Try looking at it a different way . . .
From an email tonight about why it's easier to be a lawyer in private practice than an academic:
[I]t's easier to force yourself to be a prostitute than a nympho. A prostitute doesn't have to enjoy the work. Scholarship doesn't have limits determined by practicality, so to really do it well you have to love it.
Labels: composition fatigue, MWR: weaver of metaphor, scenes from my outbox
Here's a new one
If you know me rather well, you may know that I think that "no shoes in the house" policies are, well, at odds with the first duty of a host. But it's the first duty of the guest to keep such views to oneself.
Here's a new one: I was just invited to a shoeless garden party.
"NOTE: we'll be shoeless in the backyard, so if you MUST wear socks with your sandals make sure they don't have holes."
Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted to be invited to the social event of the season. However, I was involved in an online chat when the invite came in, and I've been a little lean on the material front since The Most Qualified Candidate in Our History dropped out and I got busy on a deal . . . so I'll present a lightly edited transcript. All in good fun, of course, since the guest of honor reads this blog.
10:16 PM me: no shoes outdoors
fucking unbelievable
that's what reminded me of the [story about persnickety person], go figure
10:17 PM MVS: HA HA
are you upset to be outside with no shoes on?
10:18 PM me: I think anyone who's ever stepped on a bee would be a little shaken up by this dangerous and irrational "house rule"
MVS: i have stepped on a bee and more than my share of nails
but...
10:19 PM i don't mind being barefoot
10:20 PM me: I don't think even the Franco regime had rules like that.
10:22 PM I'm struggling to get my imagination around a scenario where you would offer up your fragile back-yard ecosystem for a big bash and then mitigate the damage with a no-shoes policy.
Most people with no-shoes policies are worried about dirt.
However, yards and dirt are closely linked.
10:23 PM Perhaps they are worried about an insidious form of dirt theft, topsoil being tracked away.
10:24 PM MVS: or maybe they have some new grass that will feel really nice and soft under your feet
me: Well, one hopes.
10:25 PM But that gets back to my "don't volunteer your yard if it's that wimpy grass." issue
10:27 PM me: Shoe-free garden party.
10:30 PM MVS: Tip Toe Through the Tulips
me: Have you ever tried tiptoeing with no shoes on?
10:31 PM It might be hard.
10:32 PM But maybe not.
Maybe it's a really big yard and people will be sneaking up on one another all the time!
With any luck the completely rational explanation will show up in the comments before too long and we will all learn something.
EDITED TO ADD: I was just rereading the bit about socks and sandals. It can't possibly be that shoes are banned and sandals are allowed, right? Because that would be totally irrational . . . right? But it seems to suggest that if you want to come in goofball attire, you can. I am more confused than ever.
Labels: bottled water and other extremely weird things we consider "normal", composition fatigue, Only in Don't Trust Snakes
Spitzer notes
Item 1I was thinking about my amazement that the wives get up and stand next to them when these sorts of stories break . . . then I realized that we are flirting with nominating a wife who not only stood up, but actively participated in the cover-ups and lying smear campaigns.
Item 2Google Chat snippet:
me: I'm also reminded of something [college girlfriend] said one time years ago, that I thought so amusing I wrote it down somewhere.
"What's wrong with masturbation? Why does there always have to be some gross other person there?"
I think the Lt. Gov. used to be my state rep in NY.
mvs: he he
me: Everyone is starting to make my point from last week about Obama not being qualified to be president, but great for VP
mvs: yes
you are the cutting edge
me: bleeding
me: I just wish someone like Spitzer, anyone, would ever say "I did it because I thought I wouldn't get caught"
mvs: that would be so cool
me: I know, right?
serious necktie crime on AC 360 at this moment
mvs: i am not near the tv
me: not to worry
mvs: it can't be AC committing the crime
me: no
guest
mvs: and its not Jeffery Toobin
he's on vacation
me: no
me: guest says maybe it's all b/c ES can't (emotionally) go to his wife and say "I need a hug"
It did not seem that "hug" was being used euphemistically.
