Breakfast with Pandora

This holiday season, celebrate boundaries

So I was checking my blog stats, and a banner ad appeared on the site: A burgundy background with a traditional, Snoopy-type doghouse, and a message in small white letters:

This holiday season, there are a million ways in, and only one way out.

Put him in the doghouse.

Find out how (click)

I do not click on banner ads, except when I want to support a web site I like that has advertisement. But I clicked on this one to see what would happen.

I came to a video commercial that was almost 5 minutes long and told the story of husbands and boyfriends who give the woman in their life "thoughtless gifts."

It was hysterical.

Go see it, and then come back.

You're back. Did you like it?

I was not surprised to find that the advertiser was a jewelry store, but it did jolt me a little that it was "The Jewelry Store Inside J.C. Penney's"-- that venerable brick-and-mortar department store where Mom used to buy my Keds and dungarees when I was a tyke. Not only is this very slick and expensive story done on the Internet, Penney's is also linking the campaign to Facebook, in an attempt to get some Web 2.0 buzz going (details here).

But as to the commercial itself: I want to say that this is so wrong on so many levels. But I could hardly stop laughing.

I love everything about the execution of this story. I hate the message.

Have you internalized the message yet? We've been brought up on it: Men are thoughtless, insensitive goons with a mean streak. Women are noble, responsible and long-suffering civilizers.

Anyway, if you're an advertiser after women's dollars, this is what you want to reinforce.

Because this is not a commercial aimed at men to patronize the jewelry store inside J.C. Penney's. It's a campaign aimed at women to make them come back to Penney's and spend during a horrific economic time.

The average man will not be pushed into a department store by this commercial. Witness a comment on a marketing blog (the source of the photo above) that discusses this ad:

I understand the marketing behind this. But I am insulted.

We have 1 joint account. All my money is hers anyway. I cannot buy her jewelry. Why is there is no doghouse for women?

It's dumb how society works and how men have to be slaves to the boss at home and fear her. The show "Everyone Loves Raymond" was a good example the dominant wife figure. After that show was "Becker". A man who stood up for himself. A lonely man.
What ever happened to the "Ward Cleaver" husband? That went out in the 50's?
Just a thought about how society views wives.

Good stories exploit the boundaries in our lives-- those places where there are no clear answers, no solutions, and yet great friction, tension, and psychic energy.

No wonder the commenter brought up sitcoms to illustrate his point about married (and single) life. Stories help us to cope with those difficult boundary areas in our lives.

I have two stories of my own, from real life:

Yesterday I went into the grocery store for orange juice, bread and milk and came out with $70 worth of stuff I didn't know I needed. On one spin through the aisles, I saw a chubby-cheeked twenty-something manning a full cart and looking up at the ceiling. An unoccupied cashier approached him and said, "Sir, can I help you find what you're looking for?"

The man replied in a sweet drawl, "Ma'am, I'm not looking for nothing. I'm just happy. I'm standing here whistling a happy tune." And he launched into a few bars of Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

Then, about halfway down the aisle, I espied the person who must have been the young guy's wife: a five foot nothing, round blonde powerhouse hefting two huge bottles of orange soda, clearly on a mission to equip their domicile with everything needed for the first visit of the in-laws for Thanksgiving.

She arched her impeccably plucked eyebrow, and he sang out, mock-innocently, "Oh, honey, do you need the cart now?"

Story number two: Last Sunday, our priest spoke movingly about viewing thoughtfulness to one's spouse as a way of serving Christ. With his wife in the congregation, he was overcome by emotion and got through the sermon with great difficulty. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

Boundaries.

There is something uniquely American about our version of this age-old place of friction. It was Oscar Wilde, apparently, who said that American women-- as opposed to British, I guess-- are used to having a half-dozen men constantly around them, tending to their every need.

When I quoted this to an American woman, she said, "He said that because he was jealous. He wanted a half-dozen American men tending to his needs."

But Wilde's impression was accurate in a certain respect. I do believe American women expect and get men's attention more than the average woman in other places in the world. I think it is one of the things that enabled the United States to become the powerful nation that it is. When there is a sense that 100% of the population rather than 50% have value and deserve attention, then more things can be accomplished.

And with that, I wish everyone a lovely Thanksgiving and an economically satisfactory holiday season.

PS: Kudos to the director of this piece, Emmy winner Bryan Buckley, and to the cast. I especially loved the two wives, who manage to be both gorgeous and everywoman. And Donald looks, sounds and acts exactly like someone I know. Very eerie. Well done, all.

