Jim-Slash-Blog

Regret

2012-01-17T23:08:00.001-07:00

One of my life's regrets is that I never allowed myself to fall in love as a teenager.

Writing

2012-01-17T11:29:00.002-07:00

Each time I write a new post on my other Provo blog, (pro(vo)cation), Wordpress updates me on how I'm doing with my blogging "goals." That's funny, because I have no specific blogging goals and indeed don't really like the whole concept of goals in general. Today, for example, I was informed that I just met my goal of 105 posts. Huzzah... I guess.

Anyway, one thing I actually enjoy about these computer generated goals is that they also come with quotes about writing from famous writers. Here was today's:

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe — Gustave Flaubert

While I know this quote was made specifically for me to the same extent that a fortune cookie fortune is made for me (so not at all), it is nevertheless serendipitous because that is how I feel. When I started blogging years ago I had a series of objectives (not goals!) some of which were met and others which weren't. In the time since, however, I've continued to blog even as my objectives, interests and circumstances have changed.

The point I think is the one that Flaubert makes: that writing itself is the point.

New Girl

2012-01-04T23:24:00.002-07:00

I'm really enjoying New Girl, the Fox sitcom starring Zooey Deschanel. But one really bizarre thing about the show is how they're revealing more and more about the setting.

Maybe I missed something, but when the show began I would have bet money it was set in New York. However, as far as I could tell (and I watched several episodes twice), they never explicitly said where the show was taking place.

Then, bam! Like a punch to the face, several episodes in the show gave us an establishing shot of LA. It was startling. And fascinating. Since then, I'd argue that the show has gradually asserted a stronger sense of place — scenes in the mall, at a very California-esque party.

Anyway, I think this method of revealing the setting (or perhaps choosing the setting) is both interesting and odd.

A few new things

2011-12-05T15:33:00.005-07:00

I have a few new things to say today. First, have you checked out my other blog about Provo? I would truly love it if you did, and I post new stuff a lot.

Next, Melancholia was a really great film.

And finally, two annoyances: first, I have come to hate plot synopsis in movie reviews. Tell me if it's worth seeing. Raise some interesting questions. Point out the allusions and references. But don't waste my time on a plot that I'll either learn about soon enough, or won't ever care about.

Also, I was saddened today to learn that they are making an Indiana Jones 5. The first and third of those movies are fun, but the fourth was one of the most painful cinema experiences I can remember. Truly horrible. I guess the 5th movie literally can't be any worse, but still.

Billy Crystal

2011-11-15T23:51:00.003-07:00

How is Billy Crystal hosting the Oscars? Sure, mostly old people watch the telecast, and sure, mostly old people think Billy Crystal is funny. But seriously! He hasn't done anything worth mentioning in recent memory. And, in fact, he hasn't done much worth mentioning ever. When Harry Met Sally is a bland, only mildly entertaining knockoff of every Woody Allen movie ever made. City Slickers is alright.

I'm not going to talk about relevancy. The Oscars don't seem concerned with remaining relevant to a new generation (despite last year's host experiment). But dredging up an old, burned out actor just seems so pointless.

New Blog: (pro(vo)cation)

2011-11-05T12:51:00.004-06:00

Lately, a lot of my posts have been about Provo. But sometimes, I just feel like posting something unrelated to the city in which I live (or even, something unrelated to anything at all).

As a result, I've decided to start a new blog: (pro(vo)cation). The new blog will only be about Provo. This blog, however, will now be where I post other things, including thoughts on culture, politics, media, or whatever else happens to cross my mind. Enjoy.

Why Keep Debating (Things Like the Provo Tabernacle)?

2011-11-01T20:14:00.005-06:00

In the time since my last post and piece in the newspaper, I've had some great conversations with people both who disagree and agree with me. But one response that I've encountered repeatedly — and it's a response that really bugs me — is the one that seeks to end the conversation.

More specifically, I'm talking about people who say "whatever our feelings on the issue, the decision is made so let's move on and talk about other things." I've seen this response again and again with respect to the tabernacle/temple issue, and I've encountered it generally in discussions about a wide array of questions.

I have some basic and fundamental issues with this argument. Most basically, I enjoy debate and think it's healthy for the mind; people who can't rhetorically defend their positions should grow up and learn to assert themselves.

More generally, I also think that cutting off debate once authority figures make a decision sets a dangerous precedent. Leaders — political, religious, civic, etc. — sometimes make mistakes and confronting them with hard questions is an important check. Modern movements like the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street protests operate under this principle, as did most revolutionaries of the past.

But I have an even bigger problem with this argument when it comes to something like the Provo Tabernacle. To begin with, there was never a public debate about the building despite it's clear function as a public (if privately owned) resource. Even if the LDS church had a right to do with the building as they pleased, the public has the right to weigh the pros and cons of the final decision. (This was something I basically didn't see anyone do. Even if the outcome was a net gain for Provo, every decision has pros and cons. Yet as far as I'm aware, I was the only person who — in my small way — publicly expressed the possibility that turning the building into a temple would have negative repercussions as well as positive ones. I know other people had this opinion, but I didn't see it printed anywhere.)

I think it's also important to have a debate because that debate can influence future decisions. For example, years ago Provo demolished two iconic buildings — the Hotel Roberts and a local catholic church. Some people were outraged and publicly expressed that anger via debate, and I think in the time since the city has gradually become more sensitive to its historic structures.

In other words, debating past decisions influenced the future. I think that if the debate about those past buildings had been even more robust we might have had a more balanced discussion about the fate of the Provo Tabernacle, even if the outcome was the same.

In addition, one specific reason that a debate about the Tabernacle is important is because the church constantly is altering its historic structures, and may revamp the existing Provo Temple in the very near future. It is important that we, as a community, discuss now what we want to do with our architectural heritage in the future. Even if the decision about the Tabernacle is over, the decisions about the Provo temple are not. The church is unlikely to change the facade of the building if the community opposes it, for example, and the elected city officials obviously have a say in what gets approved. (I have heard from reliable sources that the church did, in fact, weigh people's reactions in its decision to turn the Tabernacle into a temple.)

In other words, if we want the LDS church to preserve history (or, I suppose, if we want the church to discard history, as I feel it often does), we need to debate that topic and formulate our opinions now. This principle holds true for most policy decisions that have public ramifications. No single event or decision is completely isolated, and an honest (and spirited) debate will only ever enrich our views, and our community.

Provo Tabernacle

2011-10-19T10:57:00.004-06:00

Today (Wednesday) the paper ran this article, in which I argue that turning the Provo Tabernacle into an LDS temple is going to leave a (cultural or spiritual) gap in the city.

But because I want to alienate every last person I know, I thought I'd expand on that article here. Just kidding! Actually, I was limited to 325 words but I had a lot more to say.

In the time since the announcement that the destroyed Tabernacle would be converted to a temple, I've debated the pros and cons of the change numerous times with many different people. And I have to admit, I find the economic arguments in favor of a temple compelling. Many people have tried to convince me that having a temple will increase foot traffic and activity in downtown Provo, thereby bolstering business.

Downtown Provo is struggling, and I'm in favor of anything that boosts the area economically. If having an LDS temple in the area accomplishes that, I'm happy.

My only issue with this argument is that I haven't been able to come up with a single historical precedent to support it. Most LDS temples are in quiet residential areas. Those that are located in commercial areas (and a there are several) generally were built after those areas were thriving. In other words, in all the debates I've had no one has been able to think of a single instance where a temple revitalized a commercial area. Whatever goes into downtown Provo needs to be an engine for economic growth, and I'm unable to think of an example where that happened before.

But there is a first time for everything, and I'm hopeful.

At the same time, I'm still fairly saddened by the decision to change the Tabernacle into a temple. In my article in the paper, I point to post-war Europe as an example of rebuilding after tragedy. My point is that buildings don't have to be particularly old to be true to their historic nature. In other words, a historic building can be one that serves a historic function, or one that symbolizes a historic moment in a community, even if it isn't technically old any more.

I have to admit that my feelings are influenced by a growing resentment of the way I've seen historic structures treated in Utah and by my own church (LDS). In Provo, the beautiful Hotel Roberts was secretly demolished in the middle of the night. Not long after, St. Francis Church was torn down.

Similarly, the LDS Church is currently r̶u̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ remodeling the Ogden Utah Temple, changing it from a relatively unique architectural gem to a bland, suburban, cookie cutter building. There are pervasive and reliable rumors that Provo's temple is next on the chopping block. (And don't get me started on the travesty that is BYU's architecture.)

The point is that there seems to be precious little regard for history in this state and church. As I mention in the newspaper, the church would certainly not have scraped the idea of a tabernacle if the one in Salt Lake had burned. But in Provo, the wishes of the church — which could have been satisfied in any number of other ways, such as building another temple and keeping the tabernacle — were put above the needs of the community.

And I'd argue that the community really does need a tabernacle. To compare Provo to Salt Lake again, imagine if the only buildings on Temple Square were closed to the public. Imagine if there were two temples, or the current tabernacle just let in Mormons. How much of a draw would Temple Square be? Certainly less of one than it currently is.

The point is that a community benefits from a gathering place, especially one that is tied to the community's history but open to everyone. Americans love to visit European cities for precisely that reason. Interestingly, urban planning has increasingly validated the ideas put into place by Utah's early settlers: a logical street grid, trees, walkability, etc. (Visit The Atlantic Cities to generally read more about these ideas).

The Tabernacle was part of that vision. It was a centrally located gathering point, and it encapsulated the values on which the community was built. And as it gets brushed aside for something new, I can't help but wonder if the cohesion, vibrancy, and diversity of the community will go with it.

"Trendy"

2011-10-14T20:13:00.004-06:00

This is not a Provo-related post, per se, but nonetheless something that has recently interested me. I've been thinking about the word "trendy." For me, this word has a wholly negative connotation. When I think of things that are trendy, I think of things that are passe, out of style, and boring. When I think of people being trendy, I think of shallowness, caprice, and a lack of creativity. Basically, trendy signifies (to me) being on the tail end of a trend at best, and getting caught up in a vapid, flavor of the week at worst.

But I get the sense that not everyone shares my impression of this word, which genuinely surprised me when I realized it. I began to realize this when I was covering a brutal rape case for the newspaper. After raping a woman, a guy held up a children's clothing store called "Trendy Tots" (or something like that). Though it was beyond the scope of what I wrote about the case, I was always perplexed by that store name; why did they basically call their store "Out of Date Clothes"?

But Laura was just telling me that for her mom, trendy doesn't have a negative connotation (or, at least, didn't). So what is going on? Is this just a generational thing? A regional thing? Are you reading this, thinking I've completely gotten it wrong?

(After reading through what I just wrote, I realize that my underlying assumption is that once something is "trendy" I wouldn't want to wear/use/subscribe/etc. to it. Or, trendy means something is over. Is that a common impression?)

Provo Post 8: Things I Like

2011-10-05T15:19:00.004-06:00

This past weekend Provo learned some big news: the burned-out tabernacle will become an LDS temple. I have conflicted feelings about this, and I'm not especially pleased (though I have found some arguments that its a good thing persuasive). But I'm going to wait to share my thoughts on that until later.

For now, I basically wanted to list off stuff in Provo that is good.

The (newly commercial) airport
Muse Music
Velour
Mayor John Curtis. Though I've only talked to him a couple of times, the progress Provo has experienced since he took office has been amazing. Also, he's focus on information is refreshing. He comes off as the polar opposite of Provo's previous mayor.
Communal
The weather
The trees
The Provo River Trial
Historic Downtown
NuSkin (sure, there's a lot to dislike about NuSkin — and I don't know anyone my age who likes them — but it's unlikely Provo's downtown would have ever been turned around without them. I have never participated, purchased or collaborated with NuSkin. However, my interactions with the company have been marked by uncommon and unfailing grace on their part.)
Sensuous Sandwich
The Freedom Festival
Gallery Stroll (when it happens, which is not enough)

Provo Post 7: Biking to the Airport

2011-08-17T15:33:00.008-06:00

Last week Laura and I flew to New York. We had flight vouchers on American Airlines, but decided to use Provo's newly commercial airport to fly to Denver (on Frontier Airlines), and then fly from there to New York. Because we live in downtown Provo, we decided to bike to the airport. According to Google Maps, the airport is 4.4 miles from our house, and the ride should take 25 minutes.

Our ride to the airport was generally pleasant, with relatively cool morning air and not much traffic. The only hairy part was going over the Center Street bridge. There's no bike lane on the bridge and the ground is littered with small rocks and rubble, so it felt a little dangerous to be riding a bike. Laura has a mountain bike and was able to ride on the (mostly destroyed) sidewalk, but that seemed way too rough for my road tires.

However, there wasn't much traffic and once we passed the freeway there is a bike lane.

When we got to the airport we locked our bikes to the metal fence. Laura and I were fairly nervous that our bikes would be impounded or otherwise removed, but we had been told the night before by the city spokeswoman that using the fence should be alright. When we got into the airport we were greeted by two men (sort of like Walmart greeters, but at the airport), one of whom told us that using the fence should be fine.

A week later, we returned and to our great relief discovered that our bikes were still chained to the fence. Because we were siting in the front of the plane and the airport is so small, we were literally riding home before all of our fellow passengers had deplaned.

Riding home, however, was a significantly more harrowing experience than getting to the airport. The first problem was that the road immediately outside the airport has no street lights. It's also a fairly rural road, so it's not even lit by surrounding buildings. The result was that we basically were riding blind. Cars passed us fairly constantly, offering brief light and then lingering blindness. Because we had been traveling, we also weren't wearing especially reflective gear or clothing.

Luckily we made it to Center Street without getting hit, run over, or falling in a pot hole. We used the bike lane again and experienced another pleasant ride until we got to the bridge. At that point, we again had to go over, but this time in the dark and with more traffic. We didn't get hit, but I wouldn't recommend riding over that bridge in the dark. Oddly, there is no real road that goes under the bridge that I know of, but I think it would be possible to get off and carry a bike beneath the bridge. It's slower (and maybe the area under the bridge is a bit shady?) but I'd recommend that option over riding.

Once we got over the bridge (and through the related construction) we got back in the Center Street bike lane. It was a pleasant ride the rest of the way to our home.

Conclusions:

Riding a bike to the Provo airport was great. It had all the advantages that the Provo airport promises — close proximity to my and other homes, ultra easy security, no crowds, etc. — with the added benefits of bike riding — exercise, lower carbon footprint, being closer to the outdoors, etc. The ride was relatively short, flat, easy, and laid back. Even a child could easily do most of the ride.

However, as far as I know, there is no real way to get around the more dangerous areas. The Provo River Trail is pleasant and would circumvent the bridge, but is out of the way for anyone south of 800 North, and would surely take much longer for anyone. Also, at night I probably wouldn't feel safe riding for miles on the trail.

I assume the bridge issue will be solved when all the construction is finished (assuming a bike lane goes in on that part of the road), but the lighting at night also was a serious problem. I imagine the city or airport has plans to improve that road, but additional lighting seems like it would benefit everyone, so I hope it's a top priority.

A bike rack at the airport also would be nice. I don't know of many airports that are as close to city centers and residential areas as Provo's. A bike rack could serve both travelers, as well as airport workers and aviation students. Plus, once the rack is installed I think it would serve as its own advertisement, suggesting the possibility of cycling to travelers and workers who may not have previously considered it.

Provo Post 6: A Tale of Another City

2011-07-29T18:53:00.006-06:00

Contemplating future prosperity in Provo, I've been surprised at how strongly schools keep standing out as the missing piece of the puzzle. Though I wouldn't be opposed to Provo becoming a hip urban center filled with child-less twenty- and thirty-somethings, long term economic development certainly hinges on families making the city their home. Moreover, I've heard many permanent residents in Provo express a desire to draw more families to the area (specifically who will buy homes).

But here's some not-even-close-to-breaking news: Provo schools are terrible. I've pointed this out in past posts, and mentioned how that fact drives people to other parts of the state (or, also, to other states). Still, however, there is little or no discussion about the connections between economic growth/prosperity and good schools. So, let me tell a story about Glendora, where I grew up.

Glendora is a relatively upscale suburb of L.A. The population was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 when I lived there and I don't think it has changed dramatically since. Also, it's a (grueling, miserable) hour drive from downtown L.A. and has no significant industry to speak of.

Anyway, when I was in high school, Glendora voted on a school bond. As a high school student I wasn't deeply immersed in local politics, but I know that the bond basically required property owners to pay higher taxes, which would then go to the schools.

The bond was fairly controversial because Glendora isn't just comparatively rich, it's also kind of old. The city is and was home to many empty nesters and otherwise elderly people, many of whom were outraged that they would have to pay for the education of another generation of kids.

But still, the bond passed.

As I understand it, Glendora's schools have had their ups and downs over the years, but throughout it all they have remained highly ranked. Again, remember that there is no industry, higher education, etc. in Glendora that compels people to live there. In a sea of similar suburbs, Glendora's biggest selling point is its schools. That's the main reason my family moved there when I was very young, and it was the reason lots of families did the same. I also don't think it is unreasonable to say that if Glendora's schools suddenly declined in quality the city would gradually shrink and become a ghetto, like many other Southern California suburbs.

The point here is that Glendora used taxation to better the city. I think that is an important point that people in Provo could learn. Sure, we all hate paying taxes and having less money. I know I do. But any family that has a choice will not move to an area with bad schools. Similarly, people will not move to places with dilapidated downtowns, bad roads, crumbling community centers, a lack of culture, etc. If these things do not exist, the city can create them. Provo did this with the upcoming recreation center. But whatever money is going to the schools is still not enough.

If there is any doubt the wisdom of this, I would again cite Glendora. While I know that contrasting it with Provo may be like comparing apples to oranges, many of the things Provo wants Glendora already has. Despite much steeper competition, stores in downtown Glendora are doing better than those in downtown Provo. The entire area doesn't feel run down and slummy. The houses are well-kept. The people more prosperous. (While eating at a charming sidewalk cafe in Glendora this last weekend I was surprised at how much more foot traffic the area had, compared to Provo, and how the cars parked along the street were clearly those of established residents as opposed to beater college student vehicles, like the ones I see in Provo. Provo doesn't need fewer college students, it needs more people willing like Glendora's who are willing to invest in the community and consume it's products.) In essence, Glendora invested heavily in one area, and is reaping the rewards of having attracted a desirable population in all areas.

I don't want Provo to become like Glendora. I don't want to live in Glendora (not by a long shot). But like so many communities in the U.S., Glendora offers an example of (a staunchly conservative) community pooling together, sacrificing, and working hard for the greater good. Until people in Provo do the same, our city will always lag behind.

Provo Post 5: Young People in Provo

2011-07-17T18:31:00.005-06:00

I've considered giving up on this series, because I've been getting discouraged by Provo in the last couple of weeks. Frankly, the petty political bickering and short-sightedness in the city sickens me. I fell in love with Provo as a student and recent grad, and now living in Provo as a permanent resident I'm beginning to fall deeply out of love with it.

