On Distraction

If you are reading this then you are most likely distracted from doing what you should be doing. If  Hanif Kureishi is right then this can be a good a thing. (Hanif Kureishi on Distraction). The article was on the subject of Ritalin and how that can atomize someone's natural creativity to enforce a more standardized view. Of course, this is over-medicated America. But Kureishi, a distracted person himself,  writes:

I might have been depressed as a teenager, but I wasn’t beyond enjoying some beautiful distractions. Since my father had parked a large part of his library in my bedroom, when I was bored with studying I would pick up a volume and flip through it until I came upon something that interested me. I ended up finding, more or less randomly, fascinating things while supposedly doing something else. Similarly, while listening to the radio, I became aware of artists and musicians I’d otherwise never have heard of. I had at least learned that if I couldn’t accept education from anyone else, I might just have to feed myself.

From this point of view — that of drift and dream; of looking out for interest; of following this or that because it seems alive — Ritalin and other forms of enforcement and psychological policing are the contemporary equivalent of the old practice of tying up children’s hands in bed, so they won’t touch their genitals. The parent stupefies the child for the parent’s good. There is more to this than keeping out the interesting: there is the fantasy and terror that someone here will become pleasure’s victim, disappearing into a spiral of enjoyment from which he or she will not return.

But, I digress. Coming back to the subject of distraction, Kureishi at the end talks about the virtues of distraction. Like anything else, it's a fine line to draw the distinction between good and bad distractions:

It is said that distractions are too easy to come by now that most writers use computers, though it’s just as convenient to flee through the mind’s window into fantasy. In the end, a person requires a method. He must be able to distinguish between creative and destructive distractions by the sort of taste they leave, whether they feel depleting or fulfilling. And this can work only if he is, as much as possible, in good communication with himself — if he is, as it were, on his own side, caring for himself imaginatively, an artist of his own life.

Oscars 2012 - The Artist

Unlike years past, I did not post my Oscar Predictions this year. I did manage to see most of movies that were nominated to make educated guesses, but I was a bit disappointed with 2012 being a lackluster year in terms of the movies. I can't think of any movie (except one) from the list of the best movies nominated which I would want to see again in 10 years. Of course, the only real  shining gem from 2012 is The Artist which correctly won the awards that it should have. There have been reviews that have been less than flattering and consider the whole movie a sort of gimmick - a very vocal criticism of a silent conceit. It isn't correct to compare it to an actual silent movie from decades ago. It's a movie that is made in the present time and critiques the present time. It is pure satire - in the manner of Jonathan Swift - on this day and age where the real essence of the movies is lost in the pursuit of more technology (James Cameron take note). If all is technical skill, what becomes of art?

Interesting silent movie (could not disagree more with both critics)
New Yorker: The Critics

Mr doggy doggers

Aashiqi - Love by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

A beautiful poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz:

Aashiqui

woh log bahut khushkismat the
jo ishq ko kaam samjhte the
ya kaam se aashiqi karte the
hum jeete ji mashroof rahe
kuch ishq kiya, kuch kaam kiya
kaam ishq ke aade aata raha
aur ishq se kaam uljhata raha
phir aakhir mein tang akar humne
dono ko adhoora chod diya…


(my translation)

Love

They were very fortunate
who thought love was their work
or who loved their work
While alive, I kept myself busy
I loved a bit, I worked a bit
work came in the way of love
and love in the way of work
and finally frustrated
I gave up, leaving both incomplete ...

You have a right...

Perhaps a gimmick, but does make you stop and think

  Poem In Which Words Have Been Left Out
  by Charles Jensen

You have the right to remain
anything you can and will be.

An attorney you cannot afford
will be provided to you.

You have silent will.
You can be against law.
You cannot afford one.

You remain silent. Anything you say
will be provided to you.

...

See webpage linked for complete poem.

