October 2018 – Page 3

Month: October 2018 (page 3 of 4)

I’m done: an incomplete book review of The Fountainhead

I first read The Fountainhead when I was 18. It was a joy to read—never before had I read something that spoke so directly to my soul (Lord of the Rings excepted). I stayed up until 2am reading it during a week that I was teaching at a summer camp. I was enchanted.

(Yes, I realize that is weird to say about a book involving architecture and politics and NYC.)

This summer, I re-read The Fountainhead. While I still greatly enjoyed it, I was less enchanted. Now that I’m older, it’s easier to see the flaws and holes in Ayn Rand’s thinking.

However, I was struck at how much it could have been written today. It’s a book about media and public opinion just as much as it’s about architecture and the “ideal” man. If I were to pair it with another current book as a double-feature, I would put it with Vox Day’s SJWs always Lie. SJWAL lays a groundwork of theory, and TF dramatizes an SJW takeover.

That’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’ll do another post sometime when I’m more awake that talks about the weaknesses in the book.

What (or rather, who) I’m here to talk about is Dominique Francon. I loved her when I was 18 and I was surprised at how much I loved her today. She embodies a solid 1/3 of my own character, someone who is competent, cognizant of the world, but not of it.

In many ways, Dominique embodies the struggle that many of us have—the ability to see beyond what the crowd wants and what the media tells us we should feel, but the compassion and the weakness to try to get other people to understand and think for themselves. Even writing this sentence makes me second guess myself. This blog is a form of shouting into the void. Perhaps it’s futile, but reasoning with a CROWD will never work. You can only reason with individuals.

To punish herself for this greatest of crimes, she decides to degrade herself to the lowest possible depths by utterly obliterating her own Will. Her last act as a free woman is to marry Peter Keating, someone who evokes so many feelings in me that I can’t come up with a pithy description for him. As a man, he’s repulsive—very much seduction along the lines of “I did everything you asked, why don’t you want to jump my bones?”

Dominique lives for years without expressing a Will of her own, or really any desire or personal thought. Such exquisite discipline.

Now, I’m not saying that this is a good way to live. In fact, I think it is an absolutely horrible way to live and that nobody should do it. I firmly believe that the Human Will is one of the most beautiful and powerful things on this earth, and that it is a terrible and tragic event for any human being to submit his or her Will to anything short of God the Father Almighty. That said, I understand Dominique’s reasons for doing so. She was punishing herself.

And so Dominique will stand as my inspiration during the next few months at my day job, during which I will cease to have any opinions of my own. After my post last night and a good talk with a coworker who knows what’s up, I’ve decided that it’s no longer worth it to try to exert any of my Will at my job. I’m done. With a few exceptions* (there are some lines I absolutely will not cross), I will no longer provide any extra value at work. Minimal thinking, minimal creativity, just getting the job done. My boss gets what he wants.

I said so this afternoon, in a conversation. “Whatever you want.” My Ne/Fe picked up on a reaction—he was pleased, like I had finally submitted to his wishes. If that’s what he wants to think, fine. I’m done caring, in the way that I normally care about the work that I do.

I’m going to save all my caring for the work that I do for myself, on my own time. It’s going to become what I labor over in love, not my day job.

During the times when it gets tough to stomach because something is wrong and it would be so easy to fix, I’ll think of Dominique and her resolve at going to bed with a pawing, mumbling half-man every night and hosting high-society parties with not a hair or word out of place.

Some people might call this malicious compliance.

They might be right.

I was wrong

2018-10-10 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Very, very veryvery wrong.

Here’s why.

I have a new job. I probably shouldn’t refer to it as a new job, but it feels new because I’m still not totally sure what it is I’m supposed to do. Ambiguous job descriptions are fun like that.

A while back, I wrote about the lesson that I was about to learn (or so I thought).

Past Me thought she was going to learn a lesson about navigating workplace politics without the benefit of a boss who takes care of his team.

This is not wrong. I’m learning those lessons.

Past Me forgot the fine print. There’s more. The REAL lesson in all of this is learning how to set healthy boundaries around my day job.

