Opium Magazine—2007
2006-07 marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the album Hotel California and its devastatingly popular same-titled single. Many people have pointed out that if you divide 1976 by 30 you get 65.866 and that this is almost a spooky number. Don Henley, however, has always firmly stated that Satan was only employed in an executive role on the album. It’s time we took a deeper look at the song that has enlivened so many of our wedding receptions, 21st birthday parties and keg-side vom-a-longs.
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair.
What can we tell about the main character of this song? He’s a traveller, it’s night, he has hair. He’s traveling by open-top convertible, motorcycle or bicycle. A strong start.
Warm smell of Colitas rising up through the air.
“Colitas” is a brand of Mexican aftershave. He likes the open road, but he likes to feel fresh. “Colitas” should not be confused with “colitis” which is an inflammation of the colon, characterized by lower-bowel spasms and upper abdominal cramps. It is sometimes called “colonotis.” How can something smell “warm”, you ask? If you’d ever met someone with colitis, you’d know.
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light.
Is it “up ahead” or “in the distance”? This line is both a disruptive poetic device designed to upset the listener, and a cautionary reminder that it is difficult to accurately judge distances at night.
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night.
Our traveller is tired and needs lodgings. Note how he indirectly describes the hotel. He could have written:
… I saw a lovely hotel,
… I had to stop for a spell,
but this would have been less artful. The writer assumes that we must be aware of the title of the song and are therefore able to deduce that we are stopping at a hotel, as opposed to a gas-stop, diner, or soft-core dance establishment.
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell.
And I was thinking to myself,
“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell.”
We’ve all had this thought while checking into roadside accommodation. If in doubt, ask to see one of the rooms. A second character is introduced. Who is she, this mystery-girl? He doesn’t know, but she rings a bell.
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way,
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California.
Such a lovely place, such a lovely face.
‘Such a lovely place, such a lovely face’ is obviously lifted directly from the hotel’s advertising material. It is perfectly relevant to include this kind of ‘contextual’ information in a lyric.
They livin' it up at the Hotel California.
What a nice surprise, bring your Alibis.
“They livin it up” is West Coast for “They are living it up.” “Alibis” (pronounced Ah-li-bees) is another brand of Mexican aftershave. The hotel obviously skimps on free toiletries.
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted,
She got the Mercedes Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys
She calls friends.
The narrator swings our attention dramatically back to the woman: “Look at you, mysterious hotel worker of the desert. The shimmering shadow-world of the hospitality industry may have provided you with all the baubles and trappings, but has it made you truly happy?” he seems to say.
How they dance in the courtyard,
Sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember,
Some dance to forget.
This is so true.
So I called up the Captain,
“Please bring me my wine.”
He said, “We haven't had that spirit here
since nineteen sixty nine.”
“Captain” may be a light-hearted term for the night-manager. It’s unusual, isn’t it, that in this great wine-producing region he would confuse wine for a spirit?
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night,
Just to hear them say...
Our guest has requested a wake-up call. But why? This mystery adds to the tension, it makes us think, “Whatever will happen next? Let’s see.”
Chorus.
Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice;
and she said, ‘We are all just prisoners here,
of our own device.”
Once again we’re reminded what a glamorous yet ephemeral existence this woman leads. Once you’ve climbed the dazzling heights of the hotel-service industry you find that the work which has brought you fame and fortune has also made you a prisoner – of your own device. A well placed mirror can make a small room look considerably larger.
And in the master's chambers,
they gathered for the feast.
They stab it with their steely knives,
but they just can't kill the beast.
We’ve all had catering disasters. Sometimes it’s better just to splash out and have your beast professionally killed. Your master will thank you for it.
Last thing I remember,
I was running for the door.
I had to find the passage back
to the place I was before.
Self explanatory: poorly prepared meat, colitis, a hasty exit. Note the subtle poetics hinting indirectly to his condition: “passage back” – “back passage.”
“Relax”said the night-man, ”
We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
but you can never leave!”
The night-manager comes to the rescue. He’s quick to reaffirm his establishment’s reputation for quality service by pointing out that they’re always open to feedback from guests. He also takes the time to re-affirm the hotel’s marketing message: “When you stay at Hotel California, you become a part of us.”
It is obvious that there is no occult symbolism in this song. In a year when Disco Duck by Rick Dees was released, it seems clear to me that Satan’s creative energies were focused elsewhere. Instead, I think what makes this song so universally adored is the way that it speaks to common human predicaments: the problem of maintaining good career/life balance and the cost of success; acceptable food and beverage standards; the difficulties involved in finding friendly lodgings, on a dark night, on a strange highway, as the desert sun falls below the horizon.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Fantasyland
Until recently, and for centuries before, our fantasies were regarded as Satan’s “doings”: “Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed,” spake the Bible. Great book. Our innermost desires were swaddled, then quietly smothered with the spare pillow of Judeo-Christian repression. Meanwhile, in the East, they were writing the Karma Sutra, and in Japan, the artist Hokusai was creating woodblock prints of two giant octopuses pleasuring a woman. Such is life.
In particular, women’s sexual fantasies were regarded as abnormal, a sign that she was in possession of psychological defects, that she was a bit “cra-zizzy”.
“I had sexual fantasies and I assumed other women did too. But when I spoke to friends and people in the publishing world, they said they'd never heard of a woman's sexual fantasy. Nor was there a single reference to women's sexual fantasies in the card catalogues at the New York Public Library, the Yale University library, or the British Museum library … not a word on the sexual imagery in the minds of half the world.”—Nancy Friday, My Secret Garden.
But thanks to Nancy and other brave harlots, the West now regards fantasies and their related activities as “normal”:
“I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself.”—Oprah Winfrey.
Gross. Fantasies now seep from our ears like warm custard; we say things like “What are you thinking, Darryn?” and, “Postmen are hot” and, “We should get a love-swing”. It’s all quite beastly.
So what depraved creatures of thought scurry through the minds of modern men and women? What sordid fantasies colour our “me time”? What scarlet scenes cause passion’s hand to gently caress the thigh of our imagination? I don’t know, but I’m willing to learn. Until recently, fantasies were one of the most neglected areas of scientific examination. In 1995, two psychologists from the University of Vermont carried out the first major examination of the subject. Among the many surprising discoveries made about our fantasies by Harold Leitenberg and Kris Henning was the fact that most of our imaginings are routine encounters with past and present lovers. It takes a lot of effort to imagine yourself being ravished by a team of East European trapeze artists until I just can’t take it anymore. Sometimes it’s easier just to work with what you’ve got. Leitenberg and Henning also discovered three main “styles” of fantasy: “forbidden” imagery including unusual settings and taboo partners; scenes of seductive power: whereby you overwhelm a reluctant or indifferent lover with your awesome sexuality; and dominance and submission fantasies.
Affairs are easily the most common fantasy. A trip away to a conference, glances exchanged with a fellow traveller, small-talk offered and accepted with the flutter of hearts and lashes, Mojitos, the realisation that you’re both just lonely travellers at the third Annual Regional Conference of Life, more Mojitos, an hour and twelve minutes of scarcely bridled passion. Then, room service. A flight home full of smiles and whimsy. Why do people daydream about deceiving the one they love? Is it mental-infidelity or a healthy way to sublimate our desires? "It might relieve some of your guilt to know that many happily married individuals who have no thought or intention of ever betraying their spouse have sexual fantasies about someone other than their spouse," said Dr. Joyce Brothers. That’s what she thinks. Personally, I think you’re going to hell in a coin-operated bed. But at least in your mental tryst you don’t have to explain the room-service receipt for two bottles of Lindauer and a pot of whipped cream.
Or how about the dangerous liaison, is that your thing? In the back of the car at a lonely rest area, in the bushes on a camping trip, (we call this “The Deliverance Motif”,) in your old bedroom while your folks are out getting in the hay. Why is the chance of being caught a bit thrilling? And why, when you get up the courage to say “I’m just popping into the bushes for a bit, you wanna come too?” does he reply “Have you got the trots? There’s a loo at the campsite.”
Or maybe voyeurism is your thing: they’re two women, just talking, and you’re just watching. Then a pool-guy arrives and say’s “I’ve come to check the temperature,” and one woman say’s “The temperature of what? Of me?” And they all laugh, and you think, “Why are these people using my pool? I should probably go out and speak to them.”
Or maybe it’s just some slight improvements you’re after. We’ve all imagined the love of our life being … enhanced: slightly taller, or better endowed, or more romantic, or less gassy, or more virile, or less, or not so inclined to leave my things all over the house, or not so inclined to dismiss the possibility of a freak bisexual misadventure out of hand, (I mean, how do you know until you’ve met every woman? Never mind.)
These days we’re also about gender equality and not being a “sexualist” but in our interior world things still have the tinge of yore. She still dreams of being pulled from danger by a handsome prince or lifeguard; he still dreams of being the rescuer, he who flings himself into the furious surf and lets you ride him back to the beach like a floatation device. It’s win-win. This is one of the few sections of the fantasy Venn diagram where the desire-zones of the two genders overlap. And yet we’ve spent most of the last few decades curing ourselves of these impulses.
“… Lucas would kneel to rescue me, perhaps using a little gentle CPR that would bring his attention (not crudely, but he could not help noticing,) to the demure but definite bosom that, like the doll who grew breasts with the twist of an arm, I had arranged for my imaginary self. He would save me and become captivated. Not by anything I did; … He would be captivated by what I, inertly, was.” —Naomi Wolf, Promiscuitie.
But for the busy or the harried, all these saucy thoughts pale when compared to the simple fantasy of, for example, a good nights sleep. The kids are at your Mum’s, your man is off with his mates destroying fish of many colours. At least, that’s what he says. No, nothing, I didn’t mean anything by it. Anyway, you have a bath, then you take a book and slide between clean sheets and before you’ve even finished the first page, you’re gone.
Time is perhaps our ultimate fantasy object. We want it, bad, we lust for it, and yet it slips through our fingers like sand. My earliest fantasy (excluding maybe Wilma from Buck Rogers) was waking up on a rainy school morning and trying to freeze time with my mind. These days I’d kill to exchange the pressures of the modern world for getting to my desk at 9am to practise joined-up writing for six hours.
Anyway, while you’re slumbering, he’s fishing, and by God is he excited. It seems that every woman has a “cute” fishing-trip story about their man. My Mum tells me that my Dad forgets how to spell his own name in the week before his annual trip. One woman (let’s call her … Morgan, magazine editor. No, that’s too obvious. Mandy, dancer. Yes.) Anyway, “Mandy” told me just such a story. Apparently, her husband was due to be picked up at 4.30 am. He rose slightly early. 1.30. When 4.30 finally came he tripped gaily out to find that his mate had been parked outside his house since 3.30.
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”—Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
Revenge is another common fantasy. Oh, sweet revenge. Is there a better drug? Laudanum, maybe. Admit it, you’ve sat in that boardroom while your smug boss tore your ideas to shreds and thought, “What was the name of that undetectable poison?” You’ve sat across the table from a plain brown box filled with your cheating ex’s fetid belongings and thought, “How can I get some of that radioactive stuff the Russians put in their tea?” You can tell me, we’re just talking.
As Freud said, “The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours. It’s unlikely that you’ll actually murder your boss, but chances are you’ll think about it.
Speaking of “unlikely” and “chances” have you got your Lotto ticket? It’s gonna happen this weekend, I can feel it in my waters. Every week, several hundred thousand of us participate in the ultimate national fantasy: Lotto. We toddle down to the shop to get our tickets; we shrug off the odds of a ba-jillion to 1 with hardly a thought, because, hey, someone has to win. Right? Right? Meanwhile, the Henderson Modern Interpretive Dance Society gets a new pair of leg-warmers and the Lotteries Commission members throw back their heads and laugh like Nazis!
“The lottery is a tax on people who flunked math,” said Monique Lloyd.
