Trends

Here is an article about Duncan Watts, a sociologist of trends who asks questions like this:

…we know that Madonna became a breakout star in 1983. But if you rewound the world back to 1982, would Madonna break out again?

To answer this question, Watts conducted an elaborate science experiment that yielded this result:

Trends, it suggested, aren't merely hard to predict and engineer -- they occur essentially at random.

So basically, Watts is challenging Malcolm Gladwell's "tipping point" theory by arguing that everything is meaningless. Which, btw, is my all-time favorite debate tactic. I used it in seminar just the other day:

Liz's colleague: It seems to me that modernist narrative technique owes more to Jane Austen than it does to Henry James.
Liz: Everything is meaningless!
Debate moderator: Liz wins again.

According to Watts, the band 52metro (cool name, guys!) could have just as easily become the breakout star of 1983 instead of Madonna; or the breakout star of 1933, instead of Hitler. In other words, nobody who is famous had to have become famous: that even includes Christina Aguilera, David Hyde Pierce, and Rachel Ray. Can you imagine the world without them? IT COULD HAVE BEEN. I want to see NOVA reenact that alternate universe, because it sounds completely, inconceivably insane.

Anyway, popular culture is founded on radical contingency, pass it on.
(Oh wait, the MC already came to that realization weeks ago, and all it took was the help of a little accident called Fleetwood Mac. A fragile, beautiful little accident.)

But you don't have to take my word for it!

Swimming
Unbelievable
Sea of Death
Always there for you
Neat

For more info on David Rieff's new memoir about his mom, Susan Sontag, go HERE, or contact your local library.com!

Mastery

So a couple months ago I filled out a form listing all of the classes I have taken in the last year and a half, and now I have a master’s degree!! Life. Anyway, the first thing I did, naturally, was to take it to Kinko’s and have it photocopied, and then have the photocopy blown up to comical proportions (5 x 6 feet), and then have that framed in pure gold and hung in my Jacuzzi room. The second thing I did was to pause, step back, and take stock of the last year and a half. I came up with the following list.

Ways I have improved myself since college
1. More confident tone in emails
That’s all I’ve got.
The list had some other things on it before, but they got crossed off in afterthought. Like:
2. Spend less money on pot
Afterthought: I’m not sure where this has left me. Plus, now I just spend money on adult things that I thought were stupid in college, like ordering any drink other than “water” in a restaurant.
3. Read the newspaper
Afterthought: Even though I’ve been reading the newspaper for a while now, I still feel like an impostor in the way you do at the gym for the first time. I’m constantly waiting for the newspaper to be like, “You’re using that elliptical machine backwards, idiot.”
4. More accepting of otherness
Afterthought: By accepting things that younger me thought were lame/baffling, and swore never to understand, I may be betraying my teen self. So #4 is sort of a pyrrhic victory. King Pyrrhus being in this case the World Music phase of David Byrne.

In short: Here’s to being a master, me. A true master of life.

Good News Day

I'm glad we still have news like this:
Young teens run away, likely headed West
Still no word from lovelorn runaway teens

Do it, Gage and Hannah. Throw your bi-polar girlfriend, your dog Mandy, and your Xbox into the family minivan and just live it.

It looks like everyone is going to these kids' myspace profiles, but I'm drawing a line. In an admirable, deeply attractive show of decency. Let's hope this one ends well.


On the less romanticizable intersections of being wrong, the internet, and misunderstanding relationships tip, this story:

Newmarket police investigating infant listed 'for sale' online

And finally CNN celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day:

Voting These Days: a look at...RELATIONSHIPS?!

She says "I'm voting Obama." How does he play it?
*
Do you think they've discussed it yet? How did it go? I bet this picture is how it ended.
**
I'm voting for that.

*from InterracialCupid.com
** I don't know if THIS is Google or Wikipedia or what, but it has all the information you need.

Progress Report

Hey youtube, how's the world?



Well, everything seems to be in order. I'll just go about my business as usual. Maybe start that family I've been wanting, or, you know, think of other ways to invest in the future with a sound mind and heart.
Anyway, just checking in.
l8r

An amero for your thoughts

Hey, you guys like euros?
You guys: Euros! Aren't those are just for fat-cats?
me: NOT ANYMORE REALLY.

That's because Americans are getting their own euros! And they're called ameros!
AMEROS!

Not sold? Just think about how efficient it will make doing business with Canada.

You guys yesterday: I really want products that seem like American products but make me uncomfortable in ways I can't place, but it's such a hassell.
You guys tomorrow: I'M DROWNING IN GAYISH-SEEMING HAMBURGERS!!! THANKS AMEROS!!! THANKS FUTURE!!!!! THANKS MILLENNIAL CRIER!!!!!!!