Sphygmomanometry 101

Mar 19, 2024

Hello. I get my blood pressure checked more often than you do. I get my blood pressure checked more often than the crew of Apollo 13 did. I get my blood pressure checked more often than Ham, the original space chimp, who flew with a sensor up his butt.

I take my own blood pressure readings between two and six times a day, and have been doing this for months. My doctor wants me to, just to be sure. I don’t feel sick and other tests check out fine, but my BP fluctuates as flowers in rain That bends them and they tremble and rise again And heave and straighten and quiver all through with bliss And turn afresh their mouths up for a kiss, Amorous, athirst of that sweet influent, love.

Okay, I stole that simile from Algernon Swinburne, the nineteenth century saccharine poet, furtive sexual deviant, and fop. I needed it to establish gravitas, since my comparison would not have been nearly as elegant. I would have likened the fluctuations of my BP to something far more banal and boring, such as “my blood pressure seesaws like a piece of playground equipment.”

Anyway, it does.

It’s not an ideal situation, but my docs are all over the case, and meds are being adjusted. My only point here is that by now I have become remarkably adroit and adept in playing the blood-pressure game. Familiarity breeds contempt, and contempt encourages defiance, at least in those already disposed to mischief. It turns out that if you try hard enough, you can defeat Big Medicine, like the proverbial autistic card-counter at the blackjack table in Vegas.

On my own, through experimentation, I have found that the BP machine can be short-circuited because it is deeply susceptible to emotional manipulation. It can be budged, significantly, by altering your emotions via tricks of self-deception. It’s partly a physical gimmick, not dissimilar to the way you are supposedly able to beat a lie-detector test by secreting a thumb tack in you shoe, under your big toe, and squeezing down when lying.

Unlike the polygraph and the blackjack table, though, my manipulation is pointless, and of course makes the test clinically invalid. I do it only sometimes, just for the badass of it.

Just yesterday I managed to score this reading, which I immediately photographed:

If you know about blood pressures, you know this is essentially the reading achieved by a person in a hospital gown, on a gurney, arse exposed, in the instant before he “walks toward the light.” Both these systolic and diastolic numbers are alarmingly low.

Here’s how to achieve this, if you are a maniacal individual looking to rage against the Machine. Persuade yourself, for the brief moment, that you are a drooling dimwit. (Yes, thank you, I know that for me it’s not much of a stretch.) There are two components to this self-masquerade.

The first is theatrical, through the surprisingly sturdy influence of body language. To lower their apparent IQs by 50 points, stage actors learn to deaden and heavy-lid their eyes, insert some flaccid vacancy into their overall expression, and let their jaws loll a millimeter or six. I do that for the BP reading I am targeting for manipulation. The second part is attitudinal, and totally internal: From the character of Moose Mason in 1950s Archies comics, I have learned to say “Duuh,” repeatedly, like the Hindu mantra “om,” but without the inner knowledge / enlightenment part.

(By the ‘80s it became socially unacceptable for a lunkhead like Moose to be walking around saying “duuh” out loud, so the comic strip transformed him into a lunkhead who had been tragically diagnosed with dyslexia.)

So to challenge the BP test, wipe your mind of any coherent thought. If you are good at this you can take the elevator of your blood pressure down a floor or three.

After attaining that visual image of self-administered low BP I just demonstrated to you (the one above), I realized I did not have photo proof of the opposite extreme, because my other recent readings had been boringly hovering around normal. So I had to hooch things up for a good “too-high” screenshot. I knew how. As I said, I’ve been experimenting at this for months.

I waited until I woke up from a bad dream. A bad dream is perfect for your purposes — it fills you with existential dread, not quickly shaken. I forgot the subject matter of the dream almost immediately, but it involved a terrible personal indiscretion that made me doubt not only whether I was loved, but whether anyone had ever loved me. This created a small window of time to take my BP at maximal anxiety, which I hastened to do.

As I sat at the sphygmomanometer, I allowed to course through my brain every single real-life, significant thing that was troubling me. I am an an age and a stage in life where there is no shortage of these things, and some are potentially dire. Choose wisely. Choose only those that are plausible, and that would make the final quartile of your life a Stygian landscape of regret, want, pain and loss. Loose these things on the brain, let them really sink in, really examine the toll they would take, take a deep breath, and hit the “Start” button. Adopt a facial expression like a French nobleman during the Reign of Terror, sensing the release of the blade of the guillotine. Do NOT do the “Duuh” thing.

Voila:

(FYI: This is a BP level for which both WebMD and FDA recommend an immediate trip to the emergency room, by ambulance or Medevac if necessary.)

I was back to relatively normal in 15 minutes.

