Happy New year

Occasionally we must restate our purpose and many of us do this around the first of the year. The "New Year Resolutions" are when we audit, admit our failings and determine that we can always do better. Much bluster is made of "eating less/exercising more" and anyone who is still smoking naturally swears it off, but best efforts tend to fail around February and the status quo wins out. We end up playing Keno at the bar instead of going to our kids dance recital.

Normally this is where I would plug for minimalism. I would recommend a life less complex, providing more satisfaction with fewer daily rigors, but I am finding this is unnecessary. In the last few months, with a plummeting dollar driving up the price of gas, leaden playthings from chinese sweatshops, record foreclosures and a poor crop of presidential hopefuls, the tide is turning towards minimalism. Buying less, riding a bike to work, and a victory garden will become the norm in the wake of a recession. Those of us who are already prepared and choose to save rather than spend, know how to shop for food and conserve energy will be relatively unaffected while our suburban doppelgangers complain endlessly.

I don't want to sound cynical, far from it. I have great hope for the future. Bad ideas can only be carried so long as there isn't a better one to replace it and we are knocking out failed conventions every few weeks now. People are smarter, living longer and communicating better than any other time in human history. Tolerance and liberty are complimentary virtues and we are finally starting to understand it, even if we don't articulate it.

Do the right thing and have a Happy New Year.

Lecture

Without actually using the word minimalism, Mark Adams lays out a very good case for it in his address to the Royal Society. The title of the lecture is "Less but better: A return to common sense." Give it a listen, because I know you aren't doing anything important.

weblog

Yo.
Wasted food.
Check it.

Listen

There is a good interview with Michael Adelson on Skepticality. The subject is the recent passing of the brilliant public intellectual Rabbi Sherwin Wine, but the conversation digressed into some illuminating points about music and society. Among the things I found fascinating was the "music genome" project and how we have been "Audienced" by systems that track our choices in music. Radio stations play a song, tally how often it is played and thus determines that it is popular. Radio stations respond by playing it more and the effect is a feedback loop resulting in the homogeneous culture that we know and love today. Application of this technology by big box retailers and supermarkets who track purchases with "loyalty cards" and aggregate data is used in much the same way. Its long, but worth a listen.

Not Well Educated

Let me strongly restate what I said earlier, I have no problem with Jesus but his fans are fucking morons.

Special Olympics

Not too long ago I went to a Celtics game. The Celtics are no longer the dynastic champions of my youth so tickets are fairly cheap and always available. I don't even know who they were playing, the other team was wearing blue I recall, but for two professional basketball teams it wasn't all that exciting to watch. Someone would score, someone would foul, someone would take a free throw and for the most part the crowd could care less. At halftime we were all pretty ambivalent about the outcome and a lot of folks were getting ready to call it a night. The halftime show that night? It was an exhibition by the Special Olympics basketball team.

I don't have a lot of history in dealing with the disabled, but I have more than most. Part of my grade school education included a sensitivity to the handicapped program which changed forever the way I deal with the disabled. A disabled person would come into our class and we would talk with them. They would explain how they get by without being able to see, hear, missing arms, that sort of thing. They let us touch the stump where the arms used to be. After that we would do exercises so that we would know what it was like to be blind or deaf. I have to admit that I thought riding around in a wheelchair would be kind of fun until I tried it, and what a pain in the ass it was. We experienced the world very differently and in some cases rather unpleasantly. Part of the class included some instruction on how to communicate with the deaf - not full ASL, but at least how to look directly at them when you talk and write down exotic words like street names and how to walk with the blind. My interaction with the handicapped makes some people uncomfortable to watch because I tend to be very at ease and almost dismissive of their disabilities.

One night I spent a good deal of time talking with a blind fellow about minimalism. I had some questions about how he organized his home and prioritized his possessions. I had this idea that the minimalists home should be like that of the blind - that you should be able to find everything without being able to see. I admired the discipline that it required to keep a home in that state and told him so. Helen Keller learned to read and write using only the sense of touch, I could never be so strong. There is a lot of benefit to be had by understanding the special needs of the disabled. For example, imagine if ASL were taught to everyone, what an amazing linguistic dimension that would add to everyday life?

As for the Special Olympics basketball team, well they hit the court. A few people snickered, made some ignorant jokes, but probably just because they were nervous. They played very much the way you would imagine that the Special Olympics basketball team would play. Double dribbling, passing to the wrong team, a few slips here and there - but let me tell you...
When that ball hit the rim... rolled around a little and finally fell into the net... Boston Garden TOTALLY FUCKING EXPLODED! I am serious when I say that I have never heard a crowd cheer so loud for anything. The stadium shuddered with applause. Another point, more riotous cheering, then the other team scored - even louder! Seriously, that was the best basketball game ever, they played with real heart and up to this point I had never seen that before. The Special Olympics is totally fucking awesome.

Right to Dry

I have to give a shout out to the "Right to Dry" movement, who are taking a rational and common sense stance on clotheslines. In many fucked up parts of the country they have planned/gated communities that forbid drying clothes outdoors. The argument against drying clothes on a clothesline is aesthetics, that clotheslines look po-dunk and low class, and that no one wants to see the neighbors skidmark tightey whitey's flip flapping in the wind.

In Vermont they are introducing a bill to over-ride community bans on clotheslines, as they have done in several other states. Personally I think it would be wiser to work within the community to voluntarily strip the ban - even just symbolically, because really - vermont? Winter? Clothes don't get dry in the off season, they freeze up solid. Not only that, but its Vermont. I assumed they were all apple pie and clothes on the line anyway.

I have one of those wire racks, it costs too much to get clothes dried at a laundromat and my place is too small for an actual dryer. Air dried clothes remain colorfast and last longer. Dryers are one of those things that I wonder who the hell thought up that one, like dishwashers. I have had them and they can be handy, but really, do you need an appliance for that? $85 a year just for the electricity, when you can just run a rope.

NOVA

Nova has made an excellent documentary about the Dover, PA. "Intelligent Design" trial. Watch it because this thing is a train wreck for creationists. It was one of the few times I actually sought a decision from a trial for entertainment on a saturday night. The honorable John Jones III is eloquent in his 139 page criticism, describing the defense as breathtakingly inane, but more appropriately he explains that "In an era we're trying to cure cancer, prevent pandemics, trying to keep science and math on the cutting edge, to introduce and teach bad science to ninth grade students makes very little sense to me."

Fuck Xmas

Veteran's Day - Fucking VETERAN'S DAY! 8:00pm... I heard my first Christmas song on the fucking radio.

I hate Christmas. Really. I hate it. I've got no problem with Jesus H. Christ, but his fans are fucking annoying. Used to be they would have the decency to let Thanksgiving slide by before soiling society with long lines and Bruce Springsteen's "Santa Claus is coming to town." God I hate Springsteen.... but here we are, a full week before Thanksgiving! and the jubilee has already consumed every seasonal aisle and two Boston radio stations. Last year I left Christmas out of my tirade, because I wanted to be respectful, but N O T A N Y M O R E ! ! Fuck Christmas with a 12 inch candy cane.

