This special Valentine was a FULL-PAGE ad in this morning’s Metro! Yikes. I guess it’s romantic, but…it’s the Metro. I mean, imagine telling your grandkids, “I proposed to your grandma in the Metro.” Well, it’s poignant, somehow.

I guess I shouldn’t be knocking it. You take love where you find it. Maybe they met on the T or something. It could be their special place. And it is a special place. A lot of special things happen on the T.

In fact, I have a proposal myself. I propose more people fall in love on the T. I propose making it THE PLACE to fall in love. And Metro the place to tell the world.

I mean, think about it. Love and squalor. The T’s a perfect place for it. And don’t get the wrong impression: I’m not this “down with love!” type. Really. I’m all for love. I say, go ahead and open up that Pandora’s box of emotions. Let it turn your world upside-down! It’s a bumpy ride, but it’s worth it. Because love is transformation. And though life may look pretty good from the vantagepoint of the catepillar, think of how it looks to the butterfly.

That’s my Valentine’s Day thought for you. I mean, today, forget the squalor! Ignore this day the strange physics of the universe of love, where the distance between souls increases in direct proportion to the closeness of bodies. Don’t trouble yourself that I-Thous collapse inevitably into I-its. The incessant agitation of love, the monumental bother of it, the epic moodswings, the misery of separation, the constant angst of anticipating separation when you’re together. The utter incompatibility of love and everyday life. Forget about it. Butterflies die, but not on Saint Valentine’s Day.

Today we celebrate that hope which springs eternal in the human heart!

And on that note, I’m gonna go look at some porn.

Wow, I was at one with the T this morning on my way into town to meet a couple buddies for coffee at the Espresso Royale Cafe on Gainsborough. It was a very thoughtful crowd on the red line. We’re talking deep, deep thoughts, meditative thoughts, we’re talking Buddha Consciousness on the red line here. There was even a chick doing yoga.

I felt so at peace I had to think, what’s going on here? It was before eight, first of all, on a Saturday. I counted the number of passengers in the car with me. 13. We could have had a couple more and still had–each of us–enough space for all of us and our deep, deep thoughts. But I’d say you get any more than seventeen and things start getting too cramped to open your heart chakra.

On the way home, after the gym, I was at Downtown Crossing. I was still feeling pretty zen, but it was getting more crowded. There was a dejected-looking white guy in a long leather overcoat, with a big plastic shopping bag and a suspicious-looking teal blue duffle bag. He would’ve been a pretty good candidate for a suicide bomber if it hadn’t been for that teal bag. I mean, there was just something so eighties about it. Even infamous would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid had up-to-date sneakers.

But even if it wasn’t a bomb in that big teal duffel bag, there was some manner (and maybe all manner) of evil in there, I can assure you. I’m not going to speculate as to the contents here in mixed company, but evil was among its contents. You could just tell.

Well, I hope Sassy is satisfied! This backpack debate has certainly been cathartic. I want to thank Patrick and Andy for their conscientious comments. Give ‘em some love, people.

I would like to say, I have absolutely no moral authority to make unilateral proclamations about how anyone else should behave on the T. I mean, I’m not sure I’d be able to bear the burden of being T-Etiquette Guru. What I’ve always thought about essential etiquette is that it’s intuitively obvious. If you are paying attention to what you’re doing, what others around you are doing, and what effects all these doings are having on each other, well, then that’s half the battle isn’t it?

Because etiquette is not some highfalutin behavioral accoutrement of the cultural elite, it’s a survival mechanism. If the goal is a measure of social harmony, etiquette is the means. Politeness is really the shortest distance between point A and point B. Or, if you prefer, it’s the oil that keeps the machine of culture humming along. Without it, things fall apart.

But it does require the development of a social conscience. Etiquette is institutionalized empathy. But we live in an omnipotence society, a Culture of Narcissism, in Christopher Lasch’s famous phrase, where self-fulfillment, not social harmony, is seen as the goal.

