There's nothing quite like the feeling one gets upon discovering a customer has left a really shitty tip. It's the perfect crime, a deeply personal affront for which there is rarely any recourse or rebuttal. Sometimes you totally see it coming; other times it comes as such a shock that you end up inventing all sorts of excuses to explain it away. (A mathematical error perhaps. Could happen to anyone!)
But all too often there is a message specifically encoded in the amount left on the table. I'm not talking about the words "F-U-C-K-Y-O-U" spelled out in pennies -- though I have seen that happen. To someone else. It's usually way more subtle, though; tips are about power, they are expressions of judgment or non-judgment. We consider the statement we're making as we calculate the amount, and it often has very little to do with the service that was provided. So when I get a really bad tip, I always have to wonder: was this about me? Or about them?
(I prefer to think it's always about them.)
Anyhow, above is a sketch of an actual tip that I've actually received. Yes, the person took the time to write out that they were leaving a cash tip. No, there aren't any dollar bills hidden just out of frame. In moments like these, I try to temper my discouragement with the knowledge that this experience is literally built into my job. If I was fundamentally opposed to get royally stiffed now and then, I wouldn't show up at all. Right?
Anyhow, this card illustrates one of those occasions when the drawbacks of a situation are more apparent than the benefits. Are you going to let it get to you, and wind up spreading the bad vibe to your other tables? I'd like to think that no reader of mine would not so easily succumb to this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Opportunity is all around you, don't let a few losses (no matter how profoundly irritating) wind up determining your next few steps.
I typically manage adequate care for whatever plants I bring home, but along the way I've killed one of everything. Sometimes my laziness or ignorance has totally been the problem, but sometimes things just wither for no reason anyone can figure out. A few years ago when I was dealing with problems in my relationship, the responsibility of indoor gardening became too much of a psychological burden altogether. So I gave away all my plants, breathed a sigh of relief, and moved on to other things.
Recently it occurred to me I might be ready to start again; I picked up a hardy-looking aloe vera plant at a local nursery and we're learning to love each other.
In the picture above, everything has fallen into decrepitude. Who cares why? Drought, inattention, pests -- it could be anything, and the result is the same. The important thing is that the biggest, roomiest pot of all still shows signs of life, imploring you not to retire your fork and spade just yet.
By the looks of the emotional terrain on display here, you may not be the master gardener you thought you were. That's just fine, people (like plants) go through many seasons, and inconsistency is thoroughly human. But dwelling on your failures may cause you to overlook the small patches in your life that still need tending. The RWS Five of Cups is very clear in this regard. Mourn your losses, but not at the expense of what's survived. See that bridge in the background? Get over it already.
To illustrate the competitive and combative spirit of the Five of Wands, here are five crane-claws in one all vying for a single plush toy. It's hard enough to win this game when you're playing it alone, so adding others into the mix would only tangle things up considerably, especially if you were all focused on the same prize.
I think the triviality of this game is also important to note. These kinds of failures (or even victories) provide no useful commentary on your actual abilities, and the results of gameplay have no lasting effects on the arc of your personal development. Apply that reasoning to whatever exciting/frustrating/distracting games you're getting caught up in lately and you'll wind up taking things a lot less personally. In the meantime, you should still play to win:
I didn't set out to collect bad cookbooks, it just sort of happened. Maybe it's all the bizarre "homestyle" cooking I was exposed to in farm kitchens as a child; maybe I was just born this way. Whatever it is, nothing gets me going like really terrible pictures of really terrible food, accompanied by instructions to help you actually make said food. I found today's selection on sale at a thrift store for one dollar. It's brought me at least five times that much enjoyment already.
There are no pictures in Recipes From Peggy's Cove, which was published "in aid of the Peggy's Cove Preservation Society". Well, no pictures of food anyway. There are a few gritty b&w photos of the Cove itself, which purports to be a grim little fishing hamlet somewhere in Nova Scotia. Even the color photos I've found online are in b&w -- you actually have to photoshop Peggy's Cove to make the colors show up. I found
After a hard day of scraping out lobster traps, nothing warms the knuckles like a helping of "Lasagna Salad", chased with a handful of "Savory Gems". Or perhaps you'd prefer a "Clam Whiffle" appetizer followed by the evocatively named "Smothered Rabbit". If it's dinner for one, you may elect to make "Hobo Dinner" and then fall asleep in front of the TV with a half-eaten "Almost As Good As Poundcake" in your lap.
