Twitter, schmitter. And Musk, schmusk.


A breakdown of Twitter content. Source: Wikipedia.

From its beginning, the whole idea of Twitter seemed ridiculous to me. How could 140 characters possibly convey anything useful or meaningful? Surely the contemporary attention span can handle at least 190 characters! And (glory be!) now we’re up to a breathtaking 280 characters, doubling the speed at which world peace, universal understanding, and techno-utopia can be attained.

And yet Twitter took off. I have a friend (to be a little more honest, a former friend) who insists that there is no source of news better than a “well curated” Twitter feed. He was not sparing in his disdain — I would even say sneering disdain — for the fact that I still read newspapers. I was horrified when, around 2015 or so, Paul Krugman stopped blogging and moved to Twitter. (Krugman still writes his twice-weekly column in the New York Times.) It is frequently said that Twitter killed blogging almost overnight and that blogging “is so 2010.”

But what do I know, given that I’m so 2010? People flocked to Twitter and its 140 characters. Even those of us who were left behind in 2010 had to figure out what “#” and “@” meant. According to Omnicore, whoever that is, Twitter today has 217 million “monetizable” daily active users. And yet, back in 2020, a study by Carnegie Mellon University estimated that 45 percent of the tweets about the Covid virus came from bots. Many of the real people who had flocked to Twitter couldn’t tell the difference (or didn’t care), which says a lot about the real people who flocked to Twitter. By the American election of 2016, Twitter had become a creepy pit of disinformation and manipulation. There were Trump bots by the gazillions, no doubt. And there was “the real Donald Trump,” so’s we could distinguish his disinformation from that of the bots.

The word “monetizable” gives me the creeps. I first heard that word back in 2001 or so, when consultants, who seemed to me like some kind of zombies, were let loose on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle to “monetize” the Chronicle’s “content.” I started making plans for early retirement. But it wasn’t just the monetization that made Twitter so creepy. It was partly the mere look of it on the screen, a dreadful looking typographical stew of babble, incomprehensible abbreviation, smart-alec remarks, and giphies, in which the giphies compete on juvenile silliness. Twitter’s culture is as unattractive as its typography. Even if 3.6 percent of Twitter was news, who’d be able to find it? And because 280 characters was not enough to express the full complexity of some of the thinking to be found on Twitter, the Tweetstorm was invented, quadrupling, quintupling, and even octupling the speed at which world peace, universal understanding, and techno-utopia can be attained.

This morning the Washington Post reports that Twitter’s employees (most of whom are in San Francisco) are in a state of panic and rage that Elon Musk has bought into Twitter and will now be on Twitter’s board. After all, would Musk have bought into Twitter if he hadn’t intended to use it for his own purposes? Clearly, Twitter employees think about as highly of Musk as I do. We’re probably about to witness a grand demonstration of the fruits of Musk’s libertarian philosophy colliding with social media, with a flaming crash like a self-driven Tesla. Right-wingers such as Hugh Hewitt (in the Washington Post) believe that Twitter is a “‘woke’ echo chamber” and that more right-wing and libertarian “diversity of opinion” is just the thing to fix it.

As I see, the reasons for not being on Twitter just quadrupled, and maybe even octupled.

Strathblair

This is to be a post about a 30-year-old BBC Scotland series, “Strathblair.”

But first let’s talk about a theory of stories. Orson Scott Card is the only writer I’m aware of who has a well developed theory of stories. (In mentioning Card, I should say that I respect him as a writer, though he has greatly damaged his career with his right-wing, religious-fanatic politics.) Card’s theory is that the need for stories is a basic human need and that all human beings will seek and find and consume stories much the same way we seek and find and consume food. What follows, then, is a kind of academic question: Where do people get their stories, and what kind of stories do people want and need?

Though it seems strange to me, some people like and prefer here-and-now stories with characters and themes that resemble their own lives — or, at least, their aspirations for their own lives. But such stories bore the living daylights out of me. We get a steady diet of that kind of story just by reading the news, or even just by listening to people talk in social situations. For whatever reason — and if that reason is escapism I make no apologies — it’s only stories set in another time and another place that I find worthwhile. And though I make no apologies for escapism, which I see as one of the important purposes of stories and literature, I find that I’m often apologizing for my disinterest in the here-and-now fare that makes up the bulk of what’s to be found on the streaming services (and in novels as well, the kind of novels that I never, ever read). The contrast with contemporary reality is part of the appeal of science fiction and fantasy. Those stories are almost always in another time and another place. Historical fiction, and classic fiction, are also of course set in another time and another place. Some people, I think, would bypass a series such as “Strathblair” because it’s 30 years old. But for me, that’s part of the appeal.

