esrosedotblog

The worm has turned; back from whence it came.

Pass the Word: The Phone Call Is Back

Let's face it. Email is the only successful alternative to voice. Even then it is subject to all kinds of typos and other weird errors. It takes time to type it in.

Text? No way. It is well out of my territory. I never started.

Basically, I am a die hard voice guy. I want to hear yours and I want you to hear mine. And I like the interchange of voices deciding in the here and now (hear and now) what is going on with each other.

Sure. A long email message is helpful. I use it to "call" all my kids. For one thing I can email them all at one time. Five separate emails? No. They respond in the same way. Never text.

But day to day contact? No way will I text. I am an easy study in the use of texting. I never started.

Oh, I will grudgingly indulge in a bit of back and forth. But I will quickly say, "hey I will call you".

Call me old fashioned.

I amaze some young friends when I show them my phone. A clamshell. Old style.

Of course, that makes texting more difficult for me but that's the way I like it.

I don't even want to get used to doing it.

I think that my aversion to texting arises out of several places. One is that it is just fucking inconvenient. Calling? Easy. Hit the fast dial and get a connection. Even if the person is not there I can leave a voice message.

Is it OK to say that I just enjoy it more? Intertalk is much more satisfying.

Another thing. Texting is all about abbreviation. A sure sign that it is a tedious chore. This leads to even less communications.

I could use Skype or iChat more if I had partners who wanted to do it. It is unhandy. Appointments required. On the desktop, well, I have to be at my desk. On my iPad you have to sort of hold it out like a book, arms length. Maybe the "phones" are better for seeing but I doubt it. I don't even want to try.

If the phone phone was good enough for Alexander Bell, it is good enough for me.

Labels: culture, phone

More photography in a sort of nonverbal day.

We have become addicted to pistachios.

This photo is unachievable in the real world.

As one peels a nut there is no way to stop the hand from ascending to the mouth, the nut from entering the oral cavity where it is automatically chewed and swallowed.

Followed by a sigh.

I cannot imagine the self restraint that it took to gather all these shelled pistachios in one bowl.

I would guess handcuffs were used on staff and photographer. Nose push to snap the shutter.

Click on the image to bring it within life size. Drool.

Labels: culture, food

In writing about Angell, below, I realized something.

I have been reading The New Yorker for 60 years.

When I went to MIT, the dorm sold magazines in the "office" and as I got to be friends with Freddy, a character out of the annals of queendom, he shoved this magazine in my hands and said the equivalent of "read, dear, read".

So I did. And I was tested. Freddy made sure I bought one every week and what is more, he would ask questions about the articles. How did I like this or that.

I didn't go to MIT for the courses actually. As it turns out, I barely managed to pass those. What I got was a whole way of life which was totally new for a boy from the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. A hillbilly. A smart one and an alien among his people but a hillbilly nonetheless. Incidentally the word "hillbilly" passes the spell check with flying colors.

The desk which turned out to be a little fiefdom of its own (I worked there later in the game but was a dining hall worker for most of my time there), impressed itself on every kid who ever lived on East Campus. A complex of dorm buildings all in a tight little community never to be outdone by the newer dorms on West Campus across Massachusetts Drive. We were proles. They were more upper class, non-scholarship. We were clearly sent to East Campus because we were part of a group identified as student aid kids. Loans, scholarships but not likely, and workers on campus jobs. My kind of people. They knew what they were doing, if they were doing it and I believe that they were. In those days stuff like that was done routinely. It worked! No rich kid ever appeared on East Campus except to get help on his homework from some smarter kid who was on the way up. Who might even, someday, hire the rich kid for a job. It was that way. A kind of unraveling of the social fabric that led to MIT leaders all over the world. A lot of people think it is the education. Sure. But it is the experience. The way of life. Engineering has no classes. It works to undo the system not reinforce it. Revolutionary.

MIT was the first school to have work co-op programs in three departments, deals with the likes of IBM and other big companies to take on kids as interns. Nurtured into the system. In a good way.

