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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 3, 2004
Latest Update: June 3, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Culture, You Gotta Love It

This piece is based on a column by Chris Erskine in the LA Times on June 3, 2004. I awoke cat-like, stretching and content, and rolled over to discover the Los Angeles Times Home section Arnold had left there as he rushed off to court, hours ago, she added sheepishly. And there was Erskine's article: When the Handyman has a hangover . . . Backup. I laughed so, I simply had to share it with you. It's what ought to happen when we reflect, so let's call it self-reflective sociology.

We forget in the hectic pace we live to take a few moments out, OK, even a full minute, 60 seconds, to reflect every now and then, just on who and where we are. Time yourself. Sit quietly for one minute. No tasks, let your thoughts fly by, breathe slowly, relax. One minute of doing nothing is a long time. We fill our minutes up with talk and worry and noise and concern. Just let one minute flow by. I know that most of us don't have fifteen free minutes of discretionary time. But a minute. That you can find somewhere. Cut the stress by minutes, one minute at a time.

But now on to our self-reflective sociology. A few moments to look at yourself, as objectively as you can, and laugh at all the foibles we endure everyday is also freeing. And Chris Erskine gives a great example of how to do that.

Notes:

• Sex and sexiness seen from a new perspective - throaty purrs of cold and hangover, sexy sex between husband and wife. Brings to mind all the ways that sex and sexiness appear in our lives, in our advertisements, outside of where sex and sexiness were meant to be by the keepers of our morals: between husband and wife. That's a pretty rigid standard for limiting sex, and modern times might be suggesting that we need to find less rigid approaches to such an exciting pasttime. Like, approaches that wouldn't resort to torturing and killing homosexuals in Jamaica, as is occurring just now.

• A conversation about diapers turns into whispered sweet nothings between lovers.

• The tires: Erskine considers a simpler way of dealing with a flat tire - make the other three flat to match. Maybe that's the kind of thinking that's been driving the war with Iraq. His solution won't work in the real world where the car has to go, but it does keep his creative juices flowing, so maybe he won't need to torture anyone to amuse himself. He's seeing his world from another perspective, and laughing at his own inflexibility. Bergson said that's what makes something funny: looking at its rigidity. We laugh at others' rigidity, knowing that we would never be that rigid. Erskine creates laughter by imagining the world when we refuse to follow traditional rigidities. Try it some time.