Social harmony is merely assumed, because intuitively everyone understands that without a high degree of social harmony, self-fulfillment becomes impossible. So there’s a paradox here. We’re going about it all backasswards. The foundations of self-fulfillment are to be found in social harmony. Without a degree of effort towards the goal of social harmony, we can’t achieve self-fulfillment. Because lack of empathy promotes fear of the Other, and fear promotes violence towards the other, and violence promotes further fear which promotes further violence, and so on. You can’t flourish in a society where fear is pervasive, where you feel your survival is at stake in even minor confrontations with the Other. And certainly survival is an issue. But it has more to do with ego-survival. Because your omnipotence is threatened when your real powerlessness is exposed in social interactions.

Remember: etiquette provides predictable outcomes. Politeness diffuses potential confrontations.

Etiquette is even more important in democratic societies, where it is an uncoerced expression of mutual deference, acknowledging equal status. In a society where men are free to act as they please, politeness carries weight.

Anywho. I have to say, aside from a slightly longer than ordinary wait for the red line Ashmont/Braintree train at Park, yesterday’s commute was smoother than usual. I was pleasantly surprised at Downtown Crossing on my way into town when the throng on the platform actually stood aside and let the passengers on the train get off first. I don’t know what secret quantum phenomena are at work in these things. I wish I did.

It may have been that the throng inside waiting to exit looked leaner and meaner and readier to rumble than our enemies on the other side of the sliding door. We may have had more Alphas on our side. Maybe the stink of our testosterone cut a path through the sea of estrogen on the platform. Dunno really. It was not out of politeness, necessarily, but it was close enough.

It does seem as though cities have personalities just like people do, and various moods, like us, too. Maybe it’s the weather, the day of the week, sunspots and ozone. Who knows? it’s probably an inconceivably complex combination of things. Still, I bet there’s a formula.

As for moods. I myself am back on my Saint John’s Wort, having gone off it for a couple of weeks after my trip to Sarasota. That and a good multivitamin and a daily workout regimen–45 minutes a day is all it takes, people, and it makes all the difference, believe me. Remember, your physical health and mental wellbeing affect the mood of the those around you, and ultimately the mood of the city itself.

Just wanted to mention, pick up this issue of The Phoenix, with “The Attack of the 50 Foot Oprah” on the cover. It’s about time someone did an expose on the most dangerous cult since Scientology.

I was talking to Itchy about it the other day. I’d seen Oprah’s self-serving speech at Coretta Scott King’s funeral and was telling him about it. Oprah gets up there and basically talks about Oprah, and how Oprah was privileged to know Coretta and how Coretta was royalty and Oprah was in her royal court, and how in Coretta’s presence she felt privy to a secret, and how if you want to know the secret you had to tune into the next Oprah. They also had a video presentation later in the service, a big chunk of which was devoted to the Oprah episode where Coretta got a total makeover courtesy of the Cult.

Itchy was like, “I just don’t see the appeal. What’s she got that I don’t? I want a religion! Why do people follow hers?” I said I thought it was simple. It’s an empire built on the two pillars of female identity in today’s America: the all-important hairdo, and the evil of cellulite. That’s it. And it’s such a central part of a woman’s world today that it’s enough. I’m not saying it ought to be that way, but it is, and that’s why she’s a billionaire. Same with Mary-Kate and Ashley. You think they’d be billionaires if they looked like Kelly Osbourne?

Anyway, pick up this issue and read it on the T.

Patrick and Andy. You obviously both have big ass backpacks, and I have obviously hurt your feelings. Heaven forbid.

Let me clarify.

It’s really not all about you. That’s the bottom line here. When you or I or anyone has a big ass backpack on, we tend to kind of forget that it’s there, and sometimes we bump into people without even realizing it. If you swing it around on one shoulder and hold it under your arm, you at least know where it’s at. It’s hard not to realize you’ve bumped into someone then. And you should, of course, say “excuse me,” when you do. You would expect at least that much of an acknowledgment yourself if someone did the same to you. And, by the way, if you don’t have the strength to carry your backpack that way for a few minutes during your commute, get thee to a gym!