I digress.

The key point I am making is that it was MIT life, not MIT academics, that made me the man I was and still am today. And, thank god for that. And for Freddy and The New Yorker. One more aspect of the making of a life. What you put in is what you get out.

That's Boston in the background incidentally, after the Charles River.

Labels: culture, MIT

Being a parent is harder than ever.

Not because the world is a worsening place but because there are so many people looking over your shoulder. Busybodies who can't resist the impulse to complain or warn or call the cops or whatever.

I have noticed more and more news items about this.

A woman arrested for leaving her kids alone in a car while she went into a store. A classic. Some asshole saw this and picked his or her phone up and called the cops. The cops cannot back down. A complaint was made, there is a law, the evidence is clear. The kids are in the car alone.

The parent is arrested, the kids taken to a "home", not their own, and all kinds of shit rains down on the lives of what used to be normal people doing what used to be normal things.

I don't like to talk about the good old days. They were just fine but not better. Different maybe. But one thing is clear. I was alone for vast expanses of time as both parents worked and during WWII while my Dad was gone I had no one but myself and other kids in similar situations to hang out with.

We ran the fields and for the most part had a great time with each other without adult supervision of any kind.

Of course, there were more women, a fact, at home and so it is possible that they were watching out the window but I doubt it. They had other things to do and we were all living in the norm.

I am not the only person to notice the creeping encroachment on the rights of parents, and their kids, actually, to live life without interference from others.

The Parent Trap

This is Russ Douthat, a conservative.

When I was a parent we lived in a small village but it was a close neighborhood. Any threats were similar to the kind that any kid today encounters.

I think the worst worry was about child molestation and as it turned out that was based on actual events just down the street. My close friend next door was "done" by the guy who lived just next on the other side.

No doubt. A worry. Never take candy from strangers. Useless when it is Mr. Vernoy who has been there all our lives. But the Mom reported him, he went to jail and that was that for as long as I heard anything about life on the street.

When I was a parent, as I recall, my kids just sort of ran around. We knew they were around because part of the time they were in our house or yard or in the neighbors' or something. Usually in a gang. Safety in numbers.

Parental hovering is such a bad thing for kids. It creates fear. Fear of fear itself.

And there is the whole thing about anonymous power. Any creep with a power drive can use his leverage to meddle with other lives and our laws now support that. Child endangerment.

And this thing about letting the kids be in the car. I was in the store a few weeks ago and an announcement was made about a dog shut in the car. Keerist. Some person saw it and came in and told the manager and made out that the manager should announce this and please come to take care of the dog so the bastard that complained would be placated. I know this because I asked my friend Jim who manages the mornings there. He verified. The complainer insisted. He said there was a crack in the car windows and it was not hot.

So here we go. Meddlers. Tattletales. All on a bit of a power trip at the expense of innocent bystanders around them. The "professional" hall monitor from school days. The finger pointers who point to divert attention from themselves.

In a word, assholism, a growing plague.

Labels: culture, parents

Travel broadens, brings new perspectives, enlightens.

Hence it is not surprising that I actually learned something on this trip to a "foreign" country.

England (or is it Great Britain, I still do not know, more to learn) is different. Sometimes, quite different, in their ways.

I include this word, "ways", as that too came up as a new means of referring to culture and such during my trip. Broadened again.

I don't think much about people's "ways" unless they get in my way. I am curious about culture but I have mine and they have theirs. I'm OK, you're OK. I digress.

We were talking about the surprises to be had in other cultures about common things.

For example. In my friend's kitchen, I was helping myself to granola when I saw that right in front of the granola container was a 6-pack of eggs. In the open. Room temperature. Not in the refrigerator ("fridge" I think).

I stopped. I looked. Yes. Eggs. Room fucking temperature. What was going on?

I put the thoughts of correcting this egregious violation of simple hygiene and, as a guest, kept my mouth shut. A position that I am not used to. So, it is not surprising that eventually, about five minutes, I blurted about the eggs being warm and what the hell? Kindly of course.