Although that might have been a better explanatory framework.
mvs: he he
me: No one seems to have picked up on the fact that he had to ask the service/madam to remind him what the girl looked like.
When they were pondering whether he had done this more than once.
mvs: OF COURSE HE DID IT MORE THAN ONCE
me: No shit
mvs: you don't spend $4300 on an evening until you know what that gets you
me: good point
excellent point!!!!
Labels: composition fatigue
Magic Perm kicks ass!
I'm suddenly incredibly tired of both of them. Oh, but I've been tired of her for 15 years.
Labels: 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, composition fatigue, Hillary Clinton
Caucus report
I will give my report on the Democratic Party caucus by pasting below the email I just sent to my parents about it. Seems easier.
What caucuses have over primaries besides someone in the party establishment a year ago thinking they could deliver for Hillary is beyond me. We had two large precincts on two sides of an elementary school cafeteria, at times talking over one another. I got there at about 12:45 and they were checking people in past 1:30. Of course it did not occur to me to bring my Kindle, so I chatted with a few people. One guy, undecided on Thursday, had gone to both candidates' rallies and was now very much in the Obama camp. An older guy, Clinton supporter, explained how Hillary had been sandbagged (my shorthand) on her 1993 health reform plan, with different constituencies indicating they were on board and then bailing, running "Harry and Louise" ads, voting against it in the Senate, etc. Not sure how many historians would remember it that way. I told him it had certainly been a credit to Bill's political skills that the failure got laid at Hillary's doorstep
On signing in, everyone indicated a candidate preference. It was announced that we had 150 exactly and there were 114 for Obama, 31 for Hillary, 1 for Dennis the Elf Boy (who has dropped out) and four undecided, representing six delegates for Obama and two for Hillary. Then it was time for speeches. For Hillary, a thirty-something guy in a Hillary T-shirt. Announces that he's *with the campaign* (hello, neighbor) and had been at the Nevada caucuses as well. Stressed the "ready on day one" angle. As his example of what drew him to Hillary, cited the fact that she had spearheaded a movement to build Arkansas's first children's hospital right after becoming First Lady of Arkansas (which would have been more than 20 years ago). Pretty weak, I thought. For Obama, I thought the mild mannered guy checking people in was going to call for volunteers, but he nominated himself. Mild-mannered guy, mid to late 60s. Says that 40 years ago in May 1968 he went to a packed Hec Ed [Hec Edmundson Pavilion, the University of Washington basketball arena] and heard the best political speech he'd ever heard (producing a paper grocery bag and, from it, an iconic RFK photo/flyer in clear plastic—which told us he got that day almost 40 years ago) . . . the best speech, he means, until yesterday at Key Arena. And he can see why Ted and Caroline are for Obama, because "he's got it." Says RFK would easily have defeated Nixon, and then ended the war. Refutes the ready on day one thing with, I think, a war vote reference. Refutes the experience thing with a Lincoln parallel. Much better presentation. Also, he noted that his first caucus in this precinct was in 1980 when a total of 20 or 50 (I forget which) showed up to choose between Carter and Ted Kennedy (hello neighbor).
That was the most interesting part. I think three of the uncommitteds went over to Obama, which didn't change the proportional split. Then there was a chaotic process to elect eight delegates and eight alternates for the next stage in the nominating process, at the congressional district level, I think. It was very hard to figure out what kind of paper ballot process they were aiming to run for that, but then the willing participants culled and sorted themselves into six and six so no balloting was required. Elapsed time for me start to finish was just under two hours.
Labels: 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, composition fatigue, Hillary Clinton, scenes from my outbox
"I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed."
There are some real gems
here.
The merest sampling:
"In my opinion, if an animal in the wild like a swan is caught being gay it should be shot on sight, disinfected, and used to feed the poor."
"I propose that sports greatly hinders the development of godly, Biblical, feminine character. Parents today expend extraordinary amounts of time and energy taking their daughters from one sports event to another, week after week, even to the point where it exhausts the family and family resources. The fruits we see are that today’s Christian women are often ill-prepared to be Biblically obedient wives and mothers."
