Well, it has been since late July since I first tried the single leg sit to stand exercise. Recall the videos of that effort? I couldn’t really do much except collapse in the chair.
I’m doing better lately but it’s hard to figure why. I haven’t really been practicing that much. You’ll notice that I’m using a throw to give myself a little extra height to make it less arduous.
I just saw the 1939 film “Son of Frankenstein” on Svengoolie last night. There was a double feature, but I didn’t see the second movie.
I’m anything but a movie reviewer and all I’m going to do is point out a parody of the dart throwing scene between Wolf Frankenstein and Inspector Krogh in “Son of Frankenstein” of the scene in the 1974 movie, “Young Frankenstein” starring Gene Wilder as the son of Frankenstein.
The dart throwing scenes are similar enough in both films to make me laugh. The comedic effect in “Young Frankenstein” of Inspector Kemp (played by Kenneth Mars) slapping his wooden arm around and sticking the darts into it is immediately obvious. While somewhat overshadowed by the “Son of Frankenstein,” melodrama, I couldn’t help but notice the similar behavior of Inspector Krogh (played by Lionel Atwill) goofing around with his wooden arm as well.
You can compare the YouTube dart throwing scene (see below) in “Young Frankenstein” with that of the last few minutes of the “Son of Frankenstein” in the scene starting about 1 hour 32 minutes in the Vimeo video of the full movie (see below).
I’m only sorry that I’m not up to the task of comparing either film to the original novel on which all the Frankenstein movies were more or less based: “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus,” written by Mary Shelley. I never read it. I skimmed the Wikipedia article about it. The section about the novel’s reception finishes with the idea that the novel asks fundamental questions about why we’re here and what our purpose is. Has anyone ever answered them?
A game of darts, anyone? The link to the Vimeo video, Son of Frankenstein:
YouTube of Young Frankenstein version of the game of darts:
This is a post about the Big Mo Pod Show we heard last night on the KCCK FM radio dial 106.9. Incidentally, the KCCK fund drive was enormously successful this year, earning $100,000 in donations, according to Big Mo (aka John Heim) himself.
One item is the cover by Buddy Miles of the song “Tobacco Road.” This rendition was different from performances by other artists. Big Mo liked it and so did I. I did a little web search on it because I couldn’t catch all the lyrics. It was originally done by John D. Loudermilk in 1960. Miles’ version is essentially the same.
What interested me even more about “Tobacco Road” are the associations I have about it with specific literary works. I’ll admit I’ve never read nor seen the film adaptations of Erskine Caldwell’s books, “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre.” But one of my favorite short stories by James Thurber is “Bateman Comes Home,” which was published in a collection entitled “The Thurber Carnival,” in a hardcover edition in 1945. You’ve got to read it to get a sense of how comical the parody is of the regional dialect used in Caldwell’s novels. In fact, Thurber himself gives the game away about his intent in writing “Bateman Comes Home” by adding a wry comment as a subtitle:
Written after reading several recent novels about the deep south and confusing them a little—as the novelists themselves do—with “Tobacco Road” and “God’s Little Acre.”
He also adds another comment at the end of the short story: “If you keep on long enough it turns into a novel.”
The other thing I noticed about the podcast last night is that one of the songs which was not included in the list, “Joliet Bound,” was performed by an artist I haven’t heard of, the Reverend Shawn Amos, who is no relation to me, of course. But my background as a psychiatrist made me take special notice of details about his family, one of which is that his mother, Shirl-ee Ellis, a singer herself, had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Sadly, she eventually died by suicide. Shawn Amos is also the youngest son of the Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie founder, Wally Amos (again, no relation), although I’ve gotten a lot of friendly ribbing about that.
The song “Joliet Bound” is about a guy who expresses that he’s wrongly accused of killing a man over a woman and is on his way to Joliet prison in Joliet, Illinois. The Joliet Prison is a tourist destination nowadays and has other distinctions attached to it. It was featured in the 1980 film, the Blues Brothers. There were some famous inmates there, among them John Wayne Gacy, who was once evaluated and diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by psychiatrists at The University of Iowa in 1968 as described in Dr. Donald Black’s book, “Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy).”
Congratulations KCCK Radio!
We had yet another opportunity to put together a Zinus platform bed, this time for our King size mattress.
That’s right; we didn’t learn from our experience a couple of years ago. We did it because we got rid of the old bedstead, the disassembly of which led to my left ankle injury in June. Since then, I’ve either slept on the mattress which was on the floor or on a lumpy hotel bed.
Actually, the assembly wasn’t all that bad. It did take longer than I expected, given that we went through this routine with the other bed in 2022. Again, we had the benefit of that handy little ratchet hex head wrench although I did get a charley horse in my right thumb after we got the frame assembled.
The bed was delivered in the early afternoon, I don’t remember exactly when because I was delirious by the time we finished a little after 4:00 in the afternoon. Some reviewers said one person could finish the job in a half hour. You know, time gets distorted when you’re delirious from overuse of a little ratchet hex head wrench.
