Tell me again Why?

My mother has been buying cheap scented candles from a marshalls in a rather dicey neighborhood. My quote to her: "Ok, ok, I'm coming. We can't keep the car jackers waiting."

In other news, my prototype no longer works.


Sigh.

Overworked and Unemployed

Got my LSAT score. Solid 160. A 9 point increase. Thanks Kaplan. Now all I need to do is go through some 3 years of soul crushing agony with these slightly better than mediocre scores! Hoorah!

Other than that I've been painting my mother's bedroom, removing useless junk from the house, and fixing nearly everything. By everything I mean:

A drawer
The verticals
The Shower curtain hooks and rod
The table
my prototype

Sadly, I fear I'm better suited for mild repair work than anything involving actual engineering. I did not take my EIT exam my senior year due to the fact I was working on too many other projects. So I have no idea what working for an actual engineering firm would be like. Would like to finally get a portfolio together. Had a dream I won the tupperware design contest. I never win in real life.

Mental mantra has changed somewhat. Instead of "And that's why no one will ever love you" I seem to endlessly, quietly repeat "They don't give girlfriends out to you hideous people." Slightly better than the "I will die alone" phase. Need to go back to my pills.

But 160. I need to write my profs for some recommendation letters.

Where has the time gone?

Away forever apparently.

I'm absolutely horrid at diary keeping. Always have been. Keeping a journal has been said to have numerous health benefits. It keeps you in touch with yourself and your past. I knew this since I was a kid, but could never get past three journal entries unless my teacher forced me to write in it.
So, allow me to back track

Today: I planted three trees in the back/front yard, cleared the patio for the new glass doors, collapsed in exhaustion, ate sushi, bought shit at Home Depot and collapsed again. Today is also the birthday of a certain person whose existence has caused me no end of grief. I have not seen her face in two years, but gently caress in agony the mental scars she gave me.

Yesterday: Went to the gym, worked on a prototype, got a facebook friend invite from the only girl who I think had a crush on me in High School, though we only spoke once and from what I remember, I resented her for liking me. I have not seen her in 4+ years. Also found out that my High school class Valedictorian got married. I am baffled by how this fails to surprise me. two out of 68 Hillel '03 Alums are in matrimonial bliss. I intend to never join their ranks.

Day Before Yesterday: I took the GREs. The results: 750 verbal, 680 Math. I prepared for a week with a $25 prep book. Fairly pissed how I came down from a 800 verbal 700 math SAT. I don't know if it's because I became stupid, work slow on math or because it's computer based with only two multiple choice sections whereas the SAT had several. I am not intellectually what I would like to be. And this is upsetting because intellect is one of the only things going for me.

The Previous Week: Took the LSAT. Awaiting the the scores, but if I had to guess, I would be in the 160's. Which is a 10 point improvement, but 10 points from where I would like to be. If I do end up in law school, I don't think it'll matter that much if I just go into IP law and wait out my days fighting for digital rights in the EFF.

Also visited my father's grave. 7 years since he passed away. It's hard to remember what he sounded like. I was fifteen then, so I can remember what he used to say, but I can't imagine what he would say now to me. Atheists seem to be particularly silent at gravesites. I know I was.

The month previously: frantic studying for the LSAT. Damn LSAT prep was a grand out of my meager savings. Couldn't even squeeze enough of the value out since I became addicted to watching streaming episodes of The Office from Netflix. On the upside, I realized that Dwight Shrute is my power animal.

So, that is all you need to know. I'm done with my tests, and now have a brief window in which I will once again subject myself the the cruel ravages of a job search. Before I subject myself to the cruel ravages of Graduate/Law school admissions.

And plant more trees.

Lines for Sitcoms that will never get aired

"I like being Jewish. You get all the benefits of being white, plus the added street cred of killing God's only begotten son."

Aliens, Project Mogul, and Christmas Tape

I still believe in UFOs. By which I mean, I believe that we have been visited by extra terrestrial life forms. I remember being ridiculed for this belief many times, but my rationale for extra terrestrial life seemed good enough: if one of 9 (now 8) planets in this remarkably average solar system could create intelligent life, those odds, applied to the millions or billions of other star systems would surely result in a similar outcome. Likewise, I believed that a worldwide conspiracy of average joes who saw lights and aircraft unknown in the world was pretty unbelievable. Same for my belief in ghosts. However, I did draw the line that aliens were here to promote the works of Jesus or that they wanted to create human/ alien hybrid embryos (after all, what could they need our pathetic genes for? Dumb homo sapiens have already mapped their own genome and if they can travel past c, they could probably whip up any base pairs they want.)

