11 Alive

On August 2nd of 1943, whilst serving as commander of the PT-109 during World War II, John F. Kennedy and crew were rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri; their boat instantly halved by the impact and two of the crew killed. Six days later, stranded in the Solomon Islands with his fellow survivors, Kennedy carved the following message into a coconut shell and handed it to Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, two natives tasked with delivering it to the nearest Allied base 35 nautical miles away, by canoe. Luckily they succeeded, and Kennedy and his men were soon rescued as a result.

Kennedy later had the shell encased in plastic; it was then used as a paperweight in the Oval Office during his Presidency.

Transcript follows. Image courtesy of the JFK Library.

Transcript

NAURO ISL...COMMANDER
NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT
HE CAN PILOT...11 ALIVE
NEED SMALL BOAT
KENNEDY

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Mistakes Were Made

[ed. An excerpt from this book is linked at the end of this review]

Review by Danielle Procida

There is a vast body of literature on how to do well, how to be happy, what to do and choose for one's own benefit and that of others. This body covers a range from the vulgar to the great moral philosophers. We are not short of such analyses or guidance.

In contrast, the body of work which considers our failure to do well and be good is decidedly smaller, and also, it must be said, rather lamer, particularly in its power to explain why we fall into foolish beliefs, make bad decisions and commit hurtful acts. We remain opaque to others and to ourselves, thinking, acting and responding in ways which are harmful, counter-productive and baffling. Most baffling of all is our propensity to continue in these patterns, to compound error with error and throw good vigorously after bad.

Attempts at explanation tend towards exasperated (and inadequate) conclusions of egoism, stupidity or evil, or contentious structures of historical, social or psychological theory to provide some sort of answer. Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers an alternative to these by describing the workings of a simple process, one which by its nature is hidden from our view. This process is self-justification, and it is driven by an engine of cognitive dissonance, the discomfort we feel at the gap between our self-image and the less attractive reality that sometimes confronts us.

It works like this: I do something that I should not have done, and this troubles me, because I'm not the kind of person who does that sort of thing. Redressing the mistake will be even more painful or difficult than not committing it in the first place would have been. So, to salve this nagging complaint of the soul, I declare to myself that the act was the right one all along, and I confirm this by reinforcing it at the earliest possible opportunity.

Brand on Celebrity

[ed.  This has to be one of the most fascinating, articulate interviews I think I've ever seen.  Whether you care about Mr. Brand or not, it's certainly worth a look.  Who would have thought?]

I'm not a huge Russell Brand fan (I don't dislike him either, but most of his media came out after my daughter was born and I essentially embarked upon a half-decade adult TV and movie fast), but this is a remarkable interview. Brand gets some tough questions from the interviewer, and while he gets excited and even rants a little, he is consistently cogent, intelligent, and well-spoken. This is practically a master class in how to talk about celebrity while being a celebrity without sounding like a knob.

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Happy Easter

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Doll Brawl

[ed. This has nothing to do with the following article but it gives me a chance to tell the only Barbie joke I know:  One day Ken and Barbie are getting a bit closer than usual and, perplexed, he looks in her eyes and says, 'I feel like there's something missing here, but I just can't seem to put my finger on it'] 

Bratz v. Barbie: Who’s the Bad Girl?

by  Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker

Last January, at a courthouse in southern California, a remarkable memo came to light during a trial pitting Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie dolls, against MGA, the much smaller company that makes Bratz dolls. The 2004 memo, which one of the MGA attorneys introduced into evidence, warned of a “rival-led Barbie genocide.” It went on in similarly doom-laden language: “This is war and sides must be taken: Barbie stands for good. All others stand for evil.”

Well, “evil” won yesterday, big-time. A jury awarded MGA $88.5 million in damages, endorsing MGA’s claim that Mattel had engaged in corporate espionage to ferret out and misappropriate the smaller company’s trade secrets. (I wrote about the Bratz Barbie fight for The New Yorker in 2006.) Through a series of court cases that began in 2004, it was initially Barbie shaking her contoured little bottom in a victory dance. In August, 2008, a federal judge in Riverside, California, ruled that Mattel owned the Bratz line and that MGA would have to stop selling the tarty dolls and pay Mattel a hundred million dollars in damages. The designer who had first pitched the Bratz dolls to MGA, Carter Bryant, was working for Mattel at the time, so his sketches and first so-called “sculpts” of the dolls belonged to Mattel, the company claimed—and the court agreed.

In January of this year, though, it was the Bratz girls’ turn to stick their tongues out at the competition—a move that suited them to a T. The Ninth District Court of Appeals sided with MGA, and overturned the injunction against selling Bratz, concluding, “America thrives on competition. Barbie, the All-American girl, will too.” Then, Thursday, a jury in Santa Ana, California, upheld MGA’s counterclaim about corporate espionage.

