The Art of Low Expectations

Here is a great talk with Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, in which he discusses the fascinating detrimental implications of freedom of choice on our everyday lives. Simply put, because we are presented with an embarrassment of options in all aspects of life, we achieve a perpetual state of unfulfilled higher expectation which leads to an all-encompassing sense of self-blame brought on by the guilt of selecting the improper thing. I'd like to turn this, as I always do, to the affect this has on art and artists as it's something I have touched on grossly ineloquently before. In an era where all forms of art can be accessed at the flip of a wrist or fingernail, how do we choose what to absorb and what to filter, and do we really have a choice? How do we decide which avenues and mediums to take when all avenues are readily available to us?

When I think about art created under pressure or art created without significant access to resources, these are often the pieces that move me most. Desperation, fear, passion, love are all qualities that emanate intangibly from a piece of work. I'm not suggesting art is to be created in a vacuum, but necessity does breed invention. Consider that the Great Depression has provided us with Snickers and Mars Bars and Three Musketeers! I tend to experience a small terror upon seeing too much or hearing too much or reading too much. Kevin coined a great term a while [years?] ago that I have never forgotten and think about often, and that is "linguistically impressionable". I am this and I am also musically impressionable and visually impressionable and culinarily, vocally and olfactorily impressionable, to the point that I get nervous when I experience too many things. If this sounds like a vexing paroxysm of the privileged classes, it is. As far as potentially incurable problems go it might be a good one to have, but I caution against taking it lightly as it brings about this monumentally heavy sense of dread and impending doom until one is quite literally paralyzed (lying prone on bed with red bean bun) for lengths of time directly proportionate to the amount and quality of information consumed. Our brains are made for storing more than culling, and mine doesn't know what should stay and what should gurgle out with the bathwater. David Foster Wallace said, "'Learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed."

We as a society have well surpassed our allotment of innovation, particularly in the consumer markets, but also in terms of what life options are available to us by society's standards. Schwartz says he assigns less work to the students he teaches today not because they aren't as intelligent or dedicated as their predecessors but because they are so occupied now with what societal tenets they will choose to uphold that their capacity for retention is greatly lowered, and with good reason. Will they get married now? Have children? Start a career? Travel? In previous generations, these precepts were laid out for adolescents but today, these and a glut of other life options are dangled like so many angler worms, resulting in existential paralysis of the sort that I have gratefully, as of last Friday, miraculously [if temporarily] broken out of. And why? Because my options were stripped bare to one sole focus: graduate school. I feel more free than ever to dive into secondary interests because the main goal has been [to a degree] chosen for me. But my thoughts return to the one foundational question: how have we found ourselves at this junction where options are largely discredited as a point of negativity and weak focus where they once were viewed simply and [I daresay] admiringly as skills? And is this a cage I've drawn myself into?

There is so much information and so much access to it that everybody fancies themselves a veritable Bukowski or Warhol in a carefully curated garden of acute documentation, but what made Bukowski's or Burrough's or Carver's work interesting was the lack of precedent, or at least the lack of a culture inundated with the chronic oversharing that defines communication today. Everybody fancies themselves a genius but most spend their time lamenting varying degrees of unmet potential rather than working to provide proof of imagined brilliance. There is a line in Linklater's Waking Life that goes, "He's all action and no theory. We're all theory and no action." or something to that effect, and this adequately sums up the lobe-eating disease we are suffering from.

This is the reason deciding what to have for dinner is a life-or-death situation where I am frequently dissatisfied either because I'm haunted by the thought of other delicacies I could be gorging on or because I've had better X elsewhere. This is why I am able to read more items on my feed reader after I've deleted half the feeds I subscribe to. I am finally beginning to understand what my unarticulated and unchanging childhood-to-adolescent-to-adult fantasy of hovering over Iceland in soft white linens looking out of an enclosed white soundproof module with my cat and a plate of chocolate chip cookies is all about. Here's hoping the icecaps don't melt before I can fulfill my one dying wish.

I leave you with this Louis CK clip that's been floating around the webs for months now, but recently re-gaining steam. Well put.

