A little push, a little nudge - and from here and there some very subtle grudge. Pluralized, then personalized. Doesn't take much, and before you know it you are digging up evidence in a search for a method to become immortal. Sometimes literal evidence, things you can touch with your hand. Things that can end up touching you back a bit too literally after you push all the right buttons. You end up being amazed in retrospect at all the guesses that ended up later looking like the shrewdest of strategies but at the time felt like the most desperate of blunders.
Hard science paves a lot of roads all leading to new university campuses where become endowed soft plush new chairs interpreting the long steps and scrawls of the most direct practitioner. The same practitioning toiler who years before on more than one night propped himself in front of the lab table on the steady prod of one hard stool to finish all of another review of slide and dish samples looking for that one aberrant protein. Two hard stools on some nights.
Now we just get some interns to do all that crap.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
An intern issue
Though Igor claims otherwise, I suspect one of the interns may be showing signs of encroaching lycanthropy. A little lightbulb in my head went off a few days ago following the 'deer hunting' episode. (2010, Dec; "Igor - deer hunting")
Had I been paying closer attention I would have noticed the number of interns in the 'hunting party' fell short by one of the total number of actual interns I know to be working here in the castle. That, and the sudden appearance the other day of what looked to me like long canine hairs around the drain in the locker room showers.
So now I can conclude that none of the holding pen tenants managed an escape but that one intern may have been a little careless at feeding time with one particular pen's occupant. Forge steel wire gloves and titanium plate arm sheaths are heavy and quite uncomfortably cumbersome, but they do guarantee one's immortal soul will remain immutable when accursed fangs are unable to penetrate the flesh of those hands that feed them.
The followup paperwork could be a potential chore were I taking on interns from schools that were not among the extensive list of my alma maters. Reports back that an intern placed in my charge had suddenly succumbed to becoming a werewolf might not be taken by some schools with the same old grain of salt swallowed past accustomed familiarity.
Had I been paying closer attention I would have noticed the number of interns in the 'hunting party' fell short by one of the total number of actual interns I know to be working here in the castle. That, and the sudden appearance the other day of what looked to me like long canine hairs around the drain in the locker room showers.
So now I can conclude that none of the holding pen tenants managed an escape but that one intern may have been a little careless at feeding time with one particular pen's occupant. Forge steel wire gloves and titanium plate arm sheaths are heavy and quite uncomfortably cumbersome, but they do guarantee one's immortal soul will remain immutable when accursed fangs are unable to penetrate the flesh of those hands that feed them.
The followup paperwork could be a potential chore were I taking on interns from schools that were not among the extensive list of my alma maters. Reports back that an intern placed in my charge had suddenly succumbed to becoming a werewolf might not be taken by some schools with the same old grain of salt swallowed past accustomed familiarity.
Helpful lab hints #2: flame suppression or otherwise
Most mad scientist's labs measure evidence of their prudence in the extent of their automated quick reacting fire suppression system maintained and ready for sudden deployment.
While also anticipating many of the same situations decrying an equal level of wary prudence, I can also avow to the usefulness of a second system that can be used in some instances immediately prior to the deployment of the fire suppression system. This would be a reference to the network of overhead, wall, and floor mounted flame throwers we learned the sharp value of many many years ago.
While also anticipating many of the same situations decrying an equal level of wary prudence, I can also avow to the usefulness of a second system that can be used in some instances immediately prior to the deployment of the fire suppression system. This would be a reference to the network of overhead, wall, and floor mounted flame throwers we learned the sharp value of many many years ago.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Mary Shelley (3 of many); Lake Geneva hijinx
Some specific events occurring during the summer of 1816 round the shores of Lake Geneva ended up inflicting a large throughput of cultural legacy down many successive avenues of mass media. Either those of Mary's purposefully intended forthwith; or following in turn on successive generation's influenced instincts exploitment extant.
My initial thoughts at the time were swimming in some concern that Percy Shelley might consider his wife Mary's frequent visits to my house across the lake to be borne of a nature other than literary inspiration. Until I visited their house and quickly surmised his interests of ilk were not bound in the matrimonial safekeeping of Mary but were instead some avid prospect within a mutually gained pact of 'heavy lifting' entered into between himself and the other oversized personality domiciled on that shore opposite my own.
