How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey

McCubbrey, Dorie. How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? Diet-Free Solutions to Your Food Weight and Body Worries. New York: HarperResource, 2002.

Dr. Dorie McCubbrey calls herself the “Don’t Diet” Doctor. McCubbrey has a real doctorate in bioengineering. She bases her approach to better health and life from not dieting more on her work as a licensed professional counselor.

Success in weight management and overcoming eating disorders is an inside job. Throughout the book, this is contrasted with the external sources of weight problems and attempts to deal with them.

According to McCubbrey, weight problems have their source in trying to fit ourselves to standards that come from the world around us. Even seemingly healthy people can have weight problems and eating disorders that come from this external orientation. To deal with these, people play “games” which are strategies and behaviors for controlling weight that don’t deal with the real problems.



McCubbrey herself suffered these problems and played many of these games. Her struggles with body image and perfection led hear into anorexia, bulimia, excessive exercise and periods of being overweight.

The solution to these issues, and to the broader issue of living well, is intuitive self-care. Practicing intuitive self-care involves getting in touch with one’s inner wisdom about what is good in eating, exercise and living. It is living from the inside out instead of the outside in.

McCubbrey offers strategies for practicing intuitive self-care. She describes them as feeding the soul. This “diet” for the soul involves learning to love, listen to, and express your true self. To help readers practice this soul diet, she offers several recipes, which are exercises to practice. Some of these deal directly with the way people eat and think about eating. Others are directed toward meditation and discovery of one’s true desires.

The book is in many ways more of a self-help book that a diet plan. It doesn’t focus on changing behavior of lifestyles (lifestyle change is one of the games), but on living from the soul.

Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore

 Psychotherapist Thomas Moore, a former Catholic monk, expressed some unusual ideas about depression in his book Dark Nights of the Soul. I feel I should preface my comments with a caveat. If you have clinical depression, or think you might, please seek help from an appropriate professional in psychology, counseling or medicine. If you need medication, take it. I think you can undertake the kind exploration that Moore suggests without abandoning traditional therapies, especially if you need them to mitigate extreme symptoms that threaten your life and health.

 Moore isn’t necessarily talking about clinical depression, though he doesn’t exclude it. He finds the term depression limiting. If someone is depressed, they have a disease and there is a treatment for it. It is a matter of curing and dealing with symptoms.

As an alternative to this approach, Moore focuses on the opportunities in depression, persistent dark moods and hard times—dark nights may take any of these forms—as opportunities to mature, grow and heal the soul. Instead of rushing to get by depression and get better, sit with it, explore it and learn from it.  It could be a calling from your truest self to examine your life and become deeper, more engaged person. Instead of a curse, the dark night may turn out to be a gift.

Moore draws heavily on religion and mythology. He also discusses dreams. In the mode of Carl Jung, he sees value in symbols to illuminate what is going on in your life, as well as the value of symbolic and ritual action.

For instance, he draws a model from myth for the experience of depression. It begins with a separation or departure. One feels cut off, alone or isolated, especially from normal life. In a myth, this leaving of normal life is the beginning of an adventure. The mythic adventurer enters a new world, often and underworld, where he is challenged and gains a new perspective. These challenges help him discover who he really is. It is helpful to be able to move back and forth between the underworld and night to the upper world and day, to be able to benefit from the darkness without being consumed by it. In the end, the adventurer returns to his normal life, but it is not always easy because he is changed by his experiences in the underworld. Hopefully the lessons of his dark night well help him integrate his new life with the best of his old home.

Perspective seems to be one of the big benefits of a dark night. Everything looks different in the dark. You can reevaluate what things mean to you, the seeming trash that is truly a treasure and the seeming treasure that is truly worthless. It's a chance to clear out the clutter. It pushes you to accept that the darkness is real and part of you. Because the underworld is essentially your inner life, you can find by exploring it those places that are abandoned, ignored, neglected or run over roughshod by your outer life.

Each chapter takes on the exploration of various aspects of life that may bring about a dark night. These include love, sex, marriage, family, art, beauty, anger, disease and aging.

