Santa School circa. 1961

With Christmas being so close you can almost taste the egg nog, I thought I’d better step up my Yuletide game here at MessyNessyChic. So let’s hop on our slay and travel back in time to 1961 Albion, New York and take a tour inside Santa School … (it’s basically better than Lapland).

Established in 1937, the Charles Howard’s Santa Claus School actually still exists today, now operating out of Michigan and proudly claiming the title of the world’s oldest Santa School. Candidates pictured here in 1961 by LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt have signed up for a 5-day, $75 course in the hopes of receiving a Santa certificate that will enable them to get Yuletide jobs at local department stores.

Above, a Santa Clauses is put through his paces during a practice session with child volunteers (it is unclear whether these children have previously caught their parents putting presents under the tree and are therefore now non-believers, suitable for Santa training).

Demonstrating how to wear the Santa suit. 

Six of the 15 men enrolled in Santa Claus School learning how to render a jolly belly laugh.

Two men in Santa gear learning how to do a spritely soft-shoe dance.

Learning how wear wigs and whiskers.

Founder Charles Howard showing students how much of Santa’s face should show between wig and beard.

 

 

 

 

This certifies that …. has honorably and diligently completed the course in the study and art of Santa Claus, and is now ready to carry on as a Helper of Santa Claus. 

As holder of this diploma, I fully realize the responsibility and privilege that is mine in spreading joy and happiness to the children of this world through their beloved friend and servant, Santa Claus. 

I hereby sincerely and solemnly promise to give my best, my all to carry out the principles Santa Claus stands for. 

All images (c) Life Archives

The Hidden Story of Christmas

 

Vanderbilt Ball How a costume ball changed New York elite society

In the spring of 1883, the solemnity of Lent didn’t stand a chance against the social event on the mind of all of New York’s elite society: Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt’s fancy dress ball. The invitations had been hand delivered by servants in livery, young socialites had been practicing quadrilles (dances performed with four couples in a rectangular formation) for weeks, and “amid the rush and excitement of business, men have found their minds haunted by uncontrollable thoughts as to whether they should appear as Robert Le Diable, Cardinal Richelieu, Otho the Barbarian, or the Count of Monte Cristo, while the ladies have been driven to the verge of distraction in the effort to settle the comparative advantages of ancient, medieval, and modern costumes” (New York Times). The best dressmakers and cobblers had spent months poring over old books making costumes — which were already being breathlessly described by the New York Times — as historically accurate as possible.

Prior to the ball, Gilded Age New York society had been dominated by the Mrs. Astor. (Emphasis, hers – to even ask which Astor was a sure sign that you were thoroughly ignorant in the most basic points of New York’s social hierarchy.) Mrs. Caroline Schermerhorn Astor and self-appointed “society expert” Ward McAllister were the authorities in all things upper class. It was up to them to decide if your last name was venerable enough or if your bloodlines were pure enough for entry into the upper ranks of society. They were the champions of old money and tradition.

But New York’s social hierarchy is not known for being static. Thanks to the meteoric increase in millionaires in New York due to the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution, many of whose fortunes rivaled or even surpassed the oldest of families, Mrs. Astor and Ward McAllister had a whole new challenge in deciding who of the nouveau riche was acceptable. This led to the creation of the famous List of 400 — the Four Hundred people who were New York’s high society. One family that they deemed wholly unsuitable were the Vanderbilts. The willful crassness of Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, the ambitious entrepreneurial shipping and railroad industry mogul, and patriarch of the family, was still the stuff of legends.

The Commodore’s grandson, William Kissam Vanderbilt, married the determined, pugilistic and socially ambitious Alva Erksine Smith from Mobile, Alabama (but schooled in Paris). Alva made it her mission to bring the Vanderbilts into what she thought was their proper place in society, and onto the list of the 400.

Her first move? Building an opulent French château style mansion designed by Richard Morris Hunt at 660 Fifth Avenue at 52nd street that literally overshadowed the dour, albeit luxurious, town homes that lined the avenue.




