Are We Attracted To Our Opposite?

They say that opposites attract. That presumes that the attraction is mutual, I suppose.

(The gun totin’ Southern Redneck Good Ole Girl)

I’m not sure that is always, or even often, the case.

(Hitler Youth – more my son’s type than mine, really… but still…)

Take the example some of the kinds of women to whom I am attracted. [1] Now, I am not saying these are the types of women with whom I’ve ever been involved. I just feel drawn to them in some odd way.

(Goth beauty in black lace)

All are fantasies in one way or another. Figments of my imagination, as it were. Just the kind to which I feel a genuine, if somewhat confusing, attraction.

(Vampyre brides)

They are generally strong, somewhat dangerous women who know who they are and are at peace with that. Even comfortable with it.

(Warrior – Ancient)

If that is who they are, what does that say about what I think of myself? A disturbing thought. Are we attracted to characteristics that we lack… or to those we simply admire or value, whether we have them ourselves or not? Are we drawn to those who openly display traits that we choose to keep hidden?

(Warrior -Medieval)

This is not to say I am not also attracted to women who are ‘appropriate’… of course I am. But maybe it is the very inappropriateness of these ‘other types’ that forms part of the attraction. The whole ‘forbidden fruit’ thing. But even the forbidden fruit allusion implies that you can eat of it, if you choose, even though you know you mustn’t.

(Warrior – mix of new and old)

Conspicuously absent from this list are the types you might expect to see. Hollywood glamour types or blonde bombshells or scantily clad floozies with major league yabbahoes, to steal an expression from the movie Animal House. Aside from an initial ‘wow’ response when I first see them, there is no attraction for me. In fact, as a general rule (and as can be seen from the above sampling), I don’t really hold by what most people find ‘beautiful’ or even ‘attractive.’

(Warrior – Modern)

Hmmm… I just noticed that all but one of the women are ‘armed’ in one way or another [2] and that the last three ‘warrior women’ also happen to be vampyres! Bit of a cross-over of types there but… as I said… it can be confusing.

Luckily for me, I’m not the kind of person who revels in pop psychology. It’s a curious thing being drawn to these types of  women and while I don’t mind pointing this little quirk out, I’m not going to be spending an awful lot of thought on it.

 We all have our little idiosyncrasies.  This is one of mine.

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[1] I take it as a given that none of these types would even acknowledge that I am of the same species as they.

[2] The Goth Girl may give off the air of having a dark side, so the potential for harm is there… but not openly so. The others have weapons or, in the case of the Vampyre Brides, fangs and preternatural powers.

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Loonies I Have Lunched With (Part 5): CW & the Orange Smile

Years ago, my beloved friend, CW, and I were sitting down to dinner.

We’d met not long before and were still very much in the ‘getting to know each other’ phase of our relationship.

Things were going very well. We were both quite fond of one another. Conversation was light, entertaining and quite enjoyable. We shared many things in common and were very much ‘on the same page’ when it came to most subjects.

One of the things we had in common was a love for Chinese food and this dinner featured several of our favourite dishes.

We were enjoying dessert. I began to tell her a story from my misspent youth. I looked down at my plate, marshaling my thoughts. When I looked up, judge my surprise when I saw my beloved CW sporting an orange smile.

(Not CW herself… but a reasonable facsimile of the Orange Smile)

She caught me in mid-sentence… which I suspect was her intention all along. I just sort of stared at her as she sat there, eyes twinkling, with her large orange peel grin.

For a moment or two, I didn’t know what to make of this turn of events. While CW had a wonderful sense of humour and could joke and kid around with the best of them, I had to confess that this little piece of schtick caught me unawares.

 I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help myself. It was just so ridiculous… so hilariously stupid. How can you NOT love an orange smile, especially one sprung upon you so deftly as this one was upon me.

(Still not CW herself but this one is well executed. Note the coquettish tilt to the head. Excellent!)