These journeys into darkness need not be undertaken alone. Sometimes you need professional help. The honesty and vulnerability needed to properly explore the dark parts of yourself could help you be a more open person and deepen your relationship with others. To succeed in the journey, it helps to have the attitude toward yourself of a graceful healer participating in your own life, and that attitude can make you receptive to the healing grace of others and your role as a helper of others.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall

The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need by Paul Pearsall

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Moore, Thomas. Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way through Life’s Ordeals. New York: Gotham Books, 2004.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is a classic of English literature. I’m writing a review of it because I want some horror to feature on Halloween.

Dorian Gray is, in my mind, a weird tale. Wilde produces a sense of creepiness that begins even in the seemingly light and hopeful first chapter. The title portrait is a supernatural object that horrifies and fascinates Gray. He is preserved in youth and beauty, and possibly even saved from the consequences of evil deeds, but the portrait become a mirror to his dark and sinful soul, something that eventually becomes too horrible for him to endure.

In addition to being a weird tale, it is a moral tale. Gray has beauty, wealth, and status, but he gives himself over to any kind of wickedness if their might be pleasure in it. At first, it is the infatuation of a hollow love for the actress Sibyl Vane. When she disappoints him on the stage by failing to present an ideal picture of love because acting it seems shallow compared to her real passion, he rejects her. Her suicide nearly turns him off the path he is pursuing, but when the thrill of the moment passed, he nearly forgot her. The sins of youth and ignorance turn more willful as he falls into using drugs and prostitutes. Eventually he murders a man. The book hints at other wrongdoing, possibly homosexuality, affairs with married women, seduction for the sake of its own pleasure, gossip, excessive drink, greed, blasphemy and leading  others into all these things.

The book could be a social commentary on the upper class of his time. With all the advantages they had, they were still corrupt. A fortunate life is not a sign of a good person. As with Job, poverty and hardship are not indications of an evil life.

Some think Wilde is exploring own life in the book. One can read hints of homosexuality in Basil Hallward’s feelings toward Gray (Basil paints the portrait), and in Gray’s feelings toward Lord Henry Wotton. Possibly Wilde was critiquing his own aestheticism, finding that it did not necessarily lead to a higher morality, but could as easily lead one to an immoral, selfish, and consuming pleasure-seeking.

In the book, Wilde never comes out and says what his intentions are, if he has any at all in terms of exploring himself, his society, or notions of beauty, art and morality. It seems clear, though, the Wilde suggests a person cannot be separated from his deeds and his consequences as Gray is with the aid of his magical painting. A man, his deeds, and their consequences may not be the same thing, but they are linked in a powerful way. When Gray tries to destroy the painting that bears the ugliness of his soul, he plunges the knife into his own heart.

Though some have accused Wilde of writing an immoral book, one could as easily argue that he wrote a very moral book. Gray is sympathetic to a degree, but he is an evildoer destroyed by the evil he did. The reader can contemplate issues of art, beauty, and morality for himself. Along the way, he can enjoy a creepy thrill.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.  1890. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003.

New & Interesting Stuff April 30, 2021

The Apparitionist by Peter Manseau

Cure by Jo Marchant

Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore

The Dawn of Innovation by Charles R. Morris

Happiness is a Choice by Frank Minirth and Paul Meier

The Healthiest Diet on the Planet by John McDougal

The Phantom Unmasked by Kevin Patrick

The Power of Fifty Bits by Bob Nease

In Pursuit of Happiness by Frank Minirth

New & Interesting Stuff April 23, 2021

Women’s History Month Links

I’m coming a little late to Women’s History Month. Here is a selection of books by and about women.

Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
The Big Necessity by Rose George (also here and here)

The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith

Doing Work You Love by Cheryl Gilman
Don’t Grow Old—Grow Up! by Dorothy Carnegie
Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

The Emotional Energy Factor by Mira Kirshenbaum (also here)

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Girl, 15, Charming but Insane by Sue Limb
Good Dog. Stay. by Anna Quindlen
Gratitude by Melody Beattie (also here)
The Great Stink by Clare Clark

Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
How to Write a Manual by Elizabeth Slatkin
How to Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork (also here)

Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast

Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender

The Last Taboo by Maggie Black and Ben Fawcett
The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst
Little Shifts by Suzanna Beth Stinnet

The Man Who Loved Books too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
The Millionaire Maker by Loral Langemeier

Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary
The Relaxation Response by Herbert Bensen with Mariam Z. Klipper

Simple Pictures are Best by Nancy Willard, illustrated by Tomie de Paola (also here)
Stories for a Man’s Heart by Al and Alice Gray
The Success Principles by Jack Canfield with Janet Switzer

True Blood by Charlaine Harris

Walk Away the Pounds by Leslie Sansone
Why Aren’t You Your Own Boss by Paul & Sarah Edwards & Peter Economy
Why Good Things Happen to Good People by Stephen Post & Jill Neimark (also here)
Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klaus

The Vulnerable Fortress by James R. Taylor and Elizabeth J. Van Every

You Can Write a Column by Monica McCabe Cardoza

I don’t consider the author’s sex when picking books to read or review for this site. I just read what I like. Almost 19 percent of the books I’ve reviewed so far have a woman author or coauthor. They are represented in all the major areas covered on this blog, but seem to be a little more common in fiction and the nonfiction topics of writing and self-help/psychology.

The Ultimate Weight Solution by Phil McGraw

McGraw, Phil. The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Psychologist Phil McGraw, television’s Dr. Phil, began to build his national reputation as a jury consultant for Oprah Winfrey when she was sued for statements she made about beef. It turned out his psychological practice was broader than reading potential jurors, and included weight management. McGraw has laid out his approach to weight management in The Ultimate Weight Solution.

McGraw describes seven “keys” to weight management. They seem to cover every aspect of life that relates to food. They can be loosely divided into two categories.

The first category involves discovering and counteracting mental and emotional issues that drive or support become on staying overweight. There are many subtle ways people may be sabotaging their weight-loss efforts. Some may have psychological issues that may require professional help, but many can use McGraw’s strategies to change their thinking and use new ways of coping with emotions that are more consistent with good health.

The second category focuses on behavioral change. In general, the approach is to institute healthy behaviors that will supplant unhealthy habits. Each key contains specific actions one can take to make practical changes. These strategies touch on habits, environment and relationships.

McGraw devotes more ink to the behavioral part. Ultimately, if one is going to attain and maintain a healthy weight, one must behave in a way will result in it.

The overall philosophy is that people behave the way they do for reasons. They may not be consciously aware of those reasons. Those reasons might not make sense if they were evaluated rationally. Even so, in some way a person finds the advantages of their behavior to be greater than the disadvantages. Change involves reevaluating the payoffs and costs of old behaviors and implementing new behaviors that have more desirable and rational payoffs.



A secondary philosophy that comes through is that one shouldn’t rely exclusively on one strategy, or even just diet and exercise, and especially not willpower. The keys touch on thoughts, emotions, habits, relationships, environments, exercise and diet. The more supports you have, the more likely you are to succeed.

As you might expect from a book on weight management, there is also information on nutrition and exercise. Obviously, how much we eat, what we eat, and our level of physical activity is behaviors that greatly and directly affect our weight.

McGraw provides some brief explanations of the science behind his strategies, including a bibliography of the works to which he refers. The book is not very technical, though. It is a practical guide aimed at people seeking to control their weight, not a clinical manual or textbook.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

Why Good Things Happen to Good People by Stephen Post and Jill Neimark

Post, Stephen, and Jill Neimark. Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Research that Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Happier, Healthier Life. New York: Broadway Books, 2007.

Solomon wrote, “The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will be watered” (Proverbs 11:25 NKJV). According to bioethicist Stephen Post and writer Jill Neimark, this ancient wisdom is true and backed up by modern science.



Throughout the book, they site numerous studies of showing that giving benefits the giver with better physical and mental health and longer life. The effects can be both immediate, such as the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain when we do good, and long-term, such as longer life and better health in old age.

