You write: “How do we preserve the good side of madness that has given us some of our most sublime moments of art, given us the objects that show the highest level of humanity, while getting rid of the bad side of madness that results in pain, death, and destruction?” Some question. August Strindberg coped with his illness by utilizing what many consider the most “mature” defense mechanism of all: sublimation. However, the vision expressed in those works–which form the cornerstone of modern drama–was that of a paranoid, delusional psychotic. Wagner transformed harmony, orchestration, and music drama for all time, but his crackpot legacy–as documented in the new, dragon-slaying expose of his great-grandson, Gottfried, He Who Does Not Howl With The Wolf–laid the cultural foundation for the Final Solution.Your description of the guy working all hours to cope with a painful divorce is priceless by the way, and the Larry Sanders episode you cite was a good one–although I never found Phil especially funny either with or without a girlfriend, he was a shallow creep. But let’s return to Weston. I hope you don’t think I was actually proposing that treatment for schizophrenics. It could happen, though. If we as a society decide that rather than devoting our energies to executing people like that we ought to be preventing their illness from escalating to the point where they’re a “danger to themselves or others,” we need to decide how far we’re going to let outpatient clinics go. That could mean that said patients would have to see and be poked by Nurse Ratched every week. As more of the brain is mapped and researchers actually figure out why antipsychotics and MAO inhibitors work as well as they do, it might be possible to create medications without the crippling, and often lethal, side effects, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.The stock market has fallen 300 points: The beginning of a bear market? Anxiety over the spreading, er, stain on the presidency?Chris Kelly, headwriter for Politically Incorrect, has soothed my troubled conscience with an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times suggesting that there’s a basis for the “puerile” but not “wrong” attacks on Linda Tripp’s persona. For public figures, this comes with the territory–just ask Bill Clinton. “The jokes,” he admits, “have been shamefully–and unprofessionally–brutish,” but most people laugh because Tripp stands revealed as “an informer, a prude, a false friend and a gossip.” (I have to agree, and suggest that in future we might define to be “Trippped” as to be informed on by a friend.) The King of the Double Standard Rush Limbaugh has the audacity to tsk-tsk over the attacks on Tripp’s appearance, but he has made fun of Chelsea Clinton’s looks, and he used to ridicule Robert Reich for being short, despite the fact that it was a life-threatening childhood illness that kept him from growing much above five feet.Speaking of Linda Tripp’s face, there’s a scene in Halloween H20 where Jamie Lee Curtis takes this hatchet…
Trippping [sic] the Light Fantastic
Advertisement
