writer, speaker, content creator

Author Archive

A List of Holidays Ranked by Awesomeness

In Holidays on October 29, 2011 at 1:11 pm

Columbus Day: Could we please get rid of it? He wasn’t even the first white dude to come to North America. Leif Erikson Day would be much better, as it could be Viking-themed and an excuse to drink mead.

Earth Day: Hooray for having a planet!

President’s Day: We sure do have an Executive Branch!

Memorial Day: There are very real historical/patriotic reasons to celebrate this holiday, but for most people it’s a day off and an excuse to barbecue. It is neither bad, but it is also not mind-blowingly celebratory.

Veteran’s Day: See above.

Labor Day: Basically the same as Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day in terms of non-exciting-ness, but it’s nice to give summer a send off before everything gets all autumnal.

Valentine’s Day: This holiday sucks if you’re single because it’s a reminder of how lonely you are. It also sucks if you’re in a bad relationship because it will remind you of what a horrible train wreck-y failure your love life is. However, if you’re with someone whom you actually like, Valentine’s Day is an excuse to go out to dinner, make googly eyes at each other, and then have sex. That is generally a nice way to spend an evening.

Easter: If you don’t believe in Jesus then Easter is basically an excuse for chocolate. That’s okay if you like chocolate. It’s nice to herald the coming of spring, though, and tell winter to suck it. This holiday may also be referred to as Zombie Jesus Day, which is fun to say and annoys theists.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: Hooray for positive, widespread social change regarding America’s painful, racist past! Seriously, it’s nice to be reminded that we, as a country, can do the right thing from time to time.

St. Patrick’s Day/Cinco de Mayo: These are days where Americans use a nationality as an excuse to drink.

The Fourth of July: This holiday is fun because things blow up, and participants may sing the “AMERICA: FUCK YEAH” song with only slight amounts of irony.

Christmas: The nice thing about Christmas is that lots of people take time off, you can see long-absent friends and relatives, and there is the opportunity to give and receive thoughtful gifts. On the other hand, it’s mandatory family time, gift giving can be stressful and expensive, and annoying music gets piped into retail outlets for the better part of December.

Thanksgiving: Hell yes lots of food!

New Year’s Eve: New Year’s is a pleasant chaser to Christmas. Christmas is mandatory family time, but New Year’s is a big party where you can decompress by getting drunk with your friends. There’s no big, important historical or religious aspect to it- it’s just everyone getting together to watch the calendar flip over like it’s a big odometer. When that happens, there is booze and smooching, both of which are enjoyable.

Halloween: Halloween is the best holiday, and if you say otherwise you’re full of wrong. Halloween is the day/night when everyone gets creative and dresses in a whimsical fashion. We allow ourselves to look, be, and act weird. It’s the day of the year where you drag your strange clothing out of your closet, turn it into a new persona, and act like a different person. Grownups, en masse, play pretend and let their guard down just a little. There are parties and dancing and all kinds of revelry, and you get to embody something that you’re not. Everyone who’s been to one knows that Halloween parties are different from other parties.

We drag out all the fear and weirdness that’s considered odd at other times of the year, and put it front and center, giving it a safe space. What’s more, it happens in autumn, probably the most beautiful time of year. It’s right on the balancing point just before everything gets cold, and the dark time of the year is ushered in with colorful gourds and orange lights. It’s a misty black-and-orange swirl of fun, and it remains the only holiday that I get really, truly excited for.

The Frontiers of Empathy: One Reason Why I Love Science Fiction

In Movies, Science Fiction on October 24, 2011 at 10:44 am

One more thing relating to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, then I swear I have something positive and interesting to say about Occupy Portland. Really. I have not forgotten about that.

At this point, George Lucas has lost nearly all of his credibility as a creator of science fiction. Anymore, he’s thought of as one who despoils wonder as opposed to creating it. I’ve got plenty of antipathy towards Star Wars for lots of reasons, but the thing that made me personally stop looking up to George Lucas as a science fiction creator came just after my senior year of college.

I came home, and a roommate and several of his friends were watching Attack of the Clones. For whatever reason, they had decided to watch it with the commentary on, and Lucas was talking away about whatever happened to be in the frame at that moment. At the point where I came in and idly watched it with them, R2-D2 was flying through a large industrial facility and being pursued by several insect-like aliens called Genosians. Giant gears, conveyor belts, robotic arms, and other factory bits swooped by as R2-D2 evaded his pursuers. On the commentary Lucas said of the Genosians that they were “basically giant mosquitoes.” One of the flying aliens got stuck in some gears or other piece of machinery, and was crunched to death. The scene was played for slapstick-y laughs, and we were supposed to root for R2, who was suddenly able to fly for some reason.

