TALONS AND TALES: A TRIBUTE TO SHORDEE

THE GRAND TRUNK TROUBADOURS (YOU CAN SPOT THE EAGLE!)

It’s been just days since I helped carry SHORDEE (Christina Shordee) to her gravesite.  Shordee was a vocalist and ukulele player in our band, THE GRAND TRUNK TROUBADOURS.  Not only was Shordee a passionate and irreplaceable band member, she was also a great social worker.  

During the day she was a School Counselor with Regina Public Schools (having the same daytime employer as myself, and pretty much the same duties … except she had elementary students for clients, whereas mine are from high school).

As a School Counselor she was famous for her Are You an EAGLE or a DUCK? workshops, workshops of which I thought the idea was corny, and which I had mentioned to her several times over the years.  Reflecting, methinks the workshops were valuable (for the students) but it was the metaphor that was corny (for me).

I believe corny because Shordee’s message followed the AQUILA versus LAME DUCK motif.  

Factoid: 

EAGLE is from the Latin, AQUILA, which means water-colored; DUCK is from ANATIDAE, which means swimming bird, and/or DUCAS, from Middle English for commander. 

Hmmm … methinks water is more associated with DUCKS than with EAGLES, and EAGLES more associated with commander than DUCKS but …

This EAGLE-DUCK metaphor portrays the EAGLE as a high flying superhero; whereas, the DUCK is portrayed as … a DUCK.

Take, for example, THE EAGLE by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls

He watches from the mountain walls

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

And take, for example, THE DUCK by Ogden Nash:

Behold the duck

When it dines or sups

It bottoms up.

Oh yes … we should continue to mollycoddle the eagle while marginalizing the duck.

In that tradition, allow me to fustigate these two sets of feathers, whilst of course, besmirching the duck.

Anyone having very keen eyesight has an EAGLE-eye; when the EAGLE has landed it is payday; a legal EAGLE is lawyer.  It has been suggested, in Shordee’s workshops for example, that each of us has an EAGLE within that wants to soar, yet most of us seemed destined stay quacking on the paddy.

The connotations of the canards glower compared to that of the EAGLE.  You are a dead DUCK seems more than an idle threat; everyone knows the fable of the ugly duckling; no one wants to be a lame DUCK or sitting DUCK.  There are a few more generous idioms, DUCK soup and water off a DUCK’S back meaning it’s easy; get your DUCKS in a row for getting organized.  And the ever philosophical, If it looks like a DUCK, waddles like a DUCK, and quacks like a DUCK … IT’S A DUCK.

I’ll continue the lofty-low comparison.

Those raptors (EAGLES) have keen eyesight; they have such good vision that they can spot another EAGLE soaring 50 miles away.  EAGLES have hooked beaks, sharp talons, and carnivorous diets. They always give fight, they are fearless, and they never eat dead meat.  The EAGLE is not a scavenger.  EAGLES are symbols of strength and freedom, independence, even self-actualization

The EAGLES amongst us rise above our self-imposed limitations.  EAGLES are high flyers, up to 10,000 feet, and tenacious enough to take advantage of every storm current to soar even higher.

Let us advert now to the DUCK, the underrated DUCK.

(A few quirks and quacks):

DUCKS keep to the ditches.  There are more than 100 species of DUCKS (mallards, wigeons, and teals)found throughout the world in marshes, swamps, rivers, creeks, oceans.  DUCKS are able to hybridize with other species  If you are a DUCK you have strong webbed feet.  If you are a DUCK you are either a dabbler or a diver for feeding.  If you are a DUCK you can take off in vertical flight from land or water.  DUCKS are one of only two animals on the planet to imprint.  The DUCKLING, upon hatching, will attach itself to whatever living creature it first sees, knowing that this is its species.  (The animal to do this is not an EAGLE, it is a goose.)  DUCKS have water proof feathers to weather practically any storm.  The DUCK is a self-contained flotilla, having hollow bones and feathers filled with air pockets.

EAGLES supposedly soar whereas, DUCKS quack and complain. In reality:  DUCKS are dedicated to digging the ditches and swamping the ponds and going to work every day.  And when DUCKS fly, they do as a team in a V formation.  DUCKS are downy and cuddly … EAGLES are never cuddly.

Canard quacks are canorous.  What sounds do EAGLES make besides squeaky whistles?

The comparison is campy.

EAGLES are atop totem poles; DUCKS are in bath tubs.

Whoa … and to compare a DUCK’S bill to an EAGLE’S aquiline beak.  Really. That is just DUCKY.

Factoid: 

You cannot send a DUCK to EAGLE school.  (Unless, upon aborning, that hatched lucky DUCKLING sees an EAGLE!)

This is an Aesopian tale … really.

Shordee, in your alterity, you soared with the EAGLES but … all along you chose to swim and quack with us … the DUCKS.