H.N. Tiemann & Co. 1898. 5th Avenue north from 52nd Street. Museum of the City of New York. X2010.11.4755.


As grand as the mansion was, the ball which served as her housewarming party was even grander. On March 26, 1883 Alva threw one of the most incredible parties that New York had ever seen. With her access to seemingly endless amounts of money, she used every available resource – including the power of the press by inviting journalists to come in and preview the decorations before the ball began – to build excitement and to make it bigger than any ball before it. According to an apocryphal tale, Alva used what was possibly the simplest weapon in her arsenal to gain admission to the New York 400: good old fashioned manipulation. The story goes, that like all marriageable young girls Mrs. Astor’s daughter, Carrie, was anxiously awaiting her invitation and even began practicing for a quadrille with her friends. Then the unthinkable happened: all of her friends got their invitations and hers never came. She immediately got her mother on the case. Due to complex social customs, Alva claimed she could not invite Miss Astor since Mrs. Astor had never called on the Vanderbilt home. Mrs. Astor really had no choice but to drop her visiting card at 660 5th Avenue, thus formally acknowledging the Vanderbilts. The Astors’ invitation was received the next day.

At ten in the evening carriages began arriving at 660 5th Avenue, dropping off nearly 1200 outrageously costumed members of the highest ranks of society. Crowds, held back by police, strained to catch glimpses of debutantes and society stalwarts attired in their costumes as they were escorted into the mansion. Even Mrs. Astor (with her daughter) and Ward McAllister were there.

It is easy to see the casual display of over-the-top excess of the ball in these portraits of attendees in their costumes taken by Mora.

Miss Edith Fish was dressed as the Duchess of Burgundy, with real sapphires, rubies and emeralds studding the front of the dress.



Mora (b.1849). Miss Edith Fish (later Hon. Mrs. Oliver Northcote). 1883. Museum of the City of New York. 41.132.45.


Mora (b. 1849). Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II (neé Alice Claypoole Gwynne. 1883. Museum of the City of New York. F2012.58.1341.



One of the most amazing costumes was Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II ‘s representation of “Electric Light” which even had a torch that lit up, thanks to batteries hidden in her dress. The dress is actually in the Museum’s costume collection and you can see it as it looked on Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt II in the cabinet card below, and how stunning it is in the full color collection image. (To take a closer look at the dress, visit our Worth/Mainbocher online exhibition here.)



Charles Frederick Worth House of Worth (Firm) Jean-Phillippe Worth (1856-1926). Fancy dress ensemble, “Electric Light,” worn by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt at the 1883 Vanderbilt Ball. 1883. Museum of the City of New York. 51.284.3A-H

At exactly 11:30 the ball began with the hobby-horse quadrille, the first of five quadrilles where the young people of society danced down the grand staircase in lavish costumes.

Dancers in the Dresden Quadrille wore all-white court costumes evoking the time of Frederick the Great and giving them the eerie and intentional look of living porcelain dolls.

For the Opera Bouffe quadrille, the costumes were just as elaborate. The New York Times described a dress as, “Miss Bessie Webb appeared as Mme. Le Diable in a red satin dress with a black velvet demon embroidered on it and the entire dress trimmed with demon fringe-that is to say, with a fringe ornamented with the heads and horns of little demons.” It’s not everyday that you hear the term “demon fringe”.

Speaking of things that you don’t hear or see on a daily basis, Miss Kate Fearing Strong wore a peculiar cat costume. Miss Strong, who Henry James described as “youthful and precocious,” went as her nickname “Puss”. Somewhat disturbingly, the entire costume consisted of a taxidermied cat head as seen in the image, but also seven cat tails sewn onto her skirt. Continuing with the animal theme, Alva’s sister-in-law went as a hornet, with an imported headdress made of diamonds.