If the train isn’t crowded, don’t worry about it. But if it is, be aware of those around you, and take appropriate measures. That’s really all there is to it. I’m not a behavioral dogmatist. It’s true I believe in behaving yourself in public, which amounts to trying your best to treat people as you want them to treat you. That is a matter of principle for me. But there are infinite variations on that theme, aren’t there?

The point is that a little awareness goes a long way. A little empathy works wonders.

I detected defiance in Patrick’s declaration: “I will continue to wear my large backpack on the T. I have to bring books and a laptop with me from Beacon Hill to Northeastern everyday.” That’s very informative, Patrick. It’s a very Beacon Hill attitude, too. The entitlement mentality that Boston is world renowned for. Me me me! I live on Beacon Hill! I’ll do this! I’ll do that! I’ll do what I want and you can’t stop me! It’s my life! Don’t forget it! The rest of you are just an extras in it!

I can’t argue with you or your big backpack, Patrick. Just hope you don’t bump into me with it, is all I can say.

The ever-sasstacular Sassy brings up a very good point in her recent comment, about backpacks. She’s right that the issue is one that must be addressed post haste!

When I was a student many years ago in Rome, and later, as a teacher in Budapest, I noticed that the public transit system was self-policed, mostly by cranky old people. If you got out of line, they all ganged up on you. If you wore a big backpack, they would shout at you–”what are you doing? And good heavens, what on earth do you need such a big pack for? What have you got in there anyway? Get off the bus! Go on—git! There’s no room for you and your backpack both!” It was like that. Unless you have ever experienced the wrath of a mob of septuagenarians you can’t possibly understand how effective this was. I mean, once they start shaking their umbrellas at you, and swinging their shopping bags, you better run.

And it worked because in the old country old people have a kind of immunity. Especially these Eastern and Latin cultures that venerate mothers and grandmothers. Because, hey, even thieves, thugs and gangsters have nanas.

It’s the same as with children in most cultures. There’s almost nothing more abhorred in society than child- and elder-abuse, and with good reason. The fact is, the rules of fair play, which say it is not only unjust but downright villainous to pick on the helpless among us, extend even to thugs–in most societies. Whether ours will remain among them is a question.

Not only are our scruples about abusing each other publicly in serious decline, but we have done everything in our power in American society to eliminate the elderly from the equation altogether. By sending them off to the assisted living gulag. You just don’t see many really old people on the T, or out and about in general. And that’s a real loss to our public life, let me tell you.

So, lacking this, what is to be done about the backpacks? Well, that’s another one for the commuter’s rule book. Packs should not be worn on the back on a crowded train, of course. That’s just common sense. You can wear them on the platform, but take it off before getting on the train.

But of course, you know that. The real question is what to do about those who don’t. And it is an age-old question. That’s what I’m getting at here. When a bunch of old people, with the wisdom and moral authority most societies bestow on the aged, get on your case, you learn the rules pretty quick-like. And from there things run pretty smooth-like. But when there is no one that society says is wiser than you, why should you follow any but your own rules? And that’s where we are.

Alternatively. The T could put up posters with pointers for riding the T and helpful hints for keeping the peace in the underground. If the ads were catchy enough, had a cute little snarky slogan, manners might catch on, too.

In fact, I think the T needs a cuddly mascot. And the mascot would be on the posters. His name could be something catchy like Teddy T. And he could have a host of less appealing pals, all with catchy names like Bratina Rudevic who wears a big, bulky backpack, and bumps into Teddy without saying “’scuse me,” and Paddington Pisspants, who’s so high on glue he’s lost bowel control and is drooling on Teddy! Some, like Ugolino Uzi could brandish weapons. But Twitter the Sprinkle Fairy would always be on hand to diffuse any tense situations.

