We moved and for many months I got along fine using my cell phone and wall clocks and car clocks to check the time. But, there came a point when I had to admit  that having a wrist watch was a convenience I missed. Maybe it was when I read about some absurdly expensive watch, a watch that was more jewelry than timepiece, but at some point I decided I’d try to replace the watch I lost. I looked for an exact match and could not find one. After a little research, I decided I didn’t need diamonds and gold and such. I didn’t need a Rolex or a Piaget. This expanded the range of affordable options open to me. Anybody who has used Google and Amazon to help them find a product or realize a materialist fantasy doesn’t need me to recapitulate my process. I searched. I compared. I priced. I weighed and considered. And eventually I came up with a product that Amazon could provide that I thought would do the trick. While I hadn’t tried it on, I was comfortable that if I didn’t like it, I could return it, so I ordered it up and what do you know? It’s been everything I hoped it would be.

My new watch is a Citizen Eco-Drive with a perpetual calendar. I’m hoping it’s my forever watch, the last one I’ll need to buy. (Did you know that some people collect watches? They have a watch wardrobe that they swap around and mix and match with their attire like some people swap out cuff links. Did you know that there are some people who wear cuff links?) My new watch has a sapphire crystal that won’t scratch and a titanium case and band that are both tough and lightweight. If I fall off a boat and drown in less than 200 meters of water, the watch will keep running. It’s the only watch I own. I flatter myself that it would look good whether I was wearing a tuxedo or a wetsuit, if I owned a tuxedo. Or a wetsuit.

The watch is solar powered. I’ll never have to change a battery. I could leave it in the dark in a drawer for a couple of months before it would run out of stored solar power. It’s radio controlled. It sets itself to the atomic clock so while it can gain or lose a few seconds every month or two, if it does, then it will correct itself and be synchronized to provide the exact time whenever I look at it. It has a perpetual calendar. I set it once, and I’ll never have to set it again. Unlike all the other calendar watches I have ever owned, this one knows how many days there are in the current month and won’t get confused until the year 2100. It keeps track of daylight savings time for me, and it has an easy adjustment to local time when I’m traveling. In the future, when I have wandered off down the twisted byways of senile dementia, this watch will be the most rational thing about me. I find that oddly pleasing.

Around 1950, C.M. Kornbluth published a story called “The Silly Season.” The story was premised on an old journalism tradition. In the hot summer months nobody believes what they read in the newspapers because the reporters are stretching for stories to write while everything is slowed down, governments are in recess, and everyone’s on vacation. What better time for the aliens to invade? Who believes those flying saucer stories anyway?

This year the season included the catholic pope speaking before parliament in the United Kingdom, admirably introduced at Westminster by Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow (whose wife, tweeting as @SallyBercow used the papal visit to underscore some of her own work for gay rights). Thomas More, dead since 1536, was present for the meeting of the octogenarian cleric with the octogenarian queen. We mortals will never know exactly what Saint Thomas made of the occasion.

Other special moments of the just passed silly season included the twin teabag victories of Carl Paladino (characterized by New York Magazine as a fan of bestiality porn) and Christine O’Donnell, dabbler in witchcraft and opponent of “sexual socialists” everywhere. Jason Linkins calls Paladino and O’Donnell the “newly-minted Tea Party Prom King and Queen.”

In local silliness, the Whooga ugg boots arrived and I did an unboxing video. The voice over is embarrassingly unscripted and bespeaks a singular lack of talented ad libbery. Currently, I’m spraying them with a leather conditioner to extend their life in the barnyard mud, and the slush and snow of the Wisconsin winter. I don’t intend to wear them to Orlando, because–stylish as they are–they’ll be too warm for Florida. Between now and the 30th, when the AARP convention is due to start in Orlando, I’ve booked cyber-journalism lessons with one of my generation’s most famous correspondents. I’m hoping he can give me a few hints for interviews with James Carville and Mary Matalin and Kathleen Sibelius.

Silliness on the national scene continued last week with Fox News filing a lawsuit against Robin Carnahan for telling the truth.

Finally, in an encore act of silliness guaranteed to keep you giggling until you collapse from lack of breath, Newt (yes, that NEWT) Gingrich reprises his role of power-mad propagandist for the religious right at a gathering called the “Values Voter Summit” sponsored by a group called the FRC, or Family Research Council. Here’s a taste:

The guy didn’t write back, so I’m posting this purely on spec…. And I do love natural leather, natural fleece-lined suede boots. I like them to look at and I love them to wear. I think it’s the lanolin. If you don’t wear sox in your fleece-lined boots your feet will always feel fine, just like after a good mani-pedi.

