[ed. Missed this over the holiday season... my golf buddy Matt is the bass player. Great band.]
Monday, January 9, 2023
How US State Agencies Got Funny
"I feel frustrated when my feelings aren’t heard or acknowledged!"
"Do you have the emotional/mental capacity for me to vent about you thinking about eating me right now?"
Image: Twitter
Saturday, January 7, 2023
Clown Show
So if this godawful mess is not personal or ideological, then what is it? Ultimately, it's not about Kevin McCarthy at all. It's about the Republican Party's self-conception in its exciting new fascist iteration (which was forged under Donald Trump but doesn't really have much to do with him either). Fascism needs to be understood less as an ideological movement and more as a movement devoted to the worship of power for its own sake, and also a dramatic aesthetic of constant warfare and performative purification of an ever-narrower conception of the body politic.
Those are big words, and I apologize, but here's a simpler way to put it: Fascists are a bunch of trolls who are never satisfied. They must always prove their power by ganging up on someone who's been cast as an "outsider." As the Atlantic's Adam Serwer famously observed, "The cruelty is the point." Most of the time, the targets are racial and sexual minorities, liberals or immigrants. But sometimes, that restless need to constantly bully someone manifests in purification rituals, where a once-trusted or even beloved insider is deemed an outsider who must be ritually purged. It's just Kevin McCarthy's turn in the proverbial barrel, though he almost certainly hasn't helped his cause by constantly debasing himself before the hardliners. He's marked himself as a weenie, and that just makes his tormentors enjoy watching him suffer even more.
The Trump era has, understandably, led to a nonstop and frustrating debate over what exactly "fascism" is. I favor the famous 1995 essay by Italian philosopher Umberto Eco, who argued that fascism is a movement of "rigid discombobulation, a structured confusion," replete with contradictions and incoherencies, and yet that "emotionally it was firmly fastened to some archetypal foundations."
In other words, fascism is about vibes more than fleshed-out ideas. Very, very authoritarian vibes. One big reason we can identify Republicans as fascist now is because while their appetite for power knows no end, their willingness to govern — that is, to use power to achieve substantive ends — has diminished to nothing. It's all vibes and no ideas, beyond an inchoate loathing of anyone they deem too dark-skinned, too queer or too literate to be truly American.
In his "Ur-Fascism" essay, Eco laid out 14 features of fascism, which add up not to a coherent political philosophy so much as a series of antisocial impulses. It's worth reading in its entirety, but the McCarthy debacle illustrates some of Eco's most important observations: Fascism is deliberately irrational. Indeed, it makes a fetish of irrationality. It's a "cult of action for action's sake" that believes thinking before acting "is a form of emasculation." The fascist believes that "life is permanent warfare" and therefore there must always be an enemy to struggle against. That's why fascists love conspiracy theories. Their "followers must feel besieged," and since they have no real oppressors to rail against, they make up imaginary ones.
After Trump's coup failed and the red wave of the midterms didn't materialize, Republicans are turning on each other. Even healthy political parties tend to have periods of recrimination after suffering bitter defeats. For the dysfunctional Republicans, however, this anger is being refracted through their increasingly fascist worldview, which is paranoid, irrational and hostile to democracy. That's why the demands made by the anti-McCarthy faction are incomprehensible and seem to change by the hour. The mentality that "life is permanent warfare" leads to the party's desire to constantly purify itself of the enemy within, in this case the despised "RINOs." But as more and more RINOs get purged, the definition becomes more expansive and maintaining party purity becomes almost impossible. Eventually, craven sycophants like McCarthy are rechristened as RINOs and thrown overboard. There is no endpoint where the party has finally cleansed itself.
Watching Republicans tear each other apart like this isn't just entertaining, but also useful. Fascists are always itching for a fight. Under Trump, that energy was directed outwardly at their perceived enemies: Democrats, liberal "elites," immigrants, LGBTQ people and eventually democracy itself. But as this House leadership fight has shown, fascists will also turn on each other like a bunch of weasels in a sack. With any luck, they tear themselves apart before they can tear democracy down.
Nancy Pelosi may not be the House Democrats' leader anymore, but her party are responding to this clown show in a way that shows they retain the unity and clarity of purpose Pelosi typically brought to their caucus. They are resisting the centrist punditry that insists Democrats have a responsibility to swoop in and protect Republicans from their own worst elements, as if saving their most vicious opponents from their own mistakes were somehow the same thing as saving democracy. We saw this impulse most recently in the media reaction to Democratic campaign ads highlighting the MAGA bonafides of certain far-right candidates to GOP primary voters, believing those kinds of radicals would be easier to beat in a general election. Those media criticisms were based on the shaky assumption that fire-breathing fascists are a bigger threat to democracy than supposed "mainstream" Republicans like McCarthy, who share their anti-democratic views but can play moderate in front of the cameras.
Well, the strategy of sowing internal discord among Republicans is working pretty well so far. A lot of the GOP's most egregious nuts lost their elections. Those who made it across the finish line are currently in the process of blowing their party up. Democrats are wise to continue refusing to bail Republicans out of their own mess. Even though Kevin McCarthy is the fascist crowd's newest piñata, that doesn't mean it's good for Democrats or democracy if he secures the speaker's gavel. He has no interest in governing. The plan, if we want to call it that, was to ignore legislation and appoint lots of House committees to spread conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and other political foes. McCarthy was also expected to use threats about the debt ceiling and a possible government shutdown in a pointless and destructive effort to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare. By far the best thing for democracy is if the Republicans simply implode and their nefarious schemes never come to fruition.
Those are big words, and I apologize, but here's a simpler way to put it: Fascists are a bunch of trolls who are never satisfied. They must always prove their power by ganging up on someone who's been cast as an "outsider." As the Atlantic's Adam Serwer famously observed, "The cruelty is the point." Most of the time, the targets are racial and sexual minorities, liberals or immigrants. But sometimes, that restless need to constantly bully someone manifests in purification rituals, where a once-trusted or even beloved insider is deemed an outsider who must be ritually purged. It's just Kevin McCarthy's turn in the proverbial barrel, though he almost certainly hasn't helped his cause by constantly debasing himself before the hardliners. He's marked himself as a weenie, and that just makes his tormentors enjoy watching him suffer even more.
In other words, fascism is about vibes more than fleshed-out ideas. Very, very authoritarian vibes. One big reason we can identify Republicans as fascist now is because while their appetite for power knows no end, their willingness to govern — that is, to use power to achieve substantive ends — has diminished to nothing. It's all vibes and no ideas, beyond an inchoate loathing of anyone they deem too dark-skinned, too queer or too literate to be truly American.
In his "Ur-Fascism" essay, Eco laid out 14 features of fascism, which add up not to a coherent political philosophy so much as a series of antisocial impulses. It's worth reading in its entirety, but the McCarthy debacle illustrates some of Eco's most important observations: Fascism is deliberately irrational. Indeed, it makes a fetish of irrationality. It's a "cult of action for action's sake" that believes thinking before acting "is a form of emasculation." The fascist believes that "life is permanent warfare" and therefore there must always be an enemy to struggle against. That's why fascists love conspiracy theories. Their "followers must feel besieged," and since they have no real oppressors to rail against, they make up imaginary ones.
