Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

News of the Weird

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When I was a small Di, I accompanied my mother to innumerable flea markets and second-hand stores, where she would pick through the clothes and merchandise and I, always, headed for the books. And I loved any books having to do with the Weird: witches, ghosts, UFOs, ESP. I don’t know whether this is a consequence of being a kid in the 70s or just my bent or what, but I always asked to buy this or that 5 cent paperback and when we got home my father would look at my haul and just shake his head.

One book I picked up I read over and over again—it had spontaneous combustion and alien abductions and ghosts and people vanishing off the face of the Earth. One stop shopping for the weird. For years I thought it was a book by Charles Fort, but now I think it was Stranger Than Fiction. And of course I loved Holy Blood, Holy Grail (are they going to sue Dan Brown, or what?), which led me down the rose-strewn pathway (ha!) toward not only the Knights Templar but the Gnostic Gospels. And, of course, the gold standard for Weird Thinking: Umberto Eco, whose The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum would be required reading, but you’ve already read them, haven’t you?

As you grow up, though, and real life keeps intervening, you find tangible things to frighten you and make you wonder. Like what makes mothers kill their children or husbands kill their pregnant wives or corporations layoff thousands of workers in order to make their stock move up a point. Sure, there might be UFOs, but fuck that: did you hear about Thalidomide Fen-phen Vioxx? Before I had kids, late-night TV shows about ghosts would still make shiver; now, not only do I not watch late-night TV shows, but who gives a flying you-know-what about ghosts when I have to worry about where child molesters live in my neighborhood?

However, a part of me will always love stories from the Weirdside and conspiracy theories. Which is why one of my daily stops now is Rigorous Intuition. I don’t know how Jeff does it, but several times a week he posts a chapter-long meditation on some “weird” angle to recent news stories. Washington DC gay call-boy scandals (the 1988 version, not the 2005 version—but are they linked?), Project Montauk, Lord Maitreya. Aleister Crowley, the United Nations, John von Neumann! One of the favorite phrases in the comments section is, “Don’t fly in any light aircraft, Jeff.” Because TPTB (if I have to translate, you don’t know need to know) will bump off anyone who reveals these innermost secrets, of course.

Rigorous Intuition is one-stop shopping for all your deepest fears about the assholes running our planet. Check it out.

American vs. British smiles

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The whole thing goes beyond the various stages of dental care, evidently.

An article in the Times of London says that you can tell an American from a Brit by the smile:

While we British smile by pulling our lips back and upwards and exposing our lower teeth, Americans are more likely simply to part their lips and stretch the corners of their mouths.

So distinct is the difference that the scientist behind the research was able last week to pick out Britons from Americans from close-cropped pictures of their smiles alone, with an accuracy of more than 90%.

The study by Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California in Berkeley, near San Francisco, analysed the 43 facial muscles used by humans to charm, smirk and appease.

He found the British were also more likely to raise their cheeks when they smile, showing the crow’s feet at the corners of the eyes. This produces a more sincere, hard-to-fake smile.

The most common British smile—restrained but dignified—is called the Duchenne smile after Guillaume Duchenne, a 19th century French doctor who analysed facial expressions.

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By contrast, Keltner found most Americans had the far less expressive “Pan-Am smile”, named after the defunct airline’s gesture of welcome. This depends only on the zygomaticus major corner-tightening muscle and has also been called the “Botox smile” because, like the cosmetic treatment, it leaves the muscles at the corners of the eyes motionless.

I was somewhat frustrated by this story because there were no pictures. (Well, maybe there were with the online edition, instead of the print edition, but you have to register for the online edition.) There’s a bit with analysis of various UK celebrities—”Tim Henman’s grin showed he was ‘genuine, coy and flirtatious’, he said, while David Beckham’s smile and jutting chin indicated he was ‘determined to win at any cost’. The smirking grin of Chris Tarrant, host of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, suggested a man who ‘felt he was getting away with something'”—that I would love to have compared with actual pictures. Alas. Guess I’ll have to pick up the book.

I’ve heard the bit that you can tell a genuine smile by various factors—such as the skin around the eyes forming crows’ feet before. You have to look at the eyes. I remember walking around San Francisco when David Letterman was coming to town and there were all these giant posters of Dave smiling from various kiosks. “Look at his eyes! That man is terrified!” I said. Not a smiler, that David Letterman.

Commonly confused words

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Via Julia, I went to the Commonly Confused Words Test. I scored ‘You scored 93% Beginner, 93% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 83% Expert!” Apparently 100% of people in my age category scored lower than I did. (Just like Julia, in fact!)