because i said so: media and other trivialities

An Open Letter to the New York Review of Books

2012-01-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

Inquiring about your web site access, I was told recently--and it rather surprised me--that my subscription had lapsed.

I suppose I should be grateful that you don't pelt us subscribers with constant "last," "very last," and "really absolutely the final" offers.

But I don't seem to have gotten any.

And your web site subscription page seems to say, basically: "give us your credit card number and we'll renew you--don't worry your pretty little head about how much it will cost."

Are there actual renewal offers for lapsing and lapsed subscribers? With actual dollar amounts attached? So that I might make a rational choice? As doubly lapsed, Catholic and Jew, I have received many an offer to re-join a forgotten fold. Does my reading soul not deserve the same treatment as the immortal kind?

The truth is: I work at a university and can read the NYRB web site all day at work.

But I don't want to read a web site at work. I want to hold pieces of paper in my hand and read them (variously) on the bus and on the couch and in the tub and on a bench. I am what the young people call "Ol' Skool." I would think publishers would show some small degree of gratitude to us codgers.

Sincerely,

Edward R. O'Neill

P.S. I am sorry to be a bit emotional. But Gustav Leonhardt died yesterday, and I'm listening to his recording of The Goldberg Variations, and my emotions are all atussle.

The Brief History of an Idea

2012-01-10T15:38:00.000-08:00

One idea interests me above all others: two dimensions which are at once indistinguishable and utterly irreconcilable. The idea sounds absurd. But the idea is several hundred years old--which is not really so long, as ideas go.

I believe the Ancients had no such worries. Identity was a law for them. A is A. A = A. Any thing is identical to itself--that is its identity. The law of identity forbids that a thing can be both itself and not itself at once, not identical to itself and also identical to its opposite.

Nevertheless, I must insist that the idea of a special difference between a thing and itself is as solid the actor who plays Hamlet's father's ghost. The actor, after all, is both an actor and a ghost, a ghost and not a ghost, an actor and not an actor.

Nor, despite this talk of ghosts, does the problem of this special difference collapse into a Christian separation of this world and the next, nor the distinction between the saved and the damned, nor any such dualistic kind of holiness. Indeed, this difference I'm pointing to emerges precisely when the notion of the sacred has lots its location.

The idea of this difference seems to appear first in Descartes as the theme and threat of deception and error. The key instance is the distinction between waking and dreaming. Descartes seems possessed by the worry that you could confuse one with the other: dreaming and waking are utterly opposed, as truth and error--and yet in danger of being confused. (In a certain way, it seems like it's Descartes who's confused, for all his purported rationalism.)

Descartes dispels the possible confusion of dreaming and waking by appealing to God's existence: God couldn't want to fool us, because he's not a demon. So the opposition between (the one) God and a (random but powerful) demon stabilizes the distinction between truth and error, dispels deception and doubt--which are weak names for the difference between a thing and itself, or the identity of opposites. Strangely, dreaming is still deceptive--despite the existence of God.

As a long-time insomniac, I can tell you that it's quite implausible that the dreamer is not aware that he is asleep: most of the time, you know damn well you are. You can even dream and not be asleep: it's exactly the form of insomnia from which I suffer. I lie in bed, thinking "if only I could sleep!" only to realize: that hours have gone by, or that my thoughts are have become fluid and taken on that special character of dreaming; or that I believe I am watching a movie, when in fact, my eyes are closed. Perhaps this explains my personal interest in the difference. I know all too well the difference between dreaming and waking, they way they're always too close but never at all alike.

Nevertheless: Descartes let the genie out of the bottle.

Christianity only arrives upon the the idea when it encounters its other in a thoroughly secular world. Then sacred and secular conceptions of the world co-exist unhappily: the world as divine creation, proof of God's existence, points to the same world that is also a mechanical clockwork whose very calculability points to God's absence, His marginality.

For Weber, Luther raises up the distinction between the elect and the non-elect to something that drives Protestants to work hard to demonstrate their worth, their status as elect, their salvation. The more invisible election is, the harder you have to work to show it: an infinite task, which is good for building up your bank account, Weber thought: doubt keeps people busy.

For Nietzsche, the identical opposites are: the true world and illusion--in short, the Platonic duality. The true world becomes a Platonic, then Christian ideal. Since the ideals are unattainable or unattained, the true world is discarded. That does not leave the illusion, but something that is neither. The distinction between truth and illusion collapse. God is dead. Descartes' guarantor is gone. Life is a dream--and not a dream, both at once.

For Heidegger, this is the ontico-ontological difference, the difference between the ontic and the ontological, everything that exists vs. the fact that it exists. This turns out only to be the invitation to a hermeneutics. Disappointing. It's a hermeneutics of finitude, with all kinds of absolute unknowns built in, but it's still a hermeneutics, still a straining to close the gaps. Existentialism collapses philosophy into the novel and the documentary: any observation of social life can serve as a hermeneutic interrogation of finitude. Even Sartre can write plays, novels.

Curiously, this quivering difference exists in another locale: theater, theatricality, play. Theater is anti-ontology.

Consider the relation between the actor and the character she plays. There is Meryl Streep, and there is Sophie. Sophie borrows Meryl's body, face and voice; Meryl lends herself to Sophie. In the theater, the difference is clearer: the character plays her role in a drama, but the actor takes the bow.

Likewise for everything in the theatrical set. Some painted canvas stands for a castle. It is both the canvas and paint and the castle. The two are utterly irreconcilable and yet the same physical thing. There is no resemblance between the two. Even if they were identical, if the set were a castle, if the castle were transported to build the set, the castle-as-set would only be playing the role of a castle--utterly invalidated in its reality.

The same could be said for symbols in general. Symbols point to a thing, meaning or idea, but generally on the condition that they are not that thing, meaning or idea. Even the word "word," although it is certainly a word, is not word-ness-in-general. The ink is not the idea.

Certainly these things must always have been true. Whomever played the role of Oedipus was both himself and Oedipus, not himself and not Oedipus. But somehow--and this is rather mysterious--life must have become theater somewhere between Descartes and Nietzsche, where theater must have formerly been something else.

What was theater before modernity? Why religion, of course. And so theater as a zone of this quivering difference points us back to the sacred--and to the reason this difference I'm pointing to is at once modern, theological and everyday.

In traditional societies, some objects are sacred: set apart untouchable. This is the discovery of Durkheim that helps to found sociology. But in modern society, tradition is under constant attack. The cosmological framework of the society has fractured: few ideals are held in common. And so there is no common set of sacred objects.

Instead, what is sacred is the self--at one untouchable and constantly being presented and breached through special ritual procedures. (This is the underlying idea of Erving Goffman's sociology: it goes back to one of his earliest papers on social deference and demeanor.) The rituals of modern society have come unmoored from religion and become matters of tact, politeness.

Goffman brought a theatrical framework to the task of understanding social life. And so the secular society and the theatrical society are one and the same. Secular social interaction is our theology. In modernity, the everyday and the theological are one.

--Edward R. O'Neill

Selling the Back End: When Is the "Certain Point"?

2011-12-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

I met a young musician recently. I haven't heard his music, so I have no idea if he's any good or not. But he told me lately he's been helping other musicians promote themselves, since he found many musicians did not know how to do that effectively.

I said "Oh, so you're selling the back end."

He looked puzzled, and I realized that even very savvy people who are doing it don't know what this means. This is surprising because one of the major business trends of the last decade is: selling the back end as a service. Lately businesses have been coming to a crossroad, a certain point at which the skills they use to maintain themselves are at least as valuable and maybe more valuable than the nominal service or product they were selling.

So today two of the crucial things you can know are:

What does it mean to sell the back end?
And when, if ever, does one reach this point?

Back End vs. Front End: In Social Life & Organizations.

People who deal with computers and software a lot understand the distinction between front and back ends. But many others don't. You can get technical about it and talk about "layers" and "abstractions." But a parallel metaphor might help.

Almost every social enterprise has a front end and a back end. It's a bit like the onstage/backstage distinction which sociologist Erving Goffman used as a metaphor for the organization of social life.

In the theater, the stage is where the performance happens, where the audience sees and hears it. It's where the audience gets a message.
But backstage and in rehearsals is where and when the performance is prepared. The actors get ready, their costumes are organized, there are tables holding props, etc. This is where the message is built.

Lots of stuff happens backstage that the audience doesn't need to know--although one way of doing theater plays around with showing both sides to make things more interesting. (This style ranges from Shakespeare to Brecht to Noises Off.)