I do not have a philosophical opposition to comic violence, animated mayhem, or laughing at fictional deaths. However, in that moment, I did find Lucas’ attitude towards his alien creations to be flippant and almost rather offensive. I found it astounding that he could imagine the Genosians intelligent enough to create modern industry, but not deserving of empathy or consideration when it came to feeding them into machinery. Certainly Lucas wouldn’t have sent a human careening into gears as a punchline, or called homo sapiens “basically naked monkeys.”

I love science fiction not just because it’s a genre filled with lasers and spaceships (though there is that) but also because it, more than any other form of genre fiction, can challenge and bolster our sense of empathy towards our fellow beings. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was excellent in that the filmmakers had the confidence to get the audience to empathize with a nonhuman protagonist, and a nonhuman cast of supporting characters. While James Franco might have gotten top billing, the real star of the film is Caesar, the CGI ape whose body language and facial expressions were taken from Andy Serkis. Yes, Franco does a fine enough job of being a likable handsome scientist, but the character development that the audience is most concerned with throughout the film belongs to an intelligent animal who says almost nothing. Caesar’s mind, body, and point of view are all unlike ours, yet I found myself deeply interested in the story and emotional life of an intelligent ape, and expanding my definition of who and what I considered a fellow being.

Science fiction does this all of the time. One of the reasons why I maintain that Star Trek will always be superior to Star Wars is that, as cheesy and indulgent as Trek might get it retains a more expansive heart and mind. Spock, Worf, and Data are all nonhuman, yet are among the most beloved characters of the series. They all, for different reasons, have bodies, minds, and emotional lives that our different from our own, yet we are asked to value them as people. What’s more, their different points of view are presented as being inherently valuable, rather than just curiosities. Kirk may disagree with Spock frequently, but he gives the Vulcan his highest regard because he knows that a point of view different from his is often a valuable thing.

Star Wars did have R2 and Chewbacca, but too often they were played only for laughs and never given stories of their own. What’s more, several of the aliens are presented first and foremost as set-dressing. What, after all, does Nien Nunb ever actually do? The emotions that we are most often asked to feel regarding Star Wars’ aliens is nearly always related to their anatomy. We feel disgust at Jabba’s obesity, are impressed with Chewbacca’s strength, and look around with unease at the denizens of the Mos Eisley cantina, a hive of scum and villainy. Seldom are the aliens the source of tragedy, drama, or pathos.

All of our investment and empathy is with Luke, Han, and Leia. Almost never are we asked to reach out in any challenging way to a character not like ourselves. The one major exception is Yoda. Luke must accept him as a Jedi master in the exact same scene that the audience must accept him as something other than comic relief. If George Lucas could have approached all of his aliens with the same humanity that he approached Yoda, I would probably like Star Wars a whole lot more.

Watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes the other night, I was reminded of the heart and mind of science fiction that has continually inspired me to love things like Star Trek, the robot stories of Isaac Asimov, and the wonderfully silent apocalyptic landscapes of WALL-E. Being able to journey to space, or the future, or alternate dimensions is all well and good, but SF, when it has the courage and confidence of its convictions, can also allow us to feel that the Other is not so other, and that even though their communications, trappings, and biology (or lack thereof) may be incomprehensible to us. We must still engage with them as full-fledged players within a drama, and for that time their reality is equal to that of any human character on the page or on the screen.

Going home from Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I started thinking about real chimps. In particular, I remembered a This American Life story about a chimp who was raised by humans and then had to integrate herself with chimpanzees. I wondered about the real scientists who had to work with animals that very nearly are intelligent, do form emotional connections with lab workers, and are capable of self-recognition. The chimp who played Cheetah, Tarzan’s companion, apparently enjoyed watching his old movies and could recognize himself on screen. I thought about what it would be like to actually work with animals like that, and what the ethical obligations would be. I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about animal rights or issues at all- but that night it was on my mind unavoidably.

It is a wonderful thing that science fiction can do that to us. It can inspire our minds and emotions to suddenly engage in real world issues relating to science, ethics, or philosophy. And it can do so because, at the best of times, it expands our minds rather than merely inflames our emotions, and lets us be magnanimous with our empathy. I suddenly cared about chimps because I cared about Caesar.