I’ve always been the type of person who gets what must be done, done. The rest of it will get done on its own schedule. A lot of this was developed as I learned to go through life with a chronic autoimmune illness. You do what you have to do, and then you collapse on the couch with exhaustion.

However, this philosophy is not helping my goals, dreams, and plans. I would like to spend more time and attention outside of work on the things that I’m interested in, like this blog and business ideas.

The problem is, my day job is branded in my head as a must-do. I assign it more worth than everything else, and the rest of it gets stuffed in around the edges.

This is not a way to build up a side hustle.

Yet a side hustle is what I need if I want to extricate myself from the situation I’m in. You see, the boss at my day job is a micromanager. He keeps everything deliberately ambiguous, so that only he can make decisions. He talks out of one side of his mouth about professional development, and then takes away every actual opportunity for it. Nobody on our team gets any ownership of the work that we do—everything gets his byline and his say-so. His behavior is exceedingly frustrating, especially to someone who just wants to more forward and get things done.

That someone is me. The sucker. Still trying to do a good job.

I like doing a good job at my must-do.

I’m sure you can figure out the problem by now. My focusing on my must-do day job, I’m trapped in a situation where I can’t advance and can’t win. The only way out is to figure out how to focus more on my real callings.

Boundaries. I need boundaries. My challenge is to figure out how to set emotional boundaries around how invested I’ll get in my day job.

I can’t let my boss get to me—that way lies stress and autoimmune madness.

The lesson that I need to learn is how to set healthy boundaries for myself to not get too invested in this job, to not let my boss’s way of doing things (however inexplicable) make a difference in my life.

That should free up some space in my brain to work more on Batfort and other endeavors. Which are way more fun and could actually yield some good rewards.

Anyway. Boundaries.

Why REGULAR is wrong for NCT 127

2018-10-09 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Maybe this should be titled “Why ‘Regular’ rubs me the wrong way.” Something about it doesn’t sit right with me, like I’m watching my kids grow up and start hanging out with questionable friends.

To understand why, let’s go on a quick tour of NCT 127’s title tracks.

Firetruck

Rumor has it, Taeyong’s childhood dream was to become a firefighter. With “Firetruck,” SM Entertainment made that happen, in a sense. It’s a club-type dance song, with a fire fighter theme, but it’s difficult to believe that the theme was pure coincidence considering that Taeyong trained with SM for so long, and he’s one of the rappers that they’re actively encouraging to take an interest in crafting song lyrics.

Limitless

This is one of my favorite fashion eras, mostly because of Taeil’s shark jacket there on the far right.

To me, “Limitless” is the type of song that you would repeat to yourself like a mantra. It is the perfect type of song for a group that is just debuting, hungry (excuse me, thirsty) for acceptance, love, and fame. It’s disguised as a love song (“oh baby it’s you”), but the main theme is about working hard for your dreams and the limitless potential spread out in front of you.

They were all chasing dreams while being deceived
Most of them only consider themselves as the real deal
Or else they hide with their backs turned
The repeating days are so cruel

Lies stick, they are sticky
In this gray city, it ain’t got a chance
I wondered when the future was gonna come
But it’s in front of my eyes now

Cherry Bomb

“I’m the biggest hit / I’m the biggest hit on the stage.” This is another song that gathers momentum, that speaks into existence what NCT 127 wants to be. It carries multiple messages—that the boys are ready for their songs to hit the world like an explosion, that the haters can come at them and they’re ready. “Cherry Bomb” is intense and explosive, with words, music, and choreo all reflecting one central theme.

Touch

Touch doesn’t exist in my world. It’s a typical “imagine me as your boyfriend”song. More importantly, it was the overt signal that proved that SM decided to crash the NCT concept (although arguably it happened first with the Japanese version of “Limitless”), giving the soft theme to 127 instead of the group’s usual urban-inspired vibe. The song sounds really corporate to me, very much like the Coke ad they did predebut. I dislike it on multiple levels.

Moving on.

Chain

With their Japanese release, however, NCT 127 was back to their normal tricks.