It's remarkable how many enterprises are amenable to this kind of distinction between onstage and offstage or front and back end.

A department store has merchandise on display. It's on mannequins and racks and tables.
Then there's the warehouse and all the places the merchandise comes from. And there's also the offices and lockers and lounges where the staff get organized and get ready.

Computer Layers as a Conceptual/Organizational Principle.

Such is the way we live now that social organizations seem better metaphorized by computer terms than theatrical ones.

Now with computers, there is a strong distinction between the front end which the user interacts with and manipulates--as opposed to the underlying guts that does the computing. In truth, it's not a simple this-vs-that difference: a computer has many layers.

At the bottom there are one's and zero's.
At another layer there are letters and numbers and commands.
And at the final outer layer, there is the user's desktop and the keyboard, mouse or touchscreen.

As this description suggests, the front end and user interface are always changing. Did you touch your computer's screen five years ago? Probably not. The one's and zero's haven't changed during this time--but the interface sure has.

It wasn't always this way. Web-based software used to be written like other software: it was one system and one program. Everything was combined. The same software interacted with the user and did the processing. Sometimes if you apply for a job for a poorly-funded institution, you will use this kind of application. It makes you want to cry and eat your children.

The Back End as Software or Other Services.

Nowadays, one piece of software might store the information, where an entirely different piece of software interacts with the user. The latter front end or user interface talks to the back end through definite ways of interacting--called Application Programming Interfaces or API's for short.

Now people who build a back end most likely use API's so that others can access their service. Take Twitter for instance.

The pages at Twitter.com are only one front end for Twitter's service of relaying very short messages.
But many other applications--TweetDeck and Twitterific and little pages that open on news sites and blogs--can also talk to Twitter's back end.
So wherever you are, on whatever site, or using whatever device, you can conveniently send a Tweet without opening Twitter's software.

Twitter is both a front end and a back end. You may use another front end, but there is no alternative back end. Twitter doesn't charge for this service. Indeed, no one can exactly tell what Twitter's business model--how they plan to make money--even is.

By contrast, companies like Amazon.com, Salesforce.com and Zappos have all started selling their back end--but it's not just a computer service. In addition to being an end-to-end service--selling stuff or organizing your sales data--each of these companies is also selling the back end services which make the company run in the first place.

The Bookstore that Became a Service Provider.
Once upon a time, Amazon.com sold books and other merchandise through an online store. This involved maintaining a huge web site and warehouses, processing transactions and shipping.
At a certain point, Amazon realized they were so good at these "back end" skills, that they started selling them as services.
Amazon will store data for you. Amazon will store items for you in their warehouses. Amazon will ship your warehouse items for you. In a sense, Amazon now rents its web site--and even just its hard drives--as well as its warehouse and shipping space.

A Database Is a Database.

Once upon a time, Salesforce.com built software that allowed users to track their customers and sales.
At a certain point, Salesforce.com realized they really just had a giant database.
So they started letting customers use their database software to build their own databases. They called this new enterprise Force.com, although it's admittedly achieved less brand recognition than the original company.
They now offer website building services, too--as a web site is now no longer just a bunch of files on a computer, it's usually information stored in a database.

Selling Stuff vs. Selling Know-How.
Once upon a time, Zappos sold sale merchandise online. They focused on great customer care--so great training of their staff and a positive company culture.
At a certain point, they became very well known for their company culture. So they started selling consulting services about how to be more like Zappos.

Can You Sell Your Back End?

What about you? Can you do this?

In a sense, every potentially employable person in an economy is his own one-person business. Since most of us are "at-will" employees and free agents, we are free to sell our services to whomever we please. We would only be "selling the back end" if we sold as a service the basic ways we support and sustain ourselves--sleeping, exercising, feeding ourselves. People do this. Life coaches, counselors, personal trailers and personal chefs are essentially selling the back end of the day-to-day process of living.

More to the point: can your business do this? Or when should it?

If your company has a terrific web site, it may be time to sell your web site management services.
If your company sells and delivers flowers, it may be time to sell your delivery services. Or to sell flower-arranging courses.
If you make and sell organic milk, you may find you are better at certifying products as organic then you are at selling them.

I even notice that some fancy cooking stores also hold cooking classes. Presumably, one skill needed to run the store is to know a lot about cooking, and so they can sell that service--although my observation is that not everyone who works in a pet food store has a pet.

The "certain point" comes when your original business can serve as a calling card for or symbol of the quality of your back end services. This was always true to some small degree: a store that sold good clothing was a symbol of the quality of its tailoring. But then tailors were never the largest enterprises.

The "certain point" is partly a tipping point: when the value of your back end services meets or outpaces the value or your original product or service. But today the marketplace for goods and services can be so fast-moving and unpredictable that it is wisest to be agnostic about what product or service will be the most profitable.

Which means that the "certain point" is probably: ASAP.

Maybe even yesterday--if not sooner.

--Edward R. O'Neill

Cranky Rant about Shitting UIX on the Wall Street Journal Web Site

2011-11-23T19:04:00.000-08:00

Dear Wall Street Journal:

By now I understand all to clearly that items in your printed newspaper cannot be found on the web site by searching words from the article's headline.

The headline. I guess the headline doesn't contain any keywords.

Don't know who does your web programming, but this is a bit of a doozy. Such a doozy it must be purposeful.

Is this like supermarkets moving every item every few months so the customer will get lost and realize "oh I need butter-flavored sprinkles"?

In any case, I am now fully accustomed to not finding items you print with ink on paper on your web site. Yes, I subscribe to your daily paper. On actual paper. I know: I'm a dinosaur. I have an iPad, I really do, but there is some ineffable charm about reading an actual newspaper, and frankly, it is less offensive on an LA city bus to be reading a newspaper than a $600 toy for grown-ups.

But there is in addition the fact that you don't care for your web site visitors to see interesting graphic content.

Because you know the web is so non-visual. Ahem.

So graphs from the print edition are routinely missing from the web site--or are so tiny as not to be legible.

I understand this. And by "understand" I mean "have come to expect."

Now you have gone a bit further. (Apparently, the print-and-web reader was not inconvenienced, shunted aside, treated shabbily enough to begin with. Someone decided to go the extra mile.)

If I read an interesting discussion of some good wines, I find that I am required to cut the referring article out of the physical newspaper, as you have chosen to layout wine reviews as a slideshow--something that cannot be printed on a single page even in the Print Layout.

Indeed, many visual elements are laid out so they CANNOT BE PRINTED in the PRINT LAYOUT.

Clearly the Print Layout is now grossly misnamed. Perhaps Print Hideout. Or Print Cutout. Or Print Hide-and-Seek. Surely the folks who name things can do better.

I'm not sure what genius user experience designer thought this up.

What was the reasoning exactly? "The browser must be a subscriber to get this content. But they should save their newspapers and cut clippings from them. We wouldn't want them to print the web page and take it to the wine store to go shopping! What are we, a personal shopping service?"

I know the wine reporters don't get the hootch free. But do vintners understand that users can no longer print out recommendations to take them to the store? I bet they'd love that!

And now, because all this was not enough, I want to send my sister, who's a dog-lover--you see, I know how to use a comma, and even a dash--your adorable photo of the dog "Bento" who can sniff out false euro notes, but no, I cannot get the picture on your web site. It's not in the view for that day's edition, and of course it cannot be found by searching, because, as I mentioned above, your search does not work.

So yes, I will be cutting the photo from my newsprint edition and sending it in an envelope with a stamp.

This will make the U.S. Postal Service happy, if not solvent, but it says nothing about your ability to run a modern business enterprise which displays the same content to two platforms in ways that are findable and usable.

I bet USA TODAY can do better.

Regards,

Edward R. O'Neill

Los Angeles, CA

a subscriber

Negulesco, Jean.

2011-07-18T19:30:00.001-07:00

(An online pal asked me to play this round-robin kind of game. What follows is the result.)

Jean Negulesco. Something of a scamp. Probably an inveterate liar. Or truthteller--it comes to the same thing in Hollywood.

Films I love. Too many.

ROAD HOUSE (1948) is one of my all-time favorite films--in any genre or national cinema. It's that oddest of genre inflections: the rural noir. Ida Lupino as a chanteuse in a bowling alley? Richard Widmark as a psychopath? Cornel Wilde as the bowling alley manager? What's not to love?

After hearing Lupino sing, Celeste Holm cracks wise: "She sings the best of anyone without a voice I ever heard." Lupino wasn't dubbed this time, and she croaks to tremendous effect. Love and madness and alcohol and smoking and torch songs and bowling near the Canada border. I treasure this film. If you don't love this film, you probably have no soul.