I'm not just picking on the names. In most cases the ingredients or directions are just as discouraging, such as the recipe for "Cherried Cranberries", which contains no actual cherries. If you're going to use "cherry" as a verb (and I beg you to refrain), then the person, place or thing you are cherrying deserves the real thing.
Meanwhile, here is the second half of the recipe for making "Solomon Gundy":
"...In medium size mason jars, put alternate layers of herring and onion rings. Cover with cooled vinegar solution and seal. Refrigerate for at least a week before eating."
If you want more, you'll have to get your own copy.
I think that by now most people know that trends in folk cuisine, such being able to make a meal with literally any part of an animal, are born out of necessity. Hardworking, isolated people have to do the best with whatever they've got handy, and if that means eating "Salmon Luncheon Roll" and "Family Dessert" three nights a week, then by Dagon, that's what they'll do! People cling to familiar tastes, even as generations go by and fortunes improve. No one these days eats "Livers Paprikash" because it tastes wonderful, they do it because it's traditional.
If you're currently struggling, the Five of Coins urges you refrain from confusing your current station in life with who you actually are and what you really want. You can (and will) do better, it says. All the Five-cards in the Tarot represent that "it's always darkest before the dawn" period that precedes the restoration of harmony and balance. If you accept your present hardship as your lot in life, you may cling to it reflexively and fail to grab at whatever is meant to take its place. We are all transforming, and what we are now is not necessarily what we will be.
I shouldn't pick on Peggy's Cove too much, its wiki page claims that tourism is its primary source of income. Nor do I think that a town is incomplete without a four-star restaurant. But if it's fund-raising assistance the town needs, the town might have been better off avoiding cook-books and bake sales. Better stick to car-washes in the future, just to be safe...
I'm a big fan of Robert Altman's movies, so I knew eventually I was going to have to face Quintet. Considered one of the director's most disastrous attempts, Quintet takes place in a post-apocalyptic civilization that is being slowly exterminated by a new Ice Age. The survivors are so disillusioned (or bored, or something) that they spend all their time playing an elaborate board-game. I'm sure you can guess what it's called. Anyway, some of these folks also play a live-action version of the game in which they hunt and kill each other one by one. There's not really any prize for winning, they're all just trying to stay active and vital during humanity's last few years on the planet. Paul Newman --who looks and acts as if he was tricked into starring -- plays an outsider who accidentally becomes involved in the tournament.
Here's a clip in which Newman encounters one of the other players, a man named St. Christopher who unveils mankind's final philosophy:
This movie screamed "Five of Swords" to me on so many levels. First there's the obvious -- five combatants out to stick each other, with a "sixth man" waiting in the wings to challenge the survivor. Then there's the film's metaphor of a world that has given up, going through the motions of survival but utterly surrendering in spirit.
And then there's the failure of the film itself. It was a bitterly difficult film to make -- they shot it at the abandoned site of the 1967 Montreal World's Fair. Every night they would hose down the metal structures so that the next day everything would be encrusted in glittering icicles. However, this made the set impossible to navigate safely, so there were numerous accidents and injuries. The cameras had to be kept near heaters or else the film itself would freeze up inside them. The chase scene at the end of the film lost all of its momentum because the actors weren't actually able to run -- between the deep snow and their huge heavy costumes, it was all they could do to lumber urgently. Since Altman was confident in his own ability to cobble together his works out of whatever people, places, and situations were at hand, I doubt he saw a problem with any of this. It is what it is, he surely thought.
It's also a bitterly difficult film to watch. Audiences hated it. The action limps along slowly, the characters are remote and unsympathetic, and the filmmakers chose to blur the outer edge of the frame in every single shot. This is supposed to accentuate the claustrophic, frozen setting, but it mostly just makes you feel like you have gunk in your eyes. There are many dazzling, intriguing moments in Quintet, but it is seriously humorless and inaccessible. It makes 3 Women look like Love, Actually. You can embrace it if you want to, but it won't hug you back.
So. What does this tell us about the Five of Swords? Well, there are more cheerful cards you could draw, that's for sure. This one hints that you may have lost your ability to see yourself and your struggle objectively; for all you know, you may be totally turned around, swimming toward the bottom of the pool when you think you're actually coming up for air. The Five may warn against hubris or fatalism. It may be urging you to cut your losses and retreat -- it's possible that you're fighting an unwinnable battle, and if that's the case, it's best to face the facts while you still have time to duck out gracefully. Or perhaps it means that you've done all that you can, and it's time to accept the lessons learned and move on to the next project.
