Late Winter 2024 letter
Hello, friends. Lots of good stuff for you in this newsletter.
What do they sound like though?
The Portland airport has therapy llamas. No, for real.
“Travelers don’t expect anything,” Joy says. “Everyone has that resting face of ‘let me try to get through to my destination’, and then, all of a sudden, they come across a big fluffy llama that they’re encouraged to hug. There’s this wave of relief. You can see the whole body change.”
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Therapy Llamas Strut Our Airport Hallways
Packing pro tip: compression sacks!
I recently discovered the all-powerful compression sack. Simply put, you load them up with socks, underwear, T-shirts, and anything that can be compressed. Then you squeeze everything down into a tight bundle using the straps, and save a nice chunk of space in your suitcase. They are kind of expensive, but likely to sustain you for many trips. You can also buy them in waterproof versions for outdoor activities.
Listening
I love a lot of classical music, but I know little about the composers. Bach is considered to be the granddaddy of classical. As the joke goes:
Mozart dies and arrives at the gates of heaven. He is speaking with St. Peter, unsure of his worthiness for entrance, concerned that his compositions don't compare to Bach's.
St. Peter says: "Bach? Oh, Bach IS God!"
* Credit to Joseph for this one.
I'm greatly enjoying this collection of piano works. Supposedly, most of what you need to know about Western music can be found in Bach's work. You can get really analytical if you want here, or you can just enjoy it. Yes, I know you can probably find all of this on Spotify, but f*ck Spotify. I interact with the platform as little as possible, because it is terrible for most(?) artists, and because I don't like to be eaten by algorithms. Also, I'm on the payroll of Big Compact Disc, 'cause I'm trying to bring sexy discs back. Carousel changers! Players in the car! Go jogging with a portable! (Not that last one...too much jostling..)
Welcome to Portland: I made a website
It's been years since I built anything just for fun. On a whim, I whipped up an abbreviated guide to Portland. Much has changed since I last built a web project of my own. (I do plenty for work, but that's a different matter, different audience.)
Website creators are endlessly stressed over SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which increasingly means making websites that search engines like, but get worse and worse for human readers. Have you ever looked up a recipe? Try it now, I'll wait. Notice how the part you want, i.e., the actual recipe is buried amidst lots of blah blah blah and useless filler? That's for Google, mostly.
If you're making margherita pizza, the first thing to consider is the cheese. Margherita pizza is best prepared with buffalo mozzarella, a specific cheese that is used for this kind of pizza. This cheese was first developed in Italy in the...
.....
ARGHHHH!!!! Show the frackin' recipe, already!Social media has slurped up a lot of content that used to reside on independent websites. This includes presentational content, but also affinity groups. Facebook is a terrible substitute for a proper web forum, but folks use it as such every day. Why? Sunk costs, laziness, and the fact that spinning up a proper forum takes time, and isn't free. And sadly, the more we use it, the more we use it. For example, I had a specific synthesizer, and would have questions about specific features. In years past, I'd go to a forum and ask, but now a lot of folks just post on Facebook. @&#*ing Facebook!
And other changes...AI...blah blah blah...
The site is https://welcometoportland.net
It has no ads, no social media, no profit motive. Please share it widely.
The dread of "your personal brand," hustle culture, and self-marketing
Every paragraph in this piece is gold. In years past, you just made a thing, and if it got in front of your audience, you might sell some of that thing. You would be expected to participate in promotion to some extent (authors: book tours, bands: concerts, etc.) but it wasn't all DIY. There were (and are) some exceptions. Indie bands, for example, booking their own tours, staffing their own merch tables. However, for many artists today, there is intense pressure to always be creating and always be self promoting on social media, to an extreme degree. How does this leave time for making the art? My Spring 2021 newsletter cites My Own Devices, a book by musician Dessa, who has said the majority of her time is spent on marketing, not making music.
On a related note, I know many people love TikTok, but every time I watch a clip from it, it reminds me of the brilliant dystopian show Black Mirror.
