Alan Alda: 3 Ways to Express Your Thoughts So That Everyone Will Understand You

in Life, Psychology | August 20th, 2021

In need of some­one to per­form surgery in a com­bat zone, you prob­a­bly would­n’t choose Alan Alda, no mat­ter how many times you’ve seen him do it on tele­vi­sion. This sounds obvi­ous to those of us who believe that actors don’t know how to do any­thing at all. But a per­former like Alda does­n’t become a cul­tur­al icon by acci­dent: his par­tic­u­lar skill set has enabled him not just to com­mu­ni­cate with mil­lions at a time through film and tele­vi­sion, but also to nav­i­gate his off­screen and per­son­al life with a cer­tain adept­ness. In the Big Think video above, he reveals three of his own long-relied-upon strate­gies to “express your thoughts so that every­one will under­stand you.”

“I don’t real­ly like tips,” Alda declares. Stan­dard pub­lic-speak­ing advice holds that you should “vary the pace of your speech, vary the vol­ume,” for exam­ple, but while sound in them­selves, those strate­gies exe­cut­ed mechan­i­cal­ly get to be “kind of bor­ing.” Rather than oper­at­ing accord­ing to a fixed play­book, as Alda sees it, your vari­a­tions in pace and vol­ume — or your ges­tures, move­ments around the stage, and every­thing else — should occur organ­i­cal­ly, as a prod­uct of “how you’re talk­ing and relat­ing” to your audi­ence. A skilled speak­er does­n’t fol­low rules per se, but gauges and responds dynam­i­cal­ly to the lis­ten­er’s under­stand­ing even as he speaks.

But if pressed, Alda can pro­vide three tips “that I do kind of fol­low.” These he calls “the three rules of three”: first, “I try only to say three impor­tant things when I talk to peo­ple”; sec­ond, “If I have a dif­fi­cult thing to under­stand, if there’s some­thing I think is not going to be easy to get, I try to say it in three dif­fer­ent ways”; third, ” I try to say it three times through the talk.” He gets deep­er into his per­son­al the­o­ries of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the sec­ond video below, begin­ning with a slight­ly con­trar­i­an defense of jar­gon: “When peo­ple in the same pro­fes­sion have a word that stands for five pages of writ­ten knowl­edge, why say five pages of stuff when you can say one word?” The trou­ble comes when words get so spe­cial­ized that they hin­der com­mu­ni­ca­tion between peo­ple of dif­fer­ent pro­fes­sions.

At its worst, jar­gon becomes a tool of dom­i­nance: “I’m smart; I talk like this,” its users imply, “You can’t real­ly talk like this, so you’re not as smart as me.” But when we active­ly sim­pli­fy our lan­guage to com­mu­ni­cate to the broad­est pos­si­ble audi­ence, we can dis­cov­er “what are the con­cepts that real­ly mat­ter” beneath the jar­gon. All the bet­ter if we can tell a dra­mat­ic sto­ry to illus­trate our point, as Alda does at the end of the video. It involves a med­ical stu­dent con­vey­ing a patien­t’s diag­no­sis more effec­tive­ly than his super­vi­sor, all thanks to his expe­ri­ence with the kind of “mir­ror­ing” exer­cis­es famil­iar to every stu­dent of act­ing. A doc­tor who can com­mu­ni­cate is always prefer­able to one who can’t; even a real-life Hawk­eye, after all, needs to make him­self under­stood once in a while.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alan Alda Uses Improv to Teach Sci­en­tists How to Com­mu­ni­cate Their Ideas

What Is a Flame?: The First Prize-Win­ner at Alan Alda’s Sci­ence Video Com­pe­ti­tion

How to Speak: Watch the Lec­ture on Effec­tive Com­mu­ni­ca­tion That Became an MIT Tra­di­tion for Over 40 Years

Charles & Ray Eames’ A Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Primer Explains the Key to Clear Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the Mod­ern Age (1953)

Erich Fromm’s Six Rules of Lis­ten­ing: Learn the Keys to Under­stand­ing Oth­er Peo­ple from the Famed Psy­chol­o­gist

How to Get Over the Anx­i­ety of Pub­lic Speak­ing?: Watch the Stan­ford Video, “Think Fast, Talk Smart,” Viewed Already 15 Mil­lion Times

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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The Sound of Subways Around the World: A Global Collection of Subway Door Closing Announcements, Beeps & Chimes

in Life, Technology, Travel | August 16th, 2021

The next L train is now arriv­ing on the Man­hat­tan bound track. Please stand away from the plat­form edge. 

Thus begins Brook­lyn sax­o­phone-per­cus­sion trio Moon Hooch’s “Num­ber 9.”

