Close Call

Family, Life, Sport and Fitness

Dodged a bullet. I almost committed an act that would put me in jeopardy of having my man card revoked. Our younger daughter who works at the Guthrie, gets two free tickets to each performance. She called last week and offered us her tickets to Romeo and Juliet. I’ve often said that we don’t take good advantage to the cultural opportunities offered here in the Twin Cities and this sounded like an chance to increase our highbrow credentials. Rebecca was on the phone with her relaying the info while I was in the middle of something important like reading Facebook entries. A range of dates was offered. I replied that Sunday would work.

Now I’m not a huge football fan. I have never once painted my face purple or maroon, or even cornflower and maise (not Michigan, Carleton.) But I have jumped on the Vikings bandwagon this year. It’s so much fun to watch Brett Favre when he’s playing for your team rather than picking it apart. I was also kind of distracted. I know there’s really no excuse for not realizing that the play conflicted with the Vikings playoff game against Dallas. Dallas. Playoff. It’s enough to boil the blood of guy my age. Not to mention the fact that I would definitely bring my guyhood into question if I spent an afternoon listening to iambic pentameter. Besides I already know the ending of the play.

I know this identifies me as obtuse, but the conflict didn’t hit my radar screen until yesterday morning. My stomach did a backflip and I broke into a cold sweat thinking about what I would say to the first guy who said, “Did you see the catch Rice made in the back of the end zone?!?” And, if I were to be honest, I’d have to reply, “No, I missed it, I was watching Shakespeare.” I couldn’t bear the shame. I also fully understand the repercussions of backing out on a date with my wife. Things could get icy at casa Keller if I didn’t approach this with utmost delicacy.

“Hey Beck… Do you think one of your fiends might want to go to the play tomorrow.”

“Why?”

I explained my predicament. She said that she was sure that she could find someone and she’d call around. All of a sudden I felt like I was the one being ditched.

So I’m off the hook. But knowing the Vikings, I’ll still be watching a tragedy.

Dementia Check

Health, Life, Sport and Fitness

Yesterday I went to the club this morning and put in 45 minutes on the treadmill, at a pretty good pace for me. Between 3 and 4 miles per hour most of the way. That’s a huge improvement over where I was two years ago, or even three months ago. But the workout left me questioning my sanity a bit. I was working out to Rock’n’Roll on the iPod and when Los Lobos live version of Marie Marie came on I pumped the speed up to 4 mph, which is a pretty good walking clip. When it was over a slow Bonnie Raitt song came on and I slowed down to it’s tempo. I was getting into Bonnie’s slide work and kind of closed my eyes. When I opened the up again, the treadmill’s control panel was running away from me. I had obviously slowed down too much and didn’t realize it. I was about to go off the back end, not able to reach the shutoff and too little time to catch up, and a concrete wall right behind me. I surprised myself by thinking fast enough to kick my legs out from under me, get my feet on the floor behind me and stop my fall with hands on either side of the moving pathway, on the edges of the treadmill. Thank God I’ve been working out, I never thought I’d attain that level of agility again after the year of the knee.

So I get plus marks for the physical realm for the 45 minutes of walking that endless highway and having the agility to to fall down without injury. I’ll even give myself a point in the mental column for realizing, in that split second before I went flying into the concrete block wall behind me, what I had to do in order to make a safe landing. But I’m a little concerned with the mental process that put me in that situation in the first place.

The Worm Turns (My Stomach)

Health, Weirdness

I first heard about this experimental treatment for Crohn’s disease several years ago when the University of Iowa was doing research on it. The treatment consists of exposing the patient to infestations with worms, specifically N. americanus and A. duodenale. Hookworms to me. This radio broadcast from WNYC Radio Lab contains a fascinating interview with Jasper Lawrence, the founder of Helminthic Therapies. The pertinent stuff comes in at about 30 minutes.

