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An Empty Regard

[ed.  Our military has been stretched thin for so long in an unfocused and seemingly never-ending effort to do what?  End terror?  Advance democracy?  Stabilize the Middle East?  Ensure steady oil supplies?  Who knows, our purposes are so opaque they've devolved into abstraction.  But for the men and women who are killed or maimed every day in support of those policies abstraction is not an option.  Stories like this one need to be told more often.]

by William Deresiewicz

No symbol is more sacred in American life right now than the military uniform. The cross is divisive; the flag has been put to partisan struggle. But the uniform commands nearly automatic and universal reverence. In Congress as on television, generals are treated with awed respect, service members spoken of as if they were saints. Liberals are especially careful to make the right noises: obeisance to the uniform having become the shibboleth of patriotism, as anti-Communism used to be. Across the political spectrum, throughout the media, in private and public life, the pieties and ritual declarations are second nature now: “warriors,” “heroes,” “mission”; “our young men and women in uniform,” “our brave young men and women,” “our finest young people.” So common has this kind of language become, we scarcely notice it anymore.

There is no question that our troops are courageous and selfless. They expose themselves to inconceivable dangers under conditions of enormous hardship and fight because they want to keep the country safe. We owe them respect and gratitude — even if we think the wars they’re asked to fight are often wrong. But who our service members are and the work their images do in our public psyche, our public discourse, and our public policy are not the same. Pieties are ways to settle arguments before they begin. We need to question them, to see what they’re hiding.

The new cult of the uniform began with the call to “support our troops” during the Iraq war. The slogan played on a justified collective desire to avoid repeating the mistake of the Vietnam era, when hatred of the conflict spilled over into hostility toward the people who were fighting it. Now the logic was inverted: supporting the troops, we were given to understand, meant that you had to support the war. In fact, that’s all it seemed to mean. The ploy was a bait and switch, an act of emotional blackmail. If you opposed the war or questioned the way it was conducted, you undermined our troops.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on, other purposes have come into play. The greater the sacrifice that has fallen on one small group of people, the members of the military and their families, the more we have gone from supporting our troops to putting them on a pedestal. In the Second World War, everybody fought. Soldiers were not remote figures to most of us; they were us. Now, instead of sharing the burden, we sentimentalize it. It’s a lot easier to idealize the people who are fighting than it is to send your kid to join them. This is also a form of service, I suppose: lip service.

The cult of the uniform also bespeaks a wounded empire’s need to reassert its masculinity in the wake of 9/11. “Dead or alive,” “bring it on,” “either you’re with us or you’re against us”: the tenor of official rhetoric in the ensuing years embodied a kind of desperate machismo. The war in Iraq, that catharsis of violence, expressed the same emotional dynamic. We’d been hit in the head with a rock; like a neighborhood bully, we grabbed the first person we could get our hands on and beat him senseless. Mission accomplished: we were strong again, or so we imagined, and the uniform — as George W. Bush understood when he swaggered across the deck of the Abraham Lincoln in a flight suit — was the symbol of that strength. The soldier is the way we want to see ourselves: stoic, powerful, focused, devoted.

As the national narrative shifts from the war on terror to the specter of decline, the uniform performs another psychic function. The military is can-do, the one institution — certainly the one public institution — that still appears to work. The schools, the highways, the post office; Amtrak, FEMA, NASA and the T.S.A. — not to mention the banks, the newspapers, the health care system, and above all, Congress: nothing seems to function anymore, except the armed forces. They’re like our national football team — and undisputed champs, to boot — the one remaining sign of American greatness.

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(A)sexual: An Interview with David Jay

by Caroline Casper

This is what I expected: Jay and I were meeting to talk about the one thing that is harder to talk about than sex—not wanting to have sex. Ever. We were also meeting to discuss a new feature length documentary he starred in called (A)Sexual. The film, produced by Angela Tucker, debuted at the Frameline Film Festival at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco in June and at NewFest, the New York LGBT Film Festival in July. It follows the growth of the asexual community—people that experience no sexual attraction—and their efforts to claim a voice and identity in a sex- obsessed culture.

