THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD OPTICS. TGIH.

In a recent article, Professor Kathleen Vohls claimed that messy rooms promote creativity (psychologicalscience.org).  Einstein’s desk was messy. So was Steve Job’s. Well, maybe that works for scientists and techies, but if you are in politics you’d better clean house. Optics count in government.

Consider Snowden’s revelation that governments spy. I’m shocked, shocked. And even if you think, like National Intelligence Director James Clapper, that spying is Diplomacy 101, you still need to express shock, at least in front of voters. It looks better than shrugging your shoulders.

Yes, friends, looks count in politics.

Why did the Canadian Liberals choose young Trudeau as their leader? Not for his brains, which are luckily invisible. They chose him because his optics are good. He has wavier hair than any Canadian prime minister in recent memory. His chin is cleaner than NDP leader Thomas Mulcair’s. His smile is whiter than Prime Minister Harper’s.

But Thank Goodness It's Halloween, the great equalizer, and everyone can be as ugly as they want and still get a treat.

Tomorrow it’s back to tricks only.

 

THE ZOOMER SHOW

What’s on this weekend in Toronto?

 

The Zoomer Show, which encourages the 45+ crowd to live big and offers them the lifestyle of their choice. What are the trending topics? According to an ad in the Globe (23 Oct): gardening, alternative health, getting out of debt and winning a vacation. Yes, folks, that’s living big after 45. The show keeps sober hours (Sa 9-5, Su 10-5), but I guess when you are 45+, eight hours of living big is plenty. For entertainment, visitors can listen to Alan Frew, who looks Zoomerish and is wearing the kind of hat you see on Yodelers in the Austrian Alps. I wonder what’s underneath that hat. A bald pate?

 

 

I’m asking because that’s one of the lifestyle concerns of Zoomers -- how to avoid baldness and the Yodel hat cover-up. Good news, people! Dr. Colin Jahoda of Durham University just had a scientific breakthrough. He gathered human dermal papilla cells into clusters, transplanted them into foreskin tissue obtained from newborns, and TADA -- new hair follicles. So take heart, Zoomers, you will soon be able to grow new hair, even on your foreskin.

Muscle tone is another area in which Zoomers demand improvement. Maybe that’s why they are into alternative health, but if that doesn’t work and they still can’t perform the way they used to in their 20s, they should consider the world of eSports. According to the Globe (26 Oct) gaming has evolved into legitimate careers causing a new subculture to explode. I wonder--does eSport have a sex division? Just asking, what with alternative health and hairy foreskins.

Another thing Zoomers are into is downsizing. So here is something that should appeal to them: an auction of architect-designed miniature houses, about 3 feet tall. Okay, you can’t live in them, unless you have teeny-tiny fingers and toes, are exceptionally agile and very good at what designer Christopher Leonard calls envisioning a new environment. In any case, those miniature houses are fun to look at and you can furnish them with miniature design furniture you couldn’t afford at full scale. Maybe your kids could use one as a dollhouse? No, no, no! According to collector Christina Ferrara, who has 19 miniature houses (Globe 24 Oct), they are just too personal. Unlike kids who are sort of generic, right?

 

NO COMMENT!

I got a comment on my last post wondering why I got no comments. That’s because my most devoted follower is the spam site vampirestat, and their bot is the silent kind. Hey, vampirestat, do I have to explain everything to you? Programme your bot to post exuberant comments like “Greatest blog ever!” or “Most brilliant observation I’ve read in a long time!” I might get carried away and click on your link. And isn’t that the idea behind your spamming?

Another person who does not comment is Mr. Rasouli, a comatose patient at Sunnybrook Hospital for the last three years. Perhaps his family could comment on his behalf. Exuberant thanks to the taxpayer are in order. Mrs. Rasouli has just won a victory in the Supreme Court of Canada, which allows her to defy doctors’ orders to have her husband removed from life support. The court decision forces the doctors to continue maintaining Mr. Rasouli in a state of living death. That service costs 1 million/year, which comes out of the shrinking healthcare budget. GOD WILLS IT, Mrs. Rasouli argues. Yes, but does he supply the breathing machine and the feeding tubes as well? And how come he doesn’t supply more hospital beds for the other patients waiting in line? No comment from God so far.