In the end, God only knows what mental vampires gnaw at the neck of your longing. Your true fantasies are hidden in the darkest recesses of your mind, only to be revealed to Satan or a trained therapist. And with good reason, usually.
"Tell me what you are thinking about," the man I was actually fucking said, his words as charged as the action in my mind … I didn't stop to edit my thoughts. I told him what I'd been thinking. He got out of bed, put on his pants and went home.”—Nancy Friday, My Secret Garden.
Before you juge, Nancy’s fantasy was to be roughly taken by a stranger in a crowded stadium while the quarterback ran in a touch-down. Desire is in the mind of the withholder and, mostly, should stay there. Yet fantasies are vital creatures, the foundation of our romantic art, literature, music, and film, even science:
“All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. Perhaps that is why I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex.”—Stephen Hawking.
Our fantasies may also reflect a truer reality than the one we actively participate in each day. While we grudgingly join the ritual of contracted society—job, family, fidelity—our minds hold our real wishes. The few who get to enact their wildest dreams are the great or the doomed; or both:
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”—T.E. Lawrence.
But in the absence of the will (or in the presence of the good sense) to make our visions real, most of us still stroll from home to job, peacefully mute about our secret dreams. We know that our desire to be grabbed roughly in the bathroom would be simply overwhelmed by our instinct to yell “Nob off, can’t you see I’m cleaning your pubes out of the drain.” We know that our carefully rehearsed tirade to our boss would emerge like a meek burp of submission. That’s the beauty, I suppose, of a glorious fantasy kingdom: it’s a life-long project, our master-work. We might slouch around the house like a ghost, but in our mind, at least, we walk like a god.
In particular, women’s sexual fantasies were regarded as abnormal, a sign that she was in possession of psychological defects, that she was a bit “cra-zizzy”.
“I had sexual fantasies and I assumed other women did too. But when I spoke to friends and people in the publishing world, they said they'd never heard of a woman's sexual fantasy. Nor was there a single reference to women's sexual fantasies in the card catalogues at the New York Public Library, the Yale University library, or the British Museum library … not a word on the sexual imagery in the minds of half the world.”—Nancy Friday, My Secret Garden.
But thanks to Nancy and other brave harlots, the West now regards fantasies and their related activities as “normal”:
“I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself.”—Oprah Winfrey.
Gross. Fantasies now seep from our ears like warm custard; we say things like “What are you thinking, Darryn?” and, “Postmen are hot” and, “We should get a love-swing”. It’s all quite beastly.
So what depraved creatures of thought scurry through the minds of modern men and women? What sordid fantasies colour our “me time”? What scarlet scenes cause passion’s hand to gently caress the thigh of our imagination? I don’t know, but I’m willing to learn. Until recently, fantasies were one of the most neglected areas of scientific examination. In 1995, two psychologists from the University of Vermont carried out the first major examination of the subject. Among the many surprising discoveries made about our fantasies by Harold Leitenberg and Kris Henning was the fact that most of our imaginings are routine encounters with past and present lovers. It takes a lot of effort to imagine yourself being ravished by a team of East European trapeze artists until I just can’t take it anymore. Sometimes it’s easier just to work with what you’ve got. Leitenberg and Henning also discovered three main “styles” of fantasy: “forbidden” imagery including unusual settings and taboo partners; scenes of seductive power: whereby you overwhelm a reluctant or indifferent lover with your awesome sexuality; and dominance and submission fantasies.
Affairs are easily the most common fantasy. A trip away to a conference, glances exchanged with a fellow traveller, small-talk offered and accepted with the flutter of hearts and lashes, Mojitos, the realisation that you’re both just lonely travellers at the third Annual Regional Conference of Life, more Mojitos, an hour and twelve minutes of scarcely bridled passion. Then, room service. A flight home full of smiles and whimsy. Why do people daydream about deceiving the one they love? Is it mental-infidelity or a healthy way to sublimate our desires? "It might relieve some of your guilt to know that many happily married individuals who have no thought or intention of ever betraying their spouse have sexual fantasies about someone other than their spouse," said Dr. Joyce Brothers. That’s what she thinks. Personally, I think you’re going to hell in a coin-operated bed. But at least in your mental tryst you don’t have to explain the room-service receipt for two bottles of Lindauer and a pot of whipped cream.
Or how about the dangerous liaison, is that your thing? In the back of the car at a lonely rest area, in the bushes on a camping trip, (we call this “The Deliverance Motif”,) in your old bedroom while your folks are out getting in the hay. Why is the chance of being caught a bit thrilling? And why, when you get up the courage to say “I’m just popping into the bushes for a bit, you wanna come too?” does he reply “Have you got the trots? There’s a loo at the campsite.”
Or maybe voyeurism is your thing: they’re two women, just talking, and you’re just watching. Then a pool-guy arrives and say’s “I’ve come to check the temperature,” and one woman say’s “The temperature of what? Of me?” And they all laugh, and you think, “Why are these people using my pool? I should probably go out and speak to them.”
Or maybe it’s just some slight improvements you’re after. We’ve all imagined the love of our life being … enhanced: slightly taller, or better endowed, or more romantic, or less gassy, or more virile, or less, or not so inclined to leave my things all over the house, or not so inclined to dismiss the possibility of a freak bisexual misadventure out of hand, (I mean, how do you know until you’ve met every woman? Never mind.)
These days we’re also about gender equality and not being a “sexualist” but in our interior world things still have the tinge of yore. She still dreams of being pulled from danger by a handsome prince or lifeguard; he still dreams of being the rescuer, he who flings himself into the furious surf and lets you ride him back to the beach like a floatation device. It’s win-win. This is one of the few sections of the fantasy Venn diagram where the desire-zones of the two genders overlap. And yet we’ve spent most of the last few decades curing ourselves of these impulses.
“… Lucas would kneel to rescue me, perhaps using a little gentle CPR that would bring his attention (not crudely, but he could not help noticing,) to the demure but definite bosom that, like the doll who grew breasts with the twist of an arm, I had arranged for my imaginary self. He would save me and become captivated. Not by anything I did; … He would be captivated by what I, inertly, was.” —Naomi Wolf, Promiscuitie.
But for the busy or the harried, all these saucy thoughts pale when compared to the simple fantasy of, for example, a good nights sleep. The kids are at your Mum’s, your man is off with his mates destroying fish of many colours. At least, that’s what he says. No, nothing, I didn’t mean anything by it. Anyway, you have a bath, then you take a book and slide between clean sheets and before you’ve even finished the first page, you’re gone.
Time is perhaps our ultimate fantasy object. We want it, bad, we lust for it, and yet it slips through our fingers like sand. My earliest fantasy (excluding maybe Wilma from Buck Rogers) was waking up on a rainy school morning and trying to freeze time with my mind. These days I’d kill to exchange the pressures of the modern world for getting to my desk at 9am to practise joined-up writing for six hours.
Anyway, while you’re slumbering, he’s fishing, and by God is he excited. It seems that every woman has a “cute” fishing-trip story about their man. My Mum tells me that my Dad forgets how to spell his own name in the week before his annual trip. One woman (let’s call her … Morgan, magazine editor. No, that’s too obvious. Mandy, dancer. Yes.) Anyway, “Mandy” told me just such a story. Apparently, her husband was due to be picked up at 4.30 am. He rose slightly early. 1.30. When 4.30 finally came he tripped gaily out to find that his mate had been parked outside his house since 3.30.
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”—Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
Revenge is another common fantasy. Oh, sweet revenge. Is there a better drug? Laudanum, maybe. Admit it, you’ve sat in that boardroom while your smug boss tore your ideas to shreds and thought, “What was the name of that undetectable poison?” You’ve sat across the table from a plain brown box filled with your cheating ex’s fetid belongings and thought, “How can I get some of that radioactive stuff the Russians put in their tea?” You can tell me, we’re just talking.
As Freud said, “The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours. It’s unlikely that you’ll actually murder your boss, but chances are you’ll think about it.
Speaking of “unlikely” and “chances” have you got your Lotto ticket? It’s gonna happen this weekend, I can feel it in my waters. Every week, several hundred thousand of us participate in the ultimate national fantasy: Lotto. We toddle down to the shop to get our tickets; we shrug off the odds of a ba-jillion to 1 with hardly a thought, because, hey, someone has to win. Right? Right? Meanwhile, the Henderson Modern Interpretive Dance Society gets a new pair of leg-warmers and the Lotteries Commission members throw back their heads and laugh like Nazis!
“The lottery is a tax on people who flunked math,” said Monique Lloyd.
In the end, God only knows what mental vampires gnaw at the neck of your longing. Your true fantasies are hidden in the darkest recesses of your mind, only to be revealed to Satan or a trained therapist. And with good reason, usually.
"Tell me what you are thinking about," the man I was actually fucking said, his words as charged as the action in my mind … I didn't stop to edit my thoughts. I told him what I'd been thinking. He got out of bed, put on his pants and went home.”—Nancy Friday, My Secret Garden.
Before you juge, Nancy’s fantasy was to be roughly taken by a stranger in a crowded stadium while the quarterback ran in a touch-down. Desire is in the mind of the withholder and, mostly, should stay there. Yet fantasies are vital creatures, the foundation of our romantic art, literature, music, and film, even science:
“All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. Perhaps that is why I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex.”—Stephen Hawking.
Our fantasies may also reflect a truer reality than the one we actively participate in each day. While we grudgingly join the ritual of contracted society—job, family, fidelity—our minds hold our real wishes. The few who get to enact their wildest dreams are the great or the doomed; or both:
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”—T.E. Lawrence.
But in the absence of the will (or in the presence of the good sense) to make our visions real, most of us still stroll from home to job, peacefully mute about our secret dreams. We know that our desire to be grabbed roughly in the bathroom would be simply overwhelmed by our instinct to yell “Nob off, can’t you see I’m cleaning your pubes out of the drain.” We know that our carefully rehearsed tirade to our boss would emerge like a meek burp of submission. That’s the beauty, I suppose, of a glorious fantasy kingdom: it’s a life-long project, our master-work. We might slouch around the house like a ghost, but in our mind, at least, we walk like a god.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
I recently gave up coffee for a week and it was bad. I wandered around in a fog while angry hornets of ill-temper stung my ears. People whisked their children from my path and I heard them say, “It’s alright Marjoram, he won’t hurt you.” I did sleep well though. Coffee is a friend who shows up at my desk every morning and say’s “Right. What about a story on vocational choices for monkeys.” No coffee is like having a friend who say’s “Oh. Still doing your writing thing? Must be hard to make a living from that. If it was me I’d just want to go back to bed right now. Mwoooooaaaahhhhh! Sorry, just can’t stop yawning.”
Black Hole
Sunday Magazine—2007
Day 0. My last cup. I savor every inky drop. Oh, black ocean of possibility with your bobbing boats of inspiration. That’s good, write that down. Feature idea: read the ten great novels of the 20th Century and write about them—Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time, Clan of the Cave Bear.
Factoid: Coffee was discovered by goats. According to legend, an Abyssinian goat-herder saw his herd acting frisky after they’d eaten red cherries from a shrub. He tasted the fruit and was later spotted dancing with his goats. When challenged by local monks he said only “A man gets lonely.” Movie idea: Dances With Goats?
Day 1. Green tea to start the day. They tell me that tea has caffeine too. Where is it? The literature tells me that when caffeine intake is reduced, blood pressure drops causing the infamous withdrawal headache. Apparently, the headache can last up to five days and can be alleviated with analgesics and with caffeine. Well duh. The withdrawal subject may also become nervous, irritable, restless, lazy, dopey, sleepy, and grumpy. In technical terms, these are known as the seven dwarfs of caffeine withdrawal. In my case, the seven dwarfs have been joined by dizzy, cranky, punchy, blurry and light-sensitivity.
Idea: Read five great novels. Started reading Proust’s In Search of lost Time, or, as it’s called in French, Ou Est La Femme de Chambre.