I love Thanksgiving you know. Its the last true holiday. All you have to do is sit down and eat with your family. That's it. No gifts, no caroling, you don't even have to eat turkey (I have Salmon) and no more is expected of you. Very few people commit suicide because of Thanksgiving and if there are any problems its "who's going to clean up all this stuff?" Usually you can leave with the pie you brought because there are - like twelve of them - in addition to heaps of leftover bird. Best of all, you get to see the family in a no pressure atmosphere. Now Thanksgiving has been tainted by the grisly specter of Christmas. Stupid, fucking Christmas.

I could go off about the real Christmas being a pagan holiday, celebrating trees and life or whatever, but who really cares where it came from? It sucks. Every year it seems like it sucks a little more too. Last year, as I recall, there was some controversy because of a so named "War on Christmas" which spurned TV people to blather for and against endlessly, adding a whole new dimension of angst and unpleasantness to the holiday experience. This year I am seeing hints of that same controversy, despite being wholly a construction of media, it has weaseled its way into our collective unconscious and fragmented to accommodate jesus freaks who think Christmas is becoming to commercial and gaudy. Really, who the fuck cares?

The weirdest part of all this is Santa Claus. For generations children are told that he is a real person, that he lives in the North Pole with elves and reindeer, toiling endlessly over toys and organizing delivery to every single child in the world on one night a year. That night happens to be the birthday of the Vatican's boy Jesus, but officially one doesn't recognize the other. Lying to children baffles me. I don't see how it is necessary that Santa Claus be a real person and through this lie eschewing the credit for purchasing a shitload of toys for your child. People have to take out high interest loans to buy Barbie's and Pokemon cards, why give the credit to Santa? Even more odd is that I must be party to keeping this secret. If I told a child there is no Santa, even if they asked me for the truth, I would be ostracized and probably stoned to death.

Minimalism aside - Just fuck Christmas. It is too complicated, too indulgent and too stupid for me to deal with anymore.

Fire

Home Depot will be carrying this swank Fire Extinguisher at the end of the year. As a qualifier - I have not seen it in person and it may be a piece of junk, but the design and philosophy appear promising. You may think a fire extinguisher is easy to use, but I can attest that they are not. Having worked in factories with alcoholics, I have had more than my share of experiences with fire extinguishers. There are different classes of equipment, I have cut and pasted a good guide below.

• Class A extinguishers are for ordinary combustible materials such as paper, wood, cardboard, and most plastics. The numerical rating on these types of extinguishers indicates the amount of water it holds and the amount of fire it can extinguish.
• Class B fires involve flammable or combustible liquids such as gasoline, kerosene, grease and oil. The numerical rating for class B extinguishers indicates the approximate number of square feet of fire it can extinguish.
• Class C fires involve electrical equipment, such as appliances, wiring, circuit breakers and outlets. Never use water to extinguish class C fires - the risk of electrical shock is far too great! Class C extinguishers do not have a numerical rating. The C classification means the extinguishing agent is non-conductive.
• Class D fire extinguishers are commonly found in a chemical laboratory. They are for fires that involve combustible metals, such as magnesium, titanium, potassium and sodium. These types of extinguishers also have no numerical rating, nor are they given a multi-purpose rating - they are designed for class D fires only.

I live in an apartment building, so my risk is compounded by the idiocy of my neighbors. Once, a grease fire raged while a tenant called her landlord to ask him what to do. She left him a message and I called 911 (she has since moved incidentally). We renewed our focus then and steps were taken to counter not-well-educated-ness. You can't turn around without seeing fire extinguishers now and I have banned those halogen lamps that were burning up dorm rooms.

Safety equipment for the home was long a backwater of design, the emphasis being on functionality and style be damned. However, in an age of rampant vainglory most kitchens have teeny fire extinguishers in the way back under the sink, and it probably isn't charged enough to put out a cigarette. Fancying up the look and making it easier to use for the less-well-educated among us can only be a benefit.

Mouse

I really thought a mouse would fall for this...

Carbon Market

I have no love of corporations. They enjoy a parallel legal system more liberal than our own, they receive tax credits and welfare on a scale we can't even imagine and as a rule they tend to be very bad neighbors. Legislation is upcoming for a new "Carbon Trading" market system that I suggest everyone take a good hard look at.

Its basically a cap and trade system, like the one set up for the clean air act. In reality, having energy for an entire nation there is a certain amount of pollution required, so they set up a system where the government inspects a facility and determines how much pollution it can generate. If it goes over the governments assessed amount, it has to buy "credits", if they generate less pollution they can sell the extra credits to another company or save them for a rainy day.

The idea is to make carbon into an abstract, global commodity. The EU already has a system like this, the EUETS, but emissions are up, profits are up and consumers are paying more than ever since the system has been put in place. The problems, as critics point out, are many and varied. Reduction of illegal practices like gas flaring would get carbon credits, which is akin to getting credit drinking wine and driving instead of drinking whiskey. Ok that's a logical fallacy, but you get the idea. Credit for NOT doing something they shouldn't be doing in the first place? Not only that, but companies can trade within themselves and they can get credit for facilities in other countries where the environmental laws are nonexistent. The whole process is commanded by the worst offenders, because the incentive would be for them to keep violating terms because it would be profitable for traders.

This trading system is just a layer of obfuscation. There aren't any hard demands in the act, its greenwashing. A way the attach the names of polluters to buzzwords that give the illusion of action, but really its business as usual under the smokestacks. To the credit of the clean air act it did reduce acid rain and air pollution better than anyone had expected, but that was a success based on EXPECTATIONS. In point of fact, there is still air pollution and acid rain so it merely added an incentive at a time when there were no incentives. Following that example, anything can be a success if you keeps expectations low. Coal and oil companies will receive a bounty of credits for free just for serving national interests and their limits will be set very high indeed.

Just to put all this in perspective, It has only been about One Hundred years since we really started to pollute the air and water. Our grandparents could drink water from any stream and swim in any lake. Nuclear Power is really only about sixty years old and the waste from that takes Thousands of years to become inert. The way we live is the cause of all these problems. All of us. Conservation is the best way to cut emissions, the best way to reduce greenhouse gases and ultimately save human society. I am happy to see this is coming up because it brings attention to just how badly we live. Get up earlier and use the sun for light instead of staying up late burning lamps. Live close to family and work so you can walk or ride a bike. Leave those giant stupid televisions in the store. Don't put the blame on someone else for these problems, accept responsibility and do something - and by do something I don't mean create a fantasy institution to trade "credits" giving people permission to act badly. That's an obfuscation.

Moral: Stick it to the man by not needing him.

The Perils of Early Adoption

Update: Seems the problem was actually with Verizon, the gentle monopoly that provides me with internet service. They make their own modems which don't work with any new computer. They tried to charge me $99 for a new modem - the pricks, but if you threaten to drop your service they can "see what they can do" and give it to you for nothing. For that heavy handed tactic I downgraded my account and I'll be pricing for different service or I might just KISMAC through the condominium walls.

Moral: For minimal hassle, check compatibility before upgrading to OSX Leopard.

