Post-Paris melange
I’ve been apprehensive about trying to write some fantastic encapsulation of my travels – because, really, I don’t think it’s possible.
How any traveler manages to go abroad and so concisely bring that world back to us amazes me. It requires more than just being a competent writer, but an aptitude for recognizing the finer details from all senses and people around them – things that I am still working on and coincidentally, the same reasons why I admire journalists.
À bientôt, j’espère.
Photos originally uploaded by lempel_ziv
I have a 73 year-old cousin in Paris
He writes a column and children’s books. COOL!
Also, my sister has sent me on a mission to find Leonardo Da Vinci’s last house, Clos Lucé Manor, near Amboise in Loire Valley. She wants me to find this book on cave dwellers in the bookstore of the house… I’m so down. She’s also requesting macarons. Done.
Serious, me? SRSLY?
Someone asked me why I didn’t write serious things in my blog. It’s not that I’m inept at having a serious conversation or that I don’t have serious thoughts – I know, shocking.
It’s more of the perceptions that are so entwined with Fittingly and myself, developed throughout the years. After something has built itself on certain pillars and characteristics, it’s as if that existence is so engrained that acts or behaviors that deviate from that perception is just strange – neither positively or negatively – just strange.
I have a pretty clear idea of what people expect from this blog and if I can be a little presumptuous, it’s quips about culture/technology, mundane daily happenings, occasional rants about school and excess pretension or whatever. Those categories, while broad, leave little room for musings on life, God or moral righteousness.
Plus, I’d like to think those conversations are saved for close and dear friends.
An influx of inspiration
There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dulness.
Henry David Thoreau
Photo by moleitau via Flickr
Of course, niche wins.
The Newsweekly’s Last Stand: Good article from the Atlantic about why The Economist is thriving while Time and Newsweek struggle.
“Virtually alone among magazines, The Economist saw its advertising revenues increase last year by double digits—a remarkable 25 percent, according to the Publisher’s Information Bureau. Newsweek’s and Time’s dropped 27 percent and 14 percent, respectively. … The Economist has been growing consistently and powerfully for years, tracking in near mirror-image reverse the decline of its U.S. rivals.”
The conclusion is far from novel – “that niche is sometimes the smartest way to take over the world.” Look at really successful people and companies, like Steve Jobs and Google. They weren’t “Jacks of all Trades.” Far from it. Google’s conception was bred from one goal: to improve search.
Likewise, the Economist in its infancy in the states catered to die-hard international relations readers who wanted to know what was going on Namibia, yet was comprehensive enough to appeal to “average” people who just wanted a general summary of what was going in the world. “Where else, really, can you actually keep up with Africa?”
“The secret to The Economist’s success is not its brilliance, or its hauteur, or its typeface. The writing in Time and Newsweek may be every bit as smart, as assured, as the writing in The Economist. But neither one feels like the only magazine you need to read. You may like the new Time and Newsweek. But you must—or at least, brilliant marketing has convinced you that you must—subscribe to The Economist.” – Need being the keyword in this excerpt.
But like Google, it doesn’t stay a niche product. “Despite being positioned as a niche product, its U.S. circulation is nearing 800,000, and it will inevitably overtake Newsweek on that front soon enough.”
Another reason it’s been doing so well is that its users apparently aren’t tech savvy enough to realize that you can get the content for free – but this is where the article fails to elaborate as to why. It’s not simply that Economist readers aren’t tech savvy enough to visit the website, it’s because why would anyone choose to read their exhaustive articles and columns on a computer screen? I know the website and free content exist, but I’d take the magazine for $6.99, on most days. I mean, you could also print out the articles, but who’s going to do that? The Green Movement would frown upon that anyway.
“In the digital age, razor-sharp clarity and definition are the keys to success. Knowing what and who you are, and conveying that idea to an audience, is the only way to break through to readers ADD’ed out on an infinitude of choices.”
Viewpoint Tête-à-Tête, Pt. I
me: Man, I am a slave to my iPhone and Gmail
Samuel: You wouldn’t trade it for anything and you know it. I need to invest in a smartphone. This laptop is ready to die on me.
me: I would trade it for the new iPhone
Samuel: rusty chains for gilded ones? A slave is a slave is a slave.
me: If I am in chains, they better be bejeweled. Yanno.
Samuel: “Viewpoint Editor, UCLA Daily Bruin” is a pretty bejeweled chain, if I do say so myself. Sending you Daniel’s as an attachment – my edits in italics
me: K thanks Sam
Re. the previous post: Exhibit A
Enough Already, is quite right Mr. Edmundson. I hate being tricked into reading pieces that I think will be fascinating, enlightening or at the least, understandably uninteresting. This piece is a tirade by Mark Edmunson about boring people who are prone to uninvited lengthy monologues. Little does he know, his nearly seven pager is an even more boring monologue on said subject. Pithy FAIL.
