Apocalypse, avoided. Tiny Letter #7, November 2020
Sunset Boulevard through the years
I have a soft spot for movies and series that painstakingly re-create past eras. Even if the story isn't amazing, sometimes the set design and cinematography makes watching worthwhile. This clever interface from the Getty Research Institute allows you to take a virtual drive along Sunset Boulevard.
Solar energy is now the cheapest form of electricity for utility companies to build
I've long had this idea for a novel where researchers, toiling away in obscurity, hit upon some huge gain in efficiency with renewable energy, and their unleashing it on the world wreaks major havoc with unfree, fossil fuel-dependent countries like Saudi Arabia (and I suppose Russia kind of belongs in this group, as well). While I'm sure such an event would negatively impact quite a few people, I would also be thrilled to see “oilgarchies” crumble. Since high school I have been reading about the United States' unholy alliance with Middle East oil producers. The USA has been selling them all kinds of weapons and excusing their awful behavior for decades.
While my novel idea is not coming true, exactly, the steady march of progress in renewable energy is a bright spot (pun intended, perhaps?) amidst government and corporate denial of the awfulness of the fossil fuel industry.
Solar Is Cheapest Energy: Renewable Energy vs. Fossil Fuels Cost
Tough break for fossil fuels.
Track the first known use of a word by year
Merriam-Webster, the dictionary people, have created a neat tool that lets you see when words joined the (American) English language. In 1941, area code, campy, back-and-forth, and apparatchik made their first known debut. I don't believe there are many words in American English that come from Russian, but certainly apparatchik, “a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Soviet government apparat,” is one.
Deepfakes for the public good?
One of the moments I live for is seeing a terrible person, often a politician, break down and confess, or at least say what is true but unacknowledged. The best Hollywood example of this is Bulworth, in which Warren Beatty plays a sellout politician having a crisis of conscience, and just start saying exactly what is on his mind. The results are hilarious, especially when he tries to rap.
If you are not familiar with deepfakes, they are faked, but often very real seeming videos that put words and gestures into someone's mouth. Basically like Photoshop, but for video. Currently, making a convincing deepfake takes a lot of time and effort, although given the popularity of baseless conspiracy theories in the U.S., perhaps they need not be that good, just barely good enough to support folks' confirmation bias.
This artist has made a series of deepfakes with public figures saying what perhaps we wish they would say. The artist acknowledges from the start that they are deepfakes, and they are not good enough to convince anyone they are the real thing, but I like the idea.
Autos and bicycles, it wasn’t always this way
I was not a particularly adept student of history, not in high school, nor in college. I'm sure I found some parts interesting, but it's not a subject in which I've made many deep dives. I'm sure this is to my detriment. It is so easy to assume that systems, infrastructure, or cultural norms are somewhat timeless, or that something (i.e., this pandemic) is "unprecedented". Often, this is not the case.
Everything has happened before, and everything will happen again.
- Battlestar Galactica
I was happily surprised, but also dismayed, to learn that cycling used to be a major mode of transportation at key spots in the U.S.
In 1895, bike rides accounted for up to 45 percent of trips in Minneapolis, a city that boasted 35 miles of bike paths.
“Bike booms have mainly been fueled by local and city governments,” says Friss, a history professor at James Madison University. He points to the cycle lanes that cities built in the 1890s, such as Brooklyn’s Coney Island Cycle Path that attracted 25,000 cyclists when it opened in 1895…
Did you read that right? The 1890s! I've always thought that, with my freshly waxed time machine, after killing Hitler of course (you have to kill Hitler), I would visit the late 70s/early 80s to hear some of my favorite bands during their heyday (Japan, The Police), and then zip over to the 40s for the big band jazz era. I suppose I should add to that list, as long as we are imagining the impossible, visiting cities with good cycling infrastructure in the 19th and 20th century.
Most of you probably know I'm a big fan of cycling as a form of everyday transportation. Here in Madison, this is mostly normalized, but I'm still imagining a T-shirt featuring five people, mouths agape, captioned “You Rode Your Bike Here?!”
But I digress. This article talks about a moment of opportunity to build cycling infrastructure, but I'm not especially optimistic, because “Such moves would be unprecedented: The typical federal posture toward cycling has ranged between indifference and antagonism.” But it's nice to dream.