But this is what I didn’t expect: Within the next two hours David Jay, a guy who identifies himself as a lifelong asexual, would give me more insight on dating, sexual intimacy and forming deeper romantic relationships than any sexual person I’ve ever met. Jay carries a brilliant perspective on the subject of sex, one that can only be achieved through exclusion. As it goes, only from the sidelines of the game can you see the entire field.

Jay came out as an asexual to his parents and friends during high school in 2000. Later in 2001 while at Wesleyan College in Connecticut, he started a website called asexualuity.org (or AVEN, The Asexual Visibility and Education Network) because he realized swarms of people were using the word “asexual” to describe themselves and then later, feeling broken and desperate for more information, typing it into Google. (Studies show that 1% of the population is asexual). Asexaulity.org is marked as the first organized community to provide information and a safe place to discuss issues surrounding what it means to be asexual.

In 2004, the New Scientist in the UK became fascinated with the growing asexuality community here in the states and ran a 6-page feature on it. The story exploded and was featured all over the British press, marking the beginning of Jay’s very public persona as an asexual person. He was featured in the London Times (four different times from 2003- 2006), was on British TV and five different BBC radio stations. The news spike triggered press in the U.S. too and Jay was later featured in the New York Times and was a guest on 20/20 and The View where he held strong as the hosts teased him and tried to reduce him to just a confused kid. But they were soon rapt with his knowledge, emotional intelligence and candid honesty.

When an article featuring Jay came out on Salon.com in May of 2005, Angela Tucker read it and the idea for this film was born.

The Rumpus: What did you think of the film?

David Jay: As the subject of the movie, I’m much happier with it than I thought I would be because it is very personal. I’m used to talking about my sexuality in a very public way, but this film got into some really deep and personal stuff about my relationships–on a level that no other press has ever has managed to reach. It captured some really complicated insecurities and uncertainties I was going through at the time. The way our society talks about intimacy is really sexualized but this film showed a great deal of intimacy in my life that isn’t at all sexual. It was also a great visibility tool. Our community’s whole goal is get people talking about everything–power, peoples’ bodies, and all the stuff that is wrapped up in sex. But if sex is not happening, how are you going to relate to these things?

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Virtuosos Becoming a Dime a Dozen

by Anthony Tommasini

The latest young pianist from China to excite classical music audiences and earn raves from critics is the 24-year-old Yuja Wang, a distinctive artist with a comprehensive technique. That Ms. Wang is already a musician of consequence was made clear this year when Deutsche Grammophon released her first recording with an orchestra: performances of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Second Piano Concerto with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. The conductor is Claudio Abbado, no less, a towering maestro who is extremely discriminating in his choice of collaborators.

Ms. Wang’s virtuosity is stunning. But is that so unusual these days? Not really. That a young pianist has come along who can seemingly play anything, and easily, is not the big deal it would have been a short time ago.

The overall level of technical proficiency in instrumental playing, especially on the piano, has increased steadily over time. Many piano teachers, critics and commentators have noted the phenomenon, which is not unlike what happens in sports. The four-minute mile seemed an impossibility until Roger Bannister made the breakthrough in 1954. Since then, runners have knocked nearly 17 seconds off Bannister’s time.

Something similar has long been occurring with pianists. And in the last decade or so the growth of technical proficiency has seemed exponential. Yes, Ms. Wang, who will make her New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall in October, can play anything. But in China alone, in recent years, there have been Lang Lang and Yundi Li.

What long-term effect this trend will have on the field is not clear. Classical music is facing its share of challenges, including declining appreciation of the art form among the general public, and not all segments of the audience are noticing the breakthrough in technical accomplishment that is apparent to insiders: pianists, concert presenters and pianophiles. Because so many pianists are so good, many concertgoers have simply come to expect that any soloist playing the Tchaikovsky First Concerto with the New York Philharmonic will be a phenomenal technician.