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The more I thought about my Moose Mason“Duh” strategy, the more I became convinced that this could become a valuable tool, a trick to achieve many great things, including (I blush to say this)World Peace. It is a grand improvement on the proverbial grandmotherly advice to “count to ten” for a would-be aggressor.

Re-imagine Adlai Stevenson, at the U.N. General Assembly, addressing a Russian diplomat on October 25, 1962:

Stevenson: “All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no—don't wait for the translation—yes or no? … I am prepared to wait for the answer until Hell freezes over.”

Zorin: (with all appropriate body language): “Duuh.”

The place would have broken up in raucous belly laughter. Zorin and Stevenson would have gone out for vodka and beers.

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Reminder: Here is the important portal to the Q&O Canal, that thoroughfare of communication where you ask Questions and make Observations that I will respond to in real time.

Q&O Canal

Okay, and now for today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll. It is based on a very short story in Vanity Fair in 2017 that has been long forgotten, drowned beneath the weight of other more significant misstatements Donald Trump has made, and their subsequent deconstructions . But today, it is an absolute joy. Here it is, in its entirety:

“Years ago, while reporting a book about a real-estate developer and reality-TV star named Donald Trump, Tim O’Brien accompanied his subject on a private jet ride to Los Angeles. The plane, as you can imagine, was overly ornate; hanging on one wall, for instance, was a painting of two young girls—one in an orange hat, the other wearing a floral bonnet—in the impressionistic style of Renoir.

“Curious, O’Brien asked Trump about the painting: was it an original Renoir? Trump replied in the affirmative. It was, he said. “No, it’s not, Donald,” O’Brien responded. But, once again, Trump protested that it was.

“Donald, it’s not,” O’Brien said adamantly. “I grew up in Chicago, that Renoir is called Two Sisters on the Terrace, and it’s hanging on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago.” He concluded emphatically: “That’s not an original.”

“Trump, of course, did not agree, but O’Brien dropped the conversation topic and moved on with his interview. He thought that he had heard the last of the Renoir conversation. But the next day, when they boarded the plane to head back to New York City, Trump again pointed to the painting, and as if the conversation had never happened, he pointed to the fake and proclaimed, “You know, that’s an original Renoir.” O’Brien chose not to engage, and dropped the conversation.

“Years went by. O’Brien wrote an explosive book, titled TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, which noted that Trump was not actually a multi-billionaire, but rather worth about $150 to $250 million. Trump didn’t like being labeled a measly millionaire, so he sued O’Brien for “malice,” and lost. More time went on, Trump sold the jet, and traded-up to a larger plane; O’Brien assumed that the fake Renoir had been tossed into a bonfire, or at least a proverbial one. And that was the end of the story.

“Then, in 2016, the unimaginable happened: Trump was elected president of the United States. A few days afterward, Trump sat down with 60 Minutes for one of his first interviews as president-elect. O’Brien was watching the interview, which took place in Trump Tower. It was highly choreographed, with cameras set up precisely where Trump wanted them. O’Brien watched Trump seated in an ugly mini-throne—“the kind of furniture Trump loves,” O’Brien notes—and sure enough, in the background, hanging on a wall, was that fake Renoir. “I’m sure he’s still telling people who come into the apartment, ‘It’s an original, it’s an original.’”

The Gene Pool Gene Poll: What is the most likely explanation for why Trump insisted it was original?

A: He bought it thinking it was original, and still thought it was, because he is not a man who can be duped.

B: He suddenly realized he’d been swindled but refused to admit it.

C: He knew it was a copy all along, and paid an appropriately modest price, but continued to push the Big Lie for self-aggrandizement.

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Q: My life has now been whittled down to two keys, house key and car key. The third key, which was for my desk went away after I retired. I feel lighter yet envious when I see others holding massive key sets held together with carabiners. Does your pocket jangle with lots of keys? -Stephen Dudzik

A: I think my key ring is pretty typical. I am holding it in my hand right now. It contains the key to my front door, the key to my back door, my car key, Rachel’s car key, and a fifth key whose purpose I do not remember, but I am afraid to throw it out. I also have one of those free keychain flashlights, advertising Capitol Hill Auto Service. I’ve had it for four years and have never once used it. Where would they come in handy?

By the way, Rachel can now drive a stick shift, so there only remain two things in life that I still do better than she: Read an analog clock dial and write in cursive.

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Q: I was a 20- year- old college student, studying in the basement of my sorority house for finals. It was late at night and I was feeling hungry. One of my sorority sisters came down to the basement with a hot plate and pan and was about to boil 3 eggs for a late night snack. She asked me if I would like one, and I said "yes" enthusiastically, thinking how fortunate I was to have my hunger sated so unexpectedly. At the next sorority meeting, it was announced that someone had stolen eggs from the kitchen and our chef was very angry about it. The culprit was asked to identify herself. Nobody said a word. I was horrified, not having given a thought to how the eggs had been acquired. I didn't feel I should rat out a sister, but felt guilty about not revealing my participation in the crime. I stayed quiet however.