Nevertheless, I press on:

How can Provo get more young people — especially educated young people who are starting families — to settle in the city? These people are a key to economic growth ‚ or even just stability, and yet few of them stick around. Having lived in Provo for a number of years, I've watched wave after wave of my friends move away. Even people from Utah have typically left. That bodes very badly for the city.

On a related note, Wikipedia projects only 7% growth in the city between 2000 and 2010. Though the population has increased, that is the smallest augmentation Provo has seen since 1880.

These are serious problems for the city. If Provo doesn't have sufficient growth, it'll become an even more polarized community filled exclusively with college students and the old people who hate college students. And nobody wants to live in a place like that. (Though, judging by the attitudes I see some people express online about Provo, it seems like that is what they want.) So here are a few issues that plague Provo:

Jobs: The biggest reason people leave, in my experience, is the job market. I was literally about to leave myself, because I couldn't find a job, before I was hired at the Daily Herald. Sadly, Provo has few jobs, and many of those aren't the kind that ambitious and excited new college graduates are looking for. Provo needs to create more jobs, especially those requiring highly skilled workers. And the so-called "free market" isn't going to do this on it's own. Instead, Provo needs to actively create an environment that provides economic incentives to young people and the kinds of places that employ them. Yes, this is easier said than done, but I haven't seen or heard any public discussion about how this can happen.

Schools: I have a lot of respect for Provo's schools because everyone I've ever met who attended them was a great person. Unfortunately, Provo's schools look terrible on paper. Utah gets some of the worst rankings in the country when it comes to public education, and Provo doesn't do great even compared to other districts throughout the state. As evidence of this fact, I cite the existence of the entire Highland-Alpine-Cedar Hills area. Several years ago my family moved from California to Cedar Hills. My dad got a job in Provo, but they chose to live in Cedar Hills in large part because of the school district. Huge swaths of those cities are filled with people who have similar stories. I don't have kids and this issue isn't a big deal to me personally, but the economic success of Provo hinges on improving it's schools, which are a huge deal for anyone considering (re-)locating themselves, their family, or their business in Utah.

Social Environment: Who hasn't heard someone slamming Provo? "Provo is lame," people say. "Provo has nothing to do," they complain. (Ironically, many people coming to Provo hail from vapid suburbs where there is significantly less to do, but that is a topic for another post.) Whether these allegations are true or not, Provo definitely suffers from an image problem. It's one of a clean but boring city, where there is little (political, ethnic, social, etc.) diversity. I would argue that there is a surprising amount of diversity in Provo (being a crime reporter has made that apparent to me), but Provo needs to work on its branding and image.

I think Provo's image problem is epitomized by the dilapidated downtown, which why I've been so excited by Mayor Curtis's interest in revitalization. Maybe some of Provo's more libertarian-leaning residents want to sit at home all the time, clutching their guns and hording food for the apocalypse, but I believe that young adults (not only college students, but potential permanent residents as well) want exciting public spaces and community engagement. They want a city they can show off — for its visuals, it's cultural offerings, it's economic opportunities — to their family and friends. In other words, one way to lure new people to become contributing members of the community is to create a community that is vibrant, interactive, and appealing. Don't hope for new people who will bring a community with them, build a community that people want to join.

Which brings me back to my first paragraph. I came to love Provo for a lot of reasons. I like the weather (seasons! but more temperate than many places). I like the old buildings. I love living in the midst of a student community. I was inspired by businesses — Velour, Muse Music, Communal, Lady Danburry, The Covey Center, etc. — that are run by passionate people who have chosen to locate in the city, sometimes against long odds. Without these places I, and others like me, would not have decided to live here for any amount of time. If they stopped existing, I would (or will) leave.

I'm similarly excited about upcoming projects. The rec center, the opt-out recycling program and the bike plans are the types of things that will attract people to Provo.

The ultimate point here, I think, is that Provo needs to invest in it's future if it wants to attract young people. That doesn't mean some sort of abstract, spiritual investment with all our hearts and minds (though that is nice, too). Rather, it means a real, physical, monetary investment on the part of those already in the community.

Provo Post 4: Can We Be a Winning Team?

2011-07-08T18:23:00.007-06:00

Question: Why do some sports teams win year after year?
Answer: Obviously, because they have the resources to hire and train the best players.

While writing my last post, I happened on a distinction that I hope is a major theme in this series: exhorting verses incentivizing. Think about it. When a pro sports team like the Lakers or the Yankees wants a major player, they don't just harp on how great the team is. Instead, they prove to the player that there is a direct personal benefit to be won by coming to the new team. Usually that benefit is a fat paycheck.

The lesson, I think, is that if Provo is not (yet) as successful, exciting, hip, or whatever as we want it to be, the incentives aren't (yet) sweet enough.

Provo is definitely getting better at attracting talent. New businesses are opening, the airport has gone commercial, old businesses are expanding, etc., etc. If Provo wasn't showing a lot of promise right now I don't think I would have been inspired to blog about the city.

But Provo needs to do a better job. Do we want to be the Los Angeles Lakers, or the Sacramento Kings? Daily I look at the handful of decent business on State Street in Orem and wonder why they would choose to be in the midst of sleazy payday loan centers and (what look like) meth labs, when they could be in Provo. Before my current job, I worked at a successful, very cool technology company. The only downside was it's location, in an ugly building on an ugly street in American Fork. Similarly Adobe is opening up a new facility, near Point of the Mountain. Why there? (Proximity to the prison? All new Adobe employees will hang-glide to work?)

Obviously reasons behind location choices are diverse and complex, but each time a business chooses to locate elsewhere it's a loss for Provo. To counter this, Provo should actively court and lobby businesses from both in and out of the state, enticing and incentivizing them to come to Provo. (Perhaps something like this already exists? Maybe some sort of lobbying committee organized or run by the city government? I hope so, but I haven't heard about it. Also, the gains of such an effort should far outweigh the costs.)

Of course, enticing strong businesses to come to the city is fairly obvious. Who doesn't want that? But equally important is getting residents to embrace those businesses, as well as the incentives offered to them. That could include land deals, fee or license waivers, rent control, or any number of actions the city could take to make Provo more economically and culturally attractive. "Whatever it takes" could be the slogan. Some of these actions may not be initially popular, but they will have long-term benefits.

I was reminded of the importance residents embracing incentivizing Saturday night, when I was at the grocery store around 11:50 p.m. As I poked around for cheeses, an employee got on the PA and announced that alcohol sales would stop at midnight. I don't drink and had forgotten that such a policy exists in Provo, but as soon as I heard the announcement I realized it was a perfect example of a law that hamstrings Provo's development. On top of Utah's generally byzantine liquor laws (which are widely seen in the hospitality industry as economically damaging), Provo has additional rules that not only reduce local stores' sales tax, but generally make life a pain for anyone who isn't an orthodox Mormon.

The point is that if Provo residents want to become more prosperous, have more cultural offerings, and enjoy a higher standard of living (which I believe they do), we need to make the city more inviting to diverse people with diverse values. Related to alcohol sales on Sunday, that survey the city recently conducted returned several comments about getting rid of the bars and smoke shops in downtown. Fair enough, I guess, but those are apparently successful businesses. They generate sales tax revenue. They bring people into the city who might not otherwise come. They make it more diverse and ensure that downtown isn't completely empty.

Whether or not new businesses coming to Provo have anything to do with alcohol or other things local Mormons avoid, the point is that prosperity hinges on diversity. Returning to the sports analogy, when a team courts a star player they don't worry much about the player's background, tattoos, or even scandals. They worry about what that player can do on the court or field. Having strange policies (or even a subtle cultural leaning) that demonized some backgrounds, body art, or scandals would doom a team because the best players couldn't join.

Likewise, the city must make itself appealing to more than the usual crowd. Residents have to realize that the presence of people with different values — who dress and look differently, who patronize different kinds of entertainment, who consume different foods and drinks — is actually beneficial to them for so many reasons.

In other words, incentivizing means compromising, both of which produce prosperity.

Provo Post 3: Bookstores, Art Galleries and Other Unsustainable Ideas

2011-07-05T21:30:00.012-06:00

Here's the short version of this post: As much as we'd all like downtown Provo to be filled with cool art galleries, bistros, cafes, bookstores and other stuff (that's definitely what I want, at least), I believe it's currently premature to focus much energy on cultivating new establishments in that vein. Downtown probably has as many (or more, maybe) of these types of businesses as it can sustain.

Here's the longer version:

My desire to blog about Provo was kicked started by a recent survey the city conducted. As most people in Provo (should) know, the city is trying to revitalize the downtown area, and the survey focused on what people want. Here's a quote from the comments section:

"New small biz retail, unique eats, urban living space, cafe's and bookstores,
cultural events and artspace, independent film house and sundance film festival venue"

And another:

"I would love to see a chain restaurant where Los Hermanos was evicted from
(like Olive Garden) and a good bookstore such as Barnes and Noble or Borders. "

I pulled these two comments because the both mention bookstores, which was a recurring theme in the survey.

First off, I find these comments ironic because until very recently, downtown Provo had two bookstores. Also, a new bookstore just barely opened up on Center Street. But aside from betraying a lack of familiarity with downtown Provo (why are you taking the survey if you don't even know what stores are there?), the comments reveal that a lot of people want downtown to be an exiting, cosmopolitan, urbane place. In addition to the comments about bookstores, I've heard/read people frequently express a desire to have more art galleries, cool restaurants/cafes, unique retailers, and other fun businesses.

I count myself among those who would like to see Provo filled with that kind of business. But after living in Provo for eight continuous years, I have become convinced that a downtown filled with these kinds of businesses is currently unsustainable. Why? Well, most obviously, because they keep opening, and almost as fast they keep closing.

But beside that, downtown Provo already seems to have reached it's saturation point with regard to cool businesses. There are a bunch of restaurants. A couple of (or three) great music venues. Two bars. Every once in a while a new consumer business will open (Gloria's Little Italy, for example) but surprisingly often these new businesses are merely filling a niche that was only recently vacated. (Ottavio's closed shortly before Gloria's opened, for example. Similarly, a new night club is planned for downtown, which will fill the niche recently vacated by the closure of Atchafalaya.)

Relatedly, there seems to be little or no market for some kinds of businesses. Bookstores are cool and I'd love to sit around sipping fancy drinks and reading newspapers in them, but the reality is that they're going the way of the dinosaur. Even big box chains are not immune to this. The reality is that not a lot of people buy books, and those who do increasingly use the internet to get them.

"Small biz", to quote from the survey comment above, has a similar problem. There have been — and still are to a lesser extent — very unique retailers in downtown Provo. For example, I occasionally purchased clothing from Coal Umbrella and Mode Boutique. So did a lot of people. But it wasn't enough to keep these places in business. Things like art galleries seem to have even more trouble. Every time a new one opens up I get really excited, and every time one closes I get a depressed. Can't we just all choose to patronize awesome places, and then Provo will finally be really cool?

Unfortunately, no. A few committed people just don't have the money, time and resources to do that. Wanting people to patronize cool businesses is not enough. I, my friends, and people like me can't afford to constantly buy things at galleries, eat at nice restaurants, etc. Also, telling people to patronize cool businesses is not enough. I remember casually overhearing someone at the old Sego Gallery complain that people just weren't supportive enough of the arts. I agree, but complaining about it won't change that fact. Behavior is rarely changed by exhorting — it's changed by incentivizing.

Ultimately, I think this is a good illustration of what I was talking about in my last post: population density. I think the ulimate thing we need in downtown Provo are more consumers. Sure, broad cultural changes can and should take place. People in Provo should become more supportive of independent businesses, local artisans, and the arts generally. But those changes will take time and will likely not come soon enough to adequately sustain what we currently have, or inspire new ideas.

So, while I laud individual efforts to start new businesses in downtown Provo, as I think about the larger efforts I believe we (individuals, entrepreneurs, the city, etc.) ought to focus on increasing demand for a revitalized downtown, not on increasing the supply of things in downtown. After all, supply without demand in downtown Provo (e.g. real estate and commercial space) is what gave us the relative ghost town we have today.

Provo Post 2: Downtown population and an underlying assumption

2011-07-01T20:16:00.005-06:00

Not long ago I was involved in a discussion about rail service linking Provo to Salt Lake City. I'm excited for it, but during the discussion a couple of people mentioned how they had discussed the issue with economics professors who believe that it is an economically unjustified project. Their reasoning was essentially that population density is too low in Provo (and Utah County) for the rail service to be worth the cost. Basically, they think not enough people will ride it, because there simply aren't enough people. (They contrasted Utah with the East Coast and Europe.)

Economics isn't the only lens through which to view the world, of course, and there are other reasons to build rail lines. Also, I'm no economist and I was hearing all this in a debate (while arguing against it, actually).

But I find it persuasive and, more importantly, a useful way to think about many of the problems plaguing downtown Provo. Think about it: if population density in Provo was comparable to, say, Boston, there would be more potential consumers in a very small area. If it was comparable to Paris, all the better.

Obviously higher population density comes with its own challenges, but it seems like one of the primary reasons downtown Provo struggles is that there simply aren't enough people to sustain a lot of consumer-oriented businesses. To make matters (economically) worse, the conservative, LDS culture of Provo hardly encourages residents to living in downtown to lead extravagant, spendy lifestyles.

As a result, the population is flung out in a way that divides consumers. Some people go to the Riverwoods. Some to the malls. Some to American Fork. And none of these areas truly become community gather places, and none really thrive.

This problem is compounded in downtown Provo because it is not, in fact, centrally located. Even commuting consumers are only marginally likely to visit it. Though it is the biggest urban center in Utah Valley, it is actually several miles south of the more affluent communities — Highland, Alpine, Cedar Hills, etc. — that could actually patronize downtown business. I have no love of these communities, but they generally have more disposable income than communities in south Utah County. And unfortunately it's often easier for north county residents to go to American Fork, Thanksgiving Point, etc.

All this is to say one thing: among all the solutions to solve downtown Provo's problems, gradually increasing population density around the area is the most obvious to me. The logistics of doing that are beyond the scope of this post, but as I discuss Provo, the need for higher density population will be a major underlying assumption. Some posts will try to justify that assumption. Others will simply take it for granted that Provo cannot have a vibrant, urban center smack in the middle of a sleepy, suburban-style community.

Provo Post 1: Introduction

2011-06-29T18:56:00.005-06:00

I've lived in Provo almost continuously since 2003. (Traveling abroad has taken me out of the city on a couple of occasions for months at a time.) For most of my time in Provo I have lived in the historic Joaquin neighborhood. I also lived in Provo for a year from 2000 to 2001, and I was born in Provo in the early 80s. For what it's worth (not much to some, more to others) I'm also a descendant of the prominent families that founded and built the city up.

I've decided to write a few blog posts on Provo, which because of my background is both my native and adoptive home. It is not my favorite city on earth, but it is my favorite city among those in which I have been a long term resident. I also believe that despite what many people say, it is not "lame" or boring, and that it is definitely getting better and better.

I want to write these posts because Provo seems to be approaching a unique and exciting moment. It frequently ranks as a good place to live, a city with promising economic prospects, and a place that is projected to grow dramatically in coming years. On the other hand, there obviously are a lot of competing visions about what Provo should be. The neighborhood where I just bought a house (and where I had been living for years) has been roiled by controversy over a recent change in paving laws. Provo's downtown is pathetic (but improving). Many aspects of the youth culture — including successful businesses— are seemingly marginalized, or worse, but government and older residents. As someone who is choosing to live in Provo, I have strong opinions about all of these issues, and others.

For my part, I’ve lived in the city as an undergrad, a grad student, a working professional, a home owner, a musician, a filmmaker, and a bunch of other things. I recently bought an old home on a tree-lined street. I was attracted to the city by the music scene, the (unfortunately ebbing and flowing) arts scene, the bike-ability, the climate, and other things. So there's a brief introduction for anyone (or no one?) who cares.

Public Radio

2011-06-29T14:03:00.004-06:00

I hate it when I'm driving around and I change the radio channel from KRCL to KUER (because, after all, those are the only two radio stations worth listening to in Utah) and KUER is super quiet. So often the volume is way lower than other stations, and to make matters worse half the time the program that's airing is taking a call from someone on a phone. So garbled cell phone noise and quiet volume. It makes it so hard to hear/understand anything. (I realize this post makes me sound like an old man.)

"Friends Events"

2011-06-23T16:21:00.003-06:00

I've become terrible at checking Facebook events, but I recently noticed a feature (on the right side of the screen) called "Friends Events."

Why does the feature exist? Is it so I see all the cool things everyone else is up to, that I won't be attending? Is it so I can see how my friends in other cities are leading exciting, cosmopolitan lives? Is it so I can sit at home crying on the weekends, knowing that the cool kids didn't invite me to their hip shindigs?

I do not know. But I have to say, I'm not in love with this feature.

Becoming Immune to Mosquitos

2011-06-22T11:51:00.003-06:00

I have so many mosquito bites that last night I literally could not sleep. Many are from going down to the lake a couple of nights ago, but many others are simply from being outside in the evening around my home.

But I’m comforted by the (little-known) fact that the more bites one suffers, the more immune to bites that person becomes. I first learned this last year, when Laura and I went into the Amazon rainforest without any sort of immunizations. While reading about how all sorts of diseases could kill us, I also read that locals don’t get bites because after a lifetime in a particular place they’re immune (though my understanding is that they wouldn’t necessarily be immune to mosquito-transmitted diseases.)

Anyway, Laura and I didn’t die in the Amazon — though my leg did swell up quite a bit from a bit — but after we returned I read more about becoming immune to bites. Apparently the more a particular species bites you, the less you get irritated by the bites. Many of the articles on this phenomenon start out by trying to explain the fact that most people suffer far more bites when they go on trips than when they’re at home. Some people simply think that that happens because there are more mosquitos where they travel too (which could also be true), but the biggest factor is that the mosquitos in that new location are really just a different species.

The downside to this is that I recently read that there are more than 9,000 species of mosquito in the world, and that many different ones can exist in the same place. (Judging by the way my body differently reacts to mosquitoes at my house and at the nearby lake, I’d bet that they are slightly different species.)

But in any case, while I sit here trying to resist scratching the many bites I have, I’m also looking forward to the day when I have become immune to local mosquitos.

Provo in Businessweek

2011-06-17T17:05:00.001-06:00

Businessweek recently ran a story about Mormons and business. It’s fairly interesting, but on the fifth page it describes Provo as

“a city of roughly 100,000, laid out on a grid of colossal six-lane streets built up into a maze of housing developments, hotels, and fast-food chains.”

I think the tone of the sentence is (meant to be) vaguely insulting, and at very least it’s meant to contrast the city to others that have successful business schools. But I also think its really kind of interesting. It makes Provo seem so much bigger, and wilder, than I typically perceive it to be.

Clearly, whoever wrote the sentence has never been to Provo. After all, I can’t think of any six lane streets, and I wouldn’t describe it as a maze (when I think of maze-like cities I think of alley-filled places in Europe or South America).

But in any case and despite it’s intentions, I don’t think it’s a wholly unflattering description.

The Laundry Chute

2011-06-12T01:21:00.002-06:00

I just used the laundry chute at my house. Yes, you read that correctly. The laundry chute. At my house. As in, a classy and discrete hole that drops dirty clothing from one floor to another.

Provo Bakery

2011-06-10T19:22:00.004-06:00

Today I felt like a traitor. I needed to get some sort of treat to bring to work, and I got raspberry rolls from Shirley's Bakery. After living next to the Provo Bakery (which bizarrely has no website) for months, going to Shirley's seemed like a betrayal. I've eaten and loved so many things from the Provo Bakery. I've sung it's praises to so many people.

But the honestly, the Provo Bakery needs to step up its game. A lot. First, get a website. Second, I keep getting dried out things from them. The more bakeries I go to, the more disappointing the Provo Bakery is becoming. And that's terrible. I say this not to be mean, or as a disgruntled customer. I still love the Provo Bakery. Rather, I'm trying to offer constructive criticism. I feel like I can never go wrong with the orange rolls or the Mexican wedding cakes. But the cookies? The bread? I feel like I can almost never go right with the donuts. Please, improve. I love you.

So, today, I needed something good, and I needed to know it would be good. I've brought all the good things from the Provo Bakery to work, and so I turned to Shirley's. And you know what, it was delicious.

Mircowaving

2011-06-09T11:49:00.003-06:00

Often, I microwave things for 11 seconds, or 22 seconds, or 33 seconds, or so on. I think it's because it's easier to press 1 twice, than press both a 1 and a 0. Lazy, perhaps. But over the course of my lifetime all those saved milliseconds will add up.

Mormons and Evangelicals

2011-06-07T16:47:00.002-06:00

I just read this post, by LDS church spokesperson and Washington Post blogger Michael Otterson. Though I think Otterson is overly idealistic/unrealistic about how politically neutral and diverse the church is, I really loved the tone and attitude of the piece. Finally, a Mormon officially pointing out how idiotic people are. Finally, something that is aggressive, combative. Usually you only see that sort of attitude when Mormon leaders are criticizing "the world" and it's moral decline. The only thing that could have been better is a(n unedited) post simply saying "F*** You, moronic evangelical bloggers."

Movies I have watched “lately”

2011-06-07T16:25:00.003-06:00

Below are the movies I’ve watched in the last little while. My favorites were probably Monsters, Elegy, and Insomnia, though I’d recommend all of them.

Mary and Max
Union Station
Network
Monsters
Elegy
Clerks
Paper Heart
Insomnia
Inside Job

Pioneer Day

2011-05-29T19:06:00.001-06:00

I just discovered that Pioneer Day is a paid holiday at my work. To say that I am happy would be an understatement.

Tamale?

2011-05-28T00:38:00.003-06:00

Today, while I was chopping down a tree, a woman walked by in the street, pulling a cooler in a wagon.

"Tamale?" she said, pointing to the cooler.

I considered, then gestured with my fingers to wait a second. I ran inside and found a couple of dollars, then ran back out.

"Cheekin?" she asked (that's my best attempt at phonetic spelling). I nodded yes. Then added "Si!" for good measure.

She rummaged through her cooler and found a couple of chicken tamales. After a second she found them, put them in a brown lunch bag, and handed them to me. Then she more or less said "Tienes Agua para tomar?" (That's my best attempt at using my Portuguese to understand, and write, her Spanish). Luckily, she also made a drinking motion with her hands.

I ran inside and got her a glass of water. When I came back out, a guy had pulled up in a truck and was buying something like 20 tamales. He told me he had purchased them from the woman before and that they were great. Before he left, he wished the woman a good weekend in what I'd describe as "Mormon mission president Spanish," i.e. heavily accented but grammatically correct Spanish.

While the woman was drinking the glass of water, I said "Como...tu...chamas?" (That is literally what I said, not an estimate.) She responded by telling me her name was Consuela.

Anyway, the woman eventually left and went on selling tamales to other people nearby. I eventually tried the tamales, and they were delicious.

Sunday and animal cookies

2011-05-22T19:47:00.003-06:00

Because I work at a newspaper, I occasionally have to work on Sundays. May is my month, where I work each Sunday for four hours, and work 9 hour days four other times during the week. It's an interesting schedule, that has both pros and cons.

However, today a serious con turned out to be Circus Animal cookies. Actually, it turned out to be a con is pro's clothing.

Apparently on Friday (when I was not working) my part of the office had an little celebration in honor of the pending Rapture. People brought treats, etc.

But when I got to the office, some of that food was still sitting out. Actually a bunch of cans of root beer and half a bag of the cookies were still siting out. Over the course of my time at work today, I have eaten most of those cookies. They aren't really good. In small quantities, they can be alright, in a nostalgic sort of way. But after handfuls and handfuls, they get pretty disgusting. I can say that, because that's what I have experienced today. I don't know why I did it, but learn from my mistake and never eat half a bag of Circus Animal cookies.

Utah Valley Spring Art Show

2011-05-20T00:19:00.003-06:00

Earlier today I was perusing the blogosphere when I saw a post about the 2011 Utah Valley Spring Art Show. Somehow I hadn't heard about it, but it sounded cool so Laura and I went, along with Laura's brother, Will. I figured it would be cool, and I heard it would be in the top of the big Zion's Bank building, which I was excited to see.

But as it turns out, it was much more than cool. Most of the floors had tons of art, with each floor having different live music and catering. There were also a ton of people there. (I don't know how I didn't hear about it earlier.) As it turned out, it was one of the coolest things I have been to in Provo in a while. It was also good to see that the arts are still very much alive in the area, considering the general collapse of the student-ish art scene in the 100 Block over the last couple of years.

Anyway, by the time we left, I was already looking forward to next year.

Movies I have watched "lately"

2011-05-18T17:25:00.002-06:00

So I moved about a week and a half ago. That meant no instant streaming while we set up internet at our new home, plus way less time to watch movies generally. So here is the very small list, which spans probably at least two weeks.

Black Swan
The Knack... and How to Get It
Mean Streets (I'm actually still in the process of watching this one)
Megamind

I also watched significant parts of:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Darling

I listed those last two separately because, unlike Mean Streets, there is a good chance that I won't finish them. Neither were terrible, but neither were great either and I just don't have the time for them at the moment.

Costco

2011-05-17T22:10:00.006-06:00

This evening Laura had to get some things for her school so we went to Costco, aka Price Club. (We do not have a membership, nor do I really ever plan to get membership, but she had her school's card.)

Anyway, visiting the store was about as nostalgic an experience as I've ever had. When I was little I used to go to Price Club with my mom, and it was a huge adventure. The store was sublimely big, almost a city, or maybe even a civilization, within a building. To this day I don't think we ever reached the outer regions of the structure.

On really special occasions, my mom would get one of those flat cart-palate things, and my sister and I would get to ride on it. We always asked to do this, but only rarely were allowed. Sometimes we climbed through the products — probably to our mom's embarrassment, but to our own delight. (I saw some kids doing this tonight and felt like Holden Caulfield. Stay in the boxes kids, I wanted to say, it doesn't get better than that.)

In any case, there was always a wealth of free samples, unexplored corridors, and mysterious products filled with the allure of the unknown.

In short, and like the world itself, as a child Costco was filled with wonder, promise and possibility.

Before tonight I hadn't been to Costco in years, and as an adult it was considerably less exciting (I could see the walls, for example, destroying the illusion of an endless landscape of products.) Still, the store smelled the same way that it used to — sort of like a clean warehouse filled with packaging materials. There were also products I haven't seen since my childhood, and consequently associate with that period. Things like family sized boxes of fruit rollups and granola bars, huge packages of cleaning supplies and toiletries. Ice cream sandwiches. Kirkland products. Some things even brought back specific memories, like the dog food and the golden retriever my family had when I was five, or the double boxes of milk and the structures we built out of those same boxes.

Like I said, I don't plan to get a membership to Costco. It's sort of a nightmare as an adult. But occasionally, when I got a whiff of the bakery or the book section, that nightmare turned into a dream.

Hulu Commercials

2011-05-15T17:36:00.003-06:00

What's with the commercials on Hulu that are either a still image, or a moving image embedded within a still frame? I get the idea that they are designed to be clicked on (maybe they're supposed to look like a website?) and that they're probably some new innovation. But these commercials are ugly. They're sort of confusing. And they really don't take advantage of technology the way their designers probably anticipated.

Of Course...

2011-05-10T16:35:00.002-06:00

I run about 5.5 miles a day, six days a week, in Provo’s Joaquin neighborhood. I’ve been doing it for almost 3 years now, and for the most part it’s pretty pleasant. However, one major drawback is how many large dogs are on the loose. I’ve been chased by German shepherds, pitbulls, and a variety of mean looking mutts. I don’t have a problem with dogs (though I generally prefer looking at them from a distance), but I’m always astonished at how many people just let their large, aggresive pets roam free (or who don’t take adequate measures to restrain these animals).

Anyway, about a month ago I was running up a street (right by the house I recently moved into, coincidentally) when an insane doberman pinscher ran out from a drive way and started chasing me. I was pretty terrified. Once I got a little way down the street the dog stopped, but I was once again left wondering what kind moron unleashes such a beast on the public. WTF.

Well, then a few days ago I was driving by the same house with Laura when she noticed a shirtless guy working on his bullet bike. Then she noticed a dog, and pointed it out to me. That’s when I realized it was the same dog.

Now, I’m sure there are lots of cool people who ride bullet bikes and like to show off their abs to the world. But generally, I have a negative association with both of these activities. Most of the people I have met who ride bullet bikes would best be described as pricks, and the guys who show off their abs to the unsuspecting public come off a douche bags to me. I’m not saying that everyone who enjoys these activities could be described this way, I’m just saying that my personal experience has brought me into contact with such people. Unfortunately.

So, as Laura and I passed we noted how fitting it would be, that such a person would also have a near-rabid assault dog that would be allowed to roam freely around the neighborhood. Of course, we thought, what a douche. Of course, this guy doesn't care about anyone because he lets his dog scare people, creates sound pollution with his crotch rocket, and implicitly gloats about how he must spend hours and hours at the gym. Of course.

Did we stereotype? Did we profile? Yes, of course. How could we have helped ourselves, when he fit so many stock features of an idiot.

This story has no uplifting moral — something like how we met the guy and he turned out to be really cool and then we learned to not judge others, or be nicer, or something. No, in my heart of hearts I still think the guy was just as lame as he seemed.

Wanting a candidate to win...

2011-05-06T19:56:00.004-06:00

... doesn't mean he/she will.

Living in Utah, I sometimes have political conversations with people. A typical trajectory for these conversations involves me advocating anything left of far-right extremism, while whoever I'm talking to uses a bristling arsenal of logical fallacies to refute my points.

But sometimes in these conversations I encounter the view that something is going to happen, but for no apparent reason. In other words, people want it to happen, therefore it will (they think).

A good example of this — and something I've seen countless times lately — is the notion that Mitt Romney is going to be the next president. Romney, though perhaps the current Republican front runner, is not doing great now and I think he'll only do worse and worse as the election season gears up. Here is why:

1. He's Mormon. Though Romney is sometimes compared to JFK, Mormons don't enjoy anything close to the status that Catholics did in the mid twentieth century. I simply don't think Romney will survive a Republican primary, where his religion will be viewed with great skepticism. I think Mormons sometimes don't realize that just because people have a generally favorable impression of the religion they won't automatically be willing to put up with a Mormon leader. And, despite the impression within Mormonism that the church is widely recognized and respected, a lot of people know nothing about the church, while others hold negative or wildly distorted views of it.

2. Slipperiness. Even if Romney did overcome the religion issue, no one really knows where Romney stands on anything, and the general sense is that he's willing to say and do whatever it takes to win. In other words, he's viewed by many as someone without integrity.

3. His record. Romney is ultimately a moderate. The Onion recently posted a funny article about this. But the problem is that it's absolutely true. Romney did some impressive things in Mass., but now he has to try to "overcome" most of the political accomplishments he's had.

These are basic facts that anyone who spends ten minutes a day reading political news would know.

But strangely, I keep running into people who either A) aren't aware that these perceptions exist, or B) don't think they'll matter.

If someone thinks that these points are wrong, or if they think they have counterpoints that they think addresses them, well then fair enough. But I've been surprised a lot of people I meet don't fall into either of those categories. They want Romney to win, so they think he will. When I ask them why, they usually just give some vague answer. (I wish someone would just be honest with me and say "he's Mormon, and he looks like a president.") And even when they have good reasons, they have no good response to the fact that Romney has perhaps more obstacles going into a Republican primary than any other major candidate.

I can testify to the fact that wanting a candidate to win doesn't ensure anything (Obama's victory was the first time in my life that my candidate won).

But more interestingly, I think that this attitude actually is self-defeating. I don't think that Romney has a chance. But I think that in four or eight years, Huntsman might. He's a moderate and a Mormon, but he doesn't yet have a reputation for flip-flopping and political two-facedness. If moderate Republicans, Mormons and others wanted to elect a candidate like Romney, they would do well to abandon him and begin supporting Huntsman. In 2012 he can raise his profile, and by 2016 he'll be a strong candidate.

In the end, I don't really care if my friends, family and neighbors support Romney. I'll be voting against whoever gets the Republican nomination anyway.

But think the situation is illustrative of the fact that wishful thinking alone is not enough.

I'm a reporter

2011-05-06T19:16:00.002-06:00

I just realized that a year ago today my internship at the Daily Herald ended. I was the features intern and covered arts and entertainment in Utah County.

By the time it was over I had discovered that I really like newspaper writing, and had decided to make a go at being a reporter. I figured if I kept at it I should be able to get a job within a few years.

But, it only took about six months, two of which were spend out of the country not looking for jobs (after returning to the country I applied for hundreds of jobs, in and out of the news industry). With today being the one year mark since my internship ended, I was thinking about how interesting and great that fact is. Today I'm a court and crime reporter at the Daily Herald. Huzzah.

Beehive Bazaar

2011-05-04T15:45:00.002-06:00

This weekend one of the best things in Provo is taking place. It's the Beehive Bazaar! Basically the bazaar is a craft, art, and cool-stuff fair held in the Provo Women's Center. Except for the one held in American Fork, I've attended all of these for the last few years. There is always a lot of cool things for sale by local artisans. In fact this is sort of the physical manifestation of what Salon was talking about in the article "Mormon Housewife Blogs."

However, as a male with no kids, I can also say that the bazaar has a wider appeal. I will definitely be attending, and so should you.

Movies I have watched this week (or so)

2011-05-01T10:55:00.004-06:00

Hanna

2010: The Year We Make Contact

Restrepo

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The King's Speech

Valley Girl

Dear Murderer

Smiles of a Summer Night

All of these films ended up being pretty great, but my favorites were probably Hanna, Dear Murderer, and Smiles of a Summer Night.

Provo Spring

2011-04-25T20:09:00.002-06:00

I just went for a run and was reminded at how amazing Provo is in the Spring. The air is cool, the mountains green (and still snow capped) and all the trees are in bloom. Plus, the population has dropped dramatically with so many BYU students going home. On my run I even saw several cool people that I know. The overall result is that I remembered how of all the places in the world I've been, Provo is sometimes the most pleasant.

To Each Her/His Own (Movies)

2011-04-25T16:36:00.002-06:00

So my last post might need a little explanation. As a Mormon, I frequently encounter the belief that people should not watch movies filled with sex, violence, swearing, etc. Many, many Mormons also believe that people should not watch movies that are rated R by the MPAA.

Personally I disagree with these beliefs. I believe films have to portray difficult, sometimes graphic content in order to make positive points. (Think of a film like Schindler's List, for example.) Not watching these movies, or editing out part's that the filmmaker obviously thought were important, isolates viewers and impedes intellectual and spiritual growth, in my opinion. Also, like many people, I believe the MPAA is a wildly corrupt institution.

But, in the end I don't really care what people do. There's a limited amount of time and some people like me chose to watch a lot of films, and other people chose to other things. To each her/his own.

But what annoys me is when people try to tell me A) I should not watch movies that I consider uplifting because they contain "bad parts," B) That it's better to watch edited versions of movies, C) It's bad to have graphic content in movies, D) that they love movies but don't watch R rated movies.

A) To each her/his own. Somewhat paradoxically, I know, I expect people to reciprocate that attitude. At least when it comes to things like movies.

B) Edited movies are still technically rated R, or whatever the MPAA assigned them. In other countries there is no "R" rating. A movie is the vision of a group of artists and to cut it up is disrespectful. It disrupts the movie. Blah, blah, blah. There are a million reasons that watching edited movies is bad. If you want to watch edited movies, I suppose that's you're right, but don't tell me to do the same. And don't tell other people to do the same without giving the other side of the argument a chance to voice their views.

C) Brigham Young, a once-prominent Mormon, once pointed out that the arts have to portray evil to show good. Fast forward to today, when a church leader recently said media should not "portray" anything AT ALL that is bad. Yikes. Obviously, that would mean ending all media production. I don't know what this leader was going for, but I wish people would consider what they're saying when the constantly quote stuff like this.

D) And finally, if you are a film buff, you have to watch the classics. Things like "The Godfather," and "Raging Bull." The best picture-winning "Midnight Cowboy," which is also on AFI's list of all-time greatest films, was even rated X! I don't care if people watch these films or not, but don't go around pretending to be into films and then say you're unwilling to watch these masterpieces.

It's probably worth mentioning that this post stems from an incident that occurred at a church meeting recently. Like usual, people were talking about the supposed decline in civilized values and how evil the media apparently is. I was playing angry birds.

But then, this guy started rambling on about how he saw the PG-13 version of "The King's Speech" and how great it was. The movie is good, but the PG-13 version cuts out some important stuff. The swearing in that movie has a purpose and is vital to the story, unlike so many movies (rated everything from G to PG-13) where the swearing is just put in for laughs, or to make the movie more "hard core." Cutting out those parts or editing over them (which the filmmakers expressly condemned in this case) dilutes the point (which is, of all things, charity). (Note, there is more cut out of the PG-13 version than some people realize.)

Anyway, this guy at church was annoying and, ultimately, talking moronically about things I love, study, and work hard to understand. It was frustrating and I just wanted to yell that we should all just be able to do whatever we think is best. But of course, as always, I didn't.

You can't be a film buff...

2011-04-25T11:51:00.004-06:00

...cinephile, or cineaste if you categorically refuse to watch any particular kind of film. Or films with any particular rating. Sure, you can say you like movies or whatever, but you're not a true lover of the art form if you haven't seen the classics (or if you've only seen edited or "clean" — meaning chopped up and ruined — versions). Sorry.

(Obviously, if you've chosen to not watch some kinds of films or those with any particular rating, the world of film buff-ery may just not be for you. If you've made that decision, that reality obviously isn't abhorrent to you.)

The (so-called) Cougareat

2011-04-22T17:22:00.003-06:00

Today I saw a random tweet about how someone loves the Cougareat at BYU (the school's main student eatery, for the non-BYU people). It reminded me that I used to love the Cougareat when I was little, but that today it's completely lame.

When I was a kid and came to BYU during family vacations, it was still more of a cafeteria type place. I loved the food at the time, but even if it wasn't haute cuisine at least it was unique-ish to BYU. In other words, it was something at BYU that could be found nowhere else in the world.

Fast forward to today, and it's mostly filled with generic chain fast food places. Taco Bell, Subway, blah blah blah. Sure, these places aren't bad, but they're nothing to write home about. There are a few unique places (Sugar and Spice, for instance), but for the most part the place feels like it could be anywhere. Actually, no that's not true. It feels like it could be in any suburban mall. And I can think of no greater insult. (I heard students in the 90s actually wanted the Cougareat to be based on a mall food court. WTF.)

Movies I have watched this week...

2011-04-21T12:29:00.003-06:00

... or, rather, in the last week and a couple of days. Anyway here are the good ones:

Sisters
Tell No One
The Kids Are Alright

Unfortunately, I also watched a few mediocre or downright bad films in the last few days. Here are the mediocre ones:

The Other Guys
Despite not being much of a Will Ferrell fan, this film got decent reviews. I also typically like cop movies, and so I had high hopes. As it turns out, though, I found the movie kind of hit and miss. It wasn't terrible, but I wasn't all the entertained either. There were funny moments, but overall I'd describe this film as boring.

Paul
I had even high hopes for this film because it was made by the same people who did Hot Fuzz and Shawn of the Dead, both which were great. This film also got good reviews. However, Paul seemed filmed with cheap jokes and cardboard characters. It didn't have the charm of the team's earlier work, and seemed to generally convey what must be British stereotypes of the United States. I didn't hate this movie, but as with The Other Guys, I was kind of bored by it.

I also watched one downright bad movie this week. It was:

Revolver
Again, high hopes and dashed expectations. This film is directed by Guy Ritchie, who did Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which is one of my favorite films. Ritchie also did Snatch, which is pretty decent too. But for some reason Revolver was terrible. It was confusing and pretentious, and lacked the almost palpable setting of Ritchie's earlier films. By the end, I kept checking the timer on the instant streaming thing to see how long was left. So don't bother watching this movie.

Dog Days

2011-04-12T12:08:00.004-06:00

A few days ago I was running and a dog passed me. As it passed, I noticed that it had a huge tumor or growth on its side. The growth was under the skin, but larger than a football. It was strange because while I've seen many stray dogs with bizarre and disturbing health problems in developing countries, I've never seen one running around in Provo.

As I jogged past I thought about how the dog would probably not live much longer. Then I realized: "This dog's days are over!" It made me wish someone was with me — or that I had a camera — so I could share the thought.

Movies I have watched this week

2011-04-10T18:31:00.003-06:00

This week I didn't have to work insane hours, and Laura and I were sick over the weekend. So, we got in some good movie watching. Here's the list (not necessarily in the order we watched them in):

Black Hawk Down

Traffic

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Kicked The Honet's Nest

(In retrospect we had a generally violent, surprisingly Swedish week of films.)

Sam Anders

2011-04-04T20:10:00.004-06:00

Today I learned that both Battlestar Galactica and Clarissa Explains It All include characters named "Sam Anders." How could this be? Though Sam Anders isn't the most unique name out there, it's also not the most common. Could it be that the (re)makers of Battlestar Galactica were really, secretly fans of the Melissa Joan Hart teen classic? If only Clarissa was around, to explain this strange and miraculous "coincidence."

Movies I have watched this week

2011-04-03T23:23:00.003-06:00

This week I worked crazy hours, and Laura and I also watched the mini series Downton Abbey (which takes more time than a two hour film). As a result, the number of titles I've watched is lower this week than normal. But here they are:

Downton Abbey

It Might Get Loud

The Man from Planet X

32 Short Films About Glenn Gould

Lenny

The Kills

2011-04-02T15:20:00.002-06:00

I'm really loving Blood Pressure, the new album by The Kills. And best of all, you can stream it for free here.

Sam Fuller and Netflix

2011-03-25T12:01:00.002-06:00

I want to know why Netflix has only two Sam Fuller films for instant streaming. Seriously. These are old movies that ought to be easily accessible. Get on this Netflix.

Movies I have watched this week

2011-03-24T16:37:00.003-06:00

Typically I only watch good movies, so consider all of these recommended:

The Killing
Herb and Dorothy
Night and the City
The Runaways
The Parking Lot Movie

Nostalgia for Musak

2011-03-22T16:40:00.003-06:00

Today when someone put my phone call on hold I got to listen to some musak. And while I would never buy an album of that type of stuff, I realized that I have a strong nostalgic attachment to the genre. It conjures up for me memories of going to the grocery store with my mom, riding in elevators, and generally going out into what I conceived as the adult world. In other words, as a kid I learned to associate musak with maturity and sophistication. And, at least a little bit, I guess I still do.

New food weekend

2011-03-21T22:28:00.005-06:00

This last weekend Laura and I received a free hotel room in Salt Lake City. So we decided to forego our recent extreme thriftiness and have a good time. And that meant eating at several new restaurants.

First, we ate at Mountain West Burrito. Its a new shop located right in between Provo and Orem. Despite its terrible name and location — it's literally in gas station — I'd constantly been hearing good things about this place, from people whose tastes I highly respect.

So we went and it was pretty fantastic. I got the "half and half" burrito, which had chicken and vegetables, among other (more typical) burrito ingredients. At one point I took a bite and realized there was zucchini in my burrito. It blew my mind. And the chicken was probably one of my top five experiences with restaurant chicken. Ever. So try this place out if you're in the area.

After eating our burritos we drove the rest of the way up to SLC. We went to gallery stroll, which was cool(ish). While we were walking around we saw this place called Gourmadise. We thought it would be a good place for desert, and it was. Though the atmosphere was extremely chaotic and disorganized, the food was delicious. I had the croissant pudding, and Laura had a raspberry tart. Though I would never go back to this place at 9:30 p.m. on a Friday night, I would definitely go back at a time when there was a smaller crowd. (Laura just told me she wouldn't go back to this place because she thought it was overpriced and under-qualitied. I think she just ordered the wrong thing, but take that for what it's worth.)

The next morning we ate breakfast at Bruges, a Belgium waffle place near Tony Caputo's. We both got waffles. We were especially excited to eat at this place because we went to the actual city of Bruges over the summer, and ate Belgium waffles there. Surprising as it might sound, the ones we got in SLC were actually better. There was quite amazing, and filling (despite looking small, we were both full afterward.) I've read some people complain that this place is too expensive. And it was pricey; for two waffles we spent something like $13. So obviously I wouldn't eat here all the time. But on the other hand, I was as full and satisfied as if I had purchased a larger-looking meal. Also, the taste was incredible.

Finally, on our way home from SLC, we stopped and got sandwiches at Flour Girls and Dough Boys, in American Fork. Though sort of out of the way (it's in American Fork, after all), I can't say enough good things about this place. I ordered a ham and honeybutter panini, which was great, but I also highly recommend the apple and brie panini, or the cranberry-walnut-turkey-brie sandwich. The environment is cool (allbeit in a sort of, middle-aged, mom-ish way), and the sandwiches are delicious.

TV News

2011-03-18T12:43:00.005-06:00

I really can't adquately express my disdain for network TV news. Before working at a newspaper, I thought it was just pointless fluff that existed as a relic from a previous time. At best, it was mindnumbing, and at worst it made (usually middle aged) people mistakenly think they are informed.

But since working for a newspaper I've seen an even worse side of the TV news business. After a recent rape hearing, camera's chased down the victim and stuck lights and lenses in her face. They literally chased her and her family into an elevator, despite the fact that new organizations pretty much all have a policy against revealing the identity of sex crime victims.

Earlier this week, I also saw a man get some tragic news (possibly that a family member died in a fire, though I was out of earshot). The man nearly collapsed on the ground with sorrow, and was sobbing uncontrollably. And of course, a TV camera man ran over with a huge light and got in the guy's face.

Of course, not every TV camera man is bad (I knew a cool one not too long ago), but I can't say I've ever seen a network news broadcast that wasn't pointless. And now, I can add insensitivity to the idiotic things TV news does.

(I should mention though that I'm talking exclusively about network affiliates of ABC, NBC, Fox, etc. not CNN and MSNBC.)

Job Realities

2011-03-10T10:13:00.003-07:00

A few days ago I dreamed I was a film critic for Vanity Fair. It was awesome. Then I woke up, only to realize I was a crime writer at the Daily Herald.

"Poetry Month" and a little bragging

2011-03-08T21:10:00.005-07:00

Yesterday I learned that if you google the words "poetry month" this Rhombus article is in the top 10 hits. What makes that amazing is that I wrote that article!

Now, granted, not a lot of people google "poetry month," but the search returned about 4.3 million hits when I tried it. That means of those millions of hits, my article is deemed by google to be one of the most relevant. Huzzah!

I discovered the high ranking of this article, btw, when I was curious why the article has consistently been in the top 10 articles on Rhombus lately. Other articles I've written, such as this one on the Neon Trees, will show up in the top google results, but only with more specific queries (googling "neon trees provo" will get you to that one). "Poetry month" on the other hand is something that's pretty general and which people who have never heard of Rhombus, Provo, etc. might look up. And apparently they are because the article continues to get traffic.

Obviously this could change at any moment, but I was both thrilled and astonished by this news. It was a great reminder that the internet is a crazy place where something can blow up or go viral at any minute.

Well, it looks like I'll be in Provo a little longer...

2010-12-08T23:21:00.001-07:00

Laura and I spent the summer traveling, and when we got back I decided to continue pursuing a career in writing. (My trip renewed, to some extent, my desire to go into academia, though I’ll go into that later).

I enjoy writing and have been told I am good at it (though not necessarily when I’m blogging), so I briefly explored writing opportunities in Utah. Laura, after all, has a job she really likes in American Fork, Utah, so we had an incentive to stay.

After looking around for a while, however, I decided that there just weren’t many opportunities in Utah, either for jobs or simply to make contacts in the field. I met some cool people during my search, and began writing freelance for the Daily Herald, but nothing that had any long-term prospects.

So, by mid fall, Laura and I had decided we needed to go somewhere else. We settled on New York because A) it has seemed great on our previous visits, B) there are many publications there, so even if competition for jobs is much more fierce, at least opportunities sort of exist, which they don’t really in Utah, and C) Jay-Z/Alicia Keys said that big lights would inspire us.

Anyway, after deciding that we’d go to New York I began contacting everyone I knew who lived there. Many people gave me tips and advice, and several good friends spent a lot of time writing emails about how to make a good transition. I also contacted dozens of publications about doing internships, and eventually lined some up.

By mid November, Laura and I had a lot of info on New York. Our plan was that I would move out there in January, and Laura would follow when the school year ended. This plan was actually pretty developed. I had an internship lined up at a daily newspaper called amNewYork, as well as a couple of possible additional internships at Brooklyn papers if I wanted them. I even had a place to stay through January until I found somewhere to live.

Obviously this plan had some disadvantages, the biggest being that Laura and I would only see each other through video chat for about four months. However, it was also going to cost a lot, because I would be basically working for free while living in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

Still, we were going to make it work and I took a temporary job sometime in the fall to save up additional money. (We also went into the austere money-saving mode we were in before our summer trip.)

Then, about a week before Thanksgiving, the Daily Herald contacted me saying that a job was opening up and that I should apply. Before that day had ended, I had been offered the job. It was as a full time reporter in Provo, and was really what I think of as a “grown up” job (i.e. salary, benefits, two weeks vacation, etc.) I’d never actually had a job that wasn’t hourly, so this was serious.

Laura and I discussed the job. We were really excited to move to New York, but a job offer seemed to render more internships unnecessary. Also, my internships weren’t necessarily going to get me jobs, and if they did, those jobs might be anywhere in the country. Plus, my sense is that there are probably at least 100,000 (maybe more) unemployed writers/journalists/whatever in Brooklyn where I was going to be living. I think that eventually I could have beaten those odds, but it would have taken a long time and have been very expensive.

Ultimately, I decided to take the Herald job because, after all, that is what I was working toward all along. I figured that getting a paying job at a paper I like in a place I enjoy is pretty awesome. And while covering news (my beat is courts and cops) isn’t necessarily my long-term goal (I’m shooting for something more in features), it’s pretty cool. I’m also perpetually amazed that I’ve somehow landed a fulltime reporter position without a degree in journalism while the industry is dramatically contracting. I hesitate to say something cliché like “this is a dream come true,” but it’s close. I’m very fortunate (and covering the crime beat is making me more and more aware of just how fortunate I am).

So that’s an update and, for my NYC friends, an explanation. And while we may not come out next month, Laura and I will continue to be looking for ways to get to NYC in the future.

I've been a lazy blogger

2010-12-01T23:02:00.003-07:00

So I haven't posted anything here for a while. I've been super busy with lots of freelance jobs, and now with getting a full time job. Also, Laura and I are trying to find a new apartment in Provo. If you have any leads, let us know. We want somewhere awesome, with character, in a good location, and inexpensive. That's not too much to ask, right?

What happened to Rocky Road?

2010-10-03T11:02:00.003-06:00

What happened to Rocky Road ice cream? When I was a kid, Rocky Road was a flavor that included nuts and marshmallow chunks. Today, however, it seems that Rocky Road only ever has "ribbons" of marshmallow. These ribbons never stand out the way an actual marshmallow does. They make what used to be one of my favorite flavors into a bland and pathetic excuse of what it used to be. Also, doesn't smoothing out the marshmallows defeat the who purpose of calling it "rocky" road? In any case, I believe we need to restore Rocky Road to its former, chunky glory.

Update

2010-08-10T01:12:00.004-06:00

I haven't posted on this blog for a while because I've been traveling. I'm back now, but I wasn't able to post all the blogs about the trip while I was gone, so I'm doing that now (a new one every couple of days or so). As a result, it'll probably be a while before I return to regularly posting here.

Also, I'm posting our pictures on my facebook profile. I know many people who don't log in to facebook frequently, so if you're one of them and you want to see our pictures, go there. As of right now, I've posted almost all of our Brazilian pictures (a few hundred), and soon I'll begin posting the European ones. I'm trying to spread them out though, so I only post the pictures of one or two cities each day.

Like I indicated above, until this travel stuff is done, I probably won't be posting regularly here. However, if you're in the mood for thinking about something, I'll share some thoughts I had tonight: the movie Avatar is really bad. When I first saw it I thought it was a beautiful looking movie with a weak story. Tonight, however, I watched it again and realized the story was insultingly simplistic and seems like it was written by a middle school student. Plus, without 3D, the visuals actually look pretty cartoony. So there is some food for thought while I get back to the travel stuff.

My New Travel Blog: Tripping Over The World

2010-05-30T23:35:00.003-06:00

Originally, I had planned to blog here about mine and Laura's trip. However, over time I decided that I wanted a blog dedicated specifically to traveling, that wouldn't be muddied with my rants, raves, recommendations, etc. about non-travel things. Also, blogger isn't super easy to use on an iPod Touch, which is what primarily I'll be using to connect to the internet for the next two months.

Thus, I have started a new wordpress blog that will focus exclusively on mine and Laura's trip. I've posted a couple of things there, but hopefully it'll have more interesting and exciting details about what we're up to as soon as our trip begins. Here it is:

Tripping Over The World

Final Preparations

2010-05-29T21:51:00.003-06:00

Laura I leave for our big trip in about a day and a half. So for the last couple of days we've been doing last minute preparations. Here's some of the things we've done:

1. Cleaned of our camera's memory card. And bought a new, 8 gig card. Hopefully that and our old 4 gig card will be enough for all the pictures we're going to take.

2. Bought some new clothes that we needed. (I got some socks. Laura's out shopping now so we'll see what she gets.)

3. Cleaned up the guest bedroom of my parents house, where we've been living for the last month.

4. Altered clothing. I added a button to a shirt (which included me learning how to sew a button hole), and turned a long-sleeve shirt into a short-sleeve shirt. I also cut off a pair of pants so I'd have some shorts.

5. Found backpacks to use. (Specifically, I found a small-ish backpacking backpack in my parents garage that I'm using).

6. Printed out tons of documents that we're taking.

7. Bought some travel apps for our new ipod touch with an old iTunes gift card.

8. Bought Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door 2010.

9. Bought other guidebooks from as ebooks from the Kindle store. That was a new experience, but infinitely better than lugging 50 pounds of books around with us.

10. Lots of other things that I'll have to go over later, because right now I need to go continue packing.

Brazilian Itinerary

2010-05-26T20:24:00.003-06:00

Somehow, in all the trip preparation, I forgot to post a detailed itinerary for Brazil. We'll be traveling all over the place down there, so I wanted to give a more detailed account, similar to the one I already posted for the European leg of the trip.

May 31: Depart for Sao Paulo from Salt Lake City

June 1: Arrive in Sao Paulo (2 nights) at 7:30 am

June 3: Bus from Sao Paulo to Rio De Janeiro (6 nights) sometime in the late morning/early afternoon

June: 9: Plane in the morning from Rio to Salvador (5 nights)

June 14: Plane from Salvador to Manaus (3 nights)

June 17: Plane from Manaus to Brasilia (5 nights)

June 22: Plane from Brasilia to Curitiba (1 night)

June 23: Afternoon bus from Curitiba to Foz do Iguacu (i.e. the city by those huge waterfalls) (2 nights)

June 25/26/27: Overnight bus from Iguacu to Sao Paulo (1 or two nights, depending on how much we liked Sao Paulo at the beginning of the trip)

June 28: Plane from Sao Paulo to London (non-stop!)

(Para meus amigos brasileiros, vou estar no Brasil durante Junho. Se quiserem se encontrar, deixa um "comment" aqui, fala comigo no facebook (espero que ja somos amigos la, mas se nao adiciona-me como um), or manda uma email a james.dalrymple52@gmail.com)

I'll have more to say about why and how we're doing this itinerary later, but for now, that's it.

Monday Movie: Hellboy

2010-05-25T14:29:00.004-06:00

First, I know, it's Tuesday. Somehow I forgot to post this yesterday, even though I've had this film picked out for a long time.

Second, you may also be thinking, "Hellboy. WTF?"

In reality however, Hellboy is a fantastic movie (with a terrible name that's based on a comic book that I've never read.) When it first came out in 2004, I decided that it looked terrible and that I'd probably never see it.

Over time, however, it earned a lot of praise from critics. People I trusted also told me that it was really good. So I eventually put it on my netflix queue, and before I knew it the movie was at my house.

What surprised me was how silly and fun the movie is. What I hadn't realized when I saw the trailer was that despite its name, the movie doesn't really take itself very seriously. It isn't trying to be an overly dramatic superhero movie, it gives its audience an entertaining couple of hours. Hellboy, in other words, is great because it embraces its pop culture kitschy-ness.

In framing the film that way, director Guillermo Del Torro puts himself in the company of other postmodern directors like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and even Wes Anderson. However, what really sets Del Torro apart is that his work demonstrates an appreciation for pop culture and a sense of awe. His movies aren't just smart and witty, they're also charming, visually impressive, and sincere if sly.

If you've seen Hellboy, you probably know what I'm talking about. If not trust me and watch it. (I actually was going to include this movie in a Monday Movie a long time ago, but I felt like I should recommend a few more serious films first so that people could get a sense of my cinematic tastes and wouldn't immediately dismiss Hellboy.)

Our Hotels So Far

2010-05-24T06:41:00.004-06:00

Laura and I leave one week from today, but we still haven't booked every night of our trip. In the early stages of our planning we struggled to decide if we should book hotels in advance—which would mean we'd have to really nail down our dates/itinerary—or simply should up in different cities and try to find lodging on the spot. Ultimately, we've decided that in heavily touristed areas, we needed to book in advance, but when we're off the beaten path we'll try to give ourselves more flexibility and find places when we show up.

This means that we've book hotels so far in Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris, and Rome (and may a few more places that are slipping my mind now). And some of these places sound pretty exciting.

In Rio, for example, we're staying at the Maze Inn. This may be the lodging that I'm most excited about for the entire trip. It's an independently run budget hotel, located in a favela near the beach. At first I was ambivalent about staying in a favela. Rio's slums are ultra dangerous, and I didn't want to go there to gawk at the poor. However, the reviews I've read suggested it was relatively safe, and as a missionary in Brazil I experienced a fair amount of poverty which will hopefully prevent me from assuming an overly touristic or voyeuristic attitude. In any case, however, the hotel has great prices, a big breakfast, and a jazz night that we'll be in town for. So far, the staff has also been super helpful—this morning, for example, they emailed a response to my request for instructions on how to get to the hotel using the city buses. I initially thought I found this hotel in an Lonely Planet guide book, though I subsequently can't find it in any of the ones I have right now, so either I already returned that book to the library or I found the hotel somewhere else.

In London, we're staying in easyHotel's Victoria location (I may have mentioned this in earlier posts, but I can't remember.) As a chain hotel, this experience will contrast sharply with our Rio experience. However, the hotel is an ultra economic company that bases its rooms off of ship cabins. They're really small spaces, which translates into really low prices. This hotel was recommended by Rick Steves.

In Paris, we're staying in a hotel called Hotel Camelia Nation. At first I was very skeptical about this hotel, because it wasn't listed in any of the guide books Laura and I checked out. However, we found it on a hotel listing website and because we hadn't read about it elsewhere, we checked practically every website we could find that reviewed it. Ultimately we decided that was in a cool—if potentially loud—location (near the Bastille, and we'll be there on Bastille Day), and it was the lowest price we could find at a non-chain hotel. I'm still slightly afraid that it's going to be crawling with rats or something, but it looks cool and had a lot of decent reviews.

We just booked our Rome hotel a few nights ago, so I haven't decided what to think about it yet. It's called Hotel Italia Roma. It came recommended by the guide books I mentioned above, as well as Fodor's. It's well located as well, and so that sounds good.

Pointless Technologies

2010-05-20T20:05:00.006-06:00

I rely on—and generally love—technology. I can’t imagine life without the internet, I already depend heavily on my new iPod touch, and most of the jobs I’ve done (writing, video editing, etc.) have a significant tech component.

However, there are also some really pointless uses of technology. Despite promising to save time, make life more convenient, or whatever, they actually just cause problems. Yet, somehow, they prevail. I’m not taking about those silly things that people invent, put on late night commercials, and then fail to actually sell. I’m also not talking about great ideas by major companies that just didn’t catch on (Apple, for example, has created a lot of things that didn’t catch on, but it’s also managed to produce paradigm-changing products at the same time. I’m also not talking about the iPad, because the jury is still out on that and though I don’t have one, I like them.) Instead, I’m talking about things that lots of people use, but which aren’t actually saving time, or even benefiting people much.

So here are a few examples:

Weed wackers: When I was a teenager I always had to mow and edge our yard. I really hated it. Now that I’ve moved back into my parents house, that has apparently become my job once again. However, while the lawnmower works well enough, I was surprised this week to see just how aggravating the weed wacker still is. It’s a gas-powered machine, and it uses those green plastic cords to cut the grass. To use it, you wrap the cord around a spool, and then to feed more cord out you bump the spool on the ground. (The ones I've used are similar to the one pictured below, but are also not that exact model.)

Whether that makes sense or not, the point is that it doesn’t even remotely work like it's supposed to. As you can imagine, a thin plastic cord constantly hitting rocks, cement, etc. wears down quickly. However, the machine that my parents have hardly ever feeds more cord out properly. That means that literally every five minutes you have take the thing apart and manually pull out more cord.

The result is that a job that should take 20 minutes ends up taking hours. There are many solutions to this problem, but the easiest would just be for some one to invent a weed wacker/edger that actually works.

Dishwashers: Dishwashers might be my most hated appliance ever invented. They seem so promising: no one likes washing dishes and a machine that would do it for you would be great.

The problem is that no dishwasher I’ve ever seen actually works. First, you basically have to wash all the dishes hand before putting them in the dishwasher. Then, somehow, there is still food stuck all over the supposedly cleaned dishes. I’ve lived in lots of houses and apartments, and without fail that’s the outcome I’ve experienced. And while I have no doubt that there are probably some super powered (and super expensive) dishwashers that actually work, I’m yet to see them in action.

The funny thing is that it’s also pretty easy to wash dishes hand. Most people are already doing it, but without soap, so that their dishwashers will work. For some reason, however, there seems to be a mistaken impression that machines are getting dishes more sanitary or clean, simply because they’re machines.

Rice cookers: This may be a controversial choice for this list, because most rice cookers I’ve seen do work, and many people love them. However, what are they really doing? To cook rice, you literally just have to boil it in a pot with water. That means that a rice cooker is just a pot with a timer on it. They may save some time by going marginally faster, but they also sacrifice some freedom: you can’t test and season rice as easily when it’s locked in a machine.

Bread machines: Bread machines are like a cruel joke. They make something that looks and deliciously smells like bread, but that typically is a monumental disappointment. The vast majority of bread machine bread that I’ve had have a bland flavor, overcooked crumbly crust, and a far too airy interior. Maybe those things are the result of bad recipes, but time and again I’ve had disappointing bread machine bread from different people and in different settings. It’s usually on par with the cheapest store bought stuff, but coupled with the smell of home cooked bread, it's infinitely more disappointing.

This list could go on and on, but the point here is that everything doesn’t need to be mechanized, and that some modern machines are just producing awful simulacra of good things.

Hotels vs. Hostels

2010-05-19T11:32:00.003-06:00

The romantic image of young travelers—especially young travelers in Europe—is of people riding the rails and sleeping in crowded, lively hostels. Because Laura and I are about to travel to Europe (and Brazil), and because we're trying to do the trip as cheaply as possible, I figured that meant we'd be staying in a lot of hostels. What I've been surprised to discover, however, is that hostels are not always the cheapest way to go.

Before I mention what I've learned about booking hostels and hotels, though, it's worth mentioning that hostels offer a one-of-a-kind travel experience. You're in the midst of other travelers—who likely also share a similar travel philosophy—and my experience is that interacting with hostel staff is more personal/local than interacting with hotel staff. So, even if they aren't always the most economic option, they're worth experiencing. On the other hand, hostels can be loud and chaotic (which means poor sleep), dirty, and cramped. (The first night I stayed in a hostel I was shocked to hear a veritable symphony of snoring. I did not sleep that night.) So while they provide an interesting experience, that experience can become a drag after awhile.

So, are hostels really the best budget option? Can a hotel really beat their prices?

The answer varies from location to location, of course, but for single travelers, hostels are almost always going to be the cheapest choice. When booking our London portion of the trip, for example, Laura and I were initially going to stay in the St. Paul's Hostel. It's centrally located, and in a cool old building. For a bed on the dates we needed, the price was 22 pounds. That can't be beat, and if Laura and I weren't married (and, in our case, drawing money from the same bank account), we definitely would have stayed in the hostel.

In reality, however, and because we're married, the night would have cost us 44 pounds. That's still a great bargain, but after researching a bit I discovered that we could stay in the easyHotel Victoria for 45 pounds. That means that for one extra pound we'd have a private room (and bathroom). We'd probably sleep better, and our stuff would be safer. And because we'll be flying directly from Brazil to England, I wanted to make sure that we could sleep in a place that was relatively quiet. Also, many hostels are segregated by gender, so in general hotels will allow us to avoid the annoyance of having to sleep in separate rooms.

To be sure, easyHotel Victoria probably has less character than the hostel. It's a chain (albeit a European one), it's also not in as prime a location. Still, I feel comfortable getting around London and I suspect we'll sleep better in the hotel.

What has surprised me is how often this booking/research experience has been repeated. As we've planned out our trip, city by city, we've discovered that for two people paying together, hostels are almost never the most economic option. In many cases (and in the most expensive cities), there are actually hotels that cost less than two beds in a hostel. The disparity is also exacerbated when looking at private rooms in hostels, which many offer.

Of course, when booking a hotel that's cheaper than a hostel it's essential to be careful. Before we book anything, Laura and I read travelers' reviews on multiple sites. We also usually get recommendations out of guide books like Lonely Planet and Rick Steves' Europe. Still, for travelers going in pairs or groups, and who can pay together, hotels can sometimes be the most economic option.

Monday Movie: Fail-Safe

2010-05-17T21:47:00.006-06:00

Sidney Lumet's 1964 classic Fail-Safe shares its premise with the classic dark comedy Dr. Strangelove: in the midst of Cold War brinkmanship the Americans go too far and inadvertently let a nuke loose on the U.S.S.R. However, while Dr. Strangelove is hilarious and dark, Fail-Safe is searingly bleak. It's an attempt to honestly explore the incomprehensible horror of preparing to begin a nuclear war.

The film stars the patriarchal Henry Fonda as the president of the United States. The cast also includes Walter Matthau. And while I won't spoil the movie's ending, it does somehow manage to be entertaining while including a surprising, horrific, and thought-provoking finale.

(Also, I think you can watch the entire movie in 10 minute segments on Youtube, beginning here. I netflixed it, so I can't be sure the entire movie is there, but from looking at the related links it appears to be.)

Mother's Day

2010-05-10T18:06:00.009-06:00

I've commented on this topic before here, but I wanted to add some more thoughts in light of this year's recent Mother's Day.

In the days leading up to Mother's Day, something was bugging me. And then I remembered: the way we celebrate the day is too gendered.

For example, yesterday Laura and I made dinner at my family's house, so that my step-mom wouldn't have to. From talking to other people this seems to be a relatively common practice. Yet, the ironic thing about it is that it implies that on all the other days of the year my step-mom has to make dinner. And, in practice, she sort of does. After all, in many families—mine in included—making the food is often the mother's job, whether she likes it or not. On the other hand, is that good? Shouldn't (typically gendered) tasks be more equally shared throughout the year?

The problem here, as I see it, is that some women probably would prefer to assume different roles in their families, but our cultural modes of celebrating mother's day tell them that they shouldn't (or even can't). (And, of course, this works similarly for men on Father's Day, though it seems to me, to a lesser extent.) In other words having the men in a household make dinner on Mother's Day suggests that that action is an aberration. It's a "favor" or gift that they're giving, not something that they're typically responsible for. Implicitly, this also suggests that a mother should cook, and I'd she doesn't she somehow a less adequate person.

Obviously lots of women like to cook, lots of men don't, and flipping individual roles isn't a huge deal. What is disturbing, however, is when these behaviors become codified and foisted on those who don't appreciate them. As I listen to men and women talk at church, school, work, etc., making dinner on Mother's Day is something that men are encouraged to do. Similarly, all the women at my church were given roses this year, and in past years the men and women were given very gender specific gifts. (Laura actually gave me her rose, because she didn't really want it and I did.)

My point here, I suppose, is that Mother's Day and Father's Day are moments when our cultural constructs regarding gender become painfully apparent. Woman-as-homemaker is simply an accepted role, as is Man-as-provider/worker. These roles are simply taken for granted and accepted as good. For some people they certainly work, but when a culture so easily accepts them and equates them with "good" or "appropriate" it also requires those for whom they don't work to accept them.

Monday Movie: Primer

2010-05-10T17:03:00.003-06:00

Primer is one of the most confusing movies I've ever watched. Luckily, it's also one of the more interesting as well. And that means that this shoe-string-budget, Sundance gem is definitely worth watching.

The story follows two entrepreneurial young engineers, as they accidentally invent a time machine. It's a familiar premise in science fiction, but what makes Primer stand out among time-travel movies is that it really tries to grapple with the complexities and paradoxes of messing with time.

At first, for example, the two guys just use their machine to make successful stock purchases. Everything seems innocent enough, until their plans become more complex, other people seem to discover the machine, and chaos ensues. I've actually seen this movie twice and I'm still not sure how everything fits together.

However, the great thing is that I imagine that's about how confusing real time travel would be. The point of the movie, in any case, isn't to make perfect sense (though I suspect it would if you sat down and plotted the different threads on a piece of paper). Instead, it aims to explore the relationships and psychology behind a paradoxical ideal, and in that objective, the movie is successful (and intriguing).

The latest travel update and iPod touch

2010-05-07T10:13:00.003-06:00

So, Laura and I are preparing to leave on our trip this month. We've seriously started planning our day by day brazilian itinerary, recently received our visas and are just about ready to go. However, one the that we have thought a lot about is how to stay connected while on the road (or in the air, or kn the rails, etc.). For some people, I suppose that a trip like ours would be a welcomed chance to disconnect with the plugged in world, but for me at least (if not exactly for Laura) I really want to stay in touch while we're gone. More specifically, I hope to blog about our trip while it's still taking place. Plus, it'd be nice to be able to check or bank account, email family, etc. whenever we need to.

Our cell phones aren't internationally enabled (and it would have cost a lot to get new ones that are), and we didn't want to take a computer that would easily get lost, broken, or even stolen, so we decided to get a portable device that would be relatively cheap, but still allow us to stay connected when needed.

So, we settled on and iPod Touch. I really like the iPhone, but we're on Verizon and I didn't want to switch (plus I wasn't ready to commit to some expensive two year contract). I also considered the uPas, but decided that it had most of the same vulnerabilities as a laptop.

Thus, and iPod Touch seemed like it was the best option. It has wireless, which most of our hotels provide (as does, I discovered, the entire beach front in Rio de Janeiro), is small and easy to conceal, and is less expensive (on the long run, at least) than most other, similarly capable devices. Obviously, it's not going to be good for writing a novel on, but I think it will allow us to keep in touch with what's going on back home.

In the spirit of preparation, I've actually written this entire blog post on the iPod touch. And actually, I've been surprised by the experience. There are some really annoying aspects to it (like having to switch keyboard screens everytime I need a non-letter character like a dash or parenthesis) but the software that automatically fills in words and fixes typos far exceeds my expectations. Obviously, I can't say how well this is going to work on our trip, where we'll have more intermittent Internet access and probably be more tired a lot of the time (and so less excited about writing blogs on a tiny keyboard), but at least for now it looks like well able to stay in touch and document our trip.

Monday Movie: Topaz

2010-05-03T14:36:00.002-06:00

You've probably at least seen clips of Psycho and The Birds. Maybe you've seen those films in their entirety. And you may even have watched Vertigo and North by Northwest. But have you seen Topaz?

Topaz is an Alfred Hitchcock classic, albeit a lesser known one compared to some of the director's other work. Still, almost everything of Hitchcock's is fantastic (though I didn't really enjoy The Trouble With Harry), and Topaz stands out for being especially vibrant and colorful. It's also much more expansive in it's setting than some of Hitchcock's more spatially restrained work. (Rope and Lifeboat being two extreme examples of Hitchcock restricting the action of a film to a singular location, but there are others.)

I first saw this movie one summer when I checked out literally dozens of Hitchcock films from the Provo Library. And though it's not as well-known as some, it's actually one of my personal Hitchcock favorites.

The plot involves Russian missiles in Cuba, a French diplomat traveling to and from Cuba, trying to get information—and some extramarital lovin on the side—and a spy ring called "topaz." In general, however, the plot is basically all about the intrigues of the cold war and how different people and governments tried to manipulate them to their own ends. (Read wikipedia if you actually want a real summary of the plot. Or, watch the movie).

Goodbye Academia Part 7: What I'll Miss

2010-04-30T15:10:00.002-06:00

This series has to end sometime, and that time is now. Though I could probably write indefinitely on the topics of academia and my life, I'd like to conclude by mentioning what I'll miss about not being a part of academia. After all, I did spend a massive amount of time, a ton of money, and a lot of stress trying to get into a PhD program. Obviously, I wanted to go, even if there were other things I was (and am) interested in doing. So here are a few things that I'll really miss about not being an academic.

1.(Producing) Big ideas. I can't think of another profession where people are paid to sit around and think about big ideas like "ethics" or "humanity" or "art" or a lot of other things. Whether it's researching, teaching, etc., academics are supposed to turn a critical eye on culture. They're supposed to make connections and see things about the big picture that are hidden from others. That's something that journalistic writing—as well as many other things I've done—don't really do. They're more interested in presenting information. Scholars, on the other hand, produce information. That really appeals to me, and is probably the thing I will miss the most.

2. Being on campus. Have you ever seen a sappy, poorly-made movie about high school seniors about to graduate. Its the best time of their lives! As silly as those depictions are, that's largely how I feel about being in college. I was cutting across BYU's campus to get to the Daily Herald the other day, for example, when I realized just how enjoyable it is to be in the bustle of a college campus. There's always a bunch of interesting things going on. Living near a college provides similar opportunities, but I've found that not being in school makes it harder to know about them and participate.

3. Teaching. This might be a strange thing to put on here, given my previous posts, but there are great parts of it too. If I could teach one course a semester, for the rest of my life, while doing other interesting things, that might be ideal. In any case, while I won't miss grading, I will miss being in a classroom with students.

4. Discussion. Obviously, discussion can go on anywhere, but at a college it is supposed to happen. I've also found that many people outside of the classroom/college don't have the time or inclination (or stomach) for heated, passionate discussion. Most workplaces, church settings, etc. aren't really set up for people to bring up ideas and argue out their disagreements. Though I try to have discussions with people where ever and whenever I can, I find that A) it still happens much less often post-college than during college, and B) a lot of people just get offended or defensive when people push back against their ideas. There's probably a lot of reasons for this fact, but my experience is that there are few thick-skinned intellectuals outside of the academic setting.

5. Flexibility. This is a practical concern, but an important one. Being a professor allows people to largely determine their own schedules. As long as they get things done, they can work early or late, or whatever. I think I thrive in that sort of environment. I like working, for example, at 2 a.m., and sleeping in late. One day I might be one fire with ideas, and the next I might be lacking. I like how academia, though busy, gives professors a greater degree of flexibility than many jobs. I'm sure everyone wants a job like that, but until recently, I was actively pursuing one.

6. The Political Orientation. Let's be honest, most academics are liberal. And though I hate labels, I typically find myself in agreement with liberal politics. The prospect of being surrounded by people with whom I agree is immensely appealing. That's probably because I currently live in Utah, and I'm constantly surrounded by conservative fanatics who claim the Tea Party isn't racist or idiotic. But seriously, I'm so tired of being a lone liberal on a sea of hyper-conservatism. Some people want academia to be more politically diverse, and objectively I know that's a good thing, but secretly I just want to go to a place where people seem to care about each other, are willing to sacrifice for the good of others, and see government as a collective choice to help the less fortunate. Also, the conservatives I know in academia (or in my program) are smart, insightful, and decorous about their views. So, ultimately, academia is conducive to being a liberal, and if nothing else values respect and rational justifications for whatever conclusions people arrive at. (Maybe what I want is to be surrounded by people who investigate and are interested in politics, regardless of their orientation.)

7. The Culture. The people who go into academia are a self-selecting bunch, and they're into certain cultural things. Even the most mainstream of my professors had a decent understanding of pop culture, for example, and I remember having several interesting conversations with different professors about growing and preserving food at home. Academia isn't hipster-ville, of course, but the professors I admire take a holistic approach to culture and seem to think it is important to be conversant in things outside their disciplines. Obviously there are people like that outside of academia, but in the college community that approach to culture is common, even expected. If nothing else, academics seem to be interested in trying new things. Those things may be approaches to literary theory, or something like twitter or Lady Gaga.

Well, this could go on and on, but it's already a lot longer than I wanted it to be. Also, none of things are necessarily unique to academia, but I think they're all present there, and in abundance. I'm not sure there's another field where that is the case.

Poetry Recommendations

2010-04-29T14:22:00.001-06:00

Because my last post sharply criticized contemporary poetry, I thought it might be good to mention a few fantastic poets who are worth reading. These poets are amazing and enlightening, though some of them do fall into the "overly-difficult-for-lay-audiences" category. Still, with my education, I'm not really a "lay audience" member when it comes to literature, and even people who don't read a lot of poetry can still get a lot out of many of these poets. Also, the way I discover new music, movies, books, etc. is through recommendations, so I figured I could hardly advocate the reading of poetry without offering some suggestions.

Living Poets:
Stephen Dunn (One of my personal favorites. He has also written a book on creative writing called Walking Light, which is fantastic)

Robert Hass (For some reason, I've heard him reading on NPR a bunch of times in the last year or two. He was the U.S. poet laureate for a while.)

Li Young Lee (The poet I mentioned in my Daily Herald piece. I love some of his stuff, and am indifferent about other works, but he's definitely worth reading)

Kim Johnson (I've taken many classes from Kim. She is an amazing person, and an master poet. And lest this recommendation merely seem like plugging an old associate, her two published books have been very well received.)

Mark Strand (I saw him read once in Salt Lake. I think Trent Hickman once said he liked the world-weariness of Strand's poetry. I think that sums it up well.)

Jay Hopler (Friend—and, as I just discovered on wikipedia, husband!—of Kim Johnson's who read at BYU. There's a whole bunch of BYU students and recent alumni who are fans of Hopler. Part of that is probably just because he came to the school while we were there and was a really cool guy, but it also has to do with the fact that his work is among the most vividly evocative of anyone that has come to BYU for a reading.)

(this list could go on and on, but these are a few people that came to mind in the short time I had to spend thinking about it)

Today's Poetry: Flipping the Figurative Bird?

2010-04-28T16:47:00.003-06:00

Today, I had this short piece in the Daily Herald. The purpose of the piece was essentially to argue to people who don't read poetry that the genre has merit, and can be rewarding. However, because I think that some people who might read this blog have more experience with poetry, and might be more literary-minded than the general newspaper audience, I'd now like to take a minute to be completely honest about the dying literary art.

In short, much of today's poetry flips a the figurative bird at its audience.

By saying that I mean to point out that the poetry being written today is often impossibly hard to comprehend. Poets, in an effort be "true" to their message, forget that someone is supposed to read their work. They cram poems full of semantics and syntax that are painfully opaque, and as a result effectively tell readers to f--- off.

And readers typically oblige. If there's anything in America that's read as infrequently as scholarship, it has to be poetry. Unlike scholarship, however, can really be fantastic, so it's a shame more people don't read it.

Here's how I see the problem: the people who write poetry are often either academics, closely allied with academics, or very highly educated. The vast amount of knowledge they've acquired makes their poetry dense. That makes it rewarding for people familiar with the canon of western literature, but impossible to read for everyone else.

For example, an SLC-based poetry once came to a class I was taking and described herself as a "maximalist poet." I think that was to contrast her work with minimalists like William Carlos Williams, but it was also to point out that she tries to pack as much into her work as she possibly can.

Fair enough, but it literally took me 20 minutes to decipher a few this woman's lines. The poetry might as well have been either A) random assortments of words, or B) a foreign language. (This is not an over exaggeration.) And I was a MA candidate in English, willing to look for meaning even under those circumstances. Imagine how a more typical reader, without a deep background in poetry and less desire to understand it, would feel. It'd be like trying to glean complex meaning from cracks in the pavement. In other words, contemporary poetry often doesn't make sense to me, and I can only assume it makes even less sense to readers unfamiliar with it.

I genuinely think that many poets are out of touch with this reality. I love poetry, but I don't have the energy to look up 50% of the works in a 14 line poem. I don't have the time to spend an hour figuring out what a sonnet says (not what it means, but merely what it's superficially about). I suspect that poets either have forgotten how much (or little) knowledge their readers possess, or simply don't care. In other words, they mistakenly believe that their poetry isn't impossible to decipher, or they think that readers who are unwilling to spend a lot of time investigating poems are hamstringing their own intellectual development. And maybe they are, but that doesn't leave a lot of room for enticing new readers or drawing people into the art form.

This isn't to say that poets should write simple, easy to read poems, or that complex work isn't pleasurable. Quite the opposite, in fact. And hopefully there will always be people willing to decipher difficult works and rejoice over arcane syntactic tricks. But a person can't really be a "writer" —of poetry, scholarship, or anything else—without acknowledging a reader. There are also poets who appeal more broadly, like Billy Collins, but they are too often ostracized in the academic establishment, or altogether ignored. (My impression is that Collins is viewed by English professors they way Thomas Kinkade is viewed by real artists. That's also a shame, because not only is Collins good and fun to read, but his work can actually touch on profound topics.)

This situation is not helping poetry. Few people read it now, and poets aren't only doing nothing to attract new readers, they're actually alienating people. The poetry sections in most books stores is already tiny, so how long will it be before publishers finally decide to give up? Unless poetry is to be relegated to a form of writing that is personally and professionally fulfilling for a few academics, but meaningless or extinct in larger culture, something has to change.

If it doesn't, we might watch as humanity's first art form is snuffed out by those charged with preserving it.

Monday Movie: The Big Sleep

2010-04-26T10:37:00.003-06:00

There are few film genres as viscerally fun (or as socially conscious) as film noir, and one of the best examples of the genre is the 1946 The Big Sleep. The film is adapted from a Raymond Chandler novel of the same name, and while the book is good, the film is better. (In my opinion, film noir/crime film is a richer medium than than written crime literature/detective fiction.)

It stars the soft-on-the-inside Humphrey Bogart and the ineffably glamorous Lauren Bacall, who didn't just make a great on-screen pair, but were also married in real life. Bogart plays Phillip Marlow, the star of much of Chandler's fiction, and Bacall is the femme fatale. It you've never seen a film noir, or aren't sure what that phrase even means, watch this movie and you'll have your definition.

Of course, some people claim that Double Indemnity is the quintessential film noir, and others (aptly) point out that Bogart was really too much of a softie to be a great noir detective. Still, The Big Sleep is simultaneously entertaining, suspenseful, and a a perfect example of what has made film noir one of the most enduring and (eventually) respected film genres. Plus, while Double Indemnity sets up the archetypal characteristics of the genre, The Big Sleep puts them to a more satisfying use. In any case, check it out. It's a fantastic introduction to it's genre, as well as to some of the greatest stars of the silver screen. (BTW: Lauren Bacall was awarded an Academy Honorary Award at the most recent Oscars.)

How to (Really) Save Journalism

2010-04-23T16:49:00.003-06:00

I'm not the most experienced journalist out there, but that hasn't stopped me from formulating ideas on how to save the industry. In case you haven't heard, the newspaper business is in shambles because everyone is getting their news online these days. No subscriptions equals no money.

The New York Times' solution to this problem has been to start changing for online subscriptions. Later this year, you'll be able to read some of the paper's content online for free, but you'll have to pay to get all of it.

With all due respect to The New York Times, that's a terrible idea. Few are willing to pay for internet-based news, and the strategy risks turning the paper into a boutique publication with a very specialized—and limited—readership.

A better solution would be to eliminate most of the newspaper industry's physical infrastructure. Get rid of the presses, of course, but also close the offices. Shut down the phone lines. Stop buying cubical walls. Out with the industry's "things" and "places." Make everything digital.

At issue here is the fact that old media (newspapers) are trying to imposed old payment models (subscriptions) onto new media (the internet). Unfortunately for the papers, however, different kinds of media evolved their own, inherently different delivery platforms. Think about it: books radically changed the way people consume media. They all but killed oral tradition, and took learning out of the hands of a select elite.

Today, the printed word has had a good run, but that run is ending. (That link goes to Slate, by the way, which actually tried to charge for content at one point, but then gave up.) I think people still want to read the news, but they are doing it less and less on paper. To simply treat the internet as if it were paper is insanity. It ignores the fact that it's fundamentally different.

However, because the internet is a virtual place, it seems only fitting that internet-dependent companies become virtual as well. Reporters can still write and report, for example, without the physical office. They can work remotely, saving both themselves and their companies time and money, all the while adapting the content to the medium, not the other way around.

My two writing gigs have influenced my attitudes on this topic. First I write for Rhombus. Until about a month ago, I had actually never even met another person who works for Rhombus (I met the editor, coincidentally, on the street while walking home one day). We communicate entirely by facebook message at Rhombus, and there is literally no physical infrastructure for the magazine.

Contrast that, however, with my experience at the Daily Herald. There, I go into a gigantic building everyday where I have a computer, a phone, a desk, a break room, etc. All that stuff costs someone money, but the thing is, I don't really need any of it. I have my own cell phone, which I can just as easily use (and often do), my own computer, and a chair and table at my house.

In other words, I could do at least as good a job reporting for the Daily Herald at home, at the library, in a cafe, etc., as I'm currently doing. Who knows, I might even do a better job because I'd have fewer distractions.

In reality, I enjoy the social aspect of going into the office. I like being around people to work. But if it means that the industry will eventually dry up, or that the number of writing jobs goes from many thousands to many dozens, I'd gladly sacrifice that one aspect of the job to have the others.

Ultimately, major news outlets will probably always need some physical office for their head editors and executives. They may also need to occasionally call in their reporters for meetings (though I can't imagine why video chatting wouldn't be sufficient). However, a small office with a single conference room ought to be enough, even for the biggest papers. If someone needs specific tools to do his or her job, go ahead buy that person a computer and the software too. The company would still be saving money on rent, electricity, phone, etc.

These measures probably wouldn't completely offset the loses the newspaper industry is suffering, but they would represent a (currently absent) proclivity to look for creative solutions to new media-related problems. After all, it's called "new media" because it's not the same old thing, and the same old payment model just isn't going to work. And, in the end, even if they didn't completely solve the problem, they'd help. A lot.

Goodbye Academia Part 6: A Few More Thoughts on Teaching

2010-04-22T15:34:00.004-06:00

So I've been pleasantly surprised that people are reading this series, and even more so that a few of these posts have prompted discussion. I've been thinking a lot about some of the comments that were made in previous sections, and I wanted to discuss them briefly.

In Part 3, I talked about some of the frustrating aspects of teaching, and I pointed out that it was rare that my students really impressed me with their comments. As I've thought back over my time as a teacher, however, I can actually think of a bunch of instances when I was impressed by my students ideas. Once, for example, one of my classes wanted to discuss politics, so I threw out my lesson plan and we just debated for an hour. It was great and enlightening. So why did it feel like I was more often hearing the same thing over and over?

I think the curriculum largely to blame. I was teaching writing, and while that sometimes included critical-thinking exercises, it also included a lot of practical things. Like instructions on how to write thesis statements. Or how to do MLA citation. Or even grammar.

In retrospect, it seems like many of these practical considerations overwhelmed my courses. I'd want to discuss some interesting idea, but my students didn't understand yet how to craft a good thesis, so I'd have to backtrack and show them.

So, my students rarely had much to say about these practical things, and, to be honest, I don't either. After all, what is there to say, that's really interesting, about topic sentences? In the end, I think the reason my students were consistently coming up with old news was because we were in a writing class, as opposed to a philosophy, literature, or film course. In those settings there is an actual text to analyze, and that text is supposed to mean something larger about the world. In a writing class, the "text" is often a set of instructions on writing, and most analysis centers on how emulate good writers (or, worse, how to get a good grade).

As I've been typing this post I've also realized something else: a scholar keeps intellectually progressing, but each time a new semester starts, a teacher is back to square one with his/her students. It's frustrating because each time a person thinks about something—even something as mundane as a semicolon or topic sentence—that person might theoretically come up with a new insight.

However, if you teach the same thing over and over, you come to new insights that you students probably won't have the time to get to.

One semester, for example, I asked my students to go out on campus and determine what the thesis statement was for various objects. A few of them got it, but I think for most of them the idea of "thesis statements" hadn't simmered long enough in their minds for them to see it as a metaphorical idea that can be applied to anything.

This worked better when we tried it at the art museum, but at some point it might be interesting to discuss the ideological implications of campus architecture or floral design, as exemplified by those things' theses. It's hard to do that in a writing class, and when you do you're often neglecting something practical that you're supposed to be teaching.

Ultimately, then, I guess writing curriculum can be modified to discuss some fascinating things, but if it's taken me years to come up with the ideas, a lot of young undergrads won't have the background to appreciate them (yet). Also, there is administrative pressure, in the form of predetermined texts and course structures, to give students a "skill set" that they can use elsewhere (like, God help us, in the business school). It was an eye-opening experience as a graduate instructor, and one that fundamentally changed my career goals.

Monday Movie: Million Dollar Baby

2010-04-19T10:05:00.004-06:00

This month is Poetry Month. I have a blog about poetry that a wrote a few days ago and still need to post, but in the meantime, today's Monday Movie is... Million Dollar Baby.

If you've only heard of this movie, or if it's been a while since you watched it, you might be wondering what it has to do with Poetry Month. However, this movie is actually all about Yeats' poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfrey."

Superficially, Million Dollar Baby is about a female boxer, played by Hillary Swank, and her reluctant trainer, played by Clint Eastwood (who also directs the film). Morgan Freeman serves as the film's narrator, and the boxing gym's janitor.

Oddly, perhaps, Eastwood's character also studies Gaelic throughout the film and happens to enjoy Yeats. Once Swank's character begins competing as a boxer, he even givers her a Gaelic nickname, which endears her to fans across the world.

The Gaelic/Yeats connection, however, is more profound. Though only a few lines of "The Lake Isle of Innisfrey" are read in the movie, the themes between it and the film are highly analogous. In fact, I would almost call Million Dollar Baby an adaptation of the poem because it is essentially about the same thing. Eastwood's character (the protagonist) is even overtly driven by the poem.

In any case, it's a touching, if tragic, film that also is one of recent cinema's more successful uses of poetry. (You can read about a few more if you want in this poetry movie countdown that I wrote for Rhombus).

Goodbye Academia Part 5: The Public Intellectual

2010-04-15T13:29:00.003-06:00

I think that what I've been hoping to become as a result of my education, often without knowing it, is a public intellectual, or even a man of letters. And, basically, I see a successful public intellectual as being someone with the chops of an academic, but the charisma of a public figure. I see it as someone who thinks (and can write) as deeply as a professor, but who is also involved in the translation of those thoughts into the public consciousness.

And, despite some negative aspects to working in academia, there are definitely things I like about it, which I'd like to couple with non-scholarly publication and other work.

My understanding of what it takes to become a public intellectual is probably naive and biased. However, as far as I know, most professors don't regularly write commentary for newspapers or TV. Their books aren't praised for walking the line between academic and popular works. They aren't tapped to serve with politicians, or transition back and forth between academia and industries like, say, consulting (which theoretically should have a lot in common with the critical study rhetoric and texts).

In other words, most professors that I know tend to work almost exclusively within academia. And that's great.

But there is also a different kind of professor. At NYU for example, film professors listed publications in The Village Voice and The New York Times. Some of the professors I researched at USC and UCLA routinely serve as judges at well-known film festivals. Some of the English professors that I researched had more "public" work listed alongside their scholarship. (Herbert Blau, for example, at University of Washington, has worked in theater and fashion, but now also teaches in the University of Washington's English department.) The point here is that there are some people who write or produce both for academics, and others. (Stanley Fish, Wendell Barry, and Nigel Spivey are examples of people who have done this to one degree or another. An while I don't agree with everything they say, I do admire the venues available to them to say it.)

Obviously, the people who become public intellectuals are those who have risen to the top of their respective fields (with a lot of hard work). And, they also typically don't have those opportunities straight out of school. Yet, the another thing they seem to have in common is that they studied at, and then often worked at, really good schools. My conclusion: to become a public intellectual it's helpful to have an elite academic pedigree. Also, one has to aspire to that position. I think a lot of people are happy to simply teach and publish within their discipline. Which is cool of course. But others definitely hope for a more diverse work load.

Like I said, this is probably an incomplete vision of what it means to be an intellectual. It's certainly romanticized. But ultimately I don't think I'd be content teaching three or four classes a semester at a remote state school and publishing in Western Humanities Review or The Journal of American Culture for the next 30 years. (Both those journals are great ones that I used in my thesis.) I don't expect to have a regular column in The New York Times, but I'd like a career path that at least includes the possibility of public work/writing in addition to submitting work to academic journals. For most professors—and for whatever reason—it seems like those doors aren't just closed, they often don't exist at all.

So the point, it seems, is that like becoming, say, an astronaut, becoming a public intellectual requires a pretty specific career path. Without that path, the probability of reaching that goal is minuscule.

In my case, it was literally not until I began writing this series of blogs that I began to understand my own ambitions and goals, but as I look back on the choices I've made and the people I professionally admire, it seems obvious that I was looking for some balance between academia and public work (because I enjoy parts of both). Not surprisingly I suppose, as I've gravitated away from scholarship, I've moved toward journalism, which is in many ways the flip side of academia. Instead of emphasizing specialized writing, it's more populist and very general. It has a clear purpose, and reason for existing. Obviously it has it's own problems too, but without a degree from an elite university a choice likely has to be made between public work and scholarship, and I'm as surprised as anyone to find myself gravitating toward the former.

Goodbye Academia Part 4: The Work (Scholarship)

2010-04-14T10:25:00.003-06:00

I'd like my career to be at least one of two things: fun, or meaningful. Ideally, it'd be both. And while I know that there are aspects to even the funnest and most meaningful jobs that are tedious and un-enjoyable, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a career to have an overall net positive amount of fun and/or meaningful-ness. (Obviously many people, and perhaps myself in the future,have to work just to survive. Still, who doesn't want to have a job that offers more?)

In my last post of this series, I basically commented on the less-than-fun aspects of being a professor. But that leaves the question: is it meaning? Does it matter?

Increasingly, my answer to that question is "no." When I entered BYU's master's program I was very confident about the power of professors to shape society. They teach people, sure, but they also publish research that affects how people thing. To be honest, this aspect of the job excited me much more than teaching.

Yet as I researched, I became increasingly disillusioned with the academic publishing environment. Scholarly conferences were not only boring, but individual sessions were poorly attended. No one seemed to care. Scholarly journals weren't getting much more interesting, just because I was moving up in education status. Though I had frequently defended the relevance of humanities scholarship, by the time I was halfway through my master's degree I had completely lost faith in its ability to do anything but earn people tenure. In other words, it didn't seem to matter.

Basically, academic publishing in the humanities is, at best, a kind of trickle-down intellectualism. It supposes that there are a few experts who are qualified to explore certain topics, and that what they find will eventually (somehow) influence something. That's a really disheartening thing. It means that while most humanities scholars are politically liberal, they are among the most culturally conservative people I can think of. They are trying to conserve the past (literature, or other historic texts), and they are doing it by joining a small corps of power-holding elites. So it doesn't matter how many liberal issues they support, their career choices are literally the definition of conservatism.

Which has made me wonder: where is the populism? Where are the people who are so skeptical of power structures that they try to redistribute authority in academia?

The answer, of course, is that they're probably not academics. Or, if they are, they're exceptions to the rule. They probably don't publish as much, get denied tenure, and end up teaching at lesser institutions.

Or whatever. The point is that as I've come to see the academic publishing environment as more conservative, as well as less capable of affecting social change, I've become under-enthused about entering it.

Monday Movie: Annie Hall

2010-04-12T16:51:00.006-06:00

Most people seem to have heard of Woody Allen, but a lot of people haven't seen very many (or any) of his films. Which I think is a real shame. Though Allen's films don't always play in the local cineplex, they're usually smart, witty, and highly entertaining. After putting for a little extra effort to watch his work, Allen has even become one of my favorite directors.

So, today's Monday Movie is... Annie Hall. If you're even remotely familiar with Woody Allen, this may well be the movie you've seen. If you're a fan, this recommendation might seem redundant, or even worthy of eye rolling (it's like telling a science fiction fan to check out Star Wars.)

However, this recommendation is specifically for people who aren't familiar with the director's work, which, sadly, seems to be a lot of people. The film is a romantic comedy, but one with a brain. Allen himself stars, along with Diane Keaton, who together make one of cinema's great on-screen couples.

Like all of Allen's work, Annie Hall is also highly inter-textual, constantly referencing literature, psychology, film history, philosophy, and other things. Yet even if you don't catch the many allusions in the movie, it's still a charming story about the ups and downs of love. It's also a great example of how Allen uses experimental techniques for comic effect.

So if you haven't seen Annie Hall, or if you just haven't seen it lately, get ready for an evening of neuroses, self-analysis, and hypochondria. And

, of course, hilarity.

My Old Band, Winston McCoy

2010-04-10T17:19:00.003-06:00

Though I usually try to refrain from posting things that are simply about myself without any other critical discussion, I've decided to share the video below. (And besides, this blog seems to be getting less and less discussion oriented and more and more about the stuff that I'm up to.)

Anyway, the video is of my band from many years ago. It's at the old Muse Music, in Provo, Utah, which was between the new Music Music and Velour (on University Ave). Also, it was a battle of the bands that night. We had three camera people filming us, and afterward I edited the whole thing into a DVD and we tried to sell it at our subsequent shows. Unfortunately, we didn't play all that many more shows after this, and we only ever sold one copy of the DVD. Still it had an awesome DVD cover (which I also made), and was very professionally done ;)

The last thing that's worth knowing is that at the end of the show, I smashed my guitar. It was epic. If you want to see the whole DVD, drop me a line. I typically force people to watch it all the time at my house, so I'd be more than happy to oblige you.

Goodbye Academia Part 3: The Work (Teaching)

2010-04-07T16:12:00.004-06:00

In my last post about academia, I noted that the absurdity of the job market is one of the things that had deterred me from entering the profession. Another thing was the work itself.

There are a couple of big things professors do: teach, and publish research. Obviously there are a lot of other, somewhat smaller things they do, but those are the biggies. In this post I'll talk about the teaching, and in the next post I'll tackle publishing and other aspects of the profession.

To begin, I should say that I love teaching. It's like putting on a performance. I love the kind of confident, self-deprecating humor that fits so well in the humanities classroom. I love when students run with a topic and actually seem engaged. Much of the time I also enjoy conferencing with students, particularly when we don't have to focus on specific assignments, but rather talk more abstractly about ideas.

Overall, I think I could be very happy being a teacher of English, film, and other humanities related topics. On the other hand, there are some terrible aspects of the job.

Like grading. I truly despise grading. I hate it because it's un-enjoyable, and I hate it because I don't like the idea of grades in the first place. My ideal university wouldn't concern itself with quantifiable measures of success like grades; rather people would learn what they want and be tested by how they apply their skills, debate their ideas, and critique their environment.

Obviously that's overly utopian and simplistic (especially today, when education increasingly values "results" as opposed to learning), but that doesn't change the fact that hate to grade papers. Usually when I get papers I weigh the value of throwing them all away and telling my students they were incinerated in terrible car wreck on my way home (which I miraculously survived). I've never resorted to that, but the point is that grading is a big deterrent to becoming a teacher.

More broadly, however, I've also been surprised at how different a student-teacher relationship looks from the latter position. As a student, I've always enjoyed debating and coming to new conclusions. In many ways, that was the only way I could learn. However, I didn't realize that the vast majority of student ideas are old news to teachers. (I think I understood this vaguely, but I didn't realize how quickly it got monotonous).

When I was teaching English 150, for example, I'd read the textbook many, many times by my final semester. That meant that students reading it for the first time were going to have a hard time thinking of or saying something that I hadn't either heard or thought of first. Or that was even very interesting.

That's not to say that it didn't happen, it just didn't happen that often. And, I don't think that's a reflection on my students. I had just been thinking about the topics for so much longer, and talked to so many more people about them, that it was rare for something new to come up in class or student-teacher conferences.

I remember one time a student did come in to a conference with some amazing ideas. It was invigorating and we talked passionately and at length about those ideas. When the conference ended I was simultaneously exhilarated, but also wondered if I had crossed the line of what was appropriate; I had simply been sharing and debating opinions as a person, without objectivity and or any attention to how it helped the student with any particular task (I also momentarily ceased to be concerned with towing any particular party line—which was always a struggle at BYU—and was just honest about what I thought about things).

The point is that my teachers have frequently opened my eyes to new ideas, but my students rarely have. Maybe that's my problem, I don't know. But that's the way things have gone. (My students at SLCC frequently amaze me, but that has more to do with their life stories and has little connection to what I'm actually supposed to be teaching them.)

There are also other things about teaching that I don't want to do. For example, I dislike teaching writing and composition. I would actually have emphasized in rhetoric as a master's student at BYU, except that that option's most obvious career trajectory led to teaching writing classes. For me, the prospect of a life spent teaching First-year Writing or (worse) Advanced Writing was ineffably depressing. Many of my good friends have chosen that path and love it, but for some reason, I just don't.

So all in all, there are aspects of teaching that I like, and that I don't like. Like the job market, this fact led me only to apply to a few really good schools, because I felt that that decision would lead to a career in which I had more control over which classes I taught, how I taught them, and how often. On the other hand, if I was going to have to teach too many classes (and thus have more grading), or classes I dislike and/or fundamentally disagree with (like composition courses), I wasn't interested.

Monday Movie: The Ox Bow Incident

2010-04-05T09:58:00.003-06:00

For many people, Westerns mean long, boring movies about cowboys. And the genre certainly has plenty of those. However, Westerns can also be taut, trilling explorations of social issues, which is the case in The Ox Bow Incident.

The film was made in 1943 (and is in black and white), and stars Henry Fonda. If you're not already into Westerns, that might sound like exactly the kind of movie that you don't want to watch.

Yet, the film also is about fear, paranoia, and mob mentality. It tells the story of a small town, plagued by cattle rustlers. Eventually, the town forms a posse and goes out to get the rustlers. When they find a few men camping outside of town, the posse decides they must be the thieves and decides to hang them. Much of the film's narrative revolves around the debate over the accused rustlers' innocence or guilt.

It's a timely film for today, because our society is still struggling with how to treat the accused, and how to avoid the problems of mob mentality. So if you want an intelligent introduction to the Western, or just another great film to watch, try The Ox Bow Incident.

Abortion Surprises

2010-04-04T14:12:00.002-06:00

Probably as a result of the health care debate, I've been thinking about abortion lately. And as I thought about it, I was surprised to discover that my feelings on the issue aren't as strong as I imagined.

Here's where I stand: I don't think abortion is murder. I don't think that it should be illegal. I am opposed to overturning Roe vs. Wade. On the other hand, I don't think it's a particularly good thing. For the very few women I know who've had abortions, it was a traumatic and heart-wrenching experience. And while I don't think that abortion equates to killing an innocent baby, it certainly equates with terminating something that can become a baby. Basically, I'd rather see people use (and be educated about) contraceptives, hopefully to reduce the number of women who have to experience abortions.

More importantly, perhaps, abortion as a political topic is something I'd probably be willing to compromise on. I think something like health care (reform), which I support, is important enough to make concessions to people to the left and the right of my views about abortion.

Yet, for a little while there, abortion was a major reform stumbling block, mostly, it seemed, because it became a fundamental moral issue over which people on either side of the aisle supposedly could not compromise. Why is that?

What has surprised me about this whole thing is that I think I've been pushed left by those on the right. When people start yelling "baby killer" or insisting that "abortion is murder," my natural tendency is to adopt an equally firm stance. It's as if when people start trying to shove something down my throat, my natural reaction is to say "Fine. Screw you, I'll shove it right back, if that's how it's going to be."

In other words, the vehemence of anti-abortion movement has galvanized my attitudes about the topic and made me less willing to compromise. Unless I stop to very carefully consider my attitudes (which realistically I can't constantly do), and am removed from any anti-abortionist, I'm adamantly pro-choice. It's only after time and serious contemplation that I'm willing give and take.

This is obviously problematic for the anti-abortion movement because they're currently fighting the status quo (legalized abortion), yet for many people, screaming about morality is exactly the thing that pushes people away.

However, more broadly, I think that this type of situation occurs all the time. Overly zealous people on either side of the political spectrum get worked into a fervor, and as a result their opponents become equally inflexible. It's an interesting phenomenon, which obviously has implications in many areas. And while this is surely no new realization, I was surprised in the case of abortion to find that I don't have as many passionate feelings as I thought I did.

Goodbye Academia Part 2: The Job Market

2010-04-01T14:39:00.005-06:00

I love studying and teaching, but I can't do it forever and still manage to pay the rent. That means that, unfortunately, the academic job market has been a factor in my PhD application process, and my recent drifting away from academia. Here are a few thoughts on a profession that is apparently scarce, not particularly high paying, and takes forever to qualify for. (read part 1 of this series here!)

First, getting a professorship in the humanities is really, really hard. And it's no better in film departments. Recently, a few friends of mine have circulated this article, which paints a pretty dire picture. It says that hiring of humanities professors may be down 40% this year, and that's on top of the already low hiring rates that were declining before the recession. (During one semester in BYU's master's program I took a class in which we spent at least a month studying academia and its job environment, among other things. My understanding from that course, and other things I've read, was that a few years ago about 40% of recent English PhD holders got jobs. More recently, I've heard that number drop to 20%.)

So that's pretty terrible. It's also one of the main reasons I only applied to prestigious schools. I figured that with a degree from NYU or UCLA, the chances of getting a job increased. Of course, my professors always noted that a motivated job seeker can distinguish him/herself no matter what school he/she attended. But realistically, if there are two job candidates that are equal, coming from a better school counts. And there are a lot more than two candidates who are equal.

The other weird thing about this whole situation is how much time it takes to get through a PhD program (most of those I applied for claimed they took five years, though I know many professors who have taken longer to do theirs.) According to that article I linked to above, a lot of people finish with debt. And in some cases, a lot of debt. Many professors don't get paid that well either (especially considering that how long they've been in school), so the debt/money issue could continue to be a real problem for years to come.

This is another reason I only applied to a limited number of prestigious programs. All of them potentially offered funding, and if any of them accepted me without funding, I was prepared to decline. (With the exception, perhaps, of NYU, simply because it'd be great to study film in New York City.)

Realistically, however, I didn't want to invest five or more years and a whole lot of borrowed money, only to spend many more years looking for an endangered-species-of-a-job. If I was going to do a PhD, I wanted better odds at having some security. Of course, I wasn't attracted to the profession by the money, but I was (and still am) growing tired of being a starving student.

It's worth mentioning that there are other kinds of jobs for PhD grads. Read that article above for more info on things like adjunct teaching. I'm currently an adjunct, and while it's an interesting socio-cultural experience, it's no way to survive.

Ultimately, then, I saw the PhD application process as a forerunner to the job application process; getting into a good school foreshadows, in my opinion, the possibility of getting a good job. Getting into a mediocre school or getting rejected, on the other hand, foreshadows getting a bad job, or none at all. There are exceptions to this pattern, but they are just that, exceptions. And I didn't want to bank on being an exception.

Monday Movie: The Atomic Cafe

2010-03-29T10:05:00.004-06:00

Though I had heard about The Atomic Cafe for years, I didn't see it until recently. And it's great. The film is a documentary that exclusively uses old film clips to tell the story of the first few decades of the Cold War. That means that initially, the film feels like an old movie.

As it progresses, however, it becomes apparent that the filmmakers have juxtaposed the film clips in such a way as to bring out a darkly humorous critique of the Cold War. It's funny and alarming, all at once. (It also makes me sad that I'll probably never teach a course on film juxtaposition, as this film would be perfect for such a class.) Ultimately, The Atomic Cafe, which was made in 1982, is a little bit like a documentary version of Dr. Strangelove. It's entertaining, informative, and well worth a watch.

As an added bonus, you can actually watch the entire movie online, here.

Or, just check out this clip:

Goodbye Academia Part 1: Rejection

2010-03-25T15:12:00.009-06:00

It looks like I won't be doing a PhD, at least in the immediate future. I was going to write a single post explaining why and what I thought, but it got very, very long. So, I've decided to break it up into parts. Also, I'd be lying if I didn't say that doing a multipart series on my blog wasn't at least partially inspired by a friend's fantastic discussion of his beard-related problems at BYU, which you can read here.

After finishing a master's degree at BYU last year, I decided to apply to grad school to do a PhD. There's not many careers that require—or even value—an MA in English, so teaching at a university seemed like a good thing to shoot for.

So, all through fall of 2009, my primary "occupation" was applying to PhD graduate programs (I did other things, but saw them as secondary). Though I initially planned to apply to around 15, I only ended up submitting applications to 9. Six were in film, and three in English. They were:

Film:

NYU

USC

UCLA

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Brown

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

English:

University of Pennsylvania

Northwestern

University of Washington.

I chose these schools based on simple criteria: 1) Programs that appealed to me based on their focus/faculty specialties, 2) Programs with enough prestige to get a good job after finishing, with at least a remote possibility of it turning into a really good job down the road, 3) Location, 4) Other assorted factors.

It's also worth mentioning that though my current degrees are already in English, I almost didn't even apply to any English programs. I have a lot more work experience in film, am more interested in it as an art form, and liked the film programs more. In the end, however, I decided that I'd love to live in Washington state (hence that school), UPenn has great placement and is an Ivy League (and I had a good contact there), and I also had a good contact at Northwestern.

I also think I had a pretty strong application. I had a number of conference presentations, a good writing sample (according to some professors), a published film review in a scholarly journal (and a number of non-scholarly publications with varying pertinence to the field), strong letter's of recommendation (also according to the people who wrote them), etc. Overall, my letter recommenders told me that I was a strong candidate.

Nevertheless, I have been rejected by all but the University of Michigan, and I don't have high hopes for that school. I have no idea why I've been rejected, but the most basic reason is that the schools I applied for received more suitable applications. I also didn't apply very broadly (as I was advised to do by many people). Three schools in English and six in film hardly ensures entrance into either field. Plus, I mostly only applied to top tier programs (Washington and Michigan aren't necessarily the very top in those respective fields, but they're still very good).

Because I'm not dying to undergo the financial, emotional, and psychological bludgeoning that the PhD application/rejection process entails, my many years of school are likely at an end. The application for each school cost between $60 and $90. Plus, I retook the GRE (big mistake, btw), which cost over $100, and I had to pay $20 to have my scores sent to more than few schools. There were also a bunch of other expenses along the way which made the application process very expensive.

More importantly, no matter how nice the rejection letters are, they might as well be a blank piece of paper with the words "you're worthless" scribbled on them. (Or better yet, they could be one of those audio cards that I think are made by Hallmark and play a song when you open them. Except in this case, they could just scream obscenities and insults and leave you to figure out the rest.) Though I don't actually believe I'm worthless, I had no idea how difficult it would be to receive 8 (soon to be 9) consecutive rejection letters. Seriously, it takes a toll.

Of course, there is still the possibility that I'll get accepted into Michigan. It's slim, I think, but it exists. However, at this point, I may not accept an offer to go to Michigan, as I'm increasingly content with the way things are turning out. Since I've been out of school I've cultivated some new career possibilities, and my qualms with academia are stronger than ever. So stay tuned for the next installment of this series to find out why getting rejected might actually be a really good thing.

European Itinerary

2010-03-24T16:30:00.008-06:00

So Laura and I finally sat down and hammered out a schedule of where we're going to be, and when, during the European leg of our trip. Here's what we have so far:

June 29-July 1 (2 nights, 3-ish days): London

July 1-July 2 (at night): cross the English Channel on a boat

July 2 or 3: Amsterdam (for most of a day) en route to Berlin

July 3-5 (2 nights, 3 days) : Berlin

July 5-6 (at night): train from Berlin to Prague

July 6-8 (3-ish nights): Prague

July 9: Vienna, en rout to Franfurt and/or Munich

July 11: arrive in Bacharach (Germany/Rhine River region)

July 12 or 13: leave Germany

July 13-17 (4 nights, 5-ish days): Paris

July 18: French country side

July 20: Chamonix (French Alps), en route to Aosta, Italy

July 21-23/24 (3 nights, 4-ish days): Venice and Venetian countryside (Padua, Ravenna, etc.)

July 24-27 (3 nights, 4ish days): Florence

July 27-28: Cinque Terre

July 29-Aug 4 (6-ish days): Rome

Aug 4: Salt Lake City

A few things about this schedule. First, it's just tentative. We've already booked our hotel in London, but other than that we haven't paid for anything but our plane tickets. In the big cities we'll probably book in advance, but we also want to keep things as flexible as possible. If we like Berlin, for example, we'll try to stay longer and cut something else short.

We've also decided to do some of Europe's "hits." Though Paris, Rome, Venice, etc. might be pretty typical tourist spots, we've never been to them and felt like our first trip to the continent (or at least, my first trip) should hit the major sites.

On a similar note, we've realized that even a month isn't enough time to visit even close to all the places we want to go. I'll mention what went on the chopping block my next post, but the biggest lesson I've learned from this lesson is something I saw in a Rick Steves' video: assume you'll come back. If anything, planning this trip have given me a greater desire to return on future trips.

Also, we are getting the Eurail pass. More about this later, but for now suffice it to say that we tried to hit cities that are all close together. Our trip, if plotted on a map, zigzags across the continent in such a way that we'll rarely spend more than a few hours traveling. It means we'll be able to hit more cities than we could by using budget airlines (and we'll have less stress).

Monday Movie: In America

2010-03-22T08:45:00.004-06:00

Usually, when I hear a movie described as being "uplifting" or even "family oriented," I know that it's terrible. However, strangely, those are probably among the best words that I can think of to describe the utterly stunning In America.

The movie tells the story of a family of recent Irish immigrants (two parents and two young daughters). They've just moved to New York and are trying to make it. They live in a hot, dirty apartment, and the father of the family wants to become an actor. The movie basically follows them as they try to get enough money to survive, and deal with a recent tragedy. It's told from the perspective of the oldest daughter.

The movie is set in contemporary society (as opposed to a lot of immigrant movies that are set in the early 20th century). It is also "heart-warming" without being sickeningly sentimental. It's basically a straight-faced telling of an immigrant experience. It's not gratuitious or bleak (or trying to hard to be hip), but also doesn't gloss over the difficulty that immigrants have. So if you're looking for a movie that's both uplifting and intellectually stimulating (which is a rare thing indeed), check out In America.

Neon Trees

2010-03-18T14:33:00.008-06:00

Have you ever wished you could go back in time and meet a famous person before he or she got famous? As a music lover, I know I have. Wouldn't that be cool, I've thought, to see The Beatles in a little club in Hamburg? Or Radiohead when they were still high school students in Oxford, England?

Well right now Provo, Utah has a band that is on the cusp of stardom. That band is Neon Trees. They've been wowing local audiences for years now, but this week they released their debut record "Habit," on Mercury Records. That means that their record is available everywhere. You can find it in Target, Best Buy, and pretty much anywhere across the country. It's also on iTunes and is one of the week's top downloads. In fact, the album's single is a free download on iTunes. Just go and click on it and you'll have it. (Though I'd recommend getting the whole album, because it's fantastic.)

And just to reiterate, this is a Provo, Utah, band. Though they don't have any pending shows in Provo (having just played one last weekend), you can still follow them from their early days. If they blow up and become huge, you'll have been there (mostly) from the start.

However, this isn't just about bragging rights. It's also about listening to some really great music. Though I'd argue that Neon Trees is best enjoyed live, their album is very cool. To go back to The Beatles analogy, if you had seen them in their early days you'd have something to talk about, but you'd also probably have had a unique musical experience that would have been pleasurable in it's own right.

Of course, Neon Trees will certainly not become as famous or influential as The Beatles, or even Radiohead. No band really can at this point, and many bands that make it as far as the Neon Trees have don't ever fully realize their potential. However, if ever there was band that seemed destined for success, Neon Trees are it. They've been getting loads of positive press, and this week are playing at the South By Southwest Festival, in Texas. They'll also be appearing soon on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and later this year on tour with 30 Seconds to Mars.

If it wasn't clear by now, I'm pretty biased in favor of the band, but that's largely because I've had a series of positive experiences with them. I've written about them for Rhombus, and the Daily Herald, twice. So go check them out and be one of the first people to listen to an awesome band.

All of these picture were taken by Laura, at the band's Velour show on March 12.

Monday Movie: The Day of the Jackel

2010-03-15T17:05:00.003-06:00

This week's movie recommendation is Fred Zinnemann's The Day of the Jackal, from 1973. It's about a mysterious (possibly British) assassin, who is hired to kill then French president Charles de Gaulle. The film is stylish, exciting, and unique. It sort of feels like a heist movie at times, but other times is more of a thriller (albeit one from the 70s).

So if you like intelligent, thrilling dramas that aren't excessively gritty or bleak (not that there's anything wrong with movies like that), The Day of the Jackal should be a well spent couple of hours.

Travel Tips: Buying Plane Tickets

2010-03-12T10:32:00.004-07:00

In my last post I discussed (at length) the process by which Laura and I got our tickets for our up coming trip. However, I wanted to consolidate the lessons we learned into one succinct post, in case that might benefit someone. So here are a few of the things that I'd recommend if you're planning a long, overseas trip.

1. Be flexible. With work schedules this can be tough, but it can also save hundreds of dollars (or more). Keep in mind the more flexible you are, the cheaper the trip will be. And that doesn't just mean being flexible with your dates. Consider flying into different airports, visiting different places, etc. Basically, if there are a bunch of places you want to go, look at them all before you get your heart set on anything in particular, and then chose the one that's most aligned with your budget.

2. Use a travel agent for long or complex flight plans. I probably wouldn't call an agent if I was flying to San Diego to see my in-laws for Christmas because I can find ridiculously low fares for a trip like that on my own, in just a few minutes. I also know exactly when and where I'm going. However, for longer trips, where I might have some wiggle room, travel agents are very helpful.

3. Keep in mind, a travel agent will not cost you more. This is a common misconception, but if the fare or itinerary an agent gives you isn't to your liking, you don't have to buy it. They are trying to win your business, so it's their responsibility to be competitive. And a lot of the time, they will be.

4. Plan in advance. The first time I looked up fares for our trip was over a year ago. That means we were thinking about our trip at least a year and a half before it was supposed to happen. Ideally, you'd track the price of your trip for years before doing it, so you'd have a really good idea when the best time to get tickets will be (though an agent should be able to give advice about that).

5. Round up. Decide you're initially willing to spend, then add a few hundred dollars to that number and assume that's what the tickets are going to cost you. Doing this will provide a psychological cushion if things turn out to be more expensive, and if prices turn out to be cheaper (as they did for us), you'll have even more money to spend on other things during the trip. This may mean that you end up waiting a little longer to go on the trip as you save up more, but in the end you'll be less stressed out about money.

Buying Plane Tickets

2010-03-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

Laura and I bought our plane tickets last week, after many hours of exhaustive research. This is our itinerary:

May 31: depart Salt Lake at 2:45 p.m., arrive in Dallas at 6:25 p.m., depart Dallas at 7:55 p.m.
June 1: arrive in Sao Paulo at 7:40 a.m.
June 28: depart Sao Paulo at 4:15 p.m.
June 29: arrive in London at 7:20 a.m.
Aug 4: depart Rome at 11:30 a.m., arrive in Chicago at 3:05 p.m., depart Chicago at 6:45 p.m., arrive in Salt Lake at 9:10 p.m.

Including all taxes, fees, etc., this itinerary is costing us $1864.30 per person.

Even at just a casual glance, this airfare seems pretty good for the number of flights we'll be taking, and the miles we'll be covering. So how did we get it? And could we have done even better?

First, the short answer to the first question is that we used a travel agent. However, it might be useful to explain that a little bit.

When we decided to go on a multi-continent trip, I initially wanted to use a travel agent because our goal was fairly complex. Also, all the travel writers I'd read said it would be easier and more cost efficient. That said, however, I was skeptical because travel agents have always struck me as an outdated relic from the pre-Internet days, when people couldn't figure out their own airfare. What, I wondered, was the point of using travel agents if all the savings they could get me were cancelled out by fees (I figured) I'd have to pay them?

As it turns out, however, travel agents make their money on commission and the price they give you should already include any money they're making. Also, travel agents typically have relationships and contracts with airlines and other travel agencies, which means they often have access to fares that are even lower than can be found online.

Once I learned that, I decided to contact a travel agency to see if they could compete with the fares I could find on my own. As a BYU alum, I discovered that I can continue to use the university's travel service, so I decided contact them. After calling around a bit I was finally connected to a travel agent at BYU who said he'd find some options for me.

The man I talked to got back to me within a few days, but what he gave me was almost an incomprehensible itinerary that was more expensive than the fares I found on my own (his itinerary was just under $2800 per ticket). Somehow, he must have also misunderstood what I wanted to do, because the trip he offered was less than half as long as I wanted (he had us in Brazil and Europe for about two weeks each). To cap it all off he was kind of abrupt on the phone. I'm not going to publicly name him, but if you're planning to use BYU's travel agency I will tell you privately so you can avoid a similar experience.

That was pretty discouraging, so Laura and I decided to take a stab at booking our own plane tickets. Laura spearheaded this effort and probably spent at least 30 hours over a couple of weeks looking at fares. I spent less time looking for fares, but still put in some hours.

The key, we discovered was being extremely flexible. We didn't care where we left from, flew into, or even what days we traveled on. We were willing to leave from Salt Lake, LAX, or anywhere in between. We also knew that we wanted to travel through Europe over the course of a month, but didn't care if we went north or south.

Eventually, Laura found a few options leaving from LAX that were under $2000. It would have also meant that we'd be going from Brazil to Rome, then leaving from London to return to the U.S. However, with taxes and fees, these fares were actually at least $2400, and most of the time they were closer to $2700. Also, most of them included a layover in New York that would have required us to travel from JFK airport to Newark, and that is supposedly a night mere. Still, the fares weren't prohibitively expensive and we were getting ready to buy them.

During this whole process, however, my dad recommended a different BYU travel agent. I was again skeptical, given my previous experience, but decided that since it didn't cost anything to have her look, I'd give her a call.

My experience with this second travel agent was the polar opposite of those I had with the first one. While I was on the phone, she experimented with different dates, airports, and other options. She told me exactly what she was doing and searched all the companies BYU had contracts with to find the lowest fares. She was kind and reassuring (when I bluntly asked her if she could beat the fares I had found online, she told me she could fly us around the world for those prices and began looking for something cheaper with gusto). Eventually she came up with the price I mentioned above (which was actually higher than she had expected it to be, but apparently flying from Brazil to Europe is pretty pricey). Though the prices is only a little cheaper than what online travel sites initially quoted, factoring in taxes we figure we saved at least $600 per ticket, and realistically we probably saved closer to $800 or $900. We will be using American Airlines for the first few legs of the trip, and British Airways for the second.

So that's how we got that fare. But could we have done better?

I doubt it, and if we could have the trip would have been much more stressful. For example, our flight from Brazil to Europe is non-stop. That means that we save at least a day in travel time (more time to sight-see), plus we don't have any stressful New York-to-Newark connections. We also don't have any real red-eye flights, and we won't have to drive down to LA, which should save us at least $200 in gas.

The other amazing thing about using the travel agent was that as long as there were seats available on the flights, we could get that same price. In other words, prices for each leg of the trip didn't change if we adjusted if by a few days. When we tried to book by ourselves, we found that certain days (Aug 11, for example) were cheaper than any other days around them. With the travel agent, on the other hand, we managed to extend our trip in Brazil by a couple of days, and come back at a more convenient time. In short, the travel agent offered flexibility coupled with low prices.

Monday Movie: Food Inc.

2010-03-08T08:43:00.003-07:00

I honor of the academy awards last night, today's film recommendation is Food Inc. I saw this film a few months ago and was impressed; it presents a whole bunch of information in a way that it understandable and compelling. It basically goes into the ways in which food production (and, thus, consumption) has changed over the last 100 years, and how that is a problem.

The film isn't perfect, though. I did feel like it was a bit scattered and lacked a cohesive narrative. Still, it was informative and I've found myself thinking about it often. The academy apparently agreed, as it was nominated (but didn't win) an academy award.

I have included a video from the movie below, however, the "official trailer in HD" has embedding disabled, so you'll actually have to go to youtube and watch it here.

Travel Blogging

2010-03-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

If you're friends with me on facebook, you may know that I recently bought plane tickets for a rather extensive trip. This summer, Laura and I will be traveling from the U.S. to Brazil, and then from Brazil directly to Europe. We leave on May 31st, stay in Brazil until June 28th, and then leave Europe on Aug 4th (so about a month on each continent). During that time I probably won't blog about anything but the trip, but I'm also planning on blogging about our preparations leading up to it.

Eventually, I am going to have a different site to chronicle the trip, and share any tips that Laura and I learn a long the way. However, in the meantime, this blog will be were I talk about the trip. I'm planning to share this information for a few reasons. First, because I think it might be interesting, at least to a few people out there. I know I love reading about my friends adventures on their blogs. Also, I've found that blogs have generally been an invaluable resource as I've been planning my own trip. My friend, for example, wrote this blog about his extensive trip in South America. Though it wasn't strictly a "travel blog" in the sense that it only talks about travel and tries to advise people, it is actually a great resource for finding out to do a trip down there.

I've also found that while I've been to a fair number of places, I know people who have traveled to just about every country in the world. Not only is it interesting to hear what different people have to say about different places, it's also been useful to me as I've been figuring out what to do. So, hopefully, my upcoming travel posts will be similarly useful and helpful. Next up: how Laura and I got cheap airfare for a long and complicated flight itinerary.

Alice in Movie Land

2010-03-05T10:17:00.003-07:00

In honor of today's release of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, here are a couple of other interpretations of the same story. And, judging by the reviews that this newest version is getting, these other movies are probably better too.

First off is Woody Allen's Alice. I'm always surprised that Allen seems to have a movie for every occasion, and this is no exception. This film is far from my favorite Allen film, but that's not say much because I love much of his work. Plus, it is an entertaining and stimulating film. It's also not really much of a comedy. Rather, it's more of a magical-realist-dramedy. Still, it's well worth a watch.

I couldn't find the trailer online, but you can read a blurb by the New York Times about the movie here.

The second film is Phoebe in Wonderland. This is a truely delightful film that captures the child-like perspective that last year's Where the Wild Things Are strove desperately for, but most failed to achieve. The story follows a young girl as she struggles to live in an increasingly incomprehensible world. As she feels more and more unable to relate, she retreats into a fantasy land that is inspired by her mother's research on Alice in Wonderland.

Text-To-Speech Websites

2010-03-03T10:26:00.002-07:00

For some reason, I can't see my own typos. I can read the same thing ten times, and each time miss the same mistake. This was probably a problem throughout my life, but has become particularly problematic recently as I've been writing for the Daily Herald. Sometimes I'll finish a story and read over it again and again trying to catch everything, but inevitably when I turn it in to my editor, he'll see things I missed.

If you ever suffer from a similar problem, you might be interested in these awesome Text-To-Speech websites. Using them you can get your stuff proof read. Or, if you're like one of my friends, you can put R. Kelly lyrics into them and enjoy hours of entertainment! (Seriously, it is cool.) Either way, text-to-speech websites are an underappreciated corner of the world wide web.

The best site I found was this one. Its strengths are that it works quickly, and it doesn't take you to a different page to listen to the speech. Visually, the page is kind of cluttered, but the voice was also one of the best/most natural sounding that I found, so I overlooked its weaknesses. Also, I used it yesterday to proof read some stuff I wrote for the Daily Herald and was impressed at just how advanced it was. When it read over addresses, for example, that were written out as "300 N 400 West" it actually said "north" instead of just "n." Also, when it read "$20" it said "twenty dollars," as opposed to "dollars twenty." That suprised me because it meant it was scanning ahead at least a little bit.

I also found this AT&T site. It has the advantage of being less cluttered, and it's run by a company with name recognition, but it also navigates away from the home page to read the text out loud (and uses a quicktime format for the audio).

There are many text-to-speech sites out there, but so far I haven't found any that are better than that first one. So, if you're like me and you enjoy catching writing problems and listening to funny voices read stuff, check them out.

(note: I didn't use one of these sites for this post, so it probably still has problems)

Movie Monday: The Triplets of Belleville

2010-03-01T09:59:00.008-07:00

I have a deep love for animation, so this Movie Monday is the French film The Triplets of Belleville. This movie came out in 2003 and is an affectionate and sometimes bizarre exploration of animation history. It's also a charming and has some great music.

I think it's also worth mentioning that it's very watchable. When I first saw the trailer for this movie I throught it was going to be a somewhat opaque, if enjoyable, musical that would be light on plot. While it does indeed have some great music and the plot requires significant suspension of disbelief, it is still very linear. In other words, I expected this film to be more art-house than it ended up being and it should subsequently appeal to both mainstream and indie audiences.

New Layout/Thoughts on Good Blog Aesthetics

2010-02-24T10:16:00.001-07:00

If you've visited this blog before this week, you probably noticed that it suddenly looks different. Rest assured that it is still the same Jim/Blog as always (sometimes when blogs I enjoy change their layouts I'm temporarily unsure if I've visited the wrong site.)

Anyway, I've know since I began blogging that I needed a better layout. Up until this most recent change I had been using one of the basic layouts that blogger offers. It wasn't particularly professional looking, interesting, or even easy to read. Unfortunately, I also haven't had the time to change it. Until now.

As I considered what I wanted, I came up with this informal list of things I look for in a successful blog layout:

1. It shouldn't be overly generic looking. In my case, I wanted something that was unique and customizable enough to be distinctive.

2. It shouldn't look like a boring web magazine or tech support site.

3. It shouldn't have white text on a black background. I know many of my friends blogs have black backgrounds and white fonts — and that has kind of a cool, edgy look — but it's also really hard to read. Every time I read those blogs (especially in low lighting) my retinas feel burned.

4. It should still look professional. Again, in my case, just because I wanted to it be exciting doesn't mean I wanted it to look like a 14 year-old's myspace page.

As is probably apparent, I am still using a generic blogger template for this site. I briefly used a different template I found on a third party website (it was up for about a day), but Laura told me it looked like a blog about heavy metal, so I changed it. I disagreed, but it was nevertheless still someone else's template and I wanted something that wasn't masquerading as unique.

Instead, I've decided to try to keep the layout simple and slowly make it more distinctive over time. I made the banner at the top of the page, for example, the other night. (I'm still working on making the banner more legible). Also, I'm using a fairly ugly gray as the background. That should change as I find a good background color that is neither white nor black. Ultimately, however, I decided that I was just going to have to learn HTML to come up with exactly what I wanted. In the meantime, however, I've gone with this one.