Any­one who’s tak­en the train into the city from Bush­wick or Williams­burg two or three times, you should be able to chant along with no trou­ble.

“Mind the gap!” is a sen­ti­men­tal favorite of both native Lon­don­ers and first time vis­i­tors nav­i­gat­ing The Tube with fresh­ly pur­chased Oys­ter Cards.

Res­i­dents of Mon­tre­al are just­ly proud that their Metro’s clos­ing doors sig­nal is a near twin of Aaron Copland’s “Fan­fare for the Com­mon Man.”

Civ­il engi­neer Ted Green has been doc­u­ment­ing the mass tran­sit sounds that cue pas­sen­gers that the sub­way doors are about to close since 2004, when he logged 26 sec­onds on the Pic­cadil­ly Line in Lon­don’s Rus­sell Square Sta­tion:

In 2003 I used the Rus­sell Square sta­tion dai­ly for a week and it’s the first announce­ment that caught my atten­tion… Back then the Pic­cadil­ly Line did not have on-train sta­tion and door clos­ing announce­ments, it had the beeps, but the sta­tions in cen­tral Lon­don had auto­mat­ic announce­ments from plat­form speak­ers aimed at the open train door. Once the Pic­cadil­ly Line received on-train announce­ments a few years lat­er, this announce­ment was phased out.

Over the course of a decade, the project has expand­ed to encom­pass announce­ments on sub­ur­ban rail, rail­ways, trams, and light rail.

His trav­els have tak­en him to Asia, Aus­tralia, Europe, and North Amer­i­ca, where curios­i­ty com­pels him to doc­u­ment what hap­pens dur­ing “dwell time,” the brief peri­od when a train is dis­gorg­ing some rid­ers and tak­ing on oth­ers.

Whether the canned record­ing is ver­bal or non-ver­bal, the intent is to keep things mov­ing smooth­ly, and pre­vent injuries, though pas­sen­gers can become blasé, attempt­ing to force their way on or off by thrust­ing a limb between clos­ing doors at the absolute last minute.

Green’s incred­i­bly pop­u­lar video com­pi­la­tions aren’t near­ly so har­row­ing.

As he told The New York Times’ Sophie Haigney and Denise Lu:

I think the appeal is the sim­plic­i­ty. You won­der, how can there be so many dif­fer­ent vari­a­tions of beeps? And then you lis­ten, and they’re all so dif­fer­ent.

The pan­dem­ic only increased his audi­ence, as locked down com­muters found them­selves long­ing for the sound­track of nor­mal life.

It’s the same impulse that led soft­ware devel­op­er Evan Lewis to make an app of New York City sub­way sounds.

For those who want to bone up on their lines, infor­ma­tion design­er Ilya Bir­man, author of Design­ing Tran­sit Maps, has script­ed lists of Lon­don Under­ground and New York City sub­way announce­ments.

And Brook­lyn-based Met­ro­pol­i­tan Tran­sit Author­i­ty work­er Fred Argoff’s zine Watch the Clos­ing Doors ush­ered civil­ians behind the scenes, some­times explor­ing oth­er cities’ sub­way sys­tems or, in the case of Cincin­nati, lack there­of.

Read­ers, do you have a fond­ness for a par­tic­u­lar under­ground sound? Tell us what and why in the com­ments.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Ani­mat­ed GIFs Show How Sub­way Maps of Berlin, New York, Tokyo & Lon­don Com­pare to the Real Geog­ra­phy of Those Great Cities

How the Icon­ic Col­ors of the New York City Sub­way Sys­tem Were Invent­ed: See the 1930 Col­or Chart Cre­at­ed by Archi­tect Squire J. Vick­ers

Design­er Mas­si­mo Vignel­li Revis­its and Defends His Icon­ic 1972 New York City Sub­way Map

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Every Christmas, Peruvians Living in the Andes Settle Their Scores at Fist-Fighting Festivals

in Life, Travel | August 12th, 2021

As Chris Hedges dis­cov­ered as a bat­tle-hard­ened reporter, war is a force that gives us mean­ing. Whether we sub­li­mate vio­lence in enter­tain­ment, have paid pro­fes­sion­als and state agents do it for us, or car­ry it out our­selves, human beings can­not seem to give up their most ancient vice; “we demo­nize the ene­my,” Hedges wrote, “so that our oppo­nent is no longer human,” and “we view our­selves, our peo­ple, as the embod­i­ment of absolute good­ness…. Each side reduces the oth­er to objects — even­tu­al­ly in the form of corpses.” Each new gen­er­a­tion inher­its old hatreds, and so forth.…

Maybe one way to break cycles of vio­lence is with con­trolled vio­lence — using bare fists to set­tle scores, and walk­ing away with only bruis­es, a lit­tle hurt pride, but no last­ing wounds? That’s the idea behind Takanakuy, an Andean fes­ti­val that takes place each year at Christ­mas in the province of Chumbivil­cas, in the moun­tains of Peru. The region has a police force made up of around three offi­cers, the near­est cour­t­house is “a stom­ach-wreck­ing 10-hour dri­ve through the moun­tains,” notes Vice, who bring us the video above. Poten­tial­ly explo­sive dis­putes nat­u­ral­ly arise, and must be set­tled out­side the law.

