Blessed be.

Happy holidays! A reminder of how small we really are, and how great His glory.



In this, the darkest time of year (in the Northern hemisphere, at least), stay warm, love one another, and go on doing good.

Cheers,
J

Marketing Hysteria 101

Create a problem. Bonus points if this problem is psychosomatic, caused by microscopic germs or other parasites invisible to the naked eye, or something that causes your skin to crawl and reach for disinfectant (ACME* Brand Ultra-Antiseptic Strength).

Create a product that solves this imaginary problem or tries to address it => $$

Examples of hysteria created by the advertising industry:

DUST MITES

RESTLESS LEGS SYNDROME

Soap the only way Tyler Durden would have it.

There's a new ad campaign by a major soap company that starts with D* that shows how most soaps leave an imperceptible scum or residue on the skin after showering, while D* doesn't. The ads show two different women using soap, one with D* and the other using a competitor's product, and then compare the two under a mysterious purple UV/infrared light. The competitor's soap leaves streaks of soap scum on the woman's skin after showering, while D*'s doesn't.

This ad campaign bugs me on a number of different levels because we shouldn't be using detergents on our skin.

Most "soaps" on the market today are actually detergents.

Detergents: harsh cleaning agents common to laundry detergent, shampoo, antibacterial liquid soaps, body washes, etc, that usually contain sulfates, artificial colors and fragrances.
Soaps: made in the traditional way from boiling animal fat and alkali (lye).

Detergents are better cleaning agents than soaps because they don't form soap scum in hard water, while fat-based soaps do. Of course, this is great for laundry, leaving your white clothes brilliantly white, or for scrubbing bathroom floors and shower walls sparkly clean.

However, detergents strip the skin of natural oils, leaving it dry and flaky, which is why I use oil-based, sulfate-free soaps as often as I can. I look for natural products with a high content of natural oils, moisturizers, and plant extracts. I've found olive oil soaps to be the best.

My favorite is Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap. At first, bathing with something enitrely oil-based may seem strange, but I've found that these products are just as effective as detergents. They don't leave any kind of "invisible" residue that I care about (yeah, that's the soap product market creating more hysteria so you'll freak out and go buy detergents) and in fact, I WANT the olive oil and plant extracts to stay on my skin and moisturize and nourish it.

This goes the same for shampoos, too. At first I was reluctant to use Dr. Bronner's as a shampoo, thinking that all of the oils would make my scalp oilier, but it cleaned just as well as my sulfate-based shampoos, and lathered well too. The only issue I had is that it left my hair with a coarse kind of texture, I guess the way nature intended, not with the polished, fake, shiny, smooth, silicone-coated sheen that that cosmoceutical marketing departments love to try to sell.

Use real soap, not detergent.

Some further reading:
Truth and Lies in Organic Personal Care
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

SNL Lazy Sunday - Parnell/Sandberg

This really cracks me up.

How Hot Dogs are Made.

Are you disgusted yet?

Green Gifts

Timbuk2 Hidden Tote, Recycled PET Fabric.

Folds up into a zip-up pouch. Should've had one when I went to the market today! Also comes in a backpack style.

Grim Fandango trailer (1998)

I'm replaying this great film noir epic, and enjoying the lush Art Deco Aztec art.

The Illusion of Food

This is the title of a painting that my mind has not yet created, born of a quote of my brother's. It might also be the title of a diet book that no one has written yet (so is Eat Neolithic).

The illusion:


The reality, which is lost behind smoke and mirrors and the flashing neon lights of consumerism:


Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope everyone eats Neolithic on our day of gratitude.

Eating Neolithic

I'm reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food (a follow-up to his successful Omnivore's Dilemma from a few years ago) and I'm awed. Some interesting points:

-The American Paradox. Everyone knows that the French eat a high-fat, buttery diet and drink wine and yet remain slim and have long lifespans (the French Paradox). On the other hand, Americans, the people most obsessed with diet and nutrition, have the highest rates of obesity and chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer (!).
-Our diets are precisely engineered. No other animal needs PROFESSIONAL HELP figuring out what to eat.

In order to avoid the slew of Western diseases and live healthier, longer lives, we ought to basically eat what we evolved to eat. (We haven't evolved responses to high fructose corn syrup, which has been around for about half a century, whereas the human species has consumed maize for thousands of years longer.) Eat what our Neolithic ancestors ate, he says. That means a diet of whole-grain, nonprocessed food, foods prepared according to cultural traditions that unlock key nutrients (for example, processing maize with limestone unlocks niacin), and nothing that ever passed through a factory or manufacturing facility. Would you eat something extruded through a nozzle? Squirtable Go-Gurt? Hydrogenated cardboard Pringles? Fluorescent orange plastic cheese? Splenda? Some other unrecognizable chemical compound that was made in a lab? This stuff is completely unrecognizable as food, but this is our post-industrial diet.