A new level of technical excellence is expected of emerging pianists. I see it not just on the concert circuit but also at conservatories and colleges. In recent years, at recitals and chamber music programs at the Juilliard School and elsewhere, particularly with contemporary-music ensembles, I have repeatedly been struck by the sheer level of instrumental expertise that seems a given.

The pianist Jerome Lowenthal, a longtime faculty member at Juilliard, said in a recent telephone interview from California that a phenomenon is absolutely taking place. He observes it in his own studio.

When the 1996 movie “Shine,” about the mentally ill pianist David Helfgott, raised curiosity about Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, Mr. Lowenthal was asked by reporters whether this piece was as formidably difficult as the movie had suggested. He said that he had two answers: “One was that this piece truly is terribly hard. Two was that all my 16-year-old students were playing it.”

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In Silicon Valley, the Night Is Still Young

by Claire Cain Miller

Let the rest of the country worry about a double-dip recession. Tech land, stretching from San Jose to San Francisco, is in a time warp, and times here are still flush.

Even now, technology types in their 20s and 30s are dropping a million-plus each on modest ranch houses in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley and Victorian duplexes in San Francisco, and home prices in some parts have jumped nearly 50 percent in the last six months.

Jobs — good, six-figure jobs, with perks like free haircuts and lessons on how to create the next start-up company — are here for the taking, at least for software engineers.

And for anyone with a decent idea and the drive to start a company, $100,000 to get it off the ground is easy to come by.

Yet, for all the outward optimism, even before the recent gyrations on Wall Street, old fears have been creeping in, nagging memories of the dot-com bust. You can sense it at cocktail parties in Menlo Park, at business conferences in Redwood City, inside the hipper-than-thou offices of young Web companies in San Francisco. Maybe, just maybe, these good times won’t last, and it will all come crashing down again.

“There’s this ’90s hangover people still have,” says Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder and tech investor.

Now the worry is that all the turmoil on Wall Street will spread West. Can Silicon Valley really prosper if the general economy tips back into a recession? Can you make a fortune on your I.P.O. if the market is falling? Probably not. But then, no one should work here unless she is prepared to be lucky. Even in worrisome moments, like now, the essential optimism of this place endures.

Even more than buying a new Prius or jetting off to Cabo for the weekend, the new money set here wants to keep investing — and believing. Backing another start-up is a status symbol, the No. 1 splurge, and it captures both the tech industry’s belief in the future and its fear of missing the next big thing.

“These are nouveau tech millionaires,” says Adeo Ressi, a coach for entrepreneurs. “It’s not that they don’t see the warning signs. It’s like roulette.”

Even before the fragility of the stock market became apparent, people here had been asking this question: Are we in a new tech bubble?

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Sterling Hundley
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Autolux

"Awesome video for an Autolux song. The process of ink and charcoal drawings set to music in a way that really works.  Created by Nomono in collaboration with Freiland Films"

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Migration

[ed.  A powerful photo-essay depicting the grim conditions under which these young women work.]

The phenomenon of foreign women, who line the roadsides of Italy, has become a notorious fact of Italian life. These women work in sub-human conditions; they are sent out without any hope of regularizing their legal status and can be easily transferred into criminal networks.

Many are Africans working as prostitutes to send money home to their families.
For nearly twenty years the women of Benin City, a town in the state of Edo in the
south-central part of Nigeria, have been going to Italy to work in the sex trade and every year successful ones have been recruiting younger girls to follow them.

The Nigerian trafficking industry is fueled by the combination of widespread emigration aspirations and severely limited possibilities for migrating to Europe.

Ensuring a better future for one’s family in Nigeria is a principal motivation for emigration within and outside the trafficking networks. Working abroad is therefore often seen as the best strategy for escaping poverty. The success of many Italos, as these women are called, is evident in Edo. For many girls prostitution in Italy has become an entirely acceptable trade and the legend of their success makes the fight against sex traffickers all the more difficult.

Full series here:

Produced by Japanese pop art king Takashi Murakami, actress Kirsten Dunst was directed by McG in a video for the song Turning Japanese by The Vapors.

