Before I got involved in this whole architecture thing, I got a BA in psychology. Because I was drinking at the time I forget almost everything I learned. I remember some of the perceptual illusions and the stress-performance inverted U. Mostly I remember the freak cases.
Every once in a while a person will suffer a completely bizarre brain injury - and the psychologists of the world go bat shit probing and prodding them. The one I remember best was a person who had part of their brain severed in a car crash. It was still in their head (the damaged part of their brain) and still working fine but it wasn't attached to anything else. Like a computer without a modem. The particular portion of the brain that was isolated from all the rest was responsible for emotional reactions (or generating emotions or dealing with the output of the emotions part, I forget which). The point is that person effectively lost the ability to emote. He became like the perfect Vulcan.
He could still perform all the manual tasks he had mastered before the accident. And his performance on cognitive tasks wasn't much reduced. It suffered a bit because the victim didn't have any desire to solve cognitive problems and was almost impossible to motivate. The researchers would ask him to do something and either he did it (compliance as a vestigial learned behaviour) or he ignored them.
What makes the case so bizarre is the effect the injury had on the victim's life. You might imagine he'd become like Spock, a clear thinking, logical mofo. But he didn't. He lost the ability to do almost everything - including simple tasks like feeding himself - with any reliability. Think about it, how do you decide what to eat? You ask yourself what you want, or how much effort you want to put into feeding yourself. You make decisions based on priorities and those priorities are not established cognitively (as the car crash victim proved). They are established emotionally.
Mr. Car Crash Victim is a perfect example of a thing we learn that makes us so uncomfortable we all agree to pretend we never learned it. A more famous example of this is G. G. Berry's paradox - "least integer not describable
using less than nineteen syllables" - doesn't seem like a big deal but Russell ignored it when he wrote Principia Mathematica. What Mr. C. C. Victim demonstrates is humans think much less than we'd like to think we do. Most of what we do is not the result of logic, training, behavioural conditioning, or reasoning. It is motivated by emotion. "I think therefore I am" is much less accurate than "I emote therefore I am."
So what's the big deal? Why should we care about this? What difference can it possibly make?
Reflect honestly for just a few minutes on the nature of human emotions and the answer should become clear.
People say shit like, "Kids are so cruel" because the fat kid gets picked on. I'm not saying that's ok. But I will say it isn't cruel. It's mean. Kids get angry and because they don't really understand it, that anger tends to splash around a lot. If you're near an angry kid, you're going to get some of it. But it's just anger. As they get older they learn dominance and submission. That's when they flirt with cruelty. But they aren't socialized enough to react against that socialization. They are recreating what they see in the adult world - hierarchy based on power. That's the limit of their cruelty; as soon as the hierarchy is established they go back to being normal. Kids don't have hate in the pure savage way adults do. I don't know when they learn that.
Adults are savage as fuck. We all possess some element of monstrosity within us. We do all we can to ignore it, to pretend it doesn't exist but it is there. Everything awful that we can imagine in others exists in some part in you and in me.
Why focus on the most savage aspects of humanity when we are capable of great dignity and compassion? I think the reason I keep thinking about this shit lately is there is an expectation (an unbelievably naive one) that people will behave well. That we want to do the right thing and protect the environment and stop sweat shop labour and make a fairer society. I believe we do want those things (so long as they don't conflict with stronger and more immediate desires) but the expectation is dangerous. Because we also want to watch the world burn.
This is going to lead me back to zombies and vampires. I'll save that for another post.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Saturday, March 23, 2013
On Slavoj Zizek II (or is it III?)
I'm watching a video of Slavoj Zizek and Cornel West on YouTube. I don't know how it ends - Cornel hasn't had his mic time yet. Obviously I'm watching because I'm fascinated with Zizek, you know this from earlier posts. But I'm also fascinated by West. I love the way he talks. One of the items on my bucket list (yes, it's a little early for one of those but I believe in being prepared) is to have Dr. West call me "Brother". He makes it sound so great, being his brother. And I think I have a chance because he even called Newt Gingrich "Brother Newt". If you know Dr. West and he has a free minute or two (maybe next time he's on Democracy Watch) could you ask him for me? It would be great if he can slip in a shout out to Brother Sean. It doesn't have to be anything important - he might even be talking about another Sean, maybe Sean Connery or Sean Penn. I don't care. I just want to hear those three syllables before I die.
Anyway, back to the point. Zizek starts with an interesting observation about belief based, as so much of his commentary is, on a pop culture reference. The classic Marx Brothers' joke, "Sure, he acts like an idiot. He looks like an idiot. But don't let that fool you, he really is an idiot." Zizek uses this as his starting point for a discussion about religion and atheism. In Zizek's experience, most of the really big names in post-modern theory (people who are almost professional atheists) confess to a private unwillingness to actually believe there is no higher power out there. In the same way, his catholic friends were shocked when Pope Benedict was elevated to the Papacy because it was well known Cardinal Ratzinger actually believed Catholic dogma.
Professed belief, in this argument, is something that disguises a persons actual beliefs. Zizek is assuring us that while we might look and talk like idiots, we aren't really idiots.
Then some other stuff happens - not relevant for my point here.
Then Zizek moves to Capitalism. He is approaching it as a question of belief because of the illusory nature of modern capital. Zizek's claim is Capitalism functions as a religion. This is not merely to say it is an ideology. That is obvious. As a religion, it's adherents are similar to Zizek's Catholic friends; Capitalists could never believe Capitalist dogma. And Capitalism could not operate if it's own dogma was actually true. For example, the idea Capitalism is essentially meritocratic. Zizek argues (and I think he's is correct here) Capitalism would have destroyed the world long ago if could be demonstrated and known to be truly meritocratic. What makes poverty bearable, he argues, is the belief that the market is unfair. If those who do not succeed in a Capitalist system did not have clear grounds to believe that the success of others is largely the result of luck (whether in the form of contingent events or the birth lottery) they would be forced to accept they were unsuccessful because they are not smart enough, talented enough, etc. Further, they would be forced to accept those who were successful were actually better than they are. At this point, Zizek argues, the logic of envy would take over. He offers a Slovenian parable to illustrate the logic of envy: some mystical force offers a peasant farmer a deal. It will either give the peasant one cow (but give his neighbour two cows) or take one of the peasants cows (but take two of his neighbours cows). The peasant always chooses the second option.
This is an aspect of Capitalism that had never occurred to me before. It makes all the arguments about the blatant unfairness of Capitalist systems moot. Very intelligent people have spent an enormous amount of time documenting the unjustness of Capitalist, it's manifest unfairness. These are not arguments against the system but are essential to its survival.
I think these segments, seemingly disparate, come together in the figure of Zizek himself. He looks like a Communist, talks like a Communist, but don't worry, he isn't really a Communist. He is a Capitalist. And, very strangely, a Capitalist who actually believes Capitalist dogma. When his books sell, when people pay his appearance fees, as he watches his celebrity grow, it validates the belief he earned it by being smarter, more interesting, more talented.
I offer the next of Zizek's little parables as argument. A man is convinced he is not a man but a kernel of corn. He is taken to an asylum where the doctors convince him his is not, in fact, a kernel of corn but a man. He is released but immediately returns, terrified because he has seen a chicken. The doctors reassure him he is not a kernel of corn and he replies, "Of course I know that but does the chicken know it?" The point is the doctors had to argue against the man's unconscious, his chicken.
Zizek is a Communist. Everyone knows that. He looks like one, talks like one, thinks like one, argues like one, etc etc. He just happens to be doing very well. It's totally contingent tho. Just a strange aberration created by the massive unfairness of this Capitalist system. We shouldn't apply his discussion of the relationship between protests of belief and actual belief to Zizek himself. That would be unfair.
I'm going to watch the rest of the video now. I want to hear Cornel West's take on all this. I have a feeling he's just going to throw soft balls and call him Brother Slavoj - nothing against Dr. West, the discussion is happening at Princeton so he's kind of obligated to play nice.
Anyway, back to the point. Zizek starts with an interesting observation about belief based, as so much of his commentary is, on a pop culture reference. The classic Marx Brothers' joke, "Sure, he acts like an idiot. He looks like an idiot. But don't let that fool you, he really is an idiot." Zizek uses this as his starting point for a discussion about religion and atheism. In Zizek's experience, most of the really big names in post-modern theory (people who are almost professional atheists) confess to a private unwillingness to actually believe there is no higher power out there. In the same way, his catholic friends were shocked when Pope Benedict was elevated to the Papacy because it was well known Cardinal Ratzinger actually believed Catholic dogma.
Professed belief, in this argument, is something that disguises a persons actual beliefs. Zizek is assuring us that while we might look and talk like idiots, we aren't really idiots.
Then some other stuff happens - not relevant for my point here.
Then Zizek moves to Capitalism. He is approaching it as a question of belief because of the illusory nature of modern capital. Zizek's claim is Capitalism functions as a religion. This is not merely to say it is an ideology. That is obvious. As a religion, it's adherents are similar to Zizek's Catholic friends; Capitalists could never believe Capitalist dogma. And Capitalism could not operate if it's own dogma was actually true. For example, the idea Capitalism is essentially meritocratic. Zizek argues (and I think he's is correct here) Capitalism would have destroyed the world long ago if could be demonstrated and known to be truly meritocratic. What makes poverty bearable, he argues, is the belief that the market is unfair. If those who do not succeed in a Capitalist system did not have clear grounds to believe that the success of others is largely the result of luck (whether in the form of contingent events or the birth lottery) they would be forced to accept they were unsuccessful because they are not smart enough, talented enough, etc. Further, they would be forced to accept those who were successful were actually better than they are. At this point, Zizek argues, the logic of envy would take over. He offers a Slovenian parable to illustrate the logic of envy: some mystical force offers a peasant farmer a deal. It will either give the peasant one cow (but give his neighbour two cows) or take one of the peasants cows (but take two of his neighbours cows). The peasant always chooses the second option.
This is an aspect of Capitalism that had never occurred to me before. It makes all the arguments about the blatant unfairness of Capitalist systems moot. Very intelligent people have spent an enormous amount of time documenting the unjustness of Capitalist, it's manifest unfairness. These are not arguments against the system but are essential to its survival.
I think these segments, seemingly disparate, come together in the figure of Zizek himself. He looks like a Communist, talks like a Communist, but don't worry, he isn't really a Communist. He is a Capitalist. And, very strangely, a Capitalist who actually believes Capitalist dogma. When his books sell, when people pay his appearance fees, as he watches his celebrity grow, it validates the belief he earned it by being smarter, more interesting, more talented.
I offer the next of Zizek's little parables as argument. A man is convinced he is not a man but a kernel of corn. He is taken to an asylum where the doctors convince him his is not, in fact, a kernel of corn but a man. He is released but immediately returns, terrified because he has seen a chicken. The doctors reassure him he is not a kernel of corn and he replies, "Of course I know that but does the chicken know it?" The point is the doctors had to argue against the man's unconscious, his chicken.
Zizek is a Communist. Everyone knows that. He looks like one, talks like one, thinks like one, argues like one, etc etc. He just happens to be doing very well. It's totally contingent tho. Just a strange aberration created by the massive unfairness of this Capitalist system. We shouldn't apply his discussion of the relationship between protests of belief and actual belief to Zizek himself. That would be unfair.
I'm going to watch the rest of the video now. I want to hear Cornel West's take on all this. I have a feeling he's just going to throw soft balls and call him Brother Slavoj - nothing against Dr. West, the discussion is happening at Princeton so he's kind of obligated to play nice.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Why Burn Books When You Can Burn the Librarians?
This story is almost too bizarre to be true. Stephen Harper's government has created a Code of Conduct for librarians and archivists which forces them to clear all personal and (potentially) public comments with their supervisors. It also creates a snitch line so anyone who makes a personal comment that can be taken as critical of the Harper government can be identified and disciplined.
Here is an article about the new measures. To be more specific, and this adds insult to the injury, the Harper government made the LAC come up with its own Code following the Governments instructions. It's more humiliating when you have to do it to yourself.
I'd like to express my sympathy to all the librarians and archivists employed by the Canadian government. I wouldn't want to work for Stephen Harper. And if I did, even in a peripheral and disputable way (disputable since they are employed by the government of Canada as an institution not by any particular government of Canada), I would like to retain the freedom of speech guaranteed me by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to criticize him. He is an asshole. I can say it, you should be able to as well.
I'd also like to remind all the librarians and archivists -SNITCHES GET STITCHES!
First the Harper government broke up and sold off priceless pieces of Canadian history to private collectors and now it wants to read the librarians' Facebook pages. It's obscene.
This is just the latest move in Stephen Harper's drive to limit Canadian democracy. It's one that I take personally. I love books. I love libraries. And I have a thing for librarians but that's not the point. Conservative politics is always anti-intellectual, one of the reasons I think the term "Right wing think tank" is so funny. Let's take a minute to list the ways this new Code of Conduct is offensive and possibly illegal.
- The government has no right to prevent free speech, no matter who is talking.
- The government has no right to demand party loyalty from government employees. The next government might be Liberal - public employees are expected to serve regardless of party affiliation. Party affiliations and personal politics are irrelevant to job performance.
- The group affected by this Code of Conduct was created for the purpose of disseminating information. And it has been doing a very good job - from helping individuals with genealogies to talking to school kids about organizing and presenting information. No wonder the Government is afraid; who could stop a coalition of genealogists and school kids?
- The government cannot prevent anyone from entering debate in a democratic society. Debate is the basis of a democratic society.
- Picking on librarians and archivists is lame. It reveals the extent to which this government are nothing more than school yard bullies. Soldiers "owe a duty of loyalty to the government" but the Harper government isn't trying to prevent them from Tweeting, blogging, or Facebooking. Soldiers are scarier than librarians.
- What possible purpose could this Code of Conduct have that the people of Canada shouldn't be worried about? It's not like the librarians are giving away state secrets. They are educated people whose professional lives are dedicated to the preservation of culture. And yet. Harper's government is hyper-sensitive to criticism of any kind.
- A "snitch line" is despicable. This is particularly true about a government with a notoriously poor record when it comes to actual whistle blowers. If any skilled hacker(s) read this, I think it would be a wonderful idea to open the contents of the snitch line (including names and addresses of the snitches) to the public.
- The Code identifies certain activities (speaking in public and blogging for example) as "high risk". High risk to whom? In what conceivable way is a librarian talking to a grade three class "high risk"? They might get interested in book lernin and that would be terrible.
Stephen Harper is a sneaky, sweater wearing, mean spirited jack ass. I'm not going to call him a fascist but he's a fascist. Fucking with the personal lives of some of the most useful and harmless people in society is a shitty thing to do. Of course, they Government obviously thinks they are not harmless. And that makes me wonder (even more) about the Government.
I'm trying to think of a really deadly insult to end this with. I know there has got to be a real killer sentence that shows precisely how absurd and subversive this Code of Conduct is and I know someone else will think of it before me and that will make me mad. But all I can think of, the most cutting thing I can say to Prime Minister Harper is this:
Mr. Prime Minister, my mom doesn't like you.
Here is an article about the new measures. To be more specific, and this adds insult to the injury, the Harper government made the LAC come up with its own Code following the Governments instructions. It's more humiliating when you have to do it to yourself.
I'd like to express my sympathy to all the librarians and archivists employed by the Canadian government. I wouldn't want to work for Stephen Harper. And if I did, even in a peripheral and disputable way (disputable since they are employed by the government of Canada as an institution not by any particular government of Canada), I would like to retain the freedom of speech guaranteed me by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to criticize him. He is an asshole. I can say it, you should be able to as well.
I'd also like to remind all the librarians and archivists -SNITCHES GET STITCHES!