Where your electronics come from

If you didn't catch this story on the radio, or live where you can't hear this live, you might want to take a look at This American Life: The apple factory. Especially, if you are an Apply fanboy, or any kind of nerd who likes technology, or any consumer in the First World who uses products that are Made in China. They are cheap, and you can hear why. The justification for the sweatshops above is standard economic theory: the rising tide of globalization lifts all boats, even little ones in far-off places. The alternatives are much worse. But, it helps to consider what the least of all evils is.

An actual, real letter

In my first few years in America, I wrote a whole bunch of handwritten letters to my parents. I also wrote long emails (which were easier to cc: to others) about my initial impressions, but the letters were longer, more reflective, and more personal. This was before I got sucked into that vortex of unlimited-all-the-time-access to the internet. The letter-writing petered out in a few years. I can't recall the last time I wrote someone a letter. Has technology made us lazy and sloppy? I think so. Punctuation and spelling, to speak much less about bad grammar, are now optional (author included) in electronic communication. Even emails are a level above tweets and text messages. Technology is disruptive, but does it need to be always be destructive? The oxymoronic Schumpeter-ism - 'creative destruction' leans heavily on the latter. In terms of the defending the ancient art of letter writing, I am an occasional and limited contributor. It is a bit of a cop-out, but I have been writing postcards pretty religiously for the last 6 years or so. Whenever I am out of town, I pick up a few postcards, hunt for stamps and as far as possible mail them from the location. One postcard is always sent home to my parents. The others are sent to a random assortment of friends. I must add that every single one of them was glad to receive the postcard but no one has written one to me. Karmic destiny may not work on human time-scale. Sigh! One of my New Year's Resolutions is to write at least 12 actual letters in the coming year, one for every month of the year. There was something satisfying in writing the letter, the sealing of the envelope, the licking of the stamp, and the walk to the postbox. The postbox gobbled the letter and then began the mystery of when it would exactly reach the addressee. Just as I was done composing my first draft of the first letter of the year, I came across this piece by Roger Angell who reports and laments the loss of confirmed next-day delivery by the United States Postal Service. What is exactly lost? that calls for this sort of nostalgic longing?

Losing the mixed pleasures of just arrived letters may not mean as much in the end as what we’re missing by not writing them. Writing regularly to several people—a parent, a friend who’s moved to another coast, a daughter or son away at college—requires one to keep separate mental ledgers, storing up the weather or the idle thoughts or the disasters we need to pass on. We’re always getting ready to write. The letters out and back become a correspondence, and mysteriously take on a tone of their own: some rambly and comfortably boring; others cool and funny; some financial; some confessional. They stick in the mind and seem worth the trouble....

Letters aren’t exactly going away. Condolence letters can’t be sent out from our laptops, and maybe not love letters, either, because e-mail is so leaky. Secrets—an expected baby, a lowdown joke, a killer piece of gossip—require a stamp and a sealed flap, and perhaps apologies do as well (“I don’t know what came over me”). Not much else. E-mail is cheap, and the message is done and delivered almost as quickly as the thought of it.

  Roger Angell on writing letters in the New Yorker

Old emails to my parents are now mostly lost - cremated electronically or permanently exiled and then forgotten in some folder. One doesn't feel their loss. Of course, my mother has saved every one of my letters and postcards in a special folder that is stored in her steel Godrej cupboard. Those real, actual letters will survive many years to be read again and again.

End of George Whitman and the end of the bookshop

George Whitman, the legenday owner of the Shakespeare and Company, died last night at the age of 98. Among bookshop owners he was a bookshop owner's bookshop owner. There are bookstores and then there is his. As he said,

“I wanted a bookstore because the book business is the business of life.”