A factor that’s yet to be born (it’s a factor)
The hearts resonating in symphony are a medium (by the medium)
Make a wish, change the reality (we want to)
Get me started, the chain begins now

Chain! Reaction
The chain spreads
Chain! Reaction
From here on, the world is connecting

World domination, creating a great future for themselves, growing as artists…this is the NCT I like. One of the things that I like most about following NCT as a fledgling group of k-pop acts is that their ambition mirrors mine. I find a lot of what I want to do reflected in their songs, in their chord progressions and intensity and even in the wtf-ery of their Limitless-era styling (like clickbait but for clothes).

Most of their songs seemed really authentic to me, coming from a place of wanting to grow as entertainers, to win over fans and haters alike. Even though 90% of k-pop songs are created through the Pop Machine—very few of them are “heartfelt” in the singer/songwriter use of the word—the songs resonated with the group and their goals.

It probably helps that Mark and Taeyong write most of their own rap lyrics.

On my part, perhaps it is too much to expect a young group to sing about their bright and glorious future for too much longer. Clearly at some point the lyrics would have to evolve, and to change.

What I was not expecting was “Regular.”

Disclaimer: this emotional whiplash (heh) is probably fueled by NCT Dream’s latest mini-album, which featured the track “Dear Dream.” This song is almost 100% written by the members, is super heartfelt, and legit makes me cry. It is genuine, real feelings.

“Regular” is not genuine, real feelings. “Regular” is a song that flexes just for the sake of it. Somehow I’m supposed to believe that NCT 127 has gone from “make a wish, we want to change reality” to “I just made a million and I’m still not satisfied”?

These are not the boys that I know. Even if NCT 127 is super-successful now and they’re rolling in money, this doesn’t feel genuine to them. It feels like they’re playing parts. Even the bits that I want to like, such as Mark walking his pet tiger in the MV, make me cringe instead.

These are boys I want to root for, and the fake swag makes it really hard to do that.

I’m still holding out hope. “Regular” is the English-language version of the title track for their upcoming full album, and there will also be a Korean-language version. Apparently the Korean version is on the “regular” section of the album, and the English version is on the “irregular” section of the album—the dreamlike part.

Because all the teasers have been wrapped around a dualistic office drone/after hours type of theme, perhaps this is just in keeping with the extravagant dreams of an office worker.

Maybe the concept will make it work. Until the full album comes out, I cringe.

Update: After a few more listens and watching some reaction videos—specifically this one from PD at Form of Therapy—I’m becoming more comfortable with “Regular” as a concept for NCT 127. There are some execution-related points that I didn’t take into account that change the context of all this:

The English-language version isn’t cringey at allll. The boy’s pronunciation is pretty spot-on. The lyrics are mostly good, and bits that are a little rougher aren’t any worse than comparable American lyrics. (Which is not great—this is why I listen to k-pop, people.)
The concept is the dream of success, from a group that is starting to get some. I really can’t hate that.
The video makes the boys look really, really good.

Overall, it’s a decent American debut.

Personally, though, I can’t get into it. Back when “Boss” came out, I didn’t love it at first either, but it grew on me—the sound engineering is so interesting to listen to. With “Regular,” something about the engineering sounds compressed to me, like their normal range of dynamics is limited (much like circa 2012 pop music) and I’m listening in a fishbowl. It also feels to me like the musical arrangement is monotonous, even though there are different sections that switch up the rhythms and orchestration. I don’t know enough about music theory to tell you why exactly, but that’s how I feel right now.

Also, the instrumentation sounds like Latin-inspired elevator music. I expect so much more from SM Entertainment, honestly. SMH.

Carnivore Meal Ideas

2018-10-08 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

This is not going to be a fancy post. This is going to be a post of some of the things that I eat for dinner.

Most of which is not fancy.

Chicken cooked in duck fat with a side of scrambled eggs

NOT FANCY, I tell you. Duck fat is actually pretty easy to get these days if you go to Whole Foods or a co-op or other specialty store. I just bought a jar of Epic brand duck fat in my attempt to replace butter, and I’m liking it so far.