I was set straight by the cook who has strong ideas which have been firmly set in place by good kitchen training. Basically, another culture clash but not only that, a statement of yet another American failure to keep up. A subtle competition revived around the field of egg husbandry. Is that the right word? I am struggling here.

It turns out that there is only one way to explain this. Bluntly, the Americans let a lot of shit get on the eggs in production and the Brits do not. The Americans have to clean their eggs before distribution, basically, as far as I can see, to compensate for poor or inadequate sanitation in the hen house.

I was chastened and, yet again found that just because we separated from them, well, rebelled, there are certain areas that the English (in this particular case Welsh and not the same thing by any means and don't forget it) still have over us.

Americans, Why Do You Keep Refrigerating Your Eggs?

Simple answer, because they have shit on them and we have to clean it off to avoid salmonella contamination.

And why do we have shit on our eggs? Because the farm industry turned into an industry and, as usual, took profit motive over public health.

And then, in the usual sequence, it turns out that the measures taken to clean the egg increase the probability of further contamination because the cuticle is removed. More messing with Mother Nature to our detriment.

I am not worried about this. All things considered, I would rather refrigerate my eggs anyway. Just to be sure. Besides, I hard boil all of them soon after their arrival at home and, while that is for another purpose, this tends to kill any bugs and also makes them a bit more resistant to spoilage.

Thus endeth our lecture on eggness in the UK and the US. More culture notes will follow.

Labels: agriculture, culture, eggs, food

CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN OR WOMAN

Classical Sculptures Dressed as Hipsters

It make them look like the dude down the street. Or at least a closer to our time kinda dude.

It is a great idea beautifully executed. Not overdone, not underdone. Just right.

Labels: art, culture

I WILL HAVE IT WITH THE JIMMIES PLEASE

This may surprise you but it was not until today at about 10AM PSDT that I realized I have no idea which is which.

Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel.

I think that I just figured they were the same guy.

How is this possible?

Now I have some more clarity but, to tell the truth, after reading this, I still have no idea how to tell them apart.

Jimmy vs. Jimmy, the Late Night Battle to Come

I know that one of these is replacing Leno.

I know that one of these does bits which I like a lot.

Are they the same Jimmy?

So Fallon is the one that does the funny singing bits with Timberlake.

Kimmel is the guy who has the "which is the gay one" type of street interview.

Really?

They are not the same guy?

I am serious about this.

I am totally gobsmacked.

Help.

Does anyone else care?

Labels: culture

BLACK BLACK

I have always believed that Black Friday referred to the craziness and mayhem.

And I am right. Read this.

I first heard about this in Philadelphia in the fifties where I worked downtown. You will see the appropriate new items.

I was there!

My Annuyal Black Friday Post

Labels: culture, holidays

MERCHANTS

The mattress experience also presented a new world of department store buying.

Macy's.

It is a peerless service machine. Nice people. Good prices. Extreme followup, emails, guarantees. Even the delivery men were handsome! And we had the mattress less than 24 hours after we bought it.

I used to work for the Federated and Allied chains of big name stores. They did not own the stores per se but had an interest and provided services.

It was a place of desperate politics and backward management. A lot were family owned or the equivalent with second and third generation management.

The work was not difficult, the people were nice, but they were a slow motion train wreck and not getting any better.

I quit on them as a customer.

But this is a new thing. It is no wonder that Macy's came out on top.

In this case, at least, big is better. Obviously it is well managed.

But more, they are true merchants. When I worked for the stores, the merchants were king and then they were not.

The numbers guys came in. The big box guys came in. The first in first out inventory came in. The just on time delivery.

The link between the people who bought the stuff and the customer was lost.

Sure, there were some dumb parts to the old merchant system. The liberal returns policy and so on.

But you go to the boxes or any of the other new retail places and there is no merchandising at the consumer level. It is all take it or leave it. Not Macy's.

I will go back.

Labels: business, culture, management, shopping

LYING DOWN II

The mattress got delivered this morning and I was on it taking a nap within the first hour.

