Tag: Society

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Flickr a Day 5: ‘Style Over Speed’

At age 25, I begrudgingly got my driver’s license. How un-American, right? Or strange given I grew up in Northern Maine, where snow covers the ground seven months of the year. But anywhere I couldn’t walk, I biked. So it is with delight that today’s Flickr pic represents a bicycle enthusiast, and he has so many great photos posted (more than 26,000) choosing one is challenging. Self-titled “Style Over Speed” is by no means his best, not by any measure, but it’s such a poser I couldn’t resist.

Film director Mikael Colville-Andersen, who joined Flickr in August 2006, lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. His street photography is art. He writes: “Zakkatography is a state of mind. It’s a taste in your mouth, a warm fuzzy feeling. It’s groovy interior design shots, stunning architectural studies and it’s especially raw streetaciousness. Urban fragments with urban creatures. Zakkatography is your friend. Embrace it”. I will, and so should you! 

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Vinyl is Vogue

Four days before Christmas, my 20 year-old daughter texted: “Out of the `60s, `70s, and `80s, which was your favorite?” That question, her reason for asking (“been listening to lots of Beatles”), and presents’ preference (“just like vintage things, haha—and music”) led me to make a last-minute purchase: Crosley turntable, from Urban Outfitters for 20 percent off. I also grabbed The Beatles “White Album”, which will be returned December 26 for full refund.

Vinyl is vogue right now. Nielsen SoundScan’s midyear report put vinyl record sales at 4 million units, a 40-percent increase over the same time period in 2013. The pace remains fairly constant, with sales approaching 8 million for all 2014—259,000 units over Black Friday weekend, a 50-percent year-over-year increase. In a time when online music purchases are easy and selective, vinyl’s tactile experience of holding the disc and setting the needle to it feels authentic; more intimate.  In the not-so-distant future, some people will feel the same about caressing the printed page, when ebooks have displaced boundbacks like CDs did vinyl. 

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Syfy ‘Ascension’ Review

Not since (what was then) SciFi Channel televised the Battlestar Galactica miniseries in 2003 has science fiction storytelling been so good as Ascension, which aired last week. BSG changed the tone and tenure of speculative drama, that felt altogether more real in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Later watchers won’t feel the same about the miniseries or full seasons that followed. They’re beret of the shared context that amplified the emotional content.

Ascension’s showrunners smartly seek something similar, but playing reminiscent emotions rather than anger or fear. For aging Baby Boomers, and even their descendants, Ascension is a time tunnel to the early 1960s, perfectly preserved 51 years later. Pop! Let’s look inside the time capsule! i09 calls Ascension “Mad Men in Space”, and there’s something to that allusion. But unlike later Mad Men seasons, which carried the characters forward into the decade’s crises and conflicts, Ascension harkens a golden era of innocence before Civil Rights, Vietnam, war protests, hippies, political assassinations, or even the Beatles. 

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What the Hell is a Biter?

Not long ago, I considered myself still tapped into popular vernacular. I am a people and culture junkie, after all. But today, three barbers showed how clueless and out of touch is this 55 year-old man. I’m not sure which depresses more, the realization or confessing it.

My barber personalizes his workspace with Jack Daniels jars and other signature items described but I couldn’t see. Hey, he takes off my glasses to cut what little hair I have, and my vision blows without them. His coworker in the next chair complained about another guy who comes in to buy hair-cutting supplies and selfies in front of my barber’s chair space. The evidence is on Instagram. 

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‘Friends Forever’ is More than a Cliché

I can’t express how much we enjoyed hosting Richard Abendroth, Andreas Hochmuth, and Jake Mas. The young men, all in their earlier twenties, motorcycled across the country, from Maryland to California. They left here yesterday heading up the coast, with an eventual destination of Seattle before traveling back East.

These are fine young men, whose comradery and energy inspire me. Jake’s description of the three huddled together under the rocks at La Jolla Cove watching the sun set over the Pacific for the first time was evocative. “Friends forever” is more than a cliché. It is a living vital force as demonstrated by the travelers’ familiarity and trust.

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Free Pussy Riot!

Punk rock roared across the globe as I started college in the late 1970s. Punkers protested their disco-loving, Baby Boomer siblings as much as “The Man”. UK punkers tapped into deep frustration among a younger population struggling for identity and future in face of global economic uncertainty.

Punk music then is much different than now. Then it was a lifestyle choice rooted in rebellion. Today, for bands like Green Day, punk, and all its garnishments, is fashionable. Mascara, colored hair, and tattoos are about fitting in to a larger, accepted social group. The real energy behind bands like the Sex Pistols is gone.

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Christmas Uncommon

There’s something wrong with American culture and emphasis on the individual. I got to thinking about it today when yet another neighbor dragged another dried-out Christmas into the common area and out into the back alley—this one spewing white spray-on fake snow to go with the pine needles.

I live in a small apartment complex—nine units and delightful common courtyard. Six of the units had Christmas trees this year, all live cut. (On Christmas Eve, we put up a 3-foot fake from Walgreens).

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Does the Net Necessitate Social Media?

It’s the question I seriously ask in context of web users’ constant state of distraction and increasing inability to concentrate for long periods. Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains looks at this state of distraction. I’ve blogged posts: “Internet Attention Deficit Disorder” and “Of Course, Technology Changes You.” Are people losing their minds, so to speak, only to gain another—group mind—through online social interaction?

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‘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. 🙂

A Dating Service for Apple Fans?

My thoughts on this: Apple fans can be annoying when they’re on their own. The thought of them breeding and creating little Apple fans, a whole family of hard core hipster Apple lovers, is just not a good thing. On the other hand, making sure that Apple fans only date other Apple fans is a good way of stopping them from spreading their Apple fan genes to the general population, I guess. So maybe this site isn’t all bad.
Michael Arrington