CW later confessed that the expression on my face when I first looked up caused her a bit of concern. Apparently, rather than registering disbelief, the old mug had a ‘this girl’s a loonie’ aspect to it. Fortunately, CW is a bit of a loonie but in the nicest possible way.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever told her this but, to me, Chinese food is now inexorably linked with the image of that orange smile … so much so that I have been known to chuckle in the middle of having a spring roll or hot and sour soup.

When asked “what’s so flippin’ funny?” I can only shrug and shake my head.

“You had to be there,” I say, sheepishly.

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Just in Time for Valentine’s Day: The Science Behind the Kiss!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Sheril Kirshenbaum [1], science writer and author of the recent book, The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us, sheds light on exactly what goes on biologically when we lock lips. Kissing basically “acts like a drug by stimulating the natural chemicals in our bodies, yet unlike other human behaviors, science has barely begun to ‘put kissing under the microscope’ to study this intriguing evolutionary behavior,” says Kirshenbaum.

(The most famous kiss ever photographed – Times Square, August 14, 1945)

As recently reported in that bastion of scientific journalism, the Huffington Post, “Our lips are packed with sensitive nerve endings so that even the slightest brush sends a flurry of information to our brains that often feels very good. Although we often don’t think of them in this way, our lips are the body’s most exposed erogenous zone. When they are involved in a passionate kiss, our blood vessels dilate as our brain receives more oxygen than normal. Our pulse quickens and our breathing can become irregular. Our cheeks flush as our pupils dilate causing many of us to close our eyes. Five of our 12 cranial nerves jump into action as we engage all of OUR senses in interpreting what’s going on and anticipating what may happen next.”

(My personal all-time favourite – the upside-down Spidey kiss)

When there’s real chemistry between two individuals, a kiss sparks romance by triggering a cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters that cascade through our bodies and brains! (Actually, that sounds kinda hot in a nerdy biochemical sort of way). Thusly (people don’t say ‘thusly’ enough), locking lips with our respective sweetie-pies serves as humanity’s most intimate experience because it conveys more than our words can possibly express. It’s nature’s ultimate litmus test telling us when to pursue a deeper connection with someone special or to step back because we’re incompatible with a partner.

And understanding the science behind how this happens doesn’t take any magic out of the moment. Well, not for me at any rate. Instead, it provides a better understanding and appreciation of our ourselves and our relationships.

So in this super-smoochy lovey-dovey ‘food tastes better when I’m with you’ time of year, let us not forget to blow kisses to the Sheril Kiershembaums of the world who remind us that, like the wonder of a kiss, science is indeed all around us.

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[1] Ms. Kiershenbaum is also Director of the University of Texas Project on Energy Communication (or as she puts it, “communicating science to a nation watching reality television”) and appeared last year as a speaker at TEDGlobal 2011.

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I Hadn’t the Vegas Idea! *

My beloved SG and I were having a discussion the other day about the fact that I am always right. Well, almost always, anyway.

She asked me to tell her about a time when I was totally, incredibly, unbelievably wrong.

I immediately mentioned Las Vegas, 1985.

Long ago, when I was very much younger… “Like before I was born?” SG pipes in (my beloved gets a big kick out of pointing out the disparity in our ages)… my second spouse (aka WHN) [1] and I were talking about where to go on our honeymoon. Naturally, I said we should go to New York City.

Thinking I’d just set the land-speed record for settling honeymoon discussions, I was prepared to move on to the next topic. Oddly, WHN suggested we go to California instead. I was somewhat taken aback. It never occurred to me that anyone would actually want to go to California. But, being the amiable sort and wanting to start the marriage off on the right foot, I immediately agreed that San Francisco was a marvellous alternative to a real-live city like New York. WHN said she was actually thinking of something a bit further south… a grubby, gawdforsaken, horrible little town called Los Angeles.

After my laughter subsided and I realized WHN was not joking, we eventually hit on a compromise. Four days in San Francisco, followed by a few days driving down the Pacific Coast highway (stopping off at Monterey, Carmel, the Hearst Castle, Solvang, Santa Barbara, etc.) before hitting that cultural Chernobyl known as L.A.