After the last quadrille ended, the ball really began. Dozens of Louis XVIs, a King Lear “in his right mind”, Joan of Arc, Venetian noblewomen and hundreds of other costumed figures danced and drank among the flower filled house, including the third floor gymnasium that had been converted into a forest filled with palm trees and draped with bougainvillaeas and orchids. Dinner was served at 2 in the morning by the chefs of Delmonico’s working with the Vanderbilt’s small army of servants. The dancing continued until the sun was rising, diamonds and other jewels glinting in the changing light. Alva led her guests in one final Virginia reel and just like that, the ball was over. The fantasy world that Alva created turned back into reality as men in powdered wigs stumbled down Fifth Avenue, much to the amusement of children on their way to school.

Most contemporary sources put the cost of the ball at $250,000 (nearly 6 million dollars in today’s money), including such costs as $65,000 for champagne and $11,000 for flowers. It was conspicuous consumption at its finest and it worked. Newspapers across the country reported the most minute details and extolled Alva’s tastes and classiness. (This is not to say that there wasn’t a backlash to the ball. The New York Sun published this very stern article, critiquing the excess when there was so much suffering in the same city.). But as of March 27, 1883 the Vanderbilts were at the top of a new New York society that was not just limited to 400 people.

 

Via the Musuem of the City of New York #GildedNY

by Susannah Broyles, Digital Project Cataloger

Headstones with unusual stories to tell: The diver who saved a cathedral

William Walker was a deep-sea diver who, in 1905, was employed to help repair the foundations of Winchester Cathedral.

Large cracks had appeared in the cathedral's walls and vaulted ceilings, some of which were wide enough for owls to roost in.

Because Winchester has a high underlying water table and the cathedral is built on peaty soil, trenches dug below filled with water before any reinforcing work could be done.

So Walker, who usually worked at Portsmouth dockyard, was recruited.

A tunnel was excavated beneath the building and for six years he spent nearly six hours a day underwater, in darkness, replacing and shoring up the foundations with his bare hands. He worked entirely by touch. Eventually he propped the cathedral up with 900,000 bricks, 114,900 concrete blocks and 25,800 bags of cement.

Because it took him so long to put on and take off his heavy diving suit, when he stopped for a break he would just take off his helmet in order to eat his lunch and smoke his pipe.

As if that was not enough effort, each weekend he cycled 150 miles - home to Croydon, south London, before returning to work on Monday.

He died aged 49 during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. His grave, at Beckenham Cemetery in Bromley, south-east London, bears the words: "The diver who with his own hands saved Winchester Cathedral."

 Read more 

Headstones with unusual stories to tell: Peter the Wild Boy

Peter had been found living alone and naked in a German forest in 1725. He could not talk, and would scamper about on all fours rather than walk.

When he was about 12 he was brought to London by King George I where he became a "human pet" at Kensington Palace. However, his inability to learn table manners or speech, hatred of wearing clothes - even his specially-made green velvet suit - and lack of decorum led to him falling out of favor.

The court paid for him to retire to a Hertfordshire farm with a generous pension and when he died, aged about 72, the locals paid for a headstone. Even today, flowers are laid on his grave.

Peter's funeral was held at St Mary's Church, Northchurch, Hertfordshire, and was paid for by the government. His gravestone was provided by local people.

At the time, courtiers assumed Peter's behavior was the result of being brought up by wolves or bears. However, modern analysis of a portrait suggests Peter had a rare genetic condition known as Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome.


Read more 

Headstones with unusual stories to tell: The soldier whose beer was too weak

In Winchester, there is a grave which pays homage to a 26-year-old grenadier in the North Regiment of the Hants Militia. Thomas Thetcher died after drinking contaminated small (weak) beer when he was hot.

Before the invention of modern sanitation, people would drink small beer when fresh water was unavailable. This was because the alcohol was toxic to water-borne pathogens.

However, it was not enough to prevent Thetcher catching a fever and dying.

Following his death in 1764, his comrades arranged for a jocular headstone inscription warning of the dangers of drink. It read:

Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier,

Who caught his death by drinking cold small beer,

Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall

And when ye're hot drink strong or none at all.

In 1918, the tombstone caught the attention of a young American soldier called Bill Wilson, who was camped nearby with his US Army unit.

Twenty-one years later, following a battle with alcoholism, he founded Alcoholics Anonymous and in 1939 published a book about his experience.

