psychology

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Success: and the roadmaps you can buy

If you develop a self-help bug while in an airport, you're in luck: they're everywhere. All airport bookstores are like bestseller lists reified, and if you close your eyes and just grab, you're likely to make contact with a book on how to succeed. No one is going to give you any grief for indulging in one, either--the assumption is that you're out to kill time, and more "pedestrian" activities are suddenly forgivable: you can read Teen Vogue cover to cover, go back for seconds at McDonald's, and... READ ON

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The kindness or cuckoldry of strangers

We're still in the era of prankdom, when people can win $100 if they go along with a stranger's protracted back story and subsequent request for help (thank you, "Boiling Points"). It seems that ever since hitchhiking became taboo (but there's hitchwiki!), we redirected our thirst for those encounters into a devoted voyeurism that finds relief in reality television, especially that of the "reveal"-oriented variety. Every time I see a show that hinges on the horrified reaction of a reveal, I experience a... READ ON

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Does Pavlov Live on in DJ Casper? Convince Me I'm Wrong.

Though it may seem ridiculous, I've had a theory for a long time that the best modern example of Ivan Pavlov's work is a line from DJ Casper's dance hit "Cha-Cha Slide." The whole song is just a series of instructions, but one line in particular sticks out (those who haven't attended an event with a DJ in the last six years can watch the video here). At about the 2:10 mark, DJ Casper calls out "Everybody clap your hands," which is followed by a steady... READ ON

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My Favorite Documentaries: Fast, Cheap and Out of Control

One of my all-time favorite documentaries is Errol Morris's 1997 film Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. As a punctuation nerd, I disagree with the lack of a serial comma in its title, but we'll let that slide. Anyway. This film is about humanity, the nature of life on earth, and how humans interact with their world. It covers a lot of ground. One problem with Fast, Cheap and Out of Control is the naive marketing that surrounds it. The DVD box seems to think the film is a wacky look at some kooks --... READ ON

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A phenotype for reading?

In Jonathan Franzen's essay, "Why Bother?" (Harper's, '96), he talks about linguist and MacArthur Fellow Shirley Brice Heath and her research on the reading habits of Americans. Her conclusions led her to believe there are are two kinds of readers: "modeled-habit" readers: parents instilled this as exercise and necessary badge of class/entitlement; parents read, too. "social-isolate" readers: surprise--socially isolated (but this, as opposed to antisocial); sublimated this pain into investing in... READ ON

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In the storytelling engine room...

Although I haven't done graduate work in the social sciences, I've always been fascinated to learn about the different rituals with which people were raised. I'm weird: I love hearing people's dreams--no matter how seemingly mundane--and I love hearing the bedtime stories people's parents told them (or, I suppose, didn't). My own father had a knack for always saying goodnight right after the first or second act of his long-running bedtime series, The Raccoons. It was kind of like Watership Down meets... READ ON

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New book discloses objects of import

There's a new book out that may make you feel better about your fierce attachment to that Petoskey stone, cocktail napkin, or bottle cap stowed away somewhere. It's called "Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance," brought to you by Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes. The team has a fan in the LA Times, who breaks it down thusly: They asked artists, designers, writers and thinkers to contribute photos of their precious belongings and explain their significance. The result is a... READ ON

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The language of office mates

Right off the bat, this post is in no way piggybacking on all the obesity-your social circle debate. I've worked in a ton of different workspaces--part of that is the (desultory) nature of my business, part of that I attribute to an especially roiling tween & teendom. But everywhere I've worked, there were always a few people with whom I experienced a workaday yet still severe kind of infatuation--either out of desperation because the job was either scary or boring or actually dangerous, or sometimes... READ ON

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Bromides through the ages

Bromides! Whether in the chemical or the cliche form, life isn't as savory or functional without them. But contrary to where this post might seem headed, I'm not going to poll you about your favorite bromides (David's already done that, anyway). Bromide--or 'mine--was discovered by a 23 year-old French chemist in 1826; it resembled chlorine and iodine, but was neither; it smelled terrible, thus the Greek bromos, meaning stench. As it evolved, it was used to treat "hystericals" of all sorts, usually in a... READ ON

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Oh, phrenology

It's been awhile since a psychic has tried to flag me down, and it's been awhile since any of my friends have subjected me to new ways of discerning my character flaws/intellectual capacity via my appendages, moles, et al. But I'm currently reading about infamous editor Max Perkins and how he clung to the blueprints offered by phrenology (the theory, not the excellent Roots album). I'm not sure whether he had a set of calipers and some string in his desk during his Scribner's reign, but he wasn't the only... READ ON