But I still obsessively read a lot of UFO books, magazines, and sucked down paranormal .5 hour TV documentaries. I know what Project Bluebook is, what a close encounter of the 1st, second, and 4th kind are, who the first inter-racial couple to be abducted were, and how many fingers greys are supposed to have. So I was surprised to see on National Geographic channel a UFO documentary that actually taught me something new.


Of course, everyone who knows what's up knows what Roswell is. Basically: a UFO crashed, a rancher found pieces of debris, newspaper snaps pictures of pieces, alien corpses get sent to area 51, and weather balloon is set up as a cover story. But I finally learned how it could all be explained rationally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RoswellDailyRecordJuly8%2C1947.jpg

First of all, it always bothered me that a huge, advanced spaceship only left the debris of foil like metal and rubbery components. Secondly, there was no crater or scarring anywhere around the debris. Thirdly, there was never a good consensus with witnesses anywhere. But there were hieroglyphic writings on some of the debris, which didn't sound like something a weather balloon would have. Why not some serial numbers like all good military projects? An innocuous weather balloon would certainly have something like that somewhere.

As it turns out, the perfectly rational explanation is as follows: it was a secret balloon project. Project Mogul was a top secret program which sent weather balloons with advanced detecting equipment to spy on USSR nuclear activity. It was a rush job and since many balloons were needed it was put together by a toy manufacturer in New York. This manufacturer used tape with Christmas decorations on it. This dried on the wood in the Nevada sun to make the purple hieroglyphs. Other details and hype about the story came about 30 years later after 50's sci-fi made the UFO invaders a standard trope. Because the project was top secret, the government did put out a cover story later and tacitly encouraged the UFO story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Reports_on_Roswell_UFO_Incident

This came out in 1997, while I soaked up my alien lore a year or two earlier. A victory for Occam's razor, a strange retrospective for my childhood obsession. I could say something cheesy, like the alien fixation was just a reflection of a personal and global desire that we aren't alone, that there is more than just a space ship earth. But for a part of me, it's like learning Santa never existed.

That being said, who wants to fund my X-Prize bid?

In other news, while planting a tree in the backyard, I cut my right wrist slightly. It still hurts. Made me definitely consider a bullet to the head as planned suicide method. Have not taken medication in nearly three weeks. However, I finally tested my vacuum former.

And nobody heard me, not even the chair.

Sorry about not posting in a while. Not that anyone reads this. But I'm sorry nonetheless. I thought that I would actually keep a record of my life so far, but it's really hard to document all the nothing that goes on. I am surrounded by all my High school awards and such, and it makes me realize what a slacker I've become. I have less than a month until my LSAT and it just drains me. As much as I don't want to go to Law School, I REALLY don't want to go to a crappy law school. So, damned if I do, damned more if I don't. I realized that I hated who I was in high school, I just threw myself into my studies until I could escape to college. At college I did (mostly) what interested me, I didn't feel obligated to do anything, and I could comfortably mock those who clamored for useless student group leadership. I know grad school won't make up for my undergrad experience, and I don't even know what I'd study if I went to engineering grad school. The GRE is my next task after the LSAT. Maybe I could just hole up in some school in the west and study superconducting metals. And then I'll get a girlfriend. And a pony. And a leprechaun. Who already has life insurance.

I was so drained from my Saturday LSAT test that I went to sleep at 2 PM and missed a fetish ball, which would have been the only semi-exciting thing to do in florida other than Fatasy Fest in the Keys. Then, I had another class on Halloween itself that ran from 6-9:30. Exactly one trick or treater came by and my mother didn't know I put the candy in the fridge. So he didn't get anything. I was boring this halloween. I hate this place.