In it he claimed the gravestone had been an "ominous warning which I failed to heed", and printed the first two lines of the verse in the front of his book.

However, it appears he misunderstood the headstone, as he missed out the crucial advice about only drinking strong beer.

On 12 May - the anniversary of Thetcher's death - people gather at the grave to drink (strong) beer and raise a glass to the grenadier.

Read more 

Headstones with unusual stories to tell: The barmaid who taunted a tiger

In 1703, Hannah Twynnoy became Britain's first recorded victim of a tiger.

She was a barmaid at the White Lion in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, when a travelling menagerie set up in the pub's large rear yard, ready to attract paying crowds.

Hannah was warned against upsetting the tiger but she enjoyed bothering and poking at the big cat - until one day it discovered the cage door was open. Fed up of the pesky barmaid, the tiger launched itself on the unfortunate servant and mauled her to death.

The stone, in Malmesbury Abbey has the epitaph:

In bloom of life

She's snatched from hence

She had not room to make defence;

For Tyger fierce

Took life away

And here she lies

In a bed of clay

Until the Resurrection Day.

 Read more 

Kenneth Atchity's Door to Door

 An Eclectic Omnivorous Newsletter!

Ken Atchity's Door to Door

#LOL

 

100-Year-Old Box of Negatives Discovered Frozen In Block of Antarctica’s Ice

Imagine discovering a 100-year-old box of photographic negatives frozen in the ice of Antarctica! That's exactly what happened to researchers at the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust.

After being frozen for a century, the negatives had to be gently restored by first separating one from another, then cleaning, removing the mold, and consolidating the cellulose nitrate image layers. Only after this painstaking process were they turned into digital positives.

Cellulose nitrate negatives were found blocked together, so Wellington photography conservator have spent many hours restoring them until they revealed their secrets.

As stated in the Trust's media release, the box of photographs was probably left in Captain Scott’s hut by Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, an expedition stranded after their ship floated away to the sea during a massive blizzard. The group was finally rescued, but only after three men had already been lost.

Alexander Stevens on Aurora deck, chief scientist and geologist.

Iceberg and land, Ross Island.

Alexander Stevens on the Aurora.

Big Razorback Island, McMurdo Sound. It was most likely taken from the deck of the Aurora in January 1915.

This photo was taken from the deck of the Aurora looking South to Hut Point Peninsula.

See more images on the Trust’s website: nzaht.org (via: petapixel)

#LOL

 

Can We Grow Our Spirits As Fast As Our Tech?

by Bob Rivenbark 

Get The Cloud: A Speculative Fiction Novel On Amazon Today!

We’re plunging into a future of stupendous technological wonders. AI. VR. Bioengineering. Can we manage these breakthroughs wisely—or will they destroy us?

After Europe rediscovered classical Greek philosophy through medieval Arabic translations, it sparked the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution. Stupendous achievements. But at what cost?

As literacy, technology, and science expanded, so did the human ego. Eventually, many felt the ego had replaced God.

But humanity can’t live without worship. The result: disastrous social and political revolutions: fascism, communism, Nazism—regimes worshipping strongmen such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.

Those who don’t worship charismatics tyrants can worship science and technology instead. Science and technology answer the deep human yearning to know “How can we do it?” But they can’t answer, “Why should we do it? And what will it mean if we do?”

Robert Rivenbark’s speculative fiction novel THE CLOUD dramatizes the horrors we may face if we can’t reconnect with our spiritual roots. We’re becoming a race of technocratic supermen with the maturity of infants. Can we save ourselves in time? 

Visit www.thecloudnovel.com to learn more.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

 

86 years ago on October 30th... by Joey Kent

86 years ago, my fifteen-year-old dad woke up on the couch of a friend in New York, and they decided to go shake things up at Radio City Music Hall, so he and 23-year-old Orson Welles went and made the whole "War of the Worlds" thing. "We're gonna scare the shit out of people tonight," Orson told my dad. "Mark my words." 

