Josh Indar reviews Virtual Words by Wired columnist Jonathon Keats:
Who knew that Ambrose Bierce, of all people, may have invented the emoticon? Or that the obnoxious txt appendage “k” has roots in the Jacksonian era of American politics? Or that crackers, Scotsmen, dungeonmasters and Tag Team all claim pwnrship of “w00t”?
It’s called Barbara Bush:
We all knew who the enforcer in that family is. The question now is whether the Silver Fox still scares anyone in the GOP.
David Ensminger salutes the music bins of dollar stores:
Flimsy toilet scrub. Check. Day old bread. Check. Offbrand toothpaste. Check. Sonny Sharrock CD. Wait. What? In the relentless glare of the 99 Cent Only Store, which makes any face look blanched with a hangover, I grip this little gem by the uber jazz-noise guitarist buried in a heap of discount CDs tilting precariously forward on an overstocked shelf next to videotapes. Yes, those relics of the age of plastic, when John Hughes’ teenage angst movies filled living rooms.
This is beyond weird. Sharrock has played with everyone from Miles Davis and flautist Herbie Mann to hip producer Bill Laswell. He was obscure and legendary, not some used-up, no-name, cookie cutter musician. This CD represents agile, disruptive art in the aisle of discount city.
Jay Caspian Kang reveals the real trick of the game – an incredible pain tolerance:
Pain in poker comes in many forms. There is the loss you feel about living off of the dregs of a societal illness. There is the gambler’s moment of clarity when you realize you have become just like the old, sad men that you ridiculed in your younger, luckier days. There is the tedium of sitting at a filthy felt table for hours, sometimes days, feigning a studied intensity. There is the anxiety over explaining to a loved one exactly how you lost $30,000 in the course of a weekend. There is searing unease that comes from watching that same loved one twist uncomfortably whenever you give them a gift bought with the spoils of gambling.
But none of poker’s daily pains are deadly or instructive, really. What’s more, all of guilt’s iterations can be cleansed by one monster score.
A music video of lights found in New York City:
On Melancholy Hill – NYC Lights from Chateau Bezerra on Vimeo.
Jonah Lehrer reports on a new study that appears to prove "psi" – instances of telepathy, clairvoyance or psychokinesis. But Lehrer reminds us it's been done before:
Consider the story of Adam Linzmayer. In the spring of 1931, Linzmayer, an undergraduate at Duke University, began participating in an experimental test of extra-sensory perception, or ESP. The study was led by the psychologist Joseph Banks Rhine and revolved around the Zener deck, a special set of cards featuring five different symbols. The test itself is straightforward: A card is drawn from the deck and the subject is asked to guess the symbol. While most of Rhine’s subjects performed in the neighborhood of random chance – they guessed about 20 percent of the cards correctly – Linzmayer averaged nearly fifty percent during his initial sessions. Furthermore, these “guesses” led to several uncanny streaks, such as when he correctly guessed nine cards in a row. The odds of this happening by chance are about one in two million. Linzmayer did it three times.
In a short time, Linzmayer lost his abilities, and performed only slightly higher than average. What makes the new study by Daryl Bem so important is "Bem’s attempt to create rigorous, well-controlled tests of psi that can be replicated by independent investigators."
"I don't think torture belongs in the American arsenal. I think torture is illegal, is immoral, but I would go further and argue that it doesn't work. These silly scenarios [in which] the terrorist knows where the bomb is that's about to go off in 30 minutes — that's not reality. Further, you have to judge what you get in information versus the strategic loss that you take when it is revealed, as it will be inevitably, that a country is employing torture.
In Madrid, [I chaired] a working group on intelligence at the time of the revelations of the abuses in Iraq. I was being pummeled by men who are not squeamish, not hand-wringing compassionate folks, [who said] it was worse than immoral — it was stupid. The information really had very little value, and yet the loss that we took strategically to our reputation is tremendous. This is like going to Las Vegas and throwing down a million dollars to win a nickel.
Finally, you take into account that [using torture] changes the nature of our own society, and that is a tremendous cost. [As for legal justifications], I would find a legal brief more compelling if I knew the lawyer had witnessed an actual waterboarding — more so, had the author been waterboarded. Let's waterboard a panel of lawyers and see where they come out," – Brian Jenkins, Senior Advisor to the President of the RAND Corporation.
One point stands out to me in this:
"[Using torture] changes the nature of our own society."
I wonder whether people have fully absorbed this fact.
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 3.58 pm
Welcome to ageing Japan, now second only to the US in pet pampering. Danielle Demetriou reports that "the number of pets long … [have] eclipsed the number of children under the age of 15":
Today, [Japan]’s dogs can enjoy a leisurely life of yoga, aromatherapy massages and tap-dancing classes (yes really), in between stays in boutique dog hotels and attending dog fashion shows. Cats don’t have it any harder: from cat acupuncture to cat cafés (including separate menus – organic of course – for both cats and owners), there are few aspects of human life that are not available also for felines.
Joshua Cohen, author of Witz and Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto, offers up advice to those suffering from writer's block:
Thing is, there’s no single cure for the Block (this is what serious writers call it; cf. the Clap, the Syph, the Herp).
And the reason there’s no single cure is that there’s no single type of Block. The Block can be daylong, or weeklong; it can last for years (Truman Capote) or decades (Ralph Ellison, Henry Roth). I can’t think of any other writers just now.
Hold on—let me top myself off.
You might take comfort from the fact that while writing can’t be forced, time spent not writing can be put to good use. Try acquiring other skills, like rolling cigarettes or reading. Learn to differentiate between scotch and bourbon. Learn the differences among corn whiskey, rye whiskey, and wheat whiskey. Learn what, if anything, separates whisky from whiskey.
Writer's block: I remember that. What a concept.
The Dish 