First the Harper government broke up and sold off priceless pieces of Canadian history to private collectors and now it wants to read the librarians' Facebook pages. It's obscene.
This is just the latest move in Stephen Harper's drive to limit Canadian democracy. It's one that I take personally. I love books. I love libraries. And I have a thing for librarians but that's not the point. Conservative politics is always anti-intellectual, one of the reasons I think the term "Right wing think tank" is so funny. Let's take a minute to list the ways this new Code of Conduct is offensive and possibly illegal.
- The government has no right to prevent free speech, no matter who is talking.
- The government has no right to demand party loyalty from government employees. The next government might be Liberal - public employees are expected to serve regardless of party affiliation. Party affiliations and personal politics are irrelevant to job performance.
- The group affected by this Code of Conduct was created for the purpose of disseminating information. And it has been doing a very good job - from helping individuals with genealogies to talking to school kids about organizing and presenting information. No wonder the Government is afraid; who could stop a coalition of genealogists and school kids?
- The government cannot prevent anyone from entering debate in a democratic society. Debate is the basis of a democratic society.
- Picking on librarians and archivists is lame. It reveals the extent to which this government are nothing more than school yard bullies. Soldiers "owe a duty of loyalty to the government" but the Harper government isn't trying to prevent them from Tweeting, blogging, or Facebooking. Soldiers are scarier than librarians.
- What possible purpose could this Code of Conduct have that the people of Canada shouldn't be worried about? It's not like the librarians are giving away state secrets. They are educated people whose professional lives are dedicated to the preservation of culture. And yet. Harper's government is hyper-sensitive to criticism of any kind.
- A "snitch line" is despicable. This is particularly true about a government with a notoriously poor record when it comes to actual whistle blowers. If any skilled hacker(s) read this, I think it would be a wonderful idea to open the contents of the snitch line (including names and addresses of the snitches) to the public.
- The Code identifies certain activities (speaking in public and blogging for example) as "high risk". High risk to whom? In what conceivable way is a librarian talking to a grade three class "high risk"? They might get interested in book lernin and that would be terrible.
Stephen Harper is a sneaky, sweater wearing, mean spirited jack ass. I'm not going to call him a fascist but he's a fascist. Fucking with the personal lives of some of the most useful and harmless people in society is a shitty thing to do. Of course, they Government obviously thinks they are not harmless. And that makes me wonder (even more) about the Government.
I'm trying to think of a really deadly insult to end this with. I know there has got to be a real killer sentence that shows precisely how absurd and subversive this Code of Conduct is and I know someone else will think of it before me and that will make me mad. But all I can think of, the most cutting thing I can say to Prime Minister Harper is this:
Mr. Prime Minister, my mom doesn't like you.
On Don DeLillo
First, according to my best information his name is pronounced (duh-LEE-lo). Let me check the internets and see if I can get a 100% positive on that. Wait patiently please, I'll be right back. Sorry, according to a 1997 radio interview, it's pronounced (duh LIL oh).
In a recent post about how to fix the massive up-fucks architects are prone to when writing, I encouraged everyone to avoid poetry as if it was a mental image of your parents having sex. That's how awful the prospect of poetry should be to you. Unless you are Don DeLillo. If you are him it is a big part of what you do.
I read of book of collected interviews with DeLillo. That's how big a fan I am. It was a scholarly treatise on DeLillo's writing process and other amazingly boring topics. I wanted, I suppose, to hear him speak. Or, better put, to find out if he speaks and writes with the same voice. The answer is sort of. He describes the joy of his work as trying to make words do what they can. And in interviews you can almost hear him struggling to speak with the same uncanny precision with which he writes.
I started reading DeLillo because so many people I trusted had such a high opinion of White Noise. Then I went on to Underworld, back to Libra, and then just decided I would read everything he wrote. There are themes and motifs that recur in DeLillo's work - the desert, pop culture, the hidden processes behind the world we see. I'm not going to write about those because you can find, with very little effort, much better than I would be capable of producing. I'm going to offer a simple warning from my own experience.
There are some writers best left alone when your world lacks solidity. DeLillo is definitely one. Murakami is another. If you are in the middle of a major change - getting married or divorced, changing jobs, moving to another city - leave DeLillo on the shelf. His relentless picking at the assumptions which keep the world a safe place to live, his investigation and inhabitation of the in-between spaces is dangerous and unwelcome when your own life begins to lose coherency. I never try DeLillo when my circumstances are uncertain. It's too risky. He is, however, a very great author.
I am tempted to think this warning is some measure of his greatness. His ability to unnerve is unbearable in those already partially unnerved. That is a tribute. I don't fear any author as much as I fear Don DeLillo. And I can't think of any author who is as good in both the large and small - where the large is all that the book contains and the small is the magic of the language, the craft of each sentence.
If you haven't read anything by him, I suggest Pafko at the Wall if you can get it in a first edition. Not just because it is fantastic and fully demonstrates what DeLillo can do when he puts his back into it, but also because it is almost impossible to find any of his other works in first editions - and when you do they are prohibitively expensive.
In a recent post about how to fix the massive up-fucks architects are prone to when writing, I encouraged everyone to avoid poetry as if it was a mental image of your parents having sex. That's how awful the prospect of poetry should be to you. Unless you are Don DeLillo. If you are him it is a big part of what you do.
I read of book of collected interviews with DeLillo. That's how big a fan I am. It was a scholarly treatise on DeLillo's writing process and other amazingly boring topics. I wanted, I suppose, to hear him speak. Or, better put, to find out if he speaks and writes with the same voice. The answer is sort of. He describes the joy of his work as trying to make words do what they can. And in interviews you can almost hear him struggling to speak with the same uncanny precision with which he writes.
I started reading DeLillo because so many people I trusted had such a high opinion of White Noise. Then I went on to Underworld, back to Libra, and then just decided I would read everything he wrote. There are themes and motifs that recur in DeLillo's work - the desert, pop culture, the hidden processes behind the world we see. I'm not going to write about those because you can find, with very little effort, much better than I would be capable of producing. I'm going to offer a simple warning from my own experience.
There are some writers best left alone when your world lacks solidity. DeLillo is definitely one. Murakami is another. If you are in the middle of a major change - getting married or divorced, changing jobs, moving to another city - leave DeLillo on the shelf. His relentless picking at the assumptions which keep the world a safe place to live, his investigation and inhabitation of the in-between spaces is dangerous and unwelcome when your own life begins to lose coherency. I never try DeLillo when my circumstances are uncertain. It's too risky. He is, however, a very great author.
I am tempted to think this warning is some measure of his greatness. His ability to unnerve is unbearable in those already partially unnerved. That is a tribute. I don't fear any author as much as I fear Don DeLillo. And I can't think of any author who is as good in both the large and small - where the large is all that the book contains and the small is the magic of the language, the craft of each sentence.
If you haven't read anything by him, I suggest Pafko at the Wall if you can get it in a first edition. Not just because it is fantastic and fully demonstrates what DeLillo can do when he puts his back into it, but also because it is almost impossible to find any of his other works in first editions - and when you do they are prohibitively expensive.
On Santa Claus
I don't know if I covered this before. I get confused by writing things I don't publish. I could easily check by reading my previous posts but I'm not in the mood.
I got on the topic of consensual fiction in the last post about Wall Street and the financial system. I want to plump the topic a little more. Perhaps the best example of consensual fictions I have heard was from the always entertaining Slavoj Zizek.
In Zizek's example, you ask a parent if he or she believes in Santa Claus. They say, "Of course not! I'm not crazy." But they write "From Santa" on the presents they bought themselves. You ask a kid if he or she believes in Santa. They say, "Of course not! I'm not an idiot." But they pretend to believe because the parents are pretending to believe. This isn't just an interesting illustration of family dynamics, it is an example of belief as a agent - independent of those who claim to believe (or not).
Zizek's other example is the scientist Niels Bohr. He hung a horse shoe over the door of his cottage. When a friend asked how he, as a scientist, could actually believe in the efficacy of a lucky charm Bohr replied, "I don't. But I'm told it works even if you don't believe."
Again, belief is an independent agent. I should explain what I mean by agent. An agent is someone or something capable of action. It changes events and / or creates change in the world. You are an agent. The limits of your agency are the limits of your ability to create change - or resist it. Agency also works in the negative. If the world was about to change and you stopped it, that's agency too. If we evaluate belief as an agent, the most illustrative example is religion. Easy to see the changes religion has caused.
Belief is one of the factors of our daily lives so present, so constant it is very hard for us to see clearly. We behave how we believe others expect us to behave. We don't have to believe that is the right way to behave, or how we want to behave. It is enough for us to believe that is what is expected. But we don't know, do we? We only believe. And we are behaving in what we think is an expected way while the others we are around are behaving in the we they believe we believe they should behave. And everyone is judging everyone else based on beliefs no one might actually believe. It makes as much sense as Santa Claus but it is what we do.
I consider the financial system with all its intricate and archaic religiosity the most pernicious aspect of this kind of belief. There are many others. Every aspect of your life is filled with things that, to reuse Bohr's words "work even if you don't believe."
I got on the topic of consensual fiction in the last post about Wall Street and the financial system. I want to plump the topic a little more. Perhaps the best example of consensual fictions I have heard was from the always entertaining Slavoj Zizek.
In Zizek's example, you ask a parent if he or she believes in Santa Claus. They say, "Of course not! I'm not crazy." But they write "From Santa" on the presents they bought themselves. You ask a kid if he or she believes in Santa. They say, "Of course not! I'm not an idiot." But they pretend to believe because the parents are pretending to believe. This isn't just an interesting illustration of family dynamics, it is an example of belief as a agent - independent of those who claim to believe (or not).
Zizek's other example is the scientist Niels Bohr. He hung a horse shoe over the door of his cottage. When a friend asked how he, as a scientist, could actually believe in the efficacy of a lucky charm Bohr replied, "I don't. But I'm told it works even if you don't believe."
Again, belief is an independent agent. I should explain what I mean by agent. An agent is someone or something capable of action. It changes events and / or creates change in the world. You are an agent. The limits of your agency are the limits of your ability to create change - or resist it. Agency also works in the negative. If the world was about to change and you stopped it, that's agency too. If we evaluate belief as an agent, the most illustrative example is religion. Easy to see the changes religion has caused.
Belief is one of the factors of our daily lives so present, so constant it is very hard for us to see clearly. We behave how we believe others expect us to behave. We don't have to believe that is the right way to behave, or how we want to behave. It is enough for us to believe that is what is expected. But we don't know, do we? We only believe. And we are behaving in what we think is an expected way while the others we are around are behaving in the we they believe we believe they should behave. And everyone is judging everyone else based on beliefs no one might actually believe. It makes as much sense as Santa Claus but it is what we do.
I consider the financial system with all its intricate and archaic religiosity the most pernicious aspect of this kind of belief. There are many others. Every aspect of your life is filled with things that, to reuse Bohr's words "work even if you don't believe."
Prosecuting Wall Street
Here is a documentary by PBS's Frontline about the failure of the Department of Justice to prosecute Wall Street executives in the wake of the 2007 financial catastrophe. The best bits are at the end but if you aren't up on the material, watch the whole thing.
The conclusion, stated by the DOJs frontman in this fight, is the DOJ didn't prosecute because of concerns about a "ripple effect" in the banking system. When I first watched it I thought about a prosecutor failing to press charges against a rapist because of concern for the rapist's family. Yes, they probably would feel bad. And there would be a "ripple effect" - their neighbours would be less friendly, etc. Yet rapists occasionally get prosecuted.
Here's what is actually happening. There is a massive concern in Washington, New York, and around the world that if Big Money is prosecuted the result will be a downturn, a deepening of the Great Recession. That big number, the US GNP, keeps spinning in these peoples' minds. It's totally imaginary, it doesn't mean anything but it freaks people out.
There is a reason you here "The economy grew by 0.3% last quarter" or some such nonsense when you turn on your television or your radio. It's an indication of the stability of the consensual fiction we all take part in. We agree to believe these numbers are important, we continue to allow criminal activity by many people to make the number grow based on the belief that so long as it continues growing things will be better for us. It's complete bullshit but it is very complicated bullshit because we all agree to believe it.
Our financial system is an intricate fiction. It only works because we continue to believe in it. Stop believing and it all falls apart. You can see this at the most basic element of our financial fiction - money. Not the statistical money financial reporters are so concerned with but real money, the kind you have in your pocket.
Money is worth something because we agree it is. If we stop believing it has value, if even a small percentage of people start to doubt money will "work" then it will stop working. It's a consensual fiction.
The same is true of the entire financial system. The economy for "fictional vehicles", products you can buy and sell that represent precisely nothing in the real world (the price of wheat in 2015 for example) is ten times the economy of real things that exist in the world. It works because we believe and that's the only reason.
But I call bullshit. If the top executives of all the Wall Street institutions were dragged off in chains tomorrow, you know what would happen? Nothing. They would be replaced. The guy below them on the ladder would be the one holding the doors open for the cops. He would love to slap those chains on himself. If the chairman of Goldman Sachs was put up against a wall and shot, the result would be a collective exhalation of (what, satisfaction? blood lust?) from most of the population and his replacement would be sitting pretty in his office before the corpse was cold.
I'm not advocating shooting the Chairman of Goldman - I think that lets the rest of them off too easy.
There is also an ideological component to this - aside from the ideological belief in our financial system which, being imaginary, requires ideology - and that is the fear investigations and prosecutions might lead to government regulation. The PBS documentary shows how an independent film maker was able to find more evidence of criminal activity on Wall Street in his spare time than the DOJ was able to with the backing and authority of the entire US government. I think this is because the independent film maker wants to be an independent film maker - sure he's like to be richer and more famous but he is doing what he hopes to continue doing. The lawyers at DOJ are in a very serious competition for positions at firms that pay 10 or 15 times what the DOJ does. And those firms work for Wall Street banks.
So, in essence, the rapist's father is the owner of the biggest law firm in the world and that's the "ripple effect" the prosecutor is worried about. As Leonard Cohen tells us, "Everybody knows the fight is fixed. The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. That's how it goes and everybody knows."
The conclusion, stated by the DOJs frontman in this fight, is the DOJ didn't prosecute because of concerns about a "ripple effect" in the banking system. When I first watched it I thought about a prosecutor failing to press charges against a rapist because of concern for the rapist's family. Yes, they probably would feel bad. And there would be a "ripple effect" - their neighbours would be less friendly, etc. Yet rapists occasionally get prosecuted.
Here's what is actually happening. There is a massive concern in Washington, New York, and around the world that if Big Money is prosecuted the result will be a downturn, a deepening of the Great Recession. That big number, the US GNP, keeps spinning in these peoples' minds. It's totally imaginary, it doesn't mean anything but it freaks people out.
There is a reason you here "The economy grew by 0.3% last quarter" or some such nonsense when you turn on your television or your radio. It's an indication of the stability of the consensual fiction we all take part in. We agree to believe these numbers are important, we continue to allow criminal activity by many people to make the number grow based on the belief that so long as it continues growing things will be better for us. It's complete bullshit but it is very complicated bullshit because we all agree to believe it.
Our financial system is an intricate fiction. It only works because we continue to believe in it. Stop believing and it all falls apart. You can see this at the most basic element of our financial fiction - money. Not the statistical money financial reporters are so concerned with but real money, the kind you have in your pocket.
Money is worth something because we agree it is. If we stop believing it has value, if even a small percentage of people start to doubt money will "work" then it will stop working. It's a consensual fiction.
The same is true of the entire financial system. The economy for "fictional vehicles", products you can buy and sell that represent precisely nothing in the real world (the price of wheat in 2015 for example) is ten times the economy of real things that exist in the world. It works because we believe and that's the only reason.