Buy a package of stir-fry cut chicken breast at the grocery store, and then fry it in duck fat. Leave the fond in the pan. Then, make slow-style scrambled eggs on top of it, incorporating the fond into the eggs. Delicious.

Lamburgers

Ground lamb + Hawaiian red sea salt + Foreman grill. Delicious.

Egg in a hole, carnivore-style

I’m lucky in that one of the grocery stores near me smokes their own pork and sells it shredded. Scatter a handful of that on the Foreman grill, hit it with some Hawaiian red sea salt, and heat until it’s crispy. Meanwhile, whip out that non-stick pan of yours and fry yourself a couple eggs—try to hit the over-medium stage where the yolks are really velvety. When the meat is done, pile it on a plate and lay the eggs over. To eat, break the yolks and enjoy the beautiful sauce that has just enveloped your crispy pork. Delicious.

Instant pot chicken soup

Buy a bunch of chicken drumsticks and throw them into the Instant Pot along with a carton of no-weird-stuff-added chicken bone broth. Punch a bunch of buttons until the Instant Pot starts doing things, and hope it’s doing something that will eventually cook the chicken. After a few rounds of this, let your chicken cool and then pull off the rubbery skin and remove the bones.

I’m still getting the hang of the Instant Pot.

The Cycle

2018-10-07 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Zerohedge posted this for an entirely different reason, but I like this:

But, as we will see: platforms evolve from an iterative cycle of apps=>infrastructure=>apps=>infrastructure and are rarely built in an outside vacuum.

First, apps inspire infrastructure. Then that infrastructure enables new apps.

What we see in the sequence of events of major platform shifts is that first there is a breakout app, and then that breakout app inspires a phase where we build infrastructure that makes it easier to build similar apps, and infrastructure that allows the broad consumer adoption of those apps. […]

For example, light bulbs (the app) were invented before there was an electric grid (the infrastructure). You don’t need the electric grid to have light bulbs. But to have the broad consumer adoption of light bulbs, you do need the electric grid, so the breakout app that is the light bulb came first in 1879, and then was followed by the electric grid starting 1882. (The USV team book club is now reading The Last Days Of Night about the invention of the light bulb).

Another example: Planes (the app) were invented before there were airports (the infrastructure). You don’t need airports to have planes. But to have the broad consumer adoption of planes, you do need airports, so the breakout app that is an airplane came first in 1903, and inspired a phase where people built airlines in 1919, airports in 1928 and air traffic control in 1930 only after there were planes.

It doesn’t just apply to apps or inventions. This is how change itself occurs, especially change that we initiate from inside of ourselves rather than the types of change that are imposed on us from the outside.

For example, when I was in middle school, I had bad acne. To alleviate it, my mother tried to get me to wash my face every night. I wasn’t interested (no need for infrastructure, in my mind) even when she offered me a “reward” of getting to wear mascara if I washed my face every night.

When I got older, I followed a different track. It makes sense to me that if you wear makeup, you must remove it at the end of the day. On days that I wore mascara or other makeup, I would be forced, in a sense, to wash my face. That led to better skin, which helped the makeup look better, and thus a somewhat virtuous cycle was born.

The nature of this cycle is what makes it so difficult to get started for those of us who like to plan things out, and to see systems.

We want to be able to see the infrastructure before we start, to plan out how the systems will work and estimate the time it will take out of our lives to run.

But that’s not how it actually works. First, you have to DO something—build the app or wear the mascara—before you can even hope to build an infrastructure to support it. This is a weird catch-22 situation, but there’s really no way around it.

You could try catapulting directly into the infrastructure phase without actually developing an apps, but much like trying to write about data that you haven’t analyzed yourself, you’re not going to squeeze a nuance analysis out of it, or create a robust and complex-yet-simple (antifragile?) infrastructure around any problem.

Come to think of it, the lack of “app” or proof-of-concept is why the armchair pundits of the world cause so much more harm than good. They want to skip directly to the infrastructure part without doing any of the work to create something in the first place.