Now if by “evil,” Mattel had been referring to certain qualities of the Bratz dolls themselves, I might have said, yeah—evil-ish, anyway. The dolls, which came on the market just over a decade ago, are weirdly sexualized for playthings aimed at five- to ten-year-old girls—stiletto sandals, cushiony Botox lips, heavy eye shadow, and shop-till-you-drop, kept-girl attitude. They’re multi-ethnic, which is nice, but doesn’t quite make up for the rest of the package.

But Mattel wasn’t indicting the Bratz for any of that. In fact, it went for a similar look and attitude with its My Scene dolls. What it didn’t like was competition. On those grounds, it had a very weak case—and one that, had it been upheld, would have resulted in a paralyzingly broad notion of intellectual property. As the Ninth District ruling, written by chief judge Alex Kozinski, pointed out, Mattel “can’t claim a monopoly over fashion dolls with a bratty look or attitude, or dolls sporting trendy clothing. These are all unprotectable ideas.” What can be protected is not the idea but its specific expression: Stephanie Meyer didn’t have a monopoly on vampire stories, nor Degas on pictures of ballet dancers, and Mattel didn’t have one on fashion-forward plastic dolls.

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Flying Fish

[Holy Carp.  I've never seen anything like this.  Incoming!]

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Silly Rabbit

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Pink and Blue

Franklin Roosevelt

by  Jeanne Maglaty

Little Franklin Delano Roosevelt sits primly on a stool, his white skirt spread smoothly over his lap, his hands clasping a hat trimmed with a marabou feather. Shoulder-length hair and patent leather party shoes complete the ensemble.

We find the look unsettling today, yet social convention of 1884, when FDR was photographed at age 2 1/2, dictated that boys wore dresses until age 6 or 7, also the time of their first haircut. Franklin’s outfit was considered gender-neutral.

But nowadays people just have to know the sex of a baby or young child at first glance, says Jo B. Paoletti, a historian at the University of Maryland and author of Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America, to be published later this year. Thus we see, for example, a pink headband encircling the bald head of an infant girl.

Why have young children’s clothing styles changed so dramatically? How did we end up with two “teams”—boys in blue and girls in pink?

“It’s really a story of what happened to neutral clothing,” says Paoletti, who has explored the meaning of children’s clothing for 30 years. For centuries, she says, children wore dainty white dresses up to age 6. “What was once a matter of practicality—you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached—became a matter of ‘Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they’ll grow up perverted,’ ” Paoletti says.

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Saturday Night Mix - Hawaiian Edition

Einstein's Brain

[ed.  I hadn't heard this story, but was intrigued after reading about the death of Dr. Einstein's granddaughter, Evelyn Einstein last week]  

by  Jon Katz

You've all heard the scientific folktale about Einstein's brain, right?  In 1995, during an autopsy after the great man's death, Einsten's brain was removed from his body, ostensibly to be studied for clues to his genius. The tale varies and gets murky after that, but most versions have it that the brain supposedly disappeared and was languishing in some file cabinet or basement.

Some rumors had it that the brain had been cut up and parts resided in various attics and garages around the United States and Canada. Other parts were said to be in the posession of the controversial doctor who performed the autopsy, an odd old man who had vanished from public view. Einstein's family, went the tales, wanted no part of his brain, or of the notion that anything could be learned from it.

Freelance writer Michael Paterniti heard the rumor, along with almost everyone else in America who is interested in science and/or technology, and was fascinated by it. He happened to mention it to his landlord in New Mexico, who didn't even blink. "Yeah," said the landlord, "the guy with the brain lives next to William (Burroughs, the writer) in Kansas. He used to be a pathologist."

So it turns out a shocking percentage of the rumor was true and soon thereafter, Paterniti tracked down the pathologist and the brain (which was stored in formaldehyde-filled Tupperware jars in New Jersey, and offered to drive him to California, where the doctor wanted to take it to Einstein's grand-daughter. Soon the two were barrelling across America in Paterniti's Buick Skylark headed for California, munching donuts, staying in cheap motels, the brain bouncing along in the trunk.

he and she

 

may i feel said he
by e e cummings

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)

may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

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Salt of the Earth

Six Types of Salt and How to Use Them

by Maureen Callahan

Knowing the difference between Kosher and sea salt can make a world of difference in your dishes. Here, six easy-to-find varieties, with tips on when and where to sprinkle them.

Kosher Salt

Use it for: All cooking. Kosher salt dissolves fast, and its flavor disperses quickly, so chefs recommend tossing it on everything from pork roast to popcorn.

Origin: Either the sea or the earth. Widely sold brands include Morton and Diamond Crystal, which are made using different methods. Kosher salt got its name because its craggy crystals make it perfect for curing meat―a step in the koshering process.

Texture: Coarse. Cooks prize crystals like these; their roughness makes it easy to pinch a perfect amount.

