My wife and I were watching America's Got Talent the other night, and I must concede: America has, indeed, got talent. As does the world at large, since great acts were not necessarily home grown. Among the standout performances was one that particularly surprised me. In general, I don't much care for ventriloquists and their dummies. But Paul Zerdin was certainly an exception. Apparently, AGT has discovered great ventriloquists before, but as a very casual follower of the show, I have missed them. Mr. Zerdin stands out as the best ventriloquist I have ever seen, for many reasons, among them the obvious one: you really could not see his lips move. Many clever innovations enlivened his act, taking him -- thus far -- to the show's semi-final round. Yes, he is that good. One of the advantages enjoyed by Mr. Zerdin's act is the endearing, muppet-like quality of his inanimate sidekick, Sam. This stands out in stark, and welcome contrast to the harsh, gleaming, plaster-of-Paris skin of Sam's predecessors. I have long been aware of a strong antipathy to ventriloquist acts, and their dummies particularly, that seems to be fairly widespread. I note that I share it, although I have never been an extreme case; I know people who literally have to avert their eyes. There is, I think, something just a bit creepy about the enterprise. Those vintage dummies, with their harsh features, may partly explain it, but I think there is more. During his act, Mr. Zerdin left his dummy alone on stage, slumped lifelessly on a stool. The ingenious novelty was that Sam must conceal remotely controlled robotics; he came to "life" and regaled the audience, even with his animator nowhere in sight. That, I think, is the disquieting aspect of these acts, more than the acute, refractive faces. Sam was animate in his master's hand, then inanimate on a stool. Then, at the flick of an unseen switch, he was animate again, and then once again, undone, and housed unceremoniously in a sack. It might as well have been a shroud, or even a body bag. I don't mean to be morbid, although this bit of philosophizing inevitably inclines that way. Our own animating spark recoils from the ever-proximal darkness. Perhaps the seminal feature of maturity is the recognition of that proximity, how readily the light goes out. I don't know that ventriloquism was devised as metaphor for the pangs of our mortality, any more than it was designed to induce the creeps. But it serves both causes just the same. We watch an animating force granted, and withdrawn. The light of life is turned on and then off as readily as any switch on the wall. For Sam and his ilk, the animating spark derives discernibly from the puppet master -- Mr. Zerdin in this particular case. For us, it derives less directly and more enigmatically from providential forces, a primordial soup, cosmic dust and Sagan's "star stuff." But it is the similarities that disconcert us, not the distinctions. Those dummies may be hard to abide because they confront us with ourselves. Some of us may prefer to avert our eyes because of what lies within. The dummies are too much like us. Like us, they are but a gesture apart from the darkness. -fin David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP isn't worried about dying. Except when he thinks about it. Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center; Griffin Hospital President, American College of Lifestyle Medicine Founder, The True Health Coalition Follow at: LinkedIN; Twitter; Facebook Read at: INfluencer Blog; Huffington Post; US News & World Report; About.com Author: Disease Proof -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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