“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
Richard Dawkins, more on RichardDawkins.net [richarddawkins.net].
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Month: June 2008
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Over the edge
… Once you’ve gone over the edge and you realize what’s on the other side, it changes your perspective.
George Lucas, from “The George Lucas Saga” by Kerry O’Quinn, Starlog, August 1981. Quoted in “The Secret History of Star Wars”by Michael Kaminski
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Fish Fetish: Breatharianism
It was a slow Thursday afternoon when we met the breatharian. J███, J████ and I were in the fish shop browsing a livestock list from a big west coast supplier with D██. D██ was looking for some bread-and-butter fish for one of his high powered lawyer client’s salt water tank. Nothing too exotic, just some color please. So, Sgt. Major Damsel’s at 15¢ each, minimum 10? And Yellow Tangs $1.00 or Coral Beauty’s for $1.50? Wholesale prices between friends.
Pricing livestock is a tricky business; you have to pay a fortune in shipping costs when you ship live fish; fish have to be in water, water weighs a lot, fast shipping by air is by weight. Combine that with the loss rates of shipping and holding till the fish is sold and you can end up with a Damsel that cost 15¢ wholesale costing $2.00 in store. High powered lawyers in plush law firms don’t care how much the fish cost as long as it swims around in the tank to pacify the socialites waiting for to sign their divorce papers at $500 an hour. Hence D██ buying 15¢ Damsels for $2.00 each selling them on for $5.00.
While we were debating the ethics of potential markups on the various fish one of our regulars, S████, came in. S████ was a punk rock skinny-mini ex-marine that topped out at about 90 pounds. With a huge colorful tattoo of an octopus covering her right shoulder and neck as a memento of her time in Okinawa. Her fish tank was at the heart of a bitter divorce and custody battle. Not that the tank was the cause; maintenance was the issue, because when J███ did the maintenance J███ he did S████ too.
Besides being a punk rock ex-marine girl, S████ was a Wholefoods nut. She regularly came into the fish shop raving about this or that new diet fad; One month she’d be macrobiotic vegan, next month it was raw foods only. It was always going to be a miracle cure for her chronic lethargy and insomnia. We all laughed behind her back about it; and as D██ once said, “there’s nothing wrong with that girl a Big Mac wouldn’t fix.” And D██ was a vegetarian.
Today S████ had a tag-along; an even skinnier girl who stood a head taller but looked more like Skeletor than a real person.
“Hey guys. This is A███. And my tang died.”
“Hey.”
“So sad, which one?”
“Yellow one. I brought some water to test.”
“OK. Test kits in the back.” With that J███ took the zip-lock bag of fish tank water and lead Sandy to the back counter. No real need, there was a test kit at the front counter. This of course left J████, D██ and me alone with Skeletor.
Mark, did the dirty work of starting the conversation with the third wheel. “So, A███. Have a fish tank?”
“Not since fifth grade. S████ says you guys are all vegetarians?”
“Yep. Except J███, he’s a vegan. We all make fun of him.”
“That’s cool that your vegetarians. Cruel that you make fun of him. I’ve been vegan for a few years; training to be a breatharian.”
None of us had ever heard of this term before. D██ looked at J████ and I. Then J████ opened the door; “What’s a breatharian?”
“It’s the science of living on the nutrients of air.”
I watched too much PBS as a kid to let that one go. “You can’t live off air.”
“Oh no, see that’s what most people think. Really it’s just fear that kills you…”
“… Not starvation?”
“No, just fear. We’ve all been taught for so long that we can’t live without food and water that when we don’t have food and water we become scared and our minds cause us to get ill and die.”
“So,” J████ took the bait, “if I stop eating and drinking today, I won’t die, as long as I am not afraid of death?”
“It’s not quite that simple.”
“Oh,” D– said, “it never is.”
“To succeed,” A███ continued, “you have to unlearn all that you know about food and nutrition and all the science mambo-jumbo. You have to train yourself, you can’t quite cold turkey.”
“And where did you learn all this from?”
“There are a number of people all around the world that have been teaching this system for years. It goes way back.” By this time A— was really into it, her eyes were starting to light up in a remarkably Skeletor like way, only she had blue eyes not red, “but the media doesn’t want to report on it. Big Agro doesn’t want people to stop buying food, so it’s hard to learn about it from the TV or newspapers.”
“So how did you learn about it?” I asked.
“I met this guy in California who was just back from Australia where he was studying under a wonderful woman who is like the high priest of breatharianism. She hasn’t eaten or had a drink in almost seven years.”
“Seven years?” We all said that, more or less in unison, same patronizing tone the flew of Skelator’s head.
“Yes, really. Isn’t it amazing? Seven years, but it took here a lot longer to build up to it.”
“I still don’t believe you can live on air.” I said.
“So how is your ‘training’ going?” D██ asked.
“Well, I’m quite weak. I went two days last week without food, but I did drink water. I felt so tired…”
“There’s a reason for that…”
“… I had to.”
“… because you have to eat.”
“I hope that by the end of the year I can go a whole week. Next year a month. It will take at least a few years to be off food and water forever. Then I’ll be so much healthier None of the man-made chemicals, no death hormones.”
By this time S████ and J███ wondered back from testing the water.
