On An Unwelcome Trend

 

You are on the internet. A place meant for knowledge, exploration, and improvement- but full of uncertainty, unfamiliarity, and unpleasantness.

Deal with it.

To see someone prefacing a picture, a film, or a piece of writing with aught like "(cw:xyz)" is to immediately be less inclined to pursue any interest I might have had- largely out of sheer indignation. In the past, I have said that knowing how a story ends doesn't spoil the journey of it for me, and that will always remain true. But to see a writer or an artist making a conscious decision to knowingly turn away potential enjoyers of their work before they can take the time to explore it for themselves? That burns. When exploring media, the discovery of the experience is so much more than words, sounds, or imagery.

Are so many so unwilling to explore outside their comforts that they need be warned of what might come? Are creators so fragile as to censor themselves before their work so much as sees the light of day? Do they feel the rise of fear in their hearts if they choose not to? 

But... what if they believe it necessary?

A fine broad-strokes example, something I have seen fade to such obscurity that it may well be lost: the craft of the film trailer, or of the dust jacket blurb. Instead of intriguing or inspiring a prospective enjoyer with the work's potential possibilities, all too often now they simply lay facts and figures out in a manner so bland, so banal, as to hamstring any opinion that might be developed of the work itself. Film trailers that spoil the big twist. Book synopses that offer names and actions sans any intent. 

What is missed above all in these flawed, misappropriated mediums and methods, is the reason to delve. To interest someone enough that they explore the depths of a story, to do the detective work that might reveal to an audience that story's very soul, and through it perhaps highlight some facet of their own.

In a time where creative expression is relentlessly stifled unless tirelessly monetized, and potential audiences are so much more willing and able to spread uninformed venom, then what might yet be done?

All I can offer is the proper thing to do: ignore the warnings placed by others, and respect the quality of your audience by offering none of your own.

Yet principles do not pay for groceries. And so ever shall I hunger.

Why You Must Lead With "Yes"

"No." is one of the most aggressively abused words and concepts in any language.

Refusing something is a nebulously acceptable notion, but it's one that has requirements.

"Yes" is the only acceptable default. "No" requires valid justification. You can't say no to something just because you want to, nor can you say it because your beliefs don't align with something provable.

It's tiring to see the meteoric rise in preventable disease because "people" who are uppity about vaccines think they deserve the luxury of refusing them. I have to qualify the word usage simply because that designation is, to my mind, forfeit. Upon making the choice to actively sabotage a cooperative sociocultural environment and endanger the lives of their betters, they're worse than people, even than animals.

"Oh, this prevents the spread of a disease? No, I don't care about that." Well, off to the proverbial leper colony with you. No access to any public services ever again, because you've proven that you'd poison the well if you wanted to badly enough.

Shunning the willfully ignorant, the contrarian, the reckless, the ego-driven... it's all simply good practice. Lots of actual people with knowledge, experience, and skill do incredible amounts of actual research, experimentation, and verification to make the lives of others visibly better. 

Not every person can follow the minutiae behind most of it, and that's okay- that's why expertise as a concept exists. But thinking it's acceptable to dismiss those experts' efforts due to an inability to understand them?

No, that's definitely not. The aggressively politically motivated countercultural movement towards blatant distrust of the scientific method and disregard of validated expertise in the name of profiteering and personal preference is easily the greatest danger the U.S. (are they really though?) has faced in at least the last hundred years.

And it's spreading.

Writer's Block and Spoiler Talk

 

Everyone who wants to write has it. Or something like it. My book has been dragging for ages, and it's drowning in my inadvertent urge to polish every last line. I suppose that comes from part of the very approach and methodology the book outlines, but that's not the whole of it. Another vital part of the manuscript's focus is on knowing when to stop planning, stop refining, and just let the chips fall where they may.

Finding that balance is where so many writers struggle. The manuscripts are there, they just haven't yet revealed themselves. They exist in the minds of their writers, simultaneously both complete and incomplete. Perhaps 'untranslated' might be a better way to describe it. The concepts, the phraseology, the characters, the facts and figures - they're all there... somewhere.

What stops so many is the fear of doing them justice- but one must also consider the Pottery Class Parable and recognize that hypothetical success does not come without the understanding born of experimentation, effort, failure, and improvement.

To some extent, this blog is my vehicle for development. It's somewhere I can write things down that I want to write, and that deserve to be read. Sometimes the problem is not having enough to build a coherent narrative. Other times, it's that the information holds secrets that aren't mine to share. Most often though, it's that I turn out something and think 'that should go in the book', and then it's tucked away.