After Trump's coup failed and the red wave of the midterms didn't materialize, Republicans are turning on each other. Even healthy political parties tend to have periods of recrimination after suffering bitter defeats. For the dysfunctional Republicans, however, this anger is being refracted through their increasingly fascist worldview, which is paranoid, irrational and hostile to democracy. That's why the demands made by the anti-McCarthy faction are incomprehensible and seem to change by the hour. The mentality that "life is permanent warfare" leads to the party's desire to constantly purify itself of the enemy within, in this case the despised "RINOs." But as more and more RINOs get purged, the definition becomes more expansive and maintaining party purity becomes almost impossible. Eventually, craven sycophants like McCarthy are rechristened as RINOs and thrown overboard. There is no endpoint where the party has finally cleansed itself.
Watching Republicans tear each other apart like this isn't just entertaining, but also useful. Fascists are always itching for a fight. Under Trump, that energy was directed outwardly at their perceived enemies: Democrats, liberal "elites," immigrants, LGBTQ people and eventually democracy itself. But as this House leadership fight has shown, fascists will also turn on each other like a bunch of weasels in a sack. With any luck, they tear themselves apart before they can tear democracy down.
Nancy Pelosi may not be the House Democrats' leader anymore, but her party are responding to this clown show in a way that shows they retain the unity and clarity of purpose Pelosi typically brought to their caucus. They are resisting the centrist punditry that insists Democrats have a responsibility to swoop in and protect Republicans from their own worst elements, as if saving their most vicious opponents from their own mistakes were somehow the same thing as saving democracy. We saw this impulse most recently in the media reaction to Democratic campaign ads highlighting the MAGA bonafides of certain far-right candidates to GOP primary voters, believing those kinds of radicals would be easier to beat in a general election. Those media criticisms were based on the shaky assumption that fire-breathing fascists are a bigger threat to democracy than supposed "mainstream" Republicans like McCarthy, who share their anti-democratic views but can play moderate in front of the cameras.
Well, the strategy of sowing internal discord among Republicans is working pretty well so far. A lot of the GOP's most egregious nuts lost their elections. Those who made it across the finish line are currently in the process of blowing their party up. Democrats are wise to continue refusing to bail Republicans out of their own mess. Even though Kevin McCarthy is the fascist crowd's newest piñata, that doesn't mean it's good for Democrats or democracy if he secures the speaker's gavel. He has no interest in governing. The plan, if we want to call it that, was to ignore legislation and appoint lots of House committees to spread conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and other political foes. McCarthy was also expected to use threats about the debt ceiling and a possible government shutdown in a pointless and destructive effort to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare. By far the best thing for democracy is if the Republicans simply implode and their nefarious schemes never come to fruition.
by Amanda Marcotte, Salon | Read more:
Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images [ed. Hold on to your shorts, it's going to be a bad couple of years. Do read Eco's essay: Ur-Fascism.]
Friday, January 6, 2023
The Perfect Seahawk
For the second time this season, an all-time Seahawks icon is returning to Seattle with his new team Sunday.
However, the debate over linebacker Bobby Wagner’s reception as a member of the Los Angeles Rams couldn’t be any different from the one that preceded Russell Wilson’s appearance four months ago with the Denver Broncos at Lumen Field, way back on Sept. 12.
Should you boo, or should you cheer? That was the raging debate for months among fans, if you’ll recall, once the schedule was released in May. The NFL, recognizing a good human drama when it sees one, had placed the Broncos in Seattle for the season opener, providing fans an instant referendum on their complicated feelings about Wilson.
Coach Pete Carroll definitely seemed to be pushing the fans to, well, give Wilson the business when he said, on the Wednesday before the Broncos game (when asked how he wanted the fan to receive the quarterback): “You are either competing, or you are not, I’m leaving it up to the 12s. It’s game time, and we are going for it, so however they take it I will follow their lead on that. I’m not going to be involved in that opportunity to react, so I don’t have to make that decision. We will see what happens. I’ll leave it up to the 12s. I think they will know exactly what to do.”
That was widely interpreted as a license to boo Wilson, and that’s precisely what fans audibly did (leavened by a smattering of cheers, to be fair). The Seahawks pulled out a 17-16 victory, starting Wilson on his path to a thoroughly miserable 2022 season in every way.
With Wagner, however, the question isn’t whether fans will cheer or boo. Rather, it’s how long and loud will they cheer?
Here’s what Carroll said Wednesday when asked a similar question about how he thought fans would receive Wagner. This time, the tone and nuance was entirely different:
“Oh yeah, they’re going to be great. They love him. I think they’re going to welcome him back. I just think that’s what’ll happen. Then if he makes a tackle or something, then maybe they don’t give him as much love. I don’t know. He’s going to make some hits in this game. He’s playing good ball and doing good stuff, but they’ll do the right thing. Whatever it is, they’ll do it.”
Considering that Carroll once called Wagner “the perfect Seahawk,” the implication of what the “right thing” is in this case seems clear.
Wagner is that rarest of commodities: An all-time performer who left without any baggage, his reputation fully intact. There is nothing but unequivocal fondness toward Wagner, who came to Seattle in the same 2012 draft as Wilson and was cut by the Seahawks on the same momentous day as the Wilson trade in March.
Over that decade, however, Wagner’s relationship with the fan base (and the organization) was not nearly as complicated as the quarterback’s.
Certainly, that’s a reflection of the positions they play, the quarterback invariably being a lightning rod for strong opinion.
But it’s also a reflection of Wagner’s personality. There doesn’t seem to be any of the angst that was associated with Wilson, who like Wagner did tons of good deeds in the community, and on the field, but could also be divisive (should or shouldn’t he be allowed to cook?) in a way that Wagner avoided.
The linebacker simply racked up his 100-plus tackles a year (way plus, in many seasons) and was a fount of consistency. While teammates took veiled (and sometimes anonymous) shots at Wilson over the years — even more this season, the epitome of hitting a man when he’s down — Wagner was an unparalleled and unanimously respected leader.
One huge difference between Wagner and Wilson coloring current perceptions is that Wagner wholeheartedly wanted to stay in Seattle. He was cut largely for salary-cap reasons (and left with a bit of hard feelings when, he tweeted, he didn’t hear of his release from the organization first — for which Carroll and general manager John Schneider apologized).
Here was Wagner’s final quote on the topic of his future with Seattle in the final weeks of last season:
“Obviously, I can’t control everything,” he said. “I can only control my part, and my part on this is I feel like I love this city, I love this team, I love the Seahawks. I always wanted to be a part of a franchise in the good times and bad times and every time. This is a team that I would love to be able to be a part of for a very, very long time. On my end, that’s where I’m at, that I’m a Seahawk until they tell me I’m not.”