Neolithic or Paleolithic?
This made me think about whether a Paleolithic diet or a Neolithic one would be better.
Hunter-gatherers were the original affluent society. Before agriculture, foragers would spend 20 hours a week acquiring food, and then have plenty of leisure time left over to shoot the breeze, visit relatives, make jewelry, weave baskets, play with children, and so on. With agriculture, cultivation of crops became crucial and people spent 7 days a week, 24 hours a day slaving away on a farm. Generally, the foraging diet was more diverse and higher quality nutrient-wise than an agricultural one based on few key crops and livestock, but it probably tastes terrible. Let's see what I can gather....Insects. Raw weeds and tough, fibrous leafy greens. Okra. Bizarre seasonal fruits like durian and mango and avocado and grapes and pears that grow only at the foothills of the most remote mountains in China, but have incredible antioxidant and nutrient properties. Crustaceans. Minimally cooked.

Taste-wise, definitely go Neolithic. I'll take some stone-ground wheat bread and home-churned butter and cheese any day. Soba noodles. Beancurd, mmm. The Neolithic diet sounds yummy and feels like home. It's been 10,000 years and we're still around! Don't eat any of that processed post-industrial garbage.

Home

Some Random Things

When I came home on Wednesday night, there was a vehicle illegally parked on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building. It looked abandoned. The model? A pretty new Power Wheels, I'd say 2007 or so. How very curious --children these days leave their CARS behind.

The next day, as I was leaving the house early in the morning, I saw that it had been pushed to the curb and piled high with garbage bags. I guess no one wanted a free Power Wheel, or maybe it had belonged to the pediatrician's office next door and didn't work anymore.

Yesterday someone left a message on my answering machine saying that they had my tickets for the INAUGURATION (!) and didn't have my phone number or mailing address so they looked me up in the phone book and found my number. Hehehe

World's Deepest Cave -Tian Xing, China

Top 10 Best foods for your face

1. Avocado - niacin (vit B3)
2. Mangoes - vit A
3. Almonds - 150% DV Vitamin E
4. Cottage cheese - selenium (antioxidant w/Vit E)
5. Acerola Cherries - vitamin C
6. Oysters - Zinc
7. Baked potato - 75% DV copper
8. Mushrooms-Riboflavin (vit b2)
9. Flaxseed oil - 2.5 mg omega 3s
10. Wheat germ - biotin

Introversion or Sleep?

Me time or sleep time?
Computer/brain/books or bed?
Daydreams or night dreams?

Do you know anyone who actually gets inspiration from sleep? I mean real, night-time, restorative, REM sleep?

Unlike Einstein, whose dreams gave birth to his ideas...

Most of my inspiration comes during the day, when I'm quietly introverting while in the shower or while I'm cooking dinner or out for a walk/run. Not so much while I'm DEAD in my BED. Sleep is mostly out of exhaustion for me, and I rarely get the kind of insights and ideas I get that from intuiting during waking life. Most of the crazy overachieving people I've known for my whole life have slept very little, and yet had the most brilliant ideas and produced some of the most wonderful work.

And so it comes to pass for people like me, who spend several hours a week commuting to work while juggling classes and languages and several other hobbies and such, to make a choice between staying up late introverting and real sleep, dream sleep, beta-wave sleep.

Do I stay up and write for a bit, reflect, study my various thingers, enjoy art and music and be imaginative, connecting with my intuition, or do I let my brain rest? Do I go to sleep? Sigh. After using my brain as a G4 processor during the day, the very least it deserves is some fun. (How about a nice sonata, at least?)

The very worst thing I could do during my precious introversion time, of which I seem to have very little these days, is bombard my brain with an overload of sensory information. No TV and online shopping! Restless internet surfing and TV just make me feel more restless and make me stay up longer doing NOTHING. Repetitive computer games like Pet Salon and Emperor, which are pretty management/detail/strategy-oriented are pretty bad too, and they whittle away your introversion time.