Reduce carbon emissions, build community, improve fitness, improve mental health… The list of benefits is long.
Can the Bike Boom Keep Going? (Bloomberg News)
Just one entry on politics. Really, this is it.
I've been thinking a lot about the election and polarization lately. My most recent brush with this massive divide was a date last weekend. At the start, she asked how my weekend was going, and I said I was incredibly relieved at the election results. I said, what about you, and she said, “I think we are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.” I got up immediately and left.
The following may sound patronizing, but I really don't care.
If you care for a child, and they do something stupid, foolish, or dangerous, it is your responsibility to help them see their mistake and correct it. You can do this with a firm, authoritative, but compassionate hand. Sometimes, in the case of a toddler throwing a tantrum and trying to smack you or their sibling, you have to physically restrain them.
I think everyone understands this. And we also recognize that throughout our lives, we don't have all the answers, we are growing and learning, and we may sometimes benefit from good advice or corrections from people with more experience in a particular arena. We learn to consider our past behavior in a fresh light, recognize past mistakes, apologize for them and learn from them. You know, growing up. This process never ends.
However, I'm not talking to a child. I'm talking to a woman in her thirties with a job, a car, and children. If she has reached this age, and is still in active support of a sociopath, bully, and grifter, it is not my responsibility to point out the error of her ways, and listen patiently, applying the Socratic method, so that someday in the distant future she might recognize where she went wrong. It is her job to do the soul searching, the deep personal work, to assess and correct her mistake.
Now, let's extend this to the 70 million people in the nation who voted for this despicable person. They have the same obligation. And while moderates and liberals may be willing to take the time to have those open-ended, non-confrontational, productive conversations with them, it is still incumbent on Trump supporters to do that hard personal work. Most of them won't.
I'm wondering, why is it incumbent on liberals, moderates, or really anyone who voted for Biden/Harris to bend over backwards seeking understanding of people who voted for Trump?
Can you think of any other scenario where the people who chose sobriety, moderation, and competence over chaos, destruction, and disorder need to be the ones seeking understanding?
This time around, in a reversal of all the hand wringing and “let's go ask folks in the heartland” stories in "liberal" media, how about Trump supporters and conservative media come and talk to Biden supporters and ask why Democratic policy positions resonate with them?
If a company CEO trashes her private jet, sets fire to her office, empowers employees to run around breaking everything in sight, getting into fist fights, and spraying graffiti over the building's exterior, when the board of directors finally fires her and brings in a new CEO, it is not that person's job to go around with a sympathetic ear and figure out why people trashed the place. It's their job to fire them and replace them with competent employees.
Now it's true that a large number of Americans feel like they are not being listened to, and they are hurting economically and spiritually. While it is bizarre that they would ever imagine a sociopath-grifter actually cared about them and would do something to help them, it's understandable that they might think they have been abandoned by Democrats. But how many of these folks have taken any appreciable time to learn what candidates and parties actually stand for? What's in their platforms? What is their record? It's not hard to find. People may choose Trump and his party based on feelings, but at the same time they are doing so out of deep ignorance.
I'm under no illusions, nor would I ever claim, that Democrats offer some panacea or ideal solution. But if I have a choice of being punched or stabbed, I'm going to choose the punch.
And I have deep respect for people who possess the patience to use the Socratic method, mentioned earlier, but I'm not sure I do. Maybe someday, when I feel enough people have cultivated a little humility about their terrible political choices.
Let's close on a high note, a favorite film
Kicking and Screaming is a brilliant film about recent college graduates who don't know what to do with themselves. Released in 1995, this was Noah Baumbach’s first film. He later made “The Squid and The Whale” and “Marriage Story,” among others. The dialogue is so cleverly crafted, and the characters so amusingly neurotic, that they feel somehow familiar, like people you know or once knew. It's incredibly impressive for a first effort. Given the era, it is blissfully free of mobile phones, so it proceeds at a human pace. I'm curious to know what people in their 20s would make of the film. Are the characters universal "types" that everyone can relate to, or does it feel dated?
Have a favorite album, article, or macramé pattern I should share? Disagree with everything I wrote? Drop me a line.