Philip Zimbardo/Something Only I Care About

Ever since I was a small child, I've been interested in abnormal psychology. I used to read my dad's old college copy of a psychology textbook that probably wasn't terribly accurate, seeing as it was from the late 70's/early 80's. For a brief while, I even thought I wanted to be a psychologist. Then I figured out that psychologists actually had to learn things about science; they didn't just get to look at pictures of cats that schizophrenic people drew, which was what I was getting out of that textbook.
But oh man, did I love that textbook. It was written by Phillip Zimbardo (or else it just featured pictures of him, not sure!), who is famous not only for conducting the Stanford prison experiment, but also for looking kind of weird.

As a kid, I didn't know that Zimbardo was famous; I just thought he was a weird dude in an old book. Imagine my surprise when he showed up in my high school psychology studies as well as my college classes. Also once I saw him on The Daily Show, which was a super-weird surprise. My best friend and I always thought he kind of looked like Satan, or at least an actor who would be playing Satan in a made-for-TV movie.
Anyway, I found this video...the best of Philip Zimbardo.

This is worth watching. The part where he's holding the baby made me laugh AND cringe. ALSO, I found the pictures of cats that a schizophrenic man drew! You can see why I was drawn to them.

Book & Film Clubs

It's June 1st, which means we let the entirety of May go by without mentioning our Book & Film Club picks. You were probably so worried! Well, you didn't have to be, because Book Club solidered on (this is a joke, later it will makes sense, I promise)and Film Club kind of limped along sadly.
Our May pick for Book Club was The Barracks Thief by Tobias "Toby" Wolff.

It made me cringe a lot, and it made me sad, and I read it in the course of one night. I had a difficult time picking something for Film Club, so we are going to double up when Alex comes home and watch two month's worth of films in one month. I ended up choosing Douglas Sirk's Magnificent Obsession, which begins the way I like all my movies to begin...with a magnificent speed boat crash. Yeah, I'm making Alex watch this.

This is basically how Film Club will go from now on. Alex will pick something intelligent, and I will pick a film that features lines like, "I didn't ask for your resuscitator!"
And Book Club for this month is a doozie. Something I've wanted to read for a long time...

East of Eden! This breaks the only rule of TTWF Book Club, which is NO OPRAH. We got close enough with our first pick. But oh well. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken. John Steinbeck agrees.

"Like my jacket?"- John Steinbeck