So far, so good. Compromise. Respect. The blending of ideas both good and staggeringly ill-conceived.

Then came the bombshell.

“And we’re spending a few days in Vegas, too!”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“We’re spending a few days in Las Vegas. It’ll be fun. You’ll love it!”

I could tell she was already picturing herself on a deck chair near the pool, sipping a mai-tai or whatever people drink while waiting for the melanoma to kick in.

“I absolutely will not love it,” I said. “In fact, I can pretty much guarantee you that I am going to hate it. I hate it already and I’ve never even been there.”

“If you’ve never been there, how do you know you’d hate it?” she parried.

“I’ve never been near a natural disaster either but I don’t have to experience one first-hand to know I’d hate it.”

“You’re being silly. You’re going to adore Vegas!”

“I am not going to do anything of the kind because I am not going anywhere near Las Vegas. The very thought of it gives me the hives. I’m not going!”

OK, so I’m at the Vegas airport with WHN waiting for our luggage. Don’t even ask why our luggage from L.A. to Las Vegas was put on a different flight than the one we took. Already, I was getting a headache and we’d only been there for 15 minutes.

And then… my face lights up. Coming down the hallway, all smiles and sweat… was James Brown and his entourage.

I gently tap WHN’s arm.

“It’s James Brown!” I whisper.

“Who?” she asks, looking around.

“James Brown. The Godfather of Soul!”

“Where?” she asks as Brown and his crew, not 10 feet in front of us, are greeted by a group from whatever casino at which he will be headlining.

Brown smiles even wider and whiter, shakes hands with the group and says, “You’re beautiful, baby. Beautiful!”

“Standing right in front of you!” I say, more urgently.

“Where?” she says, looking off to one side.

“Right there. He’s there. Right over there! James Brown. The guy walking away. Him!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mutters, then continues to read a pamphlet about Elvis wedding chapels.

This was not an auspicious beginning to my time in Las Vegas.

Our luggage arrived. We got into a cab. It dropped us off at the now long-gone and long-since forgotten Sahara Hotel & Casino.

And from the moment I stepped out of that cab and into the night air…

I… LOVED… LAS VEGAS!!

I was 120% wrong in everything I thought about that city. WHN was absolutely right. I ADORED it. The crowds. The lights. The shows. The casino lobbies. The hustle and bustle on the streets. Watching little old ladies putting coins in slot machines. Phyllis Diller and Dianne Carroll at the MGM Grand. Les Folies Bergère. You name it, I ate it up. I couldn’t get enough of the place. The next day, I walked outside the hotel for 15 minutes and got a brutal sunburn on my neck. I could not have cared less. I was having such a good time.

To me, Las Vegas is like the whales. It’s OK to go whale watching. Once. Whales are big and gross and you might not want to get all that close to one… but it’s nice knowing that somewhere out there, there is something that goes that far, that big, that out of control.

My 3-day stint in Vegas was fabulous. I almost… ALMOST… regretted getting onto the plane to go to San Francisco.

And this is PRECISELY the point I wanted to make with my beloved SG. It’s not that I think I am right all the time. It’s not that I love being right. In actual fact, I LOVE being proven wrong. I love thinking something is going to be a disaster and it turns out great. I think it’s fantastic when I know for sure something is not going to work and miraculously, it does! Being pleasantly surprised is the highlight of my day.

But…

I am right approximately 98.73% of the time. For example, on that same trip, I said I was going to love San Francisco (I was right), I would love travelling down the Pacific Coast highway (I was right) and checking out the towns along the way (I was right), I would love Disneyland (right again) and that I would love the Ambassador Hotel and Beverly Hills (I was right on both counts).

I also said I would loathe, detest and despise Los Angeles. And I was right.

It is just that it’s so tiring having to go through one useless exercise in futility after another just to prove to someone that I am right. And I’m never the one who wants it proven. I know I’m right. I don’t have to prove it to myself.

“You never know ’til you try!”

“What’s there to lose?”

“Just humour me, ok?”