But I call bullshit. If the top executives of all the Wall Street institutions were dragged off in chains tomorrow, you know what would happen? Nothing. They would be replaced. The guy below them on the ladder would be the one holding the doors open for the cops. He would love to slap those chains on himself. If the chairman of Goldman Sachs was put up against a wall and shot, the result would be a collective exhalation of (what, satisfaction? blood lust?) from most of the population and his replacement would be sitting pretty in his office before the corpse was cold.
I'm not advocating shooting the Chairman of Goldman - I think that lets the rest of them off too easy.
There is also an ideological component to this - aside from the ideological belief in our financial system which, being imaginary, requires ideology - and that is the fear investigations and prosecutions might lead to government regulation. The PBS documentary shows how an independent film maker was able to find more evidence of criminal activity on Wall Street in his spare time than the DOJ was able to with the backing and authority of the entire US government. I think this is because the independent film maker wants to be an independent film maker - sure he's like to be richer and more famous but he is doing what he hopes to continue doing. The lawyers at DOJ are in a very serious competition for positions at firms that pay 10 or 15 times what the DOJ does. And those firms work for Wall Street banks.
So, in essence, the rapist's father is the owner of the biggest law firm in the world and that's the "ripple effect" the prosecutor is worried about. As Leonard Cohen tells us, "Everybody knows the fight is fixed. The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. That's how it goes and everybody knows."
Monday, March 18, 2013
The Public Intellectual
I have a problem with YouTube. I watch it all the time. Two things that caught my attention as I was watching today. One, Janeane Garofalo is sexy as hell even with all her faux-prison style tattoos. She is smart and articulate and seems to have spent a good deal of the time since 1994's Reality Bites reading about politics. Ok that was unkind. She was very good on The West Wing. Two, most of the serious debate you can find on the internet on subjects like America's involvement in Iraq is comedians and celebrities talking. Here for example is David Letterman getting seriously pissed at Bill O'Reilly.
This is a surreal aspect of celebrity culture; even the most important events of the day, some of the most important events of our lifetime, are only relevant when discussed by celebrities. O'Reilly and his loathsome ilk are celebrities created specifically for this kind of commentary. Why, one might reasonably ask, is anyone like O'Reilly necessary when we have universities filled with people who study these issues professionally.
Being on tv isn't as easy as it looks. There is a knack to appearing as if you were not on camera that only a few people have. Anyone without this strange (and useless for 99.999% of our life as a species) talent is not much fun to watch. And yet, when we are discussing spending billions of tax dollars or killing tens of thousands of people we ought rise above our irritation at such limitations.
O'Reilly and the rest of Fox are partisan hacks. As are the less successful, but equally annoying, hacks at MSNBC - I make an exception for Rachel Maddow, not because she isn't a partisan but because I think she is hot. Yes, I have strange tastes.
Celebrity commentators don't know very much. The limit of their ability to comment is set by the information they possess and they just don't have it. This is what allows the phenomenon Stephen Colbert coined "truthiness", when something feels true regardless of the factual record. It allows commentators to make up facts, just pull them out of their ass. To stick with O'Reilly, the infamous statement no bankers had been arrested after the 2007 crash because no crimes had been committed come to mind.
Limiting debate is seen as necessary because the audience is seen as stupid. This is self-stroking. So long as the audience as treated to entertainment requiring no intelligence, there is no need for the audience to become critical thinkers. Raise the bar and the audience will raise itself.
Until then Noam Chomsky is stuck on PBS and Matt Taibbi will remain the closest thing we have to a public intellectual.
This is a surreal aspect of celebrity culture; even the most important events of the day, some of the most important events of our lifetime, are only relevant when discussed by celebrities. O'Reilly and his loathsome ilk are celebrities created specifically for this kind of commentary. Why, one might reasonably ask, is anyone like O'Reilly necessary when we have universities filled with people who study these issues professionally.
Being on tv isn't as easy as it looks. There is a knack to appearing as if you were not on camera that only a few people have. Anyone without this strange (and useless for 99.999% of our life as a species) talent is not much fun to watch. And yet, when we are discussing spending billions of tax dollars or killing tens of thousands of people we ought rise above our irritation at such limitations.
O'Reilly and the rest of Fox are partisan hacks. As are the less successful, but equally annoying, hacks at MSNBC - I make an exception for Rachel Maddow, not because she isn't a partisan but because I think she is hot. Yes, I have strange tastes.
Celebrity commentators don't know very much. The limit of their ability to comment is set by the information they possess and they just don't have it. This is what allows the phenomenon Stephen Colbert coined "truthiness", when something feels true regardless of the factual record. It allows commentators to make up facts, just pull them out of their ass. To stick with O'Reilly, the infamous statement no bankers had been arrested after the 2007 crash because no crimes had been committed come to mind.
Limiting debate is seen as necessary because the audience is seen as stupid. This is self-stroking. So long as the audience as treated to entertainment requiring no intelligence, there is no need for the audience to become critical thinkers. Raise the bar and the audience will raise itself.
Until then Noam Chomsky is stuck on PBS and Matt Taibbi will remain the closest thing we have to a public intellectual.
Self-Hating Politicians
Everyone hates politicians. What makes the American political scene interesting these days is politicians there hate themselves. Or at least they hate the government.
I don't understand the logic that would lead someone to vote for a person who does not think the government should exist. I really don't get it. I can understand it from the politicians' perspective. It would be like me getting a job I don't want to do and then convincing my employer to pay me to make sure it doesn't get done - not be me or anyone else. Then I could start a career as a highly paid consultant, telling others how to screw my old employer even worse than I had.
If you don't think there should be a government, why do you want to be part of it? Wouldn't the logical, and morally consistent, thing to do be not participating in the government? See, I don't get it.
Right-wing pundits like to say, "The government that governs least, governs best." As if that should be incentive for the government to stop doing things. The fact is governments in general, and the American government in particular, was never very good at actually doing things (except exporting weapons) so it was already doing a pretty good job - by the logic of the Right. Now that the Rights' attack dogs are keeping any and everything from actually reaching a vote with endless filibusters, the sequester cuts have taken effect and everyone in Washington is worker harder than they were before. They should have left it alone and let the institutional entropy take care of it.
This idea that governments are incapable of doing anything correctly is slightly but fundamentally different than the Friedmanite argument that government interferes with the actions of the market. Friedman's problem with the government was that it could do things but shouldn't. The new version is the government can't do things so it shouldn't try. It baffles me in detail and as a whole.
I really do not understand how a politician can spend his career alternating between "We can't do anything and shouldn't try" and "Vote for me!!!"
I don't understand the logic that would lead someone to vote for a person who does not think the government should exist. I really don't get it. I can understand it from the politicians' perspective. It would be like me getting a job I don't want to do and then convincing my employer to pay me to make sure it doesn't get done - not be me or anyone else. Then I could start a career as a highly paid consultant, telling others how to screw my old employer even worse than I had.
If you don't think there should be a government, why do you want to be part of it? Wouldn't the logical, and morally consistent, thing to do be not participating in the government? See, I don't get it.
Right-wing pundits like to say, "The government that governs least, governs best." As if that should be incentive for the government to stop doing things. The fact is governments in general, and the American government in particular, was never very good at actually doing things (except exporting weapons) so it was already doing a pretty good job - by the logic of the Right. Now that the Rights' attack dogs are keeping any and everything from actually reaching a vote with endless filibusters, the sequester cuts have taken effect and everyone in Washington is worker harder than they were before. They should have left it alone and let the institutional entropy take care of it.
This idea that governments are incapable of doing anything correctly is slightly but fundamentally different than the Friedmanite argument that government interferes with the actions of the market. Friedman's problem with the government was that it could do things but shouldn't. The new version is the government can't do things so it shouldn't try. It baffles me in detail and as a whole.
I really do not understand how a politician can spend his career alternating between "We can't do anything and shouldn't try" and "Vote for me!!!"
The Freak Province
Quebec used to be Canada's freak province. It's still strange and has a number of laws I consider stupid - the language laws. In Quebec it's illegal to post signs with English on them. More accurately, it's illegal to have signs in any language other than French. Because Quebec is French and they have real insecurities about their identity. I don't feel like walking through Chinatown here in Toronto makes me any less English; I think it makes me feel more English. It certainly makes me feel more white. Anyway, Quebec has settled down in recent years (aside from a huge student protest about tuition that lasted months and brought down a government). Quebec isn't trying to separate from Canada any more. That whole plan got messed up when, after a narrow loss in the last referendum, the leader of the Separatist party got on stage, in front of about a thousand microphones, drunk and unleashed a stream of racist vitriol. Bad for the cause that. I don't know whether Alberta really felt like Canada needed a new freak province and was willing to step in, you know, just being a team player or whether Alberta was a closet freak the whole time but nobody noticed. That will happen with prairie Provinces, people tend to forget about them.
Then oil topped $100 per barrel and suddenly everybody remembered Alberta.
Alberta has three interesting things in it: the Calgary Stampede (the Greatest Celebration of Animal Cruelty on Earth), dinosaur bones, and oil. Except it isn't really oil, it's bitumen or some shit. Everyone calls it the tar sands but since no one is willing to pay very much for either tar or sand (and no one who would buy either individually would pay anything for them mixed together - this definitely isn't a "you got chocolate on my peanut butter" thing) and people are willing to spend a lot of money for this shit, I assume it's some kind of oil. I could look it up but I don't care that much. The only reason I writing about it at all is because it's making Alberta insane and taking much of the rest of the continent with it.
The United States is dedicated to achieving "energy independence" and they want Canadian oil so they can reach that goal. Since Canada isn't the US and the US isn't Canada, I don't see how this makes them "independent" - what they are really talking about is backing away from the Carter Doctrine and ongoing engagement in the Middle East. The key to this process is a pipeline from the tar sands in Alberta through a bunch of US states and on to wherever it finishes (don't know don't care).
The Canadian government wants this pipeline badly. The Alberta government wants it worse. Even mild-mannered Saskatchewan is getting heated over this. The US government wants it too. So it should be a done deal, right?
Apparently not. I don't really give a shit about the pipeline. It's a terrible idea from any perspective except for those who are going to make a lot of money from it. Like the province of Alberta. Their problem, though, is because they are a government and not a corporation, they can't just do things because they will make a lot of money. They have to create a fine veneer of logic, backed by a specific political position before they can start raking it in. And that's what is making this whole cluster fuck interesting.
Both the National and Alberta governments are currently holding the "This is good for Canada" line. Which is a fine line to hold, as long as you can answer the question, "How is this good for Canada?" And they can't. So they fall back on a wonderful old chestnut, "The Americans are watching!" This, in Canadian politics, is the equivalent of "Mom, not in front of my friends!!!" Canadian politicians really believe the Canadian people give a shit about what the American government thinks about them.
More problematically, and more seriously, Alberta is following the US to the political right. About 25 years ago Canada's Conservative Party (the Canadian equivalent of the Republicans) was destroyed in an election. Alberta was so disgusted by the rest of Canada's voting, they created a new party to replace the Conservatives. Instead, the two merged and became the party that currently holds power nationally. But the Albertan version of the Conservative Party isn't far-right enough for Alberta so they created another new Conservative Party - the Wild Rose party.
Here's a helpful tip - when political parties take names from really unthreatening things, it's because they are threatening. If I ever hear of a political party called "the picture of a baby and a puppy playing together party" I'll know the end is nigh.
The Wild Rose party describe themselves as "fiscally conservative" but want you to know they also welcome libertarians and social conservatives. Non-Canadians will not understand how fucking weird that is for Canada. For generations our Conservatives were less conservative than the American Democrats. And our Liberals were left of anything on the American spectrum - and then we had another party to the left of the Liberals. So a bunch of Libertarians out on the prairie is weird.
I can't help but notice Saskatchewan and Manitoba (also prairie provinces) aren't getting all fucked in the head or trying to privatize everything. Alberta is. I wrote before about Alberta taking a very heavy hand in the university system. They also have two tiered medical (the political equivalent of a flat tax here - a conservative dream that will never happen).
I say fuck the freak province. I've never liked Alberta. Not since Gretzky got traded to LA. I can't help but think this is karmic retribution for sending the Great One to the Great Satan. Maybe it's time for another referendum on sovereignty. This time the rest of Canada can vote on whether or not Alberta gets to stay.
Then oil topped $100 per barrel and suddenly everybody remembered Alberta.
Alberta has three interesting things in it: the Calgary Stampede (the Greatest Celebration of Animal Cruelty on Earth), dinosaur bones, and oil. Except it isn't really oil, it's bitumen or some shit. Everyone calls it the tar sands but since no one is willing to pay very much for either tar or sand (and no one who would buy either individually would pay anything for them mixed together - this definitely isn't a "you got chocolate on my peanut butter" thing) and people are willing to spend a lot of money for this shit, I assume it's some kind of oil. I could look it up but I don't care that much. The only reason I writing about it at all is because it's making Alberta insane and taking much of the rest of the continent with it.
The United States is dedicated to achieving "energy independence" and they want Canadian oil so they can reach that goal. Since Canada isn't the US and the US isn't Canada, I don't see how this makes them "independent" - what they are really talking about is backing away from the Carter Doctrine and ongoing engagement in the Middle East. The key to this process is a pipeline from the tar sands in Alberta through a bunch of US states and on to wherever it finishes (don't know don't care).
The Canadian government wants this pipeline badly. The Alberta government wants it worse. Even mild-mannered Saskatchewan is getting heated over this. The US government wants it too. So it should be a done deal, right?
Apparently not. I don't really give a shit about the pipeline. It's a terrible idea from any perspective except for those who are going to make a lot of money from it. Like the province of Alberta. Their problem, though, is because they are a government and not a corporation, they can't just do things because they will make a lot of money. They have to create a fine veneer of logic, backed by a specific political position before they can start raking it in. And that's what is making this whole cluster fuck interesting.
Both the National and Alberta governments are currently holding the "This is good for Canada" line. Which is a fine line to hold, as long as you can answer the question, "How is this good for Canada?" And they can't. So they fall back on a wonderful old chestnut, "The Americans are watching!" This, in Canadian politics, is the equivalent of "Mom, not in front of my friends!!!" Canadian politicians really believe the Canadian people give a shit about what the American government thinks about them.
More problematically, and more seriously, Alberta is following the US to the political right. About 25 years ago Canada's Conservative Party (the Canadian equivalent of the Republicans) was destroyed in an election. Alberta was so disgusted by the rest of Canada's voting, they created a new party to replace the Conservatives. Instead, the two merged and became the party that currently holds power nationally. But the Albertan version of the Conservative Party isn't far-right enough for Alberta so they created another new Conservative Party - the Wild Rose party.
Here's a helpful tip - when political parties take names from really unthreatening things, it's because they are threatening. If I ever hear of a political party called "the picture of a baby and a puppy playing together party" I'll know the end is nigh.
The Wild Rose party describe themselves as "fiscally conservative" but want you to know they also welcome libertarians and social conservatives. Non-Canadians will not understand how fucking weird that is for Canada. For generations our Conservatives were less conservative than the American Democrats. And our Liberals were left of anything on the American spectrum - and then we had another party to the left of the Liberals. So a bunch of Libertarians out on the prairie is weird.
I can't help but notice Saskatchewan and Manitoba (also prairie provinces) aren't getting all fucked in the head or trying to privatize everything. Alberta is. I wrote before about Alberta taking a very heavy hand in the university system. They also have two tiered medical (the political equivalent of a flat tax here - a conservative dream that will never happen).