I was on the train yesterday afternoon, looked over, and found a poem! You never know what you’ll find when you look up and around you. It was actually a line in a book the brainiac standing next to me was reading, a prose work on Lacan’s Theory (I have put the excerpt that jumped out at me in “poem form,” or “poemized” it):

“As long as you live like this
and weave a tapestry of falsehoods
the truth of your selfishness
will thrive in your heart.”

Ouch. Is Lacan trying to tell me something? No, I don’t think this has to do with me, personally. But I thought it was sound advice anyway, and wanted to pass it on. It would be great for a fortune cookie, too. I mean, wouldn’t that make you think. Maybe give you indigestion after your mu shu pork. Lacan is great for this sort of thing, actually. Here’s another found poem from him that actually rhymes (!):

“By a reversal that is not simply a negation of the negation,
The power of pure loss emerges from the residue of obliteration.”

Perfect for a Valentine’s Day card message, don’t you think? It’s from Lacan’s 1958 essay, “The signification of the phallus”. The passage continues, without the snappy rhythm and rhyme:

“For the unconditional element of demand, desire substitutes the absolute condition: this condition unties the knot of that element in the proof of love that is resistant to the satisfaction of a need. Thus desire is neither appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love, but the difference that results from the subtraction of the first from the second, the phenomenon of their splitting.”

I’d like to see that in PowerPoint, actually. I hardly understood a word of it. When I read the essay a couple years ago I thought it would be bawdy and fun, but it turns out the phallus isn’t all that fun in the final analysis. It is, in fact, “the signifier intended to designate as a whole the effects of the signified, in that the signifier conditions them by its presence as a signifier.” Mmm, very sexy.

The phallus is also “the privileged signifier of that mark in which the role of the logos is joined with the advent of desire.” Oh, OK. Well, that explains it.

“It might also be said that, by virtue of its turgidity, it is the image of the vital flow as it is transmitted in generation.” Oh, please stop, Dr. Lacan, you’re turning me on! “I shall also be using the phallus as an algorithm.” Doctor! I bet you say that to all the girls!

No, I guess his point is that the phallus is the signifier of the desire of the Other. Is this anything like Sartre’s “double reciprocal incarnation”? Another found poem, from Being and Nothingness:

“I make
myself
flesh in order
to impel the Other
to realize for herself
and for me
her own flesh,
and my caresses
cause my flesh
to be born
for me
in so far as it is
for the Other
flesh causing her
to be born
as flesh”

Yikes. Let’s fuck already, eh?

Meanwhile, back at Lacan’s phallus. Woman “finds the signifier of her own desire in the body of him to whom she addresses her demand for love.” In other words, if the dude’s got a woody, she’s happy.

For the man the signifier of the phallus “consitutes [woman] as giving in love what she does not have… his own desire for the phallus will make its signifier emerge in its persistent divergence towards ‘another woman’”—in other words, if the dude’s got a woody, he’s happy, too.

So everybody’s happy as long as the dude’s got a woody.

As for the rest of us: “male homosexuality, in accordance with the phallic mark that constitutes desire, is constituted on the side of desire, while female homosexuality, on the other hand, as observation shows, is oriented on a disappointment that reinforces the side of the demand for love.”

I only wish Lacan’s essays were illustrated.

Probably the best poem I’ve ever personally found is from a book called Eros Unveiled by Catherine Osborne. The book is just a little too something. But I thought this bit of prose, which I have poemized, was well worth the trouble of reading the first thirty pages:

“Of course it might seem harder to love,
Or to go on loving,
What ceases to be beautiful and good;
But that need not mean that the love
For what was once beautiful and lovely
Was selfish
Or motivated by acquisitive desire,
Or grasping
Or ungenerous,
Or less love than the love for the less lovely.”

Some words of wisdom I think we can all use this Saint Valentine’s season.

