reading clearout - december 2021

Hi - some thoughts on (some) recent reading I won't bother putting into a full ("full") review ("review").

The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada (November 2021)

Things get just far enough out of hand in this odd little novel to where I could understand why a reader might dismiss it out of hand, but for me a couple of unexpectedly sharp observations elevated it to one of my favorite reads of the year. The first was a moment that outlined the broken logic of temporary work - someone brought into an organization that is unwilling to invest in its own workers comes under significant pressure to ignore his or her own potential, eventually becoming jaded enough with the concept of work to resist making any more than a minimal investment of effort into the organization. The second was a scene where one of the protagonists, suddenly finding herself with an unexpected half-day, cannot think of anything better to do than take a walk through the company grounds. These examples speak to two sides of a question that from experience it seems like anyone who works a full-time job will grapple with at some point in their career - the experience alternates from the extremes of meaningless to all-encompassing, often with nauseating volatility, and it leaves the average worker wondering if it's worth making the effort in a world that seems ready to move on without them, all the while as that same world seems to slowly encroach on every free moment of their existence.

The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy (October 2019)

Remember last time, when I extolled the virtues of holding off on a reading review? The other side of the coin is that sometimes you can hold off for so long that you forget everything you knew about the book. If this happens, you'll have a grand old time scribbling down your thoughts while watching a half-arsed helmet football game on Sunday afternoon. But, let's just get to business.

In this case, I went back and checked out a few reviews just to see if I could jog my memory, but this was to no avail. It seems like the most telling note I took down is the one that mentions how Medusa returned the male gaze and, well, look at what happened - portrayed as evil, then beheaded; the example speaks to the subtle and overt sexist experiences Levy draws upon to put together this work. I think there is always something universal in a well-written memoir, and some of my other notes suggest the same applies to The Cost of Living - the note, for example, that someone else's honestly makes it possible for listeners to respond more freely, rings true both from my conversational experience as well as the ease with which I can write about a book reflecting the same feature. I'm also quite convinced of the eternal wisdom in the idea of becoming an artist rather than dying of the past. As a final legacy of my reading experience, I noted that I should look into Arts of the Possible by Adrienne Rich, and I anticipate checking out this work sometime in the next year.

The most honest thing I can say about this book, however, goes back to my initial attempt to jog my memory via various summaries and comments. One review noted that this book was a must-read for Levy's fans, a club to which I claim no membership; I have no idea how I ended up with this book in the first place. It's a good reminder that when I mention certain books about Liverpool FC, reference a moment from a helmet football podcast, or preach about the various virtues of live U2 performances, I should make these comments alongside the all-important disclaimer regarding the intended audience.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (February 2020)

This collection, which I read almost two years ago, was good enough for me to check out Unaccustomed Earth, a book I mentioned in last month's clearout. There were three stories I noted for reread from this debut 1999 collection - "A Temporary Matter", "Mrs. Sen's", and "The Third and Final Continent". It wasn't a major challenge for me to find a PDF online of the former, and it might be worth sampling first before diving into the rest of the collection. 

reading review - english is broken here

I generally don't bother listing out subtitles, but you'll see it below for this book. In this case I found it a quite helpful summary for the main theme of this 1995 work. In these essays, Fusco examines both the theory and reality of how race and culture interact, with the focus mostly on the minority perspective. Although section 2 didn't resonate much with me ("Artists and their work"), I enjoyed the various insights from the rest of the work, and I reread "Pan-American Postnationalism". I also noted how the radio segment transcribed in the final section had the feel of one of George Saunders's satirical short stories, reinforcing how artists can find a way to convey a particular sentiment or observation through a full range of creative mediums.

English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas by Coco Fusco (October 2021)

One example Fusco highlights as common to anyone of a minority race is being described under one term or expression, which lumps people together with others who may not share all that much with them in terms of cultural background. When English is Broken Here explores this idea, it's done so with an emphasis on the Hispanic or Latino experience, which I think fits with Fusco's Cuban-American background. From my perspective, using Asian to lump me into a broad category isn't something I consider a major problem, but I think it does create challenges for people who are lazy with assumptions to understand how I might relate to another Asian person's experience.

