I Feel Like I've Been Duped

I recently joined Facebook and I am just sitting here wondering why. It's true that I got two invitations to join in the past week, have been mildly interested in catching up with a few friends of mine who I would have a hard time contacting otherwise, and the format seems to be better than the other social-networking sites I've seen (used, and dismissed). Facebook has some applications which link up with some of my favorite online time-wasters (last.fm and stumbleupon, to name a few.) But once I've reconnected with people (and have their e-mail, address, phone, etc.) I can see them in the real world, or at least contact them in a more private setting. Why bother logging into a site everyday just to talk to your friends? Doesn't that seem like an unecessary step?

People seem to post publicly on these sites: "on the wall" on facebook; "comments" in myspace; and, to a certain extent, "testimonials" on friendster. Why not just send them a private message if you want to say something like "great to hear from you" or "meet you at Starbucks in 10?" This sort of thing sets my insecurity radar off and frankly, annoys me. Communicating with people in a public forum when you could be doing so in private seems to go hand-in-hand with the need to show others (your friends, your ex, strangers who might want to meet or date you) how many friends you have and how much fun you're having with them. Does anyone really care? Do they care about your photos, your list of favorite movies, who your friends are and where they live?

But, yeah, someone does care, and that person is you. Or, in this case, me. Embarrassing as it is to admit, there is something very satisfying in the ability to look at a page that basically sums up who and what is important to you. I think everyone likes sorting and categorizing things, even if those things are our friends. From what I can tell, being able to visualize the abstract helps us, as humans, (only smart relative to other animals, not too impressive if you ask me) to understand our situation better. It's something that winds up making us feel secure and, well, satisfied.

So every time someone adds me as a friend (um, not like this has happened a lot) something goes off in my brain which makes me feel good. This may just be the honeymoon phase, but I like thinking that I can have all my friends in one place. That's something that wouldn't be possible in real life and, also, a pretty brilliant marketing scheme. The only reason I'd want the friends I stay in touch with regularly to join the site is to satisfy that need to categorize, but that's probably enough to get me to send the invite email that's set up for you when you join (no, I didn't send it to Jake, so I guess I've got some boundaries. I talk to him enough already, plus he'd just bring my cool factor down.)

I know I'll lose interest in this facebook thing in a few weeks (a few minutes if the feeling I've got after picking all this apart is any indicator), but will all that staring at my profile in between be bad for me? Will it make me more self-centered, or is the fact that I got there in the first place already an indicator of that? Not to mention, after I leave, my profile will stay up. That leads to a whole other issue regarding the willing surrender of privacy, doesn't it?

The Sound of Revolution

Though I'm sure you were as glad as I to have done with toilet talk, this comment, just added to an old post, should not go without readers. Writes "anonymous":

I'm glad this has been brought up because as it so happens I work at the same fancy law firm as the poster. Moreover, I work on the same floor and ergo use the same bathroom, and while I am not a lawyer, I admit that it's entirely possible that one of those noisy shitters could have been me.For a long time I agreed with the poster's position on noisy shitting. The sounds are as quirky as they are unpredictable, and like all things unknown in this world, we are quick to fear them. This need not be. I assure you, noisy shitting need not be embarrassing, and in due time, noisy shitting in the hidden presence of others can be a liberating, enjoyable experience.The
Anonymous Law Firm (henceforth known as ALF) provides the most serene,
civilized, and proper interactions known in New York City. Any service that
is performed by anyone for anyone must be accompanied with a "thanks," regardless of how inane or thankless the job may have been. Often, these "thanks" are communicated in single line e-mails between colleagues. For example, you might get an e-mail with the subject line "Thank," and the body reading "You." Complex hierarchies are established to provide easy to navigate routes for complaints, commendations, and inquiries. No consideration is left unconsidered. No minute or hour goes by unbilled. In this castle of perfect stone, nothing can subvert the sterility like the sound of feces being propelled through one's anus by the winds of sulphur. From behind the vanilla swing doors of a bathroom stall, anyone can subject the most feckless and elitist corporate evil-doer to the sounds of "embarrassment." Doing so can provide the shitter with immense joy. Just think: minutes ago Partner X was listening to a verdict from distinguished Judge Y. Now, he's listening to Halal chicken and rice from Thursday. Sucker.The truth is this: know your audience. It is important at ALF to not subject those on the same level, or worse, a lower level, to your sounds. However, should someone above you be in the bathroom (you can tell by their shoes), do not stall! From within that stall, you must go, and go violently, and loudly, and proudly. For every blast is the sound of revolution. Every blast is the echo of those poor souls who came before. Every blast is a devilish fist wave in the face of subjugation. So, dear poster, fellow user of the 24th floor bathroom, fear not the sounds of fury, for they sound not against you, but for you.

Oh, to write as well as one's readers. . .

Här kommer Pippi Långstrump

I wish I could say my recent absence has been for some valid reason, like bathing in the glory of our democratic independent state, but actually it's just because I rediscovered Worms Armageddon and am playing it like a total geek. I allow myself this simple pleasure, however, because it's one of only two games I like to play (the other being the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, because Tony Hawk is a serious genius. Obviously).