Day 2. A tad cranky. Some tea makes me feel better. Roommates say nine cups is cheating. Things get out of hand, tea everywhere. To do: Buy roommates flowers. Headache persists, a dull stabbing in frontal lobe accompanied by desire to stab. Normal? Doc says yes, this is normal and that in two weeks I’ll be able to replace the effect of caffeine with a short run. Suspect he’s in the pocket of the jogging industry. Idea: new doctor. My neighbor plays his stereo all day. One of those hipster chumps who’s into Arcade Fire and dressing like a pirate. Mag idea: Hipstersexuals—just-too-gay-enough?
Day 3: Feeling bad. Two pots of green tea and I’m leaking like a Russian sub. Roommates confiscate my teapot. Also find reserve teapot. More screaming. They catch me sucking the juice out of tea leaves. Have to drag me off. V. embarrassing. Synapses no longer firing. Idea: Can’t remember. Return to bed. Ah sleep; black ocean of possibility with your … boats …
Factoid: Each year some 7 million tons of beans are produced world wide. Most of it is hand picked. By monkeys. (Note: fact-check this fact.)
Day 4: Feeling the hate. Also the pain. Told taxi driver that the reason so many immigrants come here is to ruin his day. Caffeinated lip-balm confiscated by roommates. Threw In Search of Lost Time out window. Note: call glazier.
Factoid: Originally, coffee beans were a food. True fact. East African tribes would grind coffee cherries together and create a paste with animal fat. Rolled into little balls, the mixture was said to give warriors energy for battle. Hell yes! The Ethiopians later concocted a type of wine from coffee berries. Sounds nice. Feature idea: History of coffee? Great coffee drinkers? Oh god.
Day 5: Hate. Pain. All will pay. Idea: torture not so bad. Idea: See indie-boy about his stereo. Kill him. TV idea: Celebrity Survivor—Paris, Star Jones, Hillary Duff, et al. Take them to a deserted island. Leave. Never go back.
Oh god I miss coffee—the ritual, the equipment. Coffee has the sexy nomenclature of a fetish: crema, macchiato, extraction. God. Alcohol is just pornographic: Shooter, jigger. Cocktail. Coming off coffee is actually similar to being a binge drinker but with none of the glorious amnesia. I remember haranguing taxi drivers and hapless cinema attendants with a frightening clarity. I remember calling my roommate a “Trout sucking mange-troll.” I’m a monster. The recovering coffee drinker wakes up with the hangover and the memories.
Day 6: Feel a little better. Headache faded. Will to homicide diminished. Feel sad. Morning in bed. Roommates bring me soup. Finished a history of coffee. Coffee is one of the world's most vital primary commodities. 6.7 million tons of coffee were produced in 2000, and 7 million is expected annually by 2010. The collapse of the International Coffee Agreement led to a pricing crisis from 2001 to 2004 during which many coffee farmers lost their livelihoods, or turned to illicit crops such as coca. That was just a pricing issue. Imagine the global impact if the coffee industry collapsed. Productivity would plummet, violent crime would rocket, and fragile workers, deprived of their breakfast lattes, would turn to crack. Armies would wage war over dwindling stocks leading to mass slaughter, headaches, irritability and the apocalypse.
This is critical. We may already have reached peak-coffee. Have decided that, sadly, I must resume drinking coffee. Immediately. Not for pleasure, you see, but for the economy. Sat roommates down and told them. They didn’t react too badly. They just stood without a word and left the room.
Day 7: My First cup! Like a re-birthing. Oh, hot black wave of pleasure welling like a slop of warm bathwater from within. Oh, cascade of burning sparks redolent with possibility. TV idea: Women vie for the hand of a millionaire. Eventually, they learn that the man has a degenerative illness and will require lifetime of care. Also, he has no money. Delicious.
Day 0. My last cup. I savor every inky drop. Oh, black ocean of possibility with your bobbing boats of inspiration. That’s good, write that down. Feature idea: read the ten great novels of the 20th Century and write about them—Ulysses, In Search of Lost Time, Clan of the Cave Bear.
Factoid: Coffee was discovered by goats. According to legend, an Abyssinian goat-herder saw his herd acting frisky after they’d eaten red cherries from a shrub. He tasted the fruit and was later spotted dancing with his goats. When challenged by local monks he said only “A man gets lonely.” Movie idea: Dances With Goats?
Day 1. Green tea to start the day. They tell me that tea has caffeine too. Where is it? The literature tells me that when caffeine intake is reduced, blood pressure drops causing the infamous withdrawal headache. Apparently, the headache can last up to five days and can be alleviated with analgesics and with caffeine. Well duh. The withdrawal subject may also become nervous, irritable, restless, lazy, dopey, sleepy, and grumpy. In technical terms, these are known as the seven dwarfs of caffeine withdrawal. In my case, the seven dwarfs have been joined by dizzy, cranky, punchy, blurry and light-sensitivity.
Idea: Read five great novels. Started reading Proust’s In Search of lost Time, or, as it’s called in French, Ou Est La Femme de Chambre.
Day 2. A tad cranky. Some tea makes me feel better. Roommates say nine cups is cheating. Things get out of hand, tea everywhere. To do: Buy roommates flowers. Headache persists, a dull stabbing in frontal lobe accompanied by desire to stab. Normal? Doc says yes, this is normal and that in two weeks I’ll be able to replace the effect of caffeine with a short run. Suspect he’s in the pocket of the jogging industry. Idea: new doctor. My neighbor plays his stereo all day. One of those hipster chumps who’s into Arcade Fire and dressing like a pirate. Mag idea: Hipstersexuals—just-too-gay-enough?
Day 3: Feeling bad. Two pots of green tea and I’m leaking like a Russian sub. Roommates confiscate my teapot. Also find reserve teapot. More screaming. They catch me sucking the juice out of tea leaves. Have to drag me off. V. embarrassing. Synapses no longer firing. Idea: Can’t remember. Return to bed. Ah sleep; black ocean of possibility with your … boats …
Factoid: Each year some 7 million tons of beans are produced world wide. Most of it is hand picked. By monkeys. (Note: fact-check this fact.)
Day 4: Feeling the hate. Also the pain. Told taxi driver that the reason so many immigrants come here is to ruin his day. Caffeinated lip-balm confiscated by roommates. Threw In Search of Lost Time out window. Note: call glazier.
Factoid: Originally, coffee beans were a food. True fact. East African tribes would grind coffee cherries together and create a paste with animal fat. Rolled into little balls, the mixture was said to give warriors energy for battle. Hell yes! The Ethiopians later concocted a type of wine from coffee berries. Sounds nice. Feature idea: History of coffee? Great coffee drinkers? Oh god.
Day 5: Hate. Pain. All will pay. Idea: torture not so bad. Idea: See indie-boy about his stereo. Kill him. TV idea: Celebrity Survivor—Paris, Star Jones, Hillary Duff, et al. Take them to a deserted island. Leave. Never go back.
Oh god I miss coffee—the ritual, the equipment. Coffee has the sexy nomenclature of a fetish: crema, macchiato, extraction. God. Alcohol is just pornographic: Shooter, jigger. Cocktail. Coming off coffee is actually similar to being a binge drinker but with none of the glorious amnesia. I remember haranguing taxi drivers and hapless cinema attendants with a frightening clarity. I remember calling my roommate a “Trout sucking mange-troll.” I’m a monster. The recovering coffee drinker wakes up with the hangover and the memories.
Day 6: Feel a little better. Headache faded. Will to homicide diminished. Feel sad. Morning in bed. Roommates bring me soup. Finished a history of coffee. Coffee is one of the world's most vital primary commodities. 6.7 million tons of coffee were produced in 2000, and 7 million is expected annually by 2010. The collapse of the International Coffee Agreement led to a pricing crisis from 2001 to 2004 during which many coffee farmers lost their livelihoods, or turned to illicit crops such as coca. That was just a pricing issue. Imagine the global impact if the coffee industry collapsed. Productivity would plummet, violent crime would rocket, and fragile workers, deprived of their breakfast lattes, would turn to crack. Armies would wage war over dwindling stocks leading to mass slaughter, headaches, irritability and the apocalypse.
This is critical. We may already have reached peak-coffee. Have decided that, sadly, I must resume drinking coffee. Immediately. Not for pleasure, you see, but for the economy. Sat roommates down and told them. They didn’t react too badly. They just stood without a word and left the room.
Day 7: My First cup! Like a re-birthing. Oh, hot black wave of pleasure welling like a slop of warm bathwater from within. Oh, cascade of burning sparks redolent with possibility. TV idea: Women vie for the hand of a millionaire. Eventually, they learn that the man has a degenerative illness and will require lifetime of care. Also, he has no money. Delicious.
Clothes Wearing Men
From the column Sacred Cows, Dominion Post, 2oo7
Thomas Carlyle said: "A Dandy is a clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes wisely and well: so that the others dress to live, he lives to dress...”
Today we have the metrosexual, a man whose most profound relationships are with Dolce & Gabbana and his own reflection. Your eyebrows no longer meet in the middle; teams of clinicians have de-thatched your body; you sculpt your hair into a glistening fin, like the ass-end of a duck protruding from a lake; you get up 15 minutes early every morning so you have time to cleanse, tone and masturbate. You don’t care whether you’re just gay, or too gay, or flaming across the night sky like a Nazi blimp, just as long as women who shake your hand say “My god, so soft, what do you use?” so you can reply, “Avocado extract,” as you smile and take a self-assured sip from your strawberry and papaya Mojito.
Metrosexual. Not a man who gets aroused by underground mass-transit systems but a term for an urban male who has a strong aesthetic sense and spends time and money on his appearance and lifestyle. Like any form of Narcissism, metrosexuality comes with the risk of starvation – if not literally, then emotionally and intellectually. The moral, said comedian Al Lubel: “Pack a lunch.” But the metrosexual is watching his weight. All his powers are focused on his appearance.
The term metrosexual was coined by journalist Mark Simpson back in 1994, but it only became popular when discovered by an advertising executive who saw that he could re-package ‘exfoliating cleanser’ as ‘scruffing lotion’ and sell a boat load. In this sense the metrosexual isn’t so much a grooming pioneer as an experimental monkey, and he doesn’t stand at the forefront of a revolution so much as linger at the back-end of a column of pathetic marketing casualties: fat guys in Just Do It t-shirts, women clutching copies of Chicken Soup for the Ovaries, pre-teens in soft-porn crop-tops, metrosexuals.
The well-groomed male is nothing new. My friend’s dad was an RAF officer during World War Two and had a weekly grooming ritual that would make Carson Kresley look like a hillbilly: a daily barber’s shave, a weekly trim and about five hours in the manicurist’s chair. For starters. His dentist once suggested that he solve the problem of slightly elongated incisors by having his entire top row of teeth replaced with a new set. So he did. Your move Mr Clinique 10% off sale.
But let’s go back further: past the Dandies of the late 18th and 19th century, past the cults of male beauty in China and in Egypt. The most illuminating example of male vanity is perhaps the ancient men recently unearthed near Dublin who were found to have manicured hands and hair styled with a ‘gel’ made from plant oil and pine resin imported from France. Let me put this another way: Prehistoric Irishmen made an effort with their appearance comparable to the effort the average metrosexual makes today. This really kills the idea that we’re ushering in some kind of manaissence.
Rather, the modern urban male presents just the right cocktail of uncertainty and curiosity to entice the manufacturers of grooming products, the writers of books (Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity. Mark Simpson, 1994) or producers of television shows about itinerant gay makeover artists. These opportunists don’t rely on confident, secure people. They need the gullible, the easily led. Most importantly, they need the vain, the people who are likely to believe that a little snake-oil in the morning does wonders for the complexion.
