6.21.2001


This is the last magazine related post for a while, I promise. You all know that The Baffler headquarters in Chicago recently went up in flames. (You can send donations to them through a nonprofit foundation set up by Harper's). They got Issue 14 to the printers a week before the fire. There's a great article in it by Hermenaut's Josh Glenn about OK Soda:

The theory starts like this: Plunged into despondency by the 1992 election, William Kristol, then chief of staff for Dan Quayle, fretted that the pot-smoking and draft-dodging Sixties were once again poised to disrupt the pleasant ersatz Fifties that he and his fellow reactionaries had cultivated so carefully over the Reagan-Bush years.

Despairing that his generation of squares would never again see the inside of the White House--which, as Joe Eszterhas has now confirmed, would shortly be transformed by Clinton and Co. into a satellite office of Rolling Stone--Kristol turned his attention to America's youth, the demographic cohort that makes miracles possible. Unfortunately, as the theory goes, Kristol found little in the so-called "Generation X" to encourage him. As Time magazine had reported, these sullen young men and women were far too prickly and cynical even to vote, let alone vote Republican. Yet somehow Kristol had to convince these kids, schooled in the scorn of the Reagan-Bush era, to rebel against rebellion itself.

Or so, anyway, goes one of the more inventive conspiracy theories now making the rounds. The funny thing is how plausible it all seems once you start looking into it. In 1993 Kristol outlined a program for selling conservatism as rebellion in the pages of Commentary magazine, declaring absurdly that "now it is liberalism that constitutes the old order." At the time this seemed quite mad. Today it seems prescient. We have all heard about the clear-eyed youngsters of "Generation Y," with their faith in Wall Street and their uncanny entrepreneurial skills. Well, it's all William Kristol's doing. He has managed to persuade an entire generation with his weird logic. But how?

Two words, according to the theory: OK Soda.

OK was a Coca-Cola product and was, apparently, not designed to succeed as a soda, just as a marketing strategy:

If OK was a plot funded by the conservative establishment, and carried out with the support of the CIA and Coca-Cola, then why did the thirst quencher fail? But did OK really fail? The transcript of a 1994 National Public Radio interview with Tom Pirko, the president of a food and beverage consulting firm who'd worked closely with Coca-Cola on OK, appears significant in light of what has since transpired. Pirko told host Noah Adams that OK tastes "a little bit like going to a fountain and mixing a little bit of Coke with a little root beer and Dr. Pepper and maybe throwing in some orange." When Adams expressed puzzlement that so vile a concoction was supposed to compete with such fruity stalwarts as Mountain Dew, Pirko boasted that "even though taste is always promoted as the key quality, the key ingredient of any brand, it really isn't. It falls way down in the hierarchy. The most important thing is advertising." ("The most important thing is advertising?" Adams asked incredulously. "No question," confirmed Pirko.) Coca-Cola's marketing consultant, laboring perhaps under the weight of guilt for his part in Kristol's conspiracy, was making a confession here: OK was never intended to succeed as a soda. The whole point of the project was to inject a hip conservative worldview, as expressed by the soda's advertising, into X'ers who'd been rendered deeply impressionable by whatever it was Kristol, et al. had put into the beverage. Once the message had been delivered, OK could vanish from the 7-Eleven as mysteriously as it had appeared in the first place.

Insidious, no?
..:.: 10:47 PM :.:..

6.20.2001


There's a really good article in this month's Lingua Franca called The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician:

In June 2000, the philosopher Dean Zimmerman moved from the University of Notre Dame to Syracuse University with his wife and three kids, only to see their new house catch fire the day they moved in. Much of what they owned was destroyed. "We were out of the house for six months," he recalls. "It was a miserable experience."

The week after the fire, Zimmerman got a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant that brought encouraging news: "You will move to a wonderful new home within the year," it read. Zimmerman, a metaphysician with side interests in resurrection and divine eternity, was heartened by the prophecy. And when he returned to the restaurant three months later, his second fortune was equally promising: "A way out of a financial mess is discovered as if by magic!"

The next day Zimmerman received a letter from the A.M. Monius Institute. Printed on official-looking stationery and signed by the institute's director, Netzin Steklis, the letter offered Zimmerman a "generous" sum of money to review a sixty-page work of metaphysics titled "Coming to Understanding." As the letter explained, the institute "exists for the primary purpose of disseminating the work 'Coming to Understanding' and encouraging its critical review and improvement." For Zimmerman's philosophical services, the institute was prepared to pay him the astronomical fee of twelve thousand U.S. dollars.