It works fine. And looks great.

A realization occurred to me today. An insight that had almost passed by me.

We went into a big Macy's yesterday, two men, and went to the mattress department where we both got on six beds (three models, each or "plush") and then did it again and then went back and forth. One of us on. Two of us on. The other off. A great saleswoman following us around bantering. Other salespeople going past asking if they could help us.

Not one blink about the gay angle. None. And if there had been, while we would have continued as if it had not, we would know it in a nano-second. We have spent our lives learning when we are getting the homo reaction.

Now, the department store is not the most hetero place. We have long worked in that field and own much of the many of the management positions but that means nothing. In fact, some of the gayest places, owned and operated are the most closeted and homophobic.

But there we were doing our thing. Let me tell you that twenty years ago we would not have done it this way. One would go pick out the one he wanted and then the other would go in and consider the field work. One might pay up.

Actually we wouldn't be doing that as we have been extremely out for a long time. But we wouldn't be doing with quite the elan. We would have had an eye out for some kind of trouble.

Ten years ago, a couple might go together but not heedlessly romp around on the beds together.

We have come a looooooong way.

It is funny. There was a guy there alone checking things out. He didn't even want to bring his lady wife with him. And I bet they would not have gone onto the bed at the same time and cuddle up. We did.

Labels: culture, gay liberation, gay life

THE HITCH

I am sorry for his death and suffering but I cannot say that will join the gang of admirers mourning Christopher Hitchens. I feel like Kevin Drum only more so.

The Other Christopher Hitchens

I thought he was a mean motherfucker and covered most of his vitriolic attacks, always attacks, with a kind of word magic that, in its misdirection from logic, made him compelling but, somehow, loathsome.

I read his "not god" book and felt a bit like finding some christians and getting together with them as a kind of antidote to the nastiness of his message.

I know a lot of people loved to watch the show but it was a grisly kind of take down including a lot of eye gouging and kicks to the balls. Entertaining to some but not to me.

I hear that he was a great friend to many but I never picked up on any of that.

And he would not give a shit what I thought.

When I heard of his death I fantasized what it would be like if he ended up, over there, a kind of heaven, the kind that he found so foolish to believe. I suppose he would launch an attack on the angelic band. Or something. But I would not want to watch it.

He made no attempt to hide his alcoholism which is a good thing as far as it goes. I have met some really mean drunks and I stay away from them.

Labels: culture

DESIGN CLASSIC

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Sony FM/Tuner ca 1970. My first serious stereo machine.

I don't know the model number or anything. Sony.

I found this photo on a design site.

It is now a classic. Design. I am sure that it would play good too.

I don't know who ended up with this. A kid. A 1 in 5 guess.

Maybe someone still has it.

Labels: culture, life, nostalgia

PORTUGESE VILLAGE

Full size.

Labels: culture, life

WALMART

I have only been in Walmart once.

I was in some suburban place. Illinois. And I needed cigarettes.

I drove out and the first place I came to was a WalMart.

I went in and was accosted by a greeter.

it so freaked me out that I left without the cigarettes and never, ever returned to the place.

This from The Daily What where I found this.

Alex Day (of Alex Reads Twilight fame) and his buddy/bandmate Liam Dryden hop across the pond to Los Angeles, California, where they decide to visit a Walmart.

Culture shockilarity ensues.

I feel that I have now seen the interior of a WalMart.

And at least half of Alex reading Twilight.

Labels: America, culture, fun

ISN'T THE REAL THING PEPSI?

We buy the newish little 4 oz cans of diet coke. On Tuesday, the day after the holiday, they were out!

I had all but given up on caffeine but now I am hooked on this little bastards. One in the afternoon. With two pretzels. And Booker begging and getting the third.

OK. I am hooked on the pretzels too.

So, what? None of the pretty shiny little cans.

So I took the newer coke zero which is a black can. I looked the label over. It seemed the same.

And it is totally. There is no difference except that the black can is being marketed to men and the diet coke to women.