I say fuck the freak province. I've never liked Alberta. Not since Gretzky got traded to LA. I can't help but think this is karmic retribution for sending the Great One to the Great Satan. Maybe it's time for another referendum on sovereignty. This time the rest of Canada can vote on whether or not Alberta gets to stay.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Architects Writing
Architecture is not difficult to explain. If you can gesture with your hands or, even better, draw quick sketches to illustrate your points, it is quite easy to talk about. And yet, for some reason, when architects attempt to write the results are almost uniformly bad. George Orwell, in his essay Politics and the English Language gives several examples of different types of terrible writing. He also gives five simple rules that can prevent it. Terrible writing by architects has a distinct feel to it that is similar to one of the examples Orwell uses. I'm going to provide an example but I am struggling with whether or not to name the source. On the one hand, they wrote it and so deserve all the scorn that can be piled upon them. On the other, their terrible writing is no worse than ten other examples I could find in as many minutes. O well, I'll let them be nameless. Let them stand for all.
This is the text from the "About" section of a design firm's website:
We believe architecture is a discipline with blurring boundaries. No longer is it composed of a series of practices bundled together to create one outcome, rather one practice creating a series of outcomes. Architecture can be binding and invent new, unique and unprecedented relationships between contingent issues. The goal is to find emergent ideas in the blur to find a new focus for our office. We seek work demanding the understanding and exploration of the periphery.
Contingencies stretch beyond the design disciplines, reacting to the political, economic, and social forces of a project manifest solutions not always grounded in the physical but always reliant on the architectural. The designing of a framework, an infrastructure becomes a dynamically integrated rather than the statically present architecture. To work stretches between the speculative and constructed to understand how to stitch these two extremes together. Proposals of far-reaching territories refine themselves through the continuous interrogation of the conflicting and complimentary to find itself in the rational yet unexpected outcome.
You can read it as many times as you want; it isn't going to suddenly make sense. I'm going to tear it apart as if they asked me to edit it.
First sentence makes no sense independent of the second sentence. The second sentence gets off to a bad start and then gets worse. It is syntactically messed up and doesn't say anything conclusive. I'm left to infer what it might mean. To do that, I need to look at the third sentence. Holy shit. At this point (the fourth sentence) I would call them and ask them to tell me what the fuck this piece of shit is trying to say because I can't make any sense of this gibberish. I would make them define "contingent" and "contingencies" because I don't think they know what the words mean - or they are using them as they were used by someone I don't know and haven't read.
Three fucking degrees and I can't make sense of a single goddam sentence. Are they trying to make me feel stupid?
This is my favourite sentence: "To work stretches between the speculative and constructed to understand how to stitch these two extremes together." What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Would punctuation fix this? I don't understand!!!
If you are an architect or designer or anyone who has ever written anything as bad as this - here is how to do better.
1) Make certain you actually have something to say.
I think that's the real problem with the above. Not that they can't write, or they are addicted to jargon, just that they have nothing to say.
2) Make certain you know, very precisely, what you want to say.
This is typically the biggest problem people have when trying to write. If you find yourself using the thesaurus every third word, it is almost certainly your problem. Step back. Think. Write an outline in simple sentences anyone would understand. Then expand the outline to fill in any blanks.
3) Short sentences are better than long sentences.
Use short sentences whenever you can. This makes it easier for the reader. If you read other posts in this blog, you will see I am addicted to the m-dash and the semi-colon. And I start sentences with and all the time. That's because I don't polish any of this. If I did, those would be the first things to go.
For example, let's pretend the first sentence of the second paragraph actually means something:
"Contingencies stretch beyond the design disciplines, reacting to the political, economic, and social forces of a project manifest solutions not always grounded in the physical but always reliant on the architectural."
This is at least two sentences. More likely it's three. Here's my shot at it (remember I don't know what they are trying to say):
Contingent events stretch design as a discipline. They react to political, economic, and social forces. The solutions design can offer may not be physical but will remain architectural.
So I used three sentences in my approximation of what that one sentence might mean.
4) Do not use words you haven't heard, or wouldn't use, in conversation unless it is absolutely necessary.
For example, the word plethora always makes me laugh. It's a useful word but I wouldn't use it unless I was making a joke. The exceptions to this rule are terms that have a very specific meaning and allow no easy substitute. For example, I would use interregnum even though I have never used it in a conversation.
5) Use real words.
This one seems obvious but people still get it wrong. Not all nouns can be used as verbs. Using "preference" as a verb is not correct. Using "interrogate" when you mean "question" is incorrect unless there are bright lights and electric current involved. "Interrogate" doesn't make you sound more serious or determined. It sounds weird.
You write so people will read and understand. Don't make it harder for readers to understand than it needs to be. Nothing will demonstrate your intelligence better than reducing a complicated idea to something easy to read and understand that does not sacrifice the complexity. So don't fake smart with made up words.
6) It's alright to use the same word over and over.
Most people avoid this at all costs. Let's use the same example as I used for #5. If "question" is the perfect word for what you are doing, don't keep reaching in to the thesaurus to find near synonyms. Use "question" as many times as you need to use it. Otherwise you risk using a word incorrectly because the thesaurus tells you it means the same thing: "I asked you an interrogate!"
Also, when you are describing the process of arriving at a conclusion, it is easier for the reader if you go from A to B and B to C and C to D etc than it is if you go from A to B and (synonym of B) to C and (synonym of C) to D.
Using the same word over and over doesn't make it seem like you have a small vocabulary. It shows a dedication to clarity.
7) Don't fuck with the rules.
It is easier for the reader if you use punctuation, italics, and all other conventions conventionally. There is a reason we have conventions. If you absolutely have to mess with a convention, be clear and consistent about it. If you don't understand a convention, look it up and find an example that makes it completely clear to you. Then have someone proof read for you.
8) Style is for stylists.
I don't worry too much about style. My style, in anything other than a blog entry, is a brief as possible. I take more pride in chopping every unnecessary word from a piece than I do from filling it with poetry. The things I look for in my own writing are clarity and brevity. That's it. I admire writers who can fling words around with seeming abandon, who can create little stitches of poetry, and I like to read them. But they are professionals at the top of their game.
This is the text from the "About" section of a design firm's website:
We believe architecture is a discipline with blurring boundaries. No longer is it composed of a series of practices bundled together to create one outcome, rather one practice creating a series of outcomes. Architecture can be binding and invent new, unique and unprecedented relationships between contingent issues. The goal is to find emergent ideas in the blur to find a new focus for our office. We seek work demanding the understanding and exploration of the periphery.
Contingencies stretch beyond the design disciplines, reacting to the political, economic, and social forces of a project manifest solutions not always grounded in the physical but always reliant on the architectural. The designing of a framework, an infrastructure becomes a dynamically integrated rather than the statically present architecture. To work stretches between the speculative and constructed to understand how to stitch these two extremes together. Proposals of far-reaching territories refine themselves through the continuous interrogation of the conflicting and complimentary to find itself in the rational yet unexpected outcome.
You can read it as many times as you want; it isn't going to suddenly make sense. I'm going to tear it apart as if they asked me to edit it.
First sentence makes no sense independent of the second sentence. The second sentence gets off to a bad start and then gets worse. It is syntactically messed up and doesn't say anything conclusive. I'm left to infer what it might mean. To do that, I need to look at the third sentence. Holy shit. At this point (the fourth sentence) I would call them and ask them to tell me what the fuck this piece of shit is trying to say because I can't make any sense of this gibberish. I would make them define "contingent" and "contingencies" because I don't think they know what the words mean - or they are using them as they were used by someone I don't know and haven't read.
Three fucking degrees and I can't make sense of a single goddam sentence. Are they trying to make me feel stupid?
This is my favourite sentence: "To work stretches between the speculative and constructed to understand how to stitch these two extremes together." What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Would punctuation fix this? I don't understand!!!
If you are an architect or designer or anyone who has ever written anything as bad as this - here is how to do better.
1) Make certain you actually have something to say.
I think that's the real problem with the above. Not that they can't write, or they are addicted to jargon, just that they have nothing to say.
2) Make certain you know, very precisely, what you want to say.
This is typically the biggest problem people have when trying to write. If you find yourself using the thesaurus every third word, it is almost certainly your problem. Step back. Think. Write an outline in simple sentences anyone would understand. Then expand the outline to fill in any blanks.
3) Short sentences are better than long sentences.
Use short sentences whenever you can. This makes it easier for the reader. If you read other posts in this blog, you will see I am addicted to the m-dash and the semi-colon. And I start sentences with and all the time. That's because I don't polish any of this. If I did, those would be the first things to go.
For example, let's pretend the first sentence of the second paragraph actually means something:
"Contingencies stretch beyond the design disciplines, reacting to the political, economic, and social forces of a project manifest solutions not always grounded in the physical but always reliant on the architectural."
This is at least two sentences. More likely it's three. Here's my shot at it (remember I don't know what they are trying to say):
Contingent events stretch design as a discipline. They react to political, economic, and social forces. The solutions design can offer may not be physical but will remain architectural.
So I used three sentences in my approximation of what that one sentence might mean.
4) Do not use words you haven't heard, or wouldn't use, in conversation unless it is absolutely necessary.
For example, the word plethora always makes me laugh. It's a useful word but I wouldn't use it unless I was making a joke. The exceptions to this rule are terms that have a very specific meaning and allow no easy substitute. For example, I would use interregnum even though I have never used it in a conversation.
5) Use real words.
This one seems obvious but people still get it wrong. Not all nouns can be used as verbs. Using "preference" as a verb is not correct. Using "interrogate" when you mean "question" is incorrect unless there are bright lights and electric current involved. "Interrogate" doesn't make you sound more serious or determined. It sounds weird.
You write so people will read and understand. Don't make it harder for readers to understand than it needs to be. Nothing will demonstrate your intelligence better than reducing a complicated idea to something easy to read and understand that does not sacrifice the complexity. So don't fake smart with made up words.
6) It's alright to use the same word over and over.
Most people avoid this at all costs. Let's use the same example as I used for #5. If "question" is the perfect word for what you are doing, don't keep reaching in to the thesaurus to find near synonyms. Use "question" as many times as you need to use it. Otherwise you risk using a word incorrectly because the thesaurus tells you it means the same thing: "I asked you an interrogate!"
Also, when you are describing the process of arriving at a conclusion, it is easier for the reader if you go from A to B and B to C and C to D etc than it is if you go from A to B and (synonym of B) to C and (synonym of C) to D.
Using the same word over and over doesn't make it seem like you have a small vocabulary. It shows a dedication to clarity.
7) Don't fuck with the rules.
It is easier for the reader if you use punctuation, italics, and all other conventions conventionally. There is a reason we have conventions. If you absolutely have to mess with a convention, be clear and consistent about it. If you don't understand a convention, look it up and find an example that makes it completely clear to you. Then have someone proof read for you.
8) Style is for stylists.
I don't worry too much about style. My style, in anything other than a blog entry, is a brief as possible. I take more pride in chopping every unnecessary word from a piece than I do from filling it with poetry. The things I look for in my own writing are clarity and brevity. That's it. I admire writers who can fling words around with seeming abandon, who can create little stitches of poetry, and I like to read them. But they are professionals at the top of their game.
Cemeteries
You can tell a lot about a city by its relationship to the dead. In his book Architectural Principles in the Age of Historicism architecture historian, professor extraordinaire, and all around good guy Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt argues for what he calls the five-square city. The first square is the city wall, the other four divide the inside of the wall into quadrants. The agora is the place of society and politics (where people meet people), the acropolis is the place of the worship (where people meet divinity), the oikos is the space of private families, and the necropolis is the place of the dead (where people face their own mortality). This model is constructed based on an examination of classical Athens and is meant to describe the functions of the city rather than the physical layout. But it is generally true we still keep these functions separate.
It is interesting which of these functions has increased in size and which decreased in the transition from classical to modern city. The agora as a marketplace has increased exponentially but as the place of politics it has all but disappeared. Every city larger than a few thousand people used to have many spaces dedicated to the discussion of how our political life ought be constructed - from the official spaces of city hall and town offices, to the Union halls, public places set aside for free speech, etc. Now the city hall has become the corporate headquarters and public speech is forced on to the street.
The acropolis has shrunk also. Its decreased role in the city has matched that of the agora in the pace and proportion of decline. Take two examples from my own life; I moved from Galt to Toronto (Galt is one of the small towns that where amalgamated into Cambridge). Two of the four corners in Galt's major intersection are held by churches - I find it interesting both of them are Presbyterian. In an aside, the two started out as a single congregation that split over the purchase of a set of bells. Those who left because they believed the bells were an indulgence stole them (the bells) before they could be installed and they have never been recovered. The town also boasts a Catholic church and a couple minor (possibly heretical) variants of the Protestant faith. On the five minute walk from my apartment to the Architecture School, I passed either four or five churches (depending on the route).
Here in Toronto there are, of course, a great many churches but they don't stand out. In Galt, the churches are the tallest buildings in town. In Toronto, they are among the shortest. The meaning of this is made desperately confusing by the large number of Toronto's citizens who practice religions I know nothing about. I know, for instance, Sikhs have temples but I don't know what they look like or if they follow a pattern. Toronto has a large Asian population but I don't think Confucians have anything like a Church. Taoists are an off-shoot of Buddhism so I'm guessing no Churches there. I am crippled by my own ignorance. Yet this is not an indication that nothing can be said about the relative importance of the acropolis just that I cannot produce a nuanced opinion. In the classical city everyone knew what the temples looked like, what they were for, when they were used, how to behave in one, and a host of other related items. Galt is much closer to the classical city than Toronto in this regard. And Toronto, as one would expect, is more modern.
The oikos is even more complicated to analyze than the acropolis. The percentage of land given over to residential use is much larger in the modern city than the classical. This is a function of the size (population) of classical cities as well as the relative size of buildings. Here Rome is more revealing than Athens. Rome, at its peak, had a population of more than one million (link). Toronto (minus the Greater Toronto Area) has a population slightly less than three million (link). But far more than three times the space is devoted to residential use in Toronto than in ancient Rome. The center of Rome was the serial Fori. The Forum valley stretched from the Capitaline Hill to the Colosseum - the Capitaline Temples and the Flavian Amphitheater both exclude residential building but while the Colosseum is another manifestation of the agora, the Capitaline temples are a manifestation of the acropolis. Rome is easiest seen as a collection of residential buildings glommed on to the sides of massive public works. Toronto has no collection of public buildings similar to ancient Rome; it cannot match Rome in terms of the area devoted purely for public use. Instead that space is devoted to housing. It is safe to conclude the importance of the oikos has increased exponentially in the transition to the modern city.
The necropolis is almost completely invisible as a feature of modern cities. Most, like Toronto, will keep a patch of land to remember celebrity dead. The size, significance, and psychological importance of the cemetery decreases as cities get bigger, more modern. Unless they can be repurposed as tourist attractions (the AIA guidebook to Chicago lists the cemetery where Mies van der Rohe and Louis Sullivan are buried) they just disappear. This observation is complicated by the fact many religions less common in North America a century ago prefer cremation to burial. But in Rome, for example, a cremation inside the pomerium (city walls) was unthinkable.
When my brother bought a house his contract included a clause prohibiting him from running a crematorium in his basement. That's weird. But it wouldn't be in there unless it had been a problem previously. And it says something about our attitude toward our dead.
Maybe this is something as remarked upon as the everting of now to include everything. The past, as an idea, disappears into the continuous digital present. Maybe our disregard for our dead tells us something about our view on the future - its pure alien-ness. In the ancient city the necropolis was there to remind people where they came from, to instruct them how to behave, to reassure them death wasn't completely final. Modernity has attacked all these notions. I don't think it's accidental the only really great Modernist cemetery (Woodland Cemetery by Gunnar Asplund) is known primarily from images that do not include any graves.
