Digging through Dorthy's Basket: Post Succession, Thrifting, Best of Soviet Sci Fi, Hannibal, Talks on Neuroplacticity and Consciousness, YMCA...
in a post succession world
Dear Companions,
The year is 1 P.S., in a Post-Succession era. A faction of crazy people have suggested substituting shows like Billions to fill the void left by Succession, a madness akin to wandering through Central Park amidst the suffocating orange air from the Canadian wildfires.
Truth be told, nothing I write about Succession will ever grace the annals of captivating critiques, despite the numerous ones I've relished—some fueled by fan obsession, others by editorial brilliance, so I won’t bother. I will simply say, my heart bears a yacht-sized hole, inflicted by the hari-kari of the show. I take comfort only in the timeless excellence of the finale (yes, I'm looking at you, Seinfeld, Lost, and the like).
The profound impact of Succession had upon me was not because of its writing, directing, and acting, all impeccably delivered in each episode. It went beyond Shiv's subtle eyebrow raise or Kendall's intense bug-eyed expressions; it was the show's omnipresence throughout this period that will forever be etched as The Roughshod Years. A relentless sequence of events—pandemic woes, followed by the trials of pregnancy, sleepless nights nursing a newborn, bouts of illness, and yet more illness. Within this tapestry of hardship unfolded the magnificent four seasons of Succession. With each passing season, my world got smaller and smaller, contracting until only a miniature Polly Pocket-sized world remained, large enough only to fit a new TV, which my parents bought for me when there was not much else to do to help, allowing me to watch Succession with one eye open. No adjoining slide.
Of course, autonomically speaking, the show was a disaster for me. I almost fainted during the episode that Logan died. The combination of the fast pace of the script, and the meta of the show ending, pumped my nervous system into a frenzy. For all of Season 4, I skipped viewing in the regular Sunday slot, opting instead for some innocuous mid-week afternoon, avoiding spoilers like the plague.
I am certain that to a healthy individual or someone with a heightened state of consciousness, my sentiments may appear trivial. I hope this sounds pathetic to me in the future. But it would be dishonest to pretend like I have achieved an enlightenment that thumbs its nose at great TV (and bad TV too). Succession filled in where friends and family have sometimes been absent, and led me out to pasture, when I was fenced in. The show bore fruit, or as Shiv might say, let the sun shine, without requiring anything from me in return. And it was warm in the light…
So let’s skip past what else I’m watching for this edition of Dorthy’s Basket (although do take a look at Netflix’s Chimp Empire and HBO’s Barry), and check out some other favorite distractions in the Healingvrse.
Things I’m reading…
Barry Strauss’s book on The War That Made the Roman Empire, Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium is like a Succession for books. First off, it’s highly entertaining as a history book, with lots of personal details, not to mention the pivotal plot: The fight for the future of civilization. Would we tilt East with a victory by Antony and Cleopatra or strive West with Octavian? We know how the story ends, but the details are mesmerizing. For instance, I never knew the gruesome circumstances around Marc Antony’s dead body, or that that the motto for hustle culture may date back to Cleopatra, who wrote “make it happen” to one of her generals.
When I find myself at the end of a pleasurable read, I typically pick up another by the same author in quick succession. In this case, I went with Masters of Command: Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, and the Genius of Leadership. The book is a bit more technical in terms of military operations but still manages to touch on the personal points of each figure spanning hundreds of years of ancient history.
I discovered numerous intriguing facts that mirrored themes in Succession. For instance, the TV show concludes with a son who struggles to fill the shoes of his larger-than-life father. Similarly, Alexander the Great was son to a father of historic reputation, King Phillip, who maintained his position on the Macedonian throne through two decades of war, culminating in his assassination. This led to the financial decline of Macedon, once the wealthiest kingdom in Europe, compelling Alexander the Great to fight his way back to solvency or face ruin. Thus, Alexander the Great had the impetus that Kendall Roy was lacking.