A close second is HUMORESQUE (1946), which mixes superb fiddling with two utterly contrasting styles of acting: John Garfield's streetsmart Jewish hoodlum and Joan Crawford's utterly ersatz yet grotesquely compelling impersonation of what she imagined was "psychology." The musical arrangements of showpieces became standard concert fare: think of CARMEN as an interior monologue for violin and orchestra (triple stops and whatnot) and you get the idea.

Odets penned the wicked script. Look closely, and you'll notice that Garfield and his protege Oscar Levant (meant to be much older) share an apartment with a single bed between them. So Garfield is a bisexual trickster who sleeps with a pianist to get ahead and a society matron to get paid. Strong women and weak men. Delightful.

NOBODY LIVES FOREVER (1946) would-be about a con man who's saved by love. Happily, the ambiguity is too deep, and so one can never quite tell--in a very calculated way--whether John Garfield's con man has really been saved by Geraldine Fitzgerald's quiet nobility, or if he just intends to cheat his friends. Christian virtue becomes a structural chimera, a kind of parallax view. (A W. R. Burnett script will do that for you.)

Films I like.

TITANIC (1953). Pleasing. Relatively understated, given the topic. To be preferred to some other versions of the story. Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, Thelma Ritter, Richard Basehart: it's hard to beat this collection of actors. Charles Brackett worked on the script. A few days of honorable labor.

THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS (1944) and THREE STRANGERS (1946) are the Warners stock company, and the writers playing around with flashbacks. They're not really as good as the formal games suggest. But these are diverting films. One has the feeling of pals kicking about some old jokes in a very low-key way.

Films I hate. None.

HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953) is merely pleasant. That is as close to bad as Negulesco gets, in my view. JOHNNY BELINDA (1948) as never been to my taste.

One can complain about MUDLARK (1950) and PHONE CALL FROM A STRANGER (1952). But I do not believe in ingratitude.

THE RAINS OF RANCHIPUR (1955) is trash, but it is Grade A trash. Lana Turner cannot act. To pair her with Richard Burton took a certain exquisite sense of irony. Stick-of-wood Michael Rennie shows up and allows us to gaze upon his cheekbones. Small pleasures are not to be denied.

I can't write more--or I'll go on all night.

--Edward R. O'Neill

21st Century Insurance: AIG-Level Stupidity

2011-05-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

21st Century Insurance was bought by AIG--the company that nearly brought the world economy to its knees.

So what should you expected when AIG owns your car insurance company?

Utter incompetence, of course. That's what I got.

First, their web site was down for over a week. Then they sent an email that the site was up again and taking payments. The site was up--but not taking payments. So I paid through my online banking service.

Then 21st Century charges me a late fee. I call and complain that I was not late. They explain that they changed their address and so my online banking no longer works. Their fault, but they agree to reverse the late fee.

This month 21st Century/AIG calls to say I'm late again. My bank shows I paid. To make things more complicated, their web site does NOT show I paid--but shows I'm NOT LATE.

I submit an email from their web site. (You must be signed in to do so.) Their replies ask me to prove I'm me by submitting my address and insurance policy number. Somehow they think I can hack their web site and pretend to own a ten-year-old Nissan but not steal my residential address and policy number at the same time.

After FOUR emails, 21st/AIG finally explains to me: they can no longer take electronic payments. AND their web site does not correctly show whether a payment is due or not. But just trust them and send them some money.

Time to switch back to Geico--unless they were bought by some other monstrous abortion of a company.

Like Sony.

--E. R. O'Neill

You Are Going to New York for the First Time: What To Expect.

2010-12-23T23:53:00.000-08:00

If it is winter, it will be cold as shit.

If it is summer, it will be hot as shit.

You will be awake nonstop for many many hours of the day and night.

You will sleep less than you have before.

You will drink more coffee than you ever have before.

You will walk more than you ever have before.

Soon, you will not care about the temperature. Then, you will start to groove on it.

You will hear music that is more beautiful than anything you have heard before.

You will go to places that scare you, and you will like it.

You will expect knife-fights to break out, but they won't.

You will meet more crazy people than you have ever met before.

You will like some of those crazy people.

Sometimes you will be the only person who isn't high.

Sometimes you will be the only person who is high.

You will spend more time in public than you have before.

You will spend less time alone than you have before.

The History of Cinema; or, How False Became True and Truth Was Replaced by a Story.

2010-12-16T19:33:00.000-08:00

Step 1. Cinema becomes classical. Coherence of narrative. No need for verbal explanation, the elimination or subordination of intertitles in silent cinema--notably in the most rigorous of filmmakers, such as Murnau. The logic of action connects shots. The content is not a disguised verbal content: it is action. The cinema is closed, self-sufficient. But there is still a blatant hole: the fourth wall is ignored. Audiences and filmmakers alike accept completely that the story is staged for the camera, for an audience. There is no attempt to become ‘un-stage-y.’ Cinema is happily theatrical, happily artificial.

Step 2. Part A. Classical cinema becomes self-conscious, but in a contradictory attempt to represent a consistent reality. What’s later called film noir--which is a form of realism--emerges. The attempt to include ceilings, to venture outside, to the cityscape, to real locations rather than sets. The attempt to include the fourth wall.

Classical cinema tries to become more realistic.

This is not an essential rupture, only a consolidation. Classical cinema dreams itself as coherent and closed, with no outside. The camera has no place. Wyler shoots scenes in which the camera shows a 360-degree space (The Best Years of Our Lives).

Part B. Within classical cinema’s self-consciousness, Hitchock is most self-aware and audacious. He ostentatiously places mirrors in the mise-en-scene which should reveal the mirror but which instead show nothing.

Closure is false closure--and Hitchcock underlines this falsity. His story of the McGuffin emphasizes this: the McGuffin makes the story go, but the McGuffin itself is nothing, a pretext, even nonsensical. Cinema achieves meaning only by materializing its own principle of ordering within itself as a nonsensical impossible thing: the McGuffin is to classical cinema as the zero is the system of numbers in the Fregean philosophy of mathematics. Tiny props which are really huge, huge mountain sides which live on a soundstage, corpses which circulate like bad pennies.

Step 3. Modernism attacks classical cinema--from the outside. The modernists attempt to rend the consistency and coherence of classical cinema, but they only succeed in substituting another, different set of principles.

The modernists favor compositional principles: parallelism of shots, consistency of devices, formal principles over the semantic coherence of actions. Consistency of forms substitutes for consistency of what is represented. A foolish and annoying substitution of one form of order for another--as if one form of reason can be better than another.

The results are shocking--and also boring. Anomie is the required theme to provide a semantic mirror for the substitution of formal compositional principles for a consistent reality. The result is pseudo-social critique. In lighter moments (Blow-Up, the British New Wave, notably Richard Lester), films make light of their own incoherence. At such moments, modernism strains to reach the casual self-awareness of early cinematic theatricality: playful conventions become grim conventions interspersed with serious playfulness.

Step 4. Cinema recognizes its own incoherence, impossibility--and accepts it. Everything is a convention, but conventions are necessary. Coherence of sense is not necessary, only the

creation of effects. Feeling, spectacle. The reversal of modernist aridity.

The story can no longer be explained or justified--at all. Not as truth (internal consistency), not as form ("pure" form, formal consistency). The justification of the story is the need for a story to put inside a film--really a film-product. This is exactly the way a product is required to fill a package which was designed first: the inversion of the marketplace, the relation of buyer to seller supersedes any substantial commodity that might precede the relation of consumption. The Usual Suspects. Haneke’s Cache.

In earlier historical moments, an exaggerated emphasis on logic in popular cinema acts as a kind of defense or excuse: 'you see, it's all very logical.' Postmodern 'reality' changes all that. Instead of the demand for meaning, coherence or form, there is only the demand for a story.

Story, at last, becomes what it had been all along: another form of money.

--Edward R. O'Neill

Tracy Jordan's '30 Rock' Traumatic Childhood Memories

2010-10-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

I slept on an old dog bed filled with wigs.
I watched a prostitute stab a clown.
Our basketball hoop was a rib cage. A rib cage.
A homeless man cooking a Hot Pocket on the third rail of the G train.
A puppy committed suicide after he saw our bathroom.
I once saw a baby give another baby a tattoo. They were very drunk.
The projects I lived in was named after Zachary Taylor, generally considered to be one of the worst Presidents of all time.

Plus de culture.