We are increasingly unwilling to provide the dead with their own real estate. And this is important - not because I think, as many do, the awareness of our own mortality is the key to the human condition - because it is a willful rejection of the past. A fetishization of the present.
Cemeteries and casinos are the only places I can think of where clocks are forbidden. Tick tock. Tick tock. I think it would be wonderfully perverse to have a clock built in to a headstone. Maybe this is the only important thing I can write about cemeteries at the moment. They are an escape from the regulation of your life and mine by artificial time. Small time. Mechanical time.
I think cemeteries are beautiful. Whether they are ill-tended and overgrown or hyper-manicured (or any state in between). They aren't really all that different from playing fields - which I don't find beautiful. So I think the difference (aside from the corpses) is the absence of consensual time.
There is a great debate (all furor and dudgeon and righteousness) currently about proposals to build casinos on Toronto's Waterfront. I think it's a terrible idea. And it seems everyone who isn't going to make a lot of money from the casinos agrees with me. Several alternative schemes have been presented to the City - what might be built instead of casinos. One or two of those are quite good and almost any of them would improve this City immensely.
I'd like to add my two cents. I think we should create huge cemeteries on the Waterfront. There could be other stuff too I guess (no casinos obviously). But a great cemetery looking out over Lake Ontario would be a fine thing.
It is interesting which of these functions has increased in size and which decreased in the transition from classical to modern city. The agora as a marketplace has increased exponentially but as the place of politics it has all but disappeared. Every city larger than a few thousand people used to have many spaces dedicated to the discussion of how our political life ought be constructed - from the official spaces of city hall and town offices, to the Union halls, public places set aside for free speech, etc. Now the city hall has become the corporate headquarters and public speech is forced on to the street.
The acropolis has shrunk also. Its decreased role in the city has matched that of the agora in the pace and proportion of decline. Take two examples from my own life; I moved from Galt to Toronto (Galt is one of the small towns that where amalgamated into Cambridge). Two of the four corners in Galt's major intersection are held by churches - I find it interesting both of them are Presbyterian. In an aside, the two started out as a single congregation that split over the purchase of a set of bells. Those who left because they believed the bells were an indulgence stole them (the bells) before they could be installed and they have never been recovered. The town also boasts a Catholic church and a couple minor (possibly heretical) variants of the Protestant faith. On the five minute walk from my apartment to the Architecture School, I passed either four or five churches (depending on the route).
Here in Toronto there are, of course, a great many churches but they don't stand out. In Galt, the churches are the tallest buildings in town. In Toronto, they are among the shortest. The meaning of this is made desperately confusing by the large number of Toronto's citizens who practice religions I know nothing about. I know, for instance, Sikhs have temples but I don't know what they look like or if they follow a pattern. Toronto has a large Asian population but I don't think Confucians have anything like a Church. Taoists are an off-shoot of Buddhism so I'm guessing no Churches there. I am crippled by my own ignorance. Yet this is not an indication that nothing can be said about the relative importance of the acropolis just that I cannot produce a nuanced opinion. In the classical city everyone knew what the temples looked like, what they were for, when they were used, how to behave in one, and a host of other related items. Galt is much closer to the classical city than Toronto in this regard. And Toronto, as one would expect, is more modern.
The oikos is even more complicated to analyze than the acropolis. The percentage of land given over to residential use is much larger in the modern city than the classical. This is a function of the size (population) of classical cities as well as the relative size of buildings. Here Rome is more revealing than Athens. Rome, at its peak, had a population of more than one million (link). Toronto (minus the Greater Toronto Area) has a population slightly less than three million (link). But far more than three times the space is devoted to residential use in Toronto than in ancient Rome. The center of Rome was the serial Fori. The Forum valley stretched from the Capitaline Hill to the Colosseum - the Capitaline Temples and the Flavian Amphitheater both exclude residential building but while the Colosseum is another manifestation of the agora, the Capitaline temples are a manifestation of the acropolis. Rome is easiest seen as a collection of residential buildings glommed on to the sides of massive public works. Toronto has no collection of public buildings similar to ancient Rome; it cannot match Rome in terms of the area devoted purely for public use. Instead that space is devoted to housing. It is safe to conclude the importance of the oikos has increased exponentially in the transition to the modern city.
The necropolis is almost completely invisible as a feature of modern cities. Most, like Toronto, will keep a patch of land to remember celebrity dead. The size, significance, and psychological importance of the cemetery decreases as cities get bigger, more modern. Unless they can be repurposed as tourist attractions (the AIA guidebook to Chicago lists the cemetery where Mies van der Rohe and Louis Sullivan are buried) they just disappear. This observation is complicated by the fact many religions less common in North America a century ago prefer cremation to burial. But in Rome, for example, a cremation inside the pomerium (city walls) was unthinkable.
When my brother bought a house his contract included a clause prohibiting him from running a crematorium in his basement. That's weird. But it wouldn't be in there unless it had been a problem previously. And it says something about our attitude toward our dead.
Maybe this is something as remarked upon as the everting of now to include everything. The past, as an idea, disappears into the continuous digital present. Maybe our disregard for our dead tells us something about our view on the future - its pure alien-ness. In the ancient city the necropolis was there to remind people where they came from, to instruct them how to behave, to reassure them death wasn't completely final. Modernity has attacked all these notions. I don't think it's accidental the only really great Modernist cemetery (Woodland Cemetery by Gunnar Asplund) is known primarily from images that do not include any graves.
Cemeteries and casinos are the only places I can think of where clocks are forbidden. Tick tock. Tick tock. I think it would be wonderfully perverse to have a clock built in to a headstone. Maybe this is the only important thing I can write about cemeteries at the moment. They are an escape from the regulation of your life and mine by artificial time. Small time. Mechanical time.
I think cemeteries are beautiful. Whether they are ill-tended and overgrown or hyper-manicured (or any state in between). They aren't really all that different from playing fields - which I don't find beautiful. So I think the difference (aside from the corpses) is the absence of consensual time.
There is a great debate (all furor and dudgeon and righteousness) currently about proposals to build casinos on Toronto's Waterfront. I think it's a terrible idea. And it seems everyone who isn't going to make a lot of money from the casinos agrees with me. Several alternative schemes have been presented to the City - what might be built instead of casinos. One or two of those are quite good and almost any of them would improve this City immensely.
I'd like to add my two cents. I think we should create huge cemeteries on the Waterfront. There could be other stuff too I guess (no casinos obviously). But a great cemetery looking out over Lake Ontario would be a fine thing.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
In and Out
Here is a video of Monty Python's John Cleese talking about creativity. As someone who has attempted to teach architecture I am thrilled to have one of my central beliefs reinforced: you can't teach talent and you don't have to.
The practice of design (I'll use design rather than architecture to make it clear I'm not writing about the business end of things) relies on serial shifts in perspective - from the very big to the very small and all the stages in between. I like to break things into groups based on the human body: things much bigger than a person, the width of spread arms, something you can hold in your hand, etc. The logic of a building should apply equally to all these things; this is what Vitruvius called proportion. It doesn't mean what it would today (the ratio of one thing to another) but the visible, tangible fact the same rules apply to the thing as a whole and in detail.
A designer's task is to continually switch from thinking on the scale of a room, to the scale of the building, to the scale of the city, to the scale of an object in the room, and on and on. This is further complicated by drawing to scale. In a sketch a small object (a handle or turn) can be bigger than the room it will eventually be in. You are fitting drawings on to a page (working with one size of object in the physical world) while translating ideas about many different sizes in your head. It is a complicated business - far too difficult to pursue unless you really care about it.
Now we can add to this Cleese's proposition about open and closed mental states. Think creatively for a given time, think analytically for a given time. Back and forth on and on.
Of his five criteria for an open state, space is the most interesting. Architecture schools never provide sufficient studio space. The accreditation boards demand a certain amount of physical space per student and no architecture school I have ever seen or heard of actually provides that much. So students have to make their own psychological space.
For generations this space was a couple feet surrounding the drawing board. With a drafting light shining on it, it becomes the center of the universe and, back bent and head down, the student could shut out the world. Now, of course, the computer has become the surrogate drawing board and center of the universe. Students keep their hands on keyboard and peripheral, wrap themselves in headphones playing music loud enough so nothing else gets through - isolation in an electronic carapace. Where this becomes problematic (assuming you see nothing inherently problematic with it) is switching between analytical and creative thinking.
For me this was a simple as going out for a smoke. Most of the clever thoughts I've had in my life have come to me in the cold, shivering, with a cigarette clamped between my lips. And this is, by itself, a strong argument for the three semester system (so there is at least a one in three chance I won't have to freeze my ass off while smoking). Or I could move someplace warmer than Canada - how hard could that be? Unless I chose Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, or Siberia it will be warmer than here.
Cleese's findings also go some way to validating my belief in the efficiency of inefficiency. No matter how much time you schedule for "being creative" you might need more and if you stress about it, you're fucked. For years culture, in the sense that newspapers use the word, has been centered in places where people spend a great deal of time doing fuck all. New York in the 70s - all anyone did was go to parties. Paris for about a century before that - sitting around drinking wine at night, sitting around drinking coffee during the day. Switzerland, on the other hand, not such a great cultural haven.
The practice of design (I'll use design rather than architecture to make it clear I'm not writing about the business end of things) relies on serial shifts in perspective - from the very big to the very small and all the stages in between. I like to break things into groups based on the human body: things much bigger than a person, the width of spread arms, something you can hold in your hand, etc. The logic of a building should apply equally to all these things; this is what Vitruvius called proportion. It doesn't mean what it would today (the ratio of one thing to another) but the visible, tangible fact the same rules apply to the thing as a whole and in detail.
A designer's task is to continually switch from thinking on the scale of a room, to the scale of the building, to the scale of the city, to the scale of an object in the room, and on and on. This is further complicated by drawing to scale. In a sketch a small object (a handle or turn) can be bigger than the room it will eventually be in. You are fitting drawings on to a page (working with one size of object in the physical world) while translating ideas about many different sizes in your head. It is a complicated business - far too difficult to pursue unless you really care about it.
Now we can add to this Cleese's proposition about open and closed mental states. Think creatively for a given time, think analytically for a given time. Back and forth on and on.
Of his five criteria for an open state, space is the most interesting. Architecture schools never provide sufficient studio space. The accreditation boards demand a certain amount of physical space per student and no architecture school I have ever seen or heard of actually provides that much. So students have to make their own psychological space.
For generations this space was a couple feet surrounding the drawing board. With a drafting light shining on it, it becomes the center of the universe and, back bent and head down, the student could shut out the world. Now, of course, the computer has become the surrogate drawing board and center of the universe. Students keep their hands on keyboard and peripheral, wrap themselves in headphones playing music loud enough so nothing else gets through - isolation in an electronic carapace. Where this becomes problematic (assuming you see nothing inherently problematic with it) is switching between analytical and creative thinking.
For me this was a simple as going out for a smoke. Most of the clever thoughts I've had in my life have come to me in the cold, shivering, with a cigarette clamped between my lips. And this is, by itself, a strong argument for the three semester system (so there is at least a one in three chance I won't have to freeze my ass off while smoking). Or I could move someplace warmer than Canada - how hard could that be? Unless I chose Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, or Siberia it will be warmer than here.
Cleese's findings also go some way to validating my belief in the efficiency of inefficiency. No matter how much time you schedule for "being creative" you might need more and if you stress about it, you're fucked. For years culture, in the sense that newspapers use the word, has been centered in places where people spend a great deal of time doing fuck all. New York in the 70s - all anyone did was go to parties. Paris for about a century before that - sitting around drinking wine at night, sitting around drinking coffee during the day. Switzerland, on the other hand, not such a great cultural haven.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Punching Famous People in the Face
Almost everyone has a story about seeing a famous person. For example, "I saw George Clooney at the airport!"
And that's it. They aren't stories so much as sentences. Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So you could amend the sentence above to include something amusing about your trip to the airport. Or, if nothing amusing happened (and trips to the airport aren't often occasions for merriment) you could complain about the trip to the airport. Most people like traveling but no one likes traveling to the airport. It's a pretty safe bet you can find some common ground with your audience by bitching about airport parking or some such thing. Then you have a beginning, then you see George Clooney. And that's the middle of the story. Now you need an ending. Ideally, he would befriend you, take you with him to his villa in Como and you could hang around with Don Cheadle and Brad Pitt for a week.
But, if we're honest with ourselves, that's not going to happen. George seems like a very nice guy. He keeps himself out of the tabloids, opposes African debt, is handsome as hell. He still isn't going to invite you to Como. And you already have somewhere to go or you wouldn't be in the airport.
The truth is seeing a celebrity is going to freak you out a little. It's like seeing a ghost, or a transformer, or something else that only exists in the world of make-believe. In the couple of seconds you have a celebrity's attention, you are never going to be able to think of something witty to say or memorable to do. That's why my brother and I adopted the strategy of punching famous people in the face. Yes, it's against the law. Yes, you will probably go to jail. But your story will have an unbeatable ending.
"I was going to the airport and [something about parking]. I walk in the Men's Room and there's George Clooney!" This is the point where most stories would end. Disappointingly. "What happened then?" your friends will ask you. And you can say, "I punched him in the fucking face." Best story ever.
I'm not advocating punching George Clooney in the face, per se. He is just the first famous person I thought of. It could be anyone from Dustin Hoffman to Dame Edna - it will still work as a narrative device and you'll still go to jail.
I have never had the opportunity to see how well this works in practice. The only famous person I have ever seen was Juliette Binoche and that was from across the street. Oh, I saw one of the cast members of the Canadian show The Listener but didn't punch him. This isn't evidence of hypocrisy, I don't even know his name so I didn't tell anyone about seeing him.
An important note tho - do not punch a female celebrity in the face. That makes a terrible story. Every one will hate you. Not just the people who used to be your friends but the entire world. Only punch male celebrities in the face! I cannot overstate how important that is. If I'm buying something at the grocery store and read Miranda Kerr got punched in the face by someone who says I told him to - I'm going to be pissed.
I haven't thought of an all-encompassingly awesome thing to do to female celebrities. It isn't as easy as you might think. It has to work for everyone from Rihanna to Queen Elizabeth II. There are some things we can rule out. Don't take her picture. That's not cool. It's not a satisfying narrative either. Don't wave your private parts about. For the same reasons.
I'll ponder this problem and get back to you.
And that's it. They aren't stories so much as sentences. Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So you could amend the sentence above to include something amusing about your trip to the airport. Or, if nothing amusing happened (and trips to the airport aren't often occasions for merriment) you could complain about the trip to the airport. Most people like traveling but no one likes traveling to the airport. It's a pretty safe bet you can find some common ground with your audience by bitching about airport parking or some such thing. Then you have a beginning, then you see George Clooney. And that's the middle of the story. Now you need an ending. Ideally, he would befriend you, take you with him to his villa in Como and you could hang around with Don Cheadle and Brad Pitt for a week.
But, if we're honest with ourselves, that's not going to happen. George seems like a very nice guy. He keeps himself out of the tabloids, opposes African debt, is handsome as hell. He still isn't going to invite you to Como. And you already have somewhere to go or you wouldn't be in the airport.
The truth is seeing a celebrity is going to freak you out a little. It's like seeing a ghost, or a transformer, or something else that only exists in the world of make-believe. In the couple of seconds you have a celebrity's attention, you are never going to be able to think of something witty to say or memorable to do. That's why my brother and I adopted the strategy of punching famous people in the face. Yes, it's against the law. Yes, you will probably go to jail. But your story will have an unbeatable ending.
"I was going to the airport and [something about parking]. I walk in the Men's Room and there's George Clooney!" This is the point where most stories would end. Disappointingly. "What happened then?" your friends will ask you. And you can say, "I punched him in the fucking face." Best story ever.