YES, SHORDEE, YOU LOVED YOUR EAGLES BUT … 

YOU LOVED YOUR DUCKS EVEN MORE-SO.

SHORDEE

SHORDEE ... I WILL ALWAYS HEAR YOU SINGING ... 
SHORDEE ... YOU WILL BE FOREVER ON MY MIND ...
MAY YOU REST IN PEACE.

LORD, LOVE A DUCK.

CHRISTINA EAGLE SHORDEE

                                                                                                                           

FINDERS KEEPERS (LOSERS WEEPERS): WHEN THE RUBBER HITS THE ROAD

Back in the day around 2 maybe 3 B.C., a thirty-something Jesus told this story:

A man was walking the treacherously winding road from Jerusalem to Jericho.  So dangerously notorious for travelers, this particular road was referred to as the Way of Blood. Whilst traveling the Way of Blood from Jerusalem to Jericho, the man was confronted by brigands, and then not surprisingly was stripped, robbed, beaten, and left for dead.    

It so happened that a Priest happened along, and noticing the dying man lying on the road, decided to pass by on the other side.  Another person happened along, this time a Levite, but he, too, chose to scoot across to the other side of the road. Rather than help the distressed and suffering victim, both the inimical priest and the Levite chose to completely avoid him.  Nary had the priest or the Levite offered any assistance whatsoever.

The third traveler passing was a Samaritan.  This was the Good Samaritan, who saw only a man in dire need of assistance.  The Good Samaritan stopped and with wine and oil, and dressed the man’s wounds.  He then lifted the man in distress onto his camel, took him to the nearest inn, and the Good Samaritan paid the fare with his own money.  The Good Samaritan even told the innkeeper to continue to take care of the man until his return, and that he would most certainly pay for the extra expenses.

Back in the day of that parable, Samaritans were considered, by the Jewish community, to be wretches and ronions, the guttersnipes of the community.  Nowadays, the Good Samaritan is colloquial for someone who helps a stranger.  In fact, many hospitals and charitable organizations are named after the Good Samaritan.

Just a couple days ago I, too, was in distress.  I had been riding my bicycle down the road and I lost my wallet.  I lost my black genuine leather wallet!  In my wallet I had my Driver’s Licence, my Regina Public Schools cheque stub, and my Sports Exchange Consignment Agreement.   In it I also had my   Madame Yes Clothing & Accessories card, my Regina Public Library card, my Costco card, my BMO card, my Conexus card, my TD debit card, my Air Miles Gold Card, my PC plus card, my Shoppers Optimum card, my Saskatchewan Health Service card, and my Consent Under the Human Tissue Act card.  And embarrassingly contained in my wallet were my MENSA MEMBERSHIP CARD and one MAGNUM XL CONDOM.

  

Fact:  All of the aforementioned are the rather predictable contents indicative to that of a regular middle-class consumer; that is, save for my MENSA MEMBERSHIP CARD and my MAGNUM XL CONDOM.

I AM KIDDING!

(My MENSA MEMBERSHIP CARD and my MAGNUM XL CONDOM, which I purportedly had in my wallet and lost, is a lie.  I mentioned my MENSA MEMBERSHIP and MAGNUM XL CONDOM, not as a lie, but to impress and be funny and to begin this essay on the RESPONSE EXPECTANCY THEORY.)

The Consent Under the Human Tissue Act card listed my phone number and the good Samaritan who found my wallet dialed her phone accordingly. 

Methinks you may need more adolescent humor. 

MENSA MEMBERSHIPS are for IQ, and MAGNUM XL'S for eye candy.  MENSA CARDS are for those with superior smarts; whereas, MAGNUM XL CONDOMS are for those with plenteous penises.  MENSA is an international society that has only one qualification for membership – well-above intelligence as based on a standardized intelligence test.  A MAGNUM XL, too, has only one qualification for membership – a well-above average length and girth endowment as measured on a standardized ruler, or if need be, a yardstick.

The fact of the matter is neither was in my wallet.  I keep my MENSA MEMBERSHIP CARD in a jar by the side of the door; I keep my MAGNUM XL CONDOM in a drawer by the side of the bed. 

I AM KIDDING (adolescent humor again)!

I will explore this humor by discussing a social theory of IRVING KIRSCH, RESPONSE EXPECTANCY.

What people experience depends partly on what they expect to experience?  According to Kirsch, this is the process behind the placebo effect and HYPNOSIS.  Kirsch characterized clinical hypnosis as a “non-deceptive placebo.”

Like placebos, hypnosis produces therapeutic effects by changing client expectancies.  But unlike placebos, hypnosis does not require deception to be effective.  Many psychological problems are maintained somewhat by dysfunctional response expectancies. Response Expectancy plays a major role in hypnotic inductions and such effects.