"The only reedeming feature about these neo anti-Christians is that there are so few of them and, hence, easily annihilable."
"Most afflictions like this are caused by sins committed while still inside the womb."
"All any terrorist has to do is drop large quantities of plutonium from airplanes onto American soil and it will render electricity completely useless."
It's hard to use electricity when you're busy dying unspeakably.
Labels: composition fatigue, religion
Holiday cards
Just a few random thoughts about holiday cards:
- You should make the effort to send them.
- If you don't send them, don't offer some lame justification like "I'm too busy" or "every year I mean to send them".
- Holiday cards are small gifts.
- Small gifts may or may not be reciprocated.
- Gifts should be special, not perfunctory.
- Gifts should have a personal touch.
- Gifts should not be all about the giver(s).
- Have a few people on your list whom you may never see or speak to again for the rest of your life.
- Ballpoint? Really?
Labels: composition fatigue, if only they would listen to MWR
Mitt Romney sez . . .
"Don't ask, don't tell."
Labels: 2008 presidential campaign, composition fatigue, religion
Ah, other people, bless 'em . . . where do they get such fanciful, wrong ideas?
I was thinking about writing some long thoughtful (myopic) what-passes-for-introspection piece about the odd, counterfactual notions even close friends can come up with about our characters . . . but I'm not sure I'm up for it. I'm not sure why I care much, except that I can't get past the notion that I should be able to control what people think of me, generally, and when it should matter what they think of me. I'm not sure I'm ready to put the misapprehensions of other people into Niebuhr's category of things I cannot change, but that would make for an interesting paradigm shift. As it is, if someone's perception of me differs very much from mine, I typically view it as a correctable misunderstanding
Anyway, anyone who really thinks I'm impatient, opinionated and arrogant should really consult a good dictionary . . . or should have known me in the eighth grade.
Labels: composition fatigue, INTP, what passes for introspection
Be careful what you wish for
From: "BraggFrom: "Bragg , Martina"
To: t.lupton@gmail.com
Cc: dphillips43@gmail.com, lamassonne@gmail.com, psaraki@gmail.com, [MWR], deenasuprema@gmail.com, aureasantos@gmail.com, matthewnewsome@gmail.com, inteligenci@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:37:39 -0500
Subject: RE:
With Penis Enlarge Patch your penis will turn from a mini hotdog sausage to a maxi one.
http://www.moskiv.net/Labels: composition fatigue
Collecting vs. accumulating
Thanks to a dear friend and her free-spending ways in silent auctions, I got a chance this afternoon to tour Dale Chihuly's "boathouse" on Lake Union. I took some potentially good photos that I'll likely post sometime next week (that bothersome film thing again, I'm afraid). If I'm not mistaken, most of the really serious glassblowing takes place elsewhere; much of the tour was about seeing the over-the-top amount of
cool stuff that Chihuly has collected, such as
Pendleton Indian blankets, of which I think our guide said he had more than the Pendleton company itself. Sadly, there was no opportunity for me to steal Fizzy Lifting Drinks.
I've been meaning recently to do a little entry here about the difference between collecting things and the kind of accumulation I am capable of, and since that very topic came up in an email with the always provocative CLD this afternoon, I figure I'll just present a lightly-edited version of that rather than reinvent the wheel (a workmanlike planing job is probably in order for this wheel, but I only do entries like this when I'm feeling lazy, so that's not going to happen right now).
———MWR: The Chihuly tour was very cool. I shot a couple of rolls of slides. It's not really about seeing them make the glass. It's about seeing some of the quarters they have over there, the swimming pool with glass on the bottom, the aquarium, the huge long room with the giant slab table made from a single slab of old-growth trunk, all his collections (800 vintage Pendleton Indian blankets, etc., etc. It's almost excessive. There is something very alien to me about the impulse of collecting. My impulse is much more one of having things I like around, which sometimes entails accumulation and accretion, but I never have a collection or "completist" mentality. On the other hand, more money equals more cool stuff to some point, and how can any of us say where it would end with unlimited resources?