Anyway, in between napalm strikes I looked up Pippi Longstocking (as you do) and noticed something sort of interesting. Here is a video of the theme song to the original Swedish series (later turned into 4 poorly dubbed English language movies):



It's sort of good, right? I mean, once you get over the semi-annoying child actor singing (which is actually really catchy and I kind of like, though it keeps me from falling asleep), it's kind of hip. Turns out the music was done by a famous (at least in Sweden) jazz musician called Jan Johansson. I'm not exactly sure how this works out, because he died (prematurely) in 1968 and the show started in 1969, but I'm not going to go through the whole rigmarole of researching that aspect. Instead I just downloaded two of his albums, Jazz på Svenska and Jazz på Ryska , which are his versions of Swedish and Russian folk songs, and I think they're pretty nice.

I don't listen to jazz; mostly because I don't know how or where to start, but also because when I think of jazz I think of those weird moments in David Lynch films where someone is playing the saxophone under blue lights and I don't know what's going on, nor do I like the sounds of the saxophone. From what I can tell, Jan Johansson's jazz is non-saxophone related and I can see why people like it. Jazz på Svenska (which means Jazz in Sweden as you probably could have guessed) is fairly minimalist -- just piano and bass. It's smart, and sounds complex and simple at the same time. You can picture what the old folk songs would have sounded like with other instruments because he takes care of all that with only the piano. Anyway, lucky you, I just found a video on youtube. Listen for yourself:



P.S. Pippi Longstocking was really cool because she had a horse that lived in the house and her dad was a pirate who left her home alone and she didn't go to school. Not to mention she had super-human power, a besides-the-point character strength. Basically my total hero. Also she apparently really loved coffee, an awesome attribute for a kid.

Holding Steady in Brooklyn

Too much time and ego means you search your own name on Google and turn up gems like this.

I'm the paralegal with awkward grammar; Alice, the musician's assistant in pink (!?) scarf. I don't think either of us were too thankful to be there.

Quartet with Catheter

If you can pull yourself away from toilet talk for a few minutes, check out this short essay on Morton Feldman's long String Quartet No. 2, written by one of the musicians who premiered it. Topping six hours, the piece creates problems for performers on all sorts of levels (not least - managing body fluids) but this one was surprising:

"Another big challenge, perhaps less obvious, is the act of playing very quietly. It actually requires much more physical energy to do less than more. Playing a virtuoso concerto that requires great technical agility is actually less physically demanding then playing softly, because we are accustomed to being in motion, not still. Downshifting both the speed and pressure of the bow goes against many years of training."

Using electronic instruments, where volume shifts are easily accomplished with knobs and pedals, I sometimes forget how tough it is to play quietly. But it is incredibly difficult: one tends to slow down, miss notes, lose pitch consistency.

Really curious to hear the piece now - and trying to imagine how one feels after six hours of repetitive music. This guy seemed to like it. Might try myself and report back. If you're in New York and curious, you need not commit.

The Anti-Crap Sound

I was thinking about Jake's post this afternoon and wondering if there is some totally impractical way of reducing bathroom noise. It doesn't take much wondering to realize there is, and here's what I'm thinking: phase cancellation devices in bathroom stalls.

You've heard of those noise-canceling headphones, right? Well, those work on the principle that two sound waves that are out-of-phase with each other will cancel out. The closer they are to 180 degrees out-of-phase, the closer to silence the result is. It's like when you're in the tub and the water is getting cold so you run more hot water in and you start pushing it towards the back of the tub and it makes this wave back and forth but then eventually the waves sync up and flatten out and you can't seem to get the bath water in the back of the tub as warm as the water under the spigot.

So, what if MCW could go into the stall and flip a switch that was calibrated to the specific sound waves he emits during number two's? Maybe his sound waves have a frequency of 80Hz with an amplitude about 72 dB and a wavelength of about 4.3m. The machine would just reproduce those waves out of phase.

My whole theory breaks down, though, because it's not a constant sound he's making; it's intermittent, and probably random. Now, I may have absolutely no idea when I'm talking about (and I don't) but wouldn't that mean when no noise is coming from MCW there is a noise coming from the phase-shifter, and that noise sounds very much like MCW taking a dump? So then it'd only get quiet when he actually is pooping, and then you get to the point where which is more embarrassing?

Here is a photo of the graph I tried to draw when thinking about all this:

Crap Sound

I work at a fancy law firm and as one would expect the office is pretty tasteful. The lighting is mostly fluorescent, but tinted so it doesn’t look cold or strain the eyes. There’s expensive art up the walls (including some drawings by Sol Lewitt and Warhol), the air temperature is perfectly modulated, and office doors are thick so talking and other sound doesn’t escape into the halls.

In general, things are clean and quiet and, to me, anyway, pleasingly impersonal. So why, then, nearly every time I go to the bathroom, do I have to hear some uptight lawyer taking a noisy shit? It’s disgusting, humiliating for dumper and dumped-on alike, and totally out of place in the otherwise straitlaced corporate environment.

If I'm feeling gassy and sense someone else is in the bathroom, I usually flush a few times to block the sound. I thought this was known as a "courtesy flush," but I was mistaken. Turns out people are more concerned about smell than sound.

Since this is a waste of water, and no one else seems to do it anyway, I'd like to propose another solution: white noise generators. We have music and other camouflaging sound in almost every sphere of life – is there any reason we need to preserve silence in bathrooms? Would any of you mind a small box on the wall gentle whoosh as you go about your business?