I will not be so self indulgent as to detail further the history here in Away Messages, so instead I will share just one other interesting tidbit about Hannibal. Obviously there are many anecdotes you can share about a man who traversed the Alps in 15-16 days, with 30,000 men, 15,000 horses and 37 war elephants, to put the screws in to Rome, but one fact that stands out for the Healingvrse is that Hannibal had an infection and lost vision in his eye almost from the outset of his campaign, a five-month treacherous thousand-mile slog.
Hannibal came down with an eye infection that he reused to treat during the difficult crossing of the marshes, which left his right eye sightless or virtually sightless. The damage was permanent. As a soldier Hannibal does not seem to have suffered much from the handicap. As al leader of men he might even have benefited from it. His Celtic troops like many ancient peoples believed in the symbolic power of a single eye. The Celts worshiped as one of their chief gods Lugs, who closed one eye when he made war magic. So as a one-eyed man, Hannibal might have seemed to “see” thing even better than before his injury. The Barca “brand” has just gotten stronger!
During my thrifting (below),I also fortuitously ran across two Soviet sci-fi books that my dad and I had once talked about making in to a move years ago. The first, called Hard To be a God, is about:
A team of scientists travel to the planet Arkanar that is stuck in the Middle Ages.
Anybody the inhabitants of the planet consider an intellectual is instantly executed.
The core idea is that human progress throughout the centuries is often cruel and bloody, and that religion and blind faith can be effective tools of oppression, working to destroy the emerging scientific disciplines and enlightenment. Classic Soviet stuff there.
With all the talk of aliens these days, like this post by Eric Hoel, which attempts to look at “the real story behind the ongoing UFO craze,” Roadside Picnic is a relevant philosophical, sci fi novel that if I licensed for a blockbuster feature should star the imitable Edward Norton. My dad, not surprisingly, suggested Tom Cruise.
Roadside Picnic is set in the aftermath of an extraterrestrial event called the Visitation, which takes place across two days and in several locations on Earth. We never learn about the means of arrival or departure of the Visitors, only of the strange artifacts left in the camps. The humans who go to these camps find that these items may have been “totally ordinary to the beings that discarded them, but are incomprehensible or deadly to the earthlings.”
This explanation implies that the Visitors may not have paid any attention to, or even noticed, the human inhabitants of the planet during their visit, just as humans do not notice or pay attention to grasshoppers or ladybugs during a picnic.
The artifacts and phenomena left behind by the Visitors in the Zones were garbage, discarded and forgotten, without any intentions to advance or damage humanity. There is little chance that the Visitors will return again because for them it was a brief stop, for reasons unknown, on the way to their actual destination…
Things I’m thrifting…
I finally met my sister in Ridgewood, Queens. We had been discussing this get together there for a year. For a year, however, I never felt well enough. I must have been afraid to go that far. The day I chose to go was, naturally, the day before the Wildfires suffocated NYC. The Air Quality Index was already hazardous by several orders of magnitude. I saw my sisters cat, and picked up some extra funky things on the walkabout, and occasionally wondered why the air felt suffocating, however my brain rewiring techniques pushed me to ignore it.
When I thrift, I tend to go for relatively cooky things. Apparently, a ten dollar price tag means I must buy a XXXS shirt with 3D flowers sewn in and an old lady watering them with a big pot. But with my sister’s guidance, I achieved a more restrained look, locking in this $5 beauty below.
My sister, is the type of person who can go thrifting and find the absolute perfect Mother’s Day Card, like a random photograph of Jermey Irons in the french production of Swann in Love. So her advice is obviously not to be ignored!
Later in the week, I picked up this Ralph Lauren Bag for $19, trumpeting my foray into the fashionable fringe trend
Whenever I see an item like this, I might pause to think: I could make this with my own hands. I’ll inspect it and start imagining what material I would use. Certainly scissors. Then I remember I can barely peel a cucumber without wasting half of it, and I proceed with my purchase.