Regardless of my own personal taste and irregardless of what measured distance I became good friends with all three. Albeit with caveats, though broached in good stead via the common acquiesced manner of the genteel. Which means I didn't mind where they practiced their swordsmanship as long as they kept it well within the furthest round circumference of rapier's swipe and far askew the perchance of my periphery.
My initial thoughts at the time were swimming in some concern that Percy Shelley might consider his wife Mary's frequent visits to my house across the lake to be borne of a nature other than literary inspiration. Until I visited their house and quickly surmised his interests of ilk were not bound in the matrimonial safekeeping of Mary but were instead some avid prospect within a mutually gained pact of 'heavy lifting' entered into between himself and the other oversized personality domiciled on that shore opposite my own.
Regardless of my own personal taste and irregardless of what measured distance I became good friends with all three. Albeit with caveats, though broached in good stead via the common acquiesced manner of the genteel. Which means I didn't mind where they practiced their swordsmanship as long as they kept it well within the furthest round circumference of rapier's swipe and far askew the perchance of my periphery.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Igor - deer hunting
I look up from my work and see Igor shuffling past with a hunting rifle, followed by all the interns, similarly armed. Having been years since I even knew where the old weapons locker had been moved to, I thought nothing of it since I was preoccupied with emplacing an inner bone transceiver on a specimen who was giving the gurney straps a very thorough test of binding tolerance.
Later up in my office I am making notes when I see down across the floor the bunch of them returning. Two of the interns are limping, one has a huge bandage over his head and one eye, and four of them are dragging one of those extra extra large neoprene cadaver bags. Whatever is inside is not a cadaver and might be more easily transportable in the next largest bag size.
Igor comes by on the catwalk in front of the office door overlooking the scene at just the opportune moment that would have afforded me the clearest view of the drama enfolding below. He pretends to be surprised to notice me here as though he was walking by on his way to somewhere else. The rifle is slung over his shoulder, it's stock and strap stained with some kind of fluid.
"Oh, there you are. This came in the mail", and places a package on my desk that I know actually came four days ago. I wonder that he isn't shrewd enough to have handed me the package with the other hand that perhaps doesn't have fresh bite marks... or perhaps the other hand has worse wounds. I play along as I notice he continues to stand in the spot that perfectly blocks my line of sight down to where I can hear the interns struggling with the bag and it's content. A short exclamation of shock is quickly shushed by three other voices. From somewhere else below I hear a sharp sudden wail that can only come from the dispensary as I picture the two limping interns removing the field dress head bandage from the third.
As if concerned and noticing it for the first time I indicate the bite marks on Igor's hand. I can now hear something dripping on the floor behind him.
As if concerned and noticing it for the first time I indicate the bite marks on Igor's hand. I can now hear something dripping on the floor behind him.
"Oh, we were out..." he pauses and I realize he didn't prepare a cover story. "uh...um...deer hunting. One of the kids saw a deer."
Later I must personally go down to the holding pens and try to discern which specimen had escaped and how it managed to do so.
Deichtenstein's Inn getaways
Every six weeks we take the interns and book all the rooms for a weekend in Deichtenstein's Inn down in the village as a reward for the cumulative weeks of hard work. Over the years I have observed how progressively fewer of these kids seem less traumatized (than their counterparts from past years) when confronted with some of the more 'hard science' aspects of working in our lab. Those bloodcurdling shrieks of a newly spawned growth nub still catch me off guard sometimes. I remind myself that perhaps I should look in on what kind of media entertainment these kids are subjected to during their upbringing.
Deichtenstein's Inn is one of those beautiful old alpine buildings that appears to be of a certain size from the front but inside just seems to go on and on. I've been in and out of there for some 200 years and I still haven't personally been into every nook and cranny. But every manner of my creations have, and it's only by following the live feed from embedded cameras that we can test how well our remote control systems work.