I'm not worried about theft, though it happens all the time. Perhaps some part of me is thinking about showing things in their proper order- of what you might call spoilers. Many people have Opinions on the importance of avoiding such things, and fight against them as best they're able. The notion bothers me much less than it might, something that comes from a mix of my approach and my experience.

To me, the most important thing about spoilers is that they only matter when the story isn't strong enough to bear the weight of a lost surprise. Knowing the plot of a film or a novel in advance doesn't make the novel itself better or worse. You probably know what's said, and by whom, at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. The movie is still extraordinary- the knowledge changes naught. Foreknowledge never dampens the thrill for me because the thrill of the unknown is only one variety among a great many. Indeed, knowing the end might well spur the desire to discover the path traveled to get there.

A road to a far-off place doesn't change in length when you find out that's where you're going.
The flavor of your favorite dish doesn't lessen every time you eat it. (You might think so- but trust the chef.)
Your life isn't worthless just because you know how it ends. (It still might be, but that's another topic entirely.)

So don't worry about spoilers when it comes to writing any more than you might at any other time. There's no better way to overcome that worry than to see words appear on the page in front of you, either. If you know an ending, start writing how to get there. If you have a beginning, write what happens next. If you know something happened, write how or why. Be vague if you have to, and precise where you can. Details are laid upon shape and form, but those shapes and forms must be before they might.

Modern Media's Communication Crises

    

    It's rarely pleasant but always interesting and informative to see what happens to social circles when communication hubs change.

I restarted this blog in part to ensure there was some sort of nominally independent, vaguely stable location where I could be found or contacted, as well as ensure I had a place to write without overmuch bother. Not that I really cared about being bothered before. Moderating my Twitch stream is an exercise in real-time manners management, so comments I can take my time to respond to are easy.

But that's not what I consider a concern. It's that the vast majority of the Internet's everyday interpersonal communication has been slowly, deliberately guided into very narrow channels, and funneled through a shrinking number of websites and services. Nominally for user convenience, but underneath it's mostly for data mining and ad placement. These things happen slowly, and companies tend to willingly do it at a loss for a long while- because they can afford to. Eventually the public stagnates sufficiently to become a captive audience, at which point comes inferior service, ad farms, and price gouging. Case in point: the car services and bnb-makers. The notion of "XYZ-as-a-(expensive subscription) service" for something that used to be a product is another major worry. I need look no further than the OS on this machine to see the problem with that- fundamental components like a word processor now require logins? Authorizations? It's a terribly unethical attempt to gouge the consumer, and that's on every PC around the world! 

Now the bird is circling the train, but Discord still exists, the mammoth is slowly growing, and Jack's second try seems to have gained an unfortunate amount of momentum. They're all rather fragmented though, and don't seem to be able to offer as much of the streamlined contact and information transfer that's been de rigeur all through these Years Of Plague. Worse yet, so much of modern life is internet-adjacent, what happens when a major online nexus withers and dies? The potential loss of past archives would be immeasurable... and would make for obvious easy ransom demands from the ethically bankrupt tech sector- whoops, tautology!

The idea of reestablishing a social media presence is nothing new, but there's also a lot of potential social baggage involved. Will you remember everyone? Can you contact them? Will you contact them? The machinations can become very complicated very quickly, even for those not 'aggressively online'.

Perhaps someday I won't be the one that reaches out first to reconnect.

Would much really change, I wonder?

Unsafe and Unnecessary Information

 

With the massive expansion in internet availability around the world, the potential for easy access to information has never been higher. 

Unfortunately, the world is full of people who don't care about accuracy, only marketability, and the modern internet centers around that fundamental design flaw (and the accompanying character flaws responsible).

Accurate information tends to be static. It's sometimes utilitarian, even boring. It comes from verifiable professionals, often with accompanying references. 

That's not how the internet works right now, which is a terrible problem. Such a measured, deliberate approach not only fights with the current rapid-fire "content creation" meta, but also with the visibility and accessibility algorithms behind the websites themselves.

Under the hood, the modern internet is sabotaging itself for the sake of short term offscreen profits, maximizing its ability to farm search information, then harvest and sell potentially useful data to other corporations and governments that are willing and able to pay. It's like a futures market- so all parties know it's nonsense but they play along anyway!

