Dr J’s Words, Words, Words

Trouble

Just a few scattered points about matters in general:

• This week was one of the most taxing of recent years, due largely to overall business and concern over the health of my eldest feline, Trouble. Early to mid-week had me very much worried that the time had come to, well, let him pass. There’s precious little worse than having to make such a dreadful decision, as any longtime pet-owner knows all too well. Trouble being Trouble, however, he has for now at least bounced back considerably, and while he can’t make the great jumps he only two weeks ago did, he is as spry as ever. He is, oddly, also considerably less cantankerous. In fact, he has, astonishingly, become unfathomably affectionate. For the most part he has not left my side since Thursday, sleeping on my lap or my chest or my side (believe it or not) almost continuously, to the point that I haven’t been able to accomplish a jot of work at home due to his current inclination to use me as a mattress. He hasn’t behaved like this in ten years, which of course makes the reformation all the more surprising. Jenny, however, is not fond of this. Jenny, therefore, feels the persistent need to claim attention as well, to the point my chest, such as it is, probably has eight permanent paw-prints embedded into it. It’s especially odd when their competitiveness occasions them to assert their proprietary rights over me at the same time. It’s as if both cats decided my chest wasn’t concave enough already…. Nonetheless, I’m just relieved Trouble’s doing better, if only for now: that’s the important thing. It almost makes me glad Troubsy thinks he’s John Wayne, and thus invulnerable.
• The main source of stress-relief for me this week has been listening to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl. Sooner or later I’ll compile my thoughts on it, but for now it’s worth describing as a genuinely brilliant and vibrant recording which should be given several hearings by anyone with a serious interest in "modern" music. One would think that the age of the MP3 had effectively killed the idea of the song cycle, but perhaps not just yet. Few albums legitimately warrant a reconsideration forty years after their composition, but Astral Weeks is one of them and Morrison, thank goodness, remains (at 63) remarkably up to the challenge. It’s a magisterial yet oddly vulnerable recording, and by no means a mere revisitation of a former glory. It’s also revelatory, which I confess I had not expected it to be. This is not merely a cashing-in: it’s an important cultural document and it may set a new standard for those elder musicians seeking to engage their former selves. Too bad the cover is so abjectly hideous.
• I keep meaning to watch the Oscar nominees, but I can’t (so far) be bothered. Milk? Ugh. Benjamin Button? Oy vey. Slumdog? I fear I’d rather eat someone else’s vomit. I’m sick of being messaged at. If nothing else, The Reader should remind us why lecture-pictures should be rejected automatically. Such ham-fistedness should be saved for the lonely and married.
• Today is so-called "Family Day" in Ontario, otherwise known as "Bullshit, Meaningless, How-To-Buy-An-Election Holiday." It really does sound like something out of a poor farce, doesn’t it? Welcome to life under Dalton McSquinty, aka Anthony Perkins with a political agenda (but not a single plan), the only pol who makes Bob Rae look like George Washington. I will never understand why my compatriots do not despise him more. He should, by any intelligent or intelligible standard, be held utterly beyond contempt, and yet he’s not– and worse, he’s well-poised for re-election.

Alas, enough for now. A long day beckons. An even longer one if Trouble has anything to purr about it.

I had abandoned doing this, but a Wise Man (TM) nudged me to do it just one more time.

THE HEAVEN ADMISSIONS TEST: 2008 EDITION

Read through the entire examination paper before proceeding and then answer all of the following questions as instructed. Remember that failure on this examination requires that you be consigned to the depths of hell for eternity. You have three hours to complete this examination.

1. In "Ode on a Grecian Urn," John Keats famously wrote that truth was beauty and beauty was truth. Demonstrate your profound and deeply-felt understanding of this principle by settling once and for all the most contentious question of contemporary spiritual, aesthetic and ontological concern: Ginger or Maryann? Sorry, ladies, you too have to choose.

2. God commands you to Abraham your snot-nosed, attention-addled, verbally-challenged, iPhone-addicted, Wii-whacking little Isaac. What do you do? More importantly, how long do you even take to think about it? Explain why you should or should not feel guilty about this.

3. Religions regularly affirm that God disapproves of abortion. Does He really? Keep in mind that he has, like the rest of us, had to witness the horrors of Torquemada, Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao and High School Musical 3.

4. Explain His plan for bran.

Toshiro Mifune

5. What you do not know about God is that he looks and acts exactly like Toshiro Mifune, katana and all, after a six-week sake bender. Now that you know this, answer the following questions:

a) Upon meeting Him, how many seconds– precisely– will pass before you shit yourself in utter and abject terror?

b) Do you still think pleading for His mercy will accomplish anything? Why or why not?

c) How do you think He will respond to those irresponsible, self-absolving twits who decided to leave their mess for Him to clean up?

d) Do you still think you want to be encamped with someone so full of ball-busting, spleen-splitting, gut-guillotining, ass-kicking awesomeness and a cranky disposition? Explain what this does to your idea of heroism.

6. Prove that the greatest theologian of the twentieth century was, indeed, Douglas Adams. (Your proctors sincerely hope you remembered to bring your towel.)

7. Does God punish the damned ironically? How ironic would it be if he didn’t? Relate your answer to the punishment you feel you should merit should you fail this examination.

8. In Murphy, Samuel Beckett corrected John 1:1 by saying that "[i]n the beginning was the pun." What pun was it? Explain its consequences for the course of human development using a pun of equal or greater quality.