If we can care about the alien, the robot, the mutant, or the genetically altered intelligent animal, then we can surely experience empathy towards another human being whose national origin, religion, or ideology is different than ours. If we can find ourselves engaged with the issues of, say, apes, then we can find ourselves engaged with the issues that are of concern to our real-life neighbors. That may sound idealistic, and it is. However, I believe in the power of fiction, and know that it can do much more than simply entertain.

In Which I Greatly Enjoy an Ape Uprising, But Am Bothered By Hollywood Geography

In San Francisco, Science Fiction on October 22, 2011 at 11:15 am

I finally saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes last night, and quite liked it. Much more than I thought, actually. The big climactic battle scene on the Golden Gate Bridge was probably the most entertaining thing I’ve seen on a movie screen in some time. A gorilla totally messes up a helicopter, and it’s spectacular.

Also, Andy Serkis’ motion-capture performance as Caesar, the chimp protagonist, was absolutely brilliant. The movie won my respect in that it told a story about a character who communicated almost entirely using facial expressions and body language. Caesar was vivid and well defined in the same way that WALL-E was, in that the filmmakers were forced to show, not tell. RotPotA uses CGI to tell a story, not to simply dazzle the viewer with effects.

That said, I had two small, quibbling issues with the movie. The first was a dumb, tacked-on story about humanity getting wiped out by an artificial supervirus, as opposed to a nuclear war, like in the original movies. This plot element takes place almost entirely after the credits, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was hastily added in post-production as a rushed afterthought.

The other issue, though, was about San Franciscan geography. I enjoyed that the movie took place in a real American city as opposed to Any Town, U.S.A. What’s more, it took place in San Francisco, where I’ve spent a fair amount of time, and the big fight scene was on one of my favorite landmarks.

What bothered, me, though, was that my familiarity with San Franciscan geography kind of impeded my enjoyment of the movie. Towards the climax, Caesar and his gang of simian compatriots break out of a primate holding facility in San Bruno, south of San Fancisco. They climb up a hill and then look over the city.

After that, they’re suddenly breaking apes out of the San Francisco zoo. The zoo is on the western side of SF’s peninsula. According to Google maps it’s about twelve miles away from San Bruno. It sort of strains credibility that a horde of apes could go twelve miles in a big city and not be noticed, but okay…

Then, suddenly, they’re in downtown SF, up in the NE corner of the city. That’s about eight miles away. So, at this point the apes have covered over twenty miles of territory in a single afternoon, and so far not much of a response. As they are messing up downtown, Caesar espies the mighty Golden Gate Bridge.

I want to emphasize that even as I’m picking it apart, I really enjoyed the hell out of this movie. When the Golden Gate comes into the frame, though it’s as if the director is saying “Apes! To the widely recognized national landmark! Let’s have the climax THERE!” Because the climax couldn’t happen on Market Street or something. No one recognizes that.

The Golden Gate isn’t really near Downtown SF, though. The apes have to go another four miles through the Presido to get there. We don’t see that. It’s just downtown San Francisco and then BOOM! Golden Gate.t be on, you know, Market Street or something. It has to be on a landmark. If anyone were to ever bother with filming a movie in South Dakota, you can bet that the ultimate fight scene would take place at Mount Rushmore.

After that the apes are instantly in the Muir Woods, about ten miles away. I know I’m a stickler here, but quite frankly a horde of apes could not successfully cross through over forty miles of a populated area. The movie was so good, though, that I (almost) didn’t care.

I realize that movies and TV compress geography. In RotPatA, San Bruno, the zoo, downtown, and the Golden Gate are all close by because they need to be for the plot to happen. I get that. I also get that people who live in New York or LA are probably annoyed by how Hollywood has crunched and mangled their geography to a weird degree, with characters probably showing up at vastly unrelated locations on a regular basis.

This almost, almost makes me want to watch Zero Effect or Foxfire, just so I can see how movies have similarly cut up and re-edited Portland’s streets. Probably horribly, because no one out side of this city would care where things actually are.

The George R. R. Martin Drinking Game

In Books, Fantasy on October 11, 2011 at 7:59 pm

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally, finally, finally finished all of the presently existing Song of Ice and Fire books. I reread the entire series this year in preparation for A Dance With Dragons. It took me a while not because I don’t enjoy the series (I do) but as much as I love it, I often got distracted and had to read something else. The characters, plot, world and story of aSoIaF are absolutely splendid, but every so often I needed to stuff something else into my brain.