Some tips to spur your creative imagination, from this website:

1. Behave like a child while learning: Be curious about every thing what you learn.
2. Start reading novels, create Mind Maps, Draw some pictures and colour them.
3. Day Dreaming: Dream at least for 5 min daily.
4. Use your right part of your Brain: Right part of the brain has the ability for creative thinking. Practice some exercises which makes improves creativity imagination.
5. Think creatively for day today problems you have and try to find alternate solutions.

Don't forget to BREATHE DEEPLY!

Fight Club - This is your life.

I post this because my life feels like this, and because this embodies the sentiment of a generation of wage slaves.

Insomnia

For six months, I couldn't sleep. With insomnia, nothing is real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. When deep space exploration ramps up, it will be corporations that name everything. The IBM Stellar Sphere.
The Philip Morris Galaxy. Planet Starbucks.

IKEA


It used to be that when I came home angry or depressed, I'd just clean my condo, polish my Scandinavian furniture. I should've been looking for a new condo. I should've been haggling with my insurance company. I should've been upset about my nice, neat flaming little shit. But I wasn't. The basic premise of cyber-netting any office is make things more efficient. Monday mornings, all I could do was think about next week. Can I get the icon in cornflower blue? Absolutely. Efficiency is priority number one, people, because waste is a thief. I showed this already to my man, here. You liked it, didn't you? You can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick. It was right in everyone's face. Tyler and I Just made it visible. It was on the tip of everyone's tongue. Tyler and I just gave it a name.

Visions of my Neolithic Living Room

We caught a couple of special exhibitions at AMNH today: 1) Reptiles, 2) Horses, and 3) Climate Change. The last special exhibition I caught was the Darwin exhibit ages ago, in spite of my having a STAFF pass which I barely utilize. (Yes, I know I should use it more often.) I thoroughly enjoyed all of them - they're like a breath of fresh air when I get to visit my old familiar friends like the HWhale, who will be around longer than me or all of my descendants. Ah, to be a museum specimen, frozen in time, embalmed for all perpetuity.

The Horse exhibit had some great Paleolithic cave art blown up as 10x10 paintings that would look marvelous in my living room. When I have my own house I want to decorate a room with a prehistoric theme: the Lascaux cave paintings, minerals, quartz lamps, fossils, everything made of stone.

Chauvet


Takhi! (Przewalski's horse, my favorite)


I can't see myself decorating with Neolithic goddess figurines or pottery, however, in spite of how much I love everything else about the Neolithic. I just don't get the goddess figurine aesthetic. Ha, it must be a reflection upon my distorted 21st century perception of "ideal" body image.

The cave paintings, on the other hand, are oddly familiar and haunting. Something about the horses reminds always me of "home." There must be something in our collective human memory that understands these symbols at a subconscious level.

Going to an old, familiar place with new friends is also fun because they make you see something you might not have thought of before.

Gusseted-Crotch Pants

I learned the difference between a gusseted-crotch pant and a non-gusseted one while shopping for shorts online. Gusseted ones are better for rock climbers because they prevent the shorts from splitting while you hyperextend your legs out of socket. They must be great for rock climbers (and other athletes like yogis and gymnasts), and have great practical construction for durably-built clothes, but why must they look so ridiculous? See this ad for Gusset Jeans.

Top 5 Most Stressful Cities to Live In

1. Chicago, IL
2. New York, NY
3. Detroit, Michigan
4. Los Angeles, CA
5. San Francisco, CA

Leave New York before you get hard, leave LA before you become soft.

Gray Matter

Concept art from Jane Jensen's latest project, which deals with a neuroscientist and magician grad student in New Orleans. I always enjoy the concept art much more than the game itself - my preference for the surreal over realistic detail. Why do all characters have to look the same these days? She looks like she would fit in with the characters from Grand Theft Auto, or any similar shoot-em-up, or a man's idea of what a woman should look like. More realistic female representations, please.

Wonder Girls

Saw them live in concert this weekend. Was one of the better concerts that I'd gone to in quite some time, pretty good for a free one.

Hermes Kelly or Birkin

This is terrible but I want one of these. The purses cost upwards of $7,000 to six figures. On the black market they can sell for about $350. I inspected one today and the quality was horrendous. I then went to Filene's and saw a faint glimmer of a replica (around $150) that was much better quality than the black market Kelly, but not the right size.

I don't care about the object as a status symbol. It's the look that I like - the clean, classic lines, elegant simplicity, and the excellent functionality. It's as organized as my Timbuk2! Personally, I can't stand carrying tote bags or shoulder bags that I have to dump everything into. My notebooks and papers get edge-worn, and then all my other junk gets scrambled up. Short of carrying a boxy, rectangular men's briefcase, this is the ideal bag.

