Batfort

Style reveals substance

Month: May 2018 (page 2 of 4)

A very personal review of EXO’s The War

2018-05-21 / / 0 Comments

It’s almost summer.

And even though I’m stuck in an office most of the day, summer is still a time for brighter and lighter things. Breezy, even.

That is why I finally purchased EXO’s The War last week. This is an album that came out last August, but that so perfectly encapsulates a summer vibe that it’s still worth it.

Despite the fact that most of my favorite EXO songs are from other albums, The War is by far my favorite EXO album.

Why is this?

Because this is the first EXO album that actually sounds like an album.

One of my biggest issues with k-pop, and most current artists, is how single-oriented everything is. Maybe it’s because I came of age when artists still put out full albums, albums that took you on a journey and told a story, but I really like the exploration of themes that you can pull out of a collection of songs.

For example, G-Dragon is phenomenal at packing an entire relationship’s worth of feeling into a 4-minute song, but even the MADE album is a disconnected collection of emotions. Each song is nearly perfect, but the whole is pretty discombobulated.

So when I listened to The War, and heard that all the songs share a semi-cohesive sound, I was over the moon. Some songs are sexy, some are hype, and others are melancholy, but they all work together to create an atmosphere that really works.

This is especially different from EXO’s past albums, which were the musical equivalent of “throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.”

I, for one, am glad that they stuck it out and combined a reggae-inspired feel (tested in “24”) with a dangerous feel (confirmed with “Monster”). Because as we know, SM Ent is always A/B testing.

And that’s fine with me, because the end result is something that I love to listen to.

Okay, let’s talk favorites
My absolutely most best favorite song on this album is “Forever.”

It’s a lot of people’s faces, and for good reason. The declarative horn samples and those inside out harmonies get to me every single time.

My other favorite is “Going Crazy,” and not only because it features a REVERB FLUTE ARPEGGIO, but because it combines so many different styles in a very rhythmically satisfying way.

I also enjoy “The Eve” and “What U Do,” and regard “Kokobop” with great fondness.

There are 3 tiny changes I would make on this album:

  • Move the cool bass run in “What U Do” from beat 1 to beat 2 for some premium counterpoint action
  • Change the intro to “Kokobop” so it’s a little more assertive and sounds less like a metronome
  • Continue the REVERB FLUTE ARPEGGIO in “Going Crazy” – or rather have it morph into a descant – until the end of the section. It disappears too quickly in its current form.

Overall, though, it’s a great listen. Good variety within a cohesive sound, and all the songs are quality even when they’re not my favorites.

There’s a reason it’s been on repeat in my car this week.

Plus, this is the comeback that blessed us with Mullet Baekhyun, so really. No downside.

I spent a large amount of time bashing poetry today so I feel the need to make up for it by posting Emily Dickinson

2018-05-20 / / 0 Comments

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Between Day 2 of the printmaking workshop and applying for a new job (hence, hope) my creative abilities are pretty near tapped out. I have some good posts in mind for this week, though, so stay tuned.

The Enthusiasm Gap

2018-05-19 / / 0 Comments

I’m used to managing expectations. Jumping over the “gap” between expectations are reality is the easiest way to make a great impression at work. I find the “gap” concept to be an easy way to visualize something that isn’t a material thing.

But expectations aren’t the only thing that can fall into a gap. Enthusiasm can, too.

For instance, today I went to a printmaking class. I’ve been sputtering around trying to get started doing art again (a few sketches here, a design project there), so when I saw a class offered nearby, I jumped at the chance. I was thrilled to have a built-in opportunity to practice printmaking, and am happy to finally have bits of ink under my fingernails again.

And while I wouldn’t expect anybody to fall over themselves praising my first printed art piece (I’m no longer a child), I’ve noticed other people’s excitement about my project is nowhere near my own personal excitement levels.

I’m quite excited, if you couldn’t tell.

Others – friends, my mom, Instagram – respond positively, but they clearly aren’t “hearts in my eyes emoji” like I am.

That’s okay. It wasn’t their experience, it was mine. I was the one who did the work, and rediscovered something I love. It’s my plans and schemes and interests that matter (to me). Other people’s reactions are secondary.

Now, as I think about this, there are definitely scenarios where the other person’s reaction would be of vital importance. If I were getting married, I would want to share my future husband’s level of excitement. A gap there would probably spell disaster.

For my situation now, an enthusiasm gap means nothing. I’m not asking anybody to do this project with me, and I’m going to continue to explore printmaking because it makes me happy.

Yet still, I find myself thinking – what would it take to bridge the enthusiasm gap? Expectations is one thing. That’s just a matter of one’s mental model stacked up against reality. But enthusiasm – that taps into how someone feels about something, and that’s harder to influence.

