Search Engines, Good Rats, & The Persistence of Memory

I've always liked Dali's painting, The Persistence of Memory, but that is not what this post is about.

It is about lost things being found and redeemed.  Specifically, about things supposedly lost to memory, but brought back to the present in a very real way by the wonderful invention called the internet search engine.  Search engine, as in Google, or its many imitators.

Once there was a song.  It was on an album that I bought on a whim while attending The Cooper Union back in the late 1970s.  On this album was a song called "Does it Make You Feel Good?"  It was very catchy, and soon became a favourite of mine.  I learned to play it on guitar, and I memorized the lyrics.

Years later, I still played the song from time to time.  By then, I had two children, and I used to sing them to sleep with guitar accompaniment.  One of the songs I sang was "Does it Make You Feel Good."  It was, being a song of twisted attraction to a sadistic lover, a bit of an odd song to sing to children.  But, I am a bit of an odd man.

Blow me around like a cigarette wrapper
Smack in the middle of a hurricane.
Sucker me in like a Venus Flytrapper
Baby I'm startin' to think you don't like me!

Does it make you happy, makin' me sad?
Does it really, really get you off?
Does it make you feel good makin' me hurt?
Does it really really get you off?

Then, a few weeks ago, it struck me that I ought to locate this song on YouTube.  I knew that the band was something with "Rats" in it.  I thought it might be the Hot Rats, but that was a Zappa album.  Then I thought it might be the Boomtown Rats, but that was wrong, too.  So, finally, I Googled "sucker me in like a Venus fly trapper", and I was taken to a page that mentioned the name of the band:  Good Rats!  From there, it was only a hop, skip, and a jump to finding the song on YouTube, thanks to the grace of God and the nearly universal neglect of YouTube's Terms & Conditions of Service.

And, due to the same, here it is for your aural enjoyment!

Herman Cain, Satan, and the Physics of Falling

In the early days of his run at the Republican nomination, I was really excited about Herman Cain.  I really liked the guy.  Actually, I still do.  He was not afraid to talk (or even sing) about Jesus, for one thing.  That, to most politicians, seems like the kiss of death.

I'd like to say that I was surprised by the derailing of the "Cain Train", but I am not.  I am old enough and have learned enough about men (partly from introspection) that sinful behavior never surprises me too much.

What I was extremely surprised at was that I actually felt a small bit of glee in watching Cain fall from grace (or, at least, from the realistic hope of ever becoming President of the United States).  I was shocked at myself.

It is a fairly well known and documented feature of mankind that we like to see people in high places cast down.  I think that, actually, it is in large part the animus behind the Occupy Wall Street movement:  The 99% have a fierce desire for the 1% to be cast down, if not from the pinnacle of the temple, then at least from their penthouse balconies.

I got to thinking about folks in high places getting cast down, and I came round to thinking about Satan:

The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

I remember that back in my old LCMS days, Pastor Paul Terhune commented on this passage that the falling of Satan like lightning from heaven was not merely a one-time event, but that the sense of the passage was that "Satan is a falling-from-heaven kind of guy."

Of course, everyone likes to watch creatures like Satan or Kim Kardashian fall from heaven; it's just pure fun.  But what can explain the glee felt by one relatively decent Christian man at the fall of another.  It should bring only sadness.

So, I was pondering this during yesterday's sermon (Sorry, Father!), and I came up with an analogy based on Physics.  For the civilians out there, what I mean to say is that watching someone fall from a height is, basically, like a roller coaster.  It is exciting to see (or feel) the velocity build up.

In Physics terms, any object that has physical mass (I will introduce the concept of spiritual mass later) and proximity to another physical object with mass ... has what is called Gravitational Potential Energy.  Because of the gravitational attraction (given by Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation) between the two bodies, the less massive body "falls" toward the more massive body, or "wants" to, if nothing holds it up in its lofty position.

When people are in positions of fame, notoriety, earthly or spiritual power, authority, honor, etc., there is a certain Spiritual Potential Energy that they possess based upon the height at which they sit suspended, and their "Spiritual Mass", their gravitas, so to speak, or their "largeness".  When the restraining force is taken away, whether in the case of the roller coaster or in the case of a falling creature, Potential Energy is converted into Kinetic Energy, which is proportional to mass, but also to the square of the velocity of the fall.  And I guess in the end it is just exciting to see Potential Energy converted to Kinetic Energy.

One can even ponder whether, for certain types of adventurous (though less kind terms could be used) persons, the experience of one's own fall can give this kind of excitement.  It is possible that this type of person will go about, to all appearances, sabatoging himself.  When all the while he may be engaged in an intentional spiritual skydive.  I'm not saying that Herman Cain is this sort of person, nor that he entered the Republican Primary to see whether he could "get away with it."  But it is worth pondering the reasons for self-destructive behavior in all persons:  Herman Cain, Kim Kardashian, Satan, and me.

Funny How the So-Called 99% is Actually a Tiny Minority!

This is what happens to the self-proclaimed 99% any time you get a representative sample of the population present:  THEIR CRAP AND NONSENSE GETS OUT-VOTED ... about 99-to-1, oddly enough.

Joe Friday and Bill Gannon Lecture 2 Occupiers!

Some of you readers may be too young to recall the 1960s TV show Dragnet.  It was a classic, particularly noted for Sergeant Joe Friday's deadpan delivery of lines.  Here, Friday and his partner Bill Gannon give a lecture to two hippies, who for all intents and purposes are exactly like those in the Occupy movement.

Watch and learn!

Team Beachbody COACH ... Really?

I have to admit, the subtle ways of business often elude me.  And so it is with the Team Beachbody brand ...

I mean, I understand the basic idea.  They want to sell as much product as possible (e.g., P90X® and Shakeology®), and they hope to put their customers to work as salesmen.  I get that.

But the folks I've seen so far who have presented themselves to me as Team Beachbody Coaches are ... well ... umm ... let's just say I don't picture them as ever (past, present, or future) having beach bodies.  They are, to be blunt, quite fat.

Is it just me, or wouldn't you think that the company would want to limit itself to spokespeople who actually made it seem like perhaps the products worked?  Because I sure don't get that impression from they guys I have seen hawking these products as Team Beachbody Coaches!

Hot Rod Anglican's "Advent Tree"

Christmas ... You're doing it wrong!  At least, you're starting WAY too early.  December 25 is the BEGINNING of the Christmas season.  For 4 Sundays prior to that, you should be observing the season of Advent, which is a season of fasting, similar to Lent.  Advent has been observed in the Christian Church since the 4th Century.

But everyone wants to skip Advent, and go directly to Christmas.  I heard Christmas music on the radio this year, 4 days before Halloween.  That is ridiculous.  Trust me, Christmas is much more meaningful and profound if you observe the 4 weeks of Advent leading up to it.

To illustrate my point, I've taken a drag racing "Christmas Tree"  (which is what drag racers call the timing lights at the starting line) and turned it into an "Advent Tree".  The 3rd set of bulbs is rose-coloured for Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday.

Remembrances of Suze Rotolo

You'd think I would have picked up on the fact of her death, since it was all over the internet.  But it caught me by surprise today.  I was Googling for images of Bob Dylan's old girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, and every image I found ended up being linked to an obituary of hers.

I was impressed with her appearances in No Direction Home, for a variety of reasons.  But I had not thought a lot about her since first seeing that.  And now, she is gone.  Here are links to a handful of the obituary articles.

Rolling Stone

The Guardian

AmericanSongwriter

PasteMagazine

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