The only other thing that happened is that they opened an IKEA near Sawgrass mills. This is a BIG thing. I have seen Disney World exhibits less crowded. But instead, families are just milling about, noting how cheap and chic Swedish designed plywood is. It was so packed
I occasionally had trouble breathing. But it did make me start thinking about designing my apartment. And then I started to think about how I would move to the apartment, would I sleep on the floor when waiting for the furniture to come in, what is a lease agreement, are there any paints that don't have added chemicals. I don't need the Sims, I do this in my head well enough.

Have not been taking my medication lately. Largely because between the $1,200 kaplan prep class and the $200 iPod I bought my mom for her birthday, I am very low on cash and my new insurance doesn't cover medication. Thinking about donating some bodily fluid or another. Also, read recently that as illegal drugs in the 80's subsided, prescription drugs with the same effect grew phenomenally and had the same effect. THe happiest I've ever been as an adult was when I was on anti-depressants.

Thinking a lot about God too. No particular reason.

Goodnight. I have to do logic games tomorrow.

Nerds Wear Costumes. True Nerds Build Costumes

So, Halloween is just around the corner. And therefore, it's no surprise that I'm spending more cognitive energy on costume design than say, getting a job. I'm thinking this year of a plague doctor. It's more subtle than a skeleton and is way more classy than anything else, since it's a classic Venetian Masquerade get up. It also ensures that NO ONE will know what I am, keeping my obscure yet obsessive track record up. It's really sad that I have no parties to go to or people to spend the holiday with. But it's tradition damnnit! I built my own incomprehensible costumes for my entire life. Here is a quick year by year rundown as memory serves:

Senior Year: Republican for Voldemort (Basically a evil politically active supervillian- which everyone thought was Magneto, but I had a skull and a sign!)

Junior Year: Anubis (Which everyone thought was some Egyptian donkey)

Sophmore Year: Memory fails - Was I sane then? Nah.

Freshman Year: Milk jug post apocalyptic nightmare from a comic book I tried to write (which no one understood)

High School Purims
Cafeteria worker (with Gas mask and spoon), Spock, Napoleon, Osama in hiding, Grouch Marx, Demonic jester,

Elementary School: Teacher from the Black Lagoon, A Dragon (with a long tail sewed by my grandmother filled with Styrofoam peanuts), Robin hood, Haman, King Achashverosh,
Mario, Darth Vader, and some others.

So I don't know. Am I finally too adult to do this? Or will studying for the LSAT force me into maturity?

And is anyone having a Halloween party I can crash?

Anybody out there in design?

Hey all,

Is there any way to properly organize a portfolio for a design firm? I have lots of product ideas from consumer innovations to mechanical components to sustainable technology for developing regions. Is there a set way of organizing them? Any particular format? Should I use drawings, CAD diagrams, or photos of mock-ups? And is there any other information I should use for applying for a design job?

Doors of perception

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as
it is, infinite. -William Blake

Of course, though no one knows what the heck that means, everyone seem to repeat it. No one seems to know the guy that well. William Blake himself is primarily known for being an engraver, poet, and prophet, he is also a zany anti-Semite denier of the Old Testament. Even his other platitude " The road of excess leads to the palace of reason" is taken from a number of "Proverbs of Hell." And what's the deal with the burning tigers?

The phrase 'the doors of perception', was later used by Aldous Huxley to title his book on his experiences taking mescaline. Whereas Hunter S. Thompson went on an explosive Las Vegas bender with the same drug, Huxley delivered the following lovely gems:

"To be shaken out of the ruts of ordinary perception, to be shown for a few timeless hours the outer and inner world, not as they appear to an animal obsessed with survival or to a human being obsessed with words and notions, but as they are apprehended, directly and unconditionally, by Mind at Large— this is an experience of inestimable value to everyone and especially to the intellectual."


"Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to Permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." Thus, remembering our own bereavements and humiliations, we can condole with others in analogous circumstances, can put ourselves (always, of course, in a slightly Pickwickian sense) in their places. But in certain cases communication between universes is incomplete or even nonexistent. The mind is its own place, and the Places inhabited by the insane and the exceptionally gifted are so different from the places where ordinary men and women live, that there is little or no common ground of memory to serve as a basis for understanding or fellow feeling. Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience. "

Other than to demonstrate the fact that stoner prose has gotten progressively worse, my point in all this is as follows. We tend to look at the 'infinite' rather than the 'cleansing of the doors of perception' As much as we try to perceive, we will always be up against things beyond our grasp of reasoning. This has a lot to do with conspiracy theories.