Maybe this is why selling art is so difficult.

HmmmMMmmmm.

Image of the week: Order vs. Chaos

2018-05-18 / / 0 Comments

It’s funny, I started doing “Image of the Week” so I could have a rest day from writing without actually taking a day off. Now I’m actually more inspired and motivated to write that coming up with pictures is sometimes more difficult than I anticipated.

Fortunately, this week, Wrath of Gnon came through as ever. Order vs. chaos, city planning style.

I can’t stop staring at the organic version; the centrally planned houses make my skin crawl.

Wrath’s dessications of modern architecture are fantastic, but his demonstration of how architecture and city planning can be organic and human-centered is absolutely mind blowing.

Many of the modern diseases that we face (including my own) are the effects of overcentralization, of too much order with too little wisdom, of failure to understand tail risks.

(Basically everyone needs to read more Taleb.)

Sometimes it can be easy to overreact. “Burn it all, let’s make the jungle our home.” Sometimes I think I want that – but then I consider how difficult such a life would be.

Perhaps a better way is to realize that we cannot centrally plan civilization, and to figure out how to let natural, organic growth guide our technological sophistication.

It is difficult to visualize what that could look like – but Wrath provides examples. (Which usually happen to be very, very old but very, very beautiful. Naturally.)

I’ve been in a very pessimistic mood this week, but perhaps the future holds more promise than it seems.

Why I’m thankful for President Trump

2018-05-17 / / 0 Comments

Clark Kerr’s vision of a university president in 1963 is awfully prescient. He has painted a picture as a president of the mediator between various groups with differing priorities.

Hutchins wrote of four moral virtues for a university president. I should like to suggest a slightly different three–judgment, courage, and fortitude–but the greatest of these is fortitude since others have so little charity. The mediator, whether in government or industry or labor relations or domestic quarrels, is always subject to some abuse. He wins few clear-cut victories; he must aim more at avoiding the worst than seizing the best. He must find satisfaction in being equally distasteful to each of his constituencies; he must reconcile himself to the harsh reality that successes are shrouded in silence while failures are spotlighted in notoriety.

Now. I know he’s talking about a university president, but let’s suppose that any large multi-consitutent entity will do. Like, say, the USA.

It’s mildly surprising to me that the author even considers that such a man exists (although it is clear from his presidential taxonomies earlier in the book that he knows how absurd of a position it is).

What’s gets me is this: how can anyone look at the skills needed for a job such as this (in 1963, before funding started to dry up and things got even weirder) and assume that a real person would take it? It looks like the perfect job description for a sociopath.

To take a job like the job of a university president, which yes is a job but one that is done very publicly and that will “brand” your reputation for good or ill, AND DO A GOOD JOB AT IT, you’d have to have these qualities:

– Sufficiently ambitious and optimistic to take the job in the first place
– Morally upright (prioritizing the good of the university over personal gain plus the character traits quoted above)
– Okay with being hated, privately and publicly
– Intelligent enough to understand what’s needed for the role but somehow okay with taking below-market salary

These qualities are hard to find in people, let alone in academics, let alone in academics with an inclination to lead. Jordan B Peterson has many of them, except the “okay with being hated” part. The disgraced president of Michigan State is clearly missing the “morally upright” part.

No wonder so many sociopaths make it to the top of the pile. There’s very little incentive for a good man to want to get there.

This is why I’m so grateful for Donald Trump. He’s certainly not a perfect man, but he’s a rare one. And with f-you money, the salary isn’t an issue.

Despite what the liberal media would have you think, this man made it to the top and he is not a sociopath. He is a unicorn among men.

The Boomer approach to Indefinite Optimism

2018-05-16 / / 0 Comments

I like this passage so much I want to post it so it might reach a few more eyeballs than it would trapped inside Zero to One.

Recent graduates’ parents often cheer them on the established path. The strange history o the Baby Boom produced a generation of indefinite optimists so used to effortless progress that they feel entitled to it. Whether you were born in 1945 or 1950 or 1955, things got better every year for the first 18 years of your life, and it had nothing to do with you. Technological advance seemed to accelerate automatically, so the Boomers grew up with great expectations but few specific plans for how to fulfill them. Then, when technological progress stalled in the 1970s, increasing income inequality came to the rescue of the most elite Boomers. Every year of adulthood continued to get automatically better and better for the rich and successful. The rest of their generation was left behind, but the wealthy Boomers who shape public opinion today see little reason to question their naive optimism. Since tracked careers worked for them, they can’t imagine that they won’t work for their kids, too.