I'm a sucker for odd tales involving millionaires. It's a problem.
..:.: 11:29 PM :.:..

6.18.2001


I spent the weekend up at Jessamyn's place in West Topsham, VT. Saturday we painted on the shady side of the barn and then went to cool off in a creek. Sunday it started out rainy but then warmed up. It was nice to be away from the city -- I could escape every weekend without much problem. Summer air in the city feels to me like the atmosphere has closed in and all the stifling air is ina bubble 6 inches from your head.

I find my priorities change easily and my interests shift. Currest obsession: Buy house in Vermont. Give me a month or two, though, and I'll be convinced that professional wakeboarding is the way to go. (The three of you out there who have seen me attempt to wakeboard will kindly keep the laughter down now).
..:.: 11:29 PM :.:..

6.15.2001


Excerpt of an email from a friend living in Washington, DC:

"DC is hot and sticky and nasty, but I'm amused by the fact that the swanky Georgetown area keeps having electrical fires under the street which blow manhole covers 30 feet into the air."
..:.: 11:38 AM :.:..

Now are you ready for a trip into my subconscious? This one's a doozy.

Last night I dreamt that I was getting married (we can chalk that one up, I think, to the wedding that I attended last weekend). I got up to the altar and there was no one in the seats of the building -- no guests. This didn't bother me too much at first. I said that we should just get on with it. Then I noticed that my parents weren't there and that bothered me.

Somehow through getting upset, the wedding hall became instantly packed. I was somewhat relieved. Then I woke up.

When I woke up, there was no power in my apartment. Is that related? Jung I am not.
..:.: 11:42 AM :.:..

6.14.2001


OK, how come nobody told me Richard Russo has a new book out?
..:.: 2:23 PM :.:..

6.13.2001


Real Products I Do Not Understand (#1)

From the "Things I Will Not Consume" Series:

Behold in all its glory the PowerBar Power Gel Fast Fuel (a concentrated carbohydrate gel). On the back it says, "Suggested Use: Consume with H20 every 30-45 minutes during intense activity." No thanks, I say.
..:.: 10:34 PM :.:..

6.11.2001


I was away in West Virginia for the weekend at a wedding for a friend from college. The wedding was at the former estate of Bushrod Washington (the nephew of George Washington). It was a palatial estate. I was told that the mansion (which is in a state of mild disrepair) is the largest residence in West Virginia. I believe it. I've been telling everyone today that I'm going to name my first male child "Bushrod." Don't believe me, though; "Humphrey" had the contest sewn up long ago.

We drove from Boston to West Virginia on Friday -- about a nine-hour trip all told. We stayed Friday night at a motel which can really only be described as fleabag. When my friend made the reservation, he was told, "We're all booked up in the main motel, but we have some room in the annex. It's not as nice, though." My friend's initial reaction was, "Uh oh, I wonder what 'not as nice' means to a West Virginian?"

When we got to the motel at midnight and went to check in, the guy behind the counter said to us: "You should have a look at your rooms before you agree to rent. That would be best."

We went to look at the rooms and they were -- how should I say this? -- reasonably godawful. They smelled badly, they were ugly, one of the rooms had essentially no lights, et cetera. We were tired, though, and didn't feel like looking for any place else. So we went back and rented the rooms. While we were paying for the rooms, the counter guy told us that the rooms in the annex were for long-staying guests -- construction workers, he said -- and they "didn't have much respect for the place." Then he added something which I didn't know. "Construction workers are all alcoholics," he said. Good to know.

More on the trip later in the week, but here are some pictures of the motel room to whet your appetite:

#1 (left to right): The tile floor leading into the bathroom.

#2: This is a little tough to make out, but this is the underside of the bed on which I slept. I thought when I got into the bed that it was just really saggy -- it was saggy enough that I couldn't sleep on my side because of the inflexibility of my spine in that direction. When I looked under the bed in the morning, however, it became clear that the bed was saggy because it had been broken in two.

#3: Entrance to the room. This was the nicer of the two rooms we rented. The plus side: $37 a night. Woo-hoo.
..:.: 10:31 PM :.:..