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Carlos Dugos
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A Mouse-Eye View

Eagle Owl attacking Photron camera at 1,000 frames per second

Sole Mate

Christian Louboutin and the psychology of shoes.

by Lauren Collins

One afternoon in early March, the shoe designer Christian Louboutin decided to go for a ride on his Vespa. He had just had lunch at a brasserie near his office. The bike, a navy-blue model, was parked by the curb. Louboutin put on a helmet. He pushed the visor up and mounted the machine. I got on behind him. We accelerated tipsily and zoomed off into Paris traffic, dodging bollards and side mirrors.

Louboutin opened up the throttle on Rue de Rivoli. The day was bright and cold. My eyes were tearing. There was a carrousel, a stripy blur. Somewhere in the Second Arrondissement, a traffic light turned red. Louboutin idled at the intersection. Two women came around a corner, unwitting participants in a street-corner défilé. One of them was pushing a wheelchair. Her passenger had a blanket over her lap and, on her feet, a pair of golden shoes that, glinting in the sunlight, looked as though they were encrusted with coins.

The scene, Louboutin said, was “something out of Buñuel.” A similar thing had happened once before, when a disabled woman showed up at a signing session—Louboutin autographs shoes, as an author does books—and presented him with a pump of medium height. “I thought, If I were in a wheelchair, I’d like to be in super-high heels,” Louboutin said. “But it’s funny. People have a strong relationship to their body, and it was quite moving, I thought, that this person, who is paralyzed, still cares about what’s correct for her feet.”

In homage to the Surrealists, Louboutin once created a pair of pumps with a hydrodynamic shape, a bulging eye above the pinkie toe, and tessellating rows of black and gold scales—the foot as a fish. He has designed pairs of shoes with heels of mismatched heights. For a private client, a mine owner, he made a pair of shoes with ruby soles. (Instead of working under armed protection, as the client wanted him to, Louboutin paved the soles in zircons and shipped them to Hong Kong, where the decoys were replaced with real gems.)

In 2008, in a cave in Armenia, scientists discovered what is thought to be the world’s oldest leather shoe, a fifty-five-hundred-year-old cowhide moccasin—a woman’s size 7—with laces and straw padding. But, somewhere between the Chalcolithic age and the Kardashians, shoes went from abetting to embellishing, and even impeding, the feet as a way of getting from one place to another. (The offices of fashion magazines often smell like locker rooms, owing to the rows of stale sneakers and ballerina flats that lurk beneath the desks of carless career women.) To Louboutin, shoes are less interesting for their physical properties than for their psychological ones. A shoe can be an icebreaker, or an inkblot. Louboutin said one day, in the course of praising a Viennese fetish boot from the nineteenth century, “A shoe has so much more to offer than just to walk.”

Louboutin sells more than five hundred thousand pairs of shoes a year, at prices ranging from three hundred and ninety-five dollars, for an espadrille, to six thousand, for a “super-platform” pump covered in thousands of crystals. The sole of each of his shoes is lacquered in a vivid, glossy red. The red soles offer the pleasure of secret knowledge to their wearer, and that of serendipity to their beholder. Like Louis XIV’s red heels, they signal a sort of sumptuary code, promising a world of glamour and privilege. They are also a marketing gimmick that renders an otherwise indistinguishable product instantly recognizable. Elizabeth Semmelhack, the senior curator at the Bata Shoe Museum, in Toronto, told me, “Louboutin took a part of the shoe that had previously been ignored and made it not only visually interesting but commercially useful.” With flickers of telltale color, Louboutin’s shoes issue their own press releases: Oprah interviews George W. Bush, Beyoncé attends the N.B.A. All-Star Game, Carla Bruni strides into No. 10 Downing Street. Louboutin does not advertise, and he says that he does not give shoes to celebrities. (He offers them a discount.) Still, he has elicited the most frenzied attention to soles since the days of Adlai Stevenson.