As they collect their room keys the interns soon find out that like most things they learn from me it's better to pierce both hemispheres with one thrust of the probe. Even on a short break, as I take each intern aside and place in their hands the first of many small power modules and a map of where the hidden camera it powers is located. It's a big old picturesque building, and for the two night visit the interns find themselves not as they imagined hoisting stein after stein of Heidelwiche Doppelganger ale but instead wriggling long and stifling trails through labyrinthine wall and ceiling crawlspaces to replenish numerous hidden camera power packs.
Deichtenstein's Inn is one of those beautiful old alpine buildings that appears to be of a certain size from the front but inside just seems to go on and on. I've been in and out of there for some 200 years and I still haven't personally been into every nook and cranny. But every manner of my creations have, and it's only by following the live feed from embedded cameras that we can test how well our remote control systems work.
As they collect their room keys the interns soon find out that like most things they learn from me it's better to pierce both hemispheres with one thrust of the probe. Even on a short break, as I take each intern aside and place in their hands the first of many small power modules and a map of where the hidden camera it powers is located. It's a big old picturesque building, and for the two night visit the interns find themselves not as they imagined hoisting stein after stein of Heidelwiche Doppelganger ale but instead wriggling long and stifling trails through labyrinthine wall and ceiling crawlspaces to replenish numerous hidden camera power packs.
Mary Shelley (2 of many)
An aspect of her storytelling that I particularly enjoyed, and is renewed everytime I see yet another retelling, is how she spared the reader the spectacle of the engineering of my work. When I saw the first movie back in 1931 I was amazed how much of her book they disregarded in favor of demonstrating a 'technical' angle. In Mary's book there is virtually nothing expounding on the nuts-n-bolts side of the creation of the creature(s). In the film, there seems to be little else other than the doctor and his assistant in the lab-castle, and the scary-monster side of the creature as depicted. A whole section on the creation, and then some drama extracted out of that act, leading to significant elements that have no original corollary in the book. The whole idea ended up working much better in the first film sequel with the comedic angle reflecting the absurd act of appropriating just the book's title and ditching all of the substance.
In my mind I picture the people who made the film(s) traveling to Great Britain merely for the purpose of dancing on Mary Shelley's grave.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
That phone call with Dracula
The odd thing is that Dracula called me.
In the midst of a heavy strap-tightening struggle to more gainfully secure a frantic new specimen, and just as it was dawning on me that I was doing yet another of Igor’s assigned tasks, who should appear at my shoulder but Igor himself to tell me that Dracula was on line two. After assuring that Igor had a firm two handed grasp on the torso brace and also assisting an intern with unclogging an intestine bevel then directing the intern to help Igor, I took the call in the lunchroom.
Speaking with Dracula on the phone causes me to wonder: if Bram Stoker were alive today, and eavesdropping on our conversation, how many additional chapters might he suddenly feel compelled to write to reflect some drastic change in tone from those preceding parts of the Count's 'biography' concerning our present day contretemps with Detective Helsing, our common current nemesis. If not an implausible bloodline descendant of the Stoker book’s genteel Van Helsing than an accursed usurper of identity in some vile practice of self aggrandizement (for what strange purposed means to what non-incredulous law enforcement agency) is best left to the weighted scrutiny of perhaps not a biographer but an introspective composer of Victorian era science fiction? I then listen with suddenly sparked incredulity as the Count waxes in my ear his bemoanments of how long it might take me to scare Helsing back to Transylvania. He wants Helsing back?
The question hangs my sudden pause as I consider what reply other than a catalog of my efforts to that very end I have tried and succumbed failure to towards the result it seems now the both of us would prefer? He wants him back? I would offer to link the recorded video feed file of Helsing kept at bay atop the radiator in his room at the inn while a dozen of my rat size attack dachshunds with blazing eyes and lethal looking claws rend long swift menacing strokes in the inn's hardwood floor, but Dracula never took to computers and only recently deigned that the gatehouse of his castle could be electrified and a landline phone installed. Which is where I imagine he is placing this call to me from. I describe the scene with the dachsunds as far as I can without succumbing to the paroxysm of laughter I fell victim to upon my view of the original live feed, and I can hear the Count giggle at the description of the innkeeper’s wife, Frau Gruella Deichenstein, sweeping in (literally) and in two short deft broom swoops dispatching all eight of the miniaturized attack dachshunds. I clarify to the Count that the Frau is as vision-impaired as Igor and likely she surmised Helsing was cornered atop the radiator by mere rats. She acted so remarkably swiftly that the dachshunds could not have responded to her presence fast enough for her to realize that she may have risked considerable peril attempting to confront creatures that were of my handiwork. The villagers, with some long familiarity of the latter, generally regard my creatures as belonging to a ‘kill first, sup on remains progressively” pedigree so that a terror inspired protocol of precautionary fleeing is the deeply ingrained common response among the village populace when confronted with many (but not all) of my creations.