A: I would contend that as a sorority woman, it was not only your right, but also your obligation, not to rat out a sister. Your only other obligation, at least as frat boys saw it, was to occasionally have pillow fights in your underwear, so the guys could fantasize about it without feeling they were being ridiculous.

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Q: Being harder on Trump in the ways that the mainstream media has been will convince approximately zero already unconvinced people. Those opposing Trump should make massive buys in right wing media in swing states with ads like “You pay your debts. Don’t you wish Trump paid his? (Listing of all the workers he stiffed)” That might convince a few folks. And then there should be positive feel-good ads about Biden. – Ken Gallant

A: This is a good idea.

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Q: The worst thing I’ve ever been involved with was a murder. I spent an interminable amount of time trying to scrape up thousands of dollars to buy myself out of the situation, and was ultimately extremely relieved to wake up, and discover that the whole yarn was just an incredibly odious nightmare.

A: Thank you. I mentioned nightmares earlier; mine almost always involve some aspect of having to do an important task, and failing due to my own incompetence or disorganization. Frequently, it is directional: I just can’t get there from here. The most terrifying thing about dreams is how easily they are psychoanalyzed.

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Q: I found this statement from you in Thursday’s Gene Pool highly offensive:

> “… I wish there were more of what I call instant churn – spirited real-time discussion … You know, fights. Outrage over what is being said. I often post things that I hoped would get us there…”

The Invitational thrives from the benefit of a large community of intelligent, creative individuals, who work not just for free, but actually PAY for the privilege of contributing, and instead of allowing them to come to the consensus that they typically seek, you are actively trying to sow dissention and discord, just for potential entertainment value. Are you really so hard up for subscription cash that you need to turn the Gene Pool into a circus sideshow, just like the American political scene has become? If so, there are plenty of Internet trolls on Facebook and Xitter who would be happy to do your dirtywork for you. Just send an invitation.

P.S. It is precisely the infantile political climate that has turned my former hometown into an intolerable wasteland of conflict. This is a major reason why I am much happier living here in Germany than I ever could have been in Washington.

A: “Highly offensive?” Really?? I feel you are overemphasizing the “fighting.” I was talking about “discussion” more than angry conflict. Spirited give and take, not character assassination. I wish that current subjects are more debated in real time. For example, I’m guessing there won’t be a lot of tales today about blood pressure, or cows at the table, or Trump’s art. But it’s just a minor frustration, and I think it’s mostly related to the relatively small percentage (maybe 25 percent) of people participating in real time.

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Q: You do realize your pulse was lower during your Reign of Terror moment, than when you were walking towards the light?

A: I did notice it. It’s interesting.

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Q; The crucial thing is that Trump is a bullshitter. As Harry Frankfurt explained in his book On Bullshit, "Bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant." Trump doesn't know or care whether the painting was original, but he thinks of himself as a guy who 1) Has the "best" of everything, and 2) Doesn't lose an argument. Continuing to say that the painting was real accomplished both of his goals. Being post-truth doesn't matter much in this context. It does when you're trying to, say, manage a deadly pandemic.

A: I agree totally. Rachel put it this way: “He hasn’t learned yet that mommy knows when you are lying.”

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Q: I was doing my Ph.D. dissertation, at a pretty good university. Deep in the library stacks I discovered a relevant book, deep inside which was a relevant, complex table categorizing some ideas I thought were crucially insightful. This was so long ago we didn’t have photocopiers all over the place. I felt that didn’t have time or means to make a handwritten copy of the table. I tore the page out of the book (writing on it the bibliographic information for the book, including call number, since I might need to cite it) and took it home in my book bag. Deeply irresponsible beach of any scholarly ethics, and I knew it at the time. I didn’t finish the dissertation until years later, and when I did, I made no use of that table, once so essentially insightful. Never after I took it have I even looked at it. I still have it with my dissertation notes, I think. If I could find it, I would send it back anonymously and hope they could paste it back into the book. Not gonna include my name with this one.

A: I cannot remember the details of this, but a long time ago I wrote about some sort of organized theft of book pages from a major national research library. There was a system the thieves used that defied efforts to catch them: They would have no cameras, scissors, or other obvious equipment. They’d could have been asked to strip nekkid and wouldn’t have been caught. They chewed on a simple string. Kept it in their mouths. When there was a page they wanted to steal, they’d take the saliva-wet string from their mouths, slide it into the book near the spine, at the appropriate place, and after a second or two, the page would be severed by the wet line of the string. No tools required, no ripping sounds.