When it comes to most things food-related online, aids like the Jump To Recipe browser plugin are almost mandatory, since brief documents with lower word count (as opposed to, say, short videos) get reduced priority in search engines, rendering them less effectively found. What would otherwise be a quick and easy lookup feels like it's been hamstrung from both sides, padded out to the point of aggravation with longform anecdotes and ersatz prose just to reach a level of search priority it was obliged to from the start. 

To a person in a hurry looking for a weeknight dinner notion, it feels like a profound betrayal to find a 'recipe' webpage that then requires navigating past a handful of ads, sponsorships, and an often unreadably obtuse wall of vaguely related text to find a 'recipe' that might turn out to be a poorly formatted mess ill-suited for the purpose. There is little worse than wasted time.

The internet was developed to speed up information sharing, after all. 

Anyone else still remember the old term "The Information Superhighway"?

Doesn't exist any more. Now useful things are buried in piles of catchy but forgettable junk. We've got lasting horrors like NyQuil Chicken, or the uniquely Chicagoan Malört Sausage. Does anyone remember the memetic horror Tide Pod Pizza? Things like that are/were popular. Imagine the horrors you might have missed!

I keep my personal online presence to a relative minimum. I've talked about it before, even. The more of something there is, the less likely any of it is going to be adequately organized, curated, and useful to those who might seek it out.

Just because it can exist doesn't mean it should, and just because it exists doesn't mean it deserves to be seen. Reckless promotion of unverified information kills people. Hasn't that been obvious enough these past few years?

Unfortunate that this morning showed clearly how sufficiently large companies are willing to cover for one another at the macro level when it comes to misinformation. The sorts of problems these situations create can't be solved with just money. When it looks okay for the big guy, the little one imitates, and the whole environment suffers.

But I suppose if given enough money, one can buy sufficient peace and quiet for the rest of one's days... minus occasional grumblings from a vestigial conscience.

Education

 

It's important. Above perhaps anything else. It comes from all sorts of people, places, and concepts, but only means one thing- improvement. 

A goodly number of people might say 'growth', a regrettably common and unfortunate association. Growth is a largely negative side effect of any successful enterprise, and something to be ameliorated rather than encouraged. This applies to almost everything in mainstream society, but is aggressively ignored by the incompletely developed, the ethically bankrupt, the rich, the many world governments, and the corporations that own them. 

That's another issue I've the solution for, but that'll be here some other day.

My mother was a teacher for her entire career- I learned how to read by digging in her boxes of mimeographs, written notes, techniques, and research. Before even fully grasping what the notions meant, they laid a foundation for what to do and how to do it, and it stuck. Understanding how to do something is as important as recognizing who can do it if I can't, since to properly teach, one must first learn. 

I've learned one hell of a lot. Frankly, I have the Marco Polo Problem- if I told you more than half of the things I've seen, done, endured, and learned from... you likely wouldn't believe me.

That's where the problem arises. People have a tendency not to trust competence and expertise unless it's noisy.

To a degree, it's my own fault. Part of what makes me so valuable is my willingness to be and stay invisible while I work to improve. But that in itself prevents most people from taking my measure, and in turn prepares them to doubt.

 Irony, given the loudest voices tend to be those least worthy of being heard.

Personal Musings on Pets

    For those that regularly keep an eye on my stream, you know I love dogs. I never had one growing up, but ever since I moved to California, there's been one in the house, and in my social circles I'm usually the one tapped to dog-sit if the owners have urgent business and need to go out of town. Being someone the dogs already know and trust is worth a lot when it comes to peace of mind, after all. 

    All dogs are good dogs until otherwise proven- I stand by that even after having a chunk bitten out of my leg by one a couple of years ago. There's a fine beastie in the house I live right now, and I've... more or less been the one to take care of him over the time I've been here. 

His name's Tiger. On the left with the dangly tongue. Big goofus. <3

    When his owner was indisposed, I made sure Tiger was fed, watered, and exercised. When it was cold, wet, and rainy, I'd be outside with him so he wasn't so grumpy about it, and I always made sure he got nicely dried off once we got back inside. He's got allergies too, the poor guy, so I've often been the one ready with the benadryl or the cone to make sure he didn't gnaw a hole in himself itching. (Related- the inflatable doughnuts you see in the drugstore for hemorrhoids? Often better than a cone for most small to medium sized clutzy dogs.) 

    Tiger's an older dog now too, and while he still has pep in his step, at ten-odd years old, he needs to go out to pee a little more often, and takes a little longer to get up off the ground and get a move on. That's okay though. He knows he has to be a little careful, and he is... or at least as careful as a German Shepherd can be. 