However - Dracula has phoned me, it seems, to inquire what my course of action might be to urge Helsing back to Transylvania. He wants Helsing back; this is contrary to what I would have expected to hear from him when it had been my very intent to drive Helsing there, guessing that Dracula had been glad to be rid if him and probably hadn’t given a second thought to where he might’ve gone, nor would likely be happy to see him return. Somehow he found out Helsing was here, in our village, which means that Dracula searched for where Helsing had gone?
Standing in the lunchroom I muse that Dracula, like me, is also an immortal being, and has been so for about 300 years longer than I have. As I pause waiting for him to say something I wonder - has the weight of this burden finally affected the Count into some profound realization of affection for Helsing, a perennial nemesis whose pursuit, like those of his ancestors, maybe now the Count sees as the only human constant in his life, a living counterpoint to the loneliness of his long immortality? Living forever, you watch any non-immortals you come into contact with eventually age and die, their bloom of life before you fades, then the long slow decay and eventual collapse to corporal dust. Dracula has seen or caused this to happen to Helsing’s ancestors, has it affected him finally that he chooses to instead embrace Helsing in some manner of profound irony, as if to punctuate by rough counterpoint the pitfalls of immortality? Or is he hinting to me in his roundabout fashion that I should imbue Helsing with my chimera protein so as to inflict upon Helsing the cruel first hand perspective of what unshiftable weight actually accompanies the attainment of mankind's ultimate mantle? He could just turn Helsing into a vampire himself, but likely against Helsing’s will. Or…does Helsing have no offspring to further the honorable centuries-long family heritage battle with the fearsome Count Dracula?
As if reading my mind, Dracula offhandedly remarks that one of his brides had been for some fifteen years waiting in a strange state of purposefully postponed undead-sexual frustration to ‘allay her needs’ upon the person of Helsing. But then Helsing left just two nights prior to her lustful fulfillment of inflicting her intentions upon her intended. With a balloon burst "poof" my modeled scenarios of the possible unseen intentions of Dracula disappear with realization that his bride (one of three, I believe) must’ve been subjecting herself to some serious tease issues. For fifteen years. Ah.. so at this moment Dracula now also has to deal with another sort of weight that...
He interrupts my slow realization asking me what I think I will try next.
In the midst of a heavy strap-tightening struggle to more gainfully secure a frantic new specimen, and just as it was dawning on me that I was doing yet another of Igor’s assigned tasks, who should appear at my shoulder but Igor himself to tell me that Dracula was on line two. After assuring that Igor had a firm two handed grasp on the torso brace and also assisting an intern with unclogging an intestine bevel then directing the intern to help Igor, I took the call in the lunchroom.
Speaking with Dracula on the phone causes me to wonder: if Bram Stoker were alive today, and eavesdropping on our conversation, how many additional chapters might he suddenly feel compelled to write to reflect some drastic change in tone from those preceding parts of the Count's 'biography' concerning our present day contretemps with Detective Helsing, our common current nemesis. If not an implausible bloodline descendant of the Stoker book’s genteel Van Helsing than an accursed usurper of identity in some vile practice of self aggrandizement (for what strange purposed means to what non-incredulous law enforcement agency) is best left to the weighted scrutiny of perhaps not a biographer but an introspective composer of Victorian era science fiction? I then listen with suddenly sparked incredulity as the Count waxes in my ear his bemoanments of how long it might take me to scare Helsing back to Transylvania. He wants Helsing back?
