Born on the 5th of July

A new rebirth of wonder

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:18:00 +0000

I've been getting some really great, if perplexing, spam lately. This latest one appears to have been concocted to mash up bits of famous poetry. And it's pretty good.

I quote the email in its entirety:

or think on him who bore thy name, proverbs of hell.
i told my wrath, my wrath did end. and i am waiting for lovers and weepers

It's unclear what they're trying to sell me, but never mind that. For those unfamiliar with the metric, it's written in what I've identified as a BBBF rhyme scheme: Blake, Blake, Blake, Ferlinghetti.

Here's where the pieces come from:

"Or think on him who bore thy name" -- William Blake, "Night"
"Proverbs of hell" is a section of Blake's (prose) "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"
"I told my wrath, my wrath did end" -- Blake, "A Poison Tree"
"And I am waiting for lovers and weepers" -- Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "I Am Waiting"

The one bone I have to pick with the creators of this strange automaton is its lack of typographical consistency. So herewith I have retranscribed the poem, and taken the liberty of retitling as well:

I Am Waiting in a Poison Tree for the Night Marriage of Heaven and Hell
by Lawrence Blake III

Or think on him who bore thy name,
Proverbs of Hell! I told my wrath:
My wrath did end --
And I am waiting for lovers and weepers.

There, that's better.

2008 book reviews (the year, not the number of books)

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:13:00 +0000

2008 has been a work-intensive year for me so my reading list comes nowhere near the mark of Aaron Schwartz's 100 books. Do I get points for reading most copies of The Economist, and certainly all four quarterly issues of Genealogists' Magazine? (Well, nerd points, at least.)

The best are linked to Amazon.

1. Affluenza, by Oliver James. See my previous partial review here. An interesting read but not entirely convincing. "Rich people aren't necessarily happy" isn't that earth-shattering of a thesis, I have to say.

2. Armageddon in Retrospect, Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut was my first literary hero, but his relevance waned in later life as he was hit with what I can only describe as Crotchety Old Man syndrome, and seemed to merely reiterate his earlier themes. So I was really quite astounded at the quality of this collection of unpublished works on war and soldiers (some set in WW2, some in fictional realities). Easily as good as his classic short story collections like Canary in a Cathouse.

3. The Assize of the Dying, by Ellis Peters. This is two novellae, the title story and Aunt Helen. I like Peters' Cadfael material immensely and thought I'd try some of her other work. These early tales are probably for devoted fans only; though readable, they're not particularly well crafted.

4. Cobweb, by Neal Stephenson and Frederick George. This is Neal Stephenson's writing style applied to a Tom Clancy-esque plot about biowarfare. A good read though not essential.

5. The English, by Jeremy Paxman. I haven't actually finished this one. It's interesting enough, but nowhere near as good as Kate Fox's Watching the English. It's probably more interesting if you're actually English yourself, and are heavily invested in that identity (which the author seems to be).

6. Martian Time-Slip, by Philip K. Dick. A mentally ill Mars-born boy sees dead people. Well, sort of. I had never really read much PKD and picked out a few titles to see what all the fuss was about. This may not be his best but it's still fascinating.

7. The Men Who Stare At Goats, by Jon Ronson. Very well done investigation of the more bizarre side of military research at the CIA and elsewhere, with important connections to torture practices in the Iraq war. My only complaint is that Ronson fails to tie it all together; he is happy to leave it with "look at the damage these crazy theories can do", without looking at the power structures that enable them to prosper and mutate.

8. Mike's Election Guide 2008, by Michael Moore. Amusing, but nothing more than an airplane flight read. Now that Obama's in, what will he complain about? (I'm sure he'll find something...)

9. A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs, by Ellis Peters. A bit better from Peters, though it does read a bit like a Hardy Boys novel of beachside mystery adventure. But hey, I love Hardy Boys.

10. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. I just got this and read it right after Christmas. It's very well done and heartily recommended. Gladwell has a great gift for pulling together other work and research into a single coherent thread. Outliers' premise is simple: the self-made man is a myth. His logic is devastating. I had come to this conclusion myself previously, but this book actually made me a lot less angry about it, and more appreciative of the opportunities I have had in life.

11. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions, by Dan Ariely. I didn't finish this book, though I had high hopes for it (see "The Undercover Economist"). His points just aren't that compelling.

12. Quirkology: The Curious Science of Everyday Lives, Richard Wiseman. This is a survey of social experiments that Wiseman and others have been involved in, and has some parallels with the excellent book Influence. Wiseman's examples, though, suffer from being a bit too mainstream, like finding out what's the funniest joke (his conclusion, as mine, is that he found the blandest joke in the world that translates across cultures). On the whole, not as quirky as it could be.

