So this is really about how when you start to do something and think about how it might be totally acceptable to you, but not other people, and how there are so many things you are not very good at, except to yourself. I tried to get all the components of my breakfast together, but half were cold and half were hot and some imaginary third half were kind of lukewarm, so I microwaved everything for like ten seconds, which destroyed the texture swiftly. I thought about how when you order something at a restaurant, not only do you get all like, “where the hell is my food?” after about 20-30 minutes, sometimes less, but even if it does arrive in the desirable window, you would definitely give it a poor and lengthy paragraph on yelp if the bits that were supposed to cold were hot and the bits that were supposed to be cold were warm. So if you are most chefs, you’re probably not listening to mozart and dreamily coaxing pasta spirals into a vodka sauce, you are probably sweating from morning till night and working on 40 dishes at once, all at an astronomically quick pace. 

People say to experts of things, “you make that look easy.” And it’s really true. People who play instruments while singing and dancing, people who cook while chatting, bartenders who fix cocktails from a mental rolodex while eyeing exact change and taking orders, people who do anything really well make it look effortless and fluid, but it’s not. At least at first. Not that I’m that impatient at restaurants (unless I’m really hungry) but now I will be extra impressed no matter when it arrives.

“Flesh out.” Awful imagery.

“Cooks up” or “bakes up.” As in “cooks up chewy.” Like in a cookbook. I don’t know why I hate it.

To “scarf “anything. Unless it means to wrap a child in a scarf for added warmth. If “friend” can’t be a verb, neither can “scarf.”

In the check-out I saw something called The Seven Year Pen (it was a pen). It was shaped like any other ordinary ballpoint pen, same size and weight, but it claimed to have enough ink to last for seven years. My first thought was “that’s really cool.” I’m an ardent believer in the need to conserve our resources and use them more judiciously, but it seems every year things become more and more disposable. Not great for the big picture. This tends to take me by the way of getting more expensive items upfront that’ll last a longer time. As predicted, this pen was a little pricier than your average pen, about $8. But that’s just over a dollar a year, covering all your writing utensil needs. Pretty sweet. Whether you lose it or not is another story in cost-effectiveness, but for the sake of argument, I will leave that one out and sew this pen onto my jeans pocket.

It’s really nice to see things that are designed to last, as opposed to designed to wear out quickly and inspire the customer to run out and get a new one. There’s an obvious benefit (in the short-term) to creating disposable items: the consumer gets a low price point (the quality is usually crappy, so it ‘s cheap to make) and the producer gets a high number of things sold, since the item wears out quickly. However they do lose that certain prestige and brand loyalty that a consumer feels when they know that their product is going to last. It’s a tough sell to be sure, but I do wish more companies would go the route of durable, dependable products and our general consuming ethos was a little more quality over quantity.

I’ve been thinking too about places where the durable over disposable just isn’t going to fly in our society. Decisions that are better for everyone, in this case, sustainable ones, often require the actor to be a little bit less comfortable and to enjoy a bit less ease in their daily life. Right now, without tons of legislation requiring us to make these inconvenient choices, the choice becomes a matter of whether someone will choose something inconvenient for them. I don’t think this is effective. What ends up happening is people who are more environmentally-minded/informed will say x amount of people just don’t care, and everyone else will think they are irritating. That’s not really practical, more polarizing. Perhaps the best place to start is like what these Seven Year Pen people did, take something that only requires one choice, one slightly inconvenient step (in this case, spending over 3 times what you usually pay for a pen) and take care of the hard part with a smart design. To illustrate the point, think why metal water bottles, while great and definitely pay for themselves over time, aren’t more common. It’s just not as convenient, especially if you’re a commuter and have a small purse (which must cover like 50% of the population.)

