Wed 27 Aug 2008
Swart said Kane needed something to humanize the ephblog and he suggested (well, he rather strong-armed me) that I apply my knowledge of human nature and my penchant for giving advice to provide a service for ephblog readers with problems of a personal nature..
So here we are. I have been provided with a few letters for starters and, needless to say, the identities of the writers have been carefully shielded.
From DB
Dear Rechtal Turgidley, Jr.,
While I generally believe the manipulation and formation of contexts with its endless repetition generates powerful and overwhelming contexts necessary to holding your understanding in its proper relationship, I am having problems getting a date. I am not considered bad-looking by members of my family (well, my mom) and try to be a good conversationalist. Any suggestions?
Dear DB,
A mother’s love is very important to one’s self esteem. But could verbosity and some lack of focus add another dimension to the situation of datelessness?
Some have found that a mouth-stapling proceedure improves their ability for that quick relationship. As an alternate, there is always the application of money.
From JZ
Dear Rechtal Turgidley, Jr.
I have been participating in a chat room for those who are truly romantic and yet my questions themselves do not surely enhance yield, as the most marginally interested candidates have ceased to apply. Question: on these chat room essays, do people have to represent that they do not receive substantial help from parents, college counselors, etc.? If not, they should.
Dear DB,
Oh dear no - no outside help allowed! You should simply sign the honor statement signifying that you have neither given or received help on your entry after each chat room exchange.
From cwh
Dear Rechtal Turgidley, Jr.
I find that my obsession with numbers and my ability to prove any point with them i.e
Percent submitting SAT: 50%
25th percentile SAT: 1380
75th percentila SAT: 1500
If it weren’t a fraud number, that would be the highest 25th percentile of any LAC in the country at the time. Higher than Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, and Pomona, but with an acceptance rate of 27%.
Compare to this year’s Middlebury numbers:
Percent submitting SAT: 88%
25th percentile SAT: 1300
75th percentila SAT: 1490
Hmmmm. So you are telling me that the bottom quarter of Midd’s freshman class plummeted by 80 points on the combined SAT in just four years?
does not compensate for my acne. Do you have a suggestion?
Dear cwh,
Yes. Graduates of elite schools such as ourselves have often found that acne can be cured by getting a skin graft from a graduate of some lesser but more robust college. I would write a carefully worded inquiry and post it on Craigs List
KD writes
Dear Rechtal Turgidley, Jr.
I am the content providor of a prominent blog. The time consuming part is actually writing the posts: the linking, the quoting and, of course, the scintillating comments that keep our readers coming back for more. I spend about as much time blogging as similar Ephs (men my age in finance) spend golfing. Perhaps I should be hitting the links instead! What do you think?
Dear KD,
INDEED!
August 27th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
What a Hoot!!
DS- I’ve gotten a lot of pleasure from your creative work… even took a look at your blog that’s on hiatus. I look forward to seeing more….
I just came back from 1st Days & unexpectedly got an impromptu tour from an alum from ‘52, 4th generation eph. I write this only to encourage you to do some sort of halcyon memories of first days of yore.
btw, the weather was gorgeous-
August 27th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Correction: First Days continues into next week. My husband & I only helped our son with mo-o-ove-in!
August 27th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Dear Rechtal Turgidley, Jr:
Will we ever have a world in which the artist will have both freedom and power? At what point does a lack of power lead directly to a lack of freedom? Is it even possible to distinguish between power and freedom? After all, surely there is more to freedom than just negative liberty. Freedom must involve the freedom to participate in decision-making, and in government. Can you ever be free without being in power? Oh, also, I need a job, because otherwise I will keep writing like this.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Dear Ronit,
Your many-part question calls for answers to the issues basic to our existance and the meaning of life. I am pondering my reply with the aid of a Pimms.