In case anyone was thinking of getting the new OSX leopard for an older mac - WAIT.
Make no mistake, it is beautiful and installed fantastically, but it also broke nearly every third party application I use, not to mention it has a terrible prejudice against my cut rate, verizon supplied Westell router. I can connect to my neighbors signal just fine and my Wii connects without a problem, but for some reason Leopard will not leap into my router.

So here I am at 2:00 am, with a fist full of hair, eyes bleeding with pure hatred - out $120 something dollars with a crippled, hobbled, frustrating computer that was working just fine a few hours ago, living another lesson against brand loyalty. Get ready to regret those Apple logo tattoos and if I may suggest... Ubuntu.

Warmer

The cold weather is upon us. Time to pull the sweaters and heavy down blankets from the shelf and shiver for the next few months. I am unfortunate to work outside, so the winter for me is a bit more serious. Being a yankee, born and bred, I have a few tips for staving off the cold.

Silk long underwear. I admit it, I wear it, I love it. Its a few extra dollars, but its easily washed in the sink, it doesn't hold stink and the wool stuff is just too itchy. You have to be careful with the bottoms, the crotch gives out, I don't recommend biking with them on. If you have no choice but to foray out into the harsh elements there is solace to be had in silk long underwear.

Merino wool. Again, a few dollars more, but worth every penny. Hats, scarves and gloves. Accept no blends or substitutes. It dries quickly, but keeps you warm even when its wet. Merino wool can smell gamey at first, but it isn't unpleasant as some of the other wools and its not nearly as itchy. Why not have the best?

Hand warmers. In my opinion these are a waste of money. I've had a few spanning the technologies of our time. Some powered by coal or lighter fluid, some oxygenating iron and most recently, supersaturating crystalizing salts. They are clever novelties, but you can get the same effect from micro-waving an old sock filled with rice.

At night don't forget the old, grimy, rubber hot water bottle. No new england home is without one. There are some pretty swanky antique bottles as well, if you are feeling victorian-y.

Don't despair, the winter is a wonderful season. Have some tea, read a book, get caught up on correspondence, before you know it you'll be sweating your balls off in the 100+ midsummer heat and wishing for an icy breeze from the north.

Oprah is a minimalist?

An article from consumerist linked to a page on Oprah's site about couples on the verge of financial ruin. I have to give credit to Miss Oprah Winfrey, she has done more for this nation than I previously thought. She promotes literacy (even if its fluff), battles obesity, has excellent taste, and now she's using her power to tackle irresponsible overspending. I love you Oprah....

Repurposed Objects

Apartment Therapy has a good collection of repurposed objects.

Another Book

The Enchiridion by Epictetus. In text, or if you are busy then audio. If you can't deal, nothing beats the stoics.

New York Hates the Handicapped

So the City of New York doesn't give any consideration to handicapped people on parking meters. Even weirder was of the three people I asked, a cop, a sanitation inspector and a transportation officer - only one knew the answer. If you guessed the sanitation guy, you win the prize. The meter maid had to call a supervisor to find out for sure. That means if you are disabled you better drag your crippled ass back and pay that meter.

If you live in New York, you have my sympathies, you will be eliminated from the population after your thirtieth birthday.

20 tips

There are some good space saving tips on this blog. Japan has an edge on the west in regards to minimalism because they jam into those little tiny apartments. Still a good read.

Columbus Day

I had the day off for Columbus Day and I stayed at home. The weather was poor so I slept, did some laundry, made tomato sauce...

In Denver they went fucking nuts. They poured fake blood in the streets, they called foul and genocide at the memory of Christopher Columbus and generally disrupted the parade. People were arrested and spent their day off in prison on civil disobedience charges, alleging that this holiday celebrates the first trans-atlantic slave trader and murderer of indigenous people. Not my idea of a relaxing long weekend.

Now I won't pretend that I know anything about Christopher Columbus, I only just learned that he was Italian a few years ago (He was financed by the spanish court, I just assumed he was from Spain or Portugal) and honestly - I can't be bothered. Protesting bullshit holiday's? Seriously people... Seriously.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good protest, but it should be creative and have a goal. Protesting the past is a waste of time since you can't change the past, and worse, many of these frivolous protests strip credibility away from whatever cause you might be fighting for. The protesters didn't seem to have any demands, they just wanted to make assholes out of themselves and spoil a parade. Which they did. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that every one of them took the holiday pay without any crisis of conscience.

I am active in my government. I vote, I know my representatives but more importantly, they know me. I go to town hall meetings and ask relevant questions or make reasonable suggestions. Going to such events spoiling for a fight, so that you can hear yourself say something clever won't solve anything. Many a neighbor steps up to speak with clenched fists and comes away sounding like an idiot because they didn't know an issue or didn't desire a resolution. Protests are similar, know what you want and why you want it. Be able to make a case and be open to the perspective of others, but above all be reasonable and intelligent. Pouring blood on the street or laying down to block people from entering a building, what is that? I think of a child in the bank rolling around on the rug and screaming for attention.

The minimalist moral for today:
There is a right way to do things and a wrong way, and if you wind up in prison on your day off? You have chosen badly.

Volcanoes in Boston

Doody in Africa

In america our lives are overly complex . Nearly every aspect of our society is mechanized or automated and we consider life without technology a hardship. There is no getting to work without a car, there is no communication without a phone or computer and entertainment is impossible without billboard sized televisions and the latest accessories. The average American is more concerned about celebrities than then their own families. That is why I like to read about Africa.

I have never been to Africa, and honestly the first time I ever took interest in the continent was to read about bumbling criminals who were fleecing people by email, which was a novelty at the time. Now Africa is no model society - far from it, but I took a keen interest in their science. Science as a discipline has the uncanny power to cut through religious and tribal misinformation and reveal useful data. If the west brought anything of value to the African continent it was scientific method. There being immediate need for basic sustenance, medicine and water much of the simple but genius inventions made me wonder why we had not thought of these things before.

I posted recently about my low flow toilet, but it was too long and no one read it. In rural Africa dealing with doody is much more difficult so some smart guy came up with this system. I was especially impressed with the "raceway" term to describe high velocity sections of the design. I liked the idea of my doody in a race when I flush.

This same site was the first place I saw the Zeer pot, which was so simple and brilliant I feel stupid for not having thought of it myself. Two pots are nested and sand goes in the space between. Wet the sand and the evaporation lowers the temperature in the pot. Cover it with a wet cloth and food that would spoil in days is good for weeks. The whole thing costs 30 fucking cents. Folks that used to hustle back and forth to market have more leisure time for schooling or 419 scamming.

The biosand filter was another stroke of genius. Anyone who has kept tropical fish is familiar with the biological cleaning concept. Pour nasty water in the top, algae and other microbes dine on the nasty stuff that lives in the water and the sand separates out all the debris. Gravity provides the motive force and clean water comes out the other side. The system isn't flawless of course, well water contains some heavy metals that can make it through, but it removes parasites and other gross stuff.

So the next time you put your brainmeat to work on that first person shooter or if you realize that you just spent an hour on the phone talking about poor Britney and her progeny, well maybe you should take a moment to - you know... think.