Here’s the deal, Mr. Whooga Man. I’ll be happy to make a few bucks with this post, but if you want the real thing, then ship me a pair of the 29cm tall chestnut Whoogas, I’ll do a YouTube video as part of your September promotion, you can have this post gratis, and hang on to your cash! I’ll probably hit a different demographic for you too, the older men with expanding waist-line demographic. Later in the fall I could offer some insight into how they hold up around the barnyard.

http://www.whooga.com/

Steve Jobs, Disney Director and famous iCrapper, is a baby boomer. Bram Cohen, who wrote BitTorrent, Shawn Fanning, who developed Napster, Sergei Brin and Larry Page who founded Google, and Linus Torvalds famous Linux dude are all much younger than Jobs. Steve Jobs represents entrenched interests. The aforementioned Millennials famously promote open systems and free exchange of ideas. Jobs is a “Digital Rights Management” (DRM) kind of guy, the sort who believes the Disney copyrights on that mouse should be extended to the corporation in perpetuity.

Jobs leads a cult of dedicated customers, people who will buy his products regardless of performance because they’re marketed so well. In upscale malls across the US you can get Apple products the day they are released simply by standing in queue at the Apple outlet and reinforcing the belief of those around you that the iPod, iPhone, iMac, iPad or iWhatever is the NEXT BIG (retail) THING. Sadly, the Church of Apple’s profits are tied to a strict program of Digital Rights Management and it’s getting harder and harder to come up with the NEXT BIG (retail) THING, patent it, and control its release in the marketplace.

Okay, the iPods, those stored music thingies, were pretty cool. Initiates and communicants could identify each other by the little white carbuncles blossoming from their ears, growths that presumably excluded the echoing chant and drumbeat of the marketing weenies who tweet and IM and Facebook, and blog the news that the NEXT BIG (retail) THING that you bought last month will soon be passé, because the NEXT BIG (retail) THING is about to be introduced by Jobs at the next big iHoopla and Marketing Festival (BTOBS).

For the last month or two, under pressure by the need for big numbers on the iPad launch, Jobs has been on a tear spreading fear uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about competitive products. Now he’s added injury to insult with a patent infringement suit against HTC, his leading competitor. Well, it looks a little like an iPhone, but wait! It’s so much better!

Some of Jobs’ success is based on his creative adoption of Xerox’s mouse and graphical user interface. Will he prevail against HTC which seems to be taking a page from his own book?

She comes in colors

The foot is yours; where’er it falls,
It treads your well-wrought leather,
On earthen floor, in marble halls,
On carpet, or on heather.
Still there the sweetest charm is found
Of matron grace or vestal’s,
As Hebe’s foot bore nectar round
Among the old celestials.

Rap, rap!–your stout and bluff brogan,
With footsteps slow and weary,
May wander where the sky’s blue span
Shuts down upon the prairie.
On Beauty’s foot your slippers glance,
By Saratoga’s fountains,
Or twinkle down the summer dance
Beneath the Crystal Mountains!

In Whittier’s day the the word “ugh” (or “ugg” or even “ug”) was simply a grunt, generally signifying laconic approbation.  Some say the word as applied to boots originated with Australian surfers in the late sixties or early seventies.  Others claim that the boot has been common in the outback for more than a century. None will question the use of “ugg” to describe a fleece lined sheepskin boot manufactured in Australia. There have been nasty legal battles fought by the marketeers of Decker’s Ugg Footwear against the manufacturers of ugg style boots everywhere.

I thought “Uggs” were a particular brand of Australian boot favored by co-eds, a boot perhaps to be worn with tight pegged pants, preferably levis–not Donna Karan parachute pants–a boot for bare legs dropping out of a kicky little dress that maybe skims the knee, a brand of boot as practical as it is pretty.

As it happens, “Ugg” is generic. There are a lot of boot makers with uggs to offer, notwithstanding Decker’s efforts to register the name as a trademark and prevent others from using it. So how do you sort the good uggs from the bad uggs?  There’s a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western about that, I think.

Sadly, now that Carrie Bradshaw is deep into re-runs, it is only the Manolo who informs me regarding the fashions of the feminine pedal extremities. And Manolo does not like the Uggs. They are too comfortable to please the Manolo. They are perhaps not fetishistic enough. They are simple in design, practical, affordable and attractive. Manolo likes the gaudy and the extravagant footwear. Uggs are anything but gaudy and extravagant.

Manolo does not like the uggs, but the ladies do. (And actually so do the gents. What’s not to like about a comfortable boot that keeps the foot cool in hot weather and warm when it’s cold)?

Once, the Manolo, he saw the aging minx the Shannon Doherty coming out of the Malibu Country Market, and she had on the Uggs and the miniskirt of the denim.

Perhaps she saw the Manolo frowning at the ugliness of her feetwear, for she scowled at the Manolo as if to say “you are the insect who is not worthy to gaze upon the shoes of the Shannon Doherty.”

Wikipedia says, “While in the boot, the sockless foot is in full contact with the sheepskin lining, thereby maximizing the insulative properties of the boot. The mid-calf shaft, while not encasing the entire lower foot in wool, further enhances the thermal qualities of the boot by encasing the ankle and lower portion of the leg. The wide, rounded toebox, wide shaft, and wide heelbox with a heel-less sole enhance comfort by providing a non-constricting space for the foot.”

