NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Deep purple clouds crowd low on the horizon, long and narrow like fuzzy blimps maneuvering to dock before sunset, behind the bare trees.
“Who are those two up there?”
I am walking up Oval Street hill from Wicket Street, with Steve Strether and Ossian.
“That’s Sophie on the right with her quarterstaff.”
“Her what?”
“That pole, she calls it her quarterstaff.”
“Oh, like Friar Tuck!”
“She claims to be a skilled and experienced user.”
“That must be Osiris Tarantula in the silvery metallic, puffer jacket.”
Ossian pulls hard to catch up. He gets distracted and stops to bark at a bird shadow, which leads Sophie to turn and look.
“Hallow there!”
They have stopped on the steep slope. The road is clear but there is snow along the side. Ossian is in the ditch. His short legs sink into loose leaves under the snow as he scrambles to get at the white oak where squirrels chase each other up and down the trunk’s gray bark.
Steve pulls on Ossie’s leash and he looks back toward Sophie but turns and comes to Steve.
“Hi there, Sophie!”
We catch them up and Sophie introduces Osiris. Steve has trouble with his right foot.
Ossi has the bottom of Steve’s jeans in his teeth and then he embraces the top of his shoes, from behind, with his forepaws.
“He has tackled me!”
Osiris watches carefully.
“Is this a new skill?”
“He does this around the house if I walk around too far outside his agenda.”
“What is his agenda?”
“Often hard to say.”
“Does he want to go out?”
“He always wants to go out!
“So that’s it then.”
“No Osiris, he may want my attention for other reasons, such as making breakfast or retrieving something that is out of reach under the couch.”
“I get it!”
“Has he been watching a lot of football?”
“He doesn’t take much notice of TV.”
“From a human perspective, I would say, so much the better.”
“You must like some shows?”
“I don’t have a TV.
“You are the only one I have met who doesn’t,”
“Oh, I believe it.”
“Don’t you feel out of touch?”
“Out of touch with what?”
“With what is going on, with news and entertainment.”
“It is our primary distractor, that, and FaceBook.”
“Oh, you are on Facebook then.”
“I was when it first came out but soon dropped it.”
Ossi has let go of Steve’s shoe and the bottom of his jeans.
“There is too much pathetic attention seeking and of course torrents of lies and nonsense.”
“Yes, I can’t imagine using their news feed.”
“No, people get uncritically engaged by these media.”
“Those who do are subject to every kind of chicanery.”
“Oh yes, it is as if they are whispering to a lover, unaware that the world is listening under their pillow.”
“A lot of the Jan 6th people found each other through FB.”
“It’s manly for older types. The young are on, Instagram and other media.”
“What about keeping up with friends out of town or overseas?”
“Email is an ideal alternative.”
There is always Oanon, you know!”
“True Sophie, but you don’t have enough subscribers yet.”
Sophie steps forward to pet Ossi.
Ossi tries to climb Sophie’s black corduroys. His nose has reached up under her long woolen navy-blue cape. Her silky yellow scarf has eluded him, though the ends reach the ground as she bends over.
She gathers her scarf.
“No, I have a small but select following.”
“You might call it a coterie!”
“You might use any number of names, Osiris but I prefer Oanon.”
“Well okay, if you want influence, you must find something outrageous to say.”
“Osiris, I am not about to go there.”
“That is the way to get attention, dear.”
“Yes, back to that again!”
We stroll on in silence as crows fly up towards the dead oak opposite Diddlie’s place. Ossi walks alongside Steve as we all continue up the hill. Osiris pulls up her hood against the cold breeze higher up.
“Art is better served by painting than TV.”
“TV is art, collaborative art, like movies.”
“Oh! So true Steve, there are so many arts served by TV.”
“So, Osiris, what’s your point?”
“My point is that persuasive art, PR for instance, has dominated TV ever since the beginning.”
“It has been a successful marketing technology.”
“Those ads are a great way to pay for content, free to the audience!”
“The content is generally irrelevant.”
“What do you mean? That’s why people turn it on!”
“Most of the money is in the advertising.”
“What about huge successes like the ‘Tonight Show’?”
“They have to be sensitive to their sponsors.”
“I think you are missing the important social influence of entertainment.”
“Sophie, what do you think?”
“I think clouds of meaning evaporate from TV shows, and we all inhale it.”
