Of iPhones and Cultural Signaling

I'm writing this piece while riding the subway in a different country. Two Indian girls are sitting next to me looking over my left shoulder. Generally, I'd get annoyed but their curiosity is childhood-informed, innocent. In this setting, I don't mind that they have access, albeit limited, to my computer.

The democratization of the internet medium and the flourishing of Web 2.0 have turned online users into potential powerhouses. As my friend Polly noted to me a few days ago in a conversation we had over text messaging, Web 2.0 has enabled average users to a degree never before seen and the reason behind its boom is the immediacy factor. If you have an idea, you can publish it. Granted, some get more traffic than others, but anyone can publish if one so chooses. Naturally, it's also tough to find quality out there as a lot of qualitatively questionable material manages to creep in. Ergo, being able to discern quality is yet another sign of cognitive and experiential maturity.

Julian Sanches asks some interesting questions about the future of cultural signaling and how it informs/relates to sociality and privacy. Obviously, the lines between virtuality and reality are getting blurrier by the day and I'm not even sure that phrases like 'word of mouth' can quite manage to maintain the kind of literal meaning they once did. 'Word of mouth' in this day and age could easily be a text message, a news feed, a 'poke', forwarded email, a recommendation from an iPhone app user to another, and on and on.

Of course, information is out there for the taking and fabulous advancements in technology have expedited the birth of so many incredible applications. And I love so many of them. I rely on many of them daily. For instance, as an iPhone user, I find myself loudly praising its many applications which seem to do everything for me but the dishes and picking of the mail. However, I can't help but think of the private/public lines. I often talk about this in other projects of mine as well as my podcasts and the question I always ask is how do users know when enough information is enough/appropriate?

One of my closest friends sent me a gripping email in which he said that he had run across a personal site of one of his former college flames and despite his many temptations to read through it, out of respect for the person and their privacy, he chose not to.

"It was tough, dude. I really, really wanted to but then I didn't. Somehow, in hindsight, I feel more adult, though."- he writes. He continued to explain that he did so not because he is so much more self-controlled than most or because he suffered a hit of sainthood, (as I tend to say when joking about certain acts of kindness), but because he felt discomfort at the thought of other people out there potentially expressing an interest in his own life and routine when it's none of their business. He ended the email by saying, "...lurkers annoy the crap out of me so I wasn't about to turn into one myself."

Not being able to escape hints of condescension and a small dosage of self-righteousness I said what I've caught myself say a few other times: "There's a reason you're my pal."

Very soon Smart phone users will have access to fellow Smart phone users wherever they happen to find themselves and without knowing the first thing about them, they'll have access to their iPods selections, their most favorite apps and so forth. As much as I like technology, I find this access a tad privacy-evading. Of course, this does not mean that I don't wonder sometimes about what kinds of music people around me are listening to on their iPods, especially if I've already grown tired of my selections.

If I had a dime every time I've rolled my eyes when I hear things like, 'yeah, I know so-and-so, I friended them on MySpace and I read their blog.' Or, 'I know we'll hit it off. We have the same taste in music. I read it in your profile,' I'd have unlimited access to Starbucks. Online communication tends to render one's sight slightly off-focus when it comes to evaluating the true nature/essence of things. It is rather difficult to 'size one up' outside physical reality. As a result, intimacies based on delusion are more easily spawned in virtuality.

Consider what Sanches writes below. The question he raises at the very end is congruent with the questions I've been pondering as well.

"We’re at most a few years off from broad adoption of augmented reality applications in widely-used smartphones, which will have all of us radiating reams of data to anyone in our physical proximity who actually cares. Your Facebook profile will dog you like one of those floating Sims icons. You won’t just know what the girl sitting across the coffee shop is blasting on her iPod, you’ll be able to listen in. All the tech is actually here already, if not in quite the fancy form it’s implemented at the link above. All it would take is for someone to integrate the location-sensitive functions of an app like Loopt into the apps for Facebook or Last.fm, and you’ve got a point-and-profile system. The real question is whether people actually want to signal that much in the physical context. Some of us are chary of giving every stranger in ping-shot a pretext for striking up a conversation."

In sum, just because one has so much access to others' selections, doesn't mean that one place one's self in one's virtual space without being conscious of appropriate boundaries. Or, as a favorite reply sums it up:

"Yes, your iTunes library is comparable to mine and we both like Curtis Hanson, however, interest is still a missing ingredient."

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graph per brisbanetimes

Puns to Ponder

Tip of the hat to Chris for the pointer. He and I have such a great time together playing with language. I thought I'd share with you all what he just sent my way.

Enjoy. And as a medievalist, my very favorite would have to be number one.