John thinks there is a flavor difference. There is no use in arguing the point. I even looked it up. They are the same. It is thought that in some locations, perhaps, there is a bit less aspartame in the zero.

Maybe that is it. Palm Springs has been singled out for an aspartame delta.

So, I am drinking the zero cans and John is finishing what we have of the silver bullet diet cokes. He will finish first, almost certainly. I don't go to the store until Tuesday and he is down to six cans. He has more than one a day.

None of this is important except to point out the utter triviality of most purchasing decisions. Well, at least those involving brown bubbly acidic sweet water.

To make it more trivial, you should know that we are in a test market and you may have no idea what the fuck I am talking about. Having never seen these sweet little cans.

Labels: culture

SYMMETRY—SORT OF

Labels: culture, life

I AM AN OBSERVER

This is an old rant. I have written it a dozen times.

But, I am revved up again so here I go.

I do not text. I do not have that service. If I get a text it costs me 25 cents and I will tell you so.

I do not have wireless on my "phone". What is a "phone" now anyway?

I am not on Facebook. I will not Twitter. I don't want fucking any of it.

I have enough trouble keeping myself away from my computer for news, blogging (mine and others), movies and the like.

But none of this computer "work" is done while you are standing there with me. I am alone.

Well, sometimes John and I do have our moments with emailing each other from across the room. A photo. A little message.

I can imagine what it would be like around here if we both texted and did the social networks and read the news and the rest of it on our "phone".

I watch people. There are folks who will not maintain eye contact but will stand aside of you, device in hand, glancing to see if a text has come in during the chat. I can feel them pull away.

I hear the problems of the social networks. Too much oversharing. Is that redundant? I suppose so. Unwanted "friends". Gossip gone awry. Private photos made public. (Hey look, if you put a photo on the internet anywhere it is public. Listen to me!)

Now this.

Ahem. Are you talking to me? (or texting?)

Everyone knows it. No one likes it.

It is the new drug.

I can get away with not being involved. I don't have a job and my friends don't expect me to. It is not a precondition for their affection.

Of course, this is because if you are my "friend" you are probably not going to be my true friend.

Boy, do I hate this shit.

I know that parents and kids use texting to stay in touch. Lovers too. A lot of relationships can benefit from it. Us? We send emails. But Jesus H. Christ! Most of what passes for important is not compared to the real, live person standing or sitting next to you.

Here is one good thing about texting. It has virtually eliminated the boorish loud mouth talking on the cell phone while others are trying to eat, think, talk or just be quietly alone. That guy is now the compulsive thumber. The screen peaker.

Progress? Not by a long shot.

Labels: cults, culture, internet

THE CULT

Many years ago, I was walking on Boylston Street in Boston and a guy came up to me and asked if I would like to take a test.

There was some other folderol about what it would do and reveal and all. He was pretty good about it.

It wasn't like the Moonies where they wanted to take you to their place for a meal. But, to take the test, you did have to walk a short distance, I think to Commonwealth Avenue, to take the test.

I declined.

That was my first and only direct contact with Scientology or a Scientologist.

Since then, to my knowledge, I have never met anyone who has anything to do with this organization. And I have met and worked with a lot of people.

I certainly paid attention when I read about their emergence in to the public sphere. Sometimes in a positive way for them, publicity and all, but often not. They seem to attract negative attention.

Many people have written about "the church" with varying degrees of success, often attracting lawsuits. Many of these articles and books are by defectors with an axe to grind and documents that have been stolen. They are easily discredited.

It has been known for a long time that the Hubbardites seek to recruit celebrities and have worked very hard on this particularly in LA and Hollywood.

We know of some prominent but fading stars who have taken it up.

But most recently, the very prominent Paul Haggis resigned from the organization in a very public way. Now, in the New Yorker, a thoroughly researched and very long, almost exhausting but never boring article has been published.

The Apostate—Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology by Lawrence Wright

I bring this up because I found it fascinating on several fronts.