I consider myself (rather naively) as an applied epistemologist. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the question of knowledge. In other words, how do we know the things that we know? To this end, I diligently question statistics, compare encyclopedia articles, read back issues of newspapers, and basically try to gear my mind from being a trivia lord towards being an information junkie. A trivia lord tries to take in everything that is accepted as fact, but no one else cares to know. An info junkie accepts nothing as fact, only as leads and claims that should be investigated further. In either case, it is supreme hubris of the intellect that any one person can know it all. And I know I'm not photogenic enough to go on jeopardy, so knowing things is just a pastime of nerd ego.

The cause for all this factoid metaphysics is an essay I read that had a profound effect on me. It is Losing the War by Lee Sandlin. Here is the link.

www.leesandlin.com

Basically, he writes about WWII and how it not only fails to have meaning for the generations that came after, but also how it was incomprehensible for those going through it. From Journalists to soldiers and Hitler's therapeutic opera, there were a myriad of ways to deal with the shock of war. And that shock of war made the human scale incomprehensible. Meanwhile, the sheer size of the war made it impossible for the world to make sense of it afterwards. He does a great analysis of the battle of Midway that, though speculative, seems to demonstrate the point that all perceptions of the war, even the perceptions of those actually experiencing it, are wrong!

I defended Gonzo journalism by saying that certain types of reality are done a disservice if reported accurately. Therefore, it is well advised to be use the tools of fiction to describe realities that are beyond reason. But Lee Sandlin's piece offers the alternative that there is NO WAY to describe, or experience the portions of reality that are truly transcendent. It is beyond the scope of the mind, and we can only look towards the bromide of oblivion.

This applies to conspiracy theories as such. Traditionally the Hegelian look at conspiracies was as follows:

Thesis: Most historians and witnesses say X.
Antithesis: A few witnesses and several mavericks say Y.
Synthesis: Most people believe X on paper while holding Y in the back of their mind.

This applies for everything from JFK assassination attempts (where Y is fairly strong) to '9/11 as an inside job' theories (where Y is either too crazy or there isn't enough distance yet).

But actually I think it's like this:

Thesis: Most historians and witnesses say X.
Antithesis: A few witnesses and several mavericks say Y.
Anti-Synthesis: Though X and Y are valid and believable, what really happened is Z, which is beyond your reach or perception.

I was taught that whatever God is, God is totally unlike anything you could quantify with thought. Even the perception of God's oneness (which is pretty important to a little jewish boy) is beyond any concept of oneness humans could come up with. No matter how much data, facts, proof or statistics we amass, what really goes on will forever elude us. And as an atheist, I think that's a notion of faith I can live with.


The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love. - Meister Eckhardt

I hate my life and this is why:

I'm broke, lonely, ugly, unemployed, and spend my time trying to answer questions like these:

21. Newspaper editor: Law enforcement officials have recognized that legal prohibitions against gambling are flawed. No matter how diligent the effort, the laws are impossible to enforce. When a law fails to be effective, it should not be a law. That is why there should be no prohibition against gambling.

Which of the following if assumed allows the argument to be properly drawn?

A. No effective law is unenforceable.
B. All enforceable laws are effective.

My answer B, real answer A.

25. Most people feel that they are being confused by the information from broadcast news. This could be the effect of the information being delivered too quickly or of it being poorly organized. Analysis of the information content of a typical broadcast news story shows that news stories are far lower in information density than the maximum information density with which most people can cope at any one time. So the information in typical broadcast news stories is poorly organized.

Which one of the following is an assumption that the argument requires in order for its conclusion to be properly drawn?

A. It is not the number of broadcast news stories to which a person is exposed that is the source of the feeling of confusion.

B. Poor organization of information in a news story makes it impossible to understand the information

C. Being exposed to more broadcast news stories within a given day would help a person better understand the news.

D. Most people can cope with a very high information density

E. Some people are being overwhelmed by too much information.

My answer is B. Real answer is A because .... There is a subtle shift in the scope since the author didn't account for the sheer number of stories. Even though that is (to me) the same argument as wrong answer E or very similar to C.

And all that runs through my mind is "Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes...."

Speaking of recent events....

