Retraction

Fans and friends: You're in for a big disappointment. I've canceled my columns on mental health/illness and migraines. My co-author, Mama, is dragging her feet over this project.

She said,"I'm far too intrigued with the subject and the sheer vastness of resources is such that no superficial treatment will suffice."

"Superficial treatment!?," I replied haughtily.

She answered only with a grin that was almost a smirk.

End of story.

At least we explored the origins of moxie and it is fair to assert that Mama has plenty of it (the chutzpa, not the beverage). For that matter so do I.

So please return for other, perhaps lighter and more entertaining blog entries in the near future. And for those who must remain disappointed here are a few resources to help you pursue your own interest in mental health/illness and migraines. (in no particular order)

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization.

Roy Porter, A social history of madness.

Darren Oldridge, Strange Histories.

Jeffrey M. Masson, Lost Prince.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night.

National Institute of Mental Health. "Bipolar Disorder."

and for more general information, google: mental illness NIH

Oliver Sacks, Migraine.

In closing, may you suffer neither mental illness nor migraines and I wish you the fullness of mental health and the pleasures of moxie!

Chill

In the midst of my meditation & research on migraines, mental illness [health?] and moxie, I pause to think of the blessings in my life.

For example: Mama et Papa and the loving home they make for me, walks in the neighborhood, dinner guests such as Amy,Peter & JPEG, a fine & diverse home library, & etc.
But what could be better than....

a personal 1992 4-door Toyota Corolla?

What more conducive to dog-happiness than tooling down the highway, on the way to nowhere, warm breezes ruffling my ears and rural Georgia yielding up it most secret treasures?

Note in the Toyota photo the stickers on the bumper. To the right, an artifact evoking wistful memories of my 3-weeks visit to Berlin as the wall came crumbling [literally] down.

But, on the left, the mark of ownership: a picture of a poodle, my name inscribed underneath.

Truly, the Toyota Corolla is the best car in the world & the best of the best resides in my garage.

If any of you, my loyal friends & fans, have car stories that can top mine, please use the comments section at the end of this entry.

[Any Vespa owners? You're also invited to share tales of Vespa adventures. And see photo of Amu (uncle in farsi) Hassan Aragh below. He kindly treated Mama to a ride on this fabulous machine (car in farsi) And may I recommend the film, Caro Diario.]

Amu Hassan Aragh, 1930s Vespa

Migraines, Mental Health [illness] and Moxie

Mama taught me that alliteration may be insidious, but used in moderation, acceptable, hence the title of today’s entry. As a title the above is misleading, since I plan to tackle each topic on separate days, beginning with the last & proceeding [?] backwards. In any case as the photo suggests, I'm in a serious mood, pondering weighty topics, and [in contrast, perhaps] dressed to the nines, i.e., dressed flamboyantly or smartly. [follow the link "dressed to the nines" for an exploration of the history of that expression]



Let’s explore the first [the last] term: MOXIE.



Backbone, fortitude, determination, guts: those are synonyms for the word moxie. As in, “A person [mentioning no names, for the present] who lives with and within mental illness and migraines with grace and without tormenting others excessively [note the qualification] has moxie.



But, moxie has another meaning, a history, if you will:



Moxie: The first carbonated soft drink to be mass-produced in the United States. It was invented by Augustin Thompson in Lowell, Massachusetts, and patented in 1876 as a medicine. It was marketed as a nerve food that would bestow the user with spunk. The Gentian root extracts use in Moxie’s production gives the beverage a bittersweet flavor with strong aftertaste. While driven off the general market due to stiff competition with corporate giants, it is still distributed in the New England States. Advertisements for Moxie can often be found within early view-cards. [follow the link at Moxie, the initial word of this paragraph]

What is Gentian root, the extract of which bestows a curative power, the Moxie’s punch? [follow the link at Gentian root, third word/s of this paragraph]

Mountain plant of which the root is used for preparing many liqueurs, aperitifs and digestives.

Are there curative powers in many liqueurs, aperitifs & digestives? Is it the root's extract or its combination with other ingredients? Are mental health/illness and/or migraines susceptible to any curative powers that may [or may not] exist?

Abrupt Ending -- a teaser for the following entries in which Mental Health/Illness [glass half full or half empty] and Migraines shall be discussed and then the 3 entries integrated in a 4th & final consideration.

Mama facebooks

In the past, Mama and I spent our days together pleasantly, watching Law & Order (the original is the best) or Maigret, Perry Mason or Inspector Morse DVDs, reading, walking outdoors, or just puttering around the house.

Ah, for the good old days.

In fact, my dear friend Lucy was the inadvertant cause of the demise of our long lovely days together. Lucy's Mama, Melinda, invited mine to be her facebook friend. Many had previously invited Mama; she steadfastly refused to reply. Until Melinda's invitation. And such is Mama's respect for Melinda, that she was unable to resist returning a resounding Yes.

Now Mama is facebook addicted. She turned facebook into a verb [i.e. facebooking, facebooked...]