Rather than rely on state inter­ven­tion, res­i­dents wait to slug it out on Takanakuy. The name of the fes­ti­val come from Quechua — the region’s indige­nous lan­guage — and means “to hit each oth­er” or, more idiomat­i­cal­ly, “when the blood is boil­ing.” But com­bat­ants have had upwards of twelve months to cool before they step into a ring of cheer­ing spec­ta­tors and go hand-to-hand with an oppo­nent. Fights are also offi­ci­at­ed by ref­er­ees, who do crowd con­trol with short rope whips and call a fight as soon as some­one goes down. Takanakuy is rit­u­al­ized com­bat, not blood­sport. Although tra­di­tion­al­ly dom­i­nat­ed by men, women, and chil­dren also par­tic­i­pate in fights, which usu­al­ly only last a cou­ple min­utes or so.

“Some tra­di­tion­al­ists dis­ap­prove of female par­tic­i­pa­tion in Takanakuy,” writes pho­to­jour­nal­ist Mike Kai Chen at The New York Times, but “an increas­ing num­ber of women in Chumbivil­cas are defy­ing con­ven­tion and step­ping up to fight in front of their com­mu­ni­ty.” Male fight­ers wear boots, flashy leather chaps, and elab­o­rate, hand-sewn masks with taxi­der­mied birds on top. Women wear ele­gant dress­es with fine embroi­dery, and wrap their wrists in col­or­ful embroi­dered cloth. “The ulti­mate aim is to begin the new year in peace. For this rea­son every fight… begins and ends with a hug”… or, at the very least, a hand­shake.

The fes­ti­val also involves much danc­ing, eat­ing, drink­ing, craft sales, and Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions. Suemed­ha Sood at BBC Trav­el com­pares Takanakuy to Sein­feld’s “Fes­tivus,” the alt-win­ter hol­i­day for the air­ing of griev­ances and feats of strength. But it’s no joke. “The fes­ti­val seeks to resolve con­flict, strength­en com­mu­ni­ty bonds and hope­ful­ly, arrive at a greater peace.” Lib­er­tar­i­an econ­o­mists Edwar Escalante and Ray­mond March frame Takanakuy as “a cred­i­ble mech­a­nism of law enforce­ment in an order­ly fash­ion with social accep­tance.” For indige­nous teacher and author and par­tic­i­pant Vic­tor Laime Man­til­la, it’s some­thing more, part of “the fight to reclaim the rights of indige­nous peo­ple.”

“In the cities,” says Man­til­la, “the Chumbivil­cas are still seen as a sav­age cul­ture.” But they have kept the peace amongst them­selves with no need for Peru­vian author­i­ties, fus­ing an indige­nous music called Huaylia with oth­er tra­di­tions that date back even before the Incas. Takanakuy arose as a response to sys­tems of colo­nial oppres­sion. When “jus­tice in Chumbivil­cas was sole­ly admin­is­tered by pow­er­ful peo­ple,” Man­til­la says, “peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty always lost their case. What can I do with a jus­tice like that? I’d rather have my own jus­tice in pub­lic.”

See the cos­tumes of the tra­di­tion­al Takanakuy char­ac­ters over at Vice and see Chen’s stun­ning pho­tos of friend­ly fist­fights and Takanakuy fun at The New York Times.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Peru­vian Schol­ar Writes & Defends the First The­sis Writ­ten in Quechua, the Main Lan­guage of the Incan Empire

Peru­vian Singer & Rap­per, Rena­ta Flo­res, Helps Pre­serve Quechua with Viral Hits on YouTube

Speak­ing in Whis­tles: The Whis­tled Lan­guage of Oax­a­ca, Mex­i­co

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Is the Viral “Red Dress” Music Video a Sociological Experiment? Performance Art? Or Something Else?

in Life, Media, Music | August 4th, 2021

Before it set itself on fire, HBO’s Game of Thrones res­onat­ed deeply with con­tem­po­rary moral­i­ty, becom­ing the most meme-wor­thy of shows, for good or ill, online. Few scenes in the show’s run — per­haps not even the Red Wed­ding or the nau­se­at­ing finale — elicit­ed as much gut-lev­el reac­tion as Cer­sei Lannister’s naked walk of shame in the Sea­son 5 finale, a scene all the more res­o­nant as it hap­pened to be based on real events.