6.7.2001

My sister and I were thumbing through The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1953 edition) and we looked up Henry David Thoreau (we were in Concord, MA at the time, so it seemed a fitting choice). Here is the complete entry:

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. (Walden. Economy.)

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. (Ib.)

I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. (Ib.)

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. (Ib.)

Tall arrowy white pines (Ib.)

The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. (Ib.)

For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. (Ib.)

As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. (Ib.)

The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversation over the wine. (Ib. conclusion)

Simplify, simplify. (Ib. Where I lived, and What I Lived For)

The three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest. (Ib. Sounds)

Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. (Ib. The Village)

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance. (Ib. Winter Visitors)

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. (Ib.)

It takes two to speak the truth,-one to speak, and another to hear. (A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Wednesday)

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. (Unpublished MSS. In Miscellanies, Biographical Sketch (1918))

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. (Letter to Mr. B., 16 Nov. 1857)

We scanned through the list and didn't find: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Call me crazy, but is that not the most famous Thoreau quote? I realize I've only been alive 25 years and the world was possibly different before I was born, but has the world really changed that much? I think I'll check later editions of this quote dictionary. There is always the possibility it was left out because it was too popular, or left out because it is too solely autobiographical. (Possible?)
..:.:5:33 PM:.:..

6.6.2001

Putting up that bug picture was easily the stupidest thing I've done this week. That bug haunts me. Something I left out of the initial bug tale: my computer is in my bedroom. My bedroom, the room where I sleep. Every noise I hear now when I'm falling asleep is, to my feeble, sleep-deprived brain, that bug's relatives come to seek revenge. I see them with stakes and pitchforks. They are after me. I'm not sleeping so well.

On the plus side, I've learned some things about the natural world I didn't know before:

- Silverfish turn to dust when you step on them;
- Centipedes dessicate quickly;
- Snails can live far away from bodies of water.

Thank you all for imparting your varied insect knowledge! Can anyone direct me now toward either a good over-the-counter sleep medication or a trained psychologist. Thank you again in advance.
..:.:12:45 PM:.:..

6.5.2001

After some deliberation (is it a silverfish?), a consensus has been reached: It's a centipede; Scutigera to be precise. (Thanks, Chris!)
..:.:12:45 PM:.:..

6.3.2001

I like bugs less today than I did yesterday. You know that scene in that movie where our hero gets covered with tarantulas? I propose they remake the movie with whatever was in my apartment tonight.

I got home tonight, turned on my computer and saw some movement heading toward an opened film canister on my desk. I thought, "must be a spider." I peered into the film canister, uttered a quick "ohmigod" and placed an empty glass over the canister. Then I sat quietly across the room, wishing I had a room-mate.

I mean, what is that?
..:.:9:56 PM:.:..

6.2.2001

I was handed down a rug last week. It used to be my grandmother's, then it was in my mother's house for twenty-five years. It's a reasonably nice (slightly frayed) oriental rug. There's only one problem. My mother has cats. Cats tend to use rugs -- or, rather, my mother's cats tended to use my mother's oriental rug -- as alternate litter boxes (not their primary litter boxes, but a back-up). In moving the rug, I stirred up some not-so-nice odors. I was hoping that the smells would settle down all by themselves, but they have not.

Today I decided that I would try to medicate the problem into oblivion. I went out and bought a rug cleaner. I don't quite know how I knew that rug cleaners existed. I've never cleaned a rug but I knew that there existed a powder that you'd sprinkle on the rug and then vacuum up.

When I bought the rug cleaner, the woman behind the register at the Walgreens placed the bottle of Glade rug cleaner to her nose, sniffed and said (I am not making this up), "mmm, nice."

I sprinkled the rug cleaner on the rug. I vacuumed it up. I bought the most neutral, odorless rug cleaner possible. It is now, though, as if an artificial-smell bomb went off in my apartment.
..:.:3:38 PM:.:..

6.1.2001

Noted without comment:

"Critically ill patients in hospital intensive care units could be at risk from computers spewing infectious fungal spores. American researchers found a rare hospital fungus "Aspergillus fumigatus" in their intensive care wards following the installation of computers... 'We saw that the computers had a vent with a cooling fan, and there was almost an exhaust coming from the fan, so when we took samples from the grid and from the room, we found that there was a growth of several types of yeast and some filamentous mould.'"
..:.:10:42 AM:.:..

mark@markand.com
aim: mdanderson45