CHRONIC DEPRESSION

Recently I watched a couple of Youtube videos on the subject of Depression. Holy Mackerel! I realised that I know next to nothing about the subject. How many of us do?

Apparently the sexy subject these days is Manic Depression. Plain old run-of-the-mill Depression now appears so...yesterday. Maybe that's because the treatment for Depression is so standard now: anti-depressant pills plus maybe two years of therapy. The therapy is just to make sure you get in the habit of taking the pills. If you have Manic Depression add lithium to the list.

Anyway, through the videos I discovered that I'm in danger of getting some sort of depressive disorder.

 I'm moving to a part of the country where I'll likely have no cartoonist friends and where I'll probably have drastically reduced face-to-face contact. Recent studies show that this will put me in a high risk category for Depression.

Geez, I better enjoy Los Angeles while I still can.

People say that Skype is the remedy for isolation, but is it?  It's a futuristic technology and I love the idea, but it hasn't worked well for me in the past. I always run out of things to say, something that seldom happens when I'm face to face.

You could argue that the kind of depression you get from isolation is really just plain old everyday sadness. If my sad-inducing circumstances improved then my illness would vanish and with it my claim to a serious problem. That's a comforting thought if true, but the behaviorist in me can't help but wonder if the negative habits acquired in isolation can be shed so easily. I don't think they can.

Manic depression certainly is a lot more fun to think about. At least the manic people have times when they think they can do anything and are positively euphoric. The problem is that, according to one video, for some people it doesn't lead to anything positive at all. The ideas they get look silly the next day. They're just spinning their wheels. And besides, the depressive episodes of the disease last longer, and are more severe, than the manic ones.

That's all I have to say about this subject. I really don't know much about it. If I made a mistake I hope someone who knows better will correct it.

BTW: I noticed something called Borderline Personality Disorder on the sidebars of depression sites. BPDs are said to be impulsive, prone to mood swings, and lack empathy and a clear identity. Yikes! I've read that there's 140 kinds of personality disorder. That means an awful lot of us probably have a screw loose somewhere. It's scary!

RUTH ORKIN: PHOTOGRAPHER

Here's (above) a poster you've no doubt seen before. Can you guess the photographer's name? Good for you if you guessed Robert Doisneau, the famous photographer of street life in Paris, but...no, it's not by him.

It was shot by an American, Ruth Orkin, for a photo essay called "American Girl in Italy." I looooove Orkin's work, and would like to try something a little bit similar.  I can't afford models so I'll try to badger my friends into acting for nothing.

 She liked to shoot girls being ogled. In some places pretty women cause traffic jams just by walking across the street.

Geez, we men are such horndogs! I think this picture was taken by Eisenstadt.

You can't rely on candids for shots like this (above). This picture is probably Orkin's and it appears to have been staged. Even so, it looks like it was insufficiently planned. Seeing misfires like this gives me a heightened appreciation of the pictures that worked.

BTW, notice the rider of the Vespa on the right has the same pose as the bike rider in the Italian picture at the top.

I think both Orkin and Doisneau wanted their pictures to appear to be candid, even though they often weren't. Poor Doisneaux was taken to court because his alleged models demanded money from the sale of the posters, even though I don't think that was part of the original agreement. The case dragged on for years and was said to have put gray hairs on the man. I wonder if Orkin had a similar problem.

THE IDEAL WOMAN

There's a subject we've never discussed on Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner, and it's time to do that now. I speak of the Ideal Woman, the woman that all men dream about and who all women aspire to be.   

Notice I didn't say, "The Perfect Woman." No, no. The Ideal Woman isn't perfect. Nobody is. Expect her to be a tad moody sometimes.

And her friends might be a bit...oh, a bit on the "wild side."

Maybe some of them are a bit generous with their phone numbers. That's okay.

The woman I'm talking about cultivates an inner life that insulates her against the temptations of the  world. 

Her mind is on things like...science.

Of course the Ideal Woman has certain physical assets.

Cultural assets, too. She's always up on what the cutting-edge poets are doing.

And Earthy. She's very Earthy. The needs of the flesh are no stranger to her. 

The Ideal Woman isn't a slave to the fashion du jour.  

She chuckles at the fashion follies of lesser women.

No, the Ideal Woman embodies principals that are timeless. She's a thing of beauty that transcends attribution or description.

There she goes, a basket of wild flowers in her hands, leading the rest of us mortals to the bright and sunny uplands.

A CONTEMPORARY LIVING ROOM

I love the updated craftsman-type houses (above) that are popular now. They're pricey, though. All that wood and stone...the irregular room shapes, the architect's fee...they don't come cheap. Fortunately a number of neo-craftsman innovations have been incorporated into other more affordable styles, and I thought I'd discuss that here. 

For comparison here's the home of a friend. The house has a good vibe and my friend and his wife like living there. I see Mediterranean, craftsman, ranch and post-modern influences. I even see a little Cliff May and Frank Lloyd Wright.