Malcolm Gladwell says you can’t understand Bill Gates’s success without understanding his fortunate personal context: he grew up in a good family, went to a private school equipped with a computer lab, and counted Paul Allen as a childhood friend. But perhaps you can’t understand Malcolm Gladwell without understanding *his* historical context as a Boomer (born in 1963). When Baby Boomers grow up and write books to explain why one or another individual is successful, they point to the power of a particular individual’s context as determined by chance. But they miss the even bigger social context for their own preferred explanations: a whole generation learned from childhood to overrate the power of chance and underrate the importance of planning. Gladwell at first appears to be making a contrarian critique of the myth of the self-made businessman, but actually his own account encapsulates the conventional view of a generation.

Consequently, those of us who were raised by the Boomer generation were given indefinite tools for a definite world.

Context isn’t enough. You have to have content too.

When you’re a carnivore, you make your own choices

2018-05-15 / / 0 Comments

ISince going carnivore, I order what I want at restaurants.

When I was on the “some plant foods are good but some are bad” diets, eating at restaurants always stressed me out. The waiter wouldn’t understand my request well enough to convey it to the chef. The chef wouldn’t care and would think I was being one of those attention-seeking people who follow whatever fad is going on. Everything might have nuts on it, or breading, or sugar, or whatever. There would be nothing on the menu in my “approved” categories.

Anxiety isn’t a good look.

I’d still eat out – I found a small group of restaurants that worked for me, and ate there almost exclusively. Burgers, pho, Mongolian grill, that type of thing.

But since going carnivore, I’ll eat anywhere. If they have a steak, or burgers, I’m there.

Sure, it was a little tough at first when I would try to be nice, order the whole plate of food, and eat around the veggies. (Don’t do that.)

And I’ve certainly run into a few places where they put extra stuff in the burger patties, like parsley or filler ingredients. (Literally that’s what they said: “It says ‘filler’ on the package.” No thanks.)

The trick is, I don’t worry about any of the sides or the vegetables. I scan the menu until I find the meat that I want to eat, and then I as the waitress something like “Hey, I’d like the ribeye. Is it possible to do just steak and salt? Nothing else on the plate.”

Most of the time, that works like a charm.

(Usually it comes out with some sort of garnish, though. It’s kind of sweet and funny how many kitchens can’t resist.)

If I’m out at a burger joint, the questions escalate from “Do you have all-beef patties?” to “Please just sell me plain patties, but stack up three of them like pancakes and put a piece of cheese (and/or slices of bacon) on top.”

Most of the time, they look at you kind of weird, but it still works.

Every once in a while there will be a place that focuses on sandwiches, or something else, and doesn’t provide a hunk-of-meat option on the menu. This is where negotiation skills come into play.

If you can see a dinner menu, look if there’s an option there, and then ask the waiter if he’ll check with the kitchen about prepping it early.

This approach takes the courage to push back against the social conventions of eating at a restaurant (YOU’LL EAT WHAT’S ON THE MENU, AND YOU’LL LIKE IT) so it may take some time to get used to, especially if you’re new to the pantheon offroad dietary choices. Negotiating with waiters is something you’ll get better at over time, and something that eventually you won’t think twice about.

I be polite but firm, mention that there’s a medical reason for the way I eat, and ask if they’ll “just check.” So far this method has been successful for me.

I’ve even gotten a restaurant manager to sell me a straight up pound of smoked pulled pork that they took out of the smoker an hour earlier. Completely off menu. We talked, agreed on a price, and went our merry ways. (And I made sure to tip well.)

Next up, I want to see if I can convince a BBQ pit to smoke me a thing or two without any rub.

THAT’s going to take some ninja-level persuasion.

In the meantime, my local grocery store smokes pork every Tuesday so I’m sitting pretty.

Ever upward, she tangoed

2018-05-14 / / 0 Comments

It’s funny how the better I get at judging the time it takes to do something, I still sometimes let my intentions get the best of me and make a to-do list that is more like a to-do series.

The complement to developing skills is learning how to give yourself grace when you fail.

Not that it’s “failing,” per se. Tonight I set for myself a rather ambitious to-do list based on the fact that I am excited about the future. I have a business course to start working my way through. This morning I signed up for a printmaking workshop, and realized that I need a comprehensive summer calendar to make sure that I can do all the things that I want to do this summer. (Weekends don’t just plan themselves!) There are also bills to pay, and chores to do, and Batfort HQ to set up, etc etc etc.

What I didn’t take into account was the fact that I was running around hosting a workshop at my day job today, so I am le tired. Tired enough to poop out on the couch after work and really hope that someone, somewhere would take pity on me and make dinner so I didn’t have to.

Needless to say, I will only be crossing one item off the list tonight.

Am I disappointed? Yes, a little.

But I’m also heartened. Past me would sometimes get very down on myself for not doing enough. Current me has realized that not everything can be done all at once, and sometimes the wiser choice is to rest.

