Play It Again, Shmulik

As mentioned in earlier posts, most of my high school Sabbath mornings were spent in the company of a small group of sixty- and seventy-something Jewish men, in a Synagogue located in the basement of a house, otherwise known as a Shtiebel. My position was the Baal Koreh -- I would chant the weekly portion of the Torah. It kept me off the streets, as they say.

Now most Synagogues I've been to in my life hold, after the closing of Sabbath morning services, something called a Kiddush, which is a brief prayer recited in honor of the Sabbath, followed by victuals, of the traditional Jewish persuasion.

The house which housed our Shteibel had a front entrance and a back entrance. We would enter through the back entrance, then walk down a small flight of stairs. We would then be in an ante-room, where the Kiddushes took place. That ante-room in turn led to the room in which the prayer services were held.

Now for some reason, at our Shteibel, Kiddushes were held not every week, but rather only every few weeks. I suppose the Kiddush frequency was roughly that of Mickey Mantle's batting average. So each Sabbath, when you entered the back door and walked down those steps, there was but one thought on your mind: were the tables in the ante-room set, indicating that this would be a Kiddush week, or would they be tragically bare?

(Did I just say that? Obviously, a momentary lapse of judgment. Naturally, what I meant to write was: So each Sabbath, when you entered the back door and walked down those steps, there was but one thought on your mind: the excitement of imminent spiritual communal prayer amongst one's coreligionists. Yes, that's it. Clearly. Please ignore the above gaffe.)

At the conclusion of the services, the 20 or 30 or 40 of us would proceed to the ante-room, and take our seats at three long tables, covered with white plastic tablecloths. The regular staples, to the best of my recollection, were as follows:

• A shot-glass of scotch, or, as we used to call it, schnapps;
• An airy cookie known in Yiddish as eier kichel ("eier" is German for egg);
• A fish dish, which was delish, known, also in Yiddish, as shmaltz herring;
• And on rarer occasions, my favorite, a warm stew known in, what else? Yiddish, as cholent (actually, I have heard that the etymology of this term is French: "chaud lent": cooked slowly)

To this teenager, this was as good as it gets. Now although there was no official formal structure to these Kiddushes, nevertheless they followed a pretty definite pattern:

1. We would all sit down, and schmooze for a few minutes (if they made a Yiddish version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, surely one of the dwarfs would be Schmoozy)
2. Someone would recite the Kiddush prayer
3. We would all down a shot-glass of scotch
4. Within a minute or two, the usual lively din of conversation would disappear, as the various parts of our mouths were now engaged in a different activity
5. Some more schmoozing
6. Someone would give a brief speech, orating on the weekly Torah portion
7. Yet more schmoozing
8. Someone would be asked to lead all present in a song
9. Even more schmoozing
10. Someone would lead one and all in the blessing recited at the close of a meal
11. Kiddush adjourned, and we would begin to head for our respective homes, accompanied by, you guessed it, more schmoozing

Interestingly enough, I have no recollection of whether I ever participated in any of the aforementioned rounds of schmoozing. But what I do remember is a great feeling of warmth and camaraderie, sitting with these men who were 5 and 6 decades my senior. (Of course, that shot of scotch almost certainly contributed to the feeling of warmth.)

Now one of the items on the above itinerary was the part where we would all sing a traditional Jewish song. Each week, a different member of the board would be called upon to choose a song, and after three notes, we would all join in. Almost invariably, the song chosen was an oldie but goodie: Yismechu haShamaim, a song I actually learned back in the first or second grade.

Now I happen to like this song very much, but when, Kiddush after Kiddush, whoever was called upon to lead us in song would consistently choose that same song, I eventually grew more than a bit tired of it. Every Kiddush, when someone was about to choose a song to lead us in for that Shabbat, I would inwardly hope that they would have the temerity to throw off the shackles of conformity and choose something different. C'mon guys! There are other songs in the liturgical canon than Yismechu haShamaim, you know! Go wild! But more often than not, my vain hope would be dashed.

