[Obligatory Hitchens Post]

I successfully avoided reading him when he was alive.  A friend recommended “Mortality,” and I found it intriguingly odd.  For an acknowledged very smart person, it was surprisingly shallow.  For his acknowledged caustic nature, it was surprisingly sentimental. 

It seems like all of a certain type of road still lead to Christopher Hitchens, and there was the massive “Arguably” staring at me from the shelf.  I took the challenge.

I didn’t succeed.  I read most of it.

The most fun section by far is the “Eclectic Affinities” section, which should really be called, “In Defense of Writers No One Reads Anymore.”  For 250 pages, he spills passionate ink over…P.G. Wodehouse!  John Buchan!  Stephen Spender!  As I went, the exclamation points turned to question marks.  Anthony Powell?  Edward Upward?  Jessica Mitford?  Really?  We needed a table-pounding essay on why Graham Greene wasn’t very good?  Or, [from another section] a critical review of Edward Said’s “Orientalism” 30 years after it was published?  Why?  And why is he so angry about all of this?

From these repetitive, formulaic, but uniformly-impassioned pieces, a clear character emerges, and I guess that’s why so many people read them.  Like all the best essayists, reading Hitchens was like listening to a respected friend hold forth at the bar – we know what we’re going to get, but it’s relaxing and interesting and fun, anyway, so why not hear what he thinks about North Korea, postwar Germany, or Stieg Larsson?

He was smart enough to understand this character, and its power, but not its market.  The longer essays are interspersed with throwaway pieces for Slate.  Too long and untimely for the web, but too slight for Vanity Fair/The Atlantic, they demonstrate that he really didn’t get the internet – it was just a dump for half-realized thoughts.  A wiser man would have branded that character as editor of a team of essayists under the banner of a web site, or even online journal.  The appeal is obvious – the elevator pitch is “McSweeney’s for M.A.’s.”

I rolled along with the character – the last man of letters, a true Oxford man keeping real journalism alive (or at least the fictionalized version memorialized by Evelyn Waugh, Michael Frayn, and Martin Amis)!  Unfortunately, he runs aground in simply running off his mouth too much.  On Tunisia: “I recently made my own visit to the place, which is on the island of Djerba, where Ulysses is said to have passed his time among the lotus-eaters.”  [Cringe].  You’ve heard of the sexism, racism, weird militarism, and the rest – I was surprised to find simple bad writing.  I wondered if there will ever be another like him – I’m guessing not.  He really was that last man of a certain kind of letters (at least outside of the English department).  However, I’m not sure whether that’s necessarily a sad thing.   

I am old and slow - a useful reminder

I went for a run up a fairly large hill.  It was a few thousand feet up, and I plodded along thinking various thoughts - work, to-do items, even a blog post.  Topic: why I can't stand articles like this.  I was listening to the Sound Opinions mid-year best album reviews.

Near the top I passed a guy with a dog.  He was balding a bit (but with some fine facial hair - something like a fu manchu, but more extensive) and wore a puffy black track suit.  His dog looked like a pit bull mix, but so large maybe it was something else.

I stood up there eating a granola bar and staring around.  Snow covered hills to the north and west, and a fast cloud curving over another local hill.  Glorious sun.  The guy arrived after a few minutes.

I said: "Great day for it."

He said: "BABY STEPS FOR A RUNNER, HUH?  PRETTY...."  I didn't catch the last word - I think it was "SLOW," but still head my headphones on and couldn't make it out.

I was immediately out of my head.  What?  I looked at him for some kind of explanation, but he headed off after his dog and I was back alone in the wind.  After a few minutes, I left, too.

What a useful reminder - I laughed half the way down the hill.

Dunedin winter, for the record.

[Kathe Tallmadge is an exchange student from Juneau, as interviewed by the Dunedin Star]

“Kathe will return to Juneau next month and is glad to be missing out on most of the Dunedin winter.  Juneau winters are considered warm by Alaskan standards….  Even so, Kathe said Dunedin had ‘a different kind of cold’ which she found unpleasant.”

Indeed. 

Separation Anxiety (from gear)

I was standing in a phone booth in Mojave, California, trying to talk a North Face rep into sending me a free backpack so I could continue hiking the PCT.  My pack was slowly self-destructing, and hiking the trail was still exciting enough to the big gear companies that they were willing to sponsor random dirtbags such as myself (or at least that's what we had heard).  She was balking, I was talking, and then she said, "Wait a minute - is that a real bird singing?  Like, you're actually out there in the desert?"  I said yes, gave here a general delivery address in Kennedy Meadows, and she agreed to send a big new Badlands pack.

