Rain

Heavy rains the past weeks inevitably have made me think of certain movie quotes.

I have repeatedly watched the first 6 episodes of "The Tick" months ago. In episode four (Party Crashers) the vigilante Overkill comes back to his boat, which is equipped with artificial intelligence and answers to the name of "Dangerboat". Soon after that Overkill wants to leave again.

Dangerboat: You just got back.
Overkill: Crime has overtaken this city. There must be punishment. They're all animals, anyway. It's time for the real rain to come and wash all this scum off the street.

Movie fans might remember similar words. Dangerboat also recognises a certain similarity and answers accordingly to that.

Danerboat: Travis Bickle.
Overkill: What?
Dangerboat: Taxi Driver.
Overkill: Shut the fuck up.

For comparison Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) in "Taxi Driver":

May 10th. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks. I'm workin' long hours now, six in the afternoon to six in the morning. Sometimes even eight in the morning, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week. Sometimes even more when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the street.

From the child's mouth

Dear reader,

the other day I was sitting at the underground station waiting for the next one. A boy of maybe five years or so sat next to me and a man accompanying him kept standing a bit further from the bench.

Boy: “Stefan, I'm in favour for not going out anymore today.“

Stefan: “Why?”

Boy: “Because it's raining and if we go outside, we'll get wet.”

I agreed with the boy in my head and stayed at my place for the rest of the day.

Until next blog,

sarah

When there's snow outside, I think...

Dear reader,

it's been snowing for a few days here now and when there's snow outside, I think of two Erickson stories:

One of those stories can be found in Sidney Rosen's book "My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton Erickson, M. D." and it's called "Walking on Glare Ice". During the war one day Erickson was on his way to work: the induction board in Detroit. On his way he saw a veteran with an artificial leg, who seemed worried that he needed to walk over glare ice. The man feared he might slip and fall on the ice. Erickson told him to stay there. He'd come over and show him how to walk on glare ice. Erickson came over and the man could see he had a limp. So he wasn't just a babbler. Erickson told the man to close his eyes and Erickson made him walk this way and that way and up and down, until the man was utterly confused. Then Erickson led him to the safe side of the ice and told him to open his eyes again. He was surprised that the ice was behind him and had no idea how he got to that other side.

Erickson told him, "You walked as if the cement was hard. When you try to walk on ice the usual tendency is to tense your muscles, preparing for a fall. You get a mental set. And you slip that way. If you put the weight of your legs down straight, the way you would on dry cement, you wouldn't slip. The slide comes because you don't put down your full weight and because you tense yourself."

The second anecdote is mentioned, among other places, in the book "Hypnotic Realities: The Induction of Clinical Hypnosis and Forms of Indirect Suggestion" by Milton H. Erickson, Ernest L. Rossi and Sheila I. Rossi. As a child Erickson liked to go to school early after it had snowed. On the way he left a crooked path. On the way home he had fun watching other students and passengers not going a straight path, although they knew there had to be a straight path. They all followed Erickson's path crooked path in the snow instead.

Until next blog,

sarah