They told him that, eventually, on March 8, making Wagner the last link to the “Legion of Boom” defense that helped win one Super Bowl and nearly win another. Wagner was a five-time Seahawk captain, named to eight Pro Bowls and earned first team All-Pro honors six times, more than anyone in franchise history. Second on the list with four is Hall of Famer Walter Jones.
However, the debate over linebacker Bobby Wagner’s reception as a member of the Los Angeles Rams couldn’t be any different from the one that preceded Russell Wilson’s appearance four months ago with the Denver Broncos at Lumen Field, way back on Sept. 12.
Should you boo, or should you cheer? That was the raging debate for months among fans, if you’ll recall, once the schedule was released in May. The NFL, recognizing a good human drama when it sees one, had placed the Broncos in Seattle for the season opener, providing fans an instant referendum on their complicated feelings about Wilson.
It was a delicate balance between appreciation over Wilson’s 10-year body of work, and irritation over the way he had seemingly forced his way out of Seattle (and, yes, some of that irritation was based on the smarminess that Wilson often tended to project).
That was widely interpreted as a license to boo Wilson, and that’s precisely what fans audibly did (leavened by a smattering of cheers, to be fair). The Seahawks pulled out a 17-16 victory, starting Wilson on his path to a thoroughly miserable 2022 season in every way.
With Wagner, however, the question isn’t whether fans will cheer or boo. Rather, it’s how long and loud will they cheer?
Here’s what Carroll said Wednesday when asked a similar question about how he thought fans would receive Wagner. This time, the tone and nuance was entirely different:
“Oh yeah, they’re going to be great. They love him. I think they’re going to welcome him back. I just think that’s what’ll happen. Then if he makes a tackle or something, then maybe they don’t give him as much love. I don’t know. He’s going to make some hits in this game. He’s playing good ball and doing good stuff, but they’ll do the right thing. Whatever it is, they’ll do it.”
Considering that Carroll once called Wagner “the perfect Seahawk,” the implication of what the “right thing” is in this case seems clear.
Wagner is that rarest of commodities: An all-time performer who left without any baggage, his reputation fully intact. There is nothing but unequivocal fondness toward Wagner, who came to Seattle in the same 2012 draft as Wilson and was cut by the Seahawks on the same momentous day as the Wilson trade in March.
Over that decade, however, Wagner’s relationship with the fan base (and the organization) was not nearly as complicated as the quarterback’s.
Certainly, that’s a reflection of the positions they play, the quarterback invariably being a lightning rod for strong opinion.
But it’s also a reflection of Wagner’s personality. There doesn’t seem to be any of the angst that was associated with Wilson, who like Wagner did tons of good deeds in the community, and on the field, but could also be divisive (should or shouldn’t he be allowed to cook?) in a way that Wagner avoided.
The linebacker simply racked up his 100-plus tackles a year (way plus, in many seasons) and was a fount of consistency. While teammates took veiled (and sometimes anonymous) shots at Wilson over the years — even more this season, the epitome of hitting a man when he’s down — Wagner was an unparalleled and unanimously respected leader.
One huge difference between Wagner and Wilson coloring current perceptions is that Wagner wholeheartedly wanted to stay in Seattle. He was cut largely for salary-cap reasons (and left with a bit of hard feelings when, he tweeted, he didn’t hear of his release from the organization first — for which Carroll and general manager John Schneider apologized).
Here was Wagner’s final quote on the topic of his future with Seattle in the final weeks of last season:
“Obviously, I can’t control everything,” he said. “I can only control my part, and my part on this is I feel like I love this city, I love this team, I love the Seahawks. I always wanted to be a part of a franchise in the good times and bad times and every time. This is a team that I would love to be able to be a part of for a very, very long time. On my end, that’s where I’m at, that I’m a Seahawk until they tell me I’m not.”
They told him that, eventually, on March 8, making Wagner the last link to the “Legion of Boom” defense that helped win one Super Bowl and nearly win another. Wagner was a five-time Seahawk captain, named to eight Pro Bowls and earned first team All-Pro honors six times, more than anyone in franchise history. Second on the list with four is Hall of Famer Walter Jones.
by Larry Stone, Seattle Times | Read more:
Image: Kyusung Gong/The Associated Press
[ed. The best of the best in every way. Tyler Lockett would be another one. We might've been in the playoffs this season if they hadn't let Bobby go - he had that kind of impact (and Seattle's defense was that bad). Miss you, Bobby. UPDATE: Well, the heaven's parted and Seattle lucked out (winning against LA; Detroit beating Green Bay) so... one more shot in the playoffs. BTW: Check out the amazing pictures of Jennifer Buchanan and Dean Rutz for the Seattle Times (44 in all) - always outstanding.]
[ed. The best of the best in every way. Tyler Lockett would be another one. We might've been in the playoffs this season if they hadn't let Bobby go - he had that kind of impact (and Seattle's defense was that bad). Miss you, Bobby. UPDATE: Well, the heaven's parted and Seattle lucked out (winning against LA; Detroit beating Green Bay) so... one more shot in the playoffs. BTW: Check out the amazing pictures of Jennifer Buchanan and Dean Rutz for the Seattle Times (44 in all) - always outstanding.]
Real Magic
Transcendental Meditation (or TM, as it is widely known), is a now widespread mantra-based meditation technique, loosely based on Vedic principles but formulated primarily for a Western audience. The technique was first popularized by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1960s. Today it reappears mostly in conjunction with the name David Lynch, whose frequent mention of TM in interviews ensured a new wave of its popularity among young Lynch fans hoping to explore the “deep seas” of consciousness and tap into their own latent reserves of creativity. (In 2005, Lynch founded a global charity to teach TM in schools and to other “at-risk populations,” including war veterans, refugees, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, and those struggling with addiction.) I first learned TM earlier this year, having had several friends claim unironically that learning the technique had “changed their life.” For a flat fee, charged according to a means-dependent tier system and ranging from four hundred to a thousand dollars, you get a four-day course made up of both in-person and online sessions, as well as the “lifetime support” of your teacher. The first session is a private consultation and ceremony, during which the teacher gifts you your personalized mantra—a “meaningless” word made up of sounds derived from Sanskrit—which must not be shared with anyone.
My TM teacher was a white yoga instructor from North London and the ceremony took place in her flat. I’d already joined the obligatory onboarding Zoom call, in which she’d taken me and others through a whistlestop PowerPoint of studies backing up the multiple benefits of TM. She asked us to guess her age. She was forty, she revealed after someone placed her in her thirties, but her biological age was at least ten years younger, thanks to TM. On the day of the ceremony, I arrived at her house with the objects I’d been instructed to bring with me: several pieces of fresh fruit, a bunch of fresh flowers, and an unused, plain white handkerchief. She led me into a small room, bare except for two chairs and a table, atop which sat a white tablecloth and a picture of the Maharishi in an ornate golden frame. Chanting in Sanskrit, she performed the puja while I stood by holding a flower from my bunch.
At the end of the ritual, she whispered my word to me, and asked me to repeat it back to her. I kept getting it wrong. “Good enough”, she said on my tenth try, and instructed me to continue repeating it, quietly, more quietly still, until it was just a silent whisper in my mind. I still wasn’t sure if I was saying the word right. I sat in the chair, thinking my mantra. At a certain point, I heard her get up and leave the room. I became very aware of my breathing and was horrified to remember that I was a sack of meat. After some time had passed, she returned to the room, and asked me how long I thought it had been. “Fifteen minutes?” I guessed. She looked disappointed and said it had only been ten minutes. This suggested that time had been dragging for me. I asked her whether that meant I was doing it wrong. “No,” she responded. “It’s not possible to do it wrong.”
In the days that followed, I took myself through the TM course via an app on my phone. The filmed tutorials were led by Tony Nader, the clean-cut Lebanese neuroscientist who assumed leadership of the TM Organization after the death of the Maharishi in 2008. These were interspersed with questionnaires and short archival videos of the Maharishi, in which the guru sat cross-legged atop a gold-draped couch, dressed in white robes, behind him an arrangement of flowers laid out in front of a portrait of his own teacher. I was instructed to meditate twice a day for twenty minutes. I was told repeatedly not to share the technique with anyone, as I was not trained to do so and might inadvertently ruin their experience.
During this period I had daily check-ins with my teacher and a twenty-something-year-old photographer who was learning TM at the same time as me. Each evening the teacher would ask us how we were doing. “Amazing,” the photographer would say. He’d never had more energy. He was starting to experience brief glimpses of transcendence. He described the feeling as a sort of sudden dipping, as if he’d been dunked in a great well of energy. “And you?” the teacher would ask me, thrilled with his answer. “I don’t think I’m doing it right,” I said, and explained that I was having trouble shutting off what I think I described as “the skeptical part of my brain.” In response, I received the smile reserved for the unenlightened. “As long as it’s easy,” she said sympathetically. Ease is perhaps the central principle of Transcendental Meditation, which is where it differs from most other popular techniques. By reciting the mantra, TM teaches, the mind will automatically journey inwards towards “pure consciousness.” You simply have to trust that it will do so on its own. Having thoughts is not a hindrance; this is a sign that the body is releasing stress. The only obstacle to transcendence is effort.
Before beginning to teach TM in 1955, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had learned the technique from Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (also known as Guru Dev), who reportedly entrusted him with the task of spreading Vedic knowledge to the masses. In the 1950s, he began teaching what he then called a traditional meditation technique around India and took on the title of Maharishi, which translates from Hindi as “great seer.” By the 1960s, he was setting up international meditation schools and touring to promote the program. It was on one of these tours, in 1967, that he first met the Beatles, who in 1968 would famously travel to his then-residence in Rishikesh. There, they wrote much of the White Album and were joined by Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence. Over the course of their stay, however, the band began to doubt many of the Maharishi’s claims, including his avowed celibacy, especially after Mia Farrow attested that the Maharishi had made unwanted advances on her—claims that the Maharishi and his followers vehemently denied. The Beatles’ disillusionment with their beloved guru became the rumored basis of the song “Sexy Sadie,” which was initially entitled “Maharishi.” Maharishi, what have you done, you’ve made a fool of everyone.
Farrow’s reports and the Beatles’ disillusionment tarnished the Maharishi’s reputation but did little to halt the growth of the TM empire in the years that followed as it expanded into education, medicine, media, politics, and real estate. At the time of the Maharishi’s death, the Transcendental Meditation organization—officially a nonprofit—was estimated to be worth over £2 billion. The TM headquarters were established just outside Vlodrop, Holland (now the Maharishi European Research University), an elaborate compound ringed by a barbed wire fence and patrolled round-the-clock, where the Maharishi himself resided in a suite on the first floor. From there, he headed a largely volunteer staff of around twenty-five thousand people and broadcast TM courses to subscribers via a satellite television channel that reached 144 countries.
The history of TM is a warren of rabbit holes.
At the end of the ritual, she whispered my word to me, and asked me to repeat it back to her. I kept getting it wrong. “Good enough”, she said on my tenth try, and instructed me to continue repeating it, quietly, more quietly still, until it was just a silent whisper in my mind. I still wasn’t sure if I was saying the word right. I sat in the chair, thinking my mantra. At a certain point, I heard her get up and leave the room. I became very aware of my breathing and was horrified to remember that I was a sack of meat. After some time had passed, she returned to the room, and asked me how long I thought it had been. “Fifteen minutes?” I guessed. She looked disappointed and said it had only been ten minutes. This suggested that time had been dragging for me. I asked her whether that meant I was doing it wrong. “No,” she responded. “It’s not possible to do it wrong.”
In the days that followed, I took myself through the TM course via an app on my phone. The filmed tutorials were led by Tony Nader, the clean-cut Lebanese neuroscientist who assumed leadership of the TM Organization after the death of the Maharishi in 2008. These were interspersed with questionnaires and short archival videos of the Maharishi, in which the guru sat cross-legged atop a gold-draped couch, dressed in white robes, behind him an arrangement of flowers laid out in front of a portrait of his own teacher. I was instructed to meditate twice a day for twenty minutes. I was told repeatedly not to share the technique with anyone, as I was not trained to do so and might inadvertently ruin their experience.
During this period I had daily check-ins with my teacher and a twenty-something-year-old photographer who was learning TM at the same time as me. Each evening the teacher would ask us how we were doing. “Amazing,” the photographer would say. He’d never had more energy. He was starting to experience brief glimpses of transcendence. He described the feeling as a sort of sudden dipping, as if he’d been dunked in a great well of energy. “And you?” the teacher would ask me, thrilled with his answer. “I don’t think I’m doing it right,” I said, and explained that I was having trouble shutting off what I think I described as “the skeptical part of my brain.” In response, I received the smile reserved for the unenlightened. “As long as it’s easy,” she said sympathetically. Ease is perhaps the central principle of Transcendental Meditation, which is where it differs from most other popular techniques. By reciting the mantra, TM teaches, the mind will automatically journey inwards towards “pure consciousness.” You simply have to trust that it will do so on its own. Having thoughts is not a hindrance; this is a sign that the body is releasing stress. The only obstacle to transcendence is effort.
Before beginning to teach TM in 1955, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had learned the technique from Swami Brahmananda Saraswati (also known as Guru Dev), who reportedly entrusted him with the task of spreading Vedic knowledge to the masses. In the 1950s, he began teaching what he then called a traditional meditation technique around India and took on the title of Maharishi, which translates from Hindi as “great seer.” By the 1960s, he was setting up international meditation schools and touring to promote the program. It was on one of these tours, in 1967, that he first met the Beatles, who in 1968 would famously travel to his then-residence in Rishikesh. There, they wrote much of the White Album and were joined by Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence. Over the course of their stay, however, the band began to doubt many of the Maharishi’s claims, including his avowed celibacy, especially after Mia Farrow attested that the Maharishi had made unwanted advances on her—claims that the Maharishi and his followers vehemently denied. The Beatles’ disillusionment with their beloved guru became the rumored basis of the song “Sexy Sadie,” which was initially entitled “Maharishi.” Maharishi, what have you done, you’ve made a fool of everyone.