Comfy, isn’t it? And oddly stirring, a bow to the erotic qualities of the fresh pedicure, polished toenails concealed in warm comfort. The Manolo probably doesn’t get that, but maybe he should take a closer look.

No Uggs were hurled

Quebecers stepped all over George W. Bush’s visit to Montreal on Thursday. Bush was on a tour promoting his soon to be ghost written autobiography. I liked the part about throwing shoes, but the burning in effigy? A little strong for my taste.

Police collected an odd assortment of shoes, including a slightly worn Jimmy Choo pony fur pump with snakeskin straps, and a patent leather Mary Jane with four inch spike heels by Manolo Blahnik that looked like it was fresh from Nieman Marcus.

No Uggs were found in the pile of confiscated footwear.

Manolo the shoe blogger has yet to weigh in with his impressions of the Montreal protest.

Look for the Netroots conference and you’ll find coverage in the New York times Politics section. Look for BlogHer and you’ll find it in the women’s pages, the New York times Fashion and Style section.

Erin Kotecki Vest has already commented on this in her own space, Queen of Spain, and via the Huffington Post, but I thought I’d try to amplify her observation. Erin is, after all, a woman and so she is likely to be a bit shrill about these matters. (The humor impaired are invited to leave now.)

Kara Jesella, author of the New York Times piece on the 2024 BlogHer conference writes for Fashion & Style. Her March 27, 2024 article centering on a vegan strip club in Portland and addressing larger issues of sexism in the vegan/vegetarian community was in Fashion & Style, not Entertainment, Politics, or Health. Her article about MomsRising, Mom’s Mad. and She’s Organized (2/22/2007) did NOT appear in the Politics section.

Her article about librarianship (that linked to Jessamyn West’s librarian.net) did not appear in the Arts section, the Technology section, nor the Science section. It appeared in Fashion & Style. And her article about women’s clavicles did not appear in Health. Ms. Jesella’s work is bound for the Women’s Section at the New York Times, a section that they have renamed “Style” in a bow to political correctness without a gesture of respect for the cultural shift that mandated the name change.

Eventually, of course, the women’s movement dribbled off the back pages and into the news. Women at major papers and magazines filed class-action sex-discrimination suits. The ever-dependable housewife market collapsed. And so, in 1969, The Washington Post transformed For and About Women into the much-copied Style section. The Los Angeles Times introduced View in 1970, The Chicago Tribune started Tempo in 1971, and The New York Times made the transition with its Style pages several years after that. [emphasis added]

I’ve written about this subject here recently… “The New York Times on Web Girls.” Not much has changed since then. Writers on “the women’s beat” (usually women themselves) place their work in the Style section of the New York Times. BlogHer attracts writers on “the women’s beat.” A good NYT Politics story could have come out of BlogHer. A good NYT Technology story could have come out of BlogHer. A good NYT Business story could have come out of BlogHer.

Of course a NYT Business story did come out about BlogHer on July 17th. Headline: NBC Universal Posts $5 Million on BlogHer.… And another NYT Business story contained references to BlogHer: Slumber Parties Go Digital. In fact BlogHer public relations has managed to position their press release material in a lot of publications, but there remains the nagging question of why the serious business and technology writers aren’t in the room covering the BlogHer story as it unfolds. Could it be because the women tech writers don’t want to cover women per se, and the men tech writers might feel less than comfortable in the room? Perhaps, but if that’s the case then there are a lot of writers missing some dynamite feature stories.

[tags]blogher, jory des jardins, lisa stone, elisa camahort, gabrielle anwar, kara jesella, erin kotecki vest, healthy clavicles[/tags]

[tags]halley suitt, dinnerware not shanghai[/tags]

Cathy Wilkes in a 1920’s get-up

So I pulled this suitcase across the ocean floor and naturally it got hung up on the mid-Atlantic ridge and the cord snapped anyway. Later, to continue the experiment, we dropped the suitcase west of the ridge, but as Turner pointed out there was no practical advantage to be gained by a method that required us to start past the middle. Still we experienced a feeling of success since we were able to beach that sodden suitcase on the shore of the lake here.

as if her work is coated in some slick substance that allows it to slip past the critical barrier, taking up residence in the thoughts of her audience unmediated

Ford says,

I wanted to like more of the rap here, but I became very tired. Everything was either about acquiring material goods (which includes women), or, alternately, about how all other rap is about acquiring material goods.

Wow, I thought, the rap he sampled is navel-gazing recursiveness like so much of blogging. I read on:

On hearing my nth predictable song about how hip-hop is predictable, it struck me that I was witnessing individuals engaged in a formalist exercise where the form itself is the only appropriate lyrical subject; thus rap is, in some ways, the blogging of music. (This is happening to “indie rock” in the Strokes/Killers/Libertines mold, as well.)

The best of it all is Akala, a grime artist from Britain, particularly when he delivers the line in his song “Electro Livin” (not included here, but from the same album) “We are sad for things we cannot have/But we are not sad for Baghdad.” It reads as political naivete but he performs it with redeeming authority.