In 1483, one of King Edward IV’s many mis­tress­es, Jane Shore, was marched through London’s streets by his broth­er Richard III, “while crowds of peo­ple watched, yelling and sham­ing her. She wasn’t total­ly naked,” notes Men­tal Floss, “but by the stan­dards of the day, she might as well have been,” wear­ing noth­ing but a kir­tle, a “thin shift of linen meant to be worn only as an under­gar­ment.”

What are the stan­dards of our day? And what is the pun­ish­ment for vio­lat­ing them? Sarah Brand seemed to be ask­ing these ques­tions when she post­ed “Red Dress,” a music video show­cas­ing her less than stel­lar singing tal­ents inside Oxford’s North Gate Church. In less than a month, the video has gar­nered well over half a mil­lion views, “impres­sive for a musi­cian with hard­ly any social media foot­print or fan base,” Kate Fowler writes at Newsweek.

“It takes only a few sec­onds,” Fowler gen­er­ous­ly remarks, “to real­ize that Brand may not have the voice of an angel.” Or, as one clever com­menter put it, “She is actu­al­ly hit­ting all the notes… only of oth­er songs. And at ran­dom.” Is she ludi­crous­ly un-self-aware, an heiress with delu­sions of grandeur, a sad casu­al­ty of celebri­ty cul­ture, forc­ing her­self into a role that doesn’t fit? Or does she know exact­ly what she’s doing…

The judg­ments of medieval mobs have noth­ing on the inter­net, Brand sug­gests. “Red Dress” presents what she calls “a cin­e­mat­ic, holis­tic por­tray­al of judg­ment,” one that includes inter­net sham­ing in its cal­cu­la­tions. Giv­en the amount of online ran­cor and ridicule her video pro­voked, it “did what it set out to do,” she tells the BBC. And giv­en that Brand is cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing a master’s degree in soci­ol­o­gy at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty, many won­der if the project is a soci­o­log­i­cal exper­i­ment for cred­it. She isn’t say­ing.

Jane Shore’s walk end­ed with years locked in prison. Brand offered her­self up for the scorn and hatred of the mobs. No one is point­ing a pike at her back. She paid for the priv­i­lege of hav­ing peo­ple laugh at her, and she’s espe­cial­ly enjoy­ing “some very, very wit­ty com­ments” (like those above). She’s also very much aware that she is “no pro­fes­sion­al singer.”

The style in which I sing the song was impor­tant because it reflect­ed the sto­ry. The vocals don’t seem to quite fit, they seem out of place and they make peo­ple uncom­fort­able… and the video is this out­sider doing things dif­fer­ent­ly and caus­ing dis­com­fort and elic­it­ing all this judge­ment.

All of this is vol­un­tary per­for­mance art, in a sense, though Brand has shown pre­vi­ous aspi­ra­tions on social media to become a singer, and per­haps faced sim­i­lar ridicule invol­un­tar­i­ly. “Part of what this project deals with,” she says, is judg­ment “over­all as a cen­tral theme.” She cred­its her­self as the direc­tor, pro­duc­er, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, and edi­tor and made every cre­ative deci­sion, to the bemuse­ment of the actors, crew, and stu­dio musi­cians. Yet choos­ing to endure the gaunt­let does not make the gaunt­let less real, she sug­gests.

The shame rained down on Shore was part misog­y­ny, part pent-up rage over injus­tice direct­ed at a hat­ed bet­ter. When any­one can pre­tend (or pre­tend to pre­tend) to be a celebri­ty with a few hun­dred bucks for cin­e­matog­ra­phy and audio pro­duc­tion, the bound­aries between our “bet­ters” and our­selves get fuzzy. When young women are expect­ed to become brands, to live up to celebri­ty lev­els of online pol­ish for social recog­ni­tion, self-expres­sion, or employ­ment, the lines between choice and com­pul­sion blur. With whom do we iden­ti­fy in scenes of pub­lic sham­ing?

Brand is coy in her sum­ma­tion. “Judg­men­tal behav­ior does hurt the world,” she says, “and that is what I’m try­ing to bring to light with this project.” Judge for your­self in the video above and the … inter­est­ing… lyrics to “Red Dress” below.

 

Came to church to praise all love
Sit­ting, com­ing for some­one else
It didn’t stew well for me
But I said it was a lover’s deed

Didn’t trust my own feels
Let some­one else behind my wheel
Said it was love dri­ving me
But the only one who should steer is me

Cuz what they saw

They see me in a red dress
Hop­ping on the dev­il fest
Think­ing of lust
As they judge in dis­gust
What are you doing here?