“Clouds? Sophie, you have lost me, again.”
“Commercial clouds support emotional dramas, action, and violence so much it fills the vapors.
“I would say money drives production, but attention drives content.”
‘You can say that, yes, attention is the main thing. It is hugely complicated. As complicated as a cloud of cigarette smoke dispersing in a production meeting.”
Ossi is pulling ahead of us, growling.
“Sophie, did you know my ancestor and namesake painted portraits.”
“Of course I do.”
Steve gives Ossi another treat. So, he stopped in front of us. Osiris
observes him.
“What a hungry little dog!”
“If he ever turns down a treat, we shall call the vet.”
Ossi finishes up and moves on a shorter length of leash, pulling hard.
“Well, my ancestor had a similar passion, but it was for painting.”
“Was this an American artist?”
“She worked in sixteenth-century Italy.”
“Oh, a Renaissance woman!”
“Yes, one of a growing number now getting recognition by historians.”
Steve holds Ossian back. He stands on his hind legs, supported by his harness looking up at Osiris.
“My ancestor saw with her eyes, Sophie sees with her heart.”
Ossian gets back on four paws.
“Do you mean discerns perhaps, Osiris?”
“Perhaps; the heart has been called, ‘the organ of spiritual perception’.”
“Who said that?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But that organ is a pump, a double pump in fact!”
“Oh, Steve! You are Steve, right?”
“Yup, here in Fauxmont, at least.”
“And your friend…”
Osiris looks over at me. Sophie interrupts.
“Osiris dear, that is Fred. He and Steve are both friends of mine and neighbors.”
“I am glad to meet you both. Let me explain to you, a little physiology.”
We have stopped outside Diddlie’s place at the top of the hill.
Ossi, squats and Steve picks up after him with an old Washington Post bag. Now Ossi barks at three crows pecking something stringy on Diddlie’s driveway.
“Ah Steve, please, can you calm your little dog?”
He gives Ossi, another treat for his silence.
“Thank you, such a cute little guy!”
“He is still a pup.”
“So, Steve and Fred, did you know the ‘pump’ has about forty thousand neurons in it?”
“No, so it’s got a brain of its own!”
“Physiologically, neurons translate electrical signals into a chemical, called a neurotransmitter, to cross the synapses or gaps between them.”
“Yes Osiris, I hope you guys notice the alternation between chemical and electrical?”
“Ah maybe, Sophie.”
“Steve, it is the mind-body thing. Chemical body and electrical mind.”
“You mean dualism.”
“No, cascading electrical/chemical interactions.”
“Are you saying we are dualistic or not?”
“I think both work together to make one thing, a sensation or a heartbeat or whatever.”
“An experience huh?”
“Right.”
“Are we talking about the organ or the metaphor?”
“A perceptive question Fred!”
Sophie loosens her long scarf to hang around her neck in several yellow coils.
“Yes! You see, heart, being, soul, mind, spirit: they are words with clouds of meaning.”
“Are you talking about metaphorical meanings?”
“You might say that.”
“Being is the only verb, I notice.”
“That’s how we use it, but they are all verbs, you know.”
“But not usually used that way.”
No, the verb “to heart” is hard to conjugate!”
“There is always: ’heartening’.”
“That is; to raise our spirits.”
“So that tells us something about spirits.”
“It does Fred, I will tell you that spirits are evoked in us. They do not dwell in trees or
cobwebs or in vapors.”
“You think spirits are in us, ‘not out there’.
“People think that spirits live outside themselves because, the movement is so strong, in certain places at certain times.”
Ossian has settled between Steve and me, still looking over at Diddlie’s driveway.
“It is all a matter of association. That is what Oanon’s Orange Cat is all about, association.”
“Well, Sophie, most people have positive associations with cats.”
“Look at all the cat videos online, Fred!
“I was reading Oliver’s latest post last week Sophie, and he could just as well be talking about politics!”
“Oh yes Fred, the media are full of mystical and intuitive movements.”
“I don’t know what you two are talking about.”
“Steve I am talking about the difference, between objectivity which looks outward, and subjectivity which looks inward.”
“You sound like a philosopher Osiris.”
“I have a degree from Wagner College, in mysticism and philosophy.”
The sun is down below the tree line. Ossi is barking and frantically trying to chase a squirrel within the restraint of his harness.