For the nonce and to your query (which will be answered more fully at a later date on this blog along with other questions from equally concerned readers), may I refer you to :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7Fe1cGLPk
Sincerely,
Rechtal Turgidley, Jr
Quark Island, Maine
August 28th, 2008 at 1:52 am
Dear RechtalTurgidley II: formerly of Womanstown, MA
Overt challenge signals are impelling in that they demand a response. They require attention, and secure a relationship by the involvement they demand; they can instigate or perpetuate a relationship. Challenges call for a limit to be imposed, pleading for the boundaries of acceptable behaviour to be made explicit. It may be an unconscious request for subjugation. Overt challenges can take the form of confrontations of authority such as public demonstrations and subversive acts; they are ambiguous in intention if not in form. A good example of a male expression of the “overt challenge signal” is Dear Rechtal Turgidley.
“Challenge Signals” are a means by which power can be continually tested and incremented when a response is not forthcoming.
The most basic instinct of any organism is to survive. Any creature which does not fight to survive, from the humblest insect to the most complex animal, perishes in the turmoil of evolutionary pressure.
In particular humans have a consciousness and our primary instinct to survive is in direct opposition to the sure and certain knowledge we have of our mortality. This basic human conflict or psychic conflict accounts in large part for the creation of religion.
It is proposed that everything exists at two levels: there is neurosis and mass neurosis, hysteria and mass hysteria. An individual might feel guilty and seek to resolve it collectively (as in the “Distribution of Guilt”), and this is another potential origin of religion, and then many of the ideas which are bound up in religion and culture which are merely the collective, social expression of individual characteristics.
The degree of neurosis induced in males increases – if the male is in an environment with a high incidence of erroneous, false or dysfunctional signalling. Provocative signals might attract attention, flattery or dollar gifts, but such signals can take place amid a background of other inaccuracies in signalling, such as the mistakes and dysfunctions which already occur.
Females appear to tend to the view that their personal feelings are of paramount importance. Males however have the ability to suppress their individuality in furtherance of a greater objective. This is evident by the male willingness to self-sacrifice and tolerance of risk,
I propose that females have a greater tendency to conform. The following may be significant factors.
1. There is greater uniformity of females, in that there is less deviation from average values for certain characteristics. The greater uniformity of females produces less variation of opinion and behaviour;
2. Females have a weaker ego and are thus more impressionable;
3. Females may be less able to resist peer pressure, and in some respects may be more suggestible. They place greater emphasis on the opinions of others; observably, females always go with the pack. Because of the sex differences, all attempts to make women contribute equally to society will fail. There is positive discrimination, such as encouragement to females to take up careers as engineers, but even this is not enough. A few examples of successful women in such fields are held up as examples but these are exceptions which prove the rule (assuming that they are not phoney media hype). Females’ lack of practical ability may mean that they gravitate into management or supervisory positions and exert a conforming influence, stultifying it.
The following is a speculative listing of categories of males who are or will become sexually inactive and therefore non-reproductive with an intensification of male breeding competition. It hardly needs repeating that the only sex which matters in evolutionary terms is reproductive sex.
• Genetic Martyrs
• Tramps and males of indeterminate status
• The majority of drug addicts
• The physically ill and/or incapable (including too old)
• The mentally ill
• Exclusively homosexual males
• True paedophiles
• Males who only have sex with prostitutes (non-reproductive)
• Males who are too proud
• Males who cannot tolerate female control
• Males who refuse to respond to signals
• Neurotic males, or males who control their neurosis by only taking slow deliberate actions
• Males who lack confidence
• Males who cannot cope with rejection
• Males too shy or self-conscious to make an approach
• Males who never meet females (e.g. in prison or at work)
• The physically disfigured
• Males who suffer from psychological sexual dysfunction (e.g. repulsion of sex)
• Males who fail to display feminine markers (e.g. scruffy, clothes in need of repair)
• Males who smell
• Celibates (e.g. religious orders)
• Transsexuals
• Males who are too lazy
• Males who never have any money
• Males who are too honest
• Males who are too impatient (want sex immediately)
• Males who fear females (e.g. due to violence)
• Males who are unskilled at persuasion
• Males unable to talk trivia
• Males unable to talk without pausin
Clearly people do not usually have all the sex they desire, so substitutes are found. Based on the basic sexual instincts of males and females, an examination of sex substitutes can be made.