For the first time in history Western males have no central unifying code with which to define their actions. Most of us don’t go to church, or fight in wars, and we don’t have to wear hats when stepping out to promenade with our sweethearts. With what are we going to fill this vacuum? With the insane rantings of advertisers or teams of homosexual grooming evangelists? With the false dilemma presented by two oversimplified ideas: metrosexuality, the narcissistic pursuit of symbols of success, and retrosexuality, a collection of outmoded notions of masculinity and the idea that the world would be a better place if it wasn’t for all those “gays”? With the absurd idea that we’re on the cusp of a revolution because Dan Carter had his hair straightened?
More than ever we need ideas that will produce men of substance and dimension, but the metrosexual is a man of one dimension and no substance; he is a shadow in pursuit of a phantom image he saw on a billboard or tore from the cover of a magazine. The metrosexual diverts his wealth toward clothes, cosmetics and symbols of status that will suggest to others that he’s a significant man, but his superficial tendencies only insulate him from achieving any depth of character, or any real idea of what it means to be a man. “And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Prophecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you would recognize his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays of light..." The metrosexual is a clothes-wearing man.
The Departed
Feature—Sunday Magazine, 2007
There’s no shame in admitting you have a problem. That was your third phone, we’re not even counting the one destroyed by baby goo. Then there’s your keys, wallet, oxygen tank … we’ll discuss that later, your Venus Vibrance pink rubber jandals, your King James Bible, your mind, possibly. All gone. The pattern I’m seeing here is of general disorder mixed with occasional intoxication and a deep disregard for your possessions. I feel your pain, I do; your life was in that phone. I understand the pressures of a wired existence, the need to maintain an umbilical connection to our modern communications networks, the ease with which a wafer-thin widget can slither between the seats of a taxi cab and leave you lost and lonely; the way you can shove your life inside a laptop and then leave that laptop on a bus and leave that bus and not look back. There was sensitive information on that laptop; there were pictures … of “things.”
If you visit Wellington Central Train Station’s information desk you’ll find a reasonably sympathetic guy named Trevor. Behind him you’ll find a small room stacked high with filing boxes and sweating plastic rubbish bags. Don’t look in the bags, that’s my advice. In the boxes, though, you’ll find booty the likes of which ye’ve never seen: coats, hats, bags, shoes, wallets, keys, a black motorcycle helmet—because riding the train can be dangerous—essential and non-essential medicine, newspapers, school projects and art portfolios, a Jim Beam embossed leather hip-flask—because riding the train can be boring. “Note: empty,” say’s Darren Nichols, Head of Security, as he gives the flask a little shake. Darren’s an affable Brit whose good nature belies his no BS job title. As he holds up a pair of bright-pink jandals he exclaims: “Venus Vibrance, size 38. Very nice.” “You get a lot of footwear then?” “Oh yes,” he says, turning the pink wads of rubber in his hands and staring into the middle distance. “My son lost two pairs of shoes on the trains last year.”
And so it goes on. The books are fascinating, place-marked with movie tickets, till receipts, a haunting photograph of a girl in a white colonial-style dress posing in front of a Christmas tree. There’s a tattered acupuncture and reflexology manual, a research paper: Dust Accumulation in the Region Since the Last Glacial Maximum, a small book of quotations by Lao Tzu,
To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed.
It boggles the mind. “What’s the strangest thing that’s ever come in, Trevor?” He won’t say, “ … for legal reasons.” “Was it sex devices?” “Oh yeah, we get a bit of that on the trains.” “Must be those Metrosexuals,” I suggest, and Trevor say’s nothing. “We get a bit of drugs,” says Darren helpfully, appearing from the back room with a pair of giant binoculars and some cassettes. “A few weapons,” say’s Trevor. “What’s on those tapes?” I ask. “Rock around the clock. Wham — Make it Big.”
I know what you’re thinking: without weapons, drugs, vibrators and the music of Wham, what did he not want to mention?
“But yeah, it’s mostly phones,” say’s Trevor, “phones and keys.”
To retire when the task is complete, that is the way of heaven. But where is my Blackberry?
There’s a saying in the lost and found community: “You loose it, we’ll find it, hold onto it for a while, maybe try to get it back to you if we can.” It’s not a very good saying, but what do you want? If these people didn’t have to spend their days heaving boxes of keys and wallets and sacks of fetid clothing they might have time to come up with a better saying. “A fool and his Treo are soon parted.” Something like that. But every day it seems to get worse. Every day you show up at their desk, lurching wild-eyed from the shadows to hiss, “I lost my preciousssssssss, it hads all me numbersssssssssss.”
Gary at the Wellington Airport Police Station effuses on your ability to shed your belongings. “Just bizarre stuff. Let me switch you to the other line so I can get the book.” “The book” records every item handed in at Wellington airport: phones, wallets, passports, cameras, laptops. You leave expensive clothes, jackets, and suits; you remove your jewelry at the metal detectors and then just wander away; you stand and walk off without your walking stick, maybe you scream “I’m healed!” I don’t know. You buy splendid flagons of duty-free liquor and then you just leave them sitting in the terminal. “Where does that go, Gary, not the Sally Army?” “Ha. No, I think they give it to the local Hospice.” Actually, they don’t any more, but they used to. Palliative booze. They also used to send the prescription glasses to the Pacific Islands.
He who tiptoes cannot stand, he who strides cannot walk, please use the handrails when ascending.
Taxis are a whole new bag. They offer a phenomenon—peculiar, as far as I can tell, to taxis—that completely inverts the lost property model. Often, they tell me, you’ll get out of the taxi at the hotel and remember your phone, your wallet; you’ll pay the driver and thank him, wave as he moves off down the street. Then you’ll stand there for a few more seconds, do that little sighing thing you do, then turn to your wife and the guy with the trolley and say something brilliant like, “Probably should have got the bags out.”
The taxis get the flash stuff; we ditch laptops, iPods and flabby rolls of cash in cabs. Size is no object; last year, a group left a 6x10 metre purple tarpaulin in a taxi van. Apparently, they had been drinking. “We also get a lot of jewelry, Smurf outfits, gorilla heads, you know,” says John from Wellington Combined Taxis. Well, they say you should put one more thing on before you leave the house.
The buses seem to get a greater volume than the trains, “Oh yeah, big room, heaps of boxes,” say’s Joe from Go Wellington, “We get probably four big boxes a month.” It’s amazing,” he says, “it’ll be three months later and Mum’ll ring ‘cos she just noticed her boy’s shoes are missing.” He laughs heartily, as do I, stupid Mum. “But yeah, phones, heaps of phones. And keys.”
The way is forever nameless, though the path is narrow. To listen to your message again, press 1.
Sonia Viles from the Wellington Central Police Station Lost Property Department wants to know why you haven’t called. She has your wallet, your keys, your prescription eyeglasses. There must be, I’m guessing, several hundred pairs of glasses here. Prescription glasses are expensive. All you have to do to get them back is drop her a line and the fact that you don’t makes her tense. Why are you making Sonia tense?
She and Fraser Simpson take me on a grand tour of the property room, pointing to stuff and shaking their heads. They show me phones, at least a hundred, probably more, from the latest Nokia to a foot-long beast that looks like it could be used to call in tactical air support. Within the cave we find assorted licence plates, a King James bible, a Pétanque set, school bags, car radios, a tool belt, a mud-streaked midi-system recovered from a park, a big-screen TV, a ukulele, a section from a windsurfer, skateboards, body boards, a framed photo of a Greek island, a fire extinguisher, an oxygen cylinder from a scuba diving kit. I can’t imagine the narrative thread that lead to you losing your oxygen tank, but when you finally get out of that decompression chamber, give Sonia a call, I beg you.
“Sometimes, in my darkest moments I think, oh they’re just using us as a storage. When you ring them they say, ‘Yep, I’m coming in,’ and then they just leave it cos they know it’s safe here. So that’s why I get on the phone and say ‘C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, Sonia’s running out of room!’”
She and Fraser slave to return your stuff, too, even though you make it tough. You could help them by putting an emergency contact number in your phone. Better still, you could slip a contact number under the back panel. A digital camera has onboard clues. “Sometimes we can get in there and look at the photos and if there’s a car registration number, that’s one way we get them back.”
Then there’s the safe: bracelets, watches, money, brooches, pendants rings. “Ladies please!” say’s Sonia. There’s got to be thousands of dollars worth in there. It’s a myth, by the way, that no one hands in money. “People come and say, ‘I lost $800, but don’t worry, they won’t bring it in.’ I had the pleasure last week of ringing up a guy and saying ‘Guess what!’ And those are the bouquets, I guess, that’s the payoff.”
To arrive somewhere you must leave the place you are. Reset your microwave clock.
These lost property people are some of the most good-natured folk you’d ever meet, and they bring to their job a conscientiousness completely at odds with our own neglectfulness. They take security seriously too. When I show up at parliament I’m confronted with the kind of reception usually reserved for international shoe-bombers. Four guards watch my bag trundle through an x-ray machine. There’s a few more lurking around the corner, ready, alert—like cobras, some more through the glass doors to the left. They all have ear-pieces. What’re they listening to? “You are a strong and confident person. You can take command of any situation.” They seem relaxed and friendly. Still, when I quiz one about their lost property arrangements he looks at me like I just asked him if we could go into the corner and spoon. Parliament’s position on lost property is that they don’t talk about lost property. Which is fine.
Darren Nichols has a similar, if less hysterical, attitude. He tells me that, in theory, descriptions of lost items could give individuals clues on how better to plant bombs on trains. I underline something in my notes that might say “Terrorism issue: important?” but that actually say’s “Get bread, cheese.” I’m not being flip, you just can’t make eye contact with someone who suggests that your story might abet Al Qaeda. “I have this week’s issue of Sunday, brothers, we strike tonight!”
At Capital E, the experiential learning center for kids, they’re less concerned with national security and more with our children’s ability to shed clothing like a tumble-drier with the door open. “We get a ton of clothes and shoes,” say’s Morag Zaric, Operations Support Manager, and she gestures towards a greasy black beanie lying on her desk. Someone else wanders over to share a story. “Someone left a pooh in the bouncy castle.” Bless.
Because of a great love, one is courageous. Because of children, one is late.
Back at the train station, Darren emerges from the back room with an enormous Bible. “Wow, I bet you don’t get many of those.” “Couple-a-year,” say’s Trevor, casually. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost property, in case you were wondering. He got the job because a novice borrowed his Psalter without asking and was compelled to return it by a terrifying apparition. Interestingly, Anthony gets to look after all lost items except keys. If you’ve lost your keys, (and looking in these boxes it’s clear that you have,) you have to talk to Zita. Angels once baked bread for Zita while she prayed. I bet it was nice bread.
The most unusual thing ever left behind on a Wellington train was a huge gold telescope. “It was HUGE,” says Trevor, and stretches out his arms. The owner and artefact were reunited. He was not, apparently, a wizard. What’s the deal here? How do you loose a giant gold telescope? How do you lose anything, for that matter? And why is it getting worse?
Obviously there are timeless factors involved—age, intoxication—but there are also factors specific to the age we live in—shrinking devices, the relative disposability of modern consumer electronics, El Nino. Dr. Marc Wilson from the Victoria University Department of Psychology points out that losing things has a lot more to do with breaks in our routine than with memory. “We’re more likely to forget things when our routine is broken—when your alarm doesn’t go off and you’re late for work you get out of the routine of watch, wallet, specs, keys, etc.”
We all have our morning routine and if things happen in a certain order it can flow as if by magic: alarm, shower, dress, breakfast, bags, lunches, wallet, phone, specs, keys, report on glacial maximums, go! But if anything should happen to break that routine it can unleash unholy hell: alarm, snooze, sleep, kids, shit! panic, keys? coffee—lap, Aggghhhh! The nocturnal equivalent of this farce is: bar, mojitos, argument, taxi, crying, phone, seat, gone.