Did Altman sulk over the failure of Quintet? Not visibly -- he went on to make three movies the following year. (Including Popeye, and say what you will about it, but it's basically the anti-Quintet.) So don't lose heart -- consider retreating to the mindset of the Four of Swords, or vaulting ahead to the Six. But here, there be ice-tygers.
These America's Next Top Model contestants? They didn't come here to make friends. Neither did the contestants of Top Chef, Survivor, The Ultimate Fighter, Project Runway, The Bachelor, or any of a dozen other reality TV shows. To prove what a truly tired perspective this is, Rich Juzwiak (otherwise known as the blogger fourfour) spliced together every instance he could find of a contestant broadcasting his/her not-friend-makingness:
That was exactly a year ago. As Juzwiak noted today, "So much has changed since then -- Obama became president, the sinking economy went belly up, Sarah Palin became queen of her own ass, then sank, then went belly up, etc. And yet... they've also stayed much the same." Exhibit A:
Within the chaotic Five-of-Wands-ness of the whole reality television universe, the one thing that never changes is that harmony and friendliness is practically never rewarded (one of the many signs that Rupaul's Drag Race was made of slightly different stuff was that the show bestowed a Miss Congeniality award in addition to the grand prize). You watch your own back, you betray people casually, and then you complain when you sense anyone else doing the same. I suspect the shows appeal to the paranoid part of us that's always bracing for friendly fire. It's so apt that the Tarot of the Saints gives us a high Five featuring stigmata -- every loser on TV is a martyr in his or her own eyes, regardless of how willing they are to pound a few nails when it comes right down to it.
Some people argue that there's no true malice in this card, that it just shows a bunch of bold intentions meeting at cross purposes. That may be true, but in my opinion that kind of embroilment is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs, lest it devolve into a five-way race to the bottom. If you catch yourself becoming similarly entangled, you might want to stop and consider whether this the best possible use of your energy. Is there any way to take the high road and quietly ascend straight to the Six while everyone else is still scrapping it out? Can you hold back and wait awhile until the storm has passed?
These may not be an options on shows like ANTM (though some initially meek contestants prove to be sleepers who flourish after the nastier girls have all picked each others' carcasses), but in real life this can save you lots of time and effort. And who knows, you may even make a friend out of the whole mess...[Via]
Political cartoons have always fascinated me, even as a child. I remember reading the comics section of the paper every morning before school and then skipping over to the editorial section on the off chance that I'd actually be able to understand the grownup joke in the Steve Benson sketch. The pig noses, the talking elephants, the horrifying caricatures -- I couldn't get enough of them, and still can't. That side of me was thrilled to see that Victor Juhasz' top-notch illustrations in this month's Rolling Stone, accompanying Matt Taibbi's blistering indictment of the sins of investment firm Goldman Sachs. According to Taibbi, the fraud commited by the investment firm has triggered every financial crisis in the last century.
More specifically, Taibbi blames Goldman Sachs for manufacturing (and ultimately bursting) five market "bubbles": the 1929 stock market, tech stocks during the Clinton administration, the housing craze, gasoline prices, and the Federal government's recent bailouts. The only copy of the article online now is the scan linked above, but it's worth checking out on paper if you get the chance. Apparently G-Sachs' tactic is to buy up the entire market, unsavory bits and all, to drive up confidence; then they sell it off in lots to second-tier investors who are eager to get a slice of the action -- all the while, they're secretly betting against the success of those investments and making a killing when they ultimately fail.
Hence the bailout section of the article -- when banks lost their shirts during last year's market crash, they mostly lost them to Goldman Sachs. Since a considerable amount of the bailout money those banks received was used to pay off that debt, G-Sachs' essentially got paid twice -- first when the bank reaped enormous profits from its fraudulent dealings before the crash, and then again afterward from the government at the expense of taxpayers. Taibbi claims that the next bubble that the bank has its eye on is the Climate Change bill, which is currently on its way to the Senate. I guess if any news story ever warranted a pig-nose or three, this would be the one.