In particular, because Martin has turns of phrase that he uses over and over again in a highly characteristic way. I suspect he’s doing this purposefully, in emulation of the habits of Classical poets. Most translations of the Odyssey have turns of phrase like “the wine-dark sea,” “the grey-eyed goddess Athena,” and “the Earth that feeds us all” popping up over and over again. The explanation I always got for this is that epics were initially unwritten, and repetition like this made it easier for the poet to recall giant stories from memory.

Phrases like this pop up so often in Martin that one could easily make a drinking game out of them, as well as other Martin-isms. I don’t think this is a mark of poor writing, but it is highly noticeable and occasionally does take me out of the book a bit. Seeing repeated phrases is kind of like seeing the zipper on a movie monster’s costume. Every so often, I wanted other words banging around inside my brain and I had to take a break. The next time you feel like reading giant fantasy novels and imbibing booze, try drinking every time you read:

  • Milk of the poppy
  • Little and less
  • Much and more
  • Mulled wine
  • Leal service
  • Sweet sister
  • Wedded and bedded
  • Just so
  • It is known
  • Mummer’s farce
  • Useless as nipples on a breastplate
  • Where do whores go
  • Stick them with the pointy end
  • I know, I know, oh, oh, oh
  • Any variation of “waddle”
  • Hands of gold are always cold
  • Half a hundred
  • Our friends of Frey
  • Bent the knee
  • Any reference to mail, wool, and boiled leather in any combination
  • Any reference to Valyrian steel
  • Any reference to a blade being “so sharp you could shave with it.”
  • Any reference to the Mother being merciful
  • Any reference to the Crone’s wisdom
  • Any reference to the Father’s judgement
  • Any reference to or recitation of The Bear and the Maiden Fair
  • Any reference to The Rains of Castamere
  • Any reference to Arya being “[adjective] as a [noun]”
  • Any gratuitous description of heraldry
  • Any gratuitous description of food
  • Any time characters are referred to by their sigils, e.g, “Wolves” or “Lions”
  • Any cryptic invocation of Summerhall
  • Words are wind
  • A Lannister always pays his debts
  • Dark wings, dark words
  • The night is dark and full of terrors
  • Winter is coming

And of course, you should take a big old swig from whatever you’re imbibing every time a major character dies. Or supposedly dies. Or ends their POV chapter on an annoying cliffhanger. If you do that, you will be good and drunk, and swaying from side to side.

Be advised that if you keep doing that for more than twenty pages you will get alcohol poising and then you will die.

(Did I miss any? There are probably plenty more. Also, I’m really looking forward to The Winds of Winter.)

PSA: Guy Fawkes Was Kind of a Jerkface

In Politics, Rants on October 7, 2011 at 4:43 pm

I’ll have a much longer (and more positive) essay/post about Occupy Portland soon, but first I want to allow myself a little mini-rant about something that’s been bothering me.

My fellow disaffected Americans: Can we please stop it with the Guy Fawkes masks? You know the ones I mean. These:

(Also, the whole black bandanna thing is also kind of silly.)

I have a number of gripes with these. They are thus:

1: Guy Fawkes wasn’t a liberal crusader for the rights of the people. He was a Catholic radical who wanted to blow up the English Parliament as part of an elaborate plot to increase the power of the Catholic Church in England. Parliaments (English and otherwise) are places where deliberation and democracy happen. Representatives of the people debate, argue, and generally hash things out in the messy process of legislation and then make laws. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what the Catholic Church does. That’s an organization where all the rules are made by old celibate guys in robes- hardly a paragon of democracy. Guy Fawkes would have gladly exploded the former to help the latter.

2: He wanted to blow up a goddamn building. That’s not cool. People who want to make London go “BOOM” should not be role models.

3: If we really want protests and popular movements like Occupy Wall Street and its various offshoots to be successful, they have to be persuasive to middle-class Americans. If Mr. and Mrs. Middle class are watching the news at night and they see the protests are populated by a bunch of masked (or bandanna-ed) freaks, they are much more likely to go “pish-posh!” and dismiss the substance of the movement out of hand. However, if they see a bunch of people with whom they identify, they are more likely pay attention the substance of what’s going on.