2010-06-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

Prose writers are attached to prose, cinephiles attached to movies, visual artists attached to images. Each is convinced one particular form does a special kind of work. Partisans experience a feeling of being bound, obligated, to that particular vehicle.

This modernist attitude is sometimes called "the specificity of the medium": there is something in film that's verbally incommunicable, in prose that can't be filmed or painted, in a painting that can't be spoken.

But is this attachment to one material form justified?

Forget the philosophical or argumentative dimension. Partisans of one art form or another are attached to that medium more or less the way clan members are attached to that clan: a part of your identity comes from your group membership, and that social group membership has or even requires cultural forms. The cultural forms do some work of binding: binding individuals to their group, binding that group together.

But there's always a little more culture than necessary--or not enough. In French plus de culture means at once 'too much culture' and 'no more culture.' (It's a play on words of which Derrida was quite find.)

By "too much culture" I mean: groups are bound and obligated to the cultural forms which express their group membership over and above what is necessary to bind that group together. "We" are people who worship this god or like that kind of vase or play this kind of music. Even apart from the group-unity, there is a residual attachment to the symbolic and aesthetic forms and substances.

Marcuse offered the idea of surplus repression: culture represses more than is absolutely necessary and the surplus makes us neurotic. Easy enough to blame neurosis on that surplus.

Things are harder when the surplus is in some sense necessary. Yes, culture helps bind groups together. But then there is also this overage, this extra commitment or experience of obligation to the flags and vases, to film over prose, to this kind of film over that kind.

Our very attachment to cultural forms is "too much"--more than is necessary just to express group commitment. It gets into your head and defines you.

I have the peculiarity that I have never had this extreme form of commitment. I can never love film more than prose or prose more than film, trash films more than art, or vice-versa. But this is quite unusual.

No doubt this is tied to my hating teams and rooting for teams. Like the Woody Allen/Grouch Marx joke: I don't want to be a part of a club who would have someone like me for a member. I tend not to enjoy any form of partisanship or clubbishness. Perhaps this is neurotic--but there it is.

Recently I was scanning a document constructed by professional writers. It was something that only writers could make. It was completely committed to writing. Would a graph have sufficed? A pie chart? A diagram? A list? Probably.

But the writers were convinced that only prose would do.

What would it be like to be medium-agnostic, form-agnostic, vehicle-agnostic, culturally-agnostic?

This would mean accepting whatever forms or media or symbolic vehicles or cultural forms were convenient on an ad hoc basis.

If our universities had a wider notion of literacy--expanded literacy, multimedia literacy, communication skills--if we had a notion that went beyond prose writing and included Powerpoint and statistics, computer programming and filmmaking, then all our graduates would have at their fingertips whatever cultural forms seemed necessary or useful.

But you'll never get a theory out of that--because it's neither consistent nor coherent. It can't be. It's heterogeneous to its core, or pagan, as Jean-Francois Lyotard might say. It's dramatistic or multi-perspectival, as Kenneth Burke might have said.

I love culture. I love all kinds of symbols and communication media. But I remain pagan. Which makes me a strange beast.

--Edward R. O'Neill

How To Quit Smoking. (This Is How I Did It.)

2010-05-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

Get an empty cigarette box. Keep in it only the number of cigarettes you are allowed to smoke for the day. Start slightly lower than where you are--10 or 15.

Spend some time getting used to doling them out. Convince yourself you can smoke a definite number, not as many as you want. Then decrease the number you're allowed by one per day. Learn how to manage your smoking habit in this way.

When it becomes harder to maintain the lower number, stay at that level until you're ready. It could be going from 15 to 14 is somehow a problem. Or 11 to 10. Hang in there at the lower level until you find how to manage it.

If you can get down to six or five or four, you have it made. When I get below six, I can no longer concentrate on anything besides smoking. I'm spending the whole day waiting to smoke. I can't go below that.

Stay at a very low level until you are ready to stop.

At this point, you've reduced the level of nicotine your body is accustomed to so far that to suddenly go to zero is no problem.

For me, I tried to go from six to zero more than once, but I always got intense cravings and bought another pack.

Some days, however, I would smoke only four cigarettes. And one day I ran out towards the end of one day and just decided not to buy a new pack. I didn't, and I haven't smoked regularly since. (I will still have a cigarette with a friend, but no more than one.)

--Edward O'Neill

Epic Commute Fail.

2010-04-19T20:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Los Angeles Metro Transportation Authority:

On Monday April 19th, President Obama's visit to Exposition Park caused changes to your bus routes between 5:15 and 9:15 pm.

You failed to effectively plan, manage and communicate these changes.

Let me enumerate.

On weekdays I take the 550 bus from the corner of Exposition and Figueroa northbound to the corner of San Vincente and Redondo--one block west of LaBrea.

At noon on April 19th I called 1-800-COMMUTE to find out where the 550 bus would be rerouted.

Neither the operator nor the supervisor knew what the new 550 route would be. I was told to call back at 3 pm. #1. You failed to keep your staff and the public informed.

As instructed, I called back at 3 pm. Neither the operator nor the supervisor knew what the new 550 route would be. I was told to call back at 4 pm. #2. You failed to communicate to your staff or the public effectively.

I was busy at 4 pm.

Between 5:30 and 5:45 pm, I called three times. Your automated system could not connect me any of the three times. #3. You failed to have a phone service which works.

I tried to go to the 550 stop at the corner of Exposition and Figueroa. #4. There was no sign posted with the new route. #5. You failed to communicate the new route to the police.

I looked at your web site. You had posted a notice that the 550 route was changed. #6. You neglected to give the new 550 route. You claimed that signs at the stops would direct passengers. #7. You misled the public--since you failed to post signs directing the public to a new route.

That morning I had subscribed to get emails when changes would affect the 550 route. #8. You neglected to use the email service you yourself established to communicate changes to the 550 bus route.

At 5:45 I finally reached an operator. She could not tell me where the 550 bus had been re-routed. #9. You failed even during the closer to inform or prepare your staff effectively to communicate with the public.

I asked two bus drivers on Jefferson at Figueroa. Neither knew anything. #10. You failed to inform your drivers of changes to routes.

I took a bus to Normandie and Jefferson. I walked to Adams. Remarkably, at 6:10 pm a 550 bus appeared, turning south from Adams onto Normandie. I was at a bus stop and tried to flag the bus down. The 550 bus driver would not stop for passengers. #11. Your drivers failed to treat the public with courtesy by honoring bus stops on their detoured routes.

I walked to Pico, but those buses terminated at Rimpau.

I walked to Olympic and caught a bus to Olympic and LaBrea.

In short, if my experiences are any benchmark, you failed the public in 11 distinct ways.

You failed to plan, communicate and execute changes to bus routes.
You failed to use your own channels of communication.
You failed to work with your staff and with the public.

President Obama's visit, while noteworthy, was not exceptional in its complexity.

Nor was it a surprise.

If you cannot manage a change of this magnitude, I fear greatly how you would handle any significant civic crisis.

I hope this information helps you improve a system that clearly is not even worthy of the name "system."

Sincerely,

Edward R. O'Neill

Los Angeles, CA

What Happens in Vegas....

2010-04-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

I recently re-watched Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors. There was a sub-sub-plot I'd forgotten.

In that sub-sub-plot, the Woody Allen character has a lonely unmarried sister who tries to find love through the personal ads (which used to be printed on newsprint, apparently). The sister justifies her actions by appealing to marriage as companionship--even though her brother's marriage is a kind of emotional stalemate. (So the sub-sub-plot links up with the Allen sub-plot about his would-be affair, which then connects with the main plot about a mistress being murdered.) The sister meets a nice man--who then ties her up and shits on her.

Allen's character is at first horrified (as, I think, we are). Later he tells his wife about it. ("A strange man tied up my sister and defecated on her.") The wife doesn't react (though she does announce she needs to get up early and then rolls over--as if to declare 'no sex tonight). Allen's character remarks that desire is mysterious, but that's probably a good thing. I used to find this anecdote to embody a tasteless misogyny on Allen's part. It's clearly there just to make an antinomy: you're either lonely and miserable and prey to weirdo's, or you're locked in a loveless marriage with no hope--just as in the main plot you either cheat and are punished for it, or you're locked in a stifling marriage. Allen sharpens his contrasts to allow now middle ground. It's entertaining and dramatic--more conflict--if falsifying. But now the positive aspect stands out. People find things that please and make them happy. No matter how strange or unappealing you find it, if we are to respect others and believe in The Pursuit of Happiness, a certain kind of judgment must be suspended.

"It's not for me"--but that is not a judgment that applies to anyone else.