9. What is "manna" from heaven? Provide a unique recipe that would allow it to be spiced with both cinnamon and cayenne yet not induce vomiting.

10. Pandas have penes that go back into their own bodies. Explain how this may explain the human condition, at least metaphorically.

11. Use T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets to explain God’s stance– we won’t say position– on sodomy. Use Kafka’s The Castle to provide the same for felching.

12. You’re a parent of a child who was brutally and unnecessarily murdered, yet many of his would-be acolytes insist to this day on regularly consuming his flesh and drinking his blood. (Symbolically, they say, but you have your doubts.) How do you feel about this macabre ceremony? What would you like to say to those would-be acolytes– or, perhaps more importantly, what would you like to do to them? Render your answer in the form of a single and amusing clerihew.

13. Remember for a moment the saddest, most traumatic and distressing experience of your existence on this tiny blue dot you call Earth. Remember your isolation, your wretchedness, your brokenness, your utter despair. Remember how sharply every second seemed to stab. Remember everything you can. Then return of the image of Earth as a tiny blue dot. Now, in no more than two words, explain why anyone anywhere, much less God, should ever give a bloody damn about any of your oh-so-sacred pain. Merely answering "because" will incur complete failure of this entire examination paper.

14. What is God’s favourite ABBA song and why?

15. According to Hebrews 11:1, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (note: "substance" is sometimes translated as "assurance"). Explain your faith (or lack thereof) in completely logical terms and then refute your (lack of) faith in completely compassionate terms. How might you then resuscitate your (lack of) faith in strictly empirical terms? Can it be done? Should it? Why or why not?

16. The acronym "DV" once stood for deo volente, meaning "God willing." In contemporary abbreviation, however, it means something, well, very different. Explain the logical commonality between the two and assess the extent to which this reveals a practical and irrefutable link between physical and metaphysical desire.

17. Justify either curling or the 1980s. (We’re not sure either of these can be done, but God wants this question on here so we do as he says: we suspect he’s looking for answers which elude even Him.)

18. Demonstrate without contradiction that love without self-interest can actually exist.

19. At the final judgment, you will of course have to defend everything that you have done in life. You will also, however, have to defend every dream and every desire you’ve ever had. So, ’fess up: what’s this about waking up naked and sweaty in a locker room with a half-melted Butterfinger in your hand as a yak rinses itself off nonchalantly in the shower? Why is it whistling? And what the hell is Don Ameche doing there?

20. Yes, this year’s examination has a decidedly sexual aspect to it. Do you have a problem with that? Why or why not? (Turns out the fundies were right: sex is everything. Who knew?)

Bosch’s Christ Carrying the Cross (1490)

21. Discuss the long-term effects on human history had Hieronymous Bosch been able to illustrate the books of Dr. Seuss. What does this lead you to conclude about the theory of predestination?

22. Complete the following joke: A dog, a cat and Burgess Meredith walk into a bar…. (No Penguin jokes, please.)

23. Explain Canada. (This question can be done but it will probably require extra examination booklets: Canada is, after all, the national version of the platypus.)

24. Can God be so annoyed that even He cannot contain the annoyance He has felt? Toward you? Discuss and comment. N.B.: You may wish to reread question five at this stage, but probably not your answer to it.

25. Justify Facebook– somehow. Then justify your slavish devotion to it and explain further to wit how this demonstrates the fundamental inevitability of obeisant decay. What might this lead you to conclude about the sanctification of free will? How also might this adjust your response to the General Theory of Relativity?

26. God has for centuries been accused of apathy and somnambulism. Assume this accusation is true. Explain why you should or should not disrupt Him. Make no mention of Toshiro Mifune in your response.

27. How do you think He feels about split infinitives? (Think about it….)

28. Write your own gospel and then a proper exegesis of it.

29. Make peace with yourself and others. Do it in as succinct and unsentimental a form as possible.

30. Grieve yourself in the most joyous way possible for those who knew you (i.e., not according to some fantasy of yours, you selfish sot). How should you be celebrated? Should you be? Can the memory of you finally be surprised and summarized by joy? If not, why not? What does this perhaps indicate about you and your likelihood of achieving eternal bliss?

BONUS QUESTION: Achieve closure independently and demonstrate the (in-)significance of that (im-)possibility.

Submit your answers in legible and grammatical form. Do not hope for the best.

Preface: I’m going to get myself into a shit-storm for this one, but….

One of the trickiest parts of my job is trying to teach young people about logical fallacies. One of the reasons it’s tricky is that, let’s face it, young people tend not to be very concerned with logic (I shudder to think how logical I was at that age). The greater and more disturbing one is the institutional disregard for logic these days: after eight years of George W. Bush and endless "culture wars" in which everything, we are told, is relative, it should hardly be surprising that most people pay precious little heed to logic. In fact, authorities and institutions increasingly appeal to the illogical, to the manifestly daft, in ways which should be alarming to so-called enlightened societies. The most disturbing symptom of this is the antipathy toward science in the United States, especially in relation to the evolution versus "intelligent-design" argument. It’s an argument that takes post-modern relativism to its most obtuse and ridiculous conclusions. Logically speaking, there’s no reason to offer intelligent design as a scientific alternative because there isn’t even a jot of evidence to support this notion; it may have a kind of philosophical logic, but it’s entirely dependent upon questions rather than evidence, while evolution, whether or not one chooses to believe in it, is based more on available evidence that adversarial questioning. Alas, however, this is emblematic of the current desire to reject, or at least to minimize, logic.

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