1. Umbrellas.

Is there anything that keeps you drier? Perhaps a beekeepers uniform, ensconced in an astronauts helment, but none so elegant and affordable as the umbrella. Every so often I will think about what, if anything, could be done to improve the umbrella. In my case, installing a tracking device on it would be helpful, as the reason I’m so enchanted and grateful for umbrellas may be due to the fact that I don’t seem to hold onto them for long. That or having the height and size be adjustable at the push of a button for darting between crowds without having to anxiously avoid people’s vulnerable eyeballs. The genius of the umbrella is in it’s perfect design. I’m sure people tried, a while ago, to hold square, unflinching pieces of steel or plastic over their heads to shelter themselves from a downpour, but discovered the water still ended up often on them. The way that the water glides over the plasticy tarp and runs off the bottom, away from the carrier’s feet, and then fits neatly into a purse or backpack when its job is done makes getting anywhere in the rain so much nicer.

2. Fruit.

The more I try not to eat sugar, the more I realize I really want a kind of “nightcap” after I eat dinner. Not the White Russian kind of nightcap, but more that little voice that is all like “hey, you ate your other food, now let’s get real. It’s time for dessert. Break out the apple butter and stale cookies.” The problem with that is not only is sugar a downward spiral for me in terms of wanting it, but moreso that it causes me to literally fall into a deep, perilous haze of fuzz around 20 minutes after I eat it, becoming cold and sleepy, and often enough, actually asleep. I don’t know how normal this is (I’m guessing not very) but I know enough about how various carbohydrates affect the body to know that simple, added sugar is not the kind my body jives with. Enter fruit. Fruit never seems like what you want when you are in a sugary mood, right? Fresh donuts or tiramisu is not the kind of thing that could ever be replaced by some bogus, semi-sweet apple. At least it doesn’t seem like it until I stave myself off regular old desserts for a few days, and my tastebuds kind of stretch out and take off their slippers as if they’ve been napping for 1,000 years and suddenly I can taste all the complexity of the sweetnesss in fruit that I assume is only brought out in the most labored over pastries, ice creams and macarons, not the stuff of Reese’s and Tollhouse (although damnit, Tollhouse). Figs suddenly have this kind of vanilla-y, carmelly, steeped sweetness to them, while cantaloupe is more delicate and floral. Plus the wondrous colors of the fruit/vegetable kingdom will never cease to amaze. Google dragonfruit if for some reason don’t object.  Anyway, thank you fruit.

3. Hot Water with Lemon.

On the subject of being an irritating dinner guest/dining compatriot, my new favorite drink is likely the go-to beverage of blue-haired little ladies, not recent college grads. Nevertheless, hot water with lemon is one of most refreshing, comforting beverages that manages to be satisfyingly “not just water” without leaving a weird taste in your mouth or slightly altering your personality. Also I have yet to be charged for a lemon wedge. As blasting the AC is a common, bone-chilling practice in the states, a nice cup of hot water offers something to desperately hold onto in those temperate summer months when you thought you didn’t need to bring a jacket but actually you did.

4. Cleaning the house.

In this confusing world with so many choices and modern pressures (etc. etc.) it is nice to have a handy procrastination device that fulfills the main procrastination criteria in irrefutable and almost perversely perfect ways: 1) it has no discernable end-point, but mere goal posts, at which point you may chose to ignore the call to return to whatever task it is you are avoiding, and 2) It feels productive and fulfilling, just not in the way that is directly relevant to whatever thing you are putting off.

5. Redbox.

I was outside a 7-11 the other day when two dudes rolled up into the parking lot. One of them darted out to grab a movie out of the Redbox and then got back inside to avoid the drizzle. Redbox is this weird thing that is a terrible version of something else which is now considered obsolete-ish (blockbuster) but for some reason sprung up in the past few years and managed to  weather the tough economy and do pretty well for itself. Personally, I mourn the loss of blockbuster. Netflix lacks the spontaneity of being able to wander aisles of a bunch of films which only fate would determine actually weren’t checked out. But if you really wanted to see a movie and it wasn’t at blockbuster, you used to just settle on another one, discussing cover and plot, reviews and actors. Sure it might be awful and you’d be like, man I wasted 4.00 on this, but the experience of trolling the aisles is always a fun one, and if you’re on a date, it gives you an excuse to judge someone based on their taste, which is becoming increasingly difficult these days (to my benefit, honestly). Not to mention Netflix doesn’t have all movies! So there lies my appreciation for redbox. You get what you get, instantly.