Jasper, a transplant from England, living in Santa Clara, suffered from severe allergies and asthma. He was hospitalized twice a year, suffered from a nagging cough, he had the dark, sunken eyed, pale complected look of a severely allergic person. While visiting his Aunt on a vacation to England, she asked if he had heard about new breakthroughs in the study of allergies and the immune system that she had heard about on a documentary on the BBC. It seems that it had been discovered that people with hookworm infections were 50% less likely to have asthma, and that other diseases like Crohn’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis were virtually non-existent in the developing world, where sanitation was, to say the least, less than optimal, and hookworm, spread by contact with human feces was prevalent. The explanation for this is that somehow the presence of hookworms in a person’s system has a dampening effect on the overactive immune systems that are bent on attacking the cells of their own body.

This sounded like a pretty good deal to Jasper so he immediately went about trying to purchase hookworms so he could infect himself. No one was selling any. It wasn’t an approved treatment and there weren’t any to be had. So, taking the matter into his own hands he spent two weeks in Cameroon on the west coast of Africa, which he describes as “the armpit of Africa,” traveling about in the bush looking for latrines to walk through barefooted. After 30 or 40 such treatments he returned home with a pretty good hookworm infestation as a souvenir. When the next allergy season rolled around, he found that his symptoms were gone.

In the early twentieth century, backed by a million dollar gift from John D. Rockefeller a commission was formed to eradicate hookworm from the U.S. The five year program had great success in wiping out the parasites and reducing the anemia and other health problems they cause. And so, isolated from hookworms in my youth, never getting the chance to dance through human shit as a lad, my immune system went nuts and started attacking my digestive system.

Jasper Lawrence decided that he would form a business treating auto-immune diseases by selling patients hookworms and the means to infect themselves. I’m not sure what those means are but I’m sure they’re fun. The treatment is still not approved by the Department of Health or the DEA or for that matter any government agency, but Jasper’s pretty upfront about that fact and his site is loaded with caveats and disclaimers, but also a number of endorsements from satisfied customers. “Thanks for  the infestation, Jasper.” The price tag for a good worm infestation: $2900. And where does Autoimmune Therapies get it’s raw material. Jasper provides all the worms needed in his own poop. Talk about pulling a business out of your butt.

I have to ask myself the question. Given the severity of my Crohn’s (not particularly severe, but certainly not pleasant) and given the cost and side effects of supporting a colony of parasitic worms in my guts, would I try this treatment? When I first heard about it, I thought, “hell yes” dish me up a platter of worm eggs! I’ll do anything to get rid of this curse. But after reading these articles, and hearing what the cost is and thinking about those squiggling little buggers sucking blood from my intestinal walls, well, maybe not. I’ve had low hemoglobin before and it’s not a fun thing, and although I get a little anemic during a long flare up, I guess I can deal with that, knowing it eventually will pass and I’ll get a nice period of remission. There’s just something about the ideal of having blood sucking worms in me that sends a shiver down my spine. So the answer is, no freakin’ way.

I’d love to hear what you think about worm therapy, autoimmune disease and bloodsucking, please leave a comment.

Moore, Moore and Less

Art, Movies, Music

We watched Far from Heaven last night. Very good film, the evocation of the mid fifties is evident in the art direction, script and direction. I loved the way that the couple played by Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid simply would not pay attention to their children, it was always, we’re busy now, later. In contrast the plot focused on racial and homophobe tension, under the Leave it to Beaver facade there’s a dark side to the perfect family.

This afternoon we’re going to see Sanford Moore and friends at the Capri Theater. Luckily we’re experiencing a heat wave, it’s up to 13 right now.

I know I promised not to write about Crohn’s disease. But I’m going to throw it out there that after four months of flare up I’m happy to say that I seem to have gotten my shit together. I’ll be breaking this promise again tomorrow with a post about some interesting developments in the treatment of auto-immune diseases like Chroh’ns and Asthma. Seems like when we pretty much eradicated hookworms in the US back when I was a kid, we made ourselves more vulnerable to attacks from our own immune systems. hmmmmm.

Puce Bras and Smelly Gophers.