That’s why you can put on a full face of makeup while dressing the kids and changing lanes on the motorway—because you do it every morning. That’s why your teenage children can text their friends while communicating with you in a series of primitive grunts. And that’s why I had to skulk back in to Wellington Central Police Station last week, just minutes after leaving. I needed to retrieve my tape-recorder. It isn’t something I use every day, it has no “place” in my routine, it’s an intruder. How they laughed, Fraser and Sonia, their laughter echoed down the corridors, it followed me home, taunting me. “Are you gonna put that in your story?” cried Sonia, with well-earned glee, and I replied, “Perhaps.”
There’s no shame in admitting you have a problem. That was your third phone, we’re not even counting the one destroyed by baby goo. Then there’s your keys, wallet, oxygen tank … we’ll discuss that later, your Venus Vibrance pink rubber jandals, your King James Bible, your mind, possibly. All gone. The pattern I’m seeing here is of general disorder mixed with occasional intoxication and a deep disregard for your possessions. I feel your pain, I do; your life was in that phone. I understand the pressures of a wired existence, the need to maintain an umbilical connection to our modern communications networks, the ease with which a wafer-thin widget can slither between the seats of a taxi cab and leave you lost and lonely; the way you can shove your life inside a laptop and then leave that laptop on a bus and leave that bus and not look back. There was sensitive information on that laptop; there were pictures … of “things.”
If you visit Wellington Central Train Station’s information desk you’ll find a reasonably sympathetic guy named Trevor. Behind him you’ll find a small room stacked high with filing boxes and sweating plastic rubbish bags. Don’t look in the bags, that’s my advice. In the boxes, though, you’ll find booty the likes of which ye’ve never seen: coats, hats, bags, shoes, wallets, keys, a black motorcycle helmet—because riding the train can be dangerous—essential and non-essential medicine, newspapers, school projects and art portfolios, a Jim Beam embossed leather hip-flask—because riding the train can be boring. “Note: empty,” say’s Darren Nichols, Head of Security, as he gives the flask a little shake. Darren’s an affable Brit whose good nature belies his no BS job title. As he holds up a pair of bright-pink jandals he exclaims: “Venus Vibrance, size 38. Very nice.” “You get a lot of footwear then?” “Oh yes,” he says, turning the pink wads of rubber in his hands and staring into the middle distance. “My son lost two pairs of shoes on the trains last year.”
And so it goes on. The books are fascinating, place-marked with movie tickets, till receipts, a haunting photograph of a girl in a white colonial-style dress posing in front of a Christmas tree. There’s a tattered acupuncture and reflexology manual, a research paper: Dust Accumulation in the Region Since the Last Glacial Maximum, a small book of quotations by Lao Tzu,
To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed.
It boggles the mind. “What’s the strangest thing that’s ever come in, Trevor?” He won’t say, “ … for legal reasons.” “Was it sex devices?” “Oh yeah, we get a bit of that on the trains.” “Must be those Metrosexuals,” I suggest, and Trevor say’s nothing. “We get a bit of drugs,” says Darren helpfully, appearing from the back room with a pair of giant binoculars and some cassettes. “A few weapons,” say’s Trevor. “What’s on those tapes?” I ask. “Rock around the clock. Wham — Make it Big.”
I know what you’re thinking: without weapons, drugs, vibrators and the music of Wham, what did he not want to mention?
“But yeah, it’s mostly phones,” say’s Trevor, “phones and keys.”
To retire when the task is complete, that is the way of heaven. But where is my Blackberry?
There’s a saying in the lost and found community: “You loose it, we’ll find it, hold onto it for a while, maybe try to get it back to you if we can.” It’s not a very good saying, but what do you want? If these people didn’t have to spend their days heaving boxes of keys and wallets and sacks of fetid clothing they might have time to come up with a better saying. “A fool and his Treo are soon parted.” Something like that. But every day it seems to get worse. Every day you show up at their desk, lurching wild-eyed from the shadows to hiss, “I lost my preciousssssssss, it hads all me numbersssssssssss.”
Gary at the Wellington Airport Police Station effuses on your ability to shed your belongings. “Just bizarre stuff. Let me switch you to the other line so I can get the book.” “The book” records every item handed in at Wellington airport: phones, wallets, passports, cameras, laptops. You leave expensive clothes, jackets, and suits; you remove your jewelry at the metal detectors and then just wander away; you stand and walk off without your walking stick, maybe you scream “I’m healed!” I don’t know. You buy splendid flagons of duty-free liquor and then you just leave them sitting in the terminal. “Where does that go, Gary, not the Sally Army?” “Ha. No, I think they give it to the local Hospice.” Actually, they don’t any more, but they used to. Palliative booze. They also used to send the prescription glasses to the Pacific Islands.
He who tiptoes cannot stand, he who strides cannot walk, please use the handrails when ascending.
Taxis are a whole new bag. They offer a phenomenon—peculiar, as far as I can tell, to taxis—that completely inverts the lost property model. Often, they tell me, you’ll get out of the taxi at the hotel and remember your phone, your wallet; you’ll pay the driver and thank him, wave as he moves off down the street. Then you’ll stand there for a few more seconds, do that little sighing thing you do, then turn to your wife and the guy with the trolley and say something brilliant like, “Probably should have got the bags out.”
The taxis get the flash stuff; we ditch laptops, iPods and flabby rolls of cash in cabs. Size is no object; last year, a group left a 6x10 metre purple tarpaulin in a taxi van. Apparently, they had been drinking. “We also get a lot of jewelry, Smurf outfits, gorilla heads, you know,” says John from Wellington Combined Taxis. Well, they say you should put one more thing on before you leave the house.
The buses seem to get a greater volume than the trains, “Oh yeah, big room, heaps of boxes,” say’s Joe from Go Wellington, “We get probably four big boxes a month.” It’s amazing,” he says, “it’ll be three months later and Mum’ll ring ‘cos she just noticed her boy’s shoes are missing.” He laughs heartily, as do I, stupid Mum. “But yeah, phones, heaps of phones. And keys.”
The way is forever nameless, though the path is narrow. To listen to your message again, press 1.
Sonia Viles from the Wellington Central Police Station Lost Property Department wants to know why you haven’t called. She has your wallet, your keys, your prescription eyeglasses. There must be, I’m guessing, several hundred pairs of glasses here. Prescription glasses are expensive. All you have to do to get them back is drop her a line and the fact that you don’t makes her tense. Why are you making Sonia tense?
She and Fraser Simpson take me on a grand tour of the property room, pointing to stuff and shaking their heads. They show me phones, at least a hundred, probably more, from the latest Nokia to a foot-long beast that looks like it could be used to call in tactical air support. Within the cave we find assorted licence plates, a King James bible, a Pétanque set, school bags, car radios, a tool belt, a mud-streaked midi-system recovered from a park, a big-screen TV, a ukulele, a section from a windsurfer, skateboards, body boards, a framed photo of a Greek island, a fire extinguisher, an oxygen cylinder from a scuba diving kit. I can’t imagine the narrative thread that lead to you losing your oxygen tank, but when you finally get out of that decompression chamber, give Sonia a call, I beg you.
“Sometimes, in my darkest moments I think, oh they’re just using us as a storage. When you ring them they say, ‘Yep, I’m coming in,’ and then they just leave it cos they know it’s safe here. So that’s why I get on the phone and say ‘C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, Sonia’s running out of room!’”
She and Fraser slave to return your stuff, too, even though you make it tough. You could help them by putting an emergency contact number in your phone. Better still, you could slip a contact number under the back panel. A digital camera has onboard clues. “Sometimes we can get in there and look at the photos and if there’s a car registration number, that’s one way we get them back.”
Then there’s the safe: bracelets, watches, money, brooches, pendants rings. “Ladies please!” say’s Sonia. There’s got to be thousands of dollars worth in there. It’s a myth, by the way, that no one hands in money. “People come and say, ‘I lost $800, but don’t worry, they won’t bring it in.’ I had the pleasure last week of ringing up a guy and saying ‘Guess what!’ And those are the bouquets, I guess, that’s the payoff.”
To arrive somewhere you must leave the place you are. Reset your microwave clock.
These lost property people are some of the most good-natured folk you’d ever meet, and they bring to their job a conscientiousness completely at odds with our own neglectfulness. They take security seriously too. When I show up at parliament I’m confronted with the kind of reception usually reserved for international shoe-bombers. Four guards watch my bag trundle through an x-ray machine. There’s a few more lurking around the corner, ready, alert—like cobras, some more through the glass doors to the left. They all have ear-pieces. What’re they listening to? “You are a strong and confident person. You can take command of any situation.” They seem relaxed and friendly. Still, when I quiz one about their lost property arrangements he looks at me like I just asked him if we could go into the corner and spoon. Parliament’s position on lost property is that they don’t talk about lost property. Which is fine.
Darren Nichols has a similar, if less hysterical, attitude. He tells me that, in theory, descriptions of lost items could give individuals clues on how better to plant bombs on trains. I underline something in my notes that might say “Terrorism issue: important?” but that actually say’s “Get bread, cheese.” I’m not being flip, you just can’t make eye contact with someone who suggests that your story might abet Al Qaeda. “I have this week’s issue of Sunday, brothers, we strike tonight!”
At Capital E, the experiential learning center for kids, they’re less concerned with national security and more with our children’s ability to shed clothing like a tumble-drier with the door open. “We get a ton of clothes and shoes,” say’s Morag Zaric, Operations Support Manager, and she gestures towards a greasy black beanie lying on her desk. Someone else wanders over to share a story. “Someone left a pooh in the bouncy castle.” Bless.
Because of a great love, one is courageous. Because of children, one is late.
Back at the train station, Darren emerges from the back room with an enormous Bible. “Wow, I bet you don’t get many of those.” “Couple-a-year,” say’s Trevor, casually. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost property, in case you were wondering. He got the job because a novice borrowed his Psalter without asking and was compelled to return it by a terrifying apparition. Interestingly, Anthony gets to look after all lost items except keys. If you’ve lost your keys, (and looking in these boxes it’s clear that you have,) you have to talk to Zita. Angels once baked bread for Zita while she prayed. I bet it was nice bread.
The most unusual thing ever left behind on a Wellington train was a huge gold telescope. “It was HUGE,” says Trevor, and stretches out his arms. The owner and artefact were reunited. He was not, apparently, a wizard. What’s the deal here? How do you loose a giant gold telescope? How do you lose anything, for that matter? And why is it getting worse?
Obviously there are timeless factors involved—age, intoxication—but there are also factors specific to the age we live in—shrinking devices, the relative disposability of modern consumer electronics, El Nino. Dr. Marc Wilson from the Victoria University Department of Psychology points out that losing things has a lot more to do with breaks in our routine than with memory. “We’re more likely to forget things when our routine is broken—when your alarm doesn’t go off and you’re late for work you get out of the routine of watch, wallet, specs, keys, etc.”
We all have our morning routine and if things happen in a certain order it can flow as if by magic: alarm, shower, dress, breakfast, bags, lunches, wallet, phone, specs, keys, report on glacial maximums, go! But if anything should happen to break that routine it can unleash unholy hell: alarm, snooze, sleep, kids, shit! panic, keys? coffee—lap, Aggghhhh! The nocturnal equivalent of this farce is: bar, mojitos, argument, taxi, crying, phone, seat, gone.
That’s why you can put on a full face of makeup while dressing the kids and changing lanes on the motorway—because you do it every morning. That’s why your teenage children can text their friends while communicating with you in a series of primitive grunts. And that’s why I had to skulk back in to Wellington Central Police Station last week, just minutes after leaving. I needed to retrieve my tape-recorder. It isn’t something I use every day, it has no “place” in my routine, it’s an intruder. How they laughed, Fraser and Sonia, their laughter echoed down the corridors, it followed me home, taunting me. “Are you gonna put that in your story?” cried Sonia, with well-earned glee, and I replied, “Perhaps.”