Bread, sourdough (not mythology)

Hailing as I do from the San Francisco Bay Area, it's my continuous dream to be a sourdough bread king. The characteristic tang of a San Francisco sourdough slice-- preferably one from Colombo bakery, in the green, "extra-sour, late-bake" sleeve, jolts me back to hungry days of scarfing Dad's chili or Mom's unmatched spaghetti sauce on chilly, foggy evenings.

I am always in the market for a little nostalgia. So a few weeks ago I joined the Yahoo sourdough group and asked around for someone local who might spare me some starter.

I found a generous, good-hearted, and extremely articulate benefactor in Bill Snider, owner of Simple Kneads bakery in Greensboro, NC. I'm sorry it's impossible to taste bread virtually, because Bill's sourdough is San Fran worthy and instantly addictive.

Bill gave me a lump of his starter, and I carried it home reverently while munching on a sourdough batard that made it to my front door only in my stomach.

Sourdough is a living organism-- a colony of yeast, in fact, that stays alive as long as you feed it flour and water. Bill likens sourdough to a low-maintenance pet: not much work, a lot of benefit. You can tell sourdough is alive because after you feed it, it bubbles up and expands, evidence of the yeast eating flour sugar and creating gas. If you use it correctly, sourdough eliminates the need for baker's yeast in a bread recipe, and imparts superior character to the bread's crumb, and that special tang.

Today we are having a bake sale at church, and this gave me the perfect opportunity to follow the recipe Bill gave for a basic sourdough loaf.

The photos show the results, which were positive overall. The crust was not as brown as I'd like, but my oven browns the bottoms of food faster than tops, so I couldn't leave the bread in as long as I wanted.

The crust was good and thick, however, perhaps as a result of misting the loaves with water from a sprayer before baking.

The crumb was dense, but with acceptable air pockets. Not bad-- similar to San Francisco's Boudin bakery crumb, which was good for the ham sandwiches they made, if I could afford them, while temping downtown over the summer or the holidays. Colombo's was like Bill's: airy, crackly-crusted, feathery crumb.

Taste: no discernible sour tang. Basic white French bread, even a little sweet and salty. Similar in taste to Colombo "sweet" red sleeve.

Fun? Baking takes time, patience and focus. I aspire even to Bill's description of me to one of his employees as a "hobby baker." But I'll keep at it.

Technical notes below, for anyone interested:

• The dough was very sticky to start, but at Bill's suggestion I resisted the temptation to add a lot of flour. I did add enough to make the dough workable. I wrestled pretty hard with it to get it developed. Later, once the yeast in the starter did its job, the dough silked nicely.


• The dough never puffed really high as normal yeast breads do for me. It didn't matter. The bread tasted good anyway. 


• This was the first dough I ever made without baker's yeast. It worked!


• The bread proofed overnight in a cool environment and when I slit the tops, the outer skin on the dough was pretty rigid. But the tops of the loaves bloomed and made nice patterns. 

Last look (you can see the bottom of a loaf, how it browned darker than the top):

Doxa: word of mouth and Internet glory

The Pearls Before Swine comic strip had a very funny mini-series of strips on blogging for money recently. I cut one of them out and put it on my refrigerator.

Photo: The kitchen table is always weighed down, as is my brain.

PIG: Hey, Rat... Mind if I borrow this cardboard box I found in your closet? I'm starting a blog.

RAT: A box? What do you need a box for if you're doing a blog?

PIG: For all the money I'm going to make.

RAT to GOAT, at restaurant: Are there interventions for stupidity?

Stephan Pastis, the author of the strip, loves to talk about boxes of money. But he's hit on a truth, which is that in this brave, new world of Internet communication and entertainment, you can't just put up a blog and watch the money roll in.

Then there is Gary Vaynerchuk, the Internet wine celebrity and marketing and motivational guru, who thinks that online and word of mouth is the way to go for big advertisers, and bloggers who've "got the chops" have a big potential for earnings once advertisers realize this.

Watch this video and this one, too, for the whole explanation.

Gary's passionate riff on word of mouth ("Building brands and building businesses has always been about word of mouth") got me thinking about "always," which got me thinking about the ancient world.

Doxa, a Greek word used most famously by Homer, means what others say about you that leads to a good reputation. The one-word traditional translation is "glory," but word of mouth might be a better three-word one.

Homeric warriors fought for, lived for, and defended their doxa. A good reputation was everything to them. The entire plot of the Iliad is based on a simple set of insults exchanged by two warriors with big doxa who didn't want to back off and lose face.