    But now I'm moving. It's a smaller place, with just me and my beau. We have no pets of our own, and couldn't fit one anyway.

    While I've had other pets in times past, I lived most of my life without having a dog around. But I've since raised two from puppies, and cared for two more as they eased into their old age. I'm not sure how I'll feel without a cold nose at my elbow at 3am because nobody let him out to pee before locking up for the night. Or how I'll manage without a portable fuzzy space heater, secondary Very Loud doorbell, and constant source of goofy smiles.

    For all sorts of reasons, I worry about what's going to happen to Tiger once I'm gone. But there's naught else I can do, except give him lots of love in the time we can still share.

One From the Vaults: "Food on Film: Our Just Desserts" Part 2.

    It's been a decade and more since I published that piece, and there are plenty of things that could be trimmed. Originally the concept was drafted as an example for a Food Writing class, to be published at a later date, and it shows. My tendency towards word bloat for deliberate student editing practice is painfully obvious, as is feels like an overuse of alliteration. While not forced, it's clear I built some section-defining sentences around it. But that's less important for this than the concepts behind the piece itself.

    It briefly but clearly goes through the rise of food and fitness expertise on television from the 1950s through the early to mid 2000s, accompanied by analysis of the likely intended goals of said media representation. It moves from applauding the practical and pragmatic methods of the earlier incarnations to decrying the more theatrical, advertising driven modern approach. 

    Overall that notion holds up fairly well to scrutiny, though it does come across as somewhat bitter. As someone who actively resents the notion of appearance influencing perspective likely even more now than I once did, that should come as no surprise.

    What's happened in the intervening years has been very interesting- similar to a condensed version of the original piece's time scale. The rapid rise of Instagram and other forms of monetized high-exposure social media interaction have led to a drastic reduction in longform education for both food and fitness (also just in general, but that's for another post). 

    This results in large quantities of unrelated or junk information, which requires additional verification... that doesn't usually happen. Formerly reliable sources of information have been paywalled, monetized, pulled offline, or otherwise hamstrung, and the remainder aren't always up to snuff. Likewise, the tendency toward short form, rapid 'content generation' has resulted in other sociocultural and educational flaws.

    In the time spent making sure a recipe, technique, or informative tip is viable (sometimes one must even ensure something is simply safe), a person could often have learned the necessary processes from scratch- so the shorter formats don't reliably reduce time spent learning or improve ease of understanding. "All surface, no substance" has seemingly become the order of the day- a logical if rapid progression. 

    The speed with which nearly effortless worldwide interaction and information gathering has become standard for much of the world has largely left the individual desire for research at nadir.

    Given the comparable ease with which disinformation can be spread, the need for cultivating such a desire may never yet have been greater.

    So the question remains- what is to be done? What can be done, even? Had I the authority I qualify for, It would be relatively simple. But when media conglomerates and technopolies command more attention and influence than supposed world leaders, the notions of aggressive reformation and societal change seem as naught but a pipe dream. Underneath it all, the notion is simple: those with resources and influence most reliably prioritize objectively wrong things, and do not care about improving themselves enough even to recognize that, much less work to make amends.

One From The Vaults: "Food On Film: Our Just Desserts" Part 1.

This will be a 2-parter.
First, here, is a piece I published in 2011.
Part 2 will be an analysis of subject matter progression since publication.
Some small editing has been done for formatting purposes.

Food On Film: Our Just Desserts?

Every new generation is mentored by the ones that came before, bearing echoes of their preferences and tendencies. However as time passes, those core facets shift and reform into a new identity to better fit the psyche of the next generation. Vagaries aside, such things are exemplified by the changing state of food in the public eye. The evolution of food, cooking, and restaurant life as detailed through the media (television in particular) through the past fifty years, has shown a constant fluid shift in preferences and popular trends, while maintaining the appeal of classics through various methods of rebranding. With constant improvements in media technology, the sensationalist aspect of food becomes vastly easier to express and explain to a studio and at-home audience.

Side by side with the evolution of food in the public eye, another popularized television movement was fitness, and the combination of those two concepts on a growing television audience had nothing but positive potential. Better food, better eating habits, and better physical fitness were all starting to make themselves known to nationwide audiences here in the United States. Now, some fifty years later, the cynics are laughing.

