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Michael Ventura gets off the main roads and reports on the state of the union. The kids are leaving.
Chandler Phillips thought he was applying to Edmunds.com for a job writing an advice column on buying and leasing cars. The editors had a better idea. They asked him to go undercover and work as a salesman at two lots: a high-pressure import dealership on the "auto mile" and a no-haggle American showroom.
It's a fascinating look inside a world that, as a relatively happy user of mass transportation, I know naught of. Warning: It's a long 'un—10 pages and a glossary. You might want to bookmark it for when you have the time.
Kate Colquhoun reviews Martin Jones's Feast: Why Humans Share Food. At first I thought the article's title was absurdly inflated, but I was convinced by the time Colquhoun wrote: "To mangle Brillat-Savarin, he dissects not just what early humans ate, but how they ate, in order to draw conclusions about who they were. In the process, he proves once again that food and the ways we have chosen to process and proffer it can be more revealing than any other historical or prehistoric artefact."
Don't let the April 1 dateline throw you. It was also opening day, not just a holiday for the world's fools.
I have no idea how this is going to impact the world of digital music.
Smart businesspeople will certainly capitalize. So, too, will smart consumers.
[Wait, we're going to have to pay more?]
Whatever happens, I do hope that people, in general, will grow to care more about sound quality, but not so much that they forget the really important things like:
The Mets pounding the Cardinals, 6-1 on opening day at Busch Stadium, and, consequently, spoiling the Cards' pre-game festivities, or even the grand opening of the new Whole Foods on Houston, offering more…
Is depression an epidemic? Barbara Ehrenreich says that the way that depression seemed to sweep across Western Europe in the 17th Century looks like one, but is probably the result of the modern age's celebration of individuality. An increased sense of personal autonomy was accompanied by the loss of communal rituals and festivities that emphasized belonging to communities.
Here's your daily recommended dose of irony: Ehrenreich's meditation on depression comes from her new book, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy.
Researcher Amanda Melin posits that color blindness might be an advantageous adaptation for capuchins hunting camouflaged insects. For us humans? Not so much—"selection pressure for maintaining color vision could have relaxed because it wasn’t a big advantage in the habitat or types of hunting used at the time."
Speaking of having fun . . . .
Moore's an odd duck, but he sure can write up a storm. Here, he credits porn with everything from the creation of art (the Venus of Willendorf as pin-up) to the rise of mathematics, literature, and philosophy. Oh yes he did!
Obviously, if you are offended by Anglo-Saxon terms for coitus or vulgar names for your naughty bits, you shouldn't follow the external link.
Unconventional portraits of US presidents, the works in Mr. President "run the gamut from irreverent humor to deeply felt homage."
I find Martin Schoeller's chromogenic print of Clinton is strangely fascinating, but I really dig Greta Pratt's Abe's Traveling Log Cabin.
Via Grow-a-Brain.
I gotta say, if I had a summer to while away and found this job opportunity, I'd be all over it, too.
The resumes are pouring in just as music seems to pour from the ceiling and flood my living room when I play Nick Cave's The Lyre of Orpheus. It's almost too much to take. Tell your college students.