In a sense it isn't much too look at. There is the famous front in green and yellow and the wishing well in the front. Inside it looks like any other used/rare bookstore - books mostly arranged in some fashion with piles of others in the aisles waiting to be organized. And yes! the library feel with dust on old hardbound books that seemed to have not moved in decades. NY Times: George Whitman. I won't repeat the biographical details, names and his connection with another legendary bookshop in San Franciso - City Lights Bookstore. It's all in the article. What seemed to me most important is that he wanted this bookshop to be a nursery for aspiring writers. A place where they could work and stay (for free). He gave them lodging upstairs. There are no baths and the aspiring writers used the public baths in the 5th/6th arrondisements. The lodgings were spare, but with a view.- it's within a stone's throw away from the dead center of Paris (the Notre Dame) and on the left bank of the Seine. Of the 40,000 or so people that Whitman gave shelter to, I have yet to read that anyone of them became particularly famous. That's not the point. The point is that his man loved books and supported the written word. As a failed novelist, he realised that hungry artists need a refuge. (Listen to interview on The World) A few months ago, Borders (a local Ann Arbor company) shut it doors. When the other leading light of Ann Arbor bookstores Shaman Drum closed a few years ago, some people blamed Borders. Actually, we did it. As far as I can recall, the last 20 books that I have purchases have been from Amazon. I also admit rather shamelessly that whilst a graduate student, I did browse books from Borders, but only 10% of the time I actually bought books there (I did buy some coffee). You, me and the rest of the world in wanting things cheaper and faster have caused newspapers and bookstores to fail. Our natural tendency is to find patterns or make much of mere coincidences. Ideas seem to sort of converge in time. I watched the documentary Page One on the New York Times on Tuesday night. It talks about the changing nature of media and the end of newspapers. There are very few blogs that actually generate original content. Everything (including this blog) is meta-commentary. The internet (Craigslist, Amazon, Zillow, company websites) killed the revenue streams for the newspaper. Also, the internet has fostered this mistaken idea that everything should be free. here has to be a new model. In the documentary which was largely sympathetic to the NYT and its survival did present the view as echoed by the editor of the Atlantic - 'there is critical difference between "it shouldn't fail and it can't fail".' The market will do as it must. Shaman Drum was supposed to be replaced with a non-profit community center for writers. In an ironic twist it's now Five Guys - a burger and fries joint - that now purveys real food. No more food for the mind. I say this half-facetiously, as there has been no real material loss. Its more than adequately made up by Amazon and other websites. You can still get books. It's completely true that the selection, cost, suggestions, reviews online are greatly better than trying to look for the same from a bookstore. At the same time, the cultural loss is quite great. I greatly miss the Borders on Liberty. I spent many a cold, wintry day browsing through the shelves, discovering new books and reading introductions and prefaces of books (that I didn't buy). Yet, it's now a big hole on that street. The great center of learning - Ann Arbor - now has one large bookstore - Barnes and Noble, far away from campus on Washtenaw Avenue. How soon that fold? The question asked at the end of the BBC World News report on George Whitman was, "Do you think anyone would want to open such a bookstore now?" One would like to believe "yes", but in reality, no one will. The old model is clearly outdated and won't survive except as a charity case. The only way that such 'institutions' (it's fair to call them that) will survive or revive is that they need to be managed more like National Parks. Public goods that need to preserved by those who need them the most - the public. Public goods that Adam Smith's invisible hand is always blind to.

Only in Ann Arbor...

Only in Ann Arbor (or few other places) it's okay for your local ice-skating arena to be given the nerdy name of "The A ² Cube ³" to stand in for its actual name - The Ann Arbor Ice Cube, or for cars to have custom license plates that read "VOXEL", a Mini Cooper that has a plate that reads "EZ2PARK", the owner of Zingermann's Coffee has a Merc with a plate: "NODECAF", and more than a few people with bumper stickers that read "I'd rather be reading Jane Austen".

Where's George?

At a toolbooth in Evanston, we were handed a one-dollar bill that is being tracked by whereisgeorge.com. This website is an interesting exercise is seeing how money flows from place to place. Too bad that many people don't enter the information. This poor bill spent a year wandering around before it was entered in the database.

This is our entry:
http://www.wheresgeorge.com/report.php?key=a3450d26c96669c561d462403ecb556528a570417f35f3de

Where is George?

Time to put the bill in the bottle and toss it into the sea. Will be tracking it over time. Hopefully, it has more librarian-minded finders.

A YouTube Video explains the coolness of the idea. Where do your dollars go?

Is he a robber?

A few days ago, I walked out of the gym in my black track pants and black jacket and I overheard a mom say to her child,

"No, darling! He is not a robber. People often dress in all black clothes"

The Marketplace of Ideas: Menand's book on the American University

Though much of what Louis Menand argues in the book is about the teaching and production of PhDs in the humanities, and more specifically about English PhDs, it makes interesting reading for anyone interested in higher education in the United States.

Now that I am past that hurdle of graduate school anxiety, meaning having to answer the question "What hell are you still doing in graduate school?", this book was pleasurable reading. When I say graduate school, I mean graduate school that leads to a PhD and not a professional degree such as Law, MBA, or a master's degree.

T. M., a colleague, often remarked that friends were thinking about law school, went to law school, graduated from law school and got a job, all in the time that T.M. took to working towards his PhD degree in Neuroscience. (Law school takes 4 years, an MBA 2 years, and the average PhD in the sciences about 5-6 years, and in the humanities much more).

The first part of Menand's book covers General Education. Questions about what should be taught in college that is common across disciplines. This has been taken up in more detail and better addressed by Menand in the New Yorker article that is a must-read. (Menand's article on: Why we have college? in the New Yorker) 

It's sometimes claimed that learning any scholarly field well developed general mental faculties, which may the be applied to problems and issues encountered in life after college. But problems and issues in the academic world are not always analogous to problems and issues encountered in life after college... and there are matters [such as law, architecture, engineering] that everyone has to deal with in life, and knowing something about them is important to participate effectively in the political process. But college students have no more sophisticated an understanding of them than people who have attended only high school do.

It is fairly obvious to anyone who went to college in India, that Menand would be horrified if he learned about the Indian system. To most Indians Menand might well be splitting hairs. It is perhaps a popular, and in my opinion, an incorrect idea that Indian undergraduate education is far superior to an American-style undergraduate education. That reeks less of an objective comparison and more of a subjective, or patriotic idea. A related post in the NYTimes (thanks to J.) that shows that it ain't that easy getting in.

The second part of the book covers the Crisis of Legitimation that is faced by the humanities. As a science major it was somewhat fascinating to read the description of anxiety that faces a PhD student in the humanities. Not only does it take the average English (or anthropology) student about 9-10 years to graduate, he/she is often faced with existential anxiety about their discipline. Menand in his book writes, that while most people don't really understand what physicists are studying, yet they believe that having a physics department is a good 'return on investment. Such a question when asked of the humanities could not be satisfactorily answered and that lead to anxiety about their disciplines. His remarks on 'interdisciplinary' made hilarious reading. That word is so popular that it is hard to see any conference, or program at a university not mention it. Menand writes, "Interdisciplinarity is an administrative name for an anxiety and a hope that are personal."

The Economist wrote a lengthy economic analysis of the value of the Phd (see my related comment) and concluded that it was not a good return on investment. But, people still do them.  We would not have any poems, novels,  painting or music if everyone was homo economicus and chose to make the best return on investment decisions. There is more to life than money, and also aspiring PhDs must realise that only 5% of them actually end up with jobs in academia. Unfortunately, the academy chooses to ignore this fact and makes many of them ill-prepared for life outside academia. The Economist and Menand seem to agree that it's actually in the universities' interest that supply of aspiring PhD students exceed the demand for the finished product. The unfinished products, the graduate students, or the ABDs (all but the dissertation), are a highly qualified talent pool for jobs such as research and teaching that save the universities tons of money instead of hiring full-time faculty.

The Marketplace of Ideas On Amazon

Thoughts on the Wallenberg Medal 2011 for Aung San Suu Kyi

It was a rare privilege to witness the Aung San Suu Kyi being presented with the Wallenberg Medal by the University of Michigan last night. As Aung San does not leave Burma due to the fear that she may not be let back in, the medal was presented in absentia and her lecture was pre-recorded. The highlight of the evening was the question and answer with Ms. Kyi that was live (via Skype). Even after years of captivity and sporadic contact with the outside world, Ms. Kyi's face showed no signs of bitterness, defeat or exhaustion. She was very animated and showed a great sense of humor in her responses. She talked about the struggle against fear (quoting Tagore's Where the Mind is Without Fear) and oppression that are universal and that her case was only very particular. It's only extraordinary people that think that their lives are quite ordinary.

Not once did I hear her use the word 'I' while talking about the Burmese struggle for democracy. It was always 'us', 'we', or 'the Burmese people'. She was quick to praise the achievements of others. She believes the struggle in Burma is a personal and a limited one - meaning, it is for her people and her society, as opposed to Raoul Wallenberg's, which was for a different people and a different religion. Her modesty was genuine. Giants standing on the shoulders of giants.

In her curious accent that seemed to be a mix of her education in Burma, India and Britain, she narrated a humorous story about the three happiest days in a Burmese man's life: the day he becomes a novice monk, the day he gets married and the day he is released from jail. She said that reflects on what the Burmese think of their own society.

*
Why now?
In no way reflecting on Ms. Kyi's courage, I have some issues with the university for giving her the medal now. Arguments which I have taken up in another forum. In summary, I felt that this award has come too late and that it would have been more imaginative of the university to give it someone new and focus attention on people who are still relatively unknown. (check back for updates) instead of trying to cash-in on Ms. Kyi's celebrity.

*
Women in power? or not really?
In 1988, Ms. Kyi got swept up in protests and became a part of movement that she no initial intention of being a part of.  There was a question from an undergraduate about the role and suitability of women in leadership and if this hindered her role in the movement. I feel bad for American women who despite all their advances seem to be plagued by the fact that there has no woman President so far.  Is is true as Ms. Kyi mentioned in her response that "women are equally capable as men" and "the first female head of state was a woman - Srimavo Banradranaike from Sri Lanka..", but there is slightly pessimistic view. Women are not so much the issue as  South Asian seems to gravitate towards dynastic leadership.  It seems like a perversion to think that  while South Asia has been replete with examples of women being in power - Indira Gandhi in India (and now Sonia Gandhi), Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia in Bangladesh, Bhutto in Pakistan, the average women in all of these countries is far from equal than men. This is not so much a gender issue as it seems but that South Asian seems to love and trust dynastic rule. In Ms. Kyi's case as the daughter of the first leader of Burma it was around her that people rallied. It seems contradictory that appears as democracy prima facie is patrimonialism in another guise.

*
As someone who has had greatness thrust upon them, Ms. Kyi has done remarkably well to keep her celebrity out and to give credit to others in the struggle. It is the world's fault that we cannot name a single leader apart from Ms. Kyi. Surely, as she herself said in as many words that  there are many unknown people who are leading lives of even greater courage, who are still unsung. It was a great honor to be in presence of such a great person. She is really a steel magnolia, the softness and gentle eyes overlay that indomitable courage and resilience.  She talked about her struggles as a child in conquering her fear of the dark.  She said she walked in dark rooms for two weeks and then it was gone. Since 1988, she has been under, more or less, house arrest. One wonders how long she will have to wander in the dark rooms of Burma before she conquers the tyranny of military rule.

Wallenberg Medal and Lecture website at Umich

Dos Gardenias - Buena Vista Club

The great Ibrahim Ferrer singing Machin's Dos Gardenias. Lovely phrasing!


Dos Gardenias
(Antonio Machin)


Dos Gardenias para ti 
con ellas quiero decir 
te quiero; te adoro; mi vida. 
Ponles toda tu atencion 
porque son tu corazon y el mio. 
Dos Gardenias para ti 
que tendran todo el calor de un beso.
De esos besos que te di 
y que jamas encontraras 
en el calor de otro querer.
A tu lado viviran 
y te hablaran
como cuando estas conmigo.
Y hasta creeras 
que te diran: te quiero.
Pero si un atardecer 
las gardenias de mi amor, se mueren 
es porque han adivinado 
que tu amor se a terminado
porque existe otro querer.

(translated by h.p.)
Two gardenias for you
with them I want to say
I love you; adore you; my life
Give them all your attention
as they are your heart as well as mine
Two gardenias for you
that  have all the warmth of a kiss,
Of those kisses that I give you
and that you'll never find
in the warmth of another.

By your side they will live
and they will talk to you
as if you were with me
and if you will believe
that they will tell you: I love you
but if one dusk
the gardenias of my love die
it is because they have discovered
that your love is finished
because another love exists

Apples vs. chips: an experiment into food behavior

Last week I conducted an informal experiment at work. This the kind of 'scientific' experiment that J. classifies as needless and silly, since the general conclusion is quite obvious. My reasons to do that experiment were:
a) People could surprise you with their behavior,  and b) mainly, because it's fun to do experiments, c) I had a grant (meaning the raw material was paid for)

The main motivation was  to determine if people make good food choices when such choices are available. As a graduate student I often found that when stuck in the lab late in the evening or  night the only 'food' option was  the vending machine mostly full of all kinds of crappy snacks. The kind of snacks that Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsi food has decided to re-brand as 'fun for you'. Their other labels are 'good for you' and 'better for you'. Of course, the irony of Pepsi marketing itself as a health-food company and the relativistic nature of their labels is inescapable.  Another disturbing story that I read was that experiments on rats have shown that babies could acquire a taste for junk food in-utero.(In review of Lindstrom's book on advertising in the Economist).

At some point, I wrote to the President and the authorities to make such healthy snacks available. The University did make this available and called it M-healthy. They were not not that healthy, but better than just chips and other crap that's usually in vending machines.

Yet, it begs the question - do people actually want to eat healthy?  When polled people  it is unlikely that anyone would say something other than - "I want to eat healthy, if such choices were available." Though what people say and what they do is quite different. The actual pattern of behaviors exposes their 'revealed preferences'.

The question is that faced with an apple or a potato chip what does one do? More honestly speaking, what would I do?

The Experiment
In the company lunch room where people leave stuff to share/ give-away I placed the following items last Monday morning:
18 apples ( 11 Red Delicious, 4 Fuji, 3 Granny Smiths)
3 bags of chips (regular, multigrain and tortilla chips without any salsa)
2 packets of crackers

Null Hypothesis:
All free food is equal and will be eaten in equal amounts.


Hypothesis
The chips would be all eaten.
Apples would not be as popular.
Crackers would be more popular than apples

Observations:


Wednesday: Two bags of chips were finished. Tortilla chips were not. 13/18 apples were eaten
Thursday: All bags of chips were gone. Packet of crackers gone. 11/18 apples eaten
Monday: One packet of crackers remained. 10/18 apples remained. Interestingly, all the Granny Smith apples were gone.

It must be noted that the experimenter also was part of the experiment and ate 1 apple and some amount of chips to keep the consumption roughly equal.

Possible explanations and factors at play.


1) Chips are tastier and pound for pound offer more calories and are a better 'investment'.
2) Apples have a higher 'adoption barrier', as they have to be washed, either cut, or bit into and it can be messy with juicy apples
3) Red Delicious is not so delicious. If there were more Granny Smiths, then the ratio could have been different leading to different conclusions.
4) People bring their own apples, and not chips and were supplementing their diet with the chips that were laid out.
5) Chips don't go bad, and apples do. So after Day 3, the apples were less appealing.
6) Eating chips requires less commitment, meaning that chips can be eaten in small quantities (one chip to a dozen or more), but you have to commit to eating an entire apple.
7) Corollary to the above: you may not be hungry for an entire apple. In a sense, an apple will actually increase your caloric intake in large quanta.
8) The chips were of better quality than the apples. The experimenter admits that this was not controlled for.

Conclusions:
I leave that you to gentle reader.( I would hate to give it away). I am sure J. would appreciate my silence and absence of analysis).

PS:
What happens next?
I am curious to know what is the half-life of the apples. They still stand at 11.