Damaged

"I want to be a model."

"Do you know what a model is?"

"What do you mean?"

"A model is a simplification of reality.  Is that what you want to be?"

"Why are you like that?"

We see a lot of pretty faces in advertising.  Mostly women.  Bodies, too.  Companies get criticised, of course, and some attempt to challenge our sense of what "beauty" is.  But studies show that babies, sat in front of a group of portraits, will spend more time looking at pictures of "pretty" people more than the "others.."  A pretty picture makes them smile.  

Babies are awful.  

I've always been captivated by old circus and carnival posters.  When I was a kid, they freaked me out, of course.  I was scared by a midget clown when I was very young.  My mother said he felt bad about it.  When I was a teen, I used to sneak into the fair to see the weirdness.  One night, we jumped a fence behind the trailers and came face to face with the Wolf Man.  We jumped right back over the fence.  Once, my buddy's step-father said the fair would pay us to help with tearing down the rides when the fair ended.  How he knew this, I don't know, but it was true, and as we worked, the "freaks" played together in the midway, something you can't imagine without seeing.  Later, when I was in college, I went to the fair with my girlfriend.  I was shocked to see that the Human Blockhead was a fellow I'd gone to high school with.  I watched him pound a nail into his face and put needles through his skin. 

As I've told you, I grew up in a bad neighborhood with cretins and violent morons.  The Human Blockhead, I thought, was very representative.  

Once in a film class, I showed Tod Browning's "Freaks" on the last night before Christmas break.  When I turned the lights on at the end of the film, the students sat quietly until one brave soul asked, "Why did you do that?"  

"I don't know," I said. 

I was stuck at home a long time yesterday as the HVAC maintenance guy did his work.  I've had the same guy coming out every six months for years, and having grown up in a working class neighborhood, I am always conversant with workers.  I'm surprised this fellow and I haven't had Thanksgiving dinner together yet.  But he is chatty which gives me confidence that he is taking good care of everything he has to do.  While waiting, I was scanning the film I got back the day before.  It takes a long time, and as I was sitting at one desk, I opened a drawer.  Drawers are always adventures at my house.  As I rummaged around, I found little carnival posters I had made to put up in the miniature circus I had bought piece by piece and had assembled for the tenant's son.  Oh, man, it was crazy good, each piece with its own little puddles of light, each playing it's own carnival music so that the cacophony sounded just like a real midway.  I had forgotten about the miniature posters I had printed out. I decided it would be a good idea to turn them into postcards to send to my friends. 

Yea, I know.  It was just an idea.  

Still, I made a couple.  A.I. and me.  Later, when I looked at what I had made, however, I was. . . 

shocked.  How typical.  How chauvinistic. Of course the man has two heads and the woman has none!  Embarrassed, though alone, I tried to remedy that quickly. 

Obviously I suffer from something.  Damaged in some way.  

I lived among freaks in my youth.  When I was in college, we were "freaks."  

"I never considered myself a freak. . . but I love to freak."

You may remember that line from "Easy Rider."  Probably not.  Did you ever watch Tod Browning's "Freaks"?  I showed that film the last night of my film class once, just before Christmas break.  When I turned the lights back on, the kids sat silently, then one brave person asked, "Why did you do that?"  

That's what I always liked about the photographs of Diane Arbus.  She showed how freakish were the things we thought normal and how normal was the freakish.  

Her brother was the poet Howard Nemerov.  They were lovers.  

I like the carnival.  I just don't want to live there.  

O.K.  A quick note.  Here's something fun.  What they call a Fun Fact.  My mother told me she thought I hated her yesterday morning.  Boom!  Life keeps getting richer.  I guess I'm just not as miserable as I should be. 

I think I'll go look at e-bikes today.  The big bike store here sells them.  I'll take a look.  I expect long gas lines are coming like they already have in other parts of the world.  I'll try to avoid them as much as I possibly can.  I remember gas lines from my youth.  You could only buy gasoline on certain days which were determined by your license plate number.  There were sometimes fistfights at the pumps when people tried to cut in line.  I never need to go far, really.  An e-bike would work fine. 

Places all around the country keep flooding but the rivers are drying up.  Parts of the country are parched.  Next come the floods. 

Last Days, baby.  End Times.  You ain't seen a freak show yet like what is coming.  We'll all be speaking in tongues.  

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder.