Back during the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration gave lots of people jobs to erect buildings in the then-popular Art Deco style, including lowly public high schools. To take just a handful of high schools that look like this, consider Will Rogers, Ogden, Venice, Berkeley, and Kensington.
They're not just nice to look at -- as high schools, they easily outshine the Modernist ghost-town schools of the post-WWII era, although depending on your taste, they might not meet the high standard set by the various revival style schools built between roughly 1890 and 1930. No matter what, you'd love to have one in your neighborhood for your kids to go to.
Of course, this time around, the construction industry is employing too many unskilled, illiterate Central American peasants for buildings of such high quality to come out the other end of a federal money injection. And even if only native-born, skilled Americans were working in construction, the industry doesn't give a shit anymore about high-quality materials or pleasing ornaments, by and large. So don't expect plaster walls, terra cotta details above the main entrance, or terrazzo floors.
I make a sport out of needling social conservatives who think the world is going to hell, simply by digging up a bunch of data showing that people are behaving better than ever before. But these data are all about what the majority of people are up to -- once you look only at the cultural elite, you can easily find signs of decay. One is schoolhouse architecture, and that is by no means the only example within architecture. It's no accident that preservationists strive to keep drive-in theaters or diners from the 1950s and '60s intact, while not caring whether the school buildings from the same period, that resemble barren airport terminals, were turned into a bunch of Starbucks.
Hopefully the efforts of preservationists will make sure that pre-WWII schools, after renovation, will continue on. Then again, "They'll probably knock it down soon."
April 12, 2009
April 10, 2009
Male dancing skill as a signal of fighting ability
Last night was the first time I nearly got into a fight since... probably elementary school. Some dude and I were walking past each other in a not-so-crowded night club, and he bumped me with his shoulder. Not a body-check, but enough for me to have to respond -- you never let another guy touch you without touching back. That tells him that he was wrong in assuming you were lower than him in the pecking order, and it usually ends there -- "Oh hey, my bad."
Because it was an above-normal shoulder bump, though, I gave him a good shove with my elbow in his lower-mid back. Both of us realized that these were a little uncalled for, but once the provocation starts, it's hard to stop it -- the reason that insults used to be considered crimes before the rise of centralized states and police forces. A typical misunderstanding in a tavern used to easily escalate into a heat-of-the-moment murder.
Now we've both turned around to face each other and size one another up. He was about 3 inches taller than me, probably 40 - 50 pounds heavier, mesomorphic shape, and probably 5 - 8 years younger. He was South Asian, almost certainly a foreign student, since he had his shirt unbuttoned to show chest hair and gold jewelry, and had chin-length curly hair. So, he surely came from a place with a stronger "culture of honor" than most people I see in clubs. (Of course, being half Scotch-Irish hillbilly, I've got the "you're stepping on the wrong man's dick" genes too.)
Most conflicts like this in the animal world are not settled by an all-out brawl. The two try to signal to each other about where they score on all of the traits relevant to winning a fight: muscularity, size, energy level, speed, and so on. This benefits both of them since they can walk away if they're evenly matched, rather than get locked into a wasteful war of atrition. For example, the behavior of stotting displays the health of the prey animal, which tells the predator that it would pay off more to pursue some other individual -- "I'm too vigorous for you to catch, so don't even bother." It may also be an example of the handicap principle: "Only a super-fit animal like me would slow down and bait you into approaching me." See some springboks stotting here.
If fights between humans depended only on sheer strength, we would only signal who was stronger, and there's a very clear way to tell -- who is more muscular? If there were any asymmetry in muscle mass, the two could easily tell, and either the less muscular guy would not start shit in the first place, or if he did, the more muscular guy would always escalate the fight and beat him up.
But we're not that simple: as long as he has some muscle tone, a much leaner guy can win a fight if he's quick, high-energy, and uses explosive moves. Think of Brazilian mixed martial arts fighter Anderson Silva, who can knock out any tank-shaped, Neanderthal-skulled wrestler, and who often shows off his dancing skill. It's probably no accident that sub-Saharan Africans excel in both dancing and beating people up, compared to Europeans or East Asians.
And it's just like MMA in a night club, bar, or wherever -- since there are no rules, the agile, explosive guy can knock out a big galoot. With the energy high I was on, and having warmed up long before and already gotten into high gear, I could have easily jumped and planted my knees in that guy's gut 10 times in under 5 seconds. Shit, I could have climbed the walls if I wanted to. To signal this to him, I simply showed off my dancing skills, moving my whole body, taking up a lot of space, and making explosive moves with my limbs. Luckily, "Thriller" had just come on, so it was simple to get into the groove here.
He was very pissed off and stared at me for the better part of the song, and was talking to his buddy as well. Again, if sheer strength were all that mattered, he would've quickly moved in and started a fight. But by displaying my own physical prowess, albeit of a different type than his, as well as signaling emotional coolness (with a confident smile) and high status (by taking up lots of space without being encroached on), I shut him down.
I also wonder if odor plays a role. A recent study showed that men's underarm smell ("stress related odor") is harder to disguise than women's, and that women's noses are much more difficult to fool than men's when researchers try to mask the smell. I have a hyper-sensitive sense of taste and smell, so much so that I can perceive how the percent of girls who are ovulating changes from week to week in dance clubs. Perhaps when that guy bumped into me, I smelled that he was afraid and wouldn't escalate, so that I could shove him pretty hard and not suffer any consequences, as well as not run away and even bait him into coming up to me by leaving my torso area wide open and undefended while dancing.
It's not that I'm foolhardy -- last week, a group of guys had gotten into a fight outside the same club, and one -- who weighed over 250 pounds and looked like a serial killer -- gave me a good shoulder bump, but I let it go that time because my gut reflex was that I wouldn't even be able to respond with a strong, solid series of pats on his shoulder. (There were also lots of security guards nearby.) Still, most of the time when some guy tries something like that, I respond in kind and nothing happens, despite the other guy almost always being taller, bigger, or more muscular. Maybe I can smell who is a real badass and avoid them, and who is just pretending and respond with impunity.
It may seem strange that men have not evolved stronger noses, since they'd profit much more greatly by being able to smell fear. But the trouble is that our sense of smell isn't very good, so we have to be very close up -- and aside from the cases where someone bumps into you, you're probably going to be far enough apart while sizing each other up that you can't rely much on smelling fear.
Given how rare it is for me to not do something back, I conclude that most guys who act tough by trying to start shit are actually insecure pussies. They're losers, at the bottom of the social ladder, and are merely making some desperate, last-ditch attempt to look powerful in public, much like muggers or other petty criminals.
Because it was an above-normal shoulder bump, though, I gave him a good shove with my elbow in his lower-mid back. Both of us realized that these were a little uncalled for, but once the provocation starts, it's hard to stop it -- the reason that insults used to be considered crimes before the rise of centralized states and police forces. A typical misunderstanding in a tavern used to easily escalate into a heat-of-the-moment murder.
Now we've both turned around to face each other and size one another up. He was about 3 inches taller than me, probably 40 - 50 pounds heavier, mesomorphic shape, and probably 5 - 8 years younger. He was South Asian, almost certainly a foreign student, since he had his shirt unbuttoned to show chest hair and gold jewelry, and had chin-length curly hair. So, he surely came from a place with a stronger "culture of honor" than most people I see in clubs. (Of course, being half Scotch-Irish hillbilly, I've got the "you're stepping on the wrong man's dick" genes too.)
Most conflicts like this in the animal world are not settled by an all-out brawl. The two try to signal to each other about where they score on all of the traits relevant to winning a fight: muscularity, size, energy level, speed, and so on. This benefits both of them since they can walk away if they're evenly matched, rather than get locked into a wasteful war of atrition. For example, the behavior of stotting displays the health of the prey animal, which tells the predator that it would pay off more to pursue some other individual -- "I'm too vigorous for you to catch, so don't even bother." It may also be an example of the handicap principle: "Only a super-fit animal like me would slow down and bait you into approaching me." See some springboks stotting here.
If fights between humans depended only on sheer strength, we would only signal who was stronger, and there's a very clear way to tell -- who is more muscular? If there were any asymmetry in muscle mass, the two could easily tell, and either the less muscular guy would not start shit in the first place, or if he did, the more muscular guy would always escalate the fight and beat him up.
But we're not that simple: as long as he has some muscle tone, a much leaner guy can win a fight if he's quick, high-energy, and uses explosive moves. Think of Brazilian mixed martial arts fighter Anderson Silva, who can knock out any tank-shaped, Neanderthal-skulled wrestler, and who often shows off his dancing skill. It's probably no accident that sub-Saharan Africans excel in both dancing and beating people up, compared to Europeans or East Asians.
And it's just like MMA in a night club, bar, or wherever -- since there are no rules, the agile, explosive guy can knock out a big galoot. With the energy high I was on, and having warmed up long before and already gotten into high gear, I could have easily jumped and planted my knees in that guy's gut 10 times in under 5 seconds. Shit, I could have climbed the walls if I wanted to. To signal this to him, I simply showed off my dancing skills, moving my whole body, taking up a lot of space, and making explosive moves with my limbs. Luckily, "Thriller" had just come on, so it was simple to get into the groove here.
He was very pissed off and stared at me for the better part of the song, and was talking to his buddy as well. Again, if sheer strength were all that mattered, he would've quickly moved in and started a fight. But by displaying my own physical prowess, albeit of a different type than his, as well as signaling emotional coolness (with a confident smile) and high status (by taking up lots of space without being encroached on), I shut him down.
I also wonder if odor plays a role. A recent study showed that men's underarm smell ("stress related odor") is harder to disguise than women's, and that women's noses are much more difficult to fool than men's when researchers try to mask the smell. I have a hyper-sensitive sense of taste and smell, so much so that I can perceive how the percent of girls who are ovulating changes from week to week in dance clubs. Perhaps when that guy bumped into me, I smelled that he was afraid and wouldn't escalate, so that I could shove him pretty hard and not suffer any consequences, as well as not run away and even bait him into coming up to me by leaving my torso area wide open and undefended while dancing.
It's not that I'm foolhardy -- last week, a group of guys had gotten into a fight outside the same club, and one -- who weighed over 250 pounds and looked like a serial killer -- gave me a good shoulder bump, but I let it go that time because my gut reflex was that I wouldn't even be able to respond with a strong, solid series of pats on his shoulder. (There were also lots of security guards nearby.) Still, most of the time when some guy tries something like that, I respond in kind and nothing happens, despite the other guy almost always being taller, bigger, or more muscular. Maybe I can smell who is a real badass and avoid them, and who is just pretending and respond with impunity.
It may seem strange that men have not evolved stronger noses, since they'd profit much more greatly by being able to smell fear. But the trouble is that our sense of smell isn't very good, so we have to be very close up -- and aside from the cases where someone bumps into you, you're probably going to be far enough apart while sizing each other up that you can't rely much on smelling fear.
Given how rare it is for me to not do something back, I conclude that most guys who act tough by trying to start shit are actually insecure pussies. They're losers, at the bottom of the social ladder, and are merely making some desperate, last-ditch attempt to look powerful in public, much like muggers or other petty criminals.
April 8, 2009
More on fat
* Just got my copy of Fat Head and watched it twice. (Here's a recent 2blowhards interview with the creator, Tom Naughton.) It's pretty funny and is a nice condensed form of Good Calories, Bad Calories. Either one would be good to recommend or lend to others, but Fat Head will probably go down more easily. One point that is emphasized a lot more than in Taubes' book (although it does show up there too) is the depressive effect of high-carb diets, which I discussed here. New fact learned: the creator and follower of one popular high-carb diet, Nathan Pritikin, died by suicide.
I never saw Super Size Me because it seemed pretty obvious that eating a bunch of garbage all day would harm your body. After watching Fat Head, I now have another reason not to watch it: its creator, Morgan Spurlock, later chose to follow his girlfriend's vegan detox diet. Following your girlfriend's detox diet -- and which is vegan. That's all kinds of gay. I'm sure she made an exception, though, when he snipped off and deep fried his own balls for her to tear into.
* ScienceDaily reports on yet another study that shows the benefits of a low-carb, high-fat diet for epileptics. See the related articles on that page as well.
* In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark mentions several times that during the late Middle Ages, workers' wages were supplemented with high-fat foods like meat. Contrast that with the typical lower-class diet of mostly carbs, at least in an agricultural society. For the history buffs, is there some well known change in lower-class culture during this time? They must have been more sharp-minded, vigorous, lusty, and better-looking than during other times.
* Continuing with history, here's a neat blog post on obesity in ancient Egypt by the creator of the Protein Power diet, Michael Eades (who is extensively interviewed in Fat Head). He points out that depictions of the rulers, whether paintings or sculptures, were idealized and thin -- unlike the obese shapes that they actually had.
I wonder how far this generalizes. One stupid pop-sociology theory you've probably heard is that we've only recently viewed obesity as a bad thing, and that this has to do with our post-agricultural society. Before, the theory says, the lower classes worked hard and ate little, and thus were thin, while the upper classes were idle and ate a lot, and so were fat. Once the lower classes started to work less physically demanding jobs, and as fattening food became cheaper, it was then the poor who were fat. And so to distance themselves, the elites strove to be thin and cultivated the cult of thinness that is still with us.
(This is the same silly reason that is supposed to account for the changing popularity of pale vs. tan skin.)
One problem with the theory, though -- it's bullshit. Sheer number of calories and exercise do not determine weight gain or loss -- it's how much carbohydrate you have in your diet, as the insulin response is what stores energy in fat cells. Upper class people may or may not have been obese, but it would not have been due to eating a lot and exercising little -- as with the ancient Egyptians, it was due to eating a high-carb diet, which we can see by how rotten their teeth were. And the lower classes would have been even more obese, since dead animals -- the primary source of protein and fat -- have always been luxury items. Just look at Spanish peasants who subsisted entirely on corn, or Irish peasants who ate only potatoes.
Therefore, there has been almost no time or place where the rich were overweight or obese, while the commoners were lean, perhaps aside from the most destitute who were wasting away from starvation. Of course, the rich don't seek to distinguish themselves from vagrants, but from commoners. Indeed, if you look at depictions of European royalty, you see almost no fat people. Just search Wikipedia for "List of ___ monarchs," and for most countries, you'll get a list of them in order with portraits. I looked over all of the European ones from the Middle Ages to the present, as well as Roman Emperors, and there are at most 2 overweight monarchs per country. It's a "see it for yourself" thing, though -- just play around for 10 minutes.
Again, these portraits may not reflect reality -- the ancient Egyptian depictions certainly did not. However, for the 19th C and later, there are photographs, which can't be faked (no Photoshop), and these all show thin people, aside from Queen Victoria. This is long before the supposed transition point around the early 20th C. And remember, the real question here is not "were the elites fatter than they were depicted?" but "were the elites more overweight and obese compared to the commoners?" This is what the theory depends on.
Moreover, even if the portraits of thin or muscular kings are embellishments, that still contradicts the theory -- it shows that the ideal has never been that overweightness is good, but that being thin or athletic has at all times and places been the preferred way to lie about what the ruler looked like. In conclusion, there is simply no observation to explain -- the idea that overweightness used to be idealized, or associated with the elites, is complete horseshit.
And it's not just the royalty to whom this applies. Most of the people portrayed in Western high art are rich patrons, and none of them look fat either. Look at the man in van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding (1434), Renaissance portraits of the Medici family, Franz Hals' portraits of the elite during the Dutch Golden Age (17th C.), Fragonard's view of the French Ancien Regime (18th C.), depictions of fashionable wealthy people in the 1820s, and so on and so on. You might be able to find a few fatties, but most are either thin or athletic.
Lastly, consider religious art. It's well known that artists paint religious figures to look more like the local norm than the person truly was. They idealize the figure's appearance. So, if overweightness used to be considered elite or healthy, why are no religious figures drawn as fatsos? As with royalty and the rich, they're all thin or muscular.
Fat people believe in this myth because it gives them hope for a return to a Golden Past, where they'll be lionized and lusted after. And thin people believe it to ameliorate the envy of fat people: "Don't worry, it's not human nature that makes people revile the obese. It's just a social construction -- so please don't eat me!" Whatever their reasons, they're all wrong. Rolls of lard have never been considered hallmarks of the pious, patrician, or pulchritudinous. There's a simple reason for that, of course: we evolved to prefer signs of health and vigor, not starvation and lethargy. (When you follow a high-carb diet, you may have lots of energy stored in fat cells, but that energy is not available to all other cells for fuel, so you're actually starving.)
Yet another ugly theory slain by beautiful facts.
I never saw Super Size Me because it seemed pretty obvious that eating a bunch of garbage all day would harm your body. After watching Fat Head, I now have another reason not to watch it: its creator, Morgan Spurlock, later chose to follow his girlfriend's vegan detox diet. Following your girlfriend's detox diet -- and which is vegan. That's all kinds of gay. I'm sure she made an exception, though, when he snipped off and deep fried his own balls for her to tear into.
* ScienceDaily reports on yet another study that shows the benefits of a low-carb, high-fat diet for epileptics. See the related articles on that page as well.
* In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark mentions several times that during the late Middle Ages, workers' wages were supplemented with high-fat foods like meat. Contrast that with the typical lower-class diet of mostly carbs, at least in an agricultural society. For the history buffs, is there some well known change in lower-class culture during this time? They must have been more sharp-minded, vigorous, lusty, and better-looking than during other times.
* Continuing with history, here's a neat blog post on obesity in ancient Egypt by the creator of the Protein Power diet, Michael Eades (who is extensively interviewed in Fat Head). He points out that depictions of the rulers, whether paintings or sculptures, were idealized and thin -- unlike the obese shapes that they actually had.
I wonder how far this generalizes. One stupid pop-sociology theory you've probably heard is that we've only recently viewed obesity as a bad thing, and that this has to do with our post-agricultural society. Before, the theory says, the lower classes worked hard and ate little, and thus were thin, while the upper classes were idle and ate a lot, and so were fat. Once the lower classes started to work less physically demanding jobs, and as fattening food became cheaper, it was then the poor who were fat. And so to distance themselves, the elites strove to be thin and cultivated the cult of thinness that is still with us.
(This is the same silly reason that is supposed to account for the changing popularity of pale vs. tan skin.)
One problem with the theory, though -- it's bullshit. Sheer number of calories and exercise do not determine weight gain or loss -- it's how much carbohydrate you have in your diet, as the insulin response is what stores energy in fat cells. Upper class people may or may not have been obese, but it would not have been due to eating a lot and exercising little -- as with the ancient Egyptians, it was due to eating a high-carb diet, which we can see by how rotten their teeth were. And the lower classes would have been even more obese, since dead animals -- the primary source of protein and fat -- have always been luxury items. Just look at Spanish peasants who subsisted entirely on corn, or Irish peasants who ate only potatoes.
Therefore, there has been almost no time or place where the rich were overweight or obese, while the commoners were lean, perhaps aside from the most destitute who were wasting away from starvation. Of course, the rich don't seek to distinguish themselves from vagrants, but from commoners. Indeed, if you look at depictions of European royalty, you see almost no fat people. Just search Wikipedia for "List of ___ monarchs," and for most countries, you'll get a list of them in order with portraits. I looked over all of the European ones from the Middle Ages to the present, as well as Roman Emperors, and there are at most 2 overweight monarchs per country. It's a "see it for yourself" thing, though -- just play around for 10 minutes.
Again, these portraits may not reflect reality -- the ancient Egyptian depictions certainly did not. However, for the 19th C and later, there are photographs, which can't be faked (no Photoshop), and these all show thin people, aside from Queen Victoria. This is long before the supposed transition point around the early 20th C. And remember, the real question here is not "were the elites fatter than they were depicted?" but "were the elites more overweight and obese compared to the commoners?" This is what the theory depends on.
Moreover, even if the portraits of thin or muscular kings are embellishments, that still contradicts the theory -- it shows that the ideal has never been that overweightness is good, but that being thin or athletic has at all times and places been the preferred way to lie about what the ruler looked like. In conclusion, there is simply no observation to explain -- the idea that overweightness used to be idealized, or associated with the elites, is complete horseshit.
And it's not just the royalty to whom this applies. Most of the people portrayed in Western high art are rich patrons, and none of them look fat either. Look at the man in van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding (1434), Renaissance portraits of the Medici family, Franz Hals' portraits of the elite during the Dutch Golden Age (17th C.), Fragonard's view of the French Ancien Regime (18th C.), depictions of fashionable wealthy people in the 1820s, and so on and so on. You might be able to find a few fatties, but most are either thin or athletic.
Lastly, consider religious art. It's well known that artists paint religious figures to look more like the local norm than the person truly was. They idealize the figure's appearance. So, if overweightness used to be considered elite or healthy, why are no religious figures drawn as fatsos? As with royalty and the rich, they're all thin or muscular.
Fat people believe in this myth because it gives them hope for a return to a Golden Past, where they'll be lionized and lusted after. And thin people believe it to ameliorate the envy of fat people: "Don't worry, it's not human nature that makes people revile the obese. It's just a social construction -- so please don't eat me!" Whatever their reasons, they're all wrong. Rolls of lard have never been considered hallmarks of the pious, patrician, or pulchritudinous. There's a simple reason for that, of course: we evolved to prefer signs of health and vigor, not starvation and lethargy. (When you follow a high-carb diet, you may have lots of energy stored in fat cells, but that energy is not available to all other cells for fuel, so you're actually starving.)
Yet another ugly theory slain by beautiful facts.
April 7, 2009
Hank Paulson's son trying to bring soccer team to Portland hipsters
Read about it in this Bloomberg.com article. Steve Sailer has always criticized Obama for pushing for luxury policies during a recession, such as wind power. But we see that even mainstream conservative businessmen may still believe that we have all sorts of money that we actually don't. While bringing a major league soccer team to Portland would delight the local SWPL dopes, the economic forecast there doesn't look hot enough to splurge on such a luxury.
Indeed, after the heavily black states of Michigan and South Carolina, Oregon has the highest unemployment rate -- no surprise for the state that boasts the highest per capita rate of semiotics majors. All of that educational malinvestment in phony arts degrees during the booming 1990s and 2000s is finally coming around to bite them in the ass.
Indeed, after the heavily black states of Michigan and South Carolina, Oregon has the highest unemployment rate -- no surprise for the state that boasts the highest per capita rate of semiotics majors. All of that educational malinvestment in phony arts degrees during the booming 1990s and 2000s is finally coming around to bite them in the ass.
Which composers are under- or over-rated?
Just a quick self-promotion for my GNXP post on measuring the over-ratedness of artists. Comments closed here; discuss there.
April 6, 2009
Adventureland portrays two age gap romances
Just saw Adventureland this weekend, and I'll put up a review later today or tomorrow. Without giving anything away, a key source of conflict in the plot is the competition over the lead female character, Em, a recent college grad, who is fought over by the lead male character, James, also a recent college grad, and an older (30-something) rock guitarist / maintenance worker, Connell. So, there appears to be a dilemma that Em faces -- the smooth older guy vs. the more awkward guy her own age, who she relates to better.
In fact, the actress who plays Em was 17 when the movie was filmed, and her two suitors were 24 and 31. Even the "I get you" relationship between Em and James involves a 7-year age gap.
This is proof of what I've been saying forever at this blog -- that people exaggerate how great the social or psychological chasm will be when there's a substantial age gap. It's so tiny that no one watching this movie will notice it. Give two people the chance to bond (by shooting the shit at work, having similar music tastes, etc.), and it's no big deal.
Note that not only is the age gap 7 years, but what a 7 years -- she's not even old enough to be in college, and he's old enough to have graduated and started establishing himself for several years. He could easily be her high school English teacher. During the recent wave of anti-age-gap hysteria, highlighted by the TV news show "To Catch a Predator," we've forgotten how natural an affair like this is. Whether or not you favor such a relationship developing, you can't argue that it's coercive, based on a power imbalance, or unnatural.
Go watch Adventureland and you'll see how sweet a teenage / mid-20s couple can be.
In fact, the actress who plays Em was 17 when the movie was filmed, and her two suitors were 24 and 31. Even the "I get you" relationship between Em and James involves a 7-year age gap.
This is proof of what I've been saying forever at this blog -- that people exaggerate how great the social or psychological chasm will be when there's a substantial age gap. It's so tiny that no one watching this movie will notice it. Give two people the chance to bond (by shooting the shit at work, having similar music tastes, etc.), and it's no big deal.
Note that not only is the age gap 7 years, but what a 7 years -- she's not even old enough to be in college, and he's old enough to have graduated and started establishing himself for several years. He could easily be her high school English teacher. During the recent wave of anti-age-gap hysteria, highlighted by the TV news show "To Catch a Predator," we've forgotten how natural an affair like this is. Whether or not you favor such a relationship developing, you can't argue that it's coercive, based on a power imbalance, or unnatural.
Go watch Adventureland and you'll see how sweet a teenage / mid-20s couple can be.
April 4, 2009
Time to retire to Spain
Since the Spanish housing bubble has burst and the economic forecast is the gloomiest in Europe, you can afford to live there for much less than I did at the height of the exuberance around 2003 to 2005. If for some perverse reason the Mediterranean climate isn't to your liking, you can live in the more woody, mountainous region in the northeast and still be only an hour away from Barcelona. Here is Montseny Natural Park from that part. Spain also has the second-greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, at 40 (just behind Italy's 43).
And having all of those cute Catalans around will make sure you'll never want for a conversation partner.
So, although the price of enjoying life is plummeting everywhere, as the hype implodes, the fundamentals of good living remain strong in Spain. In the meantime, there sure are worse places to be without money.
And having all of those cute Catalans around will make sure you'll never want for a conversation partner.
So, although the price of enjoying life is plummeting everywhere, as the hype implodes, the fundamentals of good living remain strong in Spain. In the meantime, there sure are worse places to be without money.
April 2, 2009
Question about indie rock dorks in the internet age
When I was 14 years old, my friends and I defended our favorite band like a farmer would try to fence off his land against raiding nomads. There was a tacit understanding that The Dead Milkmen was my band, Cibo Matto was another's band, and so on -- you could listen to them a little, but never really go steady with them, to mix metaphors. And you would never commit the faux pas of showing up to school wearing a t-shirt of Someone Else's Band.
Back then it was very easy to be the only one in your whole school or college who knew about your favorite obscure band. When we went to see Jad Fair at the 9:30 Club, the 30 other people there must have represented his entire East Coast fan base.
But after the internet became mainstream in the mid-1990s, that wasn't quite so simple. At first it posed no real threat to your indie ego -- "cool, I found a group of people who like writing messages about my favorite bands!" You'd never meet them in real life and be forced to compete face-to-face. (Although I did meet up with a bunch of internet-fans of They Might Be Giants somewhat regularly, mostly I-95 road trips toward Irving Plaza or the Mercury Lounge.)
Now things seem a lot different, with all of these websites like musicforants (I was pointed to this site a year ago -- may no longer be cool). They put up mp3s from bands that remain obscure for, roughly, 30 minutes -- until the other 10,000 dorks who follow the website click the play button too. Has the ubiquity of these sites changed the social dynamics of these people?
Now that people don't get out and socialize much anymore, especially music nerds, most of their interpersonal contact is gushing over the internet with their peers about the hot new bands on these websites. Of course, this just makes fatigue set in much faster than before --
Oh... you've heard of them too? Yeah, I guess I kinda got tired of that album after the third day. I'm so into ____ right now.
The basic model here is the co-evolution between a host species and a parasite species. The indie rock nerd sees himself as the host, and anyone else who likes his band is a parasite with no musical radar of their own. This drives him to abandon the band once he senses enough others are listening to them, and to find a new band. Now, though, the parasites can locate and exploit the host so quickly that the host ends up spending most of his time, energy, and resources trying to out-run the parasites -- a Red Queen scenario.
Is there anything to this? I matured beyond indie oneupsmanship when I was about 17 or 18 years old, so I don't have a really good feel for what the music dorks are like now. But from what I've read on the mp3 promoting sites, there's always some neurotic mess saying that he can't stay passionate about a band for longer than a week -- "after that, I'm so over them." Are they now locked into 18-hour days of indie drudgery, their only obsession being to unearth that one band that no one on the internet has heard of?
Buncha dopes. At least they won't have the time, or the social skills, to reproduce.
Back then it was very easy to be the only one in your whole school or college who knew about your favorite obscure band. When we went to see Jad Fair at the 9:30 Club, the 30 other people there must have represented his entire East Coast fan base.
But after the internet became mainstream in the mid-1990s, that wasn't quite so simple. At first it posed no real threat to your indie ego -- "cool, I found a group of people who like writing messages about my favorite bands!" You'd never meet them in real life and be forced to compete face-to-face. (Although I did meet up with a bunch of internet-fans of They Might Be Giants somewhat regularly, mostly I-95 road trips toward Irving Plaza or the Mercury Lounge.)
Now things seem a lot different, with all of these websites like musicforants (I was pointed to this site a year ago -- may no longer be cool). They put up mp3s from bands that remain obscure for, roughly, 30 minutes -- until the other 10,000 dorks who follow the website click the play button too. Has the ubiquity of these sites changed the social dynamics of these people?
Now that people don't get out and socialize much anymore, especially music nerds, most of their interpersonal contact is gushing over the internet with their peers about the hot new bands on these websites. Of course, this just makes fatigue set in much faster than before --
Oh... you've heard of them too? Yeah, I guess I kinda got tired of that album after the third day. I'm so into ____ right now.
The basic model here is the co-evolution between a host species and a parasite species. The indie rock nerd sees himself as the host, and anyone else who likes his band is a parasite with no musical radar of their own. This drives him to abandon the band once he senses enough others are listening to them, and to find a new band. Now, though, the parasites can locate and exploit the host so quickly that the host ends up spending most of his time, energy, and resources trying to out-run the parasites -- a Red Queen scenario.
