The power of "free"

I'm intrigued by the power that the word free has in our lives.  Over the years I have met people who will specifically listen to something and their ears perk up when something is mentioned as being free.  I should correct myself because I haven't just met people that are like that I myself am guilty of this.  In college and even to this day I have a hard time turning free food and an even harder time turning down free drinks.  Today though even I was not lured in by the promise of a free phone.  I called my cell phone provider to see if the HyWy could be brought on so we could get a family plan.  We don't want to pay for a phone so I specifically asked about phones that were going to be free if she signed a contract.  I was initially amused when the lady on the enthusiastically told me that they had this one phone for free.  There was no time given to me to think about it.  Immediately after telling me that the phone was free she asked me what color I would like for the HyWy.  When I told her that I didn't want to make the decision on the spot without talking with the HyWy to see what she wanted the rep suggested we call the HyWy then and there.  None of this comes as a surprise.  I have dealt with this before, but it never ceases to amaze me either how dumb people are assumed to be or how dumb people actually must be in order for this sort of pitch to be used repeatedly.  For several minutes I dodged and parried the rep's full court press of my purchasing power.  In the end she only gave in when I told her that I she could call me back tomorrow.  I prefer a passive defense to an active one and perhaps that is my own fault.  The thing that really stuck with me though was how whenever she would make a move there would be heavy emphasis on the fact that something was free and that I wouldn't be paying for it at all.  She acted like it was a huge deal which was clear from her intonation, but having dealt with cell phone companies enough we all know that there's always another good deal.  It does make me wonder though about the mentality of the average consumer and whether they are that readily sucked in by the power of free.

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True Horror

I just finished a book called The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which I will have to write a review of in another post.  However, in reading this book I was reminded of my true perception of horror.  I am a big fan of horror movies and have seen many, but there are very few that truly scare me to the core.  Among the ones that have really scared me and I consider some of the most amazing horror movies are The Shining, The Exorcist, and 28 Days Later.  The thing that I realized that makes two of these movies (The Shining and 28 Days Later...The Exorcist is scary purely because of it's raw evil) so scary is the simplicity of them.  The reason I can consistently watch them over and over again and get scared is the simple fact of being alone.  I'm not talking about staying at home alone or something, but the feeling of walking out of my apartment one day and there being no one on the street.  In the case of The Shining the fear comes from the same basic situation, but the characters are in a forced isolation as a result of the winter snowfall.  28 Days Later was the first movie I saw that really presented the idea of being in a big city completely by yourself was 28 Days Later and since then I have seen a few, but none has made me feel the way it did.  Walking out of the theater I could see myself entirely by myself in downtown Atlanta or San Francisco. 

The reason all this has come up again is because that is a main feeling I had while reading The Road.  There was plenty of haunting imagery throughout the book, but the idea of walking along a road in a post apocalyptic time left me envisioning myself doing that anytime I left the house.  I wonder whether other people feel this kind of fear after the read the same books or see the same movies.  Well there it is true horror is in large scale forced solitude. 

Wisteriaconcord.com. Are you kidding me? Throw a white picket fence around a complex under BART trax and try to sell it!

Unaccustomed Earth...

I just finished Jhumpa Lahiri's book of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth.  My first book review was of The Last King of Scotland and I wasn't inspired to write about any of the books I have read in between (Kitchen Confidential and Celestine Prophecy - unfinished).  However, after finishing the last story I did have some things that struck me about this series of stories. 

There were many common themes that resonated with me and it makes me wonder about the presence of those themes in Mrs. Lahiri's own life.  She consistently addresses themes of loneliness and isolation whether within her characters' lives or in their dreams.  Several of the characters live very isolated lives or gratefully seek the isolation in their otherwise busy family lives.  I assume that this would be a conscious decision by Mrs. Lahiri, because I can't see her writing so many stories with this theme so obviously a central part by accident.  I wonder what she is trying to say either about marriage or about isolation that she features it so prominently.  She also effectively juxtaposes the "westernized" Indians (and their lives) with the "traditional" Indians (and their lives).  I put both of those terms in quotes, because I don't really believe in the labeling having been labeled myself but it is the simplest way to describe the two types of characters.  Unlike previous novels and stories that explore the lives of Indian-Americans this one addresses in a more forward way the topic of interracial relationships, marriages, and children.  Mrs. Lahiri herself is in an interracial relationship, but I feel she understands the reason many of us gravitated towards relationships within our culture. Many of her characters also have almost grim or hopeless views on marriage, which is somewhat distressing as a sort of newlywed.  Perhaps it is not the marriages that are being spoken to as much as the state of relationships. 

