought. And now my ten minutes are up and I must venture out into the Arctic Tundra that is New York City in January. Wish me luck!

Love Potion Number One

An article published today in the New York Times cites another article, recently published in Nature, about the chemical and evolutionary nature of the human experience of love. According to both articles, love as we know it - that rush of euphoria, infatuation, obsession, lust and intense emotional connection that we experience at certain times for certain people - has developed in human beings as a way to strengthen pair bonds between mother and child, and between mated pairs in order to keep them together for the sake of that child.

I've done a lot of reading on this subject and have heard many theories, but none of them counter this very basic idea that love is not so much a mystical force caused by the cataclysmic connection of two souls as by the chemicals that evolution (or God, if that's how you look at it) has placed in us to keep our species going. That may be an unromantic way of looking at things, but as far as I'm concerned, knowing this doesn't reduce the experience of love - nothing really can. Love is one of the defining characteristics of the experience of being human. Even if it is just a bunch of drug-like chemistry pumping through our bodies, it is still the thing that drives people to perform amazing feats, to feel and experience the world and what it means to be alive as perhaps no other species can. And this, no matter what causes it, is transcendant.

But leave it to scientists, of whom many of you may already know I am deeply suspicious, to treat something that borders on magical with the same amount of levity as they would any other natural phenomenon, which is to say, as if it were nothing at all.

While the Larry Young, the author of the Nature article, doesn't cite any specific plans just yet, he mentions that "it won’t be long before an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink." John Tierney of the New York Times then goes on to speculate that perhaps what we need more than a real "love potion" would be an "anti-love potion, a vaccine preventing you from making an infatuated ass of yourself."

Tierney makes some good points about how, if used correctly and at the right times, an love vaccine could prevent people from performing some of the stupider acts that human beings have been wont to perform over the ages - running off with someone else's spouse, falling for a complete loser that all our friends say is bad news, committing criminal acts in the name of love, and so on. Certainly it could be a much bigger boon to humanity than a love potion, which would be used in all the wrong ways, to force people into relationships they didn't want if used on others, and to fool ourselves even more about people who aren't right or even good for us if used on ourselves. But I see problems inherent in both these ideas, and not just small problems. Love, whether it's being enhanced or muffled, isn't something to be taken lightly. Love is a force that, as some have said, can move mountains, and conquer all, and is more or less something we shouldn't fuck with. At least as far as I can tell.

Whether we like it or not, and no matter what name we put on the hands that have sculpted us as we are, evolution or God or what-have-you made us capable of experiencing love for a reason. It has helped us get this far, to the point where no other species on earth can come close to shutting us down. We have beaten the odds and we have gotten as far as this because whatever it is that made us gave us the ability to love. It also gave us the ability to walk upright, and while other species might have been rolling on the ground laughing at us when we started, it hasn't backfired on us yet. Love, just like walking, ultimately came into our genetic code for a reason, and a reason that has served us well so far.

Of course there are times when love hurts us, and when we wish it had never happened, but to cheapen that experience by bottling it just seems... dangerous. What kind of messes could we get ourselves into by taking some anti-love potion and going out on a Saturday night, ending up accidentally with someone who had taken a love potion, or vice versa? Morning-after experiences can be embarassing enough without a whole new cocktail of chemical enhancements to be dealt with, as recreational drugs have proven for centuries already. Add to those already tried-and-true drugs a substance that could literally make one fall head over heels in love and suddenly the possibilities of violence, stalking, jealousy, anger, and regret - among other things - multiplies exponentially. Can you imagine a college dormitory full of 'potioned-up' students, half having even more and more libidinous sex than they currently do while in the throes of the 'anti-love potion's' no-strings-attached high, while the other half fight each other and sigh and moan and wail over their 'soul mates' who they met in line for the unisex bathroom at the club?

Chaos.

Some people, as both articles mention, are born less receptive to the chemicals that cause "love" in the first place, making them less likely to feel the urge to "settle down" or "find someone," while being able to lead less conventional but still very full lives. What's wrong with that? Probably many of our greatest scientists and even artists suffered from lack of desire to love, and ended up making breakthroughs that affected the rest of us for years. But often these "loners" end up convinced by our culture that they "must" find someone and "must" settle down to be normal. Meanwhile, others of us seem hardwired to enter into torrid love affairs with every likely candidate to come along, getting themselves into relationship after relationship with people who hurt, abuse, and devalue them, while friends tell them they need to "cool down" and learn to appreciate being alone.

A love potion and anti-love potion, respectively, could perhaps help these people, but if these 'potions' were to be marketed and developed like any other pharmaceutical, would we then have to label these already-troubled individuals (troubled only because of what society tells them they should be or do, mind you) as "diseased"? Must we now make the desire to be left alone or to be loved as "syndromes" or "disorders"?


I appreciate that biologists and drug manufacturers are trying to help us, but I wish they'd think about it a bit first.

Cop out

I am way too sick and full of mildly psychotropic medicines that are supposedly combatting my illness to write a blog that comes close to making sense today. And, given that last time I tried to make sense I ended up talking about Bowie Child vs. Robots in the future, I thought making an attempt in my current state would be a mistake. Perhaps hilarious, but it would get nobody anywhere in the long run.

So instead, I'm taking the opportunity that having my sinuses feel as if they're going to pop my eyeballs out of my head and my lungs hurt with each breath I draw to do what some of my favorite other bloggers do, and guide anyone who reads this to some other interesting websites. I get a lot of ideas and inspiration from some of these, so I thought maybe others would, too.

1) Firstly, on a somber note. If you like seafood, which I know most of you do, or sushi, or anything from the ocean, you should be aware that most of our fish stocks worldwide are being overfished and fish in really destructive manners. I just watched a British documentary last night called "Deep Trouble" about how badly depleted our once-thriving ocean is becoming, and how it's our responsibility as consumers to find out how the fish we eat was caught and where it comes from. But it's hard to make responsible decisions about what we purchase without first knowing what's ok and what's not. So,here is a link to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Guide . The people here keep a close watch on fish stocks in the wild and on fishing practices world-wide, and keep their site up to date on what types of fish are ok to eat and which are not in the area where you live. I'm sure their info isn't 100% accurate, because depending on where you're buying, you could be getting fish from any number of fisheries and markets and so on, but it's a good start. You can even order a wallet-sized card with a guide appropriate to you region on it, so you can keep a list of what's ok and what's not with you at all times, making spur-of-the-moment sushi forays less morally confusing!.

2) On a more entertaining note, NPH hosted SNL on Saturday! Hooray for initials, and the for the internet making it completely ok for me to use them and expect people to understand what I'm saying! I was really considering getting up at 4:00 am to wait in line for ticktes, but I got drunk instead and ended up sick from a cold too, AND Had to be at work at 10:00 am, so I didn't make it. But go to Hulu for some good clips.

3) Any of you who are responsible YouTube watchers or internet trollers have no doubt already seen Drunk History , but if you haven't yet, go check it out. It's entertaining and yet slightly disgusting in a perfect balance. There are a lot of homehade ripoffs out there, though, that ARE gross, so try to be prudent with your link-clicking.

4) Of course, if we're going to venture into YouTube territory, there has to be an obligatory Cute Animal installment. I used to be quite against the Cut Animals on the Internets phenomenon, but as the days here at the gallery have dragged ever onward and I have gotten more and more bored, I've become ok with. Animals are funny. Especially the ninja cat .

5) And, to make your day a little brighter, there's scientific proof (or at least a study showing that perhaps it's true) that fat butts are an indication of good health! True story!