One Star Reviews
In a previous post, I listed a handful of things I hate. I did not like the sound of that. I’m a pretty positive person, and hate is such a strong word. If anything, I think I go through life being attracted to, and thus distracted by, too many things. This reminds me of the stanza from the Hole song, Softer, Softest:
I’ve got a blister from touching everything I see
The abyss opens up, it steals everything from me
Thus, I’ve decided to retool my list of hates into a list of things I would rate as deserving only one star. I realize this is plagiarizing from John Green’s transcendent Anthropocene Reviewed podcast, but wasn’t he essentially appropriating every website’s rating system? As good as Green’s podcast was, he mostly reviewed things he liked.1 Everybody knows that bad reviews are much more fun to read than good ones.
My previous list of things deserving one star included:
Three foods: rabbit, watermelon, and bread pudding. (And no, I wouldn’t like it if I tried your version.)
Two things that make the world less interesting: Apple watches and doodle dogs
Excuses: Things go wrong all the time. It’s often your fault. Admit your role, and get on with it.
Margarita mix: Mix equal parts orange liquor, lime juice, and tequila or mezcal; the result will be better than what comes out of those God-forsaken plastic bottles.
The classic toy soldier nutcracker. It’s my list, I can put anything on it.
Today, I add three things to my list.
Auto-Tune
Last week, as I walked to my lane at the pool, You’re So Vain was playing on the PA system. I love that song. I mentioned it in my duets post. Hearing it gave me an early morning smile. Then, without warning, the lifeguard (an undergrad to whom I am indebted for getting up, reporting to work before 7:00 AM, and looking out for my welfare) changed the music to an absolutely generic song replete with an auto-tuned vocal and soulless electronic backing.
I know, I know, I sound like an old guy complaining about the new music, just like every other old guy in history. Guilty. In my defense, I work to discover new music and add to my A-list—a mix of my 932 favorite songs—every year.
My problem with autotune is that it steals the humanity from music. At a time when we should be fighting the creeping advance of our inevitable AI overlords, people are willingly handing their listening over to auto-tune.
We love original human-made art for the unmistakable imprint of the maker’s imperfect hand. It is the wabi-sabi glaze on a hand-made espresso cup, the weirdly beautiful faces in Modigliani portraits, the wonderfully flawed voices of Bob Dylan, Joe Strummer, and Chrissie Hynde.
To my ears, the most transcendent, memorable vocal performance of the last 100 years is Merry Clayton’s backing vocal on Gimme Shelter. What pushes this performance to its five-star peak is the moment her voice breaks, and Mick and Keith can be heard yelping in the background.
Gimme human imperfection over computer-generated flawlessness any day.
Land acknowledgments
I totally understand why land acknowledgments exist. The “Indian Wars” — better referred to as the 19th-century Native American genocide — were whitewashed for at least 150 years. This is reprehensible and needs to be remedied. Fortunately, through some very brave work, our history books are (or were) becoming more accurate.
All that said, land acknowledgements are silly. Our acquisitional, capitalist minds might love to think of owning land; really, the land has been there for 5 billion years, with animals of all sorts transiently passing over it. No piece of land has been permanently occupied by one person, family, tribe, or religion. Usually, the transfer of land from one group to another is, well, unpleasant. This was true before Europeans arrived in the Americas. It was true while Europeans were replacing native Americans. It remains true today as newcomers replace the fading majority.
The best a land acknowledgment can do is acknowledge the group that previously acquired the land in some unseemly way.
Beyond the argument above, land acknowledgements sound to me less like a way of educating and more like a way of virtue signaling, of informing the listener that the speaker knows that those who came here hundreds of years ago, and began the process of creating the country in which we live, did some horrific things.2 A land acknowledgment avoids having to say something like this at the start of, say, a college information session:
“Before I begin telling you wonderful things about Swarthmore College, and why you should want to spend the next four years here, I think it is important to remind ourselves that we owe our privilege to people I view as genocidal maniacs.”3
That might clear the room.
Because I am at a stage of life where everything I have learned has made me less sure of anything, I am also sensitive to the moral vanity inherent in land acknowledgments. Yes, our predecessors did terrible things, and we should understand that. But we can be pretty sure that those who come after us will view us harshly.
“Before I begin telling you wonderful things about Swarthmore College, and why you should want to spend the next four years here, I think it is important to remind you how beautiful this campus once was before those people of the late 20th and early 21st century willfully ignored the obvious signs of environmental degradation and collapse.”
New Year’s Eve
I cannot remember the last time I stayed up to watch the ball drop (literally or figuratively). It has been decades. There are so many reasons I forsake this annual tradition.
1. I love to sleep. I am generally a 9:30-5:30 guy. I’ve had my years of all-nighters: adolescent stupidity; college papers and parties; medical school cram sessions; residency call nights. Now, it takes something really special to keep me up to 10 or 11 – usually a few friends over for dinner.
2. I stopped drinking in 2024 — too many calories, PAF, sleep disruption — so alcohol fueled revelry has lost its appeal.
3. Forced happiness. Who needs that? I generally run hyperthymic and can get excited about vaguely pleasant activities, but not about turning the page of a calendar.
4. And then, of course, there is the idea of celebrating the passage of time. Are you kidding me? In whose life is this a reason to celebrate? Sure, you might celebrate getting to the age you can drive, or drink, or vote, or register for the selective service, but really, your youth is passing. You might even celebrate reaching 65, signaling retirement and Medicare, but the milestone just marks the beginning of your dotage, a waystation on the journey to inevitable decline, disability, and death.
I’d rather get a good night’s sleep.
To his credit, he did give cholera, viral meningitis, and plague one star.
I get that the way I hear things might just be my problem.
I take a good-natured swipe at Swarthmore not just because I attended Haverford College. It was also the Swarthmore information session during a recent college visiting swing that featured the most strident land acknowledgment.
I really enjoyed this one - thank you
I gotta agree with Michael, there exists some really tasty bread pudding 🍮