Frankenstein: A Monster Science Created but Could Not Destroy!
I cried at the end of Frankenstein (the 1931 Universal Pictures version, of course). I was probably five at the time, but even then I knew that there was something horribly unjust going on. The monster was a monster on the outside only and didn’t deserve to die.
That feeling never went away, though I came to understand what it was. As I got older, and read Mary Shelley’s novel, it struck me just how evil Dr. Frankenstein is. Much has been made of Frankenstein as an allegory for science out of control and what happens when men try to play God. I think it’s a much older and more universal story than that. Frankenstein is a villain not because he transgressed the limits of science, but because he didn’t take responsibility for it afterwards:
“I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.”
Why was he so disgusted? Because his creation wasn’t as pretty as he’d hoped it would be. Everything bad that happens in the novel happens because Frankenstein abandons his creation. If he’d just been a good father to his creation everything would have been fine. After his abandonment, the monster actually tries to do good. It’s the world’s perception of him as a monster that results in bad things happening. Mel Brooks totally understood this. In Young Frankenstein, Frederick realizes the way to fix the situation is to take responsibility for the situation, treat his creation with love, and to teach him how to behave respectably.
The backstory of The Protos, of course, has its origins in Frankenstein. The villain of the piece is the scientist, not for creating the Protos but for discarding them. The Protos themselves look frightening but are good at heart. The tagline “Monsters science created but could not love!” is a play on the tagline for the 1931 film version of Frankenstein, “A Monster Science Created but Could Not Destroy!” because like Frankenstein’s monster, the Protos deserve love, not destruction.
Every day a plug-in called Akismet defends this blog from spambots who try to post comments the posts. Usually they’re obsequious comments that at first seem like they might be real, and just for a second you think, “Wow, someobody’s actually seeing all my hard work!” They’re always some variation of this:
I do like the way you have presented this particular issue and it does indeed present me a lot of fodder for consideration. Nevertheless, through what I have personally seen, I really wish when the comments stack on that men and women continue to be on point and don’t embark upon a tirade associated with the news du jour. Anyway, thank you for this outstanding piece and though I can not really concur with this in totality, I respect the perspective.
Then you realize that it’s all completely generic and could apply to any post ever written, and the post links back to “blowjobs galore” and it’s all just robots leaving posts.
Lately the blog spam as been taking an interesting turn:
The following time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my option to learn, but I actually thought youd have one thing attention-grabbing to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could possibly fix should you werent too busy searching for attention.
That one came from with a link to “handjobvideos.” I find it remarkable the lengths they went through to make it actually look like it was written by a human, complete with bad grammar and punctuation. Still, I wonder how many admins would approve a comment that’s both stupid and insulting?
This one was particularly distressing:
Had I known that this day would come, I would have gladly shriveled up and died inside the very womb that sustained me.
That’s a pretty extreme reaction to a post on Photoshop piracy!
A mixed media poem found on the bathroom wall at Zoots in Camden, Maine.
What I love about art vending machines is the feeling that somehow they’ve leaked through from a parallel Earth. In that world the better angels of our nature won out. Instead of the worst of who we are (junk food and cheap crap made by children in sweat shops in China) the vending machines sell poetry and hand-made works of art.
Every once-in-a-while, I’m lucky enough to get that feeling in other ways, too. A few months ago I was using the bathroom in Zoots in Camden, Maine. Taped to the wall amongst the event posters and business cards (Camden’s equivalent of graffiti) was a mixed-media poem. It was done with great care, hand-written and painted, cut out of a paper bag and glued together. My photograph doesn’t do it justice. It was wonderful. I love the fact that for somebody out there it’s really important to inject a little beauty and wonder into the lives of people she’ll never meet. For a moment it was that alternate world slipping through again.
Callithump! isn’t dead, but it has been in “maintenance mode” for a few months now. It’s kind of a long story why we’ve been so unproductive, but I’ll try to keep it interesting. Skip to the very last line to the short answer as to why Callithump! has been so absent lately if you’ve got a short attention span. Otherwise, keep reading!
It all started a while back with a broken leg and no insurance. In the space of a blizzardy afternoon we went from keeping our heads above water financially to being five figures in debt. So we left our lovely creative community in Belfast, put our plans of careers in art & education on hold, and moved to southern Maine to go work in the corporate world.
Corporate life is seductive. The pay was better than I’d ever made before, and the health benefits were phenomenal. I was also constantly surrounded by people who were really into being in the corporate world. This was their career track, and they were really committed to getting ahead. For a while it caught me. I started thinking about all the things that long term financial stability could bring. Nicer cars, a nice house, kids… It’s not that you can’t have those things without financial stability, but it’s a whole lot more stressful. I started thinking, “I can do this for five years. I can put my other plans and dreams on hold. We can pay off our debt and buy all the things we’ve had to do without…”
It didn’t work. Sitting in front of a computer screen inside a beige cubicle under fluorescent lights from 9 to 5 every day I could feel my soul going numb. Corporate logic started getting under my skin. For example, having a window in your office is determined by your pay grade. So if your cubicle was near a window, it had to have extra-high partitions so you couldn’t see it since only management was allowed to look out windows. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it started making sense. I started understanding and accepting the necessity of such rules. The worst thing was that it started changing Jess and my relationship. We started conforming to traditional gender roles. I was the breadwinning husband, putting food on the table, Jess was the dutiful housewife, cooking and cleaning and doing laundry. I’d get home tired and cranky, with no energy to do anything but watch TV for a few hours and then go to sleep.