I like systems. They’re fun to analyze (in theory) and refine (in practice). It’s easy to get caught up in the hypotheticals and the undergirding by which things work.

Sometimes I forget that you actually have to DO something to get things started.

First mascara, then skincare, then the glam transformation.

Republicans found their spines

2018-10-06 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Republican politicians have been cucking, selling out, and otherwise compromising for a long time now.

That’s how we got President Trump.

Even with the absolute struggle that we went through to get him elected, many of the old guard Boomer Republicans never quite got it: that it does not make you a better person to be civil with an opponent that has no intention of being civil back. It makes you stupid.

With the Kavanaugh debacle, some of them have finally woken up to what’s really going on.

How do we know this?

From Chad Pergram:

After Kavanaugh vote, Pence walked from the chamber with his detail to the exit which would open the doors up to the Senate steps. They swing the doors open…and all you can see is a throng of protesters across the plaza…and hear are protesters shouting “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

As Pence stands in doorway of Capitol at top of Senate steps, protesters across the plaza spot him and start shouting louder. His motorcade waits at the bottom of the Capitol steps.

Pence stands for a moment in Senate doorway, indecisive, w/protesters hollering. Pence then reverses course to exit Capitol another way. Pence walks a few steps. Pivots & says “let’s do it.” Pence then defiantly walks down the Capitol steps and waves to Kavanaugh protesters

Pence—Mike Pence—the mildest mannered complete opposite of Trump’s brash manner, has embraced the villain role that he has been given by the leftist mob.

This is significant.

(Some of) the people who used to want to play nice now understand that it’s not possible. They didn’t capitulate to the mob, didn’t back down on the vote. Kavanaugh himself personified this by not withdrawing or buckling under the pressure.

Despite the absolute batshit insanity shown by the protesters on the left, the Republicans held firm. They didn’t go through quite the gauntlet that Trump or Kavanaugh ran, but they withstood the heat and they stood firm.

It seems like after years of never-Trump whining and ~bipartisan cooperation~ which leads to horrific things like Obamacare, the Repubs finally decided that they were not going to take it anymore.

This makes me feel marginally better about the future.

See also Lindsay Graham. I’m going to start paying attention to him.

Jaehyun is the face of NCT 127 in America

2018-10-05 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I regret now that I didn’t post this online somewhere.

Long ago, when I was first getting into NCT (My First and Last/Limitless era), I thought to myself, “Self, if NCT ever gets big in America, Jaehyun will be really popular because he looks like an all-American Korean.”

Don’t ask me to break down what that means exactly, but to my eyes, Jaehyun resembles a typical all-American type of guy. Some of it’s his body structure and how he carries himself, but it’s also in the balance of his facial features and how his hair is styled. Like if he weren’t from Korea he would be from Nebraska, and on the Olympic gymnastics team.

Speaking English certainly helps.

ANYWAY.

Cut to NCT’s debut in America, and what do you know, Jaehyun is the first member you see in each of the video teasers.

Not Taeyong—he’s for Korea.

Not Yuta—he’s for Japan.

Jaehyun.

In terms of the concept and music, I’m not really sure what to make of this. Office culture isn’t as much a part of the culture as it seems to be in Korea. Although, the cubicle is the easiest thing to message conformity—which was necessary to contrast with the Irregular teaser.

I’m also not entirely convinced that the music goes with the tone of the visuals. SM has been going for a “dreamlike” concept as of late, especially with NCT, so I’ll trust for now. After “Touch,” though, I’m a little…touchy.

Thinking twice, perhaps I’m not as enthusiastic about this teaser because I’m hoping for more 80s romantic goth vampire wannabe vibes. Fingers crossed.

Chicken Soup

2018-10-04 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Some people love chicken soup.

I am not one of those people.

And yet, when my gut is acting up one of my first instincts is to make it. The InstantPot makes it much less of a chore—no more waiting around for hours while it simmers. (Although that can be nice, too.)

The problem is, once I’ve made a big pot of chicken soup, I don’t want to eat it.