Things aren’t like they were in the ‘90s when your working day entailed being slumped over a steam-driven luminosograph for nineteen hours while your emphysemic factory-boss hurled lumps of coal at you. These days you’re not really working unless you’re taking two phone-calls while writing a blog and coordinating a charity ball for the endangered sea-badger via Palm Pilot. Multitasking is what happens when ADHD grows up and gets a job as a fashion publicist. All I wanted to do was to point out how taking advice on work productivity from multitaskers is like taking relationship advice from a pimp. That’s all. I just made women angry. Please don’t hate me. Your validation is like oxygen to me.
Multitaskers
From the column Sacred Cows, Dominion Post, 2oo7.
I can see the irony in the fact that I answered the phone and replied to two emails while writing this opening paragraph. I also have the TV and the radio tuned to a kind of hybrid noise broadcast. This, I believe, will create the mental distortion needed to reflect on the true nature of multitasking. As a man, apparently, I cannot multitask. As a result, this paragraph, which would have been brilliant, remains unwritten and in its place only this flimsy filler remains. And that’s multitasking.
Today we salute the multitasker, the nine armed, stressoholic freak who hurtles past your desk in a withering vortex of wasted energy. She lives within a distortion bubble of chaos and delusion, far beyond the coverage-area of reality, and she glides through life without a clue that her organizational technique—her ability to perform several tasks at once—is a complete myth. Not content with doing one job well the multitasker aims to do all jobs partially. Not content with taking credit for work she actually performs the multitasker aims to take credit for every project for which she attended one development meeting while talking on her cellphone and collating a to-do spreadsheet on her PDA.
Multitasking is a term cribbed from computers and describes the act of performing more than one task simultaneously. The term has evolved to become a management tool for those who like to max-the-extreme, facilitate-the-envelope and alienate their colleagues and families. Our society has produced many tools and services to assist the multitasker – cellphones, blackberries, hands-free headsets, fast-food, speed-dating. The phenomenon has also thrown up a number of multitasker subgroups: Hysterical multitaskers – those who make organizing an office Christmas party look like Operation Desert Storm. Procrastinatory multitaskers – those who use multitasking as a smokescreen for surfing the net. Homicidal multitaskers – those who touch up their makeup while changing lanes on a motorway. I love them all. Love them and fear them.
As many experts point out, the brain simply isn’t wired to multitask. The way the brain is configured means we can do two things at once as long as one of them is something we've practiced so much that it doesn't require any sort of cognitive planning. This is why a talented pianist can talk to you while performing a sonata or why your teenage child can compose a text message while responding to your questions with a series of grunts. “Multitasking doesn’t look to be one of the great strengths of human cognition,” says James C. Johnston, a research psychologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in an article in Time. “It’s almost inevitable that each individual task will be slower and of lower quality.”
Joshua Rubinstein, Ph.D., of the Federal Aviation Administration, David Meyer, Ph.D., and Jeffrey Evans, Ph.D., both at the University of Michigan, recently explored this issue in more depth. They studied patterns in the amounts of time lost when people switched repeatedly between two tasks of varying complexity and familiarity. The measurements revealed that for all types of tasks, subjects lost time when they had to switch from one task to another, and time costs increased with the complexity of the tasks, so it took significantly longer to switch between more complex tasks. Time costs also were greater when subjects switched to tasks that were relatively unfamiliar. Thus, multitasking may seem more efficient on the surface, but may actually take more time in the end.
Men are not multitaskers but despite fashionable thought this has nothing to do with genetics. Men have had many generations of workplace experience to learn a simple truth: that the more jobs you take responsibility for, the more failures you’re likely to be blamed for. Women, on the other hand, have been forced to spend most of history managing a home and a brood of children and their day has mostly involved carrying out a series of habitual, overlapping micro-tasks. They have tried to project this model onto the modern workplace, it hasn’t worked and we, until now, have been too scared to tell them.
Telling a multitasker that they’re not doing anything real or useful is like telling a child that Santa doesn’t exist, or Tom Cruise that Scientology is a crock. The term has cultivated absolute belief amongst leading practitioners and their legion of shrill multitaskateers. The multitasker in flight resembles a bad magician, performing a flurry of transparent tricks before a bemused audience and then claiming that there’s some kind of magic behind it. There is no magic behind it, though it is, in every sense, an illusion. Whenever I see one in action, juggling her way toward an early stroke, I think of what my dad always says about such people: “If you shoved a broom in their backsides they’d sweep the floor as well.” He may be right, but I prefer to think of the beautiful line from Emily Dickinson: “Because I could not schedule a breakfast meeting with death, he kindly scheduled one for me.”
I can see the irony in the fact that I answered the phone and replied to two emails while writing this opening paragraph. I also have the TV and the radio tuned to a kind of hybrid noise broadcast. This, I believe, will create the mental distortion needed to reflect on the true nature of multitasking. As a man, apparently, I cannot multitask. As a result, this paragraph, which would have been brilliant, remains unwritten and in its place only this flimsy filler remains. And that’s multitasking.
Today we salute the multitasker, the nine armed, stressoholic freak who hurtles past your desk in a withering vortex of wasted energy. She lives within a distortion bubble of chaos and delusion, far beyond the coverage-area of reality, and she glides through life without a clue that her organizational technique—her ability to perform several tasks at once—is a complete myth. Not content with doing one job well the multitasker aims to do all jobs partially. Not content with taking credit for work she actually performs the multitasker aims to take credit for every project for which she attended one development meeting while talking on her cellphone and collating a to-do spreadsheet on her PDA.
Multitasking is a term cribbed from computers and describes the act of performing more than one task simultaneously. The term has evolved to become a management tool for those who like to max-the-extreme, facilitate-the-envelope and alienate their colleagues and families. Our society has produced many tools and services to assist the multitasker – cellphones, blackberries, hands-free headsets, fast-food, speed-dating. The phenomenon has also thrown up a number of multitasker subgroups: Hysterical multitaskers – those who make organizing an office Christmas party look like Operation Desert Storm. Procrastinatory multitaskers – those who use multitasking as a smokescreen for surfing the net. Homicidal multitaskers – those who touch up their makeup while changing lanes on a motorway. I love them all. Love them and fear them.
As many experts point out, the brain simply isn’t wired to multitask. The way the brain is configured means we can do two things at once as long as one of them is something we've practiced so much that it doesn't require any sort of cognitive planning. This is why a talented pianist can talk to you while performing a sonata or why your teenage child can compose a text message while responding to your questions with a series of grunts. “Multitasking doesn’t look to be one of the great strengths of human cognition,” says James C. Johnston, a research psychologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in an article in Time. “It’s almost inevitable that each individual task will be slower and of lower quality.”
Joshua Rubinstein, Ph.D., of the Federal Aviation Administration, David Meyer, Ph.D., and Jeffrey Evans, Ph.D., both at the University of Michigan, recently explored this issue in more depth. They studied patterns in the amounts of time lost when people switched repeatedly between two tasks of varying complexity and familiarity. The measurements revealed that for all types of tasks, subjects lost time when they had to switch from one task to another, and time costs increased with the complexity of the tasks, so it took significantly longer to switch between more complex tasks. Time costs also were greater when subjects switched to tasks that were relatively unfamiliar. Thus, multitasking may seem more efficient on the surface, but may actually take more time in the end.
Men are not multitaskers but despite fashionable thought this has nothing to do with genetics. Men have had many generations of workplace experience to learn a simple truth: that the more jobs you take responsibility for, the more failures you’re likely to be blamed for. Women, on the other hand, have been forced to spend most of history managing a home and a brood of children and their day has mostly involved carrying out a series of habitual, overlapping micro-tasks. They have tried to project this model onto the modern workplace, it hasn’t worked and we, until now, have been too scared to tell them.
Telling a multitasker that they’re not doing anything real or useful is like telling a child that Santa doesn’t exist, or Tom Cruise that Scientology is a crock. The term has cultivated absolute belief amongst leading practitioners and their legion of shrill multitaskateers. The multitasker in flight resembles a bad magician, performing a flurry of transparent tricks before a bemused audience and then claiming that there’s some kind of magic behind it. There is no magic behind it, though it is, in every sense, an illusion. Whenever I see one in action, juggling her way toward an early stroke, I think of what my dad always says about such people: “If you shoved a broom in their backsides they’d sweep the floor as well.” He may be right, but I prefer to think of the beautiful line from Emily Dickinson: “Because I could not schedule a breakfast meeting with death, he kindly scheduled one for me.”
Situations in Which the Hunter Might Become the Hunted
From McSweeney's—2007
Hunter sprains ankle.
Hunter’s son mistakes hunter for moose.
Hockey mask obscures hunter’s peripheral vision.
Through a bureaucratic mix-up.
By osmosis.
Through a government initiated job-share program.
Hunter develops non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Hunted learns hunter has ticklish paws.
Karen Hunter marries Jonathan Hunted.
Hunter finds hunted attractive. [Their forbidden love spawns a child with the speed of a gazelle and the jaws of lion. It is called a Gazellion.]
Hunted drags self to deserted mountain cabin where he finds a first aid kit, exercise equipment, a weapons cache, and Tony Robin’s Personal Power.
Difficult jungle terrain, cheap laser crossbow jams, crappy personal cloaking device malfunctions, just a crappy day.
Hunteds get hold of an imperial walker.
Hunted is Steven Segal, hunter is some pies.
Hunter sprains ankle.
Hunter’s son mistakes hunter for moose.
Hockey mask obscures hunter’s peripheral vision.
Through a bureaucratic mix-up.
By osmosis.
Through a government initiated job-share program.
Hunter develops non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Hunted learns hunter has ticklish paws.
Karen Hunter marries Jonathan Hunted.
Hunter finds hunted attractive. [Their forbidden love spawns a child with the speed of a gazelle and the jaws of lion. It is called a Gazellion.]
Hunted drags self to deserted mountain cabin where he finds a first aid kit, exercise equipment, a weapons cache, and Tony Robin’s Personal Power.
Difficult jungle terrain, cheap laser crossbow jams, crappy personal cloaking device malfunctions, just a crappy day.
Hunteds get hold of an imperial walker.
Hunted is Steven Segal, hunter is some pies.
To Help and Back
Sunday Magazine—2007
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a soul in possession of a positive attitude gathers around them all their worldly wishes. This person, simply by changing their mental outlook, will amass a considerable fortune, a mighty castle, a beautiful husband, a strong yet tender wife. Some kind of jacuzzi bath, perhaps. With a positive mindset one can lose weight, conquer stress, even vanquish disease.
We’re continuously told about the virtues of “positive thinking”, but what is it and does it really walk hand in hand with happiness? Or goodness? Couldn’t I feel positive about annexing Poland, or bombing an embassy, or invading Iraq? Are not the tyrants and terrorists positive about their lives and destinies? By popular definition “positive thinking” makes no allowances for values; it encompasses a belief in your unbridled potential as an individual, coupled with unquenchable optimism and a determination to achieve your goals. The consensus in self-help seems to be that negative people are the enemy; parasites; life-terrorists.
Dr Marc Wilson from Victoria University seems like a happy guy and he can certainly see the benefits of being positive. “I think for a long time we’ve tended to focus on the bad things. We focus on depression, for example - why don’t we look at happiness? The reason is that we have stronger drives to find out the causes for bad things than for good things. And the reason for that is that bad things can kill us.”
So it’s a survival instinct, a throwback to a time when a nearby cave might contain a bear with a rumbly tummy. But is it that simple? If I’m driving should I assume that no one’s going to veer into my lane without signalling? Self-help mega-guru Anthony Robbins thinks so.
“… What’s gonna prevent them from driving over to your side of the lane and killing you? Nothing! It happens every day so how could you possibly drive with such uncertainty? You just have faith that it’s gonna work out.”
Yes, okay Mr “as I write this I’m flying to Waikiki in my jet-copter.” And what about kids? How long would they last without our “negativity”? Should we assume the silence from the bedroom is because they’re deep in prayer, or because they’ve found a way to wire the dog up to the mains? Most of our child-raising lives are spent anticipating disaster.