Yesterday I made a grand total of 2 phone calls, which is a lot for me. I usually don't get much 'social interaction' with 'other people.' Rarely does it ever go 'well' for me.

The first was to a really smart and delightfully deranged girl. On speaking of her current boyfriend "Yeah, he kinda sexually assaulted me and now we're dating. But I'm still pissed at him."


The second was to my old high school rowing coach. His wife of 47 years had recently died and I wanted to offer my condolences. Offering condolences is one of the most useless social conventions ever. You can't really help solve their problem and pain is too personal to have anyone make it better. Especially not a so-so rower you haven't seen in 4 years. But he talked to me for 2 hours about growing up in Scotland, the way my school has gone to the dogs, and his unusually pragmatic views on religion.

No matter how bad a team we were (I sunk a boat at one point. Maybe two) he always encouraged us and kept the crew program going. On very hot Miami afternoons, he would yell at us and equipment was always broken down, water logged, and outdated. The oar handles would cause out palms to bleed and then we'd dip them in the bay's salt water. Though my calves ache just writing this, the memories of rowing next to dolphins and watching sunsets on the bay seem to make it worthwhile.

The show with the Cavemen

So, anyway, one of the most dreaded TV shows of all time premiered today and I made a point of watching it. It's the show based on the premise that Cavemen still exist and are walking around today. Despite being both phenomenally like the average Yuppie in all but appearance AND fugitives from Geico commercials, they raise an interesting point.

Predictably, they start with the premise we expect. Even though they are remarkably modern and well spoken, they have to deal with stereotypical prejudices and stereotypes. The plot line of the first episode was that the main character caveman is secretly dating a 'Sape (short for homo sapien, but is remarkably a white, blond haired, blue eyed girl) while his friend expresses contempt for such mixed relationships. The main character finally confronts his friend and girlfriend, and then is immediately struck with the possibility that she has a 'caveman fetish'. I did not see an African American character the entire show.

I get the fact that Cavemen = minority. And the relation is further emphasized by the fact that Cavemen are white except for having interesting foreheads and facial hair. They are exactly the same kind of hipstery, therapist visiting, uber txting, mildly elitist bunch we saw ad nauseum in the Geico commercials. But I think there is potential, and here's why.

The fact that they are cavemen could raise the issue of race in various different settings. For example:

Will their existence topple the theory of evolution and cause ID'ers and fundamentalists to make them celebrities?

Did Jesus die for Cavemen, or was the break off point for the salvation of humanity the "Missing Link"?

Will there be racism within Cavemen circles ?(Will Peking Man cavemen settle in with Asian communities or 'Regular Cavemen'? Rival street gangs of Neanderthal vs. Cro Magman - as the cro's killed off the Nean's in the day.)


And what if all of us, SOMEWHERE IN OUR FAMILY TREE - has a caveman ancestor? What if we are all part caveman? Could it show up in blood tests?


The first episode is rarely an indication of how good a show will be. (Remember the first episode of Seinfeld? Of course not) But in an day and age where most people confront the issue of race as entertainment - think "Everyone's a little bit racist"- mocking white people in cavemen suits may be interesting to watch.

Or it could be total crap like 95% of the shows that get canceled anyway.

Strandbeest

So good to find a website or idea that you've thought you'd never see again. I saw this wild conceptual art/kinetic sculpture/ mechanical engineering marvel a few years back, but couldn't remember where. It's more abstract than biomimicry and much more human than machine art. But I couldn''t remember the dutch word for it. Until today, where a link to link to a link paid off.

http://www.strandbeest.com/#

and to make virtual models of your own

http://sodaplay.com/

Scenes from movies that play only in my head

Me: I mean, I always feel like I'm going to be left out, that I'll never be anyone's first pick. Like at the end of a movie, I'm going to be the one guy the girl feels close to, yet, she'll end up with her true love and the guy friend will be left alone with only hopes for the future.

Girl: Don't say that. We're very compatible and I know you're in love with me. But I would never in a million years find you attractive or even entertain the notion that you could ever be romantically involved with anyone. But that doesn't mean you should lose all hope.

Me: Really?