When all is said and done, the choice to go with the DIY knock down furniture again still made sense. It can cut the total cost by hundreds of dollars for a similar product shipped preassembled from XpensiveStuffStore.
But a lot of sweat equity is involved, especially when the parts have confusing labels. For example, the 4 sides were labeled Left (L) and Right (R) but there didn’t seem to be any way to tell what the frame of reference was. Was it the head or the foot of the bed? Why did we end up putting both R and L sides on the same side of the bed? And why did that even work?
Don’t answer that question unless you have assembled this frame and know the correct answer. I still don’t.
It took more time and effort than it should have because I forgot to postpone tightening all screws until all the parts were screwed together. If you decide to do your own assembly and start getting the idea that a sledge hammer should have been included in the hardware box—loosen all the screws.
What comes to mind is the phrase “Once more unto the breach,” a phrase from Shakespeare, about which I know almost nothing. I think the whole quote is “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more or hang up the hex head wrench before you get a charley horse.”
The short answer to the question above is “No, especially if you’re not tech savvy.”
I’m not tech savvy by any means and I quit downloading Windows preview updates long ago when I read web articles saying they could be buggy and lead to a lot of frustrating computer problems.
The latest Windows preview update has caused computer woes again for many people, enough to make it the subject of news reports.
You’ll find some experts saying you can hide the preview updates by pressing some buttons. And the Artificial Intelligence (AI) response to a web search about the issue suggests you should download and install any and all updates without discriminating whether or not they are previews.
In my opinion, I think the safest response to the Windows update preview download announcement is to ignore it and wait for the actual finished update, which usually shows up during the second week of the month.
I just noticed the FDA announcment of the approval of an antipsychotic with a new mechanism of action for the treatment of schizophrenia.
The drug is Cobenfy and it interacts with cholinergic rather than dopaminergic receptors. It has a number of side effects which are anticholinergic. This could lead to psychotic symptoms that consultation-liaison psychiatrists might get called to evaluate due to the anticholinergic delirium that could occur, which can mimic psychosis.
It’s easy to get alarmed about the Cobenfy side effects. I just remember all of the side effects of the one antipsychotic that has sometimes been the only effective treatment for patients with treatment resistant schizophrenia-clozapine.
Clozapine has been associated with agranulocytosis, seizures, bowel obstruction, prolonged cardiac conduction time leading to arrhythmias, liver toxicity and more. In fact, clinicians are required to enroll in a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program to prescribe it.
Patients who have schizophrenia and take clozapine are often admitted to general hospitals for treatment of medical problems which may or may not be directly related to clozapine itself. This requires close collaboration of internists and surgeons with consultation-liaison psychiatrists.
What do you do for patients who don’t respond to clozapine but are willing to take oral medication? There are augmenting strategies, some of which can be helpful although they could add to the side effect burden.
What do you do for a patient with treatment-resistant schizophrenia who refuses to take oral psychotropic medication? In some cases, it may be necessary to use injections of medications which also can have uncomfortable and even potentially life-threatening side effects. This difficult situation is complicated further by the lack of insight some patients have about their illness and the need for court orders to administer antipsychotics against their wishes.
I hope Cobenfy is a step forward for patients and their families.
I listened to the Big Mo Blues Show last night on KCCK radio (88.3 on your dial) as I usually do on Friday nights. It runs from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm and you can learn a lot from Big Mo (aka John Heim) about the blues.
He also has a podcast called the Big Mo Pod Show, which is based on his blues show. He gets quizzed about some of the songs he played on Friday night by Producer Noah (as Big Mo calls him). Last night he was on target for all 5 of the songs he played and why he played them.
One of the songs I’ve never heard before but it was done by Taj Mahal and Keb Mo, artists I’m familiar with just from listening to Big Mo’s show. The title was “Diving Duck Blues. The chorus goes “If the river was whiskey and I was a diving duck, I’d dive to the bottom and I’d never come up.”
That led to a discussion of how alcoholism was sometimes (maybe more than sometimes) a part of the life of blues musicians. In fact, the lead off song last night was “Big Road Blues,” sung by Tommy Johnson. His last name just happens to be the same as Robert Johnson who made the song “Crossroads” famous because he claimed he sold his soul to the devil in order to become a great blues musician. Several blues artists made the claim, which Big Mo debunked as a ruse to get fans to pay more money to hear them perform.
But Tommy Johnson struggled with alcoholism and, according to Big Mo, was driven to the point of drinking Sterno, which was poisonous because it contained methyl alcohol.
This can lead you to think that maybe all blues music is gritty, played by alcoholics, and even depressing as declared by the lead character, Navin Johnson, played by Steve Martin in the movie “The Jerk” (a white guy raised by a black family).
Incidentally, this reminds me that a recent study showing that digital cognitive behavioral therapy is effective for those suffering from alcohol use disorder.
Anyway, blues musicians don’t always play sad, gritty music and die from drinking Sterno. One that is actually funny is “You Left the Water Running” by Otis Redding. You can look up the lyrics or listen to anyone who covers the song and it would be difficult not to laugh out loud.