She has spent hours creating her profile, joining groups, contacting long lost friends, opening photo albums. Granted, as far as the last is concerned, mine was the first album and has, as I recall, the greatest number of pictures. Her albums include those dedicated to: family, former graduate students, colleague-friends, other friends, my friends, Grady at Oxford 2004, Grady at Oxford 2005, etc. If the list isn't yet endless, there's every indication that her collection of albums will continue to grow at an alarming rate. She proceeds more gingerly with groups; but one established group had no wall entries (wall! what?) nor any pictures until Mama joined.

Furthermore, as a result of Mama's direct and indirect instigation, many more friends have accepted invitations and they in turn are connecting with their long lost friends. Even Papa has (reluctantly) succumbed. Even, Grandpere!

I seem to have been relegated to 2nd class status. I watch from my computer room bed (one of my 3 beds in our home) and wait, hoping for some slight recognition, even a mere glimmer of remembrance.

I find it ironic that Mama is reading an Agatha Christie novel just now that centers around a dead character: Rosemary, for remembrance.

Loyal fans and friends, please send your special messages across time & space in your hopes that Mama's sanity and my pleasurable days will return soon. [you may notice how plaintive I look in the photo above.

Mama Writes

Like me, Mama is a writer. She has published articles in academic journals such as Journal of Communication Inquiry, Critical Studies in Media Communication & Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly to name only 3. Those papers report on research findings & draw in particular on the theoretical frameworks of British cultural studies, (post-) structuralism and the knowledge-power nexus that Foucault wrote about so eloquently. She also owes a special debt to Roland Barthes.

Page proofs for a paper to be published in Qualitative Inquiry have been corrected & returned to the editor. This works marks a departure in style although her concerns remain the same. She considers this a performance piece; the late Spaulding Gray was an inspiration.

I'd like to pay a special tribute to Mama by previewing her work for you, my loyal readers/friends. Please read the abstract below.

“Peering Through the Crack
& Good-Bye to All That:
30 years of TV, Telephones,
Sports, Drugs, Etc.”


Elli Lester Roushanzamir
University of Georgia—Athens

Social relationships are enacted and remembered through interpersonal relationships and replayed through the media as the author uses a defining personal
experience, that of her son’s drug addiction, to rethink, analyze, and resituate
herself in the world. The result draws attention to the messy juxtaposition of
social structures and policies with personal loss, grief, anger, and episodes of
joy and courage. Crack, whether drug, fissure, gibe, highlights remembered
fragments which allow the author to tell her stories in ways other than those
originally considered. As those personal stories are interwoven with public
moments such as school desegregation and changes in telecommunications
and popular culture, a social commentary is offered that defamiliarizes the
familiar, evokes rather than represents, and therefore offers the reader entry
into the narrative, the cultural critique.

Keywords: autoethnography; substance abuse; crack cocaine; popular
culture; mass media

Summer Travels: Part 1

I have heard murmurings.

Whispering, Mama et Papa, mention such as: holiday, driving somewhere perhaps to Highlands, NC (where, they say, it's 20-degrees cooler), staying at a Bed & reakfast, driving their 1992 Toyota Corolla (Mama keep saying: "it's the best car in the world"), etc. etc.

The plans, which initially seemed to include me, took a turn for the worse when I overheard the euphemism Bed & Biscuit Suites. We all know what that means: they're going to board me! Me!!!

I've included a picture of Pawtropolis' suite.


To quote their from marketing pamphlet:

"Suites are complete with rugs, a full-size toddler bed and, of course, a flat-screen TV built into the wall. All suites have large windows for seeing what is going on. The suites provide a quieter environment. This is perfect for the ultimate spoiled pooch for the a dog that is very nervous or easily stressed. We are proud to offer a wide variety of movies such as; "Lady and the Tramp", "Air Bud", "The Fox and the Hound", "101 Dalmatians" and much more. Each Bed & Biscuit guest is brought to the outside potty yard four times throughout the day. Food and the potty breaks are included in the price as well as a Kong toy in their room."

Note the language: "very nervous or easily stressed," "toddler bed,"food and potty."

I am hoping that these discussions are merely the ravings of Mama et Papa, their odd response to the unbearable heat we've all been enduring.

In any case, loyal readers, I shall keep you posted.

Papa['s] Plants

Every other day Papa endures the early morning humidity to water the dogwoods [beautiful name] he has planted this year & last. Which would be fine were it not for the fact that he imposes on me as a sort of jobbing gardener. Don't get me wrong. I love well-tended gardens. The parks of Paris, the home gardens in England including the famous, beautiful garden at Blenheim Palace, the manicured walkways in Williamsburg. But as for tending them myself! As Mama would say, "I don't think so." Here I include 2 pictures of Papa's dogwoods (there are 4 in all), planted & lovingly (by Papa if not by me) attended, for your pleasure.

[& please follow the links above for more information/pictures of Paris parks, English gardens, Blenheim Palace & colonial Williamsburg.]



And, by the way, a 75-year old heat record was broken in Athens, GA yesterday when the thermometer topped 102-degrees [F]/ 38.888 Celsius. That combined with the high humidity-- can anyone blame me for rejecting yard work in toto?