13. Radical Forgiveness: Making Room for the Miracle, by Colin C. Tipping. This is a sort of manifesto of living by Tipping, who puts on seminars on various topics. Overall I think it's a useful viewpoint, though I tend to disagree with some of his premises. To be read with an open mind.

14. Rules Britannia: The 101 Essential Questions of Britishness Answered, From How to Keep a Stiff Upper Lip to Who Ate All the Pies, by Rohan Candappa. This is really just a joke book, but the lengthy treatment of the origin and usage of the "Who Ate All the Pies" football chant was illuminating. For a book that purports to help one understand Britishness, it is unfortunately a bit in-jokey. E.g., I still don't know who or what Rabbie Burns is.

15. Scandals, Vandals, and Da Vincis: A Gallery of Remarkable Art Tales, by Harvey Rachlin. I only read part of it, but wasn't overly impressed by its remarkable-ness. It seemed more Anecdotal than anything.

16. The Second Messiah: Templars, the Turin Shroud and the Great Secret of Freemasonry, by Christopher Knight. A fun conjectural read in the vein of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but both better strung together and less easily dismissable than that.

17. The Space Merchants, Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. Surprisingly relevant socioeconomic satire from the true masters of the genre. Originally published in 1953, it's both fun and thought-provoking.

18. Spook Country, William Gibson. Gibson is damn good, and though this isn't necessarily his best, it's still better than most novels out there, period. This one's about something like location-based services, nuclear spies and counterspies, and Sino-Cuban freerunners. If you like its genre, you'll like the book; if not, it may not convince you.

19. Tales of the Country Eccentrics, by Tom Quinn. I picked this up in the charity shop. It's a selection of brief anecdotes about strange English countryfolk doing strange things. Fun.

20. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, by Philip K. Dick. An alien civilization introduces a mind-altering drug that makes people hallucinate fantasy lives that revolve around a Barbie-like play set produced by the protagonists corporation. What's not to like?

21. The Undercover Economist, by Tim Harford. A brilliant dissection of how to apply basic economic theory to everyday life. It helped connect a lot of dots for me, and it's written in a very readable style that reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell. My only complaint is that the author is a bit too enthralled by the invisible hand, offering it as a solution even when lacking proof points. Overall, highly recommended. (Note: the U.S. subtitle, "Why the Rich are Rich and the Poor are Poor," makes it sounds a lot more confrontational and Republican-rhetorical than it actually is).

22. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, by Dan Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. I didn't get very far into this as it seemed, well, kind of obvious. If you're a businessperson and want to know what all this fuss about "the wikis" are, it might be a useful primer.

23. The Will and the Deed, by Ellis Peters. Another early Peters effort, this one based around a crash-landed plane and a crime of opportunity in the Austrian alps. Farfetched but a fun whodunnit nonetheless. (For those of you who can't stand the term "whodunnit", all I can say is this book sort of fits the tag.)

24. You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader, Mark Sanborn. Absolute shit.

25. 50 Facts You Need to Know: USA, by Stephen Fender. I'm not sure I read all 50 facts, but there were some interesting ones there. This is designed for Brits with misconceptions about America (e.g. regarding the prevalence of cowboys).

So there you go. That's all I can recall, at least, having rummaged through my bookshelves. Maybe this year I'll also get through some of the (previously posted on B5J) books I (for the most part still) haven't read yet. We'll see.

Secondhand

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:23:00 +0000

This year I decided to divest some of our book collection. It was a difficult mental undertaking -- even though these are books we for the most part hadn't read, wouldn't read, and didn't care to read, they were still books, after all. Most were in pretty good shape, having been, oftentimes, gifts from well intentioned relatives. Others were the losers in the duplicate-comparison process, and probably should have been released to the wilds when Sarah and I first merged our libraries more than a decade ago. But these things take time, particularly when you're as lethargic and neurotic as I am.

We took a few passes through the shelves and came up with about 180 titles (out of 2000 or so) that, in our most somber reflection, we could potentially, possibly see ourselves living without, though the sacrifice might be great. "MS-DOS Advanced Programming", "Scentsational Weight Loss (A New, Easy, Natural Way to Control Your Appetite)", two extra copies of "Corduroy" -- apparently whenever my mother-in-law saw a copy of this, she had to buy it for us -- they all went on the list.

I considered giving these all away to charity immediately, but had several conflicting thoughts. First of all, most of these titles were for a fairly niche audience, and I just couldn't see them flying off the shelves at the local Oxfam. Some were actually valuable enough that it seemed worth looking for a buyer. And finally, if I dumped them all off at a shop, what would they think of me, looking through the titles? All told, this seemed like a dangerous idea.