Health, Life, Sport and Fitness

Yesterday R posted “puce” on facebook. I started noticing other posts simply naming a color. I didn’t make the connection until a couple of hours later but coolass tipped me off to this. R came downstairs rolling her eyes and admitting, “I am such a dork.” She thought that people were just randomly posting colors, so she jumped on the bandwagon. I was wondering, because I didn’t think she owned a puce bra. I’m glad I didn’t jump on the bandwagon.

Thursday night my friend Brad and I braved the elements to watch the Gophers WBB take on Northwestern. It was a great game, the Gophs came back from 16 down with a dominating second half performance. At one point Goldy, the mascot sat down in the seat in front of me. I can tell you that Goldy kind of stinks.

Shovel

Life
From the Image a Day Blog

Just finished shoveling, it’s pretty warm, nine degrees. That’s above. Wasn’t too bad after I went inside and put a hoody on between my jacket and my fleece shell. Not much snow, and it wasn’t mush snow, so it was pretty easy to dispatch. I used two shovels. One broad one with a long wooden hand and no grip on the end, kind of shaped like a snowplow, which I guess makes sense. I use this to push as much snow to the sides as fast as I can. Then I follow behind with something that looks like an old time coal shovel, only the bucket is plastic. I use that to lift and throw snow as far as I can to prevent giant walls growing up next to the driveway. You’d be amazed at how much can build up in a winter when you don’t have any thawing period for awhile.

I’m allergic to shovels, every time I touch one I get short of breath, my heart rate goes way up, I break into sweat and I have severe bone and muscle aches the next day.*

The kid next door was out shoveling in a t-shirt. He was just dusting off the front entry, but still, what was he thinking?

*Steve Everest’s schtick, don’t know where he stole it.

At the Museum

Art, Life

I have absolutely no idea what the point of this story is. It seems like there might be a point. Maybe by writing it down, I’ll figure that out.

Rebecca and I were at the Museum of Russian Art, standing in front of a very large painting,  probably seven by five, maybe bigger. The subject of the painting was a sewing factory, a poorly lit room with several women sewing by hand. The central figures, standing in a pool of light, were an older man dressed in a long ornately embroidered red tunic with matching pants, no doubt the factory owner and a young woman dressed similar to the other workers. She didn’t look happy, her gaze was on the floor, head turned away from the boss. He had his and on her arm. The other seamstresses were all looking in their direction and they all had anxious expressions.

As we moved through the museum, I had been trying to impress my wife, and in my exhibitionist fashion, any bystanders that happened to be eavesdropping, with my vast knowledge of art. This particular painting reminded for some reason of the Brothers Karamazov which started me thinking about what the story behind the painting might be. My first impression was that this was some kind of romantic characterization of peasant life. “What’s going on here,” I said to R, “is the boss showing the ropes to a new comer, who’s anxious about her new job, or is he reprimanding her for some kind of misbehavior?”

“It’s much more sinister than that.” I hadn’t noticed the well dressed young asian woman standing next to us. “Read the explanation.” She pointed at the sign next to the painting.

“Really? What’s that?”

“He’s the landowner and she’s his Serf.”

“Serb?” I’m looking like an idiot now, old man hearing fails me again.

“Serf. He owns her, she has to do anything he asks. He’s taking her away for…..” She did some verbal tap dancing, probably unsure that she wanted to shock this old man and his daughter (I always assume that people mistake R for my daughter) but finally she got to the point. “He’s taking her away for sexual purposes.”

I immediately started trying to form a snappy comeback. I had nothing, the tiny interval of snappiness had passed. I went for wisdom, got nothing. I stood there gazing at the painting feeling very much the dorky suburban old white man.

The pretty young Asian woman moved on, leaving me thinking about social commentary in art, oppression of women, and why one should always read the signs.

Recommendations: a couple of cool sites for you.