These words chill me to the bone. Along with my all time favourite…

“Well, now you know for sure that you were right!”

I knew BEFORE that I was right!! I didn’t have to prove it to myself. I’m not happy that I was right. I am not happy that I just wasted a half hour to prove something I already knew.

I want to be wrong. But I am always right.

Well, almost always, anyway.

* (With apologies to Martin Mull)

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[1] When I was a young rōnin, I was for several years in a relationship and living with an even younger partner. While I did not fully appreciate it at the time, we were in a common-law marriage. That person is, therefore, my ‘first spouse’ ['SA'], as opposed to the person I legally married (then legally divorced) many years later ['WHN']. My children, Exhibits One and Two, were tendered into evidence during the second marriage.

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Bigger, Scarier Weapons Help Spiders Get the Girl!

Wandering, as I am wont to do, through the pages of ScienceDaily.com, I thought… how about checking out the latest studies in arachnid sex!? Which brought me in pretty quick order to their recent article…

Yes, boys and girls, size matters… at least to male jumping spiders… at least when it comes to weapons.

(Yikes. This guy is the Marty Feldman of the spider world!)

OK, let me back-track a little bit.

The article begins, “If you’re a red-headed guy with eight bulging eyes and a unibrow, size does indeed matter for getting the girl. More specifically, the bigger a male jumping spider’s weapons appear to be, the more likely his rival will slink away without a fight, leaving the bigger guy a clear path to the waiting female.”

(Duke University graduate student Cynthia Tedore. Smart AND gorgeous!)

Duke University graduate student Cynthia Tedore wanted to know what visual signals matter most to magnolia green jumping spiders, which have an impressive array of eyes, including two giant green ones that face forward. The benefit of these huge green eyes is key to Tedore’s studies and findings.

(Magnolia Green Jumping Spider. OK smart. Not so gorgeous)

Vision is clearly important to these quarter-inch animals, which can be “very predaceous and aggressive,” when love is in the air.

In Tedore’s lab in the basement of Duke’s biological sciences building, wire shelves are covered with row after row of Lucite boxes, each holding an individual chartreuse jumping spider.

How does she test the ‘more is more’ theory? Using female spider silk to put them in a competitive mood, Tedore pits the male spiders against one another in a one-on-one cage match! Rage in a Cage. Hell in a Cell. All in the name of science! [1]

So what did Tedore discover? Over the course of 68 of these cage matches, the male with the bigger chelicerae (heavy, bristling fangs hanging in front of their mouth parts), usually scared the other guy off without a fight.

(Male magnolia green jumping spider sporting an impressive pair of chelicerae)

“The males wave their forelegs at each other for a period, and then the smaller male runs off,” Tedore said. “That’s why we think they’re using vision to size each other up. Most of the time, the smaller one will run away before it comes to blows.”

Seven of the matches were scored as ties. Seventeen of the contests turned into shoving matches, with the spiders butting chelicerae against each other. Occasionally one would flip an opponent on his back, then chase and pounce on him. Tedore had to break up a couple of contests before time expired so that nobody got hurt. [2]

Tedore said her work provides another glimpse into how these creatures, which have tiny brains and never met their parents, manage to make decisions and navigate their world. “I don’t really think of them as conscious, but they’re following rules of some kind. I think of them more as robots.”

(Magnolia green jumping spider. When it comes to girls, more is more!)

In her next series of experiments, Tedore is pitting males against video images of other males that have artificially exaggerated chelicerae and altered colors. [3]

I… can’t… wait!!!

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[1] I’m liking this girl more and more!

[2] Seriously, now… how can you NOT like this girl!!??

[3] Cynthia… you are my idea of a wonderful woman!

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Tova’s Wedding!!

On Monday December 5, 2011, SG and I had the great pleasure and honour of attending at the wedding in Toronto of our dear friends’ wonderful daughter, Tova, to a fine young gentleman, Yakov Zev.

(Tova, her family and husband, Yakov Zev)

Tova and I have been friends since she was a little girl.  What a pleasure it was for me to be there at her wedding!