To put it another way, there is nothing that seems more quintessentially American than the idea of an "Asian fusion" restaurant. Again, this isn't to suggest that I see any kind of problem - I've found the food at many of these establishments to be quite good - but someone who walks away with a sense of having enjoyed a multi-cultural "experience" probably also considers a nature documentary as a reasonable substitute for some quality outdoors time. There is, I suspect, a certain confusion regarding the distinction between experience and entertainment, with the latter responsible for maintaining the illusion that one is the other, perhaps by implying that ignoring differences is the same as relating across them, or by suggesting that one can grow without the growing pains. 

I think this leads to how Fusco points out at various times throughout the work that America has a certain history of removing culture from its context as a way of creating entertainment, particularly in the sense of how it allows mass culture to reinforce existing power dynamics. This could be in the sense of appropriation (which Fusco notes as the process of erasing authorship as work transfers across cultural lines) or in examples of misrepresentation (such as casting white actors to play a minority character). In these instances (among others), the process of removing context in order to create entertainment whose source comes from outside cultures implies a symbolic violence, where creators lose credit for work while economic and political power continues to accumulate in a systemically unjust fashion. 

As I wrap up my thoughts, I have two final comments to highlight, both of which I'm sure will stick around in my mind. The first mentioned a perspective that the US-Mexico border is a necessary protection to prevent the US from invading again; the second anointed Columbus as America's first illegal alien.

TOA Rating: Three cultures out of one

toa rewind - superpowers

I think part of the problem involved in encouraging people to reach their potential is their inability to recognize their own gifts. But I suppose this is a problem inherent to any gift - for the most part we don't really choose what we get, and sometimes that makes it hard to understand why we should value it. There is no reason to think that Spiderman prefers his powers to that of being able to read minds.

On the other hand, maybe this problem is just another symptom of sleep deprivation.

leftovers - sounds like a wage shortage from me (summer apartment search)

One thought that I ultimately removed from the original post last month was how our general cluelessness regarding the basic fundamentals of economics might manifest in the same behaviors as that of a greedy person. I remember this summer while looking for an apartment that most of the units I saw had been vacant for months, with realtors revealing that the landlords were simply unwilling to go beyond trivial concessions on their listing price. Would I be willing to put in an offer a couple hundred dollars lower than listing, just to help them understand the market and start a conversation about lowering the price? It made sense to me, but not for me, so I never took the next step in these situations.

Or maybe, I just fell into the flow of the conversation, nodding along to keep things moving, and only pausing in retrospect a few hours later to question whether this would address the root cause of the problem. Was the issue really a lack of information about the market? Wasn't the fact of widespread vacancy enough evidence? My building's on-site superintendent was adamant that greedy landlords preferred to leave units vacant at a higher listing rather than settle for a lower rent, a position perhaps influenced (and supported) by the multiple units in our building that endured extended vacancies during the pandemic. But I think at some point the math undermines the argument. When we are talking about two or three hundred dollars per month, I have to suspect that even the dimmest landlords will recognize how a short vacancy can wipe away the difference over the course of a year's lease. I think the problem was more that the landlords felt the shortage of prospective renters was the fact of a fixed condition rather than a simpler issue of mispriced units, this conviction perhaps reinforced by a muted response to a token decrease or two from earlier in the rental season, and this conclusion left them feeling powerless to generate new interest in their units via the mechanism of lowering the listed rent.

Would it have helped these landlords to learn that I had offered two hundred dollars below listing? It surely couldn't have hurt, but I don't think it would have made the difference. What the landlords needed to see, and I think this did come about eventually, was how units at lower listings were becoming more competitive. The logical next step would be to wait until some of those units started coming off the market, at which point a trivial rent decrease could entice anyone remaining to look at a slightly higher price point, a neat process that always ends somewhere in the middle. If the landlords had initially lowered their rent to a competitive level, they would presumably have competed against lesser units already priced at that number, and their units would have moved to the front of the line. But if their is a clear superior between two apartments listed at the same price, then why list them at the same price? This uncertainty loop is probably what kept those vacant units at their original listings for such a long time.