Farrow’s reports and the Beatles’ disillusionment tarnished the Maharishi’s reputation but did little to halt the growth of the TM empire in the years that followed as it expanded into education, medicine, media, politics, and real estate. At the time of the Maharishi’s death, the Transcendental Meditation organization—officially a nonprofit—was estimated to be worth over £2 billion. The TM headquarters were established just outside Vlodrop, Holland (now the Maharishi European Research University), an elaborate compound ringed by a barbed wire fence and patrolled round-the-clock, where the Maharishi himself resided in a suite on the first floor. From there, he headed a largely volunteer staff of around twenty-five thousand people and broadcast TM courses to subscribers via a satellite television channel that reached 144 countries.
The history of TM is a warren of rabbit holes.
by Lauren Collee, The Baffler | Read more:
Image: © Sebastian Cestaro[ed. I've used TM off and on for most of my life (mostly 0ff). There's no denying it does something, and is a good relaxation technique.]
Wednesday, January 4, 2023
What Really Happens At Halftime
Inside the 49ers’ halftime locker room: Bananas, bathroom trips and study time for Brock Purdy.
“The hell you doing here?”
It’s taken fullback Kyle Juszczyk exactly five seconds to notice there’s an intruder in the 49ers locker room. Kyle Shanahan has given me permission to observe halftime of the Dec. 11 game against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. He agrees the resulting story might be a good explainer of what really goes on behind the closed — and closely guarded — doors of a halftime locker room.
The cliche involves soaring speeches and players getting whipped into a frenzy before the third quarter. And while there’s certainly a rah-rah element to the intermission, no one is delivering “win one for the Gipper” sermons in the NFL. There’s no time. Halftime lasts only 13 minutes, and the players might be inside for roughly 10 minutes.
“When you’re watching on TV, it feels like the halftime is an hour long,” said running back Christian McCaffrey. “When you’re playing, it feels like the snap of a finger.”
There’s no chair-throwing or pounding on metal locker doors like there is in “Any Given Sunday.” There’s simply too much to do. Halftimes are strictly business. And by the time Brady and the Buccaneers have made their visit to Santa Clara, the 49ers have become very good at taking care of business. (...)
The half hasn’t been perfect. Samuel, the team’s MVP from the previous season, was carted off the field after he was bent backward awkwardly at the end of a short run. And just before halftime, defensive back Dontae Johnson, one of the team’s longest-tenured players, suffered what turned out to be a season-ending ACL tear. Both are out of sight in the training room, which is adjacent to the main locker room, when halftime begins.
Still, there’s a confident energy among the players. Many grew up watching Brady. He’s got god-like status in the NFL, and he’s managed to get beyond the 50-yard line only twice so far. That has everyone buzzing. It’s like the locker room is a massive pinball table with 53 players pinging this way and that.
It’s taken fullback Kyle Juszczyk exactly five seconds to notice there’s an intruder in the 49ers locker room. Kyle Shanahan has given me permission to observe halftime of the Dec. 11 game against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. He agrees the resulting story might be a good explainer of what really goes on behind the closed — and closely guarded — doors of a halftime locker room.
The cliche involves soaring speeches and players getting whipped into a frenzy before the third quarter. And while there’s certainly a rah-rah element to the intermission, no one is delivering “win one for the Gipper” sermons in the NFL. There’s no time. Halftime lasts only 13 minutes, and the players might be inside for roughly 10 minutes.
There’s no chair-throwing or pounding on metal locker doors like there is in “Any Given Sunday.” There’s simply too much to do. Halftimes are strictly business. And by the time Brady and the Buccaneers have made their visit to Santa Clara, the 49ers have become very good at taking care of business. (...)
The half hasn’t been perfect. Samuel, the team’s MVP from the previous season, was carted off the field after he was bent backward awkwardly at the end of a short run. And just before halftime, defensive back Dontae Johnson, one of the team’s longest-tenured players, suffered what turned out to be a season-ending ACL tear. Both are out of sight in the training room, which is adjacent to the main locker room, when halftime begins.
Still, there’s a confident energy among the players. Many grew up watching Brady. He’s got god-like status in the NFL, and he’s managed to get beyond the 50-yard line only twice so far. That has everyone buzzing. It’s like the locker room is a massive pinball table with 53 players pinging this way and that.
They have the first four minutes to themselves. Defensive end Nick Bosa, who’s been dealing with a mild hamstring strain in the run-up to the game, makes a quick stop in the training room before heading to his locker. Tight end Charlie Woerner picks up a massage gun and presses it into his upper hamstring as he walks around the room.
Many players change the tape on their wrists and ankles; some change their gloves or at least take them off to let them air out. Receiver Jauan Jennings takes off his cleats and walks around in his socks.
“It’s a reset,” he said when asked about it later. “Your foot isn’t even supposed to be in a shoe to begin with, so it’s a grounding type of thing.”
Most players take advantage of their free time by addressing the most important business of all.
“I normally sit in my seat, put my helmet down,” tackle Mike McGlinchey said when asked about his routine. “Then I make sure I use the restroom.”
If it’s been raining, players will change their socks and cleats. If it’s hot or the game’s in a high-altitude city, a handful will pop into the training room for IVs the way a race car makes a pit stop during the Indy 500.
Many players change the tape on their wrists and ankles; some change their gloves or at least take them off to let them air out. Receiver Jauan Jennings takes off his cleats and walks around in his socks.
“It’s a reset,” he said when asked about it later. “Your foot isn’t even supposed to be in a shoe to begin with, so it’s a grounding type of thing.”
Most players take advantage of their free time by addressing the most important business of all.
“I normally sit in my seat, put my helmet down,” tackle Mike McGlinchey said when asked about his routine. “Then I make sure I use the restroom.”
If it’s been raining, players will change their socks and cleats. If it’s hot or the game’s in a high-altitude city, a handful will pop into the training room for IVs the way a race car makes a pit stop during the Indy 500.
by Matt Barrows, The Athletic | Read more:
Image: Kyle Terada / USA Today
Tuesday, January 3, 2023
[ed. Classic. Says it all. See also: A Con Man Is Succeeding Me in Congress Today (aka Santos); and, We’re Going to Miss Greed and Cynicism (Krugman), NYT.]
A Heavily Armed Man Caused Panic at a Supermarket. But Did He Break the Law?
Two days after a gunman killed 10 people at a Colorado grocery store, leaving many Americans on high alert, Rico Marley was arrested as he emerged from the bathroom at a Publix supermarket in Atlanta. He was wearing body armor and carrying six loaded weapons — four handguns in his jacket pockets, and in a guitar bag, a semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun.
Moments earlier, an Instacart delivery driver had alerted a store employee after seeing Mr. Marley in the bathroom, along with the AR-15-style rifle, which was propped against a wall. A grand jury indictment later described what had come next: “panic, terror and the evacuation of the Publix.”