So I decided to list them on Amazon. This was a tedious process that took an hour or two over several days and weeks. A friend who sells used books professionally gave me his estimate: provided you list your books for the lowest price or something similar, one quarter will go within three months, one quarter will go within six months, one quarter will go within a year, and the last quarter is unlikely to sell at all.

So far, that has been roughly the case. I first listed items in May, and at the moment I've sold 71 books, have 92 for sale, and gave up on about a dozen that had a glut of one-cent copies on the market ("Mars and Venus in the Bedroom", I'm looking at you) -- those ones did make it to the charity shop. Amazon forces you to re-list after three months, so I think I'll give them all two listings apiece (I've been lazy about relisting a few), and then cart off the remaining turkeys.

Through the process I've become pretty good at being able to tell from the size and weight of a book how much it will cost to ship. Under a certain size they qualify for "small packet" rate here in the UK, which is about half the price as a larger package. Amazon pays a flat fee toward shipping, regardless of the size, so judging this right is the key to knowing when you can price something at 50p versus £2.00 in order to not lose money.

The main investment has been our time -- ordering packing materials, keeping track of orders, printing online postage, and so on. Every book sold takes about 30 minutes to process, package and ship, typically, so you could make a good case that it's not worth my time for the miniscule profits I make from each sale (there have been a few that have netted more than £10, but the average is probably about a pound in profit after accounting for Amazon's fees, postage and packaging). On the other hand, there's a certain satisfaction, not just in slowly paring down the boxes of books set aside for sale, but also in knowing that someone is getting the book they wanted. It's like knowing your litter of kittens is going to good homes.

The other good news? Since May, when I started selling these, we've only added 60 or so new books to our shelves. A small achievement, some might say, but for us an impressive one: a net reduction in books. All of which is, of course, a great excuse to build up my wish list for Christmas at Amazon.

The weight, and the wait

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:40:00 +0000

I've been afraid all day. The same palpable fear and impotent rage I felt when the votes were counted (or not counted, whichever) in 2004, the sense of the inevitability of a script that I have no power to edit, nor even fast-forward. That I have to live this out, stage by excruciating stage, not knowing the details but knowing how, in general, the story will proceed.

Things are, of course, as they always were; the sins of the few are visited upon the many (slowly, drop by drop). With a whimper not a bang, as they say.

This is, some will say, how they want me to feel (the nebulous They, the conceit of a Powers That Be), but there is no They and I am but small-cased me, one more in the soul chaos, destiny soup. A small ball of dark matter spiraling ever outward in this vacuum. I am not powerless, but I know my power, and it is simply time multiplied by consciousness; consciousness at the ready for a chance. Even if the chance does not come, the consciousness is its own light. But I hope -- I hope, says the Shawshank narrator -- that the chance will come.

Be well. Keep your eyes open.

The terrorists made Wall Street suck

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:51:00 +0000

Good grief. Now Wall Street "insiders" are claiming that short selling last week was due to none other than Al Qaeda. "A massive coordinated attack from London and Dubai" on the anniversary of 9/11? Begging your pardon, but isn't it more likely that other investment banks (with their own losses to cover) bet on the spectacular, well telegraphed nosedive that was about to occur?

Short selling can only contribute to the crash of markets that are overinflated in the first place. It can't "destroy value", whatever that means. Short sellers have to buy their shares from someone, at a fair market price, and sell them again, also at a fair market price (even naked shorts must one day cover, in theory). The companies in question have lost billions in market capitalization because the market as a whole has realised how little they are worth. (For a detailed rendition of the short-sellers-are-evil argument, see Why Short Selling Matters. Then be sure to read the comments, where it gets torn a new one six ways from Sunday.)

Terrorists my ass. Don't buy this one, people. Remember that the so-called masters of the universe go hand in hand with the masters of war. Always.

Vexation without representation

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:59:00 +0000

If I've parsed today's post correctly, it appears that we're not really supposed to be on the electoral roll, but we have been for the past year and three-quarters. This is the equivalent of being registered to vote, and I recall thinking it somewhat odd that I should be allowed to do so here without being a citizen. On the other hand I do pay a winceworthy amount in taxes to H.M. Revenues and such, so I sort of figured I had a vote or two coming to me. It turns out I don't unless I'm from a Commonwealth country or Europe (so the Tanzanians get to vote, but not me).

Fortunately for ethical hindsight, I was out of the country for the latest London election, but it makes me wonder how many other chumps in my situation got their vote cards and showed up at the polls. Were their votes counted? Did they predominantly vote for Boris over Ken? The notice I received today merely asked me to renew my registration, which I think was automatically created when we bought the flat here. It had a conspicuous blank for both of our nationalities. If I had just renewed without comment, would they ever have caught up with me? I pose it merely as a hypothetical.