And what about work? Am I going to prepare for a job interview by spending 15 minutes in front of the mirror saying: “You are awesome, they will perceive your awesomeness like a PowerPoint presentation in their minds.” Or should I spend the time anticipating the tough questions they’re going to ask, like, “Where are your pants, Matthew?”
But I’m trying to stay positive, and I’m on my way to discovering the keys to happiness, thanks to a two-month deluxe banquet of self-help ready-meals. I’m seeking answers - The Secret, if you will. (The Secret, former reality TV producer Rhonda Byrne’s film about the Law of Attraction, has sold millions - amazing considering that the film is based on the simplest of manifestos: that whatever you imagine will become reality.)
The secret to wealth and power, it seems so far, is to write a self-help book based on a simple premise and then retire to your castle with a fortune of McDuck-like proportions. All these gurus use the same simple bag of tricks in their books, a set of basic rules to charm and enchant you, and to relieve you of your cash. If you’re serious about getting the best out of self-help and attracting all you dreamed of, it helps to know these rules.
RULE ONE: You suck.
I mean that with all human compassion. I know what you want: you just want a good lifestyle and a loving, committed relationship - like those two old guys from the cheese ads. And yet you only use 10 percent of your brain, did you know that? And only 1 percent of your Personal Power™ And only 4 percent of your AQ™ (Amazingness Quotient.) You flounder like a lonely penguin on the shores of love, weighed down by the black oil of negativity; you struggle to make ends agree to be at the same party, let alone meet. If only you knew how simple and affordable the answers to your problems are. All progress begins with a restless longing for a better life.
RULE TWO: You’ll suck less if you buy the book.
Once you’ve become dissatisfied (or “Disturbed” as Tony Robbins puts it) you’re ready to roll. Your local bookstore has what you need. There’s Let’s Not Screw It, Let’s Just Do It, by Richard Branson; How to Live 365 Days a Year (vital reading, I would think, for those who enjoy being alive,) and a book by Teri Hatcher called Burnt Toast. “Toast. You know when you’re trying to make it and you just can’t get it right? … Up until now I ate burnt toast, then I hit 40.” So much for a no-carb diet. But as a struggling writer I’ve eaten a lot of toast, so I can identify.
As a writer I also crave great riches, but I can’t afford the paradoxical luxury of buying my way there. Fortunately, the Wellington Public Library has a ready supply of improvemental literature. They have The Power of Positive Thinking; The Pocket Book of Affirmations—“Being who I am is good enough.” So true. The mythic Anthony Robbins has two books: Unlimited Power, and Awaken the Giant Within. I’m not sure I’m ready for unlimited power, (I hear it corrupts unlimitedly,) so I grab Awaken The Giant, because I am about average size, but I would like to be more.
For specific career advice I turn to the ludicrously comprehensive For Dummies series. Need to learn Neuro Linguistic Programming? Want to learn how to program eunichs? It’s all here!
RULE THREE: Not only do you suck, you’re also an idiot and a dummy.
… Yes, “Unix,” that’s what I said. They have a Building Confidence For Dummies. No I’m not kidding. They’ve have a Freelancing For Dummies but I can’t find a copy. But the library has Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies, by Leslie J. Wainger, so I grab that. I’m certain the advice is transferable.
RULE FOUR: Christmas is coming.
“Think of a kid in the days leading up to Christmas, looking at those presents under the tree, shaking them, trying to read through the wrapping … Your hero and heroine should feel that way about each other—only they’re not sure Christmas will ever come.”— Leslie J. Wainger.
Those who know me will tell you that my life essentially mirrors that of Rory Gilmore, from The Gilmore Girls. We are both wide-eyed idealists, romantics, forging ahead in the “dog-rejects-dog’s-manuscript” world of writing. Just last week, my boyfriend Logan Huntzberger asked me to marry him and move to the West Coast. Sooooooooo awkward. I certainly don’t have “The Edge,” (although I could be described as “edgy,”) and of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I have only two: I’m pro-active and I have a “booty” that will not quit. (That’s one of them, look it up.)
So I’m far from perfect. Yet, the more I read this stuff, the more I become seduced by the idea of my own boundless potential. So now I find myself making lists of goals spectacularly beyond my reach. I’m sticking photos of editors in my journal. There’s David Granger from Esquire, there’s Mark Freeland, head of comedy development for the BBC. I’m praying to Granger every morning, willing the forces of the universe to compel his hand to dial my number. He won’t know WHAT the hell is going on! He’ll be like, “Wha … why am I calling you?” And I’ll be like, “Ha! You are powerless.” That’s the plan.
Meanwhile, Leslie J. Wainger continues to mould me: “If you were to visit my office, you’d be able to get a good idea of who I am: a confident professional woman who’s comfortable with a cluttered desk … You’d also see someone who likes to personalise her workspace with pictures of her favourite actors du jour, several ridiculous salt and pepper shakers, and a lot of monkeys.”
Awesome. I too would like an office full of monkeys. Until then I’ll have to do my own typing. But already I’m starting to reap the fruits of Wainger’s wisdom.
“Descriptions that go on too long can make your book drag. For instance, if you’re writing a Regency romance, your hero probably lives in a manor house, which the reader needs to be able to visualize … so start your description with the stately façade and a general sense of landscaping.”
RULE FIVE: Your mind is a magnet
Wainger would love the opening sequence to The Secret, the self-help industry’s answer to The Da Vinci Code. Several thousand years of human history are thrown down in just a few minutes. We get more than a general sense of landscaping, we get pyramids, castles, a scroll being given to a priest, the Scroll being analysed by an alchemist, the scroll being given to Aslan who gives it to Harry Potter, or something.
Entrepreneur John Assaraf, one of The Secret’s “experts”, says of the film’s manifesto: “The simplest way for me to look at the Law of Attraction is if I think of myself as a magnet. And I know that a magnet will attract to it.”
This is why it’s extremely dangerous to think about anvils.
RULE SIX: Desire is not a dirty word.
“Make ‘em wait. Don’t let them act on their attraction right away, even - or especially - if the circumstances seem perfect: a moonlit night on the beach, or a hot summer day and a pond just right for skinny dipping. Frustration feeds tension, so let them feel frustrated and drawn to what they can’t have.”- Leslie J. Wainger
To me, The Secret is just soft-porn for the soul. After 90 minutes of dangled carrots you realise there’s nothing substantial arriving, just the same mantra repeated over and over: "Thoughts become things." Setting aside the obvious logical barriers to believing in The Law of Attraction — why don't hypochondriacs or the delusional find their states magically becoming reality? — The Secret throws up more pressing moral concerns: is it healthy to believe that the universe revolves around you, that it's there to fulfill your every whim, that the huddled masses in the developing world have received their lot because of their "negative mind-set" that the victims of Hurricane Katrina "attracted" their suffering? It might be convenient to think that way, but it can't be right.
RULE SEVEN: We get by with a little help from our friends.
You wouldn’t believe the swamp of cack I had to wade through to find a quality local coach. This from one website:
"How You Can Get A Continuous Flood of New Clients For Your Personal Training Business Begging To Pay You Whatever Price You Want WITHOUT Spending a Ton More Money While Creating Happier Clients - Whether Your an Old Hand or Green Behind the Ears"
God. But I finally found Sarah Benge, New Zealand’s first and only Certified Integrative Coaching Professional. She’s a balanced, down-to-earth coach and she has a good handle on what works, and doesn’t. She even manages to be diplomatic about The Secret: “It’s just scratching the surface. It’s a little bit like Graham Henry saying to the team, ‘When you go out there on the field, kick well, pass well, retain possession, and that’ll win you the game.’”
Rugby metaphor. Brilliant. She must have spotted my finely honed physique. Benge grills me about my work habits (borderline obsessive) and my career ambitions (partial world domination). She helps me identify a few problem areas in my life: my “self-care” lapses, the mental carnage that unfolds when an editor says “Please furnish me with a feature on positive thinking. And bring me pictures of Spiderman!”
One of the critical things she helps me with is the core question of “positive” versus “negative” thinking. Benge says it’s better to think of “useful” and “non-useful” thoughts. Which is useful.
RULE EIGHT: Great riches will bring you great happiness.
“Contentment is the key. If you have contentment with material things, you are truly rich. Without it, even if you are a billionaire, you have nothing.”- The Dalai Lama.
“Contentment” often gets ignored in this field; there’s more a kind of restless hunger. Admittedly, Tony Robbins addresses the issue, but The Secret’s barrage of diamond necklaces and shiny BMX bikes seems designed to niggle at the wounds of discontent.
“What the most recent research shows,” says Victoria University’s Marc Wilson, “is that 50 percent of the lemon meringue pie of happiness is actually down to genetics. Tragically, only about 10 percent of it comes from our situation. So if you win Lotto, it will make you happier, but studies on Lotto winners show that sooner or later they return to whatever level of happiness they had before.”
You can imagine Teri Hatcher going, “Lemon meringue pie! Of course!”
Rule Nine: Success is at your fingertips
Success comes in seven steps, in just 30 minutes a day, for just three easy payments. Right? Well, no, success is bloody hard work. Sarah Benge had to work to get where she is today. I’ve seen you at the church jumble sale with your foldout card-table from the basement groaning under the weight of CDs, DVDs, rubber bands and balls, abdominisation contraptions and books with the bookmark trapped forever on page seven. You don’t look happier. So before you decide that Tony Robbins holds the key, ask yourself whether you’re considering his programme while watching late-night TV and eating snack food. Are you looking for The Edge when your body has no edges? If you eat well and exercise then the question becomes: Am I setting goals because they’re what I want, or do I want them because of the love and respect I’ll get from others?
“I have some of the most amazing friends and family who have supported me,” say’s Sarah Benge, “… and if that is a reflection of any of the hard work I’ve done then I’m already successful. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I think a bit more cash would be super, but how would that feel if I didn’t have these incredible friends.”
What drives the self-help industry is the gulf between the romantic ideal we have for our lives and our real state. Feelings are both the prize and punishment for success and it’s the emotions associated with getting those things, rather than the things themselves, that we’re really addicted to. Alain De Botton, author of the book Status Anxiety, prefers a different word: “love”.
“Once food and shelter have been secured, the predominate impulse behind our desire to succeed in the social hierarchy may lie not so much with the goods we can accrue or the power we can wield, as with the amount of love we stand to receive as a result of high status.”
Once you know not only what you want, but the reasons why you want those things, you can begin to move toward your own happy ending.
RULE 10: You’ll get your happy ending.
Ophelia floated through her Regency garden like a cloud. Her face was calm, but behind the stately façade her young mind was flush with possibilities. She could be anything, the hooded stranger had told her, if only she believed. Anything? She knew what she wanted, and no sooner had she thought it than she heard the sound of hooves approaching. She couldn’t turn, she could only wait as he dismounted. Then, his breath, warm on her supple nape, then his hands, those rugged hands, and then … The young foals reared in the field. The future was bright, yes; of that, Ophelia was positive.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a soul in possession of a positive attitude gathers around them all their worldly wishes. This person, simply by changing their mental outlook, will amass a considerable fortune, a mighty castle, a beautiful husband, a strong yet tender wife. Some kind of jacuzzi bath, perhaps. With a positive mindset one can lose weight, conquer stress, even vanquish disease.
We’re continuously told about the virtues of “positive thinking”, but what is it and does it really walk hand in hand with happiness? Or goodness? Couldn’t I feel positive about annexing Poland, or bombing an embassy, or invading Iraq? Are not the tyrants and terrorists positive about their lives and destinies? By popular definition “positive thinking” makes no allowances for values; it encompasses a belief in your unbridled potential as an individual, coupled with unquenchable optimism and a determination to achieve your goals. The consensus in self-help seems to be that negative people are the enemy; parasites; life-terrorists.