Finally, after having been there for well over a year, and possibly well over two, one Shabbat, someone called out my name to lead the group in song.

Huh? Who, me? Like a deer in the headlights, I froze. Only one thing came to my mind:

Yismechu haShamaim...

An Impressive Impressionist

In my previous post, I discussed the phenomenon of mistaking one person for another. You see a person whose features are so similar to someone else's that your mind mistakenly concludes that you have seen that other person. In my case, while watching a movie, I momentarily mistook Kirk Douglas for Sean Penn. The moment passed quickly enough, and once again, it was Kirk Douglas before me.

This experience is quite similar to the optical illusions we've all seen: you're looking at a drawing of an old woman, and then, all of a sudden, you are instead looking at a young, elegant one.

What is so amusing and entertaining about these optical illusions is that the very same visual stimuli that one moment cause your mind to believe that it is seeing a certain image just a split-second later cause your mind to perceive a completely different image. Your mind is in effect saying: "Wait a minute! I'm looking at the exact same person I was a moment ago -- so why am I now all of a sudden seeing a completely different person?! And I thought seeing is believing."

Now even though in both of the above situations your mind is being "tricked", there is an interesting difference between the two:

In the case of the "Dopplegänger Dilemma", where the source of the illusion is the similarity between two different people, the confusion arises because the visual stimuli being presented to your eyes are similar to the mental image you have stored in your memory for a different person (similar hair, facial structure, etc.), causing a mismatch.

On the other hand, in the case of the Old-Young Lady, something very different is at work. Our eyes see the picture and transmit its visual stimuli to our brain. Our brain then extracts from the totality of that picture various elements, and interprets each one. It then combines the interpretations of those elements and concludes that it has seen an old woman.

When a moment later the mind suddenly sees instead the young woman, it is now extracting different elements from the picture, and interpreting them differently, and voilà! it comes up with a different interpretation of what is has seen.

Now all of the above is an introduction to another illusory experience I had a few months ago.

I've been familiar with actor Sammy Davis, Jr. for decades. But I was unaware until a few years ago that:

• He began his career as a performer at the tender age of 3.
• He performed with his father for many years.
• He was a multi-talented entertainer, his talents including: singing, dancing, acting and doing impressions.
• He was enormously popular in the 1950's, far more so than I had ever realized.

A few months ago, I saw a clip of Sammy Davis, Jr. He was doing impressions of various famous actors, and his ability to duplicate their voices was hugely entertaining.

But then he did an impression which absolutely astounded me. Now Sammy Davis, Jr. was a small, short, black man, and the actor he was mimicking was a tall, large, white man. (I have since forgotten which actor it was.) And for his impression of this actor, Sammy did not utter one word, relying instead wholly on visual prompts.

Sammy did such a superb job of duplicating this man's facial expressions and body language that at one point, all of a sudden, I was no longer looking at Sammy Davis, Jr. -- instead, this other actor who looks absolutely nothing like Sammy Davis, Jr. appeared before me. So completely had Sammy's mannerisms duped my brain. That moment was as much an unexpected surprise to me, as if I were to turn around right now and see an elephant standing in my room.

So on the one hand, my eyes were seeing Sammy, a man who looked nothing like the other actor, and the image of Sammy was obviously being transmitted to my brain. But at the same time, Sammy's expert duplications of this man's mannerisms were simultaneously being transmitted to my brain as well. What is so striking is that with a wink and slight shift of his body, Sammy was able to make my mind completely ignore the overwhelming visual evidence and see instead the image that those oh so very subtle cues conjured up. What a feat!

Recall the two types of optical illusions I discerned earlier in this post: (a) the "Dopplegänger Dilemma, where the illusion arises from two images appearing the same; and (b) The Old-Young Lady, where the source of illusion arises from your mind extracting different clues from an image and interpreting them differently.

Into which category did Sammy's impression fall?