The book is only partly a summary of the research on the benefits of giving. It is catalog of types of giving. In each area, it provides a test to evaluate one’s giving and suggestion on how to be a giver. The authors seek to reach from the research to its application in how people can be better givers and reap the benefits of it.

An interesting aspect of the book is the areas of giving. Some are expected. Generativity, compassion and listening are types of giving that will quickly spring to the minds of many. Some may be unexpected. Courage, humor and creativity are less obvious ways of giving, but the authors show how we can enrich the lives of others through them and be better off, too.

A chapter that particularly caught my attention dealt with the way of celebration, or gratitude. I’ve long thought that our appreciation for the good in our lives is essential to our happiness. The research sited in this book confirms that gratitude makes happier and calmer. It also helps us heal and have relationships with others. The authors offer some very good advice on how to increase gratitude, just as they show ways to increase in the other forms of giving.

The Centuy Mark: 100 Book Reviews Posted on Keenan’s Book Reviews

We’ve posted reviews of 100 books on this blog so far. The most recent 25 are listed below in alphabetical order by title.

1089 and All That by David Acheson
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Tested by Time by James L. Garlow
The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp
Are You Dumb Enough to be Rich? by G. William Barnett II
Don’t Grow Old—Grow Up! by Dorothy Carnegie
Einstein’s Clocks, Poincare’s Maps by Peter Galison
Getting Started in Consulting by Allen Weiss
The Great Bridge by David McCollough
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
How We Got Here by Andy Kessler
IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black
The Millionaire Maker by Loral Langemeier
No More Christian Nice Guy by Paul Coughlin
The One Minute Millionaire by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen
The Pinball Effect by James Burke
Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale
Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller
Simple Pictures are Best by Nancy Willard
Starting from Scratch by Wes Moss
The Success Principles by Jack Canfield with Janet Switzer
University of Success by Og Mandino
You Can Write for Magazines by Greg Daugherty

Additional Reviews:
First 25 Books Reviews
Reviews 26-50
Reviews 51-75

I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

McKenna, Paul. I Can Make You Thin. New York: Sterling, 2009.

This is not a diet. Paul McKenna believes they don’t work, so he won’t be recommending one for you. He won’t even be taking much of your time. He says you can read I Can Make You Thin in two hours, and that’s about right.

McKenna dislikes diets because they tell you what to eat and not eat and are prescriptive in other ways, in addition to them just not working. People have trouble with their weight because they’ve become disconnected from their bodies and their natural senses of hunger and satiety. Diets perpetuate this disconnection, so they don’t have lasting results.

What McKenna offers instead of a diet is four simple rules. In fact, he suggest that you may be able to get by with just one rule, and it has nothing to do with what you eat. In fact, the entire system is more about the way you eat that what you eat.

You don’t even have to memorize the rules. One of the back pages has a punch-out card with the rules on it so you can review them every time you eat or want to eat.

The book isn’t quite as short as just four rules. It includes some information to help you stay on track by dealing with cravings, emotional eating, self image and getting back on the system when you fall off.

Included with the book is a self-hypnosis CD. McKenna recommends using the CD to help change your self image and solidify the new habits you’ll be developing as you follow the four rules.



If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair

What I Read (End)

Date: November 27, 2008
Title: His Excellency
Author: Joseph J. Ellis
Thoughts: A readable and balanced biography of a great man.

Date: December 25, 2008
Title: The Spirit
Author: Darwyn Cooke
Thoughts: Great, fun detective stories.

Date: December 28, 2008
Title: Wisdom from the Batcave
Author: Cory A Friedman
Thoughts: A fun way to look at serious ethics.

Date: January 3, 2009
Title: Blink
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Thoughts: The good, the bad and the hope of snap judgments.

Date: January 5, 2009
Title: The Unfinished Game
Author: Keith Devlin
Thoughts: It’s comforting that someone as smart as Pascal had trouble grasping probabilities, though he was handicapped by having to invent the idea first.

Keith Devlin also coauthored The Numbers behind NUMB3RS.