Which reminds me, I'd better figure out how to vote by mail for the elections I can vote in. Too bad I can't pick an exciting swing state for it to count for, though, I'm stuck with oh-so-blue California, just because I happened to live there last. (I should have thought to spend a few months in Florida before leaving...)

International finance: Epic Fail

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:47:00 +0000

In times like these, I find re-reading the (now regretfully silent) deconsumption blog's Timeline for Unfolding Crisis of Mankind strangely comforting. To call it prescient would be a stretch, but it helps to know that there are ways to rationalise the strange high-level narrative we find ourselves in.

I don't know, honestly, what to think of this week's government interventions (in both Britain and the U.S.) in the financial markets. If a government's chief responsibility is to improve the welfare of its people (and increasingly, the people outside its borders that its policies affect), then the only question is whether to put the long-term consequences to society before or after the short-term benefits. The house of cards that is the global investment world is (as houses of such shoddy material are likely to be) structurally unsound. Should we reinforce those sagging cards on the back of quasi-socialist government policy (but don't call it that, let's call it, um, economic intercession), or should we let the damn thing collapse so we can build it back up from a better plan?

But people, of course, tend to act in typically Maslovian fashion (especially in a voting year, or with a ruling government on the brink of failure), and hang on to their pyramidal entitlements with passion born of primal fear. The governments know this, and know that to stay in power (and I'm not talking about Republicans vs. Democrats — Obama, for all his rhetoric, is not claiming he wants to fundamentally change the macroeconomic model the way, say, FDR was forced to), they must do their best to opiate the masses, perpetuating the belief that there is only upside.

That, indeed, is the psychological message they hope to send by outlawing short selling (a practice which, by the way, most experts agree has very little impact whatsoever on equity prices). You can't bet against a horse, you can only bet for it. Therefore, all horses will be winners! This is so counter to any market intuition that it begs credulity. Let's review: in capitalism, there are winners and losers. There have to be both, so that the market can be efficient (which has the nice side effect of creating, on the whole, fair prices for consumers). The better companies prosper, the worse (less efficient) ones fail. You can argue to what extent the recent financial paradigm has approached that ideal, but that's the concept, anyway. Restricting short selling (or indeed, any form of derivatives) will not alter this; what's needed is transparency, visibility of investments and exposure, and fierce enforcement of fraud.

I don't want people to suffer, but I also think at some point you have to tear an edifice this flawed down and build again. If spending half a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to buy back all our excesses of yesteryear (I think that qualifies as bursting one's own bubble) is the first step to something new, then I applaud it and think it's a sacrifice well taken. But if it is done under the assumption that the way of life and level of the pyramid that we are accustomed to are inviolable, then it is no more than throwing good money after bad.

Oedipus Vaudeville

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:28:00 +0000

I got this in email the other day. It's kind of awesome, in a found poetry sort of way. If nothing else, "Oedipus Vaudeville" would make a great band name.

Subject: oedipus vaudeville dishwasher bob tact
From: Osvaldo Chaney
cap burnout vaccinate? emit, antelope emit.
bob roast momentary captaincy afloat bob, occasion
suggestive friedman dishwasher plan denny.

crosshatch redpoll est

paragonite vaccinate plan? hearken, elicit vaccinate.
edith momentary emit plan depreciable riggs, decreeing
est difluoride denny riggs desire.

terrapin redpoll edith

elicit daredevil suggestive? plan, denny burnout.

friedman riggs.

Irony, it's sort of like goldy and bronzy

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:33:00 +0000

There's a somewhat asinine debate not quite raging in the comments on this article about the New Yorker's Obama fistbump cover over whether Americans are culturally capable of understanding irony, versus the British who of course see the humour, darling.

I don't think it's as clear cut as that. There are of course dozens of Americans who are quite capable of understanding irony, possibly more, just as one finds the occasional Englishman who does not wear a bowler hat and drink tea while enjoying a multivarious sampling of modern wit. More to the point, the distinction has to do with who's "in charge" from a cultural point of view. It may have to do with the fact that the U.S. is still, on the whole, a much more religiously charged society than the U.K., or that we haven't had a true leftist as president for 30-odd years, but there is a backdrop of cultural conservatism that brings with it a sense that edgy humour (of whatever sort) is a fringe activity, not (as it is in England) a quasi-national pastime.

That's merely my own relatively naive opinion, but it was formed through continuous admonitions to avoid irony, sarcasm, &c. throughout my formative times in the California state school system. I can only wish for a day when these lost arts will be restored to the curriculum.

Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Napoleon walk into a bar

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:00:00 +0000

(The bar says "ow", Dylan say "what", Napoleon says you can do what you want, but the next time you see me comin' you better run, or you might end up with a quite complex complex. Paul Simon says, able was I, ere I saw Elba, and whatcha doin' dragging Tom Lehrer into it anyway.)

The weird part is that Paul Simon has a brother who looks almost exactly like him. He came to our offices once when I was working for the McDonald's of the Web, frying up community sites, pre-2.0 style. He was pitching some sort of music label outreach site that seemed to have little to recommend it over the other thousand music label outreach sites that came and went in the late '90s. But the most amusing part was that every time he tried to come up with an example he would invariably pick something Paul Simon-related. The first time he did this I thought it was an ironic affectation, as he would even pause as if deep in thought, trying to come up with a musical example. "Let's say you wanted to find out more about an album," (strokes chin thoughtfully), "call it Graceland. You'd click on..." and so forth. By the end of the session the joke (if it was one -- I wasn't quite sure) had gotten pretty old. "Imagine you've got a track that plays here, call it, let's see, The Sound of Silence". "What you'd want to do here is show related artists, like, um, if you had Paul Simon, you'd show Simon & Garfunkel." He did seem to know a lot about Paul Simon, in a creepy, doppelganger kind of way. I considered asking him if he would fake Paul's autograph for me. In the end, I was sort of glad we didn't get the project.

Insert some lyric here if appropriate

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 06:12:00 +0000

I always thought that as I got older, maybe I would understand. About Paul Simon, I mean. Here's a guy who starts off writing some dorky pop songs in the '50s of no real account, then goes to London for a while in his early twenties and comes back with a repertoire of amazing lyrics and music that completely transcends everything else in folk and popular music at the time.

When I was 14, my favorite band was Simon & Garfunkel. The Sound of Silence, Homeward Bound, America, Kathy's Song; lesser known ones like Bleecker Street, and some I didn't hear until much later, like A Church Is Burning and I Wish You Could Be Here. Then he writes a bunch more music after his return to folk-pop New York, most of which is decent to good, but very little that comes close to that brief cycle he wrote while in England.

And if you see him now the spark is gone. He plays his classics like a cover band at a bar, expensive karaoke. I saw him with Dylan at the Hollywood Bowl a few years back (snickering as I recalled the intense stage rivalry the two had in the '60s), but it was Bob who stole the show.

Maybe the biographies are right, and Kathy (of the eponymous Song) was his one and only muse. Their photo on the cover of "The Paul Simon Songbook" (the London album) shows a tenuous relationship, a love pervaded by distance. Maybe love at a distance was what inspired the songs. There are worse theories.

I still can't reconcile the Paul Simon that was, the Paul Simon that must have been, with the Paul Simon that remains. I suppose he's not the only old rocker you could say that of, but like so many of my musical heroes, they seem to burn brightly before I even have the chance to be part of whatever it is that they do. I think Paul Simon's a small piece of what brought me to London, some small hope that I could feel what he felt, or see what he saw. I think I realize now that that's not really possible, and it's freeing to simply appreciate what was, what happened, without trying to evoke its ghost from the cobblestones. I know I'm not explaining very well, but I hope that makes some kind of sense.

I wish I could write like Jack Spicer

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:48:00 +0000

This was in Harper's this month (which I admit to a tendency to buy every time I have to travel to the U.S., and whilst I'm annoyed I'll be seen as one of those people who reads Harper's, it's still pretty much the best generally available magazine on the rack), and, for want of a more articulate description, it kicks all the ass in the world.

The city of Boston is filled with frogheaded flies and British policeman. The other day I saw the corpse of Emily Dickinson floating up the Charles River.

Sweet God, it is lonely to be dead. Sweet God, is there any god to worship? God stands in Boston like a public statue. Sweet God, is there any God to swear love by? Or love--it is lonely, is lonely, is lonely to be lonely in Boston.

Now Emily Dickinson is floating down the Charles River like an Indian princess. Now naked savages are climbing out of all the graveyards. Now the Holy Ghost drips birdshit on the nose of God. Now the whole thing stops. Sweet God, poetry hates Boston.