They see me in a red dress
Hop­ping on the dev­il fest
Think­ing of lust
As I judge in dis­gust
What am I doing here?

Let­tin’ some­one else steer

I saw a love, pre­cious and fine
Thought I should do any­thing for time 
Time to change the hearts and minds
Of peo­ple not like me in break or stride

Shouldn’t be me, try­ing to change
Thought I’d be some­thing if I remained 
It just ain’t me singing of sins
Watch­ing exclu­sion get­ting its wins

Cuz what they saw

They see me in a red dress
Hop­ping on the dev­il fest
Think­ing of lust
As they judge in dis­gust
What are you doing here?

They see me in a red dress
Hop­ping on the dev­il fest
Think­ing of lust
As I judge in dis­gust
What am I doing here?

Let­tin’ some­one else steer

Came to church 
To praise love
Com­ing for
Some­one else

But all the eyes
Judg­ing in dis­guise
They don’t see me
Just the lies

They see me in a red dress
No dif­fer­ent from the rest
Start­ing to trust
As they join in a rush
What are we doing here?

They see me in a red dress
No dif­fer­ent from the rest
Start­ing to trust
As I lose my dis­gust
What am I doing here?

Strik­ing the fear

They see me in a red dress

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

Hear the Exper­i­men­tal Music of the Dada Move­ment: Avant-Garde Sounds from a Cen­tu­ry Ago

The 15 Worst Cov­ers of Bea­t­les Songs: William Shat­ner, Bill Cos­by, Tiny Tim, Sean Con­nery & Your Excel­lent Picks

Bri­an Eno Explains the Loss of Human­i­ty in Mod­ern Music

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Sylvia Plath’s Tarot Cards (Which Influenced the Poems in Ariel) Were Just Sold for $207,000

in Games, Life, Literature, Poetry | July 23rd, 2021

We cel­e­brat­ed my birth­day yes­ter­day: [Ted] gave me a love­ly Tarot pack of cards and a dear rhyme with it, so after the oblig­a­tions of this term are over your daugh­ter shall start her way on the road to becom­ing a seer­ess & will also learn how to do horo­scopes, a very dif­fi­cult art which means reviv­ing my ele­men­tary math. 

- Sylvia Plath, in a let­ter to her moth­er, 28 Octo­ber 1956

Sylvia Plath’s Tarot cards, a 24th birth­day present from her hus­band, poet Ted Hugh­es, just went for £151,200 in an auc­tion at Sotheby’s.

That’s approx­i­mate­ly £100,000 more than this lot, a Tarot de Mar­seille deck print­ed by play­ing card man­u­fac­tur­er B.P. Gri­maud de Paris, was expect­ed to fetch.

The auc­tion house’s descrip­tion indi­cates that a few of the cards were dis­col­ored —  evi­dence of use, as sup­port­ed by Plath’s numer­ous ref­er­ences to Tarot in her jour­nals.

Recall Tarot’s appear­ance in “Dad­dy,” her most wide­ly known poem, and her iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with the Hang­ing Man card, in a poem of the same name:

By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.

I siz­zled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.

The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard’s eye­lid :

A world of bald white days in a shade­less sock­et.

A vul­tur­ous bore­dom pinned me in this tree.

If he were I, he would do what I did.

This cen­tu­ry has seen her col­lec­tion Ariel restored to its author’s intend­ed order.
The orig­i­nal order is said to cor­re­spond quite close­ly to Tarot, with the first twen­ty-two poems sym­bol­iz­ing the cards of the Major Arcana.

The next ten are aligned with the num­bers of the Minor Arcana. Those are fol­lowed by four rep­re­sent­ing the Court cards. The collection’s final four poems can be seen to ref­er­ence the pen­ta­cles, cups, swords and wands that com­prise the Tarot’s suits.

Ariel’s man­u­script was rearranged by Hugh­es, who dropped some of the “more lac­er­at­ing” poems and added oth­ers in advance of its 1965 pub­li­ca­tion, two years after Plath’s death by sui­cide. (Hear Plath read poems from Ariel here.)

Daugh­ter Frie­da defends her father’s actions and describes how dam­ag­ing they were to his rep­u­ta­tion in her Fore­word to Ariel: The Restored Edi­tion.

One won­ders if it’s sig­nif­i­cant that Plath’s Page of Cups, a card asso­ci­at­ed with pos­i­tive mes­sages relat­ed to fam­i­ly and loved ones, has a rip in it?

We also won­der who paid such a stag­ger­ing price for those cards.

Will they give the deck a moon bath or salt bur­ial to cleanse it of Plath’s neg­a­tive ener­gy?