Date: January 15, 2009
Title: The Water Room
Author: Christopher Fowler
Thoughts: An interesting and enjoyable detective story, but he main draw to me was the underground rivers of London.

Date: January 22, 2009
Title: The Joy of Supernatural Thinking
Author: Bill Bright
Thoughts: A very challenging book.

Date: January 31, 2009
Title: The Big Necessity
Author: Rose George
Thoughts: It’s amazing how many people could have better lives if they could just dispose of their shit, and how hard it seems to be to accomplish it.

Date: February 24, 2009
Title: Why Good Things Happen to Good People
Author: Stephen Post & Jill Neimark
Thoughts:
“The generous soul will be made rich,
And he who waters will be watered himself” (Proverbs 11:25).

Date: March 1, 2009
Title: How to Write Mysteries
Author: Shannon OCork
Thoughts: Lots of good ideas. Now to put them to use.

Date: March 17, 2009
Title: The Emotional Energy Factor
Author: Mira Kirshenbaum
Thoughts: “Worry never comes up with good ideas. It never yields comfort. It never brings your ship to any safe harbor” (quote from the book).

Date: March 26, 2009
Title: Mastering Fiction Writing
Author: Kit Reed
Thoughts: “You’re going to have to write a lot of crap in your life before you write anything good, so you might as well get started” (quote from the book).

Books I Want to Write
Goal Setting that Works
A hardboiled, science fiction crime story
The Prodigal
Phin

Other parts of What I Read:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5,
Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10,
Part 11, Part 12

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It is a follow-up to Gary Taubes’ previous book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. While the first book was aimed at presenting arguments and evidence that might persuade experts to consider new—and revive old—models of nutrition and health, his more recent book is aimed at laypeople who want a more basic understanding of how our bodies manage weight and fat and how we can manage it.

The primary driving force in the way our body uses or stores fat is insulin. Chemicals in our body, primarily insulin, tell our cells when to burn glucose instead of ketones (a product of fat that can fuel our cells) and when to store fat. Though there are various factors that contribute to insulin production, the big driver—one we can control—is carbohydrates. Insulin increases when we eat carbs, instructing our cells to consume sugar (to get our blood sugar levels down) and store fat in the meantime. If we eat too many carbs, we stay in the sugar-burning, fat-storing mode and spend very little time burning fat.

The antidote to getting fat, then, is to eat less carbs. There is a genetic component to this, so how much a person needs to cut carbs to manage weight is individual to them. The upside is that almost anyone can get leaner but cutting carbs; the down side is that your genes govern how lean you can get, which may not be as lean as you want to be.

A more positive upside is that people can lay aside the guilt that come with the association of overweight with overeating and laziness. Appetite and energy levels are driven by the same processes that govern fat storage. In addition to losing weight, a low-carb diet can help one have more energy and less hunger.

Though Why We Get Fat is less reference-intensive that its predecessor, it is still full of references to research. It also covers the history of how the counterproductive calories in-calories-out model came to be dominant in American nutrition and health circles. The emphasis on the book is why.

Though Taubes focuses on why, he does not neglect what, thought the what (cut carbs) is fairly straightforward. He recommends a low-carb diet and includes a model in an appendix, though he also recommends an even simpler list of does and don’ts that goes back to the 1940s, before the calorie counting model took over the medical view of weight management.

I’ve been cutting back on carbs for a few days. I’ve seen my weight drop, but it is too early to say if it will continue. However, Taubes’ book has given me reason to believe it will work if I stick with it.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen
8 Minutes in the Morning for Extra-Easy Weight Loss by Jorge Cruise

How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

Making the American Body by Jonathan Black

The 6 Day Body Makeover by Michael Thurmond

The Ultimate Weight Solution by Phil McGraw

Walk Away the Pounds by Leslie Sansone

Taubes, Gary. Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

What's New July 30, 2009

Action Packed (11)
Book Review: How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
Book Review: The Pinball Effect by James Burke
Book Review: Water by Marq de Villiers
The Centuy Mark: 100 Book Reviews Posted on Keenan’s Book Reviews
The Pinball Effect by James BurkeProgress Report
What's New July 24, 2009

