Not quite sure what I’m going to write about yet, but here’s a quick sketch of the ideas that are coming to mind:

1. BITING NAILS- I’ve always been a nail-biter, although I can’t seem to link the habit to a particular feeling or cause.  My mom hates that I bite my nails, and I kind of do, but don’t really realize when I’m doing it anymore.  No matter what course of action I’ve taken, including putting that rotten polish on my nails, I keep biting them.  Maybe there’s something in here to explore.

2. SERIAL KILLERS- More precisely, those that have fascination with the body after its dead.  I know this is really morbid, but I’m super interested in murderers who disturb or mutilate the body post-mortem.  This includes, but is not limited to, 1991′s yogurt shop murders and the recently convicted Jigsaw Murderer, Stephen Marshall.

3. DECOMPOSITION OF THE BODY- I don’t know where I would go with this, I only know that I’m very interested in finding out how bodies rot.

What I think of is things like Zombies and steaks and skin. Eventually my thoughts wander to blood. Now I know that connotations are probably popping up and that’s why I want to explore this. We all have blood in us,

On Flesh… What I think of is things like Zombies and steaks and skin. Eventually my thoughts wander to blood. Now I know that connotations are probably popping up and that’s why I want to explore this. Blood makes up about 7% of our body weight, and there are about 10 pints chillin in a humans veins at any time (think about how much ice cream that is). AND it is in every one of us—and animals. It is a very common thing, something that isn’t really all that unique. But it is special. It is a medical wonder. Not only does it carry oxygen, but it fights daily battles with germs. It keeps us alive. You can survive brain damage but if your heart goes you’re a goner. So we have this wondrous thing, this elixir of life, so why are people terrified of it? What makes us squeamish? I can understand it when someone is bleeding profusely, but I had an art teacher who couldn’t even bandage bleeding paper cuts. As someone who deals in the design of violence, blood is a constant conversation. Do we use it and then instantly distract the audience—because as soon is blood is on stage the audience is generally not only wondering how it go there, but are also distracted by it, mesmerized by it—or do we use symbolism and imagination? It’s a constant dialogue. The film industry doesn’t have to worry about it. It is easier to suspend disbelief when you have an entire world in front of you and thus aren’t really wondering—unless the movie is simply awful—about the effects. The line they have to tread is the discomfort they’re causing their viewers. How many mirror neurons can they fire off until people can’t handle watching it. While on stage or in real life, to an extent, I can cope pretty well with blood, but do something like cut off a finger or launch a thousand people onto the beaches of Normandy to be blown apart (as happens in Saving Private Ryan, a movie which I have started several times but have never gotten past the gore of the opening) and I cringe and look away. It’s a psychological effect that makes us feel the pain we’re watching, but is there more to it when it comes to blood? There has to be as we also use it as something representing allure and seduction. The legend of vampires thrives on both our fear and awe of blood. From Twilight to True Blood we’re caught up in the sin of what blood represents. It’s something we begin thinking about in our early childhood, though I doubt we consciously know it, as we are read stories like Little Red Riding Hood. So while blood is a pretty formulaic concoction, it holds complexity in the connotations associated with it and I am looking forward to getting to the heart of the matter.

And I know the risk I take and challenge I face in writing about this as I don’t want to cause the very reactions I am exploring, well I might but not to a point of revulsion. But I think that is what makes it even more interesting, the very evocation of reactions like that simply by thinking about it.

This was always the toughest part of church for me. It’s extremely hard to believe that those little discs, those little styrofoam-tasting wafers with the tiny crosses on them, are transformed into the flesh of Christ. I understand the biblical underpinnings – the Eucharist is meant to recall the Last Supper, when Jesus broke bread with his apostles. “Take this, and eat it. This is my body.”

And yet, why the literal interpretation? It’s a pretty clear symbol for sacrifice. What’s the purpose in pretending we’re all consuming our savior’s flesh, like some sort of cannibalistic cult?

My first goal would be to do some research into how communion wafers are actually made. Where do the ingredients come from? Who cooks them? Then I can look into the religious aspect – at what point do they become flesh? I’d include anecdotes from my experience going through CCD, from First Communion to Confirmation.

That’s about as far as I got. I don’t have a thesis here, or a state of mind I’d like to reach. I’m hoping something will come to me as I research.

There are numerous explanations (as there always is in Judaism) for why this commandment exists in the first place.  One reasoning, and the one I most often hear, is that this commandment was meant to disassociate and distinguish Judaism from other religions, specifically paganism, since it was common practice for ancient pagan worshippers to tattoo themselves with religious iconography and names of gods.  Another explanation, which brings back vague memories of fifth grade Bible class, relates to the Jewish idea that all humans were created B’Tzelem Elohim (in the image of God).  We were created as a gift from God, and the human body is a holy vessel, so we are expected to care for our bodies and treat them preciously, which forbids certain actions including tattooing.

