A friend of mine once gave me a good rule of thumb for “getting over” bad relationships – you know, the ones you get dumped from, or worse, the ones you have to end because there’s no mutual way out. He said it takes exactly half the length of how long you were actually in love, and because I’m a heterosexual, he also said “with the woman in question”. But I think he was on to something more general, which has been on my mind recently. I think human tribes have a similar function. This isn’t to say that we’re all tribal; no, I think we’re slowly – preciously slowly, and probably too slowly – evolving to the point where rank tribalism isn’t part of our emotional and mental makeup. But for most of us, it’s still there.
Continue reading “Hangovers”The new normal
I have a smallish refrigerator, and thus I try to make meals which won’t have many leftovers, but that also means I have to shop pretty regularly. Apologies to our readers in London or Paris or Singapore for pointing out the obvious, but keep in mind I live in semi-rural southern Maine, where most people have fridges the size of small SUVs, and thus cook roughly six months in advance. It shows both a kind of thriftiness which I find impressive, but also an unconscious faith in the stability of the electrical grid which I find touchingly naive.
Continue reading “The new normal”Right
Our co-conspirator Vero posted her first essay in a very long while yesterday, which gave me an excuse to open a bottle of bubbly (not technically Champagne, but a California methode champanoise produced by a French house, which given the lingering effects of Trump era tariffs is an affordable and more than delicious substitute for the good stuff). Generally speaking, one need no more excuse to drink good Champagne than a day ending in “y”, but it is nice to reserve it for a special occasion.
Continue reading “Right”Exchange rate
The other day I was for some reason reading about the early Egyptian dynasties and – Wikipedia being terribly well organized for these sorts of things – kept going back in time until I struck pre-history. The Egyptians started building monuments a very, very long time ago – call it, oh, six thousand years – and by “monuments” I mean spectacular creations which had to harness the productive output of some ridiculous proportion of society. The thought occurred to me “how much did these cost?” and immediately it dawned on me that they cost nothing. That is to say, the very notion of cost was totally irrelevant to ancient Egyptian despots. It likely didn’t even make any sense; what do you mean, something “costs” a certain amount? Amount of what?
Continue reading “Exchange rate”Video kills
The Buggles probably defined my life, although I didn’t know it at the time. They are, of course, famous for “Video Killed the Radio Star”, which was a minor electronic Brit Pop hit in 1979 but became known much more for being the first music video played on MTV back when it went on-air in 1981. My parents were definitely worried about the corrosive influence of MTV in the early 80s, and despite being early adopters of cable in southern Maine, instructed my sister and me in no uncertain terms that we were not to watch such nonsense. This meant, of course, that we watched more MTV than we actually probably wanted to, and I saw the Buggles video – they were a one-hit wonder – many times, along with other masterpieces such as “Life in a Northern Town” by Dream Academy and much more of the solo career videos of the members of Fleetwood Mac than I now care to admit.
Continue reading “Video kills”