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'

13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

15. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

16. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran

17. A backward poet writes inverse.

18. In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.

19. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

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Yoga, Moksha, H2O

A few years ago I got into yoga.
This is about as far away from my hyperactive nature as it gets.
For someone who lives the motto agito ergo sum, yoga is a bit of a stretch. But, I thought it was time to conquer it.
Right.
Such a thing to say for a hyperactive.
A lot of the people in my circle were practicing it so in an effort to put an end to their solicitations, I gave in.

The first time I went to class I remember having this strong urge to look at my watch, check my text messages, and be on my computer which is basically as far away from a yoga frame of mind as it gets. Then, towards the end of class I remember wishing to be there a little longer. I can sort out my daily problems better lying on the mat here. Hmm.
Naturally, I went back.
We were doing yoga daily, or nightly, I should say. Incidentally, those of you who have trouble sleeping, might consider taking up yoga and more importantly, practicing it night.

Then, I switched to another workout routine after I found myself in a new setting. I thought I'd give massages and yoga classes a rest as I was sure not to find another Heather or Scott, (respectively, my masseusse and yoga teacher) in my new setting. I'm a loyal type of gal, I suppose. Or 'loyalty by convenience' as the person calls it.

The new workout regimen now consisted of what seemed to be more congruent with my nature: fast cardio, in other words. The routine consists of weight-lifting, swimming, and biking.

The body has been asking for a change, however. Ergo, in an effort to acquiesce its request, I took up yoga again. This time around I switched it up a bit, however.
I went for Moksha.

Well, I tried, at least.
The Moksha class takes place in a very hot setting. Moksha means "to release." It's the liberation from samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth or reincarnation and the sum of the suffering and limitation of existence. That's a paraphrasing of what it means, anyway.

I don't think I've perspired that much since the day I challenged a friend of mine to a match of tennis thinking that I could beat him simply because I was sure to have a stronger work ethic and more will power. I didn't win. But I did get a great work-out and yet another lesson in humility.

But I digress.

So, I find myself in a Moksha class. Here I am in a different setting, different city, different country, perspiring like it's nobody's business. After completing the warrior pose I realize I had forgotten to bring my water. And the class was 75 minutes. 75 minutes of heat intensity.

Towards minute 60, I start getting light-headed and I thought I better relent and find a way to water. Fast. The teacher brought me some and all was fine and dandy, of course, and in a minute I was back in a downward facing dog position again.

"I dig this," I thought. Cool, it's challenging. Now, I'm not sure if a reaction of this kind is what yogis generally have in mind. It was how I reacted at least.

Now, my usual workouts are not a walk in the park. I like to push. This class, however, takes the prize as the heaviest workout I've had in recent years. The body was much more challenged in the space of a little mat where movement is limited than it ever is at the weight room or the pool.

So, I give Moksha yoga classes my thumbs up. Don't forget to bring water and light outfits. I was told that I'm much more mellow after it. And I'll take mellow. Well, not every day but with some regularity, yes. For sure.
And, by the way, that's not me in the picture.
I still have short hair.

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Ist Brüno In oder Aus? Ich sage Aus!

A screening of Brüno (2009) in a German-speaking setting is one thing. A screening of it somewhere else is something else.
I explain.
As a German speaker, I have a healthy list of reasons as to why this film vexed my ears. The whole grammar thing does a number on me. File it under occupational hazard.

As a moviegoer, I also have a generous list of reasons why this film is nothing more than a visual and audio nuissance. During the middle part of the film, I believe one of us uttered the following: "Was ist denn das?!?"

Sascha Baron Cohen's German is full of flaws. But that is not the reason why this film is so horrendous. I didn't go into the experience expecting him to break into some Goethe-informed soliloqui after all.

Brüno, the movie, is basically a rehashing of Cohen's Brüno character in his TV show Da Ali G show.
The literary scholar in me was annoyed by how grossly stereotyped gender and gendered portrayals were. More than a few 'dudes' were let out during the viewing. None of them were shock-informed. Mostly they were produced out of boredom, vexation, and annoyance.

I was bored to tears. More specifically, I was on the verge of leaving the theatre but in an effort to be not-so-rude and kind to my company, I chose to play with my iPhone instead. I turned into one of those people I criticize condescendingly in my mind when I'm at the movies. Since we were way in the back I didn't seem to bother the other moviegoers too badly by way of the iPhone light, but still, I felt like I was not using my time wisely by being there. The only other time when I and mine had the urge to walk out in the middle of a movie was when Once Upon a Time in Mexico opened. But that's a different story. In comparison, that movie seems like Gladiator now.

Brüno also managed to make me cringe a few times. I felt genuine embarrassment when he tries to trap former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul in a sexually compromising setting. The camera angels were good in that scene. They captured Ron Paul's discomfort most effectively. I felt really badly for Paul and found myself shaking my head at the episode. Somehow, I failed to see the humor.

