Dedicated to George in the balcony, whose pleasure was lambent. [And who taught me to love werdz like that.]

Charm: THE “OTHER” POWER

In honour of St. Vavavoom, patron of charm
February 14, 2007 Anno Domini
February 14, 6007 Anno Aphrodite
February 14, 35,007 Anno Willendorf Venus

SYNOPSIS FOR BUSY EXECUTIVES:
Here’s the whole story up front:

The earth may well crack like the egg that it is, just because we believe that conquest is still the final solution to conflict.

(Being that we’re too, like, embarrassed and stuff to use charm instead. Cuz charm is too much the skill and art of weaklings, pussies, wimps, con artists, connivers, shillers of all stripe and yumminess. Also of infants, but we trust them alone with the power.) *

* WHAT!? Ok, so it goes like this: If yer innocent, yer qualified to use charm. If yer conscious, yer not. Dandy. So our original innocence can just get busy and curdle into guilt over any visible joy we might express. Hey, sounds like fun.

WINDY VERSION FOR SLACKERS:
Get a chocolate from that red heart-shaped box and muse your way through the FAQs of charm….

EXHIBIT A, below:
NOT charming
ISN'T CHARM JUST BEING, like, HOT?
No, silly, this ain't the big boobs/basket kinda charm. That’s shwing, not charm. Not talking about celebrity kinda charm, either. That’s media and marketing, not charm.

ISN'T CHARM JUST ALL GIRLIE?
No. Otherwise, how to explain George Clooney?--who has a category to himself, like the Greenwich meridian is to the earth’s clocks. We calibrate by the great georgian gauge in units of georgeosity. And are blessed.

CHARM IS JUST SLINKY AND SHALLOW, N'EST-CE PAS?
Nope. Charm is the “other” power--other than agression-- like pork is the other white meat. (Along with snake, trout, and grub, to be perfectly accurate.)

Charm is the Plan B that’s so much more gentle, blissful, and hypnotic; it’s the under-employed power that sits around waiting for a turn at the mike, promising not to trick anyone this time.

Guess what? Charm is not finishing school, debutante stuff; it’s save-the-planet stuff.

PRIVATE TO NARCISSISTS: Y'all are not charming, cuz it's so abundantly clear that all you're using is boomerang-charm to ricochet some craved attention back at guess whom. Transparent to all, darlins!

WHY DOES CHARM WORK?
The charmer works with a practical, common sense observation: vanity and ego can't help but respond to genuine charm. We all yearn to see evidence of our beauty in others’ eyes and voices, even if it’s they who create it.

In spanish, it's encanto; closer to enchantment, closer to spellcasting, closer to what it really is. A force. A form of energy.

WHERE IS THE INGREDIENT LIST?
Charm is a cocktail of...
Wit and admiration.
Attention and empathy.
Hospitality and optimism.
Reflection and magnification.
It’s the sense of self that we first believed in when that big warm soft mama looked at us that way...squoosh, yum, sigh.

PERSONAL ASIDE, OPTIONAL READING:
I bin shone on by people so charming that I still think, years later, about the joy of suddenly floating above the moment with no effort at all: Towtruck drivers who’ve towed my bluesmobile across town with me in the truck... a famous artist who watched me wait for an hour to speak to him—and finally took the first step toward me!... and those random shamans of pleasure who can turn up anywhere and catalyze a multitude with the willingness to react honestly and visibly to the joy of the encountered moment. [ooo, fancy thought!]

The charm mavens are among us; we just need to welcome them out of the closet. And ask for a little tutoring. Ya, of course it needs to be taught.

WHAT ARE THE MECHANICS OF CHARM?
Charm is simply paying attention, noticing some detail, and—most importantly—not concealing joy. Sometimes, an un-squelched big fat grin is about the most charming thing on the planet. [WTF…it takes guts to be pleased, now? That’s kinda sad, ain’t it?]

ARE THEIR DIFFERENT FLAVOURS OF CHARM?
Yup.
And they are…

E.G: “As Wilde (or Kerouac) (or Stewie) was fond of saying…”
That’s yer esoteric charm, when someone calls up a reference to something arcane that gives away their curious spirit. Curiosity is the engine of many big times in the charm movement.

E.G: “You—cowboy! Upstairs, now!”
That’s natural earthy charm, being lusty or swoony or openly adoring without shame. Like I can’t help adoring my babies and other irreplaceable and magnetic characters.

E.G: “Hey, the elves were here!”
That’s kindly charm, when someone can read the needs of another and simply meet them without fanfare or drama. ( Aw, you made me tea!)

E.G: “Just the way my mama made me…”
That’s the original charm of our good old factory settings, the defaults from age one, when we could look all the way into someone and see everything about them and never flinch. THAT is the gold standard of charm: What we were all born with. [That, and George Clooney, who at one year old, would have had to be licensed, probably. Like plutonium.]

WHY DO WE NEED CHARM?
Cuz tact and diplomacy are charm on a planet-rescuing scale. The United Nations wouldn’t run without it. The Human Genome Project is all about it. It’s what we’re evolving toward.

HOW DO WE LEARN CHARM?
A five-year-old girl in South America taught me charm, as she already had the equivalent of a PhD in it. I invited her to cuddle with me. She smiled and tilted her head and said “no me gusta.” Literally, “it doesn’t please me.” A charming version of Hell NO And You Can’t Make Me, In Fact You Don’t Even Want To Try Anymore, Cuz Watching Me Say No Is Just As Much Fun and You Know It!
Well, actually, ya. EXACTLY. If you can bless someone during a rejection, you've got the stuff.

WHY DO WE HAVE IT?
Some toddler child I know smiled so swooningly at an object in an antique store that the owner gave it away on the spot. We can conjure drygoods with charm!? Good to know. Probably the origin of the instinct.

So then, if the newest-born among us can work it, is this still charm or just being human? Do peach trees charm us--or just be peach trees?

Does it have to be conscious--now that we're conscious--to be considered charm? The best charm, the true champagne of expression, is unbidden, spontaneous and simply bubbles cause that's how it's made. (Champagne goes with everything, and intelligence needs it for leavening.)

Charm is instinctive, concealing it is not. When someone can’t conceal pleasure, that’s charm on hyperdrive. Babies can’t conceal, and smart adults don’t want to. And adults with intact spirits don’t even know how to.

ANY FANCY BIO-EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHTS ABOUT CHARM?
Charm is where we’re supposed to be evolving to: A time in which we intuitively use our intelligence to inveigle, not intimidate; to win our fellow lemmings to the task of jumping cheerfully. And to boogying all the way down. We bludgeon each other only because we're so bad at inviting.

Charm is the choice to balance everything we step in, with deliberate morsels of pleasure and sparks of encounter. It's spiritual lube for the daily brushes with our fellow critters.

ANY SMARTass LAST WORDS, MISSY?
We won’t get the ballistic toys out of the boys’ hands until we give them something better for ammo.

[Sometimes, I wonder if there’s a third world war gestating right now, just because Rumsfeld hasn’t had a decent blowjob since the Cuban missile crisis.]

Go forth, then, and charm the knickers off the next thousand people you meet, no matter where or when or why, and see if you don’t find yourself to be in much better company.