Category: Culture

Living by Joe WilcoxMay 16, 201010:44 am

‘Hey, Buddy, You Can’t Poop There’

While shaving this morning, I heard someone outside talking to his dog: “Hey, buddy, you can’t poop there”. Yeah, like the dog understands what the guy is saying. Owners’ actions—letting a dog do its business anywhere it pleases and then cleaning up the dodo with a baggie—reinforce the animal’s poop-anywhere behavior. Dogs are responsive to humans. This owner, and the many others I see here in California, train their animals to behave a certain way: Poop anytime, anywhere they want. Outside the residence, of course. 🙂

Society by Joe WilcoxFeb 25, 20101:47 pm

Chatroulette Calling (Don’t Answer)

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/9669721] Now this is what every short video should be like. Casey Neistat’s short on Chatroulette is great artform and storytelling. Casey and brother Van have a TV show coming to HBO sometime this year. […]

Culture by Joe WilcoxJan 15, 201012:25 pm

I’m With Coco

Conan O’Brien may not last much longer as Tonight Show host, but he has my support. Even if he loses his job, Conan will be a winner. Say, can Conan collect unemployment? Now there would […]

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 5, 20103:32 am

Stuck in Newark Airport

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQeG1kaddsw] I agree 100 percent. “Maybe there is hope for our ever-increasingly isolated and anti-social (no, Facebook is making us less social) society after all”, nmook.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJul 18, 20098:37 pm

American Apparel Displays What?

I am a sucker for good marketing, often stopping to gawk at store display windows. Marketing displays, especially store windows, are art forms. The best combine things that seemingly go oddly together.

Apple by Joe WilcoxJul 2, 20092:01 pm

It’s Not the Myth, But the Fight Over the Man

Oh my, Decoding Steve Jobs: Trust the Art, Not the Artist” is shit hitting the fan. Today, for some strange reason. Steve has got to be one of the most controversial chief executives of modern times. Beloved by the Mac faithful, praised by Wall Street analysts and cursed by many others, he is Mr. Love Him or Hate Him.

Society by Joe WilcoxJun 21, 20098:55 pm

Iran and the Internet Democracy

This week’s turmoil on the streets of Tehran is but a metaphor for another turmoil: How the Internet is tearing down monopolies of power and empowering individuals and smaller groups. The Internet is the new democracy, which can be seen from pictures and videos coming from protests in Iran.

The Iranian protests are capturing the world’s attention in part because of fairly new tools that make it easy for most anyone to be a broadcaster, a real-time journalist. These tools punctuate change sweeping through the news industry and destabilizing others.

Apple by Joe WilcoxMay 17, 20099:24 pm

Why Apple Succeeds, and Always Will

Simply put: Apple doesn’t play by the rules. It reinvents them.

The March 11, 2009, The New Yorker magazine features story, “How David Beats Goliath.” Writer Malcolm Gladwell could easily have written about Apple; his examples are 12-year-old girls basketball and T.E. Lawrence.

Living by Joe WilcoxMar 19, 20093:47 am

'Simply Bigoted'

Children like to think they are less bigoted than their parents, for example. In fact, they are simply bigoted about different things: fatties, smokers and people who drive Humvees, rather than blacks or homosexuals. Lexington

Society by Joe WilcoxNov 27, 200812:00 am

Language Old Is New Again

I may not here omite how, notwithstand all their great paines and industrie, and the great hops of a large cropp, the Lord seemed to blast, and take away the same, and to threaten further and more sore famine unto them, by a great drought which continued from the 3. weeke in May, till about the midle of July, without any raine, and with great heat (for the most parte), insomuch as the come begane to wither away, though it was set with fishe, the moysture wherof helped it much. Yet at length it begane to languish sore, and some of the drier grounds were partched like withered hay, part wherof was never recovered.

Continue reading Language Old Is New Again

Society by Joe WilcoxJun 12, 200812:00 am

Google Attention Deficit Disorder

Nicolas Carr asks: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?.” My experience is the same as his, and more. My writing concentration has changed, too. Blogging is more difficult than, say, three years ago. There is too […]

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 20, 20089:18 am

It’s Not Alaska, It’s an Adventure

Jean McDermott cracks me up. She’s got a wry, dry sense of humor. Maybe the humorless can’t survive Alaskan winters.

Today, Jean posted a picture of her freezer and, separately, commented on the weather: “A couple days ago we got 10 inches of snow in one night. People up here walked around just beaming. Finally! The bumps in the ski, snowmachine, mushing and skijore trails would finally be smoothed out. No more skidding around on dirt! Not only that, but it has warmed up to a positively balmy 20° ABOVE so everyone is having a bit of a respite from having to put on so much bleeding gear every time one goes outside!