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3-D Street Art

3D street art — alternatively known as pavement, chalk or sidewalk art — is a form of anamorphic art pioneered by American Kurt Wenner. Sprawling over sidewalks, walls, and public spaces, artists use chalk or pastels to render pictures that use mathematical continuation of perspective to give the illusion of three-dimensionality. Though the medium is widely regarded as a modern art, street art traces its origins back to the Renaissance.

Renaissance Roots

The penchant for putting chalk to sidewalk was practiced widely by Italian vagabond artists. Known as the Madonnari because of their copious reproductions of Madonna, the artists would travel between festivals, creating religious works from brick, charcoal, colored stones and chalk. Giving credence to the ‘starving artist’ stereotype, the Madonnari lived solely off the coins passers-by tossed at them for their skill. This practice continued for centuries until the hardships of WW2 significantly reduced the numbers of the Madonnari. However, the art form was revitalized thanks to the International Street Painting Festival in Northern Italy, and the tradition has morphed and continued to date.

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$1000. Best . Roomate. Ever

[ed.  As far as I can tell this looks like a legitimate post on the San Francisco Craigslist and seems to be the meme of the week.  Whether or not this person would in fact be the Best. Roomate. Ever...  you decide.]

Konichiwa bitches. Are you looking for the most kick-ass fucking roommate that ever lived? If so, look no further. You fucking found him. I'm a 25-year-old professional marketing agent with experience at bad-ass companies in New York Fucking City. That's right! What you know about experience? I graduated from Auburn University in Alabama, and moved to NYC at the ripe, tender age of 22. After deciding that New York was a stinky shit-hole, I moved back to Alabama to cultivate more professional experience. Why? So I can make millions of dollars and not have to post shit like this on Craigslist.

Anyway, so I landed this job with a marketing firm in San Francisco, and I have no fucking clue where to live. Honestly, I'm moving there in 3 weeks, so I don't give a shit if I have to sleep in your bathtub.

A bit about me: I'm respectful, quiet, clean and I won't bother any of your shit. If you leave shit out, I'm just like, "Oh fuck I better not mess with this shit, because it's not mine." I turn off lights. I clean toilets. Fuck it. I'll even cook for you. That's right! My dad is a chef and taught me everything there is to know about cooking southern cajun cuisine. I'll fry green tomatoes, cover them with marinated crab meat and smother that shit in bearnaise. EVERY. GODDAMN. NIGHT. Don't eat meat? That's fucking FANTASTIC! I'll make a zucchini and yellow squash carpaccio that will knock your fucking socks off.

I also read a lot. I fucking LOVE books. Vonnegut, Palahniuk, Hawthorne. All that shit. I read Tuesday's with Morrie the other day. It's a sad story, but I learned something about life, love, knowledge and the pursuit of something greater than myself. Fucking smart. Do you like movies? I fucking love them. We can watch the shit out of some movies together if you like, or go get drinks, or work out, hike, play video games or play a game of one-on-one basketball, or I don't have to talk to you at all. It's completely UP TO YOU!

Sometimes I play guitar. Are you going to love getting baked and listening to Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd? LIVE? WHENEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT? Of course you are! I'll take requests and learn any song you like, because I have the voice of an angel and the acoustical stylings of James Fucking Taylor. AWWWWWW SHIT YEA!

A lot of people ask me, "Hey, you're from Alabama. Are you racist?" And, the answer to that question is, no. I'm not racist or judgmental at all. I love everyone. I'm a secular humanist. I FUCKING LOVE PEOPLE. That's the only requirement to being a secular humanist actually. You have to like other human beings and want to help them for no other reason than they are human regardless of race, religion or sexual preference. WTF?!!!? Pretty fucking cool right?

I own almost nothing! I'm driving my car from Alabama to California in which I'll be transporting two duffelbags of clothes, one laptop computer, one guitar, one cell-phone with charger, 8 pairs of shoes, one picture frame, probably some condoms and a shitload of beef jerky and Pringles for the trip. Though, you can expect the jerky to be gone upon my arrival. Unless you'd like me to pick up some on my way into the city. See?! I'm the most considerate person you've ever met. I'm offering to buy you shit already!