All of which led to big word of mouth for Homer.

So Gary is right that word of mouth goes back thousands of years. We are a social species, for sure, and we have evolved a way of surviving and thriving that has to do with communication.

So does this mean BwP is going to turn into a big money-making blog? Not in its current incarnation. I think there's a limited audience for people who want to read a myth geek's musings. But with a tweak or two, who knows.

Anyway, I haven't picked out a cardboard box yet.

Presidents and Myers-Briggs, my $.02

It is not the season for stories, I've found, in this post-election, emerging Depression moment. It is a liminal time; we are neither in the old time of Bush or the new time of Obama, and mythology at this time seems particularly brittle.

Which gives me the opportunity to do something I have been wanting to do for a while-- revisit Myers-Briggs personality types with relation to presidential personalities. Earlier I did them for Olympian gods and goddesses, and you can find that here, along with links on Myers-Briggs theory in general. You might want to go there before you read this, as this post assumes some knowledge of the theory.

I became interested in this topic through wondering about Barack Obama's type. It is so different, diametrically opposite to President Bush's, in fact, that I think it's extraordinary we are swinging so wildly in our preferences.

But it's not an open-and-shut case on Obama's type: a quick Internet search revealed three different opinions on three different sites: ENFP, ENTP, and ENFJ.

In other words (thinking again to Greek divinities), Obama is either Aphrodite, Hermes, or Odysseus.

I choose XNFJ, with X meaning a personality about equally divided between Extrovert and Introvert. Here are some reasons.

First, some perspective. President Bush is clearly an ESFP, The Slacker. This type is represented by the god Dionysus, who in myth is a bringer of chaos and destruction while at the same time benefiting those who worship him. This type is characterized by a refusal to see the big picture (S over N), and an enjoy-now-pay-later attitude. The ESFP is the party-ready frat brother who never seems to go to class, but somehow makes it through anyway.

President Clinton is an ENTP, the Hermes type. This type is characterized by charming and often deceptive speech, a happy-go-lucky attitude, enormous self-confidence and yet a need to be with people. The NT part of this person ensures that the ENTP is a deep, big-picture thinker with strong opinions and, often, a conviction that he or she is always right. ENTP's are sometimes infuriating to be around for me, a hyper-responsible and neurotic INFP, because of their breezy, know-it-all natures, but they also can be a lot of fun.

And Obama?

As to the Extrovert/Introvert axis, Obama exhibits remarkable differences from the past two presidents. He does not come off as an enthusiastic glad-hander who's always making jokes and cracking smiles. He is not a pure politician in this way, a pure people person. I originally thought Obama must be an introvert (an INTJ in fact), because when he speaks he is so measured and controlled. He doesn't get caught up in the moment. He doesn't seem naturally at ease in a crowd. But I go with "X" because I think he is a people person enough to not be drained and exhausted by a 2-year presidential campaign.

Second, Obama is definitely an N, Intuitive, a big picture person, an idealist. In this he differs 100% from President Bush. Bush has spent the entire war with Iraq trying to figure out why we went in; he started off with the WMD argument (very concrete, very S), and only later decided on democracy. Finally, Cheney admitted it was about oil.

Obama has spent the entire campaign focused on the big picture-- on abstract words such as unity and hope. The Republicans have been apoplectic over his emphasis on abstract thinking.

As to T or F, I originally thought Obama was a thinker, not a feeler. NT's are very calm, intellectual, and convinced they are right. But Obama's emphasis on reconciliation and including other political viewpoints in his administration makes him seem more like an F.

Obama is also a J, a person who wants to get things done and cross them off his list. This is very beneficial in society, to have a person who can make a decision and implement it. I often wish I were a J when I am paralyzed by possibilities. The J exudes an air of control, and when the control does not degenerate into manipulation, it can be a very calming quality.

Altogether, XNFJ makes sense to me. An INFJ is often a good, thoughtful pastor, counselor, or advocate, while an ENFJ is often a community organizer or leader of a nonprofit. Both types are focused tightly on the welfare of others. In Greek myth, Odysseus is the ENFJ, the strong, single-minded leader of men who takes back his household after it has been ravaged by his own countrymen. The INFJ is Penelope, Odysseus' wife. I wonder about Michelle Obama's type?

And as to the ENFP-- sorry, Emily Yoffe of slate.com, but if Obama's an ENFP we are likely to see another sex scandal in the White House. ENFP's are notorious bedhoppers. I don't think Obama is this type of person.

Stories and medicine

Today on our local public radio station, a program on how medical professionals are using story to become better doctors and nurses.

