I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret of mine: I am convinced that pop/rock music reached it’s pinnacle in the 2000’s. I suspect this isn’t the majority opinion, particularly among people of my generation who grew up on seventies rock bleeding into punk and new wave. The music I grew up with will always be special to me, but I can’t remember any era as exciting to me as the first decade of the millennium. Even if several of my favorite acts, like The Futureheads, Stellastarr*, The Hives, The Kaiser Chiefs, MGMT, and the late, lamented Ambulance, LTD didn’t have the long, successful runs they deserved, bands like Metric, The Arcade Fire, Ted Leo + Pharmacists, and especially The New Pornographers** turned out great record after great record during the aughts. We’re well out of the 00’s now, but The New Pornographers have just released yet another album that one could argue is their best yet. I was chuffed from the get-go about this one. Carl Newman has always done a brilliant job describing the influences on their upcoming albums and this one was the most evocative yet: “We wanted Xanadu and we wanted Sigue Sigue Sputnik, which translated into sparklier and faster [music].” If that doesn’t get you excited, then you have different tastes in music than I do. After several listens, start to finish, I think it’s safe to say they hit the target. This is the most uptempo album they’ve made since The Electric Version. It’s easily the the brightest record they’ve ever made. Sure, it sparkles, but it rocks as well. Check out “Backstairs”, which is probably the best ELO song ever made. Unfortunately, it’s not on Youtube yet, so you’ll have to use a little ingenuity to dig it up. You know, like “buying it” or something. * The asterisk is actually part of the band’s name. ** The videos are kind of great, so it’s worth clicking on all three.
Category: Journal
Speaking Subjecvtively About Gamergate
I am sick of #Gamergate. The idea that abusing women for, well, really for just being women is somehow acceptable behavior is mortifying. Fortunately, the backlash has been a good deal stronger (not to mention more rational) than the actual Gamergate movement. Better writers than I have dismantled the rationalizations behind Gamergate and I consider the matter settled, at least in the public arena. The fight’s not over by a long shot, but I feel like the right side has the momentum now. So, I’m not going to try to rehash the arguments. Instead, I’d like to share my personal reaction to the debacle. I don’t know Zoe Quinn or Eron Gjoni; I have, however, read a good deal of what Gjoni wrote about Quinn after their relationship ended. It felt painfully familiar to me. I’m not proud of that. I’ve written things after ugly breakups that I’m not proud of and reading TheZoePost reminded me of a great deal I’d rather forget. I remember, more than once, writing at great length about exes, listing all manner of wrongs done to me over the course of the relationship: lies, cheating, manipulation, abuse, and I’m sure there were more. I’m not inclined to re-read them, so I’m going off of memory here. There were elements of truth in them, some wild exaggerations and distortions, as well as some things that I simply imagined. I was warning other people, trying to paint myself as a victim and a hero. I wasn’t in a good place. The worst of it was that it was all coming from me lashing out at the fact that I felt I’d done everything right and she didn’t react properly. I wasn’t hurt by the cheating or lies or manipulation; I was hurt that I’d been the “good” one and she was still leaving me. At least, that’s how my bleeding psyche insisted on seeing itself. It was all bullshit, of course. I was furious because the woman didn’t react in the mechanistic way I felt she should have. She was her own goals, her own desires, her own drives. She was a person, not a thing. Like I said, I’m not proud of my actions here. So, when I read Eron’s writing, I can’t help be feel he’s coming from a similar place. That’s just me projecting, but his words certainly feel familiar to me. As for the army that was mustered by TheZoePost? They’re the unfettered Id of that wounded version of myself. They cannot bear the idea of women as people, especially women who criticize the masturbatory fantasies they have of themselves as heroes. The MRA’s, the PUA’s, and the GamerGaters are peas in a pod. From this angle, it looks like they haven’t outgrown the view of woman-as-object and they’re threatened by anything that pushes back against their worldview. Fortunately, it feels like there is more and more of that pushback. Not enough, but it’s a start. I’m unequivocally, unreservedly, unapologetically against Gamergate.
Mobile post test
I’m writing this in my phone’s tiny keyboard to make sure I get how this app works. A picnic seemed like a better idea than scrounging at home and we’ve been rewarded with an absurdly warn and mild fall-ish evening The guys at the table across the lawn are speaking French and absent-mindedly kicking a soccer ball around, cigarettes hanging from their mouths. Behind us, there’s a bearded fellow giving bullwhip lessons to a woman. Both are dressed for a serious without and, from the looks of it, that’s exactly what it is. We’re on a little blanket, a plate of fruit, cheese, and bread between us, enjoying the pre-dusk and some decent cider. There are worse ways to spend a day, eh?