(written ~ 1956)

Baltimore (the highlights and lowlights)

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:36:00 +0000

(you decide which is which)

1. Seeing Sweet Baby (Jesus optional) perform their first live show in, oh, about 20 years.
2. Only getting solicited by the male prostitutes.
3. The cab driver who told me it would be $47 to the airport, and who, after a cough from yours truly, lowered the price to $37, and two coughs, $30. (I tipped him OK though because he smiled when I called him on it.)
4. 100% humidity and far more sweat than any of my associates really deserved to have near/on them.
5. Popping Tylenol Cold and Flu all night long. Daaaaaaamn.
6. The Queers, or Cub, or MTX, or Screeching Weasel, or possibly the Ramones, whatever they're playing.
7. Staying on my feet for the whole thing.
8. The grave of Edgar Allan Poe. And waking up in time to see the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.
9. Strangely, sitting at a sports bar and correcting the Americans' pronunciation of "Miroslav Klose". (Close, but you should be close-a.)
10. Um, Zatopeks rule, OK?

Now I understand.

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:21:00 +0000

It's lonely in the bottom left corner.

Witty replies heard 'round these parts

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:18:00 +0000

Useful for many occasions. Try them, you'll like them.

1. That was my nickname in high school.
Example: "Quick, take your drink, it's getting kind of drippy." "Kind of Drippy -- that was my nickname in high school!"

2. Just like grandpa.
Example: "The SweaterShaver 2000 will leave your favourite sweaters free of nubs and knots for months on end." "[pause for effect...] Just like grandpa!"

3. I used to be in a band called that.
Example: "Did you see the news about the Two-Headed Ugandan Baby?" "Two-Headed Ugandan Baby? I used to be in a band called that."

Honourable Mention:
- That was/is my porn name.

Your creative non sequiturs welcome.

Separated at birth, bad taste edition

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:56:00 +0000

Am I wrong to think this is funny?

World Trade Center

Anderson Varejao, Cleveland Cavaliers

Yeah, it is kinda wrong. But it's still funny.

(via Rigorous Intuition discussion board)

In colours everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:55:00 +0000

The latest Sony Bravia TV commercial, where tons of Play-Doh roll across the cityscape in various forms, has got to be one of the ad industry's great modern triumphs. It's beautiful and colourful (both attributes that they want associated with their product), and it is by far the most covertly, superliminally sexual advertisement I've ever seen.

Now, let's define terms. We all know that sex sells, and it's used in commercial advertising all the time. Typically this is noticed when it's overt, or in your face. I'm thinking of your run-of-the-mill deodorant advert or the usual scantily clad personages selling you perfume or a razor with seven kajillion blades. What's less noticeable is advertising that is subliminal, in that it's designed to not be noticed by the conscious mind. I'm a great fan of the genre and like to spend my free time looking for distorted faces in retouched ice cubes or four letter words in models' hair. Good times. But what I mean by superliminal is best defined (like many things) by this quote from The Simpsons:

Lisa: But you've got recruiting ads on TV - why do you need subliminal messages?
Lt. Smash: It's a three-pronged attack. Subliminal, liminal, and superliminal.
Lisa: Superliminal?
Lt. Smash: I'll show you. {yells out the window to Lenny and Carl} Hey you, join the navy!
Carl: Ahh, yeah alright.
Lenny: I'm in!

Right, that's superliminal. You can be superliminal and overtly sexual, like putting gratuitous breasts on an ad for mushrooms (The copyranter blog is worth a look if you're interested in the subject, though not entirely SFW).

But the Bravia ad takes the cake for showing a series of images, all of which are superliminally associable with sex, but without resorting to phallic symbols or revealed flesh (hence, covert). To recap the ad (here's a YouTube link if you haven't seen it):

1. The music begins: "She Comes in Colours" by the Rolling Stones, a song not well known today, but controversial when it was released as the lyrics clearly reference female orgasm.
2. The claymation (or would it be Dohmation?) starts with some rabbits. And you know what they do.
2. They multiply. Oh yes they do. Tons and tons of bunnies.
3. They transform into... balls.
4. The balls turn into a great liquid wave. (You see where I'm going with this?)
5. The waves crash into a salty seascape, becoming icebergs.
6. Cut, briefly, to the dodgy looking guy in the photo above, wearing a T-shirt that reads "Happy Ending Massage Parlor" (you know what that means) and a shit-eating grin.
7. From the icebergs left behind, a whale appears. What kind of whale? A huge, pink, Sperm Whale. (Check the drawing on the Wikipedia page if you think I'm making this up.)
8. The whale resurfaces, growing into a giant rabbit.
9. Just to make sure we have the right association in mind, we see a small infant watching the spectacle.

And the great circle of life is complete. Thanks, Sony!

I call out the "Happy Ending" guy because he's just so over the top. It's got to be a kind of knowing wink by the producers of the ad, a way of saying "I can't believe what they let us get away with on this one."

And the funny thing is, after all that, I don't really want to buy a Bravia. But I tell you what, I've really got this hankering for Play-Doh...