Or is the win­ning bid­der such a diehard fan, the chance to han­dle some­thing so inti­mate­ly con­nect­ing them to their lit­er­ary hero neu­tral­izes any occult mis­giv­ings?

We rather wish Plath’s Tarot de Mar­seille had been award­ed to Phillip Roberts in Ship­ley, Eng­land, who planned to exhib­it them along­side her tarot-influ­enced poems in a pop up gallery at the Saltaire Fes­ti­val. To finance this dream, he launched a crowd-fund­ing cam­paign, pledg­ing that every £100 donor could keep one of the cards, to be drawn at ran­dom, with all con­trib­u­tors invit­ed to sub­mit new art or writ­ing to the mini-exhi­bi­tion: Save Sylvia Plath’s cards from liv­ing in the draw­ers of some wealthy col­lec­tor, and let’s make some art togeth­er!

Alas, Roberts and friends fell  £148,990 short of the win­ning bid. Bet­ter luck next time, mate. We applaud your gra­cious­ness in defeat, as well as the spir­it in which your project was con­ceived.

via Lithub

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Artis­tic & Mys­ti­cal World of Tarot: See Decks by Sal­vador Dalí, Aleis­ter Crow­ley, H.R. Giger & More

Why Should We Read Sylvia Plath? An Ani­mat­ed Video Makes the Case

Hear Sylvia Plath Read 18 Poems From Her Final Col­lec­tion, Ariel, in 1962 Record­ing

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Why Finland & Denmark Are Happier Than the United States

in Life | July 6th, 2021

We may nev­er con­vince the greed­i­est among us that mon­ey won’t buy hap­pi­ness. But if we weren’t per­suad­ed before the pan­dem­ic, it seems more of us are now, since thou­sands of work­ers refuse to return to exploita­tive con­di­tions. “The Covid job mar­ket,” the Har­vard Busi­ness Review admits, “is not like 2008, nor real­ly like any­thing any­one has observed since the birth of mod­ern cap­i­tal­ism.” This obser­va­tion comes amidst a dis­cus­sion of the fac­tors influ­enc­ing hir­ing, but most econ­o­mist-speak avoids the emo­tion­al lan­guage we use to talk about our jobs.

The fact is, most of us are stressed out, unhap­py, over­worked, and under­paid, with lit­tle in terms of pub­lic pol­i­cy or cor­po­rate ben­e­fits to help reduce the bur­dens on the aver­age Amer­i­can work­er. It’s far worse for oth­er work­ers around the world. “The aver­age US work­week is 38.6 hours,” notes Busi­ness Insid­er. “That may feel like for­ev­er to some peo­ple, but it’s noth­ing com­pared to some coun­tries’ work­weeks.” Work­ers in Colom­bia, for exam­ple, spend an aver­age of 47.7 hours at work.

Much of that time could be spent car­ing for our­selves and our fam­i­lies, and lock­downs, quar­an­tines, shel­ter-in-place and work-from-home orders have giv­en us time to recon­sid­er how we’ve been liv­ing. As we do, we might look to Fin­land and Den­mark, where peo­ple pro­fess some of the high­est rates of hap­pi­ness in the world, accord­ing to the most recent World Hap­pi­ness Report, a series of mea­sures co-cre­at­ed by Jef­frey Sachs, Direc­tor of Colum­bia University’s Cen­ter for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment.

“In a lam­en­ta­ble year,” the report points out, “Fin­land again is the hap­pi­est coun­try in the world.” Den­mark isn’t far behind. What does this mean? “It’s not pri­mar­i­ly a mea­sure of whether one laughed or smiled yes­ter­day,” says Sachs, “but how one feels about the course of one’s life.” This feel­ing is mea­sured accord­ing to “six areas of life sat­is­fac­tion,” CNBC notes in an intro­duc­tion to the video above — a short doc­u­men­tary on Finnish and Dan­ish hap­pi­ness — includ­ing “income, healthy life expectan­cy, social sup­port, free­dom, trust and gen­eros­i­ty.”

“We need urgent­ly to learn from Covid-19,” says Sachs. “The pan­dem­ic reminds us of our glob­al envi­ron­men­tal threats, the urgent need to coop­er­ate, and the dif­fi­cul­ties of achiev­ing coop­er­a­tion in each coun­try and glob­al­ly. The World Hap­pi­ness Report 2021 reminds us that we must aim for well­be­ing rather than mere wealth, which will be fleet­ing indeed if we don’t do a much bet­ter job of address­ing the chal­lenges of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.” Learn what makes the Finns and Danes so hap­py in the video above (spoil­er: it isn’t exor­bi­tant salaries) and learn more about why peo­ple in the “hap­pi­est” coun­tries thrive at the World Hap­pi­ness Report.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Cre­ativ­i­ty, Not Mon­ey, is the Key to Hap­pi­ness: Dis­cov­er Psy­chol­o­gist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s The­o­ry of “Flow”

How Much Mon­ey Do You Need to Be Hap­py? A New Study Gives Us Some Exact Fig­ures

The Keys to Hap­pi­ness: The Emerg­ing Sci­ence and the Upcom­ing MOOC by Raj Raghu­nathan

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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How Ramen Became the Currency of Choice in Prison, Beating Out Cigarettes

in Finance, Food & Drink, Life | July 5th, 2021

The last decade ush­ered in a slew of tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese-style ramen restau­rants — enough to jus­ti­fy ramen maps to New York City, Chica­go, and the Bay Area.

