Mannequins of Laguna Beach

Laguna Beach storefronts display some of the strangest mannequins I’ve ever seen. I find the resemblance of tourists to these mannequins uncanny. It is difficult to guess the age of many Orange County women from a frontal view – the bee-stung lips, the deer-in-the-headlights expression, tiny pinched noses, not to mention breasts that might double as mooring buoys if put to the test. Even so, there are some things plastic surgery can’t hide – the stooped figure, hands and feet, profound disappointment and unhappiness; the line between perfection and monstrous begins to blur after a certain point. I am always grateful to encounter a woman who wears her years with dignity and whose facial muscles still allow for a range of expressions, especially expressions of humor. Still a land of beautiful people, many of the Laguna locals seem to have resisted (miraculously) the influence of other Orange County cities.

These mannequins lead a secret life of puppets – one that speaks more of a cultural pandemic than anything else.

All Natural Fibers Mannequin

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea...

I'm not bad. I'm just drawn this way.

High Performance Traction Mannequin

Carotene Poisoning Mannequin

Figurehads in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Mannequins

Lactating Mannequins

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Cryotherapy and The Nude Swim

I once read that a famous poet used to immerse herself in freezing cold water as a way of dealing with severe depression. While it’s not pleasant, I can attest to the curative effects of swimming in cold water; the ocean temp has been hovering around 57-59° in Southern California for the last week but I’ve forced myself to swim at least a mile each day. For some reason I thought the poet was Anne Sexton but I can’t remember where I read about this poet’s cryo-therapeutic treatment.

I love Anne Sexton’s poetry although I guess ultimately nothing cured her depression.

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Seagrasses of Desire

I’ve been an open water swimmer for more than twenty-five years now. Every year we visit family in Southern California and every year I do a daily open-water swim; lately my eldest daughter and nephew have been joining me. Everyone has a different reaction to the seagrass that sways in the surf only feet below the surface. It used to scare me a little, especially when the visibility was poor and I swam over it without seeing it first. It freaks my daughter out to the point that she nearly climbs on top of my back like a cat on a sofa. For reasons too weird and personal to explain, two years ago I lost my irrational fear of the seaweed, the seagrass and even sharks (I used to practically swim in the surf zone I was so afraid of sharks.) People will tell you that there are no sharks around this part of the coast, but no one is telling the sharks that. I say irrational fear because rational fears can be useful at the right time.

Anyway, Prof. Timothy Morton of the UC Davis English Dept. (Ecology Without Nature)  wrote a paper on the Tarkovsky adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s book Solaris – this was one of those rare academic articles that profoundly changed the way I see almost everything, especially things like trees and flowers and even seagrass beds. I think he called the reeds in the pond of Chris Kelvin’s family home “fronds of desire,” which is both beautiful and cool. Anyway, once I actually went down into the beds with my goggles on and watched the graceful, lilting movements of the grasses as they reached towards the sun for energy, everything changed. In the new translation of Lem’s novel (the only official English trans.), the “mimoids” that coalesce on the planet’s volatile surface are sort of an objective correlative for the hidden and ever-shifting subconscious of each of the Solaris scientists. Since the translation is brand new, I look forward to hearing and reading about what scholars like Prof. Morton have to say.

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