Check it out! You can read a brand spanking new piece of mine over at Defenestration!
It’s called “The New Looks for Fall” and it’s here.
Thanks to our country’s crumbling infrastructure, I’d like to propose the following new reality television drama for A&E:
I-85 Truckers
Watch as some of America’s toughest truckers tackle the nightmarish corridors of infamous Interstate 85! Potholes, giant fissures, abandoned mattresses, and miles with faded, unreadable yellow lines all combine to test the mettle of even the most experienced truckers. Will the ancient, rickety bridges finally collapse? Will our drivers be crushed by falling chunks of overpass?
Follow six intrepid men and women of the road as they risk their lives and their loads on creaky elevated expressways and shambling turnpikes through high mountain passes with rusted out guardrails. Will this season’s crew make it from Alabama to Virginia in one piece?
Your feed might look more like this:
[Bob]: I hope my ex-girlfriend notices that I am attending the Film Festivel “Nietzsche’s Influence: A Silent Retrospective”. When she dumped me last year she said I wasn’t ‘interested in ideas’. This will show her!
I will not actually attend this event.
[Mary]: I’ve come across an obscure three-second animated clip of a cat that appears to be using a tiny hula hoop, after aimlessly surfing the internet for five hours as I do most evenings. I have posted this clip on my Facebook wall as proof of my quirky, idiosyncratic existence. Please acknowledge it.
[Alan]: I would like it to be known that I am out drinking at a bar right now, so I have posted a dull comment about the beer I just ordered, while out at this bar, drinking. With my many friends.
[Louise]: Here is an amusing anecdote of something I just overheard at work. These days when something interesting happens to me, my first thought is usually, “I should put that on Facebook”.
[Charlotte]: You will notice that I have taken over 400 pictures of just myself, in various outfits and poses, and posted them on my Facebook profile, because I am attractive and my life is interesting to others.
[Barbara]: Is eating dinner alone at home and feeling lonely. Rather than reaching out to anyone, I have updated my Facebook status with a brief description of how much I am enjoying my dinner. Now I am waiting anxiously for comments and ‘likes’ on this post, which will temporararily ease and then ultimately worsen my feelings of isolation.
[Mike]: Here is a link to a well-written, thought-provoking opinion piece that I did not finish reading, with a brief comment urging everyone else to read the piece. In this way I have co-opted the author’s opinion as my own and avoided having to define how I actually feel on the subject, which is good because I really don’t know that much about it but would like to appear knowledgeable.
[Trey]: I have changed my profile picture. The caption reads, “This is How I Would Like to be Seen by You”. Every picture on my profile is carefully selected to reflect the image of me that I would like you to have. My life is a product that I advertise on Facebook.
[Lana]: I have shared another ironic photo or video on my Facebook wall for my friends to comment on the utter ridiculousness of! Isn’t it stupid, yet kind of amazing? What were they thinking?!
I’m not interested in sharing things I find genuinely interesting or moving, because this would reveal too much information about who I really am, which might make me vulnerable to direct criticism and would also open up the possibility that people might disagree with me, challenge me or engage with me in a meaningful way.
[William]: Please make me feel loved.
Jillian Lovejoy Lowery and I took on the decision by Whole Foods’s CEO to offer increased store discounts to employees based on their overall health. Her side is available at the Perpetual Post’s main site.
I would like to applaud Whole Foods CEO Steve Mackey for introducing a plan that offers his employees a larger store discount based on their overall physical health and fitness. No longer just a patronizing corporation with a moral-superiority complex, Whole Foods is showing that it cares enough about its employees to do what it can to lower its company healthcare costs.
All company employees currently enjoy an impressive 20% store discount, which serves to make Whole Foods products only approximately twice as expensive as the products carried in other supermarkets. However, beginning in January of 2010, employees who meet certain health criteria, including low blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI and no nicotine use, will be entitled to enjoy a further discount of up to 30%.
Upon learning this news, the blood-pressure of many Whole Foods employees temporarily rendered them ineligible for participation in the program.
Still, many agree that it’s about time the obese are punished financially, and not just from health problems and discrimination from their peers and society in general. It’s also fitting that those who are physically fit be monetarily rewarded for being so, as they enjoy few other privileges from being healthy and in shape.
The goal of the program is likely aesthetic as well as cost-conscious. After all, how inspired would you be to purchase a $7 box of organic Kashi Go Lean Crunch cereal that has been laboriously stocked by an obese, heavy-breathing Team Member with a pack of Parliaments sticking out of his back pocket?
Mackey’s letter to employees introducing the program, which was leaked to the media by an employee who was interested in sharing the news of their CEO’s generosity with the rest of the world, states that “we believe this is a win-win program that will help both our Team members and our shareholders.”
The next step on this road will likely be for Mackey to encourage healthy behavior in his shareholders by offering them increased stock options based on their smoking habits and weights. I’m sure that this program will be rolling out very shortly, and I plan to keep an eye out for that memo.
Akie and I took on the iPad in this week’s Perpetual Post.
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Full disclosure: I am not a Mac. I’m not really a PC either—I’m more of what you would call a ‘poor person’. But the uproar surrounding Apple’s new iPad device got me curious, so for the first time in my life, I visited the good folks at http://www.Apple.com. Once there, I noticed that there were several videos about the new iPad, but unfortunately I couldn’t get any of them to load, so had to judge Apple’s groundbreaking new product by the content they had up about it on the website.
I’m not sure about Apple’s claims that the iPad will change the way we experience the web, but maybe they meant that in a subtle way—kind of like how crazy straws have changed the way we drink juice. In any event, the iPad has certainly changed the way I look at rectangular things.