Yet most Amer­i­cans still con­ceive of ramen as the pack of sea­son­ing and dehy­drat­ed instant noo­dles that have long sus­tained broke artists and col­lege stu­dents.

Add incar­cer­at­ed per­sons to the list of pack­aged ramen’s most ardent con­sumers.

In the above episode of Vox’s series, The Goods, we learn how those ubiq­ui­tous cel­lo­phane pack­ages have out­stripped cig­a­rettes and postage stamps as the pre­ferred form of prison cur­ren­cy.

Ramen is durable, portable, pack­aged in stan­dard units, avail­able in the prison com­mis­sary, and high­ly prized by those with a deep need to pad their chow hall meals.

Ramen can be used to pay for cloth­ing and hygiene prod­ucts, or ser­vices like laun­dry, bunk clean­ing, dic­ta­tion, or cus­tom illus­tra­tion. Gam­blers can use it in lieu of chips.

Ramen’s sta­tus as the pre­ferred form of exchange also speaks to a sharp decline in the quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty of food in Amer­i­can penal insti­tu­tions.

Ethno­g­ra­ph­er Michael Gib­son-Light, who spent a year study­ing home­grown mon­e­tary prac­tices among incar­cer­at­ed pop­u­la­tions, notes that slashed prison bud­gets have cre­at­ed a cul­ture of “puni­tive fru­gal­i­ty.”

Called upon to mod­el a demon­stra­bly tough on crime stance and cut back on expen­di­tures, the insti­tu­tions are unof­fi­cial­ly shunt­ing many of their tra­di­tion­al costs onto the pris­on­ers them­selves.

In response, those on the inside have piv­ot­ed to edi­ble cur­ren­cy:

What we are see­ing is a col­lec­tive response — across inmate pop­u­la­tions and secu­ri­ty lev­els, across prison cliques and racial groups, and even across states — to changes and cut­backs in prison food services…The form of mon­ey is not some­thing that changes often or eas­i­ly, even in the prison under­ground econ­o­my; it takes a major issue or shock to ini­ti­ate such a change. The use of cig­a­rettes as mon­ey in U.S. pris­ons hap­pened in Amer­i­can Civ­il War mil­i­tary pris­ons and like­ly far ear­li­er. The fact that this prac­tice has sud­den­ly changed has poten­tial­ly seri­ous impli­ca­tions.

Ramen may be a rel­a­tive­ly new devel­op­ment in the prison land­scape, but culi­nary exper­i­men­ta­tion behind bars is not. From Pruno prison wine to Martha Stewart’s prison grounds crabap­ple jel­ly, it’s a noth­ing ven­tured, noth­ing gained type of deal. Work with what you’ve got.

Gus­ta­vo “Goose” Alvarez, who appears in Vox’s video, col­lect­ed a num­ber of the most adven­tur­ous recipes in his book, Prison Ramen: Recipes and Sto­ries from Behind Bars. Any­one can bring some vari­ety on the spur of the moment by sprin­kling some of your ramen’s sea­son­ing pack­et into your drink­ing water, but amass­ing the ingre­di­ents for an ambi­tious dish like Orange Porkies — chili ramen plus white rice plus ½ bag of pork skins plus orange-fla­vored punch — takes patience and per­se­ver­ance.

Alvarez’s Egg Ramen Sal­ad Sand­wich recipe earns praise from actor Shia LeBoeuf, whose time served is both mul­ti­ple and min­i­mal.

Some­one serv­ing a longer sen­tence has a more com­pelling rea­son to search for the ramen-cen­tered sense of har­mo­ny and well­be­ing on dis­play in Tam­popo, the first “ramen west­ern”:

Appre­ci­ate its gestalt. Savor the aro­mas.

Joe Guer­rero, host of YouTube’s After­Pris­on­Show, is not immune to the plea­sures of some of his ramen-based con­coc­tions, below, despite being on the out­side for sev­er­al years now.