“Strathblair” ran for two seasons on the BBC, 1993 and 1994. It is set in the 1940s, just after World War II. The setting is rural Scotland, in the hills of Perthshire. I have watched seven episodes so far. At first I thought the series would be a kind of Scottish “Little House on the Prairie.” But it has turned out to be more adult than that, with some dark themes. Characters include newlyweds with no farming experience who move to a neglected farm; a grouchy laird; and an even more grouchy old farmer who is very much set in his ways. The series appears to be an authentic picture of rural Scottish life in that period. The credits include an agricultural adviser. There is a great deal of fascinating detail — accurate, I assume, because of the agricultural adviser — about how the farming (mostly sheep) is done. In the kitchen scenes we often see what they are cooking and eating. Whether they’re at home or in a pub, we get a view of their drinking habits (a lot). There are lots of old cars and horse-drawn farming equipment. Cows get milked. Hay gets ricked. Sheep get dipped. Dogs are a necessity. The outhouse is in full view. Chickens, though treated well, live their short lives. Even what they’re wearing is fascinating, including the tweeds in classic styles such as the laird’s Norfolk jackets.

“Strathblair” can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.

The annual spring poem


The bay window faces the south ridge and is the best-lit place in the house. The light makes it a poor place for a computer, but it’s perfect for a typewriter. This room is rarely needed as a bedroom now, so I’ve turned it into a little library and parlor, with a sleeper couch.

After a cold winter that froze the new gardenia bush, for which I had such high hopes for someday having gardenias, a blustery spring is blowing in. Has the weather been swinging wildly everywhere?

From Scotland Ken writes, “Our magnificent sunny and warm spell has come to an end. The temperature is now dipping below freezing and there’s an arctic chill in the air, even when it’s sunny. I need to determine whether to cancel our first spring training [softball] this evening.” From southern France, Lise writes: “Here it’s storming so much so I couldn’t close the car door — had to step outside going to the other side of the door — and push HARD to get it closed.” Two days ago, I wrote to Ken: “Winter has returned here, too, though today is warm with a windy, wet squall blowing over. The wind buffeting the house kept me awake last night because of my habit of worrying about the roof.”

The birds are delirious. There seem to be more of them this year than ever, particularly bluebirds. Apparently I don’t have enough bluebird housing. A pair of bluebirds keep trying to break into the house and the car. I put up a new bluebird house for them in the sycamore tree out front, but I’m afraid they’re not going to move in. I had worried that I wasn’t seeing many rabbits this spring, but recently, at dusk, I’ve seen a rabbit eating clover near the front steps. There are coyotes in the woods, so smart rabbits will stay close to the house, which the coyotes avoid.

There seems to be a worsening of the madness abroad in the world at present, from war to petty forms of violence such as the slap at the Oscars. If I were a poet I’d type up a poem asking who has opened Pandora’s Box. I feel luckier than ever to live here in the woods, compelled to go out only for necessities. I have not posted about the American political situation recently because it seems to me that things are mostly (though slowly) moving in the right direction, toward justice, accountability, and the defense of democracy, though the media are as usual determined to keep us in a state of demoralization and anger.

I have been afflicted with a kind of mania for finding just the right typewriter on eBay, a reliable everyday typewriter in perfect working condition that does not require a Ph.D. in typewriter repair if it ever needs fixing. For that reason, I use my IBM Selectric III lightly. I greatly prefer electric typewriters because they are fast, and I’m a fast typist. I’m also partial to IBM and Adler typewriters. Adlers are German typewriters, as well made as IBMs. I believe the Adler Satellite 2001 in the photo, made around 1975, will be my everyday typewriter now, though I also have a Facit (made in Sweden) typewriter that is in like-new condition but which isn’t as fast as the Adler.

A thought for the day: Why did we older folks abandon our typewriters so quickly and thoughtlessly after computers became affordable? I am extremely guilty, and I feel a certain shame for it. I can’t even remember what became of the last of several typewriters I owned. It was a massive old Underwood office machine made in the 1950s that worked perfectly for me for years. Why didn’t I keep it? What was I thinking?

The poem below was typed with the Adler Satellite 2001.

Ken’s new web site


Ken on the Isle of Mull during our hike there in 2018

Readers of this blog over the years will be familiar with Ken Ilgunas, who lived here at the abbey on and off starting back in 2010. Most of his writing on his books was done here. Ken’s blog, which he started in 2009, was way out of date, and he has recently upgraded it:

Link to Ken’s new blog

You can sign up for Ken’s newsletter. All the material from his old blog is there, with new material as well.

Ken lives in Scotland now, but for the record we are still literary confederates and are regularly in touch by email and text.