I also saw some cute mini-Kellies on the black market that were about 6" square ($270). I guess I might consider buying the Coach take on the Birkin/Kelly, but it's an entirely different beast.

-----
On another note, I am planning on preparing an emergency survival kit (something I've been thinking about since 9/11/2001, but never got around to doing). We had several of them at Trip, with most of the stuff in buckets (which doubled as toilets) which made me feel safe most of the time. I'll stuff everything into a backpack so I can just grab it and run if the zombies come.

- 1L water in bottle
- iodine
- first aid kit
- sleeping bag
- rain jacket
- whistle, matches, lighter, flashlight, standard camping stuff...
- emergency heating blanket
- MREs / other food
- radio
- knife/multi-purpose tool
- duct tape
- Zombie repellent
- crucifix, garlic, holy water
- Zithromax
- gas mask
- Kevlar trenchcoat

Dracaenaceae

These trees are really cool. Whenever I see them, I see Yggdrasil.

Socotra Island (Indian Ocean), a UNESCO Heritage site. Dragon Trees.

In my life, I wish to visit as many UNESCO Heritage sites as possible.

Chewing Gum Doesn't Biodegrade

Most commercial chewing gums are manufactured from a combination of synthetic rubbers, artificial sweeteners like Xylitol, and preservatives -  not natural saps or gums.  Gum isn't digestable (so don't swallow it) and not biodegradable!

Here's another prime example of a disposable convenience product that is basically garbage as soon as it hits the retail shelf, and pretty much garbage for the rest of eternity.  

Forever stuck to NYC sidewalks, stuck under chairs, in school desks,  and under the soles of your shoes, those chewed-up pieces of gum will be around longer than you or I.  How old do you think those stains on subway platforms are, 50-100 years old?  Even if someone comes along and scrapes them off, they'll still be a permanent mess somewhere else, ultimately, in a landfill.  The New York Times identified the problem of chewing gum litter removal over 10 years ago (great article); the UK has also considered an initiative for disposing of gum in special bins.   There has been some recognition of this fact, so it seems, and a call for patentable, more quickly degradable products that are easier to clean up, but has anyone really taken it up?  I haven't heard of anything lately, and in fact; gum marketing aims at making gum last even longer (flavor, that is).  (See Stride commercials.) If  they *really* wanted to make money, gum companies should produce natural gum-based products that quickly degrade and are easily to clean up.

Chewing gum gives health benefits such as stress relief, improved concentration, and an increase in calorie burning of ~10 calories/hour.  But the increased motion of chewing can disrupt orthodontic correction, moving teeth, so don't chew if you have braces.  If you're going to chew gum, at least dispose of it responsibly - in its wrapper, and into a bin.

Disposable Lifestyle

We need to change our mindset from a post-industrial one to a pre-industrial one if the human race is going to survive. The western mindset is: use it once, throw it away, buy another one that can be easily bought since everything is mass-produced in a factory. The industrial revolution gave us every convenience that we could ever want, saving thousands of hours of housewives' time. Canned vegetables, frozen food, gallons of soda are all stockpiled in huge warehouses so that no one could ever go hungry even after a nuclear holocaust (that stuff has got enough preservatives to outlast the apocalypse).

But we've abused the benefits of the industrial life. We see food as an unlimited resource. It's not. Our resources are precious. Wasteful consumption affects everyone.

Get rid of your disposable mindset. Do your part to reduce landfill litter.

-Never purchase drinks that come in a plastic cup from any kind of fast food establishment. This includes soft drinks, Starbucks, and slurpees. You'll use it for at most an hour, and then when you're done, your trash will sit in a pile with dozens of others of cups in an overflowing trash can on a street corner. Do you really need to drink something while you're walking down the street? Bring a thermos of coffee if you really need it, and always carry a Nalgene. I do.

- Turn something that has outlived its use into something useful: make a skirt from old ties, or turn ratty undershirts into rags that you can clean your car with. Use the last bit of butter on the wrapper of sticks of butter to grease baking pans. Think in terms of molecules, not dozens: always finish the last bit of juice in the carton, and squeeze out every last drop of toothpaste.

Don't contribute to paper garbage:
-Don't use anything that's single-use, or "Wipe and Toss." This includes alcohol wipes, any kind of disposable cleaning item, or "100-calorie" packages of food. These things are 99% garbage to begin with and the creation of greedy marketing departments. You'll use the product once, throw it away, and then have to buy another package of 30 for the future. How sneaky is that? The product is pretty much garbage at the time you buy it off the shelf. It's much better to buy more durable products (such as a good scrubbing sponge), and use natural cleaning agents like vinegar.