Scary

Pickles are pretty scary anyhow, floating in their bitter, briny tubs.
Ansis made them even scarier.
I like how the frankenstein has his head sliced open.
Would've looked awesome in color.

Brilliant.

I'm Weak

Lord help me, I saw this thing and winced. A freaking Robot that plays music and spins around? I know what you are thinking, surely the minimalist can resist something as absolutely mindblowingly awesome as a spinning music playing robot!

I would KILL for one of these. I would kill you as a matter of fact, to get my greasy mitts on this incredible device. It's called Rolly and I have noticed a trend where mundane things like clocks are mounted on wheels and interact with you with motion. Not to brag, but I could totally fucking afford this shit and boy would I be the coolest kid in the ghetto with an interactive freaking ROBOT RADIO!

But no. I can see using it a few times and burying it in a box somewhere or giving it to someone when I tire of it or just breaking it - I mean it would roll off the table of get crushed underfoot. Honestly I was surprised I didn't see it on the greatest blog of all time, but I guess its of little musical significance right now.

I am going to take a cold shower now...

art

Chris Jordan holds the mirror up so you can look at yourself America. A swirling mass of phone chargers has an almost natural look, like the floor of a jungle. Most of the photographs give you that creepy feeling, like flipping over a big flat stone and seeing the biggest crawlingest creature with - like a thousand legs and big sweeping antennae, all shiny with cascading legs as it moves closer to you with those sideways pincer mouth hooks and it might be poisonous and jesus, I wish I had left that rock the hell alone... Except the creature, that's you.

Best Game Ever?

As an owner of a Gretsch Guitar I am in the unique position of appreciating this game more than owners of Wussy-er guitars. Play by mashing the spacebar.

I Hate my Toilet

I said, I meant it, I hate my toilet. There is no more misguided a policy than the low flow toilet mandate. When I moved in here the bathroom was totaled. It was the reason I got this place so cheap, the floor was rotted from a slow leak and the toilet was pink and pretty far from working properly. It ran constantly and needed replacing right away, which is why I got to work on it a full year and a half after I moved in. While shopping for a toilet I fully realized the horror of the low flow toilet. There was no alternative. You could choose the color and shape, but flow capacity was fixed at a minority of liters with just enough force to push feces into the pipe. Now until I got this toilet I had never backed up a toilet before. Ever. I didn't know what to do, I panicked. I shut off the valve, I got a wrench, no water or filth reach the rim, but water that should have gone down was coming up and I couldn't think. I had no plunger because, like I said, this had never happened to me before, so I could only flush. It took about ten tries and I had to wait a while for some ca-ca to decompose, but eventually it went down with a satisfactory sploosh.

The low flow toilet was introduced to counter the conventionally accepted wasting of water. A trickle of pee-pee did not require 9 red blooded American gallons of water to wash it away, so to look at the numbers it was easy to make a case for a low flow toilet. The marketplace - however, did not agree and no one bought them. Honestly, I am a minimalist hippy weirdo and I wouldn't have bought one either. Strain on municipal water supplies and adventurous lobbying firms managed to get this new addendum added to the building code and before you knew it the old Cadillac toilets were on their way to the landfill to be replaced by sporty and efficient new models.

For the first time ever we would wake up to confront our feces staring back at us and you could actually be late for work and be excused just by saying, "I have a low flow toilet." The question kept arising, is it actually saving water if you have to flush it ten times? Considering that it happens maybe once every six months, then yes it is saving water, but that is not the problem. If you ever have a guest at the house and they back up the toilet - Guaranteed - you are sleeping alone tonight. Just the psychological factor of having to look at your own shit and get the plunger out and fill the house with a foul odor, just having to deal with it sucks. It sucks so bad that anyone you ask that ever had to deal with it will tell you enthusiastically and publicly just how much they hate their low flow toilet.

The future holds all sorts of new impositions on our way of life. Cars will become less powerful as peak oil peaks and supply dwindles, our homes will be hotter in the summer with fewer cooling options and the winters harsher and colder with less oil for heat. We can look forward to misery and sacrifice against our wishes, our wishes being for abundance and convenience. There will be less meat in our diets, solar panels on the roof, wider bike lanes, no more plastic bags from the grocery, mandatory recycling and composting, these are all done things. Many municipalities already have these policies, the low flow toilet was just the beginning, but no matter what good comes of it all - I will always HATE that fucking toilet...

TIP: the recycled toilet paper clogs my toilet every time, even treehuggers don't use it.

Design Show

There are only a few more days left of the Design for the Other 90% show at the Cooper Hewitt. I have known about this for a while, but being very busy I forgot to mention it. Many of these designs are not new but they will all be piled together for appreciation instead of individually being the major highlights of minor shows. My personal favorite is the "Zeer" pot, or pot in pot cooler. This is one of those items that make one wonder why we in the west never picked up on an idea like harnessing natural evaporation to cool our food, instead of having hulking refrigerator units eating electricity. This show is noteworthy because I live in abundance and choose this way of minimalism but not everyone gets to make that choice. The vast majority of the entire population of the planet barely scrapes by without good medicine, clean water, or decent educations. There is a lot of wisdom there, for example, if you want to know how to save water? ask someone who doesn't have any.

If this sort of thing interests you there is also thinkcycle, which is a collaborative post type thing for good ideas, you know, that might save millions of lives or change the world. If you are into that kind of thing.

Consumer Confidence

I hate to say I told you so, but here are the new consumer confidence numbers from Businessweek. Basically, 29% of people either expect a product they buy to fail, not work, or just overall not be worth the money. The result is that fewer people are expected to buy things. Analysts say this is a bad thing, because our economy is totally dependent on the exchange of cash for goods, but I disagree.
Look at what we buy, and how we buy it. Big box retailers promote a shopping experience, separated from quality. For example, an inexpensive product is displayed next to a very expensive product, giving the impression of equal measure. A reasonable person will not make the connection, buy the junky one and be right back in the store shopping for a replacement before too long. This is good for business, bad for people.
Online shopping is not much better. Most items are purchased sight unseen, allowing for a great deal of abuse by merchants and manufacturers. Factor in the incredible pain in the ass of returning products bought by mail - contacting the vendor, repackaging, shipping, waiting for a replacement, and the possibility that this one is no better, it's no wonder consumer confidence is at its lowest in recorded history.

The system is flawed. Money is a resource, like anything else. You either waste it or use it wisely. You can buy a $3,000.00 television on credit, built on untested technology to watch terrible movies, and destroy it the first time you spray it with windex to clean it, or you can put it away to buy a house, put the kids through college, or retire in relative comfort. Capitalism is fine as economic systems go, when it is honest and true to principle, but we don't see much of that these days. Low consumer confidence means people are wising up to the game and don't want to play anymore. 29% of Americans are that much closer to being minimalists and they didn't even know it.

Book

Born to buy, by Juliet Schor is an awesome book. How little you knew about the insidious world of advertising to children. Is it really as bad as you imagine? No, it's much worse. Told complete with creepy industry only terms like "Bro-ing" "Trans-toying" and "Age compression" it lays out the pursuit of the billions of dollars taken from children each year. Seriously, if you know someone who works in advertising - read this, then beat the living piss out of them. They really are evil.