And speaking of covering a song, Bill Withers originally wrote and sang “Lean on Me” back in 1972 which Keb Mo covered recently. I think it’s one of those uplifting examples of blues music which won’t send you diving to the bottom of any whiskey rivers.
The University of Iowa ranks No. 9 across all universities in the country for its power in the writing disciplines., according to the 2024 U.S. News & World Report.
The school is well known for its writing programs of which the The Writers Workshop is the best known.
The University of Iowa also gives medical students a leg up on writing in its Writing and Humanities Program, which offers courses such as writing and medicine and editorial writing.
This reminds me of a couple of things, one of which was the University of Iowa medical school note service. Many medical schools have note services so that not all students have to write their own lecture notes. It’s ironic in a way that one of the best known public medical schools didn’t encourage all the medical students to labor over their own class notes. I volunteered once to write notes for the class. It was hard work.
The other thing writing education at the University of Iowa reminds me of is the Iowa Avenue Literary Walk. There are several plaques along Iowa Avenue which honor famous authors who had Iowa connections, often through the Iowa Writers Workshop. My favorite is one by Kurt Vonnegut, a former teacher at the workshop.
I saw the X-Files episode “Sunshine Days” again last night. It’s the second time I’ve seen it. It’s about a guy who calls himself Oliver who has telekinetic power and who yearns for a father-son relationship with a paranormal researcher (Dr. Reitz) who studied him when he was a kid named Anthony.
The set of an old 1970s TV show “The Brady Bunch” was used. It was something Oliver created using the power of his mind. As a child, he used to insist that he and Dr. Reitz watch the show regularly. In his mind, it was the perfect family he always wanted but never had.
Anyway, Oliver (Anthony) endangers his life when he uses his telekinetic powers as an adult. He can’t control them and nearly dies from using them. He ends up near death in the hospital after showing the FBI agents including Scully and Doggett (who replaced Mulder) his miraculous ability. The agents and Dr. Reitz are ecstatic because they think it will change the world and humanity.
But after they realize the life-threatening nature of Oliver’s powers, they all agree, including Dr. Reitz, that Oliver should never use them again. Dr. Reitz even tells Oliver (who now wants to be called Anthony) firmly that he can’t use his power, to which Oliver replies that he can’t be alone. Then, Dr. Reitz tells Oliver that he’ll never have to be alone because he’ll always be with him.
A lot of fans hated it because it was the penultimate episode before the final show of the 9th and final season of the X-Files. It was one of the many Monster-of-the-Week (MOTW) shows that had nothing to do with the extraterrestrial mythology.
I liked the MOTW episodes better the ET/conspiracy shows, and Sunshine Days is one of my favorites. However, I never watched The Brady Bunch and the whole perfectly happy and well-adjusted family idea was ridiculously implausible in my opinion.
I doubt there is such a thing as a perfect family. Mine certainly was not and look how well I turned out. Even in nature, there are examples of savagery that can make you doubt the ultimate wisdom of whoever or whatever is in charge of evolution.
For example, birds can be exquisitely cruel. Cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of completely different species of birds, where the cowbird chicks bully their weaker nestlings. And surely just about everyone has seen the pitiless pecking of the larger of the two shoebill chicks in which the parents calmly watch as the smaller chick gets stepped on, pushed out of the next and essentially murdered by the bigger chick. This is because the parents know there is not enough water for both.
Even the song “A Boy Named Sue” is based on the natural law of survival of the fittest, which has nothing to do with kindness. Incidentally, that song came out in 1969, the same year that The Brady Bunch show began.
On the other hand, the reconciliation of Anthony with Dr. Rietz always fills me with joy.
Last week we saw the 1957 movie “The Incredible Shrinking Man” on the Svengoolie show on the MeTV channel. We’ve never seen it before and it actually got pretty good reviews back in the day. The main character, Scott Carey, was played by Grant Williams. You can watch the movie for free on the Internet Archive.
According to some interpretations, the story uses the metaphor of diminishing size to highlight the diminishing role of masculinity in American society in the 1950s or human notions in general about one’s self-worth in society.
It got me thinking about how the challenges of adjusting to retirement as a process has been (and still is to some degree) for me. I started out with gradual reduction of my work schedule in the form of a phased retirement contract. It was difficult.
I was reminded of how difficult it was to slow down, especially as a teacher of residents and other health care trainees, when I was going through some old papers after the recent move to our new house. They included teaching awards I’d received over the years.
I was struck by how small my self-perceived role in psychiatry and medicine has gradually become in the last few years. I’ve been shrinking, similar to Scott Carey. In fact, I’m a shrinking headshrinker.
I don’t want to spend too much time ruminating about what retirement means to me. I think it’s a very common response to perceive the world gets smaller when you retire.
It doesn’t help much to intellectualize about shrinking in this way. Scott Carey eventually accepted his diminishing stature, even to the point of disappearance. Grief about this kind of loss is normal, although I’m realizing that grief might never completely disappear.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 