Let me just clarify something important here. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about a bad employer. My employer probably has one of the best corporate cultures of any company, and I was privileged to work with an amazing number of talented, intelligent and truly good people. The things that were good there outnumbered the things that bothered me 10 to 1. It was good to the point that I actually considered getting therapy to help me adjust to the corporate environment! It’s like that cliché break-up line, “It’s not you, it’s me.” I’m just not the kind of person who can be happy working in a corporate environment.
These problems will hardly seem like problems to most people. In some ways I’m complaining about being gainfully employed. I was living a life that was anathema to me. The majority of my waking hours were spent helping people with money make more money. We dreamed of a life of creativity, adventure, exploration and making a difference in the world. We got cubicles and television and gender roles we’d never intended.
So we made a change. We’re playing a hunch that there might be more paths out there than “starving artist” and “desk jockey.” We bought a house in Bangor, Maine. It’s actually cheaper than renting! Buying a house in Bangor vs. buying in the southern part of the state means for half what we’d spend on a “I guess we can live with this” house, we got to buy a house we love! Now we have room to build the creative spaces we’ve been lacking in the apartments we’d been renting. We’ve gone back to school, Jess to get her MFA and me to finish my PhD. I’m teaching classes again.
The new Callithump! HQ
I don’t know where exactly all this is leading us, but I know that sometimes you have to make the space for good things to happen. We’re not “there” yet, and we’re not even sure what that destination is. However, we’ve created possibilities for wonder, excitement, creativity and learning that we haven’t had in ages.
This change, however, has come with a price. Looking for a house, buying a house, moving, working two jobs while I wrap up my commitments to my corporate employer, commuting 400+ miles a week, taking classes… Unfortunately, Callithump! has had to move to the back burner, along with most of the rest of my life! However, I think Callithump! will revive soon in its new environment, in ways that will eclipse all previous work.
The challenges didn’t end with the move, though. Just as things were starting to settle, this happened:
Thumbs up to being alive!
Yeah, that’s me in the hospital, giving a big thumbs up because I was awake after a surgery that might have killed me! It wasn’t an unexpected surgery. My friend Peter was going to die without a new liver, and I was a match. People keep telling me what a nice thing I did, but you know, I just feel lucky. Having someone you care about die is on one of the worst things in the world. Having someone you care about die, while you’re left wondering if there was something you could have done that would made a difference is worse. The pain of donating a liver is minor in comparison. However, it was a big pain, nonetheless! To be a donor you have to go through a tremendous number of tests. MRI, EKG, CAT scans, I’ve had them all now, as well as a colonoscopy, at least a pint’s worth of blood tests and even psychiatric exams. Before the surgery I was going to Lahey almost every week from the end of December to the end of February. Then I was in the hospital for a week after, and I’m still operating at diminished capacity a month after. It’ll be another two months before I’m back at 100%. It’s worth it, though. Peter is alive and doing better every day!
It’s been a long trial for sure, but now that we’re getting through it, I have to say, it’s really awesome to be the LeClairs right now! Our lives are filled with more inspiration and excitement than they’ve ever been before. We’re making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. One of our big stresses is that we feel like there are so many possibilities here that we can only take advantage of a fraction of what our new lives have to offer. That’s sort of like stressing out about having so much money you couldn’t possibly spend it! This happened while we were thoroughly overwhelmed with all the other things in our lives. What will it be like when we’re done with all this other stress, and can devote all our energies to our new lives?
So anyway, the short answer to why I haven’t been posting is I’ve been really, really busy!
I try to make whatever I create work on multiple levels. There’s the immediate, visceral appeal of the object. How it feels, how it smells, the thoughts you have the first time you see it. I try to make the things I do enjoyable and accessible on this level, so that even if you don’t know the subtext, you’ll still have a good time. I hope that sometimes you’ll get the subtext (either the one I intended, or one you brought yourself) and the piece will be that much more enjoyable to you, but if you don’t, you won’t feel left out. Often, the subtext is something only I’ll understand or care about, but then, if I’ve managed to amuse myself while entertaining you, that’s not such a bad result!
Case in point, the triptych Good vs. Evil, Tic Tac Toe, and Tic:
Good vs Evil, also known as straight-up tic-tac-toeRemoving one row and one column makes for a very dull game…Tic! There’s only one move, and whoever goes first wins.
On the surface, these are just silly little games. Below the surface there isn’t much more than that, but there is more!
These were inspired by a meeting with Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans, better known as the art collective Jodi.org. Jodi.org were pioneers in net.art. Much of their work involves taking existing structures (like websites and video games) and breaking them to reveal the art within. A more recent example of this is Max Payne CHEATS ONLY, which uses the video game Max Payne as a creative tool.
I wanted to see what would happen when you applied the Jodi attitude to non-computer games, in this case, the classic Tic-Tac-Toe. The first, Good vs. Evil, just establishes the baseline. The second, Tic Tac Toe removes a row and a column from the game. The game is still playable, sort of, but it’s awful. Whoever goes first always wins. The third, Tic, just has one square. Whoever goes first wins. I would have done a 4X4 version, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit that into a capsule!
At the same time, I also made a web piece, Sex for Safety. Since Jodi took concrete things and injected meaninglessness into them I want to see what would happen if I injected meaning into Jodi’s work. I took the HTML code from one of their sites (it might have been this one, but I don’t remember now). I replaced all of their graphics with my own, without looking at what the graphics were. The juxtapositions are fascinating. Check it out! After you get there, though, resize your browser window to be about 320 pixels wide. This was really designed to run on a PSP, though it should also work well on an iPhone.
So anyway, that’s why there’s Tic-Tac-Toe and silly variations of it in the capsules!
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