Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

teevee

whiling away the hours

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(1) A few years ago I saw Malcolm Gladwell deliver a speech at the New Yorker Festival that is largely recapitulated in the second chapter of Outliers, called “The 10,000 Hour Rule.”

In it, Gladwell draws our attention to a data point converged upon by countless studies of experts in a variety of fields. He says, “In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.” He goes on to quote neurologist Daniel Levitin:

In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. … It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

Gladwell supports the rule using Mozart, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, and the Beatles as his examples. Not to say that their genius and success is purely a result of 10,000 hours of practice – the book as a whole explains other facets – just that it was an essential component of their expertise.

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(2a) 10,000 hours is a long time.

If as a child starting at age five you had piano lessons two times a week (an hour each) and also practiced an hour a day, you would clock nine hours a week. 468 hours a year. 4,680 hours a decade.

If you kept that up until age 26 you’d finally have served your time.

(2b) 10,000 hours can go by before you know it.

Maybe you got into video games at age 11. You played them every night after homework and dinner, let’s say from 7:30 to 11:00 p.m. on most nights, plus extra on the weekend. That’s more than 25 hours a week. 1,300 plus a year.

You’d be a master by the time you started college. Most kids are.

(2c) Time is relative.

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(3) In the car today Gina and I were singing in harmony to the amazing Hezekiah Jones album Hezekiah Says You’re A-OK, on the way to see his band split a bill with the equally fantastic Up the Chain.

“You know, Gina,” I said, breaking from my lead vocal, “I’ve been thinking about this 10,000 hour thing. Not everyone’s an expert at something. I mean, what do most people spend 10,000 hours doing by the time they’re 25? Watching teevee, I suppose.”

“More than likely,” she replied.

“But, think about me. I watched a lot of television, sure. Mostly, though, I read until I was old enough to write, and then I wrote and read. That’s what I spent my 10k on.”

(Perhaps she interjected, “Oh, I remember.”)

“And, you know, is it any surprise that I’m good at communications? I’m not an expert, but no wonder it’s my calling. I spent my whole life practicing for it.”

We sat and sang for a moment, contemplating that.

“What about you?”

Gina paused in her harmony. “Hmm, me?”

“Yeah. What did you spend 10,000 hours doing?”

“This. Listening to music. Singing harmony.”

“Really your whole life, right? Your mother singing, your father playing guitar…”

“Yeah, since I can remember.”

“Right. So, no matter how much I rehearse, you’ll always have the edge. It’ll always come easier to you, until I reach that threshold.”

“I suppose.”

We paused as the song wound down.

“What do you think Hezekiah spent 10,000 hours doing?”

We thought on that for a few moments, and then sang together to “Albert Hash.”

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(4) We’re not all Mozart. I might not ever be Hezekiah Jones. But, we’ve all spent 10,000 hours doing something other than sleeping, and hopefully other than watching television. Maybe something incidental that we do out of necessity or habit. Driving? Social-networking? Cleaning? Taking care of children?

I’ve put in more than my share on communications – reading cereal boxes and trashy fantasy novels, writing stories at eight on my manual typewriter and almost nine years of blogs.

I got an early start on 10,000 hours of being Gina’s best friend, which I keep padding. I’m really good at that. More recently I’ve attained well-in-excess of 10,000 hours of being in love with Elise.

I hope eventually I’ll reach my 10,000th hour of serious focus on music. It’s a large piggy-bank of time to fill.

What about you? What have you spent your life mastering, intentionally or unintentionally?

weekend braindump

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My biggest weakness – bigger than any weakness in character, or for spending money, or really even for wasting time – is that I’ll always stop to read something.

It’s such a subtle flaw. We’ve been over how as a child I felt compelled to read cereal boxes as I ate breakfast, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s my voracious reading – how on vacation as a child my mother would pack an entire suitcase of books, because you never wanted to encounter a me with nothing to read.

In adulthood it manifests a little differently. I’ve lost patience for fictional universes, so slow to unwind before me. Now the communications major has taken over. I’ll read Rolling Stone while tying my shoes, and even carry my laptop into the bathroom if I haven’t quite finished reading an article.

Okay, maybe that was over sharing.

Where once I was limited by my physical ability to store words, now I’m only limited by bandwidth and time.

The awful side of my habit is getting caught up in junk words. Trolling through FaceBook status updates. Reading comments from the misanthrope TalkBackers on Ain’t It Cool News. Are these altering my life in a positive way? Am I better person for consuming them?

All that said, here are the more substantial words that have kept me occupied over the weekend.

First, there is Battlestar Galactica. There are a scant six episodes left of this genre-shattering drama, and the press has belatedly gone into overdrive to promote the show (you know, just in case people have time to watch four seasons worth of backstory so they can catch the last six episodes live).

If you are amongst that demographic you probably shouldn’t even be reading these articles, as they are spoilers-galore if you aren’t all caught up through this past Friday’s doozy of an ep. I’ll try not to put spoils into the links, but if you aren’t up to Season 4.5 please don’t click through anything.