If you show up looking like a costumed freak with a sign, then lots of people will just see you as a costumed freak. If you show up in normal clothes and a sign, though, then you’re an American with something to say. That’s hardly fair, but it is how things are.

4: V For Vendetta is not Alan Moore’s best work, and the movie isn’t that great. Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Swamp Thing, and even The Killing Joke are all way better. Vendetta’s good (it is Alan Moore, after all) but if we’re going to drag comic book imagery into politics, can it at least be stuff from a better graphic novel?

That is all. I’ll have a more positive post soon.

 

In Which I Learn That Kenny G is Objectively Bad

In Music on October 2, 2011 at 4:38 pm

The other day I had some time between work events, and decided to recline and read in the lobby of my company’s office building. There’s a cafe down there, and they have a number of comfortable couches and nice chairs.

“I know,” I said to myself, “I shall get myself a coffee, and proceed to imbibe a favorite beverage while reading and relaxing on one of those several very nice pieces of butt-bearing furniture.”

I bought a coffee, sat down, opened my book, and began to read. Unfortunately, this was not a process that kept happening. My enjoyment of the delicious coffee and the engagement with the ripping yarn open before me were interrupted by the hideously bad music that was playing in the cafe. Normally, I like cafe music. Most Portland baristas have fairly good taste, and I have no objection to, say, the solo works of Brian Eno playing away whilst I while away my time sipping a roasty stimulant.

This music, however, was not something that I could either enjoy or tune out. It was a hideous form of dominating sound that could perhaps be described as “jazz.” A saxophone warbled away, and in the background the undriving beat of automated non-drums disrupted both concentration, disengagement, and all states in between. I tried to ignore it.

I attempted to concentrate on things like the taste of delicious coffee, and the various plot twists of my book. That, however, proved difficult. The hideous muzak-jazz permeated the whole of the environment, and I began shifting uncomfortably on the comfy chair where I sat.

The track ended. I was glad.

Another track just like it started. It was more than I could take. The hideous saxophone was back and I couldn’t concentrate on my coffee, book, or anything. The only thing I wanted to do was murder the music with something pointy.

I tried to tough it out. I lasted for another track, and then, after that, something I recognized came on. It was this.

I immediately recognized the horrible strains of Kenny G’s biggest “hit,” Songbird. Suddenly, I was very happy. Not because Kenny G was playing- I was still perturbed by that, but because I had one of my biases confirmed. I learned that Kenny G is objectively bad.

I didn’t know that the offensive music had been a Kenny G album. But, I did hate it. I hated it stripped of context and presentation, stripped of personality and adornment. It was nice to know that I don’t think that Kenny G is a horrible musician (and probably a horrible person) because he has stupid hair or because middlebrow suburban Applebee’s customers enjoy him. I don’t hate him because it’s cool to hate him or because he’s an easy target. Suffering through his music, and not knowing it was his, taught me that Kenny G is objectively bad. All things being equal, his music is bad music.

It’s a rare opportunity to have one’s opinions stripped of context and tested. That cafe, though, gave me the opportunity to evaluate something I hate on a totally level playing field. Even on a level playing field, I learned that it was still awful.

Moments like that are great and valuable- finding an opinion confirmed, denied, or changed when context has been stripped away. It’s a rare thing to evaluate something in and of itself, and I walked to my next work function happily knowing that i gleefully hated Kenny G.

Here, Have a Picture of a Guy Rocking Out While Wearing Leopard Print Pants, Wielding an Axe, and Wearing a Chicken Mask

In Music, Uncategorized on September 23, 2011 at 12:43 pm

I love Portland so much. That is all.

 

What I Learned When I Started Going to a Gym or, Things That Happened After My Eyebrows Ceased to Work

In Athletics on September 20, 2011 at 5:30 pm

“My eyebrows,” I thought, “they are not performing adequately.”

The hairy arches just below one’s forehead are a body part that most of us (I imagine) take for granted. The vast majority of the time they’re just kind of there, and we don’t really think about their function of keeping sweat, dust, and general unpleasantness out of our eyeballs. I was suddenly quite aware of their function, though, because I was experiencing rather acute episode of eyebrow failure. Sweat was streaming down into my ocular bits, and I briefly thought that this might be why headbands existed. I was in a gym for the first time since college, and was being made abundantly aware of how long it had been.