First and foremost is in the way that Scientology has evolved, like many churches, from a relatively informal set of principles by an interesting, if perhaps crazy guy, into a highly organized, very authoritarian organization with enforcers and lawyers and all the tools to maintain its "sanctity".

It is also interesting to read about Haggis indoctrination as a troubled young man and his failure over some 35 years to examine his beliefs in any way. Then, disruption and a failure to get answers to some pretty basic questions that he had about the outfit.

Third, I am interested in the celebrity angle. Except for a few people, the "celebrities" who belong to Scientology are not very well known. They are moneyed, very important to Scientology, but are, by and large, behind the scenes people who are given a special center to attend to their duties and, as bigger money makers, to burnish the church's image as well as to supply a whole lot of money.

Finally, I find the story of the young David Miscavige (above), the head guy, very interesting. An organization man, not a guru. A dictator, not a service oriented leader.

It is worth some time. It goes beyond the immediate sensationalism of the Scientologists and where they are going. It shows a great deal about human nature and our capacity to believe in the most outrageous stuff and to believe so much as to sell ourselves out literally and figuratively.

Labels: cults, culture, religion

THE BUZZ ISN'T THERE

This is about the Stieg Larsson books about the girl and the investigative journalist and the tattoo and the bees and the really boring, difficult read that they are.

It is unaccountable to me why these books have been successful.

They are banal, incomplete, boring. Situations dangle.

Mini-plots seem concocted and inserted for sheer effect, neither story telling or advancing the plot that is at the core of the books. The dialog is wooden. Even the sex scenes are sexless.

Of course, in a culture where over half of the best sellers are sausage ground from the same old meat, Danielle Steele and so on, the quality issue is at a par. What I don't get is that the two principals are so unattractive and unlikable and, indeed, foolish and the girl nearly insane, that they would not be the kind of heroes that make for a good read in the first place. They are lousy characters.

When I read the first one I nearly doubled over with boredom at the interlacing financial network of the family that, well, never mind. It turns out that the story is really about sadistic murders and a missing person. None of the huge financial corporate superstructure is important. It is not even a red herring. It is filler.

Filler and anecdotal episodes of traditional thriller tropes.

The second book wasn't much better and by the time I was through with it and had seen the trimmed down story in the first Swedish film, I was done with it.

The film was pretty good actually. They threw out huge chunks and made the characters at least intelligent and only neurotic enough to be interesting.

So. I am going to see the second Swedish film and, when it comes out on DVD, the third and that is it.

My rule of not seeing a film on a book I read or reading a book about a film I saw has already been sullied.

The mystery remains.

Why have these been so popular.

I do love this kind of fiction when it is done well. We read every Robert Crais and Lee Child book published. But even these only stay on the Best Seller list for a few weeks.

I have found that others share my puzzlement. At last, a critical essay appears in The New Yorker by Joan Acocella,

Man of Mystery

Another interesting thing is that even the provenance and the editing of these books is shrouded in mystery. Larssen died 7 months after he wrote the books and did not really work hard on editing at all. The ownership of the copyright is all screwed up,

Time will tell, I suppose. There are going to be American films. They will have to edit the stories and, of course, Hollywoodize them. I will not see them. I will not buy the possible next volume that is said to be in Larssen's computer that he left.

I will not participate.

It is bullshit. Group buzz. The good part is that so many people are reading. But if they are reading trash then what happens next? I can't even go there.

Labels: cults, culture

STRAIGHT ON

This is encouraging.

Straight men kissing more

For awhile there, I believe that gay men were getting liberated and visible at the expense of good physical intimacy between straight boys and men.

That all seems to be changing.

There was a long period where boys wouldn't shower at school but would wait until they were home.

Of course, I do not know what physical intimacy between straight men feels like. I do know that I can hug guys without any erotic charge at all, gay or straight.

And get pleasure from it.

Agape.

I am very pleased to see this happening in the culture.

Of course, I would have to remember that this is in the UK.

Labels: culture, homphobia