Jenna Busch has a fantastic interview with the alluring and well-spoken Kate Vernon, who has always been spectacular on BSG. Battlestar.tv goes on at great length with Grace Park, who reveals lots of interesting production details – including what its like to act as Sharon and Boomer within minutes of each other.

A thoughtful in-canon letter to the editor about Why Tom Zarek Was Right during the course of recent events on the show (I happen to agree). a brief one with Katee Sackoff, who reveals that she was battling thyroid cancer at the end of the series, adding to the emotional weight of her performance.

OS news has a lengthy chat with Nikki Clyne, who played Cally. I love how all of the BSG actors are more than just actors – Nikki is working on some kind of social networking site? They’re all such renaissance people. For example, scroll towards the bottom of composer Bear McCreary’s interview with some of the actors to read a hilarious tale of how Michael Trucco (Anders) helps launch a historical ship with Michael Hogan (Tigh). Also in that interview, the stunning (in beauty and as an actor) Rekha Sharma dishes that she spent weeks hanging out together in L.A. with Kate Vernon – I can’t decide if that’s better as an intellectual fantasy or an erotic one. ?

Okay, I also read some interesting things not about a fictional universe.

Lincoln’s Laws of War challenges you to recall your AP History as it outlines how the rights that Team Bush so ably dissected were first put in place by Obama’s presidential idol.

A compelling (if a little too detached) piece of longform from VF writer Vicky Ward on the serpentine tale of Esther Reed, a girl who ran away from one troubled life into another in a quest to find some suitable outlet for her secret genius.

A surprisingly personal (at least, to me) take on Michelle Obama, from Vogue, of all places. I love this woman so much. It is surely my goal to meet her at some point in my life.

Nate Silver – of my preferred election website, 538 – uses similar predictive modeling to guess the outcomes of Oscar.

The Academy’s PR team is making a lot of noise about how intimate and different their ceremony will be this year, but I don’t know if they can capitalize on the success of the Grammys because movies are experiential in a completely different way than music is. On the Grammys people tune in to hear songs. On the Oscars people tune in to see stars. Unless Titanic is nominated they could take or leave the movies. Their only hope might be holding the Supporting Actor trophy until later in the program than usual, since it’s the only major award their voters deigned to offer to Dark Knight.

I won’t be watching because – lack of live teevee aside – I only watch award shows with Erika. That said, I do love Hugh Jackman.

Ron Moore talks ending Battlestar Galactica

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Check out a well-informed, far-ranging interview with Ron Moore, creator and show-runner of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. No spoilers for the impending Season 4.5.

Battlestar Galactica is one of the finest shows on television, and that’s not just me talking – though it has struck out on major Emmy nods, it’s run the table on critical acclaim during its run, including accolades from Time and the American Film Institute, amongst many others. It’s first season compares favorably to The West Wing in the quality of its storytelling and ensemble acting. If you’ve already exhausted the re-watch possibilities on Lost and Mad Men BSG’s mix of action and intrigue is the perfect mid-point between the two.

(If you prefer your BSG news with spoilers, head to SyFy Portal to read about the identity of the final cylon and the last scene in the series. Careful – the latter one is shocking.)

Digestifs (or, a requiem for eight solid hours of food and NFL football)

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I am finally old enough to enjoy a post-dinner recline on the couch while making inane commentary on football games, and I took full advantage of said privilege tonight after dining with Gina’s family for the first time in six(!) years.

While watching the Eagles rack up the highest score of the day Gina, Wes, and I organized the National Football League in descending order of mascot size, punctuated by occasionally less-than-fearsome cardinal cries.

Massive
Titans
Jets (jumbo)
Giants
Saints (if astral)

Huge
Bills (buffalo)
Texans (steers, or possibly minotaurs?)
Broncos
Bears (grizzly)
Bengals

Large
Lions
Panthers
Colts
Rams
Jaguars
Dolphins

Man-Sized
Steelers & 49ers (assumed to be burly and hard-working)
Raiders & Vikings (assumed to be fierce and conquest-oriented)
Chiefs
Packers (assumed to be like Steelers, but with more dairy in their diets)
Cowboys & Redskins
Buccaneers (more of an effete Johnny Depp pirate)
Eagles (massive wingspan makes them comparable in size)
Patriots (sorta bourgeois, comparatively)
Saints (if corporeal)

Small
Seahawks
Browns (if dogs)
Falcons & Ravens (split decision on which would be larger)

Tiny
Cardinals
Browns (if recluse)

Atomic
Chargers

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At this point we were all in a full-on dessert coma after ingesting Gina’s pumpkin cheesecake pie, and amidst Brian Dawkins imitations*, we also found the time to judge the five most fearsome mascots…
1. Titans – Atlas is a Titan!
2. Chargers
3. Bears
4. Bengals
5. Eagles
Honorable Mention: Saints (if astral)

… as opposed to the five most harmless mascots:
1. Cardinals
2. Ravens
3. Browns
4. Dolphins Per reader feedback, a dolphin could maul a Patriot.
5. Colts
Honorable Mention: Saints (if corporeal)

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* Everyone we know considers Brian Dawkins to be terror incarnate, and we spend the majority of most Eagles’ games commenting on the fear that he strikes into all opponents.

