I got interested in the topic when I think about food or auto races. I realize that if I take parsnips, cook them in a good oil and load them up with spices and salt, they may taste good. The parsnip would be overcome by the other ingredients.
I attended several auto races as a young teen and I quickly found them boring. 40, 50 or more laps of the track with lots of engine roaring and eventually somebody wins. However, as with the oil and seasonings, if we add pretty, peppy cheerleaders in skimpy, tight uniforms, plenty of beer and hot dogs (bratwurst or “brats”, pronounced ‘brots’), cheering, excitement and loud music, we may be caught up in excitement.
I wonder if we substitute sawdust for the parsnips and endless tire changes and preparation for the actual races, if we can approximate eating or sport without actual food or cars. I think it is like reports by many of coming upon a traffic back-up that extends for several miles. We creep along and creep some more and eventually come to the end, only to find there is nothing there to explain the delay. I have read that a deer running across the road can cause an accordion-type of squeezing in the traffic flow that rises in intensity and seriousness and then slowly dissipates.
Gertrude Stein said that when you get there, there is no there there. There are some phenomena that seem to work around a missing center. Since the 1600’s at least, maybe further back, it has been known that a human can lose a limb in a fight or an accident and afterwards be bothered by a terrible itching and pain in the leg or arm that isn’t there. The great neurological scientist Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran finally solved this puzzle by showing that the area of the brain related to the limb is not happy with getting no input from the limb and needs to be occupied or informed there has been a change.
I read that the Japanese army had a mysterious difficulty communicating with its men in Hiroshima and sent a young pilot to fly to the city and scout out what was happening over there. You can imagine the response when he radioed back that the city of a third of a million was no longer there. (It had been destroyed by the first atomic bomb.)
There are times when the essence just seems to be missing. Some element isn’t there. Reminds me of Sherlock Holmes thinking about the fact that the dog did not bark during the night. Should have, always did, but not that night.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