You’re free to wrin­kle your nose at the thought of snack­ing on a crum­bled brick of uncooked ramen, but Guer­rero points out that some­one serv­ing a long sen­tence craves vari­ety in any form they can get. Expe­ri­enc­ing it can tap into the same sense of pride as self-gov­er­nance.

Guerrero’s recipes require a microwave (and a block of ramen).

Even if you’re not par­tic­u­lar­ly keen on eat­ing the fin­ished prod­uct, there’s a sci­ence project appeal to his Ramen Noo­dle Cook­ie. It calls for no addi­tion­al  ingre­di­ents, just ten min­utes cook­ing time, an out­ra­geous prospect in a com­mu­nal set­ting with only one microwave.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Prop­er Way to Eat Ramen: A Med­i­ta­tion from the Clas­sic Japan­ese Com­e­dy Tam­popo (1985)

What Goes Into Ramen Noo­dles, and What Hap­pens When Ramen Noo­dles Go Into You

Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki Shows Us How to Make Instant Ramen

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Discover Ikaria, the Greek Island With the Oldest Life Expectancy in the World

in Health, Life | June 21st, 2021

Boil­er­plate human inter­est sto­ries about the habits of par­tic­u­lar­ly spry cen­te­nar­i­ans just don’t cut it any­more. Liv­ing a long, healthy, and hap­py life, we know, involves more than mak­ing the right indi­vid­ual choic­es. It means liv­ing in soci­eties that make good choic­es read­i­ly avail­able and sup­port the indi­vid­u­als mak­ing them. Nutri­tion research has borne this out — just scan the lat­est pop­u­lar food book titles for the word “Mediter­ranean,” for exam­ple, or input the same search term in an aca­d­e­m­ic data­base, and you’ll pull up hun­dreds of results. Even fad diets have shift­ed from pro­mot­ing indi­vid­ual celebri­ties to cel­e­brat­ing whole regions.

Sci­en­tists have iden­ti­fied a hand­ful of places around the world, in fact, where diet and oth­er ordi­nary lifestyle and social fac­tors have led to the out­comes gov­ern­ments spend bil­lions try­ing, and fail­ing, to achieve. One of these regions is — yes — square­ly in the Mediter­ranean, the Greek island of Ikaria, “named one of the health­i­est places on earth,” writes Greek City Times, “a spot of excep­tion­al longevi­ty. Here, there are more healthy peo­ple over 90 than any oth­er place on the plan­et.” Ikaria is just one of five so-called “Blue Zones” — which also include Sar­dinia, Italy, Oki­nawa, Japan, Nicoya, Cos­ta Rica, and Loma Lin­da, Cal­i­for­nia — where inhab­i­tants reg­u­lar­ly live healthy lives into their 90s and beyond.

In the Vice video above, you can meet some of the res­i­dents of Ikaria, where 1 in 3 peo­ple live past 90, and learn about some of the fac­tors that con­tribute to long life in blue zones, and in Ikaria in par­tic­u­lar. Great weath­er does­n’t hurt. Most impor­tant, how­ev­er, is local, fresh food, and lots of it. “The most impor­tant thing is the food,” says an Ikar­i­an cook as she pre­pares a batch of fresh-caught fish. “Because you live with it. You eat the right way, every­thing works the right way.” This is a much bet­ter way of say­ing “you are what you eat.” As Max Fish­er points out in a bul­let­ed list of the Greek Island’s “secrets to long life,” things “work­ing the right way” plays a huge role in longevi­ty.

Not only do old­er peo­ple in Ikaria walk every­where and con­tin­ue work­ing into their elder­ly years – hap­pi­ly but not under duress – they also report very healthy sex lives, part of a net­work of habits that social­ly rein­force each oth­er, Fish­er writes. Hear Ikar­i­an res­i­dents above con­trast their lives on the island with their lives in fast-paced mod­ern cities where they trad­ed health and well­be­ing for more mon­ey. Read Fisher’s full list (excerpt­ed below) at The Wash­ing­ton Post.

1) Plen­ty of rest.

2) An herbal diet.

3) Very lit­tle sug­ar, white flour, or meat.

4) Mediter­ranean diet.

5) No processed food.

6) Reg­u­lar nap­ping.

7) Healthy sex lives after 65.

8) Stay busy and involved.

9) Yes, exer­cise.

10) Lit­tle stress of any kind.

11) “Mutu­al­ly rein­forc­ing” habits.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

10 Longevi­ty Tips from Dr. Shigea­ki Hino­hara, Japan’s 105-Year-Old Longevi­ty Expert

How to Live to Be 100 and Beyond: 9 Diet & Lifestyle Tips

Book Read­ers Live Longer Lives, Accord­ing to New Study from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty

Life Lessons From 100-Year-Olds: Time­less Advice in a Short Film

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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