And the next day, after recording the broadcast for posterity since they weren't required to do so the night prior, but the FCC damn sure wanted a record of it when the sun came up, Orson looked at my dad and simply said, "I told you so." Orson predicted his innovative movie production "Citizen Kane" would do for movies what "War of the Worlds" had done for radio. Once again, Orson was right, and he sent this headshot to my father and inscribed it in a way my father would understand and appreciate.

 

Dennis Palumbo - How Therapists Are Depicted In Film & Television

 

On The Stuph File Program radio show, Dennis Palumbo, one of my favorite mystery writers, is also a psychotherapist. He talks about how his profession is depicted in film & television. 

He wrote an essay for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine about this topic entitled "Your Shrinks Might Need To Be Shrunk". He was also the Consulting Producer on the recent Hulu series, "The Patient", which is about a therapist held hostage by a serial killer hoping to be cured of his homicidal tendencies. His thriller series contains six Dr. Daniel Rinaldi novels, with the latest one being "Panic Attack."

Available on Amazon

Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Role of Literature in Formation

Pope Francis, in his letter on the role of literature in formation dated August 4th, extols the value of reading novels and poetry as an indispensable tool for the personal and spiritual growth of every Christian, including the missionaries of the Congregation of the Mission founded by St. Vincent de Paul.

Literature is not just a means of entertainment but a vehicle for exploring and understanding the depths of the human soul, fostering a fruitful dialogue with contemporary culture, and enhancing the empathetic and pastoral capacity of ecclesial workers. Pope Francis calls for a radical shift in the formation of priests, valuing literature as an essential component of their educational journey:

“With this writing, I wish to propose a radical shift concerning the great attention that, in the context of the formation of candidates for the priesthood, must be paid to literature.”

Summary and Commentary of the Chapters

Pope Francis begins by emphasizing how the reading of novels and poetry is crucial in the personal maturation journey of every Christian, including priests and pastoral agents. He notes that finding a good book can offer relief during moments of solitude and difficulty, opening new inner spaces and preventing entrenchment in obsessive ideas. In an era dominated by digital media, this practice retains its irreplaceable value.

The Pope reflects on the active role of the reader in enjoying a literary work. Unlike audiovisual media, reading stimulates the imagination and creativity, allowing the reader to rewrite and expand the text with their personal experience. This process enriches both the reader and the work itself, creating a unique and personal synthesis with each new reading.

Pope Francis criticizes the scant attention paid to literature in the training paths of future priests. He argues that neglecting literature leads to intellectual and spiritual impoverishment, depriving seminarians of privileged access to the heart of human culture. He thus proposes a radical change that integrates literature as an essential part of priestly formation.

The Holy Father highlights how literature allows for an authentic dialogue with contemporary culture. Quoting the Second Vatican Council, the Pope states that literature expresses the human condition, illustrating its joys and sufferings. Ignoring literature means losing the opportunity to understand and interact with various cultures and their deepest expressions. Sharing his experience as a literature teacher, Pope Francis recounts how he encouraged his students to read authors they were interested in, then guided them towards a broader passion for literature. This method has shown that approaching literature through what one loves can lead to a deeper and more lasting discovery of the love of reading.

Faith and culture

For a believer, literature becomes an indispensable means of entering into dialogue with the lives of people and the culture of their time. The Pope reiterates that literature, by expressing real life events, allows one to speak to the hearts of men and grasp the presence of the Spirit in human events.

“Contact with different literary and grammatical styles will always allow for deepening the polyphony of Revelation without reducing or impoverishing it to one’s historical requirements or mental structures.”

Never a Christ without flesh

Pope Francis draws attention to the current religious context, characterized by a return to the sacred and a spiritual quest that can be ambiguous. He emphasizes the importance of not offering a “Christ without flesh” but of proclaiming an incarnate Jesus Christ, made human and historical. This is essential to adequately respond to people’s thirst for God. According to the Pope, literature helps future priests develop a sensitivity to the full humanity of the Lord Jesus, allowing them to proclaim the Gospel in a way that truly touches the concrete lives of people.