Things I’m listening to…
I’m still listening to loads Twitter Spaces. They have pretty much all but replaced my podcast addiction this past month (with notable exceptions like Lex’s recent chat with Zuckerberg). I adore the invariable hodgepodge of experts, regular folks, of all ages and professional backgrounds. I’ve been in unholy number of crypto spaces ranging from Pepe to Ordinals to whatever NFT projects Zillenials are chatting about. Check out LaMelo Ball in custom 1-of-1 Gutter Cat Gang x PUMA collection, which is launching a corresponding NFT collection on Open Sea soon.
I also loved a discussion on neuroscience and expanding consciousness ran by Adrian Dittman, a man who seems to be popping up everywhere sounding exactly like Elon Musk. In attendance was a small group of neuroscientists, psychologists, mycologists, and technologists. At times the conversation was extremely technical and delightfully difficult to follow. At other times, the conversation veered into the strange, like at the end of a long night partying, as people elucidated their psychedelic experiences. A great use of time all around.
I received several answers to my question about neuroplasticity, one theory of the brain I am relying on to get out of chronic pain (here is a starter’s reading list). I learned about such concepts as the neuroplastic window including "Windows of opportunity", a time when a child's brain has heightened Neuroplasticity. A parent as a kind of general should should seize on it. Dr Rick Barnett pointed us to John Hopkin’s Gui Dolan, a researcher studying “how the brain enables social behaviors through basic neurobiological processes such as neuromodulation and synaptic plasticity.” Additionally, Dr Rick pointed to the below discussion on the Huberman Lab Podcast with Dr Robin Carratt Harris, a neurologist studying how “psychedelics change neurocircuitry in the brain such that new ideas and new forms of learning occur.”
Info on micro-dosing starts around 19 mins. Psychedelics and Fibromyalgia at 1:30. Also interesting discussion on anatomical changes of the brain from 25mg doses for first time trippers right before that.
Finally, Dr Owen Muir rounded the discussion with a lot of technical information, which can be followed on his Substack. He explained but I’m unable to repeat how the functional MRIs don’t quite match up to how information is organized in the brain.
Another honorable mention in the Healingvrse is Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, who is investing an additional $100 million in Covid and Long Covid research. He cites pandemic research as one of the most important initiatives of our time, expressing the hope to solve airborne diseases like Covid in the same way we solved waterborne diseases such as Cholera 100 years ago. I hope this week’s SEC actions don’t impact that.
Things I’m trying to do…
Ah, the resplendence of a 6-lane, 25-yard pool! To reenter the realm of "exercise" is a tough slog with Long Covid, and enrolling at the esteemed YMCA out east heralded yet another step in this thousand mile journey rivaling Hannibal, less the elephants.
In my initial attempt, I swam 200 yards (8 laps), which is only a quarter of the warm-up routine I used to undertake back in the day. However, I experienced what I can describe only as an electric shock to my brainstem during the session and felt quite unwell by the evening. Two days later, I returned to the pool, leaving the goggles out on the bench, and instead opting for 6 laps doggy paddling. I felt okay afterward, and the following day, surprisingly, I felt even better. The idea in healing from autonomic disfunction is to introduce a level of exercise that you can repeat for two weeks without worsening symptoms. It’s unbelievably difficult to restrain oneself from doing more because your body, and soul desperately want more. But I’m fortunate for my doggy paddling.
I also bought a water-proof Polar 10 HR strap to help methodically measure and raise my heart rate during each period. It also pairs with the Elite HRV app, which I will use alongside HeartMath for a 10-week deep dive into breath work to work more intentionally on the dysautonomia and low post-covid HRV. Will certainly post my learnings here.
So that’s all for now folks. I hope for more good days this June, skipping down the lane with my weirdo naked shirt, my tassel bag, looking about half as good as Patrick Swayze in the film To Wong Foo. May we all be so bold and lovely.
With much love from the Healingvrse,
Rebecca
I hope you feel okay after the air pollution. That one was rough for me in NJ here. I wish you get stronger and exercising gets easier for you. Take it easy. Haha, I love To Wong Foo. One of my beloved films!