Congratulations, You’re Emotionally Stable (How to Survive a Wellness Visit Without Snapping)

Dan Hansen Self-Explorations  

Dan Hansen was a very private person in many respects. Understandably he was anxious to protect his "self" from abuse or exploitation. In 2016 he shared with me a number of short essays that opened windows into his inner life. I share this one here to give readers an awareness of how we ourselves can sometimes be blind to how we come across in our interactions with people different from ourselves.

"Rampage" -- Illustration by Dan Hansen

I had an experience today that might be good background material for the article or archival material for the book.  I have what they call an SP catheter.  It is surgically installed through the skin into the bladder just above the pubic bone.  Every 30 days I go to the clinic to get it changed out.  Except today I was lined up with a home health care nurse.  This way I don't have to leave the house.  The care agency's insurance that provides my assisted-living care isn't covered in the policy to change out my catheter.  An outside agency must come in or I go to a clinic.

A nurse in her mid 50s came today at around 1:50 pm.  It required over an hour’s worth of paperwork.  The questions get very personal such as: What is your disease?  Does it progress?  How fast does it progress? Do you get depressed?  Have you ever been depressed more than twice in a week?  Do you ever have anxiety?  Do you drink alcohol or use any substances?  Are you single?  What are your religious preferences?  It feels a lot like an interrogation to coerce a criminal confession.  

They just keep hammering away on you as if they want you to snap... So they can write down notes ("subject appears to be emotionally distraught or unstable").  Obviously 70% of the questions I must lie about to protect myself.  Then I got these comments: "You seem very well-adjusted."  "I'm surprised at how well you're doing for your situation."  "Do they have a bus here that takes you out?"  "Oh you have a van?... Who drives you?"  "Are you friends with the residents here?"  

After an hour of this she spent 15 minutes checking my vitals.  Blood pressure, breathing, heart rate.  No one at the clinic does this... maybe a blood pressure strap around the arm. It only takes a minute.  She said my blood pressure was normal but then she held the stethoscope on my chest for several minutes, telling me my heart rate was elevated. She basically wouldn't stop with the stethoscope until I did some Zen Buddhist shit with my breathing to slow my heart rate down.  When it finally slowed down she noted it and stopped. 

When it came time to actually change my catheter it took her 25 minutes with the aid of the PCA here holding my pants open for her.  Normally this process takes two minutes at the clinic.  Then she told me how much sediment was in my urine.  She kept repeating it over and over.  Do you have a fever?  Do you know how much sediment is in your urine?  Again and again.  I Kept saying, "Yeah I need to drink more water...  It's no big deal".  I started to repeat "It's ok, I'll drink more water" every time she repeated herself.  This went on for at least 10 minutes.  

After I was all done she had the nerve to want to chit chat and further interrogate me about what I like to do in my free time. When I said movies she went on and on about Tuesday and Friday deals at the theater. I was just agreeing with everything she said until it turned in to a round of interrogation about which days I prefer, Tuesday deals or Friday deals. I just said I go to the theater on the day I’m there. This went on for about 10 minutes until she finally left and her final comment was "you're very easy going." It was like she was baiting me the whole time to snap and I never did. But I sure as hell am never doing a home healthcare nurse catheter change over again in my life.

It took me about five hours to recover from the 2 hour psychological onslaught. it is quite the dehumanizing process. It makes a person confront their own insignificance as a disabled "unit".  To see in their eyes I'm a commodity devoid of value. Then to imagine how ubiquitous this very sentiment is. You have now entered the Twilight Zone *gulp*.  It's a creepy feeling Ed.  Zombie apocalypse stuff and you're the only one left.

Dan Hansen, Jan 16, 2016

Here's How Much a Drawing of a Foot Is Worth

I first saw this story in Hyperallergic: Michelangelo Drawing of a Foot Could Fetch $2M at Auction.  When it actually fetched 27 million many folks were mightily surprised.

This news story brought to mind an anecdote from when I interviewed comedian/actor Jonathan Winters in 2004 for an article about his art. Winters, who enjoyed painting, had a room in his Malibu home where he painted.

EN: What makes your work unique?

