July 2009
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As an exercise, Dr. Miller asked readers of the blog to list the 10 most expensive things they had ever bought, and then list the 10 purchases that had brought them the most happiness. More than 200 responded. As we expected, many people rued spending lots of money for stuff that hadn’t brought them joy. Boats seemed to have particularly low utility in delivering happiness per dollar; many cars fit that category, too, and so did many expensive weddings.
But we were struck by how much overlap there was between the most-expensive list and the most-happy list.
” —Calculating Consumer Happiness at Any Price
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A Swedish couple believe so strongly that gender is a social construction that they do not reveal whether their 2.5-year-old is a boy or a girl. “We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mold from the outset.”
Only those who have changed the toddler’s diapers know if “Pop,” which is not the child’s real name, is male or female. “We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mold from the outset,” the tot’s 24-year-old mother told the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. “It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”
” —The baby’s a…we’re not telling!June 2009
“By the late 80s, Michael Jackson had been integrated into every form of entertainment. With the booming popularity of video games, making a Michael Jackson video game was a no-brainer. As part of a multi-faceted marketing ploy, there was a movie and several video games released based on Michael Jackson’s exploits. The title was Moonwalker, and the subject was a confrontation between Michael and mobster Mr. Big (played by Joe Pesci), who has kidnapped a bunch of children. The film and game coincided with the release of Michael’s new hit song, Smooth Criminal, which it also revolved around in terms of its plot, with Michael being some sort of “good” gangster.”
—Hardcore Gaming 101: Moonwalker
“Elsewhere, Nehring interrogates our steadfast insistence on balanced, healthy relationships, our readiness to condemn doomed, impossible entanglements. She argues that it may in fact be a sign of health to enter into a relationship that is turbulent, demanding or unorthodox. She praises long-distance relationships, arduous relationships, relationships with men who are elusive, relationships the therapeutic culture adamantly opposes. She asks, “Could it be that the choice of a challenging love object signals strength and resourcefulness rather than insecurity and psychological damage, as we so often hear?”
—Feverish Liaisons
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As a society, we developed competing priorities: We at once revere the institution of marriage but put personal fulfillment above almost all else.
‘“We want to be partnered up and married, but after we’re married, we judge our relationships in a very personal way,” explains Cherlin, who is on his second marriage. “We keep asking ourselves ‘Am I happy? Am I getting what I need?’ And if the answers one day come back negative, we’re more likely to leave a relationship.”
” —What’s Going Down on the ‘Marriage-Go-Round’?
“When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week.”
—Giving up my iPod for a Walkman
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It’s hard to say when any one street in a city begins to regain its former luster or a new life. But if investment in a recession is any indicator, Mission Street is on the move.
In the last three years, at least nine new businesses, mostly restaurants serving everything from fresh pie with organic ingredients to Mexican mole, have appeared in the 10-block stretch of Mission Street from 16th to 26th. Six of those opened in the last four months including The Corner, a California/Italian, small plate café and Specchio, an Italian place with thin pizza and homemade pasta on the menu.
” —Mission Street is on the come up
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“Quite frankly, he may be worth more dead than alive,” said Jerry Reisman of the Hit Factory recording studio, where [Michael] Jackson produced his best-selling album Thriller.”
—Michael Jackson Reaches #1
“It was first used as early as the 1870s, but theorists Jean-François Lyotard and Frederic Jameson are generally credited with making the term “postmodern” popular. Jeffrey Nealon and Susan Searles Giroux provide a conveniently succinct explanation of postmodernism in their book “The Theory Toolbox.” When used in an academic setting, “postmodern” usually refers to a sense of style featuring “disjunction or deliberate confusion, irony, playfulness, reflexivity, a kind of cool detachment, a deliberate foregrounding of constructedness, a suspicion concerning neat or easy conclusions” (126). Nealon and Searles Giroux point out that postmodernism is more concerned with process than product. This can be seen in the meta “[blank] about [blank]” construction that often identifies the “postmodern”: art about art, writing about writing, architecture about architecture, etc.”
—What is postmodern anyway?
“The soul of a publishing company is its editors, and when a publishing company alters its fundamental attitudes about books and authors, the sensibilities of its editors must, of necessity, change as well. With promotions and increased corporate responsibilities comes loss of contact with the intimate places in an author’s heart where literature is born.”
—Editors: The New Disenfranchised (1998)