CLD: I think you have the collector's impulse... think about your cookbooks (and your expensive NYC ties!) I don't see much difference between someone who likes to read/collect cookbooks and someone who has more money and chooses instead to collect vintage blankets. Am I missing something here?
MWR: I think I'm going to have to do a blog entry about my distinctions between accumulation and collecting. I think they are real and meaningful. Most basically, I think, there is a real difference between the collector—who places some psychic value on the collection, its value, its completeness, its rarity, the search for the next things in it, etc., etc.—and someone who just tends to accumulate things he enjoys. If you look at the things I have in excess—neckties, cookbooks, fragrances, fountain pens, cameras, etc.—I acquired them following a purchase psychology that is not much different than what I, and most others, apply when deciding on what day-to-day purchases to make. I value things idiosyncratically, and see important distinctions in kind where others just see two blue ties, two vetiver fragrances, two old cameras, etc., but my ideas about utility are pretty normal. I don't buy things I don't expect to use and I have pretty normal ideas of diminishing marginal utility. I would be glad to have a black Nikon F2AS or a silver Leica M5, but because I have each camera in the other color, getting a second cosmetically different one is WAY down on my list. It would be high on a true collector's list.
My cameras, even though I have about [
WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?], really DO all do different things, and the differences are significant in my use. With neckties, accumulation comes at first from building a wardrobe, later from changing taste and from having buying a tie as a form of retail therapy at times over the years. My tastes never would change enough to suggest I get rid of what I already had (and it is an INTP trait to think that if something has interested you, it will always interest you and should be kept around—again, accumulation is the result). I almost never buy cookbooks anymore. Much of the cookbook buying was really about building a library, which I think is very distinct from collecting. If six cookbooks come out every year that I think should be in my library, well, when I start out there are quite a few years to catch up on. I always chose my cookbooks with a lot of care and I saw each of them as an individual object/item rather than "another cookbook". Someone with no interest in cooking—or French cooking, or New York City—might not understand why I needed a book by Andre Soltner if I already had one by Jacques Pepin or whomever, but to me they are not the same at all. And, by the same token, I had exactly zero interest in well over 90% of the cookbooks out there. A cookbook really needed to be "in my wheelhouse" to get my attention even in my heyday.
Accumulation is also somewhat self-limiting if you have normal ideas of diminishing marginal utility. Sometimes it's necessary to learn what your utility curve is for some genus of interest, but it does become clear. I tend to get more and more selective and eventually stop accumulating things when it is obvious that new additions just aren't going to see any use. A collector would continue acquiring items even if they would see no use. In most cases, the experience gained from using the accumulated items gives me a lot more wisdom about utility than I had at the start of my interest in whatever. I could probably deaccession half of every accumulated type of stuff with almost no practical hardship to how I use this stuff ("obviously," you say ;)). There's no way to do that
ex ante. I wouldn't be happy to get rid of half my camera equipment, but I could tell you almost to the item what 50% I would keep in order to be able to do 90% of what I can do with all of it. A collector, though, would be traumatized.
Collectors often display or showcase their collections, which I don't do (except as necessitated by limited storage space, or if they are good decor items). Many collectors are "completists" who would like to have a complete set of whatever, or multiple complete sets, or a complete set in mint condition, or a complete set mint in box, or shrink-wrapped, or with the original receipts intact, etc., etc. This kind of behavior really shows that fundamentally different notions of utility are at work. It's more like the satisfaction an OCD person gets from his or her little rituals. Mine is more like the satisfaction of having a valued book at my fingertips, or the right knife for the job, or whatever.
Your point about money is well taken. If I had a ton of money, my indifference curve would be such that, sure, why not pick up a black F2AS and a chrome M5. But it would take quite an interest in blankets for me to assemble 800 of them. I think if you had tons of resources, you might start to see things in a different way, because if you had some idiosyncratic interest or appreciation for something not in, or yet in, the mainstream, you really could envision building a collection that would have real, objective value later on, more than the sum of its parts. Maybe I would want to develop the most complete chronological collection of spiders preserved in amber, which future generations of students at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology would revere as the "MWR Collection of Spiders in Amber". But it's hard to project something like that with any certainty. And then I think the impulse would be more curatorship than collection, and I think there is a difference there too.
