"Emotional Lubricant"

Dear Milt:

Hate to have to tell you this, but I think you left your copy of Morty Feinberg's *Effective Psychology for Managers* on the plane.



Yup, that's right. You must have left it on that flight to Dallas/Fort Worth we took back in July.



Actually, looks like you were reading a section called "Why We Need Our Disguises":

"At some time or other, every individual feels the need to hide his inner feelings behind some sort of curtain or disguise. In fact, some psychologists claim that personality itself is a disguise. The very word, in fact, comes from the Latin 'persona,' which means facial disguises."

That Morty. He sure loves his facts.



But, hang on, Milt. Now, that I'm looking here, maybe you left the book on that flight we took from Atlanta back to LA. I sure can guess what you were reading then!



Be Enthusiastic

A moderate amount of flag-waving is helpful. At least convey the impression that your project or idea is appealing.

You must believe in something, and demonstrate that belief through enthusiasm, before you can be successful at persuasion. Your own enthusiasm is the best emotional lubricant for others. When they, too, become enthusiastic, they'll find it easy to agree.

"Emotional lubricant"? Really, Morty?

Well, Milt, I always have enjoyed our trips together. A pinch for the kids, and slap that wife on the fanny for me.

—Scooter

PROOF!

Let us imagine that you were to find yourself in South London on a murky autumnal day. Haggard, mean-spirited people pass you on the street; scowling office workers grimace as they smoke in shirt sleeves in front of municipal buildings. But then, there on the ground before you lies a treasure, almost hidden below the scattered leaves, Tesco bags and discarded drink containers. It reads as follows:

"Wendnesday

We had a fun time at the beach and made fantastic sand castles. Then went to WOLWORTS and bourght 3 vidios."



Flipping this piece of sheer evidentiary gold over, we find:

"Thursday

Toaday I went to have a hair-cut then we went and had some fun at Panda's Palace."

Now, I'm not sure about you, but once Old Ken had finished weeping at the plangent pathos of this poetry, I set to work trying to interpret it. The narrator poses quite a challenge to the reader, emphasizing the plasticity of the English language, bending spellings to fit the mood. The initial syllable of Wednesday becomes the slightly more phonetic "Wendnesday," while the silent, penultimate syllable follows orthography - - as if to simultaneously break and follow the rules, thereby demonstrating their utter arbitrariness. While the discount chain "Wolworths" has lost its "h" and an emended "cemetery rule" governs the spelling of the word "video" (that is, apparently only 'i's are buried therein), the completed act of buying is subject to a fascinating remix. Part transposition of a famous, cold Russian beet soup, part imposition of the first-person plural possessive adjective "our" into the term of competed purchase itself, "bourght," I imagine, would rhyme with port or court.

But what of these Romantic destinations sketched with such intriguing outlines? "Panda's Palace" seems to be an attraction at Butlins Skegness - - one of three exciting Butlins UK resorts, which also include Bognor Regis and Minehead. In case you are interested in visiting, Butlins Skegness is near the town of Louth, which is, in turn, close to Alford, Horncastle, Spilsby and Wainfleet. Also nearby are Spilhorn, Castleby, Fordwain, Alfleet, Grimsby, Staines, Strood, Penge, and Steeple Bumsted.



But, like so many modern literary critics, I hear you impatiently asking: "But what does it mean?" Well, to a experimental philosopher like myself, it is less important to find "meaning" than to find proof. What is proof? Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines proof as "that which makes good or proves a statement; evidence sufficient (or contributing) to establish a fact or produce belief in the certainty of something." I would submit that this poem proves that fun was critical to the self-conceptualization of the narrator's experience. For, on two consecutive days, the narrator describes him/herself as having had "fun," first at the beach making fantastic sand castles and then secondly at Panda's Palace.



Corroborating this evidence with the ludic experimentation with spelling noted above and it seems to this J. Hillis Miller that we have an air-tight case: some solid proof. And what better way is there to demonstrate that a claim has been proven than by stamping it with a "proof" stamp?

As the crimson ink of the stamp melds with the autograph script of the original poem, we can kick our heels back on a nearby table top, dip into a local wet bar or the ubiquitous pocket flask and reflect upon a job well done, a problem admirably solved, a point indisputably proven.

Art is Everywhere

It might seem like Old Ken has been offering a lot of posts about art recently. But this is not quite a fair presentation of the case. For art, that old strumpet, has simply been offering herself to yours truly with something like indecorous abandon. So, I'm going to keep my yappin' pretty short and sweet here, just so we can have a little glimpse of the amazing art to be found on the streets of London-town.



The gentleman you see represented in the two photographs above is one the O.K. has dubbed the "Yellow Man." As you will perhaps recall from the post about May Day festivities at Oxford, the "Green Man" is something of an important character in English vernacular folk culture—a symbol of fertility and rebirth. Our Yellow Man (as seen above in profile, with beady eye and darkened moustache turned toward our right) seems to derive from a less well known tradition. Composed in the present instance from what appears to be a clever concoction of construction site materials—some sort of light, congealed glue imbedded with rocks, glass fragments and vegetal matter—he must certainly be a golden god of summer. As he was recently discovered, might he be the patron saint of the summer solstice? I leave this to your erudite judgment.



From things golden and erudite, I'm afraid we next need to move on to something a bit more blue (in all senses of the term). As it was included within a collection of works on paper Old Ken found on the streets of South London (an absolute treasure trove of art, as suggested in the examples below), I feel required to share it. But, as astutely observed by a colleague, is she supposed to be wearing ice skates?



