pedestrian saga

Listen: The other night near Sunset and Fountain, a big bear of an SUV pounced on a wily motorcycle, in plain view of the shiny new McDonald’s Playland. The SUV pinned the motorcycle, and they died in that awkward embrace. The scene was so bright, contained, all beads of glass and shimmering metal. Nothing organic about it. Did the drivers of these mechanical beasts simply evaporate? (And what’s with my voyeurism, anyway? Hadn’t I got enough of dead flesh at the Science Center the day before?)

It was easy to imagine how Kilgore Trout might have witnessed such an accident through alien eyes.

I beg you (all four or five of you) to consider yourselves armed and dangerous. You are rational, loving human beings, but you are nonetheless capable of killing. Your automobile is a deadly weapon. Cars Kill. Resist relaxation while driving, for driving is not a natural state. Put down the phone. Leave that stereo be. Both hands on the wheel, eyes and mind on the road. I beg you.

Saturday I saw Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds exhibit at the California Science Center, but I sure didn’t see it coming. I remember a few years back hearing about its controversial stint in Germany. Several news outlets reported on its recent arrival here, but they flew under my radar. Maybe I should start reading the Sunday paper, huh?

The exhibit features real human corpses that have been dissected and preserved through plastination. Because the bodies are dynamically posed and creatively sculpted, the result is a fascinating hybrid of anatomical science and art. Instructive in the "this-is-your-lung-and-this-is-your-lung-on-cigarettes" kind of way. Yet provoking emotion and opinion and contemplation as art will do. To help along my meditation on what it means to be alive and to die, banners throughout the gallery proclaimed the ideas of illustrious philosophers.

It’s also an amusing social experiment. Put a diverse bunch of mortal humans in a room with wildly souped-up dead bodies stripped to various degrees of subcutaneous nudity, and see what happens! Watch their reactions and interactions. Eavesdrop on their nervous remarks when they’re confronted with such taboo flesh. Too much fun - I think I’ll have to go back for a second round.

I remember: a family densely weaved of nothing but glo-red veins; a man running, his muscles flapping madly in the wind; a soccer goalie catching the ball in one hand and all of his major internal organs in the other; the strong, thick uterine walls of the beautiful pregnant model; lots of male sex organs dangling below pelves, and the external female sex organs, detached, lying passively beneath a glass case. I remember the nerves were like twine, and peering through the void before the Achilles tendon gave me a bit of vertigo. I now visualize more clearly my own intestinal tract in continued efforts to digest food normally.

Thanks to Steve for making it happen with his simple request to visit the Science Center. I was happy to see the place busier than ever before, and with many renovations completed since I worked there a couple years ago.

Tuesday evening I was helping my 15-year-old pupil with her pre-algebra review. As we dryly recorded the multiples of 9, I was suddenly overcome by the resulting pattern of 9 times 4 through 9 times 7: 36455463. My student was all big eyes and confused looks as I gestured wildly and exclaimed, "Look! It’s a palindrome!" Once I copied the number and drew lines and explained the (almost) mirror image she relaxed into a smile and said, "That’s cool!"

I was ready to be under-whelmed by Spider-man 2, but I ended up having a lot of fun! It’s tons better than its predecessor. I had a perfect summer matinee experience - well-crafted comic-book camp complete with silly family audience (the best moment came when Mary Jane started kissing one of the boys and a little girl in the row behind me flipped out - "Eeewwwwww! Gur-ooooooss!") Spider-man 2 was much more relaxed, had less of that movie-by-committee feel I hated about the first one. They managed to finish the special effects this time. They presented a much more interesting villain in Doc Ock. They permitted director Sam Raimi to operate more freely in his own style. There’s more of hilarious Jameson the tabloid mogul, and there’s plenty of alluringly geeky Peter Parker to go around, ladies! I couldn’t seem to get enough of Spider-man without his mask on, hair all a-tousled and spandex suit carefully ripped at the biceps. Bob and I spent a good part of the afternoon pondering such heavy issues as "What does Parker see in Mary Jane anyway?" and "Honestly, how could he just suppress his Spider-man powers like he did?" and "Wonder what Mrs. Osbourne’s story was?" and [me] "What they really need to do is have Spidey team up with the X-men! Yeah, two hours of Wolverine and Spider-man (without his mask on) in the same film!" and [Bob] "Naw, but check out all the similarities between Spider-man and Superman…"

Makes me feel quite sad really that I won’t be able to tag along with the brothers this time to the San Diego Comi-con!

I finished reading Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children’s Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. It’s the first book I can remember reading in which the author’s prologue is pushed forward into the story and labeled as Chapter One. I reached the end of the book one night, and the next night I picked it up again, re-read the first chapter and decided to end there instead.

Tonight I watched the 1972 movie adaptation. Just as the final celebratory fireworks lit the atmosphere of the alien planet Tralfamadore, several illegal fireworks cracked and sparkled in the streets outside my living room window in Los Angeles on planet Earth.

Both forms of Slaughterhouse-Five really moved me and I choose not to write any more about them just now.