haha

parochial

sequestration

unpack

parse

myriad

undergird

amalgam

rotunda

corinthian columns

jeremy bentham

obliviate ( I think that is a Harry Potter spell, but still)

marshall

dystopian

polemic

solute

Xenon

binary, as in “such and such societal structure is binary.” To be honest, I’ll really miss it.

A teacher I had last quarter started talking about how we don’t live in a society where people are really builders of new ideas and technology. Instead we use what other people have already figured out. While this by no means undermines all of the amazing things we can and do create with this technology, I think there is much to be gained from understanding the foundations we create our work from.

For instance, I take and edit photos digitally, but I have a vague idea how an analog camera works, and just a modicum of insight on my Canon. I use a computer to send e-mails and type up papers but couldn’t explain the mechanics of a typewriter.

So I decided not to buy the plastic phone, letting it mingle instead with 50 cent walkmen and old watering cans, but I decided I’m really gonna try and understand how things work a little more this summer. So the next few posts are going to be me attempting to explain in a post how something (analog) works. Then I may move on to some digital waters. If I can explain it to the internet, that either means I’ve enriched my human experience and paid tribute to my childhood, or spouted a bunch of malarkey that no one will bother decrying. Either way, I’m stoked.

The advent of the internet has poked holes in, and some may argue, even torn open the barricade that kept news flowing out of  few channels, with a small number of editors as gatekeepers. The ability of non-reporters to instantly publish news that a voracious reader can instantly access, and that those same readers can absorb on-site reporting from around their country and the world just as instantly, has changed the model drastically.

Sally talked us through a business model that has a golden soul and may be the functional model for the future of journalism. The model draws on funding from foundations and angel investors, and does not solely rely on the revenue generated from advertising as traditional models have.

Journalism is not a commercial good, she is saying, and in the past, it has been treated as such. But the news is more important than something which can flicker out of sight in the face of a volatile economy.

As Sally put it, journalism is a public service and something the public should want to protect. If news is being disseminated in a community, it makes sense that the community will want to support it, valuing the coverage of its local events. If advertising won’t support this, something else should.

Sally explained the L3C model to us, which was a new way of looking at the “new journalism” model. Foundations, she pointed out, often have large sums of stored cash but are not so good at allocating it. They also tend to want to pursue projects that are functional and self-sustaining at a certain point. One of her examples was not just expanding the number of beds in a homeless shelter, but proactively attacking the problems of homelessness.

Sally’s idea is that foundations will provide the “seed” for the newsroom of the 21st century, and from there it will grow legs and acquire investors the old fashioned way. Those who pursue funding will need to be business savvy, which may not come as second-nature to journalists, but is essential.

I found Sally’s ideas to be very interesting. She has obviously thought through this quite a bit and has come up with a model that isn’t widely used for news. Maybe this it ?

Last weekend I had the opportunity to help out Dan Hyman at MySpace Music cover Lollapalooza. I got to interview five bands for about ten minutes each but we only ended up needing a quote or two from each one. I’m going to publish some of the full length Q&A’s here in case you’re curious.

The interview begins with Wavves‘ tour manager telling me the dudes have to split in 15 minutes. I find them behind a tent, where Nathan Williams, the band’s lead singer, stands up and accepts my introduction. We settle on doing the interview behind the tent since it’s relatively quiet and hey, we’re all already here. Drummer Billy Hayes and bassist Stephen Pope, plus a female compatriot, sit in a circle, smoking out of a Bud-light can. There goes one of my questions.