Tonight we determined that Batman’s interrogation of a hallucinating Scarecrow in Batman Begins was actually based on Brian Dawkins’ pass defense, and that there is likely test footage of Bale wearing a Dawkins jersey along with his enigmatic visored helmet.

I also posited a likely Dawkins’ internal monologue, but it involved a lot of cookie-monster-metal growling that I can’t really do justice in text. Maybe when my condensers arrive next week…

Where selflessness and procrastination collide

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When I was in Boston with Erika she told me she likes to read CK when it is about my personal misadventures, rather than static ruminations or recaps of rocking Arcati Crisis shows.

That was two weeks ago today, on my birthday, although I just now typed “a week ago,” because I’ve definitely misplaced some of the intervening days. I’m not sure where they went – I haven’t been making many plans or playing much music – but they are gone.

Apparently spending days at a rapid rate just makes the passing of them easier – just like I’ve easily written more than 12,000 words today and now I can’t seem to stop writing.

Last Tuesday is the last day I can get a distinct fix on without referring to old emails or a calendar. I know I spent the day at work, plus another six hours working remotely because I felt like “tidying,” and that I subsequently spent three hours copy-editing my mother’s 536-word college paper. Not that it involved much copy-editing. Moreso, it was that I wrote her a ridiculous 1300-word rumination on her assignment and how she could marginally improve it, as it was already awesome.

(She claims that I did not get writing from her, but she is one of the most natural writers I know. She writes exactly how she speaks. It’s uncanny.)

On Wednesday Elise and I collected our pal Anna and crashed the auditions for our acapella alma mater, The TrebleMakers. Well, we didn’t crash, really. It was more like we were uninvited, creepy, old guests with valid, non-binding input on the audition process. I was wearing one of my larger suits and sporting some facial hair, the combination of which I’m sure projected the impression of a rumpled old man who just rolled out of bed in his pajamas.

(Think about this for a minute, my friends: the girls who are auditioning for TMs as freshmen were born after the release of “Like a Prayer.”)

As per usual, any encounter between us and acappella results in unparalleled excitement and lust for our harmony-singin’ glory days (which actually only ended in 2006). It also results huge laundry lists of songs we’d like to arrange – this time headed by “That’s What You Get” by Paramore and “Breakin’ Up” by Rilo Kiley.

Whereas usually such larks are promptly forgotten, on Thursday I fell ill completely out of the blue and spent the day home from work, during which I arranged like the unstoppable 2004-me that had a hand in a fourth of the arrangements on the TM’s last CD.

(Then there is my heavily documented debate coverage, followed by a frantic 24-hours of strategic planning between E & I that has not yet yielded our first (non-political) freelance website but might still, soon.)

Our weekend was consumed by more arranging and kitten-mania. Yes, the kittens from earlier this summer are back in our yard, and have been for at least a week – sleeping in flower pots and causing all manner of mischief in our box planters.

Having spent a childhood raptly absorbing The Price Is Right, I decided it was my personal calling from Bob Barker to have the kittens spayed or neutered, and hopefully adopted. All weekend I colluded with Elise to capture them, at one point setting up a complex Fudd-esque “kitten blind” behind our back door.

Elise finally caught the trio of them in a complex gambit involving a pet carrier and… well, mostly just the pet carrier. Subsequently, in my infinitesimal wisdom I elected to release all three of them into our powder room without calling to see if shelters had room available, or researching what is entailed in fostering a feral cat.

Yes, feral. Feral, and raised on the mean streets of South Philadelphia.

They don’t seem very feral in the “scary & rabid” sense. They mostly just huddle under our sink and stare dolefully when I stop by to feed them. However, they certainly are feral in the “not digging on humans” sense, which is going to make it hard to get them out from under said sink to fulfill the mission set out for me plainly after every Showcase Showdown.

I spent the majority of last night placing said calls and undertaking said research, to generally no avail. As for today, I worked my typical no-lunch-break-and-extra-hours day, fielded a few unhelpful calls from pet shelters, and then headed home for an unlikely duet of kitten wrangling and drafting various Lyndzapalooza promotional strategies (at least a dozen, last time I counted).

Which brings us to this unlikely hour, and my belabored point.

In the past week I have worked extra hours, proofread and critiqued, crashed and input, arranged and recapped, strategized and arranged some more, caught and herded, called and researched, and wrangled and drafted.

All of that, and yet I have not contacted anywhere about tuxedos for our wedding, submitted two months of transit receipts for reimbursement, or scheduled a much-needed dermatologist appointment to combat the disconcerting red splotches that have overtaken each of my laugh lines.

Was I procrastinating on all three of those tasks before my whirlwind week overtook me? Sure, at least a little. But, in the past week I really wanted to do all three. I tried! I gathered papers and picked phones off their cradles. I just never found a window open enough to accommodate the completion of any one of the tasks, let alone three.

A week later I have plenty to show for my continued procrastination, but not much of what I’m showing does anything to help me.

Am I spending my time selflessly because I am so good at procrastinating? Or, do I find myself procrastinating because I am committed to spending my time selflessly.

Excuse me while I sleep on it.