Fool Me Twice -- No Shame At All

A few months ago, I watched an old movie called "Detective Story", starring Kirk Douglas. It was quite entertaining and thoughtful, but the point I wish to discuss has nothing to do with the movie itself, but rather an unusual experience I had while watching it.

At one point of the movie, when the camera shifted to Kirk, it was not Kirk Douglas whom I saw, but rather actor Sean Penn, another well-known actor born nearly half a century after his doppelgänger (who is within striking distance of becoming a centenarian).

Naturally, I did a mental double-take at that moment, for I thought I had been watching a Kirk Douglas movie, not a Sean Penn movie! A beat later, my mind's eye re-adjusted, and it was once again Kirk Douglas before me. This scenario repeated itself at another point later on in the movie.

I'd like to offer my insights into what happened in my mind at that moment. Am I an expert in the workings of the mind? No, I'm a Freud not! But nevertheless.

I see a photo and recognize my mother. The following steps occur:

1. My eyes see the photograph and take in the visual stimuli presented.
2. Those stimuli are transmitted to my brain.
3. Somewhere in my memory, under the label "Mom", I have stored a set of visual information: my mother's facial features, expressions, etc.
4. My brain compares the stimuli being transmitted to it right now from my eyes with the set of data stored in my memory under "Mom", and perceives ample similarity between the two.
5. My mind concludes that the visual image I'm seeing is my mother.
6. I smile.

What transpired in my mind at the aforementioned moment in watching the film was virtually identical to the above steps, with the following exception: in step (4), the visual stimuli of Kirk Douglas being sent to my brain from my eyes were markedly similar to the visual information stored in my memory under the label "Sean Penn" -- the thick, straight hair, the cleft chin, etc. My mind therefore concluded, incorrectly, that I was watching Sean Penn.

Fair enough, Dr. Freud Not, but not so fast. If what you're saying is true, then why did this "false-positive" recognition occur only at that moment of the film? Clearly, prior to that moment, every time my mind compared the visual stimuli it was seeing with the images stored in my memory, it found a match with the set of data stored under the label "Kirk Douglas". So, to borrow from the Paschal liturgy, how was this moment different from all other moments?

Put differently, at that moment, my mind, upon being presented with an actual image of Kirk Douglas, and comparing that image with both my memory of Kirk Douglas and with my memory of Sean Penn, somehow felt that an actual image of Kirk Douglas looked less like Kirk Douglas than Sean Penn. Surely an impossibility!

I don't think this question is easily answered. Perhaps at that moment, something in Kirk's expression or stance contained a spark which to my mind is more associated with Sean Penn. Or maybe at that moment, my mind's secretary, shuffling through the myriad of mental images stored in its memory, simply pulled out the Sean Penn file before it reached the Kirk Douglas one.

Finally, a note on human error. I believe that when the mind makes these types of errors, there is no conscious decision making process involved in the error. The part of the mind which is comparing the visual stimuli with the "wrong" stored mental image is taking place on an involuntary, automatic level. If in that process of comparing, the mind finds a significant number of points in common between the two sets of data, then there is absolutely nothing it can do negate that. There is therefore no shame in such errors. (To be sure, there ought to be no shame in any type of error!)

Shake! Shake! Shake! Shake! Shake! Shake!

And while we're on the topic of disco, one of the most prominent, successful and definitive disco bands of the 1970's was K.C. and The Sunshine Band, led by frontman Harry Wayne Casey. Formed in 1973, the group had a string of enormously popular dance hits, a run which came to a screeching halt in 1980, as disco itself, along with its sartorial accoutrements, met its demise.

K.C.'s songs are disco par excellence. The requisite elements are all present and accounted for:

• as one disco enthusiast beautifully described, a "happy chord progression in the minor scale";
• mid-tempo percussion and bass occupying center-stage;
• electric guitar confection;
• exclamation marks from the trumpets;
• refreshingly shallow lyrics extolling the virtues of dancing

and voilà!