The two posts are Craftsman. The ultra wide living room entrance/central corridor is Cliff May and the vestibule area is post-modern. I don't know who invented the sunken living room but I'll attribute it to Wright because he introduced so many similar ideas.

This view (above) is from the front door area looking into the central corridor. To the left we see a hint of the dining room and to the right we get a glimpse of the kitchen.

The pillars look like an obstacle in the photo but that's because I didn't photograph them well. In reality they come off as playful and even sheltering.

The very latest house theories would have the kitchen entrance at the end of the corridor rather than off to the right, but the right access is a nice counterpoint to the rest of the house so it works for me.

The dining room (above) is raised above the sunken living room and that works just fine. The steps look like something you'd trip over but I'd be surprised if anyone ever did. The raised floor lends importance and a sense of fun to the dining room and the abundant daylight makes it very inviting.

I'll bet lots of people sit on the steps during house parties.

I only have room for one more photo, so I'll put up this one, showing the door and darkened vestibule area. This probably suits my friend who has to stare into a brilliant computer screen all day, and no doubt welcomes a little rest for the eyes. Me, I don't have that problem right now so I'd opt for more light.

I'd put translucent glass panels all around the door. The light would bounce off the nearby walls as if they were additional light fixtures, and probably unpredictable mood lighting would result. Of course the neighbors would think I was crazy for undoing something that worked fine at the start.

SEPTEMBER ASTRONOMY PICTURES

Here's a composite view of Pluto taken by the New Horizons probe on July 14th. Most of the closeup pictures taken then are still stored on the spacecraft and are only now being sent back slowly.

Above, a detail of Pluto's surface. The smallest details are maybe a kilometer and a half wide.

Above, a solar prominence. Thanks to the old Voyager spacecraft which is now in deep space between us and Alpha Centauri we now know what happens to these ejections when they leave the Solar System.

The ejecta that faces the center of the galaxy is stopped when it collides with intense radiation coming our way from other stars. The interface consists of a crescent-shaped cloud of magnetic bubbles. It's speculated that this cloud shields the Solar System from lethal radiation emanating from the galactic center.

A study of the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus now reveals that the plates of ice in this hemisphere are all moving in the same direction, something which reinforces the case for global underground seas.

NASA's going to announce a major finding about Mars on Monday, but they're keeping their cards close to the vest until then. The news media is speculating that it might have something to do with water being discovered on that planet; not billion year-old dry river beds but fresh, currently existing water. Actually, if it's there it's probably just enough to temporarily wet the ground in a few places...but that certainly qualifies as news.

On the other hand...you don't think they found evidence of old life, do you? Naw...that would be too good to be true.

[Update, Tuesday: Yep! It was water, and water only. Seasonal changes in the water patterns on hills confirm its existence. The water doesn't last long, though. It evaporates on its way down the slopes. A chemical in the soil allows the water to stay liquid for a time, even in the cold Martian air.]

[Another Update 10/8/2015: Small pockets of liquid water have been found on Pluto! Most likely it came up to the surface from an underground source, indicating internal heat within the planetoid.]

EUROPEAN HALLOWEEN

 Where did Halloween come from?  According to Halloween sites on the net, the version that Americans and Canadians celebrate is influenced largely by Celtic traditions, especially those from Ireland and Scotland, and from the North European tradition of Walpurgis, which is celebrated on the last day of April.

Germans who live near the Harz Mountins celebrate the holiday by making a trek up to the "Brocken," a mountain (above) reputed to be a favorite meeting place of witches.

Those who don't want to hike can take a train.

Lots of girls come dressed as witches.

Come nightfall big bonfires are lit and, I assume, alcohol is consumed in vast quantities.

Somewhere in Germany is Walpurgis Castle (above). I have no idea what goes on there.

Boy, there's no lack of Walpurgis artwork on the internet!

Is this (above) a depiction of Walpugis? I can't tell.

HALLOWEEN 2015!

It's Halloween season again and my first task for the holiday is always to search the Halloween sites for old-time die-cut window decorations. I had a collection of them even when I was a kid. That's because they were cheap and sold for a price that even little kids like me could afford.

The pearls of greatest price were the ones that were holdovers from a much older period, maybe the 1910s and 20s. They seemed to come from a time when people actually believed in witches and ghosts.

It's as if the people back then used humor to ease the anxiety they felt about a holiday which threatened to unleash real supernatural weirdness on the world.

Some of the best cardboard masks were done by artists (above) who weren't the best draughtsmen, but who had a visceral feel for the holiday. I wonder how they made a living the rest of the year? 

Halloween decorations also made me aware that there were different kinds of artists in the world. Some were what we would call "graphic artists" today. Content for them was less important than pleasing composition.

There was a real pagan influence in the Halloween cards (above) of this period. It was as if the Druids had never died out.

Yikes! Talk about supernatural weirdness.....