on the fade of the recession

A certain coiffure has been sweeping the modern American hair landscape, or hairscape – the Fade of the Recession. Similar to that style favored by persons alive during the Great Depression, our Great Recession's preferred mode is cut very close to skull until perhaps eye-level, at which point it fades quickly into a most unruly patch of long top-hair kept in place with an arresting, spiking, or otherwise binding hair product.

Persons sporting the fade of the recession are more than likely frugal, upright, and self-loathing individuals who have finally come around to notion that their best hope for making it through such global wars as nearly always follow in the wake of world-wide economic turmoil is to start relying on as few people other than themselves to complete simple tasks such as hair-cutting, lawn-mowing, cooking, cleaning, transportation, and self-defense. By affecting such severe cuts to the head-bound chitinous offshoots, these people demonstrate a propensity for self-mockery and lightheartedness that is useful when facing impending physical, emotional, or financial ruin.

The author adopted this particular pompadour after seeing a wild-eyed, chain-smoking gentleman of Chinese ancestry who had exited from the dirt-caked side door of an otherwise nondescript, rundown building in one of America's more bustling cities. The man, himself having surpassed at least the age of forty-five, was wearing an ill-fitting overcoat and staring menacingly at everyone passing him by. The nape of his neck was shaved to the bone, and a wild patch of hair sprouted from the top of his head, but his Recession's Fade stood out because of the violent, severe, and apparently hastily-made cuts that defined the area of the fade itself.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on running on rock

A legend survives in the world of running: that asphalt is softer than concrete, and that it is better for one's knees to run in the street rather than on the sidewalk. Whoever first spread this myth was not an avid or longtime runner, nor did he or she physically test (as with a hammer or other solid object) the springiness or bounciness of asphalt (compared, for example, to dirt) in order to make sure what he or she was saying was actually true.

This myth – although it is widely popular – is not true. Please, runners seeking to avoid bodily injury, please do not run in the streets, for if you do, you risk being hit by passing cars, and you cause disruptions to the flow of vehicular traffic. Please, runners seeking to protect knees or hips, please do not run on concrete, pavement, asphalt, stone, macadam, or any other hard and unyielding surface; individuals seeking yielding, joint-friendly running trails would do well to run on grassy or earthen tracks.

I no longer run regularly, nor do I currently chair my local municipality's Department of Street Works; therefore, I do not know if a procedure for making joint-friendly asphalt has been invented, and whether or not every street in America has been repaved accordingly. A side note: I often see persons running on the edges of busy streets, with traffic. To run – or to walk – with traffic is to all but beg for bodily trauma, general physical paralysis, and a slow, painful death. When one walks or runs in the same direction as traffic, one cannot see cars coming from behind, and, therefore, one has no warning at all of an impending collision. Alternately, when one walks or runs in the direction opposite of traffic, one has at least a few milliseconds to jump out of the way should a car happen to veer outside of its lane. While the logic of moving against traffic seems sound, I am nonetheless dismayed that, unlike the illogic of running on rocks, it has fled from the minds of those evidently self-respecting, otherwise healthy individuals who strap on go-fasters and get out for a nice jog.

I shall, however, stop worrying about the poor life-choices made by other people, and start looking for a bright side in all of this: the self-removal of unthinking fools from the general breeding population. Please, dear friend, stay safe out there by staying smart, keeping your head on a swivel and a song in your heart. Mahalo.




場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on the use of eyes in street art

(reasons, questions, and motives)

Stroll through downtown Los Angeles, up New York's Broadway, or along the avenues of Philadelphia's Center City, and look in the forgotten, in the grimy, and in the underused places. With a keen glance and a bit of luck, you will witness the riotous beauty known as street art. Oh, what a profusion of style and color, of shape and size, of message and image, all blending into a whole that, if viewed from afar, resembles little more than visual clutter; but get in good and close, and follow the guidance of your peripheral vision, and your most tender of sphincters will drink invariably of the intoxicating power of street art.

But why do we look? Why are we powerless against the urge to sweep our gazes into worn and sticky places and up onto soot-covered utility poles? Eyes, my friends, we look at graffiti because it is full of eyes (and not just any type of eyes, but human eyes). Perhaps they stumbled upon the technique accidentally, perhaps they copied it from advertisers, or maybe they just plain Knew to tap into one of mankind's most primal and deep-seated fears, but, however it occurred, street artists employ one of the most basic methods for getting people to look at something – to give it eyes.

Since our time as forest-creeping, prairie-running, skull-bashing troglodytes, the species homo sapiens has developed the uncanny ability to recognize the shape of the eye even if it should be obscured by layers of seemingly random patterns. While experts may argue whether this ability is restricted merely to recognizing the human eye, or if it applies to the eyes of all of our former predators (think bear, cougar, coyote), few persons dispute the fact that our brains are really good at figuring out if someone, or something, is looking at us. Advertisers exploit this evolutionary adaptation to our status as Top Predator Of One Another by blanketing the phaltscape with pictures of pretty people who nearly all happened to have been staring directly at the camera's shutter when it opened. (Now, however, instead of our powers giving us the upper hand in a fight-or-flight situation, they allow us to be convinced that we need that new and re-formulated cucumber body scrub; woe be unto mankind.)

All quasi-scientific, pseudo-evolutionary nonsense aside (I am not a scientist, nor am I particularly intelligent or well-versed) – why do graffiti-writers use so many eyes in their designs? Why in the name of Beelzebub do they wish for people to look at their works of art, and to what purpose do they make use of our aforementioned ability to pick eyes out of the ether? As the SDUBS (self directed urban beautification specialist) is wily and suspicious by nature, and since she maintains a level of honor, decorum, and discipline so profound as to make inquiry into her personal matters a life-threatening endeavor, these questions shall likely go unanswered for many generations to come. For now, however, please enjoy the street-side galleries of free-to-the-consumer art wherever you may be, and rest easily in the knowledge that, by looking back at eyes that look at you, you are merely executing a deeply-ingrained survival reflex that is as natural to humans as is laughter. Never forget, however, to keep an eye out for your fellow man, he who has been hunting you for longer than you shall likely ever know.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit