cultural differences

In Maine, I often try to explain to east-coasters (even rural, stratified east-coasters like Mainahs) how different the culture in the midwest is. Many young Mainers haven’t been outside of Maine much. I tell them that, for the most part, they don’t know what they have here. There are subtle, but tangible differences in culture. People seem more grounded here, less caught up in artificial materialism and status. People seem less asleep here.

I was reading an article in my hometown newspaper today that illustrated some of these differences. From the article:

Junk food and smoking habits are hardly limited to Kentucky. Every state in the Coronary Valley [from Ohio/Indiana/Kentucky down to Louisiana] has at least 40 percent of its residents in the same heart risk boat as Kentucky.

But the risk is not equal nationwide. In other states, the population with increased heart risk can be as low as 27 percent.

That means regional and cultural differences must be playing a role.

“It is somewhat of a societal thing. It’s like people accept it as part of life,” said Dr. Steve Steinhubl, a cardiologist with the University of Kentucky.

So given that I was raised in this culture, it can be no surprise that I have health issues in this area that I’ve been struggling for years to overcome. It’s interesting that a culture can arise where it encourages nearly half of its population to slowly kill itself. At worst this is genocide; at best it is nihilism on a mass scale.

car mystique

Q: What’s the difference between a porcupine and a BMW?
A: A porcupine has pricks on the outside.
— a coworker, reacting to an irate caller last night

I was thinking of the mystique of cars today, oddly enough when I was driving to work. Cars have so much mystique that there are even some cars that are named after that particular phenomenon.

While I was driving, a memory surfaced from around the time I had just graduated high school; some friends of mine were all excited about going to the local BMW dealer to check out a new “beamer.” We were all kids; none of us could afford a BMW. I remember two things about that moment. First, my friends had a slightly glazed look in their eyes when they talked about the BMW; this piece of oil-burning machinery produced a sense of awe and wonder not in its inherent ability to burn oil and move from place to place, but rather in its mere existence as a “BMW.” This BMW-ness was almost ineffable to these teenage masculine eyes.

Second, I was almost completely uninterested in going to see these cars. My first job out of high school was as a car stereo/electronics installer; I used to install stereos, alarms, cellphones, and the like (this was back in the day when cellphones had to be installed in cars, or converted to “bag phones”). So even then, some of the romanticism around cars had worn off for me; I was around cars — some of them even nice — every day at work.

But even before that job, I was never as infected with car mystique as so many Americans are. I’m not quite sure why, but it remains the case to this day. My current job entails me talking to people who are just beginning to realize that their car is not functional; so in addition to my basic task of arranging help for people broken down on the side of the road, I almost see myself as a sort of conceptual midwife, bringing forth that realization that they won’t have their vehicle to drive for the time being.

This realization, I believe, is something that increasing numbers of people will have to confront. Oil is becoming more expensive and more scarce; gasoline prices are going up, which in turn will drive up the price of nearly everything else. People will no longer be able to afford to have a car for each driver in the family.

I can’t help but wonder what will happen when using gas-burning vehicles will no longer be a viable option. The reality of adjusting to oil-fuel-less existence will be difficult enough without the fetishization of car mystique in the way.

studio updates

Well, I haven’t written in a while. I’ve been quite busy, as always, and I suppose not terribly inspired to write, or I’d have made time for it.

On a personal level, it’s been an interesting few weeks. I’ve kept up with the don’t-eat-after-9pm thing, and I’ve started back at the gym regularly. Still kinda waiting for the energy boost that comes from working out; that will come with time as my body re-acclimates to physical activity.

The big news is that all the studio
upgrades are in place and functional. The coolest part of this is that all my audio data lives on my portable hard drive, so when I go to the studio I can just take the hard drive with me, plug it in, and begin working immediately. Then when I come home to the laptop, I can plug it in there and get more work done. Pretty cool, and a very efficient way to work. I can also back up data to the studio computer’s hard drive.

I’ve spent lots of time editing a Freakwitch song and it’s going well. After the past year of assimilating all the new studio technology, I finally have the confidence to know what to do with all this gear.

Matt and I have been talking about ways in which we are “getting in our own way.” And we both feel energy shifting again toward getting this album finished. This is good.

I’ve started thinking more about acoustic treatments for the studio, which are desperately needed. There was a thread on the cakewalk forums about some very efficient — and reasonably priced — ways to build bass traps that look intriguing. It will still be a significant expenditure, several hundred dollars at least (without even insulating the ceiling, another important step in treating the studio), but the results should speak for themselves.

Acoustic treatments are definitely on the horizon, as I view them as necessary especially as we get closer to mixing the album.

Le Recinzioni Virtuali?

According to Babelfish and Google, “The Virtual Enclosures” translated into Italian is “Le Recinzioni Virtuali.” Another site says “Gli Allegati Virtuali.” Or according to Babelfish, the entire title is “Dai terreni comunali virtuali alle recinzioni virtuali: Giro e Contatore-Giro nell’età delle informazioni.”

I was recently contacted by an Italian publisher who wants to translate my Virtual Enclosures article into Italian and publish it in a book and possibly also online. Cool.

I have a natural interest in the process of translation, from largely a hermeneutic persective. From one perspective, to translate a text is to do violence to that text. But from another, it will make my writings accessible to more people. This is a good thing. I wish I could read Italian so I could see how my thoughts flow in that language.

democracy spin

There is supposedly a new internet audio recording from “wanted terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” with some extra spin about the recording on cnn.com. From the article:

The speaker attacked the Iraqi interim government as a tool used by the “Americans to promote this lie that is called democracy … You have to be careful of the enemy’s plots that involve applying democracy in your country and confront these plots, because they only want to do so to … give the rejectionists the rule of Iraq. And after fighting the Baathists … and the Sunnis, they will spread their insidious beliefs, and Baghdad and all the Sunni areas will become Shiite. Even now, the signs of infidelity and polytheism are on the rise.”

So of course I am suspicious of the spin here. First of all, I wonder about the translation. But this is just normal hermeneutical suspicion. But look how it is being spun: one is either for American Democracy(tm), or one is a radical muslim terrorist.

But al-Zarqawi raises an interesting point: one must be careful of the American government’s spin on terms like “democracy” and “freedom.” As is obvious, the US is not a democracy; in theory it is a republic, which is not the same thing. The American govt rhetoric of “spreading freedom” and “bringing democracy to the world” is just a code word for globalization and forced imposition of neoliberal economic policies.

So from where I stand, al-Zarqawi is right to be suspicious of American endeavors in Iraq. Obviously I disagree with at least some of his theological convictions, but that’s to be expected. One cannot embrace the dualism of “you’re with us or you’re with The Terrorists(tm).” It’s more complicated than that.

crazy busy

Well, given the huge freakin winter storm that is pending, on top of the subzero temperatures, this has been by at least one order of magnitude the busiest day I’ve ever seen at work. Normally, we have about 13 call receivers working, and if it’s really busy there will be 8 or 10 people on hold. An average day gives us maybe 1100 calls, the busiest day I’d seen was 1700.

When I arrived at noon today, there were 30 call receivers working, 70 calls on hold, and we’d already taken over 2000 calls before noon. By now, we’re pushing 4000 pretty hard. Wow. At least today is going fast. ;-)

I was planning on writing a few entries today to catch up, but we’re actually too busy for that now. This is the first lull I’ve seen yet today. Maybe I’ll have more time this evening, now that everyone is home and is braced for the storm. More anon.