To buy: Look in your local supermarket. Kosher salts cost about $1 a pound. If you don't mind a few clumps, buy Diamond Crystal; it has no anticaking agents, which can leave a chemical aftertaste.

Crystalline Sea Salt

Use it for: Adding a pungent burst of flavor to just-cooked foods. These crystals will complement anything from a fresh salad to a salmon fillet.

Origin: Coasts from Portugal to Maine, California to the Pacific Rim.

Texture: Fine or coarse. The size of the irregular crystals affects how fast the salt dissolves. It varies in color, depending on the minerals it contains (iron-rich red clay, for example, gives Hawaiian sea salt a pinkish hue). These natural impurities can add subtly briny, sweet, or even bitter flavors to the salts.

To buy: Check gourmet shops or on-line (thespicehouse.com stocks Hawaiian sea salt). Expect to pay $2 to $15 or more a pound. Many markets sell La Baleine, a relatively inexpensive brand ($3 for 26.5 ounces).

Charting American Exceptionalism

We’re #1: Charting American Exceptionalism

by David Morris

Los Amigos Invisibles

Have some fun.

Second Thoughts

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Advice From 'America's Worst Mom'

A year ago, journalist Lenore Skenazy caused a media sensation when she let her 9-year-old ride New York City’s subway by himself. In a new book, she explains why she has no regrets.

by Lenore Skenazy

About a year ago, I let my 9-year-old ride the New York subway alone for the first time. I didn’t do it because I was brave or reckless or seeking a book contract. I did it because I know my son the way you know your kids. I knew he was ready, so I let him go. Then I wrote a column about it for The New York Sun. Big deal, right?

Well, the night the column ran, someone from the Today show called me at home to ask, Did I really let my son take the subway by himself?

Yes.

Just abandoned him in the middle of the city and told him to find his way home?

Well, abandoned is kind of a strong word, but … yes, I did leave him at Bloomingdale’s.

In this day and age?

No, in Ladies’ Handbags.

Oh, she loved that. Would I be willing to come on the air and talk about it?

Sure, why not?

I had no idea what was about to hit me.

A day later, there across from me was Ann Curry looking outrageously pretty and slightly alarmed, because her next guest (the one right before George Clooney) just might be criminally insane. By way of introduction, she turned to the camera and asked, “Is she an enlightened mom or a really bad one?”

The shot widened to reveal … me. And my son Izzy. And some “parenting expert” perched on that famous couch right next to us, who, I soon learned, was there to Teach Us a Lesson.

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Creativity vs. Innovation

Creativity

Innovation

Sometimes there's a difference

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Friday Book Club - Gould's Book of Fish

Reviewed by James Campbell, NY Times

The narrator of ''Gould's Book of Fish'' ends his tale having become his subject matter and ''knowing that a scam is just a dream, & that a dream is a dangerous thing if you believe in it too much.'' Richard Flanagan is a Tasmanian writer who has confronted dreams, heedless of danger, and been much rewarded in his home region for having done so. His first novel, ''Death of a River Guide'' (1994), was narrated by a drowning man, Aljaz, who had been ''granted visions -- grand, great, wild, sweeping visions.'' Over 300 pages of antipodean magic realism followed, while Aljaz submitted to the river. Flanagan's next novel, ''The Sound of One Hand Clapping'' (1997), resorted to naturalism, albeit of a sort that allowed the story to be told in chopped-up time. With his new book, the author has turned back to his earlier recipe -- one part Rabelais, one part García Márquez, one part Ned Kelly -- to ''wild, sweeping visions'' and to water.

The hero of ''Gould's Book of Fish'' is based on a historical figure, William Buelow Gould, an English convict and painter who drowned in 1831 while trying to escape from Sarah Island, a penal colony off Tasmania. The original ''Book of Fish'' is Gould's taxonomy of the fish caught locally, which is now housed in the State Library of Tasmania. In an audacious effort at postcolonial recovery, Flanagan has adopted the existing plates and other fragments of Gould's work and attempted to imagine a history of ''an island in the middle of a wilderness far off the coast of a nowhere land so blighted it existed only as a gaol.'' Flanagan's version is outspoken on many unspeakable stories, like the aboriginal genocide. It undercuts the history dictated by judges and jailers, and in order to escape the invidious rationalism of its era it deploys a method whereby, as his publisher said of Flanagan's first novel, ''dreaming reasserts its power over thinking.''