She has written many books, all insightful and relevant to our times. I strongly recommend picking one up.

Aldo is a Genius

This is a tin museum badge cut and bent into the shape of a Mantis. Aldo made it, and about a million other little creatures with his pliant, idle hands. It is less than an inch high, but easily the most masterful piece of art I have personally encountered. Inspired, skillfully crafted, and singularly one of a kind. Genius. Pure fucking genius. I imagine him "accidentally" curing cancer while cleaning the bathroom... If he ever gets around to cleaning the bathroom.

my old socks and underwear buff your graffiti

One of my new hobbies is cleaning Graffiti off my neighborhood. I HATE graffiti. There was a time when I was rather indifferent to it, even supportive of it as an art form - but those days are gone. Now I treat graffiti and those who practice it with genuine contempt.

I own my own place now, that is what changed. Late one night I smelled something funny, looked out the window and sure enough there is some little asshole spray-painting stupid shit on my building. I freaked, I called the cops, I gave chase, but he was already gone. As a renter, this never bothered me. If the landlord removed it or not I could care less, I'd probably be moving in a few weeks anyhow, but this was my place...

One of the things that is not well known about me is this: I like to solve big problems. If something is easy, it isn't really worth doing. There is no satisfaction like tracing a problem to its root and solving it forever. Right away I went into overdrive, calculating, measuring and weighing possibilities. Photos were taken and the foul mark was gone before dawn the next day. After I cleaned it off, I felt great. I went all around my neighborhood and buffed off the tags. The local businesses were thrilled, but wondered at my motivation. I told them "I just don't like graffiti." They even gave me a cookie.

This was done in broad daylight, I wanted everyone to see that this was how you do it. Get yourself some old socks/underwear, some "Goof off" graffiti remover or some similar product and you are ready to go. I joined the neighborhood crime watch and talked to the people there, since they just sat around saying "Someone should do something." (The most pathetic of all statements) and I countered with "Don't sit around and wait for the city to clean it, get out and clean it off yourself." and I gave them some tips on how to pretreat a surface so its easier to clean later. Vandalism will be around as long as young men come awkwardly of age and sneak around in the night acting wild. Better to be prepared and relaxed about it and buff it immediately since one mark tends to attract others.

After I buffed him, he came back and wrote his silly mark around again. Good luck for me it was a day off and I buffed him THAT SAME DAY. No one even got to see the mark this time. It was exhilarating. The purpose of graffiti - you see - is fame. To get that stupid shit on as many mailboxes and dumpsters as you can. Removing the mark sets them back. I didn't see any tags again for many weeks and was quietly disappointed he gave up so easy. Next time he came around it was USPS stickers with pink marker on them. Almost too easy.

I had won. It was weird. I know that I was motivated by vengeance, but I had been so positive about it. Not only that but my enthusiasm was contagious. After the neighborhood meeting the police were so impressed that I had taken the law into my own hands, they began asking people they arrested if they knew any writers and built a database on them. Turns out that graffiti writers don't have much in the way of honor among thieves, they couldn't rat each other out fast enough. The problem quickly went away.

I'm kind of sad about it really. Now all the graffiti I get is preteens with sharpies writing profanity at the bus stop, and the other "real" writers careers last until they run out of ink in the marker.

This isn't really relevant to minimalism, I just hate graffiti a lot.

A Book

I am recommending "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster" by Dana Thomas. I have not read it, because as I write this it is not yet released, but I heard an interview on the radio that had me tut-tutting and clucking and shaking my head in shame. It sounds reminiscent of "Fast Food Nation," the watershed book that made us push back our collective Big Mac and soured us to the marrow on fast food culture.

Most of us could give a fuck about the goings on of high fashion, but the telling really rubs the gloss right off those shiny magazines. Revelations about factory conditions, market consolidation, and overall business practices designed to screw you out of lots of money are quite enlightening. It's modern simony and there is no shortage of buffoons to buy $1,500 sunglasses, no doubt it will be a good read.

Give Money

One of the hardest part of being a minimalist is giving up all the stuff. Like all people, I see things and desire them, and in most cases can actually justify a purchase, but the truth is that everything ends up in the trash. Every single thing that has ever been made by man has been rendered into the dust from whence it was born. A television exists in the carefully engineered state of television for a remarkably short time. Very few of the first televisions ever made even work today, and none of them are employed to watch modern television. Where did all these millions of T.V.'s go? the landfill. Just like every favorite toy or dolly, just like everything that will be ever made. The lifetime of all things is finite.

Of course, sometimes even the grim picture of my cherished, childhood Han Solo action figure fading and decomposing into the base materials of the universe can't stop me from buying something, I must counter it with equal parts good, so I give money to charity.

The way I figure it, spending $49 on a video game is O.K. as long as I give $50 to a worthwhile cause. This equal pairing of funds slakes the immediate desire for worldly things and benefits me in the larger, universal sense as well. Getting ones mind around the idea that helping others is good for the self is a little difficult at first, so I will provide an anecdote. (Note: Never accept an anecdote as evidence or just cause of anything.)


I work with a nice lady who lost her son to violence. The details are unclear, but he was a young man gunned down over some stupid thing. He was in his teens and a poet. Personally, I love poetry, and thought it a terrible shame for this world to have one less lithe mind for pondering, so when work offered to let me leave early to attend the one year memorial service, I went. I won't bother with the details, but I will say it was sad. Really, really, sad. I wept openly and without trepidation, as one should at such times. Friends, family and even strangers rose at will to say something about the departed. They talked about the young man, played CD tracks he liked and sang songs. I have attended a few wakes, funerals and memorials, but this one was the most pure. The place was a storefront church in an old auto garage, in a really bad neighborhood, but they honored him and it felt like the walls were leafed in gold. I decided right then that guns were bad and started giving cash to anti-gun lobbying groups. No mother should ever have to bury her only child. EVER. But how much? I am not a rich man and this minimalism thing was only just starting to produce real savings in contrast to my old ways. That was when I came up with the formula:

Half for you, half for me.

If I spend $30 on something that I don't need, I give an equal sum to one of several reputable causes. This was meant to curb my spending and exercise my generous nature. Now what I get from this is important. I don't throw money away for liberal ideals, I get something for my money. If making gun sale, ownership, and possession a pain in the ass means that one more young poet lives, and one more mother doesn't have to bury her son, and that I don't have to go to these services to be reduced to a blubbering mess in front of my co-workers, well that is worth it for me.

Everyone has a story like this, and you too can try the formula. Obviously I don't ACTUALLY give half my expendable income to charity, but percentage-wise I am an order of magnitude more generous than the average American. I recommend:

OXFAM - the connoisseur's choice for charity. Focused on poverty on a global scale, the finest minds in altruism swear by it.

Lupus Foundation - a terrible disease about which, little is known.

Stop the NRA - prevent gun violence through legislation, education, and outrage.

USO - Support the troops? You fucking hypocrite, take that sticker off your truck and give to the USO.

Special Olympics - Because the special olympics are just awesome.

Pine Street Inn - This one comes right out of my check. Being homeless sucks ass.

Humane Society - I love PETA, but they are a little too extreme. The humane society is more realistic for the animal lover.

I love Elvis

It's a little late, but I still need to pay my respects to the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley. A great performer, he opened many minds to a style of music that is universal today. Anytime anyone can open a mind, that is a good thing. He still has some penance to do for the movies though.

I was especially pleased to see that Reese's, a most delicious candy bar, has honored Elvis in a creative way: A Reese's peanut butter cup with banana creme. A co-worker gave me one of these totally ignorant of my love of Elvis, and I was planning on cherishing it forever, but instead I ate it. It was awesome.

Keep the King in your hearts people, and you will never do wrong.

Software

I have a software recommendation. Nocturne has been around for a while and what it does is invert your desktop. I know, ctrl+option+command+8 will do that too, but this gives you more control over the inversion and adjusts tones and subtle stuff. My eyes hurt from staring at the screen for a long time, plus I am nostalgic for the old Mac SE simple monochrome desktop, so this is perfect. It can even be set to respond to the light meter built into my fancy, way too expensive notebook. A darker screen uses less power, which is the idea behind sites like Blackle.com and you get a lower bill or better battery life. I thought I would get sick of it by now, but in low light conditions I prefer the mild sepia tone.

Its free from the genius of Quicksilver fame, the launcher that launched launchers. No one else has even come close to the awesomeness of Quicksilver though. Go get some Goth for your desktop! It's free!

Drink Tea

I drink a lot of tea. It's not something that came naturally, I used to be a coffee drinker, but in my defense that didn't come naturally either. At an old job there was free coffee from a service and the old room mate worked in a fledgling Starbuck's franchise. In a single day I would have consumed upwards of 13 cups of coffee, free of charge. The most productive and destructive time in my whole life.

The tea drinking I picked up from my mother's neighbors, a pair of lovely sisters from County Mayo. They would be on the adjoined porch when I came home and I simply could not pass them by without sitting for an hour or two. They scoffed at my sickening black coffee and offered me tea instead. At first it was an odd adjustment, it was dark like coffee but there wasn't the same explosion of energy. Sleeping, however, became possible and I noticed my bowel movements held together.

There is study after study revealing teas efficacy in treating this syndrome or that disease, but in fact - those things are all bullshit. If I experienced any health boost from drinking tea it was by eliminating soda and coffee from my diet. The versatility of tea, its range of flavors and colors, and the ease of brewing it is why I choose it now. I have had many HORRIBLE cups of coffee, some that were so nasty I poured them out after one sip, but tea really can't get screwed up.

The added bonus, tea uses little packaging. I buy it loose, but there is always the traditional tea bag. Between 80 - 300 servings come in one small container, when contrasted to 80 - 300 plastic bottles or aluminum cans you can visualize the benefit. I have seen pure unbleached special paper tea bags, which is overkill to the extreme. Really, the day tea bags become an ecological time bomb I will be a happy man.

A few tips:

Don't leave the tea bag in the water. Once it reaches your desired strength, take it out. Think of a stank, nasty pond, and all the gross leaves and stuff steeping in it. That is what your drink will become. This is the most common mistake of all.

Don't pour hot water directly on the tea bag. You can scorch tea and ruin it. This is especially true for green teas, which have to be brewed at a lower temperature. For green and lighter color teas, pour the water in first and let it cool down a bit, then add the tea. Don't forget to take it out.

If you add milk, sugar, lemon or whatever (I have used maple syrup) do it after. There is no reason for this, but a saturation point is lower with debris in the water. I am a puritan.

Wear dark colors. The probability of spilling shit all over yourself is high, and tea stains are a bitch to get out. Don't forget to brush your teeth. They get nasty quick.

Wrap

This wrap diagram has appeared on a few sites I troll for minimalism stuff. Basically you take a 90cm x 90cm silk, nylon or rayon cloth and fold it just so to carry things around; I particularly liked the book wrap. Being a form - unfamiliar - to your local bag boy, I recommend you practice a few of these before your hump off to the store. The Constitution has not been amended with the "Right to Convenience," but the harumphs of ten people in line behind you as you meticulously wrap all your groceries will speed legislation along.

Recycled Article

I found a good article on engineered obsolesence.
This dude wrote it, then Treehugger linked it from Core77 who linked it from the Guardian.
We all took credit for the insight and brilliance of it, like we are so wise.

I don't feel well.
I think I'll take a rolaid and go to bed.

R.I.P. Mister Butch

A moment of silence for a great man and a great minimalist. Recognized king of the long, lost Kenmore Square - Mister Butch has passed on to the next thing. He will be missed.

10 things

Quasi-relevant to minimalism; the items on this list. What we did before DIGG, I'll never know...

buy ingredients

Busy folks who have no time to cook eat shit. This is my personal opinion, not a statement of fact. The contemporary grocery store experience is bizarre and surreal to me, with the long lines and carriages heaped with goods, it's more like preparing for Armageddon then feeding oneself. I am aware of places like Walmart and Costco, but I never shop at these palaces of domestic supply, surely that comes as a surprise to no one.

Food is gross. This in not my opinion, this is a statement of fact. It grows out of dirt and picked by the lowest paid labor or it is killed, skinned and stripped from sinewy bone. The appearance of sanitation or cleanliness is an illusion. Milk comes from sore and infected cows tits, eggs come from a chickens ass, and bacon is a chunk of a pig cut from the fatty outer layer of its skin. Don't distress this fact - people are gross too. Teeth are designed for tearing through flesh and mushing it up, then it enters the body where acids and enzymes go to work on it and leech out nutrients. When that process ends, we shit what is not useful into the toilet. Any sign of sanitary or humane application to this is self-deception. The bright colors and inventive packages are designed for the specific task of distracting your mind from the facts about what you are about to eat. I am at relative peace with the sheer nastiness of food. I prefer to buy it from a cardboard box on the floor, a hastily crafted table or even out of the back of a truck, but it is very important to me that I am able to see, touch, and taste my food before I buy it. When food is put into bags and boxes and stripped of its functional appearance - there is something inhumane about that. If you are going to eat chicken or a chunk of cow it dishonors the value that beast offers when it is called another name or packaged with a cartoon likeness.

I live on the third floor. Not that I am lazy, but I simply can not justify carrying all that boxed up food up three flights - not to mention discarding it all means carrying it back down to the dumpster. It is a matter of pride for me to generate as little waste as possible so I avoid heavily packaged items, opting to refill my peanut butter from that cool ooze machine at the market and baked goods from the *gasp* Bakery.

There is an economic principle known as "Value Added," which I will explain thus using the subject of potatoes. Besides being a popular word to misspell, it is a staple of my diet. I pay about a dollar a pound for the spudsy treats that are trucked down from Maine, they end up in my soups, fried in oil with some salt, or smashed cruelly into oblivion before they end up in my stomach. The same amount of potatoes ushered into an industrial process will yield a frozen, bagged french/freedom fry product that will sell for about two dollars and fifty cents. Another version of the same food would be the semi-fancy potato chips, albeit more vigorously fried, their price per pound increases to nearly four dollars per pound of potatoes. This practice extends to all foods in all directions. The more complex the food, the greater effort of production - the greater the cost. Buying food in its natural form and then preparing it yourself saves energy from the cooking, packaging and shipping. Besides, packaged food is the logical destination for "Grade B," eggs and other deformed or maligned crops. The price is lower, plus you have some control over quality. We've all got that crazy purple potato chip or one with a Virgin Mary on it.

I use ingredients. Storage of several small, fresh items replaces endless cupboard space filled with boxes, bags, and packages of nonsense food. There are no food dyes, no chemical additives or preservatives, and everything is honest. No deceptive monosodium glutemate disguising something un-natural tasting, no petroleum derivitives, because food is gross enough.

Bring a Lunch

I got shit canned from a job once. Painful memories there. I had to go back to work at an old factory job while figuring out what to do next. It wasn't a terrible thing for me really, since my outlook is pretty simple: When you are at peace with badness, nothing overwhlems you. The best part of this terrible thing? Lunch.

My co-workers were mostly immigrants, dad's ditching child support, hustlers, drunks/drug addicts or some combination of one and the other. The finest collection of desperate losers you ever saw with a collected 180 years of experience - there was never a dull moment. We were located in Chinatown, and being even too broke for Chinese food, we bought up all these cool stainless steel lunchboxes. They were about $5-$10, depending how fancy you wanted to get. Myself, I splurged and went for the five tier, heavy gauge, fancy shit and it ran me $12. We would all bring in lunch together and share.

As meals go, there was a pretty interesting mix of cold pizza, curry and rice, chicken, ribs, mac + cheese, ramen, and all kinds of crazy vegetables. I used to go to the Arab market and score Pitas and hummus, dried apricots or raisins, olives, and goat cheese. We got tea from Chinatown real cheap. It was an extravagant daily affair and for some of the gentlemen it was the only meal they would get. We would set these Bento/Tiffin boxes on top of the big heater in the middle of the room and by lunch everything would be nice and hot. Somebody would sneak out early for smokes, an icy 30 pack, and scratch tickets. Cost to each of us? Under 5 bucks.

Our boss and his hot ass secretaries used to join us, even though they could get steak tips and mesclin salad from the yuppie place, just because it was like Thanksgiving everyday. I used to get stuff from the store to feed the others that I never even tried myself, like this knotted, herbed, cheese rope thing - just because it was cool looking. Besides, we were all friendly and there was unique bond of trust that gets forged from eating someone else's food.

The minimalist moral for this is simple. Bring a lunch. No Styrene box or plastic forks, no overeating, no food poisoning, no lines to wait in and - the price is right. For me the most important thing was the harmony of sitting down and eating with others. Even in a shitty, hot factory with people many would regard as outright evil, sitting and eating together is still awesome. I ate things I would have never tried and heard stories that might not have been told without that trust. No question - bringing a lunch makes you a better person.

Save energy

Being a minimalist has many parallels with other hippy causes. I used the word minimalism in the first place because the word I really wanted to use was already taken. That other word was "Conservative." At the time I got caught up in a "Green Building" project and all of my research for "Greening" kept circling me back to conservation. Using less energy from the start, and producing less waste meant not needing recycling - which uses A LOT of energy. I focused on the reuse/renew part of the triad, and literally factored the recycling part out as fat. "Put some barrels in the corner..." were my exact words when pressed on the subject. Not to bash Recycling. I do it when I get a plastic bottle or tin can or something, but I try not to buy packaged stuff. Its just more work.

Regardless of what you call yourselves though, here is a good list stolen from some earth day site with a list of some stuff that you can do to Green/LOHAS/Minimalize or just be plain old conservative (the list was endorsed by a wartime president). Its intended for earth day, but I think it should be used everyday.

Use the Energy Star program to find energy efficient products for your home. The right choices can save families about 30% ($400 a year) while reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases. Whether you are looking to replace old appliances, remodel, or buy a new house, the can help. ENERGY STAR is the government's backed symbol for energy efficiency. The ENERGY STAR label makes it easy to know which products to buy without sacrificing features, style or comfort that today's consumers expect.

Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.

Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)

Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)

Have leaky air conditioning and refrigeration systems repaired.

Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.

Insulate your home, water heater and pipes.

Keep in mind that every trip adds to air pollution.

Replace incandescent light bulbs with Energy Star qualified Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL). If every household in the U.S. replaced one light bulb with a CFL, it would prevent enough pollution to equal removing one million cars from the road.

Use less water

Look for the WaterSense label to identify water-efficient products and programs. The WaterSense label indicates that these products and programs meet water-efficiency and performance criteria. WaterSense labeled products will perform well, help save money, and encourage innovation in manufacturing.

Don't let the water run while shaving or brushing teeth.

Take short showers instead of tub baths.

Keep drinking water in the refrigerator instead of letting the faucet run until the water is cool.

Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.

Wash only full loads of laundry or use the appropriate water level or load size selection on the washing machine.

Buy high-efficient plumbing fixtures & appliances.

Repair all leaks (a leaky toilet can waste 200 gallons a day).

Water the lawn or garden during the coolest part of the day (early morning is best).

Water plants differently according to what they need. Check with your local extension service or nurseries for advice.

Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.

Use soaker hoses or trickle irrigation systems for trees and shrubs.

Keep your yard healthy - dethatch, use mulch, etc.

Sweep outside instead of using a hose.

Learn how to plant trees, build a pond, compost...

Reduce:

Buy permanent items instead of disposables.

Buy and use only what you need.

Buy products with less packaging.

Buy products that use less toxic chemicals.

Reuse:

Repair items as much as possible.

Use durable coffee mugs.

Use cloth napkins or towels.

Clean out juice bottles and use them for water.

Use empty jars to hold leftover food.

Reuse boxes.

Purchase refillable pens and pencils.

Participate in a paint collection and reuse program.

Donate extras to people you know or to charity instead of throwing them away.

Reuse grocery bags as trash bags.

Recycle:

Recycle paper (printer paper, newspapers, mail, etc.), plastic, glass bottles, cardboard, and aluminum cans. If your community doesn't collect at the curb, take them to a collection center.

Recycle electronics.

Recycle used motor oil.

Compost food scraps, grass and other yard clippings, and dead plants.

Close the loop - buy recycled products and products that use recycled packaging. That's what makes recycling economically possible.

— CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER

Don't Smell

I Battle with odor.
There isn't a deodorant made by man that I have not tried and every one has failed me. The one that came the closest was Old Spice. Of course, the only reason it worked was because it overpowered my stink with a greater one. It didn't fight odor as much as substituted it with abstract macho scents like "Pure Sport" or "Glacial falls."

For a while I tried to abstain, but that didn't go over too well. The justification for this was the reports linking the strong chemicals with all sorts of health problems. As far back as I can remember there were always surgeon general warnings painting deodorant bad, and the details were always on the box of breakthrough alternative products. They made it sound so dire that spraying on right guard or smearing a pit with a jelly stick felt like I was putting a fucking gun in my mouth. At lunch I would walk through the department stores looking for the sample ladies to give me a hit of Cologne.

