What I've Been Up To: Joy in movement, snake-women and people I wish I'd been
What I've Been Reading
I may have mentioned earlier that I'm a big fan of the McGonigal sisters. Jane McGonigal hugely influenced my thinking about the value of play and was a mainstay of my courses on that subject, while Kelly manages to deliver everything I need to know about the science of mind-body connection in a way that makes it both comprehensible and entertaining. Her latest book, The Joy of Movement, explaines why exercise, from dance to crossfit, not only does us good but makes us feel good: "physical activity changes your brain in ways that are similar to having a child or falling in love." A lot of this is due to muscles producing myokines, a.k.a. hope molecules, which aside from performing a lot of useful physical functions like metabolic regulation, tissue repair and immune system enhancement, have profound effects on the brain. One myokine, irisin, is a natural antidepressant, while another, glial-derived neurotrophic factor, protects dopamine neurons. All in all, myokines "can make your brain more resilient to stress, they increase motivation, they help you learn from experience, and the only way you get these chemicals is by using your muscles."
McGonigal is not only concerned with the effects of muscle activity, though, but also looks at the benefits of exercising in nature ("When you are absorbed in your natural surroundings, the brain shifts into a state called soft fascination"), exercising to music ("I know that when I choose to dance today, I am building muscle memories of joy, giving my future self more songs to be moved by") and exercising with other people ("Did you know that happy sweat has a different odor than ordinary sweat, and that when you smell someone else’s happy sweat, it can elevate your mood, too?"). The nice thing about the book is that although it's packed with science, it's told largely through interviews she conducted with people whose lives had been changed by exercise, and it's that which makes it inspiring. In fact, reading it was a signigificant factor in my decision to shell out a fair amount of my hard-earned cash on a gym membership. And yes, it was worth it - I can feel those myokines coursing through me right now.
Bonus: the McGonigal sisters during lockdown zooming about the book.
What I've Been Watching
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I fell in love with William Gibson's cyberpunk novels in the 1980s, and have been waiting for a good film or TV adaptation since then. Johnny Mnemonic was disappointing, and I only got a few minutes into New Rose Hotel. But Amazon's adaptation of The Peripheral hit the jackpot, if you'll forgive the pun (which I can't explain without spoilers). Half of it is set in a near future rural America, where our heroine, Flynne, is hired to playtest a game. The other half is in the game, except it seems the game world is actually the real world, but in that future's future. Yes, it's that kind of game. It's hugely entertaining, the future worlds are very nicely constructed with a lot of attention to detail (e.g., minor changes in fashion), and Chloe Moritz, who some may remember as Hitgirl in the wonderful superhero caper Kickass, is great as Flynne. The funny thing is that this is one Gibson book that I haven't read, so I can't say how faithful it is to the original. (I'd given up on Gibson after he stopped writing cyberpunk, and didn't notice that he'd started again.)
Another TV series I devoured recently is Netflix's Şahmaran. One of the things I appreciate about Netflix is that it actively supports local film-making when it could probably have sat back and made a pretty profit selling US films and TV to the world. In the case of Turkey this has resulted in a microgenre of Turkish dark fantasy with shows like The Protector (Muhafız) and The Gift (Atiye) that draw on Turkey's rich folklore and geography (the former makes use of Istanbul's ancient underground chambers and tunnels; the latter centres on Göbeklitepe, the world's oldest human settlement). Şahmaran is inspired by a legend, claimed by Turks, Kurds and Iranians as their own, of a creature half-woman, half-snake of great beauty, wisdom and healing powers who takes a human lover and is (of course) betrayed by him. The TV series tells the story of a young psychology lecturer who returns to her hometown of Tarsus (where the original Şahmaran lived according to the legend) and finds herself caught up by the legend, which keeps repeating throughout the generations in a manner that reminded me of Alan Garner's wonderful novel, The Owl Service. It starts off very low-key, to the extent that I was unpleasantly reminded of those 1980s Turkish art films where people said very little but looked angrily at each other while puffing on cigarettes, but it gets progressively weirder and more enjoyable. I still found the main character, Şahsu, irritating, but I loved the weird family next door, particularly the sisters who struck me as rather like Wednesday and Enid. So I definitely recommend watching it, but read the legend first, or it won't make much sense.
What I've Been Listening To
In a fortuitous coincidence (or synchronicity if you will) after watching the last episode of Şahmaran, I opened YouTube and up came the Şahmaran Müzik Topluluğu. I've already blogged about my fondness for Alevi music, so I'll leave this one without comment.
Staying in Turkey, I recently discovered Ümmet Özcan, who combines techno with world music, particularly Mongolian throat singing, which features prominently in his most popular single (and most recent addition to my World Techno playlist), "Xanadu".
Pick of the Pods
Finally, a pair of podcast interviews I enjoyed immensely, both from The Tim Ferriss Show. They also came with an emotion that there is probably a long German word for: the feeling you get when you hear about someone who is the kind of person you feel you should have been.
Episode #652 Famed Explorer Wade Davis
When I was in my twenties I was blown away by The Serpent and the Rainbow, an account by the ethnobotanist Wade Davis of how he travelled to Haiti to uncover the secret of the zombie poison. It turned out that yes, there is a zombie poison and, combined with the appropriate beliefs and rituals, it makes zombies. OK, not actual reanimated corpses, but as near as dammit: the victim is so deeply paralysed that he is pronounced dead and is buried, after which the sorcerors dig him up and convince him that he is a zombie who must work as their slave for the rest of his undeath, a job made easier by the fact that the poison also often causes brain damage, hence the blank expressions and shuffling gait we associate with traditional zombies. What appealed to me, though, was the way Davis totally threw himself into Voodoo culture, becoming accepted not only by the above-board Voodoo priests (houngan) but also by the secret societies of sorcerors (bokor). There's a great story in the interview of how he set himself on fire to show them he was for real. Since then he's been travelling around the world getting high with indigenous people, documenting their beliefs and lifestyles and advocating for their rights - in other words he was exactly the kind of guy young Robin wished he could be.
Episode #657 Professor John Vervaeke
If Wade Davis was the idol of my twenties, John Vervaeke, who I'd never heard of before last week, looks like the person I wanted to be in my forties. This was the time I was getting into cognitive science, positive psychology, critical thinking, and Hellenistic philosophy, all of which Vervaeke teaches at Toronto University. More interestingly, he combines them with two of my other loves, meditation and taijiquan. Throughout the episode, I kept thinking "Whoa - this is like a better version of me!" The whole interview was intellectually exhilarating, and I will definitely check out his YouTube series Escaping the Meaning Crisis. Unless, of course, it plunges me into gloom because the guy had all my good ideas, which is something that happens to me a lot. It also made me want to go and read some neo-Platonism, as this is a philosophy I know only a little about but keeps popping up wherever I look because although it died out as a movement when Christianity took over the Roman Empire, it strongly influenced not only Christianity but also Judaism, ginving us Kabbala, and Islam, giving us Sufi thinkers like Ibn Arabi. Plotinus, here I come!
Where I've Been Walking
Now I have finally moved into my flat in London, I'm enjoying exploring the area. I'm in Greenford, which as the name suggests, is pretty green by London standards. This is from the route I take to get to that gym I mentioned. "Soft fascination", indeed.