JW: Well, that’s an interesting question. All I ever hope to do with anything is try to be a little bit different from the guy on the wall. As I mentioned earlier, I look for style. A woman turned to me the other day and said, “How much is your largest painting?” The biggest I get is about 18 x 24. And I said $25,000. And she said, “Oh my God! I never dreamed it would be that much.” Well, I said, “The painting’s a joke. The idea is worth $25,000.” And she didn’t get that, so she said, and I get this a lot, >>> alters voice << “If you weren’t Jonathan Winters, you couldn’t ask those kind of prices.” And I said, “But I am Jonathan Winters.” Why would I put Henry Walker, or Lyle Davenberger on my painting?

Sink or swim. I get annoyed very quickly. If you don't want to pay that--now the woman is wearing heavy jewelry, pulls up in a brand new Jaguar--You’re talking to a guy who’s 77. I see these assholes coming in with all this glass on their hands bringing in a Delta flight, dickering with me... and I say, “Look, let me tell you something. You’re best bet is to go to Tijuana and get something on velvet. That would be tops $35 and a picture of Elvis.”

I’ve only painted 150 paintings in my life. They’re not all 25,000 for crying out loud. My drawings are like $500, framed pen and ink things. Red Skelton, for an 8 x 10, gets $45,000.

But you’re dealing with people. People say, “After you die do you think these will be worth anything at all?”

* * * 

Well, I doubt Michelangelo's drawing of a foot had much value when he first created it, though it is quite striking how much work went into painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Every face, foot and hand required special attention.

The five-inch sketch, which dates back 500 years, fetched 27 million dollars at Christie's auction house. According to the Hyperallergic story, "Its existence was completely unknown to scholars until a Christie's specialist in the Old Master Drawings department, Giada Damen, rediscovered the red-chalk-on-paper work in a digital photograph sent to the auction house as part of a batch of inquiries before it was authenticated earlier this year." The sketch was made sometime around 1511 or 1512 and is titled “The Libyan Sibyl on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.”

It makes you wonder what other "buried treasures" are out there in the art world.  

If you want to see "unburied treasures" from the Renaissance era, I suggest that you make Italy a destination. My brother and his wife saw DaVinci's "The Last Supper" in Milan a few years back. [If you're in Italy for the Olympics this week, don't neglect grabbing the opportunity to see some of the Renaissance period art and other treasures there.] 

When I visited Parma in 2023, my AirBnB was directly across the street from the National Gallery (Galleria Nazionale di Parma). I was astonished to find DaVinci's "Head of a Woman" (aka La Scapigliata.) Long before I ever went to Italy I fell in love with this paintng and did a few pen and ink drawings of my own based on this piece. What is it worth? No, it's not for sale. Few of DaVinci's works can be purchased, as they are national treasures and irreplaceable. This piece, an oil and umber sketch on poplar panel circa 1506-08, was acquired by the National Gallery in the 1830s or 40s. You can read about my exciting encounter with it here.

Bottom Line: Art seems to increase in value based on who's signature adorns it.  

   

Michelangelo's five-inch sketch has been privately owned by a Northern California collector whose family reportedly owned the masterwork since the 1700s, passing it down through multiple generations. (The seller's name has not been disclosed, and I'm curious what else they own. Part of the proceeds may have to be used for security services.) Since authentication is an important step in the process of determining value, the owners no doubt had their stressful moments for a spell.

They say Michelangelo first used pen and ink and black chalk in his earliest studies for the Vatican City frescoes before favoring red chalk for his drawings of live models. He was believed to have produced hundreds of these drawings, although most have been lost to history. Alas. 

The drawing of the Sibyl’s foot is one of a small group of surviving red chalk studies, among them Studies for The Libyan Sibyl, housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Art historians regard these works as among Michelangelo’s most accomplished pieces in red chalk. Although roughly 600 of his drawings are known to exist, nearly all — except for perhaps ten — reside in museum or institutional collections, according to Christie’s.

 

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Related Link

Full Jonathan Winters interview

How Well Do You Know Our 13th President, Millard Fillmore? A Dozen Factoids to Have On Hand In Case Anyone Asks

An Introduction to Our Last Whig President

The name is memorable only because it is so odd. The man himself is far from memorable. Ask twenty friends how much they know about our 13th president and they may not even know whether he was before or after the Civil War.

In the event that you go to a party and someone asks who Millard Fillmore was, here’s a short list of things you can mention. It won’t make you the life of the party, but it will give folks the impression that you’re a true history buff.

-->He grew up poor, attended one room school houses. One of his teachers was a redhead named Abigail Powers whom he fell in love with and later married.

-->He was from upstate New York from a backwoods family in the Finger Lakes region. Though he became a lawyer and eventually served in Congress, he remained socially awkward, ever conscious of his inadequacies.