I put it off, like one of those chores that you build up in your mind until it becomes a huge unsurpassable mountain of dirty laundry, or an unending chasm of dirty dishes. And endless loop of chicken soup.

I always have to force myself to eat it.

When I do, it’s never as bad as I imagine.

Eat your chicken soup, people.

Alternate Universe Me

2018-10-03 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Somewhere among the multiverse, there’s a timeline where I actually am what everyone assumes me to be.

You see, I’m the type of girl who looks like a typical liberal do-gooder. I have a face that people see and assume that they know what my political predilections are. (Or maybe they’re just projecting.)

When I reveal my Trump status, people are often surprised. Shocked. Whatever. They don’t expect me to be a supporter, much less an enthusiastic one.

Granted, these people usually don’t know that I’ve eaten no fruits or vegetables for over a year, or that I’m a Christian, or that I secretly want to be Galadriel when I grow up. People also tend to assume that I’m a very fastidious housekeeper and am I very much NOT.

There’s a lot you can’t know about a person by looking at them.

And that’s why I wonder if somewhere, somehow, there’s a version of me that accepted the wrong premises as truth.

That girl is bought in to the narrative, freaked out that the Big Orange Meanie is president, and always believes women. She loves that the Punch Brothers’ new album is full of references to DJT because it makes her feel better, too.

She probably has cats and cleans her house top to bottom everyday.

That girl is not me.

I do find it interesting how a musical artist that I resonated with as a teenager has gone on such a divergent path—to the point where it’s sometimes difficult to identify with his music anymore. The chords are there, the music, but something in the spirit is gone.

Is it me?

Or is AU Me off somewhere happily listening?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I took this path. I’m much happier being out of step with everyone around me than I ever would being a happy, dumb group member.

But sometimes I wonder.

Dark 80s (in which I discover Taemin’s MOVE)

2018-10-02 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Drift happens. As a project matures, it tends to gather momentum and move in its own direction. Most of the time this is a good thing, as it’s difficult to visualize the fullest extent of a project before it’s underway.

Batfort has experienced drift. Mostly this is a good thing—there’s now less of me talking about politics, which I have no business talking about. But one of the things that has lagged over the past year is the focus on aesthetics.

I had originally envisioned Batfort with a “dark 80s” theme, kind of a neo-noir-Victorian aesthetic heavily influenced by Blade Runner and Awake in the Night Land. Something that would stand in heavy contrast to the bright color blocking and pastels that dominate the aesthetic scene right now.

As I got caught up in the day-to-day of blog posts and the excitement of analytics, I forgot about the aesthetic experience.

Until now.

For whatever reason I decided it was time to check out “Move” by Taemin.

Boy was that a mistake.

I slept on this release last year. For all I admire SM Entertainment, I haven’t checked out every single one of their groups. First on the list is SHINee—except I couldn’t bear to after Jonghyun killed himself last year.

But let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about “Move.”

This is the first k-pop song I’ve heard that’s actually sexy. The bassline is addictive. The distortion of the synths is the kind that makes me want to weave the sound into a magic carpet and float off into the night. Taemin’ voice is silky smooth. Of course, it could be…
The choreography. It’s perfect—for Taemin, for the song. Subtle and sensual. Normally the unfinished-ness and lack of energy through his arms of would bother me, but it’s such a part of Taemin’s style and it suits the song so well that I can deal with it.
The aesthetic of the music video is like…dystopian 80s-inflected perfection.
There are some k-pop singles that are so good that I wish an album had been written around them. “Move” is one of those. K-pop albums are mostly random grab bags with no cohesion. I feel like making this a single and not one in a series of related songs missed a chance to explore this musical idea and feeling to its fullest.

If Taemin and his A&R reps at SM Entertainment didn’t fully explore this idea, perhaps it’s up to me. Not that I’ll be making music videos anytime soon.

But I do want to be more deliberate about what I focus on in this blog, and Taemin has reminded me of the original intent. Well, and the pitchfork mob that is currently chasing after Brett Kavanaugh.

The future is coming, and it’s going to be dark.

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Batfort

Style reveals substance