(Tova, the beautiful bride)

For those who’ve never been to a Hasidic wedding, let me tell you… it is a mind-blowing experience.

(Tova and her younger sister)

The intensity, the unrestrained jubilation, the sheer utter joy of the celebration makes most other occasions seem pale by comparison.

(Tova’s older sister with the Mother of the Bride )

There are tears, hugs, smiles, laughing, cries of ‘Mazal tov!’, eating, drinking and dancing. Oh boy, is there dancing!!

(Dancing at the wedding)

SG and I had a wonderful time and got the chance not only to witness and participate in such a joyful occasion but also to reconnect with dear friends, some of whom we’d not seen in many years.

(SG and I reconnecting with dear friends)

I hadn’t been to a wedding in many years and I am so glad that my first wedding in so long was Tova’s. It is extra fantastic when you know that a truly special wonderful girl is marrying a truly special wonderful young man.

Here’s to their prosperity, to their good health and happiness, and to their future filled, please G-d, with Torah, mitzvos and children.

Mazel tov!

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Why Our Brains Make Us Laugh

Wandering, as I am wont to do, along the littered, soft gravel shoulders of the information superhighway, I stumbled across an interesting article last week in the online edition of The Boston Globe. The article’s title, in part, reads…

My first thought was, “Why do we need or even want to know why the brain makes us laugh?” Let’s face it. Nothing ruins a joke more than trying to explain it.

(Renaissance Jocularity)

The Boston Globe article states…

He who laughs last usually has to have the joke explained. But then why bother? After all, nothing kills humor faster than analysis… It’s just a joke: Don’t overthink it. But what if humor (or mirth, in research speak) is intimately linked to thinking? What if we’d have trouble thinking without it? That’s the argument of “Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind” (MIT Press, 2011).

As someone (supposedly Johnny Carson) once put it, “Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You can open it up, examine it and figure out exactly how it works… but the frog rarely survives the process.” [1]

(Is this some kind of joke??)

Hard as it might be to believe by reading my present material, in my early years I took comedy quite seriously. Seriously enough, in fact, to read Sigmund Freud’s publication on the topic, “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.” [2] So naturally, when I tripped over this article, I was intrigued by the idea of a study on how the mind processes humour.

The authors of “Inside Jokes” (you have to admit, it is kind of a cute title), begin from the idea that our brains try to make sense of our daily lives via a never-ending series of assumptions, based on sparse, incomplete information. All these best guesses simplify our world, give us critical insights into the minds of others, and streamline our decisions.

But mistakes are inevitable, and even a small faulty assumption can open the door to bigger and costlier mistakes. It is crucial, therefore, for the brain to constantly undertake a relentless ‘seek and destroy’ mission on as many of these self-induced errors as possible.

(aka Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten)

And it is at this point that humour comes in. Mirth… that little pulse of reward the brain gives itself for seeking out and correcting our mistaken assumptions. A sense of humor is the lure that keeps our brains alert for the gaps between our quick-fire assumptions and reality. As “Inside Jokes” argues, much of what we consider comedy takes advantage of this cognitive reflex, much as McDonald’s taps our evolved taste for high-energy food.

The brain is a complicated machine. Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Clement Dennett once described human brains as “Chevy engines running Maserati software.”

(Brainwork, like the comedy business, is not funny)

Humans think prodigiously. In every situation, the human brain needs to constantly anticipate the future by making assumptions about the world that unfold at breakneck speed. This often results in errors. Finding and disabling these errors is a critical task. But it’s a resource-hungry job that has to compete with everything else our brains are doing. It’s very hard. And taxing. And not a lot of fun, really. So what’s in it for the brain? What’s the payoff for all the effort put into finding and correcting its own mistakes.

Well, basically, the brain has to bribe itself to do this important work. And how does it bribe itself? It bribes itself… by making the discovery of its own mistakes enjoyable. It makes it ‘funny.’

The pleasure of humor, the emotion of mirth, is the brain’s reward for discovering its mistaken inferences!