-->His name was put forward to be the vice presidential candidate to run with General Zachary Taylor for the Whig Party in the 1848 election. Taylor was the first president who had zero political experience and had never held office. He had been in the army since 1813. He went directly from being a hero in the Mexican War to becoming President.

-->Fillmore never met Taylor in his life until the eve of Taylor’s inauguration.

-->When Fillmore went to Washington D.C. to serve as Vice President, his wife stayed home in Upstate New York.

-->The major political firestorm of that time had to do with the issue of what to do about slavery as the country expanded. The South wanted slavery everywhere, and the North wanted it nowhere. Addressing this issue was becoming increasingly heated.

-->Fillmore and Taylor did not see eye to eye on this issue. Taylor lived on a plantation in the South and owned 150 slaves but he was opposed to the spread of slavery. Fillmore lived in the North, but didn’t care. Ironically, when Taylor ran for the presidency, no one asked his views on the expansion of slavery. They assumed he was for it. He actually didn’t like it. Strangely enough, as for Fillmore, no one asked his views on this topic either.

-->In the summer of 1850, 16 months after Taylor took office, he suddenly and unexpectedly died of a stomach ailment or stomach flu. Fillmore then became the last president who was not a Democrat or Republican.

-->The cabinet resigned when Fillmore became president. Then he fired them.

-->Fillmore appointed Daniel Webster to be his Secretary of State. Webster was a great orator and had been a great spokesman for the North, but in the spring of 1850 he sided with Henry Clay and the South on this controversial issue. His name was now mud amongst the North’s anti-slavery constituents.

-->Fillmore’s vacillation on issues showed him to be a weak leader.

-->His handling of the Fugitive Slave Act was a fiasco. It was pointed out to him that there was a 1793 law on the books called The Fugitive Slave Act that wasn’t being adequately enforced. He was persuaded to do something about it, so he appointed judges throughout the North who could hear cases in which any Northerner who harbored or helped a runaway slave could be sent to jail. Taxes had to be used to pay for the judges.

Trivia/PostScript

The previous president to die in office, William Henry Harrison, also happened to be a Whig. He had run for the presidency under the slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too.” The Whigs made a song of the slogan called “Tip & Ty.” Harrison died 31 days after his inauguration, some believe from giving such a long inaugural address in the elements on a cold winter’s day.

Much of the information for this blog post comes from the book Millard Fillmore by Paul Finkelman. When I finished it, the impression I got was that Fillmore has probably been forgotten for two reasons: his weakness as a leader and, more importantly, his having stood on the wrong side of history.

The slavery issue was one of the most important issues of the century, and he simply didn’t grasp that. As a result, his legacy is that he left no real legacy.

Top of page: Millard Fillmore. Photo by Matthew Brady. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

Nota Bene: Take Careful Note

David Foster Wallace, known for his intricate and linguistically rich prose, had a deep-seated passion for language that was displayed in his habit of compiling extensive lists of words. He did this primarily to fuel his writing process, seeking out precise, evocative, or obscure terms that could add layers of meaning, texture, and innovation to his work—such as in novels like Infinite Jest, where his vocabulary often included jargon, archaisms, and neologisms to create a distinctive voice. 

I'd read of this habit of his and later was gratified to find a lengthy list of his words in one of his books whose title I can no longer recall. I found it interesting to read through a catalog of words someone else was fascinated by.

One of James D. Nickel's several 
books on Mathematics

What brought this Wallace habit to mind was stumbling into another collection of interesting words on the website Biblical Christian Worldview. which features the research and writings of math scholar and author James D. Nickel. It was fun to skim through his lists of words on a page titled Nota Bene, which is Latin for Take Careful Note. Of this page on his much broader website he writes, This page is devoted to an investigation of the depth, versatility, and heritage of English words; i.e., here is a vocabulary list with some "bark and bite."