But one of the most salient characteristics of K.C.'s songs is not to be found in the above list. The chorus of one of their biggest hits illustrates the feature nicely:

Shake shake shake, shake shake shake,
Shake your booty! Shake your booty!
Oh, shake shake shake, shake shake shake,
Shake your booty! Shake your booty.

(That I had no idea -- nor to this day am I entirely sure -- what exactly booty is never diminished my enjoyment of this delicious musical tidbit one iota.) In any event, we are struck by K.C.'s propensity to repeat, in part or in entirety, the titles of his songs.

To test the veracity of this observation, I listened to three K.C. songs and counted the number of times the title appears. The results are corroborative:

• I'm Your Boogie Man: 24
• Keep It Coming Love: 33
• That's The Way (I Like It): 30

Now I had always thought this repetitiveness was simply a product of happy-go-lazy songwriting, but a while ago, I learned that this was far from the case.

[K.C.] worked part-time in a record store. He noticed often that customers would come in not remembering the titles of the records they wanted, and the store would lose the sale — this is the reason so many of his songs repeat their titles over and over.

Clearly, these early experiences had a dramatic (is it going too far to say obsessive?) impact on K.C. So the repetitiveness, far from signifying an indifference to the lyrics, was, on the contrary, a decidedly calculated move on K.C.'s part, stemming from a savvy commercial instinct.

Music critics and die-hard fans often use the phrase "going commercial" or "selling out" when they feel that a musician has shifted styles, producing less serious music, in order to appeal to a broader audience. (Given that I was usually part of said broader audience, I was never bothered by this.)

But K.C.'s ploy takes the commercial angle of songwriting to a whole nother level, as they say. For it is one thing to craft a song in a style which will be pleasing to the masses, and will therefore lead to increased record sales. But it is another thing altogether to craft a song which is, in essence, an advertisement of itself. Here, the medium has truly become the message, and the message is to purchase the medium!

Indeed, one part of the K.C. song "That's The Way (I Like it)" has the backup singers whispering "That's The Way" over and over again, reminiscent of how in the 1950's, in certain movie theaters, the projectionist would flash the words "Drink Coke" on the screen, in the hopes of sending a subliminal message to the audience -- the difference being that in K.C.'s case (not to be confused with Casey Kasem), the advertisement is self-referential.

Self-referentiality is not completely absent in other items that we consume:

• Printed material, displaying the title in the margin of each page;
• Fashion designer clothing bearing the logo;
• Car hood ornaments.

But in the above, the self-reference is marginal: the ornament or label is but one small part of the product. With K.C.'s songs, the entire product, from virtually start to finish, trumpets itself.  I cannot think of any medium other than the pop song that carries the potential for a product to announce itself over and over, whereby the entire product has become an advertisement for itself.

In contrast, consider this chorus, of a song which came out just 2 years prior to K.C.'s debut:

Don't you remember you told me you loved me now baby
You said you'd be coming back this way again, baby
Baby, baby, baby, baby, oh baby
I love you, I really do.

The title of this lovely Carpenters ballad? Superstar. Not only is the title completely absent from the lyrics -- one is hard-pressed to find the remotest connection in the lyrics to it. Perhaps this was one of those very songs whose title escaped a customer's memory, awakening K.C.'s keen commercial instincts.

Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book, with its vehemently anti-commercial title, is K.C.'s diametric opposite. Indeed, a book penned by K.C. would be entitled Buy This Book (Don't You Dare Steal It!). In fact, I have an idea for a new song for K.C., "Buy This Song (You'll Like It)". K.C., if you're reading this, the rights are yours. And if it's as good as your hits of the 70's, I just may and I probably will.

Ludwig Van Boogie

As Beethoven was to 19th century music, so was disco to 1970s music. And, to take this already absurd analogy to its inescapable absurd conclusion, the 1970s saw a confluence of the two: a disco-fied version of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, A Fifth of Beethoven (to be accompanied by a fifth of Jack Daniels?), a gloriously preposterous amalgam of the sublime and the ridiculous. One wonders (well, at least I wonder!) what Beethoven would have made of this unlikely hybrid. Would he have turned a deaf ear to it?