5 into 7
I’m currently working on moving my site from Squarespace v5 to v7. The new version is a real pleasure to work with, but the transfer did unspeakable things to the formatting of old posts. I don’t know when/if I’ll get to fixing those, but I am aware of the issue and I’ll try to address is when/if I have the time and energy.
Spoiler Alert
We watched The Sixth Sense again the other night as part of our “scary movie October” series and I was surprised to discover I enjoyed it a great deal more than I did when I first saw it. That sounds a little counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? The Sixth Sense is one of great twist-ending films of its time, so you’d think that knowing what was coming would render the whole thing ineffective. Instead, I found myself admiring the clever ways in which the twist ending was set up, the trail of breadcrumbs left for the viewer if only they’d know to follow them. Shyamalan did an admirable job, almost completely avoiding easy cheats in setting up the story. The fact that I could relax and enjoy the story instead of spending the entire time trying to puzzle out what was going on only made it better. I had a similar experience watching The Crying Game a second time. It’s a completely different experience when you know what’s going to happen and, for me, a superior experience. You can appreciate how much fun Neil Jordan is having, playing with the viewers and almost daring them not to figure it out the first time through. Even the soundtrack gives the movie away, but only if you’ve already seen it. My only caveat is that it doesn’t apply as reliably when the movie is poorly made. If you watch a poorly-constructed surprise-ending film a second time, you’re likely to be hung up on how clumsily the director cheats and hides his secret behind unlikely coincidences or unbelievable contrivances. It turns out that there’s actual, real-life research on this subject which backs up my experience. There’s a little comfort in knowing I’m not the only one. I feel ever-so-slightly less alien this way.
Delphinidae-esque
One of the weird little pleasure of public transportation is watching the cyclists on the path next to the train tracks riding alongside the train as it approaches the station. I’m not quite sure why it pleases me so much to see this, but I look forward to it every morning.
The Bleeding Heart Show
The A.V. Club spent their entire review comparing the new New Pornographers album, Brill Bruisers, to my favorite NewPo’s song, “The Bleeding Heart Show.” Obviously, there’s approximately a zero chance that I won’t purchase and love the new record, but the repeated references made me want to hear the old tune and it would be very rude of me not to share, right? So, here’s “The Bleeding Heart Show” and a very unofficial video. It starts slowly, but do stick around. Trust me on this one.
True Story
Yesterday, a co-worker of mine asked “Have you done anything to your beard?” I responded that I had not done so. Her response tickled me no end: “Well, it looks more profound today.” I’ve never heard anything like that and I suspect I never shall again, but it certainly made my day.
The polar opposite of sour grapes
I feel really fortunate to have an allergy P-Phenylenediamine. That might just be the giddy euphoria of finally having an indication as to what has been ailing me talking, but I feel genuinely lucky to have this particular diagnosis. Why? For starters, it could have been a great deal worse. I could be dealing with an autoimmune disease, or organ failure, or even a dangrous food allergy. An allergy to a clothing dye seems downright rosy in comparison. I’m particularly glad that this popped up in 2014 instead of 1984 or 1994. PPD allergies are rare enough that clothes are seldom marked to indicate the risk. Doing research on different materials, manufacturers, and environmental standards organizations is difficult now, but imagine trying to do it without an internet. My choices are expensive, but at least I have choices. I can’t imagine what I’d do without the ability to do this kind of research. I’d probably be restricted to ordering by mail from a single manufacturer. The cure for my particular ailment is, as you have probably guessed, “buy new clothes.” That’s essentially it. I mean, I’ll have to buy new sheets and towels and stuff, but even then, wow, to cure my problem, I have to go shopping. I can live with that. My doctor has asked me to adhere to an “elimination diet” for the next few weeks. That boils down to “eating really healthy foods.” Again, there’s not a lot of downside there. I can’t eat most desserts, or drink sodas, or eat fast food. On the plus side, I feel about a zillion times better and my belly seems to be shrinking. I’ve even taken this as an opportunity to start exercising a little. The net of all of this is that I feel almost euphorically good. I’ll be honest with you: Nine months of itchy skins that easily becomes infected and no clue why had me in a serious funk. My energy level was so low it wasn’t measurable and I was in a dark mood. I could go to work and that was about it. The steroids they gave me to control the symptoms helped, but the side effect was that I gained a lot of weight. So, I really don’t think I’m rationalizing when I say that my diagnosis was a fortunate one. I’m thrilled at where I am now and I wish that everyone else with long-term illnesses were as lucky.