Then, when we got to Kennedy Meadows, it was generally agreed that going up into the Sierras at that point was a bad idea - one guy tried, got lost in the snow, and then spent days fumbling down the Kern River to get out of there.  Of course we could have gone on - and the next year I did so (in even more snow), but at the time we didn't know any better.  I had barely picked up my pack at the General Store when our prospective ride was leaving, and there we were riding in the back of a pickup truck down into the Owens Valley while I was transferring my stuff from one bag to the next.  A policeman kicked us out of the truck near, where, Ridgecrest?  I left my old bag in the back, and we got another ride.

And now, fifteen years later, the big red backpack is sun-bleached practically pink, the mesh gear pockets are practically torn off, and it's time to sell a few things here so we don't have to pay for extra bags on the way home.  I don't want to sell the Badlands - it still fits well and has a good suspension.  On the other hand, I don't need it, I have better backpack at home, and it's too heavy for the trips I do now.  Did I mention I don't want to sell it?  But it's time to sell it.

I end up walking over to a dental lab and handing it to a Japanese guy who is getting into tramping.  I don't understand most of what he says - he likes the pack, even though it's probably overkill for what he's doing.  He hands me the money - I hand him the backpack.  I stupidly tell him to call me "if he has any questions," like he just bought a complicated software suite.  I try to linger for a minute, but he takes off back  into the lab with the bag, and I go back out into the sun.

That North Face Badlands was a good backpack, and it went on a lot of trips - I even lived out of that thing for how long, a year?  Two years?  Wow, it was even longer than that.  Now it's gone, and I'll have to use another one.  Now that I think about it, I was way too attached to that old thing.    

Truck with two different-sized wheels

I love this truck - but it has 14-inch wheels in front and 12-inch wheels in back:

(Toyota Dyna 250)

Does it have two spare tires?  Yes, it does.

I haven't heard of any other vehicles with two different size wheels - are there any?

Will-J Live Blogs Star Wars!

Will-J turned six, and demanded to see STAR WARS.  All his friends had seen it.  I thought maybe he was too young – I saw it at seven (I think), and the trash compactor scene scared the crap out of me.  Finally, his frequent references to “Clone Wars” made me realize he had already seen whatever Star Wars cartoon that they’re doing these days at his friends house (and even apparently once at school) – he knew all about the Star Wars world, anyway. 

We got the movie, and we agreed I would sit with him and turn it off in case he got scared.  He wasn’t scared, and actually found it a little boring.  I hadn’t seen it for at least 20 years, and forgot what a strange movie it is – it’s basically just a shell delivery device for cutting edge special effects (yes, like Avatar).  Also, I can’t see Star Wars and not think of THX 1138 – they’re quite similar, from the set design down to the evil yet bumbling bureaucracy – especially the throwaway dialogue between stormtroopers.  Also it seems like there are some basic scenes missing.  But you knew that already – Will-J’s thoughts were far more insightful.  Here is his live review of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope:  

-[On Leia’s ship]: What happened!?  Did we miss the real beginning?  Make the movie go back to the REAL start!  The bad guys are already winning!  That’s Darth Vader, but who is the woman?  Why don’t the good guys fight better?  The good guys are losing!  They are in space, on a spaceship!  Getting eaten by another huge spaceship!  This part is great.”

 

-[On Tatooine] “You are telling me this is on another planet, but obviously it is in California.  I have been to this place – Joshua Tree AND my grandparents’ house.  This movie is pretend because there are dinosaurs and ice age animals, as well as people – those things did not all live at the same time.  You are telling me they are aliens, but really they are dinosaurs and ice age animals.  Everyone knows California has only one sun – that is pretend, too.”

“Are the Jawa people good or bad?  Also I don’t understand the sand people – why do they attack the good guys for no reason?  Wouldn’t the sand people have killed all the Jawa people already?  Also they would have attacked where Luke Skywalker lives already.  Is Obi-Wan a Jawa too?  He dresses the same as them.  Where is yoda?  Yoda is better at battling than these guys.”

 

“The robots talk too much.  They are constantly in trouble, but nothing ever happens to them because they are not really alive.”  

“In the bar, there are all kinds of made up animals!  One is part elephant and part alien, one is part polar bar and part alien – it’s crazy!  I love this part.”

“What is Chewbacca, anyway?  Is he a giant gorilla?  Or a gorilla alien?  I think maybe it’s a man in a gorilla suit.  Why does he yell so much?  Is he good or bad?”

[Will-J and I decided that the bar scene on Tatooine is the best part of the movie – absolutely.]

-[On the Death Star] “Why does Darth Vader breathe that way – is he sick?  If he’s a bad guy, why does he keep hurting the other bad guys?  Is Darth Vader an alien?  The Clone Wars cartoons are better than this movie.  The bad guys are just not that tough.”

