HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-02-17, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2011. PAGE 5.
Like far too many Border Collie owners,
I never tire of gassing on about how
smart my dog is. “You wouldn’t believe
it,” I told this psychologist I met at a party.
“My dog knows when we’re going for a walk
before I do. “She’s at the door barking while
I’m still finishing my coffee!”
“Uh huh,” said the psychologist, suppressing
a yawn. “Clever Hans.”
“No,” I said. “Her name’s Woolley. Who’s
Clever Hans?”
The psychologist explained that Clever Hans
was a work horse that lived in Germany back
in the early years of the last century. Not only
‘lived’ – Clever Hans could apparently add,
subtract, multiply, divide, keep track of the
calendar, read, spell and understand German.
Not surprisingly, Clever Hans was a
sensation. His owner toured him all over the
country, inviting customers to ask Hans any
question that could be answered with taps of a
hoof. Tricky questions too: “If the eighth day
of the month comes on a Tuesday, what is the
date of the following Friday?” Clever Hans
would listen carefully, then painstakingly tap
out the right answer with his right hoof. It was
amazing. Clever Hans could answer anything.
With one proviso: the questioner had to
know the correct answer. Otherwise Clever Hans
would keep tapping till the cows came home.
A German psychologist figured out that
Clever Hans wasn’t doing the math – he was
watching the body language of the person who
asked the question. The horse simply kept
tapping his hoof until he arrived at the correct
answer and the questioner’s body relaxed.
“Bingo” Clever Hans would say (if horses
could talk). Once they separated the horse
from his questioner (and from spectators who
could also give off visual cues) Clever Hans
turned out to possess no more arithmetical
acumen than a garden turnip (although with an
undeniably greater fan base).
So my Border Collie isn’t psychic – just a
close observer of human foibles. Still doesn’t
explain Chaser though. Chaser is a Border
Collie that lives in North Carolina with (yet
another) psychologist, one John W. Pilley. Dr.
Pilley decided to find out just how smart a
Border Collie can be.
Pretty smart, apparently. Chaser knows (at
last count, 1,022 nouns. She also knows the
difference between pawing an object, nosing
an object and taking the object in her mouth.
Is Chaser picking up unconscious cues from
her owner – Clever Hans all over again? Not a
chance. Dr. Perry knows all about Clever Hans
and took pains to be behind a screen when
giving vocal commands to the dog.
Nope, the main difference between my
Border Collie and Dr. Pilley’s seems to be not
so much the animal as the owner. My dog
responds to about five commands – Come. Sit.
Lie down. Good girl. Stop barking – because I
have spent a grand total of about 15 minutes
training her. Dr. Pilley? He puts in four to five
hours.
Every day.
That may sound like animal abuse to people
who don’t know border collies but the fact is
Chaser loves every minute of it. These dogs are
bred to herd sheep all day long. Chaser can’t
get enough. After four or five hours, Dr. Pilley
says “I have to go to bed to get away from her.”
Which brings us to the perennial question:
dogs versus cats – which is smarter? A recent
study by scientists at Oxford University
appears to give dogs the intellectual edge.
Dogs are more ‘socialized’ than cats, the study
says and social animals “need to think more”
in order to manage inter-species relationships.
At this point any cat owner reading these
words is probably laughing hysterically.
Cats do not trouble themselves unduly about
inter-species relationships. My dog will chase
and fetch a tennis ball until her legs fall off. A
cat? She would watch the ball bounce away,
then glance back at me with a look that says
“Who – moi?”
As Garrison Keillor observed, “Dogs obey
commands; cats take a memo and get back to
you.”
So which species is smarter? Until cats
condescend to take a test we’ll never really know.
All I know for sure is, my dog Woolley is
pretty smart. Lately she’s taken to quacking
instead of barking.
Well, whaddya expect? She’s learning a
second language.
Arthur
Black
Other Views If it barks like a duck, it must be…
So two people are sitting beside one
another last week and both are reading
their own Feb. 10 issue of The Citizen.
One is a football fan who is thoroughly
enjoying my column on the Green Bay
Packers’ Superbowl win. The other doesn’t
care for football and puts down the newspaper.
It doesn’t end there though. The football
hater starts jabbering on to no one in particular
about how bad the column is and furthermore,
how awful football is.
And while the football fan is annoyed, he
keeps reading the column he is enjoying about
a sport he loves. But eventually the football
hater is fed up, reaches over and tears the
football lover’s issue of The Citizen right out of
his hands, subsequently ripping it in half.
Because if one person doesn’t enjoy
something, no one else should either, right?
Of course it’s not right, and of course that
didn’t actually happen, but too many people
think this way these days, in slightly more
subtle tones, of course.
A few months ago, Jess and I went and saw
Inception, a heady movie about dreams and the
subconscious mind. The next day, my mom
called and asked me how it was, to which I
promptly responded by taking my keys out of
my pocket, jangling them loudly into the
phone, telling her “that” is how it was.
What an odd response you might be
thinking. It doesn’t have anything to do with
my mom’s taste in movies (my mom who
hasn’t met a movie she can’t sleep through, but
that’s another point entirely) or Inception
itself. It has everything to do with an older
woman sitting behind us in the theatre.
She had decided the idea behind Inception
was too complex, or that it was too stupid, and
felt that, like any eight-month-old infant
would, jangling her keys around, seemingly in
preparation for her exit, would be much more
entertaining. The problem, of course, is that the
theatre was full of people and she was an adult.
A similar incident occurred when watching
the Oscar-nominated True Grit. I nearly had a
hole kicked in the back of my head, while
having my ear drums ruptured by high-pitched
squeals at the same time, during a scene
involving a snake because apparently a woman
sitting behind me wasn’t big on snakes.
