SCALES #29: cold connoisseur
Hello!
The snow here in greater Cambridge has progressed to the dirty piles of slush phase and most of the sidewalks are finally clear. (I got angry seeing a couple struggle to clear a tiny stroller through a too-narrowly shoveled stretch of sidewalk.) Minnesota and Massachusetts' late December, early January bitter cold is comfortably in the past.
But, in true Minnesotan fashion, I can't help but constantly rehash and relive the cold snap. It's how we show off our connoisseurship in a bizarre semi-repressed Midwestern way.
There's a clear distinction to me between being outside in -10 to 0 °F compared to 10 °F (or fine, -23 to -18 °C compared to -12 °C, which just doesn't have the same rhetorical impact). The latter is uncomfortable; the former, painful. Still, there's a weird thrill to being outside in a breathtakingly inhospitable world. I admit feeling some pride in being able to bundle up and handle it. It also brings feelings of nostalgia for past memories of standing outside, freezing in the upper Midwest.
I don't want to veer into climate determinism here: it could be years of standing outside in the cold, waiting for a bus, have molded my personality into someone who takes pride in being able to stoically wait out the painful, but it could just as well be a personality trait that has found the cold a convenient outlet. Regardless, there's a nexus of cold/patience/pride swirling around in my sense of self.
In a wider circle, though, around people from warmer climates who are unafraid to complain about and avoid the cold, I wonder: When might I have a tendency to treat a situation like I treat the cold? When do I too quickly decide the right thing to do is wrap myself up and wait out the discomfort?
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Beyond the drama of the reveal, all kinds of great insight here: "[W]e’re being challenged to imagine how we would prefer things to be. This feat of imagination is about not a prescriptive dictation of acceptable sexual behaviors but the desire for a kinder, more respectful, and more equitable world. There is something that’s changed: Suddenly, men have to think about women, our inner lives and experiences of their own behavior, quite a bit. That may be one step in the right direction."
"If your definition of 'deep state' cannot accommodate an idealistic 25-year-old CrossFit fanatic with unmatched socks, you've underestimated both the reach and scope of American surveillance." This Reality Winner profile!
"Waiting for a Break is a living, public art project by Julia Christensen for Cleveland, Ohio, that transmits live feeds of Lake Erie's winter ice as it forms, shifts and eventually breaks—in real time—throughout the winter of 2017–2018."
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Digging into the weirdness of zero-inventory online shops that are pure brand, "jumbled up global capitalism that uses Silicon Valley ad tools to arbitrage cheap goods from Asia" that Alexis Madrigal dubs "The Supply Cloud". (And "There's No Such Thing as a Free Watch" (pdf), the foundational Jenny Odell piece Madrigal cites.)
Maybe I'm a fellow paranoid, but I too engage in all kinds of weird digital behaviors to try to remain unknowable to The Algorithm. (I'm not sure about the spiritual motivations, though.)
Ethnography of ride-hail driver online forum culture.
"Nagle, you might say, is a kind of Mary Anning of the Anthropocene, collecting the fossils of forgotten neighborhoods as the land in which they're buried erodes away."
The landscape of low-power local radio.
"Sidangkou [...] began producing saxophones in the 1990s, as China became a powerhouse exporter and Western cultural influences became more prominent. Assembly line workers began trying their hand at the instrument, mimicking famous players they saw on television. By the mid-2000s, saxophone fever had broken out."
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I thought this 99% Invisible episode on car safety design was particularly good: wide-ranging without being scattered. Another episode traced a personal history of radio advertisements and jingles, including an indescribable 1967 Frank Zappa jingle (feat. Linda Ronstadt) for Remington Electric Razors, never used.
A story of gerrymandering reform in California: "the tension between trying to rid the redistricting process of politicians and their attempts to find a way back in".
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December 30 temperature-bragging in Minnesota.
Turns out that statement about the imminent shutdown of Tinyletter was a bit of a squib. So, be doubly unconcerned.
—Adam