Back at the U of O, I attended the student health center with some friends of mine where we’d lift weights, but since then I haven’t set foot inside any kind of facility dedicated to exercise. For some time I rationalized that I didn’t really need to, because I’m by no means fat (though I could do without the gut), I tend to eat fairly healthily, and I’m outside a lot, walking about or riding my bike.

However, that only takes you so far. A few months ago I started going to a gym and doing a regular workout, and have been surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed it. I thought it was going to be nothing but toil and pain. Instead, it’s been toil, pain, and a bunch of other stuff. Here are a few things I’ve learned from going to the gym a few times a week:

Exercise gets you high

Endorphins and adrenaline are wonderful stuff, and usually after a workout there’s a feeling of tired satisfaction. Most negative emotions that might have been hanging around earlier are gone. I feel like I’ve done something visceral and worthwhile. This probably taps into primal human urges to go outside and punch mammoths, but in a pinch a heavy bag also works.

It’s satisfying to know that the body is changeable and upgradeable

I’ve often thought of my body (and, to my detriment, the rest of me) as something that’s more or less set, an unchanging system. That’s not the case at all, though. The body is elastic, and responds to stuff around it. Thinking about my decreased waistline has been great in terms of vanity, but it’s also neat to think about it as a variable that you can actually exert some control over. Experiencing agency, especially with something as intimately yours as your belly, is kind of neat. If you can change the dimensions of your waist and arms and legs, then tackling other problems seems much more doable.

In the right context, sweat feels neat

This is going to become obsolete kind of quickly as we get into fall, but I really like the feeling of sweat evaporating off of skin. It is, after all, supposed to be a cooling system, and when I’m on my bike afterward the air against the evaporating sweat really drives home what that wet stuff on your skin is actually for.

Pain can sometimes be fun

I’m not the kind of person who’d jam a needle into my palm just to feel something (those people are weird), but there is something kind of appealing about experiencing pain and then powering through it. Being able to endure something unpleasant, and walk out the better for it is a great way to feel powerful and able to actually do stuff.

More than anything else, it increases self-awareness

Not self-consciousness. Awareness. Now that I exercise on a frequent basis, I feel like I’m more aware of what my various bits are doing at a given time. I’m aware of my arms and legs and what my body is like and what it’s doing. I’m not going to claim that I’m some kind of super-conscious kung-fu master, but I have a better sense of what my corporeal being is doing now that I exercise. My various bits seem more my own now and something control, rather than something I just use and inhabit. For that reason alone, I’ll keep going back and having my eyebrows fail.

The Sad Futility of Fake Voodoo Doughnuts

In Food, Portland on September 6, 2011 at 12:39 pm

A while ago I was in a Fred Meyer and saw this:

(Sarah snapped that, by the way- she has a magical picture-snapping phone, and I have a camera-less Blackberry.)

It’s fairly obvious what that’s supposed to be- the staff at the Freddy’s bakery clearly wanted to emulate the pastry style of one of Portland’s best-known pastry destinations, Voodoo Doughnut. Voodoo, of course, is known for lots of disparate  things such as cocoa puffs and Gummi worms on doughnuts. The Freddy’s Froot Loops donut is basically an exact replica of Voodoo’s Loop-laden offerings. It’s a cute strategy, but will fail for the following two reasons:

1: It’s utterly devoid of authenticity. The above-pictured doughnut reeks of painful and pale imitation. It’s the Transmorphers of the pastry world.

2: People don’t really go to Voodoo Doughnut for the doughnuts.

During my day job as a Portland tour guide, I get to see lots of people ask about Voodoo Doughnut. They tend to ask where it is or what it’s all about- seldom do they ask if the doughnuts are any good. They also aren’t deterred by the line that often forms around the shop. If anything, the line seems to amaze people and pique their interest in the shop. If lots of people are waiting, after all, it has to be worth it.

What people want from their Voodoo Doughnut experience is the feeling of having gone there, having waited in line, gotten their doughnuts, and experienced a bit of Portland’s eccentricity. Lots of people visit this city and have a general, unformed idea that it’s kind of weird. They’ve maybe seen that show on IFC, or have heard about things like people keeping chickens in their backyards or riding bikes naked. Lots of folks visit this town and want to plug into the oddness, but don’t know how. They don’t know anyone, and aren’t really sure where to look for weird stuff.

Voodoo Doughnut allows them to do that. It’s a relatively straightforward way for people visiting Portland to immediately participate in weird stuff. Granted, putting bacon on maple bars is not terribly weird compared to, say, reenacting Star Trek episodes, but it’s beyond the normal experience of people who don’t live in cities of appreciable size.