Mr. Marley, then 22, was arrested without incident that day in March 2021. His lawyer, Charles Brant, noted that he had not made any threats or fired any shots, and had legally purchased his guns. Mr. Marley did not violate Georgia law, Mr. Brant said; he was “just being a person, doing what he had the right to do.”
Indeed, Mr. Marley’s arrest kicked off a long and as yet unresolved legal odyssey in which the criminal justice system waffled over what it could charge him with and whether to set him free. Clearly, visiting the grocery store with a trove of guns had frightened people. But was it illegal?
The episode, and others like it, speaks to a uniquely American quandary: In states with permissive gun laws, the police and prosecutors have limited tools at their disposal when a heavily armed individual’s mere presence in a public space sows fear or even panic.
The question of how to handle such situations has been raised most often in recent years in the context of political protests, where the open display of weapons has led to concerns about intimidation, the squelching of free speech or worse. But it may become a more frequent subject of debate in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court decision in June, which expanded Americans’ right to arm themselves in public while limiting states’ ability to set their own regulations.
The ruling also affirmed the principle of allowing states and local governments to ban guns in “sensitive places”; as examples, it cited legislative assemblies, polling places and courthouses. But the high court left much open for interpretation. “A wave of litigation is going to confront the courts with questions about what, for example, makes a restriction on guns in schools and government buildings different than in museums or on public transit,” Jacob D. Charles, a professor and gun law expert at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, wrote in a recent blog post. (...)
John R. Monroe, a defense lawyer and the vice president of a gun-rights group called Georgia Second Amendment, is not involved in Mr. Marley’s case. But from the outside, he said, it seems baseless.
“I mean, all the guy did was be in the store with guns,” he said. “I go into Kroger with a gun, and I don’t expect to be arrested for reckless conduct when I do that. Based on the information from the case, he didn’t do anything that would even remotely constitute reckless conduct. And shame on the state for even prosecuting him for that.” (...)
Mr. Brant also offered an explanation for Mr. Marley’s conduct that day: He had acquired the guns and the body armor, Mr. Brant said, because he had felt threatened by someone in his neighborhood. On the day of his arrest, he had hoped to take his guns to a nearby shooting range but first had to run some errands, which included a stop at the grocery store. (Mr. Marley did not have a car, Mr. Brant said, which is why he was carrying the guns around with him.) While in the Publix men’s room, Mr. Brant said, Mr. Marley had taken out some of the weapons, including the rifle, to clean them after discovering that some guacamole he had bought had caused a mess inside the bag.
Moments earlier, an Instacart delivery driver had alerted a store employee after seeing Mr. Marley in the bathroom, along with the AR-15-style rifle, which was propped against a wall. A grand jury indictment later described what had come next: “panic, terror and the evacuation of the Publix.”
Indeed, Mr. Marley’s arrest kicked off a long and as yet unresolved legal odyssey in which the criminal justice system waffled over what it could charge him with and whether to set him free. Clearly, visiting the grocery store with a trove of guns had frightened people. But was it illegal?
The episode, and others like it, speaks to a uniquely American quandary: In states with permissive gun laws, the police and prosecutors have limited tools at their disposal when a heavily armed individual’s mere presence in a public space sows fear or even panic.
The question of how to handle such situations has been raised most often in recent years in the context of political protests, where the open display of weapons has led to concerns about intimidation, the squelching of free speech or worse. But it may become a more frequent subject of debate in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court decision in June, which expanded Americans’ right to arm themselves in public while limiting states’ ability to set their own regulations.
The ruling also affirmed the principle of allowing states and local governments to ban guns in “sensitive places”; as examples, it cited legislative assemblies, polling places and courthouses. But the high court left much open for interpretation. “A wave of litigation is going to confront the courts with questions about what, for example, makes a restriction on guns in schools and government buildings different than in museums or on public transit,” Jacob D. Charles, a professor and gun law expert at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, wrote in a recent blog post. (...)
John R. Monroe, a defense lawyer and the vice president of a gun-rights group called Georgia Second Amendment, is not involved in Mr. Marley’s case. But from the outside, he said, it seems baseless.
“I mean, all the guy did was be in the store with guns,” he said. “I go into Kroger with a gun, and I don’t expect to be arrested for reckless conduct when I do that. Based on the information from the case, he didn’t do anything that would even remotely constitute reckless conduct. And shame on the state for even prosecuting him for that.” (...)
Mr. Brant also offered an explanation for Mr. Marley’s conduct that day: He had acquired the guns and the body armor, Mr. Brant said, because he had felt threatened by someone in his neighborhood. On the day of his arrest, he had hoped to take his guns to a nearby shooting range but first had to run some errands, which included a stop at the grocery store. (Mr. Marley did not have a car, Mr. Brant said, which is why he was carrying the guns around with him.) While in the Publix men’s room, Mr. Brant said, Mr. Marley had taken out some of the weapons, including the rifle, to clean them after discovering that some guacamole he had bought had caused a mess inside the bag.
by Richard Fausset, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Dustin Chambers
Image: Dustin Chambers
Monday, January 2, 2023
Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays
[ed. Dedicated to Bill Evans who died September 15, 1980, a year before this song and album were released (As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls). Lyle passed away on February 10, 2020. See also: Breaking Down Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays Most Beautiful Song (Beato).]
How the Marijuana ‘Green Rush’ Fell Apart
The legal cannabis trade, still in its infancy, is flailing in many parts of the country as the pandemic boom that sent sales soaring has tapered off. Supply is now flooding the market in several states, economists say, depressing prices and decimating already-thin margins. And competition is sure to escalate as decriminalization spreads, large growers adopt more cost-effective technologies and the illegal market not only endures, but thrives.
The turmoil is mostly lost on consumers because weed is the rare commodity untouched by the pervasively high inflation blanketing most other goods and services. In fact, retail prices have fallen 10 percent this year in California, the nation’s largest market. It also compounds the challenges unique to this industry: Because marijuana remains illegal federally, businesses must navigate a labyrinth of overlapping regulations – creating confusion and occasionally chaos.
Essentially unable to raise prices, many cultivators and vendors are slashing them in hopes of generating any cash at all. By many accounts, the industry is struggling against unprecedented uncertainty and poised for what Keats is calling the “Great Reset.”
Washington and Colorado kindled the recreational trade in 2012 when they legalized marijuana use for adults 21 and older. Entrepreneurs quickly moved in – growers began converting farms, retailers began searching for investors – hoping to get in on the “green rush” certain to follow as legitamcy spread.
By 2019, pot had found legal homes in 11 states and the District of Columbia, generating a collective $1.7 billion in tax revenue, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a cannabis policy advocacy group.
It was in this environment that Kislak saw her annual harvest of bulk flowers swell to upward of 500 pounds, and many businesses were able to find their footing. More states came online, and tax revenue surged to $3.7 billion in 2021, according to the advocacy group, then shot up to $11.2 billion in the first three months of 2022. By year’s end, legal use had grown to 21 states, two U.S. territories and D.C.
