Achewood really has the perfect coda to Michael Jackson: The old guy interrupts the middle-aged guys to explain their grief to them. “He was your Elvis,” he says, “and when your Elvis dies, so does the private lie that someday you will be young once again, and feel at capricious intervals the weightlessness of a joy that is unchecked by the injuries of experience and failure…. In other words, you died a bit today. Welcome to the only game in town.”
It reminds me of Neal Stephenson on being under 25 - his assertion that youth comes with the delusion that you could, if necessary, become totally badass. And growing up requires acknowledging that you’re not going to be what you once thought you could.
Michael Jackson never grew up, never acknowledged that he was never going to become perfect. He knew it, of course - who other than someone fleeing adult responsibility names his house “Neverland?” But still, some days, I wish I could avoid growing up too. I guess we all do.
But no: I’m never going to be a race-car driver, ninja, astronaut, poet, novelist, or public intellectual. Those aren’t really in the cards. What I am going to be - technical writer, marketer, blogger, husband, citizen, adequate gardener, affable dinner-party host - is just going to have to be enough.
I only hope that truly growing up doesn’t mean being forced to face the fact that even those diminished dreams are not feasible, or not capable of redeeming me.
I grew up with those songs. But I am not touched by the death of the singer. Others are, and who am I to disparage their emotion, especially if they acknowledge the emotion is strange or illogical.
He commented that drought isn’t necessarily a specific low level of water - just less than you use. Obviously New Englanders could use a lot less water than they do, but they’re used to not having to worry about it, so they don’t. And then they run out.
Other Southwesterners are likely to be a little less sympathetic. For example, this water-blogger in Tuscon just seems surprised that there aren’t any of the usual water-use policies that everyone’s familiar with in Arizona. I guess those rain-rich New Englanders will have to act like reasonable human beings instead of profligate wastrels. It kind of reminds me of the people who comment on financial articles illustrating families who run into financial trouble even when they make a lot of money.
It’s easy: Just spend more than your income.
Same with water: Don’t pay attention, and you’ll wreck everything.
But I sent one today, to Fred Dekow, M.D., the Associate Medical Director of the Physician Review Unit at Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA:
Fred -
I got your letter today indicating that my fiancee’s emergency appendectomy was probably, but not definitely, covered by her insurance. Thank you for letting us know.
Your letter reminded me of a joke about three medical professionals awaiting entrance to heaven. The first, a surgeon, tells St. Peter that he knows he’s led an imperfect life, but that his service to humanity as a physician and healer merits him some kind of reward. Peter agrees and lets him in. The second, a hospital director, tells St. Peter that he wanted to help people but was afraid of blood, so he went into a field that allowed him to make sure the supplies and staff that did the healing were available at the right time and in the right place. St. Peter says he’s done a reasonable job and lets him pass.
The third is an insurance company executive. He tells St. Peter that his salvation-worthy accomplishment was preventing unnecessary medical care, thereby lowering medical costs and making treatment available to more people. St. Peter says, well, you can come in, but you can only stay for 36 hours. After that, you know where to go.
I’ve been reading a galley of the upcoming book Cheap by Ellen Ruppel Shell, and it’s got me thinking about marketing practices a lot. I don’t agree with all of Shell’s conclusions - she seems to think that discounting and production efficiency is a zero-sum game, for example. But she definitely has keen insight into the psychology of discounting, building on studies of irrational behavior by people like Dan Ariely (whose book I also enjoyed).
At first I didn’t really believe what she was saying about how even savvy consumers are easily duped by the appeal of Bargain Prices, even when it’s not in our best interest. Merchants, she says, override our logical behavior at times of emotional stress, appealing to our irrational desires with discounts from arbitrary reference prices, a sense of urgency, and a feeling of participation in something special. Well, obviously that’s true for some people, but I’m no dummy, and I’m resistant to that kind of trick. Right?
Well, last week, while Bookdwarf was in the hospital having her appendix removed, I got an email from my local wine merchant announcing that Facebook fans would get an exclusive early peek at their best value ever, a heavy discount on a stellar bottle of wine that would be available for one day only. It turned out to be a good value indeed: A $10 bottle on sale for $4 if you bought a case. I did buy a case. Maybe because I was under emotional stress, but mostly because I thought I was saving a bundle, I ordered an extra $100 worth of other stuff I didn’t need. After all, it was also on sale, just not as much. The discounted wine turned out to be pretty good, but I was still unsettled by how effectively the direct-marketing specials plucked at my wallet-strings.
I got another email today that illustrates just how timely Shell’s book is, this one from a market research group, analyzing the ways that different groups of people have responded to the recession. One label in particular caught my eye: “The Ostrich behavior is self-explanatory and irrational. At 9% of the population, they feel unaffected by the financial chill are spending as normally. Some of them are well paid enough to get away with this, but the bulk of this group are in denial… This group is a double edged sword for businesses. In the short term, they’re great for the bottom line, but in the long run, many of them may be forced to raise their heads and lower their spending as the crisis catches up with them.”
Newscasts plus Auto-Tune plus some inspired silliness equals… club-worthy rhymes about how the Supreme Court really does need another female voice. It’s at least as danceable as, and significantly more informative than, the top-40 hot R&B hits about having the number 1 ring-tone.
From the NYT on tattoo history: “The red star trademark of Macy’s department store, we learn, might well have evolved from the tattoo that the store’s founder, Rowland Macy, had on his arm when he sailed on a whaling ship.”
The word bombora is an Australian aboriginal term for places where big, big waves break over offshore rocks. Bomboras represent a navigation hazard and an awesome surfing challenge. (Learned this reading Breath, by Tim Winton, a story of risk, death, coming-of-age, and the origins of big-wave surfing.
(Please note: This is a motorcycle geek post. If you don’t care, skip it).
A lot of people dislike the rules of the relatively new Daytona Sportbike class in AMA racing, feeling that it gives an unfair advantage to Buell. After all, the Japanese and British manufacturers are running bikes with around 600 cubic centimeter engines, and the Americans and Italians are running literbikes. And as we all know, there’s no replacement for displacement.
Well, that’s the whole point of Daytona Sportbike, to my mind: There is a replacement, and it’s a combination of more revolutions per minute, lighter weight, and better handling. Buell riders do seem to have a real advantage on the straightaways, but on a curvier track, the Japanese bikes definitely outmaneuver them. And that’s what I really find interesting about the class and about its rules - the way it pits bulk against agility.
You can make a variety of arguments for and against different portions of the rules, and I don’t doubt that they’ll need further tweaking as the bikes develop and the races continue. But on the whole, the Daytona Sportbike class seems to be providing entertaining racing and plenty of fodder for ongoing trash-talking between fans of liter-class and mid-weight sportbikes.