One thing the film managed to capture well, and I credit Larry Charles's good cinematic instincts here, was the conclusion of the film where a mullet-sporting Brüno is seen on a wrestling ring about to fight against Lutz his 'plain Jane' assistant's assistant.

I get what Cohen's doing here. He turns into a provocateur for the purpose of making the point that people are people and gender is gender. In this sense, Brüno is not any less 'normative' than say the rest of us. The way he goes about actualizing his premise however is old, tired, yes, boring.
In Brüno, Cohen reduces gender to nothing more than a cultural clichee. The performative aspect of gender however is a tricky thing to translate crossculturally. This is yet another area in which Cohen manages to fail.

I had hopes for Brüno. "It can't be that atrocious," I told my people. I mean, Larry Charles directed it. And I like Larry Charles. He's directed a lot of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes and he gets comedic timing. The thing is, even the smartest director is no cure to a tired format and sophomoric predictability. Talent can take one only so far, after all.

Brüno, du bist aus. Nicht in. Tut mir Leid.

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Love, Money, Happiness: Evolutionary Biology

In his book Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller examines what dictates our buying and spending decisions from lipstick to cars, from the texts we read to the music we enjoy.

For this book, Dr. Miller asked his readers to do the following exercise:

List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness.

Then he adds: Count how many items appear on both lists.

Here are the things that popped up on both of my lists.

There were five.

1) Travel - It's an indispensable component of my life. While my loved ones joke about my carbon foot-print and I counter that joke by saying, 'oy, I bike hundreds of miles a month. I'm making up for it,' travel has educated me in ways that are indeed incomparable. As I just noted to someone, I like travel because it keeps me honest.

2) Getting a PhD - Graduate work means all kinds of difficult as well as all kinds of happy. My years as a doctoral student were some of the most memorable ones. This is on both lists because, while it is a huge investment, it's also brought me a lot of happiness.

3) Apple gadgets - I'm a Mac-head. I converted over to Mac-ism when I was in college dating a Mac nerd. You've heard the saying, I'm sure, "once you go Mac, you never go back." Now, enlightened and on ship of hip, this is an investment that's yielded both high-frequency use as well as personal happiness. I know. Let it go. It's my list.

4) Indie rock shows. - As if I have to comment on this one! You can blame my interest in it on evolution.

5) Metropolitan Honda scooter - I used it almost as much as I use my Apple gadgets. It made me and mine very happy. Every time.


Which items made it on both of your lists?

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Brian Kilmeade Responds to Study on Marriage, the Swedes

This actually happened live on TV.

Granted, Brian Kilmeade is the comic, but still.

To get a sense of what it is the people involved in this video are talking about, refer to this recent study on marriage in Sweden.

A paragraph notes:

"Inevitably, the subject turns to sex and marriage. I'll never forget asking one group what they thought of marriage in a country where most educated young people (and half go to university) don't get married or bear children until they are well over 30. A young woman gave me a thoughtful answer and so I asked her, "What are you looking for in a husband?" Without batting an eye or pausing for thought, she answered: "Three things. One, he must be good in bed. Two, he must be a good father. Three, when we divorce, he mustn't be bitter."

Read the gripping article in its entirety here.


And drumroll please....

Here is Brian Kilmeade's close reading and insightful interpretation of said article.
BROWN HAIRED GUY: We keep marrying other species and other ethnics--


GRETCHEN CARLSON: Are you sure you are not suffering from some of the causes of dementia right now?

BRIAN KILMEADE: The problem is the Swedes have pure genes. They marry other Swedes, that's the rule. Finns marry other Finns; they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody. We will marry Italians and Irish.

DAVE BRIGGS: This study does not apply?

BRIAN KILMEADE: Does not apply to us.

[pause]

DAVE BRIGGS: Huh.

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Travel, Mornings, and Routines

My biggest challenge in life is to reconcile myself to other people’s paces and respective speeds.

Slowness is to me what disco was to music: overall, not such a good idea.

Answers like, "Dude, I read that a LONG time ago, like last Wednesday, you know?" are ubiquitous. And the funny thing is, I'm serious when I reply in that fashion. The distance from a Wednesday to a Friday is, to me, a long one.

I suppose, we all have distinctly unique relationships to time and, as of late, I've recognized that I have a different relationship to time during different points of time in the day.

Let me explain.

I take time to get ready for the day in the morning. It usually takes me 1.5-2 hours to reach a ripe state of full alertness. Experientially, this is something that a sleep-economizer would so get. So, if I need to be alert and chipper, well the latter is a stretch, let’s try the former first, by 8:00 AM, then wake-up time needs to be 6-ish.

Here’s why.

I need to inform myself about the news, possibly simultaneously, i.e., by reading the news while having morning cable news commentary shows in the background. I call it information multi-tasking. In layman terms, it rocks my world.
Then, I need to attend to my non-work email, synch my gadgets, eat my high-protein, low-carb breakfast, and take my hot drink.

