The keeper of the lighthouse took his indentured apprentice down to the beach for the first time yesterday.  Down the narrow path between the crags that looked like teeth from a tiger and through the jagged points resembled nothing so much as tusks.  The keeper showed his apprentice where they were, but did not bother telling him the signs that would help him remember … he would not have to come down here alone for many years.  Until then, it was better if he didn’t know how.  But he needed to know:  to understand the serious nature of the work his parents had sold him to.

Never trust someone who wants to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge or tell you how neuroscience explains it all.  Both are scams, though in the latter case someone might actually be sincere.  That doesn’t make them any less wrong, though:  some of the most dangerous ideas in history have been very, very, sincere.

Today’s lesson in bad brain comparisons is taken from the New York Times op-ed (April 12,2013) “What the Brain Can Tell Us About Art.”

Some people pace when they’re nervous.  Others can’t stop talking.  I, given the opportunity, tweeze.  My eyebrows, that is.  I don’t know if anyone else does it; it’s the one habit I have which makes me wonder if I’m compulsive.  I tweeze my eyebrows every morning no matter what kind of mood I’m in; but when I’m nervous I tweeze them again and again and again.

Back in the days of independent cinema – you know, before 1980 – there were dozens of film production houses that worked region-by-region all across America.  Small shops, small pictures, small money – mini-studios that might give you some financing if you had a track record, or were an exciting talent, or just had a cool idea.  If you traced the lineage of one of these houses, it sometimes ended in the Mob.  But not all were crooks – some were legitimate forces, such as Roger Corman or CinePix.  Still others were fly-by-night operations with $100,000 and dream, sprung out of cash made on p

Patty has Vaseline in her hair and waterproof blue mascara smeared across her eyelids. Hank can see the hibiscus bobby pin in her bun from up in the stands, and now that he sees her in the pool, her arms above her head as she waits for the music to begin, he is nervous. She’s a small brown dot in the center of the pool, which ripples in the evening light. The other girls wander around on the asphalt, their thin frames draped in towels, waiting and watching Patty wait.

When I was ten I lived in Odessa and dreamed of sailing to Africa, Australia or Argentina. I loved all far away places that started with A.  My name started with A, too–Alla–but I didn’t like my name. I kept altering it.  Angelina.  Angela.  Ariel.

I fire my gun. People around me turn swiftly, some duck and take cover. No time to explain. Plastered on the building straight ahead is a movie poster. Your typical will-they-won’t-they edge-of-your-seat romantic comedy. A bullet hole in the male character’s washboard abs. I curse.

In the corner of my eye I see the man dashing across the street. My gun hand outstretched I run after him. Cars honk, people swear, but all I’m thinking of is the bright red shirt I mustn’t let out of sight.

The sun, the silence, the sound of the little fountain, the warm water in the pool and the quiet resort all so relaxing. The two women accompanying me, my mother and she, made my long weekend feel safe and peaceful. The three of us looked so much like each other, our slim arms and shoulders, the curve we have in our lower back, the color of our skin and the tone of our voices.  I was glad they could talk all day and I could read and read and laugh out loud or enjoy the hot spring pool in silence.

Darren had proved himself capable, though he’d only been hired as bar-back two weeks prior.  He had a grace and speed about him.  He had a knack for quick-cut conversations, and for queuing the music that needed to be played.  Jessica trusted him.

When Jessica arrived a half hour after Darren opened, she was surprised to find none of the mixers restocked, and dirty glasses still stacked, unwashed.  The Home Shopping Network blared from the TVs instead of the ballgame or a retro movie.

“Jessica,” said Darren.  Not his usual grin and bow.  “Look at this.”

A dozen voices hummed rhythmically in the back of her head as she hopped down the stone steps and walked off the quad.  A men’s chorus, a tune she had heard a long time ago, as a child … a memory fragment.  Her father’s study, smelling of pipe smoke, as he handled his old books with more care than he ever used for people.   She’d heard the song in there.

It was a pleasing memory, it made her smile, but it warned of danger.   The song was a warning.