-Women: sanitary napkins are like diapers. They contain not only bleached white cotton, but plastic, gels, rayon and other chemicals that don't biodegrade quickly. Would you bury used pads in your garden outside your house? Then don't contribute to hygienic product waste. Use alternative menstrual products like Gladrags, Lunapads, or Lunacups. Women used cloth pads and natural sponges for hundreds, if not thousands, of years before disposable sanitary products were mass-produced in the 20th century.

-Use Tupperware instead of Ziploc bags to store your lunch. Did I mention to make a packed lunch every day instead of ordering out?

-Always use china instead of paper plates, plastic cups and cutlery. Washing dishes is always more friendly than throwing the remnants of your meal into a pile of trash that will rot in a landfill.

- Save, save, save! Something that is not useful today might have a use in the future. Perfectly good items like buttons and fabric are always useful. It's OK to hoard. Think like your grandparents who lived through the Depression.

- If it's broke, fix it. Don't buy a new one. This goes for shoes (get them repaired by a cobbler). Don't buy crappy $5 sneakers that you wear for a year and then throw away. Make an investment on a good pair of shoes that will last for years. My parents both have shoes that they've worn for at least 20 years. Go for classic, timeless styles and cuts made with durable, lasting fabrics. Don't pay any attention to fashionistas who tell you to get rid of clothes once they go out of style within a season or two, as inevitably they do. In fact, don't buy into American trendism at all. It just contributes to more waste. I'd rather buy a good, classic piece that's slightly more expensive than a cheap, flimsy garment that lasts for a few washes and then disintegrates *and* goes out of style. Mend the shirt instead of buying a new one.

Most important of all is mindful consumption. The next time you're about to throw an item into the trash, think about where it's going to go. Is it going to sit in a landfill until kingdom come (like unrecyclable plastic packaging and junk)? Will it get blown away by the wind or slowly disintegrate (hair and nails), becoming dust? It always makes me happy when I recycle my cans and plastics to know that they'll be melted down and made into other useful things.

Feeding my existential hunger with hummus and Al-Jazeera

Margerine by Sadgasm (Simpsons parody)

I have no idea why this Simpsons parody song has been stuck in my head since yesterday when I watched the episode it was featured in, randomly, but it's pretty catchy, without being a direct parody of the song (same melody). I guess it evokes some of the best parts of Glycerine without actually being Glycerine, making it an ever better version of it.

Things that rhyme with Glycerine:

Margerine (margarine)

Listerine

Mercedes Benzene

Tangerine

Aubergine (Eggplant)

Magazine

Alizarin (red dye)

I really enjoy eating Middle Eastern food for some reason. I guess it's because the flavors are so unique and different from what I was raised on that I can understand why Jewish people really like Chinese food. Everything about the spices, flavors, and their different combinations is so appetizing to me and I crave it! Just now, I had a huge craving for hummus and just ate a hummus sandwich with Taiwanese cucumbers. (No pita, so white bread had to do.) For dinner

I had couscous with chicken that I'd marinated in cumin, curry powder and paprika.

Cross-section of a hot dog

From the latest NYMagazine article on organic hot dogs.

Saturday

I think not conditioning my hair keeps my hair cleaner for a longer time.  Just shampoo alone gets my hair clean.  I feel like conditioner weighs down my hair and absorbs pollution and smog from the air, so it feels dirtier sooner.  But conditioner is supposed to protect my hair from pollution, so by not conditioning, I'm exposing it to more damage.  It's all backwards!!!

I went to Bay Terrace today to see if Ann Taylor Loft had a certain dress that I wanted in my size (they did not).  Then I walked around a bit and went to Love My Shoes.  Didn't buy anything.  I'm supposed to get a knit shell to wear with my suit, preferably in white, but it has been elusive.

Breakfast: Cocoa crispies

Lunch: Ellios pepperoni pizza with garlic, cranberry juice

Dinner: egg and tomato stir-fry, rice, chinese broccoli

Snacks: Kudos peanut butter granola bar, strawberry yogurt, Xinjiang pear

Distribution of Single Persons in the US

Why is there such a discrepancy in the distribution? I can see tech types (heavily male) on the west coast, while lots of women might be drawn to New York City. I blame Sex and the City for that, and before that, Working Girl. I should probably move out West!