Yesterday–Sunday–the train from JFK was fairly deserted up until South Station, and then there was a real throng at Downtown Crossing waiting to get on. They blocked the doors in a thronglike manner so that passengers inside couldn’t get off, and poured in before letting us. Apparently not everyone reads my blog. Or at least not everyone reads it attentively. Imagine.

Now, I know. You see free seats inside, and that all-consuming hunger takes over. It’s like, “God, if I can only get to that seat before this old goat next to me, everything in my life will be OK. My miserable existence will be bearable, at least for another twelve minutes!” Isn’t that how we live our lives in these topsy-turvy times? Little mercies. Some of them stolen.

But let me tell you something, people. When this internal monologue kicks in, the one that says “seat on T = +/- 12 minutes of bliss”, that’s when you have to step back, take a breath, and ask yourself, is this life for me? Because if getting a free seat on a SUNDAY when there are scads of them is important enough for you to blindly push, shove, kick, bite, potentially scratch someone’s eyes out, to risk life and limb, it’s time to cash it in. That shit’s for Filene’s Basement, not the T.

Life and limb, you say? Yes, life and limb. Not long ago I was on a crowded orange line train, hanging from a meat hook, and a number of angry-looking young thugs got on. In itself, it’s not unusual. But I overheard one mumbling to another that he wished someone would just bump into him so that he could beat the living daylights out of them. I very carefully scootched away. In the opposite direction, needless to say. Careful not to bump into anyone.

Most of us, when we’re feeling blue, we pop a Xanax, or go home and eat a bucket of suet and cry ourselves to sleep watching endless reruns of Law & Order SVU. But there are people who, when they’re feeling blue, the only thing that perks ‘em up is to break someone else’s bones, disfigure them for life, or at the very least, beat the shit out of them at the least provocation. In other words, there are people out there just waiting to kick your candy ass just for breathing on them. Don’t forget that.

As for the rest of us. Don’t tempt us. Should you assume that otherwise civil people will react to incivility in a civil fashion? The real reason most people tolerate bad behavior from strangers is simple fear. Plus, if they’ve already got a seat, they’re not gonna let some fool keep them from their own +/- 12 minutes of bliss. But fear is definitely a factor. Most people aren’t really civilized, they’re just really afraid. It works, more or less, most of the time, but still it’s the least common denominator. Not everything need be based in fear, though nowadays nearly everything seems to be. And with some justification.

So when you are riding roughshod over your fellow passengers for the Holy Grail of the morning commute, a free seat, ask yourself how you would feel about you if you weren’t afraid of people who act like you do. Because one of these days you’re gonna end up flat on your back with your face split open. And no one will help you, because it’s the T. Some will laugh, some will look down at you pityingly, maybe one or two will mumble “dag” or “ouch, dat hurt.” Most will pretend you aren’t there at all. But you can count on one thing: no one will help you. You’ll have to collect your shattered face all by yourself, and ride to your stop in shame.

And that’s the last I’ll say about that.

There’s an article, “Seven rules to avoid a total breakdown of order on the T,” in the Weekly Dig here. Most of these have to do with getting on and off the train, and, of course, no reasonable person could disagree that following the common-sense and universally agreed-upon practices listed would not only make riding more efficient, but would make life in general considerably more pleasant on a number of levels, too. But do we really want that?

Think about it, Red Sox Nation. I mean, remember the collective whine that went up after the euphoria of the curse-reversal wore off? Bostonians don’t want things to go well. They don’t like it when things run efficiently. They feel disoriented. It scares them. And they would totally short-circuit if all the sudden strangers turned all polite on them. One or two a year is OK. Restores our faith in humankind, and all that. But if it happened all the time? It would turn our reality upside down. We’d have to reconsider all our assumptions, and who has time for that? And then you’d be paranoid about whether it was real, or you were in some kind of through-the-looking-glass twilight zone nightmare alternate reality, or what.