Couples: Photography served. from photographer reclarkgable, a series of portraits of the same couple posing as various segments of society. I identified junkies (left), nerds, rockabilly revivalists, I’m not sure which one would be the hipsters. I’m interested on what segment you would put each of them in. These are brilliant.

The Third and the Seventh a short CG film by Alex Roman. Thanks to Paul Schupanitz for recommending this beautiful piece. It’s a bit long, watch it when you have some time and are feeling contemplative. And be sure to watch in full screen mode.

Lot’s of architecture, the only building I could identify was the Milwaukee Museum of Art, one of my favorites. I never realized before that the wings flap!

Thanks for dropping by.

Problem Solving Test

Food, Getting Old, Life

By way of introduction, there’s a couple of things I want to mention about this next story.

As far as being relevant to this blog, It serves as a baseline for my cognitive skills. Over time I expect that they’ll deteriorate, and this way my kind readers can let me know when it’s time for institutionalization. I fear when you read this you might find that ship has already sailed.

Here’s the situation as it I saw it this morning at 8:00 am.

  1. I was desperate for caffeine.
  2. I had the ability to make coffee.
  3. I had no cream and no milk.
  4. I don’t drink coffee without cream or milk.
  5. The temperature was -8.

So I had to make some decisions. There was no way that I’m going to drink coffee without cream. Coke, that’s out. On a morning like this I need the reassuring companionship of a hot beverage. So what should I do? I could go to the store and get cream and milk and come back and make coffee. I could go to Caribou and get  coffee and cream hot and ready to go.

Neither of these alternatives seemed very good to me, given the temperature, but as every addict knows, your Jones can get you to thinking in peculiar ways. Necessity however, is the mother of invention (not, as many people think, Frank Zappa) and she gave birth to a stroke or genius. I can make espresso! That’s right, I chose, out of the array of RHD retirement gifts, a combination drip coffee and espresso maker. I can slam down a shot of expresso without any dairy products in it. And that I did. In fact, since you can’t make just one shot on this machine, I slammed down two. The second one with sugar and caramel flavoring. Problem solved!

Not quite. I still felt the need for a soothing hot liquid to sip while I’m working. It hit me like a flash, Tea! Green tea to be precise, Jasmine green tea to be more precise. Next question is how to make tea? The one thing you need to know about that question is:

I am not a tea bagger,

I am a tea infuser.

From Russia with Love

Art, Food, ,

On Saturday we finally were overwhelmed by cabin fever and ventured out of the house and into the city. We were glad we did because for one, it didn’t seem that bad out, I’m not sure what the temp got to, but it was sunny and there was no wind so it was easy not to flinch. Another reason is that we saw some great art at the Museum of Russian Art and had a great meal at El Mason.

TMORA is located on 55th and Stevens in a beautiful Spanish Revival Building which was formally a church. It features a great collection of Russian paintings from the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century, tumultuous times in Russia. The paintings show the progression from an “art for art’s sake” aesthetic to an increasing social agenda and by the end they become instruments of Soviet propaganda.

The other exhibitions were equally fascinating. One featured a collection of matryoshkas, those familiar nesting dolls that have become symbolic of Russian Folk art. If you have an interest in color this display is like a clinic in highly saturated color harmony. Plus the imaginative decorative schemes of the dolls hold a wealth of inspiration for graphic designers.

And finally the photography of Sergie M. Prokudin-Gorskii, pioneering Russian photographer who, with the backing of the Tsar, travelled extensively in Central Asia along the Silk Road in the early Twentieth Century. The photos are remarkable in themselves, but the technique used to capture them is incredible. He used a special camera of  his own invention and took three separate exposures, each with a different filter, using glass negatives. He used a special projector to combine the three negatives for viewing. The Library of Congress, which purchased 1600 of the glass negatives from his estate in 1948, is now using digital scanning technology to make these images easily accessible. This is not only a priceless historical record, but a milestone in the art and science of photography. We’re very lucky to have it here in the Twin Cities, don’t miss it.

I won’t go into great detail about El Meson in this post, other than to say go there, it’s fabulous!