Labels: composition fatigue, INTP, scenes from my outbox, what passes for introspection
You're in good hands with MWR
From an email exchange today on the general subject of quizzing your potential mates about their relationship histories . . .
CLD: [E]ven with that background, you could be a serial rapist into kinky unprotected sex. Your "pedigree" really doesn't tell a potential date much...
MWR: My reaction to someone who could spend any amount of time with me and think either of those things (or is it just one thing?) would be to laugh. It's like if someone wanted to make sure I wasn't secretly married or something and trolling the internet dating world. I'm sorry, if I were secretly married (or secretly gay, or a serial rapist, or pretty much you name it that nervous types worry about), IS THIS REALLY THE PERSONA I WOULD BE ADOPTING IN MY SEARCH FOR "FRESH MEAT"? It seems unlikely.
Please note that I very certainly DID NOT use the word "pedigree" in reference to myself. That's about as classy as signing "Esq." after your name.
Labels: composition fatigue, scenes from my outbox
The soundtrack of your life meme
Here's a cute little exercise I ran across at random. The instructions:
"Here is the deal.
Set your iTunes etc. to "Party Shuffle," "Random" or whatever the appropriate setting is, refresh it then fill in the form below.
No cheating, just do it, yes that includes you . . . none of this 'I ain't doin' it' bullshit.
You may be surprised how scarily accurate this can be."
Here is mine.
(Copy and paste then delete my answers and fill in yours).
Title: "Closing Time" - Leonard Cohen
Opening Credits: "Natural Mystic" - Bob Marley and the Wailers
Waking up: "Time" - David Bowie
First Day of school: "The Stranger Song" - Leonard Cohen
Falling in Love: "Regatta de Blanc" - The Police
Fight Song: "Big Time" - Peter Gabriel
Breaking Up: "Down in the Flood" - The Band
Prom/First date: "Moodswing Whiskey" - Jeff Buckley
Life: "Groovin'" - Eddie & David Brigati (New York Rock and Soul Revue)
Mental Breakdown: "Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me" - Mose Allison
Driving: "I'm Leaving You" - Ry Cooder
Flashback: "Principessa" - Steve Vai
Getting Back Together: "Golden Slumbers" - The Beatles
Wedding: "The Man That Got Away" - Jeff Buckley
Birth of Child: "Tsunami" - Res
Final Battle: "Sun King" - The Beatles
Death Scene: "Kind Hearted Woman Blues" - Eric Clapton (Robert Johnson)
Funeral Song: "The Bewlay Brothers" - David Bowie
End Credits: "Teach Me Tonight" - Sarah Vaughan
Comments:
- Your friends' Leonard Cohen albums are not Mount Everest—there is no need to upload them just because they are there.
- Leonard Cohen may only have one good song. Remarkably, it made my soundtrack . . . .
- But I don't get shot to death in a snowstorm on my first day of school.
- I need to listen to more of the music on my iPod . . . .
- Or perhaps not.
- Keep in mind that I have more than 6000 songs on there. I'm not sitting around all day listening to Leonard Cohen and Jeff Buckley.
- If I had fallen in love in E.O. Wilson's evolutionary biology course freshman year, this would really be something.
- I love that despite the overwrought interludes, my "life" theme is still "Groovin'".
- We will be having extra folding chairs at the wedding for all the brokenhearted women. Yep.
Labels: composition fatigue, memes
10 random things it could perhaps benefit you to know about—an unannotated list
Submitted for your approval . . . and your Google:
- vetiver
- carnaroli
- Father Ted
- the benriner
- Five Fingers
- muhammara
- Philosykos
- the secret room just off the butler's pantry
- the MAC usuba
- the pleasantness of Italian parsley and dill in green salads
Labels: composition fatigue