I mean, it’s gotta be psychological, because I’ll tell you this: it takes more effort not to follow the “rules” on the T than it does to follow them. Everywhere in the world, everyone knows them. Because they’re intuitive. You can’t get on the train until the people inside get off. That’s not etiquette, that’s physics, people.

Granted, there are a lot of different kinds of folks using public transit, and many seem challenged in various ways. You got your immigrants and agoraphobes. And these nervous types who are always afraid the train’s gonna take off from the station without ‘em. Or maybe that they’re gonna get chopped in two by those lethal “non-recycling” doors (or at the very least that they’re gonna lose their tails).

Sad as it is, I really do think fear of mutilation and dismemberment is their motivation, and I think the T plays on that for its own evil amusement. Especially on the orange line. Orange line conductors are brutal. They clearly enjoy shutting the doors on people, because it gives them the opportunity not only to take out a few, but to scream and curse at the passengers they so despise.

There are also those who have been socialized into the underground war of all against all. Their daily commute is about survival of the fittest. And I say to them: who’s the enemy here? It’s not you and me, brutha. It’s the T. They want to divide and conquer.

Worst of all are the Commuters With Attitude (CWAs). These are the cunts who block the doors inside the train. “You want out, you’re gonna have to go through me.” I mean, what’s the point? You wanna be a real rebel? Be polite.

I think in addition to better conductor-training, the T should have a rider’s handbook. And roving psychologists to address the various fears, inhibitions, megalomania, and psychotic tendencies of commuters.

So I was in Back Bay to meet a friend for a few drinks last night. I had a bit of time to kill and dropped into the Boston Public Library. I don’t know if you all know what a gem that is, particularly the McKim Building itself, with its John Singer Sargent and Edwin Austin Abbey murals. Sargent’s Triumph of Religion on the third floor is stunning. The sumptuous Abbey murals on the second floor depict the Arthurian Legend.

The third floor also houses exhibitions of all sorts, and the nice thing about that is any time you’re in the neighborhood and you have a few minutes you can drop in and see something interesting. Last night it was “The Magical Reality of Alexandre Benois,” the famous designer, with sketches and watercolors.

But my absolute favorite little room up there is the one (pictured above) where they have the dusty dioramas. This is a permenant display, and it never ceases to delight me. The scenes range from a desert at sunset to backstage at the caberet, and they really are delightful.

I met my friend for a drink in a crowded little pub in the neighborhood and as promised she had brought some pure essence of jasmine, which she guaranteed would lift my spirits. Not that I’m all down in the dumps. But I’m always on the lookout for herbal remedies for the old winter funk. With six more weeks of winter on the way, you’ve got to have a strategy.

I can’t say whether the jasmine worked for me. I just dabbed a little on my wrist. My friend went all out, splashing it behind her ears, under her chin, on her wrists, armpits, everywhere. I’m all for it, but I’m still not sure I could go around smelling that good all the time. It’s easier for women. She says people would be drawn to me on the T and not know why, but I’m not sure that’s such a good thing, either.

There’s no doubt in my mind that certain scents influence mood. The problem is other people smelling you. Even feel-good scents should be worn in moderation, I think. I mean, you definitely don’t want people getting too friendly with you on the T. Polite and nice is good. But it’s a very fine line, isn’t it? You don’t want them coming up to you and humping your leg, or whatever.

We rode the green line together to Park, and it was funny. We were both in a pretty good mood, doused in about a gallon on jasmine essence, but I was like, “seriously, look around.” It was like we were on the express-train to the Doldrums. That time of night—I mean, anytime after eight—it’s not old people on the T, it’s the young’uns. Here you had all these youths, looking like the vital life-force had been completely wrung out of them. I’m not kidding about this, people. You can’t spend months out of the year like this. Especially when you’re young. Youth is frisky and frollicky and fun, dammit! Everyone on that train last night was all slumped over, looking at the floor. Nobody smiled. Nobody spoke. Thank God they don’t use passenger-energy to power the trains, because it would’ve taken three hours to get from Copley to Park.