“an assiduous frequentation of literature can make future priests and all pastoral agents even more sensitive to the full humanity of the Lord Jesus, in which His divinity is fully poured out, and to proclaim the Gospel.”

A great good

In this chapter, Pope Francis illustrates the multiple practical benefits of reading. Reading improves vocabulary, stimulates imagination and creativity, helps to express oneself better, improves concentration, and reduces stress and anxiety. Moreover, reading prepares people to understand and face various life situations. Quoting famous authors, the Pope highlights how reading allows one to live intense and diversified experiences in a short time, broadening our understanding of the world and of ourselves.

“In reading, we dive into the characters, the concerns, the dramas, the dangers, the fears of the people who have ultimately overcome the challenges of life.”

Listening to someone’s voice

Pope Francis cites Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, highlighting the importance of direct contact with literature and “listening to someone’s voice.” Reading sensitizes one to the mystery of others and helps to touch their hearts. This process is essential for believers and particularly for priests whose task is to touch the hearts of contemporary human beings. Literature and poetry, with their ability to move, offer an unparalleled contribution to this effort.

“Here is a definition of literature that I like very much: listening to someone’s voice. And do not forget how dangerous it is to stop listening to the voice of the other who calls out to us!”

A sort of gym of discernment

Literature is described as a “gym of discernment” that refines the inner and outer scrutiny capacities of future priests. By reading, seminarians learn to navigate between salvation and perdition, living the act of reading as a process of discernment. Literature stimulates the reader to explore their own inner truths, offering a safe space to confront anxieties and spiritual crises. This exercise is compared to the Ignatian experience of “desolation,” where inner turmoil can lead to greater awareness and growth.

“The act of reading is then like an act of “discernment,” thanks to which the reader is personally involved as a “subject” of reading and at the same time as an “object” of what he reads.”

Attention and digestion

According to Pope Francis, reading is like a “telescope” that focuses on the complexity of human experience. Literature helps to slow down, contemplate, and listen, counterbalancing the tendency towards efficiency and superficiality. The reading process is compared to “digestion,” an action that allows one to assimilate and interpret life in depth. This hospitable approach to reality fosters a more complete and sensitive understanding of people and situations.

“literature helps us to say our presence in the world, to “digest” and assimilate it, capturing what goes beyond the surface of life; it serves, therefore, to interpret life, discerning its fundamental meanings and tensions.”

Seeing through the eyes of others

By reading, one acquires the ability to “see through the eyes of others,” expanding our humanity and developing empathy. Literature allows us to identify with the experiences of others, fostering solidarity, compassion, and mercy. This process makes us more sensitive to the sufferings and joys of others and helps us better understand their lives and desires. Reading thus becomes an experience of personal growth and human sharing.

“When one reads a story, thanks to the author’s vision, everyone imagines in their own way the tears of an abandoned girl, the elderly woman covering her sleeping grandson’s body, the passion of a small entrepreneur trying to move forward despite difficulties, the humiliation of one who feels criticized by everyone, the boy who dreams as the only way out of the pain of a miserable and violent life.”

The spiritual power of literature

Pope Francis concludes by highlighting the crucial role of literature in the education of the heart and mind of future priests. Literature frees language from static conventions, allowing for greater spiritual openness. Furthermore, it recalls the primary task entrusted by God to man: to “name” beings and things, giving them meaning and creating communion. This affinity between priest and poet manifests in a ministry of listening and compassion, where the literary word becomes a vehicle for the divine Word.

“The spiritual power of literature finally recalls the primary task entrusted by God to man: the task of “naming” beings and things (cf. Gn 2:19-20). The mission of guardian of creation assigned by God to Adam passes first and foremost through the recognition of the reality and meaning of the existence of other beings. The priest is also invested with this original task of “naming,” of giving meaning, of becoming an instrument of communion between creation and the Word made flesh and of its power to illuminate every aspect of the human condition.”