The question hangs my sudden pause as I consider what reply other than a catalog of my efforts to that very end I have tried and succumbed failure to towards the result it seems now the both of us would prefer? He wants him back? I would offer to link the recorded video feed file of Helsing kept at bay atop the radiator in his room at the inn while a dozen of my rat size attack dachshunds with blazing eyes and lethal looking claws rend long swift menacing strokes in the inn's hardwood floor, but Dracula never took to computers and only recently deigned that the gatehouse of his castle could be electrified and a landline phone installed. Which is where I imagine he is placing this call to me from. I describe the scene with the dachsunds as far as I can without succumbing to the paroxysm of laughter I fell victim to upon my view of the original live feed, and I can hear the Count giggle at the description of the innkeeper’s wife, Frau Gruella Deichenstein, sweeping in (literally) and in two short deft broom swoops dispatching all eight of the miniaturized attack dachshunds. I clarify to the Count that the Frau is as vision-impaired as Igor and likely she surmised Helsing was cornered atop the radiator by mere rats. She acted so remarkably swiftly that the dachshunds could not have responded to her presence fast enough for her to realize that she may have risked considerable peril attempting to confront creatures that were of my handiwork. The villagers, with some long familiarity of the latter, generally regard my creatures as belonging to a ‘kill first, sup on remains progressively” pedigree so that a terror inspired protocol of precautionary fleeing is the deeply ingrained common response among the village populace when confronted with many (but not all) of my creations.
However - Dracula has phoned me, it seems, to inquire what my course of action might be to urge Helsing back to Transylvania. He wants Helsing back; this is contrary to what I would have expected to hear from him when it had been my very intent to drive Helsing there, guessing that Dracula had been glad to be rid if him and probably hadn’t given a second thought to where he might’ve gone, nor would likely be happy to see him return. Somehow he found out Helsing was here, in our village, which means that Dracula searched for where Helsing had gone?
Standing in the lunchroom I muse that Dracula, like me, is also an immortal being, and has been so for about 300 years longer than I have. As I pause waiting for him to say something I wonder - has the weight of this burden finally affected the Count into some profound realization of affection for Helsing, a perennial nemesis whose pursuit, like those of his ancestors, maybe now the Count sees as the only human constant in his life, a living counterpoint to the loneliness of his long immortality? Living forever, you watch any non-immortals you come into contact with eventually age and die, their bloom of life before you fades, then the long slow decay and eventual collapse to corporal dust. Dracula has seen or caused this to happen to Helsing’s ancestors, has it affected him finally that he chooses to instead embrace Helsing in some manner of profound irony, as if to punctuate by rough counterpoint the pitfalls of immortality? Or is he hinting to me in his roundabout fashion that I should imbue Helsing with my chimera protein so as to inflict upon Helsing the cruel first hand perspective of what unshiftable weight actually accompanies the attainment of mankind's ultimate mantle? He could just turn Helsing into a vampire himself, but likely against Helsing’s will. Or…does Helsing have no offspring to further the honorable centuries-long family heritage battle with the fearsome Count Dracula?
As if reading my mind, Dracula offhandedly remarks that one of his brides had been for some fifteen years waiting in a strange state of purposefully postponed undead-sexual frustration to ‘allay her needs’ upon the person of Helsing. But then Helsing left just two nights prior to her lustful fulfillment of inflicting her intentions upon her intended. With a balloon burst "poof" my modeled scenarios of the possible unseen intentions of Dracula disappear with realization that his bride (one of three, I believe) must’ve been subjecting herself to some serious tease issues. For fifteen years. Ah.. so at this moment Dracula now also has to deal with another sort of weight that...
He interrupts my slow realization asking me what I think I will try next.
Wily Detective Helsing and some small dogs
I instructed Igor to set the dogs loose for the purpose of flushing Detective Helsing from his decampment in the village. Keep in mind these dogs are not your run-of-the-mill rottweilers with spiked collars, tearing towards the village in picturesque rabid savagery. Have you ever seen those increasingly smaller versions of doberman pinschers? Now picture in your mind a short filmstrip revealing successively smaller generations of dachshunds. Yes, the little dogs that resemble a long sausage with short legs and a cute face. Through the efforts of my meddling I have succeeded in reducing dachshunds down to the size of rats. My ultimate goal is a mouse or even roach sized specimen.