Here's a taste from a portion of words in the category E.

e pluribus unum: from many, one (the motto of the United States_
ebullience: the quality of being optimistic in speech or writing
ecce homo: behold the man
eccentricity: odd or whimsical behavior
ecclesiastical: pertaining to church
echelon: a level of command; military organizational structure
eclectic: choosing from a variety of sources or origins; something that offers a diverse selection of items, styles, or approaches
eclipse: any obscuration of light ecumenical: universal
edification: to instruct or enlighten in an encouraging way
educe: to draw out (education)
effeminate: more reminiscent of women than men
effete: lacking robust vitality; sterile; without force
efficacious: having the power to produce a desired effect
efflorescent: blossoming
effrontery: shameful boldness
effulgent: radiant; brilliantly shining egalitarian: arising from a belief in the equality of all persons
egocentric: selfish
egregious: flagrantly incorrect or bad

* * * * *

Before posting the above, I email James and asked, "Since you are a 'math guy'... what prompted you to build these lists of words?"

James replied: A "math guy" interested in words (i.e., the humanities)? Seems oxymoron, but no.

For a math guy to have interest revealed in "Nota Bene" is meant to show that Math/Technology/Science/Servile Arts and Humanities (High tech, high touch) flow together.

Ed: Two thumbs up.

* * * * *

I encourage you to not only check out the rest of the E-words but all the other lists as well. And while you're in the neighborhood, explore his primary work on the history of mathematics and his understanding of the relationships between math, science, God and meaning. 

Here's one additional word, for James, from his pages devoted to the letter K:

kudos: honor or accolades

Dylan's Evocative Declaration of Faith: I Believe In You

Warfield Theater, November 8 1979
Photo courtesy Bill Pagel

Bob Dylan’s “I Believe in You” stands as one of the most unguarded and quietly brave songs of his career. The third track on his Slow Train Coming album, it was written during his much-debated Christian period. It is not a sermon, a provocation, or a theological argument. It is a plainspoken, vulnerable, and resolute confession.

What makes the song stand out is its emotional temperature. Dylan does not present faith as triumphal or conquering, but as isolating and costly. The speaker is misunderstood, gently ostracized, even driven “a thousand miles from home.” The resistance he encounters feels social rather than abstract—frowns, closed doors, exile. Faith here is not rewarded with belonging; it creates distance and isolation. And yet the song refuses bitterness. Instead, it offers steadiness.

Musically and lyrically, Dylan strips away irony. The language is simple, almost childlike, but never naïve. Repetition becomes devotion: “I believe in you” is less a declaration of certainty than an act of persistence. Belief is something maintained—through tears and laughter, winter and summer, when being outnumbered or forsaken.  

What unsettled many listeners in 1979 was not merely Dylan’s Christianity, but his sincerity. Dylan had long thrived on masks, ambiguity, and reinvention. Here, he risks directness. The song’s power lies in that risk. It asks nothing of the listener except to witness a man choosing faith over approval.

The issue some Dylan followers may have had with this song, and his overt Gospel period in general, was this straightforwardness that didn't require any deciphering. It was all on the table, no sleight of hand in the lyrics. 

In retrospect, “I Believe in You” was not really an anomaly. For years he repeatedly incorporated spiritual themes in his work. (There are countless Biblical references in John Wesley Harding alone.) This song reveals Dylan’s lifelong preoccupation with commitment—ethical, artistic, spiritual—and the loneliness such commitment can entail. Whether one shares the belief itself is beside the point. The song endures because it honors the human cost of conviction, and the quiet courage it takes to say, simply and without apology: I believe.

For some, the problem was Jesus, who once said, "If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you." The visceral public rejection (by some) of this Gospel phase in Dylan's career corresponded with the rejection of his new Señor. Dylan's response to this rejection is detailed in the song "Solid Rock" from his follow-up album Saved. "Well, I'm hanging on to a solid rock." 

Dylan performed "I Believe In You" 259 times from 1979 to 2009.

They ask me how I feel

And if my love is real

And how I know I’ll make it through

And they, they look at me and frown

They’d like to drive me from this town

They don’t want me around

’Cause I believe in you

They show me to the door

They say don’t come back no more

’Cause I don’t be like they’d like me to

And I walk out on my own

A thousand miles from home

But I don’t feel alone

’Cause I believe in you

I believe in you even through the tears and the laughter

I believe in you even though we be apart

I believe in you even on the morning after

Oh, when the dawn is nearing

Oh, when the night is disappearing

Oh, this feeling is still here in my heart

Don’t let me drift too far

Keep me where you are

Where I will always be renewed

And that which you’ve given me today

Is worth more than I could pay

And no matter what they say

I believe in you

I believe in you when winter turn to summer

I believe in you when white turn to black

I believe in you even though I be outnumbered

Oh, though the earth may shake me

Oh, though my friends forsake me

Oh, even that couldn’t make me go back

Don’t let me change my heart

Keep me set apart

From all the plans they do pursue

And I, I don’t mind the pain

Don’t mind the driving rain

I know I will sustain

’Cause I believe in you

Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music

Blues + Satire = Highway 61 Revisited

I vaguely recall an interview with Bob Dylan in which he was asked where his early songs came from. It may have been the 60 Minutes interview he did in 2004 in which he didn't know where "those songs" came from and that they were just "magically writen." He followed (if I recall correctly) by saying he could never write songs like that again. 