Dr Marc Wilson from Victoria University seems like a happy guy and he can certainly see the benefits of being positive. “I think for a long time we’ve tended to focus on the bad things. We focus on depression, for example - why don’t we look at happiness? The reason is that we have stronger drives to find out the causes for bad things than for good things. And the reason for that is that bad things can kill us.”
So it’s a survival instinct, a throwback to a time when a nearby cave might contain a bear with a rumbly tummy. But is it that simple? If I’m driving should I assume that no one’s going to veer into my lane without signalling? Self-help mega-guru Anthony Robbins thinks so.
“… What’s gonna prevent them from driving over to your side of the lane and killing you? Nothing! It happens every day so how could you possibly drive with such uncertainty? You just have faith that it’s gonna work out.”
Yes, okay Mr “as I write this I’m flying to Waikiki in my jet-copter.” And what about kids? How long would they last without our “negativity”? Should we assume the silence from the bedroom is because they’re deep in prayer, or because they’ve found a way to wire the dog up to the mains? Most of our child-raising lives are spent anticipating disaster.
And what about work? Am I going to prepare for a job interview by spending 15 minutes in front of the mirror saying: “You are awesome, they will perceive your awesomeness like a PowerPoint presentation in their minds.” Or should I spend the time anticipating the tough questions they’re going to ask, like, “Where are your pants, Matthew?”
But I’m trying to stay positive, and I’m on my way to discovering the keys to happiness, thanks to a two-month deluxe banquet of self-help ready-meals. I’m seeking answers - The Secret, if you will. (The Secret, former reality TV producer Rhonda Byrne’s film about the Law of Attraction, has sold millions - amazing considering that the film is based on the simplest of manifestos: that whatever you imagine will become reality.)
The secret to wealth and power, it seems so far, is to write a self-help book based on a simple premise and then retire to your castle with a fortune of McDuck-like proportions. All these gurus use the same simple bag of tricks in their books, a set of basic rules to charm and enchant you, and to relieve you of your cash. If you’re serious about getting the best out of self-help and attracting all you dreamed of, it helps to know these rules.
RULE ONE: You suck.
I mean that with all human compassion. I know what you want: you just want a good lifestyle and a loving, committed relationship - like those two old guys from the cheese ads. And yet you only use 10 percent of your brain, did you know that? And only 1 percent of your Personal Power™ And only 4 percent of your AQ™ (Amazingness Quotient.) You flounder like a lonely penguin on the shores of love, weighed down by the black oil of negativity; you struggle to make ends agree to be at the same party, let alone meet. If only you knew how simple and affordable the answers to your problems are. All progress begins with a restless longing for a better life.
RULE TWO: You’ll suck less if you buy the book.
Once you’ve become dissatisfied (or “Disturbed” as Tony Robbins puts it) you’re ready to roll. Your local bookstore has what you need. There’s Let’s Not Screw It, Let’s Just Do It, by Richard Branson; How to Live 365 Days a Year (vital reading, I would think, for those who enjoy being alive,) and a book by Teri Hatcher called Burnt Toast. “Toast. You know when you’re trying to make it and you just can’t get it right? … Up until now I ate burnt toast, then I hit 40.” So much for a no-carb diet. But as a struggling writer I’ve eaten a lot of toast, so I can identify.
As a writer I also crave great riches, but I can’t afford the paradoxical luxury of buying my way there. Fortunately, the Wellington Public Library has a ready supply of improvemental literature. They have The Power of Positive Thinking; The Pocket Book of Affirmations—“Being who I am is good enough.” So true. The mythic Anthony Robbins has two books: Unlimited Power, and Awaken the Giant Within. I’m not sure I’m ready for unlimited power, (I hear it corrupts unlimitedly,) so I grab Awaken The Giant, because I am about average size, but I would like to be more.
For specific career advice I turn to the ludicrously comprehensive For Dummies series. Need to learn Neuro Linguistic Programming? Want to learn how to program eunichs? It’s all here!
RULE THREE: Not only do you suck, you’re also an idiot and a dummy.
… Yes, “Unix,” that’s what I said. They have a Building Confidence For Dummies. No I’m not kidding. They’ve have a Freelancing For Dummies but I can’t find a copy. But the library has Writing a Romance Novel For Dummies, by Leslie J. Wainger, so I grab that. I’m certain the advice is transferable.
RULE FOUR: Christmas is coming.
“Think of a kid in the days leading up to Christmas, looking at those presents under the tree, shaking them, trying to read through the wrapping … Your hero and heroine should feel that way about each other—only they’re not sure Christmas will ever come.”— Leslie J. Wainger.
Those who know me will tell you that my life essentially mirrors that of Rory Gilmore, from The Gilmore Girls. We are both wide-eyed idealists, romantics, forging ahead in the “dog-rejects-dog’s-manuscript” world of writing. Just last week, my boyfriend Logan Huntzberger asked me to marry him and move to the West Coast. Sooooooooo awkward. I certainly don’t have “The Edge,” (although I could be described as “edgy,”) and of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I have only two: I’m pro-active and I have a “booty” that will not quit. (That’s one of them, look it up.)
So I’m far from perfect. Yet, the more I read this stuff, the more I become seduced by the idea of my own boundless potential. So now I find myself making lists of goals spectacularly beyond my reach. I’m sticking photos of editors in my journal. There’s David Granger from Esquire, there’s Mark Freeland, head of comedy development for the BBC. I’m praying to Granger every morning, willing the forces of the universe to compel his hand to dial my number. He won’t know WHAT the hell is going on! He’ll be like, “Wha … why am I calling you?” And I’ll be like, “Ha! You are powerless.” That’s the plan.
Meanwhile, Leslie J. Wainger continues to mould me: “If you were to visit my office, you’d be able to get a good idea of who I am: a confident professional woman who’s comfortable with a cluttered desk … You’d also see someone who likes to personalise her workspace with pictures of her favourite actors du jour, several ridiculous salt and pepper shakers, and a lot of monkeys.”
Awesome. I too would like an office full of monkeys. Until then I’ll have to do my own typing. But already I’m starting to reap the fruits of Wainger’s wisdom.
“Descriptions that go on too long can make your book drag. For instance, if you’re writing a Regency romance, your hero probably lives in a manor house, which the reader needs to be able to visualize … so start your description with the stately façade and a general sense of landscaping.”
RULE FIVE: Your mind is a magnet
Wainger would love the opening sequence to The Secret, the self-help industry’s answer to The Da Vinci Code. Several thousand years of human history are thrown down in just a few minutes. We get more than a general sense of landscaping, we get pyramids, castles, a scroll being given to a priest, the Scroll being analysed by an alchemist, the scroll being given to Aslan who gives it to Harry Potter, or something.
Entrepreneur John Assaraf, one of The Secret’s “experts”, says of the film’s manifesto: “The simplest way for me to look at the Law of Attraction is if I think of myself as a magnet. And I know that a magnet will attract to it.”
This is why it’s extremely dangerous to think about anvils.
RULE SIX: Desire is not a dirty word.
“Make ‘em wait. Don’t let them act on their attraction right away, even - or especially - if the circumstances seem perfect: a moonlit night on the beach, or a hot summer day and a pond just right for skinny dipping. Frustration feeds tension, so let them feel frustrated and drawn to what they can’t have.”- Leslie J. Wainger
To me, The Secret is just soft-porn for the soul. After 90 minutes of dangled carrots you realise there’s nothing substantial arriving, just the same mantra repeated over and over: "Thoughts become things." Setting aside the obvious logical barriers to believing in The Law of Attraction — why don't hypochondriacs or the delusional find their states magically becoming reality? — The Secret throws up more pressing moral concerns: is it healthy to believe that the universe revolves around you, that it's there to fulfill your every whim, that the huddled masses in the developing world have received their lot because of their "negative mind-set" that the victims of Hurricane Katrina "attracted" their suffering? It might be convenient to think that way, but it can't be right.
RULE SEVEN: We get by with a little help from our friends.
You wouldn’t believe the swamp of cack I had to wade through to find a quality local coach. This from one website:
"How You Can Get A Continuous Flood of New Clients For Your Personal Training Business Begging To Pay You Whatever Price You Want WITHOUT Spending a Ton More Money While Creating Happier Clients - Whether Your an Old Hand or Green Behind the Ears"
God. But I finally found Sarah Benge, New Zealand’s first and only Certified Integrative Coaching Professional. She’s a balanced, down-to-earth coach and she has a good handle on what works, and doesn’t. She even manages to be diplomatic about The Secret: “It’s just scratching the surface. It’s a little bit like Graham Henry saying to the team, ‘When you go out there on the field, kick well, pass well, retain possession, and that’ll win you the game.’”
Rugby metaphor. Brilliant. She must have spotted my finely honed physique. Benge grills me about my work habits (borderline obsessive) and my career ambitions (partial world domination). She helps me identify a few problem areas in my life: my “self-care” lapses, the mental carnage that unfolds when an editor says “Please furnish me with a feature on positive thinking. And bring me pictures of Spiderman!”
One of the critical things she helps me with is the core question of “positive” versus “negative” thinking. Benge says it’s better to think of “useful” and “non-useful” thoughts. Which is useful.
RULE EIGHT: Great riches will bring you great happiness.
“Contentment is the key. If you have contentment with material things, you are truly rich. Without it, even if you are a billionaire, you have nothing.”- The Dalai Lama.
“Contentment” often gets ignored in this field; there’s more a kind of restless hunger. Admittedly, Tony Robbins addresses the issue, but The Secret’s barrage of diamond necklaces and shiny BMX bikes seems designed to niggle at the wounds of discontent.
“What the most recent research shows,” says Victoria University’s Marc Wilson, “is that 50 percent of the lemon meringue pie of happiness is actually down to genetics. Tragically, only about 10 percent of it comes from our situation. So if you win Lotto, it will make you happier, but studies on Lotto winners show that sooner or later they return to whatever level of happiness they had before.”
You can imagine Teri Hatcher going, “Lemon meringue pie! Of course!”
Rule Nine: Success is at your fingertips
Success comes in seven steps, in just 30 minutes a day, for just three easy payments. Right? Well, no, success is bloody hard work. Sarah Benge had to work to get where she is today. I’ve seen you at the church jumble sale with your foldout card-table from the basement groaning under the weight of CDs, DVDs, rubber bands and balls, abdominisation contraptions and books with the bookmark trapped forever on page seven. You don’t look happier. So before you decide that Tony Robbins holds the key, ask yourself whether you’re considering his programme while watching late-night TV and eating snack food. Are you looking for The Edge when your body has no edges? If you eat well and exercise then the question becomes: Am I setting goals because they’re what I want, or do I want them because of the love and respect I’ll get from others?
“I have some of the most amazing friends and family who have supported me,” say’s Sarah Benge, “… and if that is a reflection of any of the hard work I’ve done then I’m already successful. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I think a bit more cash would be super, but how would that feel if I didn’t have these incredible friends.”
What drives the self-help industry is the gulf between the romantic ideal we have for our lives and our real state. Feelings are both the prize and punishment for success and it’s the emotions associated with getting those things, rather than the things themselves, that we’re really addicted to. Alain De Botton, author of the book Status Anxiety, prefers a different word: “love”.
“Once food and shelter have been secured, the predominate impulse behind our desire to succeed in the social hierarchy may lie not so much with the goods we can accrue or the power we can wield, as with the amount of love we stand to receive as a result of high status.”
Once you know not only what you want, but the reasons why you want those things, you can begin to move toward your own happy ending.
RULE 10: You’ll get your happy ending.
Ophelia floated through her Regency garden like a cloud. Her face was calm, but behind the stately façade her young mind was flush with possibilities. She could be anything, the hooded stranger had told her, if only she believed. Anything? She knew what she wanted, and no sooner had she thought it than she heard the sound of hooves approaching. She couldn’t turn, she could only wait as he dismounted. Then, his breath, warm on her supple nape, then his hands, those rugged hands, and then … The young foals reared in the field. The future was bright, yes; of that, Ophelia was positive.
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