Back to my lost wallet, and to be more specific, the contents of my wallet.  Methinks, dear reader, you did not anticipate my MENSA MEMBERSHIP CARD and my MAGNUM XL CONDOM.  Response Expectancy plays a significant role in twist and surprise writing and in comedy, and sometimes in both.  Expectancy plays a significant role in the twist regarding the contents of my wallet, in-congruent; methinks, to what you were anticipating.

In teaching some of my Psychology classes, I’ve invented a game called Wally and Priscilla.  Volunteer student participants playing Wally and Priscilla are asked to come forward and empty the contents of their wallets and purses on a desk placed in the center of a classroom.  Once that has been done, the rest of the class members debate aloud over what kind of people these particular Wally and Priscilla volunteers really are, as intrinsically described from the public display of the contents dumped from their wallets and purses.

And the responses sometimes are not at all expected.  This is in relation to the RESPONSE EXPECTANCY THEORY, could confirm to the peers of the volunteers who have emptied their wallets and purses, that these classmates are good sorts or bad sorts, depending on their premonitions, as were judged according to their past social experiences with them.  

  

Factoid:  the contents of the wallets and purses are adumbrate (in the subjective perceptions of their classmates) to a life well-spent or ill-spent.

But WALLY and PRISCILLA is but a game, a creative exercise in social psychology.  Losing my wallet was not a game.  Losing my wallet was not by my design.  But it could have been.

Let us imagine that I deliberately lost my wallet for a RESPONSE EXPECTANCY THEORY social psychological experiment.  If this were so, then the RESPONSE EXPECTANCY would produce only a zero-sum proposition. A zero-sum proposition is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant gain (or loss) of utility is exactly balanced by the loss (or gain) of the utility of the other participant/s.  Participants playing in the losing-my-wallet game would only include me (the loser) and whomever (the finder).  Whoever finding the wallet would either call me or not call me. 

However, since I did not deliberately lose my wallet; in fact, since I lost my wallet purely by accident, the RESPONSE EXPECTANCY, not surprisingly, would produce that same zero-sum or all-or-nothing response. 

The contents of a wallet lost or not, is never meaning to besmirch, but will oftentimes reveal a boulevardier or two amongst us.  (This undoubtedly is due to the fact that those folks who tend to be chary will not volunteer.)  

This RESPONSE EXPECTANCY THEORY plays a significant role in anti-depressant medications and in psychological therapies, especially including HYPNOTHERAPY

Hmmm …

HYPNOTHERAPY THEN COULD HAVE THAT SAME ZERO-SUM RESPONSE EXPECTANCY.  

IT EITHER WORKS OR IT DOESN’T.

Methinks you need adolescent humor yet again.

I'm sure, dear reader, that you noticed my pun-intended snappy title and whilst on a humor roll I'd like to refer back to that MENSA MEMBERSHIP CARD and MAGNUM XL CONDOM.

I AM NOT A MEMBER OF MENSA ... 
And so ends this naughty and ribald tale of my lost wallet, a tale rife with racy and risque innuendo ... a rather perfect writing example of the potential value of the RESPONSE EXPECTANCY THEORY in the world of humor and HYPNOTHERAPY! 
 

MARCHING IN MY CHAUCERIAN PARADE THIS WEEK ARE MY WALLET FINDERS, ARTISTS, NICOLE COLLINS, MICHAEL DAVIDSON, AND RISA HOROWITZ!  THESE FOLKS  FOUND AND RETURNED MY WALLET!

(Nicole and Michael, are both artists from Ontario, who were just passing through Regina on their way to the West Coast, and Risa is a fine arts professor at the University of Regina.)

GOOGLE THEM! THEY DESERVE IT!

 

NICOLE, RISA,AND MICHAEL

SPINNING GOLD INTO STRAW: THE FALLACY OF THE SIMPLE LIFE

Busking I am with it.   Blogging I am woolgathering.   And today I am woolgathering of the simple life; that is, slinging my guitar and going wherever and whenever I want.

Ah … the simple life!  A simple life is a life uncluttered.  A simple life is a life of long walks and deep conversations.  A simple life is one reminiscent of the 1960’s Hippie counterculture of street theatre and folk music, beads and sandals, and the sexual liberation of bearded men and braless women.

Factoid:  HIPPIE is from the word, HIPSTER, which referred to the BEATNIKS, the followers of the back-to-the-earth BEAT GENERATION of the 1950’s.

The Beatniks, the fore-runners of the Hippies, too, yearned for the simple life.  However, the Beatniks disappeared and so, too, did the Hippies.  Woodstock came in August of 1969 and the Hippie era closed.  But not completely closed.