Unlike novels I feel like short stories have very ambiguous often open ended endings, which lead the reader to interpret for themselves whether the ending is happy or sad.  I did feel like many of the stories presented in Unaccustomed Earth had sad or heavy endings.  There were only a few that left me feeling like something positive was happening or might happen. 

Overall I think the strongest point of Mrs. Lahiri's stories is that they have a feeling of a friend just telling you a personal story or an experience of something that happened to them.  The experiences and the characters have a simple realism to them that I think leaves the reader thinking about the story long after they are done reading. 

More on graffiti...

My last blog post touched on the increase in the acceptance of graffiti as a form of art.  In the same vein as that I found out about a type of graffiti called reverse graffiti.  We are all familiar with reverse graffiti in it's most basic form...the dirty car that someone has written "Wash Me" on.  The premise of reverse graffiti is cleaning somewhere that there is a lot of dirt to create images and words.  From a legal standpoint as far as I can tell there is no precedence that allows for the prosecution of reverse graffiti artists, because technically they are cleaning up. 

There is a pretty cool video that one of the more famous reverse graffiti artists made about a project he did in San Francisco's Broadway Tunnel.  The tunnel though not very long sees a tremendous amount of traffic and as a result is pretty much entirely caked with soot, dirt, and grime.  The artist used stencils to clean off grime in certain areas and created an amazing image. 

I really like urban art challenges the traditional definitions of art.  In this instance I think the urban art is challenging the already challenged idea of art. 

Graffiti...

We went to the Oakland Museum yesterday, which has an exhibit on the Birth of the Cool.  It was really interesting seeing the juxtaposition of "cool" from different eras.  The two main eras of cool in my mind were the Jazz Era and the DJ/BBoy/Hip Hop Era.  The interesting thing I think about as I write this is the influence of the Black community on the culture of cool.  Of course during the Jazz Era there was all the greats (Miles, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, etc.) and they also showed art from that time period.  There was also furniture from the 50s with it's modern look.  The funny thing was seeing all the 50s era modern furniture and thinking how similar it looks to everything that is on sale at Ikea.  The next time you step into and Ikea think of where the design ideas for all those cool looking cheap pieces of furniture came from.  In the hip hop section of cool they had huge canvases with graffiti art on them.  It was really cool to see graffiti on display in a museum and embraced by the art community, because that does not happen enough.  However, as one of the artists said, "graffiti will always be cool, because graffiti will always be illegal.".  I couldn't agree more.  I was mesmerized looking at these pieces with all of their vibrant colors and convoluted lettering.  My imagination ran wild as I dreamt up ways to create my own pieces.  There was an artist there demoing products used by graffiti artists to create pieces on canvas and he would write down people's names on canvas for free.  After watching him I knew it would take a while, but I would have to make my own.  Another interesting thing about the art was that after seeing so much graffiti art on the walls when we went through and saw the Jazz Era art I could see influences in the graffiti from the Jazz Era.  I don't know if the influences were conscious or not or maybe it was just me reading into the pieces too much, but there was something else there that i could see.  I guess cool has always been there. 

Dreams...

What is about dreams that when they are knocking on our doors it sparks a fear in us? A few weeks ago I found a job posting with a company that would be my dream company in a new line of work. To provide some context when I started considering a new career and I thought about where I would want to work said company was one of the first names to come to mind. So as I was saying I saw a posting that I would be well qualified for, but somehow before I even applied for the job I was convincing myself out of it. I could find every reason I shouldn't apply. The commute would be a little far, 40 mi and involving a bridge. The post said that they needed someone available for possible holiday and weekend shifts (do I really want to work on weekends?). And on and on it went with my mind providing every reason that I shouldn't apply to the job. After seeing the post I talked about it with the HyWy and that was when I saw how different we really are. She couldn't believe that I would even second guess the position let alone cut myself off at the gates. Then I started thinking about my dreams and what I have dreamed about during my life. I don't think I have ever pursued any realistic dreams before. I mean I have had dreams, but they have been very generalized (ie have a good job, etc.) so to consider them or pursue them is a little more vague. However, for the first time in my life I have a true and clear dream: to be able to support myself and the HyWy through a job in this new career. Now with this new very clear and easily definable dream as I get closer to realizing it (or failing) it's scary and intimidating. In the end I have realized that there is no point in having dreams if you are not willing to experience all aspects of the dream (success, failure, trying, etc.).