Males are basically pleasure-seekers. The primary sexual activity of the male is physical sexual activity; that is, copulating. A major group of male sex substitutes satisfy the male’s pleasure-seeking instincts. Another major group of substitutes take the form of a build up of tension followed by its resolution.
Males substitute for sex anything which builds up to a climax and is then resolved. A very obvious example is competitive sport, which combines the instincts for an accumulation of tension and its resolution with competition. It satisfies both the aggressive and competitive instincts and finally the male is given a ranking, a number, which is a measure of his success.
It is not true that males are only interested in the short term, but they do desire resolvement as quickly as possible so that their energies can be directed most efficiently. The energy being expended on an unresolved target may be being completely wasted.
Males may substitute power, or business, or the pursuit of a particular objective for sex.
Alcohol can be used as sex substitutes because they stimulate the pleasure centres which normally provide encouragement, that is, reinforcement, to have sex.
So be it.
Thanks Rechtal Turgidley for you being there, There!
August 28th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Huh, I guess Rechtal’s advise will go unheeded.
No dates yet, Big Fella?
August 28th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Just figs, ha, ha, ha, ha.
However, understanding a woman allows one to appreciate their value and the drama of their desirability. The scent and the gentle support a desirable female confers upon males may bring out the best in any relationship.
Sharing physical sex is one thing, love is another. Regardless, orgasms are essential to good health.
Quality females are an invaluable asset and thus as any fine stone, worth looking at, perhaps worth an investment.
I note the advice candidates receive during their journey to higher office. Do you think the nation will adopt Obama? Is he the ONE?
August 28th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Dear Parent ‘12,
Thank you for your kind note of the 27th of August. I am heartened by your positive response to what seems to be much-needed advice for readers of this blog
To your point of ‘halcyon days’, I am at work on two books as we speak:
‘A Man, A Plan, Panama!’ The story of how my great-grandfather Rawckus Turgidley (Williams 1866) cornered the straw market when the rage for summer hats was just reaching its’ peak. The common advice on ‘the street’ was ‘corner porkbellys’, but great- grandfather had a broader dream and a better way to ‘bring home the bacon’. The book will include extensive references to Ferdinand DeLessops and ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt at the start of his political career.
‘Growing up Turgidley’. An examination of the style and mores of
those forefathers who did the inexhaustable and the inexcusable to secure future generations of Rechtals and Turgidleys against
the debilitating drudgery of work as it is commonly known. Included will be many Williams anecdotes from both the Rechtal’s and the Turgidley’s including Grandfather Rechtal’s famous prank ‘The Goat in Goodrich Hall’.
Yours sincerely,
Rechtal Turgidley, Jr
Quark Island, Maine
August 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Dear Rechtal,
I have been meaning to write for quite some time as I have a number of concerns and musings I would like to share.
Firstly, I am so very grateful that you have deigned to be a part of EphBlog. And in the perfect venue! One that will perhaps serve two birds with one stone, in that it may satisfy your…ahem…’urge to advise’, while giving your pal Dick, the artistic freedom needed, to practice his craft. It is my opinion, that his technological wit-zardry has added much needed levity to the blog. In fact, between the both of you, a blogger now has one ‘corner’ in which to find a chuckle, and the other in which to vent. You make a fine team.
Secondly, I note that you have received correspondence from Parent ‘12, and while your letter in response (with the announcement of two books in the works), is gloriously exciting, it does little to assuage the sentiments of a mother who has just waved goodbye to her son.
Please tell her that it has been one very short year since I did the same. A year in which my son experienced a lot of adjustments, tons of excitement, mountains of reading, hours of study, and more than enough…ahem…social ‘get-togethers’ to fill whatever extra time he may have had left (and then some!)