Personal identity in late capitalism is behind a kind of veil--in Rawls' metaphor. The odd thing now is: we're fascinated by what's behind that veil and need constantly to look behind it, even if we agree (as not all do) that our responses to what's back there can have no political consequence.

--Edward R. O'Neill

We Are Not Confused.

2010-03-07T10:34:00.000-08:00

Just a tiny piece of information for noted philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.

Inglourious Basterds and Shutter Island are what Americans call "fiction." As American audiences understand these films, they do not show "facts" or "reality." (I believe the French words are "faits" and "réalité.")

In short, these movies are not documentaries (or "documentaires," as you might say).

In the United States, we are not as naive as French philosophers believe. Much as we enjoy movies (as I believe the French do also), we do not readily confuse fact and fiction--not because of a movie, anyway.

The Holocaust may or may not be "the most horrible, incomparable event of human History," as you put it. One might mention the Armenian genocide, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or Belgian atrocities in the Congo. But I believe it is ignoble to compare tragedies.

Nevertheless, the idea that depiction is tantamount to unacceptable banalization is hard to maintain in a democratic society.

Sincerely,

Edward R. O'Neill, Ph.D.
Los Angeles, CA

Driving to LA. Lucky?

2010-01-18T14:45:00.001-08:00

When it comes to holiday decorations, understatement is really the key.

2009-12-25T18:09:00.001-08:00

Free spliff with your first visit....Public transit ads, Frisco-style.

2009-12-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

Sale on Christmas Decorations at the Salvation Army, 26th & Valencia, San Francisco.

2009-11-17T08:35:00.000-08:00

Forlorn stuff left on the corner of 30th & San Jose, San Francisco.

2009-10-18T17:32:00.001-07:00

No comment.

2009-09-26T16:33:00.000-07:00

My Day Off....

2009-09-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

When I started my run at Mission and 30th, it was sunny....

2009-09-20T19:04:00.001-07:00

The emdpoint of a rainy run.

2009-09-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

Foggy morning run.

2009-09-12T12:23:00.001-07:00

Crazy foggy this morning in Daly City as Ieave SF on BART. Will it really be 79 today?

2009-09-11T08:12:00.001-07:00

3 hours 10 minutes: I arrive at the Ferry Terminal. I think I'm done with my run.

2009-09-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

2 hours and still running--God bless caffeine!

2009-09-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

...& ran from Ocean Beach to Baker Beach...

2009-09-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Ran from Haight to the Pacific.

2009-09-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

Separated at birth? Or two great tastes....?

2009-09-05T14:38:00.001-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Enlightenment? Fuck Yeah!

2009-09-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

-- Ed

Made it to the beach--where it's cool & lovely. Haven't seen R. in a week: I think it's over.

2009-08-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Is there ANY flavor combination considered out of bounds? Shrimp banana maybe?

2009-08-21T15:36:00.001-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Cold clear San Francisco night, Mitchell's ice cream. Mob scene.

2009-08-13T21:02:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Stinson Beach at Dusk.

2009-07-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Near Bodega Bay....

2009-07-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

Did I see WHAT sign?

2009-07-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Dude, where's my bike?!

2009-07-17T08:32:00.001-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

My, what a classy mall. Can you tell me: where is Wharf Hydrant #4?

2009-07-16T19:13:00.001-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Professional Victims

2009-07-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Frank:

I'm a fan of yours--but I especially liked today's editorial.

You hit on a theme too many are ignoring.

Namely, conservatives like to complain about weak and spineless liberals: strength of character and independence are the moral virtues that complement their religious belief that the market takes care of those who take care of themselves.

We're the lazy "victims" who need government largesse, whereas if we just trusted ourselves, our God, free markets and hard work, everything would turn out just fine (as it so clearly has lo these last eight years).

But in fact, conservative rhetoric is shot through with a powerful sense of injury and impotence.

If someone weren't harming them and depriving them of what is 'rightfully' theirs, they'd have precious little to say (except "free markets uber alles").

You see it most clearly at the party's nutso fringes--wherever white men don't get the privilege they feel was theirs, wherever they can't tell women what to do with their bodies, wherever they can't impose their moral values on others and call it "hands-off government." But it's everywhere.

They are the true inheritors of the culture wars of the 60's and, more largely, the co-definition of selfhood and injury that almost defines the post-romantic era. (Freud's Cartesianism defines it clearly: I am insofar as I've been traumatized.)

Peggy Noonan hit upon this in her recent skewering of Palin: she argued that Palin is a victim of a culture that says every child is precious--aka the wishy-washy liberal sixties.

Peggy Noonan, of course, only sees the truth of this when it's true of a conservative she hates.

Whereas the larger point and the contradiction both escape her: conservatives claim strength and independence as their core values, whereas their rhetoric would have no oomph were it not for how terribly, terribly unfairly they're always being treated.

It's your basic pot-calling-kettle situation. Rhetorically, it's probably all the Republicans have left. Indeed, every single Karl Rove editorial on the pages of the WSJ basically accuses the Obama administration of something that was trademark of the Bush administration--overspending being the major example.

Sincerely,

Edward R. O'Neill

7:08 a.m. Just ran 8 miles. Sunny at Mission & 1st. Still foggy on Potrero Hill.

2009-07-15T07:10:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

One of my favorite places in San Frsncisco: the botanical garden in Golden Gate Park.

2009-07-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Jacques Tati. Playtime. 70 mil. Downtown San Jose. I'm there.

2009-07-09T18:20:00.001-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Running in San Francisco. (This is about mile 12 & I'm high on endorphins.)

2009-06-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Long run by the ocean today.

2009-05-31T16:56:00.000-07:00

Sample organizational chart.

2009-05-26T14:29:00.001-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

One very sad yuppie hipster commuting today. (Seen at an SF train station.)

2009-05-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

Medicine for Melancholy Leave Some Stones Unturned.

2009-05-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

Medicine for Melancholy is a no-budget indie film from 2008. Its two bike-riding, semi-employed protagonists could be a send-up of San Francisco (the film's setting)--were they not black and intended to be part of a serious commentary on race in the city. Can a black man and a black woman make it in this very white, very gentrified city? Need they, in fact, be a couple--for some reasons of racial unity or pride? Or is that idea indeed retrograde?

To the credit of writer-director Barry Jenkins, that commentary doesn't descend into a civic lesson.

If anything, it stays at the level of a kind of irritation: one character wants to worry about it, the other doesn't. When the two visit an African-American history museum, I feared a long discussion of slavery reparatiosn that never came. Though this is interesting enough, and it's quite central to the movie, it's not the best part of the film. (Also, there's a sci-fi quality of black characters in San Francisco who don't know that there's a tunnel to the East Bay.)

The best part of Medicine for Melancholy is superficial--quite literally. It's been said before that movies at some level are the skins of things. The camera peels the surface off of faces and places; the microphone captures echoes bouncing off of things. Movies show us the way people smile and move and laugh and talk, the way places look when we move through them, all the glittering, glinting, glowing, glowering surfaces and shadows of things.

Medicine for Melancholy does this superbly. Whatever their lack of rich complexity as actors, Wyatt Cenac and and Tracey Heggins are superb surfaces--and more. Their cheekbones and smiles are seductive, and their clothes hug their bodies nicely. They are charming, too: their ability to seduce, to toss barbs, to withdraw, to pout--these are all quite pleasant.

At this level, the film is a superbly-realized TV commercial or sitcom. People sit and move and banter. Fine.

Acoustically, the movie is no slouch either: it sports a kick-ass soundtrack. In fact, perhaps the best sequence in the film is when the two protagonists party at what is supposed to be an indie music club but sounds a bit more like a throwback to '70's Britrock. Whatever energy the film lacks as a languorous visual essay, it makes up for when the music starts.

But frankly, I wished these people were a little cleverer, a little more passionate, a little more interesting. They argue a bit, but they never tear it up. They're too aimless really to mess their own pretty surfaces. I kept wishing Joseph Mankiewicz had written these two people and made them wickedly funny more often--Cenac gets in his own riffs--and more passionate, too.

When it comes to being a movie (not a commercial or a sitcom), Medicine for Melancholy is somewhat lacking. Yes, it's a day-in-the-life. Yes, it's a tour-of-the-city. Yes, I have a love-hate relationship with San Francisco, its buildings and hills, its past and its money.

But a movie needs more. It needs some significant change from the beginning to the end. It needs a deeper undertow--something risked, something lacking, something found, a soul-touching experience.