Why not to live in a castle

Literary website Word Riot published a very insightful essay by The King Princess explaining why no one should live in a castle. An excerpt:

The table settings are built to accomodate 350 - 400 guests, but you will have no friends. If you think it's tough to get to Wicker Park from Uptown, forget about a castle. There are no busses. Cabbies will scoff. No one will ever come to Sunday brunch or a weekday dinner party for the rest of your life. They will perpetually be "hungover." It's near impossible to get a girl home from the bar. FedEx will not deliver without a significant surcharge. You will dine alone, always, and there will only be mutton.

Read the whole thing very carefully, then call your real estate agent right away to withdraw the offer you made on that ridiculous castle before it's too late.

Twat

“Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity." From an excellent examination of the Twitter phenomenon in The Times Online.

The article posits that we tweet to 1] confirm we exist, 2] maintain our place in the forefront of others minds 3] hope the people we "follow" will provide us with a roadmap of where we should go, considering our collective total lack of direction/self-concept.

I have long pondered on what the point of personal micro-blogging is, i.e. Facebook status/Twitter. It is the real-life equivalent of nervous chatter, of the man who talks not for love of his voice, but for a confirmation that it is still there. He is performing the existential keys, wallet, phone check; he is getting stamped the parking validation of his soul. He is the hanger-on at the cocktail party who knows no one but you and he is constantly squeaking on at you regarding the state of his discomfort. Only it's the internet, so it's more like the entire neurotic contents of a packed Yankee Stadium spills out into your cocktail glass - ruining your buzz & wasting your whiskey - once every several nanoseconds.

The reason I'm not vehemently pro-Twitter stems not from my well-developed sense of identity (of which there is nill), but more because I am trying very hard not to be connected to people. That is to say, I am trying to feel more connected to myself so that I do not go padding about life feeling gratuitously aware of my surroundings.

Anyway, I have 2 Twitter accounts. One serves mostly as a link depository, so everyone will know in real-time what garbage I am currently ingesting (I will likely revert back to Tumblr as my primary source of existential validation). The other is also a chronicle of consumption - a tiny index of foods that time (or hemisphere) forgot. Tweet at me.

To Infinity & Beyond

Readers and non-readers, I have begun writing a column at Examiner.com, I am Chicago's newest Budget Cook Examiner. Simian Sam points out that it should be Budget Cook-ING Examiner, but beggars can't be choosers, can they? Click now, click often.
Upsidaisy.

I should also take this time to mention my new(ish) Twitter feed, CRYPTOSNAX, in which we examine the makeup of history's lost and neglected foods. Blueprints for accompanying texts and visuals are being drawn up as we speak.

The Future Is Now

Why Dogs Smell Urine

Because dogs can't use the internet. Urine is like the Facebook of the dog world. Where you or I might look at this month's photographic ratio of nudity to clothedness to determine whether a girl is ready to play croquet, so to speak, a dog will smell her urine. In our lives, when a girl sees another girl's half-nude portraits, she will typically forward or photoshop or otherwise mock/belittle said girl. A dog, on the other hand, will simply pee over the portrait, where the portrait equals pee. This is much easier. We have much to learn from dogs.

Sometimes dude dogs smell pee for territorial purposes, i.e., will I get my ass kicked today, or, this guy's been eating too much bacon and I will be able to take him and bang his girl. Similarly, in human life, a fellow might take stock of various suitors or boyfriends by Facebooking competitor's occupation, musical taste, interests. For instance, if sumo wrestling is listed as an occupation, our hero will throw in the towel and seek easier tail, so to speak. On the other hand, if Jason Mraz is listed as a musical fave, our hero has the full go-ahead, two thumbs up your asses. If there is contradictory information, it's best just to pee over the information.

Just as we typically use Facebook to feel bad, in comparison, about our lot in life, so too do dogs when they employ the smelling of urine. Who's gotten fatter? Who's been having relations? Relations with whom, and where? Who's richer and can afford premium meat/shoes? All these questions can be answered, and adequate self-loathing can commence.

Peeing around other pee is also a way of communicating. Dogs can remember other dog's scent, for they have a vast database of scents in storage. Thus, peeing next to your friend's pee is just like a Facebook message, though there is still the danger of an unwanted Reply All. Dogs do not use Facebook chat. We have much to learn from dogs.

Droplets Represent My Worldview.