Food-related programming grew more and more popular as the utility of it grew. The first real trendsetter in food television here in the United States was Julia Child with her program The French Chef. Displaying classic dishes and basic sundry-centric staples fit for families across the country, her pep and personality carried the day even when her skills dropped out of the camera's eye. Occasional fumbling endeared her that much more to her audience of hesitant housewives, who took heart from her boldness and bravado to try and recreate her celluloid successes for their families and friends.

On the fitness side was someone who had the same vim and vigor, but vastly different motivation and methodology. Jack Lalanne, in his self-titled Jack Lalanne Show, displayed the very same urge towards satisfaction. He prompted his audience to get up, get moving, and get fit, working through each and every part of the body to better not just themselves, but to inspire everyone around them to do the same.

Both food and fitness grew in popularity through the decades, with new faces rising to prominence in each field. Through the late 1960s to early 1970s, The Galloping Gourmet ruled the airwaves, its host Graham Kerr ultimately collaborating with Julia Child to great effect. The 1970s gave way to Jeff Smith and The Frugal Gourmet on the culinary front, and while Jack Lalanne continued his hard work with fitness, the rise to prominence of a man called Richard Simmons was also well on the way. 

The first major foray into widespread 'nutritional science', pioneered by the infamous Dr. Robert Atkins, showed its face in 1972. Atkins introduced his “Diet Revolution”, a high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet and a bevy of evidence about the benefits. Shortly afterward in 1974, Richard Simmons’ program Ruffage and the popularity of his Anatomy Asylum gym debuted to promote the combination of exercise and healthy eating.

Fast-forward another fifteen years or so, a new fire sparked viewers with the 1993 debut of Food Network Television- an entire station devoted to nothing but food and its myriad facets. Every kitchen professional mentioned so far appeared again, to once more dazzle audiences old and new. They weren't alone- a great many fresh, new faces arrived sporting sharp knives and sharper skills to tantalize the wide-eyed watchers.

    And yet despite all of these advances and approvals in the industries, intended audiences seemed to snub the messages the performers sought to inspire.  As obesity runs rampant, juvenile diabetes rates have skyrocketed, and advertisements for fast food rule the airwaves as the selfsame garbage fills the supermarket freezer case. How could two subjects that spent so many years developing their value in the public eye have fallen so easily to the wayside in favor of corporate marketing and painfully transparent advertising campaigns? Does the couch-bound, captive audience have a particular disdain for hard work? Is making something look bad on television that much easier than making it look good? Or is it really only money they want, regardless of the cost to the public?

    Whose cuisine reigns supreme? Whoever paid the most for ads, it seems. Now go kick back and eat those instant noodles. 

 Bon appétit.

Culinary Life vs Covid Life: Comparisons

 

Think back to the start of the pandemic. I know you don't want to. It's not over, and the people who say otherwise have money to make on the backs of the dead.

But when the lockdown orders came, I was happy. Unemployment, though a pittance, would keep me from being homeless for a while. I spent the time exercising, writing, reading, doing recipe dev work, and a little remote consulting, while being very, very careful about where and when I shopped for groceries. (Sidenote: How do you know it's shaping up to be bad? When the local Mexican market is out of dried beans.)

Weeks passed, slowly and steadily. I kept a diary for most of the first year, and much of the less personal notes were centered around how other people were reacting to the physical realities of the situation. "Cabin fever" was running rampant, and even in my social circles I would often see things like "Not being able to go out, see people, and do things is wreaking havoc on my mental health.", and all too often that left me seething.

Those most likely to say such things were (and remain) those least inconvenienced by such necessities. Often able to work remotely and so sustain their income, financially comfortable enough to get food and groceries delivered, or even live independently. The social side of their lifestyles, though, had been cut down to a size quite familiar to me, and to a great many others in my field.

The food business doesn't pay well, despite what seems like far too many working hours. Nights, weekends, holidays, they're all spoken for, and the effort leaves many too worn to do anything else even when times allow. What does that all too often mean? No socializing. No parties. No restaurants or nights at the bar. No favorite hangouts, movies, or events. Naught but sitting at home, contact with others only through radio, phone, or screen.

Sound familiar? So... restricted by plague? Or by poverty? Not much of a difference between, really.

Now in the grip of COVID, the rest of the world learned, or were reminded, of what it feels like to have no means, no access to many of the joys and pleasures of life. What did a great many of them do? They crumbled. 

Those of us who deal with such handicaps as a part of our normal lives have had a very hard time finding sympathy- plenty of us were and still are working, risking our health and safety to better ensure the comfort and ease of those with the ways and means to stay secluded.

They really ought to work harder to be worthy of our sacrifices.