I'm not advocating punching George Clooney in the face, per se. He is just the first famous person I thought of. It could be anyone from Dustin Hoffman to Dame Edna - it will still work as a narrative device and you'll still go to jail.
I have never had the opportunity to see how well this works in practice. The only famous person I have ever seen was Juliette Binoche and that was from across the street. Oh, I saw one of the cast members of the Canadian show The Listener but didn't punch him. This isn't evidence of hypocrisy, I don't even know his name so I didn't tell anyone about seeing him.
An important note tho - do not punch a female celebrity in the face. That makes a terrible story. Every one will hate you. Not just the people who used to be your friends but the entire world. Only punch male celebrities in the face! I cannot overstate how important that is. If I'm buying something at the grocery store and read Miranda Kerr got punched in the face by someone who says I told him to - I'm going to be pissed.
I haven't thought of an all-encompassingly awesome thing to do to female celebrities. It isn't as easy as you might think. It has to work for everyone from Rihanna to Queen Elizabeth II. There are some things we can rule out. Don't take her picture. That's not cool. It's not a satisfying narrative either. Don't wave your private parts about. For the same reasons.
I'll ponder this problem and get back to you.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
New Ideas in Architecture
eVolo has just concluded the 2013 version of their contest for new ideas in tall buildings. They are beautifully rendered idiocy. The winner seems to think moving humans to the North Pole will reduce the heat up their. Because humans don't generate heat. Or use it. Or accidentally generate it by burning fuel, running machines, or doing about a thousand other things that generate heat.
I don't disapprove of competitions like this - well, not any more than I disapprove of competitions in general - although I would point out the eVolo books, selling the work of others in a bound format, do quite well. It's a smart idea. And it presents ideas that are, sometimes, smart. But they aren't realistic. I guess they would say that's the point; that visionary ideas never seem realistic until they are realized.
Here is my suggestion for a future architecture - build a properly secure gated community. One that not only keeps poor people out but creates the illusion poor people don't even exist. This is an ongoing project in much of the world but it is disorganized and architecture has many techniques to bring to the table that are under-used.
People with money will pay to never have to see or hear people without money. Preferably they would like no evidence at all of poor people's existence. One way to go would be a massive arcology. This has a lot of benefits. Done correctly the inhabitants would never have to leave and rigid immigration policies would keep poor people (and their smelly lives) completely away from the inhabitants. It also controls the air and water supply for the inhabitants. Again, ideally this would be self-contained - or externalizing. That way the arcology could pollute like crazy yet have perfect air and water for its inhabitants. But arcologies are big, and therefore not particularly exclusive. They also don't offer much of an illusion of choice.
If I was a developer right now, I would be working with landscape architects and counter-terrorism experts to make each new development as visually isolated from the rest of the world (and a physically protected) as possible. I would have the name of my counter-terrorist experts first on the brochure, then my name, then the architects and landscape architects. I would sell people the right to live in prisons. And they would pay for it.
Or you could use dirigibles. The idea the city of the future might wander over the face of the earth (or float around on the ocean currents) is at least as old as the 1960s. Floating cities are graphically wonderful but full of actual problems. As they drift the cost of importing anything increases drastically. And, most importantly, they never go anywhere interesting. The surface of the ocean is always the same. A dirigible, on the other hand, moves from place to place. Companies are already doing R and D on truly massive dirigibles in response to the price of aviation fuel. And because the world of the shipping container will not last forever. Since dirigibles only use fuel for maneuvering, not for staying aloft, they are less expensive. And since they don't need to land they can be used in the most severe geographies. Want to lift something off the side of a mountain? Someone does and that's why people are doing work on mega-Zeppelins. Put a bunch of them together or let them maneuver as a fleet. You have the illusion of choice with all the actual exclusivity even the richest bastard could want.
The other interesting challenge is how to use architecture in the context of the massive, unplanned settlement (the barrio, favela, whatever). Rich people and getting richer, poor people are getting poorer. The effort to study barrios is academically interesting. The ability to create a place that functions with similar efficiencies starting with, say, one thousand households is potentially very lucrative. Why spend years working on a single tower when you could be installing slums with thousands of units in cities all over the world? That's how to really have an impact.
I think I should start a consulting firm. I will dream up the most offensive things anyone could do and people will pay me for the right to make them happen.
I don't disapprove of competitions like this - well, not any more than I disapprove of competitions in general - although I would point out the eVolo books, selling the work of others in a bound format, do quite well. It's a smart idea. And it presents ideas that are, sometimes, smart. But they aren't realistic. I guess they would say that's the point; that visionary ideas never seem realistic until they are realized.
Here is my suggestion for a future architecture - build a properly secure gated community. One that not only keeps poor people out but creates the illusion poor people don't even exist. This is an ongoing project in much of the world but it is disorganized and architecture has many techniques to bring to the table that are under-used.
People with money will pay to never have to see or hear people without money. Preferably they would like no evidence at all of poor people's existence. One way to go would be a massive arcology. This has a lot of benefits. Done correctly the inhabitants would never have to leave and rigid immigration policies would keep poor people (and their smelly lives) completely away from the inhabitants. It also controls the air and water supply for the inhabitants. Again, ideally this would be self-contained - or externalizing. That way the arcology could pollute like crazy yet have perfect air and water for its inhabitants. But arcologies are big, and therefore not particularly exclusive. They also don't offer much of an illusion of choice.
If I was a developer right now, I would be working with landscape architects and counter-terrorism experts to make each new development as visually isolated from the rest of the world (and a physically protected) as possible. I would have the name of my counter-terrorist experts first on the brochure, then my name, then the architects and landscape architects. I would sell people the right to live in prisons. And they would pay for it.
Or you could use dirigibles. The idea the city of the future might wander over the face of the earth (or float around on the ocean currents) is at least as old as the 1960s. Floating cities are graphically wonderful but full of actual problems. As they drift the cost of importing anything increases drastically. And, most importantly, they never go anywhere interesting. The surface of the ocean is always the same. A dirigible, on the other hand, moves from place to place. Companies are already doing R and D on truly massive dirigibles in response to the price of aviation fuel. And because the world of the shipping container will not last forever. Since dirigibles only use fuel for maneuvering, not for staying aloft, they are less expensive. And since they don't need to land they can be used in the most severe geographies. Want to lift something off the side of a mountain? Someone does and that's why people are doing work on mega-Zeppelins. Put a bunch of them together or let them maneuver as a fleet. You have the illusion of choice with all the actual exclusivity even the richest bastard could want.
The other interesting challenge is how to use architecture in the context of the massive, unplanned settlement (the barrio, favela, whatever). Rich people and getting richer, poor people are getting poorer. The effort to study barrios is academically interesting. The ability to create a place that functions with similar efficiencies starting with, say, one thousand households is potentially very lucrative. Why spend years working on a single tower when you could be installing slums with thousands of units in cities all over the world? That's how to really have an impact.
I think I should start a consulting firm. I will dream up the most offensive things anyone could do and people will pay me for the right to make them happen.
On Facebook
I started using Facebook in 2006. Makes it sound like a drug. That makes me a relatively early adapter. I was in Rome, in the middle of a design studio and someone found the site, next thing everyone in the studio was on it. Posting pictures mostly.
The way people use Facebook has changed according to the other technologies available. When it was the only place you could upload pictures for free, that's what it was used for. Then other platforms (simpler to use and tailored for use with cellphone cameras) cane around and that aspect of Facebook faded into the background. Most people I know post the occasional picture of themselves when they are doing something really interesting, or when they are drunk, or to mark an event. Otherwise Facebook became a prototype Twitter.
Facebook has, for years, been my Twitter surrogate. I never understood the use of Twitter. I already have a collected and curated list of friends who get my random thought blasts through status updates, why would I need another platform to reproduce that? Here I was a late adapter. I didn't understand the random thought blast could make people famous - was something you could monetize and get paid for. I still don't use Twitter because my phone isn't made for it.
I bought a phone made by Motorola specifically for the African market. It's incredibly cheap. There's almost no metal in it. And a battery charge lasts forever. In exchange, the screen is as lo tech as a digital clock from 1960. It can only show three letters at a time and you have to scroll endlessly to read anything. Writing on it is next to impossible. But I think it is a beautiful piece of design and I like how cheap it was. I paid $5 for the phone and $20 to have it shipped to me. In retrospect I ought to have bought 3 or 4 just so I felt less like I was being ripped off on the shipping.
So Status Updates have migrated to Twitter. Facebook initially had two things to offer, and here I'm thinking of my reaction to it not what the company claimed it would (or could) do. I liked it because I could post pictures (and see other people's pictures) and make little posts all my friends could read. I still update my status fairly regularly - it is a medium I'm comfortable with. Updating my status hs become a form of mental exercise - work a joke into something people will read and maybe think about. It requires about 1/50th the commitment reading any of these posts does. But most of my friends haven't updated their status in months - they use Twitter for that.
Facebook has become a great aggregator. The greatest. Sites like Huffington Post, Geekologie, and the Cheezburger Network are strictly about aggregation; they collect things from all over the web and repost it. They create almost no new content. See this from Bruce Sterling for an idea of who is creating for the net and who is just reposting. I probably shouldn't have said "just reposting", In the same way creating a mix-tape was the simplest (but highly refined) act of creation a kid of my generation could accomplish, reposting is a similar kind of creation through recontextualization.
And I should also add, my friend Emily is better at this than anyone I know. Which is something I wouldn't be able to say if there wasn't any creation, any addition of personality, taking place in the process.
Facebook, like the internet as a whole, has moved into a new phase. Maybe this is only true for people like myself - people who can only navigate it by following trails laid down by others. I cannot say what the internet is to those able to recreate it any way they want. But, to return to my point, the internet has entered a phase where curation is more important than collection. No one cares how many GB or TB your site has of something. Remember when that was the pitch, "50TB of pure Sports Action!!!" Now it is all about separating the wheat from the chaff.
Why Facebook is still interesting to me is all my friends get together to act as a collection of curators. I think it would be interesting to have a running list (with links intact) of all the things my friends collected from the net. I don't have the technological savvy to do that but wish I did. 80% would be about architecture. The other 20% would be the interesting part. And, despite the internet law of averages, none of it is pr0n or videos of cats or babies.
The way people use Facebook has changed according to the other technologies available. When it was the only place you could upload pictures for free, that's what it was used for. Then other platforms (simpler to use and tailored for use with cellphone cameras) cane around and that aspect of Facebook faded into the background. Most people I know post the occasional picture of themselves when they are doing something really interesting, or when they are drunk, or to mark an event. Otherwise Facebook became a prototype Twitter.
Facebook has, for years, been my Twitter surrogate. I never understood the use of Twitter. I already have a collected and curated list of friends who get my random thought blasts through status updates, why would I need another platform to reproduce that? Here I was a late adapter. I didn't understand the random thought blast could make people famous - was something you could monetize and get paid for. I still don't use Twitter because my phone isn't made for it.
I bought a phone made by Motorola specifically for the African market. It's incredibly cheap. There's almost no metal in it. And a battery charge lasts forever. In exchange, the screen is as lo tech as a digital clock from 1960. It can only show three letters at a time and you have to scroll endlessly to read anything. Writing on it is next to impossible. But I think it is a beautiful piece of design and I like how cheap it was. I paid $5 for the phone and $20 to have it shipped to me. In retrospect I ought to have bought 3 or 4 just so I felt less like I was being ripped off on the shipping.
So Status Updates have migrated to Twitter. Facebook initially had two things to offer, and here I'm thinking of my reaction to it not what the company claimed it would (or could) do. I liked it because I could post pictures (and see other people's pictures) and make little posts all my friends could read. I still update my status fairly regularly - it is a medium I'm comfortable with. Updating my status hs become a form of mental exercise - work a joke into something people will read and maybe think about. It requires about 1/50th the commitment reading any of these posts does. But most of my friends haven't updated their status in months - they use Twitter for that.
Facebook has become a great aggregator. The greatest. Sites like Huffington Post, Geekologie, and the Cheezburger Network are strictly about aggregation; they collect things from all over the web and repost it. They create almost no new content. See this from Bruce Sterling for an idea of who is creating for the net and who is just reposting. I probably shouldn't have said "just reposting", In the same way creating a mix-tape was the simplest (but highly refined) act of creation a kid of my generation could accomplish, reposting is a similar kind of creation through recontextualization.
And I should also add, my friend Emily is better at this than anyone I know. Which is something I wouldn't be able to say if there wasn't any creation, any addition of personality, taking place in the process.
Facebook, like the internet as a whole, has moved into a new phase. Maybe this is only true for people like myself - people who can only navigate it by following trails laid down by others. I cannot say what the internet is to those able to recreate it any way they want. But, to return to my point, the internet has entered a phase where curation is more important than collection. No one cares how many GB or TB your site has of something. Remember when that was the pitch, "50TB of pure Sports Action!!!" Now it is all about separating the wheat from the chaff.
Why Facebook is still interesting to me is all my friends get together to act as a collection of curators. I think it would be interesting to have a running list (with links intact) of all the things my friends collected from the net. I don't have the technological savvy to do that but wish I did. 80% would be about architecture. The other 20% would be the interesting part. And, despite the internet law of averages, none of it is pr0n or videos of cats or babies.
Beer and Friendship
Here is a recent advertisement for Carlsberg Beer. The connection is obvious enough - beer makes friends. To take this on as a logical premise would be a waste of time. Just to point out that corporations are taking everything we value in life and attaching them to products we have to purchase, well that's something that has been said many times before.
I chose to write about this because, in my very hazy memories of when I used to drink, the effect was precisely the opposite. Beer didn't make friends for me. Most of my friends chose not to be around when I was drinking. And when I started drinking all the time, they were gone. I'm not blaming them; in their place I would have made the same choice.
I don't remember much from my drinking years. There are three years - the last two I was drinking and the first of my recovery - that are completely gone. I have the occasional image without any context but that's it. My experience wasn't something you will ever see in a beer commercial.
That is, in a way, the point of most commercials. I would write more about this subject but everything I could come up with would be cribbed from David Foster Wallace's E Unibus Pluram - by far the most insightful look at television I've ever come across. It's published in his collected works A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. But you can likely find the text on the internet. It's longish and requires editing but struggling through it is worth the effort.
Foster Wallace was a suicide. I don't begrudge him that. It doesn't raise him in my estimation either. Some people opt out. So it goes. I sometimes wish we had his thoughts on the internet tho. I think the problem with writing about the internet is the stage of its development. When Foster Wallace was writing about television it was already on its way out as a technology. People writing about the internet today are about a likely to get it wrong as the people who wrote about television in the 1950s. Either it is nothing (a temporary aberration that will eventually become much more like something we already recognize) or it is everything (a completely species altering technology that will stretch into every corner of our existence). Both views are wrong because they lack the nuance that will tell us what the thing really is.
Note: Here is E Unibus Pluram online.
I chose to write about this because, in my very hazy memories of when I used to drink, the effect was precisely the opposite. Beer didn't make friends for me. Most of my friends chose not to be around when I was drinking. And when I started drinking all the time, they were gone. I'm not blaming them; in their place I would have made the same choice.
I don't remember much from my drinking years. There are three years - the last two I was drinking and the first of my recovery - that are completely gone. I have the occasional image without any context but that's it. My experience wasn't something you will ever see in a beer commercial.
That is, in a way, the point of most commercials. I would write more about this subject but everything I could come up with would be cribbed from David Foster Wallace's E Unibus Pluram - by far the most insightful look at television I've ever come across. It's published in his collected works A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. But you can likely find the text on the internet. It's longish and requires editing but struggling through it is worth the effort.