Want to sell a book or release an album? Better start a TikTok. - Vox
So you want to be an artist. Do you have to start a TikTok?
Join or Die
Robert Putnam wrote the seminal Bowling Alone, a book on the importance of community and how we are losing it.
Twenty years, ago, [Putnam] made a seemingly simple observation: once we bowled in leagues, usually after work; but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolized a significant social change that became the basis of the acclaimed bestseller, Bowling Alone, which The Washington Post called “a very important book” and Putnam, “the de Tocqueville of our generation.”
I've not read the book, but I think a lot about community, the value of knowing your neighbors and connecting to where you live. Since moving here, I've joined the neighborhood association, and volunteered for Adopt One Block (a brilliant org in its own right.) There's a lot of nascent possibility, coming up for air post-pandemic[1]. We've gotten very used to a screen-dominated lifestyle, and it takes extra effort to get folks out the door.
Join or Die is a documentary on Putnam's ideas. The title refers to the reduced likelihood of dying one has when one participates in community.
[1] We're not out of the woods yet...depends on so many factors. Ears covered NAHNAHNAH...
Putnam Doc: A movie about why you should join a club
A feature documentary on the life and work of civic guru Robert Putnam.
Jazz + Disco + Pop with top notch musicianship
foamboy remains my favorite Portland band discovery. They have just released a new album, even better than the last. For the uninitiated--you have to be a pretty solid musician to play jazz properly. A decent bassist can play three chord punk or folk, and it works. But ask 'em to play Take the A Train or Dean Town[1] and they'll answer "uh..."
Take jazz musicians (which foamboy's members are) and set them loose on disco-pop, and you get a wonderful fusion that satisfies both chorditis[2] sufferers (me) and people who want to dance a strong beat at shows.
[1] Technically it's more funk, but still. Dean Town by Vulfpeck. Listen to that audience!
[2] Using/desiring too many chords. A transient condition, treatable with Tom Petty, plainchant, and selected Afropop.
Do you feel like many apps and websites are getting worse?
It's not an illusion. Enshitification, a term coined by writer Cory Doctorow, outlines how platforms start by serving their users. Hey, this is pretty useful, I can:
Gather a bunch of cyclists for a group ride
Find a place to recycle near me
Book a massage
etc...
They work pretty well, for a while. Then the platforms shift their allegiance to investors, putting profit above everything else. Gradually, the thing you came to like, and find useful, becomes cluttered with intrusive ads and "features," notifications, and generally just starts to suck. Eventually, users abandon it.
Enshitification has come to:
Dating apps (including Bumble BFF, which connected me to several quality guy friends, before the app went bad). Shout out to Sarah Y, who says her friend had app-mediated dates with people who treated the occasion to generate "content" for their social media. Wild!
Facebook (old news, of course)
Twitter (confounded by its purchase by a half-genius/half-lunatic).
An app near you.
ONE THING!
Related to this problem is what I call "Just let me do THE ONE THING!" In companies' lust for revenue (or just bad design patterns), some have made it very hard to accomplish simple tasks. Here's how it's supposed to work. (A dramatic reenactment.)
What's that new Thai place in St. John's called? Wonder if they're open late. Oh yeah, it's PDX Thai North.
Hmmm...(to Siri) "PDX Thai North hours"
Siri: Here's what I found.
Click first result.
Pop-up obscures the entire screen, "Sign up for Restauranti.fi and get 10% off your next order!"
Close.
Bubble slides over "Chat with us now."
Close.
(To self..."where are the damn hours?")
No luck.
So where is the phone number?
and on it goes...
I prefer the brusque, to the point Thai place up the block. I call, someone picks up on the 1st ring, blurts out "Monsoon Thai," nothing else, and I make my order, then walk up the street to pay cash directly to a human. As a bonus, I don't get 3 emails and 2 text messages telling me my order status, nor am I asked to rate my experience, or tell Google how crowded the place was. And finally, it keeps the FBI from knowing my eating habits. I see you in that unmarked Ford Taurus, "Will." </rant>
On a related note, if you're wondering what happened to OKCupid, which used to be a not terrible place.