The same story included another detail: Forgers who needed to create a convincing old manuscript would look at a book from the target period of antiquity – say, 1870. Most older books have a blank page or two at the front or back, due to pagination anomalies. So you use the string method to get those pages, and you have a piece of paper that will pass all tests for being of the era you claim.

I hope I am not giving people ideas.

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Q: I attended graduate school at a well-known university in the 1980s and earned Ph.D in physics. One semester ini my second year, I was doing poorly in one particular course, electrodynamics, which was easily the most difficult of my required courses. We used a textbook (Jackson, for those who might know) that was notorious for its difficult problems at the end of each chapter. The professor - not a gifted teacher - assigned many problems weekly, to be turned in all at once at the end of the semester. When that time rolled around, I was so far behind that I knew I could never get them all done on time and was in danger of failing the course, which might have meant the end of my academic journey. It was widely believed in the Physics Department that this guy did not actually read the problems to see if we'd worked them through to the conclusion. Some speculated that he decided the grades by weight, actually weighing the stack of papers that were turned in by each student. More likely, he just flipped through the pages casually, looking to see that they more or less resembled electrodynamics problems; one's grade was based mostly on your two exam scores. The worked solution of a graduate level electrodynamics problem consists almost entirely of mathematical expressions, interspersed with a couple of simple sketches and few phrases like "thus we see that", etc. It is not as distinctive to the individual as handwriting is, and I knew that my office mate's mathwriting, if that's a word, was not much different from mine. So I "borrowed" his stack of finished electrodynamics problems from his desk, copied them on the Xerox machine, and put the copies of the second through the next-to-last problems IN BETWEEN my first and last problems, and handed in the whole mess. I got a B in the course. No one, including my office mate, ever knew. I've always felt shame about having done this, along with - I confess - a bit of pride that I had the balls to try it.

A: This sounds pretty reckless. Recently, I was talking to a woman who was complaining about her teenage son whose high school class felt overwhelmed on a writing assignment, and out of time, and so the entire class got together and decided to submit the identical paper, which one of the kids had already written, on the theory that the teacher wouldn’t DARE to fail them all. And that they might all get Cs. This plan proved incorrect.

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Q: I don't gamble so I have no way of knowing this but wouldn't a card counter be useless at a craps table? I get how it works at black jack.

A: Absolutely correct. I meant blackjack. You see how crappy I am at this Substack thing? I have corrected it, but am keeping this here so you can all know my shame.

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Q: A story about how my brother (now deceased) once out-negotiated Trump. He told it to me.

My brother was a long time East coast sales executive for a major carpet manufacturer, with offices in NYC. As Trump was building the last of his Casinos, my brother won the contract for the carpet. Now, this is a highly custom job as the carpet contains the casino logo woven into it. Trump being Trump, negotiated a slight change to the standard 1/3 on signing. 1/3/ on installation and 1/3 on completion to 1/3 on manufacturing completion, 1/3 on delivery and 1/3 on installation completion. Basically, my brother, knowing full well Trump's propensity to stiff contractors, still took the job on spec. He would be stuck with otherwise unsaleable carpet and have to eat the total coast of manufacturing it if Trump reneged.

So months go by to make the carpet and it becomes well known that Trump is getting desperate to open the third casino. Once the carpet is complete my brother calls Trump and asks for a check for the first 1/3. And now the "negotiating" begins. Trump counters with "Why don't you deliver it and I'll send the first check." This goes back and forth a couple of times about who will do what and when checks will be sent. Finally, Trump offers," why don't you install it and I'll send you the full amount?"

Now, after this last offer, there is something that my brother knows that apparently Trump doesn't know that he knows. And that's that in NJ, in a commercial building you CANNOT get an occupancy permit without the floor covering in place and it will take Trump additional months to get new carpet from somewhere else. So my brother tells him, "no, you send me a check for the whole amount and I'll install it."

Upon receipt of the full amount, as they say, the rest is history.

A: I hope this is true. It SOUNDS true. It goes neatly with Trump’s failure to find $400-plus million in bond money to cover his debts for appeal. Who would trust this guy to pay up? Think about it: No, we are not going to lend you money based on the stated worth of your property as collateral, so you can defend yourself of charges that you artificially inflated the worth of your property.

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This is Gene. We are down. PLEASE keep sending in Q’s and O’s to this here button. I will address them on Thursday.

Q&O Canal

And please save this dog’s life.

Helena Handbasket

Mar 19Edited

Trump bought the painting knowing it was a fake -- otherwise, he would have had to pay a large amount of actual money to someone, which is something he does not do.

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Sphygmomanometry 101

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