This will sound odd, but now I use limes. That's right, limes. I worked with a guy from the islands, and one day I saw him cut up a lime and reach under his shirt with it. This looked as weird as it sounds, so I asked what he was doing and he said this was how he kept from smelling. He cut me a piece and I tried it. You know what? The shit worked. You could use a lemon too, but I find it too acidic and it gives me a little rash. I know it sounds crazy, but try it. I promise that you will give up in that freaky chemical stick made from god knows what and smelling like metallic ice (?) what and switch to cool familiar scent of lime. The official minimalist deodorant.

Go to the Library

This weekend I helped a family member move a bookcase so they could get new rugs. It wasn't too much work. The books came down in order laterally and I lined them against the wall, then after moving the bookcase, they went back in the order they came down again. This explanation seems excessive, but it's amazing how people can be funny about little details. Things like the order their books sit on the shelf. In this case, the books belonged to a now deceased relative and were kept in the order of their favorite books from left to right. Although I don't believe that the order of books has any meaning, it is a good way to keep them around the house. Which brings me to this weeks subject: The library.

I used to have lots and lots of books. There wasn't any organizing, what I was reading was on the floor by the sofa or bed, what I had finished were tossed into the pile, and what I didn't like was leveling a table, holding open a broken window or in the bathroom to save money on TP. It's nice having books in the house, its a good way to broadcast a love of knowledge. Visitors can quickly get a sense of who you are by what books you have. Interesting people tend to have interesting books. I still have a few favorites around to thumb through, but mostly they are for show. All of my serious reading comes from the library.

My local branch is very close, so I make more use of the library than most people. The library is not behind the times either, they have good web integration where books, movies and CD's can be requested online. There is no reason to spend hard earned cabbage on DVD rentals or books. You can even use the Internet for free.

It is not enough to simply use the library, you must participate. Every branch has a "friends of the library" group or civic equivalent and I recommend you join. For instance, my library was not current with its wireless Internet service and the old ladies that traditionally respond to such things didn't know the difference between 802.11B and 802.11G - indeed, it would be unreasonable to expect them to. I joined the library club and got smoking fast connections and now more people go to the library. A good library is a sign of a good community.

As for me, when I die and relatives are trying to find my ghost in the books, they will have to go to the library.

Shopoholic

My friends mother was a compulsive shopper. This was in high school, before the clinical social disorders we know today. A sufferer of ADHD was known simply as spaz, and shoplifting or cutting yourself got you a beating, not a prescription. I used to like hanging around the house over there because the "impulsive - compulsive buying disorder" would manifest itself mostly in grocery shopping. Everyday, sometimes several times a day, her mother would come home with carloads of groceries. Not cheap shit either, no double coupons or half off bakery items, it was full price fancy cereals and snacks. Big shiny boxes with smiling kids and moms or hip cartoon critters with hats on sideways bursting with food attitude. I would help carry all this stuff inside - bags and bags of it - then I could have all the die cut processed chicken treats and Hot Pop'em's™ I could eat. Many times I was given stuff to take with me to help make room for tomorrows haul. Being very ignorant, I thought this was the most wonderful thing in the whole world.

It wasn't until much later that I realized the scope of the shame of this problem. These weren't rich people. Vain, yes. They had a lot of nice things and a big house, but they got it all with credit, they didn't actually own any of it. I was there for the delight of carrying in the groceries and tearing open the bags, but I didn't get to see the father come home from work to see all his hard earned money converted into groceries that would go bad and crap from the mall. He would get bullshit and make her take it all back to the store. You can imagine what that must be like, to take a whole carload of groceries back to the service desk and ask a high school drop out to redeem your money. She was too ashamed to go back to that supermarket and had to go a few towns over.

The spoof ad for spoof drug Dolorax at the top of the page appeared in Adbusters circa 2001. It claimed to be the clinical cure for consumption and was styled cleverly after the barrage of psychotropic drugs that were flooding the market. Though probably not intended to be prescience, this very moment research is being done on a synthetic drug that will do what Dolorax advertised. A study was completed and its findings were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry (I get it for the recipes) which found that one person in twenty are compulsive shoppers. It was even suggested that the condition be added to the DSM, since it is the cause of so many social, psychological and financial problems for sufferers. After all, gambling and drinking are regarded as social problems and they have similar effects to compulsive shopping, but it isn't really taken seriously because people assume it only affects rich women. Overconsumption hurts all classes, often being the cause of financial ruin or credit catastrophes. Men, as it turns out, also have a compulsive shopping problem, but because it is emasculating little attention is paid to it. Anti-depressants were helpful in treating compulsive shoppers, suggesting that maybe the problem is a symptom of something else, like deep depression, and should be treated that way.

Third World Farmer

This is a cool game

B.Y.O.B

Near my house is a small market where I buy food. They have a good produce selection and reasonable prices. Its owned and operated by an Arab family and it looks a little dowdy, which is a plus because its never really crowded and I can't understand the other shoppers, so they don't annoy me with their conversations. My only qualm is that they obsessively give me plastic bags. Produce, that is already bagged, gets two more layers of plastic baggery and if an item meets a little resistance on its way in the bag, it just gets its own new double bag. For every one item that I buy, I come away with three plastic bags. At first I did the "life gives you lemons/lemonade," thing and tried to use them as trash bags, but I honestly didn't have that much trash, not to mention the huge tears they tend to get on the short trip home. Suddenly I am surrounded with these wispy ghosts of purchases past floating around the house. They have no heft, so they can't even be hung by their own weight from a doorknob. I fucking hate them.

Fed up, I invested in a set of hippy canvas cloth flour sack looking things for my produce and those stretchy fishnet shopping bags to put it all in. In hindsight this was sort of a waste of money. I could have used an old pillow case if I wanted, the only reason to use the fishnet shopping bag would be to transmit my values to other shoppers. Let me tell you, the line at the super market is not the forum for an ecological, world changing demonstration. Taking - EVEN ONE EXTRA SECOND, would summon the grouchiest, grumpy demons from the shortest queue and the single guys buying nachos and old ladies would start their less than subtle eye rolls and "C'mons....". Sometimes I would be too slow to correct and the well honed bagger would be packing and double bagging my stuff before I could even utter a word. Experience has taught me that if this happens, let them finish. The mental routine of the checkout does not include conscious thought and snapping them out of the trance of bagging groceries and counting money never goes well.

I still use the hippy flour sacks to bag my produce and the Arab market family actually really like them. Where ever they are from, it is how they would carry food home and they like mine because they have a little string which adds a few extra cents to my purchases. The opposite is true at the big super market. I get sneers and raised eyebrows from everyone. They hate the opaque bags because they have to fish through to get the SKU numbers, so I rarely buy fruit from them or I limit it to lettuce and stuff that doesn't need bagging. I gave up on the fishnet shopping bags.They didn't stand up to my dense melon and carton of milk combos. Besides, I was always afraid to buy something small that might fall out. Now I use a great big courier bag which is so big one could convey a sink with it. The act of putting this impressive bag at the end of the convey er eliminates all doubt whether I want paper or plastic. It's does all the talking and it says, "NEITHER FUCKFACE, I BAG MY OWN SHIT!"