Obviously I do not believe in 100% of what the Bible says.  Not even somewhere close to 100%.  Nor do I take the Bible as literal translations and commandments to be applied to my modern day life.   Even though I’m culturally very Jewish and religiously as well, there are certain Jewish laws that I just don’t think are important to my identification as a Jew.  For example, I’ll eat pork and shellfish because I don’t think these Kashrut laws make me any more or less Jewish, and I’m not sure I necessarily believe in God.  However, for some odd reason, this “tattooing” law speaks to me, and despite the number of cheeseburgers I’ve eaten, I feel obligated not to tattoo myself.

…Even though I really want to.  In fact, I want to get a tattoo of a Jewish symbol, the hamsa (or hand), which is a Jewish good-luck symbol that isn’t necessarily associated with specifically religious connotations (although the five fingers are sometimes interpreted as the five books of the bible) but more so with Israeli, Jewish culture pride.  It is a kabbalistic amulet and an important symbol in Jewish art.  I wear a hamsa around my neck every day, one that I bought in Jerusalem, my second home, but I so badly want to get it inked into my skin, into my flesh so I will be reminded of my Judaism every day of my life.  I also like to be rebellious.  And the irony in a tattooing a Jewish symbol to my body is rich and thrilling.

But I know I won’t do it because of this law.  Call me a hypocrite, fine, since I eat shrimp and drive my car on Saturdays, but I don’t think I can go through with it.

I do think that it’s fascinating though that tattoos are unique in that the evidence of your “transgression” remains on the body after death.

Maybe thats the reason we obsess about it so much. Because we want our outside to look like–or at least correlate in some way to–what our soul/mind feels like. We’re upset about getting older because we still feel like we can conquer the world inside. We style our hair a certain way because it makes us feel stronger, or peppy-er, or more attractive. Closer to the way we feel inside.  But this is inevitably frustrating. Flesh can never truly map something as nebulous as a mind. The same way that a map can never completely represent the geography that you experience in real time, or that exists in a historical context. A body, by its very presence, sets us up for failure.

I saw a documentary on PBS a while back, and I’ve also heard this in basic psych classes…that evolutionarily, women unconsciously look for men with the best genes so that their children will be strong and healthy. There are a bunch of physical traits that make these biologically/genetically superior men more attractive, this embedded chip is there to make sure that the human race continues to progress and live longer each generation, and there are supposedly a bunch of studies to back up this claim, (which of course I plan to go into in more concrete terms).

It seems that this stems from the same old idea: that we equate external appearances with what they contain. We’re attracted to people physically because we believe that that glint in their eye, that smile, that dimple, that facial structure, that physique somehow represents who that person is inside the casing. And that their attractive genes will make them good DNA sources for offspring, if you’re into the evolutionary explanation of life (i know some people still haven’t jumped onto that bandwagon)…But regardless of political, scientific or religious views, flesh is deceiving.

And some people learn this and accept this, and move on, others don’t. But every day, people stay with, marry, have children with other people that have either serious illnesses in their families, or debilitating illnesses themselves, and I’m no exception to that. The guy I’m pairing myself off with comes from a family with just about every health problem in the medical books.

My question is: Is love getting in the way of evolutionary wisdom? Or does this point to an underlying knowledge that there is something more important than the propagation of a more perfect fleshy being each generation? That ultimately, maybe progress is not all that important because we’re going to go one way or another, whether it be heart-attack, cancer, organ failure—and what’s more important is the relationships we have while we’re still here.

But knowing that I’m setting up my future children for horrible illnesses due to picking a mate that has these genes (combined with the defaults I bring with me), what kind of future mother does that make me? By going with what my mind and soul tells me, am I ultimately betraying the flesh of those to come?

This is all pretty nebulous. I’m going to pare it down a bit and figure out where the heat lies, but these are just some thoughts I’ve been shooting around for the past week and a half.

1. Starting point: Body horror–why it works.

For those that aren’t familiar, body horror is a sometimes-sexualized form of fear inducement popularized in large part by the films of David Cronenberg (Videodrome, The Fly, and more recently A History of Violence and Eastern Promises). Typically, it involves a usually-inevitable, scarily-slow-but-far-too-fast destruction, mutilation, or mutation of the human body. (Films ranging from District 9 to Moon to Saw use such techniques. I, for one, find it extremely effective, and  I think others do, too.

Is it because of the human element, the sense of empathy involved in another’s suffering? Is that what we tell ourselves to mask our own sadism? Or is it, as I suspect, that we vicariously experience another’s sufferings because our greatest fears our for ourselves and for our bodies? It’s a question that interests me a lot, and I have a possibly related, visceral fear of amputated anythings that’s just begging to be explored.

2. What does our approach to hospitals mean for our views on the body? Typically, they are characterized by sterility, fluorescence, and a sort of inhuman detachment from the suffering that goes on within and around them–the very things doctors, at least in America, are so often accused of. But does it go broader than that? Is there a lack of empathy in, either, our healthcare system or our hospitals? Are they effectively a way to bottle up sickness into a place so unpleasant we’d hate to tread there? Or are they simply designed to ward off whatever crude, schadenfreudian fascination we may have with dissection, cadavers, disease, and others’ suffering?