The basic situation of Billy Gould, convicted murderer, thief and forger, is confinement to a cliffside cage, in which seawater washes up to his neck when the tide rolls in. ''I count my blessings as I float,'' he writes; ''this twice-daily bath lately seems to have rid me of my lice.'' His jailer, Pobjoy, beats him regularly and receives in return the prisoner's weapon, feces. Unsurprisingly for a man in such dire straits, Gould's speech is correspondingly scatological. When he puts paint to paper, however, he is a genius. As if things weren't bad enough, Gould is surrounded by people on the convict island who are half-mad and bent on oppressing him: the Commandant; the surgeon, Lempriere; Pobjoy himself. There is also a black British convict named Capois Death and an aboriginal woman, Twopenny Sal, who may have borne Gould's child. Larger than life though they all are, none has much force as a fictional character, a deficiency apparently justified by the novel's final trick, revealed in an afterword.

Flanagan has a terrific narrative energy, and he reaches for ''the marvelous, the extraordinary, the gorgeously inexplicable wonder of a universe only limited by one's own imagining of it.'' The disadvantage for the reader, in a novel of phantasmagoric happenings, is that these are apt to take the place of mundane but engaging devices like plot, dialogue, character. ''Gould's Book of Fish'' has no plot and next to no dialogue of the ordinary kind, and Gould, for all his talent, has no human personality. A typical anecdote is the one in which we learn how he was sent to the penal colony: ''In that courtroom there was a lot of dark wood trying to take itself seriously. In order to lighten all that sorry timber up I should have told it the story I am telling you now, of how life is best appreciated as a joke when you discover all Heaven & all Hell are implicit in the most insignificant: a soiled sheet, a kangaroo hunt, the eyes of a fish.''

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Hope

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Building the Guitar You’ll Keep

Above: Gerard Egan sets up a guitar before it heads out the door at Santa Cruz Guitar. It takes about four hours to install and adjust everything that touches the strings, from the bridge to the frets to the tuning keys. Once a guitar is properly set up, it’s played to make sure everything is just right.
 
“He'll make the guitars speak their first words,” Hoover said.

by  Chuck Squatiglia

James Nash didn’t pack a guitar when he went off to college, which in hindsight was a boneheaded move.

Nash was 17 at the time and had been playing for about a dozen years. He was good. But he didn’t have any plans to “do music seriously” and didn’t think he’d play much while he was at school.

That didn’t last. Once you’ve discovered you enjoy playing the guitar, you can’t stop playing the guitar. It wasn’t long before Nash was borrowing guitars, playing whatever he could get his hands on whenever he could get his hands on it. Somewhere along the line he picked up a cheap Japanese guitar and was happy.

His father, however, was not.

Dad loved music and always had nice guitars lying around. It wouldn’t do to have his son playing something that sounded like a cat in heat. He showed up one day with a Santa Cruz Guitar six-string he’d picked up secondhand. An OM, Sitka spruce and Indian rosewood.

“Here,” he said. “Play this.”

It was perfect, with a bright, clear tone and great sound. Well, almost perfect. The neck was just a bit ... off. Not quite the right shape. No amount of adjustment would set it right. Finally, Nash walked into Santa Cruz Guitars to see what they could do.

“Let me have a look at that,” company founder Richard Hoover said. Santa Cruz was — and still is — a small place, the kind of place where Hoover himself will show you around if you ask for a tour. He did everything he could think of to set that neck right, but nothing worked. So he made a new neck and installed it for free, just because.

Nash, who’s 37 now, still has that guitar. He’s played it at hundreds of gigs with his band, The Waybacks. And all these years later, he hasn’t forgotten what Hoover did for a kid who wandered in one day looking for some help.

“You never forget something like that,” Nash said. “I was a 20-year-old kid. A no one. Not even in a band. But he treated me nicely when he had absolutely no reason to, or anything to gain from it.”

That’s how they are at Santa Cruz Guitar.

Starting the Company

Richard Hoover is a vivacious, cheerful man of 59, with horn-rimmed glasses, a thick beard and graying hair worn in a ponytail. He looks like someone who would have fallen in love with Santa Cruz as a child and vowed to move there, which is exactly what happened. He also looks like someone who could have been a cowboy in Montana, which is almost what happened.

He and his sweetheart arrived in Santa Cruz in 1972. He started repairing, then building, guitars when his beloved Martin D-28 was stolen a short time later. He had a knack for it, but was frustrated by the dearth of information about his craft.

“There was nothing written about steel-string guitars,” he said. “But there was a great deal of information on violin-making.”

Hoover read everything he could find about how the masters used science and art — and, to hear him explain it, not a little magic — to make wood and glue and varnish sing. The more he learned, the more he saw how much he had to learn. So he turned to other luthiers for help, figuring they could do more together than individually. After spending a few years building guitars on his own, Hoover founded Santa Cruz Guitar Co. with William Davis and Bruce Ross in 1976. Had they asked around, most people would have said they were crazy.

“We came along at the worst possible time,” Hoover said with a chuckle. “The acoustic guitar was all but extinct.”

It didn’t help that this little company no one had heard of, from a hippie town in California, was competing against the likes of Gibson, Martin and Guild. It also didn’t help that they were using wood almost no one had heard of.

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