convalescence
I have been sick for quite some time now. This is my first encounter with chronic illness so I don’t really know if I’m “taking it well” or not. After nine months of tests, with all of the poking, prodding, sawing, and other unpleasantries they entail, my physician believes that we’ve found a cause, if not necessarily the cause. My skin has been in a poor way since last November. I’ve been itchy to the point of madness, and small wounds heal slowly or not at all, turning into larger and larger sores. The worst part, though, is the itchiness. It goes from merely annoying to literally maddening, depriving me of sleep and robbing me of the ability to concentrate on much of anything. My general practitioner assumed I had fallen victim to scabies and treated me thusly. When I didn’t respond and people around me failed to develop symptoms, I was referred to a dermatologist. I cannot fault the doctor for a lack of thoroughness. We’ve tested food allergies, kidney and liver failure, thyroid issues and autoimmune diseases and run all manner of rules over my blood. None of these turned up anything of note: Mild allergies to garlic, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pet dander. This came as no surprise as I was told from the beginning that discovering the cause of a skin ailment was often a needle in a haystack proposition. As a final straw before sending me off to find another doctor,we tried a patch test to test for common contact allergies. This consisted of taping three panels to my back and waiting to see if anything happened. It did. The area of skin under patch #20 reacted in a violent manner, one that I would rather not describe here. The nature of the reaction was such that the doctor took pictures and brought in other doctors to see a most unusual area of skin. My oppressor finally had a name: Paraphenylenediamine, AKA P-Phenylenediamine or just PPD. If that substance doesn’t sound familiar, don’t feel badly about it. I’d never heard of it and had to do a fair amount of Googling to get my head around what I was up against. Weirdly enough, it’s primarily used in hair dyes. The days of me sporting gloroius, blue-black hair are already well behind me, so that wasn’t the source of exposure. Unfortunately, it’s used in many blue and black dyes in clothing as well. I am, for all intents and purposes, allergic to black. Unfortunately, it can be used for dying clothes of other colors as well, so merely wearing Miami Vice-esque pastels is no guarantee of beautiful skin.* Finding clothesmakers who make PPD-free clothing is tricky business. You won’t find it listed on any labels and the Global Organic Textile Standard is silent on the subject. The best standards agency I’ve found to-date is a European outfit named Bluesign. Their site is a little tricky to navigate, but they have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to PPD. In theory, I should be safe wearing clothing from the manufacturers listed as partners. Itchiness knows nothing of theories, so I’m contacting manufacturers directly. I’ve sent out several dozen requests and made a similar number of phone calls. So far, this is what I have: Prana: PPD-free REI: 25% of REI branded items are PPD-free, with a commitment to achieve 100% by 2018. The Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic: Have to contact custmer support on an item by item basis;no comprehensive list available. Nike: Despite being Bluesign-listed, Nike’s customer service informed me their compliance was on an item by item basis. Those are the only companies to have responded thus far. I expect Patagonia to wind up on the good list soon. I have a grave fear that my beloved Keen sandals are a no-no and I’ll be having to donate them. My doctor has also put me on an anti-inflamatory diet. Fortunately, I have magnificent support at home and I anticipate being able to stick to it for the four-week period my doctor requested and maybe beyond. The fact that I may get a little healthier in the process is a nice carrot at the end of that stick. And I expect I shall be eating quite a lot of carrots in over the next four weeks. Anyway, this is a long way of saying that, with my wounds starting to heal and my skin starting to feel somewhat less sensitive, I expect I will be here more often. It is my hope that I won’t spend all of my time writing about illness, but it felt good to get this down on an increasingly vague approximation of paper. Thank you, and take care, R. Kemp EDIT: Just heard back from Patagonia and they have confirmed that their clothes are 100% PPD-free. * In fairness, there is probably no product on this planet that would guarantee me beautiful skin. As a wise man once said, “Time makes fools of us all.”** ** Yes, I know someone else said it first. Not as well, though.