(Brilliant!)

But if a sense of humor is part of our basic, human thinking machinery, then why can’t we agree about what’s funny?

As co-author Hurley puts it, “What’s universal about humor is the process, not the content. Everybody faces every situation with different beliefs, knowledge, and understandings about the world. And different understandings lead to different assumptions and therefore different false assumptions.”

A sense of humour is more than just a valuable asset for a thinking being. It actually helps reduce the mistakes one makes and acts upon.

(These girls are improving the way their minds work!)

Well, there you have it, boys and girls… The ability to detect humor actually improves one’s chances at getting by in this world.

Who’d have thunk it?

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[1] I’ve since discovered the quote. “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”  E.B. White.

[2] Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten, published in 1905. Riveting stuff. No, really. It is. You should read it, if you are truly interested in humour and how the mind processes it.

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Back from Toronto!

Back home after spending five fun-filled days in Toronto.

Attended the semi-annual plenary session of the County & District Law Presidents Association (CDLPA). Interesting and informative. I also got to reconnect with colleagues from across the province. Especially fun were the representatives from my neck o’ the woods, specifically Hamilton, Haldimand, Norfolk and Welland counties.

In addition to the regular CDLPA work over three days, I did manage to get some free time, during which my dearly beloved friend SG and I strolled around the University of Toronto campus [1], taking advantage of the lovely late fall weather.

It was particularly enjoyable for me as I was able to share with her certain spots on campus that had special meaning for me over the years. Those locations were shown in their best light considering that even in the middle of November, the autumn leaves were still falling. Just perfect.

After the conference, I headed north and spent the weekend in The Heart of the Old World [2], spending Shabbes (the Jewish Sabbath) with friends. SG and I had Friday night dinner at our Rabbi’s house and Shabbes lunch the next day at the home our dear friends.

I got to spend Sunday afternoon and evening with my daughter, Exhibit One, who was not feeling well. SG and I sprang into action, cooking chicken soup (aka Jewish penicillin) and generally pampering the poor sick darling. Dropped my daughter off at her apartment in Toronto and came back last night quickly and easily without any traffic jams or unnecessary delays.

All in all, a wonderful time professionally, romantically, emotionally and spiritually.

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[1] I’ve written about this particular part of the downtown campus of the University of Toronto in a previous blog article, Premature Waking: In My Solitude.

[2] I’ve also written about this particular part of Jewish Toronto in a previous blog article, The Heart of the Old World: My Toronto Jewish Neighbourhood.

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Shabbes at the Holy Adas Israel!

I had the pleasure of spending Shabbes at the Adas Israel Congregation of Hamilton, Ontario.

It’s been years since I was last at that shul. I’d forgotten how many wonderful people I know there.

The Kiddie-Winkers, my daughter Exhibit One and my son Exhibit Two, attended full-time hebrew day school at the Hamilton Hebrew Academy in the same building.

(R’ Eisenstein – ‘It’s a beautiful day!’)

Many of their former classmates are now getting married and beginning to plan families of their own.

I have a fair amount of my own history tied up there. So many people have come and gone who have had a profound influence on my life as a Jew. I will never forget them because they are a part of who I am today.

(R’ Zalman Itkin, a”h – a true mensch)

My dear friend, SG, and I arrived that afternoon. I drove in. She took a bus in from Toronto. Arrangements were made for us to stay with friends and colleagues.

We got together at minchah (afternoon) services in the small chapel. It was exactly as I remembered it. Kabbalat Shabbat… the service which brings in the Jewish Sabbath… was breathtaking and exciting. Unless you’ve experienced Friday night services at the Adas, you cannot truly appreciate the spiritual intensity and holiness that envelopes you in that small shul. Unlike some other synagogues, Friday night services there are packed with both men and women.

(R’ Morton Green – the heart and soul of the Adas)

The Adas is very welcoming and accepts Jews of all stripes. Friday night was a real spectrum of the observant Jewish community in Hamilton from converts to those ‘rediscovering’ Judaism to modern Orthodox ‘kippah serugah’ types to ‘black hat’ Litvishers to yeshiva boys to hasidim.