In his essay on talkativeness, Plutarch suggests that the bore, despite appearances, may often be out to win the esteem of the victim. The words are an offering. They come as something like a sacrificial tribute. Whatever the surface flow may be, the subtext reads like this: I care about your judgment; I want your esteem. I want to show you how smart I am, how learned, how good. Schopenhauer, Lord of Pessimists, seems to concur on this view: “Vain people are talkative, and proud, taciturn,” he says. “But the vain person ought to be aware that the good opinion of others, which he strives for, may be obtained much more easily and certainly by persistent silence than by speech, even though he has very good things to say.”
Words are an offering, sure, but I am not a glutton. Unless those words are delicious.
Profoundly bored
I love summer because the likelihood of someone being as bored as I am is exponentially higher.
I’ve taken to reading this book called “The Botany of Desire.” It’s supposed to be told from the plant’s point of view – this is good because I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be a plant.
</bored>
How I cherish my friends
Jennifer Zhu: There is a posting to be the librarian to the 9th Circuit of Appeals!
: THAT’S MY FAV. APPEALS COURT!!!
O, thanks Apple.
We can offer you an iPhone at the full retail price. On 05/20/2010, you may qualify for a standard iPhone upgrade.
$499.00* — 8GB iPhone 3G (black)
$599.00* — 16GB iPhone 3G S (black or white)
$699.00* — 32GB iPhone 3G S (black or white)
Solitary acts
Not to gush over the NYTimes, but some of their blogs are hidden gems. Actually, most big newspapers like the LATimes have excellent blogs. I reread the entry on marathons from the Well blog on the NYTimes and was reminded of another entry I read from the blog, appropriately titled, Happy Days (its tagline is “The pursuit of what matters in troubled times,” haha) about happiness.
How does one describe the experience of reverie: one is awake, but half asleep, thinking, but not in an instrumental, calculative or ordered way, simply letting the thoughts happen, as they will. … If it consists in anything, then I think that happiness is this feeling of existence, this sentiment of momentary self-sufficiency that is bound up with the experience of time. … Time is nothing, or rather time is nothing but the experience of the present through which one passes without hurry, but without regret. … And then it is over. Time passes, the reverie ends and the feeling for existence fades. The cell phone rings, the e-mail beeps and one is sucked back into the world’s relentless hum and our accompanying anxiety.
Liz Robbins wrote about running as a process of introspection, giving us all a purpose and destination. While Simon Critchley wrote about happiness derived from happiness within. It’s not hard to discern the connection between the act of running and that deep happiness within.
While I’m still riding my marathon high, here is another article about an editor at the NYTimes who will be hopefully be running the New York Marathon to reclaim her body from cancer. So inspiring. As Liz Robbins wrote, “Every runner has a story. All you have to do is ask. When you do, it’s as if you unlock a journal kept in the brain from all those solitary hours spent training. It’s good to talk to someone other than yourself or your running partners once in a while.”
—–
One reason people run – and read running books – is that casual running often confers status. Jogging is considered an outward marker of achievement. It helps draw the American class divide between the thin and the fat. For example, a daily group jog in Central Park, starting at 5.30am, features “many of New York’s top executives, lawyers and traders”. One author, Liz Robbins, calls it a “power breakfast”. [Source]
LOL. Maybe we all run for the same reason we buy luxury cars and get college degrees – social status. To increase your status is to increase your likelihood of mating and reproducing. Gee, and to think I thought we were complex creatures.
Let’s eat a meal.
Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal
Liberals and conservatives don’t just think differently, they also feel differently.
“Simply exposing people to counterarguments may not accomplish much, he said, and may inflame antagonisms. … So how do we discipline our brains to be more open-minded, more honest, more empirical? A start is to reach out to moderates on the other side — ideally eating meals with them, for that breaks down “us vs. them” battle lines that seem embedded in us. (In ancient times we divided into tribes; today, into political parties.)
“Minds are very hard things to open, and the best way to open the mind is through the heart,” Professor Haidt says. “Our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games.”
Things I am trying to understand, Pt. 1
Smoking – cigarettes in particular. Straight up? I think it’s stupid and one of the worst thing you can do to your body.
Someone try to give me a logical answer and I will consider – or, most likely not. This is not to berate smokers or make a judgment on anyone’s character as I kind of understand the… Social pressures? Familiarity? Genes? All pretty much empty excuses, I think. Also, the cool factor is not an answer either.
Excuse the diatribe, but there is just insurmountable evidence about the effects of smoking. Does your body need it? Initially, before the first cigarette, not thereafter. I am trying to understand why anyone would continually poison their bodies in this way. Why would you risk higher probabilities of disease and cancer? Physically, mentally, economically… in none of these areas can I even begin to proport any rational reason to smoke, given the cost-benefit analysis.
Last Wednesday, I went to the track hoping to get in a short run before the marathon and my calves felt like wooden blocs. I couldn’t run, literally. There was this stiffness in my calves that was punctuated with every step on the rubber track. It was a terrible feeling to not be able to do something so simple, something that some people take for granted – being able to run. Now, I’m limping around with sore quads and walking is basically a concerted effort between my brain and my legs to not fall down the stairs. That said, if smoking impairs (I purposely didn’t use “‘may’ impair” because it is a definitive statement) your physical ability, your lung capacity – tell me why you would smoke.