The JAs were knights in shining armor. They served as advisors, chauffeurs, ‘party facilitators’, friends, and much, much more.
Needless to say, it is a year of change for parents as well. (Would that we had a JA to help us navigate those particular waters!) In this regard, Williams does facillitate…for they do everything possible to insure a full and happy year for your frosh. And as I’m sure you’d agree; a happy frosh equals a happy parent.
I know I have gone on too long. Let me end by again saying that it is such a pleasure to have another mom on board the EB ship. At times the sailing is free and easy, and other times, rough, but almost always an adventure!
All my best,
Soph Mom
August 29th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Sophmom and Parent ‘12 -
Although my parents never particularly worried about me when I was off at school in those easy days of the ’50’s when beer and milk punch and whiskey sours were the only social dangers, I appreciate the anxiety of today’s parents sending their offspring into the wilds of Willy E or (in my case) Sage B.
I hope the reassuring words based on the experience of the first year written by Sophmom in the comment above will be read by those having any qualms.
I do remember very clearly seeing a very long, very black, chauffeur-driven Cadillac dropping a young man and his school trunk off, and a gruff voice emerging from the well-appointed interior saying “You play football, Boy !”.
Parenting must be much more of a challenge these days.
This column (should it provide enough interest to continue) will only deal with the current social adjustments so obviously and desperately needed by the blog participants per se.
Rechtal Turgidly, Jr
Quark Island, Maine
August 29th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Dear Parent ‘12 and Rechtal,
Speaking of chauffeur driven limos dropping off kids,
here is the Boomer response to dealing with Jr. leaving home for college.
There is a Williamstown mention (which I am sure will fuel your campaign, PTC!).
Anyway, talk about ‘over-parenting’!
SM
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 am
Dear Rechtal,
So far, I have found your column to be a welcome addition to EphBlog. However, it has occurred to me that I am unable to identify your ‘political leanings’.
Please declare yourself so that we can make sure that EB is not expressing a bias. As well, it will help me to determine the value of your advice.
With all due respect,
Soph Mom
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Dear Sophmom,
Thank you for your inquiry as to whether my political biases may influence or debase any of the advice so eagerly sought by those so obviously in need.
Let me assure you, dear lady, that my well-know views on Pitt the Elder v Lord North and Pitt the Younger v Walpole do not affect my view of the human situation in any way.
The distinctions between Whig and Tory are set aside when, as Swart requested of me (arm-twisted, more accurately), I address
problems of the human condition and the opportunity to serve those ephblog participants seeking a path through their trying personal times.
I appreciate your concern that advice offered in this little column should reflect the high standards set by the content-provider of ephblog.
Sincerely,
Rechtal Turgidley, Jr
Quark Island, Maine
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Dear Rechtal,
Alas… EB standards are very high, and so I must put yet another test before you.
Though you possess an adventurous nature, a love of culture, and in general a demeanor that enriches those with whom you come into contact, the only way I can deem you truly worthy is if you give me some sort of proof that the world considers you thus… preferably proof that is carved into stone…or better yet, bronze.
And even then, Recht, I am sorry to report that your present value will be forever lessened because of that little episode of questionable behavior in your youth.
With sympathy,
Soph Mom
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:28 am
Political leanings can be gleaned when we observe dogs lifting legs.
How does one lean to relieve oneself? Live and learn.
Existence is great. Human nature, though fraught with frailty, is a wonderful time to behold. We are in a process of observing the culmination of a candidacy that will gain in ascendancy despite ridicule from quarters that are ill suited to properly receive the public.
The sympathy I hold is for all of those arrogant species that defy the categorical imperative of classification. There is justice after all. No one escapes identity.
Culture is language, arts, beliefs, traditions, and the rituals of religion.
We study this so that we can come to an understanding as to our visitors within our space. For to understand our intruder, we need to have a working knowledge of their understandings.
Take care Rechtal Turgidley II
Have a good evening.