The Five of Coins has always struck me as something of a editorial cartoon. The Waite version shows us a man and a woman hobbling through the snow, and the stained glass window (of what I presume is a bank or church) just overhead seems to mock their condition, hinting that warmth and wealth shall be kept just out of reach. Along with some of the more dramatic Swords cards, it's one of the most savage images in the deck. While the people in it are who we're drawn to, that looming black wall and window are a sort of third character in the image. In this case, wealth and power do not confer happiness or peace of mind -- greed, paranoia, and worry take over and demand that walls are built to shut others out. The worst-case scenario hinted at in the card preceding has come to fruition; desire for power has completely eclipsed reason and mercy, and all -- even the rich -- are worse off for it.
This is an ugly instinct that we all grapple with. No matter which side of the wall you happen to be on, no enduring satisfaction can come from grasping at everything you can get your hands on; that mentality perpetuates itself to the point where peace of mind becomes impossible. There is no magical cut-off point where you will have "enough"-- by the time you reach your goal, you'll have conditioned yourself to push onward and take more. In a reading this card usually points to the restlessness, discomfort, and anxiety that result from our desires, regardless of whether they're fulfilled. This may be a good time to retire your pig-nose and divert your attention to other aspects of life for a while. Generosity is more difficult to cultivate than greed, but it's a much better long-term investment.
Where in the world are you, Alice Clark? Last week I randomly came across this song from her self-titled 1972 album:
I became more fascinated with "Keep It Hid" the more I listened to it. Who is Alice Clark? Why does she look so sad? How could a performance like this become so tragically overlooked? Well I hate to break it to you folks, but there are 200 sad Alice Clarks out there for every Rihanna. In that light, I guess I'm lucky I ever found her at all. But where is she now? I posted a query to AskMetaFilter to see if anyone could point me in the right direction, but so far no luck. (I'll update here if anything develops...)
The song's relevance to the despondent Five of Cups is somewhat twofold. First of all, we have the song itself, about the singer's private struggle with unresolved feelings that she dare not air out:
"Oh why can't I walk up to that old love of mine and say Baby, what you been doing I still love you like I did You know, nothing's really changed here But being the way I am I keep it hid..."
In Waite-Smith Five of Cups, we see a person experiencing a painful emotional setback. There are two cups left standing, so obviously there's plenty to move on with. However, it's almost impossible to keep from dwelling on the spillage. Unfortunately, that makes the figure's remaining assets all the more vulnerable, because he/she isn't paying them proper attention. In the distance you can see a bridge waiting for the figure to "get over it" and rejoin civilization, but clearly the trauma is still too fresh. There are numerous messages here for you, depending on what your own quandary is. I can't help but see the echo of this card in Clark's own face on the LP cover -- she has suffered, alright.
The second prong of relevance relates to my own disappointment at not being able to appreciate something as fully as I'd like to. There is certainly something in this card that relates to unmet expectations and desires, of only receiving a small amount of something you expected far more of. I really hope I do find out more about Alice Clark; I hope she's still alive and perhaps even that I'd be able to contact her and ask her about her experiences as a soul singer in the early '70s. But I need to make sure that this (perhaps entirely unrealistic) desire doesn't keep me from enjoying what I already have -- which, in this case, is her entire album via the iTunes store for just $9.90!
This recent international kerfuffle with Somali pirates has resulted in the forging of some strange new alliances! China Radio International reported yesterday that thousands of dolphins "leapt out of the water" yesterday between advancing pirate boats and some Chinese merchant ships. As the pirates' boats are small, lightweight craft, they had no choice but to turn back. Or, as the article puts it, "The pirates could only lament their littleness befor the vast number of dolphins."
Did this really even happen? It's hard to say, since China has a history of spicing up nature photography to cultivate mystique. Regardless, the Tolkien-esque dolphin intervention really sparks the imagination. It reminds me a bit of the story of Dionysus, the Greek god who was kidnapped at sea by marauding sailors. Their plan to collect a mighty ransom was a failure, but not a fatal one -- when they dove overboard, mad with fear at seeing the god in his full glory, he turned them into dolphins.
There are times to fight, and there are times when it seems that the whole world is conspiring to shut you down; the Five of Swords is a harbinger of the latter sort. Pray that you'll have the good sense to see the signs and note when there is more to lose in forging ahead than in turning back. Listen to reason! Perhaps the dolphins were protecting the merchants -- but what if they were actually warning their wily piratical descendants of certain defeat? Either way, the Somalis got the point, and that's all that matters.
