Season 8, Episode 1
February 19, 2023
Theme: The Heart
Playlist
Picture this: you are back in your second grade classroom on Valentine’s Day. Taped to your desk is an empty box with your name on it; each of your classmates has a similar box with their name taped to their desk. You and the other students make your way around the room, dropping valentines into these boxes. Eventually, your hands empty of cards to give, you make your way back to your seat. You see your classmates empty their boxes, cards covering their desks. You pick up your box, shaking it. It feels light. A bit of confusion hits you. You turn it over, waiting for something – anything – to fall out. But there’s nothing. In a moment, it hits you: nobody gave you a valentine. As you put your box back where it was, more realizations: you are not like the other children; you are not liked; you are terribly, terribly alone.
Yet, you are also in the same classroom as a wise, kind, and compassionate student who would give Clarence Clemmons a run for his money. This student comes over, says, “Here you go,” and hands you a valentine. Everything changes: somebody thought of you; somebody cares about you; you matter. Is this love? It must be.
More accurately, this is a scene from episode 15 of season four of The Simpsons, “I Love Lisa”. You are Ralph Wiggum, most often depicted in the show as an idiot. But for the next twenty minutes of screen time, you get to shine. You fall in love; you pine and fawn; you have your heart broken; you channel that heartbreak into the greatest performance ever seen in a grade school play. And when this story ends, you and your new friend sit on the swings while the quintessential love song… “Monster Mash”…? plays in the background.
And this is why I love The Simpsons: when it’s done well, it’s a perfect encapsulation of the human experience. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s overwhelming, it’s silly, it’s beautiful. (For an even purer distillation of this, see “My Bloody Valentine,” the episode of The Itchy & Scratchy Show from this same episode: Scratchy gives Itchy a valentine; Itchy, having no card to give in return, rips Scratchy’s heart from his chest and gives it to him. Scratchy places this gift – his own heart – upon his mantle, sits down and picks up a newspaper. The headline declares, “You need a heart to live.” Scratchy, realizing his predicament, gets up and frantically tries to grab his heart and put it back in his chest, but dies before he can reach it.)
Perhaps this episode comes to mind because it’s February, known for the two holidays depicted in the show: Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day. (More likely it’s because I think about the line “You need a heart to live” roughly every three weeks of my life. Rent-free living for this gag.) Between the two holidays, Valentine’s Day is arguably more popular. (Yeah, Presidents’ Day gives you a day off, but Valentine’s Day has entire aisles’ full of promotional items. We love a consumer good, don’t we?)
And for most people, the day is inextricably linked with the heart. So it’s poetic that a notable recipient of an artificial heart known as the Jarvik-7 has a personal connection to that date. William J. Schroeder was born February 14, 1932. 53 years and five days later, he left the hospital after the operation that gave him his artificial heart, becoming the first person with an artificial heart to do so. The device required a portable drive unit weighing nearly eleven and a half pounds to operate it, but Schroeder was able to live a relatively normal life, going to sporting events and fishing. Typical dad stuff, you know? But the heart is more than just a pump, and can not be easily replaced. As with any other organ transplant, complications can develop. The body can reject it, can fail to fully incorporate it into its overall system. Thus was the case with Schroeder. He died 620 days (over a year and a half) after the operation.
The concept of using an artificial heart was almost as prone to complications as the actual experience. People criticized the use of artificial hearts, not just in terms of medical practice but on philosophical and religious grounds. How can you take something so fundamental to our existence – something that has become shorthand for some of the grandest concepts we know, like love, kindness, the human spirit – and replace it with a cold, unliving machine? But these are the juxtapositions at the root of our experience as human beings. The heart is powerful yet not invincible. Each heart that exists will fail one day. And while you may be able to temporarily replace it, that replacement will not last forever either. And when you lose it, everything’s over. Again, that line – you need a heart to live.
So in appreciation for scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs; in celebration of all that is bound up in our understanding of love (from blissful joy to devastating heartbreak); in gratitude to this collection of tissues critical to our survival, our theme for episode 1 of Community Radio, season 8 is the heart.
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