Mind you, I don’t think any of this is a bad thing. I’ve got no problems with Voodoo Doughnut as a business, nor as a representative of Portland. While I don’t think they’re doughnuts are going to cause anyone to experience any food-related revelations, their shop is a fun place to go, and I do like it that it’s great that they also perform weddings.

The experience of thinking “Hey, I found some of Portland’s weird stuff!” can’t really be replicated by putting Froot Loops all over a grocery store doughnut. The Fred Meyer bakery whose product is pictured above have tried to replicate something more successful, but they have missed entirely the reason people buy Froot Looped doughnuts in the first place- the experience. They’ve replicated the form and shape, yet missed the spirit.

Alyssa Bereznak Doesn’t Know How Dating Works

In Rants, Relationships on September 2, 2011 at 12:14 pm

Some time ago I was interviewing people at Seattle’s Emerald City ComiCon, and talked to a man dressed up as an Imperial officer from Star Wars. I asked him how long it took to reveal his sort of eccentric hobby to a girl he was dating. He said, very quickly “third date.” He’d very clearly thought about it quite a lot, and had a clear strategy for gradually revealing his geeky hobby to prospective romantic partners. Given that the third date seems to now be the customary time at which doin’ it commences, I thought that his strategy seemed pretty sound.

Which leads me to Jon Finkel and Alyssa Bereznak.

Earlier this week Bereznak wrote a deliberately incendiary and hugely unprofessional post on Gizmodo about the “harsh lesson” that she learned from using OKCupid. The “lesson” in question was that her date happened to be a champion Magic: the Gathering player. Bereznak’s problem seemed to boil down to “Jon Finkel is a big nerd, and he should have put that on his profile.”

This whole thing was, I suspect, deliberately designed to provoke nerd rage. The internet has been flooded with angry commentary and opinions about the incident, all of which has directed more eyeball’s to Gizmodo’s page (which I’m not going to bother to link to). This, I’m sure, was their plan all along. The question remains, though: should Finkel have talked about his affinity for Magic: the Gathering on his OKCupid profile?

No- he had no obligation to do so.

When you go out with someone for the first time, you do not necessarily project the totality of yourself. You try to come across as attractive, interesting, and fun, and are projecting a version of yourself that you imagine other people will find likable. This is not necessarily deceptive. Most people with a reasonable amount of emotional maturity know what constitutes appropriate first date conversation/behavior.

First date conversations tend to be things about jobs, friends, hobbies, favorite movies, and other such low-impact topics. You would not, for example, pour out your heart to your first date about deep emotional problems or difficult issues. That would be weird and off-putting. Another thing is that first dates are not depositions. If you don’t really know a person yet, you’re not necessarily under any obligation to tell them every little detail about yourself. You are allowed to keep some things private. This is not deception- this is something that emotionally mature adults should be cognizant of.

This is doubly true for online profiles. Your online self is not you. It is not the sum total of your hopes and dreams and fears. Instead, it’s the version of yourself that you project to the world. Like this:

(Image via the Inquisitr)

When crafting an online profile, cover letter, resume, or even dressing up for a job interview or first date, you try to make yourself look awesome. That is allowed. Part of making yourself look awesome can include not talking about weird hobbies like poodle grooming or competitive macrame. It’s not that these things are necessarily shameful, and after two or three dates it is a good idea to start talking about stuff like this. But, an individual is not defined by their hobbies or pop culture affinities.

Bereznak’s supposed “harsh lesson” is that she learned that Finkel was doing what everyone else on OKCupid is also doing- he made himself look appealing and attractive, and he did not lead with the sort of eccentric fact that he’s a champion Magic player. Instead, during the date he tried to make a first impression with other aspects of his personality.

Online dating can be kind of hit or miss (I’ve been on some bad dates myself) but this is hardly “harsh,” and Bereznak displayed a galling lack of professionalism when she called out Finkel by name. He is not a public figure, so making fun of him in a public forum is not okay.

I hope that Finkel gets lots of good dates out of this, and ends up meeting a sexy nerd lady who smooches his pants off. As for Bereznak, I hope she spends the rest of the year forlornly watching romantic comedies whilst attempting to drown her solitary sorrows in inexpensive boxed wine. Finding out that your date is a nerd or that maybe you don’t mesh with them is not a “harsh lesson” at all. It’s part of being an adult.