Am I interested in your pad? You can bet my nomadic ass I am! I only require 4 walls, a ceiling and a floor to shelter me from the elements. Other than that, anything else will be considered a convenient plus. I'm taking being a roommate to the next level. Email me! I'll hook yo ass up with Facebook links, background checks, credit reports, phone numbers, resumes, references, awards, sexual history, pictures of karate trophies and a list of the top 10 women I'd like to bang before I die. If you want a next-generation roommate who consistently blows your fucking mind with awesomeness, then hit me up. I'm ready to give you money.

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Triclosan

by Andrew Martin

The maker of Dial Complete hand soap says that it kills more germs than any other brand. But is it safe?

That question has federal regulators, consumer advocates and soap manufacturers locked in a battle over the active ingredient in Dial Complete and many other antibacterial soaps, a chemical known as triclosan.

The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the safety of the chemical, which was created more than 40 years ago as a surgical scrub for hospitals. Triclosan is now in a range of consumer products, including soaps, kitchen cutting boards and even a best-selling toothpaste, Colgate Total. It is so prevalent that a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the chemical present in the urine of 75 percent of Americans over the age of 5.

Scientists have raised concerns about triclosan for decades. Last year, Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts, pressured the F.D.A. to write regulations for antiseptic products like hand soap, including the use of triclosan. The process of creating regulations was started more than three decades ago, but has been repeatedly delayed. In the meantime, Mr. Markey has called for a ban on triclosan in hand soaps, in products that come in contact with food and in products marketed to children.

The concern is based on recent studies about the possible health impacts of triclosan, which the F.D.A. said, in a Feb. 23, 2010, letter to Mr. Markey, “raise valid concerns about the effect of repetitive daily human exposure to these antiseptic ingredients.”

Several have shown that triclosan disrupts the thyroid hormone in frogs and rats, while others have shown that triclosan alters the sex hormones of laboratory animals. Others studies have shown that triclosan can cause some bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics.

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Friday Book Club - The Chronology of Water

From Amazon:

I've read Ms. Yuknavitch's book The Chronology of Water, cover to cover, a dozen times. I am still reading it. And I will, most likely, return to it for inspiration and ideas, and out of sheer admiration, for the rest of my life. The book is extraordinary. Chuck Palahniuk, Pygmy

I love this book and I am thankful that Lidia Yuknavitch has written it for me and for everyone else who has ever had to sometimes kind of work at staying alive. It’s about the body, brain, and soul of a woman who has managed to scratch up through the slime and concrete and crap of life in order to resurrect herself. The kind of book Janis Joplin might have written if she had made it through the fire - raw, tough, pure, more full of love than you thought possible and sometimes even hilarious. This is the book Lidia Yuknavitch was put on the planet to write for us. Rebecca Brown, author of The Gifts of the Body

The Chronology of Water’s central metaphor works beautifully: we all keep our heads above water, look around, and enjoy our corporeal life despite all the reasons not to; beyond that, the book is immensely impressive to me on a human level: the narrator/speaker/protagonist/author emerges from a seriously hellish childhood and spooky adolescence into a middle age not of bliss, certainly, but of convincing engagement and satisfaction. David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

This intensely powerful memoir touches depths yet unheard of in contemporary writing. I read it at one sitting and wondered for days after about love, time, and truth. Can't get me any more excited than this." Andrei Codrescu, author of The Poetry Lesson

Flooded with light and incandescent beauty, Lidia Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water cuts through the heart of the reader. These fierce life stories gleam, fiery images passing just beneath the surface of the pages. You will feel rage, fear, release, and joy, and you will not be able to stop reading this deeply brave and human voice. Diana Abu-Jaber, Origin: A Novel

Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir The Chronology of Water is a brutal beauty bomb and a true love song. Rich with story, alive with emotion, both merciful and utterly merciless, I am forever altered by every stunning page. This is the book I’m going to press into everyone’s hands for years to come. This is the book I've been waiting to read all of my life. Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild

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