Absurdist tales and writerly allusions
Stories by a mischievous wordsmith — and a serious look at how to take care of our brain
‘BEHIND THE ELECTRONIC IRON CURTAIN: TALES OF HUMOR AND MYSTERY’ By Clyde James Aragón (2022, 151 pp.)
What we have here is a writer with too much time on his hands.
Fantasy tales involving a friend of Dorian Gray who discovers at last how the furniture of that London libertine stays so pristine (little hungry shapeshifting gnomes?). A doctor travels back in time “to fix the great bane of history — premature death,” so that notable figures who died too young such as Tutankhamun and Rudolph Valentino could live out their lives to the fullest. And how about an exploration into the actual purpose of the Manhattan Project, which was to concoct a world-war-winning cocktail by those brilliant physicists, namely the Manhattan — “a drink developed in the mid-1800s … in dire need of improvement, especially with the U-boats prowling the seas, making it next to impossible to import Angostura bitters.”
As FDR is quoted as fretting: “How are we going to get people to fight for freedom if they don’t have something superior to drink?”
In these two dozen or so absurdist tales and flights of writerly fancy, author Clyde James Aragón, native of New Mexico, a journalist and playwright now living in Albuquerque, muses over many recherché topics, often inspired by his favorite stories and films such as “The Island of Dr. Moreau.”
In his version (“The Really Hot Island of Dr. Moreau”), the narrator Mr. Pembrook is being chased by a habanero pepper, as the mad scientist vivisector Dr. Moreau is experimenting on vegetables rather than animals, and especially the chile. Indeed, he has created a whole new species of being: Homo capsicum, aka Chile Pepper Man.
“But why chiles?” Mr. Pembrook asks the mad doctor.
“They are the most intelligent of all vegetables,” Dr. Moreau replies. “Their very fieriness hides their innate cunning and their extraordinary spirit, a spirit not found in the torpid potato, the weepy onion, the insipid asparagus or the indifferent cauliflower.”
Each tale here packs some imaginative munition — and evident deep reading as well — such as the “Iceberg Diary,” which is told from “the other side” of the Titanic tragedy, namely the point of view of the beleaguered iceberg.
“I was born in Greenland in 1911,” this forlorn entity writes in a diary of its last days. “My mother was a glacier. My father worked in the snow cone industry and traveled a lot.” The approaching ship and subsequent collision have deeply injured the hapless iceberg, leaving it “round and worn.” It drifts endlessly southward, while it rehearses the terrible event and feels wracked by guilt. It signs off: “Goodbye warm cruel world.”
Author Aragón, in the best literary traditions, plays with ambiguity and wit and prods the reader by his imaginative leaps to go back to the original sources.
‘HOW MY BRAINS WORKS: A GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING IT BETTER AND KEEPING IT HEALTHY’
“Neuropsychology can be seen as a bridge between medicine and psychology,” the longtime practicing neuropsychologist author explains in this elucidating and practical study. “If you want to go on the journey to improving your brain functioning, you need a ‘road map’ of that functioning, and neuropsychological evaluation is that map.”
She begins with ways of evaluating the brain — testing that is not an MRI, CT or EEG, but rather a clinical interview, combined with testing of cognitive functioning, personality and emotional functioning, and a discussion of the scoring results. This might take from two to four appointments with the specialist and should be a positive experience, notes the author. “You should believe that you’re finally on the right road to self-improvement and self-fulfillment.”
Although Dr. Koltuska-Haskin’s work is not a new title, it is noteworthy as brain health increasingly preoccupies our society and its concomitant issues of memory loss, lack of concentration, trauma and dementia.
Who needs to see a neuropsychologist? Some of the patients the author describes from her Albuquerque practice are those urged to come in by spouses who are “at the end of their rope.” The patients are often found to have long undiagnosed cognitive issues such as depression or ADHD or traumatic brain injuries. She writes that much of her practice is related to evaluating dementia disorder — “one of the most difficult and time-consuming evaluations because it requires a very comprehensive art-and-science approach.” It is a delicate diagnosis “because of the end-of-life trauma related to the disease.”
Ensuring brain health through diet (such as certain herbs, which the author grows herself), sleep, exercise, meditation and active learning (brain games, reading, music, dancing) dominates the second half of this valuable study. She underscores that some people might never return to previous levels of functioning but that they will “still be able to function quite well in everyday and professional life and enjoy living.”
By Barbara Koltuska-Haskin Golden Word Books (2020, 133 pp.)