Sunday is For Deep Thinking

At home, lying on the couch, crampy and with a backache, watching a strange variety of television. Earlier today, there'd been a show called Saints Preserved, on Saints' relics, then one called Angels: Good or Evil? on the History Channel. The relics one was most interesting, moreso because I've even seen some of the relics they'd shown, so it was kind of interesting to see a TV program about it.

Relics fascinate me. When we traveled in Italy, I couldn't resist going into a church with a good reliquary on display. Some even lit up when you pushed a button, like the cathedral in Sienna near our hotel that featured the head of the town's patron Saint in a small theatrical niche, almost like a puppet theater stage. You could sit in chairs in front of the shrine to pray. As experiences go, it's a strange combination of bizarre and sublime - you really come away feeling something intense, even if you can't quite put words to it.

But here's the sightem of the day: in The Economist (Feb. 14-20 edition), there's an article about the chemical nature of love. Apparently, research done with the monogamous prairie vole has revealed some chemical markers and receptors that are necessary to the entire idea of mating as something like romantic love. Humans, like voles, are hard-wired for love, not just sex, while other animals are not - they don't have the correct receptors, so even if pumped full of the correct chemicals, their behaviour doesn't change. They're still promiscuous one-night-stand types. Voles, however, thanks to this discovery, can be chemically made to fall in love with an injection... even if sex is prohibited between the target pair. And voles mate for life. Which is something to think about.

Weirder still: same issue, same article - research in humans as to what happens in your brain when you're in love. The brain area that activates for intense feelings of love isn't the same one that comes on line when experiencing other strong emotions, such as fear or anger. Here's the quote that caught my eye:

Parts of the brain that are love-bitten include the one responsible for gut feelings, and the ones which generate the euphoria induced by drugs such as cocaine. So the brains of people deeply in love do not look like those of people experiencing strong emotions, but instead like those of people snorting coke. Love, in other words, uses the neural mechanisms that are activated during the process of addiction. "We are literally addicted to love," Dr. Young observes.

Also reading a book called Opening Skinnner's Box, on psychological experiments, and their sociological effects. Fascinating. Ever hear the Skinner box story? The author, Lauren Slater, gets down to the truth of it. Great stuff on what these experiments really meant and what they still mean about how people's brains work.

In other news, Alexander Valley vineyards makes a wine called "Sin Zin." Yummy.

Wild Women of the West

Aww... TBS is playing The Quick and the Dead, a movie I deeply love. This is funny because earlier in the day, AMC was playing Hannie Caulder, a movie with Raquel Welch that I remember seeing on TV back when I was - I dunno, maybe 10 or so. They're kind of the same movie - woman out for revenge - although Raquel was avenging her own rape and her husband's murder, and QatD's Sharon Stone is avenging something... well, quite a bit more psychologically complex. It's a great movie - Spider-Man's Sam Raimi directed, and Gene Hackman is the main villain, who is so, so fabulous - so I don't want to spoil if you haven't seen it. Early sexy Russell Crowe, too. Ah, Westerns...

(no subject)

It's a meme I've seen going around. This one I grabbed from magista

Write a random phrase from each of the following:

Nearest book to you: I stare at this phenomenon. I have my own little fit of cognitive dissonance right there: (1) I do not believe in the Catholic faith or its rather cheesy-looking miracles, but (2) that statue is oozing, although of course it could be butter someone put on it that's now melting, but how am I to know that for sure? I observe my own mind, to see if it leaps to cognitive closure. (Opening Skinner's Box, by Lauren Slater)

Nearest CD insert:
And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A Thousand Kisses Deep
(Leonard Cohen, Ten New Songs)

Nearest piece of paper that you wrote on: 6 hours editing work (sticky note to self)

Nearest piece of paper that was written to you: My Girlfriend the Ultimate Weapon. Gonzo did the following translation - She, the Ultimate Weapon. (note from work)

Something on your desk: Action figure of William Defoe from Spider-Man movie, sitting in chair, with Green Goblin mask (it talks - "Can Spider-Man come out to play?"); of if that is meant to be from a piece of text, "In Greek mythology, Athena, the daughter of Zeus, was born in full armor. By birthright the goddess of battle, she did not believe in conquest, and fought only defensive wars." (Knights of the Zodiac manga).