Foster Wallace was a suicide. I don't begrudge him that. It doesn't raise him in my estimation either. Some people opt out. So it goes. I sometimes wish we had his thoughts on the internet tho. I think the problem with writing about the internet is the stage of its development. When Foster Wallace was writing about television it was already on its way out as a technology. People writing about the internet today are about a likely to get it wrong as the people who wrote about television in the 1950s. Either it is nothing (a temporary aberration that will eventually become much more like something we already recognize) or it is everything (a completely species altering technology that will stretch into every corner of our existence). Both views are wrong because they lack the nuance that will tell us what the thing really is.
Note: Here is E Unibus Pluram online.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
On The Walking Dead
My shit never stopped being together.
- Michonne
I love The Walking Dead. The show, not the zombies. In particular I love the dialogue. The last episode - Arrow on the Doorpost - featured almost no dialogue in an episode entirely about people talking. The writers really amazing restraint.
I especially like the character Michonne. I think her introduction will mark a point similar to when Spike was introduced on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. People looking back at the series as a whole after it is finished will divide it into before and after Michonne.
Unlike the Governor, who is far more important as far as the plot arcs are concerned, Michonne is interesting. She is almost pathologically averse to speaking and she is the biggest badass on television since Al Swearengen on Deadwood. Where Al was given great soliloquies (some of the best, most poetic language in all of television history and fifty different uses for the phrase "cock sucker"), Michonne relies on the slightest changes of expression and posture. It's a different kind of acting. They are both great characters only great actors could pull off.
I am torn between wanting to know what Michonne did before the world went to shit and never wanting to know. One of the reasons the show is so fascinating is watching the characters change from who they were in civilization to who they must become to survive (Daryl, Andrea, and Herschel are good examples). But it is almost impossible (and sometimes comical) to imagine Michonne as anything other than a katana wielding name-taking ass-kicking hardcore survivor.
In my merrier moods I like to imagine her as a Barrista at Starbucks.
- Michonne
I love The Walking Dead. The show, not the zombies. In particular I love the dialogue. The last episode - Arrow on the Doorpost - featured almost no dialogue in an episode entirely about people talking. The writers really amazing restraint.
I especially like the character Michonne. I think her introduction will mark a point similar to when Spike was introduced on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. People looking back at the series as a whole after it is finished will divide it into before and after Michonne.
Unlike the Governor, who is far more important as far as the plot arcs are concerned, Michonne is interesting. She is almost pathologically averse to speaking and she is the biggest badass on television since Al Swearengen on Deadwood. Where Al was given great soliloquies (some of the best, most poetic language in all of television history and fifty different uses for the phrase "cock sucker"), Michonne relies on the slightest changes of expression and posture. It's a different kind of acting. They are both great characters only great actors could pull off.
I am torn between wanting to know what Michonne did before the world went to shit and never wanting to know. One of the reasons the show is so fascinating is watching the characters change from who they were in civilization to who they must become to survive (Daryl, Andrea, and Herschel are good examples). But it is almost impossible (and sometimes comical) to imagine Michonne as anything other than a katana wielding name-taking ass-kicking hardcore survivor.
In my merrier moods I like to imagine her as a Barrista at Starbucks.
On Unemployment
I'm having trouble writing lately. Normally this happens for one of two reasons. Either I don't know exactly what I want to say or I have something I really don't want to say. The first causes long streams of non-sense, too many big words and wandering. The second stops me totally. So let me get this out and hopefully I'll be able to move on - write some more about zombies and capitalism.
I'm unemployed. I've been looking for a job for two and a half months and haven't been able to generate any interest at all. No interviews, no call backs, no "thanks but fuck off" emails. No nothing. Like I don't exist. Which is pretty much how I feel. In a society where value is determined monetarily, I am worth zero. No one will pay me anything to do anything. I make $0 per hour, which translates into $0 per year - that's math even I can do.
In a world where so many people are doing so many things, I'm doing nothing.
In the wake of the 2007 financial collapse investigations into predatory lending demonstrated extraordinary malfeasance by banks, mortgage brokers, and lending institutions. People were given mortgages they should never have qualified for, with incomplete disclosure of the terms and, most damningly, contracts were altered without the borrowers knowledge or consent. Thousands lost their homes.
Investigations into the human toll of rampant financial up-fuckery have discovered a large percentage of people who lost their homes are suffering from clinical depression, feelings of guilt, and a vastly increased risk of suicide. Even though it has been proven over and over again that financial institutions placed these people in an untenable situation (without their understanding and sometimes without their consent) the victims are the ones who feel responsible. I can understand that.
Common sense says there are economic forces completely beyond my control effecting my situation. Architecture is part of the building industry - if people stop building, architects don't work. That's the big picture. The rate on a five year fixed mortgage has dropped to 3%. I don't know much about economics but I know that, combined with a conservative government more concerned with debt reduction than unemployment (despite the fact our debt to GDP is 1.5% compared to the US at 10%) is bad news for the building industry.
Despite all that I still feel useless. I vacillate between depression and anxiety. I feel guilty doing anything besides job hunting and that makes me depressed, when I take a break I feel anxious. Unemployment is bad news for mental health, unless you are rich as fuck and I'm not.
A recent article in the Toronto Star quotes a study by McMaster University and United Way Toronto, saying 50% of Toronto workers have precarious employment - "either full- or part-time with no benefits or no job security, or in temporary, contract or casual positions."
This is the labour market I'm trying to get in to.
To top it all off, I just turned 40. "Just" might not be the right word but until I'm 50 I'm going to describe myself as having "just" turned 40. This is a point when most people stop to examine the first half of their lives, have a mid-life crisis, dump their spouse, take up with someone much younger and buy a shiny sports car.
I own three pieces of furniture and my accomplishments in the first half of my life are the three degrees I still can't get a job with.
Those of you who have struggled through this sea of self-pity and bad prose, thank you. Those of you who are, like me, unemployed, take some small comfort in the fact I make excellent company.
I'm unemployed. I've been looking for a job for two and a half months and haven't been able to generate any interest at all. No interviews, no call backs, no "thanks but fuck off" emails. No nothing. Like I don't exist. Which is pretty much how I feel. In a society where value is determined monetarily, I am worth zero. No one will pay me anything to do anything. I make $0 per hour, which translates into $0 per year - that's math even I can do.
In a world where so many people are doing so many things, I'm doing nothing.
In the wake of the 2007 financial collapse investigations into predatory lending demonstrated extraordinary malfeasance by banks, mortgage brokers, and lending institutions. People were given mortgages they should never have qualified for, with incomplete disclosure of the terms and, most damningly, contracts were altered without the borrowers knowledge or consent. Thousands lost their homes.
Investigations into the human toll of rampant financial up-fuckery have discovered a large percentage of people who lost their homes are suffering from clinical depression, feelings of guilt, and a vastly increased risk of suicide. Even though it has been proven over and over again that financial institutions placed these people in an untenable situation (without their understanding and sometimes without their consent) the victims are the ones who feel responsible. I can understand that.
Common sense says there are economic forces completely beyond my control effecting my situation. Architecture is part of the building industry - if people stop building, architects don't work. That's the big picture. The rate on a five year fixed mortgage has dropped to 3%. I don't know much about economics but I know that, combined with a conservative government more concerned with debt reduction than unemployment (despite the fact our debt to GDP is 1.5% compared to the US at 10%) is bad news for the building industry.
Despite all that I still feel useless. I vacillate between depression and anxiety. I feel guilty doing anything besides job hunting and that makes me depressed, when I take a break I feel anxious. Unemployment is bad news for mental health, unless you are rich as fuck and I'm not.
A recent article in the Toronto Star quotes a study by McMaster University and United Way Toronto, saying 50% of Toronto workers have precarious employment - "either full- or part-time with no benefits or no job security, or in temporary, contract or casual positions."
This is the labour market I'm trying to get in to.
To top it all off, I just turned 40. "Just" might not be the right word but until I'm 50 I'm going to describe myself as having "just" turned 40. This is a point when most people stop to examine the first half of their lives, have a mid-life crisis, dump their spouse, take up with someone much younger and buy a shiny sports car.
I own three pieces of furniture and my accomplishments in the first half of my life are the three degrees I still can't get a job with.
Those of you who have struggled through this sea of self-pity and bad prose, thank you. Those of you who are, like me, unemployed, take some small comfort in the fact I make excellent company.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
On Efficiency
The government of Alberta (that's a province in Canada) is in the process of trying to take control of that province's Universities. Here's an article about it. This is an almost comically bad idea for a number of reasons, most of them provided by the article. But if you look at the comments there is one part of the article I find extremely disturbing that most people seem to think a good idea:
“We have 26 post-secondary schools in Alberta,” says advanced education minister Thomas Lukaszuk, on the phone from Vietnam, where he’s volunteering to build playgrounds. “Each one is a virtuoso. But those 26 schools don’t play together. They don’t have a conductor.”
[skipped paragraph]
“Twenty-six schools. Why does each one need its own payroll department? Bureaucracy is repeated 26 times over.”
Here my earlier post about Universities and corporations is relevant. But I'd like to expand a little. The assumption Lukaszuk makes is all 26 payroll departments at all 26 schools do the same job and can, therefore, be centralized and amalgamated into a single payroll department. The next step is to take that department out of public hands and turn it over to a private corporation (with the ideologically presumed gain in efficiency). This is how the United States government handles its payroll - more accurately, the United States government pays Lockheed Martin to handle its payroll. But even a little thought about how those 26 different payroll departments actually operate demonstrates the problems with this logic. 26 different payroll departments means 26 groups of real people who you can call when the inevitable mistakes are made, 26 groups of people who have jobs and are putting food on the tables of all those families. The government is employing those people - although Universities are technically separate corporate entities - and the government wants to take those jobs away because it is more efficient.
Also, note each of the 26 schools has dozens of highly paid administrators, going all the way up to the President: here's a list of the highest paid university employees in Canada. Somehow I doubt the payroll officers are getting $500k per year.
You can't make a strictly economic argument against this kind of move. I'm sure the accountants have no doubts it makes sense economically. But you can make a political argument about it. I don't want my government to be more concerned with efficiency than with the lives of people. The extra expense of 26 different payroll departments is the tiniest fraction of Alberta's budget. Save the money in some way that doesn't mean cutting people's jobs in the name of efficiency.
You can also make a different argument about it, although I'm not sure what you would call it. These days people pursue efficiency as if it was an end in itself. Again, from a purely economic viewpoint, I guess it is. But the relentless pursuit of efficiency costs us all the benefits of inefficiency. In the broadest possible context, being human is extremely inefficient. We spend most of our time doing things that do not advance any particular cause or bring us closer to reaching a particular goal. Music is tremendously inefficient. So are painting, sculpture, poetry, dancing, having friends - all those things which are most important to us as humans. If the things you think are most important to you as a human aren't on that list, think a minute about whether they are efficient. I bet they aren't. I like playing with my nephew - a total waste of time.
There is also a kind of economic argument for inefficiency. Ontario is home to one of the most advanced research institutions in the world - the Perimeter Institute. You may have read in the news Stephen Hawking recently made it his base of operations, maybe Cambridge was too efficient for him. Anyway, one of the architects who designed the building described it as "a place where coffee is translated into theorems". Because of this insight the hallways between the offices are absolutely gorgeous - an attempt to increase the amount of time the various members of the Institute stand around chatting. Some of the most intelligent people in the world have a building specifically designed to help increase their performance, and the key is to keep them from "working".
By most lights, humans are ridiculously inefficient. We sleep one third of every day. We have to eat and excrete. We get very unhappy when we can't talk to other humans. The best possible thing any institution can do, from an economic perspective, is replace humans (either with other humans who get paid less or with automata). Why should you pay a person a living wage when a machine can do the job so much more efficiently? The only reason, and it is sufficient to the point of being self-evident, is we care about other humans. Or we ought to. We don't care about machines, except in the extremely limited way we care about possessions.
Being human means being inefficient.
There is also a classist factor to all arguments about efficiency - no one ever argues the people getting paid the most are inefficient, although I'm never very clear on what, precisely, they do. David Johnson, former President of the University of Waterloo, got paid more than $1 million to campaign for his current job - Governor General of Canada. I don't know what the GG does, but I know there is no efficiency expert breathing down his neck.
There are so many ways the drive for efficiency is having a negative effect on all our lives I can't possible list them all. It limits what we can buy, what we can eat. It changes what we read and what we watch.
There is a famous joke about James Joyce. Someone asked him what he did in the Great War. He replied, "I wrote Ulysses, what did you do?" He wasn't kidding. It took him seven years to write that fucker and he would never have been able to, despite various jobs he held between 1914 and 1921 if a private patron, Harriet Shaw Weaver, hadn't given him thousands of pounds over a quarter of a century. Joyce was inefficient as hell. Ulysses is 265 000 words long, divided by 7 years, divided by 365 days - a little over 100 words per day.
“We have 26 post-secondary schools in Alberta,” says advanced education minister Thomas Lukaszuk, on the phone from Vietnam, where he’s volunteering to build playgrounds. “Each one is a virtuoso. But those 26 schools don’t play together. They don’t have a conductor.”
[skipped paragraph]
“Twenty-six schools. Why does each one need its own payroll department? Bureaucracy is repeated 26 times over.”
Here my earlier post about Universities and corporations is relevant. But I'd like to expand a little. The assumption Lukaszuk makes is all 26 payroll departments at all 26 schools do the same job and can, therefore, be centralized and amalgamated into a single payroll department. The next step is to take that department out of public hands and turn it over to a private corporation (with the ideologically presumed gain in efficiency). This is how the United States government handles its payroll - more accurately, the United States government pays Lockheed Martin to handle its payroll. But even a little thought about how those 26 different payroll departments actually operate demonstrates the problems with this logic. 26 different payroll departments means 26 groups of real people who you can call when the inevitable mistakes are made, 26 groups of people who have jobs and are putting food on the tables of all those families. The government is employing those people - although Universities are technically separate corporate entities - and the government wants to take those jobs away because it is more efficient.
Also, note each of the 26 schools has dozens of highly paid administrators, going all the way up to the President: here's a list of the highest paid university employees in Canada. Somehow I doubt the payroll officers are getting $500k per year.
You can't make a strictly economic argument against this kind of move. I'm sure the accountants have no doubts it makes sense economically. But you can make a political argument about it. I don't want my government to be more concerned with efficiency than with the lives of people. The extra expense of 26 different payroll departments is the tiniest fraction of Alberta's budget. Save the money in some way that doesn't mean cutting people's jobs in the name of efficiency.
You can also make a different argument about it, although I'm not sure what you would call it. These days people pursue efficiency as if it was an end in itself. Again, from a purely economic viewpoint, I guess it is. But the relentless pursuit of efficiency costs us all the benefits of inefficiency. In the broadest possible context, being human is extremely inefficient. We spend most of our time doing things that do not advance any particular cause or bring us closer to reaching a particular goal. Music is tremendously inefficient. So are painting, sculpture, poetry, dancing, having friends - all those things which are most important to us as humans. If the things you think are most important to you as a human aren't on that list, think a minute about whether they are efficient. I bet they aren't. I like playing with my nephew - a total waste of time.
There is also a kind of economic argument for inefficiency. Ontario is home to one of the most advanced research institutions in the world - the Perimeter Institute. You may have read in the news Stephen Hawking recently made it his base of operations, maybe Cambridge was too efficient for him. Anyway, one of the architects who designed the building described it as "a place where coffee is translated into theorems". Because of this insight the hallways between the offices are absolutely gorgeous - an attempt to increase the amount of time the various members of the Institute stand around chatting. Some of the most intelligent people in the world have a building specifically designed to help increase their performance, and the key is to keep them from "working".