Literature as an access route to the mysteries of man

The Pope concludes by affirming that literature uncovers the abysses of the human soul and helps pastors engage in fruitful dialogue with contemporary culture. Literature is an “access route” that makes future priests more sensitive to the full humanity of the Lord Jesus, promoting a proclamation of the Gospel that authentically resonates in the hearts of people.

Pope Francis’s letter is an invitation to rediscover the spiritual power of literature in priestly formation. For the missionaries of the Congregation of the Mission, this means embracing reading as a tool for personal and pastoral growth, to better understand and accompany humanity in its search for meaning and redemption. Literature thus becomes an indispensable traveling companion for every missionary, capable of enriching their vocation and service. Especially for confreres engaged in Vocational Pastoral Ministry, literature can be the means to help in discerning those young people who wish to approach the Vincentian charism to clothe themselves in Christ and to serve the poor in the best possible way!

Girolamo Grammatico

Communication Office

Via Congregation of the Mission Global 

ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE Features Dennis Palumbo's "The Patient" and My Patients!

 

“The Patient” and My Patients (by Dennis Palumbo, M.A., MFT)

Dennis Palumbo, M.A., MFT is a writer and licensed psychotherapist in private practice, specializing in creative issues, primarily in the entertainment industry. His award-winning series of mystery thrillers—Mirror Image, Fever Dream, Night Terrors, Phantom Limb, Head Wounds and the latest, Panic Attack—feature psychologist and trauma expert Daniel Rinaldi. He’s also the author of Writing From the Inside Out, as well as a collection of mystery short stories, From Crime to Crime. Recently he served as Consulting Producer on the Hulu limited series The Patient, and here (in an article first published in the journal Capital Psychiatry) he tells us about how the play out of the television crime drama affected his real-life patients.

After seventeen years as a Hollywood screenwriter (the film My Favorite Year; the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), I retired from show business and have been a licensed psychotherapist in private practice for over thirty years. During this time, my writing has been confined to articles and reviews, as well as a series of mystery novels whose protagonist is a psychologist. My point is, it’s been so long since I was a dues-paying member of the Hollywood industry that I was quite surprised to hear from the team of Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg. Writers of the award-winning TV series The Americans, they’d reached out to me to act as advisor on a new show they were developing. Called The Patient, it was about a serial killer who kidnaps and holds hostage a well-known therapist, in hopes that he can “cure” the killer of his homicidal urges.

Apparently, my former career as a script writer and my current one as a therapist prompted them to see me as a reasonable person to act as consultant on the new series. Essentially, what they wanted was for me to vet each episode’s scripts for clinical accuracy and to “make sure the therapist sounded like a therapist”—or as much like one as possible given the bizarre circumstances of the show’s premise.

Over the coming months, I did my best to keep the narrative within the range of plausibility, including suggesting the occasional line of dialogue or therapeutic interpretation.  Just as we were finishing the script for the last episode, it was announced that Steve Carell had been cast as the therapist. A wonderful actor, he’d been given a salt-and-pepper beard and glasses. Whether or not it was conscious on the writers’ part, he looked somewhat like me. Which, at the time, I just found amusing.

My working relationship with Fields and Weisberg was one of the most pleasant professional experiences of my life. Moreover, the two writers were very gracious about my contribution when doing PR interviews leading up to the series premiere.  During one such interview, when writing up the story for Newsweek, the reporter off-handedly mentioned that Carell’s character looked like me.

It wasn’t until the series began airing on Hulu that the ramifications of this became apparent in my therapy practice. A number of patients who’d begun watching the show pointed out that Carell’s therapist character looked a lot like me, and on occasion even sounded like me. (No surprise, since I’d suggested some of the therapeutic comments the therapist made.) Naturally, I had to process this with these patients, some of whom were quite upset at seeing the therapist chained to a bed, helpless. More than one half-jokingly worried that the series’ premise would give “some crazy person” the idea of kidnapping me. Did I feel I was in danger? they asked. I answered honestly that I didn’t, while privately wondering why I’d never even entertained that idea when working on the show.