Ultimately, I left the theater little changed--whereas with a more powerful adventure, something sticks in your craw and won't let you go.

Like a one-night-stand, Medicine for Melancholy lets go a little too easily. To its credit, perhaps that is the point.

--E. R. O'Neill

An Open Letter to Yahoo/Flickr.

2009-05-23T22:09:00.001-07:00

Dear Yahoo,

Recently, you changed the status of my flickr account to "restricted"--so that users would have to sign in and verify that they were adults before seeing my photographs.

I have over three thousand images on my flickr account. Most of them are public--visible to everyone, not just friends.

Out of some 3,600 images, when you flagged my account as problematic, there was a SINGLE nude image depicting a penis.

That was it.

For that, my account was flagged "restricted."

That single photograph was journalistic: it was from a gay street fair.

This strikes me as (a) overkill on your part and (b) homophobia.

Ironically, since then I have added images from another

San Francisco public event: a foot race in which many runners race naked.

These photos have now been carefully tagged. Now photos of naked people with exposed genitals are set to "restricted" and are tagged with the words "nude" and "naked."

There were still only 56 such images--out of over three thousand images.

There is another dozen set of images of topless women or naked people with genitals NOT exposed. These I have sent to "moderate"--the equivalent of PG-13, I suppose--and I tagged them with the word "racy."

Your email to me claimed that I had images that were "nude/sexualized" (in one email) and "sexualized/nude" (in another). (I wonder if there's a difference.)

I hope you are able to explain to me what "sexualized" means.

If my ability to use your paid service to public my artistic expression can be terminated based on your definition of the word "sexualized," it would be kind of important for you to define it clearly.

I would be very disappointed to learn that Yahoo is a commercial venue open to the public but which treats gay customers differently.

Sincerely,

Edward R. O'Neill

P.S.

Late Saturday night, Flickr replied:

On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 10:26 PM, Flickr Support wrote:

Hello,

Content like the following examples from your photostreamare still marked as "safe".

http://www.flickr.com/photos/edwardoneill/2356201835/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/edwardoneill/2356212905/

These are but two examples.
You need to moderate your entire photostream accordingly.

-Terrence

So here are the images they objected to.

"Hot cross buns." Get it?

I didn't paint and pose the guys. I just photographed them.

Buttocks. That's what they think is upsetting. Buttocks.

Or is it the paint?

The crosses?

And here's another one.

Okay, he's

dressed as Jesus.

Is that the bad part?

He's dressed.

Scantily, yes, but clad.

So we can see pubic hair? Is that the problem?

These folks at Flickr have no ground rules! None.

Flickr offers "community guidelines."

But as specific as they get is this:

Don’t forget the children.
Take the opportunity to filter your content responsibly. If you would hesitate to show your photos or videos to a child, your mum, or Uncle Bob, that means it needs to be filtered. So, ask yourself that question as you upload your content and moderate accordingly. If you don’t, it’s likely that one of two things will happen. Your account will be reviewed then either moderated or terminated by Flickr staff.

I'll ask my "mum"--what are we, British?--if she minds buttocks or pubic hair.

So here's what I wrote back to flickr:

So any human buttock is restricted?
The second image shows no penis. It is a man wearing a loin cloth.
Is any suggestion of pubic hair "restricted"?
I would be happy to moderate according to your rules.
Please let me know what they are.
--E. R. O'Neill

Your local video store has gone all Web 2.0.

2009-05-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

"Play It As It Lays" at the Castro Theater.

2009-05-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Why Newspapers Are Dying Out--and Why I Will No Longer Subscribe to the Wall Street Journal.

2009-05-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

An open letter to the Wall Street Journal.

Dear Editors,

We read so much about why newspapers are dying out. I never understood this. I used to have your marvelous paper delivered to my doorstep every day. "This," I thought, holding your paper in my hands, "is the reason the newspaper exists! This great reporting, clear writing, keen insight! God I love newsprint."

But then about a week ago your newspaper stopped arriving without notice.

And now I feel I have real insight into the failure of the newspaper in this day and age.

So it is with great regret that I will be canceling my subscription to your brilliant newspaper.

I don't want to do so.

But there is no longer any delivery in the rural hamlet where I live: it's called "San Francisco." Have you heard of it?

I had doorstep delivery a few weeks ago. But I had it rerouted to rural New Hampshire, where I was taking care of my sick mother.

Remarkably, in rural New Hampshire, the Wall Street Journal can be delivered by U.S. Mail the same day! Whereas in tiny, forlorn San Francisco, it cannot be delivered at all--not by mail, not to my doorstep.

My mother is much better now (thanks), but when I moved back to remote, quaint old San Francisco, the Wall Street Journal was no longer be delivered to my doorstep.

It's five days now, Monday through Friday, that it hasn't arrived. I've reported to the inappropriately named "services" web site every single day. ("Services"! What a hoot!)

They tell me things like "it's coming in the mail." It's not. It never has.

Or they tell me: there is no curbside delivery in your area.

Which is odd, because when I jog down Valencia Avenue at 5:30 a.m., there are several Wall Street Journals sitting on the doorstep of a building near 17th and Valencia--less than two miles from where I live.

I assume those newspapers appear due to some miraculous process, because there is no delivery in my neighborhood, I am assured.

I walk with envy past my neighbors who have The New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle delivered.
I could try subscribing to the Times, but I find their navel-gazing New-York-centric approach and self-consciously literary style, frankly, disgusting. (Robert Benchley complained about reporters mimicking a literary style a long, long time ago: apparently the 'paper of record' didn't get the memo.)

But I can read the New York Times on my iPhone--there's a special app for it. I know you would not consider doing that with your paper. And that is noble of you.

I could try to read your paper on the web using my phone. But your interface is terribly slow to load and awkward to use on a mobile device. Did you know that Amazon and other web sites have special mobile versions of their site? But I know you would not consider that.

Forlornly I jog past other people's newspapers in the pre-dawn hours. A freshly-opened and -spilled can of Bud Light is still emptying itself onto the sidewalk. "Who drinks Bud Light at 6:00 a.m.?," I think to myself. (Too literary.)

Good luck with your charming enterprise: writing, editing and publishing a world-class newspaper, which is not delivered to homes, has no iPhone app, and has no web version tailored to the mobile phone platform.

Stand by your principles! Writing, editing and publishing, but NO DELIVERY!

If everyone follows your approach, we can assure that newspapers will be stamped out, once and for all.

Very sincerely,
Edward R. O'Neill, Ph.D.
San Francisco, CA

I'm back in SF--eating at House of Nanking, where they invent for me a spicy sweet dish of crisp tofu, zucchini, sweet potato and pea pod shoots.

2009-05-10T15:46:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

From the Photo/Camera/Typewriter store in St. Johns, OR

2009-05-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

NOT sugar: a very healthy restaurant (Proper Eats) in St. John's OR

2009-05-09T13:34:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Where I run (on Route 3 between Plymouth and Ashland), the reindeer--yes, reindeer--stop and stare as I run by.

2009-04-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Breakfast at the Copper Kitchen

2009-04-25T07:08:00.001-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Superman Artist Was Perv on the Side.

2009-04-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

Amen.

2009-04-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

Martha Reeves plays SF: yes, there was dancing in the streets.

2009-04-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

You know it's a recession when...The Salvation Army is advertising 'new lower prices.'

2009-04-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Amen--except I don't want to see that in my bus stop.

2009-04-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Friday April 3, 2009, 6:47 a.m.: Your Federal Government Inaction.

2009-04-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

light on window.

2009-04-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Okay!

2009-03-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

...as it happens, I actually was listening to Beethoven as I passed by....

2009-03-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

saw this flag on C. Chavez near the 280.

2009-03-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Jesus as Superman (mural on 24th and Orange)

2009-03-27T07:38:00.001-07:00

enjoying the view from my hotel window for my birthday mini-vacation.

2009-03-08T16:20:00.000-07:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Dusk.

2009-02-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Morning at the Opera? Pretty Much Ruined.

2009-02-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

I had the misfortune of trying to see the Metropolitan Opera simulcast of "Lucia di Lammermoor" today (Saturday 2/7/2009) at the Daly City Century Theater in San Francisco.

First the preshow sound wasn't on: we were hearing ads from the video being shown in the lobby. There was no manager on that floor. I had to walk down from the third to the second story to find the manager. The manager claimed the sound would be switched over by the time the opera started.

Then the video feed came on, the sound disappeared. I mentioned this.

Then the sound alternated between the correct pre-show sound and the advertisements from the lobby.

When the broadcast started, there was silence. I went down to the lower flower again--for the third time. Still no sound.