When I first showed one of them to Igor he made the horrific assumption that I had merely elongated a rat and used brown shoe polish on it’s fur. Only after I held the snarling little beast within the focus area of Igor’s myopia did he recognize the canine genus dachsundius sausuaglius characteristic in it’s shrunken state. As it snapped viciously at his nose Igor looked even more closely and then inquired if this was Sizzler. Not Sizzler himself, I beamed, but a sixth generation clone. I was delightfully surprised that my reckless manipulation of Sizzler’s genetic donation had not resulted in further aberrations so horrific that a sixth generation replica did not visibly reveal distortions to physical characteristics beyond those purposefully intended. It caused a profound boost to my pride that even a visually impaired dolt like Igor was able to recognize Sizzler’s features in the clone’s, and that other than the glowing red eyes, razor-glistened double claws and reduced size it was indistinguishable from any normal dachshund. Indeed, in the longer view I am quite proud of the fact only about 96% of the results of my labours result in specimens too hideous for the unprofessional eye to behold without experiencing an immediate sense of loathing and broad scale prejudicial revulsion. The part that I don’t get is that these sensations are not reserved for any of the wretches thrashing in the formaldehyde of their display jars but for me?
Anyway, Igor has released a squad of these small dachshunds to see if we can’t inspire Helsing to practice his snoopery on some other proto-biologist’s castle lair. I have a hard time picturing Helsing’s superior’s justifying to themselves the decision to further the support of his investigative efforts following review of his field reports: “Newton-Steyn’s miniature attack dachshunds cornered me on top of the radiator in my room at the inn. The claws on these things could open a can of tuna with one swipe.”
I really need to call Dracula and get some kind of sounding on why Helsing is here instead of there in Transylvania camped outside of his castle. Their rivalry goes back through generations of Helsing blood lines; so to speak.
When I first showed one of them to Igor he made the horrific assumption that I had merely elongated a rat and used brown shoe polish on it’s fur. Only after I held the snarling little beast within the focus area of Igor’s myopia did he recognize the canine genus dachsundius sausuaglius characteristic in it’s shrunken state. As it snapped viciously at his nose Igor looked even more closely and then inquired if this was Sizzler. Not Sizzler himself, I beamed, but a sixth generation clone. I was delightfully surprised that my reckless manipulation of Sizzler’s genetic donation had not resulted in further aberrations so horrific that a sixth generation replica did not visibly reveal distortions to physical characteristics beyond those purposefully intended. It caused a profound boost to my pride that even a visually impaired dolt like Igor was able to recognize Sizzler’s features in the clone’s, and that other than the glowing red eyes, razor-glistened double claws and reduced size it was indistinguishable from any normal dachshund. Indeed, in the longer view I am quite proud of the fact only about 96% of the results of my labours result in specimens too hideous for the unprofessional eye to behold without experiencing an immediate sense of loathing and broad scale prejudicial revulsion. The part that I don’t get is that these sensations are not reserved for any of the wretches thrashing in the formaldehyde of their display jars but for me?
Anyway, Igor has released a squad of these small dachshunds to see if we can’t inspire Helsing to practice his snoopery on some other proto-biologist’s castle lair. I have a hard time picturing Helsing’s superior’s justifying to themselves the decision to further the support of his investigative efforts following review of his field reports: “Newton-Steyn’s miniature attack dachshunds cornered me on top of the radiator in my room at the inn. The claws on these things could open a can of tuna with one swipe.”
I really need to call Dracula and get some kind of sounding on why Helsing is here instead of there in Transylvania camped outside of his castle. Their rivalry goes back through generations of Helsing blood lines; so to speak.
Mary Shelley (1 of many)
Ever since I met Mary Shelley and acceded to her solicitude for my collusion with an “embellished biography” of my work, I have been fascinated to continue to follow the extended coattails of that one story. Even years after Mary's passing I am intrigued at the vast industry of indulgent invention behind the myriad of interpretations. I am flattered for her. I reserve gratuitous self absorption for the efforts of my actual work; not the ludicrous charade as it is often depicted to be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)