“Why did they jump into the trash?  There is a huge octopus in there!  How can an octopus live on a spaceship!?  That’s amazing!  HAAHAAHAHAHAAA!!!” [not scared at all].

“Why does Obi-Wan fight with his hood up?  Does he do this because he is a Jawa person?  He could fight better if he took off his robe – I would be able to beat Darth Vader if I was there!”

Me: “Did they really let the good guys escape?”
Will-J: “Yes!  The bad guys’ ship is so much bigger – clearly they are just following the good guys.  Those people are dumb.  This part is boring.”

-[On Yavin IV] “This part is clearly on earth in the jungle – I’ve seen this place on TV before.  I think maybe it is Mexico.  That is not an alien planet!  It is earth!”

[Generally, Will-J didn’t think much of Han Solo, and didn’t know why he had to be in the movie.]

“I don’t think the Death Star will blow up their planet – the good guys will win.  Are those airplanes or spaceships?  They look like airplanes.  Why don’t the bad guys just kill them?  This part is too long.”

-[On the awards ceremony]  “This part is boring.  Yes, I already told you, the Clone Wars cartoons are better than this.  This movie is too long!”

[And there you have it.]  

The High Cost of Figuring Out What Things Cost

I finally read “The Great Kiwi Rip Off” from North South Magazine.  The process of finding a copy was more interesting than the article itself.  The magazine costs something like $10, so I wasn’t going to actually buy it, and the articles aren’t online – so I went down to the well-funded, well-staffed Dunedin Library and read it there.  Ladies and gentlemen – the New Zealand economy!

(awesome flash reflection by me - with my shoe, too).

Hey – that was a short post.  I guess I’ll write a bit more.

For us, the three big sticker shocks were petrol, power, and beer.  The article doesn’t have a point about petrol, and its point about power is boring – allegedly the industry is sheltered and featherbedding.  Seems arguable.  Our issues with Kiwi beer demand a separate post (maybe a book-length one).

 

We’ve found food costs to be…a red herring (tee hee).  Here’s why:

-First, the food here is largely of exceptional quality.  That means it’s largely free of fillers.  I have another long post half-drafted about my love of Kiwi granola bars made of actual food (that have 1/3 the ingredients of the ones back home). 

-Second, the minimum wage is $13.75 (currently $11.50 USD), so there’s that.

-Third, the tax is already included.  This is no joke.  There is a trend now in the States for strip malls shopping environments to be self-supporting – this means an extra tax is added to the bill.  We have friends who now won’t shop at certain grocery stores because of the tax.

-Fourth, everything is in kilograms, which for us is still confusing and weird – it makes everything look more expensive.  [Short aside: on my epic Switzerland trip, I knew what meters are, but still couldn't comprehend just how much vertical I was signing up for: "Three 1,000 meter climbs in a day?  That doesn't seem so bad."  Does everyone have this problem or just me?  I'm guessing just me.]

-Fifth, the Kiwi dollar is really strong.

Example: Hey, boneless chicken breasts are $3 a pound back home and $10.99 a kilo here!  Howzat!?

Let’s go through our factors:

-Let’s do four first – that’s $5 a pound compared to $3 a pound.  40% more!  

-And five – my U.S. dollar went twice as far here only two years ago.  Blame everyone (including governments) buying up the currency to get an actual interest rate.

-Back to one.  The chicken here tastes like chicken (rather than salty mush).  Chicken breasts back home contain 10-15% salty mystery broth solution.  So that explains a big chunk of the cost right there. 

-And two.  The chicken here is butchered, packed, delivered, and sold by people who make at least $11.50 an hour (and from what I understand, oftentimes quite a bit more).

-And three.  The $3 a pound doesn’t include tax, which if I remember correctly is 6-8% at least the places I shop.

Voila – that chicken doesn’t look so expensive anymore.  Just the tax and 10% added solution explain nearly half the difference. 

               

The article also highlights how difficult it is to explain seemingly-large price disparities.  A good example is the high cost of Kiwi wine – how can X brand wine cost less in the States than here?  Good question.  It could be partially the high cost of petrol, electricity, and labor necessary to deliver it to Kiwi stores.  And partially high rent charged by Kiwi landlords emboldened by the real estate boom.  And partially the strong Kiwi dollar.  Or maybe a big American distributor was willing to buy 50,000 bottles at a big discount.  And/or a U.S. chain of liquor stores had a big sale on that Kiwi wine, making only pennies per bottle on a loss-leader – so maybe the prices aren’t really comparable at all.  Etc.  Sure you could make a detailed study of wine prices in New Zealand versus California, but that’s hard to do for a magazine article.

              

There were a few other prices from the article that jumped out at me, however.  Why are i-Tunes downloads twice as expensive here as in the States, anyway?