I was also ambivalent about Apple’s assertion that “with iPad, navigating the web has never been easier or more intuitive. Because you use the most natural pointing device there is: your finger.” Really, Apple? This is your pitch? As ridiculous as it is, this claim neatly summarizes the nature of the exciting and fascinating features of Apple’s newest device.
But wait—there’s more! The iPad also offers a means to…view photos! Finally my wealthier friends will have yet another way to show me their vacation pictures—and they will be bigger and more detailed than ever! Trust Apple to not see the down-side of allowing people to essentially carry entire life-sized photo albums with them at all times. Apple actually brags that: “the Photos app displays the photos in an album as though they were in a stack. Just tap the stack, and the whole album opens up.” Great! That’s my worst nightmare! I can see it now. “Oh good, yet another stack of your vacation photos. Let me just use my finger to tap it and I can spend another twenty minutes learning about ancient monuments.” Apple, after touting the benefits of my finger, you’ve just managed to make me hate it.
There’s also a GPS feature, which will make it impossible to be subtle about the fact that you’re using a GPS device to find your way around. No more slyly navigating throughout a city while surreptitiously glancing down at your cellphone or iPhone GPS program. No, the iPad helps make it clear to everyone around you that you’re lost. Still, this could be good– maybe they’ll help you out!
A prime candidate for the least likely feature to be mentioned on a website introducing the iPad would be the Calendar, which does in fact have an introductory paragraph describing its many thrilling aspects. I know what you’re saying—wait! The iPad has a calendar? Does it have ALL the days?! The answer is, probably. And you can point at them, with your finger! Because as we know, it’s the most natural pointing device there is.
Another iPad benefit which Apple hypes on its website is the fact that it has a ‘Home Screen’. As Apple redundantly explains, “The Home screen gives you one-tap access to everything on iPad. You can customize your Home screen by adding your favorite apps and websites or using your own photos as the background. And you can move apps around to arrange them in any order you want.” I assume that I’ll be moving those apps around with my finger? Because that’s the only way in which this ‘Home Screen’ differs from a little thing called a ‘Desktop’, which I’m pretty sure I’ve come across before, in pretty much every other computer ever. And frankly, if I have to pay an extra $500 in order to touch something with my finger that I ordinarily can’t, I’d rather it be during a lap dance. Touting the advantages of a ‘Home screen’ during a sales pitch for the iPad is also kind of like a real estate agent boasting that the house he’s showing you has floors.
Oh, and you can also watch videos on YouTube using the iPad. The picture on Apple.com which explains the benefits of watching YouTube videos on a 9” screen shows an image of a dog on a surfboard—which is very representational of YouTube, but it doesn’t make me want to run out and buy an iPad in light of all the full-sized surfing dog videos I’ve been missing.
In fact, nothing in Apple’s desperate pitch for the iPad made me want to buy one. Still, looking on the bright side, it did rekindle my excitement at having fingers. Hey Apple, guess which one of my fingers I’m pointing right now? Now that you mention it, I guess that DOES feel pretty natural.
Howard, Akie and I discussed the early closing of the lauded production in this week’s Perpetual Post.
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One shouldn’t shell out $80 a ticket for just any theater experience. I like to make sure I’m getting the most for my money. Before I consider buying tickets, I tend to ask myself certain questions—questions like, ‘are there puppets in this show?’ and ‘does the title contain the word ‘urine’?’ This is just one way to make sure that a Broadway show will be worth its weight in all the other shows you’ll need to Tivo while you spend an entire evening out of the house and not wearing sweatpants.
I’ve also found that if a show is at least three times removed from its primary incarnation– for instance, if it’s based on a videogame that was made into an action-figure that became a mini-series—you’re bound to at least know what you’re getting into. And if there’s one thing I’m fond of entertainment-wise, it’s the comfortingly familiar.
Celebrities I’ve seen on television and in the movies also help to add a sense of familiarity to a stage play. Fortunately the website Broadway.com allows you to filter your search for shows by the category, “Celebs on Stage”. Throwing Jude Law or James Gandolfini into a performance also gives me something to actually talk about at work the next day. Trust me, none of my coworkers want to hear about my evening spent watching Brighton Beach Memoirs when they can hear about how I saw Harry Potter’s magic wand in Equus.
Brighton Beach Memoirs in particularly is very family-unfriendly. It may be the story of a young boy who comes of age, but it’s certainly not for children, who will be unable to focus on the storyline and characters without a commercial break every few minutes. Plus none of the characters are cartoons or talking animals, and there are no straightforward and educational messages to be gleaned like, “don’t talk to strangers” and “brushing your teeth is fun”.
In fact, don’t even think about bringing your kids to a Broadway show if it doesn’t have performers dressed up like giraffes, gamboling through the audience on stilts, or if the title lacks the phrase ‘-on Ice’. By the time your kids stop whining about how you made them silence their cell phones, it will be intermission and they’ll be begging you for an $8 KitKat. If you thought movie theater refreshments were expensive, wait ‘til you get a load of the concession stand at the Gershwin. Plus, while most musicals have at least a few souvenir T-shirts and other merchandise, very few plays have gotten the memo that people don’t rely on their memories anymore—they rely on buying things that will remind them of experiences they’ve had. Did you even SEE Wicked if you didn’t leave the theater clutching an $18 witch hat keychain? I think not. Brighton Beach Memoirs, if I can’t buy a lunchbox with a picture of your cast on it, you’re wasting my time even more.
I Heard Tell 