But as more businesses sprouted, society was returning to its pre-pandemic ways and facing a possible recession. Many Americans pulled back on nonessentials such as weed, and sales tumbled for some retailers. Marijuana saturated the market, forcing sellers to drop prices to unload inventory. (...)
While oversupply might be the sector’s most immediate challenge, it has other, more entrenched ones. Cannabis retailers are barred from many of the tax breaks and deductions commonly used in other industries. Other small businesses, for example, can write off as much as 20 percent of their qualified income.
“It’s incredibly difficult to make money if you cannot scale at a huge capacity to combat the inability to take those deductions,” said Hilary Bricken, a cannabis business lawyer at Harris Bricken in Los Angeles.
California imposes multiple taxes as product travels from farms into the hands of retail customers. Local cities or counties sometimes levy an additional tax on top of the state payments.
After harvesting, Kislak says her crop goes to a distributor for packaging and testing, as is required by California law. By the time it’s sold, as much as 40 percent of the retail price has gone to taxes, she said.
So of the $35 a customer might pay for an eighth of an ounce of marijuana, about $12 is left for Kislak’s business. Once you subtract packaging, labeling and testing costs, as well as distribution fees and a county tax, she said her profit is somewhere between $1 and $2.
The turmoil is mostly lost on consumers because weed is the rare commodity untouched by the pervasively high inflation blanketing most other goods and services. In fact, retail prices have fallen 10 percent this year in California, the nation’s largest market. It also compounds the challenges unique to this industry: Because marijuana remains illegal federally, businesses must navigate a labyrinth of overlapping regulations – creating confusion and occasionally chaos.
Washington and Colorado kindled the recreational trade in 2012 when they legalized marijuana use for adults 21 and older. Entrepreneurs quickly moved in – growers began converting farms, retailers began searching for investors – hoping to get in on the “green rush” certain to follow as legitamcy spread.
By 2019, pot had found legal homes in 11 states and the District of Columbia, generating a collective $1.7 billion in tax revenue, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a cannabis policy advocacy group.
It was in this environment that Kislak saw her annual harvest of bulk flowers swell to upward of 500 pounds, and many businesses were able to find their footing. More states came online, and tax revenue surged to $3.7 billion in 2021, according to the advocacy group, then shot up to $11.2 billion in the first three months of 2022. By year’s end, legal use had grown to 21 states, two U.S. territories and D.C.
But as more businesses sprouted, society was returning to its pre-pandemic ways and facing a possible recession. Many Americans pulled back on nonessentials such as weed, and sales tumbled for some retailers. Marijuana saturated the market, forcing sellers to drop prices to unload inventory. (...)
While oversupply might be the sector’s most immediate challenge, it has other, more entrenched ones. Cannabis retailers are barred from many of the tax breaks and deductions commonly used in other industries. Other small businesses, for example, can write off as much as 20 percent of their qualified income.
“It’s incredibly difficult to make money if you cannot scale at a huge capacity to combat the inability to take those deductions,” said Hilary Bricken, a cannabis business lawyer at Harris Bricken in Los Angeles.
California imposes multiple taxes as product travels from farms into the hands of retail customers. Local cities or counties sometimes levy an additional tax on top of the state payments.
After harvesting, Kislak says her crop goes to a distributor for packaging and testing, as is required by California law. By the time it’s sold, as much as 40 percent of the retail price has gone to taxes, she said.
So of the $35 a customer might pay for an eighth of an ounce of marijuana, about $12 is left for Kislak’s business. Once you subtract packaging, labeling and testing costs, as well as distribution fees and a county tax, she said her profit is somewhere between $1 and $2.
Sunday, January 1, 2023
Beware a World Where Artists Are Replaced by Robots. It’s Starting Now
Like many artists, I’ve looked in horror at generative image AI, a technology that is poised to eliminate humans from the field of illustration.
In minutes or hours, apps such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney can churn out polished, detailed images based on text prompts – and they do it for a few dollars or for free. They are faster and cheaper than any human can be, and while their images still have problems – a certain soullessness, perhaps, an excess of fingers, tumors that sprout from ears – they are already good enough to have been used for the book covers and editorial illustration gigs that are many illustrators’ bread and butter.
They are improving at an astounding rate. Though some AI fans give lip service to the idea that this technology is meant to help artists, it is, in fact, a replacement, as explicit as the self-acting spinning mule, a machine commissioned by British factory bosses in 1825 to break the power of striking textile workers.
This replacement could only be accomplished through a massive theft. The most popular generative art AI companies, Stability AI, Lensa AI, Midjourney and DALL-E, all trained their AI’s on massive data sets such as LAION-5B, which is run by the German nonprofit LAION.
These data sets were not ethically obtained. LAION sucked up 5.8 billion images from around the internet, from art sites such as DeviantArt, and even from private medical records. I found my art and photos of my face on their databases. They took it all without the creator’s knowledge, compensation or consent.
Once LAION had scraped up all this work, it handed it over to for-profit companies – such as Stability AI, the creator of the Stable Diffusion model – which then trained their AIs on artists’ pirated work. Type in a text prompt, like “Spongebob Squarepants drawn by Shepard Fairey,” and the AI mashes together art painstakingly created over lifetimes, then spits out an image, sometimes even mimicking an artist’s signature.
AIs can spit out work in the style of any artist they were trained on – eliminating the need for anyone to hire that artist again. People sometimes say “AI art looks like an artist made it.” This is because it vampirized the work of artists and could not function without it. (...)
ClipStudioPaint pulled a generative AI feature after protests by its users. Artists such as “Hellboy” creator Mike Mignola have spoken out against AI art. Famed animator Hayao Miyazaki called it an “insult to life itself.”
AI pushers have told me that AI is a tool which artists can use to automate their work. This just shows how little they understand us. Art is not scrubbing toilets. It’s not an unpleasant task most people would rather have the robots do. It is our heart. We want to do art’s work. We make art because it is who we are, and through immense effort, some of us have managed to earn a living by it. It’s precarious, sure. Our wages have not risen for decades. But we love this work too much to palm it off to some robot, and it is this love that AI pushers will never get.
[ed. See also, this interview: The Best Path Is the One You Build Out of Your Own Dysfunction.]
In minutes or hours, apps such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney can churn out polished, detailed images based on text prompts – and they do it for a few dollars or for free. They are faster and cheaper than any human can be, and while their images still have problems – a certain soullessness, perhaps, an excess of fingers, tumors that sprout from ears – they are already good enough to have been used for the book covers and editorial illustration gigs that are many illustrators’ bread and butter.
This replacement could only be accomplished through a massive theft. The most popular generative art AI companies, Stability AI, Lensa AI, Midjourney and DALL-E, all trained their AI’s on massive data sets such as LAION-5B, which is run by the German nonprofit LAION.
These data sets were not ethically obtained. LAION sucked up 5.8 billion images from around the internet, from art sites such as DeviantArt, and even from private medical records. I found my art and photos of my face on their databases. They took it all without the creator’s knowledge, compensation or consent.
Once LAION had scraped up all this work, it handed it over to for-profit companies – such as Stability AI, the creator of the Stable Diffusion model – which then trained their AIs on artists’ pirated work. Type in a text prompt, like “Spongebob Squarepants drawn by Shepard Fairey,” and the AI mashes together art painstakingly created over lifetimes, then spits out an image, sometimes even mimicking an artist’s signature.
AIs can spit out work in the style of any artist they were trained on – eliminating the need for anyone to hire that artist again. People sometimes say “AI art looks like an artist made it.” This is because it vampirized the work of artists and could not function without it. (...)
ClipStudioPaint pulled a generative AI feature after protests by its users. Artists such as “Hellboy” creator Mike Mignola have spoken out against AI art. Famed animator Hayao Miyazaki called it an “insult to life itself.”
AI pushers have told me that AI is a tool which artists can use to automate their work. This just shows how little they understand us. Art is not scrubbing toilets. It’s not an unpleasant task most people would rather have the robots do. It is our heart. We want to do art’s work. We make art because it is who we are, and through immense effort, some of us have managed to earn a living by it. It’s precarious, sure. Our wages have not risen for decades. But we love this work too much to palm it off to some robot, and it is this love that AI pushers will never get.
by Molly Crabapple, The Star | Read more:
Image: Dreamstime/TNS[ed. See also, this interview: The Best Path Is the One You Build Out of Your Own Dysfunction.]
What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround?
Digital platforms are struggling, meanwhile a 136-year-old book retailer is growing again. But why?
Barnes & Noble is flourishing. After a long decline, the company is profitable and growing again—and last week announced plans to open 30 new stores. In some instances, they are taking over locations where Amazon tried (and failed) to operate bookstores.
Amazon seems invincible. So the idea that Barnes & Noble can succeed where its much larger competitor failed is hard to believe. But the turnaround at B&N is real. In many instances they have already re-opened in locations where they previously shut down.
Barnes & Noble is no tech startup, and is about as un-cool as retailers get. It’s like The Gap, but for books. The company was founded in 1886, and it flourished during the 20th century. But the digital age caught the company by surprise.
For a while, Barnes & Noble tried to imitate Amazon. It ramped up online sales, and introduced its own eBook reader (the Nook), but with little success.
Even after its leading bricks-and-mortar competitor Borders shut down in 2011, B&N still couldn’t find a winning strategy. By 2018 the company was in total collapse. Barnes & Noble lost $18 million that year, and fired 1,800 full time employees—in essence shifting almost all store operations to part time staff. Around that same time, the company fired its CEO due to sexual harassment claims.
Every indicator was miserable. Same-store sales were down. Online sales were down. The share price was down more than 80%. (...)
Could anybody fix these problems?
Amazon had taken over the book retailing business, and had already killed Borders. B&N seemed destined to disappear as well. Everything it had done to match up with Amazon had failed, and now it was weaker than ever.
After all its bad moves, Barnes & Noble now was back where it started as a bookstore. But I’ll be blunt about it: B&N was a lousy bookstore. I gave up shopping there because it never had the book I wanted in stock. Instead it shifted a huge portion of its floorspace to peddling toys, greeting cards, calendars, and various chachkas.
The other B&N big initiative was cafes inside the store, but these were even less appealing than the bookstore. I drink a lot of coffee, but I’d need to be desperate for a caffeine fix before I’d buy a cup of java at B&N.
Barnes & Noble is flourishing. After a long decline, the company is profitable and growing again—and last week announced plans to open 30 new stores. In some instances, they are taking over locations where Amazon tried (and failed) to operate bookstores.
Amazon seems invincible. So the idea that Barnes & Noble can succeed where its much larger competitor failed is hard to believe. But the turnaround at B&N is real. In many instances they have already re-opened in locations where they previously shut down.
For a while, Barnes & Noble tried to imitate Amazon. It ramped up online sales, and introduced its own eBook reader (the Nook), but with little success.
Even after its leading bricks-and-mortar competitor Borders shut down in 2011, B&N still couldn’t find a winning strategy. By 2018 the company was in total collapse. Barnes & Noble lost $18 million that year, and fired 1,800 full time employees—in essence shifting almost all store operations to part time staff. Around that same time, the company fired its CEO due to sexual harassment claims.
Every indicator was miserable. Same-store sales were down. Online sales were down. The share price was down more than 80%. (...)
Could anybody fix these problems?
Amazon had taken over the book retailing business, and had already killed Borders. B&N seemed destined to disappear as well. Everything it had done to match up with Amazon had failed, and now it was weaker than ever.
After all its bad moves, Barnes & Noble now was back where it started as a bookstore. But I’ll be blunt about it: B&N was a lousy bookstore. I gave up shopping there because it never had the book I wanted in stock. Instead it shifted a huge portion of its floorspace to peddling toys, greeting cards, calendars, and various chachkas.
The other B&N big initiative was cafes inside the store, but these were even less appealing than the bookstore. I drink a lot of coffee, but I’d need to be desperate for a caffeine fix before I’d buy a cup of java at B&N.
And in a bizarre strategic move, the company decided to launch freestanding restaurants under the name Barnes & Noble Kitchen—no books, just meals. But this was another disaster.
The company chairman Leonard Riggio eventually admitted, in September 2018, that running a restaurant is “a lot harder than you think it is….The bottom line is awful.”
In other words, food at B&N was just like the books, except books don’t stink when they get old. But in this case, everything the brand stood for was looking stale.
The company chairman Leonard Riggio eventually admitted, in September 2018, that running a restaurant is “a lot harder than you think it is….The bottom line is awful.”
In other words, food at B&N was just like the books, except books don’t stink when they get old. But in this case, everything the brand stood for was looking stale.
How Did This Mess Get Fixed?
It’s amazing how much difference a new boss can make.
I’ve seen that firsthand so many times. I now have a rule of thumb: “There is no substitute for good decisions at the top—and no remedy for stupid ones.”
It’s really that simple. When the CEO makes foolish blunders, all the wisdom and hard work of everyone else in the company is insufficient to compensate. You only fix these problems by starting at the top.
In the case of Barnes & Noble, the new boss was named James Daunt. And he had already turned around Waterstones, a struggling book retailing chain in Britain.
Back when he was 26, Daunt had started out running a single bookstore in London—and it was a beautiful store. He had to borrow the money to do it, but he wanted a store that was a showplace for books. And he succeeded despite breaking all the rules.
I’ve seen that firsthand so many times. I now have a rule of thumb: “There is no substitute for good decisions at the top—and no remedy for stupid ones.”
It’s really that simple. When the CEO makes foolish blunders, all the wisdom and hard work of everyone else in the company is insufficient to compensate. You only fix these problems by starting at the top.
In the case of Barnes & Noble, the new boss was named James Daunt. And he had already turned around Waterstones, a struggling book retailing chain in Britain.
Back when he was 26, Daunt had started out running a single bookstore in London—and it was a beautiful store. He had to borrow the money to do it, but he wanted a store that was a showplace for books. And he succeeded despite breaking all the rules.
by Ted Gioia, The Honest Broker | Read more:
Image: uncredited
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