"Highway 61 Revisited" would certainly be one of "those songs."

"Highway 61 Revisited" is the title track of Dylan's landmark 1965 album of the same name. It's a high-energy, blues-rock number driven by a pounding rhythm, Mike Bloomfield's searing guitar, and Dylan's snarling, playful delivery. The song is structured as a series of five surreal, loosely connected vignettes (verses), each presenting an absurd or outrageous "problem" that gets resolved with the refrain: "Out on Highway 61."

Highway 61 itself is no ordinary road—it's the legendary "Blues Highway" running from here in Northern Minnesota, where Dylan was born and raised, down through the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans, tied to blues legends like Robert Johnson (who mythically sold his soul at the crossroads), the Great Migration of Black musicians, and American cultural contradictions. 

Tourists come from all over the world to travel the Blues Highway, staying a few days in Duluth and Hibbing before heading south. This fall we'll see the third caravan of Airstreamers, for example, traipsing through here, visiting the Historic Armory where young Dylan "felt a spark" while watching Buddy Holly perform, and stopping at the Nobel Prize winner's two childhood homes.  

As Manchester researcher David Leaver observes, music tourism is emotion-driven, shaped by pilgrimage, nostalgia, and heritage. Highway 61 embodies this pull. It traces the places where the blues were born, where artists learned their craft in juke joints, cotton fields, and river towns. To drive it is to move through stories of struggle and creativity, visiting sites that shaped lives, sounds, and identities—places where music is not just remembered, but felt.  

Dylan uses Highway 61 symbolically as a place where taboo, impossible, or extreme things happen—a back alley for humanity's darkest or most ridiculous impulses, free from conventional morality or societal norms. The verses blend biblical allusion, social satire, absurdity, and dark humor. 

The song begins with God commanding Abraham to "kill me a son" (referencing the Binding of Isaac in Genesis 22). Abraham protests ("Man, you must be puttin' me on"), but God threatens him. Abraham asks where, and God replies, "Out on Highway 61." The verse twists a sacred biblical story about a divine command into a roadside hit job. Is Dylan trivializing, or drawing attention to, one of the most significant people in Jewish (and Christian) history?  

Verse two features Georgia Sam (a down-and-out figure with a bloody nose), who complains to the Welfare Department about lacking clothes or a home. They dismiss him, so he heads to Highway 61—perhaps to escape bureaucracy or find rough justice.

"Mack the Finger" in verse three has bizarre surplus items (forty red, white, and blue shoestrings, a thousand non-ringing telephones) he needs to offload. "Louie the King" suggests dumping them on Highway 61. And verse four get's stranger still with disorienting family matters.

In the climax verse a bored gambler wants to start the "next world war" for kicks. His promoter cynically advises staging it like a spectacle: "Put some bleachers out in the sun / And have it on Highway 61." This has a clear anti-war/political edge, mocking Cold War madness and spectacle-driven destruction.

This whole notion of war as spectacle was illustrated when the U.S. started the bombing of Baghdad during the evening news in March 2003. And today's social media "coverage" seems to have become a whirlwind spiraling out of control.

Overall, the song itself is a wild, satirical panorama of human folly, violence, bureaucracy, materialism, and apocalypse. It critiques mid-1960s America—war, inequality, hypocrisy—while celebrating the raw energy of the blues. It's playful yet biting, blending sacred and profane, history and nonsense, in Dylan's signature surreal style. 

Many see it as a tribute to the blues tradition, Dylan's roots, and the idea that real truth (or madness) happens on the margins, "out on Highway 61." It's not a linear narrative but a fever-dream commentary on inevitability, absurdity, and where society's underbelly spills out. For sure Dylan highlights it as a signature song, having played it more than 2000 times in concerts around the world for over 55 years.

Lyrics Here

EdNote: Bob Dylan will be 85 this year. Duluth Dylan Fest will be celebrating the week of May 17 - 24. Join us for if you are able. Details Here.