There is one who scatters, yet increases more

There is one who scatters, yet increases more;
And there is one who withholds more than is right,
But it leads to povert.
The generous soul will be made rich,
And he who waters will be watered himself.
-Proverbs 11:24-25

What's New July 24, 2009

1089 and All That by David Acheson
Bill Watch—111th Congress
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
Links to Infrastructure-Related Organizations (Updated)
Missouri Transportation Commission to Get New Chair
My Googleganger: Twitter Keenan Patterson The new new tab page on Go
News from My Alma Mater
Northwest Missouri Water Wholesaler Formed
What I Read (7)
What's New July 2, 2009

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Amen, Daniel G. Change Your Brain Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted. New York: Harmony Books, 2010.


Psychiatrist Daniel G. Amen explores the brain-body connection in his medical practice and in this book. In particular, Change Your Brain Change Your Body focuses on how taking care of the health of your brain can result in better health for your entire body.

In the early chapters of the book, Amen makes the case for brain health and how it can affect the health of the rest of the body. This is enhances by images from SPECT scans, which Amen uses in his practice to measure activity in different parts of the brain.

The subtitle of the book touts the brain as a means to get “the body you’ve always wanted.” For me, that includes getting my weight under control, and several chapters are devoted to the subject. There is no escaping a good diet and exercise, both of which get a chapter. What Amen adds is that an understanding of how one’s brain works can help on curb cravings and address brain deficiencies that may be roadblocks to sticking to a weight loss program. By addressing problems in the brain, one becomes more able to address problems with weight.

Good health is more than proper weight. It includes the skin, heart and glands. Good health is also a full life, which includes relationships, the ability worthy pursue worthy goals and the capacity to remember and savor our experiences. Each of these issues is addressed.

Amen doesn’t prescribe a single solution for everyone. Depending on your brain issues, the solution may be as simple as diet and exercise, it may include supplementation or even particular medications or therapies. Obviously, medical interventions should only be undertaken with the supervision of a physician and you should supplementation and physical fitness programs with yours.

The book doesn’t stick too close to traditional medicine. Amen thinks nutritional supplements can be useful and can reduce reliance on medications, but supplements can have issues of drug interaction and side effects that should be covered with a physician. He suggests meditation for stress management and has used hypnosis in his practice to address several issues including weight loss. (For those interested in meditation, Amen recommends The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson. Hypnosis is recommended in other weight loss books including I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna, which includes a self-hypnosis CD.)

In some ways, the book could say change your body change your brain. Many of Amen’s recommendations, especially related to diet and exercise are good recommendations for physical health. Throughout the book, he says that what is good for the heart is good for the brain. He even mentions a study that shows that physically active children perform better academically.

If your interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Emotional Energy Factor by Mira Kirshenbaum
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna
Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair
The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

He who waters will be watered himself

The generous soul will be made rich,

And he who waters will be watered himself.

-Proverbs 11:25

Dr. Horrible, the Hamlet of Nerds

Okay, comparing Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog to Hamlet, one of the greatest plays in the English language, is the type of hyperbole writers, especially on the Internet, use to draw in a reader.  I presume it worked on you.

There are points of comparison. Both are tragedies. Both feature lead characters giving themselves over to being people they might not really have wanted to become, at least not at the beginning. Both carry a sense of terrifying inevitability.

Having hooked you with Hamlet, I’m going to carry on about Dr. Horrible.  The film plays on concepts of nerdiness, jocks, and what is the potential tragedy of a world in which nerds can’t find a place for themselves (though they seem to be everywhere). It does so in the nerdy context of superhero films and musicals, the mash up of these genres being geeky itself.

About the Film

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was produced as a serial for the Internet.  The film was written by Joss Whedon, his brothers Zack and Jed, and Maurissa Tancharoen to produce something during the 2007-2008 strike by the Writer’s Guild.  It appeared on the Dr. Horrible Web site in three parts in July 2008 and is now available on DVD.

