Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Year 09

The Happinomics of Magneto

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Today on the bus an attractive, muscle-bound, black man was sitting across from E and I rocking to an unknown sort of music. He was wearing a muscle-shirt version of this Magneto t-shirt.

I turned to E and said, “That guy’s shirt is awesome.” She nodded in agreement.

Then I motioned to the man to take off his headphones.

“Your shirt is awesome.”

“You know who it is?”

“Magneto!”

“Yeah!”

We chuckled at each others fanaticism. He replaced the headphones in his ear and I went back to talking to E.

He smiled until we got off the bus.

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Happinomics is an Ad Busters article about how small changes to the way we interact with the strangers around us can make us tangibly happier. In their example, the interaction is talking on the bus.

very serious donuts

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It is almost ten in the morning, and I am eating a bacon donut.

Kat and Jeremy currently farm enough to support three or four families, but they have enough eggs to stock said three families, a small market, and a donut shop.

Conveniently, Kat works at a donut shop. It’s actually the nearest landmark to their house, which was convenient on Thursday when we had been driving for eight hours and discovered that state roads in Vermont don’t have a lot of clearly labeled cross streets.

If my biggest weak spot of culinary frivolity is ice cream, donuts are not too far behind. As a kid I would clench my entire body in genuflecting hope every time our car passed the Dunkin’ Donuts. I was under the impression that was the only source of donuts. Like, in the world.

Now, I know better – I know that homemade donuts are a different beast entirely. On certain Fridays my boss brings in a particular kind that – if I should be bold enough to eat a filled variety – causes me to lose my voice for over an hour.

They are serious donuts.

So, when Kat mentioned that she worked part time at (and supplied eggs to) the donut shop down the road, my Fouth of July plans solidified: I would spend the morning eating donuts, perhaps bookended by a tacit jog to and from the shop to give the illusion of offsetting the 1000+ calories of breakfast I’d be consuming.

Such is the story, and here I am at Trademark-Infringement Donuts. I don’t want to advertise the name, as they’ve been flying under the legal radar thus far. Let’s call them “Funkin’ Donuts.”

Here is today’s Funkin’ Donuts menu:

  • Cinnamon Sugar
  • Honey Glaze
  • Maple Caramel
  • Plum Homer *
  • Beet Homer *
  • Chocolate
  • Maple-Bacon
  • Lemon-Poppyseed
  • Orange Sourcream
  • Cake

    * Homer donuts are crafted to look as similar to the legendary Simpson’s donut as possible. The Beet Homer has beet icing. I am eating it presently. It’s great.

    However, it is the Maple-Bacon donut that approaches the donut hall-of-fame. It is a plain, circular donut with a middle hole, iced liberally with light-brown maple icing, and sprinkled with bacon sprinkles from local pigs.

    My meat-avoidance is pretty specifically predicated on a distaste for pork, but when we’re talking about less than an ounce of bacon from a local pig probably well-cared-for enough that he had a name I can make a brief exception.

    And that exception was really, really good.

    I’m going to spend the rest of the morning celebrating America by seeing how many donuts I can eat in one day (previously: 10), talking to Kat about her neighbor’s diabetic cat, and plotting a concert I’m going to play in the donut shop when I come back in the fall.

    • Broadcasting live for 12for12k!

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    The internet had the chance to see and hear the first ever live web concert of my original songs and familiar covers, plus help to raise donations for Unicef’s Believe in Zero campaign for 12for12k

    My 12for12k Setlist with demo downloads (if available)…

    Like a Virgin – Madonna
    Small & Lonely
    Icy Cold
    Saving Grace (w/Paris monologue)
    Shake It Off (w/ “Shake Your Body” outro)
    Since U Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson
    Something Real
    High & Dry – Radiohead (per Danny Brown’s request of Fake Plastic Trees)
    Bucket Seat (an Arcati Crisis song)
    Real You
    Man In the Mirror – Michael Jackson (cried on every chorus – WTG, rock star)
    Granted
    Love Me Love Me Not (an Arcati Crisis song)
    Space Oddity – David Bowie

    Also, a few I planned to play but cut (or just forgot)…
    What It Is
    Unengaged
    Gone Baby Gone

    For people who watched and said they’d be interested in buying a CD (a) you are wonderful, and (b) download what you will and make a donation to this month’s charity, Unicef’s Believe in Zero. As a bonus, you can also grab my duo’s most recent Live @ Rehearsal album.