(The incomparable R’ Aharon Glaser)

SG and I enjoyed a lovely and spirit-filled dinner at the home of R’ Glaser and his family. In one of those special co-incidences, it turned out that both he and his wife met both of my children this summer. Mrs. Glaser met my son when her daughters attended the Jewish Camp Kadima (he ran the sports program) and R’ Glaser met my daughter in Jerusalem when she was studying at Aish HaTorah.

(R’ Dani Green – the spirit, inspiration and future of the Adas)

Shabbes morning, SG and I attended services. The dvar torah was given by the shul’s present Rabbi, R’ Dani Green, son of the former Rabbi, R’ Morton Green. His talk was, as always, inspiring, uplifting and meaningful. I met Dani when he was still in rabbinical school and we hit it off immediately. His father left big shoes to fill and, to his credit, Dani is doing a remarkable job. May he grow from strength to strength.

(My favourite family – The Lavins)

After doing a lot of catching up with old friends, SG and I went across the street for lunch with the Lavin family. There are a lot of people in this neighbourhood whom I love and admire but none more than the Lavins. They have opened their home and their hearts to me time and time again and they did not hold back on this occasion. When we came into their home, their middle daughter, T, said that she had something she needed to show me. She ran to her room and brought back an old beat-up and obviously well-used prayer book. She looked at me and said, “You gave me this prayer book when I was twelve years old and I have used it every day since!” She even showed me the inscription I wrote when I gave it to her many years ago. It was, for me, quite touching and moving. Lunch was fabulous with lots of lively and heated discussions about Torah, Judaism, life and, of course, T’s upcoming wedding. She kindly invited SG and me to attend and, G-d willing, next month we will all be together to celebrate this blessed event.

SG and I spent the evening at the Glaser home being charmed by their adorable daughters.

(R’ Aaron Selevan – a insightful talmudic scholar)

Sunday morning, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a study class conducted by R’ Selevan. His insights into Torah, Mishnah and Gemara open up an entire world of Judaism for me and those lucky enough to study with him.

After morning services, I went to R’ Glaser’s house to pick up SG, spend a morning with Mrs. Glaser and her daughters and take SG home to Toronto. Before we left, both girls blessed us with hand-made drawings for us to take home. The drawings are now ensconced in a place of honour on my fridge.

All in all, an awe-inspiring experience and one, G-d willing, we can do again soon.

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Snombies: A Hypothetical Conversation

The music played, the party-goers partied, the servers served and the bartender tended bar.

The 2011 Halloween bash was well under way and well-attended, at least from what I could see from my vantage point.

(Halloween Central – My home away from home)

At a table near the back, I sat with my dear friend Danielle, engrossed in conversation.

“The lecture went pretty well,” I admitted. “I think everyone had a good time.”

“Maybe next time, you can do a talk on vampyres,” Danielle suggested. “Now that they know why their teenagers and college students are fascinated by zombies, maybe you can help them understand their obsession with the undead.”

I shrugged, doubting somewhat that a local fraternal organization would want me to do a lunchtime chat on vampyres.

But then again, if someone had asked me a month ago if the same organization would ask me to do a talk on The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse, I wouldn’t have believed it.

“Their kids are probably into the whole Twilight thing, anyway,” Danielle grumbled. She rolled her eyes and shook her head sadly.

The ‘alleged vampire fiction’ of Stephenie Meyer was lost on Danielle and me, I’m afraid. One of the things that made us instant friends was our firm belief that the Twilight character Edward Cullen was the decaf cappuccino of vampyre fiction. Sure, some people order decaf cappuccino but… what’s the point??

(Danielle –  my dear friend and fellow Snombie)

Danielle and I are vampyre snobs. We are also, to be fair, zombie snobs or ‘Snombies’, as she calls us. We pooh-poohed the movie Return of the Living Dead, adore George A. Romero and bemoan ‘fast’ zombies notwithstanding the fact that we both liked 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, both of which films featured ‘fast’ zombies.