The familiar star of the film is Neil Patrick Harris, who plays Barney on How I Met Your Mother. I don’t enjoy that show much, but fortunately Harris has found other outlets for his performing talent. It is unfair to say Dr. Horrible launched her career, but I think it helped Felicia Day achieve a new level, especially on the Internet.  She is everywhere now and produces the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel.

Plot Summary

Dr. Horrible (Harris) is an aspiring supervillain.  He is seeking entry into the Evil League of Evil, but his prospects are threatened by superhero Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion).

The pursuit of supervillainy is complicated by Dr. Horrible’s double-mindedness even more than his nemesis.  As his alter ego Billy, the doctor is smitten with Penny (Day), a girl he meets at the Laundromat.  She meets and begins to date Captain Hammer. Hammer recognizes his enemy and flaunts the affair.

Dr. Horrible retreats from the situation and focuses on the League.  They are not impressed with his recent failures, but he can prove himself by killing someone in one of his capers.  He plans to kill Hammer. Things go wrong when Horrible sees Penny at the event where he plans to exact his revenge and begins to experience a change of heart.  Hammer gains control of Horrible’s death ray, which is overloading. In spite of Horrible’s warning, Hammer uses the weapon, which explodes, causing him pain but no apparent injury. Fragments of the death ray hit the crowd and kill Penny.

In one stroke, Horrible loses his love and gains his dead victim.  He is admitted to the League. He abandons hope and embraces evil.  It’s dark stuff for a musical comedy.

Dr. Horrible: Protagonist, Villain, Nerd

Dr. Horrible is a nerd.  As support of this notion, if it isn’t readily apparent, I turn to the characteristics of nerds identified by Benjamin Nugent in American Nerd.  He suggests that people associated nerds with machine like qualities. Nerds seem machine like in that they

• like working with machines, having interest in technical subjects or complex hobbies, and
• prefer direct, logical, rule-bound communication to indirect, emotional communication.

In his first appearance, Dr. Horrible is recording a vlog entry in his lab. Throughout the film, he talks about his inventions and uses them. He is clearly at home in the realm of technology. Not only that, he identifies himself with science and technology with his costume: long white (lab) coat, long rubber gloves, and goggles.

While comfortable with technology and talking about it, he is uncomfortable with emotional communication. He has trouble expressing his feelings to Penny, and he has trouble reading the signs that she might be attracted to him. In light of this, he is oddly eloquent on his vlog.  In Quiet, Susan Cain noted that introverts often communicate a lot through social media, and rise to leadership in online communities.  They communicate very well when relieved of the pressures and distractions of face-to-face communications. Nerdiness and introversion aren’t synonymous, but I think it strengthens the case for Dr. Horrible’s nerdiness in his preference for technologically mediated communication that is formalized through a script (an unscripted vlog would not be eloquent) and music (with rules for rhythm, pitch, and rhyme).

Captain Hammer: Antagonist, Hero, Jock

Captain Hammer is the antithesis of a nerd: a jock.  I turn again to American Nerd to help make this diagnosis. Nugent notes that the nerd image was at one time associated with immigrant communities that were rising in population and status. Immigrant pursuit of New World opportunities was shaped by their Old World perspective, so they sought upward mobility in artistic and intellectual professions.

The established upper class wanted to both maintain its dominance and distinguish itself from lower classes, especially immigrants. They adopted a preference for athleticism and a suspicion of excessive intellectualism. Book-learning had its place, but a boy who would take his place as active leader in business, political, and military affairs needed to learn how to win. Sporting fields and athletic competitions were seen as the classroom for these skills. Athleticism as associated with a certain class (because such vigorous leisure required time and resources).  This magnified the upper class sense of superiority.

We can see this in reflected Captain Hammer. His superhuman physical superiority seems to be a justification for his overall sense of being superior to others, especially the weaker and physically cowardly Horrible. Even his activities as a do-gooder seem to lack a moral motivation outside a vague noblesse oblige. He seems more interested in establishing and maintaining his status. For instance, his support of Penny’s campaign to end homelessness is motivated by the positive publicity he receives, not by love of his fellow man—he does not perceive value in homeless people.

