After a couple of hard weeks of studying & work, I went to Vega$ with some friends this weekend to blow off steam…it’s amazing how much it’s changed since I was last there 8 years ago. The food is a lot better, for one thing; I definitely got to fulfill my foodie jones at a couple of very nice places (Table 10, I’m talking to you!) Also got to see the Cirque du Soleil “Love” show, which features remixed Beatles tunes. It was an amazing show—very rich, full of whimsy & wonder, and the soundtrack, of course, was tops.
Beyond that, the Strip didn’t hold a lot of allure, so my buddy Angus and I took a cab out to the Pinball Museum, and aside from the Cirque show, it was the highlight of the weekend, a gem hidden inside a strip mall. There were over 100 machines from the looks of it, and I played a good chunk of them in complete joy. Pinball and I go way back (~1973), and it was great to see and play some old favorites. Here are a couple of videos to give you the flavor of the place:
When it comes to ants, I feel like Vishnu: “I am death, destroyer of worlds.” We suffer from periodic invasions of ants in the house, usually in the bathroom or kitchen, and when they decide to visit, they bring the whole family, usually thousands. So we stomp, spray, erect barriers of essential oils, until finally it’s too much and we lay down huge puddles of Terro for them to take back to the colony. And then we clean up all the bodies, which is when the karmic guilt starts to set in. To these tiny, industrious creatures, I’m no less a monster than Hitler. I may kill them with remorse, but it doesn’t keep the Raid can under the sink, if you know what I mean.
I’ve been thinking about this partly because the colony under the house has been sending up scouts again now that the rain is over, but also because I’m in an interesting quandary about compassion in general and how far I’m willing to extend it. A high school kid came to the door tonight, trying to get me to buy the newspaper or donate to help him go to college. He rattled off the kind of history I would have expected stereotypically (poor kid, mom working hard, deadbeat dad), and after a few minutes of listening to him try to talk me into it I told him “No thanks” for the third or fourth time and shut the door in his face.
So where is my sense of compassion in a moment like this? In one way of looking at it, every such occasion is an opportunity to help, and if I really believe in helping people who are trying to better themselves (and I like to think I do, something shadowy in a Jungian sense there maybe), then I should theoretically be willing to make a donation. And yet I didn’t—partly from annoyance, partly from suspicion that it was a scam, and partly from a general rule of not giving out money at my front door. So is it an opportunity wasted, or a chance to exercise appropriate discretion? I think the answer is ultimately yes to both questions, so I’m left with a situation that regardless of my response leaves me feeling dissatisfied with it. A weird way to spend the night.
Found on MetaFilter this morning: Eclectic 2.0[requires QuickTime]. I have a thing for time-lapse photography and reverse video (see also Sensei Studios, their “Balancing Point” video is amazing), and this piece really took my breath away.
The title this week is taken from Bright River, which I can’t recommend enough. After I mentioned it a few posts back I went back and listened, and the incredible act of imagination that the play represents just blew me away all over again. And then I went to my local caffeination station, where they’d just put a up a new art exhibit, including the painting to the right. To my delight, the artist was enthusiastic about sales, and so I was able to bring this raven home as inspiration for the rest of the quarter. I’m kind of hoping they start to appear in interesting and unexpected places more.
But enough about that. I want to talk about ravens in general.
Raven as a mythical figure has proved surprisingly elusive. You might expect that of a trickster figure, but they seem to enjoy being the subject of stories as a rule, or at least don’t bother to cover their tracks much. Raven, on the other hand, is a much more shadowy personage, and alternately held in either high regard or contempt, depending on who you ask. It’s one of the reasons I felt so drawn to the painting; the juxtaposition of the raven with a heart seems to point to both meanings at once: the carrion bird with its dinner, and the messenger of the gods, bringing a token of love to some worthy recipient. At least, that’s what pops into my mind’s eye—what do you see?
Podcast Notes
I was surprised at my level of resistance to doing the podcast…definitely some stuff to work out there about perfectionism. I had a lot of grand plans, and in the end, it was so hard just to get myself to record the voice that I gave in and left it at that. In retrospect, it’s exactly what needed to happen. And the Code of Conduct (for those of you in the cohort) came in handy here— I held you in my thoughts, imagining you all sitting across the dining room table (where I recorded this), and somehow it became a lot easier to speak naturally.
The other thing I discovered is just how many times I say “um”, breathe loudly, and smack my lips. I also have a new respect for the radio announcers who can do this live—I ended up cutting out almost 45 seconds of audio that was purely that kind of stuff, and it went from 1 long track to 112 snippets to get rid of it. So, without further ado, here is my view of Raven on a sunny Saturday morning:
