The Fly Over The Redzone: That's Me

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Ox Blood vs. Cordovan

A few words on Loafers, shoes traditionally worn while performing less onerous chores and errands or in a rather casual environment. That means that today you can wear them to work.

The Oxford Cloth has a nice post on Allen Edmonds Cavanaugh and some options: e.g., Bass Weejuns. Yes, the Weejun has a fair shape but the clear coat finish is a sick joke; judging from the comments at The Oxford Cloth a few people need to read of Maximinimus's worthy satire: apply to the clear coat Comet, Fantastik (sic) & a wire brush. A brilliant idea. And if you want your loafers to shine like a little girls patent leather Easter Sunday shoes, well, do nothing but smile when you look down at them Weejuns.

Lastly, AE Cavanaugh's (with shoe trees & taxes) cost 3X that of anything from the Bass Weejun Outlet. So if you pick up anything by Allen Edmonds in Ox Blood you should know the difference between Ox Blood and "Cordovan". Cordovan/Burgandy is almost purple. Oxblood bleeds to the red and breaks almost black -- allowing for a more complex finish. See image below using Kiwi shoe polish tins from the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Value Dependencies and the Economics of Powers that Transcend Space and Time

A friend sent notice by tagging me in a Facebook post. In a sense, she was reaching out beyond the space and time that separates us. We do this so effortlessly and frequently that we take it for granted.

But what she sent me was an art historian's short statement of the value of patience, reading a painting, feedback on art... Buried in all the black and white of the page was something else about coins as tools for "transmitting value through space and time in the most stable possible way."

Well, o.k., let's forgive the art historian a reductive economic perspective (you can read more of that here if that's your thing); let's just say that a "currency" such as Bitcoin is making it apparent that our more traditional coinage has always been as much about political and social control, the ability to track, tax, limit, fine and fee... as it has been providing a stable value. What remains insightful or useful beyond art history is the primacy and prescient need of "value." E.g., producing energy is one thing; saving energy, having the ability to use it when and where you want it... these and other economic values (e.g., transmission, selling...) are actual values or dependencies that give value to energy. I.e., if you can't sufficiently transcend space and time with these values in tact, the value of energy is greatly reduced if not entirely lost. Let's call these characteristics, or Accidents, value dependencies.

It seems that these value dependencies are in some industries more or less easily calculated -- e.g., by electrical engineers -- and also easily commoditized and assigned an economic value. But other endeavors of human activity and especially of the mind are not so easily valued. E.g., how much "value" should or can we assign to a math lesson, or a well written essay in philosophy? Oscar Wilde quipped that the cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. But I'd hazzard to guess than even so clever a man as Mr. Wilde would struggle with our economic affairs.

But what if we could agree to Accidents and value dependencies of other human activity, we might be able to ascribe to them a Bitcoin-esque currency or trade that suggests the potentials for value that transcends time and space and thereby further reduce our dependency upon traditional coinage or currency that currently rewards a very small cross-section of human activity or what is easily commoditized for the economies of power elites.

I'm not advocating some socialist collective or result of a dialectical process. People would have to work, compete... construct economic value. But there would be work that allows for an industry to improve the roads aesthetically as much as their quality of surface condition and efficiency. For all we know, people might pay tolls for pleasure (like the famous 17 mile stretch near Carmel). In effect, the rich do. But in a time of tremendous labor surplus, it seems that the poor shouldn't be poor when they could be -- if proper efficient commodity exchanges allowed -- rewarded for contributing constructively to their environs or others who would see wealth developing in new expressions.

Two Years After Christopher Hitchens: Or Screw the NRA

Whatever you thought of the man, it's worth remember that Christopher Hitchens died two year's ago today. I can't help but wonder how he would have framed the Newtown massacre and all?

Maybe it was the previous night's restless sleep, or the fact that to stay awake yesterday I resorted to the extremes of watching daytime TV. But I found the near constant encouragement to "Tweet" and "Follow" and "Join" the televised "Memorials" of Newtown's victims, as though they had been caught out in a mud slide or some other act of nature -- rather than the collateral damage of a bullied congress that is the tool of big money and a mentally ill person with an insane amount of weaponry (there's nothing sporting about an assault weapon -- and it isn't a "rifle" no matter what the NRA says) -- a new low.

Let's just say that FOX, CNN... exhibited all the grace of a Nancy Grace thundering about the stage as a "Network Star," as articulate as a cow bellowing about being caught up in the injustices of a squeeze-box and then subjected to the branding iron's burn. But this is what makes it all so current and relevant in our world of ubiquitous media: I know how they feel. I know for a fact that I'm now at that same nadir. I too want to regurgitate this copious cud of a sick feeling in my stomach and bring forth some previously unimaginable insights.

Apparently none of us are up to the levels of Christopher Hitchens. Our world is poorer for his passing, and the same is true for all those brought down by the insanity of how this country treats and doesn't treat the mentally ill and of how this country promotes the use of assault weapons as solutions to every human situation rather than seeing in them some evidence of society's confusions. So here's all I so inarticulately have today: "Screw the NRA."