By Irvin Hubler
I don’t feel at home in my body. It has rarely been a source of self-reflective joy, the way I imagine beautiful, physically fit people must feel regularly, not even when I was young and smooth.
You won’t find too many pictures of me online. You will find a bunch of pictures I’ve taken, but rarely are there any of me. I believe on a trip I took to Iceland, there is two pictures of me: one on a bridge with my wife taken specifically for our parents, and one my wife snapped of me by some street art in downtown Reykjavik. I think this in an impulse/habit from an older generation that is at odds with today’s zeitgeist.
The mirror selfie is an interesting phenomenon. The subject is also the artist, nothing new as self-portraiture has been around forever, but the subject is the artist creating the art. It is like that Norman Rockwell painting where the POV of the painting is from behind the artist, where you can see him painting a self-portrait and looking into a mirror. The mirror selfie, you see a picture of a person looking into their phone at the picture they are taking of themselves looking into their phone. It invokes the myth of Narcissus and makes the artist (attractive person taking photo) and the audience (schlubby middle-aged nobody) voyeurs.
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Just saying the word ‘Body’ is fun. You can plop it in and out of sentences for great effect.
- I love putting pizza in my body.
- It has been so long since my body was next to your body. How’s the family.
- Ohh, this jam rocks my body.
I guess, in truth, there is one major effect, and that is creepy and off-putting.
It is very hard to make that creepiness self-contained and non-threatening. Like, if a wet worm monster was staring at you seething, you would be rightfully terrified, but if that same monster was dress as a janitor and moping the floor, minding their own business, then it would be strange, but non-threatening.
Jim Henson was the modern-day master of this. The puppetry in The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth demonstrate this expertly. All the creatures are warty, wet, loud, farty, and the scariest creature is David Bowie.
Henson was a genius. He made all of us okay with Gonzo (whatever Gonzo is) fucking different chickens.
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I’ve heard the phrase, ‘really feeling yourself’ a lot lately. It is always used in the context of someone getting into the groove of an activity or having some sort of emotional awaking. ‘He was doing standing bar curls, really feeling himself, and lost track of his reps.’ I guess I have felt something like this on very long bike rides, training rides 40 – 70 miles long. My noisy brain begins to quiet down, and there is just the road, the sun, and my body sinking into the bike, slowly become one.
With that said, I have been using it randomly, whenever I feel like to see how it fits into conversation. Like, if someone has a good improv set, I will say, “That was great. You were really feeling yourself up there.” I just want to see how it works in conversation, and what it means to other people.
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Being old and fat is truly disgusting. I don’t recommend it. Trying to remedy this through diet and exercise is also truly terrible.
Having a healthy diet is truly defeating. It is just your willpower and a daily test to see how long it will take for your willpower to fall apart. Appetite is a true beast. I have sat on the couch just thinking about pizza for over an hour. Now that I mentioned pizza, my lizard brain is trying to figure out how to get pizza.
Exercise feels good, but, being old, if I have a big day, all of my willpower and energy is depleted, and, because my thighs are so big, I have to apply butt paste and body glide to cut down on chafing. I don’t see anyone else applying body glide to the insides of their thighs in the locker room. The texture and inability to wash off butt paste makes me feel so physically gross, like one of the extra-dimensional creatures in From Beyond.
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Judging by my thoughts, the sketches in BSP PRESENTS: Body Talk will be rooted in self-loathing and have a flesh aesthetic. Will be because I haven’t written them yet. Everything written is due tomorrow.
See you at the show.