I don't think there is a clear connection anymore with this line of thinking to that of the original wage shortage post, which I hope clarifies why I took it out of the final. But I do think there is a lesson that applies - in the apartment example, the only reason to move first and lower the listing is to rent the unit as quickly as possible. I suspect that one underreported aspect of the labor shortage is related to how certain fields don't need to fill their openings with the strictest urgency. Much like how a landlord with no need for immediate rental income can afford to hold off on filling a vacancy, a business with the ability to operate at reduced capacity has no existential urgency to hire for openings. These firms may list jobs and complain about being unable to find workers, but if there is no intention to increase wages then it seems unproductive to me that it would be counted among those openings where the firm is doing everything possible to attract new hires.

toa rewind - trip to bermuda

I think what people don't understand about feedback is that it's almost impossible to tell someone what they need to know without hurting them in the process. If you can find a way to leave the smallest possible cut, then you may be on to something, at least if you value the process of helping others reach their potential.

I'm not sure if this is necessarily something I learned from using a particular knife, but when I lost it the point definitely hit home. Sometimes, you don't really remember something until you forget it, just as you don't realize what you have until it's lost.

leftovers - the toa podcast hall of fame (the takeover)

I wondered if my post about this episode raised a certain question - given what I said about it, why would I still include it in this series? There are two reasons, the first of which is the obvious one, though not necessarily something I feel obligated to state in each post - I have a great time whenever I listen to "The Takeover". This is worth emphasizing because it's true for anything I'll include in this series. Outside of all the analysis and reflections regarding the deeper implications of each episode, the core reality of my choices is that I enjoyed listening to the show, and I would enjoy listening to them again.

But of course, there has to be more, right? The second reason is that this episode, as it was the case when I highlighted my choice from 99% Invisible, improved the way I think about the topic. It's possible this will also be true for my choices in this series, though probably not necessarily so (hard to make the case that Barry Hearn appearing on Men In Blazers "improved my thinking", but there you go, life's tough). As it regards the Reply All episode, what it did for me was highlight the problem of the internet falling short as a substitute for the original. I suspect this is hard to notice without training yourself to notice it, but I think people are coming around to the idea, perhaps with the assistance of excellent work like "The Takeover".

The internet links us to more information than ever before, yet people seem misinformed to the extent that it fueled (is fueling?) the severity of a pandemic; the venerated online connectivity tools seem capable only of disconnecting people, to the extent that it erodes their mental health while dismantling the sense of shared community that comes naturally when we occupy physical spaces; people are reading more than ever yet doing so in such scattered fragments that they retain nothing of value. In each of the above, the internet has always taken credit for its contributions without ever taking responsibility for the mess it's left behind. The internet, with the promise of distributing its infinite quantities to us in ever-shortening measurements of "no time at all", has left us incapable or disinterested in replacing what we've exchanged for it. Is it a net positive if you factor in all negative externalities? I think the challenge posed to us now is how to apply the most useful tool in human history in a way that makes it actually useful, at least in the sense of eliminating it from those places where a digital substitute represents a collective setback in terms of our community, understanding, or experience.

the toa newsletter - december 2021

Excuse me for a moment while I have a laugh imagining the scene - various readers from around the globe seeing this title and suddenly realizing, contrary to recently reset expectations, that the TOA newsletter is in fact alive and well, fit to continue spamming inboxes around the globe, a pointless missive on all things deemed too irrelevant even for the low standards of relevance otherwise maintained on this space. Yes, nothing beats a good chuckle while thinking about your exasperation.

So is it true? Is the newsletter back? Hardly. It just happens that my message for today coincides nicely with the calendar, so I'm reusing an old pizza box for this delivery. Today's business is more straightforward than the predecessor that once dominated the first of the TOA month. I'm just here to note that we're hitting the brakes again for a few weeks, at least into the new year. I'm a little better prepared for this break than I was in the summer so there will be a few things here and there, but for the most part TOA will shift to a reduced schedule.

What does this mean for your weekend? Well, I wouldn't expect anything substantial for the next handful of Sundays. I also think anything more than one post midweek is unrealistic. I may take some time to resurface lost "classics" (like this barrel of nonsense) and there will be some leftovers from the recent posts. I may also make those minor tweaks to the website that I've been threatening to do for the past several years.

But is there anything else? I think the rest is worth discovering as we go.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the break.