American society wasn’t always so car-centric. Our future doesn’t have to be, either.
The beginner's mistake is thinking "wasn't it always like this?" The answer is usually "no". I've previously reported on elevated bikeways in Los Angeles.
In 1897, it was estimated that there were 30,000 bikes in the Los Angeles area alone. According to the LA Times, bicycle riding was a morally upright activity that should be encouraged by city leaders... [source]
This Yale Climate Connections article talks about the history of urban planning, pedestrian, cycling, and car culture, and how we might re-envision cities.
American society wasn’t always so car-centric. Our future doesn’t have to be, either. » Yale Climate Connections
The surprising history of cars in the U.S. offers hope for a shift toward more climate-friendly transportation options.
Long time readers know I'm a big cycling booster, and that I moved here in part so I could keep cycling integrated in my day-to-day travels. But I recognize this is not viable, possible, or safe in most of the country. I feel you. What I don't feel is the inevitability of CARCARCAR, forever. Cities can and do change, and when done properly, it's so much better. But it's not fast or easy, and humans seem capable of resisting most any change, even when it's good for them--even when they agree it's good for them!
A show with true heart
I read Lessons in Chemistry a few years ago, and gave the book a B+. I think perhaps the series is even better. I'm a sucker for period-accurate set design, costuming, and communication styles, and this show does not disappoint.
Brie Larsen plays Elizabeth Zott, a hyper intelligent, somewhat stiff (at first) chemist trying to get ahead in a profoundly sexist environment. (Samantha and I both wondered if the extreme sexism portrayed in the series was accurate, but I guess we'd have to ask a 1950s chemist to know for sure.)
Zott falls hard for Calvin Evans, a science superstar with his own brand of awkward stiffness. I'll say no more lest I spoil the show.
Lessons in Chemistry is truly a show with heart, it lies at the center of everything it proclaims, and transcends the show's several tragic milestones. And Larsen a master actor. If you watch a behind the scenes bit, you'll see how her facial expressions, posture, and speech patterns bring her to fully inhabit the character and the world of the 1950s. Watching each episode left me with a pretty good feeling, and it's nice when TV can do that. I know Breaking Bad is a good show, but I'm not sure I could watch it to unwind.
Apple TV.
Just what is a chakra?
If you're familiar with somatic practices, polyvagal theory, or energy medicine, you may have trouble getting a grip on just what is being framed, claimed, or stated. I'm a fence sitter when it comes to the eternal science vs. woo debate (I get my vax, but we are electromagnets, yo), and I loved this attempt to explain the chakra concept in metaphor.
The language or the internal worldview of these practices may not be biologically accurate. For example, a 'chakra', as far as we know, doesn't exist as an anatomical reality. But they might exist in some kind of mind-body "abstraction layer", the same way that the "mouse pointer" doesn't exist as a hardware reality in your computer -- you can't crack open a macbook's aluminum case and look for a 'mouse pointer' on the circuit board. However, a mouse pointer is certainly a salient concept within a particular software abstraction layer that's built 'atop' software layers atop hardware layers. And while you're using your computer, it is absolutely helpful to think in terms of a 'mouse pointer' as a discrete 'thing' that exists 'in your computer', the same way that it seems to be helpful for some people to think in terms of 'chakras' that exist 'in your body'. [source]
This followed a discussion of Steven Porges' Polyvagal theory and related concepts.
Frontiers | Yoga Therapy and Polyvagal Theory: The Convergence of Traditional Wisdom and Contemporary Neuroscience for Self-Regulation and Resilience
Yoga therapy is a newly emerging, self-regulating complementary and integrative healthcare (CIH) practice. It is growing in its professionalization, recognition and utilization with a demonstrated commitment to setting practice standards, educational and accreditation standards, and promoting research to support its efficacy for various populations and conditions. However, heterogeneity of practice, poor reporting standards, and lack of a broadly accepted understanding of the neurophysiological ...
Whew, that was a long one. Time for a closing quote.
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous..
-Albert Einstein