Is there anything to this? I matured beyond indie oneupsmanship when I was about 17 or 18 years old, so I don't have a really good feel for what the music dorks are like now. But from what I've read on the mp3 promoting sites, there's always some neurotic mess saying that he can't stay passionate about a band for longer than a week -- "after that, I'm so over them." Are they now locked into 18-hour days of indie drudgery, their only obsession being to unearth that one band that no one on the internet has heard of?
Buncha dopes. At least they won't have the time, or the social skills, to reproduce.
April 1, 2009
Aging gracefully
At the deli counter tonight there was a woman working there who was somewhere in her 40s or 50s -- hard to tell since she'd been in the sun too much, smoked too much, etc.
She clearly hadn't seen anyone worth pursuing in awhile, since she was staring wide-eyed and mouth agape nearly the whole time I was there. Asking my name -- IOI. Offering me a slice of meat that I didn't even ask for -- IOI. After I told her my name was a common one, she replied that, "Well, I sure won't forget that face" -- big-time IOI.
Could she be any more obvious? I thought mature women were supposed to have mastered their emotions, and yet here one is, just as boy-crazy as she was in tenth grade. And none of it was calculated, seductive, or trampy at all -- just the head-over-heels type of word-vomit you'd expect from a teenager or something.
It's like fathers who have given up hope of attracting any more women, and who settle for ogling their daughter's cute friends (hardly a bad consolation prize). Having dropped out of the game and settled down, she didn't reek of resentment, unlike her on-the-prowl age-mates who still think themselves "sexy and single." Well, one out of two correct is still pretty accurate.
On the car ride home, I thought about the unusual episode a little more -- maybe the pathetic Sex and the City women are only a minority, leaving most women entering middle age still capable of uncontrollable boy-craziness. Perhaps after leaving the hellish dating and mating market so long ago, their girliness has been restored much closer to baseline.
True, I'd have to find one who was a lot better looking than the woman tonight. But still, in the same way that old people become as cranky and stubborn as teenagers, might not middle-aged women come full circle after a long bitchy streak during their 30s?
So, perhaps I've been unduly harsh in my judgment of "women over 25" -- some of the over-40 ones might actually still be worth pursuing, as paradoxical as the logic seems. As I just mentioned, I'm more motivated by avoiding long-term regret -- you'll never know until you try.
So maybe this week I'll try something a little different and attempt to bait some more mature women into asking my name, not in a nightclub obviously -- god, I could never stand that again. But there must be plenty of bookstores, furniture stores, etc., where I could run some day game. Worst case scenario: one day wasted.
Right?
She clearly hadn't seen anyone worth pursuing in awhile, since she was staring wide-eyed and mouth agape nearly the whole time I was there. Asking my name -- IOI. Offering me a slice of meat that I didn't even ask for -- IOI. After I told her my name was a common one, she replied that, "Well, I sure won't forget that face" -- big-time IOI.
Could she be any more obvious? I thought mature women were supposed to have mastered their emotions, and yet here one is, just as boy-crazy as she was in tenth grade. And none of it was calculated, seductive, or trampy at all -- just the head-over-heels type of word-vomit you'd expect from a teenager or something.
It's like fathers who have given up hope of attracting any more women, and who settle for ogling their daughter's cute friends (hardly a bad consolation prize). Having dropped out of the game and settled down, she didn't reek of resentment, unlike her on-the-prowl age-mates who still think themselves "sexy and single." Well, one out of two correct is still pretty accurate.
On the car ride home, I thought about the unusual episode a little more -- maybe the pathetic Sex and the City women are only a minority, leaving most women entering middle age still capable of uncontrollable boy-craziness. Perhaps after leaving the hellish dating and mating market so long ago, their girliness has been restored much closer to baseline.
True, I'd have to find one who was a lot better looking than the woman tonight. But still, in the same way that old people become as cranky and stubborn as teenagers, might not middle-aged women come full circle after a long bitchy streak during their 30s?
So, perhaps I've been unduly harsh in my judgment of "women over 25" -- some of the over-40 ones might actually still be worth pursuing, as paradoxical as the logic seems. As I just mentioned, I'm more motivated by avoiding long-term regret -- you'll never know until you try.
So maybe this week I'll try something a little different and attempt to bait some more mature women into asking my name, not in a nightclub obviously -- god, I could never stand that again. But there must be plenty of bookstores, furniture stores, etc., where I could run some day game. Worst case scenario: one day wasted.
Right?
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