[Fade out]
[Roll End Credits]

What I did today

1. Laundry
2. Fix ceiling fan
3. Dig holes and insert fertilizer for trees in backyard
4. Sweep porch of spiderwebs
5. buy creepy crawler goop
6. Study for LSAT

What I didn't do today? Take my meds.

Goodnight and have a pleasant tommorow.

Mr. Spock, where art thou?

Is it rational to do something that you don't understand to achieve a purpose you don't want? I am studying for the LSAT. This is a bad move for many reasons. The first of which is that I don't want to really go to law school. The second is that I paid over a grand to take a test to go to law school. The third is that the test makes almost no sense. For example I memorized the following equivalent statements:

1. If X, then Y
2. If Not Y, then not X
3. All X are Y
4. Only Y are X
5. X only if Y
6. No X unless Y

Can someone please tell me how #4 works? You get a cookie. An imaginary cookie. Yum.

Formal mathematical logic (of which I'm comfortable with) is more like this:
~P=> Q
~Q=> P
Q U P
Q & P
Q P mind yours

Which is ok, and lets you solve a problem in math, rather than answering vague LSAT question stems or trying to logically arrange things for no apparent reason whatsoever.

The thing that bothers me the most is that I used to be so good at standardized tests. I could just rely on my good vocab and math skills. And though I'm usually good at logic and arguments, my fractured mind keeps knows an argument is wrong, but usually the reason it's wrong is not what Evil LSAT thinks.

So, of course, I must lower my resistance, and let the test show me what is wrong according to the test's own reasoning. But it's tremendously frustrating for me.

And then my mom yells at me that I need to change my life and study more seriously after I spend 3 hours, immobile, working on a logic game.

Sunshine is Sad.

My mother

My mother is insane. Well, only at times. Inopportune times. Like when she decided to start vacuuming before taking me to middle school in the mornings. Or when she bought a chicken and threw it out as soon as she brought it home and realized my father and I don't like roasted chicken. Or when she got engaged without telling me. Or when she had a fit of road rage. Or when she, well you get the point. My non jew friends say that she is the most stereotypical jewish mother on earth. I just marvel at the freedoms they get.

But today's mom tidbit is the following:

While seeing Vincent D'Onofrio on Law and Order Criminal Intent:
"Oh my god! He's so fat! He's so fat! How did he get so fat! He got sooo fat!"
Me: Yes, Ma.

The cultural significance of the zombie

It is believed that Buddhists play the following mental game. For a moment, they imagine that everyone around them is enlightened. By observing humanity through this lens, they are said to gain insight into deeper spiritual truths. For example, if a man who never bothered to bathe instantly became an enlightened guru, he becomes a living lesson on attachment to appearance. The bodhisattva who curses you out at the DMV is secretly challenging you to remain unperturbed.

A variation of this game is played within a sociological context. To play, one must simply assume that there is meaning behind every cultural fad, craze, or fascination. Of course, there is no real point to this, but you didn’t play the enlightenment game to become a better Buddhist. It is in this spirit that I wish to discuss the triumphant rise of the zombie.

Zombies now occupy a place in our consciousness that dinosaurs and aliens held a decade ago. This is surprising to me for many reasons. One can imagine cute baby T. Rex’s and hip saucer cruising grays. But it is quite hard to make reanimated corpses palatably PC. Furthermore, dinosaurs were featured in prehistoric battles and aliens were in pursuit of global domination. In comparison, zombies seem to lack life both figuratively and literally.

But the zombie has overcome these handicaps to become a preeminent social force. The deadpan manual “How to Survive a Zombie Attack” is a cult bestseller. In a recent video game one plays as Stubbs the Zombie and attacks the living as the ‘Rebel without a Pulse.’ Bloodstained T-shirts parody the sandwich chain with the slogan: “ZombWay- Eat Flesh.” But the zombie’s influence penetrates further still.

A very pretty girl I know participated in a zombie walk. Essentially, she put on pancake white makeup, torn clothes, and fake blood. She then paraded in public with a group of similarly attired enthusiasts. I later asked her on a date, but she declined. I believe that the role of zombies cannot be entirely ruled out on that outcome either.

People who live the zombie lifestyle are paralleled by other moderns who yearn to become pirates. However, I find the desire for the pirate’s life more understandable. Pirates are daring and cool. There is even a congressionally sanctioned day devoted to speaking like a pirate. However, speaking like a zombie would only get one so far and I doubt the motion could even pass the House of Representatives.