Wavves' Nathan Williams and Stephen Pope take a post-show break

When did you get in?

Nathan Williams: Last night…windy night. August, uh, 5th..1969. 420 hours ago.

What have you done in Chicago so far?

Stephen Pope: We went to Arturo’s. Billy and I eat there like every time we’re here. We robbed Arturo’ s last night, took all their cash, and made them make us burritos. Went to a strip club, spent all of it, and then came to play Lollapalooza.

This isn’t your first time in Chicago, right? (Willams holds his iPhone up to my face) Are you taking a picture?

NW: Nope. …Yeah, we’ve played here a number of times.

Billy Hayes: We’ve played here a million times. We’ve played at Riot Fest, at the Riviera Theatre…

SP: My mom still calls Chicago,  Chicargo (all laugh)

Have you guys ever been to Lollapalooza before?

NW: No.

So, what was your reaction when you found out you were going to play?

NW: I think I went, “oh whoa, holy shit!”

SP: And then we ran into Perry Farrell and were like, “holy shit”, again. and then we went and geeked out on him for a little bit. He was cool.

NW: Perry Farrell is a cool motherfucker. He spit on me. He was like, “you’re a pile of garbage, I hate you”, and then he spit on me. He said it in a nice way, though.

BH: He was dressed amazingly. He had great style, great hair, great coat, great attitude.

That’s Perry Farrell in a nutshell.  If you guys could perform anywhere, where would it be?

NW: Madison Square Garden.

SP: Reform or perform?

Have you played there already?

NW: No, but we’re going to.

BH: I’d like to play in Africa or Egypt. Or Japan.

NW: Anywhere in Africa. Preferably not in South Africa, somewhere in the heart of Africa. It would be so fucking crazy.

SP: Lollapalooza 2012 at Stonehenge.

NW: No dude, that’s in 2069

Have you guys been to any of the other shows?

NW: No, We’ve been doing press all day.

How do you like doing press?

NW: I don’t really like it. It’s hard talking about myself.

I read in an interview that you once febreezed yourself in lieu of taking a shower.

What? I don’t know if that quote is from me. That sounds like Robbie or Dan. (Someone shouts: Nathan doesn’t shower)… I Lysol myself.  Can I lysol you?

If you have Lysol. How did you approach making this album so it was different than the other albums you’ve done?

NW: Uh, we went into a studio. We could actually do what I wanted to. It was a big departure. We were in an actual studio, as opposed to my mom’s basement…Recording to me is like…it can be a job, [but] it can also be really relaxing and like exercise. It’s like playing a video game when you’re at your house–no one’s telling you what to do.

What’s been on my mind lately is employment, in the very holistic sense of the word. I am fairly confident that I am employable, somewhere, but the career thing is what is throwing me. It seems that very little is guaranteed these days, unless you are on the fast-track to becoming a doctor or another profession that will always be needed and decently paid. I won’t get into my major or minor here, or the metamorphoses of the journalism industry, or how myself and my peers will be able to direct our polished communication skills and channel our curiosity and propensity to harbor random facts into some kind of job. That’s a much longer discussion than I have time for, and I don’t really have many answers.

I think my brain must have carried on (as usual) from this extremely valid and real-world worrying point, and started day dreaming. What kind of job can I get that will allow me to experience all (or a lot of) what the world has to offer? I asked myself during an aimless stroll near Great Portland Street. Is there a job that would not only permit, but encourage that I live in different cities for extended periods of time? My first thought was to be someone like David Sedaris–so many of his wonderful stories come from his experience abroad as an American. But that seemed unlikely, even while daydreaming. I think Scott Schuman must have a life kind of like the one I imagine for myself during these times. For those of you who aren’t farmiliar, he is the founder and photographer of The Sartorialist, a style blog that captures the most elegant and eye-catching street fashion in cities around the world.

Maybe I can be his assistant. Thoughts? Mom?