There seems to be a lot of disagreement as to what the Five of Wands indicates. With regards to the most commonly known illustration by Pamela Coleman-Smith, I've seen descriptions that describe the young men as fighting, playing, competing, or constructing; it's perhaps an appropriately ungainly cluster of descriptions for this rather contentious card. But it's surely no more jarring than the sight of many beloved cartoon characters being used for war propaganda, which you'll find at Toons At War. Here we get to see what the likes of Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny were up to during WWII, and the ways in which their personas and images swerved off course to keep pace with the world. Does the fact that they're dressed up like soldiers mean they really intend to do battle, or are they, too, play-fighting?
After the period of rest and contentment in the Four of Wands, building up momentum again can be very hard. Sometimes we can't get moving unless we sense the emergence of a rival; in that way, competition can really give us a boost. However, when we're impeded (whether from within or without) we also have a tendency to look for someone to blame, and that could prove to be a big waste of time and effort.
So go ahead, fight your silly cartoon battles if it moves you along -- but remember that meeting your goals isn't just about stamping out about your competition. There was a reason you embarked in the first place, and it's important to keep from losing sight of it. [Via]
Once upon a time, the expression "a mind like a steel trap" was a compliment. Now that most people don't have to actively hunt and kill in order to thrive, we often associate traps with poor sportsmanship and unnecessary cruelty -- that compliment doesn't have the same ring to it that it used to! This gallery provides a close look at many different kinds of traps and snares that range from quaint to truly frightening. All of the traps are empty and inert, but it's fascinating how our imaginations work double-time to fill in the blanks.
The Five of Swords aligns with this theme quite neatly. On one hand, it represents defeat, and warns that you may fall prey to others' attacks or be browbeaten by their logic. You may even find yourself flat-out tricked or lied to. But aside from any conflicts with external entities, it also indicates an inborn crisis in your own confidence and your ability to meet challenges fairly. Defeat often traps us before we even make it to the fight; we wind up bowing to the whims of our paranoia, insecurity, avoidance, or aggression -- and yet we still feel surprised when an opponent dispatches us in the first round. The next time your fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in and you feel yourself aching to get in there and teach someone a lesson, you'd better take a step back and ponder whether by playing along, you're playing right into their hands. [Via]
This card classically portrays scenes of penury and misery, often with mendicants groveling out in the cold. While care should be taken to immediately tend to any material concerns you may have been neglecting, turning over the Five of Coins doesn't automatically consign you to the poorhouse. It's likely, however, that certain areas in your life are cut off from the attention and support they desperately require in order to function smoothly, and if left unattended the penalties will be severe. You grow desperate for help, but others may not even notice how dire your straits really are. Imagine yourself functioning inside like a great clockwork, five large gears left untended, grinding against each other without any lubrication: eventually the friction causes them to wear each other out, and before you know it you're the kind of clock that's only right twice a day.
Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz have captured this strange sense of isolation and unease in their wonderfully detailed snow-globe scenes, in which tiny carved figures roam frigid terrain encountering one misfortune after another. Some of these globes contain more optimistic impossibilities than others, but even under the best circumstances, there is an all-too-real physical barrier that shuts us out as participants in the scene, forcing us to observe passively as a tiny figure in another world struggles to comprehend their isolation, perhaps quite aware that the warmth and safety they long for isn't even possible, and too small to crack the glass that seems incredibly delicate in our own huge hands.
Whether these fears are all in our heads doesn't matter; they still threaten to strangle our hopes or drive us off the path that leads to security. However, there's solace to be found built into in the very natural order of things. In our world, winter inevitably turns to spring, relentless summer cools into autumn. Plain endurance may not seem like much of a strategy for conquering hardship, but if you remain permeable to changes, you may find that the season changes faster than you ever dared hope. [Via]
No card in the Tarot is unequivocally negative, but some push harder than others. Here, the delicate balance of the Four of Cups has been upset, resulting in some spillage. It's not the end of the world, but our emotions can't always tell the difference, so we end up pumping ourselves full of bitter disappointment, inconsolable grief, or stubborn easily-injured pride whether it's warranted or not. We shun the assets we still have in favor of grieving the assets we've lost. It's actually the most human thing you can imagine.
In Robert Louis Stephenson's story The Bottle Imp[PDF document] a strange wish-granting bottle proves to be more than a curse on its owners; it becomes a lifelong obsession, a shatter-proof symbol of what is forsaken when we start bargaining away our future happiness (or even that of others) in exchange for instant gratification. Kind of makes me feel a little funny about this Ghost In A Bottle-- because once you owned one, how could you help but open it, no matter what that means for your car keys or your TV remote?