Ken was often on TV after Walden on Wheels was published in 2013. On several occasions, a limousine picked him up at the abbey to take him to network studios in Raleigh or Charlotte.


Ken in the abbey orchard, 2014

The Sierra Club

I felt a little irritated when I found in my mailbox a thick envelope from the Sierra Club. I had not renewed my membership, so of course it was a solicitation. The thickness of the envelope was clearly meant to give the impression of something valuable inside, as encouragement to open the envelope rather than just toss it. I opened it.

Inside I found five bifold cards, nicely printed, and five nice envelopes, white on the inside but tastefully washed in a pale yellow on the outside. How could I throw that away? A mailing like that must be very expensive. Not only is there the cost of postage, the cost of printing also would be high. It made me wonder if the Sierra Club spends an excessive amount of money to raise money, but I found at Charity Navigator that the Sierra Club has a four-star rating and that their fundraising expenses are 11.6 percent, which is not bad at all. The mailing worked. I’ve sent them a check to renew my membership.

The Sierra Club must be the oldest environmental organization in the United States. It was founded in 1892 by John Muir. In its long history, it has done a lot of good work and has not made many embarrassing mistakes. (One such mistake was accepting money from Chlorox and donations from the gas industry.) According to Wikipedia, the Sierra Club spent just over $1 million on the 2014 elections, all of it to oppose Republicans. Good work, that.

After I thought about it, I was glad to have renewed my membership, and I was impressed by the effectness of their direct mail appeals. With mailings like this they are, after all, providing much-needed revenue to the U.S. Postal Service. It’s also flattering to Sierra Club members (or former members) that the Sierra Club regards them as people who continue to use the U.S. Postal Service and who even send cards in the mail.

Free Guy, and The Adam Project

Few things go better with popcorn than a Ryan Reynolds movie. I have no objection to empty entertainment as long as it’s entertaining, but Ryan Reynolds movies are rarely entirely empty. Free Guy is, in part, a satire on contemporary confusion about what counts as real. And The Adam Project is a family story with some touching moments. Somehow there’s always something smart about the dumbness.

The Adam Project can be streamed on Netflix. Free Guy can be streamed on Disney+ and HBO Max.

The humble onion, good as gold

There should be a National Onion Month or something. Onions are so always-available and so cheap that we take them for granted. Let’s pretend that March is National Onion Month and imagine how drab life would be without onions.

Are there things in your kitchen that you stock a bit ahead as insurance against running out? For me, that’s mayonnaise, salt, olive oil — and onions. I’d almost sooner run out of wine than onions.

Once upon a time, we ate mostly yellow onions, though white onions could be had, and even red onions, sometimes. Now — at least in the United States — sweet, Vidalia-style onions are available year round. I don’t often buy yellow onions or red onions, but both sweet onions (for eating raw) and white onions (for cooking) are must-haves. A friend of mine once said that she started chopping onions before she knew what was for supper.

And I do eat them raw. It is said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. If that’s true, then it’s also true of onions. Years ago, while driving through the mountains of Mexico, I ordered an onion sandwich ( … de cebolla, con mayonesa, por favor) in a little restaurant. A few minutes later, two women peeked out of the kitchen to see who the crazy person was, and the waiter brought an onion to the table to make sure that there wasn’t a problem with my Spanish. But they brought me a nice onion sandwich, sliced thin and in layers, mayonnaise on both sides, just right.

West Side Story


The duet “One Hand, One Heart” was recorded live on camera at the Cloisters

I have seen four of the nominees for Best Picture at the 2022 Academy Awards — Don’t Look Up, Dune, The Power of the Dog, and West Side Story. I’m rooting for West Side Story.

Only people my age will have grown up hearing multiple versions of the songs — the original cast, the cast of the 1961 film, and the 1984 recording conducted by Leonard Bernstein and sung by opera stars including Kiri Te Kanawa. Given all those performances, it’s apparent how difficult it would be to surpass all those performances and set a new standard. In our time, who could have brought that off other than Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner?

And it isn’t just the singing. It’s also the visuals, including the choreography and the vivid, constantly moving scenery (though there are a few quiet moments in scenes set at the Cloisters, “up above Harlem,” as Tony says). Even the drama — the parts that are not sung or danced — are compelling, though we know the story. Out on the streets, don’t miss out on the constant stream of 1950s cars! From the refrigerators to the ice cream sundae glasses, the retro visuals are beautiful (and accurate). Every member of the supporting cast is ridiculously talented, especially Mike Faist as Riff and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Rita Moreno, now age 90 and who portrayed Anita in the 1961 version, sings “Somewhere.” Some of the songs, including “Somewhere,” were recorded live, on camera. The Spanish accents and the untranslated Spanish make the story much more real. A trans character, Anybodys, played by the nonbinary Iris Menas, got West Side Story banned in such places as Saudi Arabia.