By most lights, humans are ridiculously inefficient. We sleep one third of every day. We have to eat and excrete. We get very unhappy when we can't talk to other humans. The best possible thing any institution can do, from an economic perspective, is replace humans (either with other humans who get paid less or with automata). Why should you pay a person a living wage when a machine can do the job so much more efficiently? The only reason, and it is sufficient to the point of being self-evident, is we care about other humans. Or we ought to. We don't care about machines, except in the extremely limited way we care about possessions.
Being human means being inefficient.
There is also a classist factor to all arguments about efficiency - no one ever argues the people getting paid the most are inefficient, although I'm never very clear on what, precisely, they do. David Johnson, former President of the University of Waterloo, got paid more than $1 million to campaign for his current job - Governor General of Canada. I don't know what the GG does, but I know there is no efficiency expert breathing down his neck.
There are so many ways the drive for efficiency is having a negative effect on all our lives I can't possible list them all. It limits what we can buy, what we can eat. It changes what we read and what we watch.
There is a famous joke about James Joyce. Someone asked him what he did in the Great War. He replied, "I wrote Ulysses, what did you do?" He wasn't kidding. It took him seven years to write that fucker and he would never have been able to, despite various jobs he held between 1914 and 1921 if a private patron, Harriet Shaw Weaver, hadn't given him thousands of pounds over a quarter of a century. Joyce was inefficient as hell. Ulysses is 265 000 words long, divided by 7 years, divided by 365 days - a little over 100 words per day.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
On Criticism and Architecture
Here is an interesting piece by Allison Arieff from the NYT: Interesting Piece
I agree we need to think more about architecture and, obviously, more and better writing about architecture can only help that cause. Here example of critical prose is, unfortunately, right on the money. I used to be an avid consumer of architecture periodicals, now I can't stand to look at them. I complained to a Ph.D in architecture, "Architecture articles are bullshit." Her response was, "No. They aren't." Two highly trained critical minds and that was as far as we got on that issue.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of one brilliant designer who is also a brilliant writer - Rem Koolhaas. But it is important to note his best writing (Delirious New York) was based on a complete theoretical framework the book was intended to explain.
Architecture criticism is not going to improve until it is based on a clear and comprehensive theory of architecture - one that explains not only how buildings are to be designed but also why they are to be designed that way. The writings of the early Modernists are crystal clear because they understood what they were doing and why they were doing it. Robert Venturi wrote elegant and lyrical prose about post-Modern architecture because he had an idea what architects should be doing (and why). Too bad no one agreed with him (and the resulting architecture was terrible). But if you read Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture or Learning from Las Vegas you will see how knowing exactly where you stand is crucial to writing well.
We should not expect architecture criticism to improve without a clear and comprehensive theory of architecture. The best a critic can do is assume the critical position of the architect - and that means writing only about buildings whose architects possessed such a position. I could write about the Guggenheim in New York or the Whitney and do a passable job of it because I understand what Wright and Breuer thought architecture was, what it meant. I couldn't do the same for any building post 1975 - with the possible exception of the Guggenheim in Bilbao.
If someone asked me how to write architecture criticism, I would say ignore the theory entirely. Concentrate on the experience of the building. The Whitney, for example, has one of the best (and certainly the most menacing) entrance sequence of any building I know. It pulls itself away from the sidewalk, forcing you to cross a bridge to reach the doors while it looms over you. It's a fantastic sequence, beautifully choreographed. Tell me how you move in the building. Peter Zumthor's Thermal Baths in Vals is one of the most admired buildings in recent history but I didn't know you had to approach the bathing area through an underground tunnel until I looked at the plans myself. No one photographs that part because it's too dark. I don't know why no one wrote about it.
Leave the heavy thinking out of it. People don't think about buildings, they use them. Or pass through them. How does the building touch the street? How do you get in? How do you navigate once you are inside? The "architecture" part of a building is 45% facade and 45% lobby. Tell me about those things and you are 90% of the way there.
As for the really "important" buildings, the ones that are so strange they demand interpretation - huge skyscrapers, buildings with exotic sculptural structures - you could do worse than considering them as, and describing them like, people. Calatrava's buildings, for example, are drama queens everyone is going to get sick of fast.
I agree we need to think more about architecture and, obviously, more and better writing about architecture can only help that cause. Here example of critical prose is, unfortunately, right on the money. I used to be an avid consumer of architecture periodicals, now I can't stand to look at them. I complained to a Ph.D in architecture, "Architecture articles are bullshit." Her response was, "No. They aren't." Two highly trained critical minds and that was as far as we got on that issue.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of one brilliant designer who is also a brilliant writer - Rem Koolhaas. But it is important to note his best writing (Delirious New York) was based on a complete theoretical framework the book was intended to explain.
Architecture criticism is not going to improve until it is based on a clear and comprehensive theory of architecture - one that explains not only how buildings are to be designed but also why they are to be designed that way. The writings of the early Modernists are crystal clear because they understood what they were doing and why they were doing it. Robert Venturi wrote elegant and lyrical prose about post-Modern architecture because he had an idea what architects should be doing (and why). Too bad no one agreed with him (and the resulting architecture was terrible). But if you read Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture or Learning from Las Vegas you will see how knowing exactly where you stand is crucial to writing well.
We should not expect architecture criticism to improve without a clear and comprehensive theory of architecture. The best a critic can do is assume the critical position of the architect - and that means writing only about buildings whose architects possessed such a position. I could write about the Guggenheim in New York or the Whitney and do a passable job of it because I understand what Wright and Breuer thought architecture was, what it meant. I couldn't do the same for any building post 1975 - with the possible exception of the Guggenheim in Bilbao.
If someone asked me how to write architecture criticism, I would say ignore the theory entirely. Concentrate on the experience of the building. The Whitney, for example, has one of the best (and certainly the most menacing) entrance sequence of any building I know. It pulls itself away from the sidewalk, forcing you to cross a bridge to reach the doors while it looms over you. It's a fantastic sequence, beautifully choreographed. Tell me how you move in the building. Peter Zumthor's Thermal Baths in Vals is one of the most admired buildings in recent history but I didn't know you had to approach the bathing area through an underground tunnel until I looked at the plans myself. No one photographs that part because it's too dark. I don't know why no one wrote about it.
Leave the heavy thinking out of it. People don't think about buildings, they use them. Or pass through them. How does the building touch the street? How do you get in? How do you navigate once you are inside? The "architecture" part of a building is 45% facade and 45% lobby. Tell me about those things and you are 90% of the way there.
As for the really "important" buildings, the ones that are so strange they demand interpretation - huge skyscrapers, buildings with exotic sculptural structures - you could do worse than considering them as, and describing them like, people. Calatrava's buildings, for example, are drama queens everyone is going to get sick of fast.
Friday, March 8, 2013
On Helen Keller
"Life is either a great adventure or nothing."
- Helen Keller
I see this quote on FB frequently and it always makes me feel guilty. My life is certainly not a great adventure. I have not jumped off a cliff lately (either with a parachute or into water). I do not participate in extreme sports. I only leave my apartment when I am forced to by some necessity. Therefore, by HK's logic, my life is nothing. I'm not sure I would disagree with that but I might put it a little less forcefully.
But like all things that hang around in my brain long enough, I eventually got around to thinking about that quote. What kind of adventures did Helen Keller get up to? I doubt she was a para-glider, nor can I see her smuggling a secret code over enemy lines. I am not going to turn this into a cheap HK joke. Her disabilities (am I still allowed to call them that?) require me to reconsider my initial reaction to her eminently meme-ish sentence.
Life is either a great adventure [to you] or nothing [very exciting]. It isn't as punchy, I'll admit. But I think it is closer to what the sentence means. Read this way it is less an injunction to "Do something that scares you everyday" - another popular injunction for either self-improvement or selling running shoes - and more a suggestion about how one should consider one's life.
I generally mistrust famous quotes from famous people because extreme cases make bad laws and famous people are extreme cases by definition.
Here's another one: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." - M. Gandhi
I've always thought this quote was absolute bullshit. It makes no sense. And it is stupid, something Gandhi wasn't. How, precisely, is a single mother making $16k a year with two kids supposed to "be the change"? How are the millions of people living in desperate poverty supposed to "Be the change"?
What Gandhi actually said was:
"If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him... We need not wait to see what others do."
That's a much more nuanced view than Be The Change. It also makes sense. Maybe I should give HK more credit. Maybe the Life is... quote is nothing more than a fabrication deliberately meant to sell cars or shoes or the organic shopping experience.
- Helen Keller
I see this quote on FB frequently and it always makes me feel guilty. My life is certainly not a great adventure. I have not jumped off a cliff lately (either with a parachute or into water). I do not participate in extreme sports. I only leave my apartment when I am forced to by some necessity. Therefore, by HK's logic, my life is nothing. I'm not sure I would disagree with that but I might put it a little less forcefully.
But like all things that hang around in my brain long enough, I eventually got around to thinking about that quote. What kind of adventures did Helen Keller get up to? I doubt she was a para-glider, nor can I see her smuggling a secret code over enemy lines. I am not going to turn this into a cheap HK joke. Her disabilities (am I still allowed to call them that?) require me to reconsider my initial reaction to her eminently meme-ish sentence.
Life is either a great adventure [to you] or nothing [very exciting]. It isn't as punchy, I'll admit. But I think it is closer to what the sentence means. Read this way it is less an injunction to "Do something that scares you everyday" - another popular injunction for either self-improvement or selling running shoes - and more a suggestion about how one should consider one's life.
I generally mistrust famous quotes from famous people because extreme cases make bad laws and famous people are extreme cases by definition.
Here's another one: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." - M. Gandhi
I've always thought this quote was absolute bullshit. It makes no sense. And it is stupid, something Gandhi wasn't. How, precisely, is a single mother making $16k a year with two kids supposed to "be the change"? How are the millions of people living in desperate poverty supposed to "Be the change"?
What Gandhi actually said was:
"If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him... We need not wait to see what others do."
That's a much more nuanced view than Be The Change. It also makes sense. Maybe I should give HK more credit. Maybe the Life is... quote is nothing more than a fabrication deliberately meant to sell cars or shoes or the organic shopping experience.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
On Boats and Swoon
"One can't not be on a boat."
"I've frequently not been on boats."
- Tom Stoppard
This really has nothing to do with boats. I don't own a boat but I do know a lot of people who do. I don't know anything about how to work a boat or make it go - unless it has a motor (that makes it pretty simple).
There is an artist named Swoon (Google her, she's fantastic). Here are a couple images of her work.
One of her projects was to build a boat, which turned into a flotilla. From what I have read about it, the flotilla was a party on the water, making landfall when they wanted to convert the ships into stages and host concerts. A wicked wonderful idea. Then they somehow got the flotilla across the Atlantic and crashed the Venice Biennale - another wonderful idea. Seriously, Swoon is amazing. I have a huge crush on her.
Ever since I read about it I've wanted to try it. Cruising up to Venice in a crazy boat made of garbage and held together with baling wire while having a flotilla wide jam session. Sometimes people do really cool things. Swoon has a book, it's pretty good. The art is really great but the book, as an object, isn't so hot. Still, worth checking out. Here's the link to Amazon: Swoon's Book
"I've frequently not been on boats."
- Tom Stoppard
This really has nothing to do with boats. I don't own a boat but I do know a lot of people who do. I don't know anything about how to work a boat or make it go - unless it has a motor (that makes it pretty simple).
There is an artist named Swoon (Google her, she's fantastic). Here are a couple images of her work.
Ever since I read about it I've wanted to try it. Cruising up to Venice in a crazy boat made of garbage and held together with baling wire while having a flotilla wide jam session. Sometimes people do really cool things. Swoon has a book, it's pretty good. The art is really great but the book, as an object, isn't so hot. Still, worth checking out. Here's the link to Amazon: Swoon's Book
Piblokto Madness
The Piblokto Madness bed, Inchmale called it. “Intense hysteria,” she
recited now, from memory, “depression, coprophagia, insensitivity to
cold, echolalia.”
- William Gibson, Zero History (2010)
There are instructions available online if you wish to make your own shiny mud ball but be forewarned, the process is time consuming. These objects are the result of an obsession. And I think Murakami's work is obsessional as well - he is reworking his own life, over and over. His obsession is with those parts of his life that lack a coherent narrative. How, for instance, does a person fall in love? This is an enormously important event in an individual's life! So why do we insist it just happens - as if it was the most mundane occurrence.
- William Gibson, Zero History (2010)
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Something. Day after
day you watch the sun rise in the east, pass across the sky, then sink in the
west, and something breaks inside you and dies. You throw your plough aside
and, your head completely empty of thought, you begin walking toward the west. Heading
toward a land that lies west of the sun. Like someone possessed, you walk on,
day after day, not eating or drinking, until you collapse on the ground and
die. That’s hysteria siberiana.”
I tried to conjure up the picture of a Siberian
farmer lying dead on the ground.
- Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun (1999)
According to Wikipedia, Piblokto Madness and Hysteria siberiana are the same disorder. If you Google hysteria siberiana all you get is references to Murakami and the Wikipedia article identifying it as Piblokto. I'm going to take a guess here and say Gibson did exactly what I did - read about this strange disorder in Murakami's book, Googled it, and then started reading about Piblokto. Then he went on to write a really good book in which includes this strange disorder, something I didn't do.
Gibson is fascinated by Japan and Japanese culture. He has written some pretty good essays on Japan, collected in 2012's Distrust That Particular Flavor. It includes pieces on Beat Takeshi, Hikaru Dorodango (shiny balls of mud), Japanese culture in the late 20th Century, and his experience of Tokyo. I can't recall Gibson writing specifically about Murakami but I wouldn't be surprised if he was a fan.
I like Murakami too. I don't know many people who know of Murakami and don't like his work. I think many of them would be hard pressed to say why they liked it. I know I have trouble articulating the reasons. It is easier to articulate what is wrong with Murakami's work - the books are too similar, they have no clear meaning and often lack conclusions, they are sometimes (like 1Q84) about 1000 pages too long.
I taught A Wild Sheep Chase and was forced to admit I had no idea what anything in the book meant, I just really liked it. The students and I decided to attack the book by making a list of things we didn't understand and then spent three hours trying to connect them. The clearest conclusion anyone managed was the student who offered the opinion the book itself was the wild sheep chase. I thought the class was a disaster but when I asked them at the end of the term, that class was the clear favorite of the majority of students.
If I was forced (as I am here forcing myself) to explain why I like Murakami so much, I would say it has something to do with Hikaru Dorodango. Here is an example:
Murakami's protagonists face the world in all its complexity. They are frequently amazed how much of their lives just happens. They are sometimes treated to a glimpse of the mechanisms by which things just happen. And the reader is sometimes provided with the characters' incomplete attempts to explain their own lives. Which makes Murakami a bitch to read - how much is really happening (should the reader interpret as actually occurring to the character), how much is the character's imaginings, when are bizarre events real, when are they just (?) the characters imagination, when is Murakami (as author) leading the reader astray?
Despite the odd events in many Murakami books (Sheepman, for example) I take his work to be almost exclusively interested in, and dedicated to, "real" life. That is, life as it occurs not just to Murakami or his characters but to all of us. And I take the inclusion of magical elements as a reminder (or possibly an admonition) that life is magical - not in the fake-guru "listen to your heartbeat" bullshit magic way but in the sense of massive complexity and continuous random events producing a world we can nevertheless navigate, all the while maintaining an internal monologue that is neither real nor unreal. It might not be magic literally (not like making a bird fly out of your sleeve). That something so incomprehensibly bizarre in every detail should produce something marginally comprehensible in toto is magical. That is what I find in Murakami's work and why I only read it when I am relatively certain of the ground under my feet.
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