Even so, that means making a concerted effort to do a little bit more tomorrow.

Grace, but still expectations. High expectations, but grace for when you have to live in the gap.

Two steps forward, one step back. The point is: forward.

Indefinite pessimism

2018-05-13 / / 0 Comments

“You are not a lottery ticket,” writes Peter Thiel in Zero to One, his book on entrepreneurship. “A startup is the largest endeavor over which you can have definite mastery. You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance. You are not a lottery ticket.”

Chapter 6 of Zero to One is the type of writing that I need to constantly reread. I remember Thiel’s presentation of the Definite-Indefinite and Optimistic-Pessimistic conceptualization of attitudes toward the future, and it blew my mind.

Reading the same words again, same reaction. Like a sigh of relief, knowing that I don’t have to rely on the same old narratives again.

Thiel considers that America in the 50s and 60s was in a period of Definite Optimism, where the future would be awesome and it would look like life on the moon and all sorts of concrete pictures. From there, it would be relatively easy to reverse engineer all the other things that you would need to discover before getting to the moon. Kind of like visualization/goal setting on a societal level.

In contrast, America now (post 1972) is in a period of Indefinite Optimism, where the future will be awesome but we don’t know what it will look like. With this attitude, all the power flows from the visionaries and the doers to the managers and bureaucrats and stewards – the people who can keep things running smoothly until we get to that future.

With respect to Mr. Thiel, when I look back at my attitude toward the future when I graduated from high school in the early 2000s, I wonder if America (at least America’s youth) has entered a period of Indefinite Pessimism. I don’t know what the future will look like (some people claim it’s the Golden and/or Diamond Age, while others predict a civil war or some other disastrous civic upheaval) but I’m pretty sure it will be impacted by – at very least – an huge economic collapse of some sort.

I distinctly remember telling my mother once that it was very hard to set goals when you know that the economy will collapse when I’m halfway to it. I don’t think I’m the only person of my generation who thinks this way. It’s been very clear for a while that we are headed downhill as a functional society.

And people wonder why Millennials and Gen Z have such a nihilism problem.

Anyhow, if you’ve been reading this blog you know that I’m working to combat this indefiniteness by making plans and learning how to grow and be prepared for the future, whatever it may bring. The dying institutions have been good to me so far (the “accident of birth” that Thiel rejects) but I know it won’t last.

I appreciate Thiel’s perspective because he is relentlessly optimistic (but not peppy) and 100% sure that he can change the world. Obviously, in hindsight, because he DID change the world.

You have to be able to see something to reach it, so start looking.

Smother mothers

2018-05-12 / / 0 Comments

I used to work for a woman who, I decided after a while, reminded me a lot of Hillary Clinton. At first, I thought this was an interesting parallel: woman of a certain age realizing her ambition and going after power. An interesting angle, if you leave aside the means of seizing that power.

Then I remembered that that boss was a micromanager who let crises rule the workflow and whose emotions ruled the day.

Not the kind of person who I want running our country (but who knows what Hillary is really like).

Another person who strikes me as that type of woman is Anna Wintour (who is friends with Huma Abedin, Hillary’s top aide), with her near-perfect stranglehold over the fashion industry.

Wintour has the power — the Met Gala is her party, after all. Since she took over as the event’s chair in 1995, she’s turned it from a mere annual fund-raiser for the MetropolitanMuseum of Art’s costume institute into Manhattan’s most star-studded happening. In 2014, the Met even renamed the institute the Anna Wintour Costume Center.

“Anna controls it all,” seconded the fashion-industry insider. “Some celebrities [attending the Met Gala] have existing relationships with designers, but otherwise Anna matches up the celeb with a designer — [the designer] works with the celebrity directly, and someone at Vogue, on a specific look.”

Part of me wonders if this excessive influence over the fashion industry is part of what has made it so circular and uninspiring. From the outside, at least, it seems like everything in fashion grows toward the editorial concept(s) of Vogue and there’s very little room for free thought and fresh ideas.

The longer that I’ve worked for women – and I’m sure there are some great female bosses out there but I sure haven’t worked for one – the more wary I am of the misplaced maternal instinct.

This boss wants to help you, especially if you come across as a “child” to her, but wants to help you in the Right way; that is, she only wants to help you in the way that she wants you to be helped.

So there may be a professional development plan, or a raise, or a perk, but it’s all on her terms and it’s very personal if you decide that any one of these things might not be right for you.

There’s room to grow and develop….in the space she gives to you.

Like those horrifying moms who don’t let their kids grow up and make independent choices, except this mom has no actual responsibility over your long-term welfare.

My advice? Avoid these women. If a potential boss pre-negotiates on your behalf, run.

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