Essentially, hospitals are sterilized in many, many ways. I’m curious about what that sterility means and entails. I spent a lot of time in hospitals growing up (working parent) and it might be interesting to explore.

3. I’m interested in exploring the cost of things we prize such as safety and privacy. I think that’s really about protecting our bodies, in a way. That may overlap too much with No Man’s Land, though, and I don’t want to find myself imitating too much.

4. Why is meditation so rare here? Why is drug use (apart, mostly, from drinking) to achieve different states so frowned upon? In countless other cultures and many other places, such things are common. Simple, transcendental meditation can be accomplished without the tacit approval of the masses, as in church. There’s a form of individualized, personal expression and examination that goes on with it/them that I think is often underrated in our culture. Relatedly, why is there one specific “time for experimentation,” that being college? Does acquisition of new responsibility actually end that trial period for risktaking or is that just an excuse we tell ourselves? How does it factor in with general repression?

5. I’d be really interested in examining what people’s voices do for them. Aside from obvious instances like opera, I want to look at how voices work and what they do in people’s day-to-day lives. How consistently do they reflect people’s internal states? How are they weaponized? Are they often barriers to self-expression? To love or sex? Do they define us?

(Last one, I promise. A lot of these are coming to mind).

6. “Pleasures of the flesh:” Despite frequent claims that we are oversexed, the vestiges of puritanical culture seem to be alive and well in our culture. There’s an aversion and condemnation of numerous immediate pleasures and risktaking behaviors, which are treated, typically, with distance, timid fascination, or even revulsion. 127 Hours is a key example, as Franco’s character appears almost to be on another planet, an eerie martian landscape, separate from the rest of us.

Overall, we have a frequent immersion to what is immediately pleasurable, to cathartic behavior, and, ultimately, to many of the behaviors that seem unnatural to us. With my disturbing “I hate fun” complex and a frequent, irrational sense of guilt that I think is shared by many people, this is probably a topic that I, personally, most need to explore. That being said, I may need more space and more time to adequately do it.

Having what I might call an unusual voice, I’d say I have some stake in the matter.

Nope. It’s not, well not exclusively. I am a living testament to that fact as I use the internet daily and have yet to troll the realm of XXX ratings. But I have had my share of interactions with Omegle creepers and Chat Roulette flashers. So while the internet isn’t designer for explicit content, it certainly does harbor safe space for the “dirty” to flourish.

Maybe we make the opportunities. I am sure the creators of Chat Roulette didn’t originally intend for their site to become the haunting ground for horny teenagers wanting to see “BOOBS!”, though the site probably did die for that reason. It is so linked to expectation that it couldn’t survive in the mainstream internet when one began to associate it with borderline sexual harassment. It’s almost sad that something that had potential to be more was tainted so easily by the dirt that accumulates around supposed perversion. My friend swears that she found someone who could very well be her soul mate on Omegle, but the chances of ever finding him in the ether of the internet is infinitesimally small. Besides he might not have been who he said he was.

That’s the luxury the internet affords, ambiguity. Truth is a fluctuating concept as our identities are quickly compiled by a group of photographs, some favorite quotes and interests, where you go to school and some wall posts and statuses.  You can be whoever you want on the internet. You can be who you really are. That’s what seems so appealing, the ability to unabashedly enjoy something others might typically question or scorn. The privacy of it, or even the community created within that privacy.

Adult chat rooms seem like a sort of haven. I visited once out of curiosity, and it was what I expected. People looking for what they want in an interaction they don’t have to actually have. There is no commitment as escape is only a click away. What I find interesting about these rooms is how they really are a refuge for the abashed, a place where the shamed can come and commiserate. Through those condolences a community has been formed that allows them to meet the needs that society doesn’t fulfill, doesn’t allow them to fulfill. It’s a place for the broken hearted, the confused, the embarrassed, the lonely, the bored, the curious minds. Its lack of judgment I think, is a major factor in what has allowed sex’s presence on the internet to thrive. We need only use it how we please.

It’s related to the prompt because your ability to sing is very much genetically predetermined. All those fights in choir class and the competitions with your friends or even drunken karaoke–how well you do is (somewhat) determined by your personality and determination. But even more of your success (or lack thereof) can be attributed to a few codes of RNA that caused you to develop either synchronized or fucked up vocal cords.

I don’t sing now, but I did for a long time, and often I’ve had to cover it up. Yet even though many would say that my voice is “good,” it has on many occasions failed me.

There’s a lot of emotional drama wrapped up in my voice, so maybe it’ll make for a good essay? Idk, I suppose we’ll see. I’m listening to the new JLO song right now, and I wish they would just let me sing for her backstage while she dances and thrusts her hips.