IN THE MAGAZINE

WEATHER AND SLEEP

Two Perfect Obsessions

Published February, 2010
BY LISA CARVER
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JIM KREWSON


Those of you old enough to remember the 80s know that it was the decade in which everyone suddenly realized they were bisexual. In the 90s, we diagnosed ourselves as bipolar and prescribed ourselves cocaine. Then in the 2000s, we all suffered the mass hysteria of introspection and had an orgy of reality.

At first I loved it. I thought my life was so interesting and so was everyone else’s. Then I had a reality hangover. I got so tired of all the TV shows, the intricacies of self-medicating, talk therapy, memoirs, emo, and... frankly... the human race. Aren’t you tired of it too? I was completely fascinated by mankind for so long, but now I’m overinundated with the minutiae of what it means to be oneself. Without that question, what is left? I’ll tell you: the nonself. That’s why I’m still interested in obsessives, long after my patience with the rest of the spectrum of mental disorders has run out. I find it delightfully refreshing that the object of obsessives’ most profound interest is, unlike almost everyone else crazy or sane, something other than themselves.

Wolfgang Carver studies sociology and religion through what’s happening in the sky, and Gordon Massman works on creating a seven-by-four-foot utopia, a welcoming nest for elusive sleep. Neither of these gentlemen, please note, dwells on his feelings. They are almost entirely focused on the atmosphere.

THE PERFECT WEATHER: WOLFGANG CARVER

My 15-year-old son, Wolfgang, has had a tempestuous relationship with climate conditions since before he could even speak. He is endlessly fascinated by the weather, and not knowing what is happening with it for even half an hour is torment to him. When he was one year old I’d have to carry him around town every day to check all the satellite dishes. His first words were about clouds, wind, and mud, and most of his words ever since have been centered on those same topics. His artwork, from childhood finger paintings to current oils on canvas and sculptures, heavily features erupting volcanoes, obliterating snow, and hail. Even his religious beliefs—which no one in his family or among his friends share—begin and end with the natural disasters of the apocalypse and the balminess of heaven.

Lisa Carver: How many times a day do your sister and I ask you to stop talking about the weather?
Wolfgang Carver: I would say about ten. It’s less since I got my 24-hour weather radio, because I can have it anywhere I want and I don’t have to turn on the TV every hour and wait for the weather.

What does the weather radio talk about?
How it’s supposed to be that day or the next few days, or barometric pressure, or wind chill in the Dover area, Maine, Boston, and Mount Washington. Plus they give warnings, like if there’s flooding, go to high places. “Turn around, don’t drown.” Or if there’s lightning, don’t touch metal.

How do they make the forecast?
Satellites in space and satellite dishes on earth receiving signals.

You have two CDs that you listen to over and over when you’re not listening to your weather radio. What are they?
Al Gore and a storm CD—thunder and rain, that’s all.

What does Al Gore talk about?
The world ending. And how we’re infecting the environment. And a hole in the atmosphere we made with pollution that the sun gets through. And the greenhouse effect—lots and lots of heat getting trapped, changing the weather.

What does weather mean to you?
It always makes me feel safe because... if I don’t listen to it, how will I know what’s going to happen?

What’s the forecast for the next few days?
Sunny today, around 20 degrees, but wind chill zero or below zero. Storm coming in Saturday, coming from out West. Three to six inches of snow Saturday night and Sunday.

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