But maybe no comment is the new comment. And that’s why euronews.com has created a no comment youTube section.  They believe “in the intelligence of readers” to get the message. Okay, so there is a silent youTube of pop star Morissey signing copies of his autobiography. Don’t authors use words anymore? Oh, he’s keeping mum because he wants you to buy the book and pay for his words.

Politicians are another group favouring silence. Prime Minister Harper had no comment on the Duffy affair. He waited for his spin doctors to come up with the right message. Mayor Ford had no comment when asked recently whether he was under investigation. He redirected the attention of reporters to his pet subject by chanting: Subways! Subways! Subways! (National Post, 8 Oct).

I wonder whether that sort of magical incantation would work for me. I’ll give it a try. Comment! Comment! Comment!

THREE NEW INSIGHTS: memory, hieroglyphs, and things you don't need

This has been a day of significant insights for me.

One: I read that eating popcorn makes us forget advertising in cinemas. Apparently we mouth the name of advertised products to ourselves, to remember them later. Eating suppresses the ability to subvocalize, and thus, the formation of memory, says Prof. Topolinski (hollywoodreporter.com).

Okay, that explains why I don’t remember anyone who was introduced to me at that reception last week. It wasn’t the drinks. In fact I couldn’t tell you how many drinks I had. Eating those unidentifiable things the wait staff carried around on trays inhibited my subvocalization and left me without memory.

That would also explain why people engage in certain sexual practices that occupy their mouths and keep them from subvocalization – clearly they want to forget their partners.

And it also explain why dentists insert a lot of gear into your mouth before they inflict pain – I always thought it was to keep you from screaming, but now I see the real purpose: the dentist wants you to forget the experience and come back for more.

Two: You notice the proliferation of self-storage buildings in the suburbs? I couldn’t figure out why people suddenly have so much stuff to store away. Then it struck me: it’s because there are a lot of things the garbage pickup doesn’t pick up. Of course some people just let the junk pile up in their closets, basements, or driveways. And then there is Tadashi Kawamata, who piled up his old chairs and called it installation art:

 

Three: In the past fifty years we’ve gone from writing letters to writing emails to writing texts to tweeting. Every time the message gets shorter, and the emoticons get more play. In fact, chat app LINE has ended the need for words with their upgraded version of emoticons.  Are you groping for the right word? Don’t. Just use the LINE stickers to express yourself (techinasia.com).

Okay, that explains the hieroglyphs in Egyptian temples. That ancient civilization was way more advanced than I thought. They were on to emoticons, whereas I’m still using letters. I know it’s pathetic, and I promise to move on right now. So, let me say

 

PERSONAL SERVICE. Your initials and a Rogers outage

Want to keep mom from checking out your Facebook wall? What about Loews or Hyatt? Apparently hotels now track their guests through social media so that they can provide special touches like stitching their initials into the pillow (Globe, 14 Oct). That’s what you always wanted in a hotel room, right? Never mind the outrageous price, the inconvenient location, or the noisy air conditioner -- as long as you fall asleep with your initials caressing your cheek.

Let me suggest other useful applications for the micropersonal touch:

Supermarkets: preloaded carts with your initials on the wheels. They’ve scraped the web and know what you want and need.  Just remember to give them a warning when you decide to go on a diet. Or should they be able to glean that from the social media?

Clothes shopping in person: pre-stocked dressing rooms with your initials on the privacy curtain. Just let them know that your diet was successful and you lost ten pounds – oh, okay, they already know that through the social media.

Dating: You’ve come up against the thorny question whether no means yes or vice versa? Settle it by scraping the social media for your date’s preferences. And don’t forget to tattoo your initials into his/her arm.

Social media could definitely help ending unwanted relationships. A recent Rogers outage, for example, left poor Will Adams anxious (Globe, Oct 11). He thought his girlfriend had dumped him because she hadn’t texted him in, OMG, two minutes. Will’s logical reasoning gives me an idea. Could we make a 2-minute-plus electronic silence the universal dump sign? Please, Rogers, help me out here. Could you micromanage my texts and zap bullies, boring acquaintances, and penis enlargement offers with a 2-minute-plus deliberate outage?