Crime and the perception of acceleration

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:34:00 +0000

One thing about the British is they like to whine. I'm not talking about every individual here, but as a collective society, Britain is always going on about how terrible things have become, especially when it comes to crime. In reality, a glance at any per capita crime statistic will show you that Britain is a far, far safer place to live than the U.S. of A. (and most of the rest of the world too, for that matter).

Take the murder rate, for example: For every 1000 people in the UK, there were 0.0141 murders last year. For the U.S., the figure is 0.0428 -- meaning you are about 3 times less likely to be murdered in the U.K. Even more dramatic is murder by youths, which seems to be the dreaded fate that the Brits most obsess about these days ("Oh, what's to be done about the yoofs"): the U.S. per capita rate is more than twelve times that of the U.K. To be fair, the U.K. stacks up a little more evenly for rape, but even there the U.S. rate is still more than double.

And yet, far fewer British citizens (a mere 70%, compared to 82% in the States) say they feel safe walking in the dark. (Personally, I prefer to have some sort of flashlight/torch so I don't trip on something, but I don't think that's quite what they meant.) So are my UK co-residents just worrywarts?

My hunch is that as humans we tend to put a lot more emphasis on perceptions of acceleration than on velocity, and when it comes to safety, we confuse the two. Thus, when someone says "the streets aren't safe any more", his or her only basis for comparison is how safe the streets were, say, 5 years ago. If they're less safe now, it's how much less safe they are that matters, not some absolute measure of safety. So if there is a perception that violent crime is going up across the U.K. -- if only by 10% in those 5 years (just making numbers up), that becomes far more significant than the fact that very little plus 10 percent is still a whole heck of a lot less than what you might find on the opposite side of the Atlantic.

Now, none of this really explains why your average American thinks his/her street is the safest in the world to go prancing up and down on a new moon, when it quite clearly is not. But maybe they just think it's not getting worse.

Piggybacking off the piggybank

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:36:00 +0000

I knew that the cost of producing and distributing American pennies was more than their face value, but I didn't realise how bad things had got with the recent runup in commodities prices. Forget about the production and distribution cost; let's just talk about the raw metal. As of March 21, the metal content of a pre-1982 U.S. penny is worth 2.3865 cents, and the content of any standard U.S. nickel is worth 6.5572 cents. (It's been even higher in the past month.)

Of course, it's illegal to melt them down or export them, but that didn't stop Indian entrepreneurs when their one-rupee coin was worth 35 rupees last year. Which makes me wonder if we'll see the same thing start to happen in the U.S. -- you know, desperate times and all.

Slight tangent: Last year, when we took our old refrigerator out to the curb/pavement to be picked up and disposed of, it had been stripped of all the copper pipes on the back within hours. It was a little bit surreal -- I guess there are people constantly driving around and spotting copper to be stripped. Do they have shortwave radio or something? An Internet forum? Strange.

Anyway, I wonder what Bank of America would say if I proposed to withdraw my entire balance in nickels (some pennies are more valuable, but you're going to get a small portion of pre-1982 ones in a given roll). It's not illegal to do that, but I suppose they could refuse the request.

The least valuable coins out there -- in terms of the percentage of metal value to face value -- are the Sacajawea and Presidential dollar coins. Which is a shame, because I like them, but I suppose it's a rare thing to get aesthetics and finance to work well together.

Tales of the classicky and the rocky

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:12:00 +0000

Some music I've been stuck on, just because.

1. "On the Outside" - The Kinks. Sometimes Ray Davies is sincere. Sometimes Ray Davies is melodic. Sometimes both come together really well, but that was rare in the '70s. This is a gem of a track available as an extra on the Sleepwalker reissue.

2. "This Jesus Must Die" - from the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack. There's an odd resonance between the way this musical portrays sundry epochal happenings and the scenarios posited by modern conspirahistoricism like Michael Baigent's interesting The Jesus Papers. This song is perhaps the most relevant to the political context of first-century Jerusalem.

3. "Mr. Jones" - Counting Crows. Sure, everybody knows this song. I'd never actually listened that closely to it, though, until recently, and it holds up to the scrutiny.

4. "Old John Robertson" - The Byrds. This is a deceptively simple standard country rocker until suddenly it goes into an awesome time signature switched orchestral interlude. Strangely transcendent.

5. "Heartbreaker" - Pat Benatar. This is a fine song, but the part I really like is the high-pitched harmonic shout of "Heartbreaker!" toward the end. You've got to build to it, though.

Affluenza scrutinized

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:21:00 +0000

So I'm reading this book Affluenza by Oliver James, the main thrust (or is that crux; thrusting crux, perhaps?) of which is that smelfish capitalism makes us all anxious and depressed. His conclusion seems to me (mind you, I'm only on like page 50, so I may be missing something yet) that we should all move to Denmark, because they just don't care so much.