The most obvious cause of our zombaphilia is 9/11. The connection is not hard to establish. A third mental game related to me by a friend is to constantly map out contingency plans if a zombie attack occurred THIS VERY SECOND. Boredom would vanish since you would always be thinking of escape routes, combat techniques, and necessary supplies. Replace ‘zombie’ with ‘terrorist’ in this theoretical game and you have the ever vigilant mindset that should be present in a nation at war.

In fact, the stated purpose of the zombie walk group Zombie Squad is to promote disaster preparedness. They claim that if you can survive a zombie attack (or the more catastrophic Zombocalypse), you can survive anything. Indeed, this survival aspect is very apropos. From the wreckage of the World Trade Center, everyday Americans rose as half dead survivors, devastated and too shocked to think rationally. When we saw it, we became zombies too.

But that does not explain why people would want to be zombies. To properly analyze this, we must return to the origin of the mythos. In the traditional zombie creation narrative, a boko (or voodoo priest) would get into a dispute with a neighbor or fall in love with a maiden. Since dark voodoo sorcerers were not known for their charm, they were usually disliked by their community and were not favored as husbands. Thus scorned, they would give their victim a drug that placed them in a coma which mimicked death.

Three days after the burial, the boko would dig the victim up and give them a second drug that induced heavy amnesia and rendered them minimally capable. The combination of being buried alive and chemically impaired made the zombie a confused and complicit servant. However, if the zombie ate salt or drank blood, it would immediately realize what had happened and would furiously attack anyone nearby in the hopes of punishing the boko. The hapless zombie maiden or neighbor would then dig futilely at the ground, trying to return to the grave.

Zombies lost much of this depth once they entered the American mainstream. Instead of being tragic figures trapped by Caribbean dark magic, they became ‘Romero zombies’. The voodoo zombie was a body raised without a soul. The Romero zombie is a monster created without a budget. Round up a few dozen extras, tear their clothes, tell them to moan and walk aimlessly, and you have an instant army of the undead.

We must remember these monsters were fairly low on the horror movie totem pole. Such classics as Zombies of the Stratosphere and Zombies on Broadway (starring Leonard Nimoy and Bella Lugosi, respectively) attest to their status. But after Night of the Living Dead the zombie became a horror icon which continued to our present big budget fright fests. In current movies like 28 Days Later, the zombie becomes a plausible threat.

What is most visibly omitted in these Romero zombies is the reason for their existence. No solid creation narrative is necessary or given for the zombie. It can be a virus, nuclear radiation, or even a cell phone malfunction. Likewise, Romero zombies are killed via a shotgun beheading. Compare this to their voodoo ancestors, who die only once awakened to their own tragic fate. There is none of the allure of a vampire, the transient humanity of a werewolf, or the pathos of Frankenstein’s monster. And somehow, we seem to like that in our zombies.

There is no reason to dress up like zombies except for the fact that we identify with them. We see in the zombie not a flesh eating corpse but fellow creatures who, like us, also lack meaning or purpose. We, the living, have many interests but never any animating force. Our protests to government go unheeded, the economy sucks, and the ice caps are steadily going to melt. The zombie is as senseless and disoriented as we are, but is somehow happier in its apathy. We want to be mindless and tell other people they’re mindless too. If we stumble around in shopping malls murmuring for brains, I think we’re really trying to say: ‘We are the walking dead and so are you. You just don’t have the guts to show your guts.’

How the zombie transformed from a prisoner of black magic to performance art and fad will probably be irrelevant six months from now. But to understand the zombie’s place in our collective unconscious is more than just a mental exercise. It embodies our reaction to tragedy, our inner desire for numbness, and a call to find meaning in our humdrum lives. The pretty girl, once dressed in rags and splattered in blood, was having the time of her life. I don’t know if she was thinking about the meaning of her actions. But I wish I could have been with her then, for a moment no longer tortured by the burden of existence. Happy now that we have finally reached the era when the living envies the dead.

Blog of No considerable importance

Hello World, and a fond w00t to you all.

This is going to be my blog wherein I will blog and post my essays, writings, and other material. Enjoy.

Your humble author
Chaplain Diogenes Sunshine