Purely gratuitous aside: I wondered whether there was a word in the English language signifying the process of rendering something in disco style. Disco-fy? Disco-ize? Disco-grify? Having settled on disco-fy, I am now struck by how science-fictional it rings, which has planted the idea in my mind for a movie where alien invaders attack earth, armed with weapons which turn humanoids into people with three-piece suits and no tie, gold chains, platform shoes, with one finger pointed heavenward. Lord help us, doctor -- he's been discofied!

One undeniable property of disco music, no matter how silly one finds it, is how eminently danceable it is. The moment your body hears that crazily funky bass line, harnessed to that syncopated African beat, sprinkled with electric guitar wah-wahs and short blasts from the horn section, try as you might to stop it, it will spring into action.

First, your head and shoulders will start swaying from side to side. Next, your legs will start a-quivering, while your feet are a-tapping on the floor. Soon, your entire torso is oscillating in your seat. And before you realize it, your body has picked itself up from your chair, and is dancing with wild abandon, shaking like the leaves on a tree. Go ahead, listen to the proffered video. I defy you to remain absolutely still!

Couldn't do it, couldja? See?

The Professor and The Dirty Driveway

As mentioned in an earlier post, during my high school years, on Sabbath mornings, I used to attend a small Synagogue, known as a Shtiebl, as it was located in the basement of a house. I served the role of chanting the weekly portion of the Torah.

One of the few congregants under the age of 65 was an economist, originally from England, who at the time was a professor at the University of Toronto, and who has had a most distinguished career in the field of the history of economics, spanning roughly five decades.

As his house was just a hop, skip and jump from the Synagogue, he used to occasionally invite me over afterwards for Kiddush. For those readers of mine who are unfamiliar with this term, it is, for the purposes of the present context, the ritualized equivalent of coffee and cake.

His better half, hailing from France, is a sweet, demure, intelligent woman. To my teenage mind, she struck me as decidedly reminiscent of a charming character out of a 19th century novel. The three of us would have quite a pleasant time, sitting at their dining room table, engaged in stimulating conversation.

I recall that he once showed me a book he had recently completed, and told me that he was now in the process of putting together the index. He explained to me how creating a book's index was a much more difficult process than most people might realize. (I imagine that all of the advances in computers of the past three decades have automated that process considerably.)

On one particular occasion, the professor and I happened to be standing by the window of his living room, and were presently joined by his wife. We noticed that their neighbor's driveway was full of dirt, and that the neighbor was cleaning the driveway with a water hose. He would very slowly sweep the stream of water across the width of the driveway. When he reached the end, he would advance the stream slightly, and reverse direction, now sweeping the other way. In this manner, the dirt was gradually pushed forward along the driveway, towards the street.

Interestingly, all three of us fell under the hypnotic spell of the action of the hose. It was somehow mesmerizing to watch that border, separating the now-clean portion of the driveway from the still-dirty territory, advance forward, inch by inch (or, for my metric friends, centimeter by centimeter) under the propulsion of the spray of water, like an army division pushing a battle-line forward. The effect was oddly soothing as well.

*Ring!* Hello?

Hi, Frank! What are you doing right now?

Nothing much. What's up?

Well, our neighbor is unwinding his hose -- it looks like he's about to clean his driveway!

Hey, awesome! I'll be right over -- try to make sure he doesn't start till I get there!

Will do, but try to hurry. Carol and David are already here, and I've invited Bev and Gus over too. And the popcorn is in the microwave!

Quite a while the three of us stood there, captivated by this curious form of entertainment which is unlikely to win any awards anytime soon.

Until finally, the professor looked at his wife and me and said: "What are we doing?!" The spell broken, the three of us looked at one another, simultaneously burst into laughter and then returned to the dining room, to resume our conversation.