If/when the routine gets interrupted, I tend to say, I am told, "Let it go. It's my thing."

If I allow myself to ease into the day, I can function most beautifully and accomplish all I need to and more. So, varying speeds do balance themselves out. While I move at a nigh maniacal speed on a regular basis, I do have a couple of hours in the AM which I block off entirely. In the privacy of the BR existence, this is called silent time where I don't have to produce speech and I don't require that it be produced either.

Granted, two hours in the AM sounds pretty luxurious. Well, seen in the right perspective it's not all that flashy. If I need to be up at 5AM, then an optimal day would require that the wake-up/get ready routine start at 3AM. Sleep-economizers are people who want to unwind too, after all.

Now, the economy-informed person in me feels, at times, a tad decadent about this routine. It's after all two hours of a day. Of course, others spend it sleeping, ergo it's fine, I suppose.

And now the story can be recounted.

Recently I found myself on a very busy street of a big metropolis. I couldn’t find my usual travel mug hence I poured my morning drink into a home cup and rushed out as something came up. So, there I was waiting for the stop sign to turn green as I was sipping my morning drink trying to get into a silent time frame of mind as if I were in the comfort of my own home. I chuckled at the stark contrast between the comfort of my place and the uber-busy metropolis and as I was lost in thought, a gentleman approached me smilingly and with a chipper disposition.

“Having a good morning, I hope?” To which I said while sipping my morning drink, “Yeah. Yup. Yes.” As I did so I thought to myself. 'Well, don’t be a heathen. Respond properly to the nice man. He seems to be deserving of a good, solid yes.' So, that I did. We proceed to pass the intersection together and in a space of 40 meters or so I learned about the infrastructure of the city, why there’s a strike that’s having an impact on trash collections, and, more importantly, what time of the year the city is at its best self.

I believe that cities paint, more often than not, a pretty accurate portrait of the overall psychology of their inhabitants. You know you’re in a friendly space when the usual inhabitants of said space, exercise their civic duty and inform their warm-drink-sipping, fast-walking, barely awake visitors.

When I met the kind man, I had only been up for a max of twenty-five minutes. However, an information-jammed space of 40 meters was enough to kick things into gear so I could reach my usual state of alertness.

I should do this more often, I tell myself. I could save myself 1 hour and 59 minutes every AM.

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graph per http://www.markpascua.com/wp-content/coffee-mug-camera-lens.jpg

Thumbs Up for Unwinding

"How do you unwind?" - was the question.
"I watch this 15-second clip a few times in a row." - was my answer.

Those of you who are Entourage fans might especially like seeing Turtle vulnerable.

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Doppelganger

My friend Liam just made me aware of this business out West that sports the same initial logo as my name and blog onomastics.
Hm.
It does look awfully close to me.
(However, I do realize that there is a basic difference, i.e., inversion applies to their R and my B.)

As I noted to Liam, I wonder which one came first, the BR or the BR. Is this a case of two mutually exclusive parties being hit simultaneously by a wave of graphic inspiration, while being thoroughly independent of each other?

Not to be petty or anything, (oh, who am I kidding? For the sake of argument, let’s, let's be a tad petty), the logo with my initials was first conceptualized by designer par excellence and close friend, Camille well over seven years ago. The logo first made it on my business card back in ’03. I suppose I could be even more petty (or is it pettier?) and I could ask to compare design notes with said company and determine which came first. If I end up lower on the hierarchy, I’ll be a man and retire my laurels as holder of BR.
Hm.
Onomastics is, after all, never inconsequential. Or is it?

Tip of the hat, Liam, for keeping an aesthetics-informed eye out.

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Dignity and, um, Tory Burch?

Let me see if I can start on the right foot here.

Generally, the writing of NY Times David Brooks is, to me, like a Tory Burch outfit. It's all fine and dandy when it's out there but I wouldn't quite go out of my way to pursue it, if you catch my drift.
Brooks' today piece on the Times, however, begged for my attention this morning. His summary of some of the recent events made me think about how quickly lexemes shift and acquire new meanings in order to adapt to new cultural modifications.
In today's piece Brooks wonders about the philosophical and social meanings of the term dignity. 'Whatever happened to it, eh?'-wonders Brooks along with a litany of other voices.
A paragraph of note:
" First, there was Mark Sanford’s press conference. Here was a guy utterly lacking in any sense of reticence, who was given to rambling self-exposure even in his moment of disgrace. Then there was the death of Michael Jackson and the discussion of his life. Here was a guy who was apparently untouched by any pressure to live according to the rules and restraints of adulthood. Then there was Sarah Palin’s press conference. Here was a woman who aspires to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.

In each of these events, one sees people who simply have no social norms to guide them as they try to navigate the currents of their own passions.

Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system."

Read it all here.


graph per tory burch

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