Medicine holds within it a grand paradox: on the one hand, it is among the most dispassionate and fact-based branches of knowledge, while on the other, its object-- health, sickness, healing and dying-- is among the most emotional parts of human life.

Testimonial over here. It took quite a bit of heavy guilting before this squeamish poet gave blood for the first time.

How do medical professionals deal with this paradox? Can they keep they logical and emotional sides of their profession separate? Should they?

It turns out a lot of people have been thinking about this situation, and answers have been arriving.

At our local hospital, there is a group of doctors and nurses who get together to share a meal and then share their stories, as a way of purifying and transforming the pity and fear that comes from their everyday human drama. They use selections from literature-- from authors such as William Carlos Williams and Flannery O'Connor, among others not so famous-- to help them along their way.

If you are interested in the power of stories, check this program out. It is inspirational.

Call Northside 777 and the romantic community of newspapering

You may have heard or read recently of the imminent downfall of the print newspaper. Soon and very soon, or so say the experts, we will have nothing to wrap our fish in.

Yesterday I found myself agreeing with an acquaintance of my own, non-Millenial generation that there was something unique about a newspaper that online news reading cannot duplicate.

What is it? Or is there no difference between the media of news dissemination?

No definitive answer here, but a couple of thoughts spurred by my viewing of the movie Call Northside 777 (photo also found here).

 This 1948 flick stars James Stewart in a ripped-from-the-headlines story from 1930's Chicago. A grieving mother takes out an ad in the newspaper offering $5,000 to anyone with information leading to the clearing of her son, who has been convicted for murder and is serving a life sentence. Stewart is the reporter assigned to investigate the story. The title of the movie refers to the phone number in the advertisement.

The mid-twentieth century might be called the heyday of the newspaper. There was no Internet, television was in its infancy, and radio was no threat to the hegemony of print. At this time, newspapers were a kind of proto-Internet: editions came out in the morning, afternoon, and evening, with extras whenever warranted.

Many hands, hearts and minds were needed for this extensive operation. There were the newsboys hawking papers in the street; the men who drove the trucks to deliver the papers to the corner; the print guys with the funny white hats; the type guys who made the paper ready to be printed; and, of course, the reporters and editors who created and managed the content.

And then, the readers, who made the business viable.

All of these combined to create a romantic ideal exploitable by movies such as Northside 777. I liked the movie because it shows-- often through a montage of shots-- everyone combining, from Stewart all the way to his readers, to make Stewart's pursuit of truth significant. It was as if the entire community was participating in the redressing of an injustice, and at each step, each person was literally touching part of that story.

Nowadays the work that goes into producing a story like Stewart's takes place in a mysterious, digital environment. The reporter emails his editor the story; the editor emails back changes; the reporter files his story into a computer database. It is retrieved by a web producer. The producer tags it properly and posts it to the web. The reader logs on to a computer and reads it.

All without having to have anyone else present.

Maybe nothing is lost by all this solitary activity. My daughter has discovered instant messaging, and quickly has mastered the 5-window chat environment. I am always near when she is chatting, and she is always assuring me that she is in a group chat, not with some anonymous predator. "It's better than TV," she asserts, and in that I will agree with her.

This is the community of the future-- being constantly present and constantly absent. It may be better, but it certainly is technology dependent.

I think that being physically present to each other, and having physical things to touch, makes for better community. Unfortunately, I don't really have any evidence for this other than my gut and romantic, late-Boomer sensibility.

I predict that print will come back into fashion once everyone has become fed up with sitting alone warming oneself by a laptop battery. Even just as a fad. We do need something, after all, to wrap fish in.

"An amazing moment in American history"

In the summer of 1967, my father and mother moved us to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where my father took a position as a professor of English at historically African-American Stillman College.

My father never admitted that the move was political, to work for the civil rights of African-Americans. He always said it was just a job.

Nevertheless, my father and mother worked hard in the civil rights movement, and I regret that my father was not able to tell the full story of that time before he passed on, and that he did not live to see this day. I have spoken to my mother about some of it, but now will make sure to listen deeply to her.

My brother and I went to our neighborhood school among children who were not of our skin color.

From that time of my life I took away no philosophical knowledge, only an experience I still consider to be the happiest of my life.

Tonight I link hands with my friends of those days, wherever they are: Cleo, Charles, Dexter, Gordy, and everyone whose names I have forgotten. I link hands and offer a prayer for our nation and for the world:

O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us
through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole
human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and
confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in
your good time, all nations and races may serve you in
harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.