Postscript. Speaking of being easily entertained, in Street Gang, the encyclopedic chronicle of the television show Sesame Street, author Michael Davis tells us that in the mid-1960s, when children's television was still in its, uh, infancy, children who were up early in the morning would turn on the television and sit and stare at the test pattern until 7 a.m., when the daily programming would begin. If only they had neighbors with dirty driveways...

One-Time Smoker

I have several memories of the typical events that would take place in the mornings of my childhood. You know, the regular morning rituals, such as brushing your teeth, packing your schoolbag, eating toast and orange juice. And, of course, the sound reverberating throughout your entire house, of someone coughing without end. *Cough*, *cough*, *cough*. Yet another minute, and yet another. Horrible, raspy hacking sounds that come from the depths of the chest cavity. Culminating, just as often as not, in a gag reflex leading to actual cough-induced vomiting.

This was the morning ritual which my poor father had to go through, the effects of a three-pack-a-day habit. Unfiltered, I might add. As a consequence, throughout my life, the thought of smoking never once entered my mind.

I recall once asking a friend in my senior year of high school, out of idle curiosity, whether he smoked. His answer: "You know what I think makes more sense than smoking. To take a comb made out of steel, and comb my skin with it, so that the skin peels off and starts to bleed." His response graphically expresses how utterly untempting the notion of smoking was for me.

I'm reminded of a show I once saw on television decades ago. (How odd, and oddly pleasant, to be able to conjure up stories several decades old!) The show, "Scared Straight", was a documentary of a program being used on at-risk teenagers. These teenagers were on the road to a life of drugs and crime, and nobody was able to reach them.

The solution: these teenagers were put alone in a room with some of the more hardened specimens from the penitentiary. (I cannot recall whether the encounters were one-on-one or group settings.) Quite a sight to see these cocky, ornery teens suddenly swallow and become meek as lambs, in the face of the display of ferocity from those inmates. Scared Straight, all right.

My idea for a Scared Straight program: play for youths a video of the first 30 minutes of a typical day of a heavy smoker, in all its non-stop coughing, hacking, wheezing, gasping, and vomiting glory. Every day for a week. My prediction: the percentage of youths who take up smoking will plummet.

One day, a year out of high school, I saw a close friend of mine, who adheres to the proverbial straight and narrow path as closely as anyone I know, smoking. Well, land sakes alive! My shock was such that, if memory serves correctly, I literally snatched the cigarette right out of his mouth and crushed it, followed by quite a stern lecture.

Thus, for the first 45 years of my life, a lit cigarette had never entered my mouth. (I may have once put an unlit one in my mouth.) But two years ago, a friend of mine was over one evening, and we were relaxing and talking. She is a light smoker. I do not allow smoking in my home -- my friends know that they must retire to the balcony when they feel the need to indulge.

But for some reason, on this particular evening, I allowed her to light up in my living room. After a minute, I said to her: "Let me have a try." Her eyes wide-open in utter disbelief, she handed me her cigarette. I held it in my hands, and put it to my mouth. I drew upon it, inhaling deeply, thus, at the ripe age of 45, becoming a first-time smoker.

I loved it! What a rich, pleasing taste! And, much to my surprise, I did not cough in the least. For the next minute or so, I took several more drags on that cigarette, enjoying that satisfying aroma. (Tastes good -- like a cigarette should.) And then handed the cigarette back to her.

Since that evening nearly two years ago, I have not tried another cigarette, nor has the thought as much as crossed my mind. But something about the notion of never having even tried a cigarette made me feel like I was regarding cigarettes as more powerful than myself, as if in order to guarantee that I not fall under their spell, I must make sure to never so much as try one -- otherwise, I would become enslaved to them. Now, having tried one, I know that they are a pleasant indulgence, but one that I can easily choose to forgo.

Postscript. I am pleased to add that, about 20 years ago, my father gave up his decades-long habit of smoking, through the aid of the nicotine patch. Kudos, Dad.