Well, we missed the entire overture.

My 20 minutes spent trying to convince the staff that the sound was not working? Completely ineffective.

Then there was the color. The pal I was with claimed it was off. A woman complained to the theater staff that an image of a woman with red shoes showed purple shoes. I didn't know how she knew.

Then the opera started: the faces were green. Tartan kilts weren't red; they were purple. Nearly everything was purple. A woman with red hair had black hair.

Clearly, the color red was not displaying: shades of blue, yes; yellow, yes; so green, yes. No red.

I sat through one act (minus the intermission) and went for a refund. I got some kind of ticket they claim will get me into another opera simulcast.

Now I cannot trust this chain! The location nearest me was sold out. Their events had run smoothly in the past.

But now I find the other locations cannot be trusted to (a) turn on the correct sound at the correct time or (b) adjust the projector so the color red displays.

Maybe they should check the sound before a simulcast starts. Maybe they should adjust the projectors so that all three colors show up.

How likely is it I will gamble on another incompetent staff at another location?

Not likely. Not likely at all.

--Edward R. O'Neill

Winter in San Francisco: I'm Out for a Run.

2009-02-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Closed Garage at Night.

2009-01-24T22:20:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Bookstores Make Strange Bedfellows

2009-01-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

"A Short Illness"

2009-01-13T12:29:00.000-08:00

"A Short Illness"

The obit tells me that she died,

a poet whose lines were crystalline

and smoke, after "a short illness"

--the euphemism to end them all.

And now this tickle in my throat:

a swelling of the neck ensues

and I retire to bed, peruse

a magazine or six and watch

old films in black and white. The big

screen glows across the room. And I

fade in and out--my signal fades

just like a distant station--as

detectives beat up thugs in dim

old rooms. Their faces sweat and shine

on nitrate and celluloid:

it's now just 1's and oh's upon

a plastic disk. This movie's just

some glowing phosphors on a screen--

veneer of dull obsidian

when it's not lit, just stares.

It's I who's lit on Vicodin

and Aspergum. But I won't die

today. Not yet, no not today.

Not after a short illness. No.

The malady of life is long.

The rest is just a euphemism.

--E. R. O'Neill

My Other Life.

2009-01-12T15:04:00.001-08:00

http://cie.asu.edu/editors/oneill.html

Because Spending Money IS LITERALLY Going Out of Style.

2009-01-11T23:46:00.000-08:00

That's what a recession is. No one spends. Add on deflation--which is, everything will be cheaper tomorrow--and no one really spends.

So I will singlehandedly keep the economy afloat.

No, I don't do New Year's Resolutions. But that one seems to be my unspoken resolution.

Last year I bought a new laptop--okay, a netbook, less than $400.

But it's my little attempt to spend our economy out of its doldrums.

And then there was the turntable that records LP's to mp3's. Another $150--which is really pretty cheap for a turntable. (It's got a CD player built in--almost like a freebie.)

But now is the big stuff.

I bought a fairly big color inkjet printer.

It prints 13 x 19" prints.

It's the entry-level machine for this marketplace: it was $400 with a $100 rebate.

The next better machine starts around $600!

So still a bargain. ("Watch out! Falling prices!!")

And at MacWorld I saw an externa dual hard drive box that functions as a mini-RAID system. No it's not a server, not NAS (network attached storage). But it's got two drives, and they mirror each other, so you're 100% backed up on your backups.

It's 2 terabytes. Yes 2TB. That means with mirroring it's one terabyte.

I bought an external 1TB drive as a backup in December: it was about $120.

This was (predictably) $250. But now I can migrate everything to the RAID drive, back it up on the non-RAID drive (because both the RAID drives could die), and I'll be set.

Then I can sell the RAID box I bought from a very adorable chainsmoking Russian computer programmer who lives in Silicon Valley and has his whole house wired to play mp3's of bad German rock and roll from anywhere in the house via a Palm-driven remote control system. (But that is SO another blog entry.)

All my mp3's backed up! All my photos in one place! All my movie clips from teaching, all in one place!

So Newegg.com--I love those folks!--would sell me both the printer and the RAID drive with free shipping.

Yes, I pay in-state tax. But some people wanted $50 or $70 just for the shipping. So the tax was a bargain.

And by paying the tax--are you seeing a theme?--I'm helping support the struggling State of California.

I'm just a standup guy.

A standup guy with a netbook, a turntable, a printer and a RAID hard drive.

--E. R. O'Neill

Running at Dusk in San Francisco

2009-01-11T17:14:00.001-08:00

Post-industrial Jog

2009-01-11T17:08:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

From MacWorld: I don't know what it is, but I'm not buying it.

2009-01-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Crazy poster about buttons. Maybe a teaser. Anyone know?

2009-01-07T19:19:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Two Carry-On's.

2009-01-02T23:14:00.001-08:00

This trip back east--to Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and New Hampshire, I was determined I would be traveling light.

Two carry-on's for a weeklong trip.

It's more than some people claim to manage.

Initially it was one carry-on, plus my lunch in a paper bag.

But there was no room for my clothes--of all things! So they fit in a lunch-sized bag.

On arrival, I bought a canvas tote, and transferred the clothes and miscellaneous items to the tote.

How?

Big concept: a weelong stay is an overnight stay with extra underwear.

Also: everything has to match. No navy and brown, e.g. Or pink and orange, if you're a girl.

(Actually, I brought jeans and a brown sweater, but indigo jeans go with everything.)

Important documents.

Itineraries, boarding passes, reservation numbers.

Put these in a transparent waterproof envelope. Keep them in the outermost layer of one carry-on. Always put them in the same place. Do this first, before any other packing.

Clothes worn.

Brown cotton pullover, tan corduroy jeans, brown socks, brown shoes, undies.

A blazer.

Since I was traveling to a much colder climate: the blazer was wool.

And I also wore my heaviest overcoat. Gloves and hat in overcoat pockets.

Scarf.

Clothes taken along.

Brown sweater, blue jeans, two spare pair socks and undies.

For cold climate: long johns.

Plastic bag to accumulate 'laundry.'

Notes about clothes.

Socks, undies and even shirts/sweaters can be washed in a sink with shampoo.

My mom actually buys lightweight clothes made of things like viscose. She rinses them and hangs them to dry overnight. If they don't dry overnight, she returns them. Clothes that dry overnight become her travel clothes.

Dressier options would be: black jeans, gray trousers. Or khaki trousers, plus another pair.

This trip was casual, but on other trips I have carried along a suit and worn a black pullover both with khaki trousers and with the suit pants.

I had a whole alternative wardrobe ready: blue jeans, gray jeans, blue cotton pullover, black sweater, three pairs black socks.

I nixed this option when I realized: my only warm jacket was brown, not blue, black or gray. Something to shop for: a heavy blazer in black or gray.

I did not exercise this trip. I knew it would be too cold and/or wet. I walked, but I brought no running shoes or specialized clothes.

Indeed, I had no second pair of shoes. The shoes I wore were so comfortable, I knew I would not need to alternate with another pair.

Technology.

Netbook computer and charger. Also travel sleeve. My new one weighs under 3 pounds, all told.

Iphone. Charger. (This is a phone, PDA and web device, all in one.)

Bluetooth earpiece and charger. I never used this. Don't bother next time.

Earbuds and earphones.

USB flash memory drive. Priceless. Always keep it backed up.

Toiletries.

Toothbrush in carry case.

Tiny toothpaste tube.

Slivers of bar soap and bar shampoo--wrapped in foil.

Skin products and hair products in travel sizes.

Lip balm when traveling to a cold climate--or cream for chapped hands that does double duty.

Photographic.

Film. I brought six roles and bought several more. If you shoot ditigal, you can skip this. But I wanted enduring, higher-quality images. Digital is seldom as studied for me, nor as rich in information.

Could I really travel with only a single camera? I sometimes travel with three cameras. Choosing just one was difficult.

I had three options laid out.

Lightest choice. Rollei 35S in case with wriststrap. A wide-ish angle lens. No flexibility, but tiny and good quality. An Olympus RC would be a good alternative. (Some of the best photos I took traveling in Paris I took with this camera.)

Lightweight. Rangefinder with two lenses: Canon 50/1.8 and Canon 28/3.5.

Heaviest (which I actually took):

Contax G1 rangefinder and three lenses (45/2 Planar, 35/2 Planar, 28/2.8 Biogon).

Also a flash (small Chinon auto/manual).

(As it turned out, I bought the later model G2, plus a Contax flash, online and had them shipped where I was going--so I came back with more camera than I went with.)