This isn’t a problem that’s confined to movie
theatres, it has made its way out of the dark.
Through covering several municipal
councils, I have come across several groups
that have had very specific interests when it
comes to council meetings.
So as I try to cover the meeting and take on
the impossible task of writing every word I
hear, I now have to contend with chatting in the
gallery while the meeting goes on, as the group
of the day’s issue isn’t the topic on the floor, so
the group has little interest in the discussion.
So predictably, when the shoe is on the other
foot and the group’s topic of the day is on the
floor, the chatter stops and attention is paid.
I have always considered myself a “man of
the people”, someone who respects the
concerns of others whether I may have interest
in them or not.
It’s the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you.
So when you want help from council, you
should probably shut up when councillors are
trying to run the other 99.5 per cent of the
municipality that doesn’t affect you, as it is
their job. If you want to watch a movie that you
like in peace, then maybe that same courtesy
should be extended to the rest of the group in
the theatre when you made the mistake of
picking a movie that isn’t your cup of tea.
Keep it to yourself
This week I had an opportunity to chat with
Juno nominee Lyndon John X from Brussels.
I won’t lie and say I’m an avid listener of his
music, but I will say that, in doing my research
for the article, I did like what I heard.
Sitting with earbuds in and listening to his
music via his web site before the interview, I
was reminded of how I spent a good portion of
my youth - with headphones on.
While most of the artists I liked were a little
before my time, my musical tastes were very
much influenced by the cassettes (kids, ask
your parents) and CDs that I found/had bought
for me as a child.
I was never one of those MuchMusic or MTV
watchers who needed to have the newest music.
No, I was very comfortable with the tried,
tested and true rock music of the late 70s, 80s
and early 90s that I heard while plugging
random cassettes in my family’s old truck,
Taurus and Aerostar.
As a matter of fact, my meager CD
collection still half-reflects that.
Before my discovery of modern country
music, before I learned that I like Nickelback,
and before I ever heard of a Big Shiny Tunes
album, I spent days and nights in my room
with my boombox and over-sized headphones
and lost myself in the music of Guns N’ Roses,
Aerosmith, Billy Joel and Meat Loaf.
Specifically, I loved Guns N’ Roses Use
Your Illusion collection, Aerosmith’s Get a
Grip, Billy Joel’s Stormfront and everything,
and anything, by Meat Loaf.
I’m not a bandwagon jumper when it comes
to music. If I find a song I like, I can usually
go without buying it.
If I find a few songs I like, and can find them
all on one album, I’ll drop the money on it
without regret.
There are few artists who I will go out of my
way to get every single musical contribution
from, but Meat Loaf is one of them.
I watched his movies (with the exception of
Fight Club, because I just really can’t stand
Brad Pitt), bought his CDs, bought his concert
DVDs and recently tried to attend one of his
concerts for the release of Bat Out of Hell III:
The Monster is Loose which came out in 2006.
After that, Meat Loaf released a new album,
Hang Cool Teddy Bear, and potentially ended
his musical career, stating it may be his final
studio album. The album is good. Not great,
but good. And I was hopeful that is how he
would remain when I thought back on his
music.
In my memories, high points and low points
are often accentuated with music, and a lot of
them are Meat Loaf songs. I guess Dick Clark
had it right when he said “Music is the
soundtrack of our lives”.
Since I began following Meat Loaf, I’ve
laughed and smiled as he acted in shows like
House (possibly to return the favour for actor
Hugh Laurie playing piano for some of Hang
Cool Teddy Bear, or possibly just to play a
character named Eddie again), Glee,
Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny (again,
possibly because Jack Black makes an
appearance on Hang Cool Teddy Bear), and of
course his unforgettable roles in Wayne’s
World and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I’ve never once seen something he did and
thought it wasn’t good, or reflected badly upon
him. (Of course, as I said, I haven’t seen Fight
Club,so who knows).
Recently, however, I saw a commercial for
the next installment of The Celebrity
Apprentice, which will feature Meat Loaf.
Now, I’m not jumping to conclusions here.
He is starring alongside John Rich of country
duo Big and Rich, whom I enjoy, and Mark
McGrath of Sugar Ray (and who didn’t groove
to Fly at least once?), so, maybe the show will
be interesting.
I also know (more from my girlfriend’s
illogical love of another reality TV show, Gene
Simmons Family Jewels) that other musical
artists have escaped from ‘celebrity’ versions of
The Apprentice unharmed, like Gene Simmons
and... no one else really comes to mind.
I just really hope that, of the 16 people on
the show, which pits celebrities against each
other to win a chance to work for one of
Donald Trump’s companies for one year with
an annual salary of $250,000, he gets
eliminated quickly.
Unfortunately, with the rest of the lineup
including the insane Gary Busey, a Jackson
family member and rapper Lil John, I just
don’t see Meat Loaf as the least business
minded of the group.
Fortunately, I guess that business sense
doesn’t really determine the outcome of the
show, or else many of these celebrities would
never make the cut.
Through education and experience, I know
that most things fail eventually, I just really
hoped that Meat Loaf would not become an
example of that. However, I can see things
going south for even the best people when they
appear on reality television.
I can see all those great memories of my
youth being tarnished by a memory of him
losing his temper and having that moment
recorded for the entire world to see.
My memories of sitting in my room with a
good book and great tunes will soon become
associated with that one horrible moment on a
reality television show.
Recollections of my favourite song of all
time, Objects in the Rear View Mirror May
Appear Closer Than They Are, may fall out of
my memory, because I don’t want to think
about how time wears on us all.
So that is my hope, that one of my favourite
artists, with whom I shared so many important
moments in my life, stays in my memories the
way he is.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Leave my childhood alone reality TV
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den