Another artful delight found in the pile described above. The most complimentary remark I can offer for this curiosity is the interesting use of black paper, which gives the whole affair a bit of a painting-on-velvet feel. If only we were so lucky!



Judging from the distortion perceptible in the representation of the model's face and the evident pleasure taken in such a cavernous presentation of her cleavage, Old Ken would have thought that the artist here might have been male. Therefore, it was some surprise to see the name "Alison" creeping up the righthand vertical border of the page. Have we just learned more about the predilections of Alison, or the biases of Old Ken? How, how!



Finally, it seems best to conclude with what might well be a self-portrait. The flattening of the facial features, which suggests work from a mirror, combined with the decorative, rather perfunctory treatment of the background suggest to Old Ken that someone (Alison again?) was perhaps completing her self-portrait requirements for art class. Well, she gets an A+ from yours truly.

Hell in a Napsack?

On my way into town this morning, something caught my eye—the note you see posted above was just lying on the street. Here is my interpretation of this wonderful specimen: a small piece of water-damaged graph paper torn from a spiral bound notebook. Measuring approximately 2.5 x 5 inches, the paper seems to derive from a pad most likely used for grocery, "to do" or other lists—notes, in other words, made for the reference of the writer him or herself. What else can we learn about this writer? From the small, schematic self-portrait above, we might be tempted to see the sharp protuberance arching over the figure's right shoulder as a scrunchie-bound length of hair, perhaps indicating that the writer/artist is a she. Well, however we may wish to decide this, he or she was clearly using a water-based pen, which has begun to run to a greenish or even cerulean blue in the right center of the page.



But what does the text actually say? First of all, we have the aforementioned self-portrait of the writer standing next to a steep, snow-capped peak. But, on the far side of the mountain lies a valley and an arching rainbow. As the text explains, "up the mountain ... 2005." Presumably, that is, after enduring "hell in a napsack," the writer will—at some point in 2005—be "golden," having reached the end of the rainbow. But what does this "hell in a napsack" (or perhaps "hapsack") entail? The list of tasks to be completed is as follows:

—Work
—Dissertation (Jan. 31st [presumably, 2005])
—Research
—Project

Jan: France and dissert.
Feb: WORK ASS OFF
March: " " "
April: Canada
May: Final Exhibition
June:

Old Ken has heard that Canada is a central location for cosmetic surgeries of various kinds. So presumably after this mountain climber has removed the tissue of her buttocks through the chafing resulting from an arduous climb up an icey peak wearing a "hellish" backpack, she plans to repair to Canada for some skin grafts. Could this be the eagerly-awaited pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Or will the ultimate, promised "exhibition" be the occasion to display the mysteries of the surgeon's knife? More to follow ...

Art wrestles Life; We All Win

Despite being A Man from A Place, Old Ken often finds his bootheels a-wandering. Of late, Oxford is one place where our elusive peripatetic sometimes lays his head. And it was there on the High Street (not far from the location where seventeenth century experimental philosopher par excellence, Robert Boyle, kept an 'elaboratory') that Old Ken discovered the object you see here. Perched upon a waist-high black metal cabinet, this peculiar rectangular cage keeps its secrets well. Given the finely knit grid of the cage's netting (approximately one inch by one inch), the walls would seem to have been designed to restrain the movements of some relatively small being/s. Now, as this kind of gridding would be perfectly useless containment for mosquitoes or fleas, it would seem safe to infer that the target entity must be somewhat larger than these fine insects. But what might it be?



Observing this curious contraption from various angles, we may note that it seems to have been carfully fitted out to accommodate some highly peculiar needs. In its eastern-most corner, huddled up against the buttery stone face of Queen's College, are three cylindrical projectiles of varying heights. The smallest appears to be little more than a stoppered bottle, like those in which rubber cement or paste are distributed. Clearly, the target species has some interest either in attaching materials together and/or the hallucinogenic properties of industrial inhalants. To its left, our second projectile resembles a small desk lamp, its silvery shaft terminating in an ivory cone. Behind this odd couple towers the most substantial of our inanimante denizens—a titanium-toned flashlight standing upright in all its glory.

But what or whom has this contraption been designed to inhibit? Having contemplated this fascinating spectacle on trips in and out of the nearby Bodleian Library, Old Ken has been unable to shake the sense that this odd conjunction of elements is a crafted environment of some sort. But who might live here? The closest analogue I have been able to produce is to the cage format often used to keep domestic rodents—gerbils, guinea pigs, and the like. Perhaps, this outdoor cage is designed to house a special, highly-durable sort of rodent whose food emanates from the small glass bottle. Further, we might suppose that the white cone really is a lampshade, perhaps to protect the rodent's sensitive eyes as it gnaws on root-vegetables long into the night. Let us ignore the third projectile. As I have never seen any living creatures within this device, the most plausible scenario seems to be that we are witness here to a work of conceptual art—namely, a home for an invisible guinea pig.

What I suppose I'd like to suggest with all of this is that once you begin to look for it, you can find art (conceptual or otherwise) everywhere. Indeed, below you will see an amazing work on paper (formerly in Old Ken's personal collection; current location unknown), which was found on the streets of Oakland, California. Intriguingly, the bold design you see here was actually on the verso; the recto was occupied with administrative communications regarding "a plan" and queries to see if this design was suitable (yes!).



As Old Ken was unable to see this image as anything other than a rather lurid winking face, I was deeply intrigued by the possibility that it might be part of some larger plan. What could this plan possible be? And how could I get involved? Well, sure enough, both paper and electronic addresses were attached on the recto. Dutifully, I communicated both the drawing and the contents of the text to an address in Phoenix, Arizona. When I hear back you, dear friend, will be the first to know.