Monday🌘Phone Dr Hate (anagram of Open Thread I liked better than Heat Pernod) 🦑

When the kids were babies, I'd ask, "How many tickles does a squid have?" Eyes wide with terrified anticipation, they would squirm away and scream, "No no no no no!" I'd yell, "TEN TICKLES!" and then apply the ten.

3-D squid drawings by Yuuki Tokuda, more here: https://grapee.jp/en/136227

    During the last decade they started feeling embarrassed by the whole thing, and eventually so did I. Tickling is now forbidden forevermore in SQRL Manor. Just as well, really. I'm not fond of touching others or being touched though I do make exceptions for the kids and spouse. I don't even like handshakes. It could be worse though. What if greetings were tickle fights instead of handshakes or hugs?

    Some of the aversion to physical interaction is cultural, but even in this I'm an outlier. My parents weren't affectionate but weren't repulsed by an outstretched hand. But I don't think I've ever seen them hug or kiss each other either. I imagine - not only because the thought of parental sex is squicky AF, but I admit it's a big part of it - the act of reproduction for them was perfunctory, an unsavory part of a biological necessity, a We should have at least two kids or else something's wrong type of reflex, and performed like an odious task over a threshold so they could at least be in separate rooms whilst procreating. Picture if you will a sheet over them due to their profound Christian modesty. But also because it would look like a ghost camel. 

    "Local Family Says A Bactrian Specter Is Haunting The Doorway Adjoining Their Dining Room to Their Kitchen. Film at 11. Only on channel 4, Liminal News."

*****

First - my apologies to those of you expecting a squid post. No one's more disappointed than I. Picture me dancing the Squidward dance of contrition.

...  which seems to line up decently with ⬇️ at least some of the time. But it's not perfect.

    On to the more important matter of tickle research. (Good segue? Or THE BEST segue?) Here are a few things I know:

• There isn't conclusive evidence on the evolutionary purpose of ticklishness. Perhaps it's defensive. Our reaction to being tickled borders on panicky fear after all.
• Primates all seem to react to it, and chimps and gorillas have been known to tickle each other. 
• Other mammals seem to exhibit this reflex, but it's unclear whether it's an adverse reaction or not. Rats seem to enjoy it or at least make social chirps linked to soothing. Not all mammals have been tested, for obvious reasons. I'll bet tigers are ticklish.
• Depressed and anxious people are less reactive.
• If someone asks you if you're ticklish, it's a trick question. You're getting tickled regardless of your answer.
• Machines - aye, TICKLE MACHINES - have been employed to test subjects. Someone had to make a tickle machine is my takeaway from this.
• In 1897, psychologists G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin distinguished two types of tickling and coined these terms:

knismesis 🪶- light, itchy, feathery touching which triggers swatting, scratching, flinching, screaming "Spiders!". Mild irritation, no laughter.

gargalesis 👐🏼- deep tickling, fingers in armpits, belly, neck, etc. resulting in a laugh til you pee your pants reaction. Obviously not the psychologists' actual words.

    Had I known in college that this was a valid area of research, I might have gone for a higher degree, an MA at least. Although the PhD defense might have been entertaining, successful or not. "Perhaps a physical demonstration would change your mind, Dr Fluegel... Yes I'm serious and no I won't get out and so what if I'm a poetry for cats major and why don't you get up and make me you no good stinker."

    Completely wrong, but I do associate the terms with my reactions to entertainment: 

• 🪶 for amusing content. Clever, witty, often satirical, but usually not LOL. Elicits knowing smirks and a dollop of chuckles. Very subjective e.g., The Player, Into the Woods, Richard Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Dr Strangelove, early Woody Allen, half of the Monty Python sketches, etc.
• 👐🏼 for LOL. Not necessarily clever or witty, sometimes just idiotic and so so wrong, but you laugh anyway. e.g., A Night at the Opera, The Producers (original film), Mitch Hedberg, Harold & Kumar, Keanu, the other half of Monty Python, etc. 

MOVIES I'VE WATCHED WITH AT LEAST ONE OTHER MEMBER OF THE FAMILY 2023

How much did we laugh? How much did we smirk or snort?

(4/4  👐🏼s means I am probably deceased or at least in gargalesthetic shock)

• Us                                                             👐🏼🪶🪶
• Nope                                                         👐🏼👐🏼🪶
• Wendell and Wild                                     👐🏼👐🏼👐🏼🪶
• Enter the Dragon                                       👐🏼🪶
• Shaolin Soccer                                          👐🏼👐🏼👐🏼
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon             🪶
• Women Talking                                        🪶
• Snowpiercer                                             🪶🪶
• The Favorite                                             👐🏼👐🏼🪶🪶
• We Are the Best!                                      👐🏼👐🏼🪶🪶
• We Are Little Zombies                             👐🏼👐🏼🪶🪶
• Star Wars                                                  👐🏼🪶🪶
• The Empire Strikes Back                         👐🏼👐🏼🪶🪶
• Midsommar                                               🪶🪶
• The Return of the Jedi                             👐🏼🪶🪶

I liked all the movies here except RotJ. I still don't like it. The rest would be 2.5 -- 4 stars if I had to grade them. I suppose.

What's been funny in your part of the world?