“S████,” I started, “what do you think about this living on air thing?”
“Breatharianism? I haven’t looked into it too much,” She said.
“You think that will fix your health issues,” D██ asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I just started the raw food diet.”
“Does sashimi count?”
“No, vegan, of course.”
“Yea.”
“Well, we’re off guys, I’m going to drop A███ at Wholefoods. So I can pick up a new tang next week J███?”
“Yea if nothing else gets sick.”
“See ya.”
“Bye.”
“Nice to meet you guys.”
We watched the breatharian walk with S████ to her ancient Volvo. They got in and drove off and we all started laughing hysterically.
“You know,” I said, “if you could live without food or water, the ‘Ethernopians’ would have figured it out in the ’80s.”
“I think she needs more than one Big Mac to fix her issues,” D██ concluded, “that girl is Darwinism at work. Hope she doesn’t have kids.”
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Faded Childhood Memories
… Riding up and down the escalator at Leggett’s in Barrack’s Road shopping center …
I was about 2 or 3… We went shopping at Leggett’s (much later purchased by Belk) at the Barrack’s road shopping center in Charlottesville. Within a few years Leggett’s had relocated to Fashion Square Mall (which was ‘the new mall’ for me for years). Today there is a Barnes & Noble in the ground floor of the old Leggett’s and a M██████’s Craft Store in the upper floor. The old escalator, which was located in the middle of the store (I think…) is gone, now there is one in the front to one side so you can get to the M██████’s.
… Watching time laps of a dead bunny decaying, being eaten by ants and maggots …
At the time I was maybe 4 or 5? We (at least my mother and older sister) were in Portsmouth, Virginia, staying with some friends of my mom’s from the Navy. I don’t really remember who, but my sister was friends with their daughter, Michelle, for a long time. I got up early one morning, must have been about 5 AM. Mom was sleeping on the couch in the living room (this was military housing; a long row of red-brick townhouses.) I turned on the TV but didn’t know how to change the channels. I guess it must have been Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom or something. All I really remember is sitting on the floor watching the dead bunny.
… Eating candy carnival peanuts at the babysitters …
This one takes place in Portsmouth too. In the house of some babysitter just down the road from the house my parents owned when I was born. This was after we had moved to Charlottesville (when I was 6 months old) but we were back in Portsmouth for something (most likely my mom’s two weeks active duty for the Navy reserves.) I remember having a bag of those sickly sweet candy carnival peanuts, the milky orange ones that are about two inches long and flat on one side. I think I ate too many.
… Seeing a tug boat one night after leaving a movie theater where we watched “The Aristocats” …
I have no idea how old I was or where we where… being that there is a tug boat I suppose we must have been in Portsmouth or Norfolk. There are no tug boats in Charlottesville. I don’t even know if this memory is real. But I associate tug boats with The Aristocats…
… Sitting in the sandbox at Vicky’s and hearing her yell something. Looking up and seeing a bull in the back yard …
Yes a bull. A big black one. It had escaped from the farm next door and somehow ended up in the back yard of my babysitters house… while all of us were playing. I don’t remember much else, don’t think anyone was hurt. The farmer came and got the bull.
… Getting a concussion because I was on one of those over-sized playground balls with the big looping handle for bouncing when an earthquake hit Charlottesville …
I was a bit older, maybe 4 or 5 when this happened. I was in the basement of the neighborhood babysitter, Arlene’s house. I was bouncing around on the ball and then everything started to shake. I bounced myself right into one of the metal support polls for the house and knocked myself out for a few seconds. I’ve written about it before [confusion.cc].
… Collecting giant pine cones and then eating taco salad from a salad bowl made of a giant taco shell …
I was in Portsmouth for this one (I seem to a have a lot of memories from Portsmouth which is funny as we were not there very often.) I don’t know how old I was 4? 6? 9? I was with my mom and we were visiting some Navy friends of hers for dinner. They had collected these giant pine cones (and I mean giant; some of them were close to 8 or 10 inches tall) from some trees in their yard and piled them around the base of the tree. I took several of them home, they were around the house in Charlottesville for years. Later we had dinner inside. They made taco salad and served it in these giant edible salad bowls made by deep frying tortillas.
… Getting sick from too many strawberries and too much riding in a hot car …
This is why I don’t eat strawberries to this day… I remember the smell of the strawberry vomit in the car. We had gone to Rapidan Farms to pick strawberries. Me being two or three ate more than I picked. The long hot car ride home and a belly full of strawberries did not agree.
… My dad changing the tire on the old blue car one afternoon in the parking lot of the old seafood restaurant on top of Pantops …
Pantop’s mountain is just over the river form Charlottesville and the seafood restaurant was one of the very few things on that side of the river at the time (the others I think being; a Shell gas station, a Exxon gas station and the White House Motel…) The old blue car (same one with the strawberries above) had a flat tire. I don’t really remember what day of the week or time of day it was but the parking lot was empty. That old seafood place closed and sat empty for years; now it’s an Aunt Sarah’s
… The county fair at Pantops …
I just remember all the rides and games. They held the county fair there a couple of times in the fields behind the Shell station and next to the river. I must have been young because there has been a shopping center there since I was about 8.