To tell the truth

PROLOGUE

"This is a house of lies!" -Almost Famous

"I know I haven't blogged in a long time. My dog ate it." -Me
________________________________________

CHAPTER 1: FRIENDS

(Treasure Island Grocery Store parking lot. Two older women are pushing full shopping carts to their cars.)

OLD WOMAN 1: Now, I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you something, and I want a completely honest response from you -

OLD WOMAN 2: What?

OLD WOMAN 1: Because I'll not ask you if you won't be honest with me.

OLD WOMAN 2: Of course I'll be honest with you! What, am I a liar all of a sudden?

OLD WOMAN 1: Well...

OLD WOMAN 2: I don't lie about things! Just ask me your stupid question. I don't lie.

OLD WOMAN 1: Are you lying now?

OLD WOMAN 2: Maybe I am!

OLD WOMAN 1: I forgot my question.
________________________________________

CHAPTER 2: ART

There's an art gallery down the hall from our office. Sometimes they have installations that are interesting. Less frequent are shows that are actually attractive to look at. The current exhibit is tough on the eyes. Life-sized nude photographs of people looking, well, dirty. They each have nothing but blackness behind them, and they face straight into the camera with stunned expressions. It's creepy and weird and totally creepy. One can't walk to the bathroom without walking by the gallery's big window. And, there they are! Seven feet tall each! Naked and sooty! Weird and weirder.

So I'm in the men's room washing up, and at the sink next to me is the junior employee from this gallery. He's a good guy whom I've befriended over the past few months. He looks like the kind of guy who enjoys cool alternative music I've never heard of but wish I could talk about. The kind of guy who knows the difference between whey and soy.

"How's the new show going?" I ask.

"Oh, okay. I think we sold one today."

"Wow."

He throws me a glance in the mirror.

"So," I continue, "what do you think of the pieces?"

He looks at me as he turns off his water. There is a pause. A pause that makes me wish I hadn't asked. Of course he likes them - they're art. Big time art.

The water drips. He blinks. "I think they're terrible," he says. "I think the show is hideous."

"Oh!" I reply, perhaps too happily.

"Have you seen them up close? You have to see them up close."

"Really?" I ask with a wince.

"Oh, yeah."

"Let's go." I shoot back, drying my hands.

"Oh, yeah," he repeats, leading me down the hall.

These pictures are unpleasant enough when one is walking past the gallery quickly en route to pinch a loaf. Standing five inches away, looking straight on, doesn't really help the situation. My friend is showing me around a bit, looking at me for my reaction, when one of the main gallery reps emerges. He explains the work to me. He explains the way these photographs were taken: naked people lying still in the dark for up to three hours while the artist exposed a piece of film and ran a flashlight over their bodies over and over. Hence the dirty look - it's just an uneven, slow exposure. A single three-hour photograph.

It's ridiculous. It seems absolutely pointless. It says nothing to me. It sounds like this artist was bored and simply wanted to look at naked people with a flashlight for a few hours. And the result is that these people look like they were just pulled out of a fire, glassy-eyed and covered in ash. I think it's unappealing and dull, and it makes me want to challenge the artist - or at least his representative here. To challenge this art. Frankly, it makes me a little mad.

But we don't say these things, do we? No, we don't. We want to be supportive, and appear intelligent and cool, so we lie our way through things like this, nodding and smiling, and maybe even throwing in the occasional "hmm!" for good measure. It's easier. It's better.

Except, in this case, I am saying these things. I'm standing there, in the middle of this gallery, and these words are coming out of my mouth. I try to stop myself, but it's too late.

"Do you like this?" I ask the senior rep.

"It's amazing."

"Okay."

"It's brilliant."

"So, what is the artist trying to say with this work?" I launch back, "because I certainly don't see any message here. I get nothing from this."

"Well, that's... a good question." My friend seems to be enjoying this. "I think he's really playing with convention. He's trying to show us the difference between, say, this man here and his actual self. He wants you to feel uncomfortable with that."

"Okay, great," I continue, genuinely unable to stop myself, "But that has no meaning for me. That sounds to me like he just wants to play around. What's his message? His thesis?"

"Wow. Uh, thesis." The rep responds with a laugh. He doesn't know what to say, but he clearly loves this exhibit. No matter what. "I haven't asked him that. And, I'm not sure he has one. I think he wants people to have an experience looking at these. That's his focus. He went through a process, you see. I couldn't tell you anything about a thesis."

"Maybe he doesn't have to have a thesis, per se." I say, backpedaling for a few seconds. "I mean, maybe he just wants me to have this experience you're describing. The experience of looking at this. Whatever that is. Although, it sounds to me like he wanted to have the experience, not me, and I'm just along for the ride."

There is a pause. Perhaps I went too far.

"Precisely!" the rep says, with a nod and a smile. My friend throws me a wink.

"Okay!" I say, grinning back, unsure of what has just happened. I thank them both and make my way back to work.

I feel tired and sluggish. As I sit down at my desk, in front of this very computer, in front of this very blog, I wonder if I should have gone the lying-nodding route. The ease of it all.

________________________________________

CHAPTER 3: DETECTING

Galvanic skin resistance (GSR) - This is also called electro-dermal activity, and is basically a measure of the sweat on your fingertips. The finger tips are one of the most porous areas on the body and so are a good place to look for sweat. The idea is that we sweat more when we are placed under stress. Fingerplates, called galvanometers, are attached to two of the subject's fingers. These plates measure the skin's ability to conduct electricity. When the skin is hydrated (as with sweat), it conducts electricity much more easily than when it is dry. (K. Bonsor, How Stuff Works)
________________________________________

EPILOGUE

"It's good to be blogging again." -Me