I don't disagree with the argument that a life lived for nothing more than material gain is a gruesome and insubstantial one, but James' logic is rather heavyhanded. One could just as easily make the argument that depressed and/or anxious peoples are prone to ur-capitalist aspirations, rather than the other way around, and in fact I think there would be something in that. People choose to become bankers, stockbrokers and estate agents for a reason, and probably they can blame it on their parents (or, in many cases, the lack thereof). Sure, we've got an socio-politico-economic culture that allows the morally corrupt to engage in their skullduggery, and James and I would probably agree that the system needs to change. I'm less concerned about the skullduggery, as that will likely continue far beyond my temporal existence on this planet, but it's the individuals who seem to draw the author's wrath. Frankly, though, I find them uninteresting on the whole -- as he labels them, they are "Marketing Characters", predictable and more anonymous than his pseudonymizing narrative suggests. I have the sneaking suspicion that the real motive force for humanity in the 21st century will not be a force from inside the system. We create our own reality, indeed.

But to be fair, Affluenza is about internal, not external, affairs. Am I happy in a world of relative affluence and aspiration? I cede the point that were I to have my level of income most anywhere else in the world, things might look different, but that is to make the world much flatter than it is (I haven't read that book, but I'm heavily suspicious). I'm still upper-middle-class by London standards, regardless of what that might buy me in Wichita -- and there's probably nowhere for me to work in Wichita, for that matter (if you're a Wichitan headhunter, feel free to email).

Enough ranting for now, particularly as I haven't finished the book. Maybe there's a moral to this story after all...

Mark your calendars for email fraud...

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:51:00 +0000

I just received yet another 419 scam email. It's the usual kind of dreck, addressed to me with my name in the wrong order (surname followed by first name), laughably far-fetched, you know the drill.

I was about to send it the junk folder without so much as a second thought when a date caught my eye.

It turns out that I share my birthday with the death day of the (one assumes former) Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ivory Coast.

To wit,

My name is Marie Doue I am a dying woman who have decided to donate
What I have to you/ church/charity Organizations. I am 54 years old
and I was diagnosed with esophageal Cancer for about 7 Years ago, I
am married to the former Minister of Internal Affairs and who worked
in various capacities before he died on 5th of July in the year
1989.

So -- is this mere coincidence, or is this scam getting smarter and have
they looked me up in order to include a date that would strike my fancy? (I vote coincidence, but hey, it's topical, right?)

Bottom of the week

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 23:58:00 +0000

...And here I am on the other side. Hey, other side. Howyadoin.

Here are some facts about my last five days:

1. I had to go to Slough. You know, where they filmed "The Office". Yeah, that Slough.
2. I consumed about 7 units of alcohol, by the British system.
3. I took a bath with these lavender bath salts, and ended up with lavender bits floating all around me. So then I had to take a shower.
4. I had a somewhat disturbing dream about playing footsie with Lily Allen. On an airplane.
5. I procrastinated a great many things.
6. I watched the entire series of "Trunk Monkey" videos on YouTube.
7. My 'e' key continued to malfunction, makinge me writee like a poete of olde.

With these fantastic tales, I hope I have continued to hold you, dear reader, in thrall. I am, after all, all about the thrall.

Top of the week

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I've just about managed to relax this weekend, and it's midnight Sunday night. I've been in that sort of cycle of normalcy lately -- not overworked, per se, but encompassed in that strangest of modern preoccupations, being a professional. I don't feel dulled by the grind, but you wouldn't know that from my lack of posts here. I remain an interested observer, but somehow it's been difficult to work up a head of steam on any particular topic lately.

This week should be an interesting one, professionally speaking; my employer is expected to announce the first round of major layoffs after we were acquired in late December. My own position is likely safe, but these things are never much fun for anyone involved, even in the foreign outposts.

If you're interested in more bitty updates from me, look me up on Facebook, where I've been pointing and/or clicking lately. It's a good replacement for actually having to express myself, at least while the muse is inconsistent in her visitations.

Today is also our three-year anniversary of moving to London. Slightly related, I'm on the bureaucratic path to changing my visa status (which I could have done a long time ago, but procrastinated heavily upon), so I'm not here merely on the good grace and say-so of the company.

Some person in authority -- I don't know who -- very likely the astronomer royal

noreply@blogger.com (Wesley) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:31:00 +0000

"... has decided that,
although for such a beastly month as February,
twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty,

One year in every four
its days shall be reckoned as
nine and twenty."
-- The Pirate King, The Pirates of Penzance

Happy leap day, everyone. Use it wisely, it doesn't come around all that often.