    Also, we had a high of 40 unique users in the room at one time, so that’s what I donated ;)

    whiling away the hours

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    (1) A few years ago I saw Malcolm Gladwell deliver a speech at the New Yorker Festival that is largely recapitulated in the second chapter of Outliers, called “The 10,000 Hour Rule.”

    In it, Gladwell draws our attention to a data point converged upon by countless studies of experts in a variety of fields. He says, “In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.” He goes on to quote neurologist Daniel Levitin:

    In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. … It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

    Gladwell supports the rule using Mozart, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, and the Beatles as his examples. Not to say that their genius and success is purely a result of 10,000 hours of practice – the book as a whole explains other facets – just that it was an essential component of their expertise.

    .

    (2a) 10,000 hours is a long time.

    If as a child starting at age five you had piano lessons two times a week (an hour each) and also practiced an hour a day, you would clock nine hours a week. 468 hours a year. 4,680 hours a decade.

    If you kept that up until age 26 you’d finally have served your time.

    (2b) 10,000 hours can go by before you know it.

    Maybe you got into video games at age 11. You played them every night after homework and dinner, let’s say from 7:30 to 11:00 p.m. on most nights, plus extra on the weekend. That’s more than 25 hours a week. 1,300 plus a year.

    You’d be a master by the time you started college. Most kids are.

    (2c) Time is relative.

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    (3) In the car today Gina and I were singing in harmony to the amazing Hezekiah Jones album Hezekiah Says You’re A-OK, on the way to see his band split a bill with the equally fantastic Up the Chain.

    “You know, Gina,” I said, breaking from my lead vocal, “I’ve been thinking about this 10,000 hour thing. Not everyone’s an expert at something. I mean, what do most people spend 10,000 hours doing by the time they’re 25? Watching teevee, I suppose.”

    “More than likely,” she replied.

    “But, think about me. I watched a lot of television, sure. Mostly, though, I read until I was old enough to write, and then I wrote and read. That’s what I spent my 10k on.”

    (Perhaps she interjected, “Oh, I remember.”)

    “And, you know, is it any surprise that I’m good at communications? I’m not an expert, but no wonder it’s my calling. I spent my whole life practicing for it.”

    We sat and sang for a moment, contemplating that.

    “What about you?”

    Gina paused in her harmony. “Hmm, me?”

    “Yeah. What did you spend 10,000 hours doing?”

    “This. Listening to music. Singing harmony.”

    “Really your whole life, right? Your mother singing, your father playing guitar…”

    “Yeah, since I can remember.”

    “Right. So, no matter how much I rehearse, you’ll always have the edge. It’ll always come easier to you, until I reach that threshold.”

    “I suppose.”

    We paused as the song wound down.

    “What do you think Hezekiah spent 10,000 hours doing?”

    We thought on that for a few moments, and then sang together to “Albert Hash.”

    .

    (4) We’re not all Mozart. I might not ever be Hezekiah Jones. But, we’ve all spent 10,000 hours doing something other than sleeping, and hopefully other than watching television. Maybe something incidental that we do out of necessity or habit. Driving? Social-networking? Cleaning? Taking care of children?

    I’ve put in more than my share on communications – reading cereal boxes and trashy fantasy novels, writing stories at eight on my manual typewriter and almost nine years of blogs.

    I got an early start on 10,000 hours of being Gina’s best friend, which I keep padding. I’m really good at that. More recently I’ve attained well-in-excess of 10,000 hours of being in love with Elise.

    I hope eventually I’ll reach my 10,000th hour of serious focus on music. It’s a large piggy-bank of time to fill.

    What about you? What have you spent your life mastering, intentionally or unintentionally?

    The Gospel of Network Agnosticism

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    Being “Network Agnostic” is a practice I’ve been preaching over the past few months as my business and personal lives converge on social networking.

    It’s a simple concept: don’t let the technology dictate your content, and make sure your content adapts across multiple technologies.

    While the concept is simple, the ensuing conversation is huge. How worried should an individual be about the permanence of their social network content? How responsible is a marketer to keep their business connected with users across a host of different networks?

    Here are a few thoughts on the matter. [Read more…] about The Gospel of Network Agnosticism