Food for the plane.

Fruit.

Dark chocolate.

Some nuts.

Buy water at the airport after going through security.

Miscellaneous.

Kleenex in the jacket pocket.

Pens and a pad of paper.

Travel umbrella.

Spare shopping bag--one reuseable, one paper.

--E. R. O'Neill

David Streitfeld Bought a Book Online--and He Felt Just AWFUL about It.

2008-12-31T18:26:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Streitfeld,

I am not a doctor, but I can still diagnose you with one of the most acute cases of liberal guilt I have ever seen.

You buy a used book and feel awful, just awful.

And this is the fault of the internet?

Some comparisons are surely instructive.

Car companies are going bust, and everyone blames the car companies--not so much the car buyers. We feel bad about the factory workers--as you do about the writers. But no one laments the companies themselves--except in a sentimental-nationalistic way. ("America should have a car industry." No one says why. Perhaps the way France needs a cheese industry.)

Is publishing that different? Should we lament a shrinking of publishers--any more or less so than that of car makers? Couldn't even the authors have done something differently?

Old media companies have been ridiculously bad about finding new, effective models in a world in which exchanges of information become easier, faster and cheaper.

People can share music files online. And while everyone was doing it, the music companies fretted, rather than innovating.

I for one would long have bought a lovely CD slipped into a small hardcover book--and paid a premium for it. I still buy opera CD's--for the libretto. And concerts are still big business: many CD's merely promote concert performances. Aren't there opportunities there?

Couldn't Universal have put their whole catalog online for free at AM radio quality? Then once I decided I liked a song, I could buy it--at a much higher quality. They're still not there.

Or compare any other commodity. I assume you're not upset that the engineers at Onkyo are not remunerated when you buy a used amp off Craigslist. But isn't that piece of stereo equipment just as much intellectual property as a book? (And even more so than The Calorie Counter's Guide to Dining Out--and other related literary masterpieces.)

Time was: you couldn't find a book you wanted, or the price was high because the market was small.

Now: the marketplace is international. (Abebooks.com shows me results from the UK, I notice.) The market is larger, and the prices are lower.

Isn't this what economists call a "more rational" market?

And if writers ran to publishers to find an audience or to circulate their work even after they had an audience, aren't they responsible for NOT innovating as well--like car and music companies?

Musical artists like Aimee Mann produce and market their own CD's. They sell in traditional retailers, but they keep a larger share of the profit.

POD (publishing on demand) promises to allow writers to self-publish and cut out the middle man, the screener, the cultural gatekeeper.

Smart writers are developing themselves as brands. They find an audience, blog, write across media, deliver free content, then earn money through advertising. Are writers reponsible only for innovating within the words they write, and not for the way they monetize their enterprise? Surely Dickens, who toured performing his own work, would not have looked down on such self-promotion.

Yes, there are good things about publishing houses. But for every brilliant editor in publishing who applies the pressure to turn carbon into a diamond or cuts a diamond to make it shine, there are ten thousand idiots. (Remember Jerzy Kosinski submitting his own novel to his own publisher years after its initial publication--and getting a rejection letter?)

What is not worth lamenting is publishers who were gatekeepers and always terrible at their jobs being replaced with something better.

Or not being able to find a copy of "84, Charing Cross Road" because you're stuck somewhere no one's ever heard of it.

I would not claim that "something better" is already upon us.

There is truly a Great Shakeout coming to pass.

I for one welcome it.

Now take two downloads, and call me in the morning.

Sincerely,

Edward R. O'Neill, Ph.D.

P.S. And if you'd bought it at a used bookstore--you would have felt better?

View from the Train: Near Milford, CT

2008-12-24T06:31:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

5th Avenue Apple Store, Two Days Before Christmas. ("Hipsters we have heard on high....")

2008-12-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Pod Motel, NYC.

2008-12-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Down to One Track In or Out of New York.

2008-12-23T12:22:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Wreckless Disregard

2008-12-23T12:06:00.000-08:00

Sir,

Re: your WSJ editorial of 12/23/08.

You have some nerve.

Two days before Christmas, to distort reality to support a narrow
political cause, while pretending to rise above partisanship.

Colossal nerve.

The "horrible thing" people say about Bush is NOT that he fails to
care about soldiers who died in Iraq.

It's that he wrecklessly and negligently failed to care about those
soldiers BEFORE they died--in putting them in harm's way in the first
place, exercising so little caution and such poor judgment.

That is the claim about Bush. It has some justice to it, and by
distorting it, you dishonor both others and yourself.

Sincerely,
Edward R. O'Neill
San Francisco, CA

Amtrak: 'The Keystone' from Philly to NYC.

2008-12-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

-- E. R. O'Neill

Insulted--But United!

2008-12-20T22:24:00.000-08:00

Favorite. TV. Episode. Ever.

2008-12-10T23:46:00.001-08:00

My favorite episode of Kojak--ever.

Maybe favorite single episode of anything.

--E. R. O'Neill

Where Is Harriet Myers?

2008-12-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

I know that's what you're all thinking.

As Obama names his cabinet choices, that is.

He's got Senators, governors, party leaders. Renowned economists, now Nobel Laureates. The general who got the Iraq mess right and just about lost his career for it.

Everyone complained: oh, they're just folks from the Clinton era.

And the alternative would have been: appoint people from the Bush era?

Or just use Bush's general strategy in political appointments.

Let's see: Obama can't appoint people who worked for his dad--so there goes Rumsfeld.

But where, oh where, in Obama's list of appointees are those stellar, feted, storied names of yore?

I'm talkin:

Harriet Myers,
Alberto Gonzalez,
Michael "Heckuvajob Brownie" Brown.

Where are appointments of that caliber? Where are the Bush kind of appointees?

I'm talking yes-men.
I'm talking cronies.
I'm talkin' hick-town, two-bit, second-rate personal attorneys.
I'm talkin' arse-licking hangers-on.
I'm talking disgraced Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association--Michael Brown's job prior to heading FEMA.

Oh yes. There is a lot to criticize Obama about on this account.

And as Obama's team floats the name of a Nobel prize winner as Energy Secretary, it's nice to remember Harriet Myers.

We can even do so fondly now.

--E. R. O'Neill

Discarded Disassembled Dr. Seuss/Ikea Furniture.

2008-12-07T17:12:00.001-08:00

Very wet and fragrant in the Golden Gate botanical garden today.

2008-12-06T15:29:00.000-08:00

God Bless Oprah.

2008-12-04T17:46:00.000-08:00

I bought that Kindle Reader gizmo but didn't like it.

It's too slow reading three inches at a time. (Insert dirty punchline here.)

I brought it to LA on a recent trip--so I could keep up with the Wall Street Journal. But I was planning on selling it on ebay. In fact, I had been so planning for weeks, but I never got around to it.

Thank goodness I procrastinated.

The gizmo's were $340 or so new. I got mine used on ebay for about $225 some months back.

Oprah said she loved it last week. Amazon sold out. There are no more in stock until February.

The price on ebay shot up. Now the lowest price for a used Kindle Reader was over $350.

I listed mine for $345, and it sold in 5 minutes.

I actually made a profit.

It's the only electronics purchase in my entire life that ever appreciated in value.

God bless Oprah!

Now if she could just praise the Yugo, I could sell mine.

--E. R. O'Neill

Crap Mongers

2008-12-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

Apple, that is.

More than two hours.

That's how long I've been in hell.

iTunes nags you to upgrade both itself and your iPhone OS.

Then you break down and comply.

Hell.

First you upgrade both.

Upgrading iTunes requires restarting.

So few pieces of software require this.

So you shut down everything you're doing and restart.

Then iTunes invariably hangs up while upgrading your iPhone. Thanks. So much.

Then you have to restore it from its backup.

It's been over two hours since I started.

The iPhone has still not been "restored."

I'll probably have to start from scratch again tomorrow.

Meanwhile what do I do?

Not have a phone?

Not use a phone?

Crap. Utter crap.

How they conned me out of a nickel I'll never know.

--E. R. O'Neill

Rainbow over Santa Barbara

2008-11-26T15:01:00.000-08:00

At the Castro Theater for the restored print of Lola Montes.

2008-11-24T18:56:00.000-08:00

"Happy Thanksgiving": Panaderia on 24th St., near Mission, 7:04 a.m.

2008-11-24T07:05:00.000-08:00

Blood? No. Cardinal color--or Cal Poly blood, perhaps. Ah, Stanford....

2008-11-17T15:56:00.000-08:00