Moreover, had I been unforgivably clueless in not anticipating this reaction from my patients? I reminded myself that Steve Carell hadn’t been cast until the series’ scripts were almost finished, that I had no idea he’d be playing the therapist, and certainly no idea how they were going to make him look. Yet I still felt pangs of remorse for the distress the show’s depiction of the therapist was causing for some of my patients.

As the weeks went on, and episode after episode aired, it became obvious that seeing an avatar of their therapist was upsetting to a number of my patients. Of equal interest during sessions was the reaction of those patients who found the whole thing amusing, or at least presented it as such. They even joked with me about the series’ story-telling: why didn’t the therapist try harder to escape? Why didn’t he just refuse to talk to the serial killer? Is this how you would react in this situation, Dennis?

Of course, the narrative choices displayed on-screen were made by the show’s writers, not me. I was merely the consultant. But this didn’t matter. What did matter, and what ended up being of real clinical interest (and value) was what some patients’ transferential connection to the therapist character and the story revealed about both their own core issues and their relationship with me. As Robert Stolorow has reiterated, there is only subjectivity and context; in this unusual situation, there was a patient’s subjective experience of me in the context of our therapeutic relationship, and then a kind of meta-subjectivity/context experience through the narrative of a TV series.

(SPOILER ALERT: I’m going to discuss the series’ final episode)

For a select few of my patients, as I’d expected, it was the series’ final episode that elicited the strongest reaction. Not only does the therapist fail to escape, he’s strangled to death on-screen by the serial-killer patient. This horrible murder is hardly ameliorated by the killer’s decision to send an anonymous letter to the therapist’s family, telling them where they can find the body so it can have a proper funeral. The last time we see the serial killer, he’s the one chained to the bed, his mother holding the key to the chain’s lock. Since she’s known all along about her son’s activities, we’re left to wonder if/when she’ll release him to potentially kill again.   

A couple patients revealed that they’d cried at the end, one of them pointing an accusing finger at me and saying, “You better not fucking die!” Again, said half-jokingly. And yet, not. The few others who’d stayed with the show all the way to the end were angry at both the series’ writers and at me. Their reactions ranged from disbelief (“How could they end a show like that? How come the killer gets away with it?”)  to frustration (“That’s not fair to the viewers. We deserved a better ending.”) to simple creative criticism (“I hate ambiguous endings.”).

As difficult as the sessions were with these patients over the course of the series’ run (including my own guilt at having put them through it), some of the clinical work that arose from our discussions was quite beneficial. A greater understanding of the contextual nature of our therapist/patient relationship undoubtably occurred. Moreover, we often reached a deeper understanding of the dependency/resentment dynamic at work in the therapeutic dyad. And, in one or two cases, the discussion regarding the show was a springboard to a more energized, proactive engagement on the patient’s part.

Still, I have somewhat mixed feelings about my participation in the series. It was often an exhilarating experience, due primarily to the talent, receptivity and warmth of both Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg. And while I regret the distress that the lead character’s words and looks evoked in a few of my patients, I also felt this similarity led to real forward progress in our work together.  A potential disjunction becoming a fruitful conjunction.

That said, if I’m ever asked to consult on another series, my only hope is that the lead character looks like someone else.

via Something is going to happen 

The Last Female Eagle Hunter of Mongolia: A Captivating Portrait of an Ancient Tradition

German photographer Leo Thomas recently traveled to the Altai region in Western Mongolia to document the ancient art of eagle hunting. This traditional form of falconry has been practiced for thousands of years by a small group of nomads who train birds of prey to help hunt wild animals such as foxes and small hares

While most eagle hunters today are male, Thomas had the opportunity to meet one of just ten eagle huntresses in Mongolia: Zamanbol, a member of a Kazakh nomad family who spends her weekdays in school in the city and her weekends training with her trusted eagle alongside her 26-year-old brother Barzabai.

Thomas captured stunning images of Zamanbol on horseback, dressed in handmade fur clothing, and emitting a free-spirited strength and unbreakable bond with her eagle. Through his lens, he also documented the beauty of the Altai region and the unique culture of the eagle hunters.

Via Hasan Jasim Online