A Hippie remnant still exists in places such as Nelson, British Columbia.  Nelson is a haven for adolescent and emerging adult snow boarders, but not so hidden in the deep backwoods throughout the mountains are hundreds of American draft dodgers of the Viet Nam war era, the 60 something baby boomers with their balding, pony-tailed heads and paunched bellies still wimpling the forests making peace and love and hugging trees.

I do believe that to live the simple life is embracing and investing in the notion of FREEDOM.  But what is freedom?

Hmmm …

Freedom is at the very least, self-determination.  And what is self-determination? 

Hmmm …

Methinks self-determination has to be a by-product of democracy.  Maybe, Maybe not.  However way freedom is defined, it means a life of letting go.  It means of letting go of a structured work day, and replacing it with an unstructured play day.  It means peeling the gadgets from our technologically captive lives.   It means standing naked in the wind and making out with nature in the trees.  

Freedom means no more Nintendo or Xbox.  No more iPods or i Pads or i Phones.  No more Webcam, no more GPS.  No more Bluetooth.  No more digital camera or 3-D digital TV.  No more smart watch.  NO MORE KINDLE.

Not so strangely, abandoning any of the above-mentioned gizmos would truly NOT hurt me – I have never played a digital game and I have never employed Bluetooth.

But ditching my condo (worth half a million and right downtown), ditching my car (2013 Acura ILX), ditching my job/s (full-time counseling, part-time university teaching, part-time private practice) would be my demise.  Not caring about looking good would mean ditching my daily exercise, long-distance daily run around Wascana Lake, my morning weight-lifting at the university Lifestyle and Fitness Centre.

Yikes! 

Not caring about looking good would also mean ditching my hundred dollar plus long-sleeved white shirts from Colin O’Brian Man’s Shoppe in downtown Regina; ditching my hundred dollar plus long-sleeved black shirts from Madame Yes in downtown Regina.  (Did I mention I live in a condo right downtown in Regina?) 

Yikes!

Not caring about looking good means quitting my hundred dollar hair and color/cuts at Front Page Beauty in downtown Regina.  Not caring about looking good means not buying my Calvin Klein underway from the Hudson’s Bay Company in downtown Regina.  (Did I mention I live in a condo right downtown in Regina?)

Yes I could, indeed, spin all of my gold into straw, ditch or sell everything that I own (or rather owns me) and wimple my way, following the sun to the simple life.

Having a simple life is easy to imagine but difficult to do.  Long walks are easy; whereas, deep and conscious conversations are always difficult.  Smelling the morning coffee, as long as it’s Americano, is pure joy.  The flower power Hippie connotation in springtime and summertime is priceless (especially after the Canadian Winter).

Fact:  The simple life is not a new concept, which can be qualified even in my short time so far on the western side of the planet.

Factoid:  I am a busker.  I am not willing to ditch my $850 Seagull to sing a cappella and cap-in-hand.  I do not long to be a minstrel with a penny whistle.

Factoid:  Being even as a faux busker I am the perceived symbol of freedom.  My consumers imagine me to be a wandering troubadour.  My consumers know nothing of my Walter Mitty type of wanderlust.

Factoid:  I do not long to dance in the rain and sleep under the stars; though, I do long to follow the sun.

Factoid:  If I were living a pedantic lifestyle and were merely another pedagogue, I would be more inclined to abdicate EVERYTHING.  As it is, however, being a legend in my own mind I am willing to abdicate NOTHING.

Factoid:  Sure, I’ve qualms about some things in my life.  For example, I am arrogant in my thinking that most other zoomers (boomers of my ilk pretending to be thirty-something) are simple-minded poetasters, especially when compared to me.

Factoid:  Sadly, I am just another pugilist, boxing in the ring of conformity, imagining my true identity to be a busker and a writer (which I have coined as a BUSKOLOGIST).

Factoid:  I am a raconteur and have the RATE MY PROFESSOR comments as proof.  Should you Google this site, you will discover that as a professor I am so-so, but as story-teller I am a virtuoso.

Factoid:  The sombre truth is that should I ever run away to gain my freedom, I’d without a doubt be hoisted by my own petard; that is, I’d end up as a back alley bottle-picker.

FACT:   

SPINNING MY GOLD INTO STRAW, 

WANDERING THE PLANET 

WHILST SLINGING MY GUITAR IS … SIMPLY … 

A STRAW DOG HYPOTHESIS! 


Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week are WINSTON, KIRA, AND BINOO ( for my canophile and ailurphile friends), and ... new bounce, AUSTIN SHAWN ALPHONSE (for my ISLAND KITCHEN friends, SHAWN and EMMA and CHRYSTA, at VALUE VILLAGE).

WINSTON

 

WINSTON SKETCH

KIRA

KIRA SKETCH

BINOO

BINOO SKETCH

AUSTIN SHAWN ALPHONSE GROHS

EMMA AND AUSTIN