I suppose it’s difficult to discourage smokers with vague, distant things like “coronary heart disease” or “lung cancer,” just as it’s hard to organize a collective effort to combat global warming warning of distant future catastrophes. But, some immediate effects of smoking are nearly just as unattractive: bad breath, yellow teeth, smelly clothes. Maybe this is the way to go about solving the climate crisis – make it sexy!
That said, I do believe that quitting is always an option. Running the marathon this past Monday, sans proper training I am embarrassed to admit, proves that it really is MIND OVER MATTER. A marathon is basically a really long mental exercise – you don’t run fast (I was running at a 11-12 min pace) and after about the 10th mile, your legs go on auto-pilot and the rest is just you getting over the mental wall (Mile 23 for me) and trying to distract yourself from realizing that you’re going to run 26.2 miles.
This marathon has seriously gotten me believe I can do… anything. Ha!
/Ad nauseam/
So white it’s green!
Interesting concept that has apparently been out for awhile: white roofs as a mechanism to combat global warming! It sounds so simple, it’s unbelievable. Of course, the media would jump on this and make fun of Energy Sec, Steven Chu. Ugh, the media is so bored right now.
The concept is simple but the numbers he cites are massive: Making roofs and pavement more reflective could offset 44 billion tons of CO2, or the equivalent of taking all of the world’s cars off the road for 11 years. [Source]
To all my graduating friends
I know James Franco is your commencement speaker, but here are some notable addresses by David Foster Wallace and Steve Jobs. Or, an oldie-but-goodie, Mary Shimich’s Wear Sunscreen.
(Excerpts coming soon, I can’t blog all day!)
“This desire to have everything and give up nothing is a national condition”
The LA Times has had some excellent opinion pieces on the election. See, Bill Maher’s Superheroes can’t save California and Michael Hiltzick’s Schwarzenegger missed his golden opportunity to give Californians the truth.
Why didn’t we vote?
Articles of Interest #325
Today, my friend Jill borrowed my iPhone to search something on Safari. The last website I was on was, “Yoga for break-ups” on Women’s Health. Ugh, way to see through the depths of my soul right now! Anyway, here are some articles because there are just too many for me to flood elsewhere. Also, I added an “Of Interest” category because I read stuff online (a lot, too often, instead of doing real stuff, etc.) and would like to share them in mass quantities all at once (and don’t want to get a Tumblr).
————————-
He Rocks, They Flock: The Yoga King
In Los Angeles, an unlikely teacher elicits a special kind of loyalty from his students, in part with his New York state of mind.
Well: The Marathon: A Race Like No Other
Liz Robbins explains why the marathon is more than just a running event.
A Chili Sauce to Crow About
Some American consumers believe sriracha to be a Thai sauce. Others think it is Vietnamese. The truth is that sriracha may be best understood as an American sauce, a polyglot purée.
Tweeting Your Way to a Job
The position of social media specialist, introduced by companies like Comcast and JetBlue Airways, has become the hottest new corporate job among the Twitterati.
————————-
IMHO, these are beyond trivial and frivolous articles considering California is basically… screwed. It’s funny how we, myself included, are so susceptible to reading inane news and fleeting trends. Hello, swine flu? My biggest complaint in regards to Twitter and social media, in general, is the cursory attention paid to real news and the propagation of superficial news. Really – did I know that Miss California had breast implants? Probably and I didn’t care. Now, I know. WHY? I don’t know and still don’t care. Ahck. It seems that no one can balance breaking news/in-depth coverage with marketing/advertising anymore.
The United Nations meets Vogue
Enter Susan Rice. Thanks, Nic.
“For as long as I can remember I’ve had a job that requires me to juggle multiple balls. The number and the weight of the balls may be a little greater now. It’s a skill. I guess you can learn it, but I think it’s pretty intuitive. You can’t always catch every single ball. So you gotta know which ones are not going to explode like a grenade but will just sort of fall quietly.”
[Source]
Ambiguously abridged note to the universe.
Drove from LA to San Jose in 4.5 hours.
Thank goodness for: a very good friend
And her awful memory of garage door combinations.
Wide open, then shut closed and out; drove back.
Thank goodness for: My iPhone, auxiliary cable, Pandora and cruise control.
I thought about completing the marathon anyway –
I have no shame, I will finish it in eight hours if I have to.
Daily Bruin editing, sucks to pull from the Wire;
Times like these, I wish I could still write.
Anderson Cooper = Amazing in real life.
More amazing? Shaking his hand, photo-op.
“Why don’t you try and put your arm around those two ladies for the photo?”
Realization: Wallet stolen.
Bye, ~$500 cash, credit cards, driver’s license, and
Barney’s NY clutch wallet.
I know, I never carry money like that,
I was getting ready to deposit it.
Sob, sob, sob.
~EARTHQUAKE!~
Okay seriously. The universe is trying to tell me something.
If it wants me to reset myself/life…
I. GET. IT.
I didn’t need a heartbreaking, wallet-stolen, near-death weekend.
The only thing that’s getting me through now is Paris.
Au revoir!
My name is Millie.
I enjoy yoga, traveling, cooking, reading and running.
And, sometimes I write.
If the computer is a bicycle for the mind, I can ride pretty fast. 