“Someone said to me the other day that the pirate crew of the Black Pearl were zombies!” Danielle exclaimed. “I thought I was going to smack her!”

I’d read somewhere that this was not an uncommon misconception among fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It was, however, the first time I myself heard of such faulty reasoning, albeit second-hand, from someone I actually knew.

“You should have smacked her!” I suggested. “You have to take a firm stand on these things!”

Danielle glanced over at the table next to us. Two young ladies (friends of Danielle’s) ordered the special Halloween ‘black fettuccine’ (and I mean black!). It looked like they were eating long black leeches or tape worms. It was deliciously gross-looking.

“That is so disgusting, you’ve no idea!” Danielle said to her friends as they grinned at us, long bits of black fettuccine dangling from their lips.

For a few moments, we sipped our respective soft drinks in silence.

“Why don’t zombies rot as fast as regular human corpses?” she asked suddenly and quite seriously.

It put down my can of Coke Zero.

“At all times, there are natural germs, microbes and bacteria around us and within us,” I explained. “When we’re alive, our immune system and antibodies keep these things in check. When we die, these tiny little entities flourish. It is what helps our bodies decompose after death. But germs, microbes, bacteria, insects, parasites and even carrion eaters… they all avoid zombies or even infected persons. Zombie flesh is toxic to all other life forms. Without any of the germs, microbes and bacteria in their bodies – without anything helping the body break down – this basically embalms the zombie to a large extent, substantially reducing the rate of natural decomposition.”

“That explains why zombies aren’t constantly being swarmed by crows, vultures, dogs, flies or maggots,” I concluded.

(Our table – in the background on the upper right, just in front of the counter)

“Of course!” Danielle said, thinking it through. “Or else all we’d have to do is lock ourselves in our homes and the zombies would rot and fall apart in a week or two and get eaten by crows and dogs!”

“The real puzzle is… why do they crave human flesh?” I said, offering the question to her.

Danielle nodded some more, sipping at her straw.

“They don’t need to eat, right?” she began. “I mean, not like you and I need to eat in order to live. In fact,” she said, looking at me for confirmation, “their entire digestive system just shuts down, like their circulatory system, right?”

“Right,” I smiled. “Keep going.”

“So…” Danielle said, her eyebrows furrowed, “If they don’t need to eat… and even if they did eat, their systems couldn’t process the food… why the desire to eat flesh? They would simply fill up to the point where they would burst, no?”

“What if they don’t actually consume the flesh?” I said in an offhand manner, tempting her to consider the question more deeply.

Her face registered a wide-eyed surprise.

“You mean… attack, bite, chew, gnaw… but not actually eat?” she asked.

I shrugged, taking a sip of my Coke Zero.

“That would explain them not getting full. I mean, not only not literally getting full but also not feeling satisfied after eating. You always see zombies feeding, then abandoning their victims in order to go after another living human.”

I could tell she was enjoying the mental exercise.

“A compulsion to attack,” Danielle continued, on a roll, “to bite, chew, rip… but never actually swallow, never consume… never be satisfied… always hungry but never actually being able to eat.”

She shook her head as her ideas began to crystalize.

“A kind of zombie nymphomania!” she exclaimed. “Always desiring, always lusting after something but never being able to achieve satisfaction, no matter what. Never being able to… to…” She waved her hands in circles. “You know!”

I nodded, admiring how quickly and easily she worked through the hypothetical problem.

“You have achieved Enlightenment, Grasshopper!” I said.

(Master Po and Grasshopper)

We clinked our Coke cans.

“I’m hungry!” she announced and ordered a large plate of black fettuccine.

As she dug into her meal, she asked, “That ‘grasshopper enlightenment’ thing. That’s another cultural reference from the olden days that I’m never going to figure out, isn’t it?”

I gave her a self-satisfied shrug, enjoying the sight of her eating with gusto.

“Thank goodness for Google!” she said.

Danielle grinned at me, long pieces of black fettuccine dangling from her lips.

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