At 1:24 in the video, when “One Hand, One Heart” begins, watch Ansel Elgort’s throat, not only for the perfectly controlled and subtle vibrato but also for proof that the song was sung live on camera.

West Side Story can be streamed on Disney+ and HBO Max. The 2022 Academy Awards will be March 27.

For solidarity with Ukraine: Pierogi !


Pierogi with roasted Brussels sprouts and Impossible vegan chicken nuggets

Yesterday the Washington Post ran an article (with a recipe) on pierogi, written by an American with Ukrainian ancestry. I read the article and could hardly wait to make pierogi. The article is “Making Ukrainian pierogi roots me to my family tree.”

I reduced the recipe by more than half, and I still have pierogi for another day. They’re not hard to make. It’s just a long process. I used yellow potatoes, and for the cheese I used Gruyere — the perfect cheese for comfort food. The Impossible fake chicken nuggets are the best I’ve tried. It has been years since I’ve eaten chicken, but I don’t think I’d know the difference. I didn’t have any sour cream, darn it.

Oil: Why can’t we ever learn?


The 1935 Mercedes-Benz 770 that belonged to Emperor Hirohito. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Here we are once again in that most familiar of geopolitical pickles. The advocates of progress and democracy still have the oil leash tight around their necks, jerking them around and holding them back. The other end of the leash is held by oligarchs, despots, and the greediest and most powerful corporations in the world. We could have freed ourselves by now, but we haven’t. We like our oil too much.

I must hasten to confess how much fun it has been to have lived during the Oil Age. Cars! Labor-saving machines! World travel for the middle class! McMansions, heated and cooled! Lots of food! Lots of stuff! It has been a wonderful lifelong party, with oil in the punchbowl. The industrialization made possible by coal certainly changed the world, but it has been oil, more than any other thing, that has shaped the world we live in now and that made possible a precarious global population of 7.75 billion. The price of punch fluctuates, but the bowl is always full, at least in the rich countries. Back in the 1970s when they told us that we were running out of oil, they were wrong, and they probably were lying.

President Jimmy Carter learned what happens to governments that try to wean people off of oil. It’s the only sensible government policy, but people won’t go along with it. Today, as many people see it, one of the chief responsibilities of government is to keep the cheap oil flowing. Republicans, and all the other servants of oligarchs, despots, and greed, are happy to oblige. It’s clear that we’ll never be weaned off of oil until we can keep the party going on some other punch — renewables, we hope.

Normally I stay home and mind my own business. But the computer went haywire in my four-year-old Fiat 500. That took me first to a garage about seven miles from home for a new battery, which I hoped would fix the problem. It didn’t, so I had to take the Fiat to the dealership in Winston-Salem, 25 miles away. (The problem was diagnosed as a bad wheel speed sensor at the left front wheel.) Everywhere I went, people were complaining about the price of gasoline. At the Fiat-Chrysler dealer, there was not a single Fiat on the lot. Americans (unlike Europeans) hate little Fiats, and most models of Fiat are not even sold in the U.S. anymore. Instead, the dealer’s lot was acres of enormous and heavy vehicles — big trucks and SUVs. That’s what most Americans drive these days. The assumption, clearly, is that the cheap gas will keep flowing. Many people, obviously, can afford gasoline (though they still complain about the price of it). Many poor people, on the other hand, spend nearly 20 percent of their income just on gasoline. Oil is one of the key reasons for the sorry state of our politics. Given a choice between progress and cheap gas, cheap gas will get most people’s vote.

Americans, per capita, use at least five time more oil per capita than the people of China or India. That is a geopolitical weakness for America. And just look at the problems that Germany is having at present because of its need for Russian gas.

This is not going to be a feckless lecture on driving smaller cars and using less gasoline. What we do as individuals is a drop in the bucket, which is part of why we feel so powerless. What matters globally is what the advocates of progress and democracy are politically empowered to do, which will require a loosening of the oil leash. As for our love for cars and our dependency on them, electric vehicles and renewable energy may bring new political possibilities by freeing us from the oil leash. That’s a benefit above and beyond the necessity of just going easier on the earth. Just think how our politics could change if oil no longer mattered.

I wonder, though, whether I will ever be able to buy an electric vehicle as efficient and affordable as my little Fiat. I don’t have the slightest need for a hulking 3-ton electric truck or SUV, but it’s likely that that’s what most Americans are going to want. There’s still something very crazy about that.

Update: Slate has posted a good article about this: “Are Gas Prices Too High? Or Is Your Car Too Big?: When it comes to oil shocks, we have the memory of goldfish.”