The Tragedy of Dr. Horrible

Dr. Horrible, then, is a classic conflict between a typical nerd and a typical jock, except they are a supervillain and a superhero in a comic book-style world where such people exist. Where is the tragedy?

We’ve already noted the death of Penny. That is enough to make the film a tragedy, but not necessarily a nerdy one.

The tragedy of the nerd is to be trapped in alienation. Admittedly, nerds seem to be increasingly popular nowadays, but the more traditional image of a nerd is of one alienated from popular society because his machine-like qualities are not valued in a culture that sees emotional display and sensitivity as more worthy and human.

Nerds are not naturally loners, though. They have a long history of building their own communities. Science fiction fandom is a good example. Long before the Internet, sci-fi fans built communities of letter writing and zines around popular magazines. Before long, they began gathering at clubs and conventions. This culture carried over into comic book fandom (for more on this check out Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones). Nugent notes how a similar community of nerds, also readers popular magazines, formed around ham radio, where technological skill and rule-bound communication were prized.

We’ve noted that Dr. Horrible also seeks connection to a community. He specifically identifies his desire to be part of the League.  His quest for world domination is also motivated by a desire to connect with the wider community of humanity. He wants to take over the world not because he hates people, but because he longs for a logical meritocracy that would rid the world of all the trouble cause by emotionalism, celebrity culture, and doublespeak. In his fantasy, he would naturally rise to the top of such a society.

Captain Hammer frustrates these efforts at connection. He reinforces a culture of athleticism and emotional communication that Horrible cannot participate in. When he finds a sympathetic soul who may be able to help him make that connection, Hammer sweeps her away. At last, Horrible wins entry into a community, but the League is evil and inhumane, and can only serve to further dehumanize its members. The cost to Horrible to finally belong is high; he must turn his back on the rest of humanity and give up the hope of ever loving or being loved by another. He is completely alienated, cut off from meaningful and fulfilling connections to others.

The Sequel

A sequel is reported in the works and expected to be released this year.  I would expect most of the major characters to return.

I imagine many fans would like to see Day reprise her role as Penny, though the character died in the first film.  Because this is a superhero movie, there are several ways around this: time travel, cloning, robotic or holographic doubleganger (it’s a word, and it doesn’t need an umlaut), or reanimation (no zombies, please).  Maybe Dr. Horrible will try all of these things, each effort going more wrong than the last. He could be forced to team up with Captain Hammer to fend off an army of time-travel replicated, cyborg zombie Pennies, but I probably wouldn’t watch it because I’m creeped out by the walking dead.

Making Your Connection

You may be nerd seeking connection, too.  I’ve provided a little information below where you can find out about the people behind this film and the books I mentioned. They’re involved in other things and you may find that work interesting. Please do not cyberstalk them.  I don’t want that on my conscience.

Susan Cain

Book: Quiet (review)

Facebook: AuthorSusanCain

Twitter: @susancain

Web site: www.thepowerofintroverts.com

Felicia Day

Facebook: Felicia Day

Google+: +Felicia Day

IMDb: Felicia Day

Twitter: @feliciaday

Web site: feliciaday.com

YouTube: Geek & Sundry

Nathan Fillion

IMDb: Nathan Fillion

Twitter: @NathanFillion

Neil Patrick Harris

IBDB: Neil Patrick Harris

IMDb: Neil Patrick Harris

Twitter: @ActuallyNPH

YouTube: Neil’s Puppet Dreams on Nerdist

Gerard Jones

Book: Men of Tomorrow (review)

ComicBookDB: Gerard Jones

IMDb: Gerard Jones

Red Room: Gerard Jones

Web site: www.gerardjones.com

Benjamin Nugent

Book: American Nerd (review)

Web site: www.benjaminnugent.com, www.americannerdbook.com

Maurissa Tancharoen

IMDb: Maurissa Tancharoen

Jed Whedon

IMDb: Jed Whedon

Twitter: @jedwhedon

Joss Whedon

IMDb: Joss Whedon

Web site: whedonesque.com

Zack Whedon

IMDb: Zack Whedon

Twitter: @ZDubDub

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